now more than ever, please vet gofundmes before you donate.
copy and paste descriptions into google to see if there are scam accounts reusing the same story, check to see if there are any images/updates on the fund with faces. go to the original blog, check if the post asking for help is only an hour old, or even less than that. refrain from donating if all it links to is a PayPal account, without any further confirmation of identity.
itâs horrible to say but itâs never been a better time for scam artists to exploit your generosity, when things seem so dire, and Iâve donated to campaigns before only to realise later that the entire story was stolen from an actual family in need. due diligence might take a few more minutes out of your day but at least you wonât be sending money to an opportunistic scumbag.
sorry to revive this post a second time, but I am genuinely ashamed and embarrassed of everyone in the tags whoâs like âexactly and THIS is why I donât reblog/donate to any fundraiser posts on here, you just canât be sure!!!!â . This post is not your get out of jail free card to stop caring about palestine!! This is not the message at all, so stop making it that!!!! Itâs about due diligence, making sure you ARE donating but putting in just an extra five minutes of effort to make sure itâs going to the right people. When you say you havenât been donating anything because itâs just âtoo much effort to check every timeâ, it just tells me exactly how little you care. For months now, people have been slaving away on this site and sacrificing their mental health to make caring for Palestine the easiest and most convenient thing in the world.
In fact, hereâs just a few masterposts of verified funds to donate to, as well as resources:
Resources
HelpGazaChildren (an on the ground grassroots effort to directly help families in Gaza recieve basic necessities like food, water, and clothing!) - via @fairuzfan
Operation Olive Branch - comprehensive spreadsheet full of verified gofundmes, organised on category
Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser List - via collaboration between @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi
Verified funds masterposts via @el-shab-hussein
List of fundraisers for direct contacts from Ghazzah & Sudan
Vetted family fundraiser masterpost 1
Vetted family fundraiser masterpost 2
Unvetted, but highly likely legitimate fundraisers.
Fundraisers for general purposes
Verified funds masterpost via @palms-upturned (collection of funds verified by @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi)
Aaron Lange, Peter Laughner, and the Terminal Town of Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland-based artist, Aaron Lange, tackles his first graphic novel, Ain't It Fun -- a deep dive into the oily depths of the Rust Belt's most influential music town, it's most mythological misfit, it's oft-forgotten artistic and political streaks, and beyond...
Aaron Lange and his book, 2023 (Photo by Jake Kelly)
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Thereâs a recurring line in Aaron Langeâs remarkable new graphic novel, Ainât It Fun (Stone Church Press, 2023), that states, âSay the words out loud. The River isnât real.â The river Lange was speaking of is the Cuyahoga, that infamously flammable mass of muck that dumps out into Lake Erie.
Peter Laughner (the ostensible topic of Langeâs book) was an amazing artist who probably couldâve ditched the banks of the Cuyahoga for more amenably artistic areas back in his early 1970s heyday. Aside from his frequent pilgrimages to the burgeoning NYC Lower East Side scene (where he nearly joined Television) and a quickly ditched attempt to live in California though, he mostly stuck around northeast Ohio.
While desperately trying to find his sound and a workable band, Laughner smelted a post-hippie, pre-punk amoebic folk rock, and formed the influential embryonic punk band, Rocket from the Tombs, which later morphed into Pere Ubu. All of which â lumped up with other rust-belted oddballs like electric eels, Mirrors, DEVO, the Numbers Band, Chi-Pig, Tin Huey, Rubber City Rebels, and more â essentially helped formed the âproto-punkâ template.
Laughner was also a rock writer of some regional renown, and contributed numerous amphetamine-fueled articles to regional mags like The Scene and Creem -- mostly concerning where Rock'n'Roll was going, colored as he was by the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, David Bowie, and Roxy Music playing in Cleveland a bunch of times around his formative years.
Sadly, in June 1977, Laughner died of acute pancreatitis at age 24. Aside from the first two seminal Pere Ubu 7-inch singles, the rest of Laughnerâs recorded output was just one very limited self-released EP and, posthumously, a great double-LP comp of demo and live tracks, Take the Guitar Player for a Ride (1993, Tim Kerr Records). A surprisingly large batch of unreleased lost demos, radio shows, and live tapes appeared on the beautiful and essential box set, Peter Laughner (Smog Veil Records, 2019), that brought Laughnerâs legend just a few blocks outside of Fringeville, as it received universally great reviewsâŠ.
The Dead Boys became the most well-known act of that mid-70s Cleveland scene, though that only happened once they high-tailed it to NYC. Aside from DEVO, Chrissie Hynde, and the Waitresses (all of whom did their own versions of high-tailing it), nearly every other act in that fertile Cle-Akron proto-punk vortex soon dissipated, eventually getting the cult treatment at best.
Cleveland is indeed right there with NYC and London as punk ground zero, but Americans tend to equate buyable products as proof of import, so shockingly, the Pagans and The Styrenes just arenât the household name they should be.
Decades of tape-trading stories, sub-indie label limited releases, and fanzine debates kept the mythology of those acts barely breathing underneath the end of the milenniumâs increasingly loud R'n'R death knell. And as that mythology slowly grew, the fans and even the musicians of the scene itself still wonder what it all meant.   Â
Which, as you dig deeper into Ainât It Fun, becomes the theme not just about the legendary rocker ghost of Peter Laughner, but of Cleveland itself. Ala Greil Marcusâ classic âhidden historyâ tome, Lipstick Traces, Lange interweaves Laughnerâs self-immolating attempts at Beatnik-art-punk transcendence with a very detailed history of Cleveland, with its insane anti-legends and foot-shooting civic development.
Like much of the dank, rusted, and mysterious edges of the one-time âSixth City,â the Cuyahoga has been cleaned up since, though I still wouldnât suggest slurping up a swallow if youâre hanging on the banks of the Flats. I grew up in Cleveland and visit as often as I can because itâs an awesome place, no matter what they tell you. Or maybe, because of what they tell you.
If you are keen to swim down through the muck and mire of Clevelandâs charms, you donât just get used to it, you like it. As for the âClevelandâ that the City Fathers have always tried so vainly to hype, us hopelessly romantic proto-punk fanatics say to those who would erase Clevelandâs fucked-up past and replace it with that weird fake greenspace underneath the Terminal Tower: âThe City isnât real.â
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Give us a quick bio.
Born in Cleveland, 1981. We moved to the west side suburbs when I was six. My parents didnât listen to much music, and I donât have older siblings. So I didnât really listen to music at all until I was in high school, and I didnât listen to any of the grunge or â90s stuff that was popular. I got real into the Beatles when I was in ninth grade, and at some point I got the Velvet Undergroundâs first album from the library because I saw Andy Warholâs name on the cover. I didnât know anything about them, so that was a real shock. I probably first heard Iggy Pop via the Trainspotting soundtrack, and pretty soon after I started getting into punk and generally more obscure stuff. Now I listen to more electronic stuff, ambient stuff. I also like most anything that falls under the broad âpost-punkâ umbrella. I really hate ârama-lama ding-dongâ rock and roll.
What came first â music or drawing interest?
Drawing. I was always drawing⊠Iâve been a semi-regular contributor to Mineshaft for many years, which is a small zine/journal that features a lot of underground comix related stuff, but also has a beatnik vibe and includes poetry and writing. Iâve done the odd thing here and there for other zines, but I donât really fit in anywhere.
Donât really fit it â I feel that phrase describes a lot of the best / more influential Ohio musicians / bands. Did you feel that kind of feeling about Peter as you researched and wrote the book?
Peter was well liked, and he knew a vast array of people. If anything, he fit in in too many situations. He was spread thin.
When you lived in Philly, did you get a sense of any kind of similar proto-punk scene / era in that town? I sometimes, perhaps jingoistically, think this particular kind of music is almost exclusively confined to the Rust Belt.
I lived in Philly for nearly 11 years. As far as the old scene there, they had Pure Hell. But back then, anybody who really wanted to do something like that would just move to NYC.
So, is there a moment in time that started you on a path towards wanting to dig into Clevelandâs proto-punk past like this?
It was just something I had a vague interest in, going back to when I first heard Pere Ubu. And then later learning about the electric eels, and starting to get a feeling that Cleveland had a lot more to offer than just the Dead Boys. The Rocket from the Tombs reunion got things going, and thatâs when I first started to hear Laughnerâs name. A few years later, a friend sent me a burned CD of the Take the Guitar Player for a Ride collection, and I started to get more interested in Peter specifically.
Despite any first wave punk fanâs excitement about a Laughner bio, this book is moreso a history of Cleveland, and trying to connect those odd underground, counterculture, or mythological connections that the Chamber of Commerce tends to ignor as the townâs import. Was there a moment where you realized this book needed to go a little wider than only telling the tales of Laughner and the bands of that era? (Not that thereâs anything wrong with that!)
Very early on I realized that none of this would make sense or have any true meaning without the appropriate context. The activities of the early Cle punk scene need to be viewed in relation to what was going on in the city. I think this is just as true with NYC or London â these were very specific contexts, all tangled up in politics, crime, rent, television, and also the specifics of the more hippie-ish local countercultures that preceded each region. Youâve got Bowie and Warhol and all that, but in Cleveland youâve also got Ghoulardi and d.a. levy. Mix that up with deindustrialization and a picture starts to form.
So when did you decide on doing this book? Youâve mentioned this was your first attempt at doing a full graphic novel â and boy, you went epic on it!
I did a short version of Peterâs story back when I was living in Philadelphia. But upon completing that version â which I now think of as a sketch â it became clear that there was a lot more to say and to investigate. I spent about a year just thinking about it, forming contacts with some people, and tracking down various reference materials like records, zines, books, etc. Then my wife got a new job at Cleveland State University, so we left Philly. Once I landed back in Cleveland I started working on the book in earnest.
Page from Ain't It Fun -- all book images courtesy of the author.
By any chance was Greil Marcusâ book, Lipstick Traces (1989), an inspiration, as far as the âhidden historyâ factor, the trying to connect seemingly unconnected and lost historical footnotes into a path towards the cultureâs future?
Yes. I read Lipstick Traces when I was around 19 or 20, and Iâd never seen anything like it before. It really blew my mind, all the stuff about the Situationists and Dadaists and all that. Later on, I read Nick Toschesâ Dean Martin biography, Dino, and that was another mind blower. Another major influence is Iain Sinclair.
Ah Dino, another Ohio native. So, Laughnerâs one-time partner, Charlotte Presslerâs book is mentioned, and Iâve seen it referenced and talked about for years â any inside word on if/when she might have that published?
This memoir, originally intended as the first of a three-part series, was written in 1978 and first published in CLE 3A. Erik Bloomquist,
Charlotte never wrote a book, though she did co-edit a book that collected the work of local poets. As far as her own writing, sheâs done all manner of essays and poetry, and probably some academic writing that Iâm not familiar with. As far as her completing âThose Were Different Timesââ which was intended as a total of three essaysâ Iâve got some thoughts on that, but itâs not really my place to comment on it.
Pressler sounds like a very serious person in your book, as you say, she was kind of older than her years. But how was she to talk to?
Charlotte is serious, but sheâs not dour. Sheâs got a sense of humor and sheâs very curious about the world, always looking to learn new things. Sheâs an intellectual, and has a wide array of interests. We get along, weâre friends.
The fact that the townâs namesake, Moses Cleveland, left soon after his âdiscoveryâ and never came back â thatâs like a template for how people envision a town like Cleveland: nice place to grow up, but you want to get out as soon as youâre legal. Even the musicians of the area mightâve agreed with that sentiment, even if many never left. Do you think that has changed?
Iâm glad I left Cleveland, but Iâm also glad I came back. First off, my family is here. Second, the cost of living is still reasonable. I donât know how people live in New York. I never have any money. Iâd make more money if I had a full-time job at McDonaldâs. Thatâs not a joke, or me being self-deprecating. How do artists live in New York? How do they afford rent and 20 dollar packs of cigarettes? Iâm just totally confused by the basic mechanics of this. So yeah, Iâm in Cleveland. Itâs not great, but what are my options? I canât just go to Paris and fuck around like a bohemian. I would if I could.
In Ain't It Fun, you reveal that one of the seminal Cleveland scene dives, Pirate's Cove, was once a Rockerfeller warehouse â these kind of enlightening, almost comically perfect metaphors pop up every few pages. Not unlike the mythology that can sometimes arise in musician fandom, I wonder if these are metaphors we can mine, or just an obvious facts that the town drifted down from a center of industry to relative poverty.
âMetaphorâ might be at too much of a remove. These facts, these landmarks â they create a complex of semiotics, a map, a framework. The city talks through its symbols and its landscape. If you submit to it and listen, it will tell you secrets. There is nothing metaphorical about this.
Is it a sign of privilege to look on destitution as inspiration? Iâm guessing the sick drunks at Pirateâs Cove in 1975 werenât thinking they were living in a rusty Paris of the â30s. Though I will say a thing I really loved about your book was that, for all its yearning and historical weaving, you still stick to facts and donât seem to over-mythologize or put any gauze on the smog, like âIsnât that so cool, man.â You capture the quiet and damp desperation of that era and Laughnerâs milieu.
Poverty, decline, decay, entropy â these things are real. By aestheticizing them we are able to gain some control over them. And once you have control, you have the power to change things. This is not âslumming.â âPrivilegeâ has nothing to do with it.
Page from Ain't It Fun
Do you know why the Terminal Tower (once the second tallest building in the world when it opened in 1928) was named that? It seems somewhat fatalistic, given the usual futurist positivism of the deco design era.
Terminal as in train terminal. It really pisses me off that there was once a time where you could go there and catch a train to Chicago or New York. Itâs infuriating how this country dismantled its rail systems. And the Terminal Tower isnât deco, but I think it is often confused with that style just by virtue of not being a gigantic rectangle. In that sense it does have more in common with a deco structure like the Chrysler building. Honestly, if you are looking for deco you might find more notable examples in Akron than you would Cleveland.
I notice a kind of â and bear with my lesser abilities to describe illustrative art â swirly style in your work that kind of aligns with art deco curves, maybe some Gustav KlimtâŠ? In general, who were some illustrative inspirations for you early on?
That âswirlyâ style you describe is art nouveau. Deco came after that, and is more angular and clean. Additionally, a lot of underground comix guys were also poster artists, and there was often a nouveau influence in that psychedelic work â so thereâs a bit of a thread there. As far as Klimt, I came to him kinda late, but I love him now.
The music of many northeast Ohio bands of that era has been generally tagged as âindustrialâ (the pre-dance industrial style, of course), cranky like the machinery of the sputtering factories in the Flats, etc⊠My guess is maybe the musicians were already finding used R'n'R instruments in thrift stores by that time, which would add a kind of layer of revision, turning old things into new sounds. Did you hear about of any of that? Or were there enough music stores around town? I know DEVO was already taking used instruments and refitting them; or electric eels using sheet metal and such to bang onâŠ
Iâm not a musician, so I donât know anything about gear or stuff like that. I do know that Allen Ravenstine made field recordings in the Flats, and utilized them via his synthesizer. Frankly, I wish more of the Northeast Ohio bands had taken cues from Ubu and early Devo, because an âindustrialâ subculture definitely could have formed, like it did in England and San Francisco. But that never really happened here.
That kind of music was pretty popular on college radio and in a few clubs in Cleveland, though not many original bands with that sound arrived, aside from Nine Inch Nails who quickly took his act elsewhere⊠So in the book you mention local newsman, Dick Fealger. My memories of him are as a curmudgeon whose shtick was getting a little old by the time I was seeing him on the news, or his later opinion columns. Kinda your classic âHey you kids, get off my lawnâ style. You rightly paint him as a somewhat prescient reporter of the odd in his earlier days, though. I once had to go to a friendâs motherâs funeral, and in the next room in the funeral home was Dick Feaglerâs funeral. I always regret not sneaking over and taking a peak into it to see who was there.
I like Feagler in the same way that I liked Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. These were people that my grandparents liked. So I suppose my appreciation for Feagler is half nostalgia, half irony. I like cranks, grumps, letter-writers, street prophets. I like black coffee, donuts, diners, and blue plate specials â thatâs Feaglerâs world, the old newspaper world. Get up at 6 am and put your pants on, that kinda thing.
Yeah, I still found Feagler kinda funny, but like Jane Scott, while respect was always there, by the later â80s/â90s, both were set into almost caricatures who were kind of resting on their laurels.Â
Yeah, I remember seeing Jane at some random Grog Shop show back in the â90s, and I was kinda impressed. But no, she was never really cool. Jane was pure Cleveland, her career couldn't have happened anywhere else.
I remember seeing her sit right next to a huge house amp at the old Variety Theater for the entire duration of a Dead Kennedys show, taking notes for her review. Pretty impressive given her age at that point.
You also make a point of carving out an important space for The Damnation of Adam Blessing, a band that seems to get forgotten when discussing Clevelandâs pre-punk band gaggle. I find that interesting because in a way, they are the template for the way many Ohio bands donât fit into any exact genre, and so often people donât âgetâ them, or theyâre forgotten later.
Damnation worked as a good local example for that whole psychedelic thing. They were very â60s. While the James Gang on the other hand, was more â70sâ the cracks were starting to show with the â70s bands, they were harder and less utopian. Damnation feels more âWoodstock,â so they were useful to me in that regard.
I must add â for years I thought it was pronounced Laugh-ner, as in to laugh, ha ha, not knowing the Gaelic roots. Once I learned I was pronouncing it wrong, I still wanted to pronounce it like laughing, as it seemed to fit so darkly correct with how his life went, and Cleveland musiciansâ love of bad puns and cheap comedians and such⊠Of course when I learned that it was an âethnicâ name, it made it that much more Cleveland.
Yeah, everybody says his name wrong. I used to too, and had to really force myself to start saying it as Lochner. But everybody says Pere Ubu wrong as well â itâs Pear Ubu.
I hate any desecration of any artwork, but I always loved the blowing up The Thinker statue story, as it seemed such a powerful metaphor of the strength of art, and Cleveland itself â the fact that The Thinker himself still sits there, right on top of the sliced-up and sweeping shards from the blast. Itâs still there, right? And isnât it true that there are like three more âofficialâ Thinker statues in the world?
Yeah, I donât condone what happened, but it is kinda cool. As a kid, the mutilated Thinker had a strong effect on me â I couldnât have put it into words at the time, but I think it gave me a sense of the weight of history. Itâs almost like a post-war artifact in Europe, something that is scarred. And yes, itâs still there outside the museum. And itâs a cast. I think there might be five official ones, but Iâd have to look that up. If you are ever in Philadelphia, swing by the Rodin museum and check out The Gates of Hell.
I have only become a bigger fan of Laughnerâs as the years pass. But there is something to the critique that perhaps he never really found his singular sound; that he was copping bits from Lou Reed and Dylan, and couldnât keep a band together to save his life. And there was supposedly a feeling among some in the NYC scene that he was a bit of a carpetbagger.
Everybody has their influences, so Peter wasnât in any way unique in that sense. I know he has a reputation for doing a lot of cover songs â which is true â but he also wrote a lot of originals, and there are some damn good ones which are still unreleased. âUnder the Volcanoâ is just one such unheard song which I mention in my book, but there are others. As far as finding his own singular sound, he probably came closest to that with Friction. That group borrowed heavily from Television and Richard Hell, but also drew upon Richard Thompson and Fairport Convention. And when you think about it, those were really unlikely influences to juxtapose, and it created something original. Frustratingly though, Friction never achieved their full potential, as Peter was already losing it.
Yeah, Friction is kind of way up there with the âWhat ifâ bands⊠Itâs interesting that for all his legend as a proto-punk figure, perhaps Laughnerâs signature songs â Sylvia Plathâ and âBaudelaireâ â were gorgeous acoustic numbers. Though of course those early Pere Ubu songs were proto-punk and post-punk templates, somehow...
I honestly donât know what happened with Ubu, as it is pretty distinct from Peterâs other work. Thomas isnât really a musician, so we can only give him so much credit with how that sound developed. I honestly donât know. There just must have been some sort of alchemy between the various players, and Thomas understood it and was able to encourage and guide it in the projects that followed over the years.
Page from Ain't It Fun
You also didnât really detail Pere Ubuâs initial breakup â was there just not much to say?
Yeah, I think I mentioned it, but no, I didnât really get into it. Pere Ubu is kind of a story unto themselves. But it might be worth mentioning here that Home and Garden was an interesting project that came out of that Ubu breakup. And Thomas also did some solo albums, but Iâm not as familiar with those.
Yeah, I saw Home and Garden a few times way back, good stuff. Youâve mentioned to me that there were some people that didnât want to talk to you for the book; and that people were very protective of Peterâs legacy and/or their friendship with him. To what do you attribute that?
It has everything to do with Peterâs early death. Some people are very protective of how Peter is remembered. And I think some people werenât exposed to Peterâs dark side, so when they hear those descriptions of him it strikes them as untrue. I think Peter showed different sides of himself to different people.
I kind of felt as I was reading that you might say more about Harvey Pekar, as not only is he an interesting figure, but the most famous graphic novelist from Ohio, and I assume an inspiration of yourâs.
Pekarâs great. Especially the magazine-size issues he was doing in the late â70s up through the â80s. It was important to me to include him in the book. But Pekar was a jazz guy, and thatâs a whole other story, a whole other tangled web.
So, Balloonfest! Hilarious. I almost forgot about that. But I do remember Ted Stepien owning the short-lived Cleveland professional softball team; and for a promotion, they dropped softballs off the Terminal Tower, and if you caught one you won $1,000 or something. Do you recall that? Itâs one of my favorite fucked-up Cleveland stories. Balls smashed car roofs, and cops immediately told people to run away.
Yeah, Iâm aware of that baseball stunt. I generally try and stay away from anything even remotely related to professional sports teams â it gets talked about more than enough elsewhere. Oddly, I am interested in athletes who work alone, like Olympic skiers. Iâm attracted to that solitary focus, where the athlete isnât competing against other teams or players, but more competing with the limits of the human body, competing with what the physical world will allow and permit, that whole Herzog trip. Iâm also interested in the Olympic Village, as this artificial space that mutates and moves across time and across continents.
As far as Balloonfest, I still watch that footage all the time. I use it as a meditation device. Iâll put it on along with Metal Machine Music and go into a trance.
A few years ago, as I am sure you are well aware, noted British punk historian Jon Savage put together a Soul Jazz Records comp of Cleveland proto-punk called Extermination Nights in the Sixth City. I grew up in Cleveland, lived in Columbus for awhile, and I never heard it called âthe Sixth City.â Have you? If so, what does it refer to?
Nobody calls it that anymore. Itâs an old nickname back from when Cleveland was literally the sixth largest city in the country.
Iâd guess Ainât It Fun was a tiring feat to accomplish. But do you have another book in the works? And if someone wanted to option Peterâs story for a movie, would you sign on? I personally dread rock biopics. Theyâre almost universally bad.
Yeah, Iâve got an idea for another book, but itâs too early to talk about that. As far as biopics, they are almost always bad, rock or otherwise. Rock documentaries are often pretty lousy too. A recent and major exception would be Todd Haynesâ Velvet Underground documentary, which is just goddamn brilliant. A film about Peter in that vein would be greatâ but thereâs just no footage to work from. He didnât have Warhol or Factory people following him around with a camera. So unless somebody like Jim Jarmusch comes calling, I wonât be signing off on movie rights any time soon.
Unless there is more youâd like to say, thanks, and good luck with the book and future ventures!
Stone Church Press has a lot of projects planned for 2024 and beyond, and I encourage anyone reading this to support small publishers. There is a lot of very exciting stuff going on, but you have to work a little to find it. Amazon, algorithms, big corporate publishers â theyâre like this endless blanket of concrete that smothers and suffocates. But flowers have a way of popping up between the cracks.
did you like ANY of these photos? would you like to see HUNDREDS MORE OF THEM?! with THOUSANDS OF UNIQUE TEXTURES?! ALL FROM FUCKING DECEMBER 15TH, YEAR 2000?!
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THERE'S ALSO A BUNCH OF CLIPART FROM 1997 IN .WMF FORMAT. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE THAT, BUT YOU MIGHT!
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Violence: A Writerâs Guide:Â This is not about writing technique. It is an introduction to the world of violence. To the parts that people donât understand. The parts that books and movies get wrong. Not just the mechanics, but how people who live in a violent world think and feel about what they do and what they see done.
Hurting Your Characters: HURTING YOUR CHARACTERS discusses the immediate effect of trauma on the body, its physiologic response, including the types of nerve fibers and the sensations they convey, and how injuries feel to the character. This book also presents a simplified overview of the expected recovery times for the injuries discussed in young, otherwise healthy individuals.
Body Trauma: A writerâs guide to wounds and injuries. Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. Research what happens in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts to bring added realism to your stories and novels.
Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction: Increase Realism. Raise the Stakes. Tell Better Stories. Maim Your Characters is the definitive guide to using wounds and injuries to their greatest effect in your story. Learn not only the six critical parts of an injury plot, but more importantly, how to make sure that the injury youâre inflicting matters.Â
Blood on the Page: This handy resource is a must-have guide for writers whose characters live on the edge of danger. If you like easy-to-follow tools, expert opinions from someone with firsthand knowledge, and you donât mind a bit of fictional bodily harm, then youâll love Samantha Keelâs invaluable handbook
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
Iâm reblogging again because I did it myself and added pictures for those who have trouble learning from the video.
First take a standard rectangular piece of paper (I used one from a small notebook which I ripped out then cut the holes off)
Then fold in half touching the shorter side to the opposite shorter side.
Fold again making the new shorter side touch the other new shorter side
I did this one more time, but this time I unfolded it right after to get back to where it was only folded twice. It should have left a crease in the paper.
Using this crease, fold the corners up alongside it to look like this
This are also going to be unfolded, but this time youâre going to push in alongside the triangular folds you just made and undid.
Doing this once will result in this
Hold tight because tumblr wonât let me add more pictures. Iâll reblog will the rest of the instructions
Thanatos knows that I hecking love cute origami, and moths, so really, what was I supposed to do, scroll past and not take the opportunity to make butterfly and moth page markers???
