#was going to do quotes but i'll save them for writing updates

[jaydeiswriting]

WIP Intro: What The Water Makes of Us

As long as your heart is worthy, drowning is reversible.

Status: ~6K into the first draft

Genre: adult literary fiction

Setting: small town Ontario, on the lake

Overspecific target audience(s)*: sapphics with complicated relationships with religion, folks who are obsessed with bodies of water and the moon, intellectual agnostics, ruth-and-naomi-as-lovers truthers, unbelongers and misfits & anyone fundamentally changed by the scene in Saved! (2004) where Hilary Faye drives directly into the Jesus figure

Synopsis: A worthy heart always rises.

Despite her marriage to the leader, Vinette never really believed in Lambsong's mantra; it was clearly only an endorsement of the baptism ritual approximating the death and resurrection of Christ. As their son's baptism approaches, Vinette swallows her fear and teaches him how to cheat. After all, ritual drowning can't always end with revival, and she only has one son.

Then, she loses him anyway.

With only a dysfunctional family left outside of Lambsong, Vinette must restrain her grief so as not to shake members' faith and earn herself a shunning. But a sympathetic overture by Nora, the precocious daughter of the newest member, unsettles her careful facade. For a single moment, Vinette doesn't feel as if suspended under the cold weight of the entire lake that drowned her son. 

But it can't last. Vinette's clearly not the only one with doubts. Cary doesn't want her daughter close to the tragedy or Lambsong practices at all.

Vinette must contend with a suspicious death case for her son, while heralding night meetings to settle fearful members and a growing allegiance to Cary and Nora that spikes her anxiety as Nora nears readiness for baptism and Vinette husband's intentions for Cary become clear. If she's going to protect them, Vinette'll have to betray her husband and maybe even herself.

Nora never wanted to leave the rundown city apartment she shared with her mother. Cary's phone number might change every few months, but their apartment number stays the same. Her father would remember it if he ever came back for her. But how would he ever know to look in some middle-of-nowhere beach house?

Lambsong doesn't even offer the quiet better life Cary had promised her daughter anyway. The first ritual Nora witnesses ends in the death of a boy only a few years older than her. But as Nora grows closer to both Vinette and Ezra, the boy who lived on the day that darkened everything, Nora's wariness grows cloudier. Ezra, and the practices and rituals he engages in, pull Nora into the Lambsong orbit, rapidly pulling through the ranks in a devotion she doesn't know whether belongs to the boy or the commune or some belief she can overcome her own depth of guilt and find forgiveness for the mistakes that haunt her. 

But to integrate fully into Lambsong and be washed clean of her sins, Nora needs to expose the non-believers and their attempt at escape, no matter who it hurts.

*inspired by @/kjscottwrites' post here

[annellspethraven]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sloan Spencer (@sloan_spencer_author)

It all started here. I woke up and looked at 'my' Discord server for the bloated tic of a fanfic (hey that rhymes, neurospicy two seconds!) I write with my partner SonaBeanSidhe, Aran Thranduil's Dining Hall. There hadn't been enough tea yet so the natural response was 'wth is this?' Well, THIS was going to Hoover my next two days and counting. Just visit the post, dear friends of the writing persuasion and you would see (I'll save you time because I'm nice this way) that there are many screenshots supporting just what the meme says: This Instagram OP knows a writer who found herself in a steaming pile of mess with the Google Docs TOS (which is really also the Google Drive TOS, making it somewhat difficult to locate said TOS. I'll save you more time. Here:

This information comes from https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505#zippy=%2Csexually-explicit-material So, it was the act of sharing the files, not having created or stored them that triggered what had happened. Okay, still not reassuring. In the meantime, I was concerned enough to post what had happened to r/FanFiction. Within minutes, my post had been frozen by the mods there. I can see their concern. I believe they had only seen the meme-like first screen of the Instagram post, and it does come off like a bad Snopes Fail. They asked me for more proof. The first thing I did was a search for previous instances of Google having frozen Drive accounts previously. They are limited, but they exist. The concern here had to do with the current lack of information as to why the action happened, and whether we who collectively authored and had shared Docs with explicit content were about to have our Drive accounts fall before the scythe of an overzealous AI rollout on the part of Google. Which led to the second part of this. My first response to the mods was as follows:

A little while after I sent this, an update appeared on the Instagram OP's account (easy to find) so I added this:

The salient point of the update was that the author had received restored access to her Drive, but NOT the Doc that had started the entire difficulty. I waited for a response. And waited, and waited. In the meantime, I had no means to add to, respond to, anything to my original post or defend myself against some fairly sharp initial criticisms leveled against me by individuals who clearly hadn't read anything beyond the initial meme. Special. While I understand a sub this large likely has a lot of messages to field, I also felt that given they managed to freeze my post in a matter of minutes, they were really taking their time responding. So I weighed in on Instagram with a message of support. If nothing else is taken away, please take this: Back up your files. It's easy to create an alt Google account; this other account will have its own Drive storage. Share your folders and files with yourself. If you don't already realize, in Docs under the File dropdown menu the third option is Make A Copy. If you have shared the original document 75 times, you won't have shared that copy at all. Consider backing up your works to Indie platforms like Get Hermit, Ellipsus and The Quill. There may be others. Your own external hard drive is also a very good idea. But wait, you ask. What about just using MS Word, or having copies as a PDF file in the Adobe cloud? Not so fast, my friend. Look at Microsoft and Adobe's TOS regarding sexually explicit content...you'll get an unpleasant surprise. I did. In the meantime, a third update came from the OP on Instagram shedding far more light as to what had likely gone wrong. She had shared the Doc with she guessed 18-20 people as beta readers. The belief is now that one of these persons actually turned her in to Google via their abuse form. To quote one of the commenters on that update: "I heard from an agent that Google will only do this to your account if someone reports it. Google isn’t scanning docs for explicit content (except maybe images), but yeah, for this to happen, someone had to report her document to Google." This felt like a relief...and yet is still packaged inside a cautionary tale. How many of us have shared by 'whoever has this link'? I have, or rather, I had. I revoked all such permissions to all large stories and folders in favor of my few trusted long-time friends and beta readers. The works are on AO3. I don't need those Docs links to be free floating all over the place, not after seeing what can happen. I was on vacation in England some years prior when I realized I had lost the ability to send out all outgoing Gmail. It took me several days to figure out what had gone wrong and nearly lost me my ability to receive Covid test results at a time when that was a travel necessity...almost disastrous. Fortunately I had multiple email accounts and could work around the problem. Which brings me to the last of this.

While including the subreddit mod's responses here may seem retaliatory/petulant on my part...I'm at best miffed at their shortsightedness, maybe mildly insulted, mostly shaking my head at the fact that there is something to have been learned here that could have affected any one of us. No one was spreading misinformation. Something had indeed happened. The source of it had been unknown at the time of posting. Had they left my post alone I would have gladly redacted as it unfolded; the reason for placing it on that sub was not to create a giant stir but to let others know of the risk of this happening at all and to encourage backing up that which most writers invest a considerable amount of their emotional well-being; the safety of their written works. Yes, I'm neurodivergent. No, I don't always see the world as others do. No, I still don't think this difference allows the response to be interpreted as much other than a slight and working against the interests of authors (I'm on their side and last I checked, readers need the authors to have the things that are written in order to have the things to read. Just saying). Whatever, what really matters is, if you feel this is worth sharing, share, take away the important bits, and if someone out there just wants to write it up in 3 sentences so it isn't a tl;dr, do that too.

Have a Googly day, to all near and far, in these times in which we live...>.>

[thewertsearch]

You're right - it's time for the Official Wertsearch Troll Rankings!

I'll forgo the tier list for now, and rank them top-to-bottom, by simple personal preference. There's obviously going to be a bias towards trolls who've had more focus so far - but I'm sure this will even out over time. I'm planning to update it successively.

Without further ado:

Kanaya. I don't need to explain myself, and I doubt her position will change. At some point I might write a post outlining why Kanaya is cool as fuck, so we'll save any in-depth discussion for then.

Karkat. The most likeable hater in the comic. Karkat is full of huge, misdirected emotions that he doesn't understand, and seems poised to take command of the Zodiac trolls out of sheer crabbiness. Karkat thinks he despises everyone, including himself, but I think he needs to acknowledge that there's a reason he's also an expert on love.

Terezi. Probably the funniest troll, but also the one who keeps you guessing the most. She started off as one angry alien among many, demonstrated her malevolence in the Davesprite arc, settled into her role as an awesome weirdo in Hivebent, and now we're learning about her partnership with Vriska, which seems to paint her as an overzealous murderer, even for Alternia. You never know what you're going to get with Terezi, but a lot of the comic's best quotes are in leetspeek for a reason.

Vriska. What can I even say? She's the troll. I could write dozens of posts analyzing what the fuck her deal is - and I probably will. Vriska's great, and awful, and is going to do magnificent things. (Note that magnificent is not synonymous with good. Or successful.)

Aradia. I'm incredibly invested in this girl's arc. So far, Aradia's story is tragic, and we only got to see the real her for a short flashback. Many of the other trolls are trapped in unfortunate circumstances, but at least they have the opportunity to be themselves. I want to see the actual Aradia as a Player, and I want to see her break her strings.

Sollux. I have a soft spot for my troll. Sollux shares my zodiac sign, my trollsona's blood color, and (possibly) my Aspect, and I really do vibe with the little nerd. He's also the one who introduced programming to the story in earnest, and I'll echo my earlier sentiment - this code boy needs to show me more code.

Tavros. Most of his appearances so far are marred by their proximity to Vriska, but I think Tavros has a lot of potential. Left to his own devices, he's a pretty relaxed troll who dances to his own tune, and this makes him - pardon the pun - a breath of fresh air. I'll reiterate - get him away from Vriska, and we'll see him fly.

Equius. Recent events have proved that his moral compass is a little on the fritz - but this is Alternia. It's not like he's the only one. Equius is the source of some of the comic's funniest conversations, and his commitment to the hemospectrum might begin to wane as we leave the planet behind. I'm interested to see how he develops.

Feferi. Cheerful, benevolent heiress to a millennia-old dystopia, raised by a tentacle monster from the dungeon dimensions. Feferi has just made a hell of an entrance, and I want to see more.

Nepeta. Has done nothing, but gets points for being a catgirl.

Gamzee. Has done nothing, but gets points for introducing me to Insane Clown Posse.

Eridan. His hemospectrum shtick is funnier when Equius does it, but his typing style is at least a little entertaining. All the trolls so far have revealed hidden depths, and I'm hoping he's the same.

[luckylewis]

consider this a speed-run of all things beta that may be causing legacy users issues. if there's anything else that needs explaining, i'll update this post! let's go beloveds. 🤭

🟠 BEFORE YOU SWITCH TO BETA.

if you've been previously using new xkit, you will need to download xkit rewritten. that can be found:

here for google chrome users.

here for mozailla firefox users.

once you've installed it, you can install whatever add ons are your preference from new xkit. the one that you'll need to install and enable to cut posts on beta is called trim reblogs and it looks like this:

🔴 SWITCHING TO BETA.

switching is pretty straightforward for any former legacy users and you only have to do it once.

step 1: new text post.

step 2: a pop up for the new editor will show in the top right corner. click lets go!

step 3: press let's go again.

step 4: voila, shiny new editor.

🟡 USING BETA.

for the most part, beta has condensed features of legacy to be more intuitive, which means you need to remember less keyboard shortcuts. once you've written anything in the editor itself, highlighting it will bring up this dropdown.

the list of functions in the vertical dropdown are for the following:

regular is tumblr's standard font.

bigger is, you guessed it, bigger.

i think u can figure what biggest is KSJGSHJ

quote is for if you want any part of your post to look like the quote function.

chat will turn your font into the chat format (typically used for text/sms threads!)

indented will put your paragraphs into a blockquote for those that prefer them.

bulleted list is how you create a bulletpoint list like this one you're reading.

numbered list is same as above but with (spoilers!) numbers. 😎

the list that goes horizontally is for the following:

s with a strikethrough allows you to strike through text.

b is for bolding (the keyboard shortcut still works for this).

i is for italicizing (the keyboard shortcut still works for this).

<s> is for small text (the keyboard shortcut no longer works)

the link symbol is for adding or removing links (will be utilicized further in the gif url section of this tutorial)

and the paint can symbol is for changing the font colour if that's something you want to do.

🟢 CUTTING POSTS WITH BETA.

for any of y'all that are like stark, we don't care ab this, we just wanna cut our damn posts. firstly, feel that. secondly, it needed it's own section so let's goooooo. once you get used to cutting posts on beta it becomes seamless.

there's two ways to do it.

the first one is: after drafting a reply.

the process for that is as follows:

step 1: draft your reply.

step 2: once the reply is drafted, locate the scissors symbol in the bottom row of functions.

step 3: click it and trim the post you want to be rid of, in this case for me it's my previous reply.

step 4: click trim! and hey presto, you have a cut post that's all pretty and ready for you to reply.

the second one is: after posting a reply.

step 1: go to reblog the post.

step 2: write a reply (a better one than this one SHGSHJ) and click reblog.

step 3: i know, i know, it looks like a triple reply but it only will for a second. just like step one, locate the scissors, click it, trim! your previous post and then it will be cut.

🟣 REMOVING THE URL FROM UNDER YOUR GIF IF YOU COPY AND PASTE ONE.

step 1: paste in your gif.

step 2: click the link button in the bottom left of the gif.

step 3: highlight or backspace and delete the url, click done.

step 4: no url under your gif.

⚪️ MISC ADDITIONS.

this is the button for read mores, for all u spicy legends.

this is to upload an image.

this is to post a song.

NEW FUNCTIONS BETA OFFERS:

editing tags: you no longer have to delete every tag that follows if you made a typo in one. siiiick.

auto saving drafts: a life saver (especially for this post!!) tumblr auto saves your post to your drafts as you type into it.

ANY OTHER Q'S:

feel free to hit me up and i'll help you if i can for anything specific!

this post will be updated with anything i forgot about.

[punkshort]

Can you tell me your writing process how you construct a chapter and how long it takes you to write Xxx

Oh dear I'm afraid my answer isn't a very good one lol

I write in drafts on here and back them up on my computer when I remember. I prefer it that way because I can write on the go. If I find I have 10 minutes before an appointment, maybe I'll write a quick paragraph or proofread something. Now, it has bitten me in the ass before when the app crashes before I can save, but I've quickly learned to save after each paragraph now lol

It's not the conventional style but it helps because I have a kid and I don't get a lot of "me time" so if he's playing and out of my hair, I'll write a little bit here and there.

When I'm creating a new story, I like to jot down bullet points of certain scenes or themes or quotes and then as I write, I move them around and fit them into a chapter outline. And honestly sometimes I just start writing and the words just pour out. The other day I was writing ch 9 to look what we've become and I somehow wrote 3.6K of shit that wasn't even in my outline. Those are really good days, I love when I'm in the zone and that happens. Other times it's a struggle to try to make a chapter halfway decent without seeming like I'm rushing through it.

And as far as how long, that very much depends on how into it I am. Sometimes I can write a first draft of a chapter in a weekend, other times a week. But I try to challenge myself to write a little bit every single day because it keeps me motivated. It's also why I update my stories once a week, it helps to keep me on task.

I also write a few chapters ahead in case I want to go back and add something that might come back later, so it helps to have two or three chapters in the first draft stage before I start posting.

Anyway long story short, don't ask me for advice on writing because I definitely don't have a good method 🤣 But I do appreciate you asking me, that is so thoughtful!

[lyra-brie]

Intro Post

(Every few days I remember something I forgot or have new links to add lol it's constantly changing a little bit)

So I go by Lyra (or Library lol) and I use she/her pronouns. That's all I can think of to put here lol.

I'm a reader and a writer. I love romantic fantasy in both, but I'll read almost anything. Not really into horror, but I've dabbled in most other genres when it comes to reading, all the way to non-fiction. I'm always accepting new recs even though I have a ridiculous tbr and wishlist lol.

Always happy to talk about books with anyone, but be wary of that once you get me started I won't ever stop annoying you about it lol.

Some of my favorites right now are:

The Folk of the Air trilogy [the cruel prince, etc]

The Grishaverse books [my favorite is either Crooked Kingdom or Rule of Wolves]

Once Upon a Broken Heart series (as of Oct 15. I'm hyperfixating on this one, so you're getting a lot of fandom content for them)

I have ADHD (if you couldn't tell from my overuse of parenthesis and brackets [every thought comes with a bonus thought and sometimes an extra bonus thought like this!]). I'm a Christian with more progressive theology, but this blog is a safe place for everyone as long as we're all loving to each other and respect each other's beliefs and identities (and I love having good faith dialogue [not debates!! 0 interest in theological debates.], I love hearing other perspectives and getting to talk about it, so feel free to dm me about that, too). I'm an ISFJ and a 9w1, and I don't know that much about it yet but I love typology. I also love video games, mostly Stardew Valley and the sims right now (thinking about making a secondary blog for that).

I post fandom stuff and writing things for my wips. You'll probably get lots of stuff for my wip Idk, Dragons ocs once NaNo starts. And just random stuff for whatever I'm hyperfixating on in the moment lol. I'm totally open to asks about anything involving my wips or fandom-related asks. I participate in Storyteller Saturday and Worldbuilding Wednesday every week, and feel free to ask for any of the other events, too. Tag games are also cool!

I also have an instagram @lyra.brie and you'll find a couple pics of my crocheted dinosaurs, some random faith thoughts, and song. I'm very inactive there, but feel free to check it out.

And now the fun part!! Intros to my wips and ocs:

Wisteria and Wanderlust: you can find the blurb here, as well as the link to my wattpad which has a few snippets and skits and full character intros. An overview of Zal and Clay's dynamic here.

Short overviews of the original three here.

Unnamed Academic Rivals WIP: here is a sort of summary I wrote.

I Don't Know, Dragons [this is a placeholder title, but I might just keep it lol]: this post isn't exactly a blurb, but it's everything I know so far that I can share without spoiling. (I actually need to update it and make a real post for it soon lol. The main development is that Elara's love interest is a werewolf boy.) This one is still in the planning stage so everything is heavily subject to change. I'll be doing it as my NaNo project this year, so it's posted about a lot right now. New Cynthia post here.

The Flourescent Iguana: here's the intro post. I've finished the first draft of this one, but it needs heavy replotting/rewriting.

Writing Snippets

I only have two actual writing bits on here so far, but I intend to have more, so I'll update this as I go! (Let me know if you guys want me to post the Wisteria and Wanderlust stuff I have on wattpad here, too, cuz I can totally do that.)

Idk, Dragons:

I have a bunch of small snippets posted under #nano updates

Fanfics:

EvaJacks "Who Are You?" FanFic

EvaJacks Bunny Saving FanFic

EvaJacks Baby Dragon FanFic

Wisteria and Wanderlust:

Just a quote

Poetry/Songs:

Just Broken

~~~

So that's me! I'm always happy to make new friends and my dms are open, feel free to message me just to ramble about your wip or a hyperfixation!

@writeblrsupport

[briceterry04]

Happy New Year everybody!

Welcome to 2024... My most ambitious year ever. If you guys don't know, I have a Wattpad account, and I make different series of stories. Like my own series, Brice Talks, The Wrath Of Weird Ass Marketing, and my reviews on something I seen or read or watched. I love writing stories on Wattpad... And SUCK while doing it. All of them are hand made and not by Artificial Intelligence, because I'm not a lazy fuck who sits around eating boogers while playing Fortnite with no underwear on. I got more in the pipeline this year. I have to have Big Motivation Energy to do all of these... Here are all of the things to expect from me this year, from the new Brice Talks I published yesterday in order for the last part to be published at 12am:

First off with my Wattpad account:

On September, 5th, 2024, I have a new story in the works dedicated to 20 years of my life because I'll be 20 years old in 2024.

TWOWAM will be continuing.

Brice Talks will also be continuing, with one in the works right now.

A new original series is going to be arriving.

The dream journal is still being updated. So expect a new dream or a few.

The Mario movie review is starting to be written.

And coming soon is a less disgusting, less filled to the brim with incestery version of "How I met Blizzie". Now called "How I met Blizzaria" which will be matching with the Mockumentary I made in 2022 that I posted this year, and of course, my ultimate goal is making that story more approachable and not Disgusting along with an apology for making that story and the other stories that I made, they had really disgusting and controversial material, because incest is absolutely not okay.

On my Facebook account:

I will post random stuff about personal life updates, memes and nostalgia. But, of course I will be doing Live streams of me reacting to things of playing games for all of the people who mostly enjoy my Live Streams of how they turn into utter insanity.

The frog suit only run of Mario 3 is almost complete and we will be back to that in the middle of January or February (probably right in time for Valentine's Day). I've been saving up the P-wings for three notoriously infamous levels of Mario 3.

And I will be reacting to the Sanders Sides season finale parts 1-4 on a live stream when those come out... Hopefully.

On my Tumblr account:

I'm gonna do what I normally do on tumblr... What are those things you may ask? Two things.

Number 1: A bunch of shit no one cares about.

And Number 2: Sanders Sides Incorrect Quotes and other Sanders Sides related content.

I know that's what people wanna see, so I'll gladly except it.

Will I be doing incorrect quotes on Roman and Remus' brotherly rivalry? Yep!

Am I gonna do Logicality incorrect quotes? Yep!

Am I gonna do Princxiety incorrect quotes? Yep!

Am I gonna do more Demus incorrect quotes? Yep!

Am I gonna do Roman and Patton incorrect quotes? YEP!

Am I gonna do I incorrect quotes with all the sides, Including Thomas? YEP!!

Am I gonna do incorrect quotes for the orange side when they get revealed in the season finale? YEP!!!

Am I gonna do RemRom incorrect quotes?

NO!!!

Why would you even say that?

But I'll do all the other ships! All of them!

And of course. I'm gonna be doing fun things on Reddit like posting nostalgia of things I love in the 2000s, or things that scared me as a kid. And I'm gonna find great pictures and make great funny comments on Pinterest.

This might not be a success overnight and it might not be at all, I'm the only one working on these stories, I don't have anyone to do the artwork yet for all of these series including one that will be revealed soon. but I learned to overcome anxiety, so lets hope I can accomplish everything. Now, I'm gonna be taking a little break. I will be back in either January or February on all my platforms, so follow them to see something new:

Facebook: Brice Terry

Pinterest: Brice_Terry04

Reddit: Brice_Terry04

Wattpad: Brice_Terry04

Be back soon!

[fenimores-book-nook]

Day 1 of my sort of self-care journey

Nov. 14-2023, Tuesday.

Here is a photo I saved to my pinterest that reminds me of me:

This reminds me of myself because, well, the quote describes me very well. To prove this: I went to my brother's college choir concert recently where they sang many different kinds of songs and I cried or at least teared up to just about all of them. Even further proof: every time I watch The Greatest Showman, I cry. Because I love the music in it and the story line and the relationship that the characters build with one another. It's beautiful.

So, now that you have the vibe that kind of sets the tone for this, "series," if you want to call it that, we can get started. ;)

Now, the title of this may be a little misleading. I honestly didn't know what else to put as the title. This isn't going to be me doing these types of writings for a month or so and at the end of the month I'm going to be so much better than what I was. No. I believe that self care, self love, just SELF STUFF, takes a long time to figure out.

But then again, maybe the title is more accurate to this series than I think it is. I'm not really going to set a "time" of when I'm going to necessarily stop these. Maybe I could have a sort of, monthly "look how far I've come" posts. Really, I'm doing this because I think it might help me. My mental health. My lack of self love. The good stuff.

Because, truth is, I haven't been doing the best. But that's okay. Because that's life. And as long as I don't stay in this struggle and I try to better myself, that's all that matters. Not saying that the struggles I or anyone go through are worthless. No. NO, NO. They are definitely NOT worthless. The struggles we go through are what shape who you are today. And I think a lot of it depends on how you handled those struggles, too. So, here's me trying to handle my struggles *better.*

Another pinterest photo that kind of gives the vibe I'm going for. :)

Oh and yes, yes there will be many photos from pinterest that I simply just *like* or photos that I took from my days. Hope you like them. :)

Heck, I don't really know what I'm doing with this. But I know that writing down some version of my thoughts and getting them out there, somewhere, helps in some way. And besides, I am absolutely, positively, head over heels in love with writing. ;) But really, it's probably just going to be me giving little updates of what I did throughout my days, maybe I'll use it as motivation to do more self-care things. Like mindful journaling. Which I have not done in a long while. I first started mindful journaling sometime during the time I was still in high school. I want to say during my Junior year (11th grade), since that was my hardest year in high school. I remember it helping my thoughts get unscrambled a little bit.

I would find things like these on pinterest and answer them. :)

And, heck, why not, to start this whole series out, I'll answer them.

3 things I'm grateful for today - 1. My lil' burst of motivation to START this, to want to have a better mindset. 2. Romcom movies like Set it Up to help my mood. 3. And of course, comfort books like Smile by Raina Telgemeier to provide, well, comfort.

Incredible thing to remember - This feeling. This want that I have to better myself. I want to take care of my mental health, I want to be happy, and I'm going to take this step in doing so. <3

Something I learned - It is much easier to let yourself be angry at yourself and at the people around you rather than admit that you might be growing in different ways or in a different direction than them.

Feelings towards my goals - Well, since I took the initiative to start this cute lil' series, pretty good, I think. I think that doing these writings, even if it only reaches one person or just myself, will help.

Wake up and show up tomorrow - I want tomorrow to be a better day than what today was. I don't want to dwell on things that don't need to consume my thoughts or feelings. I want to "show up" with a kind of *fresh optimism.*

So, there we are. I think that that's a good start to this. :)

I may not do a daily writing like this, but I think I will aim for at least three times a week. And if I write everyday one week and the next only three, so be it. Progress is progress.

One last goodbye-pinterest photo that makes me think of optimism and freedom. :)

Until next time,

Thalia <3

P.S. Another reason why I felt like starting something like this is because of the other wonderful people on here, posting similar things, and inspiring me. :)

[fate-tumbles]

#LIVESTREAM

I just spent almost 2 hours writing what I thought would be one of my most favorite picture essays ever. And it had music and quotes and God knows what else in it.

Because I'll never know, because you'll never know, because Tumblr fucked up and it crash and didn't end up saving the draft. Or at least I couldn't find it.

But I came up with that idea and all my thoughts on it on the spot. And even in the raw form I felt like it represented me enough to share it because I knew the people who got it, would get it. Because I used too many references and layers, and some people can't fuck with onions.

And sometimes I start cutting my peppers instead because they feel more important at the time because that's how my brain used to work. But now I'm making it my bitch, since I know I'll always go back to the onions because I started there already. It's just not the right time for me to cut them now.

But I am capable of everything. And it's scaring me. Because now I want to live since I have so much to do, I'm wondering how I'll ever have enough time.

After my three car accidents for various reasons, I have been telling my family that I will eventually die in a car crash. But there is a reason why I didn't yet. And depending on what car I was driving and what I was doing to pay for it however much I could, I was either so grateful to survive or so. Despondent to think that it couldn't have been so easy.

I've never had a threat of suicide because I've always been too fucking chicken to actually do it myself. I've always tried, but I know half heartedly even though I thought I meant it. Because I wanted to give myself a chance to live.

Since I don't post anything to social media anymore, I didn't have anyone to bear witness, and I like that just fine.

Because I do it all baby. I can't box myself into a dating profile, but professionals and personals are supposed to know everything they know about me through my Instagram as you may?

No. To really understand why I'm about to commit seppuku is not because you're a fucking moron. Throwing yourself on someone else's sword. And inviting yourself to someone else's war on purpose than getting mad because you didn't research your tour guides enough and they let you astray. #thats ultra maga lame tbh #so sorry #hard knock life 🎻🎻🎻

You have access to my auto updating resume, and you might want me on your team because I'm a hard fucking worker. But you're too scared to even look because you know I'm going to come for your job as well too.

But you don't know that I never would because I'd be pushing you to succeed even more than me so I could succeed in my own ways. # we are not the same # thank glob # mutations rule # X-Men #freaksgive #beats

I'm already going to put competition, not collaboration, and I'm the fucking Capricorn on my merch so don't even think about it. I have receipts. And Tumblr always has my back.

And I finally know why they scream witness me before they throw themselves into oblivion. Because at that moment, they're falling into oblivion thinking they're doing what that gross dude at the top of the mountain was doing in Furry Road #funtypo #feelscute #maydelete #later but #enjoying #reading it #now #sothatcanbeenough #for me and #me only

Because he had the biggest balls and access to all the water and raped every single woman and child he made and came across. Doesn't seem like the guy I want to look up to. Even though he's put himself on the highest peak. Like I said, it's all about #perspective. Sorry I figured out the ultimate cheat code to my life and you haven't yet, but it took me a while. And I'm willing to help. Because I'm great at tech and video games and cheat codes and perma death, and whatever you're going to need in the situation because I'm also a gamer.

I'm better than you now but I've seen you succeed and outrun me every single time. And instead of getting upset, I finally get off the couch and run after you because it's fun to see if I can actually get you. Because friendly competition can exist. Because I can insult you and love you at the same time. Because you can't put me in a Venn diagram even if that's all you see your life as. Because I used to, and I used to force my thoughts into boxes. But now I'm following my thoughts and letting me take them where they lead.

[a-study-in-dante]

hello! i hope it's okay to ask, i love collecting notebook people's opinions: how and about what do you keep notebooks/journals? i'm curious, i never know if/how to separate my academic from the rest of my writing needs and can't seem to figure out a working system - one notebook for everything? one per subject? one for messy thinking-on-paper and for thought out journalling?? thank you :) 📚

Hello there ✨Thank you for the ask, it is most definitely ok to ask! I'd actually be interested to read other answers you've gotten :)

It is an interesting question, I'm afraid I don't have a foolproof (or coherent) system to offer but I'll do my best to walk you through my stash of notebooks. I'm still figuring out how to organize my academic-related ones so that might be useful for me as well to reflect on that. Disclaimer: this will probably be a looooong answer eh, I hope it's ok.

Let's start with the non-academic stuff.

First and foremost I keep a personal journal, where I write about my days, what I struggle with, what brings me joy... Sometimes I use it to figure out what I need to do, breaking down tasks to a goal academic/work-related but then it is a rough base of thoughts-dumping in written form that I would then transfer to my planner (we'll come to that in as second). Sometimes I write bits of stories or projects I'm working on before typing them. Mostly it's about documenting my life and memory-keeping, like a personal archive. And even if various subjects come up, I like to keep this personal journal separate from planners, note-taking notebooks, and whatnot just to have a safe-space, a notebook that I can leave at home if I feel like it's not safe to bring it somewhere with me, and it's easier to store after I finish it as well, because it doesn't contain any information I will still "need" after I finished it, it's only for me.

I used to try and keep reading journals but it always failed, I just couldn't keep up. And if I want to express thoughts on books or movies, just for myself, I can write them down in my journal. Nowadays I have a "commonplace notebook", where I write down quotes from books etc. that I want to remember so I don't have the pressure to make it organized, I just write whatever speaks to me on the first blank space I can find and when I'll finish it I'll have a little anthology of words I encountered in this time of my life and this is pretty neat I think.

I also have a travel journal in several tiny volumes but I obviously don't use this on a regular basis. Also have a notebook dedicated to stories ideas and some bits of writing, not updated on a regular basis either (it's like 180 pages long and I've had it since uh 2015 so 🙃 not a prolific writer here 🙃)

Now off to the academic related. I've used a bullet journal for my entire academic journey, and I usually use it only for planning. I don't have any particular "collection" spreads because I can't keep up with these either. I might dedicate a page to packing lists when I travel or things related to organisation in general but that's about it.

I have a... I guess a PhD bullet journal? Because I kind of exported the bullet journaling system to suit the long-term planning of my PhD (what to do for the next five years, spreads dedicated to specific parts of my dissertation where I can braindump ideas until I write the actual chapter, keeping track of the credits I validated, paper deadlines, etc.). And I keep it separate because since it will serve me throughout my PhD, I won't have to copy anything from planner to planner as years go by, it saves time and I know that everything regarding my thesis is in one place. However, I do have separate "thesis notebooks" where I take notes from articles or book chapters I read (for entire books, I usually type reading notes). They are dated and I have a digital index so even if the notes are scattered across twenty notebooks by the end of my PhD, I can still find information quite fast. (The digital index makes me look like an organization freak? Yes? No? *sweats*)

As for separating subjects, I remember that when I was a student I mostly took notes on loose paper sheets that I kept in binders, divided by subjects. Until my masters, where I switched to notebooks (one per term), and I kept all my subjects together. As long as you keep it neatly titled you don't even have to divide the notebook per subject: I used to write my notes for one class after the other, following the order they came in my week, and it worked for me.

Also should mention that I use traveler's notebooks so even if the notebooks are different, they can be mixed and carried around in the same cover. I usually have one with my planner and the ongoing "thesis notebook", maybe the PhD bujo; and another one with my personal journal and commonplace notebook (+ travel journal when necessary).

All in all I would recommend to keep your personal things separate from academic/work related thing. As to dividing per subjects, I think it's a good idea to see for how long you'll need notebooks for these subjects and try to arrange them accordingly, like classes of first term, then a notebook for the following term, or per year, and another notebook for more long-term projects? I don't know if that makes sense.

Sorry for this rent, I hope it's somewhat helpful! Have a lovely day 🪷

[thispabulum-blog]

Monday's Child is Fair of Face

Post-Mortem Monday

I want to talk a little bit today, so as to maximize the therapeutic potential of Post-Mortem Mondays, about the signs that my relationship with Dr. Strangelove was struggling.

Some big, some small, some that I was aware of, and some that I only really thought about after the fact.

It took entirely too long for me to realize I was afraid of him. Not just physically, but emotionally. So much of my life was spent trying to mitigate negative reactions from him that I wasn't being myself anymore. There was me when I was alone, and me when I was with him, pushing the things I really liked into a little corner of myself. I should have caught onto this sooner, but I was in denial.

I frequently voiced my frustrations with him to other people, because I wasn't able to talk about them directly with him. I have folders and notes full of drafts of letters to advice columns or Reddit posts from times when things were just really awful and I couldn't figure out what to do. Most of them I never sent, and the ones I did were shockingly full of lies and half-truths.

There was no scenario in which I could be completely honest about how bad things were, even to myself. I stopped being able to do tarot readings for myself, because I couldn't face the cards.

I would get really excited whenever he was going to be away - whether that was going to his dad's for the evening to watch a football game, or traveling across the country for a funeral (it happened twice and I was not invited either time). I looked forward to being able to watch whatever I wanted on the big tv, make or order whatever food I wanted, sometimes even have a friend over. It was an event for me.

The week before I moved out, I told him I was going to spend the night with a friend, and instead I got a Lyft and checked myself into a hotel a few miles away. I ordered a bunch of food (fried catfish and tiramisu), hung out with two different friends, stayed up way too late, and just felt the glorious absence of the pressure I was constantly under at home.

This was...uhh...not great. It's how you expect a 14-year-old to react to being home alone when their parents are gone.

Frankly, the whole experience of living with him has put me off on the idea of living with a partner altogether, though there's a part of me that recognizes that it wouldn't be as bad if said partner was a reasonable and responsible human being.

We had a scrapbook that I had made for us as a birthday gift to him one year - full of pictures, mementos, poems, jokes, etc. - and every year I'd update it, and we would sit down and go through the whole thing page-by-page on our anniversary.

Except that we hadn't looked at it last year, and this past year I hadn't even bothered to update it. He didn't get me a gift, or a card, or anything. We didn't go out. I didn't get to get dressed up or feel special.

There was a certain sense that things weren't going to last, which is hard to articulate.

Sometimes I'd be looking through recipes on Pinterest or something, and I'd come across one that looked really good, but that Dr. Strangelove wouldn't have eaten (usually because it had fish or pork or a cream sauce or something), and I'd save it anyway, just in case.

Same for cat things, candles, party ideas, jewelry, really pretty and busy home décor, everything Christmas, wedding dresses, anything that I thought he wouldn't like or approve of.

There was a vague thought of "Oh, well I'll just save that for after," but no real acknowledgement of what exactly after meant.

At times, his effusive expressions of love made me uncomfortable, like when he would write a message in a birthday card telling me that he would love me forever, etc. I don't know if it's because I didn't feel the same way, or because I didn't believe him.

Along the same lines, there were times when I would be reading quotes about love, or poetry, or whatever, to add to the scrapbook, and they would be beautiful but they wouldn't quite sit right. I recognized that it was nice, but didn't describe the relationship that we had.

In the last couple of years I was having an increasing amount of fantasies about moving on with my life, which usually began with him dying. That's how entrenched I was in the relationship; I didn't see any other way out.

I stopped trying. I got tired of doing all the work. I stopped asking if he wanted to have a date night, or go out and do something, or stay in and have a cute indoor date. I resigned myself to the life he was willing to lead, and I knew it was never going to get any better.

Whenever I thought about my plans for the future, I could never really figure out how he'd fit in. He was always either magically absent, or just propped up in the corner like a child in a sitcom.

So yeah. Just things to keep in mind.

[popcorn-kitten]

new hiveswap info and development timelines just dropped on the Kickstarter ✌️

Over the years, a lot of misinformation, as well as deliberate disinformation, has spread around about the history of Hiveswap. The purpose of this post is to clarify these matters for backers who've been wondering what the truth is.

The Kickstarter was planned by the What Pumpkin business development team in mid-2012. One member of the team was a crowdfunding specialist who led the planning process and managed the contracts with the developer. Prior to the Kickstarter opening for pledges, What Pumpkin worked out a plan for a flexible game concept that could be refined according to how much the campaign ultimately brought in. As Hussie was still working on Homestuck full time at this point, the plan was to hand over his game concept and story outline to a development company that could deliver the project.

The crowdfunding campaign finished out at a gross total of $2,485,506, as well as a gross total of $207,930 from PayPal pledges. But because of platform fees, as well as the costs of producing and shipping merchandise to backers of the campaign, the effective budget was significantly lower than the gross pledged total:

The above deductions from the gross total do not include taxes.

After determining the final budget for the game, What Pumpkin signed an agreement with the contracted game company (hereafter “GC”) to develop Hussie’s game concept. WP and GC entered into a development contract on November 30, 2012, shortly after the conclusion of the Homestuck Kickstarter. WP paid $788,000 to GC in late 2012 for development.

Because there was an understanding that delivering the complete game development documents would take some time, during which it would be difficult for GC to make meaningful progress on the Hiveswap game build, GC inquired about getting involved with other Homestuck-adjacent projects to do immediate work. WP let GC know about the Act 7 animation plans. With an assurance that this work could be done in parallel with a flexible timeline and would not impact the development cycle of Hiveswap itself, Hussie and What Pumpkin saw this as a good opportunity to establish a working relationship with this organization prior to the start of development and agreed to contract GC to do animation work for the Act 7 project. WP and GC agreed that this project would have a separate budget from the Hiveswap Kickstarter money, paid for from WP’s regular operating funds. As the existence of this animation itself would not be revealed until its release in 2016, this was not publicly announced at the time. GC and the lead animator on the project specifically requested not to be credited upon release of the animation.

Hussie initiated the “Megapause” on April 14, 2013 in order to devote his full attention to finalizing the Hiveswap development documents. What Pumpkin soon provided its story documents so that GC could formally begin core systems development. In July of 2013 WP and GC mutually agreed to push back GC’s deliverable dates without penalty. Hussie would share an update in 2013 detailing the state of predevelopment:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/708686

In 2013 following receipt of WP’s deliverables, GC enthusiastically assured WP that it was positioned to begin development. GC would deliver its first prototype in early 2014.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qSXwWKD5Km1yL-3Cj_W5IevW-IA978zJ/view?usp=sharing

This prototype, linked above, was sent to WP on 2/18/14. At this point, it was becoming a significant concern among backers that WP had yet to show proof that the game was being made, so WP was looking for any sort of tangible progress update from GC that was suitable to share with the public. But Hussie and WP found the quality of the prototype somewhat alarming, and decided that sharing any shots from the game would only cause embarrassment for GC. Nevertheless, WP was still willing to assume that this was a very early draft of something that would develop into a more promising product soon, and gave GC some more time to improve on it.

But the improvements didn’t come. No other advancements on the prototype were ever made. After waiting weeks with no update other than assurances that progress was carrying on smoothly, Hussie initiated the “Gigapause” both to take care of personal matters and later to get directly involved in the development of the game himself. He decided to move to southern California from the east coast in hopes that working directly with the GC could help them overcome whatever obstacles they were facing with Hiveswap’s development. GC responded positively to the prospect of Hussie’s involvement, but when he made the move and tried to coordinate a time to visit the GC offices and meet, GC insisted it was a bad time due to office renovations and a busy schedule. Here is a timeline with quotes from emails exchanged between Hussie and GC:

May 12, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“Just letting you know I actually moved to the west coast recently. I'm only an hour or so away from LA now.

I could drive down and check out the office, see how things are going with the game and animation in person some time soon. Is there a time that would work for you guys? In a week or two maybe?”

May 15, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“That's awesome about being on the west coast. It'd be great to have you come to the studio.

Dev has slowed a bit on our end, as we wanted to take a step back and really evaluate what was needed and the best way to achieve the features that have been coming online in the docs. We're continuing to break that all down so we can build and plan most effectively moving forward. We also wanted to find some simple formats for input from your writing team for dialogue content and are getting that squared away.

The best time to come by would actually be right after E3. Things are a bit nuts until then.”

May 18, 2014 - from Hussie to GC

“[Name redacted], sounds good. I'll set aside some time after E3 to make the drive down. As we approach the date, just let me know what works for you.”

E3 was June 10-12, 2014. GC did not invite Hussie to visit at this time.

Hussie and WP representatives were in LA over July 4th weekend, 2014. When they inquired about visiting the offices again they were still not welcome. A GC representative insisted that they meet at a restaurant instead. Yet GC continued to telegraph that they were receptive to the idea of inviting Hussie to the office well into the summer:

Aug 18, 2014 - from GC to Hussie

“We'd love to set up a new time for Andrew to come to the studio as well as a skype chat to meet the other team members.”

Despite apparent enthusiasm about meeting with Andrew in their email correspondence, GC continued the pattern of refusing to meet at the office or supply any signs of progress on the prototype.

Over that summer, GC delivered several pieces of concept art that WP had been requesting since January. Hussie did his best to present this publicly as a positive development as WP felt it would be counterproductive to the project and harmful to GC to publicly detail the development troubles at the time.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/883860

There was no indication from GC that the Act 7 animation project was in any way in conflict with Hiveswap development. GC was enthusiastic about taking on this project, and bidded against other animators for the contract. They saw it as a useful tie-in to concept art work on Hiveswap, as GC leadership conveyed in an email to WP in early 2013:

WP also does not have any reason to believe that the Act 7 project in practice created a conflict that was not disclosed by GC to WP. Act 7 was a 2D animation project, and Hiveswap at the time was a 3D game, so it did not pull GC’s programmers or 3D artists away from work on Hiveswap. GC never mentioned the development needs of a separate project at all to WP, or cited any such reason as distracting from work on Hiveswap; GC instead repeatedly provided WP with various assurances that everything was still fine with Hiveswap.

Had GC communicated that they had scheduling conflicts or some other impediment preventing them from developing Hiveswap, WP would have terminated the contract even sooner.

WP moved to terminate the agreement with GC late summer of 2014, and Hussie pivoted towards establishing a new independent game studio while consulting with a designer who had stepped up into a leadership position during the GC development period. That individual lived in NYC, which is why that location was chosen to establish the new studio rapidly. They helped build the studio through a local network of professional contacts. While this “What Pumpkin NYC” studio shared a name with What Pumpkin, it’s important to note that all of WP NYC’s studio staff save for the aforementioned individual were hired without any prior affiliation with WP and thus had no association with the GC contract. WP documented this development on Kickstarter on October 30th, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/posts/1035099

At this point, negotiations were very amicable; both parties agreed the project simply wasn’t turning out to be a good fit for GC, and were both ready to move on. There were no signs given at all that WP was about to have trouble recovering the remaining funds.

WP is legally permitted to discuss details of the resolution of the dispute only under very specific circumstances. WP may make additional disclosures outside of this post to individual backers in accordance with legal obligations.

Following resolution of the GC contract, in Spring 2015 the WP NYC studio was running at full capacity on Hiveswap. The main problem was the fact that WP management was blindsided by the revelation that much less money would be coming back than expected. The WP NYC project manager had designed the schedule based on the good faith presumption that most of the development funds would be recouped. When it was finally revealed the return was far short of what was expected, and the repayment plan could in no way keep up with the schedule as currently drafted, it threw the project into a period of chaos as plans were quickly redrawn. The length of Act 1 was slashed, and other modifications were made to try to fit the rest of Act 1 into the newly shortened runway. But in the end, the revisions still weren't enough to save the game as it existed, and the studio needed to be closed in order to reserve what funds remained to finish the project in some form.

This may have come across as a sudden or spontaneous decision. Part of this is because the WP NYC senior staff and WP ownership were doing everything in their power to save the project, including injecting WP regular operating funds into the project, until it was determined that going any further would be disastrous for the future of Hiveswap. Another is that WP was legally unable to give any detailed disclosures about the financial troubles, even to many of the WP NYC staff.

It should also be noted that originally the NYC studio was not going to be permanently closed, but only frozen for a reassessment of the project. But during this freeze period, there were some dramatic events. One staff member behaved in a destructive and threatening manner. For the protection of those involved, details shouldn't be disclosed. But these events made navigating the post-freeze issues impossible. Communication between ownership, management and staff broke down because of these events, and the freeze turned into full closure. This version of the project was then abandoned for many reasons, including these events.

Some misinformation claims that at the time the WP NYC studio was shuttered, its iterations of Act 1 and 2 were complete. This is wrong. Act 1 was very far from a shippable state and absolutely no work on Act 2 had been completed besides some concept and 3D art. Here you can see a video documenting one of many major bugs with critical path progression in the final build produced by WP NYC, where it becomes impossible to re-focus on the Simon Says toy if Joey fails and then exits out of the puzzle:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M2mmkMx8Wkwp1VU_5IpMKDvngmUFS0IG/view?usp=sharing

At the point the WP NYC studio was frozen it was still difficult to finish a full run of the critical path without the debug tool, and the UI was far from complete. With that build, Act 1 ended the moment Joey passed through the portal on Earth. The current version of Act 1, where Joey makes it to Alternia and meets Xefros, is more indicative of the original length of the NYC version of Act 1. Not only did it need to be slashed from what the original script proposed, the NYC version of Act 1 still wasn't that close to resembling a shippable product after those changes were made.

Because of the amount of time and resources already devoted to this project, WP was initially very reluctant to lay anyone off or scrap the work being done. It was for this reason that the studio stayed open for months after the contract with GC was resolved; WP made every effort to deliver a game with that team, but at the time WP NYC was shuttered, the funds just weren't there to keep the studio running at its current burn rate and schedule slips. The game was never going to reach delivery with the funds available. The studio urgently needed to be frozen for a full reassessment, and then it was closed after the freeze due to the reasons stated above. This was the only course of action that could have saved the project.

To WP's knowledge every artist whose work was used in the final release of Act 1 was included in the credits. The final version of Act 1 was in large part built off concept art and storyboards drawn during the WP NYC era, and many of the artists who made them continued to work on the team that produced the final version of Act 1; the roadmap for the completion of Act 1 was specifically planned because WP had determined that the existing 2D concepts could easily be refined into a final product that would both be visually appealing and more economic to produce. Unfortunately due to the transition to 2D WP no longer had a place for the 3D artists or the original 3D engine, and all of those assets were dropped. They were not used as a basis for the finished assets in Act 1, and visual similarities to WP NYC 3D assets are due to the fact that final Act 1 assets are in large part refinements of the original concept art. Any artist whose work was used incidentally was included in Additional Contributions.

Both the GC and NYC phases of Hiveswap were setbacks to the overall fulfillment of the project, but not insurmountable. WP reorganized the budget to establish a new version of the studio, and Act 1 was released two years after the closure of NYC.

As an addendum, WP has identified the primary source of a disclosure to a well-circulated document of the Hiveswap development process. WP has been aware of a pattern of false claims this former employee has made since the end of their employment at the beginning of 2014. As this individual was not present during the end of the development contract with GC, nor the WP NYC development period, all of the information they have shared is based on speculation and conjecture.

At this time, WP does not wish to invite more controversy into the lives of anyone previously involved with this project, and considers these matters to have been resolved long ago. The goal for years has been to turn the page on flawed attempts by earlier studios, and simply move forward and bring Hiveswap to completion without sparking the chaos, disruption, and threats to personal safety that would have resulted from disclosing many of the details stated above. Doing so would only make it more difficult for the staff to rebuild the project during these periods immediately following the termination of the GC agreement and closure of the NYC studio. Since preservation of the project was the primary responsibility to the backers, making destructive disclosures that put the project at risk along the way would have been at odds with that responsibility. This policy also served to protect individuals from personal or professional harm, including those who were responsible for serious setbacks with the project. Please respect the privacy of any persons affiliated with GC and WP NYC.

[yuvon-writes-letters]

Hey guys :)

Maybe I'm going chronological for one time, so I can sort my thoughts easier.

Yeah, Goldie's much mire active than I would've thought, too. But they did all those things to keep me alive and kind of save, since we still don't know who they are exactly working against. (I mean, we don't know who Goldie exactly is either, but you get my point)

Honestly, I am pretty sure the TSB timeline is continuing, at least if my theory that Goldie just set me back in an alternate timeline is true. In this case I feel sorry for TSB, though..Extremely sorry. He still was 'my' Jake back then, even though he acted weird in the end (maybe was manipulated by entities). I mean, if what he wrote was true he went with authorities. And in the end..this could've been his downfall.

And yeah, maybe I'm not exactly safe, but I just have to go back. If I go, and if I lose my job, I have some things to sort out. And Jake luckily agreed with me that clearing up my desk isn't the worst thing I can do before leaving. We're still thinking about a location, which I could luckily deside myself. Max agreed on that. Even though he still has some doubts. (I mean, of course...His cousin opened the door with bruises all over her face.) He did promise to not ask any questions until I feel ready, though. That gives myself and Jake some time to figure that out.

And also, Jake is right! We have three Jakes and three smart people. YUVON. And of course Goldie, like you said Yu :) And some information about the previous timeline. (And that was it with being chronological)

So yeah, like I said, Max and I'll go. And I also think we can be pretty certain now that the message came from Goldie not the MWAF (which is relieving). I saw the messages and they didn't make Jake the bad guy. I honestly just don't think I can quote them yet. (They're too good, but I probably start daydreaming if I do) But they talk about Jake being an important part of my life and my heart and Max protecting me when he cannot. My dear cousin jumped to conclusions when he saw my bruised face. About Max' phone...I'll probably throw it in a river or something if he brings it with him. I told him not to, also because of Jake (he's not only worried about the MWAF apparently...He didn't exactly say it out loud, but I think it's pretty obvious) but he loves this device.

And I emphasize with you about the being kidnapped thing, you'll manage it, I know it :) And if I need to jump dimensions and box some sense into your Crow-Crew xD

No but for real, you can do that. I know it :)

Jake, find a good point in time to talk to her. But do it :)

Otherwise, I still think the 'underlying desire' theory is a possibility! But, like always in the moment, we could be wrong.

As for my stasis, I really do not wish to talk to more people who think I've been kidnapped. And I am a bit scared that could somehow lead to either them or me being in more danger again. But for now we have to wait.

I for now will pack some important things and paper & pens xD I don't want to leave y'all behind :P

Liska🐾🔥

[A screenshot is glued to the back of the letter and the quick sentence "Jake wants to talk to Jake" is written above]

Hello Jake, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am not quite sure in which way Liska will handle giving you my message, but she promised me to not read it for now.

I don't know whether she told you before or not, but as far as I am concerned she realised I am not only worried about the MWAF chasing her.

With me breaking out of this stasis I am sure that my followers aren't that far behind. And I know you can't do anything from where you are, but cross checking way to protect her doesn't seem to bad to me. Especially since we are similar but still fairly different from each other. At least it seems like that from what I have read.

For my part, I recently improved and updated Nym-OS which allows me access to Liskas whereabouts. If Yuvon should read this, she knows and agrees to it.

Still I am yet stuck on one little detail: I am trying to help Nym-OS in counterattacking. So, even though I am sure you already knoe this yourself, Nym-OS gets the ability to access location of the people attacking Liskas phone. I am almost done with that, so we are able to see a bit easier if and where people are that could be a danger.

Do you have any other ideas for ways I could help? Or even improve what I am doing momentarily. I wouldn't normally ask this since I know and trust my skills, but I think that this is fairly different from a 'normal situation'.

~ Jake

Lis,

Um. I don't know if you've seen the newest person to send in a letter, but we now have an issue.

Jessy, if you're reading this, I was sort of trying to avoid talking about this right away but I'm sort of trapped in a weird place, and Jake's here too because I'm a dumbass. I did not, so you know, let him read your letter or my reply. I figured you wouldn't want that. Sorry for dancing around the issue earlier :/ But at least you can get a good sample of the complete insanity we go through on the regular now!

Yeah... you're getting thrown into the deep end right now, aren't you. Sorry. There's no way to ease into this. You should probably either stop reading these entirely or start reading the letters from the beginning, so this will all at least make some sense. The first letter should start with the words "To whoever reads this," just so you know you get the right one.

Back to you, Lis. Yeah, I feel pretty bad for TSB Jake too. I honestly can't imagine being in his position right now.

Alright. So, you can choose the place. Great! There's way less chance of you being caught that way...

Tragedies just seem to be happening to all us Duskwood detectives, recently, don't they? Rai is chronically overworked and barely has time to sleep, I'm stuck in this hellhole and I've been forgotten by most everyone, you were shot, and poor Matt died and... well.

I never knew him, but I feel really bad for him :(

You could give Max half the truth. Tell him you have a stalker, and he's starting to get physical. Jake has been trying to help you get away from the asshole. It's not even a lie, just... not the full truth. Because. You know. The whole truth is completely fucking insane.

Writing to Jessy just put into perspective how insane everything is, I think. Gimme a sec.

Oh, fuck. My Jessy just texted me. Great timing.

Jeez that whole thing with me leaving myself out was just a joke XD If I knew you and Jake would take it so seriously, I'd never have said anything. I'll steer clear from now on.

Yeah, okay, definitely Goldie. That makes way more sense. I don't think you have to be quite so drastic as destroying the phone. Just get him to leave it at home for the trip.

Ahaha, thanks. I don't think that's necessary, though. Actually, seeing future!Jessy's perspective has caused a bit of a paradigm shift. I think I might need to reconsider what all to tell and not to tell the Crow Crew. I just sort of default to keeping things secret, now, but you've seen how well that worked for me with you and Rai, and with Jake.

Again, you probably should wait for them to contact you first, but you WILL need to talk to them when that happens. What you say to them and what you don't is up to you.

Pack a couple different pens XD We're all a bit long-winded.

That's all from me :)

(The handwriting changes to Jake's.) Hallo, Lis.

Yuvon refuses to tell me what precisely she means about Jessica. Was she somehow contacted by an alternate version of Jessica? If so, how?

I am glad it was Goldie who contacted Max. Yuvon's suggestion for an excuse seems a good one, as there are far less things to remember that way. You simply need to oversimplify everything.

I do not, unfortunately, entirely believe that Yuvon was joking when she made that comment, based on previous comments and her ongoing guilt. I can't understand sometimes why she feels the need to lie so much. It is difficult for me to read people, much less her.

I will speak to her eventually. Early tomorrow, perhaps, if nothing else rears its head. Yuvon looks tired, and I am also admittedly not at my peak. I sincerely hope she does not wake up as early as she does every single day. It may get somewhat taxing, what with the lack of coffee here.

I think that is all from me to you, Lis. If you would kindly find a way to send the next section to my counterpart without looking at it, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you :)

—Jake and Yuvon

Jake,

It is a pleasure to meet you as well, despite the unusual circumstances.

That our pursuers may be freed from the stasis is a logical conclusion. Seeing as the last known location I had on them in my universe was approximately five hundred miles from Duskwood, they will likely be some of the first to free themselves from the stasis. I do not believe I need to warn you that time is of the essence.

It seems as if I am a small distance ahead of you in the development of countermeasures, perhaps because I have had more linear time to develop them. If you are where I think you are at in the development, you likely have or will soon hit a bug you cannot pin down that makes the pinpointing mechanism simply refuse to work at all. Presuming your and my version of NYM-0S are similar enough, the issue should lie in the public bool set in line 132 of the third part of the targeting script, the script that decides what constitutes a target; you have it defaulted to "false" where it should default to "true".

As for additional countermeasures: I was attempting to work on a rudimentary automated system of pattern detection when I was brought here. Essentially, its function would be such that it would be able to triangulate using the locator features already installed to find a rough estimate of where their headquarters might be. However, I have not found any way thus far to eliminate outliers, and as such the feature is currently next to useless. I am no longer able to work on the code, but perhaps you will have more luck than I did.

That is all I can think of for the moment on that subject. However, I have an odd theory on what may be part of the reason we vary so. If you have a moment to spare, please answer me this:

When I was very young, back when Mother was still around, she took me to a doctor for odd behaviors. This included not looking people in the eyes, but there was a list. I was given a diagnosis; if you had the same experience, you should likely know which one.

Did you have this experience? If so, please prove it by stating what the diagnosis was.

Do not worry if you do not know what I am talking about; I would rather you did not guess. Simply state that you don't know. It will confirm my theory.

Good luck with your pursuers.

—Jake

(The letter tucks itself in the paper clip with the others.)

[beatsfortheillperth]

Words with Jetson

Our next interview is with a producer and rapper out of a beautiful place known as Tauranga, in New Zealand, This creative is known as Jetson.

He happens to be one of my cat, Rain's personal favourites for sleep time and regardless of the amount of thumping bass Jetson's music creates and picture frames it knocks over, I understand why he sleeps so sweetly.

Probably a lot to do with the fact that bass has rhythm, just like the sweet sweet words Jetson correlates with his word-plays in tracks such as "Milk" and "SENSEI". Not only impressing cats, Jetson has made moves and connections beyond the long white cloud, proving isolation doesn't always silence brilliance. Jetson brings words any generation can hold some sort of relevance to, words that allow one to notice life moves fast and slow and sometimes you just have to chill and become an observer rather than an instigator.

This is something I feel Jetson has accomplished with his rather low-key approach to releases and interviews.

Jetson is a natural, a true prodigy of sound and a sharer of moods, and to me, is a reminder that with a little bit of passion and persistence, great things can happen, whatever your field.

Jetson’s collective and label - Chill Children is evidence of that, as through it , Jetson is able to work and release with producers and beat-makers all over the globe.

emo the optimist, BACKWHEN, fuyu, eets, and junyii are just some of the diverse talents working with Chill Children and everyone on the catalogue are game-changers that make music that’s anointed in chills. 

Creators that push boundaries and portray emotion through sound in the most soothing way, one must check Chill Children.

So with that I hope you enjoy rare words with the nuance wonder, and in his own words.

Sit back, relax, get baked, create, f**k it.

Enjoy and much love.

Hey man thanks for the opportunity to share words. Let's start with a few random quick questions to get things going. Favourite Beverage: Lemon water. Favourite thing to do in your down-time: Make music/skate. Views on Reincarnation: It will be cool if it is true but I guess it doesn't really change anything if it is 🤷‍♂️ Favourite Food: Sushi. Favourite Album of All Time: Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders A song to break it down to: Ethereal & Playboi Carti - Beef A song to chill to: Durand Jones & The Indications - Cruising to the park Do you prefer Sunrise? or Sunset? Why?: Sunset, because I'm never awake for sunrise. A childhood memory in regards to music: I remember saving up to buy Graduation by Kanye West and listening to that shit front to back for weeks straight. Favourite Place to be: Probably on an island.

Thanks for that, so let's start by asking what inspires you to produce and not only produce but continually produce, what to me is an array of tunes fitting so many genres?

Do you have a set of goals in place when you release a track or do you just hit upload and just hope people are feeling your sound?

What I like to listen to is constantly changing so I like to challenge myself to try and make the things that I'm inspired by.

I like to think that you never know what you're gonna get when you listen to my music but I've still got so much to learn and experiment with. I just try have fun with it and not think about it too much.

How long have you been producing music, and what did you find was hardest to get the hang of when it first came to producing beats?

I had no music theory knowledge or anything when I started making beats (I still don't have much) so there was a lot to learn right away.

Probably the hardest thing that I still battle with is knowing what you should release, what you shouldn't etc. It's hard to balance knowing when something is finished and when it still needs work.

Could you give a quick run-through of the process you follow when it comes to making a beat?

I try to change my process as much as I can to keep things fresh and fun for myself. But I really enjoy hearing a sample somewhere like keys, a quote or a rapper I want to remix, then I start working with that piece and see where it goes.

I'll mess around with the beat for a while and sometimes a track comes out. It can take one day, it can take months. Just depends.

Oldies are always goodies in my books and I have to mention your "bumps from 2014" mixtape, it truly is something special.

What inspired those little bumps? What were you doing back then? Also, can you remember the mood you were in when you made them?

I'm glad you like it haha. That was when I really had no clue what I was doing in terms of making beats, I was making all of those 'off the grid' in Ableton so I was placing drums in random places, I had no idea what bpm the samples were or anything. I really didn't know wtf I was doing, just going off of a vibe. 

My mood was really just being excited about making music, I was living in the basement at my mum's house blasting beats on the speakers all day.

[bumps from 2014] - https://soundcloud.com/sleepgodd/bumps-from-2014

You are also a rapper. My favourite NZ rapper to be more precise so thank you for the vibes you create. How did you find out you had it in you to rap and how old were you?

Damn, I appreciate that ✌️ I started rapping with a friend of mine, Jesse aka j cafe when we were around 20. We'd sit in my room smoking weed, and free-styling over beats on Soundcloud all night. 

Then we decided to make a track, so we found a beat and jumped in the closet to record some vocals on the laptop microphone.

We put it up on Soundcloud and I've been addicted to making music ever since.

Link to j cafe’s Soundcloud here - https://soundcloud.com/j-cafe

Cover art for Jetson’s 2019 rap release - bluntscraps

Album cover art by Takuroh Toyama

When did you first start rapping in front of others? What did it feel like in the beginning compared to now when you perform live?

I was insanely nervous the first time I ever did anything live and that feeling really hasn't left me lol.

Except now I know how to deal with nerves a bit better and actually enjoy the whole experience of doing something live.

I definitely think I'm a lot better now than my first time doing it, but I still kinda suck 😂 Staying on topic with your rapping, material-wise you have mad skills, your music is forever helping me chill out so thank you.

When did you start writing down your words and turning them into structured songs? Do you have any other artists that inspire your writing style?

When I was younger I really liked the flow of rappers rather than what they were actually saying.

Dudes like MF Doom and Earl Sweatshirt really influenced me at the start wanting to come up with lines that were catchy and different.

To form an actual track I usually just mumble over beats to get the flow, then I start placing words in the spots where I think they fit.

Does your family know you make music? If so what do they think of it, any dance parties in the Jetson Family Household? 

My immediate family all know and support my music. My mum used to have one of my tracks as her ringtone for years lol.

No jetson dance parties yet, but seems like every year more people in my extended family know about my music.

You were also a member of NZ Duo, Chill Children of which you rap and produce with yet another kiwi talent, both having low-key approaches when it comes to presenting yourselves through social media. What happened with that?

Me and J Cafe started Chill Children as a rap project in the early days but we moved to different places in the world and started doing our own solo projects so things sort of stopped happening with it.

I still credit those times with really getting me started on music though. He's still making dope shit and we'll probably link up on a track soon.

So then it became a sort of collective community, and through your Chill Children Soundcloud, you allow a platform for other artists to have their music heard.

Much Love on the concept, What inspired you to start sharing other artists music and what keeps you sharing? I'm very grateful btw, too many gems.

I work on music a lot with my friend emo the optimist (aka kodama) and we always wanted to run a label/collective kind of thing so we could release music from artists that we really liked.

After me and Jesse started doing our own thing, Chill Children seemed like the perfect place to start doing that.

It's one of my favorite things to work on as we have a hand in working with the artists on every release. I just love that we're able to share so much music that we really like with the world.

Check Chill Children here -

Bandcamp - https://chillchildren.bandcamp.com/

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/chillchildren

Instagram - @chillchildren

Any new Chill Children material we should keep an eye out for?

We always have new music from new artists dropping so definitely follow our instagram/twitter if you want to stay updated on it.

We're currently working on a phonk compilation with guys like DJ Yung Vamp, Genshin etc. It's gonna be crazy 🤯

Back to your solo releases through your alias Jetson. What made you want to start putting out your material alone? Also, do you have a favourite Jetson release?

I really felt like I had to release music solo to see what I could do.

I've learned so much about myself through that process, became more confident and a better musician.

Probably my favorite rap track I've made is called 'Escape'.

Not many people have heard it but it's on Spotify and other places.

My favorite beat I've made is probably 'dylan rieder'.

Have to ask, are you working on any new releases we should keep an ear out for? If so, what can we expect with your coming releases?

I just released an album on Bandcamp called THROWED TAPES which was really influenced by DJ screw and other phonk producers.

I'm working on a lofi R&B tape for Bandcamp, a lofi beat tape, and I really want to release a rap EP.

Who knows when those will come out though haha

Taking it back a little to your rapping again I have to mention "Milk". What inspires the words in this track?

Also please share the story behind your track "Melancholy"? The words are somewhat mesmerizing, thank you!

With milk, I just heard the beat from bsd.u and really wanted to make something weird that just followed the flow of the beat.

On melancholy I tried to think about what I was saying a little more. The instrumental is so introspective and smooth I knew I had to come correct on it.

THROWED TAPES By Jetson, released August, 27, 2020

Musical Recommendations?

junyii - emo the optimist - knxwledge - j cafe - jesse james solomon - the smiths - dj yung vamp - shuggie otis - hm surf - alicks - MIKE - baccyard - meraki soul - steve hiett I could go on for days though lol

Creatives to keep an eye out for in music and art? Takuroh Toyama (photography) Moebius (visual art) Steve Hiett (photography/music) Any Last Words?

It really trips me out that people enjoy something I love to do so much.

So just thank you for vibing with me, I have a lot more to share ✌️

Support Jetson here -

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/highimjetson

Bandcamp - https://jetsonbumps.bandcamp.com/

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/2bkf2PmiVyfCqg2uzIFIqJ

Twitter - https://twitter.com/jetsonbumps

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jetsonn/?hl=en

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Milk by Jetson (Production by bsd.u)

[thisnerdsadventures]

a 2021 update

Ah, so I have forgotten to update in a million years, per usual

~ Random thought section ~

I woke up this morning and read this tweet thread about Alice Wu's director's note for her movie The Half of It. It's streaming on Netflix, and I highly encourage to go watch it, it's probably one of my favorite movies from the past few years. Anyways, she talks about how she produced the film while digesting the heartbreak of a friendship breakup - the whole thread hit me on a different level, but here's a quote that really hit home for me, especially a month from graduation: "The end of the film is each of their beginnings. And for my characters, I can think of no happier ending." We spend a lot of time worrying about the end of things and the uncertainty of things to come. Yet, there was a time where we worried about the exact same things for the very chapter we are now so nervous about leaving.

1. I'm nervous about leaving school and starting the..... rest of my life???

2. I'm nervous that my friends will slowly fade away. I'm nervous that they'll get on with their lives and I'll be slowly still trying to get my bearings, stuck in limbo.

3. I'm nervous that starting adulthood will be difficult because there are no more college orientations, no more awkward freshman dinners, perfect opportunities to meet new friends who are just as nervous as you are.

In writing this out, I felt a sense of deja-vu, like I had written these words before. So I just looked back at some of my posts right before entering college, and lo and behold:

08-18-2016: Today I said goodbye to one of my closer friends, and i realized that without even knowing it, Sunday’s party was the last time I would see some of my closest friends. It’s awful that way, that you don’t even know it’s the last time until it’s passed, and you’re left to pick up the the end of a chapter of a relationship from the scraps of an unexpected and improper farewell.

I feel like I’m in a weird twilight zone between college and high school where my present friends are all beginning to fade away to move on in their lives, and I’m yet to really meet anyone in my class yet, so at the moment,,,,,,there really isn’t anyone.

I wrote this less than a week from moving to Boston, and it's so shocking to me that I also experienced the "unexpected and improper farewell" part in senior year. It's almost the exact same thing that happened in COVID and is continuing to happen. You never know when the last time you might see someone might be, except instead of consolidated over the course of one pre-college summer, it's over the course of more than a year, the time that this pandemic has been going for.

And I hate that I said the "fade away and move on" thing verbatim, literally nearly five years ago. To be honest though, it's true, a lot of them did fade away and move on. But so did I, I wasn't left behind. To some extent, I was the one who did a lot of the moving away. And like many things in life, a couple of us continue to hang around, and maybe our friendships cycled in and out over college, but have come around again after a few years. I guess those are the ones that you know will stick around. The limbo period between chapters is a hard one, and it's nice to know that present-day me isn't the only one who has felt this. It's nice to know that past me met so many incredible people so fast, that I forgot this limbo period happened.

I know this part is getting a little long, but there's just a couple more snippets I want to share:

08-13-2016: I recently read Marina Keegan’s essay The Opposite of Loneliness, and one line resonated with me a lot: We’re so young. It seems silly and almost pretentious for me to think that this party would be so final, and yet it does, even though we have decades upon decades to build and connect or reconnect.

We’re so young, but that doesn’t stop the understanding that we are going to a new chapter in our lives and that it’s going to redefine our relationships. I hope it doesn’t change them too much.

I suppose much of the anxiety of going to college results from having to build my own community from the ground up again.... I tell myself the pieces will fall together and everything will be ok, but it doesn’t stop the increasing anxiety from, well, increasing.

I loved this collection of essays, if you haven't read it, I recommend you do. In moving around for so many years, I haven't been able to keep a lot of books in my possession, but I kept this one because that essay really hit home for me, and continues to, no matter what part of life I'm currently experiencing.

I think moving to college did change my relationships. But change is not a bad thing - your childhood friendships, the few of them that survive, end up strengthening and growing into adult friendships. And in the end, isn't that better than not changing at all? I'm hoping that a few of my college friendships will do that too - we'll go from college friends to family friends, and my kids will call them "Aunt" and "Uncle" and they'll grow up watching their parents talk for hours in the front yard before finally getting in the car and leaving for home.

08-13-2016: But hey, this is part of what I signed up for, I knew I wasn’t going to have much of an initial safety net, but I’m sure I’ll survive. We, as humans, always find a way to adapt right?

I think I survived and adapted. Not in the way I saw things going, but we can never really fully predict things, can we? One day, I'll learn to give myself a safety net for the next chapter, I'm sure. Today's not that day though.

Going back to her director's note, there was one more thing that just struck an emotional chord for me:

Fun fact, Alice Wu actually went to MIT for a bit before transferring to Stanford, and then she became a software engineer at Microsoft! I relate a little too much to her. Maybe one day I too will dump coding for my art form. But for now, in this above example, I relate far too much. I worked on my album, Imperfect, a little too obsessively this past winter while trying to digest the throes of heartbreak from one of my own friendships that ended. I still don't know if there was an ending for that friendship. I think I've spent a lot of time trying to put off the end, like a TV series that just keeps adding more and more seasons. Regardless of whether it needs to end or not (which I have not decided and will continue not to do so), I spent a lot of time thinking about who I was before and after that friendship, and I've concluded that a lot of who I am now, what my life looks like now is a result of that friendship. I'll give you a hint: I really like who I am now, compared to who I was before, and it showed me a lot of parts of life and friendship that I never expected would happen. That friendship was (is?) one of the most beautiful things that has happened to me in my life.

Let's finish off this reflective post with a quote from Khalil Gibran, that's kinda related to that point about how transformative the past can be, and how we're far better off in future chapters of our lives because of it.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

Again, if you haven't read his collection of poems, you should absolutely 100% drop whatever you're doing right now and do so! Wow, I really just assigned an entire reading list in this post.

I hope in making this movie, Alice found peace. I would hesitate to say that I found peace when making my album. I wrote a lot of songs about the heartbreak I felt from that whole experience. But the last song I wrote, "Best Friends," ends the whole thing on a positive note, that at the end of the day, I remember how my friends (past and present) literally saved my life and how things are looking a little better, and whatever happens, I hope my best friends will be there waiting for me, whoever they end up being.

- OK I PROMISE I DIDN'T SET OUT TO BE 100% SO EMO -

But yeah, I haven't really been doing much otherwise? I guess just tryna stay alive, I've been cooking a lot and cooking a lot of good good food, I did apply to an MBA program, I got my COVID vaccine (second shot this week!), I am excited to announce I am publishing a paper in my MEng lab, which is a really big accomplishment imo, I am thriving in my (1) econ class that I kept, even though I didn't realize we had readings assigned like for the past month, I went to try pastries from this Turkish bakery, I biked, probably, 15 miles over the past month, I've read at least 4 or 5 books this year so far, and am hoping to knock another one out today. Currently dying because trying to finish my thesis in like . a week, which is looking a little challenging, but I'm sure it'll happen!!!??

[checanty]

Hi! I studied illustration and graduated this year, now I'm trying to get my foot into the professional illustration and character design world. My work goes more into the spooky and pulp art direction, I'm also quite introverted and have social anxiety and you seem like an introvert too. I just wanted to ask how you deal with interacting (mails, phone calls) with clients and I'll glady take any tip how to find clients in general and to network. I just feel like I don't really know how to start.

Hi there! Yes, I’m an introvert as well. And socially anxious. All that stuff you’re mentioning right there sends a shiver down my spine. So let me tell you about how I deal with it ...

But let me tell you, we are not uncommon in the art community! Back in school I was warned being an artist would be twice as hard because I’m horrible at selling myself (ok my work, but the lines blur nowadays.) and it made me feel terrified of the future. There was safety in knowing I could always work on my craft and get better at it, but I’d never been able to figure out to be that outgoing person I thought I needed to be. (My whole time at school was pretty much people telling me ‘you’re good, but you’re quiet, so you’ll never be good enough. Over. and over. and I never managed to change and it fucked me up good.)But, as I said, lots of illustration folks are introverts and a lot deal with anxiety issues. It’s good if you can find a forum of working pros (facebook groups, etc) that talk openly about problems they face, so you can realize once and for all you’re not the odd one out and a bunch of the people you admire and thought had it all figured out have been hiding and crying in hotel rooms, too, if that one convention that was supposed to be life changing turned out to be too much to handle.Also, praise the internet! There are basically no phone calls to make! Writing e-mails … well, that one gets easier! You end up having to write about similar things a lot of the time and learn some go to phrases (if you are very clever you can write and save some template mails, e.g. for what your quotes are, things people ask you a lot in interviews, etc. to save some time!) and start caring less about every mail to be perfect. It also gets easier to weed out the mails that are worth an afternoon of composing and which are not.When e-mails are especially scary and I have a lot of emotions and feel I need to answer without much delay, I boil my reply down to the essentials. What is the person actually asking? People often write a lot, but really they only ask: Are you interested in this? Are you available?So I just answer something like: Hey XYZ, thank you so much for reaching out! I’d love to be part of the project. Could you please fill me in on the details?I sometimes feel bad basically ignoring 80 % of an e-mail, but often it’s simply not relevant at the time. Just make sure you *do* filter out the important information/questions. (Asking for details when the e-mail is filled with everything you need to know doesn’t make sense. But quite often people try to gauge interest to see if they need to continue looking before they take the time to delve deeper into it.)If people ask you for a quote, feel free to simply ask them for their budget in return. My e-mailing solution is usually keeping it polite and to the point. The simpler the better.I used to not write simple ‘thank you!’ or ‘got it!’ e-mails and write only when I had something I felt was worthy contributing because I didn’t want to disturb the busy people I was working with, but I noticed people did it to me and it’s just nice for them to know the e-mail got through and all. And it really doesn’t disturb most people. So I do it now.Generally, for a lot of e-mailing questions and art business questions in general I can only recommend checking out @dearartdirector where you have a bunch of art directors answering your questions. Make sure to see what they have answered already before asking away! They’ve already covered A LOT. It’s a super valuable resource and I have some of their answers, especially for e-mail communication, saved in my favourites here on Tumblr for reference.Oh and let yourself some slack. There’s a learning curve. Sometimes having WRITTEN that scary e-mail is the most important part. Just get the ball rolling. There’ll be so many mails more … and if you need to do a silly dance after sending a scary email, do it. Nobody’s judging. Unless you have a cat.So, phone calls. They usually don’t happen. If people want to call and it’s for a book cover or something similar tell them no and that you’d rather have all the information in writing. Which is better anyways. For your records and because it’s much harder to misunderstand or forget something typed. Now, I’ve had phone calls happening this year for my tv work. Sometimes it’s quicker to receive feedback and explanations ‘in person’ and people call. They’ll ask up front though and you can set a date/time. Nowadays you can usually opt for Skype, too, which was possible with one team I worked with, which I was very grateful for. Skype is for some reason easier for me than phone calls, probably because I feel more in control having the screen in front of me and being able to see other people’s expressions, gestures.Before the first call I was still incredibly nervous. Chattering teeth nervous. I couldn’t concentrate the whole effing day. But the job paid well enough that I could risk deciding to tackle nothing besides the call that day. (I made other plany for the day, but nothing important and I was fully aware I’d most likely end up not doing it. It was more a gentle … when you feel up to it, draw. But if you need to watch 4 hours of Netflix and then spend an hour writing down your worst fears to get through this that is absolutely FINE.) I know myself by now. Stuff like this will keep me from being functional for the whole day, so I won’t force myself to be it despite it all. Keeping it easy, prepare what I can, most of all deep breathing.The calls got less anxiety inducing with every time and I even started to look forward to them because the team was lovely to work with and I loved the job. (And it felt so professional! Like. Yes, fill me in on the news. I got this covered. Expect sketches in a hour. Expect final on your desk tomorrow.) So know what you can expect of yourself, don’t bring yourself down. You’re good at other stuff. I’m great at working by myself for a long time and it makes me grow fast as an artist. I’m not good at phone calls. One of these things is MUCH more important to find work.Nevertheless, I had to do an actual phone calls with another team. It was horrible. The people were perfectly sweet, but that phone was basically gliding through my sweaty fingers. Make sure to get all the important info in writing even if they’ve explained things to you on the phone. Even if you took notes. even if you’re afraid they’ll think you didn’t listen to them. Or are stupid. Better safe than sorry. I once didn’t catch that other people having a meeting was meant as a deadline for me which ended in one very relaxed evening and one panicked all-nighter to make it in time. So rather than do that write a ‘thanks for the talk, can you confirm this info I noted down, thank you’ e-mail. Especially when you’re like me and a part of your brain just shuts down when on the phone. (On the phone I can forget my name and birthday.)Finding clients … well most clients have found me. I’ve e-mailed some art directors I’d like to work with (find that address, Write ‘Hello, I’m an illustrator, would love to work with you some time, here’s a link to my portfolio. Maybe add 2-3 (low res) jpgs.) and sent out postcards, but I’m not good at doing that regularly and most jobs come from people finding my work on the internet. So submit your work to blogs and magazines (e.g. illustration age), be active on social media. Put your e-mail address somewhere where people can find it easily. I’ve actually had some good job inquiries from people who’ve found my work on Behance. I update that portfolio maybe twice a year, so it doesn’t take as much effort as Facebook or similar sites.Oh this got quite lengthy. There’s a cup of tea getting cold somewhere …Seriously, check out that Dear Art Director blog. It is invaluable info, no matter which part of the industry you want to work in.