You all get a preview on the Kickstarter short story vote results, which I think are solid enough to report with almost 80 people reporting: it looks like the comedy with Beringwaite is first choice, Crispin's tragedy is second, and third is Author's Pick. (So some surprise there!). The runners-up to Author's Pick on that second choice question are... the comedy and the tragedy. So those two are locked in.
In that spirit, and because I am writing the Gorn novel while I'm waiting for the official poll to close, I've been combing out details in the Alysha novels and dropping them in the wiki where I can find them. Quickly. I want to do alllllll this quickly, so you all can get the books this year, both of them if possible.
Some notes:
- First, thank you, @Julika14, for talking out Svetlana's timeline with me. I've put it on her page as tentative, but even a tentative timeline is better than none.
- I'm amused that Peony got like seven pages of on-stage speaking parts in Faith and... I don't know anything about what she looks like or sounds like. That's some A+ stealth powers there.
- Ditto Catlin. Several times over because she's got so much sass that I can't believe no one looked at her. Lol.
- Thank you, @filkferengi, for typo-checks on the wiki.š
- I'm amused that the Cometfencer's entry is introduced by talking about its cook. (I have since filled in about everything I could find about it, but I left that in the intro because it was funny.) I wish I'd said even a word about the Cometfencer's captain in Faith, though. I have this lurking fear I'm going to decide on a girl and then discover somewhere Beringwaite used 'he' to refer to him...
- I also tried to math out Kamaney's rise to power and all I can say is that she was an efficient daughter of an awful person to have swung everything she did in the time she had. (On the bright side, that timeline, compared to Wyatt's, suggests that the 'capture all the Fleet warships' plan was someone else's idea that she decided to manage more effectively. So that ties up that continuity blip.)
Finally, much thanks to @madamebadger who set up and populated a lot of the Stardancer pages. A lot of joint work went into the Eldritch canon's information (thank goodness, because there is a lot of it), but I am really grateful that there was quiet work in the background on the Stardancer info, for this moment, right now, when I'm working on two books at once and I want to finish them within a month and a half! So much time saved, not looking things up! I'm still dropping stuff I'm finding in various places, but I'm spending a lot less time on that and a lot more time writing.š„°
Anyway, the work is going well, and I've promised myself a trip to the art store on Friday if I get at least 15K done on the series book before then. Since I'm at 8200 for the week I think those markers Petrov sent me a gift certificate for are as good as mine.š„³
Have an art done for the wiki! (Requests for wiki art always welcome. Soooo much to fill in I don't know where to start.)
Or at least, I intend it to be relaxing. Hopefully it delivers.
4:22 minutes
Materials:
- Pen: Moonman Starry Glass dip pen, Mars: https://www.jetpens.com/Moonman-Starry-Sky-Glass-Dip-Pen-Mars/pd/31536
- Paper: Strathmore Writing Series 500, lined: https://www.jetpens.com/Strathmore-500-Series-Writing-Pad-8.5-x-11-Lined-50-Sheets/pd/15322
- Ink: Robert Oster, Rose Gilt Tynte: https://www.jetpens.com/Robert-Oster-Rose-Gilt-Tynte-Fountain-Pen-Ink-Shake-N-Shimmy-50-ml-Bottle/pd/25170
In which I talk about the paper, the paint, and the experience of oils versus gouache. Fun stuff, will do more.
Thank you Locals supporters! Your contribution to my art war chest here is what's powering these experiments and videos. For now I'm keeping them public but I may start doing some subscriber-only videos if you all are interested.š
Thanks for your comments yesterday on the business post... all very provocative, in a good way. I'll try to respond to all of them today.
Some Alysha misc now, since I'm gearing up for the results of the Kickstarter!
Petrov is giving away coupon codes for every book in the Alysha series (and has some leftover coupons for Marda and the business book). You can pick those up here (and please do! The books are bought already, someone should use them!) https://twitter.com/PetrovNeutrino/status/1457344535843987461
Our own @JudasComplex sent along a sample of the Faith in the Service audiobook, which I've attached for your delight! I... haven't had a chance to listen to it. Don't ask me about my past week and a half or so. Putting it here will guarantee I get to it.
After hearing the amused comments during the livestream, I went ahead and added all the ship type illustrations I have inked from the 90s to the wiki. Glory in the rampant adorableness of their anthropomorphic stylings! See those ...
A little comedy today, at least in the link. Transcript follows.
Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguarās Heart.
A while back I was introduced to a comedy sketch about Cuban coffee by a Mexican comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. ( The sketch begins with him greeting all his fellow Latinos and then backing up to say ābut weāre all different, arenāt weā which is a segue into a demonstration of how different Hispanics speak Spanish.
It is hilarious. First, because I am a Spanish speaker and a linguistics hobbyist, and his portrayal of various accents resonated with my experiences in trying to make sense of them myselfā¦ Not always easy, since from culture to culture, slang and accent are often totally different (and sometimes grammar! Spaniards use a grammatical construct that has died out in many other Spanish-speaking countries, the plural āyou.ā)
I also loved it because the Cuban coffee part is real. I grew up with Cubans. I know how we are....
One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.
Hi, all. Welcome to this weekās episode of The Jaguarās Heart.
Itās been weeks since the Baenās Bar incident and Iām still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that itās obvious that the problem is deeper than āthis forum was saying stuff that offended us.ā We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me donāt think Iām human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when theyāre so ready to prove you wrong that theyāre only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.
We have forgotten how to listen.
Increasingly, we have also ...
As promised, Iām updating you every couple of weeks on the progress on the gallery project! Since we last talked I have:
ā¢ Added a system that allows users to request context on an image (artist commentary or tags) or report an issue (broken metadata or a scan/image quality issue)
ā¢ Added a maintenance section that will allow me to see what images have user requests, and allow me to verify platforms/user information when users create accounts
ā¢ Started work on the gallery āexperienceā, adding a landing page and consolidating user profile/settings/gallery browsing/favorites pages
ā¢ Put together a ābenefits of membershipā page and started nailing down what those benefits are
ā¢ Started integrating the main siteās color scheme, and added a function so users could decide what color scheme they want (including dark mode)
ā¢ Put in code for patron achievements
ā¢ Completely redid the image processing/discovery process so that it happens on the backend, instead of being triggered by user ...
My kickstarter campaign is live! So if you want stickers, go get some. This time it's holy cow and holy carp, with a ton of add-ons if you want to shop my older designs.š
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcahogarth/holy-cow-and-holy-carp?ref=ekuins
What if I told you that, after years of requests for the return of my Stardancer.org gallery, I was in the process of recreating it?
Because I amā¦! RIGHT NOW. flail
CHALLENGES
First, let me tell you why I havenāt had an online art gallery since stardancer went down:
I did not want to put thousands of images on free gallery sites (like DA) because it would be a ton of work, and I wouldnāt have any control over the site (āwhat if they go down one dayā, āwhat if they start charging per-upload feesā, āwhat if they have copyright policy changes I donāt likeā, āwhat if they start using their corpus to train AIā, etc, etc, etc). Can you imagine dumping hundreds of hours into uploading stuff only to lose it because the site owners made questionable decisions? Ugh.
I wasnāt capable of coding my own gallery and I didnāt like the gallery plugins for various content management systems. I could have installed a package on my hosting service, but none of the ones I saw were customizable enough, or did ...
