#i only wish there weren’t so many people disillusions with it being taught to them poorly

[martritzvonmercie]

Bestie im so sure math is fun at least some of the time, but numbers don't stick to my brain lmao. They roll of my brain like rain off an umbrella

I UNDERSTAND feeling this way and i know many people who have felt this way from being a student but i prommy it doesn’t mean being bad at math and even tho it doesn’t come naturally to everyone, anyone can learn and be good at it. ofc not everyone has to learn or has to want to learn but. anyone can

[kirain]

What's with that post? Dutch LOVES Hosea. They're literally gay. They held hands and raised two sons together. They're so extremely gay, respect it!

Two men: Showing affection

Tumblr: They're fucking!

...In all seriousness, I have absolutely no idea what I said or did to warrant this message, but I can only assume it's because I said in another post that Dutch doesn't respect Hosea? Which he doesn't?

They're supposed to be partners, but he certainly doesn't treat him like one. He doesn't listen to him, he yells at him when he's coughing or in pain, and he makes him sleep on the cold, hard, dirty ground. He even openly ignores him in Colter, in front of the other men, and rides off when he tries to stop him from robbing Cornwall's train. I'm not saying they don't have a rich history or good moments, but it's a toxic relationship at best. Not exactly something worth praising.

If you don't believe me, you can find unique dialogues as the game progresses, verifying he’s lost all faith in Dutch. To the point that he even starts telling other members to leave. Abigail, John, Arthur, Lenny, Tilly, Sadie -- he tells all of them to leave. During a dominoes game we played together he even said, "Maybe it's just me, but Dutch seems to be getting more and more unhinged." And as early as chapter one he told Arthur, "Try to stop Dutch getting all of you killed, because I'm about beginning to think he's finally lost his mind."

There are also other conversations where Hosea’s disappointment with Dutch is far more blatant. He basically tells Arthur he’s been disillusioned for a while and wishes the gang would change, but when Arthur asks what they’d do instead of thieving, Hosea says, “I don’t know. I never knew. Guess I could never figure that out, neither.” By this point he’s just so dejected and defeatist because he knows Dutch won’t listen to him. He also goes on a whole tirade about how they’ve become “nothing but a bunch of killers”, which breaks his heart, and during a random campfire encounter he bares his soul and flat out tells the gang he no longer believes in Dutch’s “we’re above the law” philosophy.

As for the whole "they're gay" thing? Ship whoever you want. I don't care (they're fictional characters, after all). But don't come onto my blog and demand that I "respect it", because I don't. In fact, I vehemently disagree with you.

First off, Hosea was very happily married and totally devoted to his wife Bessie. So much so that after she died, he was drunk and depressed for a year. He even tried to leave the gang once he married her, but he inevitably drifted back into the life of an outlaw when he failed to find adequate work. Keep that in mind, though -- he left the van der Linde gang. He left Dutch. During the hunting mission, Arthur even says, "I remember you were gone for a long while." But according to Hosea, Bessie supported and accepted his lifestyle, since at the time they were more of a community than a “gang”. They actually helped people, like a Robin Hood band of merry men.

Hosea talking about his wife:

"Since she was ... taken from me, I miss her every day. She's what I think about when I wake up, and what I'm still thinking about when I go to sleep. Confuses me. Confuses me to no end, how a wretched sinner like me could be given someone so perfect, so beautiful to take care of. For once in my wretched life, do my best. And then she dies ... and I live on. Well, at least for now. She’s been gone many years. All them years I was given and she was not, and we’re expected to believe in judgement? What kind of a judge would save me and take her? A foolish one I can’t respect anymore than I can respect myself! I miss her so--!” He pauses, nearly crying. “Forgive me for being so maudlin, but ... it’s a fact. I know we all of us seen more death than life these past few months, but ... well, sometimes the unfairness of it all confuses me.”

In addition, when asked who the two most important people in his life are, he mentions Bessie first, before Dutch. Arguably he's known Dutch longer and he’s still alive and active in his life, but Bessie always comes first. He also says he’s “ready to die” because he’s “ready to join her”.

Please don't disregard this. Hosea is an honest, loyal, loving husband. If it was just a matter of you insisting he's gay, I'd probably have less of a problem (because, sure, that can change for some people and maybe he's bi now), but pairing him with Dutch, when he's so wholly devoted to his wife, is just reprehensible in my opinion. Dutch isn’t a good man and he treats Hosea quite poorly.

Secondly, yes, you're partially right. Hosea did raise two kids with Dutch. Actually, he raised four. Arthur, John, Tilly, and Mary-Beth. They were all young teens when they joined, but Dutch and Hosea weren't the only "parents". Grimshaw and Bessie also helped raised them. Arthur even says Bessie taught him how to play dominoes and mentions that he misses her. So I don't really understand the correlation here. You don't have to be in a sexual/romantic relationship to raise kids. And keep in mind that the story takes place during a time when entire communities worked together to raise children. Ever heard the expression "it takes a village to raise a child"?

Overall, I'm simply not comfortable overlooking Hosea's marriage and Dutch's abuse. To put it into perspective, it'd be like writing a fic where Molly and Dutch are in a happy, healthy relationship, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I'm just not the type of person who's willing to change a character's entire personality and history in order to make them fit my personal narrative.

[buzzdixonwriter]

My Five Most Influential

Someone asked:   Who are the most influential writers in your life?

Good question.

The broad answer is that one gets influenced many different ways by many different sources.  I enjoy poetry and song lyrics because they find ways of conveying the strongest emotional content in the most concise manner, music brings a sense of dramatic rhythm and fulfillment, the visual arts suggest ways of subtly adding many insights to a single strong idea, etc., etc., and of course, etc. (and that is also an example of a creative influence in my work).

But…to boil it down to those whom I most consciously made an effort to emulate, we find ourselves facing five creators that primed the pump.

This is not to say others whom I began following after them didn’t wield a lot of influence (thanx, Ernie, Bert, Jack, Bob, and Hank!) but these are the foundation of everything I’ve done in my career.

(And to those who notice a lack of diversity, I know, I know…but to be honest I have to acknowledge the truth, and the truth is for whatever reason, by chance or by choice, by fate or by fortune, these five dominated my sensibilities.  I trust that I’ve grown and expanded my horizons since then, but they’re the hand I got dealt.)

. . . 

Carl Barks

I loved ducks as a kid and my grandmother and aunt would always bring me a passel of duck-related comics when they came to visit.

There were some Daffy Duck comics mixed in there but while I know I looked at and enjoyed them, none of them stick in my mind like the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories of Carl Barks.

Typically my grandmother would read these comics to me and I’d imprint the dialog and captions in my brain, replaying them as I looked at the pictures over and over again.

Barks never wrote down to his audience, and his stories covered a vast array of genres, everything from straight domestic comedy to oddball adventures to screwy crime stories.

Donald and his nephews encountered dinosaurs more than once (another big favorite of mine), and Uncle Scrooge setting out to explore the asteroid belt in order to find a new home for his fabulous money bin was another tale I loved literally to pieces, but A Christmas For Shacktown remains my all time favorite graphic novel.

I’ll concede there are better graphic novels, but none of them warm my heart the way that Christmas story does.

Barks showed it’s possible to combine heart (not to be confused with sentimentality or =yuch!= schmaltz), vivid characters, and strong, intricate narrative.  His plots where typically filled with unexpected twists and turns but his characters were always deeply involved in them, not just along for the ride.

He’s one of the greatest storytellers in the 20th century, and his work remains timeless enough to last for several centuries to come.

. . . 

Ray Bradbury

The first Ray Bradbury story I remember encountering was “Switch On The Night” in its 1955 edition, read to my kindergarten class towards the end of the school year.

This would place the event sometime in the spring of 1959.

“Switch On The Night” captivated me because it was the first story I’d ever heard that showed what could be seen in the dark that couldn’t be seen in the day.

Even as a child, it made me realize the night wasn’t scary, but contained wonders and insights we miss in the harsh glare of day.

I don’t recall if the kindergarten teacher told us the name of the author, and if she did it didn’t stick, but boy howdy, the story sure did!  Did it open the doors of the night for me, or was I already inclined to be a night person and it simply confirmed that as a valid identity?

I dunno, but I’m typing this right now at 12:24am.

And the thoughts Bradbury planted in little Buzzy boy’s brain stayed and grew and flowered, as you can read in my poem, “The Magic Hours Of The Night”.

The next time I encountered Ray Bradbury’s writing was in grammar school, certainly no later than junior high.  I was already interested in science fiction by that point, and had read “The Pedestrian” in one of my school English books (we weren’t taught the story in class; the teacher skipped over it for whatever reason but I read it anyway then re-read it and read it again and again).

Anthony Boucher’s ubiquitous 2-volume A Treasury Of Great Science Fiction was in my grammar school library and in it was Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” (which I would later learn was one of his alternate Martian Chronicles and a crossover with Fahrenheit 451) and in that story he offered up a veritable laundry list of outré and outlandish fiction to be tracked down and read, authors to dig up and devour.

Oh, man, I was hooked.

So of course I began looking for all the stories and writers Bradbury listed in his short story but I also began looking for Bradbury’s own work and before you could say, “Mom, can I get a subscription to the Science Fiction Book Club?” I’d read The Golden Apples Of The Sun and A Medicine For Melancholy and R is For Rocket never once dreaming that at some point in the future the roadmap Ray plopped down in my lap would eventually lead to us being co-workers (separate projects, but the same studio at the same time) and friends.

There is a beautiful yet deceptive simplicity to Ray’s work, and even though he wrote his own book on writing (The Zen Of Writing) that has lots of good insights and professional tricks & tips, he himself wasn’t able to explain how he did it.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Ray Bradbury parody.

I’ve seen parodies that clearly are intended to evoke Ray Bradbury, but only in the same way a clumsy older relative might evoke Michael Jackson with a spasmodic movement one vaguely recognizes as a failed attempt at a moonwalk.

But, lordie, don’t think we didn’t try to emulate him, and while none of us fanboys ever came close, I think a lot of us did learn that less is more, that the right word carries more impact than a dozen paragraphs, and that there’s magic in even the most ordinary of things.

And of course I discovered the film and TV adaptations of his work, and in discovering them I also discovered that there are some things that just can’t be translated from one media to another, and that the light, effortless appeal of Ray’s work on the page (paper or pixel) can at best be recaptured with a good audio book reader but even the best dramatic adaptions -- even those by Ray himself -- are cold dead iron butterflies compared to the light and lively creatures flying about.

So eventually I stopped trying to write like him, and instead picked up the valuable lessons of mood and emotion making an impact on a story even if the plot didn’t make much logical sense.

Decades later I would become a fan of opera, and would learn the philosophy of all opera lovers:  Opera doesn’t have to make logical sense, it just has to make emotional sense.

Ray Bradbury, opera meister.

. . . 

H.P. Lovecraft

As noted above, Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” tipped me to numerous other writers, first and foremost of which turned out to be Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Okay, before we get any further into this, let’s acknowledge the woolly mammoth in the room:  H.P. Lovecraft was a colossal asshat racist.

He was a lot of other terrible things, too, but racist is far and ahead of the rest of the pack.

It’s a disillusioning thing to find people one admired as a youngster or a teen later prove to have not just quirks and eccentricities and personal flaws, but genuinely destructive, harmful, and offensive characters.

I’ve posted on that before, too.

How I wish it were possible to retroactively scale back that hurtfulness, to make them more empathetic, less egregiously offensive (in the military sense of the word), but that ain’t so.

We have to acknowledge evil when we see it, and we have to call it out, and we have to shun it.

Which is hard when one of its practitioners provides a major influence in our creative lives.

Here’s what I liked about Lovecraft as a kid:  He was the complete opposite of Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury’s instinctive genius was in finding the right word, the simple word that conveyed great impact on the story, drawing the reader into the most fantastic situations by making them seem more familiar on a visceral level.

Lovecraft achieved the exact opposite effect by finding the most arcane, bedizened, baroque, florid, grandiloquent, overwrought, rococo verbiage possible and slapping the reader repeatedly in the face with it.

If Bradbury made the unreal real, Lovecraft made the weird even more weirder.

And let’s give this devil his due:  The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror are two masterpieces of horror and serve as the bridge between Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King, not to mention his creation of Cthulhu and other ancient entities existing beyond the ken of human knowledge…

…oh, wait, that’s where the story simultaneously gets messy yet provides a convenient escape hatch for fans.

While Lovecraft created Cthulhu, he did not create the Cthulhu Mythos.

That was primarily the invention August Derleth, a writer / editor / agent and H.P. Lovecraft’s #1 fanboy.

Lovecraft had some loosely related ideas in his stories and several themes he revisited repeatedly (in addition to racism).

He also had a circle of fellow writers -- including such heavy hitters as Robert “Psycho” Bloch and Robert E. “Conan” Howard -- who picked up on his ideas and, as way of a tribute, incorporated them in some of their stories.

Derleth took all this and Lovecraft’s unfinished manuscripts and short ideas he jotted down and turned it into a whole post-mortem industry, linking all of Lovecraft and other writers’ tales.

And he did a damn fine job of it, too.

So much so that the Cthulhu Mythos has taken on a life of its own, and pretty much anybody can play in that cosmic sandbox now (including Big Steve King and a ton of Japanese anime) and so Lovecraft’s works have an enormous influence on pop culture…

,,,but Howard hizzowndamsef can be -- and is -- cancelled.

Derleth and various biographers downplayed Lovecraft’s virulent racism for decades, and I don’t think Ray Bradbury was ever aware of the scope and tenor of Lovecraft’s bigotry when he name checked him in “Pillar Of Fire” and other stories.

In a similar vein Bradbury didn’t know -- because thanks again to overly protective literary executors, nobody knew -- just how big a racist asshat Walt Whitman was, either.  It is one thing to call shenanigans on a Bill Cosby or a Harvey Weinstein or a Donald Trump because their egregious behaviors were noted long before they were held accountable, but quite another to do so on a creator who died while hiding their most awful behavior from thousands if not millions of fans who felt inspired and uplifted by their work.

It’s one thing to call out a contemporary bigot and not support them by not buying their work, it’s quite another when their bigotry has been shielded from view and fair minded, decent people have used their work to draw inspiration into their own creativity.

Of course, I had no way of knowing all this when I was in junior high and seriously began tracking down Lovecraft’s work.  

He possessed a flair of the horrific and unearthly that to this day is hard to match (but easier to parody).  He was a tremendous influence on my early writing (truth be told, I zigzagged between Bradbury’s stark simplicity and Lovecraft’s overarching verbosity, giving my early oeuvre a rather schizophrenic style) and the ideas he sparked still reverberate to this day.

If only he hadn’t been such a giant %#@&ing asshat racist …

. . . 

Harlan Ellison

In a way, I’m glad neither Harlan nor his widow Susan are alive to read this.

I cherished Harlan as a friend and greatly admired his qualities as a writer.

But damn, by his own admission he should have been thrown in prison for aggravated assault on numerous occasions (he was courts martialed three times while in the Army).

We’re not talking about arguments that spiraled out of control until a few wild punches were thrown, we’re talking about Harlan by his own admission stalking and ambushing people, knocking them unconscious or causing grievous bodily harm.

We’re talking about sexual abuse and humiliation.

We’re talking about incidents he admitted to which if true put people in life threatening situations.

And yet ironically, in a certain sense Harlan (a bona fide Army Ranger, BTW) was like the U.S. Marine Corps:  You’d never have a greater friend or a worse enemy.

I became dimly aware of Harlan in the late 1960s as I started diving deeper into literary sci-fi, transitioning from monster kid fandom to digests and paperbacks.  Harlan first caught my attention with his macho prose (years later a similar style also drew me to Charles Bukowski) in stories like “Along the Scenic Route” (a.k.a. “Dogfight on 101”) in which Los Angelinos engaged in Mad Max motor mayhem but soon it became apparent the macho posturing was just a patina, that the heart and soul of much of the work reflected great sensitivity and often profound melancholy (ditto Bukowski).

Harlan was a fighter, and again by his own admission, he acknowledged in his later years that he was not a fighter because his cause was just, but rather sought out just causes because he knew he would be fighting regardless of his position, yet possessed a strong enough moral compass to point himself in the direction of a worthy enemy…

…most of the time.

He hurt and offended a large number of innocent and some not-so-innocent-but-certainly-not-evil people.

He also helped and encouraged a large number of others, people who had no idea who he was, people who had no way of adequately reciprocating his kindness and generosity.

He defended a lot of defenseless people.

He also mistakenly defended a lot of terrible people.

If someone tells me Harlan was a monster, I’ll agree:  Monstre sacré.

What made his writing sacred was that no matter how outlandish the situation, Harlan dredged up from the depths emotions so strong as to be frightening in their depiction.

Skilled enough not to lose sight of humanity, outlandish enough to conjure up ideas and emotions most people would shy away from, Harlan hit adolescent Buzzy boy like an incendiary grenade.

Unlike my first three literary influences, Harlan was and remained active in the fannish circles where I was circulating at the time.  He regularly wrote letters and columns for various fanzines, including a few I subscribed to.

In a literary sense he stood, naked and unashamed, in full view of the world, and that willingness to go beyond mundane sensibilities is what made his work so compelling.

He certainly fired me up as an adolescent writer, and proved an amalgam of Bradbury and Lovecraft that got my creative juices flowing in a coherent direction.

I don’t think I ever consciously tried to imitate him in my writing, but I sure learned from him, both in how to charge a story with emotion and how to fight for what’s right regardless of the blow back.

I loved him as a friend.

But, damn, Harlan…you could act so ugly...

. . .

H. Allen Smith

Who?

Most of you have never heard of H. Allen Smith, and that’s a damn shame.

I’d never heard of him either until I stumbled across a coverless remaindered copy of Poor H. Allen Smith’s Almanac in a Dollar General Store bin in Tennessee in the late 1960s (it was a memorable shopping expedition:  I also purchased Thomas Heggen’s Mister Roberts and Let’s Kill Uncle by Rohan O'Grady [pen name of June Margaret O'Grady Skinner]).

Reading Smith’s editorial comments (in addition to his own essays and fiction he edited numerous humor anthologies) I realized I’d found a kindred soul.

Smith had a very conversational tone as a writer; his prose seemed off the cuff and unstructured, but he slyly used that style to hide the very peculiar (and often perverse) path he led readers down.

He sounded / read like a garrulous guy at the bar, one with a huge number of charming, witty (and delightfully inebriated) friends in addition to his own bottomless well of tall tales, pointed observations, and rude jokes.

Of all the writers mentioned above, that style is the one I most consciously tried to emulate, and one I seem to have been able to find my own voice in (several people have told me I write the same way I talk, a rarity among writers).

Smith was hilarious whether wearing an editor’s visor or a freelancer’s fool’s cap.  If you know who H. L. Mencken was, think of Smith as a benign, better tempered version of that infamous curmudgeon (and if you don’t know, hie thee hence to Google and find out).

Compared to my other four influences, Smith didn’t need to add the fantastic to his fiction:  The real world was weird and wacky and whimsical enough.

A newspaper man turned best selling author, Smith became among the most popular humorists of the 1940s-50s-60s…

…and then he died and everybody forgot him.

Part of the reason they forgot is that he wrote about things that no longer seem relevant (TV cowboys of the early television era, f’r instance, in Mr. Zip) or are today looked upon askance (and with justifiable reason; the ethnic humor in many of his anthologies may not have been intended as mean spirited, but it sure doesn’t read as a celebration of other cultures, viz his succinct account of an argument following a traffic accident between two native Honolulu cabbies rendered in pidgin:  “Wassamatta you?”  “’Wassmatta me’?!?!?  Wassamatta you ‘Wassamatta me’?  You wassamatta!”).

I’m sure I picked up a great many faults from Smith, but Smith also had the virtue of being willing and able to learn and to make an effort to be a better person today than he was yesterday, and better still tomorrow.

I’ve certainly tried applying that to my life.

Smith’s style was also invoked -- consciously or not -- by other writers and editors, notably Richard E. Geis, the editor of the legendary sci-fi semi-prozone, Science Fiction Review (among other titles).  Smith died before I could meet him, but while I never met Dick Geis face to face we were pen pals for over 40 years.

Geis certainly sharpened specific aspects of my writing style, but the real underlying structure came from H. Allen Smith.

Smith’s work is hard to find today (in no small part because whenever I encounter one in the wild I snap it up) but I urge you to give him a try.

Just brace yourself for things we might consider incorrect today.

. . . 

So there’s my top five. 

With the exception of Carl Barks and Ray Bradbury, none of them are without serious flaw or blemish (though Smith seems like a decent enough sort despite his fondness for X-rated and ethnic humor).

In my defense as an impressionable child / teen, I was not aware of these flaws and blemishes when I first encountered their writing (primarily because in many cases efforts were made to hide or downplay those aspects).

The positive things I gleaned from them are not negated by the negative personal information that came out later.

I can, for the most part re the more problematic of them, appreciate their work while not endorsing their behavior.

Ellison can only be described in extremes, but his fire and passion -- when directed in a positive direction -- served as a torch to light new paths (his two original anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, pretty much blew the doors off old school sci-fi and belatedly dragged the genre kicking and screaming into the 20th century).

Lovecraft I can effectively ignore while finding entertainment value in the Cthulhu Mythos.

But I must acknowledge this isn’t the same for everyone.

For example, as innocuous as I find H. Allen Smith, if a woman or a member of a minority group said, “I found this in particular to be offensive” I’d probably have to say, yeah, you’re right.

But I can still admire the way he did it, even if I can no longer fully support what he did.

. . . 

By the time I reached high school, I’d acquired enough savvy to regard to literary finds a bit more dispassionately, appreciating what they did without trying to literally absorb it into my own writing.

I discovered for myself the Beat generation of writers and poets, the underground cartoonists of the late 60s and 70s, Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin, and a host of others, some already alluded to.

Some, such as the Beats and Bukowski, I could enjoy for their warts and all honest self-reflection.

Yes, they were terrible people, but they knew they were terrible people, and they also knew there had to be something better, and while they may never have found the nirvana they sought, they at least sent back accurate reports of where they were in their journeys of exploration.

By my late teens, I’d become aware enough of human foibles and weaknesses -- every human’s foibles and weaknesses, including my own -- to be very, very cautious in regarding an individual as admirable.

While I will never accept creativity as an excuse for bad behavior, if a creator is honest enough and self-introspective enough to recognize and acknowledge their own failings, it goes a long way towards my being willing to enjoy their work without feeling I’m endorsing them as individuals.

It’s not my place to pass judgment or exoneration on others bad behavior.

It is my place to see that I don’t emulate others’ bad behavior.

Every creator is connected to their art, even if it’s by-the-numbers for-hire hack work.

Every creator puts something of themselves into the final product.

And every member of the audience must decide for themselves if that renders the final product too toxic to be enjoyed. 

    © Buzz Dixon

[empirelead-a]

HERE IT IS! A COMPLETE UPDATE OF KUVIRA’S BIOGRAPHY! Be sure to read through it  or skimmed through it because I realize it’s really really long. 😬😬😬

Born in a village far off from Omashu and in the middle of nowhere, Kuvira had been nothing but a great burden to both of her parents who found themselves stuck in a loveless marriage after she was conceived out of wedlock during a drunken one-night stand. They paid very little mind to her throughout her childhood, spending most of their days neglecting her where she can almost feel their resentment; they blame her for trapping them in a place they wish to leave and for their dreams to be in shambles. Throughout her time in the village, Kuvira had hardly ever got along with the other villagers and experienced difficulties in conveying her feelings. Things also took a sudden turn when she discovered she’s an earthbender at the age of seven – which is considered to be late – the first bender in over twenty years. Her parents, however, weren’t thrill for the fact their daughter was a bender and were forced to keep a closer eye on her by the other villagers who feared her newfound abilities, believing she’s a curse who brought bad omen—all of them have an Equalist mindset.

Not too long after, Kuvira immediately showed signs of poor control over her bending abilities due to she’s without proper guidance and her lack of control quickly became more prominent as time went by; things would wind up getting damaged, but unbeknownst to them all, her bending responds to her emotions she had trouble in showing. Embarrassed and shame by the others, her parents began taking matters into their own hands when they ignorantly tried to suppress her abilities which all ranged from isolation to punishing her by other means. However, an incident shook her parents up when it nearly resulted in her mother’s death, and after that episode, the two can no longer handle her and could no longer even watch over her in fear of their own lives, and wishing to be free from the child they never asked for. On that very night, they up and left without a word…leaving Kuvira behind. She was left alone and forced to watch over herself since no other villagers dares to go near her. She survived off on scraps and stole food when no one was looking.

One particular day, Kuvira stumbled upon a woman she never seen before in the village. She saw how fancy the woman dressed compare to herself and the other villagers, sneaking up behind her and managed to steal a pouch of money out of the woman’s pocket. She managed to run off without being noticed, getting back to the safety of her house she was still holed up in, but unfortunately, her luck quickly ran out when the woman she stole from found her. Scared, she impulsively earthbent at the woman who easily evaded the attack with her own earthbending. Kuvira became more fearful of the consequences that lies before her and she immediately handed back what she stole from the woman, making her apology, but to her great surprise, the woman brushed the incident aside with a laugh. She, then, introduced herself as Suyin Beifong who was at the village to take a quick break before heading on home after getting a business trip done in Omashu.

After the introduction, Suyin treated Kuvira to lunch. Curious and wondering why she was all alone, Suyin began prodding the younger girl with questions who kept on avoiding to answer them. Eventually, she reluctantly told the older woman her entire story when the topic wouldn’t be left alone: abandoned by her parents who never loved her and were afraid of her. Horrified at what she just heard, it didn’t take long for Suyin to make the decision to take the girl out oof the village where she could already see prejudices rising against benders and knew all too well Dai Li agents could come at any time. And with that, Kuvira left the village with the woman who promised to help her in any way, seeing the potential she holds.

Indeed, Kuvira’s talents flourished under Suyin’s guidance even though she had a rough start, nonetheless she excelled at everything that was taught to her; not only that, she was also taught how to freely express herself, especially when joining the dancing troupe—her mentor never giving up on her, patient with her always. At the age of twelve, she finally began her metalbending training which proved to be more difficult than earthbending. She became frustrated every time she failed to bend the meteorite, but it wasn’t until she finally succeeded when Suyin locked her in a metal box and bending her way out to freedom, it was the same way Suyin was taught to metalbend…and the same way Toph discovered metalbending. At the age of fifteen, she joined the city’s security force team and was promoted as captain at the age of eighteen.

Kuvira have always been quite close with the Beifong Family, having a unique bond with each member. She enjoys Huan’s company who also taught her the ways of metal sculpting and values his quiet nature, going to him when things becomes overwhelming and wanting everything to be still. While Suyin’s her bending teacher, her husband – Baatar Senior – taught her everything she knew in reading and writing, along with basic math and going to him when things becomes too much to handle with his wife. She sees Opal as a little sister, often protecting her from danger and enjoyed rough housing with the twins. But Baatar Junior has always been the one she’s been the closest to, he’s the first friend she ever made—eventually they became romantic partners at eighteen years of age, though kept their relationship a secret from the others. Despite all of this, deep down, Kuvira still knew well enough she isn’t part of the family and as she grew older and aware, she couldn’t help it but to be bitter.

Unfortunately, things with the Beifongs soured when the Earth Kingdom fell into disarray and was on the verge of collapse, chaos spreading across the nation. Wishing to help the people, Kuvira was shocked upon realizing Suyin doesn’t have the intention in helping their nation and refused to step up when the world leaders urgently asked her to. An argument ensued between them when Kuvira tried to convince her to help, but she was quickly shot down and was told not to debate further. Angry, she became disillusioned by the woman she looked up to, never taking responsibilities for the wrongs she did, and finally seeing her for who she really is: a coward. On that same night, Kuvira made the decision to leave Zaofu and hatched a plan to conspire against her mentor, roping Baatar along with her. Within two weeks, she managed to recruit a number of people, along with Varrick and Zhu Li, into her plan. Suyin discovered the plans on the day Kuvira and the others were due to depart, refusing to step down when demanded. In result, she was banished from Zaofu and was ordered to never return, but before leaving, Kuvira vowed she will return—not as the same person Suyin once knew.

The Siege of Ba Sing Se was lead by Kuvira, driving out the bandits and agents of the Red Lotus who ran amok throughout the city, restoring order back to the capital. Her heroic action and good deeds got the attention from the world leaders who made the decision to appoint her the position Suyin refused to take, making her an interim president of the Earth Kingdom. She was also tasked with the job to drive off the bandits roaming around the country, hunting down remaining members of the Red Lotus, and leading the unification campaign—uniting all of the states as one. The title of the Great Uniter was soon given to her by the people of Omashu after she overthrew their tyrannical king. They all proclaimed their loyalty to her, her followers grew each day.

For three years, Kuvira’s intentions were well and started off as good, but over time, things started changing and her entire worldview became different; no longer was she naïve and ignorant to everything. During her travels throughout the nation, she noticed the unjust her people faced and the abuse her people went through, discovering the problems within the Earth Kingdom runs deeper than she thought—problems that began even before the Red Lotus arrival. No longer can she sit idly by, Kuvira took more things into her hands and had taken many drastic actions for the good of her people, not afraid to get her hands bloodied. Sometime around her third year as the Great Uniter, words of the reeducation camps spread, mercy is not shown to her enemies and traitors if they ever crossed the line or did her incredibly wrong. On Prince Wu’s coronation day, Kuvira turned her back on him and the world leaders, overthrowing Prince Wu who’s next in line to take the throne of the now renamed Earth Empire. She would challenge anyone who dares to threaten the peace she brought, warning them she will not hesitate to take action.

After leaving the United Republic, Kuvira immediately embarked her way to Zaofu while having Varrick experiment on spirit vines where it was discovered they could weaponize the vines. When Varrick refused to create a superweapon, she’d threatened his life and ordered him to continue on his work. When she arrived at Zaofu with Baatar and Bolin by her side, the three of them marched into Suyin’s office where she was already waiting for them with her family by her side. Things between them were obviously tense, more so when Kuvira tried to make a negotiation; one where Suyin furiously refused, not wanting to play this game. In return, Kuvira gave the older woman an entire day to give up or face the consequences before she made her leave. On that same very day, she was betrayed by both Bolin and Varrick who attempted to leave. Later that night, her former mentor snuck into her camp and attempted to assassinate her while she slept only to quickly discover she had been tricked when Kuvira anticipated what she’s going to do before ordering her guards to take Suyin and her twins away. That following morning, she and Korra met outside of the city, but when things didn’t go as planned, a fight ensued between them. If Kuvira loses, she’ll let the others go and leave Zaofu alone, and if she wins, Korra must leave and Zaofu will officially be a part of the Earth Empire. In the end, Kuvira bested Korra.

The next move Kuvira made was returning to the United Republic to restore it back into the Earth Empire, making a claim that the land was stolen. Within two weeks, she and of her army marched to the United Republic with the Colossus – a mecha standing at least twenty-four story tall – her fiancé built with a spirit cannon attached to its arm. She nearly succeeded when she sunk several of the United Forces ships, President Raiko gave up and agreed to her terms, however, before things could go any further, Korra and her friends kidnapped Baatar.

Korra radioed to Kuvira, presenting her a new term after she informed the other she has Baatar hostage, saying if she ever wants to see him again then she must leave the United Republic alone and return to the Earth Empire empty handed. Conflicted for a moment, Kuvira finally made a difficult decision when she agreed to the term…only to quickly raise the spirit cannon and aimed it at the warehouse they’re in, taking the shot. She masked her emotions soon after, choosing not to grieve now before continuing on her invasion without Baatar by her side. She’s now hardened at that very moment, knowing she can’t give up now.

She soon became more unstable upon discovering Korra and the others survived the blast. She became unstable, reckless, and more prone to making impulsive decisions, going onto a deep end and allowed her emotions to run wild with anger. At the end, she failed her emotion when the Colossus crumbled when Korra and her friends managed to cut their way into the machine, resulting in a final battle between the Avatar and the Great Uniter. The two survived the fall after the Colossus fell, Kuvira ran off only to discover the spirit cannon was still intact and made one final move before pulling the trigger, a move she came to quickly regret when she’s unable to shut the machine off and the ray’s power amplified with energy due to the cannon being wrapped in raw spirit vines. Korra saved her life, taking a risk when she jumped in front of her and deflected the blast which resulted in the creation of a new spirit portal which they both fell into. For a moment, Kuvira believed she’s dead after awakening and broke down in front of Korra, revealing bits of her past. Upon being shown compassion, she saw the errors of her actions and made the decision to give in, exiting the spirit portal with the Avatar and announced the Earth Empire is no more. She was, then, cuffed and taken to prison.

Locked away far from the outskirts of the United Republic, Kuvira spent those two months pondering on deeply where she’d often think about her past. She thought all of the things that had led her here in this very moment, spiraling into a deep state of anger and bitterness which was apparent when Korra came to visit her. While she does show her remorse of the bad she’d committed, she does not regret the cause she led over the course of those three years—the actual good she had done for the people of the now, once again, named Earth Kingdom. She even expressed those feelings to the court, boldly claiming that she wasn’t guilty for her good cause and reminded everyone of how she’d done more than anyone else combined, and refused to bend the knee to the Republic to say something she doesn’t believe in. Her words, however, didn’t sit well to the others and was ordered to be taken back to prison because her case could continue, running into Suyin who was perhaps the angriest of them all. The older woman gave her former student the last say before leaving without looking back.

Unbeknownst to them all, one of Kuvira’s commanders – Guan – refused to let the Earth Empire fall and have been secretly running it in her place with the remaining army who refused to stand down as well. Reports of his presence became known by the others who believed he was planning to march to Gaoling to put a stop to the first democratic election. Knowing too well things with Guan may go badly and Korra decided to pay Kuvira another visit for advice. After hearing her commander has taken control in her place, Kuvira suggested coming along to put a stop to Guan, knowing he’s dangerous. At first, the Avatar refused to allow Kuvira to come along until realizing there was no other plan to stop him. The very next day, Kuvira was given a temporary release to assist Team Avatar where her presence was obviously unwanted.

When arriving in Gaoling, Guan’s forces are already there. Kuvira attempted to talk him down, turning to her former forces and asked them to step down as well, but neither of them heeded to her words—listening only to Guan. Having to see this, she challenged him to a duel, but when he refused, she made an attack on him and demanded for him to give him after she managed to overpower him, choking him in the air. Before things can escalate further, Kuvira was knocked out via the belt she wore which shocked her. When she later awoke, she was placed in a special cage and was told by the others she’ll be sent back to Republic City.

Korra and Wu left immediately afterwards in search of Toph, wanting her to go against Guan in the election. It wasn’t long until Guan’s forces broke into the airship before it could take off, attacking Kuvira and the rest of Team Avatar. The three of them were brought to Guan’s camp, strapped onto a chair where Doctor Sheng is planning to use her invention on them: a brainwashing machine. However, Kuvira was lucky enough to manage to break free and escaped to safety, but the same can’t be said to Asami, Bolin, and Mako who she had to leave behind. She made a call to Suyin when she’s far from Guan’s camp.

When Suyin arrived with Opal and the twins, Korra and Wu arrived as well with Toph in tow who reluctantly agree to run in the election against Guan. Suyin made her mistrust to Kuvira known and gave her a warning, telling her she won’t hesitate to take action if she does anything that may be even slightly suspicious. Kuvira silently agreed to her words, knowing time can’t be wasted any further. Before they can leave, Guan and his forces arrived along with Asami, Bolin, and Mako, they’ve all been brainwashed successfully. They managed to escape, grabbing Asami, but in result, Wu was captured.

Traveling to Zaofu was a silent ride, realizing Guan is more dangerous with Sheng by his side with her invention. The silent ride was also tense between Kuvira and Suyin which can obviously be felt in the air. Once they finally arrived at Zaofu, she was immediately taken to a guarded room by Suyin’s order where she found herself running into Baatar. Shocked to finally see him again, she made her apologies to him and asked for his help to stop Guan. He refused, heartbroken and no longer trusts her, leaving her and retreated back to his room, only convinced when Korra asked for his help. He and Kuvira ended up working immediately, working on recreating Sheng’s machine the entire day until it was completed. Asami was brought into the room where they tried to reverse the brainwashing effects, but to no avail, they failed many times.

Guessing, Kuvira figured the only way to help Asami and the others was to test on a subject who hasn’t fallen victim to the original brainwashing machine, volunteering herself to test out her theory. She was propelled into a series of flashbacks of her past, seeing everything from her childhood to her teenage years and to her time as the Great Uniter, seeing everything that was wrong with her until she was soon brought back when she heard Suyin’s voice calling out to her. Asami was soon brought back into the room for another attempt where it was successful this time around. The happy moment was cut after they have all been informed Guan has won the election. After informing the situation to Zhu Li, Kuvira was told to return to the United Republic. Before she was to be escorted back into her room, she told Baatar how much she regretted for what she did to him and wished she didn’t have to throw their future away, and that their happiness mattered. Then telling him she truly loves him, her feelings for him has always been true.

Her words didn’t sit well with Suyin who went after her and stopped her in her tracks, telling her angrily she has no right to even be saying those things and believed she was lying; saying she hasn’t changed and is still the same. No longer can she take the verbal abuse any longer, Kuvira made a retort of her own and saying how she’s here to own up her mistakes, how she’s doing everything to change; adding how the only one who hasn’t change was Suyin, how it seems the older woman has yet to own everything up and how she’s always hiding away like a coward she always has been. In return, Suyin made her last say when she coldly told the guards to take her away and how she regrets taking her in. And Kuvira told her she would never have to see her again.

That night, it was discovered Kuvira had disappeared into the night after finding the guards unconscious. She couldn’t be found in the outskirts of Zaofu, many believed she played them all and betrayed them.

In truth, Kuvira left Zaofu and made her way back to Gaoling where she snuck into the town and into Guan’s office without getting detected by anyone. She made her presence known to Guan, saying that she wasn’t here to stop him and was only here to return to the Earth Empire. Guan made him adamant that he won’t hand her over control, though she has no plan to return to power and made a proposition, saying how she wishes for her memories to be wiped away, in return, she would be a dutiful servant to his control. Guan gleefully agreed to her terms and immediately set the plan to motion, leading her to Sheng’s lab. While distracted, Kuvira’s nature has been revealed when she attacked them from behind, but Guan had already anticipated her move and ordered for Bolin and Mako to attack her who came bursting into the lab.

Korra found Kuvira during the midst of battle, finding things to be suspicious and didn’t believe she betray them from the start and immediately sprung into action with the others upon seeing that she’s in danger and knew all too well it’s a battle she can’t fight alone in. They all fought the remaining Earth Empire soldiers and captured those who tried to escape when things started falling apart. Kuvira went after Guan who ran off when he knew this war is over, though she managed to catch up to him and overpowered him easily, enraged at the things he committed and for going against her, for doing things behind her back and not standing down when she initially told him to. She was ready to end him right there once and for all, however Suyin who came along with Korra attempted to talk her down from killing him and let him face justice instead. Infuriated, Kuvira simply said she’s doing something everyone’s too afraid to do, something that should’ve been done long ago and how she’s the only one who ever done something. Finally, Suyin admitted that she wasn’t wrong and how she should’ve done something to help long ago – maybe things wouldn’t go so awry – that she is here now to do just that, telling her killing Guan will not solve anything nor would it bring peace; that he would die as a martyr to his supporters instead and someone else may replace him. Suyin added she is here now and made a promise she’ll do more to help and will personally bring Guan down to his knees to face justice. As Kuvira began drawing blood on Guan’s throat, she eventually pulled the blades away and came into a resignation, finding no joy in ending him; no joy of her mistake that’s in her mercy. She finally surrendered and fell down onto her knees, exhausted

After Guan and Sheng’s arrest, Kuvira helped the others to restore order back to Gaoling and helped the people to restore their free-will back, along with Bolin, Mako, and Wu. The election has returned and Toph is all too happy to drop out, returning to the swamp when it was announced the people can have their elections on their own terms.

Days later after leaving Gaoling, Kuvira was once more placed in custody and sent back to prison as soon as she arrived at Republic City. Before her second trial, she began to ponder about the events that had occurred and thought about the things she had done during her reign as the Great Uniter…more deeply than before. On the day of her trial, she admitted to her guilt and her participation of the cruel things that had happened upon realizing her actions had hurt many people; albeit – something she kept to herself – she still held onto the fact good came out during those three years of the unification campaign and the love she has for her nation has always been the source of her driving force. She did all she could do for her people, but realizing she perhaps done too much for power also got far into her head and became paranoid to those who stood in her way, seeing what Guan had done opened her eyes at how little she thought about the consequences of her actions and how she should’ve watched more closely of the things that had happened behind her back. It stung a bit to know how very little control she actually had.

Her words shocked the others who weren’t expecting her to admit her guilt so quickly, so soon. The court, however, ended there so the judges could discuss her punishment and came to the decision to still lock her away…a decision she wasn’t surprised at, but was surprised she won’t be locked away for life. She took the deal, remembering the promise she made a while back at how she would take any punishment the court sees fit. After all, her crimes can never be forgotten either.

Before Kuvira was to be taken away, Suyin approached her to speak to her about all of the things she had done during her time as the Great Uniter and how she tried to fix her mistake. While she isn’t ready to forgive her, she is still willing to give her another chance and how she should’ve done more to help, something Kuvira said there’s nothing to be sorry about, what’s done is done. Understandable, things were awkward and tensed between them. Suyin brought up a suggestion, saying she could arrange for her to serve her sentence at Zaofu under house arrest with Baatar. Kuvira refused, saying she will not allow any favors and she will be abiding to the Republic’s rule. And rather than being sent far at the outskirts of the city, she was placed in a cell at Republic City, though still heavily guarded.

During her time in prison, Suyin came to visit her every once in a while along with Korra who’d come by to help rehabilitate her with several meditation sessions, seeing the problems they both share. Five years later, Kuvira has been released from prison, though not as a free woman yet. Seeing how she’s still young and a strong bender, the leaders of the world placed her under the United Forces’s watch where she will be performing hard labor work and assisting people who are in need.

[hoshira]

` mini headcanon o3. * the perfect family

invisible. <sarcasm> with a title like that, you definitely know that this post will be nothing but sunshine and rainbows. </sarcasm> okay, but seriously, this post will tackle some things regarding tooru and his narrative─ particularly how he consistently disillusions himself. this will be done in the lens of his backstory, however, as i’ll delve a little bit into his family life and what he does in order to deal with them.      post contains mentions of parental neglect, so if that’s not your cup of tea, just scroll past this post like nothing happened.

     i think by now we’re all aware of tooru and his rather terrible parents. but what i’ve yet to write about is how exactly he deals with them. now, my mini meta delves a bit into this, so i’ll post the snippet about his family here, so you can get a sense of what his relationships with each family member is like.

     about parents takashi & misao:

     They love their children, but they love it them in such a monotonous way – as if familial love were a formula as opposed to an emotion. The way they handle things is almost absurdly professional. [...] They’re cold, seemingly emotionless, and if it weren’t for the fact that they had blood in their veins and a heart that beats, you honestly wouldn’t be able to differentiate them from robots. The way they do things is so unnatural because it’s so perfectly executed. 

     already, tooru’s parents are painted as aloof and kind of unfeeling. they see no real emotional attachment nor value in even the most large of tasks, which makes them seem almost artificial. this detachment from their own family in preference of conducting things in a polite and businesslike order, almost to the point of obsession, is why tooru’s family is so disjointed, and why his siblings are very independent. unlike tooru, aika and kaito were given proper attention and care at a younger age, and by the time that they knew how to fend for their own was the time that their parents chose to become less caring. it was as if they had a task to do, and once done, they moved onto the next one. granted, it isn’t the best method of parenting, but at least the older siblings had a chance with making it out on their own. even kaito, who is similar to tooru in disposition, turned out to be fine. but why is tooru so different ? why does he depend so much on people, and rely on the approval of others to feel validated ? well, it’s because his parents were never there to begin with. when tooru was born, they pretty much left him to fend for himself with nothing but a name and high expectations set by his family. but even so, he never blamed his parents. he disillusioned himself into thinking that they were constantly absent because they were busy. “ they’re not home yet because they got caught up in traffic. ” “ they’re late to my birthday party because their boss is super mean and made them stay in ! ” “ they’re not here at my school show yet because they’re preparing a big surprise for when i do my part. they’ll be so happy and proud of me, and that’s why i’ll keep their seats reserved for them. ” “ they’ll arrive. ” “ they’ll arrive. ” they lied. in the midst of all these lies, tooru began to feel how crippling and empty loneliness felt. that emotion, like your heartstrings are the chords to a guitar, taut and strum to one’s leisure, a cacophony of noise, because his parents lied to him so many times, broke so many promises that were always empty to begin with, and─

     so he learnt to deal with it. he turned to watching TV and reading manga. what was he reading about ? stories about children with no parents. stories about children with only their siblings as family, because he related most to them. he could see himself as those children, was inspired by their adventures, felt as if he could become heroes like them, revered and adored by all. he put himself in the shoes of those characters, saw things as how they saw them, and developed his personality based on traits that he saw as admirable, and thus "stole” from them ( though, this was actually one of the earliest emergences of a trait for his bpd ). but i also mentioned the fact that he read of sibling relationships, and that is also something that influenced his personality.

     from the start, he had no one to trust in except kaito, who was only a child at the time, as well. aika initially thought of tooru as a shame to the family name, and so she kept her distance from him ( though this mindset changed the more she realized just how wrong her parents were in thinking of him as inferior or not even part of the hoshiumi line ). already, he was cut off from so many people in his life. and thus, kaito was the only person that he could learn from. who you are as a person is just as much nurture as it is nature, and it is increasingly difficult to develop when the main figures in your life ( aka your parents or guardians ) are absent. it is even more so when the only person you’re able to look up to is your brother, who is only eight years older than you.

     a snippet from kaito’s portion of the meta shows you just how important he was in shaping who tooru is now, however:

     It’s from Kaito that Tooru got most of his morals and aspirations from. He is kind because Kaito showed him kindness. He “adopts” those with horrible parents because Kaito “adopted” him and protected him from their neglectful parents. A lot of who Tooru is comes from Kaito because Kaito was the only person who was there for him during his youth. He taught him right from wrong, taught him how to take care of himself, and most importantly, taught him things that even the most brilliant of teachers could not instruct upon – because Tooru has always been an intelligent child, but emotions are not learnt by reading a textbook or answering questions on a test. They are experienced and felt. And Kaito taught Tooru the most important sentiment of all – one that Tooru embodies in his entirety: love. Because Misao and Takashi showed none in their neglect. Because Aika showed none in her own. And yet the constant in Tooru’s life is the reason why he’s so altruistic, why he gives so much, why his affection blooms in his heart, yet never wilts in the face of decay. Because Kaito taught him love. 

     and that’s the thing─ i’ve called tooru the embodiment of love in so many replies and threads and headcanons because, honestly, that’s what he is. tooru is the love that blooms in face of bleakness, that thrives in drought; not because he has / needs to, but because he wants to. he wants to remain kind and gentle, wants to remain serene and loving, even though he has reason to abandon all prospects of being a good person and instead become callous and cruel.

     when kaito left, tooru was devastated. though he always visited, always checked in on tooru, aika even beginning to make more trips from tokyo to sendai as best she could, tooru felt alone─ as if he had been abandoned on an island, the rest of his family waving goodbye from the cruise liner eastbound for home. so he turned to media again. but instead, he read and watched material about happy families. families that were complete. families that were always together, and loved each other no matter what. he could imagine his own family in their stead, filled his imagination with scenarios of him coming home from school, running in to hug his mother, who would smile and pet his head, of his father taking him out on father-daughter ( and once tooru came out as trans, father-son ) excursions, of his siblings going shopping together with him, of christmases spent watching american movies and wondering if westerners really celebrated the 25th of december like this, of birthdays filled with cake and presents and balloons, and most importantly of all─ a table seated with grinning faces, wishing tooru a happy birthday. he consumed media like this, pictures of smiling families, anecdotes of silly families, so that he could use his own to fill in those slots, and imagine what his life would be like if he was part of that, too. as he gets older, he realizes that these are nothing more than fantasies. but even so, when sleep is threatening to lull his thoughts, tooru wishes he could wake up to loving parents and siblings. but he never does.

     because he knows that what he imagines is something that he can never have. it’s something that will be forever kept in the confines of his mind. something locked deep within his heart’s desires.

[pauldeckerus]

Early Photos vs. Now: Seeing Progress as a Photographer

Whelp! The Internet reminded me a few days back that I’ve officially been shooting photography for over 10 years now. I’ll be honest, I thought my progress would have been further. I assume the end of my life will be something like what I am currently experiencing, which is “Wow, that went fast.” It seems I’m just barely starting to grasp the wise words of my elders when they told me “Time goes quicker than you think.”

Recent artwork from my 2018 RGG EDU tutorial. Both tutorials I’ve released with them are some of my favorite accomplishments.

In the spirit of anniversaries, let’s see just how f**king horrifying Year 1 and 2 really were… *Takes a deep breath* To the archives!

What’s this ‘flower’ setting on my point and shoot?? Oh s**t! You can take pictures of things close up! Woo!”*misses putting subject in focus

“Yes yes, let’s do a fake blood-filled cup and some s**tty pearls cause Anne Rice got me hooked on f**ken vampires in the 90’s!” Shot again with a point and shoot, with some lamps for lighting and some brutal Photoshop work to make up for the lack of lighting knowledge. Also had clearly not heard the term “Color Temperature” yet.

“Flash can be turned on manually on my Nikon Coolpix, and if I put it in front with the sun behind, it does THIS?? Well this is my new favourite thing ever!” Then I remembered that mosquitoes suck and promptly scampered into the studio for mostly ever more.

Photographed in my fridge, cause I learned that big soft light is sexy, and lamps just weren’t doing the trick.

Blown highlights and crushed shadows and no concept of color harmony?? You mean sky glitter and trendy as f**k presets…

When I first picked up a camera it was mostly to be creative in a way that didn’t involve modeling, and it was faster than drawing. I photographed macro, still life, bikes, and over the course of a year, a number of friends and slave labored my sister a bunch. The first few years were the most exciting cause the gains were exponential, obvious, and relatively easy to attain.

Admittedly, Year 1 was probably my most fun year in photography. Not that the subsequent haven’t delivered amazing memories and new friends, but I was in it purely for the fun and had no expectations from anyone but me. I didn’t have goals, a client wish list, no questions of what gear would make my work better, or any desire beyond the next batch of point-and-shoot pixels that would get my dopamine levels hopping off the charts.

Early years are dedicated to trying a lot of things, as many different facets as possible. I don’t think anyone should be really trying to “figure out their style” because if we do enough work and spend the hours just being immersed in it, style will inevitably start to form. Sometimes it looks like what’s already being made, and sometimes it turns into a creature that nobody has ever seen before. Regardless of what it is, you have to have your ass in the seat as often as you can or want, to find that voice.

10 years in, it feels like the gains I make now are at the sacrifice of dragging myself over broken glass while an elephant steps on my back. I’m not here because I retained that energy of “This is the best thing evaaarrrr!” from the early days, but because discipline and stubbornness have forced me to continue. When I’m bashing at the walls of my inability to complete a concept that’s been in my mind for 5 years, and I’m still probably another 2-3 years away from being competent enough to finalize the piece, I know I’m in it for the long game.

Time has taught me the harder things feel in the moment, the more frustrated and pressurized my brain feels over the work, I’m probably just getting closer to my next sliver of a creative breakthrough. I’ll trade one elephant for another bigger, slightly heavier elephant. While they trade places though, in those brief moments I’ll find I can breathe again.

A recent challenge to create an image using only one area of the color wheel. Many thanks to Linda Friesen for channelling her inner Moon Goddess.

Those Moments Are What I Live For

I write this all to serve as a reminder, to those in their first year, or to the grizzled veterans staring down a resume longer than a CVS receipt. Where we started and where we are now is worth celebrating. Most of us weren’t born with a natural “talent” — in fact, many would argue that is a myth. We are simply a result of repetition and practice.

I think a lot of people get intimidated in their early years that their work will never look as good as they want it to. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can definitely say that 10 years in, I’m still another 10 years away from doing the kind of work I want to make. I hope it never changes.

My inbox is filled with emails asking the same question written hundreds of different ways, but the theme can be boiled down to “How do I get awesome at this??”

Answer? I could write an essay but here are some easy points:

Just keep at it. Put your ass into frequent, habitual practice.

Most who are any good, sit upon a throne of really, really terrible work, and years of it. Every time you complete a work of art that you think is pretty f**king awful, congratulate yourself. It’s one more foundation stone into your cathedral of mastery.

Do not look for shortcuts. You’re only stealing from your future-self.

There is no “one path to success”. There are thousands of ways, and what works for one may not work for another.

Know thyself. Inspiration is great, but nothing beats digging into the nuts and bolts of your honest creative self.

Self portrait, trying to grind down on better color theory. I probably need to watch Kate Woodman’s RGG tutorial…

Maybe you are the creator who does a little bit of everything from now until forever. Maybe you’re the type who started one style and never ever changes. There is no right or wrong answer. Far as I know, they don’t hand out medals in the afterlife… yet.

“They” say if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. I’ve met some of those humans, and they’re most often either f**king unicorns, or completely disillusioned. Love what you do, or don’t, regardless your ass is probably gunna work pretty damn hard.

I fall in and out of love with my chosen career and lifestyle on a weekly basis. I equate my career to being in a long-term, committed relationship. Some days we wake up and look at each other in bed and wonder why the other is still there. Others we are reminded what got us there in the first place. Regardless of my feelings, I think they’re mostly irrelevant.

Accurate depiction of real life misery. Brought on by walking barefoot into a glacier fed, cold ass lake, or occasionally just trying to will myself into turning on my computer… Side note – Check out those “I clearly only ever wear boots” pasty ankles!

10 years in, I feel like I’m just cracking the surface of “me” and what that means to be a creator. Seated upon a mountain of embarrassing pixels and memories, I’m staring at the bottom of an even larger heap that I will create over the next decade. My well-made list of goals and plans will probably get muddled and misplaced by the chaotic influence that is life, but another 10 years will pass regardless.

I just hope that my small, infinitesimal contribution of creativity will maybe start to balance out the number of straws I’ve used.

Commissioned work for guitar queen Nita Strauss.

Inspiration time! I managed to convince some mind-bogglingly awesome artists from a variety of genres to also dig into their archives, and bravely share some of their own humble beginnings. This was a very cathartic experience for me. It was so just absolutely f**king perfect seeing where they all started to their current favorite work. Remember, we all start somewhere, and with a few years of dedication, we never know where we will wind up.

Dave Brosha

2003. “Pure garbage. Both emotionally and metaphysically.”

2018. “The only thing between where you are and where you want to be is the passion to learn and putting the time in. Some of my earliest images are laughably make-your-eyes-bleed bad – but I never beat myself up for them. They are what they are…and that’s to say, they’re part of the process of learning and growth.”

Visit his website here.

Curtis Jones

2012. “Cape Spear, Newfoundland. Completely disregarding geography, composition, and proper use of a tripod, I felt this was a pretty solid shot of my friends under the northern lights. To be honest, I’m not 100% certain a tripod was even involved but I was out there making an effort and that’s what sticks with me. Turns out the most easterly point in Canada isn’t a hotspot for aurora activity.”

2018. “Khongoryn Els, Mongolia. Now, with a few more miles racked up, an appreciation for location scouting and a better grasp on my gear, putting in the effort still counts but the returns have become more consistent – less random and more intentional.”

Visit his website here.

Felix Inden

2008. “I was really stoked about this one. Enough to save it as my first .psd (of course after reducing to 72 DPI)”

2018. “I was incredibly lucky that I got this shot… it was not thought or anything. I just saw it coming, fired away and luckily had the right settings from shooting out of the heli before of this moment. Don´t plan to much. embrace spontaneity. be there and be ready.”

Visit his website here.

Michael Shainblum

2007.

2018.

Visit his website here.

Tim Kemple

2004. “From my first commercial shoot. It was on Mt Washington for Eastern Mountain Sports and we had this awesome but wacky creative director that wanted a shot of the less glamorous moments that happen when you are out hiking. Shot on slide film. Provia 400F pushed a stop.”

2015. “Two climbers on Mt Huntington in Alaska. Shot with Phase One medium format from a helicopter.”

Visit his website here.

Elizabeth Gadd

2008. “10 years ago I discovered my passion for taking moody self portraits (because sitting on the ground and staring into space with a blurry focus seemed cool). Can’t believe how proud I was of this one once.”

2018. “10 years later, still taking moody self portraits. Hoping the practice has paid off!”

Visit her website here.

Bella Kotak

2008. “This was when I first discovered Photoshop! It took me a few more years to figure the program. At that time it wasn’t really about improving my “photography” but more about how I could improve on what I wanted to express. It just so happened that the camera felt like most natural medium to do that through.”

2018, The Kiss. “It’s amazing what time, practice, and knowledge can do. When it comes to creating pictures I’ve never focused on what I can’t do but rather, what I can do. The goal is, and has always been, to shoot often, keep learning, constantly experimenting, never hold back, and always try to level up.”

Visit her website here.

Kate Woodman

2014. This image represents my first real foray into using Photoshop in a creative/artistic way vs. a more conventional dodge-and-burn-cleanup kind of way. The image was accidental–one of my strobes didn’t fire, and I was left with something I wasn’t anticipating but though could lead to something interesting. It was the first time I really embraced a mistake as a learning opportunity–and I’ve made many more and learned so much from them, from both a technical but also a conceptual perspective.”

2018. “I feel like I’m finally getting to the stage where my photography not only reflects my aesthetic preferences but also my conceptual interests. This is a more recent image which I think is pretty successful in portraying a narrative that is both visually and viscerally impactful. There’s definitely something going on but it leaves room for interpretation–that ambiguity is something I’ve always liked in others’ art and strive for in my own.”

Visit her website here.

Richard Terborg

2009. ” I like the snow, and I like photography. So I figured it would be funny to combine the two in a “creatively next level” way, by wearing my normal “day” clothes instead of winter clothing. Because I didn’t want my garden in the background this frame was the only one that worked.”

2018. “I’ve been on a Wes Anderson exploration/funk/inspired by/phase/binge??? So I asked my friend to bring anything yellow he has and a puffy hat. It was around 35 degrees celcius outside and he had to put on the only yellow woolly shirt he had and a warm cap. Love places with a lot of color and lines because of ‘Wes’ and this place just clicked perfectly.”

Visit his website here.

Julia Kuzmenko

2007. “I honestly had no clue what I was doing. I know now, that the best thing to learn something in a specific photography genre is to break apart and analyze every aspect of the images of a handful of successful artists whose work resonates with me the most. The cropping, the colors, the makeup, hair and facial expressions.. everything that we photographers have control of at the time of the capture.”

2018. “Shoot, shoot, shoot more! Practice like a maniac, so you are at the right skill level when the opportunity comes along.”

Visit her website here.

Tina Eisen

2009. “February. I had one light and a friend called Hannah. We knew nothing. Even less than Jon Snow. Not even the cat bowl was safe.”

2018. “September. I know a couple more things now! I still experiment to this day and wake up happy every morning that I took this step 10 years ago!”

Visit her website here.

Pratik Naik

2008. “I wanted to be a fashion photographer with my wonderful wide angle kit lens and sweet angles. I thought the more angles the better and so we angled all day.”

2018. “I realized what was actually kept me inspired was the complete opposite. It was energy, mood, and emotion. Through my attempt at fashion photography, I carved the path to what I really loved shooting.”

Visit his website here.

Benjamin Von Wong

2007. “Well, I found a second set of mirrors… on another escalator haha. Theres a nice big flash hiding my head but I thought it’d make a cool effect on the metal parts.”

2018. “Ironically, I believed myself to be a better photographer then, than I do now, even though my skill level is objectively higher. I wonder how I’ll feel about myself and my work in another 10 years!”

Visit his website here.

Ashley Joncas

2010. “I was always a disgruntled little $hit even when I started teaching myself photography. I was obsessed with antique portraiture but also obsessed with HotTopic…so the dynamic duo combined with me barely knowing how to turn on a camera ended up in a branch explosion from my friends head surrounded by fake smoke. Thankfully 8 years has made a big difference…and I’ve gone from doing a horrible job to actual horror photography.”

2018. “The work I do now is directly indicative of how my creative mind works and what it responds to. For a while I thought being a good photographer meant doing pretty images with flower crowns and safe color palettes, but I realized my voice was in the strange and irregular chasms of our reality. So, my favorite image from this year is a shot of someone sitting in a basement with a bloody eye and shackles.”

Visit her website here.

The Art of Mezame

2013. “I thought using a single LED light and a Samsung Galaxy S3 was good enough for toy photography. I remember the motivation for using the LED light was just so I could see something in the dark. I don’t remember editing the image though haha!”

2018. “I am now actively shooting portraits in studios and using more than just LED lights. Instead of lighting things up just so I can see something in the dark, I use lighting and lightshapers to craft images that tell stories. Only time will tell what else I could discover in my journey as a photographer. Still learning, never stopping.”

Visit his website here.

Joel Robison

2009. “Back in the early days I was still a bit nervous to really get outside and shoot, I was largely taking self-portraits inside my apartment and really only had one bare wall to play with. I was doing a 365 project and ideas were getting thin so I decided to do a week of making props out of cardboard…I whipped up a cardboard gun, money bag and mustache and spent a good solid 5 minutes shooting this image which I then ran through Picnic AND Photoshop to get the desired “vintage” effect.” We all started somewhere and I can’t believe I thought it all looked good!”

Visit his website here.

Webb Bland

2005. “Distortion? Check. Vignetting like I stacked too many polarizers? Check. A pass of every free plugin I could find? Check and mate, photographers! *Retouchers. Whatever.”

2019. “High noon in an airplane graveyard, spacing each car between stark wing shadows. The only thing missing is the abysmal HDR and VIGNETTING OH GOD HOW DID I FORGET THE VIGNETTING??! Shot for Audi.”

Visit his website here.

Alex Ruiz

1993. “Crappy figure drawing: This gem was from my submission portfolio to Cal Arts. Needless to say, I didn’t get in. In retrospect this was valuable lesson for me: get damn good at figure drawing or else I wasn’t going anywhere!”

2018. “Kat Livingston as Elven Queen. There’s something about creating portraits that I’ve always been drawn to more and more over the years. There’s a deep intimacy to it, having a character stare deeply back at you, and sometimes through you. This one is based off New York model, Kat Livingston. Giving her an ethereal, elven quality seemed fitting for her.”

Visit his website here.

John Gallagher

2013. “My Little Pony – A cautionary tale. I’m fond of migrating beloved and nostalgic animated content to ‘real world’ to test my own ability to stay true to the characters while transforming them for fun. This is a gorgeous cringe worthy example of what not to do. Cue sharp inhale.“

2018. “So Deadpool… This won 2nd place in the DeviantArt fan art poster contest with Fox. DA picked five fan-favorite artists to compete for prize money and a trip to New York to the premiere. There was a long list of no-fly zones for content and just a couple days to do it so we all hit the ground running. I thought it came together pretty well and dovetailed nicely with the slo-mo mayhem of the DP cineverse. It’s a natural fit for my brand of hyperkinetics.”

Visit his website here.

The best way to see our progress is to occasionally take an honest look back at our past. What kind of people we were, what we valued, and how we expressed it. While it sometimes feels weird or awkward to look back at our less than experienced selves, they are the treasures that helped us become who we are, and what we do now shapes our futures.

It’s also so easy to get caught up in comparing ourselves to others, the mysteries behind the scenes that helped evolve the final product they now share to the world.

This list is only a snapshot in each person’s life, a single Polaroid in an entire journal to be perceived as warnings or inspiration. Inevitably there will be someone commenting about “I like x image more!” or “I wish I was as good as their befores”. If those are your thoughts, I applaud your skill in missing the point.

Remember, we are only in ultimate competition with our younger and future selves. Our journeys are our own, appreciate the past and embrace the next 10 years.

About the author: Canadian born and raised, Renee Robyn is a former model turned photographer who has developed an ethereal style, combining fact and fiction. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Merging together expertly shot photographs with hours of meticulous retouching in Photoshop, Robyn’s images are easily recognizable and distinctly her own. She travels full time, shooting for clients and teaching workshops around the world. You can find more of her work on her website, Facebook, and Twitter. This article was also published here.

from Photography News https://petapixel.com/2018/09/13/early-photos-vs-now-seeing-progress-as-a-photographer/