#mostly last year’s stuff. this year was a lot of burnout - a lot of pieces i never felt super great about. but i’m getting out of it and | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

littleastrobleme · 1 year

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I READ 22 BOOKS IN 2022!

Which isn't a lot, but I was also recovering from genuinely brain-shattering burnout after finishing my master's thesis last year.

"Hey," the observant among you might be saying, "don't you like polary boaty stuff? Where's Franklin and da Crew?"

That's where the burnout comes in, friend! In order to keep myself from resenting the historical topics I research any more than I already did after doing a whole stressful thesis, I expressly avoided reading polar topics for a while and decided to dive headfirst into mostly fiction reading. Short comments on each book below the cut for those interested :)

The Bone Seeker, M. J. McGrath *****

McGrath's Inuit sleuth Edie Kiglatuk is a real delight to read, and McGrath does a really interesting job incorporating Inuit culture into the mysteries she writes. These stories are a quick but compelling read!

The Butchering Art, Lindsay Fitzharris *****

Yes, reading about Victorian medical practices is skin-crawling, but Fitzharris's detailed dive into the career of Joseph Lister and the development of germ theory was page-turningly fascinating.

Written in Bone, Sue Black *****

Sue Black's autobiographical dives into the world of forensic anthropology are both heartbreaking and enthralling. Favorite piece of trivia: sesamoid bones--bones in our bodies as tiny as sesame seeds, hence the name!

The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Copley Eisenberg ***

Eisenberg's investigation of the murders of two young hippie women in West Virginia is half true crime story, half memoir. Unfortunately, I didn't particularly enjoy the memoir parts, so it took me the better part of a year to actually finish the book. If you like memoirs more than I do, give it a try!

Strange Children, Sadie Hoagland ***

Hoagland's exploration of teens living in a polygamist cult is interesting, but not exactly an optimistic book...this was the first book I read in 2022 and I think it set a precedent for "downer books" the rest of the year!

Swamplands, Edward Struzik ****

Struzik's discussion of swamps, bogs and other wetlands is incredibly fascinating and poignant, but the discussion of hideous crimes against the natural world due to ignorance or corporate greed was so demoralizing I actually couldn't finish the book, as interesting as it was. I do still recommend it, although it is heartbreaking.

Nightmare in Savannah, Lela Gwenn et al **

This graphic novel about teen vampires was, to my artistic tastes, sometimes lazily illustrated and the story was kind of disjointed. The premise, however, was pretty cool.

Little Sister Death, William Gay *****

William Gay is one of my favorite authors, but he's not an author I can read uncritically; as a "southern writer of a certain time," shall we say, he sometimes writes about women and people of color in ways I can't jive with. However, Gay's prose evokes the southern landscape in a way that is familiar yet utterly magical to me, so I guess he's my "problematic fave"? He is also a great hater of quotation marks, which I'm sure also turns people off :')

Passersthrough, Peter Rock **

This story has some interesting themes of liminal spaces that exist when we want or need them to, but the dialogue felt kind of unrealistic to me and I didn't feel like the characters in the book acted the way real people would act.

A Children's Bible, Lydia Millet **

Millet's story about rich teenagers living through an apocalyptic storm (but it's also Da Bible??) felt kind of like it was written by someone who had only heard of teenagers as a concept and has never met one. The dialogue didn't feel human and I didn't like any of the characters.

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison *****

Toni Morrison writes the most evocative, heartbreaking prose. Her characters, even the most despicable, feel achingly human. This book destroyed me [complimentary].

Of Love and Other Demons, Gabriel Garcia Marquez ***

Marquez's magical realist worldbuilding renders the past a gorgeous and mysterious world of magic, but I couldn't really get over the squick factor of a "tween girl-adult man relationship" plotline.

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt *****

I had made it to my mid-twenties without reading it despite this being a popular school reading book in the United States. This brief but poignant exploration of an immortal family and their mortal friend had beautiful and clean-cut prose.

The Lighthouse Witches, CJ Cooke *****

Cooke's story of an artist and her daughters living in the real shadow of a lighthouse and the figurative shadow of Scotland's historical violence against women accused of witchcraft was a rather suspenseful read (and although the teenage girl character didn't always feel realistic, for the most part, the characters felt like people).

Beauty is a Wound, Eka Kurniawan *

TW: mentions of SA.

I genuinely think this is one of the most dreadful books I've ever read, and I have no idea why I finished it. Kurniawan's book uses the shield of being """metaphorical""" as an excuse for him to write hundreds of pages worth of SA against women and girls--the book genuinely feels more like him working out his violent sexual fantasies on paper than it does a "magical realist history of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia." I understand that this history is a violent one, but Kurniawan's nigh-loving depictions of violence against girls turned me off of ever reading something he's written again. UGH.

Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead ***

Whitehead's prose is always beautiful, empathetic and humanizing; I didn't enjoy this book or get into the plotline as much as I did Nickel Boys or The Underground Railroad, but Whitehead is still a master of language. I never thought descriptions of furniture could be so compelling, but that's Whitehead for you!

Salt Magic, Rebecca Mock and Hope Larsson ****

Mock and Larsson's graphic novel adventure following a young girl trying to save her family from a witch's curse is so beautifully illustrated I could weep. I wish that the world of witches in the story had been explored a bit more, but it was still a beautiful and heartfelt adventure (I love a "scrappy little girl" protagonist)!

The Prince and the Dressmaker, Jen Wang ***

Wang's story of a prince who cross-dresses and the dressmaker who helps make his dreams come true somehow came up short for me. I think I was hoping it would end up, I dunno, more trans? Than it did? It was still a very heartfelt story with beautiful illustrations.

Stories from the Attic, William Gay ****

I can kind of see why these stories were squirreled away in an attic; aside from being incomplete, they are some of Gay's more violent and angry works. William Gay can write one character extremely well, and that is The Worst Man You Have Ever Met [derogatory]. In a way, Gay's clever, floral descriptions of malicious and mean-spirited hicks, men he can write really well but never fully sympathizes with, is a really interesting dive into toxic southern masculinity. Now, it doesn't exactly make for light reading! However, I will probably start saying "shitfire" and "they goddamn" because of him. I can't say I could recommend this to someone who wasn't already a fan of Gay's work; try another book of his if you really want to read his prose.

Blacklands, Belinda Bauer ****

Bauer's harrowing real-life inspiration, the despicable Moors Murders of the 1960s (which claimed the lives of five children), is transformed through her very sympathetic prose into the fictional story of a young boy trying to find his murdered uncle's body by corresponding with the killer. The story is suspenseful and realistic, and our main character Steven is, in short, just a good kid.

What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher ****

T. Kingfisher's story, a take on "The Fall of the House of Usher," features some wonderfully squicky body horror and is an interesting reinterpretation of Poe's tale. However, both too much and too little time were spent on the worldbuilding of the fictional country the story was set in for so short a book, and I found myself wondering at the end who most of the characters even were and what made them tick. If you like neopronouns, this book features pronouns invented for the fictional culture therein.

The Hollow Kind, Andy Davidson *****

Is this cosmic horror? Southern gothic? Davidson's book was incredibly suspenseful and well-written, but kind of crapped out in the last thirty or forty pages. Despite an anticlimactic ending, the story of a woman and her son trying to create a new life for themselves on a haunted turpentine plantation was thrilling and empathetically written.

Would you read any of these? Have you already? I can't say I enjoyed every book I read this year, but I'm certainly glad I read the vast majority of them! Thank you for joining me for this literary breakdown of 2022!

#books #book recommendations #by astrobleme #what was your favorite book of 2022?

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elitsann · 1 year

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Truth be told, this came out a lot better than I thought it would. Long self-indulgent/reflective post (straight from my IG) ahead. I haven't been particularly consistent this year. The pieces in this are in chronological order. All of them bar 2 are from before August. I was a lot more "with it" in the first half of the year. Between a mental health roller coaster, repeated bouts of burnout, and just a lot of projects (some very cool stuff currently in the works requires a lot of, well, THE WORKS), it feels like I didn't draw as much, or as well as other years but seeing things put together like this feels better. This time of the year is also when I have my annual bout of "oh god, my art peaked in 2016-17 and I'm a fraud and have lost my artistic sense of self and I fear my work has lost something I don't know how to get back", so seeing that my stuff looks good next to each other - and mostly like it has in fact been drawn by the same silly little person - is quite the relief. Of course there's other things. I don't just draw. I've had far more of a social life than I ever did pre-pandemic, I've made some new friends (and acquaintances, and I hope I can be friends with them too 💕) and tried a lot of new things, I met my parents in person for the first time in 3 years, I've taken up new skills (including pole and burlesque! It's my goal for 2023 to try putting together a burlesque act of my own), and so much more, so it's not like my year has been only split between drawing and trying to get my brain to stop trying to obliterate me. I'm lucky to generally be able to avoid the pitfall of identifying myself 100% with my art but I'm not immune to it and the dreadful feeling of "I've done very little and I'm unsure of its quality, therefore I amount to very little and of dubious quality" does creep up on me sometimes.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's been wobbly. Every year since 2019 has been some sort of wobbly for me, but I think the same can be said for a lot of us. I think at least, in the last couple of months, I've been feeling like at last I'm finally finding it easier to navigate the wobbliness a lot better and keep myself from falling down as often. So I think (and hope) I'm finally learning to handle how, well, wobbly everything is all the time, for everyone. I feel like I've said wobbly too much now! I don't expect life to become any less wobbly (last time I'm saying it, promise), but I hope we can all continue to learn how to help ourselves and each other navigate another year, and if we can, create some nice art along the way too.

#art vs artist #art vs artist 2022 #art grid 2022

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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I’d love your thoughts on BTS and their current image and music if you have them and aren’t afraid of the mindless internet hoards.

Personally, I liked a lot of their older stuff, but haven’t liked anything since I think the Fake Love promotions 3+ years ago. They’d started losing their personality and soul before that album cycle, but it feels like the sanitization of their image and artistry really kicked into hyperdrive after that. Now most of what they do seems like a sterile money grab driven by the Hybe hive mind which is a shame.

ok alrighty (cracks knuckles) let's get into it.

now that i've fully given myself a headache watching the majority of the bts videography, here are three points i'm going to cover:

performative character and the lack thereof

interesting aesthetics and the lack thereof, and

the inevitable cracking of perfection

ready, set, let's begin.

idol music is very clearly definited by spectacle based aesthetics. and it's had that structure for its entire existence. so i gotta hand it to hybe for this one, because they managed to revolutionize being utterly fucking average. the triumph of bts is that they're just some guys and they look like just some guys. hybe found a niche in the system and then gamed that system to the tune of one of the largest musical acts in the world. they're not marketing bts as a romantic parasocial relationship, they're marketing them as your friends. and that is just as insidious to lonely kids as a run of the mill romantic fantasy. but that's not what i'm here to talk about today.

there's a pattern i find very interesting with bts mvs and that is that i don't remember anything about them. specifically, i don't remember the stuff that's happening IN the video; not the styling, not the setpieces, if i didn't know the members i doubt i would remember them either. what i DO remember, is how expensive the production is, and specific shots. i couldn't tell you what a single member was wearing, but i sure as hell remember that first upward angle shot of jungkook and the rusted park ride in spring day. or every single time they do that birdseye shot of jin in like every video. honestly as far as i'm aware jin has only ever worn a loose fitting beige longsleeve shirt.

it took bts a long time to establish any kind of consistent visual character. and the character they did establish.... i don't know if you can call a family-friendly-style clean aesthetic 'character'. they debuted as a hip hop group to little (comparative) success, and then made a switch to doing an early version of where they're currently at right now. if you've seen any of the mvs, you know that this is a pretty significant visual change. i don't think it is inherently a bad change, since the visual branding for hiphop based groups always tips over into iffy terrritory, but it is dramatic enough and early enough that it doesn't strike me as a natural evolution. concept switch ups are common, but they usually work because the members have established a bit of character for themselves, used their performance abilities and presence to fit into a niche in the group. the idol mould is perfect for showcasing the performers; that's its function. the groups that are the most fun to watch are the ones with stage presence, the ones who know how to perform, who can act all the parts they need to play. and bts? 4/7 actual performers on a good day. in my personal opinion it's 2/7.

i'm gonna expand on what i said about jimin here (this is technically the first part of this series), because it does apply to the rest of the group on the whole:

and i think here is where we see the main crux of the difference between taemin and jimin as performers: taemin has both an artistic and an idol persona. we know and understand him to do solo work that has a separate artistic meaning to just him being an idol. even though this performance was pre-move, i would still say this applies, because he's hot off press your number, where he's acting in a story based mv. jimin on the other hand just has his idol persona. he's not known for creating the same kind of storytelling that taemin is.

bts has been very insistent on the image of the group as a single unit. despite having the size of fanbase and the revenue that would make any official solo debut a massive success, none of them have done any substantial solo work. this isn't artistically a problem, and i think it's very admirable of them to be so dedicated to the image and the legacy of the group, when that can be an uncommon trait in the industry. i do however, think it starts to become an issue when we want to discuss what the artistic visions and images of groups are. shinee taemin and solo taemin have two distinct artistic representations, and taemin himself will attest to that. it's the same with all the shinee members that have solo careers, and the same with other groups. jackson, bambam, yugyeom, and jaebeom's solo work is all very different from got7. yixing's solo work is very different from exo's. even the subunits within exo all have their own character (cbx and sc). kpop groups all ostensibly are trained under the same system, so why the disparity with bts? mostly, it's their brand of "authenticity." it's impossible to perform authentically, by the nature of performance as a medium it is unnatural, and tragically, not everyone is naturally interesting, or suited to performing: that's why the performing arts even exist in the first place. it required painstaking training to be good at performing; it is a complex set of skills and those skills are not learnt by "being authentic." being an idol is not just the singing, dancing, rapping; that's only half the work. you need to be able to act to be a compelling performer. pulling your true self and emotions out on stage every night is a fast track to burnout and psychological issues, there's plenty of evidence. the only member of bts of whom i can say for some certainty has a persona and a stage presence is jhope/hoseok, a) because he's kept up a very specific brand in the solo work that he has done, and b) he has actual dance training, not just kpop dance training. the rest of them may have the kpop dance and the kpop vocal training, but what they do not have is the ability to market themselves as compelling performers on stage. taehyung is the only other member i would hesitantly give a semblance of persona and ability to, but i think he stumbled onto that mostly by accident. and if all the pieces don't each have a distinctive colour, how can the whole machine be visually interesting?

bts may never have been able to establish an aesthetic brand, but what they did establish is an intellectual one. if you talk to a fan, the schtick they give is that "it's about the lyrics." as noble as having an intellectual or cerebral message is, what does that look like? how do you portray intellectual on stage, on film? what about intellectual is interesting to watch? cerebral, by it's literal nature as a descriptor, is very difficult to communicate in visual language because it is internal. to successfully communicate cerebrality and intellect in a short form medium like music videos requires a deft hand with metaphor that can elude even an experienced designer. and honestly? i don't know whether to applaud hybe's visual team for being the most successful subtle contemporary designers i've every seen, or to decry them as worst kpop designers i've ever seen. maybe both. regardless, i don't think they're able to cross the gap.

there are exactly four mvs where i actually remember the content of the mv and not the frame it sits in, and those are dna, idol, the singularity comeback trailer with taehyung, and war of hormone. and of an eight year career......that's not very many. these four mvs have at least an inkling of interesting spectacle and character, but even then, it's still a stretch. there is absolutely nothing to write home about in the styling for dna, other than it's well colour matched. I don't even know if I should include singularity because it involves none of the other members. idol is probably their most interesting mv because it actually has alternative styling and varies (at least a little bit) from the standard hybe boom crane shot-that-shows-off-how-we-can-afford-big-studio-spaces-and-locations. the company and the group would be loathe to admit it, but war of hormone is a well designed and interesting mv for the time it was made, with a well crafted gimmick and some actual showing of character from the members. it was the start of a potential that they squashed quite quickly because it wasn't picking up in the hiphop-group-saturated market of 2014. but the rest of their mvs? remarkably uninspired styling. like it's truly impressive how boring the styling is. and like i've said, that is the triumph in their aesthetics: they all look like normal dudes (if you had professional skin + makeup techs looking after them for the last 8 years).

all of this is a carefully crafted image that's tailored to hooking an audience, especially an international one. the mvs are boring in the relative scale of kpop, but they're just different enough from a western pop mv to catch attention. and once you do sink a hook, there's a direct clickfunnel of content that bills itself on these men being "authentic" and "self-producing," which is a huge draw to international fans, because people are racist and believe that the kpop industry is a factory that produces idols like clones, where none of them know how to do anything other than sing and dance and all the music is just handed to them by companies. and they have SO much content that there's no way a new fan can get to it all in a timely manner, so they'll never have to engage with any other kpop artists' work if they don't actively seek it out. but that's another essay for another time.

that brings us to current day, in which at least the last five bts releases have been in the same aesthetic vein of positive, sanitized, and pristine. i said it in one of my txt responses and i will say it again here: money scrubs the humanity from the aesthetic of living. minimalism is for rich white people. hybe and bts may have pivoted their style and brand directly into the lane of mass appeal, but when you pair that with the amount of money funding them, there's a cognitive dissonance between the message and the aesthetics in which it's portrayed. some people do like the clean cut looks, and i won't say that they don't work, but as you've likely gleaned from this response, it isn't my style and if you've been around and reading my writing for longer you'll know that my tastes runs much closer to the messy and the weird, so very little about any of bts' visuals have appeal to me. i do find the contradiction of applying the appeal of radical relatability with the aesthetics of expansive (and expensive) minimalism interesting; it's an extremely fine line that hybe is walking and eventually they are going to tip over, the porcelain mask will not hold forever. maintaining the all ages aesthetic is going to be difficult now that all of them are grown ass men. with other groups of this member age and generation there's very obviously been a shift to a more adult tone, and not necessarily explicitly. got7, mx, nu'est, btob, shinee, 2pm, and groups that have older members like a.c.e and sf9 have all made slow shifts in tone that are undeniably aimed at a maturing audience: they know their core fanbases are aging with them and they (the fans) are not as interested in the 'boy' in boy group. and most of them have telltale visual styles, enough so that i can distinguish a specific group's mv. the last year and change of mx mvs have a very distinctive character; got7 too, since easily as far back as if you do. i can always tell an a.c.e mv by its impeccable fashion and formic styling, and although shinee has always had a more experimental aesthetic edge, their sound and voices are unmistakable.

honestly, i can't predict what bts is going to do in the future, but i personally don't believe they can keep up their clean aesthetic indefinitely without some fallout. part of the fun of following bands is watching them grow musically, and the last couple of years of bts haven't felt like growth. there are fans that have already started realizing it, and there's likely to be more soon.

---

the third part is here, which is a short followup about some of bts' industry influence.

#this is long one dear readers #a very long one #strap in #i've sat on this for probably a week now in the hopes my brain can make some interesting connections but honestly?#not a lot about bts is interesting in comparision to the rest of the kpop industry #personally i am of the opinion that lyrics do not matter in idol music and i am not interested in them in the slightest #and bts videos ARE extremely bland visually #unless you like looking at expensive production. whatever floats your boat i guess #they make a lot of sense as an entry kpop group but once you get actually into the industry there is SO much happening #which i talk about in the third part a little bit #this is way too long i am so sorry anon and everyone else who has been asking about this topic #im not entirely sure it's coherent at this point but whatever. its out there now #i wanted this to be under 1k and that emphatically did not happen #it is double that. why am i like this #875 #kpop questions #kpop analysis #group analysis #text #answers

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angeloncewas · 3 years

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I feel guilty about it (that’s just me being me, not anything else lol) but at this point I would prefer just answers and outlines to what they planned on the dsmp story wise rather than them struggling through planning streams and dropping plot lines left and right. I love the effort and how dedicated they are to the story so much. It even inspired me to get back into creating after a giant burnout. But so many things have been completely dropped due to life stuff and lockdown lessening up and just not being able to get people important to the storylines there, that all we really have right now is las nevadas, pandora’s box, jack, and wilbur (and the quick wrap up of the egg arc if they ever get to it).

I just don’t see there being anywhere else for them to go if that makes sense? Ranboo’s character has been at a standstill since like early 2021, Tommy’s character is mostly just healing now, the egg arc just kinda tapered off, the syndicate has gone nowhere, there are so many questions that revolve around major events that haven’t been mentioned at all.

It’s nothing to blame on the ccs as shit happens and some things just weren’t possible, but just narratively it’s become a mess.

I understand ! The last time people discussed this, a lot of people called those who complained about the gaps in lore "selfish" and "demanding" but I wholly stand by what I said then - I don't think that's fair. As the consumers of the content, of course we're gonna want said content. And its creators either don't understand or don't care about the issues with the way they're handling it at the moment - busy or free, like it or not, stretching a story so thin like this over such a large amount of time makes it lose so much; plot threads are forgotten, emotional investment is lost, timelines get messy and so on and so on - which makes it all the more worrying in regards to a cohesive and satisfying conclusion. I don't know if I wholly agree with you in terms of wanting that glorified reddit post (sigh... like Wilbur's eleven page essay he considered releasing), but if we were told all of the endings now at least then we'd know that this was what was meant to happen and instead of theoretically being given some switched up semi-retcon ending sometime within the next five years.

I almost wonder if some of the content creators we consider "core" to the storyline aren't having fun with it anymore. I could be totally off because this is just my speculation, but every time Tommy and Tubbo talk about their characters it's in reference to season 1, the L'manberg era, and how amazing of an experience that was for them. It's almost never anything after that, even though Tommy was so much more involved in the writing of season 2. If they just don't want to do it anymore I really do understand - nothing can go on forever - but I do wish they'd be more transparent with us. Like yes, people get busy and I'd never want a creator to miss out on opportunities for something that does run on its own schedule, but also the audience isn't gonna stick around forever (well it might, but they're meant to think like it shouldn't) and I feel like it's gotta have something to do with priorities because it's been a very, very long time now.

I don't know. I'm similar to you in that the SMP has really inspired me unlike any other piece of media - I got really deeply back into story writing for the first time since like, middle school, and I was able to get a lot of blegh feelings out via the characters - so I've got such a deep love and personal connection to it. But I also really haven't touched Twitch in a hot minute and while I miss the storyline a lot, I'm not sure what I'd do if it came back because I'd know that it's just one tiny thing to keep us going while nothing else happens. I can't imagine what's gonna happen next and while I've read that people have stuff in the works, hearing about the changes Ranboo's had to make and all of the stuff that's just sort of tapered off is... hard (?)

I think I'm rambling. Point is, you shouldn't feel bad; I get it.

#angel answers #anon #long post #is this discourse ??#im not being criticla of them at all #idk ask to tag

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theonceoverthinker · 3 years

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500. As this daily series of mine comes to an end, I just want to reflect on all the MARRY time writing Fair Game HCs has brought me!

I’m freezing up as I’m trying to write even just this intro. I don’t feel ready. After a year and a half, how can I feel anything else? This series is now a part of me and ending it is like losing a piece of my soul. I have so many emotions -- too many emotions -- it doesn’t feel wrong to end the series here (The 500 milestone makes sense), but it hurts all the same.

Let me start with thank you to everyone whose read these. Seriously, I know I thank you occasionally, but I can’t do it enough. Knowing that there are people interested in what I write and think about these two and enjoy the happier life I’m paining them in the absence of canon just makes me feel so much less alone than usual. It means the world to me so please believe me when I say that I wouldn’t have gotten to 500 without each and every one of you, whether you were here from the beginning or just joined in whenever.

I’m so happy to have finally reached this moment, but simultaneously so torn up about what that means.

Will I never do another Fair Game HC again? HECK NO! While the regular daily episodes are ending, if I find another topic that I want to Fair Game-i-fy, I will definitely make more episodes, and hopefully, before long, I will! I just need to take a break from the daily updates. I’ve hit burnout several times over the past year and a half and it’s not fun, so while I still have some energy to spare, I want to end the daily series on a high note!

Also, forgive me because I’m gonna cheat this as a submission for @fairgameweek2021 while I’m at it (If it’s not cool, then my apologies). The theme today is Charms/Dreams and while neither of these come up in the HC itself, this wedding and this series as a whole I think acts as a reflection of the dreams much of the Fair Game fandom had for this ship.

When I say this, I don’t mean it in the sense of I’d be upset if not each and every one of these didn’t come true -- that’s never been what my love for Fair Game was about, nor that each and every Fair Game fan subscribes to these HCs (Good GOD, no -- not even close). Like many fans, I just wanted these two characters who deserved happiness (Especially Qrow given his almost unreal amount of trauma and hardships) and seemed like they’d finally found it with each other to get exactly that. So in the absence of canon, I hope people were able to take solace in this space and live in the daydreams I created for them here.

So here we are at long last: The Fair Game Wedding. If you want to follow the story thus far, you can check out my HC compilation page. I’ve highlighted all of the wedding HCs in green, and have fully caught up the HC list!

That said, if you don’t feel like reading all of them and just want to check out this last one, here’s the tldr for what you need to know: The wedding is taking place in the Amity communications tower (This HC series only follows canon until 7X11 for those who didn’t know because I only choose to acknowledge good writing (especially for Qrow and Clover) here), Tai is Qrow’s Best Man, Marrow is Clover’s Best Man, Robyn is officiating, Ruby’s walking Qrow down the aisle, Yang’s walking Clover down the aisle, Clover got Qrow a silver ring with four tiny encrusted emeralds, Qrow got Clover a dark ring with four tiny encrusted rubies, Qrow’s wearing an onyx tux with a white undershirt and a crimson bowtie and handkerchief, and Clover’s wearing a black tux with a white undershirt and a dark green bowtie and handkerchief.

Okay! We’re good to go!

Well, for the last regularly-scheduled time, let’s get to it!

HC under the cut!

“Uncle Qrow! Help! We can’t find your shoes!”

Ruby’s cry is what wakes Qrow up.

What a way to start the day. He hasn’t even had coffee or breakfast yet and he’s already been tasked with finding his wedding shoes. Give him a break.

It then comes to attention that this is his wedding day. By the time he goes to bed, he and Clover will be married.

His crankiness at being woken up and put to work so quickly doesn’t fully evaporate, but a lot of it does all the same.

And as Qrow starts searching his temporary room to find his shoes, he can’t help but take note of the bubbling happiness under him.

()()()()()()()()()()()

It feels so weird to Clover to wake up in the Ace Ops’ suite. He’s stopped by from time to time since leaving the Atlesian Army, especially as he’s been planning his wedding, but staying over feels simultaneously nostalgic and bizarre.

Mostly though, the odd feeling is one that stems from not waking up beside Qrow. It’s not that they haven’t slept apart, but whenever they have outside of their bachelor parties, it’s been for a mission.

Well, in all fairness, today’s at once a party and a mission, and by the end of it, he and Qrow will be back sleeping right beside each other.

Clover can just barely stand the wait.

()()()()()()()()()()

The alter is beautiful. The whites and browns and red and greens come together so nicely.

In an interesting surprise touch, Harbinger in its scythe form and Kingfisher in its rod form are tastefully placed right next to Tai and Marrow respectively. And on top of their handles, Qrow and Clover’s respective rings rest safely on each of their handles.

They’re both impressed, more so that their weapons were somehow sneak out and brought all the way to the communications tower without either’s knowledge.

Clover’s the first to arrive at Amity Tower. Tai and Marrow organized how Qrow and Clover would check in on things so they wouldn’t see each other until the ceremony. Though Clover found the superstition banal, he decides not to make a fuss about it today, not when there are more important things going on.

The sweet smell of flowers greets his nose. They’re all laid out so nicely, and possibly even more so in the reception hall. Clover looks to his and Qrow’s table, and then to his pants.

Marrow gave him back his phone this morning, and with Marrow temporarily busy in the bathroom, Clover sends Qrow a quick text before he returns.

Clover: Everything looks perfect up here, but I bet you’ll look even better. See you soon. ;)

Qrow arrives a bit later than expected...which for him was anything but unexpected. Between finding his shoes, Tai insisting on ironing his suit (”I swear, there was a wrinkle on it this morning!), making sure he got a good meal in him, cramming everyone into Tai’s car, and dealing with traffic, it’s amazing they got there when they did.

By the time Qrow gets there, the caterers are starting to arrive and their cake is on its way over, too!

Though Qrow initially felt his scroll buzz in the car, he’s unable to look at it until now. He sees Clover’s text in between the tons of congratulations messages, and smiles.

He’s such a dork.

But he’s Qrow’s dork.

Qrow: You know it. ;) See you soon.

Far too much time is spent for either of their taste’s getting into their suits and going over their entrances and everything (Though given how their rehearsal went, neither can be too annoyed).

Both meet their respective halves of the wedding party and soon enough...it’s time.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Robyn’s the first to enter. She has a basic script in her hand, but everyone knows she’s gonna do some ad-libbing and are excited for it.

Qrow walks down the aisle first with Ruby. The whole time, he can’t but hold his breath behind his smile, worried he might trip. Ruby, who can now fully tell how her uncle operates, holds his arm tighter and more supportively. Qrow would be lying if he said it didn’t help. Upon reaching the front, Ruby gives Qrow a big hug and a kiss on the cheek before leaving his side.

After he arrives, the two sets of groomsmen enter side-by-side: Marrow and Tai, Elm and Port, Vine and Oobleck, and Harriet and Theodore (Yeah, I know basically nothing about Theodore, but I realized my numbers for Qrow’s groomsmen didn’t add up to Clover’s, and I hear the two of them got along, so we’re doing this!).

Once they’re in position, Clover enters with Yang. Clover, like Yang, holds his breath, but for a different reason. Qrow looks so impossibly good in his suit, and he can tell Qrow really likes how he looks, too. Like Ruby with Qrow, before leaving to join her sister, Yang gives Clover a hug and cheek kiss, but also a nice pat on the shoulder and a wish for “good luck.” Clover loves the sensation.

Clover whispers under his breath that Qrow looks amazing. Qrow thanks him, throwing a wink at Clover. Clover looks as stunned by it as Qrow did when he did it the first time.

Ceremony stuff happens, and then we get to the vows!

Robyn signals for Qrow to go first. He nods at her and begins.

“Clover,” Qrow says. “I want to say something to you, something that I never thought I would, especially here of all places, but something that feels like it should be said all the same. ...Here it goes. Clover, we don’t have to get married.”

There’s a pause as everyone watching gasps. Clover is the only one who doesn’t, though he does raise and eyebrow. Qrow maintains eye contact with him and continues.

“It’s true,” he says. “We know we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives. I’m not leaving you, you’re not leaving me, and once this is all over, we’re going to go right back to the same home we’ve spent years building together to build even more of it for as long as we can. We’ll get up, make breakfast and coffee, work, come home, watch TV, and go to bed. Maybe we’ll do different things on the weekends with Tai and the kids, or maybe we’ll just relax on the couch with a movie. So no, we don’t need to get married...but that’s exactly why I want to.”

The sighs of relief are close to deafening, and expecting that, Qrow takes another pause. Clover’s smile is beautiful, not beaming of exceedingly large, but radiant as it has ever been. Qrow hopes that whoever their planner organized to record their wedding captures it because it’s a smiles Qrow imagines he’ll want to look at over and over again.

“It’s exactly because we don’t need to throw a ceremony or a big party to show the world we love each other that makes me want to do just that,” Qrow continues. “A love like what we have, one that’s special because of all the things that don’t make it special just as much as all of the things that do, well to me, that’s a love worth celebrating. I love you, Clover, and I love the fact that being here with you gives me another chance to celebrate how we feel, how far we’ve come, and how much further we’ll go.”

There are tears in the corners of Clover’s eyes threatening to fall any second. Qrow feels that his own are on the verge of doing the same.

Clover pull him in for a hug. They know it’s not what they’re supposed to do, but it feels right and that’s all that matters. It lasts for ten seconds before they finally pull back.

Robyn’s looking at them jokingly.

“You know you’re not supposed to do that yet, right?”

“Eh,” Qrow says, shrugging with a smirk on his face. “We’re unconventional.”

“Except when we’re not,” Clover chimes in, winking at Qrow over the joke.

Robyn, smiling all the while, rolls her eyes.

“Clover, it’s your turn,” she says. The two exchange nods and then Clover turns to Qrow.

“Qrow,” he starts, “I definitely saw my life differently before I met you. I was an Atlesian Military Captain of the kingdom’s strongest group of Huntsmen, likely to stay just where I was until I retired or died in combat. That’s what I saw for myself, and that’s all I saw for myself. In that life, I didn’t see a home, I didn’t see a family, and I never saw someone I loved so much that I’d leave everything I thought I knew behind just to stand by his side. But once I met you and the kids, I began to see all sorts of things that I’d never considered for myself before -- all of those things I just listed and more. That’s the life we’ve had together so far -- deep, kind, strange, fun, sometimes a bit mundane but also beautiful because of it. I’ve got to tell you, Qrow, I can’t think of anything luckier happening to me in my entire life than finding you.”

Qrow snorts. It’s not an interruption, but Clover can’t help but comment on it.

“I guess you saw that coming?” Clover jokes.

“Maybe a bit.”

“Fair enough. Well, I don’t need to tell you that with semblances like ours, luck’s always been a special thing between us. Misfortune and Good Fortune just have a way of being part of our lives, no matter what we think or plan or want. We’ve talked before about how they counter each other or why one might be more powerful than the other on any given day, but while luck might have been what brought us together as partners initially and it certainly is part of us, it’s not all of us. Luck has some interesting perks, both good and bad alike -- it can make a day or even week better or worse -- but it can’t get either of us what we have together nor take it away. Luck doesn’t earn me the sight of that gleam in your eyes when I bring you a bowl of noodles just the way you like or that smile of yours when I tell you tell you a joke. Luck helps us live our lives, but we do the rest, and I think we do a pretty good job living it together, and I can’t wait to keep on doing it with you for the rest of our lives.”

A good number of the attendants make an “awwww” sound at the end of Clover’s vows. Qrow’s tempted to make fun of it, but abstains.

Robyn nods at the conclusion of her vows. Tai and Marrow collect the rings for Qrow and Clover from off of the weapons and bring them to them. Robyn then turns to Clover.

“Clover Ebi,” she says. “Do you take this man, Qrow Branwen, to be your lawfully-wedded husband -- to love, cherish, and grow with him in sickness and in health and for better or worse as long as you both shall live?”

Clover’s smile is present. It doesn’t get bigger, but it gets deeper.

“I do,” he says. Qrow takes Clover’s ring and slides it easily onto Clover’s finger.

Robyn turns to Qrow.

“And Qrow Branwen,” she continues. “Do you take this man, Clover Ebi, to be your lawfully-wedded husband -- to love, cherish, and grow with him in sickness and in health and for better or worse as long as you both shall live?”

Qrow’s smile stays the same -- relaxed, easy, and so utterly content. Despite seeing it hundreds of times by now, it still looks so beautiful to Clover...especially when he says the next two words.

“I do.”

Qrow extends out his hand, and Clover, with the ring he got him, slides it down Qrow’s flawless finger effortlessly.

Robyn’s smile grows.

“Then by the power vested in me by the Kingdom of Solitas and the land of Remnant, I now declare you husbands. You may now kiss.”

Qrow and Clover have kissed more times than they can possibly count.

But by the time Robyn declares them married, they’re starving to feel each other’s kisses again. Cupping each other’s cheeks, Qrow and Clover share their first kiss as a married couple.

Everyone cheers. A quarter of the room cheers through their tears.

Finally, they’re married.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Qrow and Clover get a small break to themselves before they enter the reception. They spend much of it standing and sitting close together, kissing, telling the Qrow and Clover equivalent of sweet nothings to each other, and talking about what their previous night and this morning were like. It’s kind, relaxed, and happy -- so, so happy.

The reception’s amazing. Between awesome food, “the world’s best cocktail hour” (Qrow and Clover’s words, not mine), a good DJ, heartwarming (and a little embarrassing) speeches, gorgeous decorations, cool party favors, and a beautiful and loving first dance, everyone has an amazing time.

At some point, Qrow and Clover find themselves able to sneak out of their own reception for a break (Qrow especially needs one, but Clover’s not about to pretend he’s not at least a little tired either). There’s a small empty balcony right in front of the moon. Clover loops his arm around Qrow’s shoulders and settles it on the left one.

Clover takes a deep breath through his nose and Qrow can feel his hairs bounce up and down with it.

“Smell something you like?” Qrow teases.

“More like someone. And I can’t wait to keep smelling him.”

They relax in the quiet for a bit. Qrow snuggles into Clover’s side as the gentle wind embraces their forms wherever it can.

“We’re married,” Clover finally says, said as if he’s just realized it for the first time.

It must be the tenth time today he’s done so since the ceremony.

Qrow hasn’t gotten even remotely sick of hearing it.

“We’re married,” he repeats.

Clover releases a rumbling chuckle, then kisses Qrow’s upper right temple. Qrow presses his lips to Clover’s hand. It’s not a kiss, per se, but it lingers delicately on his hand.

They stay for a couple more minutes before deciding that they should probably return to their party.

The rest of the party is so nice. Friends and family party and dance the night away with the gorgeous night sky all around them for hours.

The cleanup is exhausting and despite loving their wedding planner from the moment they hired her, Qrow and Clover have never been more grateful for her services than where she says they can head out and that she would finish up the rest of the work and text them (”Tomorrow afternoon. You guys are gonna need some shut eye.”).

It takes Qrow and Clover about an hour to get home. Clover drives once they’re on solid ground again. In the car, neither talk much, content to sit and enjoy the drive home in a comfortable quiet, save for the occasional joke and “We’re married” statement.

When they’re finally home, they stop at the door. After all, who’s going to carry who over the threshold?

They compromise. Kissing each other’s face all the way, Qrow carries Clover through their front door, and Clover carries Qrow through their bedroom door onto a...very fun wedding night (Which I’m gonna let you all imagine for yourself because I have literally been writing this all day and writing about sex is kind of tough for me when I’m at my best).

When they’re at last ready to go to sleep, Qrow and Clover cuddle close and give each other a final loving look before falling asleep in each other’s arms, blissfully together tonight and for decades worth of them to come, just as they deserve. I don’t even know what to say now that we’re here at the end. I think I said it here earlier, but it bears repeating: I love you all and thank you so much for following these Fair Game HCs.

Tagging @skybird13 @whipped4qrow @mooksie01 @luck-of-the-caw @xwildangel @solitude-of-stars-deactivated20 @vastnessofthespiral @o0nashipear0o @unfairgamey @doctorrwby @clover-and-co @megan-atthedisco @wash-my-brain @bisexualdisasterqrow @thursdayseraph @doubledexterity @rwby-things-i-guess @atlas-heartthrob @the-answer-was-bi-klance @compoterie @thuskindlyiboop @oceansquid @transdemion @deltastream21 @mimiori @xya-hunter @dinosaurs-last-day @roman-torchtwink @subatomictealeaves @drbtinglecannon @saphiralunaris @pretentiouskneecaps @amxngsthxmans @ayomez13 @carbonated-table-spices @darkestsiren @chaosgameingkoi @collectingsparechangemadeeasy @michaels-daughter2005 @youmaywanttoduck @lovethewitchofendor @victorious1956 @spence0112 @madamoisellesica @ju-ka-mc-24

Want to be tagged in future Fair Game HC’s (Or untagged, I understand) and be the first to catch all of the romance, fluff, drama, and puns (Sometimes all at the same time)? Send me a reply, PM, or ask, and it shall be done!

Would you also like to check out my old Fair Game HC’s? Who wouldn’t? Well, here’s a link to my Fair Game HC archives!!!!

#fair game #qrow branwen #clover ebi #rwby #lucky charms #luckbirds #luck birds #fairgame #qrow x clover #qrover #fair game hcs #500

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beauty-grace-outer-space · 3 years

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your tags on my post slapped me across the face. yes fucking yes. the fall from academic grace hits a whole lot harder when you've been excessively built up and built up for years and then come crashing down. i constantly feel like im letting everyone and younger self down. the whole thing about IDENTITY is so true too! x adhd-vibes

Well, your post came into my house and punched me in the gut, so...

But no, I really genuinely appreciate posts talking about the gifted child + neurodivergence duality because it’s... a lot. And I feel like I’m only just starting to understand-- well, my entire life, basically.

My entire life past the age of ~13 has been a constant up and down of thriving and burnout, a lot of self loathing and doubt over my perceived failure, and a lot of depression and anxiety. And I just found out last year that a fair portion of it can likely be chalked up to the fact that I’ve had ADHD my entire life, my parents found out when I was four years old, and no one told me.

I started kindergarten at four. I was already reading chapter books. I’d finish reading the assignments before the teacher even finished handing them out, and be up and causing distractions because I was bored. They talked about bumping me to second grade, but I was already the youngest in my class and they didn’t want to create more of an age gap.

I did first grade half in English, half in Japanese to keep me “challenged”. The Japanese teacher hated that I was so young, and after a while refused to teach me.

My second grade teacher made a rule that I could sit any way I liked, or move around however I wanted, so long as I could touch my desk.

My third grade teacher set up a play area for students who finished their work early, and I spent most of my time there.

My fourth grade teacher recommended fantasy novels and read to us during downtime.

My fifth grade teacher helped me and my friends start a writing club, and she’d read our short stories and give us notes so we could work on our drafts when we were done with our schoolwork.

And then sixth grade and algebra happened and I could not for the life of me do the assignments well. I worked with friends in a study group. I had three different math teachers try to help me, in case one clicked differently. They’d watch me do the work, step by step, and one of two things would happen:

1. Either I’d do the work perfectly, but the answer was entirely wrong and they couldn’t figure out why

2. I’d do the work all wrong, but get the right answer every time.

But since you had to show your work for full credit, I went from a straight A student to mostly A’s and a C in math, no matter what I did.

My self esteem tanked. Most of my memories from middle school are of sitting alone at the dining room table sobbing because I felt stupid, and like a failure, and I just wanted to die, and sitting at a table focusing on only one thing with no background noise or stimulation was torture in and of itself. I finally got my mom to let me listen to the radio while I worked, and it helped a little, but night after night I’d sit there, sob through my math homework, and wish to disappear.

All of the self-loathing and stress manifested into extreme anxiety. I started washing my hands constantly, because that I could control. My hands cracked and bled. I kept washing.

I started self harming, and my mom found out and took me to see a therapist (who is still my therapist to this day), and I was diagnosed with OCD and Major Depressive Disorder, as well as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

By the time high school started, the handwashing had mostly stopped but still flared up again occasionally, and I was on track to graduate with highest honors following the “College Prep Honors” curriculum track. I made the National Honor Society, and did student government as well as zero hour choir and drama. I took Honors English and excelled.

But to complete the degree, I’d have to take Algebra I freshman year, Algebra II Honors sophomore year, Algebra III/Trig junior year, and Calculus senior year.

I got a C in Algebra I. I lost my National Honor Society status because of the GPA drop. I quit student government because I was ashamed.

I was told to drop Algebra II Honors two weeks in, because I was going to fail the class. This meant I would not get the diploma I wanted, but the secondary “College Prep” diploma.

I fell into a deep depression, decided I was stupid, and stopped trying. My report cards after that for the rest of high school were an assortment of A’s, B’s, C’s, even a D or two. I hated myself for not living up to my potential, for being a disappointment to my parents, for being so stupid.

I went back to therapy. I graduated high school. I went to college. I burnt out.

I took a gap year because I was suicidal and didn’t know what to do. I went back to therapy.

I transferred to a university. I burnt out. I dropped out, because I was suicidal and didn’t know what to do. I went back to therapy.

And when I was 27 years old, I found a box of old school stuff from elementary school, and as my mom and I laughed about it she told me that an administrator who specialized in identifying attention deficit disorders had observed me in kindergarten at the request of my teacher because I was causing distractions, told them that he was entirely certain I had what was at the time called ADD... and not to have me officially diagnosed in order to keep it out of my school record and avoid any “challenges to my desired educational path”.

Teachers were told, and chosen specifically to work with me and not against me, which I appreciate greatly.

I was never told.

On the one hand, I can see how my parents just didn’t want me to go through life believing I had something “wrong” with me, didn’t want me to be held back from pursuing any classes I wanted to take because of my “diagnosis”, and didn’t want me to be “unnecessarily medicated”. I appreciate the time and care that went into trying to guide me along and give me safe environments to be my authentic self without being told it was a hindrance or a “problem”.

But the more I learn the more I can’t help but wish someone had told me.

Because I spent the last 16 years of my life thinking that somewhere along the way I had “lost” something, or “failed”, and really it was a pretty predictable and manageable sequence of events.

I’ve since learned that a lot of the things I’ve always done that I’ve felt uncomfortable or “odd” about... are stims. Minor ones, but stims, nonetheless.

I’ve since learned that I was bullied pretty severely for being “weird” in elementary school, but I have no memory of it.

I’ve since learned that dyscalculia is thing, and very well could have contributed to my ongoing struggle with math.

And for the rest of my life I will wonder if knowing would have changed anything. If my depression is a side effect of this thing I didn’t know about myself, or a separate piece of me. Who I might have been if my entire identity wasn’t tied to my perceived sudden loss of intelligence and potential.

Anyway. I’ve rambled quite enough. If anyone wants to talk about any of this, or vent, or ask questions, feel free. This is the post we are referring to, by the by.

#adhd #depression #ocd #anxiety #tw suicidal thoughts mentioned #studying #school #gifted kids #neurodivergence #long post #bullying #self worth #identity

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polarisdelphi · 3 years

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Commissions Open + Tumblr Exclusive Raffle! + Limited Edition Stickers

Please, read and reblog! I need help/boosting!

(like + reblog to participate on the raffle - details below)

I don’t really know how to do this, ‘cause I’m not used to ask for help “-.-

But long story short: I suffered constant abuse at my last job as a lawyer, had a huge burnout and, 3 days before getting my first vacation in 2 years, I was dismissed (and almost had a breakdown), YAY!

The pandemics hit, things are going very slow as an artist and I have to figure my life out - I've been unemployed for almost 3 years and I'm considered obsolete. I want to go back to my post-grad studies, but I did stop as 2020 started because I couldn't afford it and my mind was a huge mess.

I need to gather money to get my life back on track, start studying again and go back to being an actual human after feeling like I was going to crash and burn.

(You know, like Yoongi sings in Nevermind: "if you feel like you're going to crash, accelerate more, you idiot.")

This is me trying to accelerate more.

So, Commissions are Open!

I NEED to get a lot of them - that’s how I’m planning to pay for my studies (apart from selling a few of my personal stuff I’ll have to let go).

I need to get all this "crash and burnout" out of me for my own sake, seriously.

My prices are in the commission sheet down below - we can negotiate depending on the piece, so feel free to message me!

If you can't commission me, please reblog this post!!

Share it with your friends, on twitter, tell people about it, paste it on lamp posts... I really need to get this going!

Also, I do have a ko-fi where you can tip me: Buy me a ko-fi!

Shop Update - Limited Editions!

To also help with this, I got Limited Edition stickers on my redbubble shop! They will be available only for this - they are there to help me raise this money to study.

They are mostly BTS and Devil May Cry, so, if you're into any of those fandoms and would like some stickers, do drop by and see if there's something you like! (There's also the standard collections from the shop too, if you want to take a look)

You'll be getting nice artsy stickers and helping me at the same time - it's a win win! ^^

Visit here: WPolar Atelier on Redbubble

Tumblr Exclusive Raffle!

In order to thank you guys for helping me boosting, reblogging and making this visible, I'll do an art raffle - it's what I can right now "^^

Basically: like + reblog this post and you're in for the raffle!

At July 1st, luck will pick one winner - the prize will be a bust-up full colour drawing from me. Anything you want, as long as it follows my "do's and don'ts".

Thanks SO MUCH for the attention and for sharing!! ^^

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buildarocketboys · 3 years

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8 and 12 for the autism asks?

Woops, sorry anon, you gave me the opportunity to infodump about autistic!Nathan and I'm afraid I took it lol

8. If you have any, what are your special interests?

Honestly at the moment it's probably mostly just Heroes (and specifically Nathan and Peter Petrelli lol). Like I usually say cooking/baking but somewhere in the past few months that's kind of faded out a bit and I don't love doing as much as I did, which is a shame. Apart from that I've kind of been having fairly short-lived hyperfixations (I'm currently watching season 4 of Glee after stopping at s3 last year, which was probably the wisest place to end but never mind).

12. Do you headcanon any characters as autistic? If you want, tell us why you headcanon them as autistic.

Aha...see my previous post. But I'm gonna give a rundown on why I headcanon Nathan as autistic, because I think it's a headcanon with a lot of evidence:

- Fake smile/exaggerated facial expressions

- makes weird/awkward comments/jokes (gifset)

- Stims (even though he masks a lot) (gifset)

- Scripting (gifset) - also his career/s as lawyer/politician are ones that involve a lot of talking/interacting with people but a. They're things that you can probably script/practice a lot of, go over every scenario etc and b. Nathan sucks as a politician lol. Like he can deliver a speech OK, but he was gonna lose (and knows he's going to lose) when he's running for Congress which is why Linderman has to kidnap Micah to fix the vote and also he literally only becomes Senator in s3 bc the Governor sees him having a mental breakdown on TV and obviously thinks 'this guy will be so easy to manipulate'

- Echolalia (there are several examples of Nathan repeating back something someone's already said to him, I think my favourite is in the s1 finale when Claire tells him that "the future isn't written in stone" and he repeats that back to her later when he flies in to have his Big Damn Moment

- Tripping over his words/words running into each other (gifset)

- Black and white thinking ie in Haiti when he's like ‘If I don’t save the world I’m basically evil’

- on the other hand, difficulty knowing what the right thing to do is, relying on other people to tell him - His whole ‘what is right/why can’t I tell the difference speech’/asking Peter what he should do

- in .07% - difficulty comprehending/empathising with a large amount of people/finds empathy difficult for people he doesn’t know/care about - I have a fairly developed headcanon that's pretty much canon about Nathan's Big Damn Moment saving Peter/New York really being entirely bc of Peter and his empathy for him (and knowing/being told by Claire how much it'll kill him to be responsible for the deaths of millions of people, since Peter has a hyperempathetic streak bigger than he is) - but yeah, that. (Actually I might make a post about this bc there's a fair amount of detail in it that's basically what I take from what we're actually given in canon and I think it would make a nice piece of meta. I talk about it with Anni all the time.

- despite not exactly being the most honest/moral person, Nathan's also really not that good at lying, especially when he has to do so spontaneously/improvise. Family brunch is probably the best example of this

- the people that Nathan most vibes with (as in, makes a real connection with that isn't shallow and based on him masking and trying so hard to fit in) in the show are characters that are either neurodivergent/mentally ill in canon or who I headcanon as neurodivergent/autistic: Nathan+Hiro (who I also headcanon as autistic), Nathan+Matt [who's canonically dyslexic], Nathan+Niki [DID(/multipersonality disorder lol, which is obviously poorly handled by the show but still, the mentally ill/ND vibes)], Nathan+Peter obvs. Claire's probably the only one who doesn't fit this but a. They don't vibe immediately, Claire takes a while to actually understand him and b. Claire's best friend is Zach and her S4 gf is Gretchen. Both of whom have incredibly autistic vibes. Claire is basically the ND equivalent of a fag hag (in the nicest possible way - I love her)

- kind of a sad/horrible one, but when Arthur says ‘I made you’ to Nathan in s3 it really gives me Lovaas being like with an autistic person you have to build the person from the ground up gross dehumanising vibes. Arthur is the worst lol

- Is actually extremely emotional (and a lot of his actions are extremely emotionally motivated - for better and for worse) e.g. Angela talking about him being ‘overly theatrical wrt Kelly’s death/calling him a sap, and him not even being able to look at the photo Meredith shows him of Claire (that whole scene really shows how hard he tries to mask his emotionality to his own detriment; he can barely look at the photo bc it's so much, and then he doesn't get Meredith to call Claire back - even though he basically came down to Texas to meet her - because he doesn't know how to handle his emotions about finally meeting the daughter he thought was dead without losing it)

- Obsessiveness (the hundreds of photos of Peter thing+him literally calling himself obsessive)

- Mostly blank/unemotional facial expression and relatively monotone voice even when talking about/in extremely emotional situations (e.g. I’m not leaving you Peter). His voice *does* show emotion sometimes but only in really intense situations and even then rarely (I think this is partly masking, partly his natural expression)

- Doesn’t like touch (apart from if it's Peter/someone else he feels safe with) especially when emotional (gifset) also his and Claire's hug in s1 is extremely awkward lol

- Burnout/losing control of his life (s2 and also kind of s3 - Nathan's a mess). Basically all the mentally ill Nathan stuff - side effects of autistic burnout/masking for basically all his life

#anon #asks #autism tag #actuallyautistic #nathan petrelli #actually autistic #ask meme #autism headcanon #autistic headcanon #autistic Nathan petrelli

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painted-crow · 3 years

Text

Secondary Toast Revolving Door, Part 1

I guess I should start with a little about me, since that’s easier than making you pick through previous asks for information and some of you guys are new here. This one’s going to be heavily personal, so you can skip it if you want.

I’m a double Bird. My Bird primary system is heavily Badger influenced, and I also use Lion to support it by telling me when I should investigate something more closely. If we can dip into primary territory for a moment, I guess you can say I understand the world through systems that model things around me. But not all of those systems are things I’ve consciously examined, or fully investigated.

My understanding of how historical people dressed is pretty limited, for example, because I haven’t studied it in depth to get all the information—but I consciously understand what I do know about it. You could say this system piece is tiny but clear; I could expand it if I chose to find out more.

My understanding of how someone I’m not close to thinks might have more data to work with, but I haven’t consciously processed it; that’s the kind of thing where my Lion primary model will tell me to look closer if that person starts acting weird. This system piece might be described as huge but fuzzy; I could clarify it if I sat down and thought about it. I probably have more of these than I realize, but Lion basically takes care of monitoring those. I don’t have to investigate everything.

But some of my systems are both large and fairly clear, because I’ve taken the time both to gather data on them and to examine it. My understanding of myself is… well, I won’t say it’s terribly clear, because I’m in my early twenties and I’m still constantly getting new information, plus someone keeps changing the environment and mucking with my data (that would be me). But I have to examine it, because my brain is like a notoriously buggy piece of software and I’m the poor schmuck saddled with tech support duties.

Basically, the reason I’m good at playing therapist with other people is that I’m constantly doing exactly that thing with myself. (This probably makes me a very annoying patient for actual therapists.)

About that buggy brain, then.

I have major depression. That was professionally diagnosed when I was a teenager and it’s probably genetic. I take medication for it, when I remember to. It especially flares up in the winter or when I’m under stress. I probably have some kind of anxiety disorder too.

I’m almost certainly autistic, which I’ve never brought up with a professional—the first person to figure it out was the system I’m now best friends with, because they’re autistic and they knew I was within two weeks of talking to me. It took me two years to catch up with them and figure it out myself.

In my defense, I thought executive dysfunction, sensory overwhelm, dissociation, and hyperempathy were like… secret menu items for depression, because those only really bug me during depressive episodes. My current theory is that they’re related to autistic burnout instead.

I mask a lot, subconsciously—it’s actually really hard to turn that off normally—and I just can’t do that as much when depressed. If I do, my tolerance for everything else goes way down and I’ll go into overwhelm and start having shutdowns and dissociating. I recover pretty quickly (hours, not days), but if you’ve never spent 15 minutes standing in a Walmart aisle trying to decide whether you want a jar of peanut butter, but you can’t make decisions because you can’t access your emotions and you don’t really feel like you’re “here” but you kind of just want to go home… well, be glad I guess.

Of course, I have other autistic traits that show up when I’m not under stress, but they’re seldom associated with autism because most people don’t know what autis are like when we’re actually happy. Like, hyperlexia? That’s not even an “official” word, the auti community just uses it because “official” literature hasn’t caught up. I taught myself to read at age three (according to my mom; she says I was reading news headlines and stuff, not just books I’d memorized) and wrote a 35k word novella when I was ten, with no external prompting. My audio processing used to be terrible, but I routinely tested at college age reading levels as a kid.

I also might have ADHD? If so, it’s also mostly just noticeable if I’m under stress, and then it’s hard to tell if that’s the issue or if it’s just autism/depression again.

You might be getting a clearer picture of how my secondary and its model end up burnt so often!

(Resisting a very strong urge to cut stuff from this post.)

In short, I was a Gifted Kid. I spent a lot of my teen years biting off more than I could chew, honestly. I felt that I should be able to do more, and I wanted to be taken seriously, but I had basically no idea how to take care of myself because my needs are different from everyone else’s. I’m still figuring those out.

I’m kind of like an orchid plant: incredibly picky about conditions, wants a different “soil” and watering schedule, gets stressed if stuff changes too quickly, but when everything is just right and it does bloom, it goes all out.

I’m not kidding when I say that I have odd needs. One of them is the need for creative work, which seems to be hardwired into me. When I say that art or writing keeps me sane, I often hear back “oh yeah! I’ve heard that can be very therapeutic,” which is an innocuous reply, but it’s always bugged me, and I think I’ve figured out why.

First, because that’s not the reason I make things… I just… have to. Second, I can’t “make up” not doing creative work with some other kind of therapy. Third and most importantly, I’d much rather think of “artist” as my ground state, and depression as a condition that happens when my needs aren’t being met, rather than thinking of depression as the default that I’m just using art to escape from. That seems to me a healthier way of thinking, and probably a more accurate one, but I’m probably the only one who can see that distinction.

If life gets in the way and I can’t make space for creative work, it will actively make my depression worse. I know this because, multiple times, I’ve been unable to pinpoint why I’m feeling shitty, and then I go back to my easel or my writing or (ukulele, cooking, even just taking care of houseplants) and realize I haven’t done anything creative in like a month and thaaaat’s the problem.

I crack open a bottle of gesso to prep some canvases and it smells like… well, I don’t think you can get high off gesso? But it’s not like when you’re out of it on painkillers or cold medicine or whatever. It’s incredibly grounding, like the world snaps back into focus but it’s also oddly euphoric. Or I write ten thousand words in a couple days and it just… I don’t know what that does. I’ve never run across a word for it.

The writer of Smile at Strangers (a really good memoir centered around women, anxiety, and karate) describes a similar feeling in relation to her martial arts practice.

It’s also a bit like when all the snow melts after winter and you step outside and there’s the smell of wet soil under sunlight and I’m not sure if this fully translates for people who don’t have seasonal depression. Sorry.

Dammit, I want to paint… I haven’t had space to set up for like eight months. I’ve been nose-deep in writing projects since last summer for a reason, but right now my friggin Ravenclaw secondary is off angsting about something because of Life Stress Bullshit, and I don’t have the focus to work on any of my writing projects. Apart from this one. But it’s not really what I want in terms of creative work.

*velociraptor screech*

Oh, yeah. I guess I could mention this is why my nickname is Paint. Not sure if that was obvious before. The header image (which is more visible in the app for some reason) is one of my paintings. It’s a tiny one and it’s not one of my favorites, but I had the photo on my phone and the colors work well enough for what I needed.

(restrains self from negging my own painting ability)

This is starting to get into spoiler territory for what burned Ravenclaw secondary looks like, huh? It’s peaced out for a couple weeks at this point. I’m trying to write about what made it take off, but my ability to think of words and form a coherent sentence kinda flew out the window when I approached it directly.

Let’s just say that around the start of the month, someone I was talking to online (if you’re reading this, it’s definitely not you) kindaaaa hit a nasty depression trigger of mine. Not their fault—it’s very specific to me, and I struggle to explain why I can’t really talk about it. Basically, I spent years studying programming and web design, and due to several different but related issues during that experience, it’s now a trigger for me. I very much want it not to be, but trying to train that out of myself has induced more than one panic attack and I’m stuck between giving up on it or figuring out a way to go back to it that doesn’t totally shut my brain down.

That paragraph took forever to write, by the way.

I think I have to end this here. I… am going to go take out the trash, and water my plants, and make my bed, and file some paperwork, and maybe I’ll even mix up some bread dough or do some laundry. Spoiler alert for what it looks like when my Hufflepuff model takes over, I guess.

Oh. And I should maybe probably eat something. I almost forgot about that... again.

#sortinghatchats #time to overshare on the internet i guess #secondary toast revolving door #mental health #burned ravenclaw secondary #hufflepuff secondary model #ravenclaw primary #paint speaks

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doorbloggr · 2 years

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Sunday 7/11/21 - Head Full Again; Gotta Braindump or I won't be able to write anything else

So it's been a couple weeks since I've written an article on here, and it's not for lack of stuff to write about, I've just had hit a sort of creative wall. I have lined up a few articles to write and I know what they will feature but it is the process of starting that is making it difficult.

So in order to start pushing myself over that hump, I've decided I'll just brain dump some of my recent frustrations tonight. Because if I write and publish something right now, then that's more than what I've written last week, and I'll have less of an excuse to put off starting other work.

Creative Activation Energy

There's probably established terminology for this issue, but as a man of science, I've come to compare it to a scientific idea. In chemistry there's this concept called Activatiom Energy. A lot of chemical reactions will happen spontaneously, that is, the reaction occurs without putting in extra energy. But often, some energy needs to be put in before the process will flow by itself.

Thermodynamics diagram of Activation Energy

The amount of energy that comes out at the end is more than is put in, but without that push at the start, nothing happens.

I feel the same with a lot of my creative endeavours. The process or starting a new drawing, or writing a new thing results in a lot more stress and requires more mental energy than the bulk of the total process. Once I have started a blog post for example, the writing is easy, and I might spend one afternoon on a shorter piece. But I might stress about starting that blogpost for most of a week before I eventually start. I haven't yet solved how to best tackle creative activation energy, but as I worry more about starting a thing, the amount of energy required to start it gets larger.

This activation energy problem has made a larger problem for how I plan out my blog topics.

Self Imposed Routine Burnout

This October just passed, I participated in a variation of the Inktober format, where you submit a drawing for each day of October, usually from a predetermined list of prompts. Rules as written, you don't necessarily have to do the drawing on the day, or necessarily even have to submit it on the day that drawing is for, you just have to finish 31 drawings.

In previous years, I had better planned this out to minimise stress. Around mid September, I would start doing drawings for Linktober (Legend of Zelda Inktober), so that when October 1st comes around, I've already prepared maybe 10-15 drawings, and by maybe the 20th of October, I've already finished 31 drawings. But this year I decided to do it differently. I restricted myself to a very simplistic artistic and colouring style so I could pump them out quicker, leaving myself time for other, non-Linktober art. This idea on my usual Linktober schedule would've been great, but I decided to do it wrong.

My Linktober 2021

I started prep for Linktober 2021 like 5 days before October and then after that, my headstart only got shorter, until October 27th when I fell behind. It was a very stressful Linktober and by the end I was not enjoying myself. And doing art in a way that makes you hate doing art is the worst thing for an artist. It kills creativity.

It never occurred to me that I could keep doing Linktober at a slower rate later just as long as I finished 31 drawings sometime before next October, but I did finish Linktober 2021 and I feel a lot freer. Since I have oodles of free time left over now, I need to get around a different type of activation energy. The energy to use free time passively.

Doing nothing to get better at doing something

Since one of my regular blogpost topics is recommending media, it necessitates that I need to sit down and experience it. This is part of the reason why I've gone a few weeks without recommending something new. I haven't been able to force myself to watch or play anything new.

Anytime I get free time, I've been forcing myself to make something. It was mostly Linktober recently, but less so is my dedication to D&D with my friends. My enjoyment of Dungeons and Dragons has led me to making weekly fanart of the events that happen. So after we play a session on the weekend, I spend a lot of time over the next week stressing that I need to finish that previous week's session art. So anytime I get a day off work, or have an afternoon with some energy left over, I spend it on creating. And that's not even mentioning that I've been DMing too lately and so have to do planning over the week too.

Art for the latest D&D session I DM'd for

But the issue is, if I want to make just leisure art, or write, I need to stop spending my free time making art or writing for D&D and just watch anime or play games sometimes. Because without that inspiration, my creative well will run dry and the process of making new art or D&D plans, or blogposts will only become more drawn out and painful.

We didn't get to play D&D this weekend just passed, so I'm ahead on planning and caught up on art. This might be the chance I needed.

So I'm using this blogpost to make a promise to myself. I will not force myself to draw this week unless I really feel inspiration strikes, and I'm not putting a deadline on finishing it either. I WILL sit down and watch some anime so that I can sit down on Thursday and Friday and tell my readers about that anime.

And for my palaeontology readers, I plan to write at least one more entry in the Dinosaurs of the World series this week.

That was my braindump for the week. Pray for me that this helps.

#blog #blogpost #brain dump #train of thought #creativity #creative burnout

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warninggraphiccontent · 3 years

Text

16 July 2021

Food for thought

At last week's Data Bites, I noted how 'Wales' is a standard unit of area. This week, along comes a map which shows that all the built-up land in the UK is equivalent to one Wales:

The map is from the National Food Strategy, published yesterday (and the man has a point).

It has divided opinion, judging by the responses to this tweet. I understand where the sceptics are coming from - at first glance, it may be confusing, given Wales isn't actually entirely built up, Cornwall made of peat, or Shetland that close to the mainland (or home to all the UK's golf courses). And I'm often critical of people using maps just because the data is geographical in some way, when a different, non-map visualisation would be better.

But I actually think this one works. Using a familiar geography to represent areas given over to particular land use might help us grasp it more readily (urban areas = size of Wales, beef and lamb pastures = more of the country than anything else). It's also clear that a huge amount of overseas land is needed to feed the UK, too.

The map has grabbed people's attention and got them talking, which is no bad thing. And it tells the main stories I suspect its creators wanted to. In other words, it's made those messages... land.

Trash talk

Happy Take Out The Trash Day!

Yesterday saw A LOT of things published by Cabinet Office - data on special advisers, correspondence with parliamentarians, public bodies and major projects to name but a few, and the small matter of the new plans outlining departmental priorities and how their performance will be measured.

It's great that government is publishing this stuff. It's less great that too much of it still involves data being published in PDFs not spreadsheets. And it's even less great that the ignoble tradition of Take Out The Trash Day continues, for all the reasons here (written yesterday) and here (written in 2017).

I know this isn't (necessarily) deliberate, and it's a lot of good people working very hard to get things finished before the summer (as my 2017 piece acknowledges). And it's good to see government being transparent.

But it's 2021, for crying out loud. The data collection should be easier. The use of this data in government should be more widespread to begin with.

We should expect better.

In other news:

I was really pleased to have helped the excellent team at Transparency International UK (by way of some comments on a draft) with their new report exploring access and influence in UK housing policy, House of Cards. Read it here.

One of our recent Data Bites speakers, Doug Gurr, is apparently in the running to run the NHS. More here.

Any excuse to plug my Audrey Tang interview.

The good folk at ODI Leeds/The Data City/the ODI have picked up and run with my (and others') attempt to map the UK government data ecosystem. Do help them out.

Five years ago this week...

Regarding last week's headline of Three Lines on a Chart: obviously I was going to.

Have a great weekend

Gavin

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Today's links:

Graphic content

Vax populi

Why vaccine-shy French are suddenly rushing to get jabbed* (The Economist)

Morning update on Macron demolishing French anti-vax feeling (or at least vax-hesitant) (Sophie Pedder via Nicolas Berrod)

How Emmanuel Macron’s “health passes” have led to a surge in vaccine bookings in France* (New Statesman)

How effective are coronavirus vaccines against the Delta variant?* (FT)

England faces the sternest test of its vaccination strategy* (The Economist)

Where Are The Newest COVID Hot Spots? Mostly Places With Low Vaccination Rates (NPR)

There's A Stark Red-Blue Divide When It Comes To States' Vaccination Rates (NPR)

All talk, no jabs: the reality of global vaccine diplomacy* (Telegraph)

Vaccination burnout? (Reuters)

Viral content

COVID-19: Will the data allow the government to lift restrictions on 19 July? (Sky News)

UK Covid-19 rates are the highest of any European country after Cyprus* (New Statesman)

COVID-19: Cautionary tale from the Netherlands' coronavirus unlocking - what lessons can the UK learn? (Sky News)

‘Inadequate’: Covid breaches on the rise in Australia’s hotel quarantine (The Guardian)

Side effects

COVID-19: Why is there a surge in winter viruses at the moment? (Sky News)

London Beats New York Back to Office, by a Latte* (Bloomberg)

Outdoor dining reopened restaurants for all — but added to barriers for disabled* (Washington Post)

NYC Needs the Commuting Crowds That Have Yet to Fully Return* (Bloomberg)

Politics and government

Who will succeed Angela Merkel?* (The Economist)

Special advisers in government (Tim for IfG)

How stingy are the UK’s benefits? (Jamie Thunder)

A decade of change for children's services funding (Pro Bono Economics)

National Food Strategy (independent review for UK Government)

National Food Strategy: Tax sugar and salt and prescribe veg, report says (BBC News)

Air, space

Can Wizz challenge Ryanair as king of Europe’s skies?* (FT)

Air passengers have become much more confrontational during the pandemic* (The Economist)

Branson and Bezos in space: how their rocket ships compare* (FT)

Sport

Euro 2020: England expects — the long road back to a Wembley final* (FT)

Most football fans – and most voters – support the England team taking the knee* (New Statesman)

Domestic violence surges after a football match ends* (The Economist)

The Most Valuable Soccer Player In America Is A Goalkeeper (FiveThirtyEight)

Sport is still rife with doping* (The Economist)

Wimbledon wild card success does not disguise financial challenge* (FT)

Can The U.S. Women’s Swim Team Make A Gold Medal Sweep? (FiveThirtyEight)

Everything else

Smoking: How large of a global problem is it? And how can we make progress against it? (Our World in Data)

Record June heat in North America and Europe linked to climate change* (FT)

Here’s a list of open, non-code tools that I use for #dataviz, #dataforgood, charity data, maps, infographics... (Lisa Hornung)

Meta data

Identity crisis

A single sign-on and digital identity solution for government (GDS)

UK government set to unveil next steps in digital identity market plan (Computer Weekly)

BCS calls for social media platforms to verify users to curb abuse (IT Pro)

ID verification for social media as a solution to online abuse is a terrible idea (diginomica)

Who is behind the online abuse of black England players and how can we stop it?* (New Statesman)

Euro 2020: Why abuse remains rife on social media (BBC News)

UK government

Online Media Literacy Strategy (DCMS)

Privacy enhancing technologies: Adoption guide (CDEI)

The Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset is now available in the ONS Secure Research Service (ADR UK)

Our Home Office 2024 DDaT Strategy is published (Home Office)

The UK’s Digital Regulation Plan makes few concrete commitments (Tech Monitor)

OSR statement on data transparency and the role of Heads of Profession for Statistics (Office for Statistics Regulation)

Good data from any source can help us report on the global goals to the UN (ONS)

The state of the UK’s statistical system 2020/21 (Office for Statistics Regulation)

Far from average: How COVID-19 has impacted the Average Weekly Earnings data (ONS)

Health

Shock treatment: can the pandemic turn the NHS digital? (E&T)

Can Vaccine Passports Actually Work? (Slate)

UK supercomputer Cambridge-1 to hunt for medical breakthroughs (The Guardian)

AI got 'rithm

An Applied Research Agenda for Data Governance for AI (GPAI)

Taoiseach and Minister Troy launch Government Roadmap for AI in Ireland (Irish Government)

Tech

“I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Go Back”: Return-to-Office Agita Is Sweeping Silicon Valley (Vanity Fair)

Google boss Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom (BBC News)

The class of 2021: Welcome to POLITICO’s annual ranking of the 28 power players behind Europe’s tech revolution (Politico)

Inside Facebook’s Data Wars* (New York Times)

Concern trolls and power grabs: Inside Big Tech’s angry, geeky, often petty war for your privacy (Protocol)

Exclusive extract: how Facebook's engineers spied on women* (Telegraph)

Face off

Can facial analysis technology create a child-safe internet? (The Observer)

#Identity, #OnlineSafety & #AgeVerification – notes on “Can facial analysis technology create a child-safe internet?” (Alec Muffett)

Europe makes the case to ban biometric surveillance* (Wired)

Open government

From open data to joined-up government: driving efficiency with BA Obras (Open Contracting Partnership)

AVAILABLE NOW! DEMOCRACY IN A PANDEMIC: PARTICIPATION IN RESPONSE TO CRISIS (Involve)

Designing digital services for equitable access (Brookings)

Data

Trusting the Data: How do we reach a public settlement on the future of tech? (Demos)

"Why do we use R rather than Excel?" (Terence Eden)

Everything else

The world’s biggest ransomware gang just disappeared from the internet (MIT Technology Review)

Our Statistical Excellence Awards Ceremony has just kicked off! (Royal Statistical Society)

Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones (The Guardian)

Data officers raid two properties over Matt Hancock CCTV footage leak (The Guardian)

How did my phone number end up for sale on a US database? (BBC News)

Gendered disinformation: 6 reasons why liberal democracies need to respond to this threat (Demos, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung)

Opportunities

EVENT: Justice data in the digital age: Balancing risks and opportunities (The LEF)

JOBS: Senior Data Strategy - Data Innovation & Business Analysis Hub (MoJ)

JOB: Director of Evidence and Analytics (Natural England)

JOB: Policy and Research Associate (Open Ownership)

JOB: Research Officer in Data Science (LSE Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science)

JOB: Chief operating officer (Democracy Club, via Jukesie)

And finally...

me: can’t believe we didn’t date sooner... (@MNateShyamalan)

Are you closer to Georgia, or to Georgia? (@incunabula)

A masterpiece in FOIA (Chris Cook)

How K-Pop conquered the universe* (Washington Post)

Does everything really cost more? Find out with our inflation quiz.* (Washington Post)

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perikallis · 3 years

Text

MEET THE MUSE POWER HOUR!! ━━ take a seat and REPOST this detailed little bio with criteria to introduce the world to your muse. no reblog karma or tagging ━ if you see this on your dash, feel free to partake in it! ☆ ━ B A S I C S . NAME:: Zinon Konstantinou / Republic of Cyprus NICKNAME(S):: none actually, as his name comes from Ancient Greek; it’s possible that his name is already short for some other name that has been lost in time. But if you want to pay him back on his usual sweet talk and make him melt in private or embarrass him in public, you can call him Zinakis (Zinaki mou) or Zizis (Zizi mou). Note that these are Greek diminutives so they work under the assumption that your muse knows Greek too. In English I guess you can use Zino, tho he’ll probably wonder what’s the point of dropping just the last letter of his already short name AGE:: around 2,300 yo, says he’s 28 in physical age GENDER:: male, he/him NATIONALITY:: Cypriot ☆ ━ A P P E A R A N C E . EYE COLOR:: green-brown/hazel HAIR COLOR:: dark brown (dark enough that you might be fooled to think his hair is black until you see it flare copper in sunlight) HAIRSTYLE:: a simple, short/medium haircut with voluminous curls falling over his forehead and the sides and back cut a little shorter (short enough that the curl texture can be hard to see fresh after a haircut). Maintains a careful hair routine to keep his curls looking their best and meticulously styles his hair every morning as in its natural state it can get pretty wild and frizzy HEIGHT:: 174 cm / 5′8 1/2′’ WEIGHT:: 71 kg / 157 lbs BUILD:: lean, broad shouldered, athletic... defined but not bulky, most of his muscles are in his legs from his running hobby TATTOO(S):: olive branch on the left side of his chest over his heart, and text tattoos on both of his forearms (on the inside as they’re not really meant to be shown off but exist more as personal reminders), the right arm reading “ΙΧΘΥΣ” (ichthys, fish in Greek but also a Christian acronym) and the left arm “ανέχου και απέχου” (anéchou ke apéchou, sustain and abstain), a motto from his favourite philosopher SCAR(S):: bullet entry and two surgery scars on his right shoulder, lash marks on his back that he refuses to talk about, lots of shrapnel from the WWs dotting his torso and legs, circumcision scar, various nicks and scratches on his arms and shoulders that he probably can’t (or doesn’t want to) recall the origin of. In case you were wondering, he has enough steel in him to set off airport metal detectors PIERCING(S):: left earlobe, usually wears a peridot stud there PREFERRED FASHION:: fitted t-shirts, chinos, and loafers for shoes, and if he wants to get fancier, he’ll throw a blazer on top. He likes quality (read: expensive) brands. Sometimes he’ll also wears button-ups outside of work but unless he’s going to the church, there is no force in the world that can make him button the shirt all the way up. He also likes wearing jewellery: besides his earring, he wears a golden cross necklace under his shirt and a thin golden band on his right ring finger (fake wedding band to ward off unwanted attention and uncomfortable questions about his marital status), as well as a watch... don’t expect it to actually help him be on time tho

TYPICALLY SMELLS LIKE:: woodsy and citrus-y cologne that may have been applied a little too generously, cigarette smoke that clings to his clothes and hair, whatever stuff he styles his hair with, and coffee breath ☆ ━ P E R S O N A L I T Y . POSITIVE TRAITS:: allocentric || appreciative || calm || caring || challenging || charming || creative || compassionate || dramatic || efficient || focused || imaginative || liberal || loyal || neat || non-authoritarian || observant || witty || NEUTRAL TRAITS:: stubborn || perfectionist || sarcastic || confident || prideful || competitive || rash || unsentimental || artful || casual || complex || emotional || honest || outspoken || sensual || NEGATIVE TRAITS:: abrasive || argumentative || blunt || crass || cynical || egocentric || fatalistic || hesitant || indulgent || irritable || lazy || libidinous || meddlesome || moody || neurotic || passive || possessive || vague || LIKES:: cooking and eating good food, drinking coffee, indulging his loved ones, plants and flowers, nature/green spaces, the colour green, running (away from his problems), reading philosophy and self-help books, saving money (but also shopping expensive stuff; his argument here is that buying a quality item is an investment), pomegranates, math, napping and sleeping in when he can, and watching Hallmark movies and chic flicks (a secret guilty pleasure) DISLIKES:: being yelled at/criticised/scolded, admitting that he’s in the wrong or doesn’t know the answer, being stuck in traffic, things/people not working the way he thinks they should, falling short of his own (high) standards, someone calling Cypriot coffee Turkish (call it Turkish at your peril), answering questions about his personal life or socioeconomic and geopolitical Situation™, rain/snow, being cold, the smell of roses, high fives, cockroaches, and wearing socks PHOBIAS / FEARS:: failure, never being good enough, becoming corrupt, becoming a burden to his loved ones, being useless/unneeded and thus unwanted, losing his composure/self-control (and relating to his fear of losing control, he’s also somewhat emetophobic), thunder, public speaking, and horses HABITS:: carries a frappe with him about half the time, smokes like a chimney especially towards the evening, talks with his hands, sometimes drives his car with no hands, always fiddling with something in his hands (if nothing else is available, the komboloi comes out from his pocket), is casually affectionate with others both verbally and in gestures, and apologises a lot (istg “I apologise” has become his catch phrase) ☆ ━ R E L A T I O N S H I P S . SEXUAL ORIENTATION:: gay ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:: gay RELATIONSHIP STATUS:: his life is a mess and he’s married to his job (and the other issue is with his ‘deviant’ sexuality... however it doesn’t mean he never has needs for intimacy and may occasionally seek out casual relationships)

☆ ━ H E A L T H . CHRONIC CONDITIONS:: depression, PTSD, neuropathic pain in his right arm due to nerve damage, chronic stress and insomnia (constant fatigue, restlessness/anxiety, tension headaches and occasional dizzy spells as by-products of all the other stuff) ADDICTIONS:: nicotine (stress smoker with roughly a pack a day habit) and coffee, likely also dependent on antidepressants to function

(drinks alcohol very carefully in polite company - never more than two drinks - but drinks quite heavily in secret... and also lapses into a drinking spree once a year around dates that have no good memories associated to them)

ALLERGIES:: N/A

☆ ━ H O M E . PLACE OF RESIDENCE:: two bedroom flat in Strovolos, Greater Nicosia, and a village house in Pano Lefkara (and also a villa in Paphos tho this one is rarely used) METHOD OF TRANSPORTATION:: by car if the destination is more than 5 mins away PETS:: considers himself too busy to keep pets, he has houseplants instead ☆ ━ W O R K & E D U C A T I O N. JOB:: has an office job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with his representative and diplomatic tasks as a nation (has enough paperwork that he often ends up burning the midnight oil to get through it all) SCHOOLING:: school of life he received his primary education from the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, and was later educated mostly by Orthodox priests and bishops. He has been trained in the arts of war and diplomacy both by the Frankish kings and later in the Enderun Palace School in the Ottoman era. Most of his formal education is from the modern era and he holds degrees in Classical Studies, Medicine, Economics, International Relations, and Public Policy from the universities of Oxford and London. He hasn’t practiced medicine since the 60s and dropped the title of “Dr” with his most recent name change. He is still certified as a medical officer in the National Guard and has the skill set roughly equivalent to an EMT SPOKEN LANGUAGES:: Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot vernaculars, Standard Greek and Standard Turkish (both with a distinct Cypriot accent), English (with RP accent), French, Arabic, Farsi, Latin, Ancient Greek, Koine Greek, and bits and pieces of Russian, Italian (more specifically Venetian), Armenian, German, and Cantonese SKILLS:: cooking, gardening, lying, carrying secrets, handling various weapons, emergency/battlefield medicine, sewing, playing tavli (aka backgammon), playing the piano, calligraphy (his handwriting is really pretty to look at but then you look closer and realise it’s illegible), traditional and modern dancing, mixing drinks, interpreting and translating thanks to being fluent in like 7 languages, scary quick mental math ☆ ━ R A N D O M . QUIRKS:: follows Stoicism as a life philosophy (he seems sweet and unassuming on the surface but dig a little deeper and you hit the bedrock pretty quickly), cannot take a compliment (but secretly craves them), doesn’t like asking for help, collects komboloi (aka worry beads) - the nice ones made with real gemstones and silk tassels, has the patience of a saint but there is a limit to it and you don’t want to see what happens when that limit reached, is ridiculously sensitive to cold, battles an ongoing national identity crisis, and teeters on the edge of a burnout every few weeks

RELIGION:: Greek Orthodox Christian (devout in his faith but has a few personal issues with the church and its views)

THEME SONG(S):: What The Water Gave Me - Florence + The Machine

#🌿 | know first who you are and then adorn yourself accordingly (hcs)#me introducing my muses: and on this side of the rink we have a certified hot mess #in case you were wondering why I've been quiet recently #this thing is the reason #this thing took me two months of research so you better like it xD jk #sorry it's long but tungler refused to let me put a readmore

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gayenerd · 3 years

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Green Day Deals with the "Rock Star" Dookie

by Tom Lanham

(First appeared in BAM Magazine, March 10, 1995)

Young, loud, and snotty equals beaucoup bucks? What pencil-pushing, graph-charting trend spotter could've predicted it? But the facts speak for themselves: As of late February, Dookie--the brattish, snap 'n' snarl Reprise salvo from Berkeley's sloppy punk trio, Green Day--has sold six million copies. Six million. Chances are, somebody on your block is jumping up and down in his living room at this very moment to the scrap-metal power chords and ardent apathy of "Longview," "Burnout," "Basket Case," or "When I Come Around" and getting lost in the teen abandon of these testy 22-year-olds--weasel-voiced, Montgomery-Clift-like charismatic singer/guitarist Billie Joe; tom-tom tribal percussionist Tre Cool (of the ever-morphing hair-color fame); and bassist Mike Dirnt (who survived Green Day's appearance at Woodstock '94, although several of his teeth did not).

Yes, punk rock is a marketable phenomenon these days, leaving many involved with the music's initial late-'70s, early-'80s wave scratching their heads, wondering why it didn't take the first time around. Public reaction started as curiosity ("Hey, honey, c'mere and lookit these goofy, green-haired little whippersnappers in an insane asylum on MTV!"), but spiraled up to rock-diet necessity (Green Day just won Grammy and they're nominated for quite a few Bammies as well, including such categories as Outstanding Group, Outstanding Album, and Outstanding Song--"Longview" and "Basket Case"). The fact that they've been nominated at all probably sends a shiver up the old dinosaur backbones of Eddie Money, Huey Lewis, and Boz Scaggs, a time-creepy feeling of "Gee, what the hell do we do now?" Because this isn't just some flash-in-the-pan punk movement, folks--this is a youth movement; Green Day are, as they hiply term it, "bored in the 'burbs," and reaching out, through TV and radio, like some prodigal preachers to other American kids who sense the same slacker ennui. Obviously, we're talking truckloads of kids.

Ironically, the more fame edges into the Green Day ruffians' lives, the more mature they seem to become. They've turned down all interview requests as of late, even People magazine, preferring to lay low until this tide of interest recedes. Billie Joe got married last autumn, and spent his honeymoon--not in any exotic, expensive locale--but in Berkeley's grand old Claremont Hotel. Cool recently became a father, and Billie Joe's child is due any day now. It's a responsibility they've both eagerly undertaken. Rob Cavallo, the boys' coproducer and A&R man at Reprise, swears they're "old souls, the smartest young kids I've ever met." It rings true.

The first time I spoke with Green Day, in January of '94, Cool, Dirnt, and Billie Joe were lazing around their dingy basement apartment in Berkeley, sitting on chairs and couches with potentially painful springs poking through. Rock 'n' roll bubblegum cards were scattered across a coffee table, along with several bongs of various sizes, plus a four-and-a-half foot red plastic pipe dubbed "Bongzilla" leaned against a doorway. The only wall decoration, besides a Ren & Stimpy poster, was a Twister game mat nailed up in its entirety, presumably for high-schoolish humor's sake.

When I'd met Billie Joe a few months earlier at a campus concert, his hair was dyed lime-green and featured squidlike tufts. Now it was dark brown, with only two tufts remaining, and both his ears and nose had piercings. Periodically during the interview, he'd ram a finger into that pierced nostril, rummage around, then stare idly at the resultant booger before flicking it on to the carpet. Cool wandered out of the rec room for several minutes, but returned, red-eyed, to proudly proclaim, "Lookit me! I'm stoned, dude!" Dirnt--when he wasn't strumming an acoustic guitar--kept watching their windowsill Sea Monkey tank, finally noting, "Hey, these Sea Monkeys look just like sperm!"

Despite all these schoolboy, poo-poo wit trappings (dookie, after all, is kiddie slang for excrement), there was a sense of seasoned wisdom about them, a feeling that they were, as Cavallo postulated, truly old souls. Like the class clown who frustrates all of his teachers by also maintaining a 4.0 grade average, Green Day can afford to play because their work--brilliantly skewed three-minute pop songs, delivered with such vehemence and vitriol you don't dare doubt them--certainly speaks for itself. But, sooner or later, of course, the band has to speak for itself, too, so what follows is a set of excerpts from that first ratty-digs meeting, as well as a later chat with Billie Joe, sans sidekicks. How did Green Day take over the rock world in less than a year? That's the six-million-copy question, and hopefully we'll provide a few answers.

* * *

So punk is back, whether America likes it or not?

BILLIE JOE: It's always been around, and everyone has their own interpretation of it. It's weird to actually call it "punk" again, when it's been there all the time.

MIKE DIRNT: It's been springing up in little suburban areas, where people grab it and express themselves.

TRE COOL: It's people who make a point of setting aside all responsibilities and just playing music. And doing fat joint after fat joint--you have to let go of things like paying rent, going to school, having a job.

BJ: And, if you can't tell by my house, we don't have a very high standard of living.

How does today's punk rock differ from its late-'70s cousin?

BJ: I think it was all about art and fashion back then, really, because everyone who was a punk in England was in art school. I read an early interview with Dee Dee Ramone, where he said he wished the Ramones had more of a glamorous appeal, too, instead of playing in jeans and leather jackets. But it was definitely about fashion, until the Clash really brought out the political side. Our music came from being bored in the 'burbs. You get put in this high school situation, where you're learning someone else's rules in a room with 30 other people that you don't really like. There's nothing interesting about it whatsoever, so you pick up a guitar instead.

But you all tried college, at least for awhile, right?

MD: And then we started touring. Constantly.

TC: So most of our reading now comes from highway signs.

MD: It's the old grasshopper and the ant story. The thought of actually working is just so...

TC: Sickening!

MD: Yeah. So we put everything we had into not working. This is what I do best, and I was always told, "If you're gonna do something, do it the best you can." So why not do the best thing you can, too?

You guys--at least Mike and Billie Joe--have known each other since you were 10?

BJ: And the first conversation we ever had was about writing songs. And then we just started playing music.

A lot of the stuff on your early Lookout! records shows what was on your mind at the time--namely, girls.

BJ: That was pretty much the viewpoint of a 16-year-old kid. I don't write stuff like that anymore. The new songs are more about coming of age and being apathetic and neurotic.

Where were your parents when you were touring [at age 16]?

MD: At work, doing their own thing.

BJ: My mom's worked a waitress job for like the past 40 years or something, and whatever I was doing was OK with her.

MD: I moved out when I was 15, and I worked all the way through high school.

BJ: And me, I've never held a job longer than two weeks. I tried to flip pizzas--it didn't work. I tried cleaning toilets in the Red Onion in El Sobrante. Me and TrŽ, we used to work for the SF Chronicle, selling papers. I sold three the first day, and the next day we just smoked pot, and we smoked pot the next day after that. So we had hella extra papers lying around. Our ultimate goal wasn't to get rich or famous or anything like that. It was to not have a regular job and not be miserable.

MD: And I've lived in every city around here, except for Albany. Literally. And one thing we want to establish about ourselves is that we're just a bunch of geeks from the suburbs.

Well, one of the first times I saw you, you guys were closing your set with Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." That's pretty geeky.

MD: I grew up on radio--that's all I had. When I was a little kid, I couldn't afford records. I'll tell you, I've been down to a dollar in my pocket a lot of times. I've even lived in my truck. I can remember shooting rats with a BB gun in the flat we used to live in, before they'd make it to our food.

BJ: I've always been really good about saving. If I got some money, I'd put it away instead of spending it, and I'd buy ramen.

Why name your disc Dookie?

TC: Warner's said we could do anything we want, as long as we didn't say "Cop Killer."

BJ: Somebody told our manager that the ad for it was the most tasteless thing they'd ever seen in Billboard magazine.

What exactly do you mean on Dookie by "Welcome to Paradise"?

BJ, MD, TC [in unison]: West Oakland!

MD: Living in West Oakland, and going out to parties every night.

So it cost, what, around $100,000 to make Dookie?

MD: Yeah. We kept the advances low, because you gotta pay all that shit back. Everyone knows you can't become an instant millionaire just by signing, because there are so many people that want a piece of you.

BJ: We hang out with mostly punks though, and they don't want anything we have. They could care less. And a lot of our friends don't even agree with us being on a major label.

Is Green Day angry?

BJ: No, I'm not angry, like, walking around all the time with a frown on my face. But the way my music is interpreted is very angry.

MD: When you feel really strongly about something, you want to let it out in the most powerful way possible.

Like the way you baited your old high school principal from the Warfield stage recently?

MD: I think he was an asshole. He treated me with no respect. And for high school initiation, we got our heads shaved--that's the kind of small-town shit we had to deal with! Sometimes they made you push a penny up the street with your nose. But that's life, and anywhere you go, you're gonna hate a lot of shit in your life. You'll be handed

Dookie?

MD: Yeah. Yeah, you'll be handed dookie through all parts of your life. And see, what you need to do is just deal with the dookie, build upon what you have, and make something out of the dookie, you know? Like an adobe dookie building!

* * *

Several months later, and Dookie is oozing its gooey way into the public consciousness big time. The fading summer heat sticks crackling to the Berkeley sidewalks as punks--many sporting monstrous green or fuchsia mohawks--zing by on skateboards by day, and huddle in Telegraph Avenue doorways by night, conserving feral body heat the whole time. It feels like another world here, a throwback to the Bay Area's DIY/hardcore scene of the early '80s, when squatters reigned supreme and burlesque Broadway--fueled by all-ages shows at the Mabuhay Gardens, On Broadway, and even an occasional GBH or UK Subs booking at the Stone--made weekend conversions to "Punk Playground, USA." It was the best of times; it was the worst of times--despite relentless touring, most of these bands sold bupkus in the way of records, and few, save Metallica, ever held pen in shaky hand over a major-label contract.

Billie Joe saunters into the Berkeley coffeehouse in rumpled jeans and a grease-spattered flannel shirt; his once-green-and-tufty tresses have grown out into Wally Cleaver waves and been dyed a Rod Stewarty blond. He looks like one of those feisty punks of yore; like he could hold his own through sheer physical endurance in the wildest of thrash pits. There's a new authority about him, the way he strides confidently to the counter, orders a pint-size glass of coffee, then swims through a sea of late-lunching yuppies to grab a table. The singer doesn't seem to notice them at all. Or maybe he's just too tired from nonstop touring to really give a shit. He smiles a goofy grin, revealing a set of generally crooked or chipped choppers, with an entire half of one front tooth missing. But there's such charisma behind it, the same kind of "Who, me?" innocence that little kids use. Billie Joe, you might say, has quickly become the Bart Simpson of the alternative set.

How else could you explain his uncensored performance at a certain outdoor arena where--in a hyperspeed set lasting only 30 minutes before management threatened to pull the plug--he a) unzipped his fly and paraded his privates around for all to see; b) handed a stunned fan his beat-up, sticker-plastered guitar and urged him to play it; c) destroyed a $600 microphone by smashing it into the stage, then destroyed a second mike he was handed as well; and d) encouraged half the venue to chant, "Rock 'n' roll!" and the other half to respond with, "Shut the fuck up!" He then closed the show with a proposition--"They'll be really angry with us, but what we could do is rip out the seats!" he told the audience, which promptly gave Green Day a standing ovation. Billie Joe not only shrugs off such shenanigans as artistic license, he gets away with them! He's even encouraged to continue by fans who empathize with his uppity "fuck authority" attitude.

But the facts were all on the table as Billie Joe sipped his house blend that afternoon, and it didn't take a fortune teller to read 'em. Green Day was hitting big time. Fast. And the sheer enormity of the undertaking, the weight of all its accordant responsibility, was just beginning to hit him. He looked older, wiser, and spoke in more grownup tones about his future, which then included a pending marriage to longtime girlfriend Adrienne. You could practically feel this new maturity encircling him like some protective aura.

* * *

=Where do all these punks on Telegraph come from? They can't all be local and homeless.

I think Telegraph has just become this cultural mecca for punk rockers, because most of 'em who are on the Avenue aren't even from here. They're from Arizona, Minneapolis, New York, Florida. They just come out and end up squatting in houses in Berkeley. Why here? It's the climate, and the scene itself--Gilman Street and Maximum Rock 'n' Roll are in this area, and have a link to each other. But at the same time, it's separated, because there are so many different factions of punk now. There are the squatters, the pop-cores, the mods, the crusties. And all these types of people come out just to check it out. Plus, there's the best coffee in Berkeley, and a lot of 'em are real super coffee-drinkers, just pounding cup after cup all the time. It's pretty rare to come across a punk who doesn't drink coffee. I can't drink too much coffee myself--it gives me the shakes at night, so I just have a little bit during the day. Then I can smoke dope and go to bed.

=What's the attraction in squatting or homelessness for these kids?

For a lot of 'em, it's the first sense of freedom that they've had. It's like, "You mean I don't have to be home by midnight?" They've pretty much told their families and schools to go fuck themselves, so they go off and do their own thing. When I was 17, I did the same thing. And I had this total sense of freedom, where no one's telling you what to do, you don't have a clock to punch in on, you don't have people breathing down your neck; you don't have any deadlines to meet. You have this endless schedule where you can stay up all night drinking with your friends, or do anything you want.

=But isn't "Coming Clean" about leaving behind your wilder ways?

It's also about coming to grips with your sexuality. There's one line, "Skeletons come to life in my closet." And it's like, "Am I homosexual or heterosexual?" You go through this adolescent stage in your life where you don't really know what you are, and one side is taboo because your parents brought you up to think being gay was wrong. And if you come to grips with yourself, that you happen to be gay or bi or whatever, well, that was one thing about punk that was so accepting--all creeds were welcome, all sexualities, everything.

=Was this something you went through personally?

Yeah, to a certain extent. But I don't want to go around waving a gay flag or anything.

=Well, you had a beautiful girl on your arm backstage at the last Green Day show.

That's Adrienne. She's cool. Actually, we're engaged. That's why it took me so long getting here today--I had to get this! [Rolls sleeve up on tattooed arm, points to a bandaged-on cotton swab] Blood test, dude! We're getting married next week!

=Has anybody tried to tell you you're too young for such a serious move?

Of course. There are a lot of people who've said stuff. My parents have been a little more understanding than her parents. I just called my mom yesterday and said, "Mom, I'm gettin' married," and she said, "That's fine, son. Have fun!" I can hardly surprise my mother nowadays. But [this relationship] has been a recurring thing for the past four years, and we just decided to get serious about it. She's coming out here, and we're moving in together, so it's like, "Why not?" I don't really have any wild oats to sow, or anything like that. I'm not into the "Gettin' chicks all the time" thing.

=I know a lot of girls who'll be really bummed that you're gittin' hitched. They all seem to have developed a crush on you...

Me?! It must be the teeth [grins again].

=OK, so maybe you didn't brush often enough when you were young. But you were busy developing a direction...

I wouldn't necessarily say I had a direction or anything. I just knew I wanted to write songs. It comes from...uh...I don't know. I have no idea. It wasn't any kind of cosmic force or anything like that; it was just a matter of having a guitar around and wanting to play it all the time. I've had the same guitar since I was 11--I bought it off this guy at a guitar store. And I still play it--you know, the blue one with stickers all over it? That's my blue guitar, and, for some reason, things come to life, and everyone calls it "Blue" now--"Where's Blue? Can I pick up Blue and play it?"

=And you let just anybody touch it?

Oh yeah! Blue's not prejudiced.

=It's interesting to note that the general public seems to think Dookie is your debut.

Yeah, but that's just the general public. There are people who've been with us since the beginning, who know how long we've been around, since our first 7-inch came out back in '89.

=And now you can afford to trash pricey microphones.

Actually, Warner Brothers paid for those. It was pretty nice of 'em. They looked really nice--I remember looking at 'em and thinking, "Nice microphones!" They gave me one mike and I took it and threw it down, and they gave me another, and at the end of the set I creamed it pretty hard, I guess. We toured Europe with this band Die Toten Hosen--we played nine dates with 'em--and we got charged for a microphone every night. I dunno, for some reason we just started smashing shit. We'd start throwing equipment around at the end of each set, and these kids would start grabbing Tre's drum set and throwing it, and then they started smashing the microphones too. And the bouncers just couldn't do anything about it.

=And you actually yanked your dick out onstage too?

I did. Totally. It was the real thing. I dunno. The bands that we were playing with were just boring. It was more like making a mockery of the whole thing. The big arena rock thing is just so dated now, like Journey or Queen. Which is why I think punk rock started to begin with--it was this reaction to all the dinosaur bands. So for me, that show was, "How can we make a complete mockery of this but at the same time have fun with it?" I like to leave people guessing, "Did he hate that or did he like that?" It's not that I don't care--it's more that I'm careless. I try to be as happy-go-lucky as I can, but you can become apathetic at the same time.

=Do you feel like Green Day is a part of, or represents, the so-called "slacker generation"?

There's one side of me that doesn't mind it, because it's a generational thing, and another side of me that says, "Fuck that!" The reason I wrote the songs is, I ended up going back to Rodeo, where I'm from, for a week. And then I said, "Fuck it," and left. But I managed to get several good songs out of it. A lot of my friends had just turned into complete burnouts. And these are kids I've known since kindergarten, because it's a small town and you know everybody. And it was all fixing cars, staying up all night on methamphetamines, smoking dope, and finding out all these rumors about people I haven't heard of in 10 years. Like, "Oh, did you hear about so-and-so, who got married, had three kids, and ended up shooting everybody in his family?" And it happened! It was a true story! You're there for one week, and you get caught up in it. You get so bored, all you wanna do is watch television. And there are no record stores, nothing around, so you end up hanging out with all these delinquents who aren't punkers at all, just cultural idiots. So I was watching all these people rot and rotting with them until I realized, "Shit! I gotta get the fuck outta here!"

=As they say, you can never go home again.

Oh yeah, definitely. Unless you get pregnant, like my sister did. Then you have to go. But I quit school my senior year--I just wasn't getting anything out of it. I was taking nine periods a day, plus night classes, which left me no time to smoke dope whatsoever. And my mom even suggested I drop out, because she was a dropout, too. I come from a long line of dropouts. I still have nightmares about being late with my homework assignments. When I finally went in to sign out of high school, the teacher went, "Now, who are you again?"

=And if that teacher could see you now!

A lot of people think you get this big connection with a corporate label, and you make millions of dollars, but they don't understand that you just don't make that much money. And when you do, it's easy to piss it away. I mean, every cent that I've made, I've pissed away. I'm not gonna say how I did it, but I don't have it But I don't think you necessarily have to be a punk to decide to say, "Fuck it." You don't even have to have a direction. It's just a matter of getting the fuck out and exploring things for yourself.

=But didn't you feel abject terror when you first set out on your own?

Nah, I didn't. Because, for some reason, I knew things were gonna be all right. You can create your own future as long as karma's on your side. And I'm a strong believer in karma. I think things can come back to you if you're just willing to give.

* * *

True enough. At least six million times over!

1995 Tom Lanham

#article #interview #articles #billie joe armstrong

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tangerinegod · 4 years

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Hello! I am sorry to bother you but I am a senior getting ready for college this year. I am in the US and I wanted to major in the same thing you did, do you have any possible tips for me? I still haven't even looked for colleges that would be best for animation majors so I figured if you were up to giving out any tips/saying any basic ideas if you wanted to/if you had the time to then maybe I'll have a better idea! I apologise for if I sound weird! I'm tried to word it correctly but I can't 😿

hi!! i’m totally down to share my experiences! someone else also had some questions so i’m going to put them all together in this post haha, hopefully this helps! it’ll get pretty long so apologies ahead of time but art school is a lot to think about so i wanna be as helpful as i can around it, its a lot of time and money. I’m gonna put it all under a read more cus it is really really long!

i wanna start off with the fact that I had the privilege of attending school in a financially stable environment, my parents were/are really supportive so w merit scholarship i only came out with around 20-30k in debt and i also had housing support my entire time in school. they were ok with me focusing on academics so i didn’t hold a retail job unless i was out of school like summer/winter break. Ofc though i regularly take commissions/do merch/cons to try and pay for all bills that arent rent cus i did want to be financially independent where it was possible. I also did try and work during the semester but everytime i did my body would deff start to breakdown from the fact that i didnt wanna compromise schoolwork with jobs.. so just read ahead know this experience is from a student who was able to attend focusing only on school work for most of the time!

the biggest thing is knowing art school is not required to become a professional in either freelancing or industry! there are a huuuge amount of online tools and classes these days that provide the exact same education and for cheaper too. i think it depends on what experience you prefer/can handle/want but it’s definitely possible to make art/animation art your living without higher education. the thing that college will for sure give you though is the ability to meet deadlines, work even when you dont want to, and connections with peers+teachers. i think the connections part is invaluable because you’re basically coming out with a network of people you already know and who know you!

also its good to know if you want to attend/can handle art school! it’s a lot of time and energy and students get burned out really fast. the best piece of advice i got before going was ‘if you draw every single day, even if its for only like 5-10 minutes or a doodle for a whole year you should be fine’ consistency is super key because you’re attending school to draw, and you’ll have to create work for stuff you aren’t excited for at some point or another. burnout is extremely real and the only reason i didn’t experience it was probably because i got super into drawing naruto fanart again inbetween sophomore and junior year! it helped give me something to draw seperated from school which is the only thing i was drawing for since i had entered rip. a heads up id also consider myself a workaholic so i fit in ok with the ‘art school’ environment but it is suuper unhealthy. if you are fantastic at managing your schedule then it’s definitely possible to take care of yourself! freshman year i got 8 hours a sleep a night and only pulled all nighters for some second semester finals at the end. sophomore year + up though i ended up prioritizing hw over sleep and like for sure, definitely shortened my life span. there’s another q down below where i’ll go more into detail but ya, be careful w ur work balance!

another tip especially for animation is knowing for a fact what type of animation you’re looking to go into, and what the school is offering. I didn’t think i’d get into art school at the time so i only applied to two places + decided if i didnt get into either id attend community to get credits out of the way while building portfolio. honestly? i did not do a lot of research LOL but like i did end up having the chance to tour and stuff! just know that each school will have a very different curriculum. The main differences are schools that prioritize 3D (cg animation, cg modeling, ect) and 2D/traditional (hand drawn, ‘oldschool’, digital or traditional based) this is a huge difference so make sure you do research for it! in most cases a 2D/traditional program will also offer 3D since it’s at the forefront of the industry animation wise rn. My school taught 2D but like hand drawn on physical paper 2D, frame by frame. while it was a good experience it’s super outdated because digital tools make it way faster + easier! i’d recommend looking for a program that is digital 2D over traditional 2D.

if after your senior year covid is still affecting campuses in the US to keep them shut down i’d recommend attending a community college to get credits and then transferring into school. one of the negatives is paying money for gened classes when ur not there for them; if you can get them out of the way sooner and cheaper there is absolutely no negative + you could graduate earlier or use the extra time for better work or to work a job!

these are all the general tips i think i’d give on like a broad basis of attending or not to think about? let me know if u have more q’s! someone asked q’s im answering below that go more into personal experiences + work culture so heres those:

- how many hours a week do u spend studying, in class, otherwise making art? like how much of ur life does it consume?

I was basically working on art.... 24/7! since i wasnt working a job at the same time i crammed as many credits as possible into my schedule so on avg i did 18 credit semesters (around 6 classes) art classes go for 6 hours and non art go for 3, so i’d spent around 30-35 hours in class a week! hw wise it varied on the class but combined it would be around 35-50 hours a week... im guessing? on average studio classes would have 8-10 hours of hw, maybe 5 for a light week, and gened classes 5 hours w them all combined. or this was probably how things were before junior year? junior+senior year i had thesis + everything else ontop.. i’d spend around 30-40 hours on thesis a week with other classes ontop of that bc my film was super long cus im a dummy!

- is it hard going to art school n realising that altho u were probably quite talented… so is everyone else? Like. all of a sudden. ur not special and everyone seems as good as u, you know? More generally, how do u deal with comparison?

kinda?? i think instead of the idea of like you vs others it feels more of like a competition at first to be the best. this varies hugely on school culture though; my animation year was really friendly with each other and get along extremely well, so my answer to this is v different than some others who attended different schools. i think that the idea of ‘comparison’ only lasts a portion of the first year because at some point you realize that it’s not a who’s better as much as its a ‘these are my coworkers’ type thing? like healthy competition 100% because we’re all working to improve but i think most of us learned pretty early on that viewing each other as peers going into the same workforce helped a lot. also at some point everyone develops their own style/starts to develop their artistic preferences so there isn’t a way to compare whos 'better’ anymore? i dont think there ever is tbh because style is appealing based off of an individuals preferences. If anything realizing everyone else is also amazing makes you wanna work harder ig? or thats how i felt! it’s inspiring to be surrounded by so many people who create such amazing work.

- is there a lot of workaholic culture? all nighter culture?

100000% there can be a workaholic and all nighter culture. i know people who avoided it and thats honestly fantastic because i fall super easily into that pit. sometimes i’ll pull all nighters on a personal project just because i really want to finish it... i am definitely considered a workaholic all the way through and its not healthy rip... i’d estimate at the worst i was pulling 2-3 all nighters a week and only 4-5 hours of sleep on the nights i didn’t? that was only for one year tho, after that i was like yeah ok this is really bad for my health in the long run LOL so i tried to cut it down to one all nighter a week and around 5-6 hours of sleep the rest of the week! by senior year my decision to cram in full semesters paid off and i was able to consistently get around 7 hours of sleep a night + no all nighters minus finals since my schedule was lighter despite thesis 😭 while there is that culture i don’t think people view it as like a badge of honor or something to be proud of anymore which is good, we mostly view it as a flaw of the art school system and something that needs to be fixed!!

- are you glad u did it? how did u know it was what u wanted?

i am glad i did it! i’m definitely in a limbo right now of if it was worth both my time, money, and my parents money rip but i think with what i got out of it i definitely wouldn’t be as far skill wise or knowledge wise when it comes to the art industry. i would say it was only worth it for be because i had so much support going in though so i was able to focus so much on improving. if i had only been able to put in part of the effort and not make full use of the resources provided i would honestly have a different answer..

i knew it was what i wanted when i realized i really couldn’t see myself pursuing a different profession happily! despite all the bumps and stuff im fully in love with drawing still and feel honored that it’s a field that can provide a living. my second profession choice was to go into culinary school? and third option i think going was into music cus i was also a band kid hehe.

- how do u cope with ur hobby becoming ur job? how do u deal with art going from something u do for fun to something u do on command constantly?

i think seperating work art from personal art is important! in my case im doubling naruto into being personal work so i have something to fall back onto that isn’t work related. its been a hyperfixation for 12+ years? so drawing it at this point is just like personal art imo. some people have hobbies outside of art and only draw for their job! i think after attending classes for so long the idea of hobby turning into job feels extremely natural? also i enjoy doing it so thats a huge plus!

sorry this is SO long but i hope i answered your guys’ questions! if you have more just lmk!

#anon #ask #long post #im so so sorry this is like long as shit #ill literally tell you guys everything though art school should not feel like a mystery esp if ur planning to go into it!#Anonymous

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