Original Guerrilla

**A quick warning for those that normally come to this blog for weekly updates regarding news relating to Bungie and their Destiny 2 Title. This post is a required project that I completed for my Writing for Digital Media class.**

Here lies the beginning of a tale I've rarely told. For my Guerrilla Lit original work, I was inspired by the narrative piece of Kate Prosachik, Talisman. Her narrative was formed through the use of an online resource known as Quizlet. A popular site used as a study tool for the masses. There you can create sets of flashcards and focus on studying for anything you may desire. However, as an original work, she chose to tell a story through words that impacted her. 

Today, I post with an inspired piece derived from an idea I had while viewing her original work. I, myself, am currently tri-lingual. I speak English, French, and Italian. However, during the time of my visits to Italy, I could never fully speak it. I was able to follow conversations easily, but could never formulate sentences in the ways that I wanted to without sounding like a broken italian speaker. So, with that in mind, I decided to form a Quizlet set of flashcards, much like Kate, and based it around conversational pieces that held significance to my travels within the country of Italy. From spending time with family, to summiting mountains, to being on the other end of an unfortunate breakup. I decided to create a narrative piece from that entire experience. I formulated the study set as a means of understanding common conversational phrases that I heard during my time visiting, but based the definitions around the narrative backstories that surrounded those phrases for me. 

It was with little difficulty that this style of Guerrilla Literature sprang out to me. Kate had done an incredible job in surrounding her vocabulary set around an emotionally moving narrative. The idea of creating a "study set" around something that may be foreign to others, was a perfect segway for my narrative creation. 

This style of narrative allowed me to introduce something foreign to an audience, who most likely doesn't speak Italian frequently, and provided a story around the definitions of the phrases presented. Throughout this post you'll see links to photos I took during those trips, and a vista to the landscape I surrounded myself with. 

Upon reflection with this piece, many things stood out to me. I realized that it had been a while since I had organized a narrative around my life. Personally, I am fairly an introverted individual and the idea of telling "my story" despite it being a small fraction of it was slightly jarring for me. Remembering various parts of that part of my life was slightly cathartic. It provided an insight to a rhetoric I had not really explored myself. 

The platform provides a unique ability to provide a "definition" to the study material provided. However, the uniqueness stems from the author's ability to create their own definitions. In short, the author creates a definition that best suites their needs to understand a specific material. In this case, this was the medium I found most beneficial for myself to express the narrative. 

Below are links to various photo albums I created during my trip expressed within the narrative. 

https://tinyurl.com/y28xqgrz
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hQeRyzQCrysyr4in7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DMmBUZz6ypmWwyK89
https://photos.app.goo.gl/oEWx6XMw6yxHpje19
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KhmBDdVoMjVMoBfr9

Collaborations - An Importance

The saying has always been, "Two heads are always better than one"

This week, I want to take the time to showcase two individuals involved within the Destiny community, which have been recognized by both Bungie, as a corporation, as well as the individual Devs of the company. 

The two spotlights will be placed on Nic and Miss ram-shakle (you can click their names to follow them on Twitter). Respectively, two highly respected members of the Destiny 2 community for their contributions on both a Digital level and a Graphical level.

The first showcase is Nic, and his amazing Destiny 2 Infographics that he made during his spare time. Every week there is a "Reset" on all the activities within the game, and they act on a rotation. Nic, was godly enough to make beautiful templates that perfectly displayed everything a player would need to know going into each weekly reset. 

Already, as a community, there was mass-praise and awareness spread as both Youtubers and Twitch streamers began displaying this content and praising Nic for his incredible work!

A clever blogger named Ram-Shackle, created a digital news platform, in the form of a blog, that would help players be notified of literally anything they could think of. As always, you can follow the link to the site HERE. Here Miss Shackles takes time out of her days every week to make sure any and all players are updated with the latest Destiny 2 news. This could be interactions by the Devs, TWABS output by Bungie, and even just comments people bring up on reddit about the game. You want to know? She's got answers. It's volunteer collaborators like these that promote a positive community outreach and allow welcoming access to all players! 

Guerrilla Warfare....I mean...Art!

Good Afternoon Guardians,

This week with David, we're gonna be discussing something that has been needing some large addressing. Sadly, I had taken a week off last week, and I apologize for my lack of communication. I had some personal stuff going on, but we'll be moving forward from here on out!

Anyways, back to the topic of today's post...Guerrilla Art! Long, have I raved about the quality that comes from this blog's main topic of conversation, Bungie. More specifically, the Bungie.net platform they use to communicate to their ever expanding audience. 

With their CRIMSON DAYS event, gearing up for this year's Valentines Day, there is no better time than now to give some love to the amazing ways Bungie has incorporated/advocated for Guerrilla art.

Web 2.0 has been an ongoing discussion in web-based development teams looking to find greater ways to get an active audience to interact with an online product. The perfect example would be the early PDA's back in '02-'04. Bungie makes this really simply and that's through the use of their Companion Mobile App. But that is much smaller compared to their Creations Forum.

It's no secret that I'm no creative genius. A lot of the digital art that you see on this page is actually tied to the made creations that are posted to the Bungie Community Creation Forum. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. You can find an individual posting something that means something to them, and can forever leave their mark. Although not completely anonymous, users can find ways to manipulate the submission system to create works such as this:



And if you think that was incredible, there is so much more to be seen, so definitely go check some more pieces out.

See you Guardians, Starside.

- OVBDavid