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reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 1 year ago

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I love to see my biases get the BB 1s, but when one starts making that their goal, hmm that kind of disconnects me from them as an artist.

I won't say more. I just wish artists I stan placed more focus on the art. Let charts happen naturally.

You're blog isn't like the blind fandom, so I am saying this here.

It's not hard to see through things. Chapter 2 has been interesting so far. I am not making any opinions based of things that are happening, but if it becomes a pattern with the artist, well... that's a problem.

Anon, we both know who were're talking about, lol. I'm gonna use the names, for the sake of making it easier for me to write a response.

A few weeks ago, I was watching this documentary about Wham. Some light entertainment for me initially, but it did offer me the chance for a fresh perspective. I don't exactly remember the details, but they've reached a point in which George Michael wanted to have 4 songs to reach number 1 on some chart, the fourth being Last Christmas. He was a bit obsessed with this and he also wanted to be a bigger artist. In later archival interviews, Michael actually mentions it was his ego as an artist because he knew he could. And he did, he outgrew the boyish band and the situation was almost ideal because Andrew, his bandmate, also knew that. It also meant getting away from their carefully constructed image, the object of desire for teenagers and women everywhere. For George, it was also about stepping away from performing a specific type of heteronormativity that can be found in boy bands. It never crossed my mind while watching it that his ego is too big, or why is he so obsessed with the charts. Maybe because it was all in the past and I've seen what the future would hold for him. Or that when I heard him talk about what he wants to achieve and his inner struggle, there was sincerity there and also that drive that only someone really young can have when they believe they can do anything.

I've read Jungkook's Weverse interview and listened to what he had to say during the Seven promotions. And while there may be some comparisons to be made to how George Michael came across when talking about his musical career, there were also some differences.

I'm glad to see Jungkook being more confident. I remember some of the things he used to say in the past, about his self worth, a lack of confidence and meaning outside the group. That wasn't healthy. And to hear him now, especially on Suchwita, it's a 180° change. But in his case, there's a very fine line between being confident and becoming cocky. And that's not a good look. It's almost like he's trying to project an image of a new Jungkook but one that is still in the works and not all parts fit perfectly together. He's going through a transformation ever since the hiatus, which I expected. It was about having to adapt to a different pace, life after 10 years of being part of a group. Jungkook was always trying to find his identity and this single is only one step in that journey.

But that doesn't mean that I as a fan and as a person, have to like it. If it doesn't match with what I'm looking for in the artists that I'm interested in, then so be it. I will talk about it, but I'll also not follow that person's musical career anymore. If I don't like the artistic direction and I don't like this overconfident, slighly exaggerated bravado, then that's it.

It's also impossible to not make a comparison to Jimin. Not for some dick measuring contest (it's what pjms and jjks are doing), but because there is room and justification for it. Both are from the same kpop group, both have embarked on a solo career and both chose a more mainstream pop music, as opposed to their older bandmates. And both got that BB 1. And what we can compare is song quality, artist reaction and how the company's response came across into fan spaces.

In terms of the songs, I could write entire essays because at the end of the day, it wouldn't matter. It's all subjective. There is no rule that says a number one song should be about some personal experience, or the singer should have writing credits on it. And I also can't take away my subjectivity. I will chose Like Crazy over a song that not only sounds like a Bieber tune from years ago, but also has lyrics as if they were written by the boys from Larry Clark's Kids.

As to the reaction, Jimin did exactly what I expected him to do. He was humble, grateful and emotional and we saw that when he turned on the livestream. It's what makes him who he is and how he always behaves. As opposed to that, Jungkook wanted to be appear cool. And for what? Especially when later he said how excited he actually was but he refrained from expressing that. Where's the authenticity that he seeks so much through his livestreams? Because he released a song about sex for which he never officially performed live the explicit version, that means that the attitude should match that? I know the next day he was live and he was really nice. But that entire event is tainted in my mind with this almost expectation and confidence that he'll get that no. 1 and after he got the western validation, they decided to remember there's fans at home too and went to Inkigayo.

Which leads me to the last point that shows the obvious bias and preference that cannot simply be denied when it comes to BH. It's even more obvious because the entire BTS brand was that there are no favorites, which is not the same strategy as with other companies and groups. And now, all of a sudden, there is. It's great that BH celebrates an artist's success and they can immediately put on a show. But it doesn't justify how the first one to have the achievement was ignored. I have to admit, I was happy when Jimin got his no. 1 because I thought it only meant more promotions, more Jimin, more of everything. Just to be left utterly confused.

I've put that all in the past and I really try not to get too emotionally involved because as an individual, it has no bearing on my personal life and it doesn't have that many negative effects on my fan engagement.

I side eye Jungkook for how he presents himself in official promotions, but then he goes live and all of a sudden, it's the Jungkook that I'm used to. The guy who is a dork and funny and grateful to his fans. The one who cries hearing fan songs and who still beats himself up for hours because he messed up a song. I do criticize some of his actions and statements, but I'm not slandering him. The guy seems like a genuinely nice person and I still like him. He's still one of my biases for many reasons. But me having this reaction to content catered specifically for fans to create a more intimate connection is something BH was always good at. We only have to look at all the BTS footage out there. They've perfected the way in which personality comes first a lot of the times. It's what draws fans in (aside from music) and what keeps them interested. I'm part of that.

I'm convinced that it's most likely that a Jungkook fan or army or whoever disagrees with me, will read all this and believe I hate Jungkook. Which would be a shame because all I'm trying to do is explain how complex this situation is. It's never as black and white as solo stans would like everyone to believe and it's not a debate that can be generalized and tossed aside as solo talk by the ot7 chorus. I'm sure there are a lot of reasonable people in this fandom still who are able to have more than one thought in their head and see that only through a naunced discussion we can look at facts, see what's an exaggeration and what's false. To be able to distinguish between facts and personal opinion and also to admit that. That's not possible if we're not looking at these people as complex beings, instead of victims and villains.

#m thoughts #jimin #jungkook #bts solo careers

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iwsynttr-project · 9 months ago

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WAAAHHH I just saw people have been posting about the project on Pinterest???

THANK YOU???

I am so pink oh my goodness aaa

I'll give some updates then so people know we're not just slackin', haha;;

This past week we've been hella busy with church, school, trying out programs, still figuring out the whole learning to drive thing, stuff with disability, etc... but especially with Valentine's Day & Moose's birthday.

CJ came up to visit which was really special & we got to eat out & get boba all together which was super nice as he doesn't live too close by ever since we moved a few years back.

I recently got most of my m3dz figured out so I might be able to start hrt within the next year, & it sounds like the date has been set for CJ & I to get married this April 29th!

On top of all this we recently found out that a couple other plans have been thrown into the mix:

Our folks are planning to head out for a week a few states away to spend time with family & celebrate our twin cousins' birthday & then they'll be goin to Medieval Times for Moose's birthday possibly with another friend or cousin.

My mom & I are gonna try & see a show with CJ & his mom if they're able to come for my 21st birthday (Which is March 13th!) & CJ's birthday is at the start of April.

Right before our wedding is my dad's birthday & we're gonna see another live performance in another state, & then right afterwards a few days later is gonna be the wedding.

We're just gonna make it small & Soukoku themed, but maybe years later from now when we're livin' alone & financially stable we might do a bigger more official wedding. We'll renew our vows, maybe have custom made suits, special stuff like that.

Somethin' we're hopin' to do is for the small one we might make custom Lego Minifigures to be in front of/above the cake & then if we save up... the four-six hundred bucks... we wanna get the Soukoku "wedding" figurines that came out a bit ago.

It's a dream.

Anyways, as for the actual project!

I'm still working on the script when I have time, I just got stumped since we don't have Golden Demon written yet- but I managed to come up with some content to fill in for during or after the scene plays out for now & continued from there.

Moose has decided to try & make two versions of Life's Better With A Little Party In It: one that's a trashy pop song, & one that's his own take on the song based on artists like YOASOBI. (Into the Night, Monster, Idol, etc...)

We're also thinking about making a Cover Album on the side to go with the soundtrack just for fun with covers of songs from bands & artists like ONE OK ROCK & Set It Off.

I'm still thinking I might go for making The I Was Screaming Your Name Through the Radio Project into an episodic animatic series, but with everything going on I might wait to record the actual script & songs until we've got most of the script & songs written out more at the least if not also until after I get a better microphone & possibly start injections. (Maybe I'll still do the first few chapters since they're just teens anyways but meh whatever; we'll see.)

I did do a drawing while I was free last night though & have been talking with my dad who's voice is basically his life & career about vocal training of sorts or if I should find classes online or something along those lines for it.

(Back to the drawing) I made a concept design for Moose's online/music persona AquaticSnow & a possible first EP/Album cover. I'm not sure I'll post it (yet?) since he might use it for stuff like his avatar, channel/s, music, etc but if I do it'll be on my personal main Tumblr, Instagram, & probably Deviantart & Twitter/X.

I'm also nervous about somebody tryin' to steal the art &/or concept.

Another reminder that I do have a personal server where I stream drawing, gaming, sometimes reading & writing, watch parties (movies, shows, etc...) & I post planning & updates for the project there!

.:Charli's Discord Server:.

( Don't forget to pick roles & read the rules! Otherwise you can't see the other chats;; )

Sorry 'bout the long post, haha;; we hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

Charli

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whileiamdying · 1 month ago

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Bon Iver Is Searching for the Truth

The artist Justin Vernon discusses his new EP, “SABLE,” the dream of a happy adulthood, and his worry that he’s purposely repeating a “cycle of sorrow.”

By Amanda Petrusich October 16, 2024

Bon Iver is the alias of Justin Vernon, a singer, songwriter, and producer from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Since 2007, when Vernon released “For Emma, Forever Ago,” his début LP as Bon Iver, he has been making formally experimental but gorgeously tender music that seems to take equal inspiration from Bruce Hornsby and the Indigo Girls, Arthur Russell and Aphex Twin. (The project name—a version of the French phrase “Bon hiver,” or “Good winter”—was borrowed from an episode of the television series “Northern Exposure,” a deep and formative work in Vernon’s life.) This week, Bon Iver will release “SABLE,” a three-song EP and the band’s first new music since 2019’s “i,i.” “SABLE,” is only a little more than twelve minutes long, but it feels revelatory, expansive, and raw. Vernon has a couple of different voices—a spectral falsetto; a deeper, throatier bellow—but it’s hard for me to think of another contemporary singer whose vocals carry quite as much pure, unmediated feeling.

Outside of Bon Iver, Vernon remains a wildly in-demand collaborator. He has a track on the newly remixed version of Charli XCX’s “brat” (he described the decision to participate as “a no-brainer,” saying “the art and the music, its aggression, its power, its pop-ness—it’s just amazing”), and he worked with Kanye West on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (2010) and “Yeezus” (2013), two of the most acclaimed rap albums of the past few decades. He also appeared on Taylor Swift’s “folklore” and “evermore,” both from 2020; because of the pandemic, Vernon and Swift didn’t meet in person until long after “folklore” was released. “I wasn’t starstruck,” Vernon told me. “I was, like, ‘Wow, you’re somebody that I would have been very close friends with in high school. You’re real and you’re here.’ To see what she’s been up to, the propulsion, the expansion . . . I don’t know, it’s just unlike anything anyone’s ever seen. And yet there she was, this person who made a lot of sense to me.”

I previously spoke with Vernon at The New Yorker Festival in 2019. Earlier this month, we sat down again to record an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, and continued our conversation after we left the studio. This interview, a composite of both encounters, has been condensed and edited.

Justin, it’s so good to see you.

It’s great to see you, too, Amanda. I was pacing around my room today, like, “I’m anxious! Shit.” I haven’t talked to anyone about music in any official capacity since our last conversation, probably. It’s been five years. I was, like, “Oh, that’s why.” Your nervous system’s kinda keyed up, and you have to have a CBD gummy, take a breath. Walk around the block, do some push-ups.

Five years is a very civilized pace, I think, and you’ve hardly been silent during that time. But do you feel any internal or external pressure to produce work on a certain schedule?

Nope, not at all. This one really came from personal necessity. It was just time. Some of these songs have been bubbling for five years.

“SABLE,” is just twelve minutes of music, but, for me, it feels a lot bigger than that. I wanted to ask you about the grouping of these three songs, in particular. You mentioned that they were written at different times, but I hear a very legible arc—a closed circle, almost. I hear the story—and this is quite relatable, to be honest—of a person trying, and then a person failing, and then a person finding some peace with their limitations.

Are you me? [Laughs.] That feels right. They feel like an equidistant triangle, a triptych. It’s three, and it couldn’t be longer. It runs the gamut from accepting anxiety to accepting guilt to accepting hope. Those three things in a row. There’s no room for a prologue or an epilogue at that point. Because that’s it—that’s what everything is.

From a place of guilt and anxiety, how vast is the distance to hope?

My friend Erinn Springer, who made the videos for “SABLE,” was telling me that with [the track] “AWARDS SEASON,” the word for her was “almost.” Time and time again, I’ve been sitting at that feeling of almost: we’re almost there, or we’re just about to get there, I can feel or dream of a place that’s coming soon. And I guess that’s what the song is talking about—change, and how we’re always partaking in it.

This is maybe an incredibly personal question, but—

[Laughs.] That’s good.

When you get to the place of almost—the thing is in reach, you can see it, you can feel it, it’s really close—is that when you panic? Because that’s when I panic.

I think that’s when I have to push further. These songs, they’re personal, of course, but the need to share them is also very personal. These are songs with truth that I’ve located, or been a vehicle for. But they’re true. And I was, like, These have to be shared.

The public piece is complicated. It also seems possible that your relationship to fame might change; maybe you want it one year and the next year you don’t.

I remember there was this moment during the pandemic where I was, like, I could stop doing all of this. I was driving my little A.T.V. around. I needed that—knowing I could stop. But getting back on the road there’s all this excitement, and then, so quickly, the anguish and weariness and impossibility of it set back in.

Do you think you’ll pull back from touring?

I’ll share a pretty vulnerable moment. I knew that we were gonna be taking some time off. It was the beginning of our last run. I was in Duluth. My family was there. I was so happy to be with everyone, but I was really suffering under the weight of everything. I was playing “[715] CRΣΣKS”—there’s no accompaniment. It’s really a crusher to do. It burns a lot of gas. I was scanning the crowd. I was just having a tough month. I was getting ready to start saying goodbye to the last sixteen years, in a way. There were six or seven thousand people out there, and I became overwhelmed with anxiety and sadness. I got choked up and started to weep. My bandmates were all up on the stage, leaning down, because it’s too short of a song for them to leave and come back. I lock eyes with Waz [Jenn Wasner], I can see Michael Lewis looking at me. And I’m crying—like, hard. Shoulders-heaving crying. And I feel unsafe, like this is not an O.K. place for someone to be. And the crowd is going wild, you know? I’m not mad at them. I would also be cheering for encouragement. But I was thinking, They wantthis. Or this is making sense to them. It wasn’t all negative—

But it felt like there was blood in the water?

The rest of the show, I could barely function. If I could do that same touring setup and have somebody else sing the songs, that would be a little easier. But that whole night in, night out, let’s excavate Justin—I’m not built for it. When I say it like that, I think, How is anybody? But, that’s just me, I can’t.

Well, there’s so little distance in your work. I don’t know, maybe Bon Iver doesn’t need to be a road show.

When I used to go to shows, for me, they were excavations. They were explosions, they were unique. They were a band playing four new songs they made up last weekend, at an all-ages venue in Eau Claire. Or seeing Melt-Banana open for Mr. Bungle in, like, ’95—I’m watching something rip me open. And of course they were all also touring and doing the thing and everything, but just . . . I did it a lot, and I’m extremely proud of that achievement. I’m extremely proud of the team. When we were at Barclays, Yo La fuckin’ Tengo opened the show, and we played “Sh’Diah,” and Sean Carey’s doing free-jazz freakouts on drums, and Michael Lewis, my favorite living musician and improviser and soloist, he’s playing, and we are throttling free jazz to an arena that is absolutely understanding what we’re doing. And, like, check mark. Check mark! Thank God. But I can’t go to that well over and over again. It has to be something sacred—it has to renew. I come back to the name of the band. It’s a good band name, a good project name, because it’s like—good death, good winter. Things need rest. A life needs to rest at some point.

It’s funny, I used to be a cynic about things like weddings—why does it have to be a big, performative, public thing? But you realize that is sort of the profundity of it.

I put these songs out because I know there’s truth in them, and I want to share that with everybody. I think where it gets slippery is when it’s, like, “O.K., but we need to see the person who sings the song.” Lately, the song has seemed to be not enough. That’s the part that gets me a little sensitive. But that’s what art is, and that’s why I believe in art and expression so much. It does seem to be the thing that carries cultures forward, past their old haunts and problems.

I mean, I think art can be instructive as well as lifesaving. I’m certainly not the first person to suggest that. Historically, you’ve been pretty mindful. Even using the name Bon Iver puts a little air, a little space, between you and the world. But you’re in these videos. It was so lovely to see your face.

Thank you. It felt like there was a certain amount of acceptance in that. My great friend Eric Timothy Carlson, who does some of my art work, was, like, “Man, just when are you going to do your ‘Man in Black’ thing?” And I was, like, “Challenge accepted. Let’s go.” Hiding has been a valuable thing, and a way for me to express that I don’t think it’s all that important who I am—that the songs are most important.

For listeners who have been with you since “For Emma, Forever Ago,” I suspect the single, “SPEYSIDE,” might feel like a kind of return, insofar as it’s a little more stripped-down, a little less layered, than what you were doing on “22, a Million” or “i,i.” Do you think of the two poles of Bon Iver—music that’s minimally produced, versus music that’s maybe more maximally produced—as in opposition?

From “For Emma” until “i,i,” it felt like it was an arc, or an expansion—from One to All. “I,i” was very much me trying to talk about the We—the Us, outside of I. And when I got to these songs, the obvious thing was, well, people might think this is a return to something. But it really feels like a kind of raw second skin. I think about time in cylindrical, forward-moving circles. This feels like a new person, new skin. A new everything, more than a return. But I did feel like it was important to strip it down to just the bare essentials and get out of the way, to not hide with swaths of choirs. Just get it as close to the human ear as possible.

Can you talk a little about where and when you wrote “SPEYSIDE”?

The “SPEYSIDE” story is that I was in Key West. I had been living alone in the woods by myself, in Wisconsin, and it was getting dangerous. My parents had always gone down there, and I was, like, “You know what? I could just escape.” I went for three or four weeks. My brother and sister-in-law also came, and then we were, like, “Oh, this is so fun, we’ll stay another month.” It didn’t matter. They were just working from home. This was January, February of 2021, and I was reflecting a lot. The song came out mostly in its entirety. I was thinking about guilt and people in my life where I was just, like, “Oh, my God, I really did not do that right. I did not act the right way.” It just came rolling out, with help from rum. I would go out to the pier, and I would look back at Key West, and I’d see it as this island. I didn’t want to name the song “Key West,” although it would have been appropriate. Speyside is a region in Scotland, and it’s a whiskey. That’s the story with the song title. It was my little nod to southern Florida.

So, I have this running text thread with a close friend of mine where we text each other the loneliest things we can think of. We’ve been doing this for years. And so, every six months or so, I’ll get a text from him that will just say, —“Rental car shuttle, pre-dawn . . .”—

[Groans.]

Or “Horse, stuck in the mud.” A recurring character on our text thread is the pedal steel guitar.

Oh, man.

So the text will just be, “Pedal steel solo, Buck Owens, ‘Together Again.’ Apocalyptic!”

[Laughing.] That’s apocalyptic-sad right there!

There’s pedal steel on two of these three new songs. I’m curious about your relationship to the instrument.

Well, it’s a very good question, because it’s the most beautiful musical instrument that humans have constructed, for sure. It really is. It’s an impossibility, and truly an American invention. It mimics the voice, but there’s nothing else that slides between chords like that. They’ve been trying to make keyboards in this century that mimic that, and there’s just nothing like it. Greg Leisz is one of my favorite musicians to ever live, and I was very, very lucky to get to record him again. A very formative record for me was Bill Frisell’s “Good Dog, Happy Man.” That was the first time I ever heard Greg play. There’s a song on there called “That Was Then”—my high-school friends and I—we’re very, very, very close—we all have it as a tattoo. The moment in which we felt the most alive and together was this little seven-, eight-second passage where Greg played this pedal steel line. It’s the pinnacle of music to me. And so to get him on “SABLE,” is just amazing. He’s a master, right? And he’s so funny, and we get along so well, but even he’ll sit there and be, like, “Oh, shit, how does this go?” It’s just so many strings and pedals. But he’s always searching.

I don’t want to ask you too much about the lyrics, because there’s often an opacity and an obliqueness to your writing that I find incredibly beautiful; in a way, I’m not that interested in the literal meaning. So, feel free to fib your way through this part. But I did want to ask about the title. “Sable” is a synonym for “black.” It’s a piece of clothing that widows sometimes wear. It’s a river in Michigan that my fly-fishing friends tell me is holy water for trout. It’s also a weasel, though that maybe feels less relevant.

Yeah, that cutie!

You use it as a noun in “AWARDS SEASON”: “But I’m a sable / and honey, us the fable.” Can you talk a little bit about what the word means to you?

It’s such a good question. For years and years, it’s just been there. There’s an outtake from the second record, I think, where I used it in a lyric. I don’t know what it is, but it’s true. I wrote it and I knew it was true, and I still didn’t know what it meant. I was, like, “Be O.K. with that.” But then I looked it up. Sable. Mourning. Deepest black. Also, place name. But what isit? For me, I think when I’m speaking that line, what it refers to is being the darkness. There have been times in my career where it has felt like I’m repeating a cycle of heartache. I was getting a lot of positive feedback for being heartbroken. And I wondered, maybe I’m pressing the bruise. Maybe I’m unknowingly steering this ship into the rocks over and over again, because . . . you know, I’m not, like, famous-on-the-street, People-magazine famous. But there have been a lot of accolades for me and my heartache. So it’s me asking the question: I’m a sable, I’ve been a sable. Am I repeating this cycle of sorrow? Or is this just how sorrow goes, and this is how everyone feels? That’s kind of what it means to me.

I hear joy and wonder in the work, too. But you’re right, that heartache is a part of the story of the Bon Iver. I think it’s easy to be dismissive and say, “Well, that’s a toxic notion, that artists need to suffer to make work.” But pain is generative, in a way.

That’s a really good way to say it.

When we’re grieving, when we’re hurting—I mean, grief is also an expression of love. I hate to say all of this, it seems like a terrible idea to perpetuate, but—

I think it’s either the most surface or the deepest thing. And, like we said before, grief can only come from the highest joys, the greatest things in life, you know? There were some things that I really needed to find out about myself in these songs. And so, in that regard, it’s been worth it, because I needed these songs to find out how I felt, and to really, actually say how I’ve been feeling.

I think of you as a person who considers language kind of pliable. And not just language but punctuation, too. You’ve made up some words. My favorite Bon Iver neologism is “fuckified.” It’s almost Shakespearean! Where does that playfulness come from?

When you said punctuation, my first thought was, I just did it wrong. But, no, it’s just expression. One of my best friends growing up—we’re still really close—we get into semantic arguments sometimes. He’ll say, “Justin, you can’t say something is super unique, or really unique. It’s either unique or it’s not.”

Your friend should get a job at The New Yorker.

Shout out to Keil! It’s the “SABLE,” thing. I didn’t really know what it was. And the “fuckified” in “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄”—you just have to kind of let it out as an expression. You brought up the opacity of my lyrics. It really feels like I’ve sort of found this new narrative structure in these songs, where it’s a little more clear what’s been going on, and I’m kind of just saying it, versus dancing around it.

The stories feel really close. Your voice feels really close. It’s a little like having you in the room.

I wanted it to be like that. To be right in your ear, you know?

“AWARDS SEASON” opens with the line “I can handle much more than I can handle”—that line flays me every time I hear it. I think it’s possible to perhaps understand those words as a person admitting to being overwhelmed. But, to me, it mostly sounds like someone discovering that they’re stronger than they thought they were. We’re lucky to learn that about ourselves in really tough moments, that we are actually pretty—

Resilient. And then there’s the spot where you know you gotta turn around and go back, because the mechanism isn’t working anymore. The metaphor I’ve always used is that it’s like running an engine with no oil. You are doing long-term damage. It takes a long time to re-oil, to reset the machine. My dad and I watched the Buster Douglas–Mike Tyson fight when I was growing up. Douglas’s mom had just passed but he still beat Tyson in Tokyo. Douglas would say you just have to “Suck it up.” My dad always says that. When I’m feeling like I’m not gonna make it, I remember my dad saying that to me. I don’t know—there’s times to suck it up and move on and get through it, and then there’s times where you gotta take a knee, and say, “You know what? I’m not strong enough for this, and I can’t do this alone.”

As you were saying that—“suck it up”—I was thinking, is that good advice? I think sometimes it is, right? And then, often, it is not, and it’s more complicated, and you need to ask for help and take care of yourself. But there are moments where we have to test ourselves a little bit, see what we can bear, what we can handle.

Yeah, right?

That Midwestern stoicism runs deep in the Vernon men.

Yeah, it does.

Speaking of healing: you’ve discussed the utility of psychedelic drugs in your life, in terms of managing anxiety or enabling creativity. I suffered abig loss two years ago, and there were times when the immensity of my grief felt truly insurmountable, to the extent that I wanted to manually reset my brain, to restore my capacity for happiness or lightness. There’s evidence suggesting that psychedelic therapies can be quite useful for grief. I’m still sort of figuring out if it makes sense for me. But I’m curious how that stuff fits into your life these days.

Well, these days, not much. It’s not in my life anymore, really. I once thought about pot, it’s sort of like going to the bowling alley and putting those bumpers up. It’s, like, “This rules. Every ball, I hit pins. Every idea I have has got legs.” After a number of years, that feeling gets really addictive. Mushrooms, LSD—there were times where it was very, very therapeutic. I think I look at it like opening a door. It has certainly stirred deeper pits of empathy and understanding and oneness with human beings and the world. Those were ideas I already had, but now solidified—that we are each other, and hurting one another is not going to get us anywhere but down. But the metaphor about it opening a door . . . you have to close a door. If you leave that door open too long, the snow’s gonna come in and you’re gonna get fried. I don’t look back with many regrets, although I do look back with accountability and a sense of reckoning.

Looking at your discography, I presume a kind of hunger in you for collaboration. You once said, “Power has come to me, but it’s not fun to wield by yourself, and it’s not as useful if it’s just your vision.” What appeals to you about resisting the auteur path?

I love this question. I believe in the power of the individual—don’t get me wrong—but I’ve always just found that it distracts from the point. Why do we like a song? Is it because of who’s singing it to us? Or is it the song? And I just think it’s the song. For me, it is. For me, it’s about the song and what the music does. It can be very distracting when it becomes, “Oh, I love Bon Iver so much. I want more Bon Iver. I want to see Bon Iver. I want to get his autograph.” I’m sensitive to it, and the attention can be overwhelming. I’m also uncomfortable with it because it distracts from the point that music delivered me to myself.

But I can also say when I first heard “Hello in There,” by John Prine, I was twelve years old, and I saw a universe of human joy and pain and love and life and death, all in three minutes. And of course I’m gonna be, like, “What was that?” And it’s useful, right, to have a name or whatever. But I’ve also found that in moments where I’ve thought, Oh, maybe I am really good at this, or really special, or I’ve got some sort of gift—really I’ve just rigged up a huge antenna to catch things. I have gotten better at crafting songs. But I just don’t need to dwell on it, and it’s not going to make the songs any more true or less true.

I wonder if what you’re talking about, the emphasis that we place on performers and performance, I wonder if it’s because—this is a very funny thing for me to say as a music critic—no one understands songwriting? Even songwriters! A lot of people speak of the process as almost this sort of divine channelling, wherein a sound or an idea or a melody comes to them, and they’re just receiving and recording it. It’s easier to be, like, there’s a guy up there and he’s singing and he has a voice and I also have a voice, that makes sense. But this other thing, where does the signal come from?

I mean, that’s the big question, right? Why are we worried about what happens when we die? What are we trying to find out? What is this mystery that we all seem to agree is there?

And music, in particular—neurologists are always studying it, trying to understand why it works on us—there’s no clear evolutionary advantage or reason for people to be absolutely devastated or buoyed by music. But we are, and we always have been. Maybe there’s a little bit of God in it.

Having been atheist and an agnostic at different times in my life, growing up Lutheran and then studying world religion in college, I was cynical, almost angry that when we use the word “God,” we’re so often misusing it. But I’ve been saying the word again lately, because I’m sick and tired of saying “synchronicity and coincidence.” And I just don’t know what else to call it. I’ve had friends who are deeply, deeply religious, and they talk about what God means to them. I’ve been a little more open to it. I’m certainly not a theist. But I like the word “God” and I’m back to using it.

The performance piece of it and the writing-recording piece of it—I’m not a musician, but they almost feel diametrically opposed to me. It’s weird that anyone can do both.

Nobody ever says that, but I agree. I’ve always looked at ’em like they’re the masculine and the feminine. They are a yin and yang. Masculine is live.

It’s power.

Yeah, it’s out. The record is so timeless and concave, or whatever the metaphors are. I actually mixed the EP. These are my performances. These are the moments that I wanted to create. I’m not going to think about how to instantly re-create them [onstage]. I’ve been working on this song for five years. I’m not gonna do that to myself. I’m not gonna do that to these songs. I really worked hard on getting the guitar to sound like it’s in your head on “SPEYSIDE.” I’m gonna let that breathe for a second, before I get out there and go “Woooooo!”

To return to collaboration: it forces you to be incredibly honest and vulnerable. Things that are hard for me—things that are hard for a lot of people. You have to have a line of communication open that allows you to be really frank about what’s working. How has that been for you? Have there been moments where your vision has not aligned with someone else’s? Have you ever had to scream, “Get out of my studio!”?

Twice. You know who you are. . . . [Laughs.] I think there are just times when you have to communicate. You mentioned Midwestern stoicism. I just learned that saying how you feel is really important. I’m, like, forty-three years old. [Laughs.]

Can you teach me?

Oh, God, it’s really hard. You just have to do it. It sucks. But saying, “Oh, just try it again,” is a way of saying, “That wasn’t it.” And then sometimes you’re, like, “Well, it’s never going to be it,” and then you don’t really have to say anything. So I never had to practice being super honest. I would just be, like, “Well, I’m not going to use that,” or “I’m going to redo that later,” or “I’ll edit it.” “I’ll chop it up later,” is what they say. But, yeah, of course, some of my longtime collaborators, like Rob Moose, we just have a language that we’ve built over the years. It’s pretty easy for us to find what each other wants. And we’re both very good at giving space to the other. Like, “O.K., I’m not sure what you mean, but let’s explore that.” Rob’s one of my favorite collaborators, if not my favorite. Musically, what I’ve gotten to achieve with him is just kind of wild.

You and I are around the same age—twenty-nine.

[Laughs.] Yep . . .

And I wonder what this era of life—some people, not me, but some people might call it middle age—has felt like for you.

Kind of like graduating from a master’s program or something. Feeling a little old, a little aged out, a little like Chris Farley at the bottom of the hill in “Black Sheep” saying, “What in the hell was that all about?” Like I said, I think I’ve been reckoning a lot with times I haven’t been so great, or times I haven’t been able to be a good brother or family member. While I feel a little weary, I feel very young in another way, in the sense that I get a chance now not only to look back but to look forward. Kind of a refresh. Not a restart—these are forty-three-year-old bones. But I’m taking care of my body more. I’m taking care of my mental health more. And if I look back and see a lot of suffering in my past it’s because I wasn’t treating myself correctly. Certainly, I’ve had everything I’ve needed to be flourishing, to be a kind and loving person. But when I look back, I see a lot of confusion, anxiety, and despair. So I’ve gotten to this point now—and these songs have really helped me open that door, or whatever the metaphor is—to start a new journey and to be alive and present and grateful from now on, as much as I can be.

In one’s early forties, there’s often that feeling of, Oh, this isn’t quite what I thought was going to happen.

“Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would.” My best friend Trevor always refers to it as “the memory of the future.” When we were young, if our childhood was good, we project ourselves into a happy adulthood. You start to put pieces together, you start moving the furniture around. And then when you actually get there you realize you’ve been trying to steer toward that so hard that you kind of missed some shit, and it’s never gonna be like how it was. . . .

Sometimes we end up chasing these ideas from our childhoods, and they guide us for the rest of our lives, for better or worse.

I feel like we are barely driving. I look at it like you’re yanking on the wheel. You’re down below, by the gas and brakes. But that’s all we’ve got.

I can’t tell if that makes me feel helpless, or if it makes me feel empowered. Helpless in the sense of, “I’m not in control of this.” But it’s also freeing in the sense of, “I’m not in control of this.” Right?

Exactly. That is a freedom.

_The idea that life just follows some twisted path, like a river—

That’s been one of my favorite metaphors for life. The Daoist concept of the way of the water. Life is like a river, and if you don’t stay in the flow you’re gonna get stuck. You might get pulled under, you might be on shore or in a bend for too long. Or you can go down the river and drown, or flourish, or get to the Holy Land, or whatever. . . .

Who knows!

It’s multiple choice. Actually, it’s not multiple choice at all. Actually, not choice at all. Multiple possibilities.

“SABLE,” starts in a place of contrition, which is part of the process of becoming hopeful. But it ends in a moment of radical possibility.

Mm-hmm. It does. It’s that “almost” word again. It’s, like, we’re right almost there. Almost.

Maybe now the Almost feels less scary.

We’ve been through some things.

You made most of “i,i” at Sonic Ranch, in Texas, but “SABLE,” was recorded at April Base, your studio in Eau Claire. Do you work differently there than in other places?

Yeah. It’s been a big reflection point. It just so happened that April Base went under an intense renovation process right at the beginning of 2019, and that’s when we moved most of the stuff to Texas and set up there for almost a couple months. But then, when the record was done and we went on that tour, by that time, it was 2020. And then the pandemic happened and the studio was empty, so I had to move into this small house on the property and live there by myself. I kind of set up a makeshift studio. It was really a good experience, because I hadn’t set up my own gear in a long time.

The ritual of untangling the cables, plugging things in . . .

Oh, man, there was a point where I was, like, “I need to switch the screen so it’s over there.” It took me three days to untangle the cables. And I was, like, “This is good for me! This is really good for me.” But to answer your question about being out there: I think, for years—during the psychedelic mind-opening years, especially—everything was expanding quickly. Then, at a certain point, it started to feel a little stagnant. My social life, my creative and collaborative life . . . there was a circle and everything was inside of it. I hadn’t met a lot of new friends. I hadn’t really been in other studios. And so I think there’s been a little bit of action in the last couple years of, like, let me get out of here a little more.

And now you’re spending time in California. How does that feel?

Necessary.

All that sunshine.

I mean, holy hell. I am Wisconsin, through and through. But if I’m just there then what is April Base for? And what’s my love of Wisconsin for if I don’t have to come back to it? Also, it’s a little lonely out there. A lot of my family and my oldest friends have all moved away. And so I also haven’t had a lot of opportunity to meet new friends that weren’t somehow connected to the past—

Or to your work.

Or to my work. In L.A., it was just, “Hi, my name is Justin.” “Hi, my name is So-and-So.” “Do you want to be friends?” “This is great.” And I almost started crying when I realized—this is my first new friend, based on normal circumstances, in sixteen or seventeen years. That’s been a very positive thing. There’s a little anonymity for me, walking around. A lot of anonymity in Los Angeles, in particular. So it’s been very positive and challenging, in the best ways.

What you’re saying about making new friends in midlife—I get it, there’s a giddiness to it. It’s nice to meet new people now because we’re always changing, and here’s this newest, freshest iteration of you, and you get to present that to someone, instead of them inheriting a bunch of ideas.

You don’t have to open your book and be, “Who am I again? This is how I am? These are the things I believe in? Let me just make sure I get all that. . . .” You can just be. ♦

#The New Yorker #Bon Iver #Amanda Petrusich #Eau Claire #Wisconsin

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bvannn · 5 months ago

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Weekly Update July 5, 2024

I’m very sleepy because I was kept up with fireworks and then woke up in the middle of the night from nightmare. Still in a good mood because I found the dumpster guitar though. I tried to work on bigger projects between Artfight attacks, but I do want to try to finish off a few more this weekend. But tonight I’ll probably sleep early. Probably.

Artfight is going well, I have around 9 more attacks sketched that need to get digitized, I’m going to try pixel art again for some of them, since I do want to get good at it and I have slacked off for a while. Also got a couple comic panels outlined between attacks, because I thought they’d be quick. They weren’t but I’m going to keep going at it. Took another shot at comic writing as well, but no progress yet.

Other big thing I was messing with this week was music. As mentioned before I found a free guitar in the dumpster and I plan to make another push to learn it. I also fiddled with vocaloid again, and have effectively retuned OEB, just need to finish up harmonies which I’ll do once I’m home. Again I found out last week that I can speed up future pruning significantly with midi files, so I’ll try to record some if I’m getting art burnout this weekend. I also *tried* finishing up another instrumental ambient piece, but decided I didn’t like the piano and will be redoing it once I’m in the headspace. Big thing as far as music goes is I finished up a first draft of instrumentals for RR, which I’ll try to get vocals done alongside any other midi files I need to record, and get mixing done between Artfight attacks. I know I will at some point get that big inspiration hit for music and unload, but for now, I’m just kinda waiting and doing the easy stuff. Next steps will be finishing off the OEB vocals and mixing those in, finishing off RR, and probably redoing the instruments for BATB for the third time because I actually know what I’m doing now. That sounds bad but really it’s just a bunch of copy-paste and picking out instruments again. I really have been enjoying music, I just need to slog through my unfinished stuff before starting something new.

Really that’s it as far as this week. This month is going to be slow on projects due to Artfight, but that’s okay. I guess I just don’t have a lot to say. Tonight I’m going to try to get rest, probably going to change my mind but for now I’ll anticipate either going right to bed once I get home, or going and getting the dumpster guitar looked at and maybe getting the string fixed. If it’s not too expensive.

#weekly update

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misshvariety1307 · 11 months ago

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Wow, what a year....

Definitely not how I expected it to go, that's for sure 😅

Certainly wasn't expecting to get hurt on the job earlier this year and take me out for about four weeks (though I managed to get two pieces done in just a matter of days so that was a plus 😄👍)

Though, at the same time, I wasn't expecting to go into an art rut for a few months afterwards that really hurt my productivity. I'm just really happy that I got my muse back towards the end and made a few more pieces at the end.

However, there were a LOT of upsides to the year that I am so happy and thankful for that I really needed.

Probably the biggest one was that I finally, finally, found a job that I really enjoy and not as harsh on my body as what I was doing before. It was a very big change of pace that I was needing since I used to work pretty much the entire day away and I couldn't get anything done. Now I work first thing in the morning and have the afternoon to get so much more done which I'm so happy for.

Another big one was the Danny Phantom GN. HOLY COW that was a BIG ONE. Not only did we finally get some sort of DP content nearly twenty years later we're getting more in a sequel which I cannot wait for. The moment that I got the GN and read it it gave my creativity such a huge boost because it gave me a big project idea for something that I've been wanting to explore with Nyreena for a long while now and I can finally flesh it out and see this other take come to fruition in the new year. Believe me when I say that it's going to be a big project I can work on all year long XD

As for something I wasn't expecting I got to finally be a part of my very first zine and it was sooo much fun to work on. It was something I've been wanting to do for quite a while and seeing the opportunity I had to jump on it XD. Plus, it gets released tomorrow so it's going to be a very nice thing to start the new year on XD

All in all, despite the setbacks and other things that popped up out of the blue, I've had a pretty busy year of changes, improvements, and better understanding of where I want my art to go in the new year. I definitely want to get better organized and keep to a pretty consistent schedule so that I can get more artwork done and really expand on my interests that I've picked up from the past year.

To everyone that's begun following me this year and have been following me for a while I really want to thank you for your support and appreciate what I've produced over the year. You've given me so much confidence and pushed me to be better and make bigger and better things. I can't wait to get started in 2024 and have you all along with me for the ride because it's going to be a wild one for sure!

Thank you all and I will see you next year!

#danny phantom #transformers animated #cookie run #art summary #art summary 2023 #digital art #character art #character design #ipad art #oc art

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shesnotme · 1 year ago

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my plans for summer ❦

i dunno about you but i always, always spend my summers absolutely depressed. it's not a matter of whether or not you i friends, because i always have, but rather it's an issue of all that fucking time on your hands. two whole months of just.. nothing. so what do you even do? my plans for summer mainly revolve around helping my future self. because once september rolls around, what good will it be if i spent the past 2 months lazing around in bed? i won't be benefited by that, quite the opposite, really. so instead i've figured out what i need for the new school year and to really reach the goals i have for this upcoming year (post on that soon !). nothing revolutionary, sure, but it'll definitely help out at least a couple of you wondering what to do this summer <3

self care. this means caring of my body both inside and out. inside, i'm working on self improvement by becoming a kinder, more feminine person. i'm getting over my failed situationships and getting more comfortable being alone. i'm practicing detachment and, of course, protecting my peace. outside, i'm working on my hair and my body. i don't think it's any help to work on my wardrobe, because in summer you make really shit decisions. i've begun working out 3 times a week with my friend who's more experienced in the gym, mainly working on my glutes, cardio and abs. i'm planning on investing in heatless curlers, because my hair's volume hasn't been great. <3 ways you could practice self care: inside, you could work on your gut health, diet (eating healthy, not practicing any restrictive eating!), mental health, social life, self confidence. outside, you could work on your physical health (gym, running, biking), skincare, hair health, wardrobe (if you trust your decision making during this season), posture.

hobbies. you're not gonna want to go to the gym or journal every day, so finding some ways to spend your time alone and having fun can be really beneficial. i've started watching a couple tv shows, in july i'll be watching a movie every day (hopefully), scrapbooking more, making bracelets, and cooking. these aren't necessarily beneficial to future me, however they are fun and beneficial to present me, and balance is really important! summer is the time to take on projects and begin passions for things you can't do during the school year. hobbies that could help you: if you want something beneficial, try learning a new language, practicing an art (music, painting, writing), learning to cook, taking up a new sport, learning touch typing, or reading. if you want something fun, try watching a new tv show (skins, gossip girl, pretty little liars), watching a movie a day (you could do movies all with the same actor, by the same director, in a series, etc), scrapbooking, keeping a journal, growing a garden, crocheting, or decorating your room.

jobs. i have a late birthday so i can't volunteer yet, so instead i've taken on a few "jobs", mainly babysitting and doing things for my parents. it's not the most fun but if you want the money for the new school year (especially new clothes), you should do it. put the money into savings. of course, if you're under 15 you likely can't do much, but it's worth a shot. jobs you could take on: getting your volunteer hours (summer camps!), babysitting, working at fast food, designing carrds, mowing lawns.

planning. lastly, i'm planning out my next school year. it's good to have things figured out so that september doesn't hit you too hard. i'm working on things like schedules, study guides, phone decluttering, and, most fun, moodboards. i'll make a bigger post about my plans in specific <3 this is also a really great way you could practice manifesting. make your intentions clear and assume that these things will happen, and they will, but this isn't the place to be learning about that. things you could plan: your daily schedule (by the hour), outfit ideas, lunch ideas, goals, the mood for this school year, a desk system.

#girlblogger #girlblogging #romanticize your life #advice #loa #affirmations #summer inspo #summer motivation #manifesting #study motivation #romanticize studying #romanticize everything #romanticize school #summer vibes

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neeseeart · 11 months ago

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My BooRai WIP stats

So. As of right now, the number of written BooRai fan works I've published is...... zero. I recently announced my angst fic I Can Stop The World, with another reveal planned in a few weeks, but I've yet to actually publish anything 😭

Last night I was backing up all my WIPs, and I decided to go through and reorganize everything. I moved everything into new folders and checked their word counts. I was a little surprised by the numbers to be honest. Especially when compared to this word count update from 5 months ago: [link]

I thought it would be fun to post my stats so you can see how much I've been working on, even though I haven't started posting yet.

As of last night:

Total number of Google docs: 34 Outlined fics: 21 (mostly longfics) Comic WIPs: 7 Completed fics: 1 (a one-shot I'm not ready to post yet 😭) Ideas yet to be fleshed out: 12 Total BR fanfic word count: 517,362 Words this week: about 25,000

ICSTW (main angst fic, post-canon):

196,871 words 6 docs

SSATSF (Modern AU, upcoming reveal):

125,474 words 3 docs

Folklore AU (started recently):

23,289 words 2 docs

Comics (text only)

80,795 words 7 docs

Reference docs (OC masterlist, headcanons, language dictionary, etc.)

9149 words 5 docs

Okay, pause real quick. The first BooRai fic I started writing is a fluff comic (briefly mentioned here) that I started in late 2022. It was my only project until the day I started writing ICSTW in June 2023. Then I exploded in ideas and here we are. So, if I exclude that first comic's word count of 36,190...

...Then the total word count of BooRai fanfic I've written in the past 7 months is 481,172 words. That's about 2217 words per day, and 15,522 words per week.

Now. This all just a bunch of numbers. Numbers don't mean the fics are any good. I value quality over quantity, so you can see why I haven't published anything yet. The ideas are all there! Tons and tons of dialogue is written. Detailed lore is laid out. Languages have been constructed! But the chapters themselves are not written. I don't write chronologically, and my stories are very elaborate. So even my main two fics, at 196k and 125k, are nowhere near complete. I haven't even finished fleshing out the early chapters 😭

You might be looking at this and thinking like.... "yeah bro you're not gonna finish most of those fics. It's not happening. You're gonna burn out." Mayhaps! I have a tendency to overdo things, and sometimes I overwhelm myself by making things bigger and more complicated than they need to be. But all in all, I like the way I create and I like having a few big projects and lots of tiny ones. I'm deeply invested in my major projects and I really do want to dedicate myself to publishing chapters in the next few months. But if I never finish them, that's okay too! The important thing is to enjoy making the thing... and I enjoy it immensely. Enough to write half a million words in 7 months, apparently

I've talked about my fic content to some irl people and they always respond with: "When the hell do you do all this? I literally never see you writing." In reality, yes they do. if you see me typing on my phone, I'm most likely writing. I kind of high-key spend 100% of my free time drawing and writing now. Which is a miracle after years of art block and creative sterility.

Another reason I wanted to share my numbers is that there are a lot of fellow AuDHD creators on this site, so there are bound to be at least a few of you who work just like I do. If you're one of those people, you probably know that it's easy to feel like the projects will never come to fruition. Don't lose heart!!! You have the strength to finish your projects at your own pace!!! And if you simply lack the will to finish, that's also okay! If you enjoy just writing down ideas without committing to a fully fleshed out work, that's a perfectly legitimate form of art and recreation. Godspeed my friends.

And as for the people who have been supporting my BR art and keeping track of my fic updates... You are the world and I am but a humble bean in service of your fancies. Thank you for your support. Here's a picture of me rereading my WIPs for the billionth time while y'all stand there and wait for me to start posting chapters:

(P.S. I have about 80 fic-related art WIPs on my tablet.)

(P.P.S. stay tuned for my fictional language dictionary!!)

#boorai #bosxryza #bos x ryza #fanfiction #my fic #i can stop the world #icstw #ssatsf #wip #neesee speaks #neesee writes #not a drawing #tdpof #tears don't put out the fire

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eowyntheavenger · 2 years ago

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15 Questions 15 Mutuals

I was tagged by @valasania-the-pale, thanks so much for tagging me! :)

Rules: answer the questions and tag fifteen mutuals

1. Are you named after anyone?

Not my first name, but my middle name belongs to one of my mom's best friends, who I love :)

2. When was the last time you cried?

Hmm... I recently teared up while rereading The Silmarilion, does that count?

3. Do you have kids?

No, and it's not something I see for myself.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Sometimes, but I prefer to just outright criticize things rather than being sarcastic.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

I notice how they treat me and others around them.

6. What's your eye colour?

Blue.

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings! Although this frames it as a choice between two things that are not really opposites, so... I also happen to love tragedies.

8. Any special talents?

Depends on whether I'm actually talented, but I think I'm a good writer, and I also have some skill with drawing/painting, although I don't do it often enough these days.

9. Where were you born?

In the Pacific Northwest.

10. What are your hobbies?

Reading, writing, drawing/painting, photography, hiking, and martial arts.

I'm currently reading two books: one about the Coastwatchers in Solomon Islands during World War II, and the other about the Guadalcanal and Bougainville campaigns... also WWII.

I'm also currently working on some writing projects, namely the one giant writing project that has consumed the past three years of my life, although I've been taking a long-ish break for the holiday period (I've been too busy).

I'm also working on my first digital artwork, which has taken a few years at this point... partly because it keeps getting bigger and bigger! Ack!

There are a lot of things I'd like to learn how to do or do more of, like scuba diving, archery, and getting a pilot's license (but I need to save up money for that).

11. Any pets?

Two cats that I love very much. One of them is a tortoiseshell named Minou (there are pictures of her in the link). She is tiny! She is only 6 pounds. She doesn't really know how to meow, so when she wants food or attention she will gently and politely tap me with her paw (it is SO cute).

The other one is an orange cat with white socks named Percy, which is short for Persimmon. She is a troublemaker, and will steal ANYTHING from the kitchen. I once saw her running out of the room with a very long udon noodle trailing from her mouth. She is very cuddly and likes to spend all of her time on my lap, purring. Otherwise she's dashing madly around the house.

I also have a Juniper bonsai, which I think counts as a pet. I have had him for about three years.

12. What sports do you play/have played?

I played soccer as a child, and loved it. I played basketball for one season and it was not for me - neither was cross country. I started doing Muay Thai and boxing when I was 17 and I liked that a hell of a lot better. Then I started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo in college. Nothing makes me happier than getting to do MMA multiple times per week, and I only wish that I could train regularly right now! I don't live close enough to the school I want to go to - but once I find a new apartment I'll be able to. I also enjoy weightlifting.

13. How tall are you?

5′4″... I would like to be taller, but this IS average height for a woman in the United States (where I live), which is what I remind people who tell me I'm short!

14. Favorite subject in school?

History, to be sure, which was my major. I also enjoyed Philosophy, Russian Literature and my language classes - over the years I took Latin, Japanese, German and Russian. Unfortunately my language skills are a bit rusty now, but I don't regret the time I spent studying them. :) I would like to learn some of the languages of the Pacific Islands - there are certainly a lot to choose from.

15. Dream job?

The one I have now, basically! Although I would like to live in the South Pacific one day. I work for a research institute and my field of study is the Pacific Islands. I love what I do, I get to travel, my coworkers respect me - I'm literally so happy! It's a big relief, because I was not happy at my previous job, and it's hard to find jobs in my field, at least where I live now.

Tagging friends: @softlypause, @wishiwould, @jtulipe, @lonelysocksclub, @orestes-hungry-and-pylades-sober, @frodo-baggins, @princeofnerds, @carinatae, @cosmologicalhedgehogephemera, @igotofetchthesun, @tuulikki, @belljarsandrabbitholes, @warrioreowynofrohan, @daegred-winsterhand, @katbatmagat, @softpyrate, @lie-where-i-land, @speckled-jim, @orangechickenpillow, @potatoobsessed999, @armenelols, @actuallyfingolfin, @backgroundelf, @stillcantgetoverthesilmarillion, @rhymes-with-sky, @kookyburrowing, @novemberblueskyink, @legolasbadass, @playingjax, @calliopechild, @randomphases Okay sorry I tagged a lot of people. No pressure to do it though! And anyone else can join in :)

#personal #tag game

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luckyshotwrites · 1 year ago

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How long does it takes for you to do literature and do art? How many requests do you have btw?

HOWDY HOWDY, sorry I did not get to this sooner! Currently I have about 15 asks in my ask box that are questions/writing/art requests. xD I USED to be able to keep up on it but my mind has been getting thrown all over the place lately. (I'M WORKING THROUGH ALL OF THEM whether I can answer them well or not!)

Widfali related art and writing content: If it's Widfali related it can sometimes be a while, reason being, I struggle with what to include and when to include it. I have the story done and have had the plots/arcs all done for at least a year or so now. And I've had the world itself compiled together for more than that. It's hard for me to figure out when to post what and where? I have to be selective with dialogue choices and hints that I drop toward the bigger picture. Thus it's fairly difficult to put together these later chapters as they are leading up to other things and we are finally hitting the point of heavy magic, lore, backstories, etc. (ALSO, I have been getting very distracted lately with irl stuff as well as my own mind throwing tons of ideas to me at once. On my server I have a big list of projects I'm working on/trying to complete at some point for Widfali). Widfali art, I'm slowly trying to learn how to do it. I've definitely had some big improvements over the past few months but I still want to get anatomy, composition, and posing right. (Time estimate: 2-4 days (writing), 1-5 days (art)).

Anything else not Widfali?: It's a little complicated. I've been trying not to distract myself too much until I can get into a real groove with Widfali again. At least 3 posts a week. I love to procrastinate. So other projects are on the back burner. I'm trying to work through the ones I have promised to get done, yet I'm realizing I'm very critical when it comes to doing things for others. And I'm driving myself crazy attempting to make everything perfect and I feel terrible if I'm not able to give people the best. It's why I've been avoiding it. I am still working on it all though!

IN ALL, I cannot give time estimates as I'm terrible at it. However, I will get things done. I will get back on track at some point. THANK YOU FOR THE ASK AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY! (Nonnegotiable!!)

#luckyshotwrites #answered ask

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cdevroe · 3 months ago

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Diversions #4: Tree branches and LLMs

Diversions is the central hub for news about the membership, behind-the-scenes details of my personal projects, as well as a wide variety of links to people, places, and things that inspire me.

A bit of housekeeping: I’m turning Diversions public. While a fair number of people have signed up for both free and paid memberships (thank you!), my analytics show that not everyone logs back in to read each edition. Perhaps it is a bit too much friction? So, I’ll be turning the free membership into a more newslettery type subscription and the paid membership I’ll reserve for more exclusive content and still as a way to support my projects. Stay tuned.

I could bore you with excuses as to why there hasn’t been a Diversions since early June and that I plan to publish more regularly, but that would be breaking my very first tip for blogging – “Don’t post about what you will do, post about what you’ve already done.”

Summertime is moving at breakneck speed. As Anh put it in a recent, and lovely designed, weeknotes post “It’s July, and the passage of time continues to be disorienting.” Well, it is August and I only read that post today and so that just reenforces the point. I’m not sure if it is age, busyness, or *waves arms gesturing at everything* but disorienting is a great way to describe how time seems to be moving.

Since the last Diversions was published, we’ve had family reunions, building permits and variants filing, glamping trips, dinner parties (with us hosting 25 people

), blueberry picking, trees falling, software updates shipping, and lots of customers. There was a week that felt like far too much. I need to be more careful with my scheduling.

That being said, things are good.

Spending 8-10 hours cutting a felled tree led to some meditations on lessons learned from the experience. This was a tree we knew would eventually come down. Fortunately, the only thing injured was a relatively new pear tree. But the amount of work to clean up after something like this was not expected. Trees are bigger when they are laying flat in your yard and you don’t want them there.

One lesson that was reinforced was to take large projects and make them into many small ones. We’ve had a hot summer so working in the afternoons would have been extremely unpleasant – so, I woke up early each day and got a little more of the tree taken care of. Steady progress made me happy and I also didn’t totally wear myself out. There is still a bit left to do.

Another lesson is that even though a less-than-great thing happened, I did get a few years worth of campfire wood stacked in the backyard. Each windstorm usually snaps enough limbs to give me a fair amount of sticks and branches to have some nice fires. But this new bounty means that I likely won’t need to go get fire wood for our fire pit for many summers. And it was free!

I’m using LLMs a lot lately. I continue to use them as an accelerator. And they’ve grown more capable and I’m able to run them locally (both to cut costs and to get more familiar with how they work).

I’m using Simon Willison’s LLM command line tool to install and interact with models locally (and, online). The command line isn’t the best interface for interacting with these chatbots – a web UI allows for dragging and dropping, easier copying and pasting, and other tools built on top of the chatbots. However, it is a great way to do quick prompts right from where I am in my project. I’m looking forward to seeing how local models progress.

Some links for your edification:

Jordan Stone on TikTok – If you would like to trip on acid without harmful drugs getting into your spinal fluid, here is your chance.

Aegir Hallmundur’s blog – A fun blog where each post has its own style. It reminds me of Jason Santa Maria‘s blog “back in the day”. Particularly V4.

Zellyn Hunter Recreates Schotter by George Nees – Don’t miss the multiple parts. I cannot skip a blog post recreating analog generative art.

The Nook by Isaac French – Yes please.

Solstice 2024 – Ian Giffin shares a pinhole solargraph showing the path of the sun on the shortest day of the year.

Meredith Frampton – Extraordinary work.

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littlewalken · 1 year ago

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Sep 17

Finally found the secret to making a bread Jesus (risen) and it involves wearing a band Ghost t-shirt. I still don't know why this one was really any different than previous attempts but I threw in baking soda along with the yeast just to be sure.

Now baked bread is going to be more dense than the sandwich stuff we get in America but you can feel if it's going to be a Satan the first time you go to kneed it. By then it should be a little bigger and feel fluffier than from the initial mixing.

If the ingredients to your unrisen bread are pet safe just make it into pet sized lumps, bake so you can have the fresh bread smell in your house, when cooled give to pets who eat bread. Over baked rock hard bread Satans seem like a good idea for teething puppies.

Started writing something in the reusable notebook, by the time I was turning the page over I decided to put it on real paper. When I started I didn't know if it just needed a few paragraphs to work stuff out or what. But having some things start well and run out of gas was one of the reasons I decided to try the thing. You can leave the ink on for a little while, I suppose it varies by brands, while working on a current project but it's not a long term thing.

I'm about ready to start s1 e7 of Picard. I've been fast forwarding thru half of it. Checkov's Crew ex Machina bothers me. Isn't this what they complained about with the original Mary Sue?

I want to do something creative but it's probably going to be limited to art or writing because of my back. Went from having my mattress on the floor for a good week or so, put my cot outside for five minutes and the only male cat in the zipcode finds it and sprays it, to a metal platform bed.

It's this house. It's trying it's best, it knew we needed somewhere to live when we moved in, but it also knows we can't stay here forever. The new place has it's outside surface. Still waiting for past experiences to kick in with that but I have to remember we're in a totally different boat in this storm and finally getting the decent things in life we've deserved.

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theromanticscrooge · 2 years ago

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Rambles About What Happened and What I’m Doing

I left YouTube back in late 2017. Then I slowly quit and pulled away from being “The Romance Scrooge” over 2018, too.

What originally happened was that my laptop died. I didn’t have backups of my videos, my Photoshop and Illustrator files, or any of the assets/footage I was actively using to make videos at the time. It was the topping of a shit cake. I was 2 years out of college with a fine arts degree, but I wasn’t selling art or working in an art studio like I’d hoped. There were no art studios close enough. I had no confidence in myself or my art. I was juggling 5 different part time merchandiser jobs in addition to picking up whatever gigs I could find on freelancer apps. I wanted to be in charge of my schedule, my life, my time, and every detail.

Instead, I was drowning. I had burned out from trying to do too much at once and refusing to acknowledge that I had anxiety and depression among other personal issues that I’m not getting into. Everything was slowly shoved onto the backburner because I was floundering so bad, getting more stressed out, and had no idea how to fix things let alone get help or start rebuilding my life. Then 2020 happened and honestly, it was a downhill slide until the past 6-8 months. I’ve made more progress figuring out who I am, what my limits are, what I want from life, and otherwise this year than in the past 4-5 years. There’s still a lot I want and need to do, but I decided that resurrecting Scrooge and giving things another go is part of that.

I’ve been working on weird, surreal art under the pen name Cosmimarshmello, too. I’m currently workshopping what to do with that, too, but I consider that a separate project from anything I’m doing with Scrooge.

Where to go From Here...

I’ve been fighting with pretty bad writer’s block for the last few years. Cobbling together a coherent thought or something worth posting happened once in a blue moon. It could be once a month or once every 5 months. There’s a few thoughts on here I’m considering about taking another crack at, like my post on April and Donnie between the 2003 TMNT to Rise of the TMNT. I’m leaning towards writing and making something new for now, though. I feel like the proverbial floodgates opened back up and I can work up to what I used to be able to do and eventually better.

For now, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do now or what my next video will be. I want to ease into things so it’ll be rambly blog posts and shorter thoughts/takes on various topics for awhile while I find my voice again. There’s gonna be more waffling like this since, honestly, stream of thought is a fantastic base for getting thoughts out period. It’s how I used to brainstorm, too. The process would be: dump several paragraphs on a specific idea here, then comb through and sew together what’s relevant, discard what isn’t, put irrelevant ideas in a different draft for later. Some sessions led to a few more video ideas than just the big one I originally had in mind.

Part of it is that I feel like I don’t have anything interesting or meaningful enough to talk about. There’s so many more people in the niche I used to be part of. Every bigger topic has already been covered by three different people and there’s already established reviewers or creators that viewers immediately go to for particular topics or things. That’s before even tackling how beastly YouTube’s algorithm has become, among other potential spaces. The algorithm is exactly why I’m leaning towards starting back up here and branching out to spaces like Mastodon first. At least for the text-based stuff.

They aren’t dominated by an algorithm. People will actually see my posts; even if it’s weeks, months, or years later. That factor helps a lot with how disposable social media can make someone feel.

I still feel like someone with not a lot to say. But I’ve kept tabs on a few different YouTubers that started small or are consistent and getting better every day. Honestly, a big part of starting again now is to remind myself that some projects and journeys are worthwhile; not only will my writing and potential videos get better with time, but hopefully it helps with personal growth, too.

I’ve been especially inspired by someone going through a hard time and showing parts of how she’s working on herself and her life through YouTube. I’m wondering if I can do similar for someone else by chronicling the “behind the scenes” stuff like this.

#rambly #rambly thoughts #talking about getting my shit together #behind the scenes #my thought processes #why i'm back here stuff

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vampireantihero · 1 year ago

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What's the News, Vamp?

Good morning everyone, happy Monday! Welcome to July! Yesterday, July 2nd, is the exact half-way point of the year — how has your last six months been? I truthfully have not had time to reflect on them, but I’ll be doing a little bit of that in this newsletter with you all here. Before we get too far into that, though, here’s this week’s schedule:

Under Strange Suns

There’s an art house studio (a studio that provides art to other companies, in this case for video games) that I’ve been following for a little over a year called Atomhawk. Atomhawk does a contest every year to lift up promising artists, and also provide an opportunity to get your artwork seen. This year, their theme is Under Strange Suns. If you’re an artist, I encourage you to check out the contest here. It’s a wonderful opportunity for growth, and there are some amazing prizes that could really prove helpful if you win. I personally like entering contests, because it gives me something to strive for as well as a brief to follow. It keeps my skills sharp and, if I receive feedback, then it gives me something to work on and strive to better in my work.

If you are planning on entering, then let me know on the Discord! I’m planning on chilling in the voice chats if people would like to work together.

I have several personal IP that I can use for this kind of theme, and I’m thinking I’m probably going to enter this year. I want to push myself and come up with something that I can be proud of, and also I want to see how much my skills have grown. I’m trying to change how I approach bigger projects and really push my ideas to where they shine. It’s my hope that I can make something that will catch the eye of the judges, but also I’ll be happy even if whatever I make is something I can look back at and be happy with a year from now.

Last year their theme was Forgotten Creation, and I did enter last year, but I was way less confident in my art back then and my skills have grown exponentially since. This was my entry last year:

I still really enjoy this piece, and I like the concept, though I know that I can do something better if I put my mind to it. I can also see where I could make improvements; how certain textures would help to enhance the mood, or a less boring composition would have really highlighted the story elements of the doll waiting for her human. Maybe I can use this piece as a litmus test; re-do it one of these days in a better composition and style. A lot of what I do lately is similar to this, but this was me doing my absolute best last year, and now this is my base line. It’s my hope to be able to push into a more painterly realm, and have something a little less static this year. If I can nail a dynamic composition, that’s half the battle. The other half is to stop overthinking the rendering and stopping before I start.

And speaking of stopping before I start…

After the Parade Prints

I almost didn’t put these up, despite promising them at the end of the video. I’ve been feeling pretty down about my art in the past few weeks, but I’m pushing past the feeling. Usually when this happens, it’s because I’m close to a breakthrough — I just have to ride the wave of this rollercoaster until I’m flying high again.

There are posters available now in the shop! Posters are a nice way to have a large print of this. I also have framed prints and canvas prints available in the same size. Also, I’ve put it on the cover of a spiral notebook for my stationery lovers out there. I’m still working on finding a good source for higher quality giclee prints that are print on demand, but if I can’t find them, I may release a limited run of them that I source ahead of time. If I do this, the prints will be numbered and not offered again once they’re gone.

Reflection — The Last Six Months

The last six months have been a hell of a whirlwind. There is a lot that I’ve done successfully, as well as a lot that I’ve failed at. There has been a huge emotional rollercoaster this year between my little brother’s situation, the successful reboot of our theatre program, a massive falling out I had with a friend group, and my acceptance into the mentorship I’m taking this fall. This year has been the worst year business-wise since I’ve started in 2020, and yet, I’m feeling the best I’ve ever felt about my prospects. I’ve been working hard on my craft and my mental health, and I’ve been able to makes strides this year that I never thought would be possible for me. I’ve been able to work consistently throughout all of the ups and downs, and have seen mass improvement in my art despite everything. I am happy, and I am doing the best that I can do to stay positive and keep trying to pivot so that I can reach my goals.

I am also, admittedly, exhausted. I’ve been needing a break for the last month or so, despite being able to keep trucking on and doing the things that I need to do. The problem is, I don’t know what that break entails. I do know that I’ve been starting to notice myself cutting corners with my art, or skipping studies, and not being able to shake this exhaustion no matter how much time I give myself. So last week I skipped a few studies and just worked on what I wanted to work on. This made me feel a little lost, but I’ve thought about it a bit and have landed on what this year has taught me so far and what my next direction is.

So, What’s Next?

For the last several years, I have decided everything on a whim. I think it might be time for me to step back and regroup.

In the past I’ve decided random directions like the ambition to “create a tarot deck”. This is also how I’ve approached my comics and other projects. The problem with approaching things like this that are huge projects, is that there is no planning involved, just a goal without any direction. With that being said, I’m going to be working on my tarot series again soon — I did start to re-draw one of the cards I had already drawn, but I think I’m going to wait on any big projects like this until after I do my mentorship this fall. Working hard on things like this without any direction defeats the purpose of working hard. I need to ideate, to plan, to come up with solid themes and ideas instead of just an arbitrary goal. I also know that my artwork and style will be much more refined after the mentorship this fall, and I don’t want to work on my big projects just to feel the need to re-do them in a few months again. When I start them, that’s the last time. If I don’t finish, I don’t finish, and I can’t keep putting them off.

That being said, don’t worry! I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to put my energy into my commissions, refining my artwork, and creating a better workflow for the rest of the year. I’ll still be doing my studies, though they may not be daily, and I’ll still be putting things up on Youtube and doing tutorials, speedpaints, and vlogs. High resolution downloads of pieces will still be available to Ko-Fi members, and will still be around Discord and social media. I may be around a little bit less in those spaces, but I’ll be there!

I have a vacation coming up in a few weeks that I desperately need, and I’m hoping that I’ll feel a bit more refreshed after that happens. After we’re back, I’ve got two weeks before the mentorship starts, and I’ll be working on smaller things before that happens. I’ll be more seriously looking at my bigger projects, my portfolio, and re-tackling the studies with more of a design focus when I’m back. I can work on my rendering while I’m keeping my design skills sharp, so I’ll be figuring out what I want to do as I go.

Fiverr

Fiverr has been delayed for the last two weeks — I need to iron out my pricing scale before I publish things, so I’m triple checking everything and making sure I’m happy with what I’ve put together. I’ll stop talking about it on the schedules, and get it put together and announce it once it is.

Closing Thoughts

I’m skipping the In Case You Missed it this week, because there isn’t much to share. I did two studies and a contest entry for Hardy Fowler’s discord. That being said, I’m hoping that everyone has a fantastic start to their week, and if you have Tuesday off, a lovely holiday. Take care of yourselves, everyone. Drink your water and do what you can.

I love you all.

#my stuff #artists on tumblr #art newsletter #newsletter

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