#I already have a sketch of the timeline in my head but I'd probably miss a lot of details if I tried to write it down right now

[farshootergotme]

One day I will finish reading enough comics to create my own Dick Grayson personal timeline based off canon except I will only use the canon that makes most sense to me.

[flipflopflying]

CARIBOU DELUXE (EDICIÓN DE LUJO)

This drawing is called Caribou Deluxe. The other images in this post make it the edición de lujo, the deluxe edition; kinda like when a band does a special version of their new album. I wanted to do a drawing that was more than "a" drawing. I wanted to do something that could be explored, something that was more than just a series of close-up details of the main drawing. So the main drawing is kinda like the cover of a magazine, showing you what is inside.

CONTENTS

1. Caribou Deluxe. The actual drawing.

2. The initial quick notebook sketch.

3. Another sketch done a couple of days later, after the digital process had begun and the general idea became clearer in my head.

4. Top view.

5. Three new Minipops and two redrawn Minipops. The new Minipops: No. 1,380 - Beastie Boys (Fight for Your Right). No. 1,381 - Elijah Wood, Seth Rogen, and Danny McBride as the Beastie Boys. No. 1,382 - Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Jack Black as the Beastie Boys. The redrawn Minipops: No. 38b - Beastie Boys (Intergalactic), originally drawn in 1999. No. 1,383 - Beastie Boys (Ch-Check It Out). The latter was done for a client (MTV Europe) in 2004, and was never given a Minipop number at the time, thus it being No. 1,383. I, as you may well imagine, am slightly irritated by this chronological mess-up.

6. Beastie Dots: No Sleep Till Brooklyn. Data visualisation of who raps what on the song.

7. Beastie Boys album timeline.

8. One pixel Beastie Boys sleeves. Plus previous one pixel sleeves by the Beatles and Depeche Mode.

9. A full version of the Berliner Fernsehturm that is reflected in copper-coloured mirror glass windows at the top of the octagon "head."

10. All the graffiti on the pyramid.

ABOUT CARIBOU DELUXE

A brief explanation: I wanted to draw something that relates to where my brain is at right now, in January 2019.

The Fernsehturm reflected in the brown windows (inspired by the old Palast der Republik) is there because Berlin will always be in my head. It's the place where I've spent the most time in my adult life, and the place that feels closest to a home town (even though I wasn't born here).

The pyramid base is a Mesoamerican thing, and that—combined with the food stalls and the rooftop laundry cages—is for Mexico, the other place that feels like home, the place where my heart is.

I'm trying to be a better person as I get older, and trying to get rid of elements of grumpiness, bad moods, etc. Trying not to be a person that automatically assumes young people aren't doing life the right way. That's where the graffiti comes in. For quite a while I thought of it purely as vandalism, but something clicked in my brain recently: it is a part of every city—specifically the cities I love—and it's not gonna ever go away. I covered the pyramid in graffiti to remind myself of that. (The graffiti names, btw, are either random words that came into my head, or are related to things or people in my life. I also wanted to show the range of graffiti styles I see around Berlin every day. If I have used a real graffiti artist's name here, it is purely a coincidence. Indeed, after finishing the pixel graffiti, I saw some graffiti in my neighbourhood that said "Queso." Apologies to the real-life Queso for borrowing his/her name.)

I've been listening to the Beastie Boys quite a bit recently and thinking about how they are only a few years older than me. I was a teenager when the tabloids were getting the vapours about their behaviour when they were touring in the UK for the first time. I remember every Volkswagen car in my (actual) home town suddenly missing its badge. A band getting older, changing as people and artistically, seemed to fit with the whole idea of examining my own life. Plus, y'know, people (friends, artists, musicians...) can do wonderful things, but life isn't always wonderful. Sometimes people you love die.

There are four separate parts to the Beastie Boys stuff here. The coloured dots in the centre of the top and bottom thirds of the octagonal head represent the lyrics of No Sleep Till Brooklyn. Each dot is a word. The colours of the dots show who rapped the words: red dots are Ad-Rock, blue dots are Mike D, green dots are MCA. Above the eyes there's a timeline of their studio albums, showing the year of release, and the height shows the US chart peak positions. The eight little squares beneath the blue eye (each of the eyes are the colour of the members of the band, and the ring around the eyes acts as a key to aforementioned No Sleep Till Brooklyn dots) are the colours one gets when the sleeves of the albums are resized to be one pixel in size.

You may be wondering why I've drawn Minipops of the Fight for Your Right version of the Beastie Boys and the coloured dots are for No Sleep Till Brooklyn. The drawing is because I wanted to draw the other two versions of the band played by actors in Fight for Your Right Revisited. I liked the idea of drawing them three times, as I'd already included three versions of me in the drawing (a younger version of me on the left balcony at the top, a version from a couple of years ago on the roof, and the current me spraying graffiti on the pyramid which, it should be noted, is the closest I will ever get to actually doing any graffiti). Plus, I already did a graphic for Fight for Your Right in 2012 (look for "Beastie Dots" on flipflopflyin.com), and wanted to do something new for this piece.

Another thing that I should probably note is the unrealistic-ness of certain parts. The sky hints at the sun setting behind the structure, yet the reflection of the Fernsehturm (and the way shadows fall on other things) mean that the sun would be over the left shoulder of you, the viewer. Similarly, there's no reflection of the structure and bushes on the water. I have done 14 drawings in this vein over the last year, with pyramid-y or octagonal structures on the shore of a lagoon, and have yet to do a proper reflection in the water. I always think I should try it, and I did try it with this drawing, but it didn't look "right". I'm okay with this unrealistic element contributing to the fantasy of the landscapes. I'm similarly okay with drawing things that aren't correct while striving for getting other parts, other details as accurate as possible. I kinda like that it reenforces that this is MY landscape, not a drawing of a specific place.

As a whole, I had a desire to do something cool with pixels, to draw things that are a challenge, fun, and packed full of details. And to represent all of the shit that floats around my brain. To bring together different things I like doing: putting Minipops in non-Minipop-themed pixel drawings, and making the organisation of information (that would normally only occur as infographics) a part of something bigger. I hope you enjoy it x

[vampirepuppygirl]

However! Life isn't all failure!

I'm also very good at my job. I get compliments everyday about how well I perform. I'm friends with my supervisor outside of work, and I've contributed to meetings and had conversations with the plant manager that included praise.

I have a novel in the works. It's still in its early stages but I fully plan on turning Lifting the Vale into a fully fledged story and I already have a timeline in my head. Plus I've already written the draft for the first chapter, and I know what's going to happen in the next few chapters.

My singing has also been improving, and I can hear it and feel it in my throat and diaphragm. I have a whole album's lyrics written, and all I really need is a synthesizer and then I can translate the music in my head into reality. I already have a high quality microphone and I'm not awful at making beats and with some trial and error and tutorials I don't think it would be difficult to record the whole album. (Though I wish I knew people to form a band with.)

I've also been having fun in a D&D campaign that I've been playing with some of my friends and co-workers, and I built a new magic the gathering deck (Scarab God commander!)

I've also been working on lines and sketching things to try to get better at drawing at least a little bit, though I think there's a fundamental piece that I'm missing that I don't know. Something to do with perspective I think, I need to figure out where I can take legitimate visual art lessons.

I also still really want to get into blacksmithing, and I'm slowly working towards it! I've told a few people that I want smithing supplies for Christmas so hopefully I get a couple things. I've also asked for crochet hooks and yarn because I want to crochet things, I'd love to make someone a hat or a scarf.

And I've been working on cooking, I've been experimenting with my curry recipe each time I make it and slowly refining it and it's very good! I'm heavily considering going online to look for more recipes in general and expanding my repertoire of things that I can cook. My egg game is on point, I have rice on lock, and I am learning how to control my heat. I should probably look for a more simple recipe to make when I don't have the energy to spend an hour making curry.

I've also started doing my own laundry, which is nice. It's pretty simple with a machine, and it means I don't have to dig through the shirts I don't want to wear to find something good. I also always do the dishes that I use when I'm finished cooking and eating, so the sink doesn't build up too much.

My transition has been going well, and I'm really happy with how my body has been developing. Being soft is so nice. And I've been getting more girl clothes, and I have some dresses that I want to wear more, and I'm probably going to get more girl clothes for Christmas too, plus those warm fuzzy socks with the grippy things on the bottom.

I also managed to get in touch with a therapist, and while I'm still waiting on my first appointment it's one less thing that I have to stress about. He seems kind and I have a good feeling about him.

I also have a bestie who I hang out with everyday and we comfort each other and play games together all the time. I also have a joyfriend who I love with all my heart, and I wholly look forward to seeing them in person. Plus I have a friend group that I play magic with, which includes my bestie, and a couple people who also play d&d with me. That's not even including the plethora of online friends I've made that I cherish everyday.

I'm not alone, I'm not in danger, there are people who support me and care about me. I have issues and I have problems and I have memories that I wish to forget, and memories that are impossible to remember. But right now in this moment, even as I'm working through the soreness in my right leg that flares up every winter and the aching of my knuckles caused by assembly line work, I think I live a pretty good life.

It could be better, and it could be worse, and honestly I think I'm pretty content with the progress I'm making. I'm going to continue moving forward as I have been, taking things day by day and week by week, slowly building upon myself without expectation or deadlines, and eventually I know I'm going to achieve something.

It might not be next year, or in 5 years, or even in a decade. It might take until I'm in my forties, or it might happen much earlier than I'm expecting. But I'm not going to force myself. I won't set arbitrary deadlines and then get upset at myself when I fail to complete them. I can't do that. Some people excel under pressure, I break. I have accepted that I'm not a strong person, and I need to take things slow.

I'm not the best at anything. I don't believe I ever will be. But I also don't care. Life isn't a competition. I know that there are people younger than me who could run circles around me in literally everything. I don't believe I'm ever going to receive any sort of prestige, and when I die I will be forgotten in the annals of time. But all that means is that I can do the things that I want to do and it doesn't matter. I can work towards what I want to work towards and I can build up the skill set that I want to build up, I can be goofy and silly and kind and soft and gentle and I can write cringy fanfiction and make bad art and it doesn't matter. Even if it gets saved to the Information Super Highway, it doesn't matter.

I think many people believe that not being special is a bad thing. That disappearing into a crowd and being little more than one voice in a thousand or a million is somehow a moral failing because you didn't achieve greatness or whatever. I find it liberating. I don't have to be a big shot I don't have to live up to expectation or responsibility I can just be me. Shamelessly and earnestly me.

Quite frankly I don't want to be the very best like no one ever was. I just want to be Lila Heartstrings.

Thinking about how I'm the failure of my family again.

My older sister finished college with a graphic design degree, and that's her job.

My little brother finished college in accounting, and that's his job.

My other little brother joined the Navy and went into nuclear tech.

I flunked out of college 3 times and got a job at a factory that I've been working at for 5 years.

The only thing I've got going for me is I'm a trans woman, and even then I'm sure my mom and grandparents still think that's somehow a failing.

I'm the writer/musician of the family, but I don't think there's gonna be some big moment where I suddenly break through and do something amazing.

I'm just me, and I'll keep trucking along and building my skill sets slowly but surely, but like

I can't even fucking pass one semester of college.