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queenlua · 3 years

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hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue. see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP. and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP. so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on. there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc. you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

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ettawritesnstudies · 4 years

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My plan concerning the stolen posts problem

If you don’t know what’s going on in writeblr right now, there’s recently been a bit of a scare concerning original posts showing up on other websites that are not tumblr. At first a lot of people thought that tumblr got hacked, but upon further inspection it looks like these are essentially just bots grabbing every post off a blog and putting it on a sketchy site where anyone can read it without a login. If you want to read more about it, you can check out This Post that kind of started the whole thing and informed everyone of what’s going on.

I’m frustrated by this because reposting is never right and it’s not good to have to worry about hiding your work for the fear that it might be plagiarized, but I’m also not overly concerned about it. I’m staying on tumblr and probably will until they kick me off.

Why?

Firstly, these sites are pretty obviously sketchy and it’s common sense to steer clear of them, so I doubt that they’re going to get very far with this. I’m infinitely grateful to all 324 of you who follow me and interact with my work, but I also know that I’m a tiny part of the entire internet so I’m not too worried about this stealing traffic from my blog in any way.

Secondly, your writing/art is copyrighted the minute you put words/lines on the page. If anyone seriously wanted to steal your work, you could have it taken down, and furthermore, if someone wanted to profit off your work, they’d have to go to all the extra effort of making a site/getting ad revenue/turning it into a book/publishing it/marketing it all for the sake of getting a few royalties. The chances of that happening are slim to none and I’m also skeptical that anyone actually cares about my writing enough to steal it.

That being said, Tumblr is also a dying site. Any authors platform that I build up here is going to have to migrate to a personal authors website and other social media sites at some point if I ever want to publish/market my books. So that being said, I’m planning to branch out into making an author’s website/mailing list more because I just want to start exploring other corners of the internet than anything else. I’ll primarily still be on tumblr but that way I’ll at least have a backup in case the website crashes overnight or something. I haven’t started this yet, but updates are to come.

I also know this is the final push a lot of people need to jump ship and move their writing elsewhere and I don’t want to lose the community of wonderful people I’ve met here in the past year. If you’re moving your writing elsewhere, feel free to drop a link in the notes of this post and I’ll make sure to save it! I know it can be hard to get traction on a new platform after a move, so I want to help if I can, and hopefully this post can become a library where you can find other writers too!

#etta rambles #important update #long post #stolen posts problem #moving off tumblr #staying on tumblr #authors platform #library of websites #writeblr #writeblr community

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sharkflip · 4 years

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Scenes from the CHAZ

I visited Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone this afternoon to show solidarity with occupiers and residents, to see for myself, and to share photos and impressions with y’all. Reminder: myself and Spouse are white cishet thirty-somethings living in North Seattle who believe that Black Lives Matter and agree with the broad set of civic action summarized by “Defund the Police.”

Short version: this is the calmest, quietest event I’ve ever attended on Seattle’s Cap Hill, which is known for big loud music festivals and nightlife and Pride and such.

Six pm on a Thursday night held a decent meandering crowd. We saw lots of street art (different from graffiti; see photos), a couple organizers with megaphones reminding people to keep up the movement, an amplified Black Lives Matter podcast, and generally people hanging out. There was a shrine (for lack of a better word) to some recent victims of police brutality, with “say their names” and their names on signs, candles, and an icon-style painting of Dr. King. I did not take a photo of that out of respect; instead, I read their names and tried to feel their loss.

There were several well-stocked med tends and co-op tents, with lists of what supplies were needed and also Venmo addresses for cash donations. We brought two cases of bottled water and two bulk-sized bottles of sunblock to donate to the cause, but the med tents were already so well-stocked that we just added the bottled water to a pyramid built by similar-minded folks. There was also a handful of sort of alt-vendor tents, most notably (to me) one with two white girls and a screen press with a sign saying “we’ll print ‘black lives matter’ on anything!” and doing just that. They were using black ink and I was wearing a navy-blue top, otherwise I’d have had them print my tank for me. No prices, no mention of money, which was slightly disorienting to since Seattle has so many open-air festivals and markets with a vendor row. One of the co-ops with food and supplies had a “free sticker if you put them in public places” bin in front of it, which I rifled through.

All the “barricades” at the street entrances were construction barriers and concrete barriers placed on the asphalt. One or two of them also had a car parked across the street as well. NONE of them had ANYTHING even resembling a checkpoint. People “staffing” the checkpoints were chatting with each other and passersby. Neither Spouse nor I interacted with anyone at any of the barricaded streets, and none of them had any kind of visible weapon or anything. They were just people who happened to be chilling by a concrete or plastic construction barrier.

The East Precinct Police building was boarded up and surrounded by a chain link fence, which, sidebar, is a very common sight in Seattle, with all the new construction going on these days. There was some graffiti and some messaging on the fence, but most of the activity around it was people like me: taking iphone photos of this “abandoned” police precinct. Incidentally, this was where I decided to leave my grocery bag full of sage cuttings I brought from my garden (because what do you bring to celebrate a neighborhood milestone? I hope some people make smudges from it and some people make sauce from it and some people put a sprig in a vase because the purple flowers are pretty). I stapled two signs to the bag, one reading “we see you, we hear you, #blacklivesmatter” and the other reading “hello from [tiny neighborhood], please enjoy this fresh organic sage from my garden,” and just left it by the fence there by the boarded-up police station. Spouse didn’t get it, and all I can say is that it felt right to bring something I grew, and let people take it to do what they want with it.

The crowd in general was what I typically expect from Cap Hill: mostly twenties to forties, mostly white, lots of potheads, lots of calm dogs on leashes. The covid “sanitary” cloth mask compliance was higher here than in most other public spaces I’ve been in recently, with people trying to maintain that six-foot courtesy/transmission space. Most people “featured” -- those painting street murals, those with megaphones -- were POC who looked like they were of majority African descent. Most people staffing the different booths (med tents, co-op tents) fell into the general category of white, and much of the observing crowd were also white, which again, is about the racial proportions I usually anticipate from Cap Hill and Seattle north of Downtown. Proportionately few rainbow signs/iconography present, other than the rainbow crosswalks that a previous mayor had painted in this weird publicity stunt thing. The feeling I got from it was that the LGBTQIA+ pride crowd was deferring to/supporting the BLM crowd, in force, but I can’t speak for them.

What was surprising to me was how... safe it felt. This part of Cap Hill (the southwest corner, closest to downtown) has a reputation for being a little sketchy sometimes, but today it felt... “welcoming” is the wrong word, and “standing in solidarity” is too profound for what could be called a protest tourism visit on my part. There’s a different post I want to make about “’high crime’ areas actually equal high police response to incidents that would better be handled by a social service team, so is it really a ‘high crime’ neighborhood or is it just a neighborhood that needs more help?” so just stick that in your mind for now. But Spouse actually went to high school about two blocks downhill from the CHAZ, and he too said it felt safer than usual. For reference, Spouse is not a crowd person and is a little paranoid about personal safety, and both he and I were surprised that he was getting that vibe.

In particular, there was one “crazy homeless dude,” who was sort of dancing around shouting nonsense, which is unfortunately common. But rather than feel scared by him -- and those of you who have been following me for long enough may recall when I was literally punched in the face by a “crazy homeless dude” hard enough to shatter my maxilla and result in a second-degree assault charge -- and it was just like “well, this dude is doing his thing, and if he gets violent, we’ll handle it, but right now, he’s doing his thing.”

So, there’s some kind of planned protest/showing/whatever the current term for these things is tomorrow night, which I plan on attending, and I’ll tell you about that, too.

#Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone #Seattle #Politics #CHAZ #sharkflip rants about current events #blacklivesmatter

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residentanchor · 4 years

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So where do u stand on the racist drama with Cat

EDIT: It’s the next day and I’ve read through what happened and realized I did miss a lot and something big did happen. I want to be transparent and it seems kind of sketchy to delete this post even though my feelings have changed on the matter. My follow up post is here. Gonna be honest, I got this ask and had zero idea what you were talking about. I’ve been working so much lately I’ve barely talked to Cat much the past two weeks. (Just checked--I haven’t even messaged her the past week at all) So, I looked and saw everything that apparently went down today and I’m just gonna answer this as short and sweet as I can so I can sleep and not think about it all night. It was just a quick glance so I’m sure I’m missing a LOT but from what I can see, there’s been an apology so I know I probably don’t have to answer this probably.

Also, this is more my conscious stream of thoughts and not something thought out, so I do apologize if it comes off rude or anything. I don’t mean it but I’m tired from work. :) Also, if you expect me to write off Cat and stop being friends with her? Unless I missed something big, not gonna happen. She’s learned her lesson after this I’m sure. And I’ll make sure it stays that way. (Though I’m 1000% sure I don’t have to, but still)

From what I glanced at, it’s about her Despicable Dee story. Honestly, not a big fan of found family aus so I don’t really remember much about the story itself. It’s been a while, but I do remember a little bit. I know a lot of people are angry and I can understand why when reading their points. But that’s just the catalyst for what I need to talk about.

But I will answer your question with this--I don’t really stand anywhere. There are no sides to this. Cat is a dear friend of mine, absolutely. I cherish our friendship. But if she made a mistake, she can be criticized for it. She can be called out and held responsible for it, absolutely. We’re all human, we all make mistakes and we’re all learning to better ourselves. We are all responsible for our own actions. In this instance, POC fanders saw a problem and tried to stop it. Again. (For which I’m sorry you guys have to keep doing this.) It wasn’t until more recently that we could all feel comfortable TALKING about these things white people don’t realize are extremely harmful without fear of backlash. (Which I know that fear is still there for a lot of people)

Now, I’ve only skimmed over things, but I can pretty much fill in the blanks. In an attempt to be inclusive, she made mistakes and made characters in racist/stereotypical situations. The end goal was for a happy ending for these characters, but that doesn’t matter. Good intentions or not, people were hurt by this portrayal. However, Cat’s a teacher. She is open to learning. She cares about this fandom. That’s why she creates free art for it be it in writing or drawing. So all we can do is hope she takes what she’s learned and uses it for the future to better herself. (Which I’m sure this is something she’ll never forget) That said, I saw points were made to her and a discussion was had and she has recognized her wrongdoing and apologized.

The problem is that I don’t feel like I can really add much. I’m also a privileged white person in ways I probably don’t realize. I’ve spent a lot of time sitting back and listening to the POC fanders these last few months and the biggest thing I’ve learned is that if they are speaking up, listen and use your voice to make theirs louder. So, if they say something/someone was being racist or problematic, then all I can do is listen and learn. THAT is the only reason I’m answering this ask.

So, what does this mean for me? Not much, since none of this was about me. (Did you send this ask to any POC fanders I wonder? Their opinion matters 10000x more than mine so...) I know I was probably only asked because Cat and I are friends. And despite this, we still are friends. I know she’ll turn to her POC friends more for things in the future to make sure she’s taking the right steps to prevent this from happening again. I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear. If you don’t like someone, block them and move on. I don’t think I have much else to add to this. I don’t really know why I was asked this in the first place, I don’t know what you wanted to hear from me. Hate will get us nowhere. So being kind and helping people recognize their mistakes and help them improve seems like the best option in this situation. And yes, I know I’m saying ‘mistakes’ but I don’t take this lightly. Trust me on that.

I love Cat and I love you guys for being strong enough to stand up for yourselves. If someone (myself included) does something harmful like this, please try reaching out (preferably in private first) and trying to explain what they’re doing is wrong and why. Help others understand and improve. Shouting it into someone’s ask box with no explanation or context is just going to make them go defensive and start drama. You don’t want them to have to feel like they need to defend themselves, you want them to sit back and listen and learn. (this is not me defending anything) Because we all do need to learn from POC still as we move forward. We have hundreds of years of ingrained racism and prejudice and privilege that we need to sort through and fix and it won’t happen over a few years.

IDK I’m half asleep at this point. I made my case, I explained how I feel (which is bad, everyone both wins and loses in these situations) but all we can do is hope for better in the future. I’m sorry this is how some of you spent your day and if anyone wants to talk or has any words to say, my ask box is open. I’ll happily listen. (My discord is also open if you want to have a longer/more private conversation) Thank you to those who spoke out about this and reminded us to check our privilege and that we should be listening to POC when they say things.

tldr; It was racist and she has apologized with promise to improve. IDK what you want me to say about all this other than ‘it sucks, I’m sorry it happened, I hope we can learn from this and better ourselves’.

#tw drama #tw racism #tw discourse #tw negativity #long post #I'll listen to what people tell her and check myself as well while I'm at it #let me know if there is anything about this you want me to reblog #otherwise I'm leaving it at my last post #yes I edited my tags from last night #Had to take my foot out of my mouth

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peace-coast-island · 3 years

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Diary of a Junebug

Rock and roll the night away!

What better way to escape than getting lost in music? Headphones on, thoughts off - nothing like some good bops to help get you through the day.

KK Slider's been looking into expanding his musical repertoire so he's been playing around with different genres in hopes of creating a brand new sound. And that's how rock and roll night came to be!

Joining us on this musical adventure are Sonja, with her siblings Robbie and Tiffy, and cousin Bubba. It's been ages since Daisy Jane and I have last hung out with Sonja so it's nice that she and her fam dropped by for a visit. I've hung out with Robbie and Bubba a handful of times while this is the first time I've met Tiffy.

Sonja's been meaning to stop by the camp for a while but life has gotten busy. She also wanted her dad and stepmom to come along too but then something came up so they were unable to make it at the last minute. Same thing for her grandma, though to be honest, camping isn't really her thing so it's probably for the best that she didn't come.

Old Thelma Lou may come across as a cantankerous old lady but she really is a nice person once you get to know her. Underneath that rough exterior is a protective, dedicated, and tough mother figure who wants what's best for you, even if she kinda has a hard time showing how much she cares about you. We video chatted with her before the concert and she's still the same old Thelma Lou, keeping an eye on her children, grandchildren, and their friends in her own unconventional ways.

We also chatted with Buzz and Skeeter, both who are doing well. The reason why they weren't able to join us at the camp is because Skeeter's pregnant again. She and Buzz were going to have a boy last fall but there were complications and the baby was stillborn. So far things are moving along smoothly, but to be safe, Skeeter's on strict bed rest. In about four months, Sonja, Robbie, and Tiffy will have a little sister!

Sonja has been busy working on her graphic novel, which she plans to release in the fall. She's a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, known for posting relatable and funny comics online. I love her art - it's got a sketchy and loose style that's sorta minimal yet super expressive. When I got into digital art, I took some inspiration from Sonja's work by using pencil brushes for line art and the gouache brush for coloring.

After working in the studio for hours on the book over the past several weeks, Sonja felt she could use a change of scenery - which was the main reason why she wanted to come to the camp. She also wants to get back into using traditional mediums like painting so she brought along some canvases and paints. The great outdoors is perfect for finding inspiration when you're in a rut!

Robbie runs a fix-it shop in Elmstown with two of his friends. His specialties are clocks and anything that has a lock thanks to his grandma and dad - Thelma Lou likes collecting clocks and Buzz's a locksmith. He's the reason why the family saves so much on repairs - Robbie and his friends can pretty much fix anything! Elmstown is pretty far but I'm keeping his business card in case I need something fixed like my computer since that'll be more cost effective than sending it to the store where I'll probably get overcharged.

It's a good thing we have Robbie here to help KK Slider with the equipment. He had some old amps and guitars that he'd been meaning to get fixed but since they were custom made, it's hard to find parts that need replacement. Thankfully, Robbie never leaves home without his toolbox and with his magic, we were able to improve the stage setup.

Bubba's still living with Thelma Lou, though he's in the process of moving out to his own place. He's not leaving Rayetown though, just moving to the other side of town so he can be closer to the post office. Along with delivering packages for the citizens of Rayetown, Bubba's also a drummer and occasional lead singer for The Cogwheels, a local band that regularly performs at the Chili Bowl.

Thelma Lou and Bubba have a sweet relationship. He's the oldest of the Harp grandchildren through Thelma Lou's daughter. His parents pretty dumped him on Thelma Lou's doorstep when they moved halfway across the country, which wasn't very nice of them. His mom and grandma have a stormy relationship so that explains why Thelma Lou's kinda overprotective of him, and in return he respects her a lot. Recently though, Bubba and his mom have been keeping in touch sporadically - thanks to Uncle Buzz and Aunt Skeeter. As for his dad though, since he walked out on his mom, he hasn't heard from him in years, which he feels is probably for the best.

And there's Tiffy, the youngest (so far) of the grandchildren. She's seven and a half years old and likes to sing and dance. This is her first time being away from home for a couple days so she's pretty excited about it. Plus, she gets to spend time with her siblings, something she always looks forward to since they live far from home. By the time she was born, Sonja and Robbie had already long moved out of Rayetown. Up until Tiffy came along, Sonja and Robbie rarely visited home, a deliberate choice that they both kinda regretted but at the same time felt it was necessary.

Tiffy's looking forward to the new baby - and she's absolutely certain that things will work out this time. She was really bummed about what happened with her brother, especially since she always wanted a little sibling. Buzz and Skeeter had been trying for years to have another kid - they didn't have Tiffy until about six years into their marriage - and that was after being told many times that they missed the boat. It's a good thing they didn't give up or else Tiffy wouldn't be here today!

While helping KK Slider set up for the concert, we also went sightseeing outside the camp. Now that the weather's warming up and the sun's staying out longer, we can venture further out. The first place we went was the mountains, where Sonja was inspired to pull out her canvases and paints. She's been working on landscapes and backgrounds so it was the perfect opportunity. Since she had a lot of fun doing that, I figured we could do the same in other places outside the camp like the woods or the meadows.

As they were testing out the equipment, KK and Bubba were jamming out while Tiffy danced. She definitely inherited Buzz and Skeeter's dance skills! Tap dancing and ballet are her favorites and she definitely wants to branch out to other forms of dance. Her parents are looking into more dance classes for Tiffy, which she's excited for. One of the reasons why she's looking forward to having another sibling is so she can have a dance partner in the future. Imagine, Tiffy and her little sister, dancing together!

Later, Robbie joined in on the jam session, playing the bass. Apollo, Static, and Cherry joined in as well, and before we knew it, all of them were writing new songs that eventually became the setlist for the concert! Sonja later got into the jam session after Daisy Jane showed her around the cabin and her studio. I sense a collaboration between the two in the near future...

Around 5 we finished setting up for the concert and began preparing for a barbecue dinner. By the time all the food was set up, it was time to rock and roll! I have to say, KK and the campers really outdid themselves with the stage setup. It was a mix of performances by KK Slider and jam sessions by us. The concert was an awesome experience!

In the span of one hour, Bubba and KK wrote Road Ode. KK came up with the intricate melody that's a perfect fusion of his signature sound along with elements of classic rock. Bubba came up with the lyrics, taking inspiration from his relationships with his mother and grandma. Easily one of the highlights of the night.

Apollo sang lead on a number he co-authored with KK Slider titled Old Man Blues. It's a bluesy rock and roll tune with a catchy guitar riff that's stuck in my head as I write this. The light show visuals really add to the vibe of this song, elevating it to another level.

Static and Cherry performed Heavy Metal Ballad as a trio with KK Slider - another song that was just finished today. The song was actually three different compositions that merged into one. Cherry has been playing around with a cool heavy metal beat for a while. She had a good thing going on but had trouble turning it into something, so she put it aside in hopes of finding the right spark to kick it off. Static came up with lyrics for the chorus, originally through a little ditty he called Lightning Muses. And like Cherry, he had something but couldn't figure out what direction he wanted to take it. Then along comes KK Slider, who saw the potential in these two wildly different compositions. Somehow, with his verses and additional melodies, he created an instant hit!

In an unexpected surprise, KK Slider got Daisy Jane and I on to perform a new KK original as well as a couple songs from Lilac and the Cadillacs. The new song, Sky Blue Twilight, is a collaboration between me, Daisy Jane, and KK Slider. It was something we came up with a while back, and I had almost forgotten about it until today. I'm pretty rusty from songwriting but working on this piece was pretty fun! I really should get back into writing music...

Sonja, Robbie, and Tiffy also joined Bubba on stage for another new song, titled All That Rock 'n' Roll. Tiffy sang lead vocals with Sonja on the keys and Robbie on bass. Along with being a fantastic dancer, Tiffy's a great singer! I filmed the whole thing for Bubba so he can send it to Thelma Lou, Buzz, and Skeeter. I have to say, KK Slider and Bubba make a great songwriting team!

Another fun song is Violet Blaze, an upbeat rock and roll tune by KK Slider, Candi, Kabuki, and Spike. KK Slider really outdid himself on that guitar solo! With riffs like that, there's no other song fitting to be titled Violet Blaze. What one can't put into words, music expresses it - one just has to listen and feel.

And of course, in between the new songs were KK Slider classics, but remixed. It's amazing how changing up the genre can give well known songs a fresh makeover! That's what I love about KK Slider's music - the versatility. In terms of reinventing his sound while staying true to himself, I'd say KK Slider succeeded with flying colors!

Aside from Tiffy and the early risers, the rest of us have been rocking and rolling way past midnight. I'm still a bit buzzed from the concert, which just ended less than an hour ago, so I'm gonna unwind for a bit before going to bed.

#animal crossing #animal crossing pocket camp #Diary of a Junebug #headcanon ramble

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hansketchbook · 4 years

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5 INSTAGRAM ARTISTS SHOWCASE (OCTOBER 2020)

Hello beautiful and fabulous people! so I decided to do a list of Instagram artists that I‘m a fan of. Now, one thing I want to note is that this list is not exactly a ‘top 5’ list or anything, in other words, it is not in any particular order, so the artist that is on the very top of the list doesn’t necessarily mean that he/she is my most favourite or anything like that. Basically, I love these guys’ work, I don’t like picking favourites mostly cause it’s a headache to have to pick one or two favourites when all of them are awesome in their own way (or maybe I’m just lazy and tired to figure them out heheh). Alright! Let’s begin!

1. Patrick Brown (@patrickbrownart)

Alright! First on the list is Patrick Brown. Now, he’s not necessarily an Instagram artist (not initially anyway) He has an Instagram account now which is nice, but I actually found out about him on Youtube where he actually did this tutorial thing many, many years back. He was actually in the back of my mind for quite some time, until I rediscovered his work on Instagram recently.

His work is AWESOME! And surely to a lot of other cartoonists or illustrators out there as well, especially if you’re into character/comic book illustrations. Now, I know it’s subjective, like all things, but I do believe his work is awesome for one, the way he poses the characters are really fluid and dynamic, which I love. Second, his digital coloring and environment illustrations are also amazing! I mean, if you take out the coloring, and just keep the line art, it’s not going to pop off as much (to me at least), so it’s the way he digitally colors(shading and lighting) his characters and environments that boosts the quality of his work significantly. I specifically ADORE his splash pages/illustrations where there’s like tons of characters in one scene.

2. Roosh (@koteri.ink)

Next on the list! Koteri.ink. I found his work on Instagram, I think probably over a year ago? And I have loved his work ever since. There’s something about his art style that I'm diggin’ so much. I especially love it when he draws humanoid animals (?) not sure if that’s the right way to describe it.

He has this successful Kickstarter comic (Kings of Nowhere) he’s doing and still producing new chapters at the moment. I haven’t read it but from what I’ve seen so far, and from the comic’s synopsis, it’s a pretty interesting concept! Really love the way he designed animals, and his anatomy game is freakin’ strong! Check out his work!

3. Clayton Henry (@claytonhenryart)

Third on the list! Clayton Henry. He’s an illustrator/comic book artist, at the moment he mostly does commission work for DC. If you check out his Instagram, his feed is filled with DC superhero illustrations like Batman, Superman, the Flash, etc. So, it may not be your cup of tea but he does post other works as well occasionally.

What I really love about his work is his art style and line work- especially his line work. Honestly, my own inking or linework is heavily inspired by this guy. Or at least, AT THE MOMENT (that’s why I don’t like picking favourites, cause it’s changing all the time xD). But I also love the way he traditionally colors his stuff using colored pencils. Something about it is just freakin’ great. I wish I could color my work traditionally like that. Maybe I can, I just need to start…maybe tomorrow.

4. Ashley Wood (@ashleywoodart)

Next up, Ashley Wood. His work is… it’s hard for me to describe it. It’s really paintery, consisting of brushes or strokes, it seems very conceptual sometimes - like they are unfinished but still looks f*cking amazing!

Besides oil painting, he also does sketches in the form of inks. I mean, it LOOKS like sketches, but they are not really? Again, it looks unfinished but I would still put it up on the wall, y’know. I actually found out about Ashley Wood from the work that he did on one of my favourite video game series - Metal Gear Solid. He did the graphic novel for MGS and his work was also showcased as an in-game comic-ish animation for the Playstation Portable’s MGS game called Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops (not the best MGS game, but pretty good for a handheld). I was really digging the whole conceptual or ‘sketchy’ art style that I looked him up online - and ever since then I’ve been a fan of his work. Seriously, check out his work! They are amazing.

5. Seung Eun Kim (@kse332)

Finally, Seung Eun Kim. Man, going through this list just makes me feel bad about myself cause I have to look up their stuff and I keep thinking’ I probably won’t be this good. If this list is actually in order of the top being my ‘favourite’, Seung Eun Kim will be among the very TOP of this list. Just check out his work, this guy is among the greats when it comes to working in the visual development or concept artist industry.

He works on animation, he was a former principal artist at Riot games (yes, THE riot games), he worked with Sony Pictures - if you look at his stuff, you can see him working on storyboards and stills of scenes from films. He can do realism as well as cartoon-ish art style but he mostly does realistic style than cartoons. He probably only does cartoon-style when he needs to (like if he’s part of a project that requires him to make them). If you want to get a taste of his work, just hop onto his Instagram page, it has everything from character illustrations, portraits, storyboarding, visual development/concept arts and more! I just… I can’t… I really love his work!

And that’s it for this October Instagram artist showcase list!

These are just among MANY other AMAZING artists on Instagram. There are a lot of amazing artists out there, I’m glad the internet exists so I could look them up and get inspired by them… or feel like shit cause they’re too good. But hey, you’re terrible until you’re not, so.

Thanks for stopping by!

#ubdax3305

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songbird-musing · 5 years

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Virtuoso: Chapter One - Exposition

Enjolras is Saint-Michel Academy's brightest young composer. He runs the orchestra, the Musician's Rights board, chairs the scholarship program, teaches free classical music to children, and is in the middle of his dissertation. He has never been anything less than a prodigy, until his teacher forces him to write a pop song.

Enter the effortlessly cool Grantaire, with his smudged eyeliner and lovely guitar-playing fingers. He really digs Enjolras' "vibe," whatever that means.

Exposition

“Got a light?”

Enjolras blinked, staring at his own hands. He had three flutes in his left, two violins in his right, and a cello strapped precariously to his back.

“Um,” he answered, arching an eyebrow, “I don’t smoke.”

The stranger half-smiled, rolling his unlit cigarette between long fingers. Good fingers to play piano with, Enjolras noted.

Enjolras half-smiled back, pressing his lips together, hoisting his cello strap, he glanced up to the heights of the campus building.

“Hang on... you’re that third year that conducted that concert last Friday, right?”

He faltered, and re-examined the boy in front of him. A sketchy mess of ink-black curls and inked arms. He was a dark smudge against the dazzling marble school. Enjolras had been to a lot of classical concerts, and people that looked like the stranger in front of him did not tend to frequent them. With the shadowy smear of eyeliner around wild eyes, and a glint of metal pierced through his nose, the boy looked like he belonged at the underground concert of a band no one had heard of. Enjolras smiled.

“That’s right. I’m Enjolras.”

“I really dig your...” the boy made a vague swishing motion with his hands, “vibe.”

Enjolras didn’t know how to react.

What was his vibe?

“I’m Grantaire. Second year.”

Enjolras’ gaze traced the trajectory of a gemstone looped around Grantaire’s neck and the stark, sharp lines of tattoo ink, which bled into the collar of his shirt.

“Well, thank you very much, Grantaire.” Enjolras looked unhurriedly into the eyes across from him, a little taken aback by their returned steadfastness. He smiled widely. “I appreciate the stroke to the ego.”

Grantaire grinned and kicked one ankle over the other. “See you around,” he said, oozing with easy grace. His vibe was pretty enviable, to Enjolras’ tightly wound, deeply engrained stiffened etiquette.

Enjolras smiled his rehearsed showman’s smile and strode into Paris’ finest institution of the arts: Saint-Michel Academy.

~*~

“Courf,” Enjolras called, not allowing the figure sneaking up the edge of the grand staircase to escape.

The boy turned deliberately slowly, resting an arm on the banister. “Enjolras!” he beamed, “My dearest, dearest friend.”

“Your dearest, dearest luggage rack,” Enjolras said, blue eyes narrowing. “I bought your flute and your violin.”

“And my trombone?” Courfeyrac asked hopefully. Enjolras fixed him with a dead stare. “See, if you were my dearest, dearest luggage rack you would have bought my trombone. Combeferre is much better trained than you.”

“I’ll bring you a set of spare clothes, next time, as well, because you’re still wearing yesterday’s.” Enjolras retorted, offloading two instruments into his friend’s hands.

Courfeyrac didn’t look bashful in the slightest. Enjolras didn’t expect him to. He winked scandalously, the action seductive and over-dramatic. “Did you miss me last night?”

“Do you even still live with us?” Enjolras laughed, “Combeferre’s getting moody because you keep missing movie night.”

“I’m not going to be twenty-one forever; gotta get the most use out of this flesh prison as I can.”

Enjolras grimaced. “Please never recount your sexual exploits as getting use out of your flesh prison again.”

“Enjolras, my man,” Courf grinned, “That is how I will exclusively refer to it now. Laters!”

“You’re in my lecture now.”

“Uh... Tell Johnny-boy I’m tuning up. Gotta have a quick smoke,” he mimed taking a drag of a cigarette and bounced down a couple of stairs.

“Are you high?” Enjolras asked mildly, looking past Courfeyrac’s morning-after scruffiness to his blown pupils.

“A teeny, tiny bit,” he laughed, holding two fingers together, “Last night hasn’t quite worn off, but, hey, don’t tell Johnny-boy that.”

“Every time you call him that I die a little inside,” Enjolras said drily.

“Love you!” Courfeyrac dashed away, leaving Enjolras to go into Jean Valjean’s theory lecture alone.

~*~

“Ah, Enjolras, good morning!” the professor said, glancing up from his laptop. “I said it at the time, but well done again for Friday. The faculty couldn’t have chosen anyone better for the role.”

Jean Valjean wasn’t a man quick to praise, but he had always liked Enjolras. Secretly, all the professors hoped for Enjolras on their register, longing for his ambition and determinedness and his almost prodigal writing.

“Thanks sir,” he said, making his way to his unassigned seat in the front row. He couldn’t help but blister with pride.

A few minutes passed. Valjean looked around at the half dozen students and sighed through his nose. “Where is the rest of the class on this delightful Monday morning?”

“Still in bed?” offered a voice.

“Still in bed when they could be learning about the delights of atonal counterpoint?” Valjean tutted, turning on the projector.

“Courf is tuning up,” Enjolras said.

“Well text him to hurry, if he’s not in the room in two and a half minutes I’m locking the doors,” Valjean said.

Courfeyrac had been on the wrong side of a locked door a few too many times.

Enjolras hastily texted his roommate.

After a couple of hours of relentless note taking, the class broke apart, each student working on their own personal projects, buried in manuscript paper and notation software.

“Oh, Enjolras,” said Valjean after listening to the orchestral piece he had composed through the night.

“What?” Enjolras panicked, noticing the slight quirk to his professor’s eyebrows. He looked at the score and saw nothing out of place, “What’s wrong?”

The professor took too long to respond.

“It’s perfectly fine,” Valjean said.

Enjolras frowned, the usual marble finesse of his forehead tarnished with worry. “What’s wrong with it?” he repeated, fingers clawing into his palms.

“No, Enjolras, it’s fine. It’s lovely. It’s as proficient and melodically satisfying as your works always are. You have your unwavering grasp of harmony and you’ve handled all the instruments with your usual precision.”

“But...?”

“But...” Valjean echoed, “You’ve shown this kind of work consistently recently...”

“I know. I’ve been trying to focus on a post-Classical, pre-Romantic period to truly master it. I could compose in a more Bach-style arrangement if you want,” he said, words tripping over themselves in their haste to be known. Enjolras had never really had much criticism in any field; a slither of it sent him reeling.

“I’d actually be more interested to hear more modern influences.”

“I could use some 20th Century techniques, yes,” Enjolras nodded seriously.

“No, no... I want to see you write a pop-song,” Valjean suddenly smiled widely. “Yes, that’s what you need to do. I want a pop song.”

Enjolras’ toes curled.

“And true commercial pop,” Valjean’s eyes were alight, and Enjolras knew he would not be dissuaded. “None of the jazz pop I know you’re already planning to write.”

Enjolras gulped, the litter of extended chords that had crept into his mind, dispelled.

“Don’t look so terrified,” Valjean said with a laugh.

“But that’s going to be so horribly boring!”

“It doesn’t have to be boring; I just want you out of your comfort zone.” Valjean kindly tapped the top of Enjolras’ laptop. “Brilliant work, as always, but let’s see something different next week, alright?”

“Alright, sir,” Enjolras said, holding back a groan.

Approximately two seconds later, he received a Facebook message from Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac always commanded words so succinctly, and had sent a gif of someone laughing hysterically. Enjolras turned to scowl at his friend, who was sniggering over his scrawled sheet of manuscript paper.

Throughout the next hour, he composed an extremely angry 20th Century piece, full to the brim of staccato, discords and intense crescendo. He tried not to be elitist, but...pop music! The hazy glow of Valjean’s compliments had quickly worn off.

The next class held no respite.

“Typical Johnny-boy!” cawed Combeferre upon hearing the news, his glasses knocked from the bridge of his nose.

“Ugh,” Enjolras said, “Don’t call him that.”

Jehan was an explosion of colour in the room: vividly patterned cloth trousers, a clashing equally ornate shirt, a jumble of too much jewellery, and slowly dying fresh flowers in their dreadlocks. “Are you going to write the lyrics?” they asked, voice lovely and mellow with the notes of laughter still ringing there.

Enjolras died a little more inside. “I’ve only written lyrics in Italian before... And besides! Lyrics are an easy way out. A good composer should be able to convey every story without explaining it needlessly with words.”

“You’re gonna need to write lyrics, mate.” Combeferre snorted, “Oh god, I didn’t realise how much I needed this news today. My skin has cleared, my student debts have been paid off.”

“Just wondering... do either of you know of anyone interested in joining the orchestra?” Enjolras asked, scowling. “I have two new positions to fill. Two ex-members just got expelled for being terrible friends.”

Jehan tried to look sympathetic, rolling a bead across their palm. “Oh!” they exclaimed, “Have you met Grantaire?”

“No,” said Enjolras, bottom lip exaggeratedly pouted. An image of the smoker on the steps of the university wafted into his consciousness. “Wait... does he have black hair... and like...” Enjolras gestured to his face, “A crooked nose?”

“Oh man,” Jehan beamed with a nod, “He is such a cool guy. What a character! He has this energy that is just so eclectic –”

“And?” Enjolras interrupted, sharing a glance with Combeferre, who snorted. Jehan’s ramblings on energies had been timed to last hours.

“He has this really awesome vibe going on, like, he’s been writing this indie-pop stuff built on classical conventions. It’s actually amazing... I could try and hook you up... he’s like the only one I know here who writes pop...” Jehan pondered, eyes drifting away from the conversation, “Oh Enj, are you coming to that gig tonight?”

“What gig?” Enjolras unloaded his notepad from his bag and scribbled ‘music historical context’ across the top of the sheet.

“Enjolras only goes to concerts not gigs, darling,” Combeferre said in an over-dramatically refined voice.

“You totally should come. It’s this student band I’m totally into at the moment. It’s like this psychedelic, contemplative, indie, punky folk music.” Prouvaire said, “R will be there, he’s roommates with the singer. They’re both really chill. You can discuss the pop thing with him. It’s at the Musain.”

“Oh, the Musain is cool,” Enjolras said tiredly. “That’s a good venue.”

“Yeah, well, they’re really good. Just get there for about eightish.” They smiled, long eyelashes curling across their cheeks, in a lazy sort of bliss that only Jehan could achieve. “I’d offer to help with lyrics but I’ve challenged myself to only write in abstract Latin for a month, so...”

The fact that this news didn’t faze Combeferre or Enjolras in the slightest summed up Jehan Prouvaire perfectly.

~*~

“Enjolras!” Jehan cheered, looking even more luxuriated than usual. “You made it!”

The Musain was a good venue, but Enjolras hadn’t seen it much in the dark. He had usually spent afternoons there, drowning in sheet music and coffee.

“Jehan Prouvaire!” Courfeyrac whooped, embracing Jehan, in his usual, all-encompassing style.

“Are you alright after last night?” Jehan questioned, glint in their eye, “You looked absolutely out of it.”

“Yeah, I was.” Courfeyrac laughed wildly, “I’m being well-behaved tonight, though...” he paused for, what Enjolras knew to be, a well-practised dramatic effect, “No Class A’s, at least.”

Jehan turned their gaze to Enjolras and crushed an arm around his tall frame. “R is hanging out with Éponine at the front, I’ll introduce you later.” Enjolras couldn’t see Grantaire amidst the mass of swaying heads. “The band playing now is called Chakrafied and they’re really deep,” Jehan said, letting their shoulders drift in time to the spacey sound.“ Don’t look so horrified, Enjolras, I’ve lured you over to the hippie side. Listen to Chakrafied and enjoy it!”

And Enjolras actually, kind of, did.

~*~

The second band was made up of five members: four imposing gentlemen and an even scarier looking girl with eyeliner smeared across her face.

“I’m Éponine and we’re Patron-Minette,” she purred into the microphone, basking in the onstage lights, “We’re the scoundrels and ruffians of the Musain tonight.” Her smile was vicious. She nodded to her drummer, who sped into a series of counter rhythms that Enjolras was entirely not expecting.

Their music was wild and aggressive but threaded with a lull of tender despair at the world’s injustice. It was surprisingly melodic and Enjolras, who was a master of piano, still found himself drawn to the keyboardists techniques, which were messily executed by tattooed fingers adorned with a clatter of rings, but with a bit of refinement, could fit into a Saint-Michel’s classroom with ease.

Courfeyrac was already in a bit of a state, giggly and flushed, dancing erratically. “Dance with me, Enjolras!” he said and Enjolras obliged. “Drink with me!”

And once more Enjolras obliged.

When Enjolras drank, which was a very rare occasion, the usual tight coil of his body unwound into a loose end; he blushed a lot and for once stopped mentally composing symphonies.

Prouvaire reappeared when the music finished, looping long arms around Enjolras and Courfeyrac’s necks, “My boys!” they said over the hubbub, “Wanna hang in the dressing room? That’s where the real party is!”

The four walls of the dressing room were packed with limbs, the sound of loud celebrations and smoke.

“Hey, dude, quit it,” snapped a voice, “You’re going to get us thrown out.” The keys player stubbed out the drummers cigarette with his thumb. The drummer rolled his eyes and exhaled his breath of smoke into the other man’s face.

“Chill out, ‘Parnasse,” the drummer laughed, his voice far more velvety than expected. “I’m the bodyguard’s dealer, he won’t say anything.”

“Just smoke outside the fire exit door,” ‘Parnasse commanded, kicking the door open with a boot, allowing a rush of cold air into the room.

“Yeah, get out, G,” Éponine said mildly, fixing her tangle of hair in the mirror.

“Éponine!” Prouvaire said loudly, almost knocking the singer off her feet with a hug.

“Prouvaire, my dear! I didn’t know you were here!”

“Of course I was. I wouldn’t miss you guys for the world!”

Éponine preened at Jehan’s response and threw her head back in laughter. “You sweetheart,” she said, “What’s your next gig?”

“I have a poetry slam next week but the poems are read syllabically to the sound of Bach. It’s this new project I’m working on at the moment.”

“Sounds weird,” Éponine said, “I’d love to come!”

“These are my friends Courfeyrac and Enjolras,” Jehan introduced, smiling fondly at the gangly pair, “From Saint-Michel’s... this is Éponine, Montparnasse, Babet, the bassist... The weirdo in the mask is Claquesous and Gueulemer just got kicked out.”

Éponine hugged them both, much smaller in person than she had appeared onstage. Montparnasse gave a flutter of his ringed fingers. Enjolras was usually aware how much taller he was than a room full of people, but even Montparnasse towered above him. Built like a ballerina, the keyboardist was slender and wraith-like, expression not unfriendly, but not particularly inviting either: as though rearranging his face into a smile would take too much effort.

Babet was also tall and unhealthily pale. “Nice to meet you, but I have places to be,” he said mysteriously, translucent eyes flicking quickly across the room. “Text me the next rehearsal dates, Ép. See you.”

Claquesous, or ‘the weirdo in the mask’, didn’t say anything, but huddled over his guitar, fingers dancing over the fret boards effortlessly.

“Are you alright, darling?” Éponine asked Enjolras a while later when they were all lounging on the few sofas, the sounds of other bands dancing through the walls. Her brash accent was so unlike the silken tones of her singing voice.

“Huh?” Enjolras replied, blushing, because he was a little bit drunk.

“This isn’t usually Enj’s scene,” Jehan interjected, “He doesn’t usually enter an establishment unless it has a guaranteed string quartet, at the very least.”

Éponine laughed, and ruffled Enjolras’ hair, which was a very bold move. Enjolras’ hair had never been ruffled before. “Bless your Saint-Michel heart. What do you play? Wait – let me guess...Harp?”

“Yes, actually,” said Enjolras.

“Oh, I bet you get minted doing corporate gigs... How many weddings want a pretty boy harpist? What a genius career move...” Éponine mused aloud.

“He doesn’t just play harp,” Courfeyrac added, “I haven’t found an instrument that Enjolras can’t play...” Courf snorted into his drink, eyes lost in memory. “Actually, you’re terrible at standard pop drumming, like horrifically bad,” he said, resting his head on Enjolras’ shoulder. “Sorry,” he added.

Jehan suddenly sat upright, looking around the room comically. “Where’s R?” they asked.

“Uh,” Éponine smirked and looked at Montparnasse, “Was that girl coming tonight?”

“No,” said Montparnasse fixing an eyebrow. “But I saw him talking to a different blonde girl by the side of the stage.”

“Oh,” said Éponine, looking to Jehan, “He’ll be busy, then.”

“The boy has more game than me and he isn’t even in a band,” Gueulemer complained, “That was the only reason I learned guitar.”

“Grantaire’s uglier than you, by far, and he still has more game than you,” Montparnasse said with an amused sneer.

“I should give being bisexual a try,” Guelulemer laughed.

“Not funny,” Éponine flicked her drummer’s upper arm. “Also, don’t be awful ‘Parnasse. You pride yourself on being the hottest in the band and you still don’t get laid as much as R.”

Montparnasse scowled and gestured rudely at his band mate.

~*~

When Grantaire arrived into the dressing room a while later, he appeared smudged, ruffled, and incredibly smug: the image of an utter rock star. Enjolras had to remind himself that Grantaire went to Saint-Michel’s, which made him, in at least some degree, an enormous classical music nerd.

He received a chorus of catcalls and cheers as he walked through and merely shot a wink before collapsing beside Éponine.

“You rocked it, as always,” he said, bumping shoulders with her. “Oh!” he looked at Enjolras and beamed, “Composer boy! I didn’t picture you as an avid Patron-Minette fan!”

“It’s Enjolras,” Enjolras said, ears tinged pink.

“We’re gonna get kicked out soon,” Éponine interrupted, “It’s nearly curfew. After party at ours?”

“I have class tomorrow,” Grantaire sighed.

“Go to bed then,” Éponine said, sounding bored, as she collected some leads and equipment. “Come on squad, we should get going.”

~*~

When they were outside, huddling under the lip of the building to shelter from rain, Courfeyrac passed his lighter around, minute flickers of deep orange lighting up the night.

“Are you coming to the after party?” Courf asked Enjolras, curled around his cigarette as if it would warm him up.

“I have 9am class,” Enjolras said, though he probably wouldn’t have gone anyway.

“That is such a Combeferre thing to say,” Jehan piped up, “You’ve been hanging out too much.”

“We are roommates,” Enjolras laughed, increasingly awkward without a matching cigarette in hand. “Anyway, he’s probably getting worried; I don’t usually stay out past midnight.”

“Oh, god!” Courfeyrac suddenly exclaimed, “I think he said he had something really important to discuss with you about Bach and maths or something.”

“Yeah that sounds like ‘Ferre,” Enjolras smiled, “I should head off. Nice show, everyone. See you around.”

Éponine pulled him into a hug because she was closest, and the boy sculpted from marble and gold weaved his way into the night, leaving the bubble of chatter far behind him.

A/N:

Hey yall this is a fic from my ao3 account, it’s a long one! If you want to see enjolras and grantaire bond over classical music then this is the fic for you! probs one of my favourite things I’ve ever written, so hope you enjoy! let me know what ya think! I’m songbird-musing on ao3 too so give me a shout!

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fliipclaw · 5 years

Text

Longer Commissions Update

Hi everyone! So I’ve been reblogging my commissions post a lot recently, and that’s because I need £600 by September. For those that don’t know, I’m a university student going into my second year, and my student loan won’t cover my accommodation cost. The first payment is due in September, and I’m £660 short. While my family will be able to chip in, £600 is a lot, and it’s only the first of three payments, the others of which I’ll be similarly short on. I won’t be able to work this summer, and while I can try and get a job when I’m back in town for uni, it’s not guaranteed, and I wouldn’t be able to earn enough to cover the first payment before it’s due.

So! Commissions are, at this point in time, the only way I can earn any money to put towards that payment. I’m expanding my offers a little so that, alongside art commissions, I’m also offering writing and editing. Details can be found under the cut; everyone interested, please email me at [email protected] in order to discuss it.

Even if you can’t commission me, I’d really appreciate it if you could circulate either this post or my other commissions post!

ART COMMISSIONS

All art comes with full colour and shading and sketchy lineart.

level 1 | £20-30 (Approx. US$26-39)

These are simple, full-body single character portraits with either a plain or transparent background.

level 2 | £22-35 (Approx. $28-44)

These are simple, full or partial-body character art with a simple background. (Note: the price on the image is an error)

level 3 | £30-40 (Approx. US$39-58)

These are simple, full or partial-body character art featuring two characters and a simple background.

level 4 | £40+ (Approx. US$52+)

These are anything more complex than listed in the above three tiers; pieces featuring multiple characters or complex backgrounds.

As well as these four levels, you can also contact me to discuss a cheaper piece! If you only want a headshot or half-body character portrait, for example, or something along those lines, I’m absolutely willing to negotiate a price with you.

WRITING COMMISSIONS

For writing commissions, I’m willing to work on both fanfiction and original fiction; however, I won’t write for fandoms I’m unfamiliar with, so you’re best off running a search of my blog to see if I’m at all familiar with what you’re requesting first (though, if you don’t see what you’re looking for, it’s worth shooting an email or even an ask/dm just to check). You can find some of my writing on my AO3, though it’s a little out of date. If you want some more recent examples of my writing, feel free to send a message, and I’ll happily provide you with samples.

short one-shot | £10-15 (Approx. US$13-19)

A short one-shot will be anywhere between 500-1000 words.

medium one-shot | £15-25 (Approx. US$19-32)

A one-shot from 1500-4000 words.

long one-shot | £25-40 (Approx. US$32-51)

A one-shot between 5000-10000 words.

multichapter | £30+ (Approx. US$38+)

A multichapter fic’s price varies on the number of chapters and the chapter lengths. These days my average chapters come out around 4k, but I can write longer/shorter chapters if requested.

| scripts | £20+ (Approx. US$25+)

I have a little experience in writing scripts for audio dramas, so if you’re looking for a scriptwriter for a similar project, feel free to contact me! Here is the podcast I script for, and I’m willing to provide examples of the scripts to those who ask.

A note on writing commissions: while I am willing to include background romance, I’m not comfortable with writing anything focused on a romantic relationship, nor will I write anything sexual in nature.

EDITING COMMISSIONS

I’ve a little experience with video and audio editing. If you provide footage, I can do video editing like this. Here’s an example of my audio editing. If you’d like to commission me to edit something for you, email me, as the price will vary depending on the length and complexity of what you’re asking me to edit.

VA COMMISSIONS

I also dabble in a little voice acting if you’re at all in need of that! Here’s a podfic read I did, and a podcast in which I narrate, for an example of my narration; and you can also check my CCC for auditions I’ve previously submitted.

----

If you’re interested in anything here, please, feel free to shoot me an email [email protected]! You can also contact me via DM or ask here if you’d like, though I’m not guaranteed to respond as quickly.

And again, even if you can’t commission me, spreading this post around would help a lot!

#bee.txt #commissions #me: what vaguely marketable skills do i have

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

Text

Spider-Girls #1 Thoughts

FINALLY I’ve gotten to the series I was most anticipating!

Just about the ONLY thing I was remotely interested in Spider-Geddon for was this mini-series.

My hype was strong because even though at the time I’d not finished RYV proper the prospect of seeing Mayday again, in her proper outfit (we’ll talk about that) and interacting with Annie was a fanservice dream, especially after Houser established that in the RYV universe (though this didn’t exactly make sense with the original RYV mini from Secret Wars) that Mayday was miscarried in this universe.

So how did this issue measure up in delivering on that enticing prospect?

Well in short it did a good job.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way.

Mayday’s costume is off model on both the cover and interior of the comic, albeit in different ways. On the cover she has webpits which she never had outside of her redesigned costume from Secret Wars: Spider Island and Web Warriors. In the interior the artist neglects to draw the red on her boots. At first I thought it was just because she was being drawn in motion or a mistake but no the art is consistent. Then I thought maybe in the prior issues of Spider-Geddon she also had no red on her boots but no, she did. So this artist just screwed up.

A nitpick? Perhaps but given how contentious the issue of Mayday wearing her true costume has been ever since Spider-Verse it’s worth talking about.

A more significant problem where Houser, much as I have liked her work in the past, really didn’t do her homework, was presenting Peter a(and arguably MJ) as wholly unaware of the Inheritors.

Why is this a problem. Because this version of Peter Parker literally debuted during Spider-Verse, specifically Spider-Verse #2, an anthology comic which was written with the explicit intention of teasing Renew Your Vows during Secret Wars. So he should absolutely know about the Inheritors. The only way this makes sense is if the RYV Peter of Secret Wars and the one of RYV the ongoing are in fact not one and the same. Which was a theory some held when Conway’s run began because of how much it didn’t line up with the Secret Wars mini-series.

Another little nitpick is the Vulture gang. They were pretty lame although I suppose that may have been the point and it echoes Spider-Geddon #1 where Miles fights the equally lame Vulturions.

A more significant problem which I grant you may be addressed in future issues is that Peter’s reaction to Mayday is simply the initial shock of her reveal and then he seems relatively non-chalant. Mary Jane, in a brief yet heartbreakingly brilliant scene, goes off on her own to be upset, but Peter doesn’t do anything like that or show signs of being that thrown for a loop from seeing his dead daughter alive and well.

Now look I’m going to be very harsh. Maybe extremely controversial here. Call me out if I am because I’ve never been through a tragedy like a miscarriage. In such a situation from what little I know, a mother being more upset than the father wouldn’t be unrealistic or unreasonable. Buuuuuuut...unless RYV Peter is way more different than the Peter we know and love from 616 seeing Mayday (let alone finding out her Dad is dead) should get under his skin and we should see that. In 616 after the Clone Saga there was more than one scene depicting Peter being upset about MJ’s miscarriage.

Another problem is that Mayday and Anya comment that it’s nice seeing the city so normal. I didn’t understand that exchange and can only summise that Houser is implying being with the |Web Warriors they haven’t seen a normal (for them) version NYC in awhile. This doesn’t really make sense because the Web Warriors isn’t Mayday’s day job, she still operates in her version of NYC regularly last we checked. Unless this series takes place REALLY soon after Web Warriors and Mayday has changed back to her old outfit and then just helped monitor the Inheritors leading into Spider-Geddon and little else. But that’s not the implication of the prior issues of this event.

Also, though this is more a problem with Spider-Geddon #1-2 I admit but i’m only just realizing it now, where was Anya until now? In Web Warriors she lives on Loomworld with Spidey-UK who is her (most recent) mentor. But she wasn’t around in any of the prior issues of this event until now. And for a girl who just lost her mentor (again) she seems nonchalant. Sure as a someone who at best is lukewarm to her character I don’t care about seeing her reaction. Heck I’d rather she be outright absent from this series and it be all about Annie and Mayday. But from a writing POV she should have a reaction to Billy’s death.

Finally Houser continues to insist Annie’s hyper Spider Sense was something her parents only recently learned of.

That’s about it for the negatives.

Pretty much everything else about the story was GREAT.

Do not mistake my above negatives for me disliking the story.

I didn’t.

I LOVED it.

Where it succeeded it really succeeded.

After the bitter disappointment of the last arc of RYV this was Houser very much back on form.

In a lot of ways this issue feels like RYV #24. But because it isn’t an issue of that series I can’t hold it against the story for again focussing on Annie. In this series Annie, Ayna and Mayday are the leads, Peter and MJ are the supporting characters and there is no pretense of that.

Now for sure, as is typical with most of Houser’s issues, Annie is more centre stage than everyone else, being the only character afforded an inner monologue. Now I’m actually okay with this for now because Spider-Girls seems to be to Spider-Geddon what Scarlet Spiders was to Spider-Verse (ironically including ‘siblings’ one of which sports the Spider-Ben outfit) and in that series every issue gave focus to a different lead. If that is the case then this was simply Annie’s turn and the next two issues will give the focus to Mayday and Anya. If that isn’t the case then...that might be a problem.

That all being said this wasn’t BAD focus for Annie. Throughout Houser’s run the main tension for Annie has been between wanting more independence and adult responsibility vs. her being able to live up to that. Case in point she does need her parents help in this story.

In that sense I suppose this issue was a little repetitive of themes we’ve hit on before. But no one said she finished that arc by RYV #23 nor that it should be over by that point anyway. She’s a kid so for her to get that independence and responsibility within like 10 issues would feel unrealistic and unearned. What’s nice about this issue is that the situation organically confers onto her that sense of independence, trust and responsibility. We just need to see if she’ll be able to handle it now.

We also get more expansion on her ‘unique’ Spider Sense. It’s a little inconsistent in this story because prior to this she got outright visions but the impression given at the start of this issue is that her latest vision is more vague. Now of course Mayday’s spider sense to a lesser extent was capable of seeing the future as was Kaine’s. I don’t mind her borrowing from the latter but given the similarities between Annie and Mayday already it was a problem; having such visions more frequently didn’t help that much. This issue does rectify this issue a little by connecting her more directly to the Web of Life and Destiny giving her Spider Sense a greater root in magic.

Love or hate that it’s certainly more unique. I typically dislike magic in Spider-Man, but given how RYV has ended and this may well be the last hurrah for the RYV characters there ain’t much to lose in going this direction.

On Mayday’s side (yeah heads up Anya is just kinda just there so I have little to say about her) Houser does little but what little she does goes a long way; more is less in this case.

Unlike Slott, Costa or Gage who either wrote Mayday out of character, generically or the way a human being wouoldn’t react, Houser seems to have enough knowledge of basic human emotion to get that you know, seeing her Dad alive and with a daughter who isn’t her would upset Mayday.

Rather than rearing to tear the Inheritors a new one like In Spider-Geddon #2 or Spider-Verse, Mayday here just vents a little too hard on the Vulture gang and is a little more distracted and quiet than she normally would be. It’s subtle. It’s in character. It’s well done.

I also appreciate that Mayday was able to one hit K.O. two Vultures at once. Mayday in that moment became the most bad ass character in the issue. It also created a nice subtle parallel with Annie. At the start of the issue Annie tells and shows off how being a hero for a long time has made her such a competent fighter. Mayday’s prowess in the previously mentioned moment shows that off too. Realistically Annie may well be a more competent and effective fighter than Mayday given how she’s been doing it for longer and has had extensive X-Men training. Although Mayday has had more direct training from Peter, the Avengers (including American Dream), Phil Urich and noticeably Elektra. I’d like for this angle to be explored going forward. Seeing how Mayday sigs where Annie zags is surely one of the most obviously interesting prospects of a series like this.

Apart from the great MJ scene where she is sad by seeing Mayday, the only other positive I have is the art.

Now I was less than thrilled by the post-time skip RYV art to be honest. I felt a lot of the time it felt sketchy, unfinished even.

Here Genolet, whilst not being s slam dunk super star Spidey artist like Ottley or Stegman, delivers smooth, clean, effective artwork that serves the story and has a dash of Phil Noto to it in my eyes.

So yes.

There are problems with this issue but so far it has a lot of greatness to it and I’m very interested to read on!

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years

Photo

Sweet Ohuhu Snail

This artwork is now available as a free Coloring Page!

____

Finally, some hints of new supplies I was mentioning a while ago have manifested into a piece of art. :D

This is sort of a follow-up to my Ohuhu Brush Marker Review, as back in October, Ohuhu released a 72 set of the brush markers, and naturally, I was very curious to see the 24 new colors for myself. (And I have a bit of a story about how this set arrived to me that I'll get into momentarily.)

Spoiler alert that my thoughts on the markers themselves as a product haven't changed; they're still really nice alcohol markers for the roughly $1 per marker price tag. I'd still love to see yet more colors and additional consumer features like open-stock markers, refills, replacement nibs, etc. But overall, as I said last time and I will continue to say, I really wish these had been around a few years ago when I was first getting into alcohol markers, despite the few shortcomings they have. Aside from color selection (which I'll address further later), they're an excellent beginner alcohol marker set if you want brush tips.

But before I get into the specifics of this set and the foreseeable future (as Ohuhu just recently announced another brush tip set on the horizon), I shall tell you the (long-ish) story of how I ended up with the 72 set in the first place:

Back in November, Ohuhu put a post up in their "Top Fan Group" on Facebook, which I joined on a whim after being recognized as a Top Fan a few times by that point. This post said the following:

Hi Ohuhu Friends, Ohuhu.com is going to open the SHOP function to several products soon, so you can buy the products directly on www.ohuhu.com then. Before the shopping cart is officially public to the customers, we need 3-5 volunteers to help us test this SHOP function. 🗒️What we need are some inputs regarding How is your experience with our website, and Is the purchase process smooth? What problems have you encountered while shopping on the website etc？(We will have the conversation by DM.) 🚨The tester should be based within the continental USA. As a thank you, we will give you a free set of markers, just let us know which pack do you want via DM.📷 Thank you! Put your hands up if you would like to help us with this in the comment zone! (We will randomly choose 3-5 person within a week.)

[For context, previously you could only purchase Ohuhu's products through Amazon.com] Me, being both the frugally minded and skeptical person that I am, saw the post and immediately latched on to the "free set of markers" mentioned. (My instinct said it was probably a choice from a pre-selected list of some kind.) I was curious and figured, based on what was said, that 1. I might not even get chosen, 2. Even if I did, surely they would explain the process to me and I could then gracefully bow out if it didn't sound right to me. And so I cautiously commented as instructed. Within a few days, I was contacted by a representative and I found out through communication with them that the way this would work is that us volunteers would place orders through the website for any product, let them know of any issues or feedback we had during the process, and then once the order was placed we would provide the representative with our order number and be refunded. Likewise, if all did indeed go according to plan, this sounded like a great way to get my hands on the new 72 brush marker set, which previously I had figured I wouldn't get for a while as my 48 set has been serving me very well since August with no issues. (And it kinda didn't make sense to me to turn around and order a new set that would give me 48 duplicate colors so quickly.) I've seen a LOT of horror stories about shopping online, I watch too many "drama community" videos on Youtube that often talk about sketchy websites and scams, and so throughout this entire process I was nervous, saving "receipts" (screenshots and the like to the uninformed) where I could, and generally expecting something, anything to go horribly wrong at any second. Despite Ohuhu being a fairly reputable company at this point and having only ever heard good things about their customer service. Still, Ohuhu has made enough of a name for themselves that I hoped they'd know better than to intentionally scam their customers. If word got out to the many YouTubers covering their products, they'd have a PR nightmare on their hands. (And I also had to remind myself that the art community as a whole is not the Youtube Makeup Community; generally speaking, the art community isn't as...well, dramatic. At least not when it comes to art supply companies and scamming costumers. I'm not saying it never happens, I'm just saying I don't think it happens nearly as often as when shiz goes down in the YMC.) Naturally, this means I had some questions I wanted to be crystal clear about before making any purchases of any kind. Namely, I specifically asked to make sure I was reading correctly that once the order was placed and I gave my order number that I would be receiving a refund, and if said refund would be just for the purchase price of the product ($69.99 in this case) or if it would include the shipping cost (about $5-$6 dollars) as well. The answers to which were yes and the refund would be for the total cost including shipping. I also wanted to know approximately how long it would take for the refund to go through. The answer was within 5 days. So everything up to this point seemed to check out. I was still skeptical (this is what the internet has done to me) but I was 80% sure it would be okay, and the payment would be through PayPal, so if something went wrong I could file a claim over there and provide my evidence and hopefully at least get the money back if nothing else. I'll also note that I did notice 1-2 minor bugs on the website while in the checkout process, which I informed the representative of as I was supposed to, but I honestly wouldn't have noticed them if I hadn't been trying my best to really test the website and live up to my "job" in this situation. If I had just gone through the checkout process as I normally would have with no hesitation, I wouldn't have seen the bugs at all. I was genuinely surprised by how smooth and polished the website experience was; I was expecting much buggy/glitchier, considering that they were asking for test volunteers. And the two bugs I did notice were pretty minor things that really don't break or ruin the shopping experience. So I went through with the purchase, gave the representative my order number, and hoped for the best. I immediately received an order confirmation email that told me I'd be able to track the shipment within 1-3 business days. The order was placed late on a Thursday night, so I figured I wouldn't be hearing anything else until Monday at the very earliest. (As here in the States, Saturday and Sunday usually don't count as "business days") Much to my surprise though, that Sunday the representative I'd previously spoken with reached out to me asking if I'd been able to check out the tracking feature yet. So I explained that I'd gotten the confirmation email but no tracking email yet, and that I also didn't see a way to enter my order number on the website to track the order if I (as I had) checked out as a guest. (It did appear if I had made an account that the order number would've been saved to my account and I could've potentially tracked it that way.) But again, I hadn't expected anything until Monday, so I wasn't too concerned anyway. Sure enough, the next morning I had my tracking email and everything seemed to be in order; it even baffled me by saying the shipment was expected to arrive the very next day. I thought I was surely reading something wrong or maybe it needed a little while to re-calculate or something, but I kept an eye on and it didn't change its mind. And low and behold, it was a little later in the day, but the markers were indeed delivered that Tuesday! I eagerly got them open and gave them a good once-over just to make sure everything seemed right at first glance, as I knew to swatch them all out and get a more in-depth look was going to take at least a few hours. But I was quite relieved; we'd made it this far with no hiccups, now I just needed the refund to come through and we'd be right as rain. Miraculously, two days later the representative reached out to me yet again to tell me that the refund had been sent. And wouldn't you know it; the official PayPal email was sitting in my inbox waiting to tell me so! So in the end, things turned out pretty great. Ohuhu got their website tested, and I got my markers without a hitch. It did seem a little weird to me, the whole premise, but I assume they budgeted for this in the same way a company might do giveaways or budget for advertising, maybe even like some companies do for PR packages to influencers. And, realistically, it does kind of make sense that the best way to test your online shop (and by extension, in this case, the refund process) would be to have actual customers do it. Either way, it worked out well for me, so I can't really complain.

Once the markers arrived to me, I was very happy to see that Ohuhu is now including a colorless blender in their sets, in addition to the 48 or 72 colors. A colorless blender is one of the things that I said last time would've been nice to have (though not a necessity as you could easily go out and purchase say a Copic, Prismacolor, or another brand of Colorless Blender to compensate) and personally I love that it's 48 + the CB or 72 + CB, instead of counting the colorless blender as one of the colors you get, which is what I've most commonly seen other brands do. It's a small detail, but for some reason, I can't seem to get over it.

One of the things I was most curious about in swatching though was that, I assume as a response to me and many others that mentioned we wanted them, in the marketing for the 72 set Ohuhu seemed to really be trying to push that there were more pastel colors.

After actually having and swatching the markers for myself, I'd say about 7-8 of the colors are what I'd call true pastels. There are some beautiful new colors (R13 Clematis, in particular, might be my favorite Ohuhu color now and I LOVE the Green Grays they added) but there weren't as many pastels as I was hoping for, and personally I was hoping for some more pale pinks/peaches that would work well for lighter skin tones. Maybe some yellows since I felt we were kind of lacking those too.

And originally, I was a little...disappointed isn't totally accurate, but it's the best word I have.

However! I'm inclined to be a little more forgiving as just last week, Ohuhu announced they'd be releasing a 24-color skin tone set, which (although I'm withholding major judgment until I have the markers in-hand just like last time) is looking to hopefully be some of the pale pinks and light skin tone colors, maybe even a few yellows, that I was hoping for. We'll have to wait to see the colors in person, but using their digital swatches as a [very] rough guideline, the new colors look like they could be pretty promising.

The only thing I'm a little disappointed about at this point is that 5 of the skin tone colors will be duplicates, but at the same time, after seeing which colors are duplicates, it kind of makes sense just in case someone wants to buy the skin tones and doesn't have the 48 or 72 set, which I'm sure does happen. Just like I'm sure people buy, for example, the skin tone sets from Copic or Winsor and Newton to supplement other sets.

Still, though, this continues to support the idea to me that Ohuhu is really trying to listen to what fans of the brand are asking for; People asked for brush nibs and took a little while but we got them, we asked for pastel colors and they at least tried to address that, and now we've asked for skin tones and it looks like they're going to address that, too.

Naturally, after all of the above, I had to make some art to give the markers a go beyond swatching and to talk about all of this with you, my lovely Sparklers.

So I ended up drawing this cute little snail inspired by a picture I saw over on Pinterest.

I don't know if he thinks he's going to eat that berry or if he's just smelling it, or maybe he thinks it's just pretty (I used the aforementioned R13 in the shading for the berries), but it makes me happy to look at all the same.

Originally I had planned to try and only use the new colors to really show them off, and I did use a fair amount of them, but I felt just a little too limited so I did open up to the full 72 set. But I did use all only my new markers and not the markers from the 48 set I already had, so...

Maybe it's still fair?

I also tried some texturing on the...mushroom? branch? rock? he's sitting on, and while I don't think it looks the best close-up, from further away I think it worked out pretty well.

Similarly to the crab I drew for the 48 marker set though, I wanted a more interesting background than just plain white. After some consideration, I decided my best option would be to mix my green and yellow PanPastels. So I did.

Unfortunately, I exposed a couple of very noticeable fingerprints doing that and I ended up getting pastel dust all over the drawing so my black lines got greyed out a bit.

I fixed the fingerprints by adding some intentional ones for the sake of balance and in the name of visual texture, and I fixed the lines by going back over most of them and a little post-editing after I scanned the drawing in.

Other than that, my observations about the Ohuhu markers remain the same as last time. They blend and layer really nicely (especially, as I've observed recently is the case with most alcohol markers, with thicker paper) and the colors they do provide are really vibrant and fun.

I do still hope the new skin tone colors live up, that yet even more colors are coming, and I'll repeat that I'd still love to seem them add consumer comforts of being able to buy individual markers, refill inks, and replacement nibs. But all of that may come in time, and even so, I think they're very recommendable for alcohol markers.

I'm also really happy with how my little snail turned out just as an art piece; this whole thing is just really really cute to me.

Now I just have to wait with bated breath for the USA launch (they've already launched in Canada) of those skin tone markers and hope they're not too expensive so I can get them right away :P

____

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dotzines · 5 years

Photo

Artist spotlight: aaron!

✿ Commissions ✿ Ko-fi Tumblr ✿ Tumblr ✿ Instagram

header source: [X]

Introduce yourself I'm aaron and I'm a filipino artist in California! Tokyo Mew Mew was the first manga I ever owned, and my favorites are Ichigo and Lettuce! I also love Kiyotaka Ishimaru from danganronpa, musicals, and the color yellow. When did you start drawing? Are you a digital or traditional artist? I've been drawing ever since I can remember! I used to draw random people, teen titans, or inuyasha. In high school, I got a hand-me-down wacom tablet from a friend and from there, I started creating my own ocs with backstories. I've been a digital artist since then. Do you use any traditional mediums? If so, which are your favorites? I use mechanical pencils and ballpoint pens. I really like using pink, blue, and purple highlighters to color in values, but recently I've been trying to collect actual artistic markers. I think they're calligraphy markers tbh, but they're double sided and they give me more colors so idc XD Why do you prefer traditional over digital? (or viceversa) I really like the accessibility of traditional- I can draw wherever I want, as long as I have a pen and paper. But for showing off my work, I'd much rather it be digital. Digital gives me access to so many colors and I can zoom in to create more details. It's also a lot cleaner than taking a picture with my shaky phone quality. What do you think is the most challenging part about being a traditional/digital artist? It's difficult for me to choose the correct colors. When I only did traditional, I'd only color in greyscale because that's what mangas did and that's all the colors I had. I can't really work with more than 3-5 tones/colors or else it'll get scared it'll look too busy. I always have to filter my colors to give them a little more life, because the first ones I choose are usually washed out. What inspires your pieces? I draw my ocs a lot! Drawing them in different ways and scenarios helps me solidify their designs and personalities. I will often have phases where I'll draw a LOT of my current favorite oc. Explain your "everyday" drawing process I'll either draw one single character in a flowy pose, or two characters interacting/posing together. I'll digitally sketch something out and keep erasing and re-drawing the lines on the same layer until I have my line art. I block out colors with a binary pen so that my basic color palette looks good and then select each color so I can put detail in it. Depending on how much energy I have, I'll do simple shading or I'll keep the lineart layer a little sketchy and just color over it for a lineless piece. I don't have a lot of practice with lineless because it takes a lot out of me, but sometimes I get really into it

image source: [X]

Do you have an artist you admire (or more than one)?

https://www.instagram.com/treindraws/ (lines/ colors)

https://www.instagram.com/pimikyuu/ (THICK lines, very cartoony)

https://www.instagram.com/thronekin/ (plush shaped characters, cute blush)

https://www.instagram.com/robobogart/ (designs)

https://www.instagram.com/fukashi_gimmick/ (recently followed, bright colors. interesting shapes/flow)

Is there an artwork you are most proud of? Why?

https://ubetaro.tumblr.com/post/182234099603/ubetaro-oh-mom-this-might-be-as-far-as-i-go

I really like this one because it's lineless and I put a lot of effort into the hair and giving it different colors

https://ubetaro.tumblr.com/post/181532773553/1shimaru-danganronpa-secretsanta

I am also proud of this one because it's TWO full body characters with a background and soft lighting. It took a lot of effort out of me but it was really satisfying to finish!"

Do you listen to music (or tv shows/films/anything else) when drawing? Yes! I listen to musicals, chill beats, or 80's/90's music. I can't hear what I'm thinking when the music is too jumpy and fun. I also get distracted when there are people talking, so I can't listen to films or letsplays when I draw

Johnny Balik - Honey khai dreams - through and through NIKI - I Like U Forrest. – Your Soul Lemon Boy - Cavetown Lyin' Eyes- Eagles Billy Joel- For The Longest Time Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love

image source: [X]

What makes art interesting for you? I like making things! I like how my brain comes up with things and i can make those things become a reality through my art. What do you do when art block strikes? If I want to draw, and my art is looking Ugly, then I draw big and messy. Whatever comes to mind naturally, I'll just put it down. I'll draw random people, or big anime eyes. I'll redraw something with a premade design so I don't have to think of the designs myself, or I'll draw someone in a spine-breaking pose and over-exaggerate the features. What’s the most valuable art advice you’ve ever received?

Experience things! When you experience things, it gives you a personal connection to use in your art.

#aaron #artist spotlight #red zone artists #red zone

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lucalicatteart · 6 years

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Uvra Istill: brief species overview

(lol this is such an older species i don't have any good photos for them except for this random sketchy thing from like 2 years ago but I guess that'll have to do for now) . Sometimes for smaller species/subspecies/groups that aren't very much focused on in my worldbuilding yet, I'll just do these sorts of posts where it's just a small outline of main points about the species, rather than an elaborate multi-part series of informational posts (like how I do with the Avirre'thel, or what I plan to do with certain major groups of Elves or Jhevona, etc.) , so here's a smaller condensed bit of info about them. And if I choose to work more on them in the future, I'll make new posts and elaborations, but for now it's just a brief bit lol (info under read more)

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!! (NOTE: for some bastard reason this ‘read more’ sometimes doesn’t work when viewing the blog in the sidebar and it just shows up as a full long post?? Sorry if it shows up super long for you, I promise there is a ‘read more’ here, and it’s supposed to keep most of the text of the post hidden unless you click on it, but for some reason sometimes it glitches or something and it just shows up on my blog full length. If you’re having this problem just view my blog in a new tab on it’s own or etc. instead of in the sidebar way. Sorry about that, I still have no idea what’s causing this glitch (which only started recently I think) and i don’t know why the read more works on some posts but not others. If you have any info about how to fix it let me know lol hhh) !!

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✵Overview✵

♤ Uvra Istill are a catlike hybrid species that mostly all reside in a closed off area on a collective living property. They aren’t capable of magic but typically do have higher than average physical abilities and are known to excel at strategy, hunting, hand eye coordination, and thinking quickly (though people are unsure whether this is actually an innate inclination or more to do with how strictly they're raised and trained in these skills since childhood).

♤ They may come off to outsiders an uncivilized due to their common imagery of bones, dead animals, and rocks/caves, but they are actually highly "civilized" (in the common use of the word, meaning they utilize/understand most modern science, technology, etc.)

♤ They’re known to be frequently in conflict with neighboring groups, due to a few of their very outspoken members, but overall they keep to themselves by nature. Though they do commonly show up at supernatural realm wide events, and are closely involved in politics and business of outside species, they consider this just meaningless social participation for the sake of being polite.

♤ Lifespan is currently unknown, since none have died of natural causes at this point. But the oldest member has gotten to live to about 1465 years old (with the aid of magic and spells and enchantments they purchased).

♤ They’ve never given themselves a specific name, ‘Uvra Istill’ is simply a nickname given to them by the natives of the land they settled in a few thousand years ago, and the name stuck. It translates to ‘Animals of Death’, which most of the species found amusing and decided to keep using the name sarcastically for the humor of it.

♤ Their culture can be brutal and hostile to it's own members, though they attempt to put on a nice appearance for outsiders. However it's usually not like they're out killing each other and torturing members of their own species, despite bickering a lot, they do all still have a very strong group mentality, very "us VS. them" in terms of wholly supporting themselves and finding the lives and ideas of outsiders usually worthless, etc. So even when angry, they usually consider their own kind to be too sacred to ever harm one of their own too badly. They've designed harsh rules against harming their own kind, just to dissuade anyone who may even think about it. They’re not usually thought of as the most law-abiding group of people, but most can agree not to harm each other, and those few that don't would still follow the rules simply out of fear of these punishments if nothing else. So they're not really harming each other physically or anything, but by 'brutal' I guess I mean in terms of how strict and overly structured they are, and practices that can be mentally harmful (which they culturally don't recognize as a form of harm really lol, like locking someone in a closet for 4 days wouldn't break the "don't harm others" rule, but punching once someone would, so this kind of absurdly narrow definition of harm tends to foster a lot of passive aggressive behavior as everyone just thinks of worse and more indirect ways to harm each other)

♤ There are only about 1500 in existence. Most of them live communally in the same area, but they have been known to leave the tribe and pursue their own interests. About 5% of them do this. But it’s typically preferred to stay. Though they’re not the most peaceful in terms of personal relation, they do all prefer to be around their own kind, and they have a sense of superiority about this. They can at the very least relate to each other culturally, and at the end of the day they will strongly look out for their own. Staying in the community is usually just a more rational decision, since it guarantees a sense of security and shared resources. They own a large section of fenced in property, and have three main mansions that they stay in collectively. (shown below.. which looks pretty tiny when drawn but like.. the whole property is massive in real life, there's so much on it, it's probably equivalent to like the size of a small town, but just if every town person threw their resources into a collective pool to bulldoze the entire place and build a single giant property out of it lol)

♤ Guide to above map :

1 - The main mansion, most of this is reserved for rooms where people live and sleep. About 1,300 Uvra Istill live on this main property (the other 200 have left for varying reasons), and out of those, about 800 of them live in this building. It’s 15 stories tall with elaborate decoration and design, and most of the rooms are very well sized, with personal bathrooms, walk in closets, and usually personal kitchens or extra rooms,, though these areas are often shared between 1 - 3 people (or more in the case of families, like a mother with 4 children or etc. may get a larger personal area to fit everyone in, etc.).

2 - This mansion is mostly empty, reserved for elaborate events and parties that they throw. It’s more of a ‘guest house’ technically. It’s smaller than the residential ones, but is still massive. The upper floors are closed off, and reserved for who knows what. And there’s a large basement that leads to a intricate map of underground caves, but it’s not used often. There are many trap doors and false walls and hidden rooms, since they are a very playful bunch and still like to play lighthearted (or sometimes not so lighthearted) tricks on people who come to visit them.

3 - This is the secondary residential mansion, with the rest of the Uvra Istill having bedrooms here. Typically this is where the community leaders and highly respected individuals will live, it’s smaller, but the individual rooms are larger and more lavish. The bottom floors double as hobby rooms, with a massive library, science labs, athletic rooms, game rooms, lounge rooms, indoor pools and spas, fully stocked communal kitchens, arcades, art rooms, a full history museum dedicated to the species, their own art gallery, a cinema, bowling alley, sewing rooms and a fashion show area, and much much more.

4- The schooling area and large academic building with training courses, classrooms, and tons of rooms dedicated to a massive variety of academic subjects.

5 - A fancy ball sport area (probably the equivalent to humans having a golf course), running track, various sports courts, and an outdoor athletic pool.

6 - Elaborate gardens, including greenhouses, hedge mazes, multiple sitting/picnic areas, actual gardens with crops and trees of fruit and etc. where vegetation type food is produced, and massive flower walls or decorative flower arrangements.

7 - A large lake where people swim, fish, do boat racing, build waterslides, and participate in various water sports that require a space bigger than a pool (bodies are also dumped here sometimes lol).

8 - A large courtyard with a fountain and different arrangements of seats and plants, where outdoor festivities are often held. When they throw parties, the guests will usually stay for about a week, so the parties often start out here and then move inside as the night progresses and people go to their rooms.

9 - A circle of thick dense woods which are nearly impossible to get through. They use this as a second layer of defense, in addition to the huge outside fences, they’ve engineered this treacherous string of miles of woods full of swamps, dangerous plants, extremely dangerous animals, impossible terrain, various traps, security cameras, robotically controlled weapons, and hazardous chemicals. It’s guaranteed to keep people out (or in, possibly).

10 - The main gate, this is the only way in for guests. It’s the only break in the huge 30 foot thick reinforced metal fence that spans the outside of the entire area, and the only safe path through the woods. It takes about 30 minutes of keys and codes and unlocking security systems to get through, so getting in or out is ensured to never be an easy or fast process.

11 - A second gate closure, not visible from the outside and only accessible or known about to the Uvra Istill. This doesn’t take as long to get through, and cuts straight under the woods, so they reserve this as a means of emergency evacuation (in the case that their helicopters or private jets are unable to just carry them out of the area). About 32 feet underwater in the lake, there’s an entrance to an underground cave system, which will take you under the woods and to the hidden gate on the other side. This is thoroughly covered in tricks and traps as well, but an Uvra Istill will already be informed of what areas to avoid.

✵Physical Details✵

(bhbghg this is just a blurry screencap of an old sloppy image that's probably barely readable but, I don't have anything else for them. I plan to redo a lot of this old art and make it more visible and etc. but for now this is all I have to show their anatomy and etc.)

✵Culture✵

♤ They don’t have many traditions or ceremonies, but they do occasionally throw grand elaborate balls and parties once every few years. These events are notoriously controversial, as mishaps often occur (usually at LEAST one death happens, if not more), and most suspect foul play. Despite this, thousands of people still show up at their events when the species has them, since they're pretty good at marketing themselves in a way that makes them seem mysterious and exclusive, thus desirable to people who are elitist or always wanting to get into things that nobody else is invited to or etc.. Lots of like, elven royals or random rich supernatural realm folks who always fall for the flattery of receiving an ~~Exclusive Invitation~~. Additionally, many upper class folks seem to be more invested in thrilling exclusive entertainment than the lives of others, so honestly the fact that people die there may even be a selling point for them rather than a downside. It's interesting and exciting when things turn into a murder mystery party, and they would never be the one to die of course, since they're too rich and important, thus the spectacle of someone else dying may just be a fun experience that they can brag about to their friends in the royalty who didn't get to go, enthused by the potential Drama of it all etc.

♤ They are still a fairly new species, so they haven’t had much time to evolve and progress as a culture, but they do still have a few characteristics of society and stereotypes they are well known for, despite only having existed in their current state for just around 500 years. (mostly due to their frequent attempts to win the favor of nobles and royalty and more powerful groups than their own, though they may not be well known to any common folk, they are definitely known about in many royal circles (though mostly as 'that weird death cult that throws amazing parties' lol))

♤- How Outsiders View Them : Though not everyone is the same, and of course there is naturally variance between individuals, just by way of cultural influence, they are known to be arrogant, sarcastic, cold , and somewhat argumentative. During political events that they attend, they’ve been known to be outspoken, and this doesn’t much help their relationships with other groups. Though also being known for jokes, they simultaneously seem to take themselves extremely seriously, often refusing to participate in events because they find them ‘silly’ or ‘irrational’, which probably only contributes to their perceived air of superiority and people assuming the Uvra Istill feel they're above everything. Though despite being known mainly for their less desirable traits, they do have great charm, and are skilled at getting people to agree with them. Other species often avoid doing business with Uvra Istill, out of fear that they'll be convinced to agree to an unfair deal that's not helpful to their interests. They may be moderately controversial, but they do have many positive assets and some groups appreciate this. They're currently most closely allied with groups of elves that are in the Elven Alliance, solely because they're currently the dominant political power in the realm so obviously the Uvra Istill want to be liked by them. Though this kind of earned them the disfavor of the Avirre'thel, since the Avirre'thel helped send the species aid back when nobody else would very early on in their history before the Uvra Istill were even established,,, only for them to later suck up to/ally with the same group of elves who have consistently tried to destroy the Avirre'thel for thousands of years. The Uvra Istill tried to maintain relations by explaining how it's not actually a big deal and they didn't mean to seem insulting but they're just being practical or etc. but the Avirre'thel just like... don't care lol... Like, the Uvra Istill don't have any resources or technology or anything that the Avirre'thel really want to serve to gain from being on good terms with them, so they were just kind of like "...uh, okay... well anyway, bye." and kind of cut off political contact with them lol. Though the Uvra Istill try to trade with them or contact them from time to time the Avirre'thel are still just like "dude... we could not care less lmao... we don't need any of your traded goods.. please just let us self-isolate like we've been doing for centuries and stop trying to send letters to our government officials and shit... goodbye" . The Uvra Istill have also been mildly involved with some groups of humans (native to Nanyevimi, not earth humans) in the past, but despite the Uvra Istill literally not having any magic or abilities that would really put them above humans, besides maybe having claws and shit, they still see humans as weaker than them and usually their only contact is in regards to trying to trick a group of humans into giving away all their resources or etc. The Uvra Istill are generally also viewed as tricksters, known for commonly pranking people or joking others for fun. Which of course this reputation mostly stems from what people see of them at their frequent exclusive parties, during which guests are usually toyed with quite a bit. Most of this is simply playful and lighthearted, but it can sometimes come off as more harsh or legitimately conning others, so people often have a complicated relationship with this species, they’re either extremely liked or vehemently hated, with hardly any in between. But they have reasonably sized political and financial influence, so people are forced to do business with them regardless (and most of them are greatly amused by this, they find great humor in the fact that people hate them but are forced to come to them anyways lol). They're also usually seen as a cult, even by people who are positive towards them and welcome alliances with the Uvra Istill. Because of their history as basically an entire species genetically engineered by one individual, with a culture set by basically one individual, all living on one collective property and "ruled" by one individual (or, now that individuals remaining family members since they've died), and also their very strict culture and odd practices and worship of death and etc.,, even from the most positive of outsiders they still tend to be viewed as a cult first and a distinct species second,, though they are genetically distinct and are technically their own species, also like 99% of the members of said species exist in the same area in a very weird cult-like environment so. Though definitely in the past they seemed more like a regular species and had their own cities and differing groups and schools of thought and etc., after ending up on the property they live on today and going through a few cultural changes (everyone being forced to follow strict personal rules set by the leader, etc.) it is a pretty strange atmosphere.

♤ - Everyday life: Many Uvra Istill spend most of their days just hanging out on their property, playing games, reading books, and practicing hobbies or academics. They have elected officials who will go and speak to outside species, but other than those few, most of them don’t leave very often. Though their personalities differ greatly and they all break off into friend-groups and cliques amongst themselves, they do mostly all share traits of being highly self focused and self involved, so there’s not as many community activities as would be expected from people living so communally. They prefer to work on the things that interest them, and honestly couldn’t be bothered about much else. They do work together, but only because they know that by furthering the species, they are also helping themselves. Despite their arrogant and outspoken reputation, many are actually very isolated and reserved, it just happens to be that the elected officials of the species can sometimes misrepresent their group as a whole (i.e., everyone perceiving them as being highly argumentative, just because many of the officials who represent them have been so, though in reality most of them are not, etc). Though some of the stereotypes are true for like 70% of the population (such as being very prideful, pretentious, serious, clever, and being easily amused by their own antics), many stereotypes actually are not, and tend to be exaggerations of misrepresentations. Many do pair off into couples, but it’s common for their relationships to be somewhat volatile. In a culture that nearly breeds people to be controlling and dominant, it can be hard for them to get along with each other without always clashing heads and trying to out-compete or constantly take control of one another. Luckily, they’re also taught to be very rational, so most conflicts will eventually always be worked out and resolved, or sometimes will just go away because they’ll be tired of wasting energy on fighting. They do have a hierarchy, with clearly defined leaders and other societal roles, but they also place importance on the fact that all of their members are provided for, so things are never too horribly imbalanced. They want their numbers to stay up and for people to not leave, so aside from the childhood training and heavy indoctrination, the second biggest way they do this is to have a luxurious environment where every member feels valued and provided for and is better than any other living situation they could access, which is where part of their focus on their property literally being like.. an elaborate mansion paradise comes from. They want to emphasize that members of the species have it better than everyone else, and have the personal freedom to just relax and lounge on golden couches all day, or doing whatever leisure activity they please. This also helps with species pride, how they feel they're better than other groups and more advanced and etc., since every member of their species is living a better life than pretty much a majority of any other group in the surrounding areas, A paradise which they obviously deserve, since as a group they are all superior together.

♤ They’re incredibly rich and live lavish lifestyles, which once again helps them manage to win over so much influence in politics and business. Most of their original income was from crime (particularly anything involving assassinating or hunting people) , black market trades, bounty hunting, and selling corpses/meat. But they invested their money carefully and now own a few large areas full of important trade resources, so make most of their money through that. Though they do still often partake in their old ways of making money as well, it’s not as much of a necessity as it once was, so they usually don’t feel like going through the effort. Those who enjoy the thrill of the hunt/murder or get cheap kicks from high-stakes illegal trading are allowed to stick with it and do as they please, but a majority have walked away from that lifestyle and now prefer to invest their time in hobbies and self-improvement, only occasionally hunting for personal gain when they have the impulse. Usually these trades and resource management and stuff are negotiated by the leader of the group and their other close respected officials, and it's their responsibility/job to keep up with (on top of running everything around the property). These are the only people who actually HAVE to have a job, and must be working at all times, all other member of the species really don't have to do anything if they don't wish. Species members are allowed to have their own jobs (like being assassins, trading on their own, selling their crafts, etc.) outside of the property if they want, but they only get to keep 40% of their income, and the rest is invested back into the collective property, like to buy food for everyone and pay for servants to upkeep the mansions, etc. Nobody really has a problem with this though, since they recognize that being part of this collective is the only way they're able to live as luxuriously, as if they were on their own, even being able to keep 100% of their earnings, they'd still have a pretty measly existence (especially give then area they live in, like the places outside of the property), therefore even if it means giving a little bit up, being part of the collective is the only thing that allows them their otherwise perfect and leisurely lifestyle.

♤ They are still similar to cats in many ways, most notably in their common cultural ideal of bringing dead things to their loved ones to show affection.

♤ - Attire: As a culture, they place a large amount of significance on death, and even glorify it. They enjoy the imagery of death, and much of their clothing and decoration is inspired by this. Their usual dress is a mix of dark but fancy looking clothing, often with elaborate designs and layers and patterns, mixed with more earthy items like bones and rags and rope. Bones are extremely common accessories, especially as a way to honor relatives (like wearing your sister's bones after she dies in an accident), or for those who take pride in their kills and may wear them out of meaning or significance (ex: “This is my mother’s skull, she abused me so I reported her and she was publicly executed. I’m proud of that so I wear it to remind me of my victory over her”, or like “This man killed my best friend so now I’m wearing his ribcage as an accessory.” , etc.) . The tradition of modifying skulls and other bones to wear as masks or body decor has stuck around since the very olden days, when they used to use this as a tactic to intimidate others. As a young species they were still very weak and hadn’t physically bred themselves to a desired strength yet, so they often had to stalk other species and simply go after their leftovers in order to get food. Back in this time when they would follow a larger hunting species around, they commonly adorned themselves in any way to look larger and more threatening, so they wouldn’t be attacked themselves in the process. Though it serves no real purpose anymore, most of them keep doing this because they just find it fashionable, and sometimes humorous. They often adorn modified skulls with decorations and carvings, usually other strings of bones. They also commonly use smaller bones as piercings or buttons on their clothing, and medium sized ones are often strung into ornaments or necklaces. Larger ones may be worn as defensive armor, or just for show, often in more elaborate or culturally significant outfits. The most common colors in their clothing are blacks, reds, grays, gold, and dark purple. They like thick very decorated and rich looking fabrics, with a bit of a tendency towards over-decoration or being almost absurdly showy. They basically just like to wear anything that communicates: "Hey, I’m here, I’m fabulously rich, superior to you, intimidating, and highly skilled, , I could probably purchase your entire family with just the money I have in my pocket, and I also have an intense morbid fascination with death.“

♤ Children are extensively trained in a highly competitive school-like environment. A regular kid will do about 65+ hours of skills training a week, and it’s encouraged to have at least completed a “high-school level” of education by 11 years old. By around 16 years, all mandatory training and education is complete, and the individual is free to pursue whatever they’d like, but up until then, their curriculum is brutal. It’s not uncommon for some children to even resort to trying to kill each other just to take the top spot of their class, even though murder within the species isn't allowed, they put the children in such a hyper-competitive and strictly controlled environment that some are willing to risk punishment to try to harm a classmate sneakily or something. Their schooling usually involves a lot of physical training but also plenty of mental exercises, children are expected to be broadly knowledgeable about the world and proficient in a variety of subjects and skills. Additionally they spend plenty of time on "personality training". Certain personality traits are culturally encouraged, and if an individual fails to possess them by the end of schooling, they are usually killed . When they see “just no hope for an individual”, their life may be voted on. The only type of murder permissible in the group is when a claim is made that a certain person should die, so the entire group gets together to debate the pros and cons, and casts votes at the end. Though it can't be too close, if the votes were like 60% yes, 40% no, the person may let go or the subject would be re-voted on at a later date. But if over 75% of the group (all 1,000+ of them) decide that it would be reasonable to kill a certain person (for crimes they're accused of, or just failing to meet the group's standards and being a 'weak link', etc.) , then they're publicly executed. So it is possible that some children can be put to death simply for not meeting certain standards of personality traits and ability. Though this is extremely rare, since most people who train the children are very determined about it, they would rather push someone to the point that they die from working too hard than just giving up on them and sentencing them to a dishonorable public death. They would see that as a reflection of failure in themselves, which is unacceptable. So most trainers will stop at nothing to make sure the children will succeed, even occasionally resorting to methods that could potentially be considered borderline torture to “bring out the right traits in the individual”. It is common for children to sometimes band together and try to escape, and there is actually a whole group of Uvra Istill who exist outside of the main community and call themselves “ex-members”, as they often proclaim that the entire species of Uvra Istill is just a massive cult (since the entire breeding of the species and creation of culture as a whole seems largely influenced by just one person alone, similar to the leader of a cult), and they hold extreme contempt for their own species. Many “ex-members” wish to reform the species of Uvra Istil, or at least separate into two distinct branches, hopefully eventually evolving into different species entirely, but this is hard when the Uvra Istill name is so prominently associated with the society of the non ‘ex-members’. The typical opinion of those still within the community, is that the “ex-members” are just weak, and are not deserving of sharing blood with them. The main Uvra Istill are actually surprisingly open about their willingness to kill any “ex-members” (especially if they’re caught before escaping), just as many “ex-members” are openly aggressive about their desire to kill those who are still in the community. It’s a largely ignored conflict that many Uvra Istill feel hasn’t been accurately resolved or addressed, but most community leaders think it should just be ignored, which many people question. Some outside groups in the past have distanced themselves from the Uvra Istill over this, as they have heard about some of the mistreatment, but the Uvra Istill are very secretive so most people they trade with don’t know the full extent (if they knew how severely children were sometimes being psychologically abused and manipulated and traumatized to alter their personality (and also like doing stressful training sometimes over 70 hours a week, plus being killed if they don't meet the standard of the group), they would probably stop all trade with the Uvra Istill entirely , but they’re not currently fully aware. (Though some groups like the Fanyiniri elves probably wouldn't give a shit lol) Though it's hard for children, most when growing up actually don't mind anything that happened to them (though this is probably just a result of the indoctrination and propaganda they're taught) , because they kind of see it as a trial to earn their right to their positive existence. Yes, from age 6 - 16 you're going to be experiencing grueling training and be almost regularly traumatized (sometimes quite severely), but after that, you get to live for free, on this amazing beautiful property, with everything you've ever wanted provided for you at no cost, pretty much never having to train or work again if you don't want to (though most do want to), having the absolute freedom to just live a live of leisure free of any worldly concerns. This is how they often frame it and feel it's justified, basically it's like you just have to just work your way up to conforming to the standards of the group and kind of earn your way into the species, but once you've made it past that threshold, you're one of them now, and they'll care for you and protect you at all costs. So it's still, incredibly, incredibly shitty, but many traumatized children find it worth it and justify it in retrospect by how many privileges and benefits they get afterwards.

♤ They have a mostly modern diet now, but still enjoy plenty of raw meat, bones, rocks, and dirt as they’ve eaten in the past. They’re pretty big on alcohol, and enjoy creating new sorts of drinks to unveil every few years at parties.

♤ Despite their sometimes harsh society, many actually report high levels of happiness and feel content with themselves and their lives. The most common issues they have are with managing emotional outbursts, anxiety, and symptoms of depression, but those have almost become so commonly accepted that there’s usually a variety of strategies for dealing with them, and as a group they are surprisingly supportive in helping each other with these. Other than that, people seem typically very fulfilled, and are highly self confident and content, especially since most don’t have the stress of having to handle a job, and are allowed to just explore and improve their own interests, never running out of things to do to keep busy. Though there’s probably many dark things that go on behind the scenes and there are many ideas in their society that face wide criticism, they don’t accept outside criticism in the first place , and don’t care to listen to outside opinions of them, so for now things will continue as they are, which isn’t even bad at all, in their opinion. Regardless of controversy, they are still one of the most prominent newcomer species in the supernatural realm as a whole (so gradually gaining influence and resources), and are an essential part of a few local economies, governments, and societies in the realm.

♤ Cultural beauty standards include: Dark dyed hair and dark lips/eye makeup on everyone despite age or gender, different adornments of bones, dark sick looking eyes, just generally looking dead, short hair, shiny well kept claws and hooves, braiding tail fur, hanging things from the ears, sharp dark slicked down eyebrows, sometimes shaving patterns into the fur is popular. They may use dark colored dyes to stain the tips of their fangs, and more extreme modifications include cutting shapes into the skin for decorative scars, and shaping their ears using surgery. It’s also common that in more elaborate outfits they may take some sort of gold paint or gold sheets, and line their claws, hooves, and parts of the face with gold. There is wide variance in facial features, since they are a largely mixed species with a larger gene pool in the past, so individual preference varies, but culturally they seem to prefer more cat-like faces, and especially admire the beauty of people with large mouths and larger sharper teeth.

♤ They have no religion, but often state that they worship death in a more abstract sense, though there is no set of religious guidelines that they follow.

♤ Many Uvra Istill keep pets and like the idea of sidekicks or small companions. They often walk around with small animals on their shoulders or in their hair. Most popular are owls, snakes, foxes, medium sized cats, lizards, spiders, and sometimes bats. They often hire mages to come in from the outside world and perform spells on their animals, so that they’re able to communicate with them or so that the animals will have some sort of supernatural abilities. Nearly 80% of them have small companion animals, sometimes more than one, it seems to be a widespread cultural thing.

✵History✵

–(There’s like thousands of years of history so obviously I’m just summing it up and not going into much detail because that would take too long. The easiest way is to just frame it through the lens of one of their very influential members. So if it seems very focused on one person, that’s because it is, for the sake of brevity. It’s just like if you were telling the history of an organization there might be extended focus on the founder of said organization, while smaller details about the other people are perhaps ignored)– The Uvra Istill started off as a very regular form of cat-person, usually used for servants or messengers, and not of very much class or value in the supernatural realm. They were usually very mistreated, often living poor and dying early of illness or starvation, not being given much for food other than rotting animals, bones, and dirt. Eventually one of these cat people by the name of Brivgi gathered up about 50 or so of them, and decided that they would move somewhere and start up a society of their own. They stole a boat, and raided the city at night, stealing as many supplies as they could make away with, before setting sail without having any idea where the hell they would be going. Brivgi just decided that she would make the best of wherever they ended up, and that anywhere was as good of a place as where they were. She was a charismatic leader with big ideas who gathered people in a time of hopelessness when many of her kind felt they didn't have any options for living anything other than their current miserable lives, so she didn't really need to have a plan lol. Most were happy to follow her since like, even if they just sank their ship and died in the ocean or something, that's really no worse than their current lives as abused servants living on rotting animal scraps and sleeping bruised on the plain muddy dirt floors of basements. By the time they reached land, 15 of them had died during transit, and 10 more were killed when they were ambushed immediately upon approaching the shore, but luckily Brivgi and a few others had managed to escape. They settled in an area of caves, since that was the only place they could find that wasn’t owned by anyone. There were a few scattered tribes of species here and there, but they were mostly the only inhabitants of this area. Here is where the Uvra Istill bloodline actually went from regular cat-people to a more engineered species of hybrids. Brivgi became obsessed with making her kind into the ultimate species, even bringing in the outside help of sorcerers and demons and whoever she could find, to speed along the evolution process with magic, paying them in whatever she had (sometimes even trading away her own members, and once trading one of her own children). She saw it as urgent that they must immediately start the most advanced and capable society possible, and her dream was to have a whole group of those who were perfectly designed to hunt, kill, outsmart, and ultimately dominate society. Many of her group began to have doubts, feeling that Brivgi was unstable and delusionally obsessed with unrealistic ideals, so occasionally they would sneak away in the middle of the night, but many of them stayed and were utterly devoted to her, since regardless of her intense and sometimes immoral ideas, she was still an incredibly dedicated and charming leader who believed she was doing the best for everyone. They simply stayed in the caves for about 800 years, breeding and evolving and being turned into the vision of what Brivgi desired. They weren’t strong enough to hunt the large animals that were in the area at this time, but they did often follow around larger predator animals and local tribes of humanoid beings, feeding off of whatever they left behind after a kill. They would often cover themselves in bones and rocks and facepaint, anything to make them come off as more intimidating for protection. They mostly lived on small animals and scraps, bones and rocks, and occasionally stuff like tree limbs and sticks, sometimes leaves or fruits, but they really didn't desire that type of thing and had to have meat of some kind. After a while of just surviving and developing, they decided they had enough numbers, strength, and resources to attempt to relocate. There were now about 4,000 in total, so it was going to be a massive task to move them all, but they were growing too large for current lands, so Brivgi and her advisors decided it would be the best course of action. They journeyed for about 5 months, during that time only loosing 800 members, and actually keeping together fairly well. They settled in a new open expanse of land, located in a fairly good spot in between some mountains and a large city. Since they were so close to the city, there were new career options open to the Uvra Istill, and the most appealing of those seemed to be crime. Just given their natural skill set (or I guess, the genetically engineered skill set that Brivgi planned for them), they were very proficient at jobs involving assassinating or hunting people, selling corpses/meat, and bounty hunting, and these were often very quick ways to make a lot of money in a short period of time. They continued on this way for a few hundred years, flourishing and building their own little city, and greatly increasing their numbers. Around this time there were nearly 10, 000 Uvra Istill, older generations and new generations and different evolutions of the species all living together . Brivgi still lead them, often advising their business decisions and holding councils for the community, happy to basically have created her own small civilization, especially content that they were prospering under her guidance and the course she set for the species. By now she had generations of children who served alongside her as advisors and understudies. However, a few hundred years after finally feeling settled in, a natural disaster struck the area, which also lead to a war over resources amongst the Uvra Istill and other species/people in the surrounding cities. They had already lost half of their city in floods (and about 6,000 of their people), so they decided to refuse to give help to neighboring communities, since they saw it as more important to provide for their own. The Uvra Istill had massive reserves of resources though, so the outside cities felt it was ridiculous and unfair for them to keep it all to themselves when the people around them are dying and in need . There was a surprise uprising, their whole city being attacked from all sides by people from all surrounding areas combined, desperate to survive in any way thy could (whether the Uvra Istill agreed to share or not). Resources were stolen, and though the Uvra Istill had superior combat skills and technology, they were still massively outnumbered, and the outside attackers managed to kill about 3,000 of the Uvra Istill during the first two weeks of fighting alone. Around the third week, Brivgi gave up on trying to hold onto the city, gathered as many resources and people as she could, and she fled, evading the outside attackers by using underground evacuation tunnels she had built years ago as a precaution. She knew they would have nowhere to go, and would be found if they resurfaced, so she simply blocked off the other side of the caves and holed up inside of them with her remaining people for a few days, still close enough to hear the sounds of destruction and more of her people dying not too far away above ground. With no other options, she started to call upon all of her vague contacts, reaching out to anyone she had done business with in the past, looking for someone who would help them. They were running out of food in the caves, and though they didn’t hear fighting above ground anymore, Brivgi still feared they’d be hunted and killed if they didn’t have an immediate escape plan upon leaving. She sent out her best most skilled fighters in disguise, to sneak around and act as messengers. After only a day or two, one of the messengers finally received word back from someone, the Avirre'thel agreeing to give them a temporary plot of land and place to stay in interim. They evacuated quickly , finally leaving the underground hideouts, and heading to the place that was agreed they could stay temporarily. Still having managed to sneak away with a little bit of resources, Brivgi made a deal to simply buy the entire plot of land from them, and there laid the foundation for the modern Uvra Istill property. With only around 200 members of the species left (others having died from the fighting, floods, during underground hiding, being left behind, or dying during travel), Brivgi was largely discouraged, but still determined to bring her visions to light and fight for her species (which she saw as like, perfect beings of her creation, she felt intense responsibility for them and dedication to be a good leader, despite the recent upsets to their way of life and loss of a majority of their species and everything they owned and etc.) Though she did start to get a bit weird after this, many of her children had died, and she began to carry their bones around with her, wearing them, keeping them in her bed, in her room, and spiraling into a further obsession with death. Her few children who remained were largely concerned about her, but still did anything to help with her ideas for their society, and they were typically her most loyal of followers. The Uvra Istill were still a largely suffering people, most of them having just been through some of the worst events of their lives, so any leadership was good leadership to them, and the constant ceremonies and imagery of death didn’t bother them, they quite embraced it, they still saw Brivgi as one of the only people who could bring them security and hope, and with all of the loss they had personally suffered as well, the indulgence into death resonated with many of them (side note: Brivgi had been artificially prolonging her life with magic and etc. and some people think that played a role in her getting a bit weird and obsessive, like the constant exposure to enchantments that she, as someone from a non-magical species, wasn't used to, could have started to impact her health and body and mind. Though it also fits totally fine into her personality profile to have just become strange simply due to the loss and upset of her life, since she did take it very personally that something she had been improving for so long (her species) had been destroyed. So it really could be either, or a mix of both lol) . With the resources she still had, Brivgi laid blueprints for three mansions, large facilities, and massive improvements to the property, hoping to provide for her species a safe haven paradise where they could live and have everything they’d ever want, and this time she kept a large focus on extreme security measures. She wrote out curriculums, programs, and rules, all incredibly strict and designed to make the species the best it could ever be (like setting cultural standards and the rules of education and of conduct, laws of the property, etc.), to be ultimately powerful, unable to ever be stopped or harmed no matter who attacks them. The focus became even more about being strong, and also about not trusting outsiders/not being open to trade, after the losses they had just suffered at the hands of other people, which Brivgi mostly blamed on them just not being strong enough, and that they should never have trusted the other cities enough to live near them in the first place. She put all leftover money into savings, businesses, and other investments, hoping it would pay off over time. Before the construction on the property was entirely completed, not long after finishing her 25,000 page manifesto on how the Uvra Istill should be governed and run, Brivgi called a meeting of her people, where she dragged herself into the courtyard (along with the bones of her children she'd been carrying around), curled up into a ball underneath a decorative velvet blanket, and abruptly publicly executed herself in front of all of them, her last words being something along the lines of “I feel that I’ve left everything in very capable hands. If we are to succeed, then I am so very glad. But if we are to fail, I simply do not want to be around to see it.” By this point, she was over 1,000 years old, and clearly had been suffering physically and mentally, so her children quite easily came to terms with her death and quickly picked up where she had left off. Particularly her eldest daughter Vivrinia, who is currently still in a leadership position , ruling over the current Uvra Istill. Though she is considered much more callous than her mother, she still strictly follows the words Brivgi left her, which unfortunately for her, does include being kind to her own species from time to time. She is still always making a constant effort to improve the society, and make sure that they are as influential and capable as they possibly can be, despite her somewhat resenting having such extreme responsibility thrust upon her at a young age. Currently, all construction is completed, the property is gorgeous, there’s extensive training in place for all children, people of the society still have strict standards of embodying the “right traits”, and the political , social, and financial influence of the Uvra Istill is ever growing across the whole realm (so everything is going according to the rules Brivgi outlined). Though it’s been nearly 500 years since Brivgi’s death, and they’ve evolved as a culture on their own since then, it’s still clear to see how much she had impacted the entire society of the Uvra Istill, especially in her later years. Many of her ideals, cultural preferences, traditions, and philosophies are still extensively practiced and embraced by the Uvra Istill of today (like the worship of death and constant use of death imagery). She is widely honored, considered to be the creator and savior of the species, and has multiple statues, rooms, and museum sections dedicated to her on the property.

(here's a n ancient pixelated sloppy sketch of Brivgi I guess lol)

And that's all about the Uvra Istill, for now at least !!

#Uvra Istill #worldbuilding #bones tw

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