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hazel-writes · 3 years

Text

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female OC

Summary: Aristeia, an ambitious and self-reliant journalist on Tatooine, crosses paths with a Mandalorian after a harrowing encounter with Imperial remnants.

Word Count: 5,000

Warnings: canon-typical violence, death

A/N: Oh my gosh, I finally did it. After months of reading some absolutely incredible Mando fanfics, I took the plunge and started writing my own. I'm so excited to share this with all of you!

This fic starts during episode 1x5 and will loosely follow the show's timeline (I will be taking many creative liberties). The first chapter is from Aristeia's point of view, but I'll be going back and forth between her POV and Din's afterwards. I jump straight into the action in this fic, so if things seem a little crazy at first, don't worry, all will be explained soon :)

This is my first time writing for our favorite space cowboy, so any and all feedback is welcomed! If you want to keep updated on this fic between updates, check my bio for other places you can find me. Also, a Spotify playlist to accompany this fic is coming soon!

Without further ado, please enjoy this chaotic mess of a chapter! ♥︎

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Aristeia sighed as she weaved her way through the busy streets of Mos Eisley, Tatooine. It was almost sunset and most people were heading home after long days at work. A layer of dust rose around the feet of those attending to last-minute errands. She watched as a woman bought a large red fruit from one of the street-side vendors. A soot-covered teenaged boy stood by the neighboring building, stocking up on mechanical supplies. Near his feet, two sunburnt children fought over a small toy. The scene was normal to her: ever since settling on Tatooine years ago, Aristeia had slowly grown accustomed to the slow and gritty flow of the planet.

As she continued walking, she kept her head down, eyes always focused a few steps ahead of her feet. However, whenever someone neared, she would look up briefly to offer them a small smile. Most of the time they ignored her, scowled, or rolled their eyes, but every now and then, someone would return her gesture. Those moments made the effort worth it.

Unlike the people who meandered around her, Aristeia was just starting her work for the day. She kicked up clouds of dirt as she made her way to the recently-abandoned mechanic’s shop. She used to frequent it back when she had a speeder, but after the owners passed away, it had unfortunately turned into a popular site of criminal activity. A few days back, she had intercepted a transmission that mentioned a meeting at the location, and as a journalist, she had to be there to see what was going on. Armed with a small notebook and stylus, she was prepared to document the whole thing.

Turning the corner of a dusty alley, which was littered with miscellaneous tools and sheets of scrap metal, the old mechanic’s place finally came into view. Its exterior architecture was similar to that of the rest of Tatooine, however its dark and doorless entrance led to an underground network of small rooms. With every step Aristeia took towards the building, her anxiety grew. Unlike her other investigative stakeouts, she was going into the mechanic’s blind. The transmission didn’t reveal a whole lot about the nature of the meeting, which she knew meant it was of special importance. These were the kind of meetings that could provide her with a groundbreaking story. They were also the kind of meetings where someone could get hurt.

Aristeia had never been good at fighting – physically, at least – but she did give herself credit for not having died so far, especially in her line of work. Put a blaster in her hand and she’d probably shoot her own foot off. However, put a pen in her hand, and she was a force to be reckoned with.

Aristeia had been writing ever since she was young. It started with little stories: she would go into a crowd of people, find a quiet place to sit, and observe each person that passed by. She would notice what they were wearing, how they carried themselves, who they were with, where they were going, and then she would make up the ‘why’: Why were they dressed like that? Why did they walk like that? Why were they with this person or that person? Her imagination would stitch together the missing pieces of their backstories, creating life narratives of people she had never even met. She did the same thing now from time to time. In fact, people watching was imperative to her role as a journalist.

As Aristeia grew older, she and a few friends decided to start a local newsletter that got sent out to residents of Mos Eisley every month. It was by no means a ‘professional’ establishment. The writers were all residents, many of them barely adults, who wanted to keep their friends and family informed about any activity that could threaten the freedom they had fought so hard to gain after the fall of the Empire.

A group of giggling children ran around the corner, pulling Aristeia out of her thoughts. She watched as they kicked around a near-deflated ball with bare, dust-covered feet. Sighing, she turned back around to peer down the steps of the abandoned mechanic’s. It was just beginning to get dark and the suns had nearly reached the edge of the horizon, casting eerie shadows on the stairwell walls. She looked for any sign of movement in the space below and when nothing seemed to be stirring, she made her way down the packed-dirt stairs and entered into the main room.

The area was small with not very many places to hide, immediately making her anxious. She had never been a fan of tiny spaces. But this was too important of a mission for her to give up now. She looked to her left and spotted a large plant, which obviously hadn’t seen any light or water for quite some time. However, its pot and leaves could be big enough to hide her if she was able to fit behind it. It’s not like she had very many options to choose from.

A noise from above forced her into action. She darted behind the plant as fast as she could, curling herself up against the corner of the wall. The sounds of heavy footfalls met her ears. There were at least five people making their way into the room she was in. From between the leaves of the plant, she could make out the forms of two stormtroopers and a tall, lanky man in a gray uniform. Imperials.

After the fall of the Empire, most people on Tatooine had celebrated immensely. They believed they had finally achieved freedom. It was hard for Aristeia to share their excitement, knowing how many lives had been lost on both sides. She also had always been a realist, never letting herself get too comfortable when everything seemed to be coming up roses. She had been tracking the movements of rogue troopers around the city for a while, trying to figure out who they took orders from and where they were located. In recent weeks, she had intercepted a few transmissions referencing what the Imps called ‘the asset’. Just one day before, she had caught word of a meeting scheduled to take place in the room where she was now hiding. She knew she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get more intel. Once she had enough information, she planned on writing a massive expose, informing all of Mos Eisley to her discoveries.

A raspy voice broke her train of thought: “Have you found the asset?” Peering around the plant’s leaves, she saw that it was the man in gray who had spoken.

“No, not yet,” a Klatoonian replied gruffly. “We tracked the ship to this city. As far as we know, the Mandalorian still has it.”

A Mandalorian… Aristeia shuddered. There wasn’t much in the galaxy that she was terrified of anymore. Sure, she often felt scared. In fact, she was scared most of the time; it’s part of what kept her alive for so long. But there was very little that truly terrified her. Mandalorians were one of those things.

She shook her head, forcing herself out of her spiraling panic. Focus on the facts, she thought – it was a phrase she repeated often when overwhelmed with her work. Focus on the Facts. The Imperial man’s mention of the Mandalorian was new info to her. All she knew from previous transmissions was that the Imps needed the asset for some sort of experiment. She didn’t understand it too much – she was never very good at science.

Aristeia reached into her bag, pulling out her notebook and stylus so she could document her new discovery. As quietly as she could, she opened the front cover of the journal, flipping to the next blank page.

As she did so, her finger caught on one of the pages, slicing a thin cut across the pad of her pointer finger. Kriff, she whispered, accidentally dropping her stylus as she moved to nurse her injured finger. She realized her fatal mistake too late.

“What do we have here?” she heard a voice drawl from above her. The Klatooinian, who had taken a few steps toward Aristeia, peered around the edge of the plant before looking back at the Rodian. “Is this one yours?”

Aristeia scowled at the suggestion. “No, I most certainly am not.”

The two men chuckled, infuriating her even more. “Why don’t you come out so we can take a better look at you?” the Rodian suggested with a devilish smirk.

“Yeah, cause that sounds like it would end well for me…” she mumbled, trying to think of a way to escape the predicament she had gotten herself into.

The uniformed man and his two stormtroopers stayed quiet throughout the ordeal, seemingly bored by the other mens’ interaction.

“She must be terminated. She has heard too much,” the man in gray finally chimed in.

At this, Aristeia started to panic. She was in deep bantha munk this time. Sure, she had been in tricky positions before – it was kind of a requirement of living on Tatooine – but this was bad.

“I didn’t hear anything, I swear! I was just…” She stood up slowly and looked around the room, trying to find an alibi. “...admiring the plants?”

She mentally facepalmed at her attempt of a lie, something she was never very good at. It helped her in a journalistic sense, as she always did her best to remain objective in her articles. She recognised the power that came with telling the truth, especially now, in the wake of an empire founded largely on lies. However, in this case, she could’ve used a good fib. Admiring the plants, really? she scolded herself. After a moment of silence, the uniformed man directed a curt nod at the stormtroopers, who then advanced on her quickly.

Springing into action, she attempted to kick the chestplate of the trooper closest to her, but missed, only managing to clip his knee. Nonetheless, it threw him off-balance, sending him stumbling into his fellow trooper. She took the brief opening to run as fast as she could towards the stairs that led back up to the main street. She got halfway up, mere feet away from freedom, before a large hand yanked her back down the steps harshly. She fell backwards, scraping her elbows and knees on the hard dirt before hitting her head on the floor, hard.

She couldn’t see anything but blurry spots of white and orange as strong and grimy hands pulled her across the floor, back to the troopers. The one she kicked earlier returned the favor, sending sparks of pain through her abdomen. Footsteps approached and a heavy boot landed between her shoulder blades, forcing her against the floor. Another second passed before she heard the charging up of a blaster from above her head.

Aristeia closed her eyes, cheek pressed to the dirt, accepting her fate. She forced warm memories into her mind, not wanting her last thoughts to be of the man whose heavy boot currently pinned her to the ground. Her mind danced from memory to memory, finding it hard to focus on any one image for too long: a familiar, tender hand ran its fingers along the curves of her face; trees towered over her like arrows aimed for the stars; a single candle cast a warm glow over pieces of parchment; a sweet smile, one she probably would never see again, beamed through the darkness...

A burst of blaster fire sounded from above her head. As if shooting her once wasn’t enough, she thought, before realizing that it wasn’t possible for her to make sarcastic quips if she was dead. She opened one eye, then the other, only to stare right into the lifeless face of the man in the gray uniform. It was a sight she was sure would stay with her forever.

“I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold.”

She finally looked up, not recognising the deep modulated voice that sounded from above her.

A shining wall of silver met her eyes, his blaster pointed at the Klatoonian. A Mandalorian, she thought. Waves of terror flooded Aristeia’s body. It was almost as if the universe had plucked him straight out of one of her nightmares and dumped him deliberately at her feet. She was familiar with the Mandalorians, more than most, but seeing one after so many years still managed to send shivers down her spine.

Focus on the facts. Focus on the facts. she repeated to herself.

Something about the way the armored man carried himself made her realize that this wasn’t just any Mandalorian: this was the Mandalorian, the one her attackers had been discussing moments earlier.

His presence seemed to fill the whole room. She found her eyes involuntarily moving up his figure, taking in the pure power that emanated from his armored form. Her gaze landed on his face, or where his face should’ve been. Instead, all she could see was her own terrified reflection in his dark, deadly visor.

When the Klatoonian didn’t make any effort to move, the shiny man looked down and gave her a barely perceptible nod to the side. She knew exactly what he was telling her to do.

As fast as she could, she rolled to her right, hearing blaster shots fire above her as she did so. She scrambled back towards the plant she was hiding behind earlier and watched as the armored man fought the others. While the Mandalorian was distracted with the Rodian, the Klatoonian aimed his blaster towards his silver chestplate. Aristeia considered shouting to the metal-clad man in warning, but didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. To her horror, she watched as the Klatoonian pulled the trigger.

The Mandalorian, however, sensed what was coming and ducked. The blaster beam rebounded off of a large metal sheet that stood propped up against the wall behind him and hit the Klatoonian square in the chest. He fell to the floor, lifeless. To Aristeia’s surprise, she heard the Mandalorian curse, seemingly frustrated by the death of his attacker. The stormtroopers took his moment of annoyed distraction as a sign to run, bolting back up the stairs before the Mandalorian could stop them.

Aristeia’s senses slowly started to come back to her, as did the pain in her stomach, hands and knees. Unsure of the Mandalorian’s intentions, she scrambled on the packed dirt, trying to find the notebook she had brought with her. She finally found it tucked between the wall and the nearby plant pot.

She turned to see the armored man, having knocked the Rodian unconscious, finally focus his attention on her. She grabbed the stylus that she always kept clipped to the side of her notebook, the one that had caused all this trouble to begin with, and held it out in front of her as threateningly as possible.

The Mandalorian casually put a hand on his hip and popped one of his legs out slightly. His helmet tilted to the side incredulously. If she wasn’t so scared, she might have laughed at his almost-lazy posture.

“Hey, they say the pen is mightier than the sword, right?” Aristeia shrugged nervously, still directing the stylus towards the silver mass in front of her.

He ignored her comment and dipped his helmet towards the bodies on the floor. “What were you doing with them?”

She debated whether or not to tell him. His low, warning tone made it seem like she didn’t have much of a choice. So far, he hadn’t made any move to hurt her, despite the fact that he had every opportunity to. Even now he kept his distance, almost like he was trying not to startle her any further. That, or the stylus really had scared him.

“I’m a journalist,” Aristeia responded. “I was trying to get some information for my next story when they found me.”

She shifted on her feet when he didn’t respond right away.

“Story?” he finally repeated, almost like he was skeptical of the word.

“Yeah.”

She knew it must sound silly. Her stories, and journalism as a whole, probably weren’t on this man’s radar. A lot of people thought that her profession was impractical and meddling, but obviously the work she did was important enough to gain the attention of the Imps.

Whatever the Mandalorian was thinking prompted him to mumble something, turn on his heel, and start back up the stairs. Aristeia was left speechless, her hair settling back into place after being disheveled by the sudden billowing of the Mandalorian’s cape.

She looked around the room at the bodies littering the floor, remembering briefly that the troopers had escaped. That alone almost ensured her certain death. They had seen her face – it was only a matter of time before they would find her. Already regretting her decision, she heard herself calling out to the Mandalorian who had reached the top of the stairs: “Wait!”

He stopped his movement, pausing briefly before slowly turning to face Aristeia, who now stood at the bottom of the stairs. She looked up at his figure, which from her angle looked more commanding than ever, his silver armor backlit by the setting suns.

Finally finding her words, she spoke. ��Please, I… I need to get off this planet. You have a ship, right? The troopers who ran, they’ll tell the others, they’ll come after me.”

She hated how desperate she sounded, but she didn’t know what else to do. Her friends barely had enough money for speeders. Most of them had never even been off the planet. All she knew was that she needed to leave, and soon.

“Why would they waste your time on you?” the Mandalorian asked, probably unsure how a girl armed with a stylus could possibly pose a threat to the Imps.

She ignored his underestimating tone before replying. “Because I overheard what they were talking about. Once they find out who I am, they’ll kill me.”

“And who exactly are you?”

Kriff, she thought. If the Mandalorian found out just how invested she was in her recent investigations, he could use that against her. “Well… I’m Aristeia.”

The Mandalorian voiced a frustrated sigh. “And?”

“And…”

She was about to answer when she spotted a blinking red light out of the corner of her eye. Upon further inspection, she found its source: a tracking fob held in the Mandalorian’s left hand. Of course, she thought. He’s a bounty hunter. The Klatoonian must have been his bounty – that’s why he was upset when he was accidentally killed in the crossfire.

Aristeia felt her heart rate spike as she devised the best way to backtrack on her previous request for help.

She slowly made her way towards the Mandalorian, subtly attempting to get back up to street level. “...and I really should be getting back to work, so if you don’t mind, I think I’ll just head back up those stairs now.”

The Mandalorian, unfortunately, noticed the unusual change in her disposition.

“What’s the sudden rush?” he asked as the arm carrying the fob shot out to stop her escape.

“No, no, it’s nothing! I really should go. My… husband is waiting for me,” Aristeia lied. The Mandalorian just stared, his arm remaining in place. “He gets upset when I’m late.” She offered with a fake smile, trying desperately to alleviate the tension. When he still didn’t move, she continued. “He’s very big. And uhh… He’s a sheriff!” she added, for good measure. The Mandalorian cocked his head slightly to the left in response, as if seeing how far she would take her lie. “And he has lots and lots of weapons. A whole armory with guns and knives and other… spiky things.”

“Spiky things?” he asked, almost amused.

“Well, yeah.” she replied, but it came out as more of a question.

“Well, you know what I think?” he said, taking a few sauntering steps forward. His posture oozed confidence – one hand was hooked on his belt, just in front of his blaster, while the other hung casually at his side.

Aristeia took a small step backwards. “W-what?”

“I think you have a bounty on your head.”

Kriff, she thought. He’s good.

Aristeia took another step back, but the Mandalorian closed the distance quickly. She held up her hands placatedly.

“Look, I don’t… know if there’s a price on my head. I’ve always just assumed . Over the past few years, my friends, the other journalists here, they’ve been going missing. It was pretty obvious that the Imps didn’t want us sharing their activities with the whole planet. Recently, things had been pretty quiet, at least until they started freaking out about this whole ‘asset’ thing.”

The Mandalorian’s posture straightened and his towering body leaned towards hers menacingly. When he spoke, his voice lacked all the nonchalance it had earlier and instead radiated a seriousness that chilled her to the core. “What do you know about the ki- the asset?”

Aristeia, regarding his sudden change in demeanor, stuttered in response: “N-nothing really – Shouldn’t you know?”

“Nothing really?” he repeated, completely ignoring her question.

“Just what I’ve heard over the coms.” Shoot, she thought. Shouldn’t have said that.

“You have access to their coms?” he asked, a sliver of surprise peeking through his gruffness.

She did. It was one of her biggest accomplishments since arriving on Tatooine. One evening, she had been at her desk, listening to random transmissions on an old faulty comlink her mother gave her years ago. She would do this every night, never once picking up on the voice she was desperately waiting to hear. Instead, she usually caught onto feeds from people nearby: small business dealings, calls to family working out in the dunes, even the occasional secret teenage correspondence. Aristeia enjoyed listening to the small snippets of the others’ lives; it gave her hope in a world that she seemed more and more disconnected to with each new day.

But on this night, she had intercepted a transmission that was far more concerning than her typical listening content. Two voices, one that she now knew was the man in the gray suit and another who she assumed was a stormtrooper, crackled over the comlink. Within a few minutes, she not only knew that the Empire wasn’t dead, but that they were also situated right on her doorstep . After making this discovery, she made sure to keep her com set to that specific feed, which is how she ended up finding out about the meeting that led to her current encounter with the Mandalorian.

“Sometimes I have access,” she responded to the Mandalorian’s question with a nonchalant shrug. She basked in the power that this information seemed to give her over him. “It depends on how close they are, the wind levels, and if my tech is even working that day-”

“Where do you live?” he interrupted hurriedly.

Aristeia suppressed a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“Where do you live?” he repeated slowly, though this time it came out as a more of a modulated growl.

She laughed nervously. “No way, you seriously think I’d tell a bounty hunter where I lived? That’s like breaking every single rule of common sense. I mean, come on, think of this from my perspective.”

His posture relaxed minutely and he released another sigh, this one less frustrated than the previous. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it by now.”

She recognised the truth in his statement, but that didn’t mean she was willing to go out of her way to help him. For all she knew, he could take the coms and turn her in afterwards. Aristeia tried to get a better read of him, but unlike most people she met, she couldn’t. She didn’t have any guesses as to who he was, what his intentions were, or why the ‘asset’ was so important to him. In a universe of starry galaxies, he was a black hole.

“What do I get out of it?” she asked, trying her best to sound confident. She countered the slight relaxation of his own stance with the newfound boldness of her own. “Helping you, I mean.”

The Mandalorian scoffed beneath his helmet. “I saved your life, I think that’s qualifying enough.”

“You were just going after the Klatooinian.”

“And if I hadn’t, you’d be dead.”

“Wow, consider me comforted.”

He sighed, clearly agitated by her retorts. “If you show me the coms, then I won’t tell the Guild about the little notebook operation you’ve got going on down here,” he said, waving a gloved hand towards the bag that carried her journal.

“And now I’m being blackmailed. Fantastic.” she muttered, running a hand through her hair.

Aristeia stilled, evaluating her options. She could either ignore the Mandalorian and risk having him reveal her, and her work, to the Guild, or help him and hope he returned the favor. Neither option was ideal.

“Fine ,” she relented. “Just give me a second.”

Aristeia took the Mandalorian’s lack of response as a signal to go ahead, and made her way back into the darkness of the room that now reeked of death. She tried to think back to the days when she would come to the mechanic’s to repair the many malfunctions her speeder frequently sustained. She always enjoyed the loud and hectic bustle of the establishment. Its owners were kind and would always let the neighborhood kids hang out and watch them work on one project or another, occasionally even letting them help out. Those times seemed distant as Aristeia approached the body of the fallen Imp.

“Hey, you wanna hurry it up down there?” a gruff voice sounded from above.

“Really?” Aristeia replied, astonished at the Mandalorian’s near-childlike impatience.

“I thought you had some husband with a large collection of spiky things who doesn’t like it when you’re late?”

Hearing him repeat her previous lie out loud made it seem even more ridiculous, but she ignored him and continued to move towards the gray-suited man.

“What are you doing?” he called from above, seemingly untrusting of her retreat back to the main room.

Oh my stars, she thought, surprised by her own annoyance at the Mandalorian. Her initial fear had evolved into irritation at his constant attempts at intimidation and control. She couldn’t let her guard down though – she could lose her leverage at any moment and then who knows what he’d do with her.

Aristeia reigned in the sarcastic comment she was about to make and instead answered his question with a restrained sigh. “Seeing if they have any information.”

“In case you didn’t notice, they’re dead. They can’t help you.”

Obviously, she thought with a roll of her eyes, but didn’t say so out loud.

“Yeah, but their pockets can.”

Aristeia stared at the man in gray. Even though the blaster bolt to his chest all but guaranteed his death, she still approached his body warily, as if it could come back to life at any moment. Avoiding his hollow gaze, she dug through his pockets, searching for any more information that could prove useful to her future articles. All she found was a handwritten note containing some sort of coded language she didn’t recognise. She folded it carefully and put it in her own pocket for safekeeping before heading back towards the Mandalorian.

By the time she joined him at street level, the suns had already set. He took a few steps forward but paused when he felt her hesitate behind him. She felt weird leaving behind the mangled bodies of the men in the darkness below.

“We should move the bodies,” she said cautiously, her eyebrows furrowed in confliction.

“No time,” the Mandalorian replied simply, turning back towards the street.

“Please,” she pleaded, looking to her left where a group of children played in the distance. “I- I don’t want any kids finding that.”

He silently followed her gaze and stood completely still for a moment, as if debating his own response. Aristeia tried, and once again failed, to get a good read of what was going through his head.

“Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll get them in the morning.”

She would’ve liked them taken care of sooner, but it seemed that there was no room for negotiation. To be honest, she was surprised he agreed to her request at all. Something was different about this Mandalorian, and she couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing.

“Which way?” he asked, referencing her house. The one she stupidly agreed to take him to, Aristeia thought.

“Uh…” She paused briefly, but it was a moment too long for the Mandalorian’s liking. “This way,” she finished, pointing down an alley to her left. She hiked the bag she carried higher up on her shoulder and took a few steps forward before feeling a hard tug on her arm.

“Hey, I wouldn’t recommend trying anything. It wouldn’t end well for you,” the Mandalorian said threateningly. His visor stared down at her coldly and she suddenly grew extremely frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t see his eyes. She felt vulnerable under his gaze and didn’t like it one bit.

“Let go of my arm,” Aristeia replied, her voice low and serious. His grip remained strong. She stared daggers up at his helmet and it was the first time since meeting him that she was truly angry. “I said, let go.”

To her surprise, she felt his grip loosen and she promptly tugged her arm away from him. Her posture radiated confidence, but the fear in her eyes betrayed her. Without a word, she spun around and continued heading in the direction of her small house, not sparing another look behind her to see if the Mandalorian was following.

He was.

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Masterlist || Next (coming soon!)

#supernova fic #hazel writes #hazel's fanfic #the mandalorian #mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fanfic #din djarin fanfic #din djarin #grogu #din djarin x female oc #star wars fanfic #star wars #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #quotev

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niseamstories · 4 years

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Tl;dr: The heavily revised physical edition Dreams of the Dying, my novel set in the Enderal universe, is now available for pre-order via Amazon via my website. Special early bird prices are $32.99 for the hardcover with an illustrated appendix, $12.99 for the paperback, and $2.99 for the eBook. It’s a prequel featuring Jespar, but, for reasons outlined below, opens up a new canon. Amazon.de has yet to pick up the listing for the physical editions, but they are incredibly slow—I’m working to get that done.

Hey guys,

This is Nicolas, the writer of Enderal speaking. As some of you may know, I’ve been working on an Enderal novel, Dreams of the Dying. First released as a web version, I spent the past year completely rewriting and improving the book, adding and removing chapters, revising characters arcs, and improving plotting, worldbuilding, and style. In total, I rewrote the web edition three times from cover to cover. Well, it’s finally time: Dreams of the Dying is now available for pre-order on Amazon!

The English version of Dreams of the Dying will release on October 20. A German (and perhaps Russian) translation will follow as soon as possible.

Please note that this is a rendering and that the actual hardcover looks slightly different, with same format but a matte dust jacket and a matte, laminated case. A big shoutout to Dominik Derow for the cover artwork, Johanna Krünes for her cover design, and Joyce, for her tips, patience, and help with this product shot.

Jaaros Oonai, magnate, visionary, and master of coin, doesn’t muse about whether the glass is half empty or half full—only about ways to fill it.

Jespar Dal’Varek, drifter, mercenary, and master of avoidance, doesn’t muse at all. He’d rather just drink the damn wine.

Two lives that could not be more different intertwine when a strange contract leads Jespar to the tropical island empire of Kilay, the wealthiest nation of the Civilized World.

The mission turns out to be as bizarre as it is lucrative: Jaaros Oonai, the country’s merchant king, knows something that could stop a catastrophe, but he has fallen into an inexplicable coma. Together with an ex-priestess and a psychic, Jespar must enter Oonai’s dreams and find this secret.

What should have been a fresh start rapidly turns into a nightmare, as Jespar slides into a spiral of disturbing dreams, political intrigue, and clashing ideals, where not only the fate of Kilay but his own sanity are at stake. It’s not long before he learns that only a spider’s thread divides the sleeping and the awoken.

And that there’s no greater enemy than one’s own mind.

The hardcover edition comes with an appendix that includes additional lore, such as an illustrated bestiary, a guide to Kilayan fashion, illustrations of the (re-envisioned) seven Light-Born, a short guide to the Makehu language, and much more.

Even though Dreams could be considered a prequel, I didn’t write this as an expansion or fan service but rather as my debut, and a book that stands on its own. This edition differs vastly from the web version, and, though it is up to you to judge, I’m a million times happier with it.

If you’re on the fence and would like to wait for reviews—here’s hoping I get enough—I fully understand. However, if you would buy the novel, you’d do me a great favor if you considered pre-ordering. One of the biggest challenges as an indie author is exposure; since Amazon registers all pre-orders as Day 1 sales, a lot of Day 1 sales would give me a chance to climb in the novel’s category and boost visibility for readers outside the Enderal community. To make this worth it to you, the book will sell for a special early bird price of $32.99 for the hardcover with the illustrated appendix, $12.99 for the paperback, and $2.99 for the eBook, as opposed to $37, $16, and $5. Just follow the link to my website and click pre-order—it will take you right to your local Amazon marketplace.

Unfortunately, Amazon.de has yet to pick up the listing for the physical editions, but they are incredibly slow—I’m working to get that done.

I’m aware the hardcover is in the upper price range, but it uses the best materials, and the illustrated appendix cost a lot to produce. It’s also the only edition where I make a more solid revenue, so see it as a way to support my work, if you wish.

If you’re a patron and pledged $110 or more since October 2018, I’ll be in touch a few weeks before launch to send out your signed hardcover copy right away. Thanks again for your support, Dreams became a far pricier project than I anticipated, and your patronage helped me immensely in covering the cost.

Lastly, a word of warning before you pre-order: For the paperback edition, I took the drastic step to separate Dreams and all future Enderal novels from the game canon. There are two good reasons for this. First, the Vyn games were created over 17 years, the earliest one being Myar Aranath in 2003. Fascinating as this idea may be, it also means that the lore of the Vyn universe was created by a myriad of different authors (the latest and current one being me when I joined the team in 2011). As a result of this, the lore of Vyn has always felt a little disjointed and inconsistent; I initially took these differences as challenges to conquer, but the longer I wrote, the more I realized how much these inconsistencies bothered me and how hard they made it to write the story and the universe I envisioned. Let me assure you that this decision wasn’t easy and does not reflect a lack of appreciation for the work of the previous workers. I stayed faithful to the lore whenever possible.

The second reason is a trickier one: Jespar. This character has been in my mind for nine years now, and I love him with all my heart. Still, the more I immersed myself in the story of Dreams, the more I grew aware of how incredibly constraining it was to write a story where the end is already written; because Jespar is alive in 8234 a. St. (1234 P.L. in new canon lore), you all know he will never be in real danger. Again, there is undoubtedly an intriguing challenge to writing such a “safe” story, but—similar to the lore, I increasingly felt like I was writing with fetters on.

So, what does this mean? Aside from the fact that anything can now happen, the consequences aren’t that drastic. Enderal is still Enderal, and Jespar is still Jespar, albeit thirteen years younger and at another point in his life. I changed and expanded details about his backstory, but his essential conflicts are still the same, only refined. Major changes include modifications to the Light-Born (their aspects, how they came to be, when and how they disappeared, and the societal consequences of that disappearance), the time frame of the different eras, and a complete rework of the magic system. Minor changes include dates, the spelling of names and locations (Kilay, not Kilé), and others details I tweaked for consistency and worldbuilding coherence.

And that’s about it. I’m aware and grateful for the love many of you have for this world, and believe me, I did my best to honor it; I just realized I cannot tell a good story with one arm tied behind my back. If it’s any solace, I can promise you that new book canon is ironclad – I’m pathologically obsessive about consistency and cohesive worldbuilding, but without a solid framework, that’s a recipe for frustration and disaster. See it as a different but nearby eventuality: details and fates may differ, but the soul of the world remains the same.

If all that didn’t scare you off, pre-order away! I also set up a Goodreads page for the book, so you can add it to your To-Be-Reads or even recommend it to your friends – this is an indie project by all means, so I’m grateful for every bit of support. Please keep in mind that the Goodreads is for the revised edition, not the web edition, so if you’re planning to leave a low rating, I’d be grateful if you waited to read the actual book in October 20. It’s a different experience.

Last but not least, a big thank you to everyone who supported me on Patreon, created fanart for Enderal, or just let me know they enjoyed this game and were looking forward to the novel. This novel was meant to be a 6-month stint but, boy, did it turn into something more. It sounds sentimental, but this last year has been rough personally, and your support and encouragement kept me going.

I hope this story will live up to your expectations.

Best,

Nicolas

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#dreams of the dying #enderal #jespar dal'varek #sureai #vynblr #enderal forgotten stories #indie novel #horror #mystery novel #LGBT protagonist #cover art #artwork #gothic artwork #art nouveau

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elizapbrooke · 4 years

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A discovery of pancakes

This is my newsletter from Friday, May 22. You can sign up here.

I am disappointed to announce that the bird call I thought belonged to an owl comes, in fact, from a mourning dove. “One of the most abundant and widespread of all North American birds,” Wikipedia says. It’s an embarrassing but maybe understandable mistake. I figured this owl was out during the day because it was a creature of New York like the rest of us, its circadian rhythm all fucked up by early morning garbage trucks and the blue glow of the Chase Bank across the street. The mourning dove’s coo is low and melancholy, a distinctive series of five notes. I’d certainly forgive you for thinking it’s a hoot. As I was listening to mourning dove calls on my computer and having this horrible realization, one landed on the fire escape and startled me with the loudest, most intimate rendition of their song I’d ever heard. It may as well have pressed its beak up against the glass. (I assume it thought there was a dove in the apartment.) I crept over to the window to confirm with my eyeballs what AllAboutBirds.org had already told me, and, yep, there it was. It felt so special to have a mystery owl in the neighborhood, but I guess doves are lovely birds too, with their plushy throats and elegantly tapered tail feathers. Anyway, my friend Sid tells me he’s heard owls in Gowanus, so I’m keeping my hopes up. This week I published a story for Curbed detailing the history and recent evolution of the home office. As I was fact checking it, I realized I’d accidentally talked to ten hundred sources, so please do enjoy the fruits of my labor. I’m not here to talk about home offices, though. A few weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and discovered I’d been brainstorming pitches in my sleep. I was thrilled. On account of pandemic depression and seeing very little of the outside world, I’ve really been struggling to come up with story concepts, which is problematic because that’s my job. Most of my dream pitches evaporated upon waking, but I managed to hold onto one, and in my sleepy haze I thought it was possibly the greatest idea I’d ever had. It was: PANCAKES ARE HAVING A MOMENT IN QUARANTINE. I decided I’d email the New York Times first thing in the morning. In the light of day, I realized that there wasn’t really a story there. When you’re writing a trend piece, you want to be able to point to, I don’t know, at least four really solid examples from the public sphere. My evidence was:

Alex and I had made pancakes recently

We were planning to make them again

I’d recently discussed pancakes with Molly and Vivian

I’d heard you can make pancakes from sourdough starter discard (which actually does speak to the zeitgeist)

But here’s the thing. Pancakes are a great topic for a newsletter. So here is my pancake article.

***

I’ve always liked the look of a big stack of pancakes, but I never really got why people were so into eating them. I like a breakfast that is hyper-functional and maximally filling. Because I’m an aging hippie, my preferred breakfast is a double-sized bowl of Ezekiel cereal, which tastes like delicious cardboard and fulfills 42% of your daily fiber needs. Pancakes, like pastries, always struck me as glamorous but pointless. I was even somewhat distrustful of my mom’s pancakes, which are dense and nutty, not sweet at all. Her recipe came from a “chiropractor/health nut in San Diego about 31 years ago” and involves grinding your own flour from winter wheat berries, groats, rye, brown rice, and millet. I love them, but a family pancake breakfast still makes me feel very out of control. This all changed a few weeks ago when Alex and I decided to make pancakes for dinner. All I can say is that quarantine has a way of melting away the rigid little fucks you used to give. For once, the chaos I associate with pancakes sounded fun and freeing. Also we’ve been watching a ton of Parks & Rec, and I was feeling inspired by Leslie’s diet of waffles and whipped cream. We made buttermilk pancakes, extra fluffy ones that require you to whip the egg whites on their own for several minutes before folding them into the batter. Two with banana chunks, two with bits of frozen peaches, two blueberry, one bonus plain for me. I had mine without anything on top, enjoying the choking feeling of eating so much cakey carb. It felt like a hug. When I saw my friend Todd post a gorgeous stack of pancakes on Instagram, I asked him if he had any theories about why they’re such a good quarantine food. At first he thought I was trolling him, but when I told him I was dead serious, here’s what he said: “What I love about pancakes right now is that they feel both ordinary and radical at the same time. Ordinary because they are nostalgic, all-American, homey, comfortable, and approachable. Anyone can make them. But there’s also something really subversive about a stack of pancakes right now—the gluten, the non-plant-based butter and eggs, eating breakfast when Goop tells us we should be intermittent fasting, so forth. Eating pancakes in the time of coronavirus brings into focus how overwhelming wellness culture has become in recent years—celery juice and collagen smoothies will never, ever, ever beat a big, buttery, syrupy stack of flapjacks.” I would agree. Given my dedication to breakfast foods that involve sprouted beans—which predates our wellness moment but was certainly bolstered by it—I definitely find pancakes subversive. They make me feel nostalgic, too, but not for anything I’ve personally experienced. For weekends in high school that I spent ensconced in the television world of Gilmore Girls, maybe, where breakfast at Luke’s Diner is a comfortable routine. As I continued my journey into pancake reportage, I sought out the perspective of Sarah Jampel, an editor at Bon Appetit. While pancakes made from sourdough discard have their fans, Sarah is not particularly one of them. She’s also team waffle. I don’t really have a horse in the pancake/waffle debate, but Sarah makes a compelling case. “I have thought a lot about pancakes,” she emailed back when I asked if she had anything to say about the topic. “And yes, I have made them since isolation started—mostly because I'm ‘every woman’ and my fridge is overflowing with sourdough discard. ‘Put it in pancakes,’ I thought. The issue is that I need to add more flour (as well as butter or oil and leaveners) to sourdough discard to turn it into pancakes, so I ultimately end up using more ingredients for the sole purpose of not throwing some stuff into the trash or compost (but really, the trash). And even though pancakes sound nice in theory—why not start the day with a hot breakfast instead of the usual routine, eating a Clif bar with one hand while the other clings bare to the subway pole (huge sigh of nostalgia)?—in actuality they're inferior waffles. Unless you take care with your pancakes—loading them with lots of butter and separating the egg yolks and whites (this recipe's my fave)—they're too mono-textured.” Never fear: Alex and I loaded ours with an alarming amount of butter. I suppose it is to be expected that when you go out hunting for pancake insights, you come back with waffle testimonials. When I asked Alex’s high school friends to weigh in on the appeal of pancakes during a global shutdown, Nico said, “Waffles are the superior carb. They provide greater textural variety and are a better delivery vessel for condiments.” (Dylan has been eating toast all quarantine, and Dan “didn’t understand the question” because the only god he acknowledges is the Joy of Cooking’s pancake recipe.) My friend Molly has been eating a lot of savory pancakes under quarantine, for breakfast or lunch. She sautées a bunch of garlic and kale in olive oil, adding scallions at the last minute, and then sets the vegetables aside in a bowl. In goes the Bisquick, and she adds the kale mix on top of the pancakes as they cook; after a minute, she tops the pancake with shredded white cheddar so that when she flips it, the cheese turns crispy. She’ll eat that with a runny egg or garlic yogurt. I can’t wait to see her again so she can make one for me. Pancakes are one of the few foods that Molly has consistently been able to stomach during this period of immense anxiety. They have a strong positive association for her: in pre-corona times, she would make savory pancakes after playing soccer on Saturday mornings. Those games are one of the things she misses most right now. We talked on the phone while she made her daily trip outside to juggle a soccer ball. Molly likes to chat with friends during these breaks because bouncing a ball on your feet benefits from loose attention. “Cooking a pancake is similar,” she said. “It requires some focus but it’s not that hard. You don’t really need to cut anything. You just watch it.” Alex always says that cooking is meditative for him. I would respectfully disagree—to me, it feels more like hurtling down a mogul course—but I can see it with pancakes. You’re just systematically waiting and flipping, waiting and flipping. After making buttermilk pancakes, we progressed to Sqirl’s buckwheat pancakes for lunch on a Sunday. I can’t find the recipe online, but here’s a photo. For those who are lucky enough to have dodged my Sqirl talk thus far, it’s a phenomenal, semi-healthy breakfast and lunch spot in Silver Lake. Every time I’m in LA, I badger my companions into going right when it opens at 8 a.m. so we’re sure to get a table. When I was there to write about Dax Shepard in November, I high-tailed it to Sqirl right after our interview and embarrassed myself in front of the staff by inhaling bits of a particularly seedy cookie and having a loud coughing fit, after which I went around the corner to die in private. Alex and I thought we had all the requisite ingredients for Sqirl’s buckwheat pancakes, other than cactus flour, but the recipe calls for corn flour and it turns out cornmeal isn’t the same thing. We subbed in whole wheat, so they weren’t really Sqirlcakes, but they were still tasty in a restrained, earthy way. Alex convinced me to try one with raspberry jam, which I reluctantly admit was a great pairing. A week or two later, we made them again. I wasn’t really hungry because it was 2 p.m. and I’d already eaten lunch—Alex had just gotten up—but I pledged to eat my portion cold out of the fridge. Alex thought this was insane, but he sometimes forgets that I like my food a little squidgy. We went grocery shopping the next morning, which was as much of a bitch as it always is right now. Even though we’ve gotten the process down to a science, it still takes three hours from start to finish, with significant angst on my part about the cleanliness of the inbound goods. Finally everything was put away, and Alex headed off to take a shower. I was agitated and crazy hungry. I scrubbed my hands one more time, pulled the pancakes out of the fridge, and promptly dropped one on the floor while trying to get it into my mouth. I ate the rest in big, angry bites, one after another, standing in the middle of the kitchen. I didn’t want to sit down in my outdoor clothes. The pancakes were perfect, though. A shot of sweet, comforting carb straight to the heart.

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rainydawgradioblog · 4 years

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RDR Essentials - Metal (01/13)

RDR Essentials is a weekly newsletter of alternating genres that outlines key releases of the past month, upcoming events around Seattle and happenings in the specified music genre.

Made in collaboration between Rainy Dawg DJs and the Music Director.

Releases:

Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race

If you’ve been paying attention to metal recently (or at all), you’ve probably heard of Blood Incantation - the Colorado death metal band that has some “next big thing” buzz about them. While they formed in 2011 and released their first demo in 2013, their 2016 release Starspawn really put them on the map. Subsequently, people have been waiting with bated breath this release for the last few years. So when it came out in November (well, it leaked in October), everyone pretty much went insane. Clocking in at a relatively short 36 minutes, this album is chock full of both classic death metal riffs and genre fusing synths. The prevailing sci-fi theme makes it a little weirder than a conventional death metal album (the cover art is by famed sci-fi artist Bruce Pennington), which works to its benefit as the band experiments with the genre over the track listing. Even the album structure is unconventional, with only 4 songs (the last one being 18 minutes). We start off with Slave Species to the Gods, one of the more conventional cuts out of the four and the first single to come out. Despite its “conventional” tone, it’s death metal done right, and any self-respecting metalhead will be in the pit hearing it live. The next track, Giza Power Plant, is where things start to get weirder. It’s still got the death metal heavy riffs and chugging, but there’s a middle-eastern vibe throughout the track. As the song goes on, it deteriorates into death-doom and closes with some heavy synth well-suited for the sci-fi theme. Not to say the record isn’t death metal at its core, but it’s a fusion of the outer space vibe with contemporary death metal tropes that separates it from the rest of the field. The third track, Inner Paths (to Outer Space), is (almost) entirely instrumental. It starts off with some synths and a jammy, catchy buildup that morphs into one long, heavy growl over a dark riff. The last track is 18 minutes, and it’s really like two great death metal songs that are linked together by a John Carpenter-like horror movie theme. This track is an odyssey, from quiet, clean guitar playing to insanely loud, heavy riffs multiple times over the 18 minutes. The only criticism one could levy against the album is the short runtime and the lack of a really big, hard-hitting song. I felt as though the length is closer to that of an EP, since many albums in the genre tend to be reaching an hour. And despite the quality track listing, it lacked what their 2016 release Starspawn had, which is an incredible single. To be fair, “write an amazing, approachable death metal song” isn’t a great critique or an easy task, but I felt as though one would have tied the album together more and increased the runtime. Overall, it’s a great LP that is an incredible fusion of death metal and sci-fi themes, and a probable contender for genre album of the year.

Favorite tracks - Giza Power Plant, Inner Gods (to Outer Space)

- Bobby Baraldi

Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas

It’s finally here - the new Cattle Decap album. After The Anthropocene Extinction blew everyone away, Death Atlas has been on everyone’s radar since its announcement a year and some change ago. In case you’re uninitiated, Cattle Decap formed in 1996 as a relatively straightforward deathgrind band with a vegan/straight-edge stance. Since then, they’ve morphed from pro-animal to anti-human and their music has changed from pretty direct death and grind metal to absurdly technical, unique, and progressive. At this point, they’re almost synonymous with “extreme metal.” Death Atlas is their 8th album, and it’s full of apocalyptic themes and dizzying, break-neck musical passages. Something that Cattle Decap has done here that’s a little different from previous albums is the incorporation of black metal components into the songs, which further emphasizes the overall doomed theme of the album. And while their previous albums have emphasized motifs, this LP is truly conceptual in tone and narrative. We start off with one of several radio-type passages about the dangers of climate change, accompanied by sinister synthesizer. Then, The Geocide blows the listener away with a 30 second blast beat and vocal shriek combo from the start, which is jarring yet goosebump-inducing transition to say the least. From here, we venture all over different extreme metal styles in every song. From contemporary melodic death-black metal fusions on Be Still Our Bleeding Hearts to the neck-breaking slam riff at the end of Bring Back the Plague, there’s something musically here for all metalheads. Vulturous stands out heavily, with and excellent combination of snarling vocals, breakdowns, and lightening fast riffs accompanied by your typical blast beats. Travis Ryan is perhaps the most versatile vocalist in metal, and he shows his range all over this track as well as the rest of the album. This ranges from goblin-like shrieks and spoken word to guttural slam to almost goth-like singing and choral parts on the end/title-track Death Atlas. For me, this vocal performance is part of what makes the album stand out from its contemporaries. The guitar work is also amazing per usual from Josh Elmore and newcomer Belisario Dimuzio; not only technical, but also tasteful. But OH MY GOD - the drum and bass work really come through on this record, making everything so heavy and giving that extra punch when the song really calls for it. Something that always irks me about metal albums is that the bass tends to get buried in the mix, yet here Olivar Pinard’s bass (of Cryptopsy fame) is usually clear and adds so much more to the dark and foreboding feel of the album. The bass aerobics are in perfect unison with the hyperspeed and strong drumming of Dave McGraw, which makes the slam passages incredibly hard-hitting. Of course, a review of this album wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the last two songs: Time’s Cruel Curtain and Death Atlas, which are foreboding yet melodic, and the black/death metal combo almost comes across as wistful. It’s as though Cattle Decap is sad that humanity is blowing its chance. Anyways, the TL;DR is that it might be AOTY for me and many other metalheads.

Favorite tracks - The Geocide, Vulturous, Bring Back the Plague, With all Disrespect, Time’s Cruel Curtain, Death Atlas

- Bobby Baraldi

Lamp of Murmuur - Chasing The Path Of The Hidden Master

Little is known about Lamp of Murmuur. Besides the fact that they hail from Olympia and are signed to all star black metal label Death Kvlt Records, there is nothing but their music to fixate on. This is lack of identifying characteristics is a virtue that many black metal artists have attempted to pull off. There is something truly mystical about hearing the screams of a faceless entity, like a ghost that you can hear but cannot see. The production is raw, with shrill guitars bouncing off the walls of an ice encased fortress and vocal shrieks that pierce like a razor. The drums, though just barely audible, peak their heads out over the mix, giving the album a far-away ambience. Basically, this album sounds like what black metal should sound like. Riff wise, this album sounds like it takes inspiration from 2nd wave bands like Taake, and especially Satanic Warmaster. It’s the perfect combination of aggressive, melodic, and frozen. Although it appears that there is a paywall to listening to the full album, one can purchase it digitally for as much as one wants to give. If you listen to this and enjoy it, I would highly recommend checking out Satanic Warmaster as well as the other artists on Death Kvlt Productions.

- Zac Weiner

Painboys - In Agony

Local blackened hardcore act PAINBOYS are back with a ripping follow up to there last demo Ritual Torment. This new project features some new production which in my opinion is a major step up from their previous releases. The album opens up with the doomy “Bleeding Throne” which features a foreboding riff before turning into a filthy punk stomper. My personal highlight is the song “Necrogoatchrist” which features one of the best riffs on the album and a seething vocal performance. The Painboys manage to create a stormy and apprehensive atmosphere all while maintaining the aggression of hardcore punk. It's quite a novel sound that is dark and befouled, while still being moshable and fun. Its as if they want us to rejoice in the picture of filth their songs paint for us. The vocals on this album are also a real highlight. It's hard to find a unique voice amongst the immense backdrop of black/death influenced metal bands, and this singer totally pulls it off. Finally, every great metal album comes with a kickass cover. The depiction of the ghostly ritual that accompanies this album is the perfect visualization of ritualistic onslaught this album brings. Purchase a tape from their bandcamp and support this local band!

- Zac Weiner

More New Essentials:

Officium Triste - The Death of Gaia (death doom)

Oath of Cruelty - Summary Execution at Dawn (thrash/death)

Witchbones - The Seas of Draugen (blackened death)

Carcariass - Planet Chaos (prog/tech death)

Iron Curtain - Danger Zone (thrash/hard rock)

Haunt - Mind Freeze (hard rock, doom)

Upcoming Releases:

01/17: Kaoteon - Kaoteon (blackened death)

01/24: Midnight - Rebirth by Blasphemy (black and roll)

01/24: Invictus - The catacombs of fear (death metal/thrash)

01/31: Reaper - Unholy nordic noise (blackened speed metal)

Events:

01/18: Portrayal of Guilt, Street Sects, Haunted Horses, Blightmaker @ Substation

8PM / 21+ / $14-18 / Hardcore

02/10: Soulfly, Toxic Holocaust, X-Method, Madzilla @ El Corazon

6PM / AA / $20-25 / Thrash

02/16: Vale of Pnath, Gorod, Wolf King, Aphelion, Pound @ El Corazon

7PM / AA / $13-15 / Tech Death

03/05: Refused, METZ, Youth Code @ the Showbox

7:30PM / AA / $30-35 / Punk

03/17: Mayhem, Abbath, Gatecreeper, Idle Hands @ the Showbox

7PM / AA / $28.50-32 / Black & Death

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fanfictionconnectionwordpress · 7 years

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Mystic Messenger Fanfiction | JuminxMC Good Ending Continued | Ch. 10 So Wrong

***I realize it is Tuesday and that these chapters are supposed to update on Monday but like....I wrote the chapter yesterday and then promptly passed out? LOL woops. Anyway, you are getting it today!!! And that's what matters, right? Sorry I'm such a mess T_T

Don’t forget to subscribe to the email list for access to R-Rated Scenes and my monthly newsletter. You can support my writing on patreon and get access to my VIP Discord Server or other goodies like early chapter releases and hidden scenes. JuminxMC Good Ending Continued Chapter Directory ~Let’s Connect! FFC***

Everything had gone so well, so it almost felt wrong to have something go…so wrong. With the best doctors and nursing staff available, it was hard for anything to go wrong really. Or so we thought. There are some things in life that you simply couldn't plan for. No matter how trained your bodyguards were, no matter how professional, no matter how hand-picked, sometimes things go wrong.

Our daughter was a perfect little angel, snuggled into blankets and wrapped tight. I was exhausted, obviously, and our new nanny was already with us, the one pushing my wheelchair as we made our way out to the parking garage, my husband's hand on my shoulder from time to time to give me a reassuring touch. He had this look on his face like he'd seen the most beautiful sight, and maybe that's what our daughter was to him. Kyung Han. She was the spitting image of her father, a little princess to be. Her eyes were already that gray color like his and her hair was pitch-black.

People were going crazy online; the news having slipped that our daughter had been born. That meant reporters were going crazy too, trying to get the first picture and the first interview. I felt uncomfortable with the fact that our child would grow up so heavily in the spotlight thanks to our status as one of Korea's hottest couples, but marrying one of Korea's most eligible bachelors came with a price, especially with such a public engagement as ours had been and his high-profile profession. She would be cared for and happy, and she was healthy, so what if she grew up in the spotlight if she got the love that she needed at home?

Jumin had learned a lot about time management when at home, separating himself from work, I had no doubt that things would be alright. We neared the car now, Driver Kim waiting expectantly, and Jumin helped me out of the hospital required wheelchair to help me into the vehicle with our daughter. The bodyguards had broken rank, as was their custom once we were going to enter the vehicle, only to have someone dart in between them, a small mousy man with a large camera and the biggest flash machine I'd ever seen.

It went off with a loud pop, blinding me for a moment, but that moment was pure terror. I knew in my mind it was just a man trying to sneak a photo, but now my infant daughter was shrieking and Jumin was sending the bodyguards after him. Kyung was nearly impossible to settle down on the ride home, her father constantly fussing over her, using his soft low tones to appease her. The problem was, she wouldn't look at us. In fact. She wouldn't look at anything.

The rage my husband had displayed when we found out the news that our daughter had gone blind thanks to a non-industry approved flash was indescribable. That oh so well-built composure, crumbled before the anger of a father whose daughter had been irreparably damaged. It wasn't that anything was wrong with Kyung, other than that she *could* see and now *couldn't*, but that was enough to incense my husband. He'd found the location of that reporter and shoved the man against a wall, not that I'd been there to witness it.

Never in my life had I seen him act anything close to this way. I'd been called by Driver Kim and Jaehee had immediately gone into action to try to repair the damage, particularly to the company name. Fortunately, when the paper had threatened to sue, the weight of Jumin's counterclaim made them back away and sign a nondisclosure agreement. Any information that *did* get out seemed to be in our favor, but here my husband was at home, taking a few weeks off work.

It wasn't unlike him to take off work these days, simply because he enjoyed being home for important appointments and so on, but right now I knew it was because of the immense pain. I walked out of the bedroom, pulling my silk robe tight around me as I made my way down the hall to our little girl's room knowing that's where he'd be. The nanny had laid her down for a nap after I'd fed her, but Jumin had a habit of listlessly following our daughter everywhere, this look on his face that was simply...devoid of feeling.

I knew he still had to love her. The fact that she had lost her eyesight wasn't something that would make him stop loving our so anxiously awaited child, but it still worried me that empty expression that he had. It was just like when he'd used to shut away his emotions before, and I worried he was reverting to that.

Quietly, I entered the room, stepping up behind my husband with a pit in my stomach as he simply sat there staring at our child's bed. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't even been on the messenger for well over a week, everyone asking how things were going only for me to say I wasn't sure. Tears welled up in my chest. Our daughter was a week and a half old, and her father was falling apart emotionally, keeping it all inside to the point that he would probably break.

Time to do something about it, or I would lose him forever. I placed my hand on his shoulder to no reaction before giving it a squeeze. "Jumin, honey bunny?" He turned his head just a little toward me, moving to place a hand over mine. "Are you in need of something, MC? If so, please ask the nanny and she'll get it for you. That's what I pay her for." Such a business-like tone even though he was clinging to my hand like a lost child. There were some things he just couldn't hide, at least not from me.

I sighed softly and joined him in sitting on the floor, leaning against his shoulder and looking towards our daughter's crib. "Do you have something you want to tell our daughter? Why else would you be sitting in here?" That was the best guess I had, and seemingly I was right, because his head dipped just a little to look towards the floor. "Jumin...you need to let it out. There's no more shutting yourself away because that's what we expect of you." The heavy breath that he took at least told me he was thinking about it, but I still felt so utterly sick to see him like this.

"Would you like me to leave so you can tell her what's on your mind?" Instantly, I received my answer. "No. Stay." I just nodded, wrapping my arms around him as we sat there in silence for a little longer. When he finally did speak, it was nothing like I had expected. "I'm sorry I let you get hurt. If I weren't the man that I am, it wouldn't have happened in the first place."

So that was what had him so upset. "I spoke to V when I found out he was losing his sight, and I remember that he told me 'You don't realize how much you use your eyes until you start not being able to.' But that just reminds me that you were only able to for such a short time. You'll never remember what the color of your mother's hair is, or learn the names of the colors and know what they are. Those aren't so horrible of things, but you were *supposed* to be able to. I failed you as a father and you're barely two weeks old."

Now it was my turn to speak as Jumin went silent again, the tension in the room feeling a lot freer than it had been, but still thick like fog. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have helped that man doing what he did, and you know that." Of course he did. He was normally the most rational being on the planet even if his emotions were obscuring that rationality. "Kyung won't remember colors, but she will know your voice, and the touch of your skin, the smell of your freshly laundered suits, the way that your tone changes the second you walk in the door after work. She'll learn to walk, talk, read, and write just in completely different ways, and she'll be loved above all the little girls in all of Korea because she is a Han princess."

Jumin had turned to look at me now, a look of stunned surprise at how much I was saying to him when we'd barely talked since what happened, but I was letting everything out too, all the pent-up worry that had needed to escape. "Love will make her happy, not sight. Family means everything to you, and she will have it, maybe even brothers and sisters who will play with her, and Elizabeth's kittens are due any day now. You know she'll be happy. So please...forgive yourself for what happened." He was still quiet, but nodded, pulling me into his arms. We sat there for a while before he mumbled to me in those soft deep tones. "She'll need a lot of siblings to keep her from being lonely." At least he was on his way back to being himself, and things hadn’t gone as wrong as I’d perhaps thought.

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alexanicholsauthor · 5 years

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My brother getting white girl wasted and swan-diving off the wagon

My big brother’s personality type could probably best be described as stoic. Dude has like zero sense of humor, and he rarely shows any emotion. He hardly makes expressions, seldom shows affection, and generally just tends to glower when he looks at you. Considering he’s big, muscled, and bald, this tends to intimidate people as soon as he steps in a room.

Which is why I literally choked on my Crackuccino® when he walked into the living room where Anne and I were lounging and proclaimed that he wanted to get white girl wasted. After I was able to breathe again, I asked him to repeat himself. He did. Anne and I practically flew off the couch to get alcohol. 😅

We had so much fun. And then afterward we went to a buffet (if you have never been to Golden Corral, you are seriously missing out) and ate like we were stoned. It was epic. When we finally made our way home we all just collapsed on the couch and stared at the TV, which was still off. Having an extreme hatred for silence, I decided to ask my brother what prompted his proclamation and subsequent buffet (we hadn’t been to a buffet in a long time, since I almost got into a fight with the manager at one). He looked at me and said, “Sometimes you just have to do something without reason.”

That made no sense to me, but I was happy with the end results, so I just cuddled into him and let it go.

Fast forward to the next day.

I had a ridiculous hangover. I was hating life, and all my life choices that led to me drinking like I didn’t believe in my liver. I decided then and there that my drinking days were over, that there is so much I could do with my life (and money!) if I weren’t drinking.

This vow lasted all of about three days. 😳

I usually have a will of steel when it comes to important things, but once the hangover completely cleared from my system and I was feeling like my usual, bouncy self, I began questioning why I wanted to quit drinking to begin with. Just because I felt terrible afterward? I felt disgusting after the buffet, but I never thought to swear off food. I enjoyed eating the food immensely while I was doing it, just like I enjoyed drinking. Why is alcohol something I should give up? I only drink on the weekends (and not even every weekend), and even then usually something around four or five beers. Or a 40 ounce. And that’s it.

Does that make me an alcoholic?

I don’t think it does.

So, I swan-dived off the wagon and decided to keep drinking, but in moderation like I already am. I feel much happier. I needs alcohol in my life. 😅

Shortly after my brother made his white girl wasted proclamation, I decided to take a vacation from the authoring world. I only recently came back from it. I think I can best sum up my mindset by ripping text from my newsletter (which went out late as fuck this month) instead of trying to find a way to creatively reword what was already written:

About midway through the month I kind of sat back in my writing chair and just watched as the smoke emanating from my brain slowly oozed out of my ears, occasionally blowing at it and smiling goofily as my bursts of air caused them to dance like ethereal snakes on opioids.

Minutes later I turned to Anne and announced that I was taking the rest of the month off.

I was quickly burning out, and I needed a vacation.

I rarely ever take time off (from writing, work, or anything else really), so a proclamation like that caused her to nearly drop her phone in disbelief. After she got over her initial shock, she shook her head and grinned in condescension. She didn’t believe me. She told me I was incapable of truly taking breaks, and that my past speaks volumes about my obsession with the written word.

Bitch was wrong: I shoved everything aside and turned into a metaphorical vegetable, catching up on all the gaming, reading, and binge-watching I’m normally deprived of because of my insane work ethic.

It was so worth it.

I’m back, fresh-minded, focused, and raring to go!

Damn it feels good to write again… Oh! Before I go, I just remembered: the eBook version of Erotic Urban Legends: Volume 1 is now available for December 1, 2019 preorder! Buy it now, and it will be automagically delivered to your reading device. The paperback will be finished soon (like in the next few days) so if that’s your jam, watch my social media posts in the coming days. I’ll announce it. 😊

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shandragdotson · 6 years

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Ikigai Is Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid Of Retirement

生き甲斐, pronounced ikigai, is a Japanese concept that means “reason for being.” What makes you get up in the morning without an alarm clock because you’re just so damn excited?

From 1999 – 2001, I had to get to the office by 5:30am because I was a lowly grunt in the investment banking world. Making photocopies of last night’s research, getting coffee for the traders, and making presentations was all part of the morning equities routine. But I was excited because I had a fast-paced job right out of college in NYC.

From 2001 – 2007, despite having to continue getting to work at a goodness forsaken hour, I was still excited because I got a new job in San Francisco with the opportunity to build my own little business out west. Working in a satellite office gave me my first glimpse of what entrepreneurship could be like.

But when the financial crisis hit in 2008, my excitement turned into fear. I no longer went to the office because I loved all that went on in the stock markets. I started setting multiple alarm clocks to ensure I got in on time because I didn’t want to give management a reason for firing me. It was depressing to come in and see everything crumbling so quickly.

Despite a recovery by 2012, my excitement for work no longer existed. Work had become a bureaucratic nightmare, so I figured a way out. In retrospect, what I thought was my ikigai for 13 years was simply a job where I traded time for money. Helping institutions make more money felt shallow, even if some of the institutions were responsible for a teacher’s pension.

But through work, I learned how to be a better communicator. Through the practice of writing daily newsletters about what went on in Asia while we slept, I slowly found my ikigai through storytelling. Clients and colleagues alike would regularly reach out to say how much they enjoyed the newsletter.

Now that I don’t have a compliance department breathing down my neck with Financial Samurai, it’s a joy to help make people believe a little more in themselves by showing what’s possible.

A Closer Look At Ikigai

According to Akihiro Hasegawa, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Toyo Eiwa University, the origin of the word ikigai goes back to the Heian period (794 to 1185). “Gai comes from the word kai (“shell” in Japanese) which were deemed highly valuable, and from there ikigai derived as a word that means value in living.”

“Japanese people believe that the sum of small joys in everyday life results in a more fulfilling life as a whole,” writes Hasegawa. I believe it. Small things for me like winning a high school conference tennis title and watching my boy take his first steps collectively bring an immense amount of joy.

Mieko Kamiya, author of the book, Ikigai-nitsuite, explains that as a word, ikigai is similar to “happiness” but with some subtle differences. He writes, “Ikigai is what allows you to look forward to the future even if you’re miserable right now.”

One sunny October day in 2011, I found hope that there could be life after finance. For a couple years prior, I was in a funk, no longer enjoying the day-to-day of the business.

After three hours of hiking up and around Santorini, Greece, I stopped to rest at an open bar overlooking the crater. I had my iPhone and the bar had WiFi. Perfect!

My moment of hope: October 2011, Santorini, Greece

I ordered an overpriced $10 Mythos beer and began to check my messages. In my inbox was an advertising client based in London whom I had worked with before. He said he’d pay me $1,100 if I’d put a link on the homepage of this site.

I told him sure! So he sent me the code, I managed to copy and paste the code onto my homepage with my iPhone, and he Paypaled me the $1,100 within 10 minutes after I was done. The whole process took 30 minutes.

That was the moment when I finally realized I could finally escape my job. I immediately ordered another overpriced $10 Mythos beer and devised my layoff plans.

Ikigai Is Why You’ll Be Fine After Retiring

Despite having enough money to survive, after you retire you’ll always be worried for an unknown period of time. My worry lasted for about two years before I could confidently say that I 100% no longer feared running out of money or had made the wrong decision.

After you retire from a conventional job, you’re not going to just sit on your hands and do nothing. You will naturally start doing what provides you the most amount of purpose. And because you will be so focused on making sure retiring when you did was the right choice, you will inevitably find your ikigai!

Please take a look at this graphic explaining ikigai. It might look like a lot of New Age mumbo jumbo, but ikigai has been around for centuries.

Now it’s time to list all the things that will help you find your ikigai. Here’s my list.

What I Love:

Connecting with people

Learning different perspectives

Traveling abroad

Creating something from nothing

Getting recognized for my efforts

Reading great stories

Taking care of my family

Writing

What I’m Good At:

Telling stories

Doing what I say

Not giving up

Building partnerships

Simplifying the complex

Getting the most out of my body and mind

Writing

What The World Needs:

Access to free financial education

More interesting stories

Geographic, racial, and socioeconomic diversity in personal finance

As many different perspectives as possible

A stronger support network for those most in need

What I Can Be Paid For:

My writing

My speaking

The Financial Samurai brand

Always Find Your Ikigai

Having something to live for truly matters.

The Fear Of Running Out Of Money In Retirement Is Overblown

Overcoming The One More Year Syndrome To Do Something New

How To Retire Early And Never Have To Work Again

Readers, please share with me your reason for being! Have you found your ikigai? Or are you still on the search? Why do we settle, when there is so much opportunity?

https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Ikigai-Is-why-you-shouldnt-fear-retirement.m4a

The post Ikigai Is Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid Of Retirement appeared first on Financial Samurai.

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#Financial Samurai

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jamiekturner · 7 years

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The Making of a Unicorn

Three years ago I embarked on a journey to become a unicorn. A unicorn is a designer who also writes code.

I had always wanted to learn to code. I’d dabbled a little bit. But I didn’t know anything about web programming. I’ve also wanted to learn how to design on my computer.

My professional background was in product management. I’d worked with incredibly talented designers and developers. Then I went and got an MBA.

I was tired of having ideas and not being able to execute on them myself. I had that creative itch that I couldn’t quite scratch.

I’ve realized how many others out there who want to be makers but get lost along the way. There are so many tutorials out now on so many learning platforms teaching so many different frameworks.

And then there’s learning to be a designer…

I love learning and grew up in a household where education was the most important thing. Yet I was afraid of programming. It was scary and intimidating. As I grew up and became a professional manager of programmers and designers I felt like something was missing.

I would have an idea and then find others to pay to make it. This hurts your soul. Yes, money is a wonderful tool. But so is hard work. I want to challenge you to step outside of your comfort zone and learn how to make things!

I recommend learning HTML, CSS, Sass, and JavaScript today. If you want to make apps, I would then learn Swift or Java depending on whether you want to do iOS or Android.

Learning design is a nebulous process. My recommendation here is to focus on the principles of UX design. It will help with what you build while you do programming exercises. Additionally, learning interaction and visual design both take lots of practice and time. You have to develop a feel for it, which won’t happen quickly.

The key to remember is that you have to learn tools and processes. The tools will come and go, so the ones I suggest are good for getting started. The processes will take a long time to master, but they can be applied to any tools going forward.

The other thing to note is how you like to learn. I used a mix of books, online tutorials, online courses, and in-person courses. I was working for a startup remotely for a large chunk of this, then running my own startup. This gave me flexibility and access to mentors.

Things to learn:

Positive Attitude — have fun being bad and learning. You have to get into the mentality of play and making mistakes, especially when you can’t quite understand something.

Dev: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (jQuery, Underscore), Sass, bootstrap, github, sublime text, command line, Angular, React.

Design: Sketch, PhotoShop, inVision, Marvel, Framer.

Processes: Hosting, modular programming, object-oriented programming, chrome dev tool debugging, strategic design thinking, interviewing, surveys, personas, card sorting, information architecture, user flows, ui design, usability testing, wireframing, mocking up, prototyping, interaction designing, animating, color theory, typography, whew…that’s a lot. I’m sure there are more too. A lot of these you’ll learn while learning tools, but some take intentional focus.

The last piece I want to point out is that my philosophy towards learning has changed so so so much over the last three years. If the only useful thing you get from my post is this then I’m happy:

When learning development there are two fundamental pieces. One is memorization and the second is practice understanding and implementing concepts. While learning a new programming language the faster you memorize the vocabulary the stronger you get. It takes some work (and flash cards), but is incredibly useful. Then, in order to be able to actually use a new concept, you have to practice it in real code. Watching or reading won’t cut it if you don’t take the time to try it out.

When learning design there are two fundamental pieces. One is learning the tools and the second is raw practice based on inspiration. As you begin to master the tools you grow substantially faster and understand how to “see” designs you like. You’ll understand how they were put together and why. However, you must put in the hours creating and recreating designs. Learn a tool then find inspiration on the web. Recreate what inspires you. Your eye will improve and your ability to create what you see in your mind’s eye will mature.

Here’s the complete list of books, courses, and tutorials I found most helpful.

Below the list I’ll give an exact order that I would recommend going through them. Oh, the power of hindsight!

Books:

Don’t Make Me Think — the classic book on making things usable and a fantastic place to start learning about UX.

HTML/CSS Book — beautiful, simple, and effective.

Eloquent JavaScript — the best book to go from zero to hero in JS, oh and it’s free.

Elements of Typographic style — I can’t stress how important it is to learn typeography early in your journey.

Elements of user experience—Another classic, while I think some of the content is outdated, you’ll understand many of the concepts listed above by the time you finish.

Information Architecture — One of the few books I think of as invaluable for both devs and designers.

JavaScript Patterns — The most advanced book here, this will help you understand best practices and why other devs make certain decisions.

JavaScript the Good Parts — Another classic JS book, this deeper dive will get you using intermediate concepts.

TDD By Example — You will need to understand Test Driven Development both as a practice and as a conversation piece with other devs.

Progit — Part of becoming a developer is learning how to use git and this primer helped me immensely.

UX Pinfree books — UX Pin has SO many free books, I highly recommend reading one as you dig into new UX topics.

Courses:

Bloc UX — I have mixed feelings about the Bloc course. I wasn’t thrilled with the content of the lectures and I ended up referring to books or the Team Treehouse UX content a lot of the time. However, the projects section is great for cutting your teeth and having a mentor involved is useful for feedback. I did the program before any of my in-person training. The price, for an online program, is a bit steep.

RefactorU, full-stack JavaScript, in person 10 weeks — I had a fantastic experience at RU. I came in feeling confident in my html, css, and JS skills, and by the end of the 10 weeks I realized how much I still have to learn. I went through the program starting January 2015. I still don’t feel confident in Node/backend because I haven’t been using it, but my front-end skills went through the roof. I think an in-person experience is killer if you have the time both for networking and being in a structured environment.

General Assembly, UX, in person 10 weeks — I enjoyed the GA program a lot. I was told by the admittance team that my knowledge of UX was likely above much of the course materials and this was true. However, being at GA is a fantastic experience in San Francisco, both for networking and building a portfolio in a collaborative environment. One of the biggest challenges for me after all my learning was how to showcase it. With the guidance of my instructors I feel like I’m getting there. Also, working in a program focused on real projects is useful and fun.

Design + Code, in person, 1 weekend — I can’t stress how amazing Meng To is as an individual. The class is one day of Sketch and one day of XCode working on a real project. Part of what I found the most valuable was learning by doing. I still use the technique in the class for making drop shadows, and a lot of my Sketch workflow is based on Meng’s suggestions. I’ll also add that he is a walking encyclopedia of design resources and his newsletter is fantastic.

Tutorials:

The Bitfountain Design Immersive, iOS8 Sketch — This course helped me more than any other out there in learning Sketch. It’s intense, long, brutal, but so effective. Along the way you create a huge amount of assets and learn a lot of tips and tricks.

The new Bitfountain site, iOS dev & design — Bitfountain released a new site last year and has a wonderful community. I can’t plug these guys enough, they create content based on what users ask for and have a wonderful teaching style. I’ve worked through a lot of their Swift content and some of the new Sketch materials.

Codecademy — Spend a weekend with codecademy when you start to learn HTML/CSS, then another weekend when you want to learn JavaScript. Their method of learning by doing is effective for mastering the basics. When you go on to more advanced tutorials you’ll begin to understand how things work better, but you’ll have a solid foundation.

Dash — This was my introduction to General Assembly a couple of years ago. Similar to codecademy, but more of a full project than individual lessons.

Learn git — A visual way to learn git, this helped me more than any other resource. It’s fast and pushed me to that “aha” moment.

Codeschool — A monster of a site. I’ve worked through about two thirds of it at this point. It’s a great place to learn JavaScript and the best for interactive tutorials on front-end concepts. I also enjoyed their Sass courses a lot.

Sketchcasts — I can’t stress enough the value in watching experienced designers work. Sign up for a few months and watch all of the content. Many of the concepts covered I’ve gone back to a few times as they become relevant to me on projects. Also, the tips are incredibly useful.

tuts+ — I often use tuts+ as a follow-up when I’ve learned the basics of a skill somewhere else. There are a good mix of design and dev tutorials and they add new ones regularly.

Lynda — Still the best place to learn new tools. Where I learned Photoshop. Also, they have some solid UX courses now too.

Udemy — Hmmm, not one of my favorite sites because the courses can range in quality so much. I recommend taking the courses when they are offered at a deep discount. The site seems to be down for me right now, but I enjoyed Rob Percival’s Sketch course and I found a couple of solid Affinity Designer courses as well. The dev courses I’ve taken haven’t impressed, so do your homework before purchasing one.

Team Treehouse — My favorite of all the resources for a couple of reasons. One is that they regularly add new content and re-organize their tracks. The second is that they have great instructors and a wonderful community when you’re stuck. Also, you can download any course as a video podcast and watch it elsewhere. I went through hours and hours on the treadmill on my iPad when I was training for a race last year! There are excellent dev and design courses, although I wish they had more on modern frameworks like Node, Angular, and React (it seems like they have a lot of new content in the pipeline). Just be warned that some of the challenges will require you to get help from the community.

Level Up Tuts — The best free resource I’ve found. Period. Scott is a great teacher and has gotten better over time. He has 1–3 hour courses on everything front-end related. If you are on a budget follow him! Either way, I would watch his courses before doing any paid content and support him along the way. Watch his tutorials on Sublime Text, Command Line, CSS/Sass, Angular, React, and especially all of his Sketch tutorials. Aside from UX practices and UI patterns he teaches everything you need to learn. I don’t have enough nice things to say — I’m amazed he puts everything up on YouTube.

Learn the hard way — Kind of a book, kind of a tutorial. This was a great way for learning the command line and for learning the basics of Regular Expressions. If you decide to learn Ruby or Python after JavaScript, I’m sure the materials here are excellent.

Watch Me Code — Watching other people work is a wonderful way to learn subtle nuances of a craft. This is a JavaScript focused site where you watch Derick using modern technology and doing testing. Part of why I enjoyed this site so much is that you actually learn testing and see professional, shipped code. I wouldn’t start out here, but when you feel like you’ve hit a wall this is a great place to learn.

Front-End Masters — I don’t exactly know how to classify this site, but I love it. There are some beginner and intermediate courses, but their advanced courses really shine. Many of the people who create the frameworks you use are the ones actually teaching the classes! This is the best place I’ve found for learning advanced JavaScript, frameworks, and methodologies. I spend time here currently when I want to learn something new.

Wes Bos — I’m not entirely sure where to classify all of Wes’ materials, but DAMN they are good. His book on Sublime Text is the best I’ve found by far, and his email tutorials on Flexbox and React are wonderful. Use his stuff to help learn. I also enjoy his teaching style.

Kopywriting Kourse — I haven’t included any other writing/content/copy materials as I think it’s a rabbit hole. Everyone should take Neville’s course. Understanding words, how they drive action, and marketing is important in life. We are all victims of this constantly on the web, you may as well understand the principles and how to put them to work.

Some I didn’t include: Pluralsight — Too many tutorials, not enough updates, not the best instructors in my opinion. I was overwhelmed on the site and some of the content was too old to be useful. Probably worth another look at some point though.

Train Simple — Adobe only training, I’ve found Lynda and Adobe’s own tutorials better. Also, check out Creative Live for specific Photoshop and Illustrator classes (I was in the audience for the recent Illustrator class!).

Evented Mind — I spent some time here learning Meteor, I generally found there to be better teachers and better content elsewhere. I prefer learning by doing rather than just watching.

Ray Wenderlich — If you dig further into iOS or Android programming you’ll come across the site. I haven’t worked through their materials, but have heard fantastic things. Some of the blog posts are tutorials in their own right and I’ve used a couple.

Scotch.io — During my journey I’ve used Scotch’s tutorials a number of times. Some are very helpful, some are less so. I particularly enjoyed their, REST, Angular, React, and Sublime Text tutorials. I think all of their content is free.

The Design of Everyday Things — Along your journey you’ll stumble across Don Norman. He’s a father of UX and a big influence for many in the field. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of his writing style. Feel free to read this book and hopefully you enjoy it more than I did. I know this is blasphemy to some, but I want to be honest in my reviews.

About Face — The seminal book on Interaction Design by Alan Cooper and others, which has been updated several times. I enjoyed it, but don’t think it’s a must read like the books I’ve listed above. If you want to dig further into interaction design and prototyping give it a look.

Processes:

I want to quickly highlight three important processes that have helped me along my journey.

Copying designs that you like off Dribbble or Behance. Actually downloading and recreating assets in Sketch is fun and useful. It’s a great way to learn color, typography, and layout. I recommend grabbing WhatFont chrome extension so you can see what other sites are using as type. Also…use this for learning what type is in an image.

Creating tiny projects to learn and test dev work. You have to make stuff! When you learn something new, think of a way to make something simple and test it out. It doesn’t need to be more than a few lines of code, but get in the habit of creating. This will anchor what you’ve learned, and you can refer back to it later. I save all of mine in Dropbox.

Practice code challenges. I like Codewars, they tend to be fun and have a good community.

Other Resources:

I realized as I finished that I hadn’t listed the other resources that I love and use regularly. Some of these are tools, some are blogs, some are newsletters. Rather than continuing with overwhelm, here are the best of the best in my opinion.

Codrops — I love their newsletter and site. It’s the best thing since sliced bread. Amazing tutorials, links, resources, and their CSS resource helped me when I was really struggling to understand pseudoclasses and the box model.

Luke W — Simply wonderful blog and newsletter. Luke’s writing and data-driven analysis are so useful.

Design+Code — I mentioned Meng To earlier, but his weeklyish newsletter is usually where I find out about new tools and tricks.

Sidebar — Sidebar is curated by the generous Sacha Greif who has created some useful things. It’s 5 design related links every day. A lot of my inspiration comes from these links.

Designer News — Stay current. I enjoy the newsletter even though it often overlaps with Sidebar.

InVision Blog — I don’t have enough nice things to say about what InVision is doing for the design community. The blog is great, the content is great, the guest authors are great. If I could only follow one blog, this would be it.

Dribbble and Behance — When you are learning, you need to find some great creatives to follow. Grabbing resources and mirroring better artists is a fantastic way to learn. Yes, these are focused on visual design and not usability or UX. But that’s okay. I should probably start posting things to dribbble to get feedback, but I’ve never looked for an invite before…

Universe or unicorn?

Below is exactly what I would recommend for someone looking to become a unicorn.

If I could turn back time…

Here is the path I’d follow if I started again today. If you have the luxury of taking an immersive course, I highly recommend it. Having classmates to bounce ideas off of and a career center to help you find a job, create a new resume, and portfolio is invaluable. Feel free to jump around if you already understand some of the topics presented.

Immersive Route:

Prep Work Don’t Make Me Think HTML/CSS Book

HTML/CSS Dash Codecademy Level Up Tuts — work through the html and css tutorials. Team Treehouse — Begin the web design track, this is the segue into UX.

UX Intro Elements of user experience Information Architecture Lynda — UX courses to learn the tools.

JavaScript Intro Eloquent JavaScript Codecademy — JS tutorials, skip jQuery for now. Team Treehouse — Begin the web developer track . Level Up Tuts — JS tutorials.

Visual Design Tools (Sketch & PS) Level Up Tuts — Sketch Tutorials. Design+Code — Work through the Sketch part. Sketchcasts — This will really help after you have the basics down. Udemy — The monster Rob Percival course. The Bitfountain Design Immersive — If you can still access this, otherwise work on the new Bitfountain. Lynda — Photoshop training, you can decide how deep to go here…I recommend Deke’s tutorials, but there are many good ones. Bezier Tool Game — A fun and incredibly useful way to learn the pen tool. You’ll thank me for spending some hours on this, it helped me finally get how the tool works.

Development Tools — At this point we are prepping for the advanced JS and Front-End concepts by learning tools developers use. Level Up Tuts — Sublime text tutorials Sublime Text by Wes Bos. Team Treehouse — If you haven’t completed the git/github courses or the console/terminal course go through these. Learn git Progit Codeschool — This is when I would switch from Treehouse to Codeschool. Take the git/github courses at Codeschool. Codecademy — Learn the command line. This will take a long time to master, but you will get good enough to begin using it. At this point I’d stop using finder for a month or two in order to practice. Learn the hard way — A good way to round out your command line learning.

JavaScript Advanced JavaScript Patterns TDD By Example Codeschool — Work through the JavaScript tutorials then any front-end frameworks you want to learn. I would also watch the CSS/Sass tutorials. Front-End Masters or Watch Me Code — I would pick one of these to start and then work into the other depending on whether you want to learn testing first, or dig deep into React/Angular and brush up on other skills.

Prototyping Tools This isn’t an area I would spend too much time on. I would download Marvel for your phone, and use InVision on the web. When you want to test deeper interactions, spend some time learning Framer. There are a lot of good Framer tutorials out there (check out Bitfountain, Front-End Masters, and Udemy). It’s the tool I’ve been learning recently and enjoying immensely. With the JavaScript skills you’ve developed it shouldn’t take long to pick up.

Immersive At this point you’re pretty good and have a solid foundation of knowledge to draw from. Decide whether you want to focus more on UX or on Front-End based on what you enjoyed learning more! You have years ahead. If you want to do UX, I’d recommend going to General Assembly. Their career counseling is great and you’ll meet a network of other designers. If you want to do Front-End, I’d recommend going to Hack Reactor. I debated between the two and ended up at GA. If I wanted to focus more on dev I would’ve gone to HR. I wanted to move to San Francisco and signed up for a course at GA while I was doing consulting work. Hack Reactor has an online program that you can take anywhere in the world. If you happen to be (or want to be) in the Boulder area, check out RefactorU.

Final Thoughts

This turned into a substantially longer post than I’d expected. I hope it helps people navigate through the huge number of learning options. I am sure people will have different opinions on how they like to learn or tools they found useful. Please leave them in the comments! I love self-guided learning and am always looking for new tutorials.

If you want some help based on where you are in your own learning journey I am happy to give specific recommendations as well. I spent many hours working down routes I don’t use much of anymore. The first six months I spent learning Ruby and Rails, and I’ve spent about as much time learning Meteor. I can post thoughts on learning these if people are interested. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

I am a product designer based in San Francisco. I’m currently a UX consultant and looking for full-time work in a playful, education-driven company.

Please follow me on twitter where I focus on design, or follow my blog where I focus on living a meaningful life. Thanks!

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from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/design/the-making-of-a-unicorn/

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Here are two blog posts that show the journey of the Sanctus startup.'Mental Health in Startups' (February 16th, 2016):I’ve been deliberating for over a month now whether or not to write a post about mental health struggles in startups, but I’ve struggled to put together anything coherent. I’ve struggled to come to a conclusion or make any salient points. In fact, I’ve struggled to write anything at all.In this post, I’m not going to come to any conclusions, provide any analysis and I probably won’t make a salient point. But to sum it up in one sentence:“In the last year I’ve struggled with stress, anxiety, panic attacks and sleepless nights”.In September 2012, I dropped out of University to start my first company. Over the course of three and a half years the team and I went onto two accelerator programs, raised $1m, whilst building a product used by 130 websites reaching 50m users every month.I can only compare starting a company to falling in love. You are totally and utterly consumed by your startup, you put everything into it, it’s your life and everything moves extremely quickly. You can invest so heavily into it that you inadvertently block out the other things in your life too. This could be your friends, family, relationships, social life, health or wellbeing. Your company means that much to you.You’re under immense pressure, from the outside and from the inside. Externally, you’re under pressure from shareholders, employees, customers, and the friends and family who don’t understand what you’re doing. Then internally, you put huge pressure on yourself to succeed. You compare yourself to the rockstar CEOs in TechCrunch articles. You feel like you’re not shipping code fast enough, you’re not working hard enough or you’re not growing quickly enough.Not only that, but you’re startup is your identity, it is who you are. You can’t meet anyone without pitching it, you don’t stop thinking about it and your entire life revolves around it. They say business isn’t personal — but it is — your personal life and startup are intrinsically linked.I didn’t realise how consumed by it I had been until I came out of it, and it was during the process of winding the company down when I was hit with severe stress, anxiety and panic attacks. It took me a long time (too long) to figure out that this wasn’t right, accept it and talk about it. Thankfully, most of the above has now subsided, but I know deep down, that they will always be there. Plus I know i’ll always be involved in these types of early stage companies. That’s not to say I’m looking for sympathy, I’m not at all, these are my issues and I’ll deal with them.I feel like this has to be said; because I know there are other people struggling mentally too.I feel like this has to be said; because I’m not ashamed and nobody else should be.I feel like this has to be said; because I know that it is being said; in your head, in whispers, in notepads and only to very close friends and family.People do not talk about mental health enough, that’s a fact. And I believe startup culture is exacerbating this problem, by encouraging people to work themselves into the ground, ’sleep faster’ and move quicker. We might be happy to wear a plaster on our heads for a cut, but we won’t tell people about how we’re burning ourselves out. It’s wrong and something needs to change. Consequently, we need to remove this stigma around mental health and educate ourselves on what it really means, it shouldn’t conjure up images of white gowns and straight jackets in our heads. Our lack of understanding and our inability to put a label on what you may be experiencing, is making experiencing it even harder.Mental health should have as much publicity as our physical health does, potentially even more. Our minds are more important than our biceps.So, let’s start by talking about it, that can be the first step. The spirit of collaboration, community and transparency is so strong in technology and entrepreneurship that I don’t see why it can’t transcend to this subject too.If you believe that we should talk about mental health more then please like and share this post. We’ll go from there and who knows what might happen.James'How I got given £20k off the back of a blog post' (July 10th, 2017)It’s a story worth sharing.In February 2016 I wrote a blog post called mental health in startups, it got 10,000 views in 2 days and I got over 500 personal messages about mental health.Post-blog post was a bit of a blur; I wrote in The Guardian shortly afterwards and started getting asked to speak on panels and give talks about mental health in the startup world. It all happened very fast.Clearly mental health was a pretty huge problem and something people passionately cared about.I was still right in the midst of my own journey with mental health, still feeling pretty raw and anxious a lot of the time.I was working for Doug Scott, running his Angel Investment Syndicate and making early stage investment deals happen. I told Doug I was going to focus on mental health in my spare time, so I kept writing about mental health through a blog and newsletter. I was getting other people to share their stories on my new fangled website https://mentalhealthinstartups.com. I even got Brad Feld to share his story with me.Project Karma, as I called it, was my passion project, I wasn’t getting ahead of myself and I didn’t want to rush into anything too soon — I was still pretty burnt from my last company.Chatbots were the latest buzzword in tech…I went about faking a mental health health chatbot called Sanctus. I got 50 people’s phone numbers who wanted to be part of the experiment, bought a new sim card and set up a Sanctus whatsapp.I was basically pretending to be a chatbot and broadcasting messages like; “How’s your day going? Rate how you feel with an emoji.” I didn’t really know what I was doing but a few people were responding.One of the few people who was receiving my Sanctus chatbot messages was mills, founder of ustwo.I’d known mills for a while and he’d been letting me use space at ustwo for work.One night I was staying late in the office after work playing around with Sanctus the chatbot and mills messaged me back. We chatted over whatsapp about how passionate I was about mental health and he asked me a question…“What would it take for you to go full baller on this?”To go “full baller” I needed cash, I was living in London with expensive rent and was enjoying my job for Doug, but to go all out and try and make something happen with a spare phone and the name Sanctus just wasn’t feasible. I had no idea what Sanctus even was.Before I knew it I was meeting Mills at 7.30am at Shoreditch House and talking about what I wanted to do in mental health. I was just a ball full of energy at this point, I wanted to “make mental health cool”, “change the perception of mental health”, “treat mental health like physical health”, “remove the stigma” and “build a brand that defined mental health & fitness.”Yet at this point, the product was still a fake chatbot on a broken iPhone 4.Another meeting with Mills in The Ace Hotel a couple of weeks later and I was talking about my new found vision for mental health gyms on the high street. I wanted to start off by running mental fitness classes for startup founders then build up a real physical business.I think I was a tiny bit more coherent than our first meeting and the idea for a mental health gym felt a bit more legitimate. After breakfast, mills got out his phone and wired me £10,000 on his mobile banking app, from him and Sinx (his business partner). I had no business plan, no Ltd company and no product. I had nothing.But, I now had £10k to play with.I did also still have a job.So that all happened on a Friday.By Monday I was in Lichfield walking around a park telling Doug what had happened with mills & sinx— I was handing in my notice. I’d worked for Doug for about 9 months and he’d been amazing to me, I’d learned a lot from him and had a lot to thank him for. In what seemed like a no-brainer for him, Doug offered to do the same as mills.Suddenly, I had £20k in the bank and time to figure things out. Suddenly, I was founding a company again and this time, working on something I was truly passionate about.I’d been backed to the hilt by two people I massively respected. Two people that had not just built great businesses, but were also genuinely good people too.I couldn’t believe it and still can’t in many ways. If I’m honest, I didn’t understand what they saw in me, why they’d backed me so much.Shutting down my last company was a huge blow to my confidence and this was a huge boost.After matchchat I didn’t feel like I was good enough to build anything again, but Doug & mills thought I was and that made me believe in myself too.Neither of them cared about valuation, return or terms — they just believed in me and that I was doing something good for the world. I suppose it’s time to say thank you to both of them now. Thank you for backing me when I had nothing, because now Sanctus is something, to a lot of people.So from me, the Sanctus team and the Sanctus community.Thank you xJameswww.sanctus.io @sanctusldn https://www.facebook.com/sanctusLDN

#/r/startups #reddit

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