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edenjacobs · 5 months

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My Current WIP

is a novel called The Rook of Crooked Wood. I've been working on this novel for FOREVER on and off and I might actually be able to give it an ending I don't hate this time.

This is the cover I made in Canva and photoshop for nanowrimo. I'm currently at ~28k with it, hoping for 30k before the end of the weekend.

I guess I'll just copy and paste the blurb I made for nano as well.

There has always been a Rook in The Crooked Woods. It’s said that without her, the custodian of the Rifts within the Woods, the known realms will collapse without her. Emma Rook is the latest, albeit reluctant, custodian. For generations, a woman bearing the name Rook has been gifted with the power to open and close rifts in the veil between Realms, a rare and dangerous talent for those who wield it. Emma’s grandmother’s dead at over a hundred and fifty something means she has to leave behind the life she loved, her best friend Sage and their thriving hair salon. If she didn’t, the rifts will open and Riftwealds, the realm The Crooked Woods leads into would collapse. Our world and the others beyond will be overrun by those who might do them harm. It sounds like hard, boring and lonely work. Emma knows for a fact it is, she spent summers with her granny Peg in the wealds helping her do her riftwork. Emma didn’t want to be a Rook. She even took her mother’s maiden name when she left for at eighteen and much to Peg’s bitter disappointment. She was Emma Madden, hair stylist and party girl. She loved her life, every minute of it… But something always called her back to The Crooked Woods. Or should that be someone? She dreamed of him every night, the boy with the wintry eyes and green skin. The one who showed her the way home when she got lost, the first time she ventured into Riftwealds on her own, chasing a cat-sith kitten. He gave her a kiss, and she promised to find him again. A promise that wasn’t kept. She was eleven years old, and the same day she found the love of her life, she lost her family. Emma was never told the full details of their death, nor did she want to know. Moving to the city was a fresh start, a new life. Leaving their tragic legacy behind was one Emma fought hard for. There was no escaping fate, no matter how hard to ran, was there? Grieving both Peg & the life she left behind, Emma is woken by someone knocking on her door. She opens it and faces someone she never thought she’d see again. The boy in her dreams. The boy—now a rather handsome and tall aelf is looking for her grandmother. He needs the Rook Witch, he tells her. Someone is killing his people, the native aelves of Riftwealds, The Court of Ferns. Turning them into monsters and burning their sacred tree groves. When he storms out, after realising she is now The Rook Witch and the girl who never returned for him, Emma is faced with the knowledge that the boy in her dream is real, and so are the monsters her grandmother warned her about. She is reluctant to step into her Peg's shoes as well as truly step into her new life. But people rely on the Rook to keep the realm safe, she already feels bad enough without that on her conscious too. She’s attacked by a bunch of white skinned, red eyed feral vampires and rescues a toddler with green skin, orange hair and red eyes. He looks like a princeling of the Court of Ferns, and as Rook it’s up to her to return him home, whether she wants to face Fhion or not. She is Rook whether she likes it or not. It's a burden she just has to bear. A duty she and no other can fulfill. Her first adventure as The Rook of The Crooked Woods will teach her things about herself she never thought possibly true, as well as discovering devastating truths about her family’s deaths and Peg’s past. And one fact: Not only can you not escape destiny, sometimes the past kicks your arse too.

So far there is plenty of magic and stuff but no romance and my lead seems to be leading me around in circles because we're both too scared to approach the end because it means trouble for the both of us: She sort of dies and I sort of have to write the next sequel!!

But I do love it, I'm writing in first POV for the first time in a full length project. It's hard considering how I love to head hop. And it's also hard not making Emma a know-it-all overpowered god-mode type character since I know (sort of, I'm totally pantsing this draft) what happens so she does too?

So I'm trying my hardest not to do that, and to start making Emma make things happen instead making things happen to her. It's absolutely chaos trying to mix a cosy, foresty witchy story with a vampire apocalypse story with a goddess from Ancient Egypt mixed it. Chaos, but mostly fun lol.

#novel writing #first post #sort of #writeblr #writers and poets #creative writing #nanowrimo

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hydrus · 4 years

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Version 375

youtube

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had a great week. There are a bunch more Qt fixes, and a few other things as well.

I have fixed a bunch more bugs in the Qt code. We are getting to the end now--this is mostly smaller stuff like an unusual dialog button not working, but I have fixed another important memory leak that was causing some backend not to be deleted correctly when a media viewer closed on a video. This should radically reduce memory use for some heavily used clients.

Some windows that were large, or could expand to be, like the options dialog on some pages, were sizing off the edge of the screen. This should be fixed now, and a variety of child-window initial size calculations should be a bit more accurate--Qt manages window size a little differently than wx, and the additional buffer represented by the window title frame and border was not being taken into account.

The menubar menus should work a little snappier this week. Things like the rapid 'pending (xxx)' menu updates when a downloader is importing files with tags. The whole UI should get a little latency benefit from this during these high-traffic times.

I also gave the layout and scaling another go on clients that use UI scaling (when you tell your OS to display UI at >100% on a monitor) on high dpi displays. The experiment from last week did not go how I wanted, with pixelly scaled-up thumbnails, so I have reworked that and fixed the taglist, which was crunching tags together on these displays.

the rest

For users who have been trying to download from unreliable or tight servers, the network engine now handles connection errors and 'server was busy due to low bandwidth' errors separately, and has separate delay time options for both of these under options->connection.

There's a new danbooru login script. They apparently changed their cookies a little. If you use a danbooru login and have had trouble, please make sure your credentials carried over to the new script and give it another go.

For users who have complicated file storage failures and need some specific recovery options, there are now new jobs under the file maintenance system to quietly delete bad files from storage without affecting the db file record, and also to re-download files that are missing or broken if they have known urls. These jobs are experimental and only useful for certain file recovery scenarios, but if you have been waiting on something like this, please give them a careful go and feel free to ask for help.

full list

qt:

disabled the failed legacy high dpi scaling mode experiment (which was scaling up thumbnails and media in an ugly way) and returned to font-size-based natural ui scaling as set by the OS. a couple of non-font things like bitmap buttons and various layout margins are too small on >100% UI scale, and the splash screen is borked again, but it looks clear again. I'll keep working on this

fixed the custom taglist at >100% UI scale, which was spacing its tags at the wrong text height. this should survive changing ui scale while the program is open and environments with multiple monitors at different ui scale

re-fixed a critical old media-viewer-close-on-video memory leak from wx code to qt code. this was also a cause for some child ffmpeg processes not being terminated

fixed the media viewer not redrawing correctly when the media size completely exceeds the canvas window size

fixed the loading of the shortcut edit panel when the shortcut set a tag

fixed some url class edit path component ui

fixed and cleaned up some 'safe window size/position' calculations that were missing out the total frame geometry, meaning some dialogs were not moving up and left enough to show entirely on screen, and dialogs with parent-dimension gravity were not calculating initial size accurately

fixed focusing on the already-open manage tags text input when you hit 'manage tags' on a canvas with a manage tags dialog already open

fixed the html formula rule edit ui actually rendering html tag labels, lmao

updated boot-password entry to use the normal hydrus text entry dialog, and fixed a hydrus password cancel not setting a 'clean' exit for the next boot

fixed page layout splitter sash positions not resetting nicely from the menu command

fixed keyboard delete in the manage urls dialog

popup message titles are now in bold

popup message titles should now multiline correctly and fill available width

the popup messages manager should now set its min/fixed width more sensibly

subscription popups now will be wider if space is available

wrote a new class to manage better asynchronous updates for future Qt ui presentation

the file, pages, and pending menubar menus, which all require a db hit to generate, now operate on this new update class. all three should update faster when able and more politely and smoothly wait when the db is busy

reduced some accidental blocking in an old ui-update routine that kicked in when it was running hard

if the media_viewer frame type is set not to remember its 'last size', it will now instantiate with a small min size

when pasting new queries into a sub, if there are more than 5 or 50 that are already in or new, they will be rendered in a more compact way in order to stop the notification dialog growing too tall

improved stability of page update, splash screen update, and perhaps pubsub update

new file maintenance jobs:

added a new 'check for missing files' file maintenance job, where if the file is missing and has urls, those urls will be queued up in a new url downloader for redownload. the file record is not removed, preserving archive/inbox and import time

added a new 'check for invalid files' file maintenance job that does the same deal as above with an additional expensive byte-for-byte content check if the file is not missing

added a new 'check for invalid files' file maintenance job that only cares about invalidity--if the file is present and invalid, it is moved out but the file record is not removed

the rest:

network jobs that receive low-bandwidth error codes from the server now use a separate wait routine (previously, they piggybacked on the connection fail retry system). they have a separate cog-menu action to override these waits

the time delay multiple for connection errors and serverside bandwidth problems are now editable under options->connection. old default was 10 seconds base, now 15 and 60 seconds respectively

updated the danbooru login script

improved the precision of the thumbnail size estimate in database migration

the alphabetisation of a url class's GET paramaters on normalise is now optional. it is a new checkbox on the url class edit panel

when a default object fails to load from a png path, a simple error is now written to the log

misc cleanup

next week

I got hit by some IRL stuff right at the end of this week, including some Thanksgiving surprises, so I couldn't fit in the new downloaders I wanted to, but I have some fixes for pixiv tag search and twitter video download waiting to be added. I also couldn't get to Qt theming again, nor macOS tab DnD! So, I'll focus on those first thing so they definitely get done.

Otherwise, next week is scheduled to be a 'medium size' job week. I would like to get a long-planned overhaul of subscription data handling done. Subs are getting huge and clunky for many users, and I'd like to have them load into their dialog and do their normal work much faster, with much less CPU and HDD involved.

Happy Thanksgiving!

#release

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spicynbachili2 · 5 years

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Scary Games to Play on Xbox One This Halloween

So, you drew the brief straw and bought positioned on sweet obligation, leaving you at residence ready for trick-or-treaters to reach on the lookout for a candy deal with — what an ideal time so that you can go to a few of our favourite and scariest video games to play on Xbox One! From survival horror to post-apocalyptic wastelands, there’s just a little one thing for each horror fan to be discovered under, lots of which can be found on Xbox Sport Move and assist Backward Compatibility. Now shut off the lights, flip up the amount, and set out on a spooky journey… in the event you dare! Shortly, earlier than the subsequent spherical of tricksters arrive in your doorstep.

Resident Evil 7: biohazard (Xbox One X Enhanced)

The latest entry within the Resident Evil franchise delivers not solely one of the realistic-looking chapters, however ranges up from its leap scares and campiness to downright horrific and terrifying encounters with the residents of the Baker mansion. As Ethan Winters, you’ll enter the creepy property in search of solutions to the disappearance of your spouse, solely to return face-to-face with essentially the most vile and ruthless household molded after these present in horror movie classics like “The Hills Have Eyes” and “The Texas Chainsaw Bloodbath.” Their antics and conduct will all make sense ultimately, in addition to the overarching connections to the RE franchise itself as soon as the credit begin to roll after this hellish journey. – Mike Nelson

Little Nightmares

If you happen to scare your self with how a lot you’re keen on Limbo-likes, Little Nightmares is the stuff of screams. As a toddler captured on an enormous ship and doomed to turn into delicacies for its grotesque clientele, you run – normally from left to proper, however extra usually from upsetting monsters that leapt out of Tim Burton’s nightmares after he fell asleep watching Swedish marionette theater (once more). This creepy enterprise by way of creaky crawl areas proves as soon as extra that the most effective horror comes from a easy premise, like: “What if cruises had been even worse and there have been cannibals?” – Ludwig Kietzmann

Slender: The Arrival

If being stalked by a creepy monster in the midst of the woods with nothing however a flashlight and camcorder wasn’t terrifying sufficient in Slender: The Eight Pages, simply wait till you strive Slender: The Arrival. With a brand new storyline and improved visuals, the official online game adaptation of Slender Man takes survival horror to a brand new stage. Like the unique recreation, Slender: The Arrival begins with one easy mission: Acquire all of the lacking pages with out getting caught. However every web page collected solely ratchets up the issue, finally making Slender Man practically not possible to flee. – Lisa Eadicicco

Useless House (Backward Appropriate)

All of it begins with a misery name. Whereas Useless House takes its sci-fi cred critically – the hero is known as Isaac Clark – rigidity and leap scares rule the day as you slowly discover the deserted mining spacecraft USG Ishimura. Thought that hallway was clear? Not anymore! However Useless House’s intriguing, slowly unfurling a backstory retains driving you ahead by way of a sequence of unlucky and horrifying, even grotesque occasions. Whether or not you favor the tense and atmospheric unique, the extra bombastic Useless House 2, or the expansive Useless House three, all can be found on Xbox One through Backwards Compatibility and included within the EA Entry vault. – Jeff Rubenstein

Among the many Sleep

Once you’re a toddler, the world feels prefer it’s continually in one among two states: both every thing is superb or every thing is terrifying. In Krillbite Studio’s Among the many Sleep, the main focus is firmly on the latter, presenting a world that’s directly acquainted and hauntingly nightmarish. Accompanied solely by a stuffed bear named Teddy (which emits mild into the murky setting if you hug it), you play a toddler that’s navigating his home in quest of his mom. Issues aren’t at all times as they appear although, with every setting feeling increasingly more indifferent from actuality. Ultimately, Among the many Sleep is much less a horror recreation and extra a rumination on the challenges of life, however that doesn’t make it any much less scary. – Will Tuttle

The Evil Inside 2 (Xbox One X Enhanced)

Issues are going actually badly for Sebastian Castellanos, and never simply because his dad and mom named him after a designer champagne label. In The Evil Inside 2, he willingly re-enters STEM, a digital world that’s identical to “The Matrix,” besides it’s a simulation derived from “Twin Peaks” and one has to decide on between the blue tablet and a cup of screaming milk. With actuality out for the rely and freaky multi-mouthed monsters all over the place, The Evil Inside 2 is a shocking, atmospheric seesaw with hold-your-breath stealth on one finish and bullet-counting battles on the opposite. How will we not have you ever with atmospheric seesaw??? – LK

Alien: Isolation

Not solely is your complete recreation dripping with authenticity, treating its supply materials with the utmost care because of unimaginable world element and sound design, but it surely additionally continues the legacy of getting a Ripley again on the middle of the Alien mythos. You play as Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen, desperately in search of solutions to her mom’s disappearance from the primary “Alien” movie (considerably required viewing). The thriller slowly reveals itself over time on board Sevastopol station, as soon as a extremely populated hub in deep house which has given strategy to lawlessness. Better of all is the title character who exists as an at all times studying, listening boogeyman that’s ready within the shadows so that you can give your self away. This can be a horror gaming expertise you don’t want to overlook. – MN

Oxenfree (Xbox Sport Move)

A bunch of garrulous teenagers sneak out a wooded island after darkish and uncover mysterious phenomena in a cave. What’s the worst that may occur? Properly… Oxenfree’s model of slow-building dread and X-Recordsdata-eque creepiness are the best “scary recreation” for individuals who aren’t into extra hardcore horror. Greatest performed in a single (prolonged) setting, Oxenfree is price a second playthrough (or at the very least a visit to YouTube) to see alternate endings, as issues can finish fairly in another way, for higher and for worse. Bonus: no recreation earlier than (or since) has nailed the movement of pure dialog higher than Oxenfree, all of the extra cause I’m trying ahead to Evening Faculty Studio’s subsequent title, Afterparty. – JR

Resident Evil four

What hasn’t already been stated about this Shinji Mikami basic? Unfaithful issues, in all probability: Like the way it lures you in with a household barbeque, nestled in a humble Spanish villa. There’s an intimate meet-and-greet with everybody on the native church. The townsfolk don’t even like chainsaws and their pitchforks are purely meant for stabbing … wily produce! You catch a whopper of a fish, dispense some headache reduction and assist a person good his intense Wolverine cosplay. There aren’t any decapitations in any respect and each time somebody screams in regards to the “Los Plagas,” they’re making a spirited suggestion about that new dental clinic. – LK

Friday the 13th: The Sport

Ch-ch-ch-ah-ah-ah, ch-ch-ch-ah-ah-ah. If you happen to acknowledge that music, there’s a great probability you spent a while within the 80s and 90s peeking by way of your fingers as serial killer and hockey masks fanatic Jason Vorhees hunted down nubile camp counselors within the woods round Camp Crystal Lake (and, in a single case, outer house?!?). In 2017, developer IllFonic gave gamers the possibility to step into Jason’s boots, in addition to these of his prey, with the discharge of Friday the 13th: The Sport. This asymmetrical multiplayer title discovered one participant (as Jason) looking down as much as seven others in a gory model of hide-and-seek, with the advisors in a position to work collectively in an effort to beat Jason’s otherworldly looking powers. That includes dozens of memorably over-the-top kill animations by grasp particular results artist Tom Savini, Friday the 13th: The Sport may really be higher than a number of the films (we’re taking a look at you, “Jason Goes to Hell”). – WT

Layers of Concern (Xbox Sport Move)

Because the online game equal of a portrait with eyes that observe you across the room, Layers of Concern has, effectively, precisely that. It makes you witness to the whole meltdown of a superb painter, crushed by a stroke of tragic luck, left unable to discern between occasions on the canvas and people in his head. If you happen to hate doorways disappearing and rooms respiratory and rearranging themselves in upsetting methods, you must play this – and perhaps contemplate shifting out of your clearly haunted home. Plus: As a scary recreation sans fight, Layers of Concern makes for a great palette cleanser. – LK

Left four Useless (Xbox One X Enhanced / Backward Appropriate)

This practically decade-old co-op zombie shooter is all about working together with your crew to beat swarms of the Contaminated – as a result of surviving the zombie apocalypse is not any enjoyable alone. Seize your shotgun and prepare to mow down the subsequent mob of frenzied mutants earlier than it’s too late. Simply you’ll want to be careful for these Boomers and their zombie-luring bile. And even higher, this Halloween you’ll be capable to fend off the hordes with an unprecedented stage of element now that Left four Useless is Xbox One X enhanced. – LE

Soma

It doesn’t take lengthy in your time in Soma so that you can notice that navigating your method by way of an deserted and slowly crumbling underwater analysis station is the least of your considerations. It’s the mysterious and creepy machine inhabitants who stalk you thru the hallways when you search to grasp how you bought right here and what you might be. And why do all of the machines assume they’re individuals? With an exquisite sci-fi bend on the fears of merging humanity with expertise, Soma just isn’t solely one of many creepier video games you possibly can play, but in addition one of many smartest with some nice philosophical factors to ponder with an ending that may go away you speechless. – MN

Condemned: Prison Origins (Backward Appropriate)

There was a time in my life once I trusted mannequins. That each one modified with the 2005 launch of Monolith’s Condemned: Prison Origins for Xbox 360. In a recreation crammed with memorable setpieces, none was extra terrifying than the deserted division retailer crammed with mannequins in varied states of undress (and dismemberment). As you progress by way of the extent, beating the sport’s deranged derelicts in a visceral first-person perspective with no matter melee weapons you could find, you’ll discover rooms filled with deserted mannequins. All’s effectively and good (effectively, pretty much as good as it may be if you’re preventing to remain alive and clear up the thriller of who’s pinning murders on you) till you discover one thing out of the nook of your eye: did that model simply transfer? I actually don’t assume I’ve ever screamed as loud as I did the primary time one lastly lunged at me. – WT

Metro 2033 Redux (Xbox Sport Move)

Not solely an incredible technical achievement on the time of its unique launch, giving players one of the distinctive and atmospheric settings in gaming, Metro 2033 launched us to an epic post-apocalyptic journey that mixes equal components of stealth, survival horror, and first-person shooter fight. Oh, and a solid of darkish characters and a well-paced story that retains you shifting by way of the chilly metro tunnels of Moscow in a bleak, miserable future. The Redux model cleans up the unique launch and enhances the graphics for the present gen, making it the quintessential model to play. – MN

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brido · 6 years

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Mike and Vicky Go to Ecuador (Day 6)

On the morning of our final day in Ecuador, we were supposed to go to Mindo to see cloud forests and butterfly gardens. I’m still not exactly sure what that means but it sounds magical. Unfortunately a mudslide blocked the highway that goes from Quito to Mindo so we had to come up with a Plan B.

That plan ended up being pretty good too. We ate breakfast at yet another good place and headed to Foundation Guayasamin and the Chapel of Man, the former estate and museum of 20th Century Ecuadorian artist, Oswaldo Guayasamin. We also got a pretty good look at Ecuadorian warplanes zooming past in some military exercise that made Ecuadorian Twitter blow up with rumors and jokes about an invasion by Peru. I was like, “Oh no.” But mostly, “Wait, Ecuador has an air force?” Because I don’t know things.

I’d honestly never heard of Guayasamin before this trip either, but as we looked around the outside of his rap video mansion overlooking Quito I couldn’t help thinking, “This is where a fucking artist lived?” But honestly, isn’t that the secret goal of every artist - to die in a sprawling castle and then turn it into a museum to honor their lives? I dunno. Maybe not.

The first thing the tour guide had us do (after telling us no photos were allowed) was head to the living room to watch a video of Guayasamin explaining why he wanted to turn his home into a museum. It was essentially the ramblings of a self-important old man concerned about his own legacy. And his purported motive for the museum was to keep his ever-so-culturally-important masterpieces in his native Ecuador. I wasn’t buying it yet.

The first thing about the tour I found interesting was that Guayasamin had a pretty impressive private collection of pre-Columbian art. When we went to Olga Fisch Folklore a couple days before, the upstairs of the shop was also a private museum, which also included pre-Columbian art. And I believe both museums claimed that Fisch and Guayasamin collected the artifacts after just sorta finding them on the streets around Quito. That sounds bananas to me. But then again, just outside the Temple of Man, there was an accidental archaeological dig they supposedly uncovered in 1999 on the same day Guayasamin died. So maybe you could just walk around the streets of Quito in the 30’s scooping up 400-year-old statues. Weird.

The bedroom of the mansion also had a glass display case of 50-or-so pre-Columbian ceramic statues (possibly Moche?) all in various sex positions. One was straight-up body contortion. I feel like if our tour guide was worth a shit he would have talked about them. Instead he smiled awkwardly like everyone had that same display in their house. Yes, my personal erotic pre-Incan collection strictly features “the sledgehammer”, “the wheelbarrow”, “butt stuff” and of course, “regular.”

Before we entered Guayasamin’s work studio, the guide showed a wall of photos with the artist and various political leaders. They included multiple with Fidel Castro and one with Mao Zedong. The tour guide pointed to Chairman Mao and asked if I knew who it was. I did. Then I asked, “So, Guayasamin was sympathetic to communists?” And the tour guide just goes, “Socialists” and kept walking. Like, he was fucking correcting me. I was really confused. One, because those guys are definitely communists. And two, because Rap Video Mansion.

Everything changed when we watched another video. This time it was of Guayasamin painting a portrait of flamenco guitarist, Paco de Lucia. And it was fucking incredible. As the sounds of de Lucia’s furious guitar played in the background, Guayasamin seemingly matched that virtuoso intensity, slabbing paint onto his canvas and chain-smoking cigarettes until a stylized rendering of the master appeared on the canvas. I turned to Victoria and said, “Okay, that was awesome.” And it didn’t hurt that the actual painting was right behind us. I also started to worry that I might like flamenco guitar music now.

The tour of the mansion concluded with a small gallery of Guayasamin’s work, as well as a gift shop. Apparently the tour guide told my sister he remembered her from the last time she was at the museum and that, this time, she could leave two tips. One for the tour we just had and the second for the last time she didn’t tip. Looks like he’ll be asking for three next time.

“Socialists.”

Next we walked a few yards from the socialist rapper mansion to Guayasamin’s Chapel of Man, which was a more extensive collection of his works. He’s pretty fantastic, to be honest. If I wanted to be a dick, I’d say that it looked like he saw a copy of Picasso’s Guernica once and spent the rest of his career trying unsuccessfully to copy it. But I guess I also felt the same way about Carlos Paez Vilaro when I also visited his quirky mansion/museum in Uruguay. Like, “Boy, he sure does like Picasso.”

That’s not to say I didn’t like either artist. I think both are fantastic. So I don’t know if I begrudge both men for getting wealthy by being derivative or if, in this case, I just wanted to punch the tour guide and found the artist to be pretentious and hypocritical. I mean, the name of the building is the Chapel of Man. And there was supposed to be an eternal flame dedicated to those who died defending human rights. In front of his goddamn rap video mansion. Ah, forget it. People are complicated. And the dude’s paintings were badass. We all bought a bunch of shit in the gift shop.

“Socialists.”

On the way back home, we stopped to take some photos of some more pretentious art of the more self-aware variety. There is a group of vigilante graffiti artists in Quito known as “Accion Ortografica” who go around with red spray paint and fix the grammar and punctuation on other graffiti in town. It’s kind of genius and it’s even spawned copycat groups in other cities. Apparently, the crew consists of dudes who go by Dieresis, Tilde and Coma. Which is nerdily hilarious brilliance. Here’s a Guardian article about them from 2015.

Oh, and my sister just told me that the underwear tagger’s name is Apitatan. And a quick Google search of him quickly informed me that I had vastly underrated him. His murals are amazeballs and I instantly followed him on Instagram. It’s even possible that the fact he has that much ability and still tags quickie drawings of men’s underwear around town makes me like him even more. However, since he doesn’t feature any of his undie pics on his website or anywhere else, I can’t really be 100% sure they’re the same person. But I do want to believe.

The last thing we did before heading off to pack was a visit to the neighbor’s house for a home cooked lunch of seco de gallina, which was requested by my sister. It’s Ecuadorian comfort food - chicken stew, rice, avocados and plantains. My mouth was all, “Aww fuck yeah.” And the neighbor told us a probably-apocrvaphyl story about the origins of the dish’s name (since ‘seco’ means dry and the dish is a stew) involving English speaking foreigners asking for a second chicken. Or something. Whatever. The shit’s delicious.

In the neighbor’s house, there were also tons of original artwork of Eduardo Kingman, another Ecuadorian great and a contemporary of Guayasamin. The neighbor told us Kingman was the better of the two. I asked how an artist could possibly afford to buy what would have been a $20 million mansion in Los Angeles. And the neighbor said that after Guayasamin gained notoriety in the art world, nobody could buy any of his artwork for less than $35,000. Plus, according to the tour, the dude was just cranking out paintings. The one I saw of de Lucia took under an hour.

So my next logical question was how Guayasamin could square away having all that wealth with his SOCIALIST leanings. “We used to say Guayasamin was a watermelon,” the neighbor laughed, “Red on the inside. Green on the outside.” And there it is.

In summary, Ecuador is one of the most diverse and fascinating places I’ve ever visited in my life. As frozen in time as a Quechua-speaking tour guide, still angry at the conquistadors. As modern as a crossfit gym in Cumbaya. And that’s still with us just scraping the surface of the overall country. My sister and her family are the best people in the world for showing us as much as they could in a little under a week.

We saw an overwhelming fuckload of roses, multitudes of llamas (and even one to eat), we haggled with indigenous weavers, I had the best meal of my entire life while braving the altitudes of an active volcano, tested my fear of heights in a neo-Gothic basilica, did DX crotch chops on the fake equator, got diarrhea from dead baby bread and got sunburnt at a volcanic spa. I still want to see the Galapagos. And I do think Guayasamin deserves to be a little pretentious.

As Alexander von Humboldt once said, “Ecuadorians are strange and unique beings. They sleep peacefully amid smoking volcanoes, they live in poverty amid incomparable wealth and they cheer up with sad music.” I’m glad I finally made it there. But at this point, it was time for my wife and me to go off to see our attention-starved puppy in the normal altitudes of World-Series-crazed Los Angeles where we could finally breathe. Thus concluded Day 6.

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designweekportland · 7 years

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5 Questions with Mike Clave and Jake Pooler of ThoughtCrime Tattoo

Tattoos and Portland. For those not from here, rarely can words be spoken about one without the other. Thanks, Portlandia. With more tattoo studios per capita than any other city in the entire U.S., there’s no denying their contribution to defining our unique culture here in the Rose City.

And that’s a good thing for artists and ThoughtCrime Tattoo studio owners Mike Clave and Jake Pooler, who threw caution to the wind and abandoned their previous posts in 2010 to open their own business together, with less than $10,000 between them to do so with. The result? They’ve never been happier.

We were curious to hear about their thoughts on design and its impact and implications in their daily work. Here’s our 5 questions interview with Jake and Mike!

DWP: Tell us a little about your background and story. Why tattooing? And why Portland?

Jake: I guess everybody draws when they are a little kid, but it was something that I really gravitated towards as a child and I have always had an affinity for it. I started tracing the illustrations from “Where The Sidewalk Ends”, then I started replicating them by eye before moving on to progressively more complex reproductions. I learned the fundamentals of drawing and design that way, and it helped me to start creating my own work and style as I got older.

Tattooing really began to pique my interests when I was about 16, I was a pretty rebellious kid and the idea of giving people tattoos was pretty much the most badass thing I could imagine. I’m not proud of it in retrospect, but I started tattooing my friends when I was in high school. I tattooed when I could for about a year or so before realizing that this was not a medium that I could teach myself without any guidance. I put tattooing aside and started to focus on fine art. I did a couple years of community college before transferring to the Rhode Island School of Design for painting.

After leaving college, I felt like it was really time for me to relocate from the East Coast. My younger brother had been living in Portland for a couple years at that point. I had been out here to visit several times and I really liked it so I decided to venture out here. Portland was the first place that I have ever lived that I really felt at home. I actively began to pursue tattooing as a career, I got licensed and I haven’t looked back since. Tattooing is something that has really made me feel whole, the friendships and relationships that I have cultivated through being in this industry have been profoundly fulfilling, and I will always owe Portland that debt of gratitude. I am proud to call this place my home.

Mike: I grew up in Montana, where I was surrounded by beautiful scenery and an array of wildlife unique to the Pacific Northwest. At 14 years old, I knew I wanted to become a tattoo artist, and spent most of my days drawing in notebooks, and creating on commission and in-kind art for classmates. I became a hunting and fishing guide, and when not in class, could often be found exploring Montana’s great outdoors, with a fishing pole in hand, discovering and capturing nature at its finest. This explains a lot about my art today, as wildlife imagery continues to be my favorite subject matter, and where I draw my greatest inspiration from to create my best work. I honestly don’t know what I would be in this life if not a tattoo artist.

Why Portland? My dad was a General Foreman for the iron workers union. We traveled often, never staying in one place for very long. Portland was the last stop in the itinerary and where we ultimately planted roots. Having traveled all over, tattooing in Portland offers something that other cities don’t. For one, Portland, more so than other cities, is an endless pool of creative talent, which is not dominated or defined by any one creative discipline. We are the makers and doers. Portland is a city where defining people by what they do is challenging because most of us do not stop at our day jobs, but rigorously pursue side hustles that commonly circle back to creative interests. The people of Portland are thereby very supportive and encouraging of the promotion of art in all forms. So much so, in fact, that most of us choose to proudly wear it for permanent display. There is no other city on the planet where you will find more tattooed people!

*In progress tattoo by Mike Clave.

DWP: In a city inundated with tattoo artists, how do you set yourselves apart, on an individual level and as ThoughtCrime Tattoo?

Mike: We are a custom shop. Markers and freehand design are part of our MO. We study art every day, and as a shop, we actually invest in one another as artists, by sharing tools and insights learned with one another as we go from our collective experiences. In my experience, this is unique. A lot of artists can be guarded about their personal insights and trade secrets. We don’t believe in that. We support the growth and development of one another, so that as a shop, and as individuals, each of us is capable of delivering and creating an experience and final product that is memorable, respected and appreciated by our clients. We are artists first and foremost, but our legacy is not only reflected by our art, but also in our delivery of client service. Every artist brings something unique to the table, be it style, approach, or bedside manner. The devil is in the details. As much as each client’s tattoo means to them personally, we take pride in each piece as a reflection of ourselves and of our capabilities. Your tattoo is our name.

Jake: There are a lot of things that I feel set us apart from a lot of other shops. First off, we aren’t a street shop, our location is on the sixth floor of a historic building so we are kind of hidden. Our shop has a very unique aesthetic, it’s got a character that is very much its own. This isn’t just the place that we have to come to every day to make the doughnuts for a paycheck, we really love this studio and enjoy being here.

Apart from all of the aspects of ThoughtCrime that Mike mentioned, I think it is equally important to acknowledge the things that we don’t do that really make us who we are as a shop. We have always approached the growth of our shop and ourselves as artists organically. We have never done any paid advertising and we don’t market ourselves in any capacity aside from the work that we put out for people to see. We have always relied on word of mouth, we do right by our clients and they have always done right by us. We don’t treat our clients as a commodity, and that is how we have cultivated and maintained the solid reputation that we have. We don’t have a gimmick and there aren’t any catches.

Despite how popular and de-stigmatized tattooing has become in recent years, we have always looked at it as a somewhat counter-culture endeavor, and that’s what makes it so attractive to artists. That’s something that we have always tried to stay true to. We don’t operate as some corporate bureaucracy, we are friends and family here and we take care of each other. I think that’s a big part of our success. We created a space where a bunch of creative shitheads can do what they are passionate about and make cool shit. It makes for a great shop environment and I think that really shows in the work that we put out and the experience that people have when they come here.

DWP: How do design applications and processes differ in tattoo design from other forms of artistry and creative?

Jake: I would say that tattooing is unique in that it is a two dimensional design on a three dimensional living canvas that bends and stretches and contracts. It adds a laundry list of other considerations that need to be taken into account when creating a 2-D design. As opposed to mediums like painting and drawing, the surface itself needs to be considered and becomes an integral part of how the design is composed. Placement and flow on the body are elemental when designing a tattoo. Beyond that, I would say that the stakes are really high when it comes to tattoos. These things are permanent, so when you are designing a piece for a client you have to take the time to really understand what it is that they want and what they are looking to put on their bodies for the rest of their lives. You will always be attached to that piece, so your name and reputation is hinged on creating something that they are proud to display. It isn’t a business that allows you to have a bad day, it requires you to always be giving it your all and to keep pushing yourself to progress artistically.

*Tattoo by Jake Pooler

DWP: What do the next six months look like for you?

Jake: Busy. We are looking forward to celebrating our 7 year anniversary on April 27th, we have some conventions coming up and we have always got traffic coming in through the doors. Aside from the normal day to day stuff, we have a bunch of cool projects in the works for the shop. You’re going to have to stop by and check it out!

DWP: What are you looking forward to with regard to DWP this year?

Jake: We are really just interested in any and all forms of design that can inform our work and progression. DWP and events like this provide opportunities to network with people in the community involved in different design disciplines. Inspiration can really come from anywhere, so it’s always beneficial for any artist to look beyond the scope of what they normally do and see what other people are making and creating. It can be really easy to get pigeonholed by your routine or by whatever it is you are focused on artistically, so I think DWP is a great way for artists and designers to step back and look outside of your own field of vision.

ThoughtCrime Tattoo will host their Open House on Wednesday, April 26, from 4–7 p.m. Be sure to drop in to check out the shop and see what they are working on! To see more of ThoughtCrime’s work, follow their shop page on Facebook.

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