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Grae Williams

@verygrae

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Story · Systems · Spirit
Building worlds big enough for the ideas everyone told you were impossible.
Co-Founder: @the5ifthfloor
Project: @maykestudios

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Allow me to reintroduce myself. 🩶✨ by @verygrae

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3 months ago

⚡️ Black American Gods™ are HERE!⁣
⁣
What began as Imagyn™: Ascension of the Gods has evolved into something even more powerful: Black American Gods™ – an urban fantasy world that transforms Black American culture, folklore, heritage, and history into its own vibrant mythology.⁣
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After our WebToons project didn’t work out as planned, we’ve taken a bold new direction. As you can see from the video, we’re reimagining our universe:⁣
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▪️Updated character concepts⁣
▪️Fresh new additions to the pantheon⁣
▪️A blend of AI-assisted and human-created art in this development phase⁣
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We use AI tools for rapid conceptualization and vision-building, but rest assured—all final character designs and art will be crafted by human artists, elevating our vision to new heights.⁣
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📌 Comment “WAITLIST” below, and we’ll send you an exclusive link to join our inner circle for project drops and details!⁣
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Get ready to experience The Culture like never before. The gods are awakening, and their stories are about to unfold.⁣
⁣
✏️ Anansi by Tim Wasney⁣ by @verygrae

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2 years ago

Before there was Grae, there was Edward. And it’s been 12 years since I put down my pencils, packed up the giant Cintiq Wacom tablet, and stepped away from those 8+ hour nights sketching in my parent’s basement.

That’s when I started building systems through branding, storytelling, culture, and design.

For a long time, I thought I’d evolved past the artistic part of myself. But recently, I picked up some old sketchbooks. And I gotta say: it felt like coming home (literally the greatest feeling to a Cancer.)
 That’s when I realized: I wasn’t leaving anything behind.

I was integrating everything I’d learned from being an artist forward.

I didn’t leave art and start systems.

Art trained me to see systems.

➝ Color is a system. ➝ Form is a system. ➝ Anatomy? Without a shadow of a doubt, a system—if I ever saw one.

These sketches serve as both nostalgia and proof: The hand that drew these is the same mind that now sees what’s missing…and builds it.

It’s the same eye that once studied proportion and form, and now reads patterns across business, mythology, culture, and makes them narratively whole.

I see what’s missing, and I build it.

Sometimes with pencils.
 Sometimes with tech.
 Always with the same systematic observation.

The artist formally known as Ed never disappeared.

He just picked up new tools.

And may even be getting back to older ones. 🙏🏽 by @verygrae

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a year ago

When you call up the Main Line, know the Main Line got extensions. And those extensions can connect you to different kinds of help.

And listen: receive this as testimony, not a tutorial.

There are protocols and responsibilities involved in working with Saints. Do your research. Understand who you are petitioning and how the relationship works. If you need guidance, seek someone experienced in the practice.

The help available to us is bigger than we were taught. Meet it with the respect it deserves.

Thank you, St. Expedite. 🙏🏽🕯️ by @verygrae

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23 days ago

Some attacks depend on you forgetting who you are.

The healer has to forget they know how to heal. The artist has to stop creating. The truth teller has to distrust what they know. The magician has to become afraid of the magic.

Perhaps remembering yourself is part of the protection.

Some things sent to shrink you should instead remind you just how mythic and powerful you are. by @verygrae

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a month ago

The real AI isn’t in a data center.

It’s in the science behind our skin tone.

And it’s been running for 400 years.

We gave it other names like survival, culture, and the way we do things. But make no mistake…Ancestral Intelligence is the most sophisticated algorithm the Black American experience has ever produced.

It can’t be trained on. You’re born into it. So…remember it.

Our ascension depends on it. by @verygrae

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a month ago

This is the first time in 3 years I’ve had a real summer. The type of summer that turns moments into memories, and travels that’ll one day become part of the lore.

A nonprofit hired @the5ifthfloor to do their strategic plan. We don’t do strategic plans. So we gave them something bigger, and much more fundable: a future Memphis could believe in. This is us facilitating their board retreat.

Great community is like a map…

…they’ll take you places.

🎈 June 29.

Got loved on by my people. Like…a whole lot. My Cancerian heart is still full.

Caught the tail end of Summer Soulstice.

By the one and only @photosbywurm

Kiss’em. It’s good luck or something.

✨

Kept the party going. From chosen family to blood, I just wanted to be around people who loved me without question.

Got loved on and loved on my mama…

…and my dad…

…and Nana (AND got her bread pudding and mac and cheese)…

…and Papa (who turned 90 the day before I turned 40).

…in a new whip. 👀

A ki and a time, every single time.

And it ended the trip visiting the home of a thousand flavors of beef jerky and a town’s worth of gas pumps. Buc-ee’s is alright with me. 👌🏽

Dear August, put the cherry on top. taken in Anywhere and Everywhere by @verygrae

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2 months ago

In other words: Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. 😉✨

🎥: @photosbywurm by @verygrae

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3 months ago

Some versions of you have to die for the right one to live.

Thank you for being here for the coronation. 🙏🏽 40 gone be a movie! ✨ by @verygrae

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3 months ago

Level 40 Unlocked. No cheat codes. Couldn’t pause the game. And the final boss almost took me out.

But…I won.

Started the game as one character. Finished as another.

Now we enter the golden era.

Happy Birthday, champ.

📸: @photosbywurm by @verygrae

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3 months ago

America thought our enslavement was its prosperity. The gag is…our freedom was.

Not even a generation out of bondage, our ancestors did they big one and alchemized themselves and the country. Built a nation within a nation. Created the sound, the language, the food, the culture that makes America great again…and again.

Commemorate in remembrance of we.

Celebrate in remembrance of we.

And above all, DO this in remembrance of we, because we DO this.

Happy Juneteenth, kinfolk. by @verygrae

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3 months ago

Kinfolk. Do this in remembrance of them. Let us eat. by @verygrae

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4 months ago