#art in the age of social media is just very soul destroying i think

[wild-at-mind]

I was going to submit my art for this artist’s alley thing but then I remembered that if they directed anyone to my tumblr it would be 5% mostly untagged art and 95% me ranting on random topics and having emotional breakdowns everywhere. So best not I think.

I’ve considered making an art tumblr before, which might be a good idea to separate from the ramblings, though I am realistic about how much attention it would get. My art tag is ‘art by ae’ but I only started using it recently and there’s barely any of my art on this blog anyway, due to the 0 notes effect. I don’t have all that many finished works anyway due to the instagram effect- uploading frequently is rewarded, putting a lot of effort into a piece of work is implicitely not rewarded because you never see any increase in the number of likes based on how detailed it is or how many hours or days it took, so you get downhearted. I also don’t want to put my real name on here so I can’t link you to my instagram.

It’s all a bit of a fucking mess isn’t it? It seems that in my experience the best thing to do if you want regular if sparce notes on a piece of art is: choose a very obscure property that people enjoy and/or find funny and meme, and do a mediocre fanart of that. Not very good advice but if I had to advise based on my experience, that’s what I’d have to say!

[avidaraku]

Hi!!!! ʕ •̀ o •́ ʔ

welcome to my pinned post I honestly still dont know what to do with my blog like ever but still :) nice stuff. This blog contains whatever the fuck I reblog, including fandom and 18+ stuff - I do not tag my porn reblogs so if you're following me for fandom things, this is an all in one blog bc i do what i want <3 you are warned! leave if you dislike my beloved freak blog

|･ω･)

just be nice and kind babygirls, that's all i ask of <3 human decency lets go!!!! (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

my ao3 account is https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daimashiko :) I like writing porn, my brain is constantly on khr mode :) I also never have any consistent name for my accounts, so thats also why my names are different. Hi to any discord friends who know me from well, discord <3 im sure u guys are familiar with my socials in this case

TAGS. ─=≡Σ((( つ＞＜)つ ／(＞×＜)＼

#my art (very self explanatory I am not a creative person with names?? sorryyyyy - i also considered making my art tag into artvidaraku but like. thats too much effort jklsjgkldKJDF:SJ:JKL:JK:LDG ;;)

#khr (that is my main fandom ofc <333 - overlaps with my art but also other people's khr stuff so haha... its a mess but oh well)

#poll (i like answering them! or just reblogging polls i wanted to volunteer in but its too late </3)

#lotta tags (i tend to comment a lot in tags but these are the ones where i usually write like. a lot of commentary to the point im like ohhhh i should tag this right? curious if anyone's ever went through them but also i've never talked abt these things so. oopsssss <3 - lot of it is kinda sad / depressing but usually i am pretty reflective. kinda?)

#animals (self explanatory. i love me some fucking creatures. respect nature babygirls i adore them fellas <3)

#tumblr classic (i love getting to see the classics / things i'd personally consider a classic on my feed)

#fandom (this one's pretty commonly used! yadda yadda, talks abt fanfic and stuff / sometimes i get disappointed with fandom but that's not new lol)

#fashion (i don't use this as much as I should be?? but if you want to check out what i think is fun / a vibe <3)

#avidarecs (****i literally just made this on impulse so there's not much rn but i want to share more of my recs for things in general! fandom / songs / whatever other thing comes to mind?***// will probably be rarely used? but you never know~)

there might be more tags I haven't included but from the top of my head this is it?? Might add more, i have no clue. But anyways back to my other interests and what I'm into!

media i like: khr (its number one bc i am unable to pry reborn's hands on my stupid silly little soul so i cannot escape even if i wanted to), slay the princess + scarlet hollow (games made by the same studio. i love the art and vibes sooo much and also the fanart is sooo beautiful), Jenna Marbles (i've been obsessed w her stuff recently and I hope she's having a good time w her dogs and Julien :), kpop (honestly its only just loona bc im tired and feel old as fuck despite only being in my 20s so i am not gonna get into another thing lol), and sanrio!!! i love my melody she's a cutie patootie <3

-probably more stuff I like but this post would be a lot longer

I'm certain its obvious but I am a proshipper (also i am always in rarepair hell girl HELP. but also i will chain myself to that random mix of characters without prompting. ah....), if you don't like proshippers, leave my page and block me <3

But anyways my fav tropes (i definitely have more i just cant think of them but in general im chill with lots of stuff!)

incest (i am so fr when i say somehow i always revolve around incest ships they're just soooo good. my brain is absolutely destroyed in favor of tasty fucking food. shout out to incest shippers you guys rock luv yall :3)

age gap / size difference (these tropes are lovers and they're already fucking each other within one yard of each other. good fucking food yk?)

any toxic/problematic food (necro + lolisho rights!!!) in general. i am just. yeahhhhhhhhhhh MMMM LOAD THAT SHIT UP. i also have very little memory but still whatever

genderbend - i know it's a dwindling trope in popularity but there is nothing better than mindlessly turning a guy chara into a girl like wow..... so hot.... <3 this has also been a long time trope i've adored and i'll probably never stop using it bc its just that good for me <3 mmm. girls. cute.

monsterfucker stuff is great! (does this include animal hybrids? im going to include it with that soooo)

i think this is enough, but also before you go explore whatever maze my blog is in bc i cant be bothered enough by my blog, i will also reblog things in tandem to politics / real world things (I support Palestine <3). Am American. Am Mess. But I hope the world is kinder even just a little bit more. This world is cruel, but I hope we can continue to offer each other support and love, even when times are harrowing as always.

(っ ᵔ◡ᵔ)っ have a hug/kiss!!!! (i like gifs hehe)

[charmedseoull]

The Aftermath of Fanfiction Authors with Reba Interview

Before You Read the Interview

I contacted Reba after she posted a Reddit thread titled “When a fic becomes too popular and the author deletes their account and/or work. Explained.” on a throwaway account. We discussed details of the interview during December over email, then started the interview in January. This interview is not associated with a project and is its own independent work. Reba has chosen to remain anonymous.

She provides insight on potential reasons to why fanfiction authors abandon their work from the perspective of a fanfiction reader. She also answered general fandom questions and questions about herself so readers could understand her background.

Charmedseoul is a BTS-focused anonymous historian who documents fandom history using Fanlore. If you would like to be interviewed to help document perspectives in fandom, please contact her on Twitter @charmedseoul or on Tumblr @charmedseoull.

Parts of this interview have been edited with links to Fanlore and Wikipedia pages for understanding. Any information in [brackets] serves for further clarity for readers and elaboration of information.

Now presenting the interview with Reba, long-time fanfiction reader and participant in fandom:

When did you first join fandom culture?

I joined fandom culture in 2014. I feel like fandoms really peaked during this time. [Presence of SuperWhoLock and other Tumblr specific fandoms.]

What fandoms are you in? How have your experiences in them been?

I will be honest and say fandom culture isn’t for me- so I can’t say I’m active in any fandoms (I’m just a silent consumer) but growing up I was a fan of music artists mostly; Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande… I loved the IT 2017 movie adaptation for a long time (I still do), and early 2020 is when I got into BLACKPINK, then BTS. My experience with all of these has been good, and maybe that’s because I don’t see any of the drama and arguments online- but I don’t regret any of my past interests because they all made me happy at one point in time.

What do you like about fandoms?

 What I like about fandoms is how happy it can make an individual; getting excited for a new music video, smiling at behind the scenes photos… it can bring someone a little joy if they are having a bad day.

What do you dislike about fandoms?

I don’t like stan culture at all; fandom drama, arguing on twitter with strangers to defend an artist who doesn’t even know you… it all seems toxic. While I'm sure healthy stanning does exist, I don't think it's easy to achieve at all.

How long have you been an ARMY? What are your opinions about the fandom? How has your experience in the fandom been? 

I became an ARMY in early 2020 when Map of the Soul: 7 was released, so only a year. I really do like the fandom; ARMY is the only fandom I’ve seen where there are so many fans worldwide of all different ages, and that just shows how BTS and their music really is for everyone. There is so much BTS content that there’s never a dull day, so my experience in the fandom has been enjoyable!

Did you ever leave ARMY and take a break then come back?

 I’ve never left ARMY, that being said, I’m a newbie and haven’t been here for long.

When did you first start reading fanfiction? 

I have been exposed to fanfiction since 2014, but I wasn’t in any fandom back then and started reading fanfiction in 2017.

What do you think the purpose behind fanfiction is?

 We mostly read for entertainment but there is definitely a purpose to fanfiction, as for all art. Fanfiction is a great thing for both reader and writers, it can be an outlet for many people, a way to experience things that you don't have a chance to experience in your own life. It also can be a good base ground for people who want to start writing, or for someone who finds reading huge paperback novels difficult. Fanfiction is so easily accessible, you can pull up a story to read or share your work at the press of a button.

As you’ve read fanfiction over the years, do you feel like anything about fanfiction has changed?

Yes! Fanfiction is taken a lot more seriously now, people who write fanfiction treat it like an actual novel with plotting and editing- the quality of fanfiction in general is a lot better. Fandom ships have also changed; when I was a teenager Harry Styles fanfictions were crazy popular, now the fanfics that seem to be more popular are BTS! So that just shows when music evolves, pretty much everything else does too.

As a reader, how do you view authors?

I'm always amazed by fanfic authors because they practically write whole novels for free. Writing can be such a personal thing, and it does take talent; there is a story the author wants to convey, and when a story is told in a beautiful way, it leaves a lasting impact on the reader. I’m sure that must be a euphoric feeling for the author- it means they told their story, and they did it well.

Do you think many other readers share the same view as you?

No, not at all. There are readers out there who don’t really think about the time and effort authors put into their stories. I’ve seen readers expect so much, and criticise something so little. It’s sad- people should be able to write whatever they want, writing is supposed to encourage creativity. Authors shouldn’t have to fear backlash for doing just that. Being creative. 

Why do you think so many authors delete/orphan their work after it gains popularity?

When a story gains popularity- it attracts good and bad attention alike. Unfortunately the negative affects us a lot more, it’s just human nature. While authors do put their work out there, I don’t think they are ever prepared for their stories to become so popular. I am sure it is overwhelming and that’s why authors feel the need to distance themselves from it all and delete/orphan their work.

What stories prompted you to start thinking about why authors delete/orphan their works? 

I read a story called mixtape (IT movie) and I was around long enough to see chapters be uploaded each week. I also saw the struggles the author went through when their fanfic began to rise in popularity, which eventually led to the story being completely deleted from the internet. So I thought this could have been a one-off since I hadn’t read many fanfictions. I then moved onto BTS fanfiction and decided to read the most talked about ones first, only to see a lot of them were by orphaned accounts (so not just a one-off occurrence!). House of Cards by sugamins was the one that got me thinking, I thought “why would somebody not want to be associated with this amazing writing?!” That’s when I began to do some research and stumbled across your interview with the author!

How do you think backlash for a work harms an authors mental health? 

An immense amount of feedback, positive or negative, can take a toll on one person. A lot of authors can be reserved people and they write because they are passionate, as an outlet or just a hobby. So when their work does receive backlash it can be very upsetting- it could make them doubt their reasons and capabilities and affect an author so much they might stop writing all together.

How do you think some authors manage their mental health and not delete a work? 

This is a hard question because everyone deals with backlash differently. I know some authors who are not bothered by backlash and they choose to ignore it and move on with their day, and then there are other authors who are more anxious and have to put a lot of measures in place to protect their mental health; from your interview with sugamins they explain how they didn’t want to destroy their work, just distance themselves from it, so that’s always an option.

Taking time away from social media and getting enough rest, it is important to not neglect your well-being. Finding a way to cope when you feel low; animals tend to ground me and improve my mental health- they are loving and don’t judge you for who you are. Maybe you cope by talking with friends, or listening to your favourite song. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it helps. 

At what point with mental health do you think authors start to consider deletion/orphaning?

I think an author starts to consider deleting/orphaning their work when it completely consumes them. It is not healthy to be fixated on something that is no longer bringing you happiness, you need to let it go. If you are an author reading this, just know you are not your feedback, it doesn’t define your existence, okay? Fanfiction should add to your life, not take away from it. 

Why do you think some readers invade an authors privacy?

Sometimes, people care more about the author than the work they have created. So when a fanfic has deeply touched a reader and helped them through so much, they want to reach out in any way and tell them so- this can be invasive if the reader is not careful about their approach.

How do you think authors manage this privacy invasion?

Stopping it before it happens; not using your real name, having a separate account for writing, don’t link social media accounts in your works etc. If privacy has already been compromised and a reader is making the author uncomfortable, then disabling comments on their works, making a new social media or changing their accounts to private would be smart. Just knowing how to keep safe online.

At what point with privacy invasion do you think authors start to consider deletion/orphaning?

When you are at risk of being doxed. I think when readers are going as far as finding authors’ personal accounts and messaging their friends- anything along those lines is scary and the reader is going from a supporter to an intrusive stranger real fast.

Why do you think anonymity is important for fanfiction writing?

When your full name is attached to everything you do, people have a very easy way to get back to you. This is why authors keep an anonymous profile, and it is important readers respect that.  Most authors don’t want their family, friends, employer etc to see that sort of stuff. It is completely okay to remain professional and keep fanfiction writing separate from personal life.

Do you think fanfiction writing should stay free? Do you think authors should be paid for their work? 

I do think fanfiction writing should stay free on the sites they originate from (AO3 for example). However, if the author wants to take their work elsewhere to earn money then I don’t see an issue in that. I am glad you mention copyright law with fanfiction in particular because the author of mixtape (the fanfiction I mentioned earlier) tried to self publish their work while keeping canon names, the author tried to justify it as a parody work and everyone was so concerned that they reported the book until it got removed. I have seen stories on Wattpad become published books to purchase, however, the names had been changed to original characters- I think this seems like a much more logical move to avoid any legal repercussions.

As a reader, how has an author’s work connected with you personally? 

I have had works connect with me on a personal level, one in particular is Somebody To Love by LOVERVMINS (orphaned). My standards are impossibly high after reading that fanfic and I don’t think I will ever come across something so beautiful again. Somebody To Love is a taekook fic that was uploaded to AO3 in 2019, the author ended up deleting all their works but thankfully left this particular story up. I was immediately captured by the incredible writing and unique plot; the story of two lovers who were never meant for each other, but destiny found its way anyway… I apologise in advance for how long this summary (with spoilers) is, but I think my thoughts are proof of how this story has connected with me so much!

(Spoilers for Somebody to Love by LOVERVMINS. Please feel free to scroll to the next bolded question to avoid spoilers.)

In this story, Taehyung is a successful lawyer while Jungkook is just a student, despite the difference in status and wealth, they are intrigued by one another from the very start. After meeting Taehyung, Jungkook is left feeling confused about himself, the internalised homophobia is strong to begin with but as the chapters progress Jungkook goes from someone who is afraid of society and what people may think, to strong and outspoken. Taehyung plays a fundamental part in this, because if Jungkook were to never meet Taehyung, he wouldn’t have realised who he really was, he wouldn’t have been brave enough to discover his sexuality and fall in love in a time where it was so unaccepting. Taehyung is bold and confident on the surface, giving little regard for anybody other than himself, but his concern for others soon changes after he meets Jungkook, he becomes a better man. He could have had his heart desires- but Taehyung was no longer selfish from those few months he spent with Jungkook, so he stayed with his wife to be a good father.

Taehyung makes Jungkook promise him he will find somebody to love (hence the title), and he does, Jungkook finds somebody to love and he is happy- Taehyung finds this out when they unexpectedly meet a few years later, this is the final time Jungkook and Taehyung see each other… but knowing Jungkook is happy, leaves Taehyung happy.

There are different kinds of love, some last forever, and some just for a chapter of your life. It is clear Jungkook was Taehyung’s forever. And I don’t think Jungkook’s love for Taehyung ever went away, he just found another kind of love like he had promised. Jungkook had to live his life; he couldn’t wait for Taehyung, to leave his marriage in the unforeseeable future, or watch him raise his kids from afar, this shows that even if society were accepting, their circumstances were too far gone- if only they met sooner, or in another life. It makes you imagine a world where they could have been together, it makes you think beyond the story even when it’s ended.

It has been a month or two since I read LOVERVMINS work, and I still feel a pang in my chest every time I think of Taehyung’s letter for Jungkook in the epilogue.

Why do you think others think they have the right to know an authors personal information?

I think in this day and age, everything about a person is on show, so people just expect that sort of information from you. Authors appreciate feedback- but they don't know the reader, their family or what they do for fun. Vice versa. You only see a small glimpse into the authors life, and the stuff you see is what they feel comfortable enough to show. That should be enough.

Do you consider writing an art form?

  I do consider writing an art form. Writing is like painting an image in the readers mind. I think it is better than visual art because when you are reading a story, not everyone is going to envision the exact same thing, it is up to the imagination. I think that is what makes it so beautiful- we all collectively love a story, yet, we somehow interpret it differently.

Why do you think Archive of Our Own is the ideal platform for fanfiction writing?

I think Archive of Our Own is ideal for fanfiction writing because they give you many options with your work so you are comfortable- it is easy to remove comments, delete an account, or orphan works while keeping your account etc. It is important authors get control of what happens to their work if they want to leave and go in a different direction.

Do you think other fanfiction writing platforms like Fanfiction.net and Wattpad are ideal or lacking?

I think Wattpad is ideal for younger audiences; it’s more visual with book covers and the layout in general is more appealing, I also feel like the stories on there are targeted for pre-teens. When I first got into fanfiction, I did start on Wattpad because it was easier to navigate. I look back now though and do think it is lacking in terms of quality, a lot of the stories are written for shock value and don’t really make much sense because of that. It is hard to find a story on Wattpad that ticks all the boxes (but not impossible). Wattpad also had a breach with data last summer and everyone’s emails got pwned so that made a lot of people move to AO3. I have never used Fanfiction.net so unfortunately I can’t speak for that one. Overall, AO3 has much more content, you can find a story with ease once you know how to use the site.

How has fanfiction writing affected the people in your personal life?

How did you find out that your sister is writing fanfiction?

My sister wrote a Harry Styles fanfic in 2014 which gathered around half a million reads on Wattpad, she got comments from people telling her how much her fanfic has impacted their lives pretty much every day. My sister and I are close and we share the same friends, I noticed when we would have sleepovers she was always on her phone and never paid attention to the movies we were watching. I think all the numbers did affect her for a moment and it wasn’t until my sister started her exams that she realised she had to put her concentration into those to pass, that’s how she came to the decision to delete the story. I asked her recently if she regrets deleting it and she told me she doesn’t at all, she now looks back and doesn’t think her writing was good back then. So I think that shows authors do know what they’re doing and what is best for them in the long run. 

My sister had a one direction fan account on Instagram that had 100k+ followers (insane!), she was always open with her interests and I found out she started writing fanfiction through that account.

What personal reasons do you think authors have for deleting/orphaning works?

The list is endless; maybe the author wrote the story in a bad time in their life and they want to delete it because it reminds them of that time, they could have left the fandom, or they simply do not like their story anymore- they grew up and know they can do so much better. It is okay for an author to grow apart from their work, it shows they are growing as a person too.

Why do you think authors get backlash from writing dark themes?

I think authors receive backlash from writing dark themes because it can be triggering for some and can bring up unpleasant memories.

What do you think are the responsibilities of an author when writing dark themes?

 A safe bet would be to tag anything relating to abuse (physical, emotional, etc), mental illness (eating disorders, self harm, suicide, etc), graphic violence and rape/sexual assault. That’s what comes to mind. And if a trigger occurs only in a certain chapter, then having an additional warning in the chapter notes would be helpful.  

What do you think are the responsibilities of a reader when reading dark themes?

If dark subjects are included in the tags, don’t read the story if it could trigger you. It is as simple as that. People decide to read the fanfic then get mad at the author for triggering them. I am not trying to insult anybody who has triggers, maybe they read a story and their specific trigger was never mentioned in the additional tags… this is what the ‘chose not to archive warnings’ box is for, with this option, it is handled in AO3’s FAQ that major tags are not necessary. In shirt, this means there may be triggering content in the fic that is not disclosed by the author. Plus, there is usually a pop up banner before you click on a story which reads ‘this work could have adult content. if you proceed you have agreed that you are willing to see such content’. There are so many warnings, you can’t miss them. It is a case of reading at your own risk, you can’t blame the author if you do not like the result.

Do you think authors are facing too much pressure from readers about what themes they write?

I do think authors face unnecessary pressure with the themes they write; they are put on such a pedestal that when they write something that isn’t what the audience want, they receive a lot of negative criticism. Authors, no matter what themes you are writing, there is no need to worry if you are writing for yourself and putting out the content you set out to create.

Why do you think authors write dark themes?

 Dark themes are simply an exploration of difficult emotions along with unpleasant events or consequences. Authors write dark themes because it serves a narrative purpose. And authors don’t have to be ‘dark’ people or experience all of these unsettling things to write such content. 

Why do you think readers read dark themes?

Dark themes are not for everyone, I personally don’t think there are enough dark works out there. I read dark themes because it interests me more, I want to know how the characters are going to cope with the consequences, or heal from the trauma. Other readers might prefer dark themes for the graphic content, this is fine too. Fictional violence is not real- we all know this, so there is no reason to be terrified. 

Why do you think so many authors want to have their work get popular?

 People may disagree, but I think it has a lot to do with validation. Subconsciously, authors want people to like their work- a rise in popularity means readers are seeing the authors work, and hopefully taking enjoyment from it. This isn’t a bad thing as long as you realise validation does not equal self-worth. There are people out there who write and do not gain much attention, but that doesn’t stop them from posting their work anyway.

Do you think a work’s popularity is important?

I personally don’t. I read a range of fanfictions- some are super popular, others are not. It is the content I am more interested in, not how many hits/views it has.  

Should we judge authors for deleting/orphaning their work?

Not at all! I am sure authors have thought long and hard before coming to their decision.

How should we view situations where authors delete/orphan their work? 

For a reader, it can be upsetting when authors delete/orphan their work, especially if there is no possibility of reading that story again. However, we need to show compassion and view the situation from the authors perspective; gaining popularity on a fanfic isn't as pleasant as it might seem, it is much more complicated than that. A lot of feedback, both good and bad, can be overwhelming. Mental health is important, and if that means distancing yourself from something so popular, then it must be done. Privacy can be compromised, people in your real life might find out you write these stories and not be accepting, or readers become invasive which is a scary situation to be in. And a mixture of personal reasons, people are allowed to grow and change and want to distance themselves from things they are no longer proud of. 

What do you think authors should be aware of in case their work does get popular?

This is a good question… I think authors need to be aware that with good feedback, also comes bad feedback. You cannot please every single person on this earth, but that is not your job- so do not take it personally. 

Do you have any last messages to readers of this interview?

 I want to thank you in particular, Charm. This interview is probably the coolest thing I’ll ever get to do for the BTS fandom and I’m so grateful that our paths crossed so we could create this interview together. You are such a kind soul and it has been a pleasure from start to finish. 

For the authors reading this interview; I am just a reader, but I do understand how it can be hard for you to continue on when you are going through so many struggles readers don’t get to see. Just know you are appreciated, and you are supported no matter what you decide to do with your works in the future. Having popular works shouldn’t feel like a burden, there are blessings hidden in there- you have made readers feel a rollercoaster of emotions with your talent, you are able to engage with readers around the world, and you have created a beautiful story from nothing… you did that! 

For the silent readers like myself: let the authors of your favourite work know how much you loved it (in a respectful way) before it is too late! I so wish I had the chance to tell the author of Somebody To Love how their story broke my heart then healed it again. Treasure the fanfictions you love because they very well could be gone tomorrow!

Thank you for reading this interview. Further below are reminders and information about this interview and Charmedseoul’s Fanlore projects.

Reba has chosen to remain anonymous. No social media or information about her will be released publicly.

This interview was conducted through email from January 31, 2021 to February 1, 2021 with Reba’s consent and protections under Fanlore’s Identity Protection policies and the posting website’s privacy policies. Unauthorized reposting of this interview is forbidden. 

Due to the casual nature of this interview, repost of this interview is strictly prohibited. Linking and sharing is appreciated. Translation and unauthorized repost of this interview is forbidden.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.

[madcatlad]

Sorry made soms SERIOUS changes.

This is Peaches, my sweet second generation baby. She was born from the ErrorInk ship (not in the way you think...no, not that way either). She's a twin so there is another person she came into the world with. (I haven't made a design for them yet)

Her existence is a little tricky, but I'll try to make it simple. Another fanchild (fan-baby-ception) of mine (errorink again), named Blooper has access to some kind of platform of social media that can reach us (or the creators) and he likes to draw (shocker!). Blooper drew Peaches and her twin and posted it, yay! And thus Peachbaby was adopted as an "official" part of the community and thus became of apart of the multiverse. Imagine the aftermath...

Her technical age is unknown, but she's 12 years old, but she's stunnted emotionally to around 8 maybe, not mentally, just emotionally. She's also really short, so no one really has a real grasp on her age so it doesn't matter cause no one really cares.

But don't mess, she can lose her temper on just about anything, she has no chill.

Peaches is a bit of a perfectionist, so much so that its borderline obsessive. It can reach the point of a tantrum if it goes far enough.

But despite that she gets rather distracted all too easily (or pretends to), it's pretty simple to stop a tantrum with something even remotely colorful.

...a literal crayon will do the job.

But she really does love helping others, its like a hobby. She participated in a "girl scouts" kind of association. (Probably led by some version of Dream lol). Doing kind actions is kinda like a front to seem normal as she can't really make connections to other people besides a selected few (like 3 or 5 people max). Peachbaby only has the soul capacity for emotions of which are her own, yes, but caring for others is a bit more tricky. So she had to put in the efforts not to be selfish and unsympathetic (I guess that makes her a lokee sociopath) Honestly growing up with Ink was probably the best thing for Peaches, considering her soul deficiency. She doesn't require all that love and affection stuff, and in return she doesn't have to give it, something she often has to force.

She's a real Peach y'know.

She's very forgetful, not to the ridiculous extent of, well... Ink, but it's rather noticeable. It's more of a selected memory, if she wants to remember she'll remember for life

She had at least 2 years worth of memory gone, due to a few less than happy early childhood experiences.

If we don't remember it didn't happen. Goodbye trauma!

See that teddy she got there, his name is Paxil, (if you understand that then you understand) her comfort object. She made him herself.

She's a crafter. This whole family is obsessed with art in some way soooo...yeah, arts and crafts.

Also don't challenge her to a jumproping contest, she'll destroy you.

[nocturnals-anonymous]

The absolute rage expressed in this piece borders on the righteously murderous. I would wager it’s a sentiment shared by at least 70,000,000 Americans. This mom is angry and tells it like it is:

I was born at the end of Gen X and the beginning of the Millennial Generation, and grew up in a middle class town. Life was good. Our home was modest but birthdays and Christmas were always generous, we went on yearly vacations, had 2 cars, and there was enough money for me to take dance classes and art lessons and be in Girl Scouts.

My 1940s born Dad raised me to be patriotic and proud, to love the war bird airplanes of his era as much as he does, and to respect our flag and our country as a sacred thing. I grew up thinking that being an American was the greatest gift a person could have. I grew up thinking that our country was as strong, and honest and true as my Dad. I grew up thinking I was free.

As an adult, I have witnessed the world I grew up in fall to ruin. I have watched as our currency and our economy have been shamelessly corrupted beyond redemption. Since we’ve been married, my husband and I TWICE had our meager investment savings gutted by the market that we were told to invest in, now that pensions no longer exist and we working stiffs are on our own. We will be working until we die, because the Social Security we’ve been forced to pay into has also been robbed from under us.

I have watched as our elected officials enter Congress as ordinary folks and leaves as multi millionaires. I have watched my blue collar husband get up at an ungodly hour every day and come home with an aching back that we pray will hold out long enough to get him to old age in one piece. Outside of shoes, socks and underwear, almost everything my family wears was bought used. We’ve been on one vacation in 12 years.

We don’t have cell phones, or cable, or any sort of streaming services, just a landline and internet. We hardly ever eat out. Our house is 1400 square feet, no air conditioning. I cook from scratch and I can and I garden and I raise chickens for eggs and meat and I moonlight selling things on Etsy. Still it is barely enough to pay the bills that go up every year while service quality and the longevity of goods goes down. What I just described is the life you can live on 60K a year without going into debt.

At last calculation, when you consider all of the federal, state and local taxes plus registration and user fees, Medicare and SS payroll taxes, almost a third of what my family earns is stolen by the govt each year. What’s left doesn’t go far, just enough to cover the basics and save a little for when the wolf howls at the door.

I watched as my family’s health insurance was gutted and destroyed. Our private market insurance, which we had to have because my husband’s employer is too small to have a group plan, was made illegal. We were left with the option of either buying an Obamacare plan with unaffordable deductibles and insanely ridiculous out of pocket maxes, or paying the very gov’t that destroyed our healthcare a fine for not buying the gov’t mandated plan that we cannot afford. We now have short term insurance that isn’t really insurance at all, and I live in fear of one of us getting injured or sick with anything I can’t fix from the medicine cabinet.

I have watched as education, which was already sketchy when I was a kid, became an all out joke of wholly unmathematical math, gold stars for all, and self-loathing anti-Americanism. My family has taken an enormous financial hit as I stay home to home school our child. At least she’ll be able to do old-fashioned math well enough to see how much they are screwing her. A silver lining to every cloud, I guess.

I’ve sat by and held my tongue as I was called deplorable and a bitter clinger and told that I didn’t build that. I’ve been called a racist and a xenophobe and a chump and even an “ugly folk.” I’ve been told that I have privilege, and that I have inherent bias because of my skin color, and that my beloved husband and father are part of a horrible patriarchy. Not one goddamn bit of that is true, but if I dare say anything about it, it will be used as evidence of my racism and white fragility.

Raised to be a Republican, I held my nose and voted for Bush, the Texas-talking blue blood from Connecticut who lied us into 2 wars and gave us the unpatriotic Patriot Act. I voted for McCain, the sociopathic neocon songbird “hero” that torpedoed the attempt to kill the Obamacare that’s killing my family financially. I held it again and voted for Romney, the vulture capitalist skunk that masquerades as a Republican while slithering over to the Democrat camp as often as they’ll tolerate his oily, loathsome presence.

And I voted for Trump, who, if he did nothing else, at least gave a resounding Bronx cheer to the richly deserving smug hypocrites of DC. Thank you for that Mr. President, on behalf of all of us nobodies. God bless you for it.

And now I have watched as people who hate me and mine and call for our destruction blatantly and openly stole the election and then gaslighted us and told us that it was honest and fair. I am watching as the GOP does NOTHING about it. They’re probably relieved that upstart Trump is gone so they can get back to their real jobs of lining their pockets and running interference for their corporate masters. I am watching as the media, in a manner that would make Stalin blush, is silencing anyone who dares question the legitimacy of this farce they call democracy. I know, it’s a republic, but I am so tired of explaining that to people I might as well give in and join them in ignorance.

I will not vote again; they’ve made it abundantly clear that my voice doesn’t matter. Whatever irrational, suicidal lunacy the nanny states thinks is best is what I’ll get. What it decided I need is a geriatric pedophile who shouldn’t be charged with anything more rigorous than choosing between tapioca and rice pudding at the old folks home, and a casting couch skank who rails against racism while being a descendant of slave owners.

I’m free to dismember a baby in my womb and kill it because “my body my choice”, but God help me if I won’t cover my face with a germ laden Linus-worthy security blanket or refuse let them inject genetically altering chemicals into my body or my child’s. I can be doxed, fired, shunned and destroyed for daring to venture that there are only 2 genders as proven by DNA, but a disease with a 99+% survival rate for most humans is a deadly pandemic worth murdering an economy over. Because science. Idiocracy is real, and we are living it. Dr. Lexus would be an improvement over Fauci.

I am done. Don’t ask me to pledge to the flag, or salute the troops, or shoot fireworks on the 4th. It’s a sick, twisted, heartbreaking joke, this bloated, unrecognizable corpse of a republic that once was ours.

I am not alone. Not sure how things continue to function when millions of citizens no longer feel any loyalty to or from the society they live in.

I was raised to be a lady, and ladies don’t curse, but fuck these motherfuckers to hell and back for what they’ve done to me, and mine, and my country. All we Joe Blow Americans ever wanted was a little patch of land to raise a family, a job to pay the bills, and at least some illusion of freedom, and even that was too much for these human parasites. They want it all, mind, body and soul. Damn them. Damn them all.

[kas-e]

Heroes

Do kids have heroes anymore? I'm not talking about Marvel characters, I'm talking about real world heroes.

When I was a kid, my father used to watch Bob Ross on Sunday. He would laugh like hell while the white man with the afro painted happy little trees, made his mistakes into birds, and reminded people that everyone needs a friend. I would doodle and listen to my father giggle at the goofy man on TV teaching people how to paint while talking to the squirrel in his pocket, and simultaneously painting stunning landscapes. Bob Ross was, and is, my hero.

Around the same time I would read Louis Lamour books, which eventually turned into the likes of Kerouac, Robbins, HST, and other pioneers of America literature. These guys were not only documenting their experiences in the Great American west, but also delving into self realization, and the underground of American culture.

The industrial age birthed art in many forms and facets, and in its' time and space there were many great men and women who generations of youth were afforded the opportunity to idolize. They showed the beauty in words, imagination, and music. They created the shadowed artist, and made creating and writing cool. The lure of counterculture weighed heavy in the hearts of kids. It destroyed many through it's curse of chemical indulgence, but also produced people not afraid to create despite the fact that every artist knows it doesn't pay. Things weren't as clean, but life wasn't half as boring as it is now either.

I truly feel sorry for today's youth, and this coddled catastrophe of modern day popular culture. The soul is lost, and spiritual curiosity is null and void. Self discovery is a side dish seldom consumed in outrage culture by the squared youth at the start of this century.

Around 40 years old, I feel my generation just made the cut. I have a great gratitude for crossing this country just for the sake of doing so, and living in different regions. I caught the last great burst of music made from people instead of machines, and I watched the social landscape erode into a its current form of recession.

Then there are the little things. My longhand is nice, but my mothers is like an exquisite work of art. Baseball games in stadiums before they got modernized. Real muscle cars with manual transmissions, and then the uprising of the Japanese domestic market. Dating before social media. Late nights talking on a landline. Guilt free cigarettes and fat joints of dirt weed. Conversation before forums. I could go on and on.

I still search for music like a fiend, and keep my ear to the underground despite the grey starting to fill in. Maybe it's because I don't have any yet, but I wonder about those kids. I wonder who their heroes are. I hope they dig like I do, I hope they find someone creative to cling to, because the recipe for happiness demands a healthy dose of creativity.

My life is a loose emulation of the guys I idolize. I've only ever wanted to be like them. Somewhere along the line of being an artist I figured out what every real writer or artist does. They inspire the search, inward and outward. Not specifically, but most importantly this inspiration serves the audience of their own kind. They lay the bait for future generations of freaks to find their way, and then do their thing.

The bottom line is that there has to be proof, there has to be those strange people hanging out on the limb, always reaching for the fruit. Bob Ross has a great line about that, actually. In my early memories, he was my proof. He was evidence that the simple pleasures will remain, that there are other people who think the strange thoughts that I do, and that being normal is optional - even as an adult. He wore his weird proudly, and was also a very happy human being. Happy isn't the right word, he was an oddly satisfied person, the rare type of satisfaction that only comes to an artist.

[palegengarsiloved]

Buddhism, Existentialism, Dark Souls

Fromsoft's games revolve around a core idea, one that other Japanese auteurs like Hideo Kojima, Fumito Ueda, Yoko Taro also touch on: the cycle of life and death, the suffering inherent in that natural system, and the connections we can still form and the meaning we can still find within them. It's obviously rooted in Buddhist and Shintoist beliefs, as well as other East Asian philosophies that acknowledge the supremacy of nature (and natural processes), accept the impermanence and imperfection of the world, and yet (therefore?) also the beauty found therein. First, how do other forms of media try to communicate these ideas? In traditional East Asian visual arts, humans are oftentimes either ignored or viewed as very small, distant figures, entirely dwarfed by nature. Early Buddhist art avoided human depiction at all, using instead icons like wheels and lotuses/cherries to communicate ideas of the cyclic nature of the world and the impermanence of the moment (it's argued that human depictions of religious figures only came into prominence after the whole Greco-Bactrian thing where Greeks set up shop in what is now Afghanistan/Pakistan and started carving gods-as-people, and I mean, you gotta compete with that seductive reification of divinity). Shintoist poetry is brief, fragile, incomplete, often summoning a brief moment of nature ("this dewdrop world / is a dewdrop world / and yet, and yet--"). Kurosawa's deep love of rain and bamboo, Ozu's pillow shots of landscapes and rooms devoid of people. All of these use tools unique to their respective mediums to manifest a sensation or emotion into the audience: Ozu focusing on an empty street for 10+ seconds wouldn't be possible in painting or sculpture; architecture's capacity towards grandness and sense of proportion to a person inside it can't be communicated through photographs. Think about the tools unique to video games, now. Think of all the ways you interact with a game: user interface, input controls, gameplay loops, level design, etc, and how those connect to create a totality of experience. All of these drastically affect the interplay between audience and art; think of if a Jeff Koons balloon animal sculpture were installed in some small garage versus a giant New International-style skyscraper lobby. (Imagine if Dark Souls was presented as a visual novel or whatever genre Undertale is.) Now think about how Dark Souls approaches each of those tools. User interface and item management is one that is quite clever: you are given an item, and you have zero idea of what it is, so you find a brief safe moment and take a look at its item description. It's vague and honestly impenetrable, with a little bit of equally-impenetrable lore on it. You only have one so far, so you're afraid to use it, but you have the feeling that not only could it be useful, but perhaps even necessary for some encounter. You see that you can carry up to 99 (and store 600) of them, so maybe there'll be more later? You know that you've picked up stuff that you thought might be one-off and found more later, or a merchant who sells it. Fuck it, might as well try it out - after all, this user interface is almost begging you to think about the lore meanings, the possible item use, and exploring for more of them, or how/where you could best use it. It's designed so that you acknowledge the rarity of it, but also are assured to not to worry too much about it and just try it out for whatever benefit you can get in this dangerous world. What's the worst thing that happens - you die and waste it? You've lost thousands of souls (the precious in-game currency) before, what's one lightning paper or green blossom whatever? You know this game is famously difficult; "It's like Dark Souls" is industry shorthand for "It's a fucking hard game" at this point. Might as well try something new in this brief cycle you have before the next inevitable death. That leads me to the next tool: the corpse-running / death mechanic. You'll die a lot, sure, but then you'll learn more, have the opportunity to think about what you might be doing wrong or not seeing, maybe even find a shortcut or trick or use a different item this time to make it easier. It's another ostensible punishment that's actually an opportunity for you to get better at the game, and to think about maybe using that one item for a boost or trying out a different weapon, but also it starts teaching you something very important to the series plot and themes: it's okay to die - natural, even. A part of life. It's not a waste any more than anything else in life is a waste - the only waste is if you don't learn from it, appreciate it, bask in the purifying fire of failure to find yourself in something close to Zen gameflow. Even then, it's not the game disrespecting your time; I would say that it's the player disrespecting their own experiences, discarding any outcome other than an easy victory as a waste, as pointless, as if progress is the only marker of a life well lived. Resisting death, panicking, generally facing it in an undignified manner... all of these are counter-productive. To do so is to miss the philosophy of why there isn't an instant boss restart button! The brief little life as you scurry to your undistinguished death is, perhaps, the point. I mean this in a game sense, too. If you are deeply reluctant and fearful of death, you won't have as much success exploring dangerous and unfamiliar areas. Once you accept that you might lose some paltry number of souls in exchange for new items, new shortcuts, new areas... the game becomes less of a hostile slog and more of this world that you want to explore and understand. Yes, there'll be some suffering; that's to be expected. But there's still rewards you can find, NPCs you can ogle, vistas you can enjoy. Kind of a blunt metaphor, huh? That leads to the level design. By that I mean not only shortcuts and verticality/horizonality, which are ingenious from a design perspective, but in how the levels evoke two major things: one is the lived-in nature of the world; the other is how small you are in comparison to it. Cathedrals are prominently featured throughout the games. Historically they were specifically designed to make laypersons feel small in the presence of divinity, to make their eyes look upward, and to contemplate the sheer power (physical and social) necessary to create these things. Think of how small you are, then, that there are even greater powers in nature that can make these monuments to humanity fall. As for the lived-in aspect, think of how strange the items you find are, how fragmentary their lore, and yet how they start to fit together, even from their placement in the world. (Why is a Choir investigator-assassin hiding out in the School of Mensis? Why does he drop sedatives?) There's this giant world taking place around you and you're so unimportant that no one really bothers to tell you anything more than vague prophecies and allusions. Anyone who points you somewhere concrete sees you as the pawn you are; you're also literally smaller than many other NPCs (Non-Player Characters) to illustrate this point. The NPCs are yet another way that the game acutely communicates its existential ideas to you. Everyone in the Dark Souls world is cursed to not die, but rather turn Hollow – that is, to lose their minds in lieu of death. The only way to fight against this curse is to commit to a purpose and use that willpower to stave off insanity. This is strongly absurdist in nature, as a cursed undead either completes their goal and then, newly purposeless, goes insane, or the goal is unfulfillable, and the goal-seeker is doomed to an eternity of Sisyphean torment. Some NPCs appear broken under this will, crestfallen or twisted or gleeful upon recognizing the sheer injustice of their burden; some soldier bravely on; some offer unconditional kindness; some perform a mixture of all three. There are startlingly few characters in this game, each almost hidden by the landscapes, and each clearly dwarfed – both literally by the environments they are lost in, and by the staggering difficulty of the tasks they took up. It’s almost easy to attack all the NPCs you come across, as you’re conditioned to be fearful of any other entity you encounter; many players kill a certain peaceful demonic entity because they’ve slain so many similar-looking monsters defending her. It’s easy to miss these connections, and the game makes no effort to protect them. It’s the hedgehog’s dilemma: can you let down your guard towards someone who very well may hurt you, in a world that has done nothing but hurt you? Will others do the same? The multiplayer component of this game adds a corollary to this social experiment: there will, inevitably, be those who seek to invade and destroy you, those who will defend and avenge you, those who will help you, and those who will dabble in all three. You see every day in real life: the wounded lashing out in pain, the happy few just trying to help others along the way, the people who want to create some sense of justice in an indifferent universe. Oftentimes, one human will try out all three roles in their life. Why do we do this? Perhaps it’s how we work through the cosmic injustice of our existence, in a form of primitive dialogue that we need to act out. The human condition, after all, is reconciling oneself with the fact that we, and everyone we know, are fated to someday die. That's where the plot intersects with the gameplay and themes to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. The directive you’re given at the beginning of the game is to extend the Age of Fire, the era you are currently living in; you are told that this is because with Fire there’s light, and time, and the creative spark of divinity on high. However, it turns out that unnaturally prolonging the Age of Fire is actually pretty bad, and results in all sorts of upheaval and foul consequences (including, possibly, the undead curse itself, unless you believe a certain scholar in DS2…). We learn as we venture through this game and interface with its mechanics that death must be a part of life and dark must accompany light. We also know that something can arise out of nothing (as we know there was a “time” before the Age of Fire; think pre-Big Bang), so it turns out that even if you don’t extend the Age of Fire, the larger cycle of death and rebirth perhaps never ends. In any case: fighting against this inevitability, fighting against the possibility of pain and loss caused the Gwyn, the Lord of Fire and Light, to ultimately sacrifice and thus lose everything he defended in tragic irony; similarly, trying too hard to lean into the turn caused Oolacile/New Londo/Farron Keep to be lost in the Dark forever. By dying over and over in-game, by investigating the subtle hints of lore found in the items and the sparse dialogue, and by witnessing the sad existence of these once-great powers of Fire that have long-since shriveled up under the infinite and inescapable wheel of nature, you begin to internalize the themes these games try, through all the tools at their disposal, to make you feel. You can live, however briefly, and value it, but also learn to let it go. You can love nature and respect its impersonal processes, understand that ultimately it will reclaim us, and find some comfort that the end isn't necessarily the end. There will be suffering, but there will be moments of total (if brief) triumph. There will be moments of tenderness with NPCs that can only be generated by a video game world where life is immensely fragile and nothing but the curse of insanity permanent. Will you allow yourself to try and help them, knowing how difficult and obtuse it will be, and how little it might seem to matter? Will you extend the Age of Fire to uphold the lie, because this Age is the only thing you and the rest of the world has ever known? Will you be brave – or perhaps, human – enough to reach out to others in this brief moment before the end of the world, and when the time comes, to let the Age of Fire fade? Can you live, and perhaps just as importantly, die with dignity? The totality of the experience gets the player to directly feel these themes in a way that can't be done in other media. By showing - through the death mechanic, NPC quests that can permanently be failed or missed, unforgiving and vast levels with tons of secrets and shortcuts, obscure item descriptions and the resultant need for exploration and player-driven introspection and experimentation, and not by telling through cutscenes, everything works together to evoke a mood that the player directly feels like they're helping create. The sheer unity - the, ahem, ludonarrative assonance - of the design is beautiful to consider on an intellectual level but also satisfying on an interactive, practical level. You have fun not despite these things, any of which alone may be disheartening, but because together they're so thematically consistent. Taken by itself the corpse run mechanic might be considered unnecessary or anti-fun, but when placed among the larger picture it not only makes sense but makes the player consider that there might be something they're missing, that there may be more to explore elsewhere or some item that will help, because the game is so mysterious and rewards exploration and experimentation so much. This is in addition to how much it reinforces the themes of the game! I could expand on about how such well-executed unity of purpose and audience-medium interplay makes it high art, like, true fucking Michaelangelo's David type shit, but I don't want to get swept up in the hype, so I'll leave you with a classic Dark Souls quote: "therefore try tongue but hole"

[jigensass]

I couldn’t sleep so I decided to make this. Endgame Spoilers under the cut so you have been warned.

What's done is done.

I can't change it now. The one choice I made could have resulted in at least 4,394,307 different scenarios and it was a blessing these people, the people I trusted with my blind faith who for years before I saw as legends from social media and television, chose the one where balance was properly restored to the universe.

My name is Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange. And this is how I saved my universe from destruction.

Wong had told me about the Infinity Stones and their unlimited power. He always scolded me every time he noticed the stripes in my hair grow whiter. I could have stopped using the Time Stone whenever I wanted, but there was this urge, this itch that kept telling me I had to. As if I needed to be ready for something. That something was a fateful day back in 2018.

I was headed out to the grocery store to pick up some food with what money I made from my odd side jobs as a party magician and guidance counselor to those who had suffered severe trauma similar to mine. Very few people like me understood the true purpose of why I pulled through. It was never the magic that was the end goal, it was the truth. And from watching the X-Files back in the 90s, I learned that no one really liked the truth if it wasn't in their favor.

The truth can be harsh and a difficult horse pill to swallow. But it's always going to hit us in the face whether we want it to or not. My truth on my crusade to get groceries and sandwiches from my cohort's 20 rupees fell right through the Sanctum's roof in the manner of a green giant I had only seen once before. It shook me back to 2012 when I was performing brain surgery with a generator in the basement of a hospital while aliens were attacking Manhattan. Good times.

It was the Hulk but quickly shrank into a physicist known as Bruce Banner. He was in a fright mumbling about 'Thanos'. Nothing made sense coherently, but the only phrase that set us on alert was 'Infinity Stones'. In the present moment, I did not know where we were headed, but I had a feeling it wasn't going to be pretty.

Bruce suggested that we find the Avengers again and advised to start with Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. Luckily, someone had posted on their Instagram exactly where to find him. He was with his fiance, Ms. Potts in Central Park, being a normal person. They both seemed spooked by a ring of fire ripping through space. But nevertheless, Tony was reluctant to come to Bleecker Street.

His attitude was, as expected from old news stories I saw back in the day and from looking into a broken mirror: an asshole. Did he always treat people like this and they just....let it go? Wong and I took no bullshit and put him in place that we were serious business (as serious as anyone usually took us). So I opened old wounds and played the asshole game with him and just as quick as I was captured by aliens, Tony realized that I was on his team to get the job done by choice and not by duty.

If we never decided to even our levels onto the same playing field or chose him as our first option, we all would be dead by now.

So, I was captured and was shot into outer space on Titan. I felt everyone's emotions growing tense from the quick thinking to follow me out into space, even my own. My words were sharp when I threatened to kill Peter or Tony to keep that Stone safe from the hands of Thanos. It went against my Hippocratic Oath I vowed to keep when transferring to a Master of the Mystic Arts. At the time, I didn’t know I was going to eat my own words.

The journey continued onwards and we met up with another group who was after Thanos who 'took names and kicked ass' known as the Guardians of the Galaxy. At this point, we had ended up on Titan, Thanos's home planet. It was obvious even more emotions were getting tenser. My comrades were screaming at each other.

I had to use the resources I had. I had to use the Stone.

I meditated and dove into 14,000,605 paths that the next decisions could take. And only one was the best winning result. To this day I still dread this result because lives had to be lost one way or another. I had to weigh the odds as best as I could in our favor. (This is also my apology that my game took too long. The rat that turned on the Quantum Accelerator was precisely placed into the plan.)

I had to start by a loss, to make him feel cocky. Truth was, he wasn't cocky about it. Once done with the deed and using the Stones a second time, he wanted to die alone. He knew the power was too great for anyone, even for a human. Using the Stones multiple times had a lasting effect. I'm the living example because I lost track of my age. The only person who knows the actual number is Wong.

My move was not out of fear, but out of precision in hopes that the right path would be taken. You're probably wondering 'well if time travel was involved why didn't you choose an ending where you stayed alive to help?'

Every ending where I stayed alive and kept the Stone, Steve Rogers died from Thanos's rampage from the Mind Stone being destroyed.

In my mind's eye, I wanted no one to be a casualty that was directly tied to the endgame. I tried, but I couldn't find one. I held that in my conscience for 5 years in the Soul Stone with a heavy heart that Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff were going to die to save us all.

My mind spun and it hurt my very being. The people I would emotionally scar, the friends I could possibly tear apart. (Disclaimer: I didn't see past Tony's death so I had no idea of what Cap was going to do).

So when Wong and I went to the funeral, it surprised me that his family took it...so well? It still weighed in my mind that I was responsible for this whole mess and being the person I was, should take some action. But “what’s done is done”.

As we were about to head back to Manhattan, my friend looked into my eyes and saw the guilt still swimming away. Personally, I was very emotional when I lost patients on the table and losing friends like this hurt just as much.

"Go," I remember him shaking my head back towards the cabin. "It's best you tell them now the whole story. They will understand for they knew the risks."

His permission had me power walking back to the cabin to see Pepper cleaning up from the dinner. I knocked on the door and poked my head in to see Morgan tinkering with her mother's helmet on the table.

"Mrs. Stark- Virginia, may I have a word?"

[namitaylor99]

Project Proposal and Research

12/5/20

Idea: Comfort food/human’s conciseness/ figural and its significance in photography 

Comfort food, providing a consolation or a feeling of well-being. Everybody has their own sweet and savoury craving, wether its after a long day, a midnight snack or a Sunday morning brunch, we all have one. This personal series will undergo individuals close to me including family and friends, capturing their personality and of course their most desired comfort food. Each image will have its own uniqueness reflecting the person’s characteristics. Constructing an aesthetic series using complimentary colours and artificial lighting to capture theatrical scenes, will tie in each image all possessing the same quality and idea of an individuals own comfort food. I believe this concept connects very nicely to project three, as I will be undergoing this notion of the figural. Figural being a form of significance which relies on imagery and association, capturing symbolic meaning in ones person life.  Inspired by Anne Hardy and Henry Hargreaves, and their ability to capture empty spaces and aesthetic foods, still possessing this notion of the lack of human body except its clear that their soul and presence still remain in the image. This feeling of emotion is what I would like to portray and capture in my series. 

Journal Articles 

The Chicago School of Media Theory: Figurative/Figural 

Theorist Micheal Fried, explores the relationship between the figure and literal within the modern art world. 

Fried’s understanding of the modern age, views art as literalist and minimalist, suggesting that the whole work “they are what they are nothing more” than shapes, colour and form. 

Literal can be seen and used as a metaphor 

The introducing of anthropomorphism can be only depended on literalist art once a person seeks a hidden meaning. 

Anthropomorphism can be seen as a symbol seen from a singles of a shape. 

Literalist art proclaims its object hood

Referring back to literal and the figure, Fried suggest that literalist art is almost seen as non-art because it rejects the representation of art that calls the attention to in the term figure. 

The status of an object within Literalist works are further emphasised between the relationship of the view to the artwork in space. 

Fried draw attentions around the dichotomy betwen the liter and the furfural and figurative, as he further implies the way in which these dichotomy dissipated within the modern art movement. 

Identifying the figure and the literal, yes photography can be seen very literal as we capture something that is clearly identified by all. However once the audience starts to connect the dots (anthropomorphism) thats when the image itself creates it’s own meaning and symbolism. 

https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/figurativefigural/ 

Comfort Food: Nourishing Our Collective Stomachs and Our Collective Minds by Jordan D. Troisi1 and Julian W. C. Wright1 

Food is a powerful motivator in human functioning—it serves a biological need, as emotional support, and as a cultural symbol. 

Comfort food in the media is seem as unhealthy, often  consumed in moments of stress or sadness

But for anyone who has a love of food and of eating, it will come as no surprise that food also has emotional, cultural, and symbolic mean- ing as well. 

Food satisfies our collective minds 

Comfort food serve as a memory based link to close others  and that those with secure attachment styles would have favorable associations with foods associated with other people.

This article provides information on how society identifies comfort as it can be seen through two perspective, as stress eating (unhealthy food) causing anxiety and is something tradi- tional, cultural, regional, familial, or otherwise imbued with meaning 

Eating is the perfect social psychological variable, because it is connected to almost every social variable or process you can think of! (Herman, as cited in Baumeister & Bushman, 2014, p. xxi)

Given the need for humans to consume food in order to maintain numerous homeostatic processes, such topics also seem relevant for courses in biopsychology. Furthermore, there is clear evidence that stressful experiences have numerous bio- logical implications.

This article provides insight on what comfort can really represent for ones individual - it’s a guilty pleasure meal that is close to their hearts. It can be something that endure and crave if feeling overwhelmed or stress which is why some may seem to be fatty and fills with sugar and oil however comfort food isn’t always seen as that. It possess cultural aspects and symbolises their homes - when feeling home sick.

https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy2.library.usyd.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.1177/0098628316679972 

Artists of Inspiration 

Through my online journal I have briefly discussed Anne Hardy and Henry Hargreaves, both strongly influencing me for my idea for project three. I have also done research of artist Jeff Wall. I will be elaborating further below on what aspect of these artists works have influenced me and how I will use this to create a capture my own innovative series. 

Anne Hardy 

Hardy’s work transforms sculpture into photographic ‘paintings’. Though her scenes are built in actuality, their compositions are developed to be viewed from one vantage point only and it’s only their 2 dimensional images that are shown. Hardy uses the devices inherent within photography to heighten her work’s painterly illusion. In Cipher, aspects such as the hazy aura around the fluorescent lights, faux grotto walls, and the spatial defiance of the hanging ropes, give allusion to gesture and drawn lines.

‘Cipher’ 2007 

Henry Hargreaves

Photographer Henry Hargreaves and installation artist Nicole Heffron have spent the past year imaging how famous directors might celebrate their birthdays in order to recreate the scenes for a unique photo series. Pictured: The bloodied samurai sword suggests that this cake was intended for Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino

The image of the staircase on this birthday cake suggests that this birthday cake was intended for the Vertigo director Alfred Hitchcock 

The bear-shaped cake here is an instant giveaway that this is the birthday cake of Ted director Seth Macfarlane

The glass of milk in this set up is a subtle suggestion that this sterile birthday is that of the Clockwork Orange director Stanley Kubrick

The scene at Martin Scorsese's knees-up has elements of New York's Little Italy as well as the gambling and cigars of Casino and his first hit Mean Streets

John Waters' identity is given away by his Pink Flamingos cake, a reference to the title of the 1972 movie starring drag queen Divine

What I love the most of Hargreaves food images is how he can create these bloody to half eaten food scenes look so pleasing to the eye even when it should make you feel a little gross out. Food photography I feel is very difficult to capture and the same goes in films. It’s so easy for people to be gross out by them especially when their hands and mouths involved, however Hargreaves manages to create these aesthetic food series, almost making me hungry and wanting to eat those cakes. Hargreaves has inspired in the past with previous food photographs, and he still manages to continue to inspire me now. His work is so intriguing and the use of colour and composition overall ties in the image very nicely. However, instead of capturing celebrities and prisoners on death row, for my own work I want it to be personal. Using the pope around me such as family and friends and capture what their own comfort food is their favourite and what it means to them. Is it a stress comfort food or is something that reminds them of home, child hood or a distant memory. Even for myself and capturing my own comfort food and exploring why I have chosen that specific meal. I believe exploring on this idea of food and the figural, it will ultimately challenge me, and let me undergo such research and even an experience of capturing something more than just a photograph of food but the human soul behind that. 

Jeff Wall

I begin by not photographing.

—Jeff Wall

This quote really speaks to me on what art really means to myself. I believe their is so much more than just taking a photo. Behind the scenes artists have to create this ideal image before capturing the photo itself. I love constructing and forming this perfect composition in my mind and capturing it with a camera allows that form to last forever however just creating art itself bringing forth this new world of what photography can really say. 

Jeff Wall’s work synthesizes the essentials of photography with elements from other art forms—including painting, cinema, and literature—in a complex mode that he calls “cinematography.” His pictures range from classical reportage to elaborate constructions and montages, usually produced at the larger scale traditionally identified with painting

Some of Wall’s early pictures evoke the history of image making by overtly referring to other artworks: The Destroyed Room (1978) explores themes of violence and eroticism inspired by Eugène Delacroix’s monumental painting The Death of Sardanapalus (1827), while Picture for Women (1979) recalls Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) and brings the implications of that famous painting into the context of the cultural politics of the late 1970s. These two pictures are models of a thread in Wall’s work that the artist calls “blatant artifice”: pictures that foreground the theatricality of both their subject and their production. Dead Troops Talk (1991–92), a large image depicting a hallucinatory moment from the Soviet war in Afghanistan, is a central example, and was one of the first works to employ digital-imaging technology, which has since transformed the landscape of photography. Wall was a pioneer in exploring this dimension and remains at the forefront of its development.

Doing research on Wall and his work, it’s clear he really wants to capture these somewhat candid images however, behind these image unfold stories and visions. His work in a way have these capturing aesthetic scenes that drawn the audience in. It creates a sense of narrative and story lines by one single picture. I did find the “Destroyed Room” to be very fascinating and it held many similarities on what I wanted to create. However after viewing his other works I couldn’t help   but be intrigued by his image “Changing Room”, the image itself look as if it’s some kind of painting. I think it also ties in with this theme figure and figural topic. The top half of the body looks as if it's some kind of bird especially the animal pattern on the fabric. However, on the bottom half it’s clear that a women is simply just getting change. The figure itself seems to be part human and animal, thats how I view the image as a whole. And I do believe thats what Wall was trying to capture this weirdly human figure or it could have been by accident of the lady putting the shirt or another from of dress and it just seemed as if it was a bird. Overall Wall’ work is absolutely amazing, it has this sense of allude affect on the scenes, drawing myself within the images, trying to figure this narrative by just viewing one image. I wanna be able to incorporate this whole emotional effect on my own images and creating this sense of narrative. 

200 word Project Proposal 

Looking at a variety of artists and articles surrounding this whole notion of the figural within art has allowed me to compose a solid idea of what I will be exploring within project 3. Comfort food is known for providing a consolation or a feeling of well-being. Reading 'Comfort Food: Nourishing Our Collective Stomachs and Our Collective Minds’ it provides insight into what comfort food really means for an individual. It can be seen through two perspectives, including stress and anxiety eating, this makes people crave more unhealthy sugary or high fat food, or is something tradi- tional, cultural, regional, familial, or otherwise imbued with meaning to an individual. Gathering both research on the figural/literal themes within art and this whole concept of comfort food, I believe both have similar qualities and can be captured in a unique form. Wanting to approach this project in a more personal outlook, I will be exploring and capturing my friends and families own comfort food and what it means to them. I will also be using myself and my own desired comfort food, to explore and ask questions what makes comfort food comfort?. Inspired by Anne Hardy, Jeff Wall and Henry Hargreaves, each artists has provided a source of inspiration that I will be incorporating within my own work, however still creating an innovative personal series of my own. 

[mikcandy]

Pretty cooked interview i did last year.

~can totally vibe why it never got published~

1.       Could you tell us more about you (little biography) ?

Sure! I was born in South Africa (1990), where my dad had something to do with a nut and bolt factory – which provided an ample means to put everything together, though I must admit I am usually preoccupied with taking things apart. I learn almost everything by destroying things; Analysis by deconstruction.

I have always had a keen interest in Robotics from a very young age, though the structured worlds of mechanical engineering or programming don’t sit well with my methodologies of hacking and intuitive mechanical understandings. So I find myself most familiar when working hands on with physical systems.

My family later moved to Australia where I sucked at everything through highschool. After which i wanted to study industrial design but my grades were too low, so I enrolled in fine arts, later transferring to design. Studying Industrial design only made me more frustrated with the commercial interest behind product development (designed obsolescence, trending technologies, apps) leading to many arguments with tutors and elaborate projects that eventually got me nowhere. I returned to my Art degree enthused about having a means to create without any constraints and to use technology as a means for dialogue rather consumption.

For the past few years i have been living out of a backpack, carrying a case of tools with me from residency to exhibition - its worked out just fine or now :)

2. How did you conceive Big Dipper (from the idea to the conception)? More generally, How do you work (alone/ within a team)? What does your creative process look like?

Big dipper is a concept I have carried with me for some time now, a physical eruption of mechanical ideas, yet in the same way, a logical conclusion. A design ethos becomes apparent upon analysis of my work; nervous systems or central control components - in more organic terms, a spine. With design and production I start with the core working structure, rejecting any superfluous components I make this the heart of the work, from here many things can branch out and come to life; be the focus interactivity or repetitive mechanical actions. It’s an inherent methodology embodied in my work.

Prototyped in Kochi (India) Big Dipper is the pinnacle of this subliminal infrastructure; a simple mechanical spine giving birth to beautiful light and life. The concept behind the title is that of stars, the kilns of the universe, which create the foundations of life and matter. Two sciences (Biology and Physics) both of which can be reduced to symbols, a helix (DNA) and a waveform (Radiation), existing as the only moving components of Big Dipper. I should probably also admit I was listening to allot of Death Grips at the time who’s lyrics represent some kind of cultural blender, churning up art, physics, biology with contemporary social and punk idiologies in a way I find highly relatable (they have a song titled Big Dipper).

I complete most physical work alone, I am a perfectionist, but not when it comes to getting things done on time. I must admit friends and family have saved me a few times when deadlines rush up on me. I often outsource my programming, not only because I’m terrible at it and it never works for me - I just don’t trust computers.

3. In which ways or to what degree is digital creation important to your work? Did the digital inspire your work or is it just a means/a medium?

For me, the word digital is pretty loaded, since it means computers and structured action. I do use computers for research, 3D design and sometimes even code to control some of my works, but my heart lies with physical, traditional or analogue technologies. ‘Digital’ art seems to grasp at the forefront of emergent technologies, offering a unique forum to digest mankind's relationship with the digital realm.

I am concerned that the internet, and almost everything digital that was designed to help us be more efficient at work is doing the complete opposite - enslaving us in a virtual world. We now build and buy physical devices that only interface with a reality that is completely non-physical. This is terrifying and people are completely complacent with just plugging in and performing tasks with the same regiment as a computer program.

Though a positive of consumerism in this digital world is to consider that not all physical products were made for a purpose, but that doesn’t mean you can’t convince people to buy them. This is where capitalism fails on an environmental and ethical level. One great advantage of digital technology is it allows the same heartless people who convince you to buy this years must have two wheeled Christmas skateboard to do the same kind of marketing with apps and digital media! Creating digital waste that only takes up storage on your phone/computer as opposed to plastic waste in a landfill or more likely the ocean. In Situations like this Digital art can become a very powerful tool; uncategorized and unconstraint, artists may use these new technologies to address and solve problems with civilization.

So I wouldn’t really categorize myself as a digital artist, my practice deals more with physical technologies - though this often lends itself to the use of some digital applications.

In all honesty future terrifies me. I intend to help cure the loss of physicality in technology rather than perpetuate it. I believe in humble machines used as human aid rather than inhibition and control; machines that cannot betray you, penetrate your securities or condition you for mass manipulation. When everyone uploads their soul to the cloud I’ll be the one with the aluminum foil hat driving a bio-diesel tractor through the computers at your server center.

4. The theme of Nature seems to be very important to you. Why ? Does it just inspire you or do you want to deliver a message ?

I used to think I was using the field of Art to articulate similarities between technology and nature, contrasting the two in a paradoxical way, in a hope to create dialogue about the current state of our environment. I now realize that’s not the case. Nature is inherent to technology and symbiotically exists as an infrastructure to almost everything I do and everything to do with technology. The same way I have developed an understanding of how to work with technology (through deconstruction) I have been applying to natural and social systems.

I use machines to model systems that interact with ecology and sociology. Aiming to empower or translate closed systems into tangible medium: a flooding river was given a voice; a goldfish held mercy to a cocktail party, synthesizers are controlled by an active volcano and in the Amazon mercury vapor rises above a golden statue in an illegal mining town. This myriad of encounters from ecological to political give rise to contrasts as paradoxes become diluted. With this theory I encourage anarchy as a praxis for reconstructing society and ecology - not vandalism as a means catastrophe.

[archiveofprolbems]

The Shadows By Megan O’Grady

These days, artists of all kinds are expected to be available for public consumption. But a small and highly influential group of them has chosen to disappear from society in favor of letting their work speak for itself. What does it mean to be inaccessible in an age of oversharing?

FOR THOSE OF us old enough to remember an era when we didn’t account for our existence on social media, when we could attend a dinner party without being tagged like a shot deer on someone’s Instagram story, when privacy was respected and deeper meanings had room to quietly take root and bloom, it is no surprise to see artists flinching from the din of publicity. How can we really look and listen when we are so busy being seen and heard?

Art, as Susan Sontag wrote in a 1967 essay, “The Aesthetics of Silence,” has acquired a spiritual quality in secular culture, becoming a place to reckon with and question the human project and, perhaps, even transcend it. To create, in other words, isn’t only about self-expression; it is also a realm of mystification, satisfying our “craving for the cloud of unknowing beyond knowledge and for the silence beyond speech,” as she puts it. Silence is an essential part of the creative process, opening a space for contemplation. “So far as he is serious, the artist is continually tempted to sever the dialogue he has with an audience,” she goes on. To withdraw from the public is “the artist’s ultimate otherworldly gesture: by silence, he frees himself from servile bondage to the world, which appears as patron, client, consumer, antagonist, arbiter and distorter of his work.”

All art legislates between private and public spheres; it has also often been a way of hiding in plain sight, a place for coded identities, for the obliqueness of lyricism. As Marcel Proust claimed, “That which enables us to see through the bodies of poets and lets us look into their souls is not their eyes, nor the events of their lives, but their books, precisely where their souls, with an instinctive desire, would like to be immortalized.” And so it fits that Sontag — both an outspoken critic and a novelist — would appreciate these tensions: the artist’s need for abstraction and ambiguity, the critic’s desire to elucidate. That she wrote this before the art market exploded, before artists were deified and cast as saviors of a broken world, before we looked to them not only for beauty, inspiration and affirmation but also for a form of self-critique, surely had a lot to do with her own fraught relationship with celebrity. Sontag, one of the last public intellectuals until her death in 2004, knew firsthand the cost of attention: what a distraction it could be; the risk of self-censorship to buff one’s own image. (Even posthumously, her biographer, Benjamin Moser, took her to task in his 2019 book, “Sontag: Her Life and Work,” for not speaking out about her own sexuality during the AIDS crisis.) Today, we expect artists to perform a public role, to assent to interviews and magazine profiles in which they explain and justify their work, to attend openings in enviable clothes, to hold forth on feminism and racism and social injustice and the latest catastrophes, political and environmental.

YET THERE HAS always existed a small but powerful shadow world of creators who have managed to outfox public expectation to varying degrees, evading de rigueur press and book tours while making their impact resonantly felt. Some have pulled this off with pseudonyms, among them Banksy and Elena Ferrante, who has written copiously on the liberation she found in detaching her public face from her work. Others have employed alter egos to convey their message, like David Bowie, who adopted the persona of Ziggy Stardust, an alien rock star who comes to Earth with a message of hope only to be destroyed by his fans and his own excesses. It is one of music’s great commentaries on fame, created at a time when Bowie himself was self-destructing in celebrity’s glare. As a critic whose work hinges on the notion that there’s a great deal of value to be learned from the particular contexts, personal and otherwise, in which art is made, I find myself shuttling between two impulses: the desire to get closer to those difficult truths and to understand the very real costs to exposure. I want to protect inspiration’s riverbank, those Romantic “thoughts of more deep seclusion,” as Wordsworth put it, while also making space for the kind of powerful storytelling possible in art, stories that, so often these days, seek to fill a historical void.

Rare, in fact, is the artist who has succeeded in entirely separating personal identity from work, like Martin Margiela, one of the most influential designers of all time despite the fact that few fashion insiders know what he looks like; his name has become a metonym for avant-garde cool. In fine arts, withdrawal from public life is often interpreted as an extension of a larger artistic project, as when the conceptual artist Lee Lozano pulled a Duchamp and retired with “Dropout Piece” around 1970, refusing contact with longtime friends and collaborators and essentially drawing a frame around her own absence, writing in her notebook that it was the “hardest work I have ever done,” because it “involves destruction of (or at least complete understanding of) powerful emotional habits.” Cady Noland, still among the highest-selling living female artists, stopped showing her work around 2000 and even began to disavow some of it: In 2011, she renounced a damaged 1990 silk screen, “Cowboys Milking”; in 2014, it was her 1990 sculpture “Log Cabin Facade,” which had been extensively restored without her consent or consultation. Like that of the interventionist artist Laurie Parsons, who left her art career in 1994 to become a social worker, these women’s departures feel not so much like the “ultimate otherworldly gesture” but rather a deliberate form of resistance to a patriarchal and market-oriented art world. But few artists have been as successful at this kind of recusal as a form of protest as David Hammons, among the most respected contemporary artists despite the fact that he rarely submits to interviews (he likens them to police interrogations) or attends his own openings. This, too, has largely been viewed as a commentary on the art world’s smug — and still largely white — self-regard, but the artist, who is black, has said that he is simply too private to talk about where his work comes from, that doing so would feel like a bodily violation.

Hammons is famous enough to let his work largely speak for itself, not unlike the author Thomas Pynchon, whose reclusiveness hasn’t diminished his eminence or influence on American letters (arguably, the opposite is true). And yet withdrawing from public life entirely is never without risk: I suspect for any Pynchon or Greta Garbo or Hammons there’s someone like Lee Bontecou, who was one of the most exciting names in 1960s art before she left New York in the early 1970s and faded from view. The first woman represented by the powerful gallerist Leo Castelli, Bontecou was known for her strikingly original, imposing wall reliefs made of steel and canvas; often, they featured the motif of a black hole. At the time, it almost seemed as if she had disappeared into one of her own works when in fact she’d only moved out of the city with her husband and daughter (and continued to teach at Brooklyn College for the next two decades). She never stopped making art, as a 2003 show at the University of California, Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum revealed: Over the course of three decades of relative isolation, her work had evolved into more delicate, elaborate sculptures that evoked celestial bodies, solar systems and star charts. It’s hard to imagine that without this period of seclusion it would have looked quite the same. Her story is a reminder of just how arbitrary — and how irrelevant — public accolades can be to creation itself. As the artist once told Ann Philbin, the director of the Hammer, “I’ve never left the art world. I’m in the real art world.”

How much do we need to really know about the artists we admire? I thought of this recently when reading a Pitchfork profile of Dan Bejar of the music act Destroyer, who claims that some of his best shows have resulted when he turns his back to the audience and sings toward his bandmates. “As a member of the audience for all the shows I’ve ever seen, I just wanted to be flummoxed. That’s all I ever ask from art. Just stagger me, stop me in my tracks. We don’t need to go through something together,” he said. But surely we do go through something together — or at least, that’s the spell cast by the song or novel or film we “love”: The very language we use to talk about art is suggestive of romance. It’s difficult for me — hearing the voice, reading the words — not to feel a connection to the person behind any creative work that succeeds in truly flummoxing me. Like love, this experience of art is rare and real and wonderful and ultimately unpin-downable; like love, it is privately felt and personal in origin yet publicly affirmed by our culture. And so we seek to know more, to maybe even find ourselves in the artist’s story and become part of its mystery. It’s worth the risk, we think, of actually solving it.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/13/t-magazine/artist-recluse.html

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Valentin Ozich (u/iloveuglyteam) of I Love Ugly, a brand that makes every day premium menswearSome stats:Product: every day premium menswearRevenue/mo: $300,000Started: October 2008Location: Auckland CityFounders: 1Employees: 20Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?My name is Valentin Ozich. I'm the Founder and Creative Director of the men's premium streetwear brand; I Love Ugly.I started the company in 2008 out of my bedroom with zero experience in business or fashion. I studied Graphic Design and was pretty good at art, but my greatest strength is my ability to manifest whatever was going on in my mind into something tangible. This was how I Love Ugly was born.Despite being based in Auckland, New Zealand I had ambitions to create a global brand but had no idea how I was going to do it. I felt that being from New Zealand and so isolated from the rest of the world would give us something unique to offer and become an advantage.I identified there was a gap in the market for high quality, premium streetwear catered to men at an affordable price and sold primarily online. After having a clear path of which part of the market to hit I was relentless, especially since I became an unexpected father at 22 years of age with only 3 weeks to prepare, I had no choice but to succeed.I was never afraid to experiment and cast the net wide early on, but at the same time, I had a clear sense of direction for what I wanted to create. After a few product failures, I began having some successes and things began to get going quite quickly with a few hit products that were launched innovatively through social media.Some of these products have gone to sell upwards of 50,000 units/pieces globally and are still some of the strongest sellers today. To this day, I still have the goal of I Love Ugly becoming the best online menswear brand in the world. I Love Ugly is over 10 years old and feels like it’s just getting started.Despite a few setbacks along the way and despite my lack of skills when I first started out, I believe we are back on the path to hit that goal and are proof that with a bold dream, ambition and hard work anybody has the potential to turn an idea that began out of your bedroom into a multi-million dollar business.imageWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I began I Love Ugly as a clothing brand in 2008. Prior to that, it was a magazine interviewing artists that I found on MySpace.I quickly found out there was little money to be made in magazines and for some reason felt clothing would be an interesting space to play in, and I Love Ugly would be a very intriguing name for a fashion brand. Although I studied Graphic Design, I knew nothing about clothing, but I could see what the silhouettes and design looked like in my head, plus I was a pretty good illustrator and had graphics ready to be printed on T-Shirts. I had no interest to learn how to sew, as I knew it would slow me down while I was growing the business. Instead, I went out and looked for someone that could, and discovered the art of delegating. Most people think that when you start out you need to know how to make the product, but it's not necessarily true. I believe it’s more important to have a vision of what you want and learn how to get other people to make it.Since my partner and I now had a daughter and I was fresh out of university, I had to be the breadwinner and fast. I couldn’t find work in design due to my lack of experience and being 2008, right when the global financial crisis hit, jobs were scarce. So in order to survive, I began working at a bank. As soul-destroying as this was, it gave me the motivation and clarity to figure out exactly what I don’t want to do in life. I quickly figured that it was better, to be honest with yourself and chase your dream even if it meant temporary pain and a lack of money than to work in a comfortable job that you hate. This realization is what fueled me when I would often be working until 2-3am putting swing tags on garments, emailing wholesale accounts and figuring out the next steps of the business.I often have people asking me for my advice on how to start their business or how to figure out which product to make or how to find time to start a business. My answer is to just start. I truly think people don’t need any more motivation, advice, knowledge or market research they just need to start, but the product out there and see how the market responds. At the end of the day, the market is going to be your best and quickest teacher.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.When I first began things were messy. I would print my designs on T-Shirts purchased from a blank apparel company. This was to get a feel for what the customer wanted without committing to big minimums. This printing was all done in New Zealand. People liked the designs and were requesting garments that weren't just T-Shirts.From here I wanted to expand into other garments and found a seamstress/ patternmaker and explained what I wanted and started by using an existing pair of pants as a starting block. She came back with a sample, and they weren't quite right. We went back and forth around 10 times to get the right fit. Once it was right, I had to find a manufacturer that would produce low minimums and also give us credit terms (because I only had a few thousand dollars at the time, I couldn’t afford any upfront payments). I think I may have only produced 20 or 30 pairs of pants for the first run. I ended up finding this manufacturer on Google, and they also happened to be local which made it easier to communicate and get a feel for how the production process works from start to finish. They were hesitant with my small orders, but I sold them my dream and pretty soon they were on board with the idea. I learned that when you start out not everybody is going to be on board with your idea. Even friends and family members will make you second guess yourself just because they had a failed business or knew someone that did. You got to learn to ignore the naysayers and realize that rarely will you be criticized by someone who is doing more than you. You will only be criticized by someone doing less, or nothing at all.Once I sold these pants, I repeated the same process with other garments. Some worked, some didn’t. I kept production in New Zealand for the first 3-4 years until I felt comfortable with who my market was and when my volume began increasing. I also think this is a good idea for other startup brands. Although the margins are going to be significantly smaller producing locally compared to producing in China, you get to de-risk your business, experiment with low minimums, learn the process and of course receive market validation. The last thing you want to do as a start-up brand is to go offshore because it's cheaper, sink a lot of money into it (because it will all be upfront payment) and be stuck with 100s or 1000s of units of a particular style that you can’t sell because no one wants it and nobody even knows of your brand.imageHere’s me arranging a T-Shirt at a photo shoot. To this day, I still attend every photoshoot we do, and have for the last 10 years.Describe the process of launching the business.I was very fortunate growing up in the era when social media was still in its infancy. A lot of other brands were run by people a lot older than me meaning social media was still a little foreign to them. Since I had no money, and couldn’t afford conventional advertising through magazines etc social media was my go-to. Very early on I figured the importance of developing a personality for the brand and made sure this personality shines through in our marketing. I used Facebook and Tumblr as my primary platforms in the early days and spent a lot of money boosting our posts to get our message and product in front of as many people as I could afford as I knew that the masses would quickly cotton on. *Please note I funded this whole process from a few thousand dollars I had from savings, selling the product, living a frugal life and reinvesting everything back into the business.The next step was creating a website. Once again, online shopping was in its infancy which is crazy to think being only 10 years ago. The first website didn’t have an online shop built-in, it was simply a brand promotion page with our lookbook and other information for people to learn more about us.After the rise of Facebook, I figured an online store was imperative as that would be the most effective way of driving traffic to the site. That was quickly built and money slowly started to trickle in. Things started to gain a little traction until I reached a point where I had to decide whether I was going to fully commit to the brand, or just do it part-time while working for somebody else. To be honest it was an easy decision. I quit my job and focused on the brand full time. From there, things started progressing very quickly, although it was still very challenging, I became addicted to figuring things out. That was one of my first lessons about the power of focus and how it can quickly transform things.The most challenging part, in the beginning, was managing the cash and inventory. I would say numbers weren’t my forte and because of that, it was what was stressing me out the most. I couldn’t see the scoreboard of what was going on in the business. With fashion and any other inventory business, it's imperative to have tight grips on your inventory and most importantly having tight management of your cash flow. Most people don’t realize how closely linked these two are. If you make a bad inventory decision today, it's going to affect your cash flow 6 months down the track, and the last thing you want to do is discount your products to get a cash injection and devalue your brand at the same time. There are so many different moving parts in this business, you’re paying deposits 6 months in advance, balances of the current season, plus you will be at different stages of 5 different seasons. I needed to upskill myself in this quickly if I wanted to survive.I knew that in order to make this brand a success I would need help with the numbers, inventory management and getting the business operations in order so I could focus on what I was good at which is the product, the marketing and growing the business. I would recommend immediately getting someone who is savvy in these 2 areas if it's not your forte, once you start the business or at any point during the business. Don’t be cheap, you cannot afford without these people. Having this person in control creates a dashboard of whether or not you progressing forward or going backward which you can look at and make high-quality decisions as an owner. Most fashion brands that go out of business lack strong management in those two areas because they are run by creatives who believe they can design their way out of any problem. Big mistake.I was on the hunt for this person. I had a friend who I had met at my previous job, who was crafty with numbers, systems and understood what I was trying to do for the scale the business was at. I asked him to come on board, but could only afford to pay him a few 100 dollars a week and if it worked out and he proved himself, he could potentially buy into the business. A year later he bought in. 12 months after that we made our first million and became one of New Zealand’s fastest-growing businesses (based off percentage growth) and the rest was history.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Authenticity. If you go around chasing every trend and only focused on yourself and money, you’re going to lose very quickly. There have been many times where we have been tempted to do this but stayed true. Sure we sacrificed sales, but we kept our integrity, played the long game and people saw and appreciated that, and really began emotionally investing in the brand.​The #1 reason we attracted customers was that we were so focused on making the best product possible, BUT ​on the same token, didn't do it for us, we figured what people didn’t have in their lives and made it​ for them​. We rang customers asking them questions about what they liked and didn’t like about the brand, it was old school but it worked. Pretty quickly we developed a wealth of information that was the foundation of who we are today. People wanted quality, detail, consistency, a point of difference and options at a fair price. It was our job to interpret this information, go over and beyond what they expected and create a product they needed and we succeeded. As Henry Ford said “if I asked what the people wanted they would have asked for a faster horse” so we always made sure we had a point of difference to other brands in the market.We focused a lot on building our mail database as it would mean we would become less exposed to the volatility of social media, which is what happened when Facebook became less popular. We built this list through competitions and email pop-ups, giving them exclusive access to content and early releases​, which no one was doing at the time​.I was a big believer in multiple ​brand ​touchpoints. So whenever people got on with their lives, I Love Ugly would be there interacting with them. Not selling them stuff, but creating value, thorough how-to guides, hacks on how to become a better person, curated music playlists and even how to dress​ as an example​. People began seeing us as more than just a clothing brand and more of a lifestyle brand that they needed in their lives to become a better version of themselves. We have created many campaigns around this, with our most notable being a campaign called: GENERATIONS. Where we had old people dressed in I Love Ugly talking about their regrets & young people dressed in I Love Ugly talking about their dreams. The whole message was to never give up on who you want to become.To this day, this is ​still ​our strategy, and we are soon about to enter the auditory market by launching our Podcast called: The I Love Ugly Audio Show. The whole idea is to give massive value. I interview top performers in an array of different industries, fashion, politics, health, sports, music, comedy and break down the tools and tactics​ they use to succeed so other people can replicate. As well as this it will be recordings of our brand meetings and me doing random rants about certain topics.Not everything that matters can be measured and people too often get caught up in the science and analytics of growth​ and ignore the art, because it can't be measured​. At the end of the day, if you hear a podcast of someone you like or see an ad, or even receive a mailer, you often just jump straight onto ​​google. So it's important as a brand, ​that ​you are constantly making noise and constantly giving your audience huge value. ​You can't go wrong with that.​imageOne of the how-to guides we often release to help people become better versions of themselves.Image from our campaign titled: GENERATIONS.imageimageHow are you doing today and what does the future look like?Things are great, but can always be better. We have stripped ​away the noise ​by ​cutting​ all our ​distributors (because of low margin, strain on our financial model and cash and the attention it required)​​​, 95% of our wholesalers​ went away because we didn't offer credit terms and because we began releasing closer to the season​, plus we cut a few of our own stores to focus primarily online. It was a bold move, but the best decision I made.For the last 2 and ½ years we have focused on 1 thing, customer retention. Its human tendency to get caught up in the exciting things like growth, acquisition and new customers. That's the most obvious answer on how to grow a business, but usually, the most obvious answer isn’t the right answer. Usually, companies focus on the acquisition with no focus on keeping the customers they have. They are more often than not, taking there existing customers for granted. Now I’m not saying growth is bad, I’m just saying there are smarter ways to do it, which can also seem counterintuitive.Ask yourself this question; imagine how big my business would be today if I kept every single customer that has ever bought with me? Most businesses would be enormous if this was the case. This question startled me and made me realise that before ​we​ go off acquiring ​we​ need to make sure ​we are keeping the customers ​we already​ have. The last 2 and ½ years were spent, fixing our systems, our customer service, getting rid of the people that didn’t fit ​within our culture and mission and just doubling down on serving our customers better. Retention became our key metric which we obsessed about. As a result, our business began growing sustainably, people were happy and became raving fans. We now have a solid foundation to build off, so now as we begin the acquisition stage again, these new customers are going to be having the best experience possible and won’t want to leave while the customers we have will also be thinking the same thing.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Absolutely. I’m a huge believer that no matter how bad the situation, you got to always look for the lesson, as there is always a lesson. One of the biggest mistakes I made was ignoring profits and being obsessed with growth at the expense of everything else. We grew from 0 to just under $10,000,000 in just under 7 years. We had a flagship store in LA, Melbourne, Sydney, and 4 Flagship stores in New Zealand plus a big license deal on the cards in South Korea. We had 7 global distributors with over 200 accounts stocking our product globally, and an online store that was only going from strength to strength. Despite all of this we didn’t have our basics in place, and the rug was slowly being pulled from underneath us without us realizing it. We were so focused on looking impressive, we lost sight of what was most important. Big mistake. In 2015 we made over $1,000,000 net profit (before tax). In 2016, we lost $1,000,000. I lost my house, my car, had to shut down stores, get rid of our distributors, cancel brand license deals and had the bank give us a 7-day notice to pay back all outstanding debts otherwise they would foreclose us.As a result of this, I had to buy out my business partner who didn’t want to carry on. Liquidators were calling me to say that I had to liquidate the business and declare for personal bankruptcy and that I was acting recklessly as a Director, the staff was quitting, everything was diabolical.Fortunately for me, I had spent the last 3 years working on my mindset and psychology and had the tools and mental toughness to endure this challenge. I'm not going to lie it was the toughest, most gruelling, embarrassing and humiliating time of my life and was ashamed to have put my wife and 3 kids through this. I was broke and we had to move into a 2 bedroom granny flat for 18 months while I sorted this thing out.I decided to take my own advice and looked for the lesson in the situation. I did some intense reflecting and learned that I needed to be patient and do things right, rather than fast. Looking rich isn’t the same as being rich. There was no rush, it's better to create something that's small and strong, than big and fat that is one mistake away from going bankrupt. I learned to know my numbers better than I can design products. I learnt that it's better to hire an experienced merchandise planner than it is a fancy New York PR Showroom. I learnt that growing a business isn’t just about your skills and abilities, but the culture you cultivate and the people you bring into the team. Most importantly I learned that no matter what happens, never let go of your dreams. I’m nothing special but managed to turn around this brand that was deemed bankrupt and everybody calling me a failure into something pretty special today.Regardless of what happened, and how hard it was, I wouldn’t wish for anything different as it’s made me the man and businessman I am today. Although the brand isn’t generating the same revenue as we were in 2015, we are more profitable, we are growing around 20 - 25% a year, the team culture is amazing, and the quality of work we are producing is fulfilling and we are on track to being significantly stronger than we were a few years ago.What are the main platform/tools do you use for your business?Website: ShopifyEmail: KlaviyoSocial: Instagram, IGTV, Facebook, and LinkedIn(Just starting here)Blog.Podcast (coming soon)Accounting: XeroPurchase Orders / Inventory Management: Cin7What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I have spent a lot of money and time on personal development and self-education. In fact, before I began reading business books and worked on my mind, was when I had the majority of my problems.The business was a mess. I was unorganized, frazzled and stressed all the time and didn’t know how to grow the company. I let setbacks ruin my day which hindered my ability to grow. I let the business consume me and didn’t invest any time into myself. One day, it felt like I hit rock bottom. I was depressed, frazzled and felt empty. I opened up this old book which I found in my house by Tony Robbins called Awaken The Giant Within. Boom, there was one sentence in there that got me hooked and awakened something within me. My life and business turned around from that day on. I worked harder on myself than I did on my business, and my business grew as a result of it. Once again, it seems counter intuitive but I can’t emphasize how true it is. To this day, I don’t understand why people don’t read, listen to audiobooks and podcasts to help grow their businesses when they know it will. There's so much information out there, it's impossible not to find the answer you’re looking for.There was a period in 2017 when the business had to go through a big restructure. I sold my house to inject capital into the business and buy out my business partner. Although I didn’t have the money, I used a loan shark to borrow $15,000 for my wife and I to fly over to Australia to attend a 5-day Business Mastery and Personal Development Seminar. I must have got over a million-dollar return from that investment. Don’t let money be an excuse.Best hardcover & audiobooksTony Robbins; Awaken The Giant Within & Unlimited Power.Napolean Hill; Think & Grow Rich.James Allen; As A Man Thinketh.Claude Bristol; The Magic Of Believing.Keith Cunningham; The Road Less Stupid.Grant Cardone; The 10x Rule.Seth Godin; This Is Marketing & Purple Cow.James Clear; Atomic Habits.David Goggins; You Can’t Hurt Me.E-Myth Mastery, Michael Gerber.Ray Dalio; Principles.Best PodcastsThe I Love Ugly Audio Show https://www.iloveugly.co.nz/pages/podcastTim Ferris Show.Joe Rogan.Gary Vee.London Real.Impact Theory.How I Built This.Ed Mylett Show.Tai Lopez Show.Tony Robbins Podcast.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?You got to realise that what you are getting into isn’t going to be easy. It can be a lonely ride sometimes. The self-doubt, the constant rejection and the feeling of quitting on a daily basis are common patterns with all entrepreneurs. Sure, you hear stories of people starting an app and a year later sells it for millions of dollars but you need to know the exception isn’t the rule. Make sure that what you are doing is coming from a different angle, you need to make sure you’re adding value to people's lives or making their lives easier in some shape or form. You need to play the long game and be very patient, as there's no exact formula of how long it’s going to take. Ask people for their honest opinion and get your emotions out of it. Hear it from a pragmatic point of view. You will be surprised by the answers and golden nuggets you will get if you ask people to be transparent and honest. Fall in love with your customers and meeting their needs, as opposed to falling in love with your product, as the last thing you want is a product you think is perfect but nobody else wants.I would also like to stress that 20% of the success of your business is going to come from the quality of your product, service and business acumen and 80% from the psychology you have. If only I knew this when I started.What I mean by this is you’re going to get stressed. You’re going to feel lost sometimes. You’re going to get frustrated. You’re going to lose money and sleep. People are going to disappoint you, laugh at you and talk behind your back. Factories are going to make mistakes, but you need to know in business and in life, that this is normal. You need to learn to anticipate that these things are going to happen rather than react and let them defeat you. I'm not saying these things to discourage you, I’m saying these things to make you stronger, and increase your chances of success by becoming more aware. When most people encounter these problems, they quit. Because it's easier and it’s the same thing to do. However, an entrepreneur pursuing his dreams and passions isn’t the norm. They see the world differently and don’t opt into a cookie-cutter existence. Embrace these qualities, as it’s a very special trait. When you do encounter problems, which you will, I hope this advice helps you to see the situation in a different light. As opposed to seeing it as a problem, try and see it as progress and try to find the seed of a new idea, a new opportunity or what to do differently next time around. If you can do this, nothing will get in your way. Good luck.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?Not at the moment but I’m always on the search for hungry, ambitious and skilled people. They don’t have to be based in New Zealand either. Get in touch.Where can we go to learn more?Company: www.iloveugly.comInstagram: iloveuglyFacebook.com/iloveuglyPersonal: instagram.com/valentinozichIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

[theliterateape]

Chris Churchill Saves the World | The Misguided Art of Defending Misguided Art

By Chris Churchill

We love to be entertained. Maybe it’s a side effect of having tamed our environment so well in the last one hundred years or so that we only have to work eight hours a day to keep a secure existence. Maybe it’s because working (as it is for most of us) is a miserable part of our lives and we need entertainment to save our brains from the repetition that puts undue stress on our bodies. So, maybe “love to be entertained” is only one way of looking at it. Maybe that’s just for those with nothing to do. Maybe many more of us need to be entertained. It’s a lifeline to our very sanity for much of human civilization.

I have my go-to sources of entertainment. I’m one of those people who you laugh at because they’re screaming along with their favorite music on their car stereo. Queens of the Stone Age makes me feel strong... or vulnerable... whichever one I need. Ween makes me embrace my own feelings of oddness and cleverness as well. Prince or The Beatles make me feel strong, clever, wise, and/or powerful on a good day. When I had a mental health crisis in 1999, Radiohead’s OK Computer gave me sufficient rest from “all the unborn chicken voices in my head” so that I didn’t completely melt under the heat and gravity of my own illness.

Comedy does it for me too. Usually comedians I’ve followed for years; the ones who feel like old friends. 

It’s the old friends thing that can really cloud your judgment, though. Not just that, but rather the idea that you have any personal connection at all to these sources of entertainment. (I mean they aren’t old friends, you know. They aren’t family, you know. But a HUGE part of their job and their success relies on making you suspend that rational understanding that they are not your friends and feel that they are, if only for the duration of their set.)

When one of them proves to be unworthy of your fandom, it’s a tough breakup, isn’t it? 

I’ll admit, I used to love both Bill Cosby and Louis C. K. I truly thought they were good guys who were simply commenting on life’s foibles and the shortcomings of the human male. I have insecurities about much of what makes me male. So their humor felt like an old friend saying, “I get it. I feel that way too.” (Cue laugh of recognition and relief.)

Implied in their onstage personas was also this thought: “But we’re not really going to do the bad thing.” But then you find out that, yes, they did want to do the bad bad things. That changes things, doesn’t it? For me anyway, that changes the whole point of their humor. Then it loses me. Not simply because I don’t want to support a sex criminal (which should be enough) but because the art they had put out there no longer means the same thing to me.

If I try to hold the Louie of his television show, with all his honest introspection about the concerns of modern sexuality and single parenting and if I try to search for emotional truth — if I try to hold that Louie in my head while also picturing the one that trapped young female comedians in a room and forced them to watch him masturbate — suddenly I don’t care about his foibles anymore. I don’t find him to be the lovable underdog anymore. And with that, the point of view and the point, in general, of the joke, vaporizes. The whole stage/screen persona changes from an honest, vulnerable guy into a guy wants you to believe he’s an honest, vulnerable guy in order to trap you in a room.

As far as Cosby goes, who can laugh at his album Spanish Fly, and as a result, any of his humor anymore, now that you know the actual point of view of Mr. Cosby? I can’t. 

“I’m a sexual predator but, God, I love my family. I’ll drug a woman but YOU should pull up your pants.” It falls apart. 

Recent revelations about other celebs have brought these same thoughts to mind as I watch the fan base of R. Kelly debate over social media about whether or not his music should be totally abandoned because of his sexual predation. Of course, the first line of defense for those who desperately need the art that R. Kelly created in their lives, is that other people did the same types of things or worse than their chosen artistic hero (one example I’ve seen is Hugh Hefner) so where’s the anger at him? (Of course, “whataboutism’s for kids”, you know.) Yes, reevaluate Hefner with modern eyes. Do that. But also reevaluate your own heroes when it comes out that they have been awful.

Notice that people who are not fans of R. Kelly have no problem believing the young ladies who are accusing him of assaulting and imprisoning them. Fans of his, the more fanatical the better, create reasons why that either the accusations are untrue (“These ladies want money.”), why it’s not so bad (“I had a kid when I was fifteen and I knew exactly what I was doing.”), or why it is a conspiracy by some outside party to discredit, destroy, or punish their celebrity hero. It’s usually a whole lot of mental karate to protect their emotions of sadness, disappointment, or shock. 

Of course now, thanks to the Michael Jackson documentary, I hear a lot of “They killed Michael Jackson. Now they’re smearing his name with all these fake allegations of child sexual abuse.” Who are they? And why would you do the mental and emotional gymnastics to believe this but not put your mind and feelings through the same ringer to protect a different celebrity? That’s a question about you, not about them. You can go ahead and answer that, if you want. (I know I was real late on accepting that Cosby and Louis C. K. had done the things they had been accused of doing for years.)

The things we do so we can keep listening to the same music, the same comedy, the same television or movies... SMH… It’s crazy how we’ll defend someone we don’t know over someone else we don’t know simply because the first one made up something we  loved or needed and the second one, as far as we know, didn’t. We overlook the fact that art isn’t the only thing that’s valuable. That other person you don’t know is valuable too. Believe me, I understand how art can treat the ailments of the soul. But you know what else does that? Doing the right thing and having a clear conscience about it. 

“Cosby would never do that. You know he was about to buy NBC? They just wanted to bring a black man down.”

“Hugh Hefner wasn’t all bad. I loved that magazine. Even though, maybe it was misogynistic and his little empire may have even promoted abuse. He seemed like my fun uncle, Hugh.”

“Billy Graham was such a man of God. Even if he was hateful to homosexuals and those who opposed him.”

“John Lennon beat his wife. But he went through intense therapy and grew up a lot. But still, he beat his wife. But he wrote ‘Imagine’. But he did beat his wife.”

“Richard Prior was a violent drug addict but he grew from it and got wiser and funnier.”

Sometimes, the facts do fall on the side of the person who did the bad things. Sometimes people grow, repent, and only make relatively “small” mistakes for the rest of their lives, like forgetting to take out the trash. Sometimes they don’t.

Let me suggest that the information on sexual predators shows that there will probably be no growth or repentance for any celebrity who preys on children. R. Kelly preyed on children. I’m sorry if your own life experience tells you that a fifteen-year-old is an adult. It’s not. And you, hopefully, are more mature by far than you were then. Hopefully, no adult forced you to do anything too grown up at that time. If they did, hopefully you aren’t doing any mental karate to protect them. 

The larger point, though, is that it’s not even about repentance or forgiveness. It’s about the new understanding of the original point of view of the art. If a piece of art was created by an artist who created it from their warped perspective on life, then maybe the art doesn’t mean what we think it means anymore. Maybe we were singing or laughing along with the wrong messages. Can we be mature enough to adjust our feelings accordingly?

[nicoleignn]

INMOOV|ROBOT LOVE - digging deeper

INTRODUCTION

In 2012, French sculptor and designer Gael Langevin started his project called ‘InMoove’. It started as a hand prothesis and, over time, developed into a human-size 3D-printed robot that is able to talk, see,  move and hold onto something. It is now even possible to build your own version of this robot, since there is an open access to all information. The network shares the knowledge and innovation about the robot and its technology. Langevin believes that a huge benefit of this project being open-source is that it is enabled to have a wide reach and thereby goes through a larger development.

In 2015, a photographer Yethy proposed to do a photo session in Gael’s workshop with whatever moods and feelings the author of the artwork had.  The photograph they made is the piece I want to apply digging deeper to and express my feelings towards it.  

Unfortunately, I can't post the photograph because of Tumblr restrictions, however, it can be found here : http://inmoov.fr/gallery-v2/ (robot holding a baby)

What I find particularly appealing about this artwork is the contrast and the controversial meaning behind it. Baby skin in the photograph looks very soft, warm and sensitive, while robot ‘skin’ looks rather cold and harsh. Moreover, baby is sitting in a very natural way comparing to the robot, whose moves look dramatically artificial and have absolutely nothing to do with love and happiness that comes from a real person holding a baby. Also, the high contrast dissimulates the face of the baby, just like InMoov seem to come out from the darkness. Robot is not even looking at the baby, its face looks emotionless, and the baby himself/herself is turned away from robots’s face.

All these aspects that I have noticed might be pointing out the down-side of technological revolution. I strongly believe that soul and emotions are the things that separate us, human beings from animals, plants and machines. However, as can be seen through this artwork, there is no way robots can replace humans in these manifestations of humanity, because they are lacking the most important ingredients that I have aforementioned.

Even though the robot holding a baby might have been an attempt to convince that the future of technological revolution is alright and we can absolutely trust robots (since babies are really fragile and the one who’s holding it must be extremely trustful), I wouldn't agree with such statement. This photograph is giving me scary thoughts about our future: are humans going to be replaced with robots? Are robots going to raise children? If this robot is holding a baby, might he/she be baby’s parent? If yes, how does it feel like to be in a relationship with a machine? I do hope that we will never know.

Even though this piece gives me goosebumps, I find it very meaningful and successful, since it has literally brought my ideas about the frightening future to life and gave me some thoughts about the power of lighting, arrangement and photography itself. I feel that a strong quote added to this photograph would make the message even stronger, although, making a poster out of this work rather than a photograph.

3:1 KEY THEMES OF THE ARTWORK

Robot

Technology

Photography

Contrast

Relationship

3:2 WORD ASSOCIATION

Robot: artificial, emotionless, soulless, artificial intelligence, individuality, uniqueness, character, habits, attitude, person, human being, humanity, humanism.

Technology: progress, future, computer, robotic, mechanism, remote-controlled, programmed.

Photography: art, white balance, ISO, arrangement, lighting, background, model, message, hidden message, meaning.

Contrast: black and white, comparison, difference.

Relationship: love, trust, human, real, natural, fake, artificial, unreal, sci-fi, future, disaster, apocalypse.

3:3 RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Hi, Robot’ by Frieze

An article focusing on the second-wave effects of the ‘digital revolution’, or the capacities for automation, AI, and robotics to fundamentally shift the ways we work, speak, relate, love, criminalize and, yes, perhaps obliterate one another. It insists on asking yourself: so will the robots kill us all or will we do it ourselves? In an age of automation and robotics, how will we relate to one another? Do we need a new code of ethics? It also includes a review of the exhibition ‘Hello, Robot”, focused on ‘design’ as an interface between human and the machine. There is a small extract from the article that summaries my thoughts and gives a hope for a better future: ‘If our robots have developed, then our feelings for and against them largely haven’t: they still serve as playthings for us humans to live out our dreams, hatred and perhaps love.’

‘Artificial Amsterdam: The City As An Artwork’ by e-flux

An article about the exhibition, that depicts how the dynamic of cities is causing dramatic changes in society and culture worldwide. Cities are experiencing vast damage, economic, social and cultural shocks that they are not prepared to assume. Amsterdam is the opposite example of a city from disappearing into the waters. The term ‘artificial’ pops frequently when referring to Amsterdam. It does not only allude to the physical character of a city ‘stolen’ to the sea, but to a general feeling about the city’s life, culture, its submission to tourism, its paradoxical ruled liberality… a place where everything is under control, impost card city.

‘All Too Human Dinner” by TATE

This article does not aim to review any artworks, it is rather an announcement, informing that visitors go the ‘All Too Human’ exhibition will be able to have a dinner provided by Tate Britain afterwards. The relationship between the name of the exhibition and picture of food made me think of humanity and our natural habits regarding consuming food, which has become a ritual, even a cult nowadays. Is this food religion going to disappear along with the digital revolution?

3:4 WHAT I THINK ARTIST HAS RESEARCHED WHILE MAKING THIS WORK

Ironically, human body and its functions, in order to build a proper, human-looking robot. As for the photograph, I think he must have researched old renaissance paintings illustrating bright emotions and feelings, human relationship, in order to compare it to relationship between human and a machine. I feel that the famous icon of Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus was taken as an example for the arrangement and composition of the photograph. Comparing Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ to a robot holding a baby is extremely brave and provoking; a throwback to history of humanity and sneak-peak to the future where it might disappear. Obviously, an important aspect of the research must have been human feelings from the psychological point of view; how people are going to view the artwork and what kid of feelings towards it are going to appear, what this piece reminds of and how it can provoke the debate insight viewers’ mind.

HOW THE ARTWORK RELATES TO CURRENT NEWS

One of the most considerable and questionable inventions of our century is, undoubtedly, crypto currency, which arises questions similar to those that appear while thinking of digital revolution and robots: why was it created? How is it going to change our lives? Is it going to replace or destroy the existing system? Cryptocurrency, although being decentralised, is not gaining trust from the major percentage of population, just like artificial intelligence and robots. Nobody knows the true aim of making those aforementioned and how cryptocurrency and robots are going to change our lives. Even though crypto currency, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, is made for human-use, it seems like someone is giving us a hint that soon we will only have digital currency for digital beings.

Since technological revolution is taking our world by storm, this artwork can relate to many current events in this field: the strikingly expressive android child’s face, developed on November 15, 2018 in Osaka University, flexible electronic skin for human-machine interactions, presented on November 28, 2018 by American Chemical society and many more. All these inventions are super promising and high-brow, yet so frightening and warning.

HOW THE ARTWORK RELATES TO HISTORY

The first historical event that pops in my head while looking at this artwork is the invention of the first computer. The first mechanical computer, created by Charles Babbage in 1822, doesn't really resemble what most would consider a computer today. Therefore, this document has been created with a listing of each of the computer firsts, starting with the Difference Engine and leading up to the computers we use today. The word "computer" was first recorded as being used in 1613 and originally was used to describe a human who performed calculations or computations. The definition of a computer remained the same until the end of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution gave rise to machines whose primary purpose was calculating.

I feel that this life-changing invention has started the thing we now call ‘digital revolution' in its worst sense, exposing peoples’ personal space into social media and replacing spiritual values with those non-existing digital ones.

RELATED ARTICLES

‘Hi, Robot’ by Frieze

An article focusing on the second-wave effects of the ‘digital revolution’, or the capacities for automation, AI, and robotics to fundamentally shift the ways we work, speak, relate, love, criminalize and, yes, perhaps obliterate one another. It insists on asking yourself: so will the robots kill us all or will we do it ourselves? In an age of automation and robotics, how will we relate to one another? Do we need a new code of ethics? It also includes a review of the exhibition ‘Hello, Robot”, focused on ‘design’ as an interface between human and the machine. There is a small extract from the article that summaries my thoughts and gives a hope for a better future: ‘If our robots have developed, then our feelings for and against them largely haven’t: they still serve as playthings for us humans to live out our dreams, hatred and perhaps love.’

‘Artificial Amsterdam: The City As An Artwork’ by e-flux

An article about the exhibition, that depicts how the dynamic of cities is causing dramatic changes in society and culture worldwide. Cities are experiencing vast damage, economic, social and cultural shocks that they are not prepared to assume. Amsterdam is the opposite example of a city from disappearing into the waters. The term ‘artificial’ pops frequently when referring to Amsterdam. It does not only allude to the physical character of a city ‘stolen’ to the sea, but to a general feeling about the city’s life, culture, its submission to tourism, its paradoxical ruled liberality… a place where everything is under control, impost card city.

‘All Too Human Dinner” by TATE

This article does not aim to review any artworks, it is rather an announcement, informing that visitors go the ‘All Too Human’ exhibition will be able to have a dinner provided by Tate Britain afterwards. The relationship between the name of the exhibition and picture of food made me think of humanity and our natural habits regarding consuming food, which has become a ritual, even a cult nowadays. Is this food religion going to disappear along with the digital revolution?

BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY

‘Is man a robot?’ by G.L.Simons, 1939

‘Becoming a robot’ by Narn June Paik, 2014

‘A guide to digital revolution’ by PACS, 2006

‘How machines think: a general introduction to artificial intelligence’ by Nigel Ford, 1987

‘Artificial Intelligence’ by Patrick Henry Winston, 1992

3:5 SUMMARY

In conclusion, referring to the expanded research and applying it to the original artwork, it becomes obvious that digital revolution is both a great invention and a huge issue of our age. As anything else, it has both benefits and drawbacks, however, looking back at the original artwork, it seems that those down-sides outweigh the pluses of robots and digitalising process. The more digital creations are being developed, the more humanity is dying. InMoove is a very successful piece that illustrates frustrating and frightening future, a future without kindness, love, individuality and, unfortunately, humanity.

This expanded research gave me an astonishing abundance of thoughts regarding digital revolution and my own artworks. I might relate my art to my apocalyptic view of the future, expanded and developed by this research.

I would like end by summarising the moral of this research through Erich Fromm’s quote: ‘he danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.’

[chazrizart-blog]

Illustrator’s Seminar

In order to give us a better idea of what life after graduation was going to be like for us, some fellow students organised a seminar and portfolio reviews with graduates of our university and course who were working as illustrators out in the field. Here’s what Rose Lloyd [R], Liam Bardsley [L] and Alan Dalby [A] had to say during the Q and A.

First of all, they mentioned that the best way to get noticed by people is by doing competitions like 3x3, but don’t expect to get a cult following overnight getting work is very slow starting which is understandable since people won’t know what you’re about. 

How did you get a sense of  individuality and style?

A- Shapes. [That’s all I’ve written down. Curse past me for not taking notes properly.] 

L- Draw on people who work in the same area as you’re interested in and what makes their work successful, shapes, media, textures and the like. Your work should be the influence the people had with a dash of yourself, until it the you starts to take hold more. You also don’t want to stagnate. Like get stuck in the same pants style for ages. Visual fuel for influences is the key and having many influences from a wide range of places is ideal, you can be influenced by anything!

R- Playing and experimenting. Play with technical details and the layering of textures.

Is there an ideal way to handle quick turnaround work?

R- You can be up until the early hours of the morning doing work for the next day, [Mate I know how that feels I’m permanently exhausted because I’ve gotta make pictures.] However she does her best work when she has short deadlines because it means she doesn’t have time to faff around changing things. 

L- It’s good to sit with the brief you’ve been sent then take a break to reflect on it and mull over what it means and what is being asked of you. When you start to reflect on it it’s good to segregate yourself sometimes like going for a quick walk or having a brew and a biscuit, but always be positive about whatever you’re doing and NEVER AGREE TO SOMETHING YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T DO!!! [That’s quite good advice for life in general to be honest.] 

Is it important to display work in context when it’s on a website? 

It’s important sometimes. If your images present like the website then it’s a good idea to put them together, however some contractors prefer to have a single image so that they can have an open interpretation of your image. [Sorry if that last section makes little to know sense, my notes aren’t as good as I thought they were and I’ve very tired.]

When creating work for editorials are the commissioners supportive?

L- They’re very supportive. Allows an ease of creating work up until a point. They’re usually excited about what you’re going to bring to the table. [Again I blame past me these notes make no sense.] You usually have to send 3 roughs in but usually they’ll pick your first idea because it’s the strongest since it’s the first idea that came into your head after reading your brief. There’s always a chance that your first idea won’t work and they won’t pick it up, you’ve just got to move on and make the one they want. But there must always be a professional relationship maintained at all times, they’re you clients, not your drinking buddies. [Unless you do go drinking with the person whose commissioned you, In which case you can handle that situation on your own.]

What did you do after you graduated? 

Eat breakfast. Make a plan over breakfast. Nobody is going to come to you looking for work, you’ve got to get out there and do it yourself since there’s so much competition out there you’ve just got to keep going! Have a small amount of ‘me’ time but then get straight out there and find commissioners. [But you can play on your phone and network at the same time, social media is a good place to look for commissioners so you could kill two birds with one stone?] You’ve got to approach the industry you want to work in and when you find someone to contact and you’ve sent them your portfolio make sure to follow it up with a phone call, that way you’re not just one of millions of applicants. 

What work do you do when you’ve got no commissioned work to do?

Make work that you want to make and show nothing that you hated making [especially on social media think of work that you hate as if they’re bad selfies that you’d never post because it shows all 8 of your not-existent chins, if you don’t like it don’t post it,] otherwise you’ll be stuck making work like that and hating your existence throughout the duration of the contract. Or forever if you don’t take it out. 

Take in some exhibitions, watch films, gather as much inspiration as you can and envelop yourself within the world of art. Keep yourself busy and thinking, organise your files and stuff, clear out some of your unwanted junk, binge read a book or something. [As someone who would regularly binge read books it’s a really good way to heighten your imagination and your perceptions of words and their imagery. Read an action adventure thriller and draw out the scene that’s depicted in your head it’s so much fun!] 

What would your best advise be?

Ensure you’ve got a handle on your taxes, get indemnity insurance you know adult stuff. [No. Not that kind of adult stuff get your minds out of the gutter.] Patience with your workflow and with all the boring stuff that needs to be done. There is, however a light at the end of the tax hell tunnel, the HMRC do courses about doing your taxes. Which is awesome. [Note this only applies to the UK, I don’t know about anywhere else. Sorry.]

What’s the best thing about what you do as an illustrator?

You get the flexibility of working for yourself, your doing similar work to the people who you look up to and researched and treading in their footsteps, it’s like you’re living the dream! 

How did you find working with agents?

You only pay your agents when they get you work. Rose said that when she was signing to a new agency the deal breaker was that she was able to keep all her clients, they did which is great because it’s really difficult to build up all those networks and to lose them would mean starting back at square one, which sounds quite soul destroying. Some clients won’t talk to you without an agent so it pays to do your research a little and agents can get you jobs overseas that you wouldn’t be able to get on without them.

How do I fit in whilst also standing out?

You are never aware of the whole market, only a portion of it so it helps to expand sometimes but only expand within your chosen sector because you’ll have wasted a large portion of your time which you could spend doing other important things like watering the plants. Keep up to date with current trends for example character designers look at the characters in the latest craze that’s sweeping the airwaves. Or current colours which seem popular and everyone seems to be using in one form or another.   

[heatherdemetrios-blog]

Catalogue Your Weird and Own It

One thing I've been thinking about is how, as artists, we don't fit the mold. We're weirdos--even the most A-Typical, ambitious, logical, and responsible of us. Every now and then, I like to take stock and think about the ways in which I don't subscribe to social norms. How do I rebel? What offends my spirit? What do I just not get? In what ways do I out myself as a weirdo artist? Cataloguing your weird is a great way to see where your heart and values lie. It's an empowering exercise that reveals secret desires, unexpected convictions, and opportunities for wild abandon. Lofty words, perhaps, but true nevertheless.

How are you weird? Make a list. Make it pretty. Put it up and own the hell out of it. You are part of a tribe of iconoclasts and warriors bent on fighting all that is ugly and ignoble, an army that seeks to ignite and awaken and soothe minds and hearts. When you own your weird, you take an important step towards your true self and tumble into acres of possibility in your work as a wordsmith and in your place as a member of your community.

I'll give you an example of something on my list: grocery stores depress me. A lot. It's some combination of the fluorescent lights and air conditioning and the rows and rows of pre-made, packaged shit. The music-god help me, the MUSIC-and all these people pushing around carts looking tired. Bored cashiers and Low Fat this and cases of meat that's already starting to go bad and the marketing on everything, corporation after corporation. What does this say about me as an artist? Well, I'm spiritually sensitive, for one. Lack of beauty, lack of a connection to nature, lack of authenticity--it's something I come up against again and again. It grates. It gets me downright existential. I write so I can better understand the human condition, I write to awaken myself and my readers to the world, to the fact that you have this one life and god help you if you spend it on your phone half the time. It's like this: I want a farmer's market life, not a Safeway life. Do you know what I mean?

How has this realization empowered me? Well, first, I stopped feeling bad that I felt so bad in grocery stores. Instead of thinking there was something wrong with me (oh, Depression, you evil beast), I began to see that this might be a case where something is actually RIGHT with me. The scales have fallen from my eyes and I can't look at this modern, soul-less way of nourishing ourselves as anything but wrong. I want a garden to tend, a basket to put my fresh, unpackaged bread in. I want to see the creativity of the people in my community: the way they artfully display their wares and season their jams and revere the perfect peach. This led me to a few understandings about myself as an artist. One: a love of aesthetics and beauty is a must for me and, I would argue, all artists. BEAUTY IS A VIRTUE,  A MORAL CHOICE. We live in ugly times--how we survive them will be through art that points out the beauty within and without. Art that reminds us that we have souls that have gone a bit dusty with misuse. There is nothing wrong with being physically ill at the sight of ten billion brands of crackers with each box carefully marketed and its contents filled with chemicals.

Two: I began to appreciate my sensitivity, rather than see it as a drawback. My sensitivity is my compass--morally, spiritually, emotionally. It's my way of knowing if I'm on the right track with my work, with how I spend and make my money, with how I live my life. My sensitivity is a gift that I believe was given to me so that I could help awaken it in others. To keep them from going numb, going through the motions. It is also my armor and my shield against everything in the world that would have me pliant and accepting of atrocities large and small.

As artists, we must reject the things that we are repulsed by. Whitman said, "Dismiss whatever it is that insults your own soul." I've very much taken this to heart. Society tells us that we'll be happy with meds and products and fat 401K's and age-defying face creams. Society tells us that we have to work a 9-5 and that we need to brand ourselves and that we can do it all. Society keeps us in a constant state of fear. Society tells us a LOT of things--but do we need to listen? What would radical authenticity look like? How much better would be as writers if we rejected the lure of social media, the crass pop music, the materialism that's running rampant? What would it look like if we gave zero fucks? If we just embraced those longings and urges that we so often ignore--the ones that say, downsize, buy less, live more?

We are not like other people. We just aren't. And trying to be like them is to our own detriment. This doesn't mean we have to be stereotypical artists (alcoholics, lunatics, and the like). You don't have to wear flowy scarves and look for your friends in the ether. But you aren't normal, not if you're the real deal. And it will be quite, quite hard to live a happy life if you constantly reject all those ideas you think are outlandish (Yes, actually, you can sell everything and move to Scotland. It is absolutely okay to not bake anything for your kid's school bake sale every freaking time. Guess what? You're getting old and all that money you're spending on trying to stop time--what would happen if you saved it up for a wild adventure, a writers' retreat, or season tickets to the symphony?).

There are so many ways to live this life. And if current events are teaching us anything, it's that the old systems are broken. I don't know the particulars of your life, the challenges that you face. It may feel like embracing your longings is a pie-in-the-sky dream that will never come true. All I know is, it's time to be awake: awakened to who we are, who we could be, and all the beauty that this corporate, hustling society is trying so hard to co-opt or destroy. At the end of the day, it's all about the bohemian ideals, is it not? Truth, Beauty, Love. As the poet Rabelais said, "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." What is your Great Perhaps? How will you adventure to find it?