#but not everybody got to have that experience so sometimes i see artists who are pretty advanced in other areas

[sailing-ever-west]

it occurs to me that not everybody studied art books religiously as a kid like I did and weren't always taught super useful basic stuff

so random psa for any beginner artists trying to figure out proportions: the eyes go in the middle of the head

This doesn't have to be exact of course and there's always room for stylization but basically the whole area above the eyes is supposed to leave room for the hair, bc it doesn't just sit flat on top of the head separately. If the eyes are below center, the nose and mouth usually end up too small and the forehead is huge. If they're above center, it makes the person's face look unrealistically long and makes it seem like their skull ends at their hairline. Anyway, that's mainly what the cross lines are for on the face, to properly center the eyes. It makes everything else fall into proportion way more easily.

[majorbaby]

it takes a conscious effort to break your patterns of consumption and unlearn the notion beauty, interiority, diverse ways of existence aren't exclusive to whiteness or maleness. part of that isn't your fault. certain music is played on the radio, certain shows survive cancellation no matter what, certain people seem to be able to commit the worst possible acts against other human beings and are excused on account of their creative genius. others are selectively punished, with good reason sure, but still, selectively.

now more than ever it's easier to immerse yourself in art made by people outside of the mainstream. reading lists, free resources, playlists... all this stuff is more accessible than ever, but you've got to make an effort to give it a try. it's black history month, the recs are pouring in, go have a look. or take a chance on something absolutely no one has recommended anywhere and if you find something you like, rec it to someone else because the likelihood is they haven't heard of it.

tracy chapman's "fast car" is one of eleven songs that appears on her self-titled debut album. can you name the second hit single from it? if you're american and you fell anywhere left of center as of the 2016 election, it should be on the tip of your tongue if you were engaged in your country's politics at the time, regardless of your level of actual investment in the system. if not, the next time you're doing a task you need both hands with, washing the dishes, having dinner, doing your makeup, put that album on.

there's a post with over 100K notes on here that i see all the time of bruce springsteen and clarence clemons kissing. there's a part of that that is immediately meaningful to many if you're lgbtq, and a part that is harder for non-black lgbtq people to feel the weight of. but it is worth trying to do and was part of the reason why they kissed so often in the first place. clarence clemons was from norfolk, virginia. he released multiple albums outside of his work with the e street band. they may not be for you, but give them a try.

give enough music, or movies, or books that aren't a part of the approved canon a try, and there's no way you won't find something you don't feel as passionate about as you do about springsteen, siken, the beatles, what have you.

james baldwin was a prolific artist. see if you can't find something of his you like more than giovanni's room.

immerse yourself in ringo sheena, who mitski cites as one of her influences.

if you have difficulty paying attention to music you don't recognize, (i get it) make a playlist that alternates tracks you know and love with brand new tracks. start small. 5 faves of all time, 5 you're going to try out. you won't like everything, but you might find yourself looking forward to 6 songs instead of 5 eventually.

for movies, pick an actor whose performance you loved in something and explore their work. last year i picked whoopi goldberg, also a prolific artist, with a vast body of work that's pretty accessible as a result of her constant, intentional effort.

if you're an artist yourself, you can only stand to improve by getting to know your fellow artists better. so expand your notion of what art is. you can do it for free in lots of cases, and you're spending that time listening to music or reading or watching movies or series anyway, what have you got to lose?

anti-racism sometimes means engaging in real-world narratives of pain endured by brown and black people. that pain permeates much of our art, but we're just as three-dimensional as everybody else, and every aspect of our experiences come through in our work. you know that already, because what else is happening when you indulge in various genres. for everything you love or enjoy, there's a brown or black person who's doing something along those lines, in many cases, those genres wouldn't exist in their current form without the influence of our communities, some more than others, depending on where you're from. you can actually keep one foot inside your comfort zone and dip your toe into something else. that choice is both a joy and a luxury.

[starflungwaddledee]

Hey got a question, is it normal for your heartbeat to beat rapidly wherever you look at really tense or angsty scenes?

It's Just a question I had in mind

putting these together because they're clearly related. i admit these have me a little bit stumped, but i'll take this in good faith and do my best! under the cut because of length.

topics include: physiological reactions to fiction, emotional reactions/empathy of creators, and finally addressing the unspoken question present in asks like this.

"is it normal to have a physiological reaction (heart beat, jitters, excitement, sadness, etc) to fiction"

absolutely! i cannot overstate how common it is to have reactions of any wide variety to fiction. the whole point of storytelling is to make you feel things! the reactions you have, their intensity, and the specific media or genre you'll have those reactions to will vary person to person. in regards to angst in particular, like i've said on this topic before: reactions will vary. some people might get excited, others might get sad, others might feel it like a gut punch but in a really good and cathartic way. none of these are better or worse or more normal or more abnormal than the other.

"do i as a creator have an emotional reaction to the work i'm creating?"

i personally do, sure. i was actually quite explicit in the tags of the comic that came right before this ask that i found it hard to draw, because seeing kirby so sad was emotionally pulverising to me. do all creators? no. do i feel a strong emotional reaction to all scenes? no. or all types of content creation? no. for me, prose is actually much easier to tackle than illustration; i can write trauma and suffering and psychological devastation until the cows come home, but drawing it is a different matter. consuming the work of others is different again. and this is different for everybody. am i somehow morally better or more empathetic than an artist that doesn't struggle to draw characters sad? hell no! being able to represent- in fiction- a strong emotion generally requires that you empathise with or at least understand that emotion. sometimes creators actually have to be able to turn this off to be able to create the content we make; the way we turn off strict adherence to reality in order to write fantasy. if we couldn't do this, content across the board- art, movies, novels- would be flattened to nothing but the cheeriest and most mediocre parts of our day to day lives. no fun monsters (because those aren't real). no challenges to rise above (because those make us sad). no characters who have different experiences to us (because how could we imagine or feel for that). and it would be okay for like... twenty minutes of all books containing 'the sun was shining and i woke up on time and had a yummy breakfast', but then it would suck, sorry. conflict and imagination are the root of content.

"it's just a question I had in mind".

a way to think about this might be; would you ask these questions about genres that aren't angst? would you ask "is it normal to be happy when these characters finally reunite" or "is it normal to feel resolution in response to a happy ending" or "is it normal to feel excitement when a character has their cool hero moment". perhaps it's because your reaction to angst is something you construe as negative, but if you wouldn't doubt your reactions to cheerful content, then there's no reason to doubt the reactions you have to angst either; these are just reactions! fiction is designed to make us feel things, but what you feel will be up to you. no one feeling or response is better or worse than any others.

lastly, i feel like there is an unspoken question here that i don't like.

and maybe you didn't intend it. i'm going to extend that grace to you, and because you seem to need reassurance about this (though i will not be reassuring about this further. i do not like reassurance seeking from strangers and this is a boundary i am setting right now), this is not an attack or even a criticism. your questions are fine if they are coming from a place of curiosity and- i simply assume- that these are new or difficult concepts to you that you have yet to have explored or explained.

but on the good faith assumption you didn't intend it, and wouldn't want to do this again (especially if you message other creators), i think you should be aware.

because it sounds like this: "do the people who make sad/angsty/dark content care at all or are you heartless to the suffering (of these characters). is angst/dark content made by bad people?" i felt it the previous time i got a question like this too when it explicitly stated "you seem like a nice person", as if being a nice person was in contrast with what i was creating.

please. we are just people. the relative light or darkness of the content you make says absolutely nothing about your morals, your real life attitudes, or your ability to be an empath.

someone making cute animal art could be a school yard bully. someone writing a complex sci-fi warhorror fic could be the most altruistic and compassionate soul in the world.

in my experience, creators are some of the most empathetic people i have ever met, and many of them know their craft intimately. these are people capable of stepping into the shoes of others as easily as breathing. of sitting down at their work station every day and finding inside themselves a way to answer "how would this really feel?" so clearly and honestly that they can put it onto the paper for you to feel it too.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I'm so full. I'm so happy. This is everything that I wanted for the tannies. It's so amazing. Never mind its 144p and I'm still learning the lyrics. I had such a blast! Jimin was so cute. Yoongi was so funny and cute and sexy and awesome and just,,, just,,, JUST!!! Couldn't stop grinning while watching their wlive and burst out laughing as Yoongi ended it so abruptly. lol Love you, Yoongi. Love them. Who's doing it like them? Have you seen the Tiffany crowd? Have you seen the concert crowd?!!?

***

It’s a different sort of high being a fan of BTS, isn’t it?

It’s a different sort of joy seeing them be their remarkable, awe-inspiring and goofy selves. It’s so beautiful to see the love they so clearly have for each other. It feels a little too intimate sometimes, and in my experience, this is a feeling that’s unique to BTS. This group is very special. What they’ve got feels genuine because it is.

Jimin was vibing hard. Yoongi’s performance felt electric from start to finish. They spent time together, [*]riding to the venue and leaving afterwards. Its clear as day that Yoongi is happy Jimin is with him, and Jimin wears the respect and love for his hyung on his face. It’s just so easy with them.

And can I just mention Yoongi’s energy during tonight’s concert?

The way he attacked HUH?!

AGUST D???

Christ.

It’s like he gets stronger, wilder, every concert… lol, like I suspected, he’s already a bit too good at this. I’m gonna need him to calm down before the Cali dates. And now that we know we’re getting Tony Montana at a future date, I think we’re all going to really learn to pace ourselves. This could get crazy before long.

Because we’re only three days in and I’m already hanging on by a thread.

What he’s doing to me with these performances cannot be written on the internet.

He fucks me up so bad y’all.

Let me go on a short tangent here:

STD is an acronym that’s known in Korea to mean what you think it means. Everybody knows it. Language isn’t a barrier in this case. When people in Korea hear “STD”? They know what it’s referring to.

Now, what do you think about the way Yoongi introduced his alternate persona: AGUST D in 2016? The way he enunciates that phrase is sickening and intentional. The very mention of his name in the mouths of his detractors is a sickness they get from him fucking them. Or ‘fat dicking’ them, to quote Yoongi. And on that song he spits one of the sickest bars of his entire career. You’re guaranteed to be fucked just by hearing it. I mean just in his name there’s already triple entendres.

It’s mad.

Yoongi has a very peculiar energy. It’s very catlike, but also serpentine and there’s an undercurrent of barely restrained lunacy deep beneath the surface. Hobi is actually more crude than Yoongi in speech and flow, but Yoongi can be so cruel. And that quality, one he doesn’t shy from turning on himself too, coupled with his pragmatic and caustic delivery… lord. He sets himself apart from every other artist alive. Nobody in BTS cuts to the bullshit faster than Yoongi - he’s lived through the consequences of deluding yourself that you’re okay when you’re not. He’s a man who is constantly examining himself, checking his worst tendencies, but never compromising on what he truly believes.

Ugh.

Times like tonight, I look at BTS and feel so much calm. They are so competent, and I’m certain whatever they make, it will be very good. Yoongi has proven that so far with this tour. Yoongi’s D-DAY concert tour is easily the best solo concerts I’ve been to this decade, and I haven’t even attended one yet. But it’s easily the best one. Easily. And I’ve been to a lot (actually been to them), especially in the last 12 months.

That crowd Jimin pulled for the Tiffany’s event is no joke. We’re now at the point where Western celerities know they’re not the main popularity driver if Jimin is also involved. They know the crowds are there for Jimin. And when he eventually showed up, he looked magnificent. Elegant. Polished. Understated. One of these days I want to see Jimin bejewelled and dressed in all primary colours - something more vibrant and queer. But that Tiffany’s event went for traditional and understated and that’s okay. It worked, because Jimin can work anything.

**

Edit [*]: Typo correction. Should include "after", meaning after arriving at and leaving the concert, Yoongi and Jimin spent time together. They arrived separately and left together, spent time together also before and after.

[soleminisanction]

There are very few ""headcanons"" out there that get a bigger side-eye from me than people who try to make Stephanie Brown into a Black girl.

Firstly because that is not a headcanon. That's just a whole-ass retcon created out of thin air. A headcanon would be saying she's a natural redhead like how Morgan Kohan played her on Batwoman, or that she's mixed-race because of the curly way some artist draw her hair. There's definitely flexibility in race interpretations for comics but looking at the blue-eyed blonde-hair white girl and declaring her "actually Black" is not one of them.

Secondly, because I have seen (and sometimes gotten) a lot of harassment from Steph fans aimed specifically at Tim's actual, canon Black love interests and teammates. I still seethe at the memory of this one CBR interview I read back when YJ2019 was running, where Brian Michael Bendis and David F. Walker were clearly there to talk up Naomi and Teen Lantern, and in the middle of their heart-felt conversation about the importance of representation for young Black girls, the interviewer butted in to interject, "But you know who I want to see more of?? Stephanie!!!" This going on while Steph fans on Twitter were going on racist tirades because the book dared to highlight the history of Teen Lantern, a character who was actually advertised to be a part of the book and a new member of the team, instead of giving them more of their white-blonde fav who had never been affiliated with YJ and was never part of the advertising.

Thirdly, she was created and so often written by Chuck Dixon, a blatant racist, and as a result there are so many little scenes of her that have uncomfortable racial elements to them. Like the one where he created a pair of Black girls just so Stephanie could call them "raging morons" to their faces and then later talk about how stupid and immature they are compared to her. (Which I am still convinced was Dixon directly criticizing the much better teen pregnancy subplot from Icon & Rocket). Or the borderline-blackface white savior ""demon"" where she wears a dead gnu and maybe accidentally calls herself a bitch in Swahili. (Disclaimer: I do not speak Swahili, and thus do not know how a sentence structure that should read "I am thorn" turns into "I'm a bitch" or "I'm crazy," but I checked that translation with three different robo-translators and got the same results so, shrug.)

And finally -- god, Steph is just, such a walking avatar of white women's privilege. Her entire thing is demanding that she get her way, never letting anyone tell her no, and still being treated by the narrative as a pure-hearted ""beacon of hope"" that everybody needs to protect and nurture at all times.

The inciting incident of War Games can be boiled down to, "A white girl got told no, and made it everybody else's problem." The first attempted Black member of the Batfamly fucking died during that event and got almost entirely forgotten because people only went to bat for the white girl who caused the whole mess and the white woman who got character assassinated to kill her off.

If Stephanie were Black, she wouldn't exist anymore. Fuck, if she were a brunette or just as butch as Carrie Kelly, she probably wouldn't exist anymore. She certainly wouldn't be Batgirl, I can't imagine Dan Didio replacing Cass with another woman of color.

And it's not even just her? Her father is also a very white character. It is incredibly easy to summarize Arthur Brown as a mediocre white man lashing out at the world for not handing him the success he felt entitled to. Take that petulant entitlement away from him and you lose his entire character.

I'm ranting about it on my own blog instead of picking a fight because everybody's entitled to their own fandom experience and blah blah, but this is just. Yeah. Ugh.

[alwayscryingoverdannyb]

for the tea questions! 1, 4, 11, 15 and 21 - i'm nosy :)

1 How did you come to choose your current profession or lifestyle? profession was an accident. I was a receptionist, then I did backoffice and then I got offered a junior consultant position and seeing as I was overall pretty much fucked I didn't give a damn and said "why not." and then I had a good boss and it made it feel worthwhile to try to get better at it. somewhere along the way the job started to be fun and gave me sense of accomplishment and here I am, a senior consultant :)) as for lifestyle - bruh a ton of therapy. I stopped trying to "fix" things about me I didn't like and leaned into adjusting my life to suit who I actually am. (I'm a 20-80 sunshine-grump mix with extremely low social batteries and fierce need for personal space and time.)

4 Do you have any habits or quirks that others find unique or strange? I actually asked my best friend bc I needed someone else's perspective :D bc how would I know it's strange to other people when it's normal to me? And she said the following: - when I'm really happy about something, I do a small but whole-body wiggle of joy, apparently - I have very specific requirements for temperature regulation (I'm too hot quite often and feel warmer than everybody else 100% of the time. I also takes way longer to feel cold than most people) - I have thick, heavy hair and I put it up in a bun in a very specific way and apparently to other people it's so fast it looks like a ninja trick

11 Do you have any coping mechanisms for dealing with anxiety or fear? yes, I've developed some over the years. when I can't do anything about the situation, I try to distract myself and shift my focus to something else (book/podcast... ideally nothing to do with our reality), I also isolate myself (I rarely want consoling or a pep talk) and go to sleep. and then my brain resets overnight and it's always better in the morning. lots of it has to do simply with life experience - I often say to myself "shut up nerd you always think this and it's literally never that bad." so again. therapy helped.

15 What kind of music do you listen to, if any? there's a reasonably wide range of genres I listen to but I tend to hyper focus on a small selection of artists/songs for long periods of time. like, abt every 2-3 years I have an "eminem month" and then I don't listen to him for a couple years, you know what I mean? but if I go the other way around, I'd say I //don't// listen to anything harder than linkin park, no house, edm, dnb, ska.. and I don't really know the contemporary pop either - no ed sheeran, no taylor, no sabrina carpenter for me. no shade, it just doesn't speak to me. and yes, sometimes it makes me feel like I live under a rock. but that rock is called oasis and I like it.

21 Is there someone who has significantly influenced your life? I'm gonna leave my mom out of this bc that's an obvious answer (and would be like 15k words) but first people to come to mind are two of the bosses that I've had at this job. Possibly first positive/healthy male authority figures I've ever had - them showing trust in me and my professional competence has truly been life changing and confidence building. Also being told "I like you so much as a friend!" by someome who (in my dumb head) only tolerated me, has been a paradigm shift. I think about that moment every time my brain is telling me people must, obviously, hate me.

thank you for asking! I had a lot of fun thinking about these ^_^

[shefanispeculator]

Starwood Rehearsals, a 10,000-square-foot turnkey space that opened in June 2022, offers a blank canvas for creative artists and their teams to bring their brightest ideas to life before kicking off their headlining tours. The massive venue is located outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

Schirmer spoke about the Starwood’s thoughtful design, offering vast space and an intentional blank slate for artists “to create an environment for people that is open to their imagination,” he said. Artists like Ballerini and Shelton (who used the rehearsal venue to create a virtual concert experience during the pandemic) can bring their shows from a visual conception to a true performance with full run-through rehearsals, working out any snags or technical difficulties before reaching their live audiences.

Photo: PRG

Photo: PRG

“I think having been on both sides of it as a music-loving fan who goes to shows, and somebody who's worked in this industry for 30 years now, I think the big surprise — and it has always been when I bring my family out to shows, and they stay after the show ends to see what happens — the big surprise is just how much work goes into, and how much work and activity goes into putting these shows in every day,” Schirmer said, when asked what most fans might be surprised to learn about tour prep. “It's possible that the average concertgoer doesn't understand that we come (to the venue) first thing that morning. We set up that show and it's ready by the time they come in, and then we do the show and it ends and we tear it down, we put it in trucks and we go do the same thing the next day. I think sometimes that gets overlooked. So, it's definitely a big surprise when they understand that something like Rihanna may have 200 employees on that tour and there's 53 trucks and there's 7, 10, 12 buses, and there's all these people that go along with it. I think that's a big surprise for everybody when and if they get a chance to see that, how much work actually goes into it.

Photo: PRG

Schirmer also emphasized that the Starwood Rehearsals space is designed to be private, so as not to allow for distractions when the artists and their teams are working, and to not give away any of the unique elements of the show.

Photo: PRG

Starwood: Paying Tribute To Local History While Looking Ahead To The Future

Located outside of a major city so rich in music history, the cutting-edge rehearsal space pays homage to a since-closed iconic outdoor music venue. The Starwood Amphitheater was a renowned venue located just a few miles from the newly-opened rehearsal building. Preceding Downtown Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater and Franklin’s FirstBank Amphitheater, the Starwood Amphitheater hosted tons of legendary artists in the two decades it served local concertgoers, between 1986 and 2006.

“It's a big part of the heritage, culture and community of Nashville,” Schirmer said of the former venue. “You got to kind of think about how you move into the future. But when it left, it left a big hole in the area. …So, we really wanted to pay homage to the fact that this community grew around this particular venue, and we think that means something to the culture of Nashville and being central to the United States and such.

Schirmer spoke about the Starwood’s thoughtful design, offering vast space and an intentional blank slate for artists “to create an environment for people that is open to their imagination,” he said. Artists like Ballerini and Shelton (who used the rehearsal venue to create a virtual concert experience during the pandemic) can bring their shows from a visual conception to a true performance with full run-through rehearsals, working out any snags or technical difficulties before reaching their live audiences

[nettchan02]

Animals

anthropomorphism

Fairy tale

Storytelling

Narrative

I had a chance to research the automorphism. It seems like it reflects how rehumanised the animals were. I've got it. Shawn disturbs us, and I felt I was the kind of person creating a story for the animals. If I could bring an example, I usually see so many scrolls around the university. I imagined the squirrels. Was each of them picked their head on me and I met they literally tried telling me a story about, like, what are they doing, or they're interested about to know me, or they just wanted to be saying hi to me when I was walking around, or they're interested when I thought of grabbed them when I was seeing them. They are eating. I usually search. Sometimes, I watch how many classmates or artists turned animals into humanisation. The anime also turns animals into human styles. If I could bring an example, there is the B star. There is the bastard heavy metal. It's humanising the animals, like creating a human body, having abs and everything. It's way too humanising. I also got a chance to see each of the oil panes on a modern uh galleries was totally humanising the animals into something I also could pick the example of Winnie the Pooh was also a little bit humanised, or maybe bitcher spots is uh animals got little bit humanised with the child fantasy way, just like we need to put a child fantasy away. They got a humanist, but they might be talking wrongly because I don't know anything specific about humanizing. What will it be? Everybody's thinking, what exactly did it mean? Do you have any particular ideas on what humanizing is?

In the lesson, I saved the lecturer's and the class's perspectives in a document, where my lecturer presented facts and his opinions of anthropomorphism. I personally find that anthropomorphism is a long journey to see in my visual way the meaning of anamorphism. It's like surreal images presenting Alice and Wonderland.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dqzQytBbDvyEYucgrhFNLy8XMpyC3WlZVVC-CzV8FQQ/edit#slide=id.p20

From our discussion with the group, I had a chance to research and mention, uh. The artist who had created it had been writing, and I feel it might also illustrate the plague. Dogs The water ships down these two creations, which are about like the animals living there. Richard Adams's Plague Dogs is about the stories of 2. dogs that had been run away from the shelters because they got experimented on. It's pretty upsetting. How were the dogs treated? It was unfortunate because The dogs don't deserve this kind of treatment, and we could see insights from a dog's perspective. It's a bit tricky because we cannot really learn about animals. Minds or understanding all the animals wanted to tell us a person. Think is giving me so many questions about the theories of the dolphins about the 20PERCENTAGE of brain cells.

It's like smartness, like questioning an animal's brains about how many percentages it could have a dolphin or how many percentages it could have an animal. It makes me question whether an animal could have more like a percentage in their mind. The other creation is the watershed down. It was that kind of animation, Just like the dog's one. It's supposed to be presented on a kid's TV series. I heard this TV series was banned from the kids' channel because it's shoving in a grotesque way of living. The dogs and the rabbits were being treated poorly and experimented on. They wanted to be much more presentable, like running away and wanted to be living. It's like shoving different alterations, like, for example, Peter rabbits when the rabbits wanted to live, eat, and feed themselves because they have to live by something. So they need to eat something to be alive. It's. It's similar to when you go on a safari and can see that. How was this going from the animals? So this small animal, the frogs eating plants, and that plant eater got eaten by a frog, and the frog got eaten by a bird, and the bird got eaten by a lion? So these rabbits don't find their way out of the living. It's pretty sad because even my tutor mentioned when he was watching as a kid, he was crying, and this was. Lifestyles were shown in the plot. It's obviously not like Peter Rabbit, so I've had funny actions, and everything is amusing for the animals. It was like this is the come. Of the way he was in reality, The rabbit has to be run away from the humans and has to be run away from dogs, has to be ended up to be got entrapped and has to be found all racing high. This is like showing an actual perspective, or it's not the camera we put inside a rabbit hole, and we sing inside how a rabbit was acting. It could be questionable why we are humanizing the animals, but this is a perspective that talks of the animals personally, like this house, where we are inside our minds. We put a camera inside those rabbit holes and sang how a rabbit's life was going. We sing the dark sides of the rabbit's life.

The platonic relationship or the physical relationships with an animal how worse it could be and how many taboo gonna be breaking boundaries between the animals and the humans and being turning to like Tel joke or exhausting time like experimenting this love feeling or like letting the animal or letting yourself to turn into some illegal thing to do with the animals¿

[kyrodo]

Sometimes people want some lore in their life and they get way more than they bargained for. I used to listen to Red's stories about marching band and boy scouts and soccer from his younger days. I used to envy him strongly for it. I always felt like my life was lacking in meaningful experiences and getting together with Red helped me make up for it. There are still the days I spent on the Redwall forums that still had a strong impact on me. But before that all I was doing was looking for ways to waste time. Day in day out school homework gaming. That is all my childhood had really and my social life then was not as involved as I would have liked. I didn't keep friends that stuck around anyway and that in mind made it less meaningful.

So I was highly engaged by Red's stories wishing I had been there to share it with him. My existence in comparison felt supplemental at best. And I grew up to do the same as I always have, except it's work instead of school.

Gaming became less and less valuable to me, and I wanted to spend more time around people, like I did when Red brought me to our first fur meets and cons. Cause that gave me energy, that made me extremely happy. And I was stuck looking back wondering if I would ever feel that way again. Vrchat solved a lot of that problem. Irl I never really go anywhere unless Red is there with me, both as an expectation and because he drives me around, and his availability and his energy are both extremely limited.

But on vrchat I don't have to worry about such things. I can hold my own even without Red there and make meaningful connections. Connections where I'm not the person everybody loves to hate like I was with you.

I'm the person everybody loves instead. I'm the cat that everybody adores. I calm people down like Shine, Choskey, and Lupy, people with phantom sense universally seem to enjoy my pettings, people get charmed by the noises I make or think my avatar looks nice. And it goes in direct opposition against everything I suffered in the past that only a select few ever even hear about. I'm the unity expert, I'm the artist, I'm so much to people now when all I was before was somebody to lie to and hurt.

There are definitely times in life you'll wish karma would do its job, but I stopped caring. In the end, in our dynamic I'm not the one that does awful things to people, it was you, and I can live with that. Why you always make decisions to make a bad situation worse, that's for you to explain to people not me. Every cheap move you could have possibly made and I was just along for the ride. All just to be able to post about what I was going through with you. I didn't make all the best moves with you, but you made a deliberate effort to make the worst ones.

Thanks to you though the next time someone tries to be selective about what they acknowledge from me, the next time someone tries to manipulate me, I would crush them.

And I just find it silly, all these attempts to get me to perform angry circus tricks for you and you're the one who Does The Thing. This is the difference between trash culture and an honest person. There is such a huge gap between us when it comes to what we do when we're upset with someone and I am more than happy to point it out to you. You got to comfortable watching shows that normalize people being an absolute problem to society that just can't fucking help yourself.

I was easier to make fun of when you thought I was just someone who faps to furry shota. There are worse believe me, there are much worse people out there and you're inside one.

Like I said, nothing is ever as it seems. Nothing is ever as clearcut as you want it to be. The world doesn't work that way. If you never see the full story about someone you will always be making the same old fucking mistakes with people.

Once upon a time I used to be curious what your story was. I've lost interest. I'm not interested in people I can't get a single word in with without them randomly deciding to give up on me. I'm not interested in people who repost impatient gengar after I've told them I'm waiting for ADHD Red to fix my console who's already overworked at work to fix my fucking console.

I'm not interested in people who keep making assumptions when they don't get what they want right away because they are fucking stupid. I really shouldn't have to provide video evidence every fucking little thing you just don't fucking get cause you're only a visual learner.

You turned something this small and simple completely out of proportion and I don't feel sorry for you at all. If you want to ask questions then start asking the right ones. You wrote this tragedy. You wrote it cause you can't trust a single word from anybody you don't know. No matter how basic the interaction anxiety be like, no everything anybody says that isn't me is fucking lying. You got what you deserved.

If you wanted to live in the shittiest horror plot ever written you found one. The writers seriously had no idea what the fuck they were doing. It's that classic comedic horror where everything everyone thought they knew at the start was exactly what they thought but the only one keeping track is everyone's target. And you know what I prefer pretty boys over fat ones anyway so let's move on. I've got common allergies that are very hard to avoid, I'm not meeting specifications any time soon.

I always wanted someone to perpetually rage against while I'm bored at work. And after what I went through I hardly think pressing the right buttons is a pressing concern.

[xtruss]

An Illustration Shows Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden Racing with the Aid of Walkers. Art By Barry Blitt

Barry Blitt’s “The Race For Office”! The Artist Discusses Hernias, Walkers, and the Joys of Old Age.

— By Françoise Mouly | September 25, 2023

Is the U.S.—long thought to be the land of new beginnings—in danger of becoming a sclerotic gerontocracy? “In a declining society, the images of an aging leadership can come to embody a general sense of withering and decay,” David Remnick writes in the Comment for the October 2, 2023, issue. “A civic nightmare becomes the caricaturist’s dream.” For the issue’s cover, the cartoonist Barry Blitt portrays the irony and absurdity of the advanced-age politicians currently vying for our top offices. Blitt, who, at sixty-five, is a qualified member of the past-their-prime cohort, also drew from his own experience. As a fellow old duffer (I’m nearly three years older than he is), I called him for a kvetch fest and was rewarded with talk of borrowed walkers, missing teeth, lost hair, and some new belly buttons.

So, what’s up, as the kids say? Is it the knee today or is it the digestion?

Right. I’m sure the readers would love to know what’s ailing me. The knees are both fine, and the digestion is top-notch, thanks for asking. But I think you’ll be thrilled to hear that I recently had five hernias taken care of in one day. When I went in, they thought it was going to be two or three, but afterward the doc couldn’t wait to tell me he found five of them. As I regained consciousness, he was excitedly showing me a diagram of what he’d done.

[Laughs.] That was a good day for hernias.

Well, yes, a good day for a hernia doctor to add to his war stories. It’s not like it used to be, where they’d have to cut you wide open. They do it laparoscopically—I think they go in through your belly button. In any case, now I’ve got some new, extra belly buttons. [Laughs.] Also, it was supposed to be an outpatient procedure, but they kept me overnight—I was a bit of a mess afterward. (Is this really going to be part of the interview? I’d rather talk about bitcoin.) But anyway, this was all a couple of months ago, I’m feeling much better now.

I’m so glad I asked. You wouldn’t have told me otherwise.

I was honestly telling everybody, because it seemed like some kind of record. But then I met someone a couple of weeks ago, a woman at a dinner party, who wasn’t impressed at all. She told me she’d once had seven done in one day! And she wasn’t even old, though it likely happened to her because she had delivered three children.

So not the cause for yours, obviously. What did you do to deserve so many hernias? Were you lifting art work?

No, not art work, but for a while, I was playing gigs in New York City and carrying my electric piano and an amp around. Like an idiot, I used to schlep them on and off of Metro-North trains and into taxis, because I was nervous about driving into town. So I’m sure that’s where I got a few of them.

I knew it had to be for the sake of art.

This wasn’t art, but, yes, it was for the sake of fun.

So other than hernias . . .

Right, what else? I’ve got a lot less hair than I had at the beginning of the pandemic. If you’re going to lose your hair, you want to do it gradually over time, so people see you every day and they get to take it in stride.

[Laughs.] But how would anyone know, since you’re always wearing a hat?

Beware of the times you can’t wear a hat—that’s my motto. But everything else is sort of all right. I mean, I’m missing some teeth, too. [Laughs.] I am missing five teeth. Or maybe it’s six. I’ll do a count after we talk. Only one is conspicuous, in the front. I’ve got to do something about that one.

Why are you losing so many teeth? You just wake up and they fall to the floor?

No, no. I don’t know if you’ve had any root canals, but root canals don’t last forever. Sometimes the shell of the root cracks and gets infected, and they have to pull the tooth. So I’ve had a bunch of those. I have “Montreal teeth.” That’s what they call it. We didn’t have fluoride in our water until much later than most places.

Wow!

Although, it doesn’t seem to be affecting any of my friends or my brother or anybody else I know from Montreal—I’ve just got terrible teeth.

[Laughs.] My dentist is nice and always tells me there’s also a genetic component.

Maybe, but my parents have way more teeth than I do. Actually, I remember being quite young and looking at the gaps between my great-grandfather’s teeth. And now I am my own great-grandfather in that way.

[Laughs.] Are there any other ways that you feel like you’re your own great-grandfather?

Well, my mother has a fancy walker, and I take it for a spin when I’m in Montreal. I have walked around the house with it, you know, preparing myself for the inevitable. It’s just a matter of time. But besides the teeth, the hair, the hernias, and probably a couple of other things, I’m surprisingly fine.

[dontdoititsscary]

All the reasons not to try

The Re-Learners lament

(No one needs to read this but me)

I fully understand why some folks who have drawn forever and then develop an interest in developing formal skill dabble their toes in learning and then say ‘fuck this’ and either give right up and go back to old habits (been me a couple times) or burn hot and bright spamming development until they burn out and decide to move on from art entirely(Also been me). 

It mostly feels like the deck is stacked against you - there’s too much information, there’s too many competitive mindsets, there’s too much encouragement that feels hollow and at every step of the way it feels like you have to defend yourself against the question of both ‘why are you not better?’ and ‘why are you not satisfied?’It comes from everywhere. 

When you’re an amateur and you’re a beginner’s beginner, people want to help because it feels good to help and you’re easy to help. People engage with your work because you are an underdog of underdogs. You deserve that help and attention of course. It is a hard thing to truly know nothing and be willing to look to others for assistance. It’s a pretty big trust fall.

When you’re an amateur, but pro in your skills, other amateurs and pros want to help you because you’re also easy to help. For pros- it becomes talking shop with a peer and is probably pretty fun- you’re tackling the high level problems of someone who mostly got it figured out. Other amateurs find you hella aspirational and if they are the kind of peers that are trying to work the engagement numbers (or honestly if they are the elitist type, that kind is less common but definitely exists)- you become the only kind of fellow amateur who is worth it to hitch a wagon to. After all- if we’re going hard on our #grind in the attention economy- you’d ideally want to be friends with, critique and spend your time with artists of your caliber or better - either in skills or engagement.

But when you’re in the middle - when you can do X kinda well, but y needs work - or when you have cool ideas or one skill you’re decent at- your work is publicly flawed and has the nerve to aspire to be better. It looks awkward because it is representative of an incomplete knowledge base and synthesis of skills. Your mistakes look obvious to anyone with a trained eye - even other amateurs. 

Your mistakes look so obvious that it almost looks like you defiantly ignored the right way to do things. People assume you knew how to do things, but your mistakes are 1)laziness, 2) arrogance  3) lack of willingness to improve. Sometimes people get weirdly hostile when critiquing you - thinking it’s their job to shake you out of the complacency they assumed led to your partial success. In a weird sense - you lose the benefit of the doubt.

No one wants to see the lag in between when someone starts to realize the right way to do something and when they are actually capable of it. People don’t know how to help you out of that pit, so they handwave you and tell you you’ll figure it out yourself or they lecture you on mindset and the importance of practice. After all- if you knew better, you’d be better. And if you’re not better, it’s because you’re not working hard/smart enough. Your every mistake is evidence of this. People communicate this all the time without meaning to. 

To occupy the middle spot is to feel both insecure in your skill because there are obvious gaps and yet fiercely defensive of it because people make all kinds of weird assumptions for why you’re not already there yet. Your work is not charmingly ugly. It’s lazy, it’s purposefully misdirected - it’s a sign of your inability to prioritize. It becomes easy to retreat backwards when you feel that pressure at the middle and stick to only what you can already pull off - or abandon the whole thing altogether. 

You push and you grind and everybody goes ‘woah chill, remember balance, duh everyone knows you’ll burn out’. You experiment and everybody goes ‘woah chill your work lacks x or y, are you sure you’re studying enough to try this? Really sure?’ Whatever you’re doing feels wrong. And cause you’re questioned no matter what, you doubt every single choice you make. Which is hell - because if you’re a self taught amateur- part of your job is curating a complete art education- deciding not just what skills to work on, but when and how. Not just all that but learning how to accurately assess your own weaknesses. You learn to distrust your skill, your taste and your closeness to “better”

I went to an in-person art class. The assignment was to draw a cast of an ear, as accurately as possible - nailing the right proportions, shape and eventually value. Before we moved onto any rendering, the teacher wanted to check our proportions. He said to me - ‘do you know most of this was pretty close to dead on?.’ And of course, when he checked how tall I had made the cast itself, he looked at where I made my first mark to determine the bottom and then where I made my second mark to determine the bottom. The first time I made the mark - I had it in the right place. Then I second guessed it and made the cast too short. He asked why I second guessed my proportion. It’s because I assumed I was wrong.

In my second attempt, my proportions were worse. He said that happens sometimes. I was right, then I convinced myself I was wrong, then I became wrong and became wronger. New information made me worse before it made me better. That is what it feels like to be an amateur in the awkward stages of learning. You were a little right at something, but then you blinked and you’re wrong. Then you stay wrong because everyone saw your mistake and assumed that you meant it. It feels like everyone is saying you’re wrong, then you say it to yourself. You become encouragement proof. You circle the drain. You retreat into old habits or you fade away. 

[trapangeles]

Tap'n with Hip Hop Artist - Adisa

Adisa is a rising Hip Hop/Rap artist from Los Angeles who has been making waves in the music industry with his unique sound and style. His journey as an artist has been fueled by his persistence and determination to be stylistically unique. Adisa's music is a reflection of his experiences growing up in California, with a jazzy and west coast sound that is both dark and colorful. He has been compared to artists like Greedo, Blxst, Warren G, Cole, and Q Tip. Adisa's ultimate goal is to be the best and create original music that breaks the mold. He is currently working on a new tape that is set to be released soon. If you're looking for some new and exciting music, be sure to check out Adisa's work and follow him on social media to stay up to date on his latest projects.

Tell us about your story and how you got to where you are? I’m an artist from LA, I think what brought me here is persistence, just not giving up. If you keep going you’ll learn! What has been your biggest obstacle in your journey as an artist? One of the biggest obstacles for me early on was to be stylistically unique. When I started I probably sounded like everybody! It’s natural to emulate others but that’s just not what I want to do. Also to just chip away at this a little bit everyday. We all got responsibilities and distractions so just do what you can sustain. Not crash out doing too much at once that’s the challenge right there. What lessons have you learned? Anything meaningful is going to be difficult. Trust your instincts, if you like it someone will like it. If its quality people will appreciate that. Similar energy all bunches up into one thing as time passes. You can be your own plant or a branch off of some else’s, but you have to decide early! Tell us about your music; how would you describe your sound? It sounds like what we go though being young from California. It’s so much money and opportunities out here but there’s an influx of people trying to capitalize off this. It’s dark sometimes. Colorful, jazzy and west coast. Original. A lot of thought goes into these records. They have their own vibe and I love that. I always wanted my music to be unique, this the only place you can get this from! What other artists would you compare yourself to? Greedo ? Blxst? Someone who produces too. Warren G, Cole, Q Tip… If you could work with any artists, who would you choose? Dom Kennedy, Hit-Boy, Greedo or Kendrick. What sets you apart from other artists? My style! What should we know about your work? Know this is for Los Angeles. When you see us you should feel like you can do it too! When you hear me you should know it’s alright to not fit in, you can do this how you want on your terms. You can break the mold, know that! What are your plans for the future? My immediate plan is to finish up this tape so I can get back to performing and do more give aways. That and buy all the empty lots on Western. What motivates you, or keeps you going? Wanting to be the best is what motivates me. Having people to take care of. New sounds. We spend so much time out here in traffic. Gotta have a soundtrack for that, right? Tell us something that might surprise people about you. Before this I was trying to be a singer! How do you define success? I’m a creator. The closer the final product is to wherever we had in our minds before it came to fruition is how we measure success. Money, Grammy’s, billboards, all that is fire but I just want to be creative and original before anything. How well executed this vision is will determine wether or not it was a success or a learning experience. Tell us about any projects or music you have coming out. I’ve already did almost 20 for this tape but it’s probably only gonna be 8-10 songs. A good introduction right now I’m just waiting for features, mixes, and other finishing touches. If we stay on schedule it’ll be done in a month or so. What do you want people to know about you? Anything else you want mentioned? I appreciate everyone for listening! Shout out TRAPXLA for helping us get this roll out going, go stream “DIFFERENT” right now! How can people find you and contact you? @adisaoutwest DM me!

[cuntess-carmilla]

The way "alt" is done nowdays is so exasperating. People (rightfully) talk about how dark academia and cottagecore and those trends that imo aren't "alt" but are distinctive aesthetics are more in the business of looking like they're someone who reads a lot or someone who bakes and lives in the countryside respectively instead of putting any emphasis on actually reading a lot of learning substainability or homekeeping.

And the same happens with the way alt anything is being done lately and that's why so many people get so disproportionately angry and defensive when someone who's actually into a subCULTURE corrects them, especially if that person doesn't even "look" the part as much as their fake asses do.

No interest in actual countercultural politics, ideology, sentiment, praxis or even artistic expression or practice.

They want to look like they're someone who's into unfathomably obscure non-palatable music and ideas, without having to actually put any effort into cultivating their musical knowledge or identity. They want the whole VISUAL package immediately, but nothing else (hint: that's why you get called posers).

Reminds me a lot of this:

[Image description: TikTok stitch in which the first video shows user @/dormence with text printed in front of them that reads "Did you know that there's no "correct" way to dress for a goth club. The truth is that fashion is about dressing according to what's fashionable. Style is more about being yourself. Tip: Allow yourself to be ok with experimenting and blending your favorite styles until you refine into your own symbol 🖤"

The rest of the video is of user @/awfullysinister speaking to the camera.]

Transcript:

Here's a fun story for everybody. I've been involved in my local goth scene for about 10 years now, I've been going to clubs and shows and events for about 10 years, I've been a DJ in the scene for about 6 years.

A few years ago I got booked for a DJ gig for one of my friends' club nights. I was late, unfortunately. It happens. I got to the venue about 30 minutes after the night started and I looked pretty bad… Worse than usual. I didn't have my hair up, I wasn't dressed nice, I had gym shorts on and a hoodie… I just had all my stuff with me in a bag and was planning on changing in the bathroom.

And there's this guy there that was all dressed up. He's got leather pants with straps, Demonias, he's wearing a black buttoned down tshirt with a fishnet shirt underneath it, his face is full of makeup… He looked like a Chris Motionless wannabe, basically.

And as I'm walking in to walk toward the stage to put my stuff up there, then go to the bathroom to change, the Chris Motionless wannabe stops me. Like, he puts his hand out, like this, like, on my chest, and he looks at me and he goes "Oh, I'm sorry, are you lost?"

And I look at him like a deer in headlights, like… What…? He repeats the question, and I just stare at him and say "I'm DJing tonight…" and he returns the look.

Anyway, I just brush past him and I go do my thing. It was a great night, I had a great crowd to my set, everybody was dressed in all sorts of ways; some people were really dressed up, some people were just wearing a tshirt and jeans, nothing special, but they were all dancing, they were all having fun.

The Chris Motionless wannabe didn't dance ONCE, and for what I saw, it didn't look like he was having fun, it looked like he was just standing around trying to look cool. In fact, at the end of the night, one of my friends told me that a guy that kinda looked like Chris Motionless remarked about how he hated the music and wished it was heavier. I don't know exactly what that means, I'm going to assume that he wanted to hear Metal.

That was about 3 years ago, and I have not seen that guy since. Not at any clubs, not at any shows… It's like he just disappeared, and I expect that I'll probably never see him again.

Anyway, the point is; sometimes the people that keep your local goth scene going, who are dancing the most at your local clubs, and who keep goth DJs like me feeling inspired to continue doing this, and to continue to seek out new music… Sometimes those people are just wearing a tshirt and jeans and aren't all that dressed up.

And, sometimes, the people who're dressed to the nines, who look the part and have a closet full of expensive brand clothing, just stay home all day, on TikTok, pretending to be better than everybody else, with cringey usernames like "goth daddy" and "goth king" and "goth goddess". Sometimes - not always, but sometimes - those are the people I wish I never had to run into in my local scene.

Link to the TikTok

[femsolid]

“We’re in 2019. Female hair is CENSORED everywhere. You don’t see it on TV. You don’t see it in magazines or adverts. There is an injunction of society for women to remain 'soft' and completely hairless. Just like a little girl. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence. Young, skinny, hairless girls have been very popular in the media for years and it makes me wonder. Who's behind it all? Who's perpetuating this message about women looking like adolescent girls? It sometimes feels rather paedophilic. It worries me.” – Camille Alexander. Musician (2019)

“Years ago I did think about getting laser hair removal for my navel hair, but then I realised I'd be paying a couple of hundred pounds just to conform to expectations that I don't even care about– I'd much rather use the money for a holiday or circus lessons! I think that's one of the things which annoys me so much about society and the media's expectation for women to be basically hairless– they're pressuring us to invest serious time and money and endure pain. It's a double standard and it's unfair. Being able to accept your body– hair, scars and all– is freeing. I remember seeing my Aunt Glynis dancing to reggae in the 90s with her armpit hair showing– she looked so confident, happy and free. As a child, I couldn't put my finger on 'why', but I can now. On a practical level, it feels pretty darn good when I consider how much time, money and pain I've saved by accepting my body as it is. I like to think that that memory of my aunt being free and totally comfortable in her own skin is one that I can emulate and pass onto other girls and women. It hasn't always been received well though. At Lambeth County Fair one year, a friend of a friend was seriously freaked out when he saw my armpits. He asked me "what's wrong with you? Why would you do that?!", which was pretty amusing but bewildering. It reminded me there will always be people out there who may react and judge me like that. Thankfully, the opinion of people who think like that means very little to me! For me having hair and not caring is a bit like being part of a secret club. When you notice someone else who is resisting society's expectations and staying hairy you feel solidarity and respect. It's nice to be part of that.” – Isabel (2019)

“As a teenager, I remember trying to stuff myself into a box of what a girl should be like. It always felt uncomfortable; padded bras, shoes that hurt and shaving rash. Running, swimming and climbing have helped me to see the strength and resilience in my body and to love it for what it is. Growing my armpit hair has been a recent experiment and the longer it gets, the more I like it! I like the way it looks & feels. It has given me a new respect for myself. So I say, embrace growth & if it pleases you, let it all grow!” – Jess (2018)

“Shaving, epilating or waxing hurts. I was tired of suffering, trying to adapt to the image of a ‘beautiful young woman’ society is selling us. Everybody told me to shave. As a teenager, it’s a huge subject among girls; where do you shave? What method are you using? It takes so much time and costs so much money (the majority of hair removal products are also not recyclable). All of these reasons coming one after another motivated me to stop shaving. I would often have irritated skin after shaving and being a very sporty person, the sweat and the friction of my clothes would cause pain.The worst thing was having sex on the second day after shaving my vulva. I didn't understand why women would suffer and waste so much time on hiding who they really are. By showing my body hair on stage, I would like to stimulate and change people’s point of view. I’d like to motivate women to make their own choices.”

– Darian Koszinski. Circus artist (2018)

“I stopped shaving completely when I was a teenager because of two instances. The first? I got tired of all the time wasted on maintenance and the discomfort that came with it. The second was when I went on a few multiple week-long backpacking trips; it would have been extremely inconvenient to spend hours ripping my hair out, so I let things grow. Being so close to nature let me dive deeper into and re-examine the relationship with myself and the world, acting as a mirror. In nature, there is wild; it is as beautiful as it is untamed. How could it be anything other than that? I felt so relieved and free when I let it grow out. It felt like being able to breathe. It was incredibly comfortable too. I felt a confidence and boldness returning, like I was replenishing some kind of primal power. I will say that a very pleasant side effect of having armpit hair is its ability to ward off rude people whom I wouldn’t care to interact or associate with anyway. Because the people that care about that sort of thing and make it a point to say how disgusted they are, are precisely the kind of people that I don’t want in my life.”

– Kyotocat (2017)

“At this point in life, I feel that the real question shouldn't be 'why did you let your armpit hair grow?' But actually, 'why did you shave in the first place?' Please celebrate your body! Own who you are and be that! Those who celebrate who and what they are, are creating a much open and safer space for those who are struggling to understand who and what they want to be in life. It might be easier said than done but give it a try. We'll then help create a healthier and understanding society with less bullshit than there already is...”

– Alex Wellburn (2017)

“I never stopped shaving because I never started. I do remember my mother shaving when I was younger and I thought that was pretty unnecessary since she was a strict muslim. I later realised it's a thing women do to look more desirable to men. It really irritated me that the people who reacted negatively to my natural armpit hair were men. Like it was the most disgusting thing in the world. It really gets on my tits. This is just one more reason that I don't shave it off. It belongs to me and I don't make noise about the "ugly"; hair on men which are sometimes pretty painful in the eye... But you've got to get over it and don't let these idiots get under it. I would recommend growing it to any women.”

– Ayan Mohamed. Graduate architecture student (2014)

Natural Beauty Photoshoot

[anonymous-astronaut]

Mercs finding all their weapons replaced with bubble guns?

I took some artistic liberties with this one

Scout:

He’s SUPER into it, are you kidding it’s like a water balloon fight but with BUBBLES! Scout is like one of those dogs that runs back and forth at the speed of fucking light trying to catch them in his teeth, he pretty much reverts to a fourteen year old boy on a sugar high. He starts making twice as many sound effects as usual, blasting people in the face with his bubble shotgun. It’s the most fun he’s had in a long time.

Soldier

This man is soaring through the sky like a goddamn bubble rocket. He is fuckin flying to the point where he is convinced he himself is a bubble. When he does decide to land and point his launcher at people, heaven help them. That thing can take a man clear off his feet in a a flood of bubbles and launch him into space, and Soldier has no hesitation firing point-blank range either. He takes this just as seriously as any other fight, there is no mercy from his bubbly wrath.

Pyro

This is Pyro’s dream come true. For once, everyone is having just as much fun on the battlefield as they are, and Pyro is beyond delighted. They love sneaking up on people and absolutely showering them in bubbles, plus they can make pretty rainbows if they angle it in the sun right.

Heavy

WHO TOUCHED SASHA?!!? Seriously, if he doesn’t want find out what happened to his real gun fast, there are going to be problems. However, if Sasha is safe and sound, he’ll partake in a little bubble war, why not? At first he thinks it’s a bit childish, but a bubble machine gun…. it’s just too awesome to resist. Soon he’s having a grande old time mowing people down with bubbles.

Demo

Bubble BOMBS??? Omg, Demo is absolutely delighted by the possibilities. He becomes sneakier than a goddamn spy, setting up elaborate traps and suddenly making the whole field into a giant maze booby traps. I like to think he has all sorts of bombs to choose from, from ones that send you flying in a shower of bubbles to ones that fill up a whole hallway in foam. He’s running around giggling like a madman and sometimes accidentally setting off his own bubble mines.

Engie

He isn’t particularly thrilled about it at first. The bubble sentries are pretty cool, but he just feels so separated from the action, it takes all the fun out of it. He’s all pouty about it until Scout or Pyro sneaks up and blasts him, and then it’s game on. He’s takes his bubble shotgun out like “you little fucker” and joins in the mayhem.

Medic

Maybe he distributes bubble fuel instead of heals? Since no one is actually getting injured (unless it’s super intense, you never know with these guys). Idk how his medigun works, but either way I know he ISNT using it. No, Medic has gone FULL FERAL. He’s got his bubble-fied syringe gun out and is “RATATATATA”ing at everyone he sees, including his own teammates. Battle Medic mode engaged. Absolute wild child. Fear for your life

Sniper

How does this even work?? Does he shoot one really powerful bubble at someone? Maybe he can target a guy and trap a bubble around his head?? I’m not sure, but he probably can’t resist the mayhem for long and takes out his smg instead, running out on the field with everybody else for a change. He didn’t get to participate in games like this much as a kid, so getting blasted in the face by bubbles is somehow a fun and healing experience.

Spy

Imagine, if you will, the absolute shittiest little plastic bubble handgun you can possible picture. Cheap dollar-store water pistol lookin fucker. That’s it. That is what this man has to defend himself with. He gets six lil bubbly blasts and then he has to run around pumping it up to try and reload, and it’s fucking hilarious. He would just refuse to participate, but people keep picking on him and his ego is too massive to settle with just letting them get away with it. He ends up getting really into it. Afterwards he acts like it was the worse day of his life and complains about getting soap on his suit, but secretly he thought it was a tiny bit fun.

[positivityforlesbians]

So, Thursday I watched the one hour long Kehlani interview I mentioned earlier this week (trying to know her story, since a follower was saying she cannot be a lesbian considering past interviews she had) and I actually got through the whole thing, only the first minutes were really annoying. The rest was surprisingly interesting and got me to learn more about her. She did say that in the past during sex with men she was doing things because she felt she was supposed to do them, supposed to like them, but that she "didn't actually enjoy them". She knew something was wrong to the point she talked about that distress to her therapist, who told her "have you ever think you might be gay/ not into men ?" (she showed her the Compulsory Heterosexuality document, where yes there are some experiences that fit bi women but others that do fit lesbians) and that's when it clicked for her. She resumes that by saying she was "trying to be a good performer even in her own life".

Even regarding her choices of clothes, she got ridiculed for not looking like what people were looking for in women in the current r&b musical scene, seen as too masculine, heavily tattooed, so she changed to be hyper-feminine, to fit in, but it was never authentic. Her style is more fluid than that, likes to be feminine sometimes, often leans more masculine, more tomboyish. It hit her that she was performing so hard because she was bullied, and she feels like this played into her sexuality. She mentioned how she looked like before fame (see picture), though we all change for the better between our teenage years and adult ones, it's clear to her now that the industry pushed her to change. She was that kid and people bullied her for it, at school there was a rumour she was a trans boy, which obviously impacted her negatively.

There’s definitely an interesting point she brings up about how the male gaze and how having male make up artists and stylists changed her image for a few years, making her more feminine but also more uncomfortable with herself really (which she didn’t admit to herself when it was happening). She had to wear wigs and had breast implants to make her boobs look bigger so she would really fit what she was supposed to incarnate in the music industry.

She mentioned that the woman who took care of her style when she first began in the industry didn’t do all that and let her be tomboy, which in retrospective was the best thing. Now she is more like the young adult she was at first, stopped wearing the wigs and took away the breast implants, dressing and acting more like herself.

She’s just now finally letting go of what other people will say, how negatively they can perceive her, etc, and she says coming out as a lesbian at 25 was the last thing she needed to do to be in line with herself and be like « i don’t give a fuck » to all these people who « run my life since I’m 16 years old ». She was trying to convince herself of so many things before that. She’s surprised that everybody talked about her coming out because originally she was simply on her friend’s Instagram live and when asked what was up she casually said « I finally realized I’m a lesbian » and then next thing she knows the next morning there was lots of articles about it, phone calls, etc which was strange because the media treated her as is she was straight before that. But then Kehlani realized it might have been because nowadays the number of women who come out as lesbians is unfortunately very low and everybody come out as queer, fluid or pan and so the label itself might have been why this happened. When asked by the woman of the Youtube channel (her friend the musician DJ Kitten) if she regretted how it happened she says that she had a lot of support and women were happy that she used the word lesbian specifically (« because words matter ») versus identifying as « queer » so she doesn’t regret it and don’t think she would do it in a different way. Any other way would have been planned or superficial so really she’s satisfied of how it happened, it was natural and just "chill."

When asked what she would say to her 12 years old self : « you won’t even like boys so don’t waste your time, stop hanging out with them like that, skip it ». When asked about her goals, when talking about the personal life ones she says « it’s funny because I realized this the other day, I don’t think I ever believed in marriage until I came out, and I think a personal goal of mine is now I want to get married some day ». When asked for why this shift occurred she said that when she was with men she always thought « something is going to come along and make me feel better », « I hate to say it but I was like I don’t want to be stuck with you » (side note : these are common experiences of women who are not attracted to men but denying - consciously or not - their own feelings) it was never genuine with them. Which, she explains, is why these relationships were always quick, she was always the one to break it off, it was easy to do so as there was no real feeling involved from her part, whereas with women she felt it (being into them) and she was scared of her own feelings. Now she can finally reconcile with her feelings and she sees how being with a woman changes her, it impacts her, it's finally being connected to herself, because that’s who she really is and nothing is faked.

So truly I believe her, we'll see what happens with time (and maybe we're all wrong) but right now I believe her saying that she was forcing herself to be someone she's not and that she's a lesbian. She's pretty cool to me, seems more authentic than ever and, truly, for the first time, I'm waiting for Kehlani's next album to be released. Her music is dope, I listened to her stuff more than ever this week ! I'm kinda becoming a real fan ! Listen to the song "Touch Me" she feats on with bi rapper-songwriter Victoria Monet, it's incredibly sensual because it's about each other ! Also damn, she's so attractive ! Look at her face ! Her tattoos ! Her eyes ! Her curly hair ! Omg 😳🥵