#look. i kinda suck on imitating people's art style

[xulips]

🎈 🌟 X レディメイド (READYMADE)

[jupiterjelliez]

Why EW Beyond Kinda Sucks

I'm jumping straight into this so lets start off with the most popular thing recently. 1. The eating. It feels as if the crew just have a huge stuffing kink considering there's been more then fifteen posts solely based on that, not even including comics. I get it if it's for a joke or something, but they post about it so much and so often that it starts to feel fetishy after some time. 2. Matt Hargreaves himself. He's resorting to ablest jokes which is already a bad sign, and in Beastar Bunny I'm pretty sure they made a joke about special-needs children and pedophilia. Matt let this go through. He approved the 'jokes'. 3. Hiring of abusers. He somehow managed to hire two abusers, one he wrote with and again previously mentioned, MADE A PEDOPHILIA JOKE AND HE LET IT PASS. Took them forever to finally come out with a VAGUE statement about the situation. Which I don't think it helped all that much. 4. Shipping. Well not so much the fans, just the fact that Bing compared children who pair two men together into a relationship to people who cause mass harm in the face of political acts. What are you on Bing? He has apologized for it but he shouldn't be saying that in the first place, you'd think an adult man would know what not to say but I guess not. 5. The jabs at Tomska. The one in Beastar Bunny wasn't so bad, the 'tom's car' joke. But Matt and most of the fandom knows that Tomska has had body image issues and putting a character that was based off him being obsessed with eating is slightly off putting. 6. The sudden kid-friendliness. Most of the crew knows that their show has the demographic of teens and adults but to watch them turn into some weird kid show is unnatural for the show itself. Replacing Tom's alcoholism with eating is not the way man, that just ruins his character. The "For Parents" section is also a mess, shouldn't be there considering their demographic is teens and adults. They're both trying to be a quirky children's show and a knockoff Hazbin. 7. Their use of style. It's beginning to get weird as they're trying to imitate Edd's style so hard. The unique thing about Legacy is that they switched styles often, making it more quirky and satisfying to look at. Beyond on the other hand is trying to do Edd's style straight up. It can't be 'too good' or 'too bad'. Really tells you how Matt felt about Edd's art in a way. Especially the animation style. Having Jon Lopez as the lead animator doesn't fit in with the previous episodes. Eddsworld is known for having slow movements and lots of tweening. Having everything move within less then a second feels wrong and having frame by frame doesn't sit right with me. They either need to copy the style CORRECTLY or just scrap the whole thing and make different styles for each episode. In conclusion, the fandom should make their own Eddsworld project. Fansworld possibly, so we could show Matt and Bing what we really want. We want the edgy jokes, blood, quick storylines, not offensive humor, kid friendly merch and long over-ran jokes. Each set could have a seperate director, should have voting for episodes options/ideas, fuck it slap Tord in there if you really want since my opinion on it that he should've never been brought back or brought back full-time again. Just an idea though, I don't expect it to actually gain attention. But these are my thoughts about it and if you can tell, I'm not too happy.

[chr0mematic]

Things Riot should do differently for K/DA’s next comeback

Currently in K/DA hell and while I adore the concept, there’s a lot of things I would personally tweak. So without further ado, my unorganized thoughts proposals!

1. Bring back the original toony style of Popstars (+ True Damage).

Let’s admit it, guys. Popstars is way more iconic than any of the All Out videos. Popstars was very unique looking, with the models, painted skin textures, simple environments and toon lighting. Then there’s the exaggerated animation itself, which helped give the characters so much personality that the realism of MORE failed to replicate.

They can still put these characters in a realistic environment with this style. They’ve already done so with True Damage, and it feels a lot more successful there because, well, they still look like cartoon characters. Not cartoon characters trying to be real. 

Unfortunately, a lot of the music videos and artwork from All Out are criticized for looking uncanny. And honestly, it does feel that way sometimes. It’s especially obvious in the “live” interviews with Yadong and Genius, where the movements are straight up distracting. This sucks, because I otherwise enjoy the concept of mixing characters with real life. But speaking of interviews...

2. Get better writers!

So Riot was generous and gave us a lot of written content this time around, with comics, social media posts, and interviews. But personally, I found them to be kiiinda lacking. Like, the writers tried to make these characters super inspirational every chance they had, and I guess that makes sense because they’re trying to imitate influencers. Yet in the process of that, they sacrifice core character traits like Ahri’s passive aggressiveness or Akali’s cockiness. These are fictional characters man, they don’t have to be perfect and they are much more interesting when they aren’t. And no, I’m not gonna just take Akali’s word for it, I WANT to see her “get pretty mad”.  A secretly imperfect idol group is a fun concept to explore, since it’s the opposite of what an idol group is supposed to be like in real life. The writers should take advantage of this fact.

Moving on to K/DA Harmonies, I liked the comics, especially the issues that focused on the origins of the band, but in the future I think that they should get a new artist if they decide to do more. Most of the art felt stiff, which made it a little harder to get invested. Art is sooo important for this type of storytelling, and if the art isn’t interesting then the story can also become less interesting to the reader.

Finally, I’d like to mention that every interview was literally the same, the members keep being asked the same questions. What’s the point of having 3 seperate interviews at that point? Give us a little more variety, would ya?

3. Improve the voice direction.

Minor nitpick but I think the members’ voices could’ve been directed better in their Spotify + farewell clips, they don’t speak as naturally as they do in game? Like it feels like they’re reading off a script. Also Akali probably should have her in game voice. I don’t mind Shannon Williams, I’m one of the few who likes her voice for K/DA Akali, but they rarely utilize her bilingualism, so what’s the point? All it did was make people mad. :/

4. Collab with more lesser known artists!

In the lore, K/DA are all about discovering new talent and bringing them to the spotlight, which is super sweet. So I want that to translate more into the music as well. There was a start with Lexie Liu and Jasmine Clarke (as Seraphine), so maybe they can bring more exposure to artists in the future. I would have even more respect for them if they did! Also they should collab with Pentakill for the lols, I mean Babymetal and Dreamcatcher are a thing so anything is possible.

5.  More variety in song structure + content.

I keep seeing the criticism that all K/DA songs sound the same. While each of them are sonically different enough, it distracts us from the issue at hand: song structure. Yeah, K/DA songs have almost identical song structure when it comes to the lyrics and how they’re formatted. The K/DA formula is basically this:

Intro > First verse > Prechorus > Chorus > Second + Third verse  > Prechorus > Chorus > Bridge > Chorus > Outro

The only songs that break this formula are The Baddest and Drum Go Dum. No wonder why they’re my favorites xddd 

People also say that the lyrics are kinda bare bones, but honestly what are they expecting? This is pop music lmao. There’s never going to be deep material. It would be cool to see more stuff like I’ll Show You in terms of lyrical themes tho. Or just anything that isn’t “yo look at how cool we are”.

6. let soyeon sing

Soyeon can sing as well as rap, and it would kill me to hear Akali sing something beautiful k thx.

Annnd that’s it! Yeet. Stan Akali. ...This is how Kpop fans talk to each other right?

[prorevenge]

Bully me for months? I'll hit you where it hurts the most, literally.

I want to preface this by saying I'm not proud of what I've done here. To the casual observer, what I did might seem like justice, but, really, I wish it didn't have to go as far as it did. I want my story to be a cautionary tale of what happens when bullying isn't taken seriously. I don't want this story to inspire you to do what I did, but as to what happens when people don't make the right choices the first time. Also, TL;DR at the bottom, the quotes aren't exact, and apologies if this seems a little all over the place. It's not easy for me to bring up stories like this, but I felt maybe I'd do some good by sharing it.

For as long as I can remember, I had a habit of bottling up my emotions. My single father is a staunch believer in traditional masculinity, including the idea that men and boys shouldn't cry. By my early to mid teens, I succumbed to this outdated idea, and accepted my fate as a quiet, stoic drone that just took orders, respected authority, and did hard work (especially manual labor.)

Enter my high school, which had a huge problem with bullying. The worst kids by far were the trashy "gangsta" kids (their words, not mine) from the inner city who targeted anybody they considered weaker than them. I was a pretty muscular 15 year old, but that didn't stop them from saying things like "Dude, you're so fat," or "Wassamatta, fattie? Lose your Twinkies on the way over?" In class, it was mostly petty annoyance: taking my pencil, sticking gum in my hair, insults. They got physical when the teachers weren't looking. Tripping me in the hall and pretending it was an accident; slamming my head against the locker, hitting me with footballs or soccer balls and saying a fake "whoops, sorry!" By themselves, it didn't seem that bad, but enough grains of sand add up to a huge pile, and, at that point, I was up to my waist in it.

Of course, the school didn't do anything about it. Teachers would either tell me "I'll take care of it," and then nothing ever changed, or I'd get something stupid like "I didn't see it. There's nothing I can do" or "You know, if I stopped class every time a kid was acting up, we'd never get anything done." Sure, and if a tree falls in the forest, it didn't make a sound because you didn't hear it. My father wasn't any help either. He'd tell me things like "there's gonna be people like that everywhere you go," or "if you're crying about this, you'll never make it in life," basically telling me to go suck it up because there are worse things out there. As a kid, I was hurt by this, but I was 15, so my self-esteem had been run over by a Combine a few times by now. For months, I just kept ignoring and waiting, hoping my teachers would keep their word about dealing with this problem. Sadly, it seemed they'd rather prioritize pep rallies and Career Aptitude Tests than do their job in keeping kids safe.

By around Spring, I'd had enough. By now, my sadness and annoyance had transmuted into boiling rage that I'd been keeping in me for far too long. If nobody was going to fight for me, I'd do it for myself, literally. I devoted the majority of my weekend to prepping for a showdown on Monday.

One of the few good things about my father is that how knowledgeable he is in self-defense. He believed it was important for a man to learn to fight, so he had me take several different kinds of martial art classes. If I was gonna fight a bully, I had to make it a proper fight. I then researched about Krav Maga, a branch of martial arts that's basically a military-style form of self defense, meant to train you how to fight if you were ever in danger "outside the arena." No rules, no balanced teams, no referees; just you and your need for survival. One of the components of Krav Maga is knowing the body's biggest "weak spots," ones that maximize the most amount of pain when hurt. Things like the groin, toes, and eyes were obvious, but you could also hit the knees, solar plexus, and even the spine. Since my classes didn't teach Krav Maga (you had to be 16 at the time,) I watched many online videos, making mental notes of the techniques used. It was almost always the same kid or group of kids that bullied me, so I already knew what they looked like, and, more importantly, where to strike.

On Monday, I waited for the next chance to come for the bullies to attack. To my surprise, they kept quiet for the most part. Maybe this was one of my lucky days where I'd actually get some work done. Then, while I was crunching for an exam during lunch, one of the bullies, a regular, spilled my water all over my textbook, and saying, "Whoops, sorry!" As he and his pals started walking away laughing, I got a good look at the back of the guy's neck. I raised my fist, aiming for the middle where I'd likely hit his spinal column.

WHAM! I knocked the guy over to the ground. That's when all Hell broke lose. His friends tried tackling me away, and I tried remembering to hit all their weak points: eyes, throat, groin, and jaw. It was fairly sloppy attempt at Krav Maga given my inexperience, and the other kids trying to fight back, but it got the effect I wanted. Of course, I didn't come out unscathed. I got punched in the jaw, a bloody nose, a bruise to the forehead, and more than a few kicks in the family jewels. The other kids noticed us fighting, with some going to get a teacher while others watched in a mix of shock and excitement. Eventually, the principal and a few other teachers pulled us apart, and sent us to the office, after our injuries were treated.

The principal talked with us individually while the assistant principal called all our parents. When it was my turn, I explained what happened. At some point, the principal said, "Why didn't you tell the teacher?" At that moment, I just snapped, somehow managing to sound even angrier than when I was fighting a few minutes ago. "I ALREADY TOLD THE DAMNED TEACHERS, LIKE A MILLION FUCKING TIMES, BUT NOBODY WAS DOING SHIT ABOUT IT! NOBODY! YOU TELL ME OVER AND OVER 'I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT, I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT,' BUT NOBODY EVER FUCKING DOES! I WOULDN'T HAVE FELT LIKE I HAD TO DO THIS OF SOMEBODY HERE ACTUALLY DID THEIR DAMNED JOB FOR ONCE!" I got an extra week of suspension for yelling.

Much to my surprise, my father was rather quiet about the whole thing. Normally, my father had the temperament of a dragon, but maybe this whole fight touched his inner "macho man" that made him go easier on me.

On the car ride home, he said calmly, but firmly, "What happened? And tell me the truth." I told him, "They wouldn't stop picking on me, so I defended myself." I waited to hear my father make some snide remark about hurt feelings, but he just said, "Were you in danger?" I paused for a moment, and said, "...Yes." I knew I was exaggerating, but maybe this could open my father's eyes to see how much I was hurting. He was quiet for a minute, and then said, "I can't judge on your situation 'cause I wasn't there, but it's in a boy's nature to be aggressive sometimes, and it sounds like those bullies were just using it for harm. I also know you well enough t'know you wouldn't lay a finger on somebody unless you felt like you had to." I nodded, holding back tears. "Next time you're ever in that kinda danger, call me. Don't wait for the teachers to fail you again. I'll give 'em Hell." I was stunned, and, once I realized what'd just happened, I smiled. That's one of the few redeeming qualities about my father. As toxic and narcissistic as he was, he was an expert on bringing vengeance to those who deserved it.

During my suspension, one of the bullies' parents wanted to press assault charges on me, but my father threatened to counter-sue the school AND the parents for letting the bullying go on for so long. Thankfully, nobody had to go to court as the bullies' credibility sank faster than the Titanic. Once word got around that I fought back to stop the bullying (rather than the strong, quiet guy going psycho,) more kids decided to come forward to the principal about their experience being bullied, too, and how they also went to the teachers for help. This included a few girls who were being sexually harassed by these kids. This was a PR nightmare for the school that left a permanent stain on their reputation among the locals. In the end, the bullies got expelled, some faced charges for sexual harassment, and I got transferred to a different high school. I guess I'm a little proud that I inspired some other troubled kids to come forward, but I really didn't like violence. I'm built for self-defense, but I don't like hurting anybody unless it's to protect those I love. I would've much preferred if teachers actually did their job, and "took care of it" before I had to.

I did get a gift certificate for summer classes in Krav Maga for my Sweet 16. Thankfully, I've never had to use it yet.

TL;DR: Bullies spend months torturing me, and teachers won't do anything, so I researched and imitated an advanced martial arts to bring maximum physical pain to my bullies.

(source) story by (/u/aitacrybaby)

[drkineildwicks]

More dino art~

TFW most cryptid sightings are assigned to city people encountering owls and panicking.  BUT...what if they were dinosaurs???

Please reblog and not repost, thank you! :D

So!  More dinosaur art—that has been in the queue for ages I’m sorry but for a while it was I’ll get around to it and then it was I hate interacting with DA Eclipse the UI sucks wastewater. X\

But behold!  Have a Troodon—or rather, a Troodontid; apparently they’re considered a “wastebasket taxon” mostly comprised of small bird-like dinosaurs.  Personally, those toes of theirs makes me think raptor instead, but what the hey.

Once again looked up the skeleton for this as a starting point, and then worked with the concept I was going for—that is, the idea that cryptids such as the Flatwoods Monster are often mistaken for large owls.  With that in mind, started with barn owls, which are often considered spooky-looking because of the white faces.  Did, however, add the red fluff in imitation of descriptions of the Flatwoods Monster though (not sure why I got on that a few years ago, maybe there was a special on TV).

Next I sampled long-eared and great horned owls for the face and ear tufts, then added the head ridge of fluff for the funzies, if I recall.  Might have sampled burrowing owls too, can’t recall now.  Do know that I had fun making this guy extra fluffy because…seriously look at owl skeletons or even naked owls and then look at the final product—it’s weird.

Did this in my sketchy painterly style which I love—and then there’s the dino-only version which I did because trying to put it on Ko-Fi had me realizing that the original file is HUGE.  Kinda glad I have it too, really shows off the dino. :D

Don’t have much else to say about it after this because I already said it for the full illustration, but uh…I love how stumpy all the fluff makes him look because all the fluff on his butt makes his tail look shorter and all the meat on his legs makes them look odd, even though that’s how the bone structure is. XD  Anywho, enjoy! :D

See the DA version here and here, and enjoy cryptid dino-birbs that may or may not be haunting West Virginia….

 Done in Adobe Photoshop (with a Wacom Tablet!)

FanFiction | Etsy | Commission Me | Buy me a Ko-Fi | Tumblr | Patreon | AO3

[sanny-chan5]

Getting to know me :D

1. What is you middle name? I don’t have one. I think this question is thought for American people, because almost all of them have one, right? 2. How old are you? 23. 3. When is your birthday? March 2. 4. What is your zodiac sign? Piscis <3 5. What is your favorite color? Sweet, light pink 💗 6. What’s your lucky number? 13, surprisingly, but not my fav one. 7. Do you have any pets? No. 8. Where are you from? Spain. 9. How tall are you? 1’56-7 m. 10. What shoe size are you? Ummm, it depends on the shoes, but 37-8 normally. 11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? About 10 or so. 12. What was your last dream about? Me peacefully talking with a kid while he draws in class. 13. What talents do you have? I think I can read people’s feelings and reflect about human’s condition pretty well. I can also draw in manga style (not a pro, though, but I love it). 14. Are you psychic in any way? Yes LOL. 15. Favorite song? “Stay the Same”, by Mai-K <3 16. Favorite movie? This one is difficult af, I don’t think I have one yet. 17. Who would be your ideal partner? WOW. Like… idk??? Someone really dreamy and encouraging. Empathetic, I don’t ask for him to understand me, but VALIDATING me/my values/ideals is a must. 18. Do you want children? Yes :) 19. Do you want a church wedding? No… I prefer a “castle” wedding. I’m very romantic in that aspect and, well, dreaming is free :’) 20. Are you religious? Not really… but I’m very spiritual/intrinsec and I respect everyone’s religious believings as long as they’re not dangerous for someone else. 21. Have you ever been to the hospital? Yes. Not like hospitalized, but I have been there. 22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Never, not really planning to. 23. Have you ever met any celebrities? If a voice actor of my country ora n idol counts, yes :’) 24. Baths or showers? Baths, so relaxing <3 25. What color socks are you wearing? A brownish-pink colour J 26. Have you ever been famous? No, not that I’m planning to. 27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? NO. 28. What type of music do you like? Many different kinds, but pop and j-pop anime songs are my favourite and what I listen to daily. 29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Umm, nope. 30. How many pillows do you sleep with? A big one <3 (so comfy >-<) 31. What position do you usually sleep in? Either cudlle up like a burrito roll or spread up lol. 32. How big is your house? Not so much. We had a BIG chalet before but lost it because of the crisis. Now my family and I live in an ordinary, cutely little, flat <3. 33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Cola-cao with cereals/toasts with butter and jam. Ñaaam 😋 34. Have you ever fired a gun? NO. Again, not that I want to… 35. Have you ever tried archery? No, but I’d like to try it al least once. I’d probably suck at it though 😂 36. Favorite clean word? Mm… don’t know D: Probably a cute japanese one ‘cause otaku life (2 dedos). 37. Favorite swear word? Whoa, I don’t think I should answer this xD 38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? A whole night, and I don’t recomend anyone, honestly. 39. Do you have any scars? A tiiiiny one on my knee, but nothing serious as to name it “scar”, I guess (children’s playful life c:) 40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? Uumm… I don’t know, maybe? I had a guy who told me he had been trying to find me for 6 years after I moved the first time, but hat only got me scared, so… xD 41. Are you a good liar? NO. OMG no x’DD But I treasure that about me, you freaking dirty society :c 42. Are you a good judge of character? YES. Usually I am. 43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? I suppose, but I don’t know if I imitate them well or not though ^^’ Sorry for that u.u 44. Do you have a strong accent? No. Not that I think. 45. What is your favorite accent? Uffff. In my country there are so many accents I like. The Andalusian one, the one of Extremadura… xD don’t know if those count. 46. What is your personality type? Type, like, in MBTI? INFP 💙🧡💚💗💖 47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? Umm, I don’t remember… 48. Can you curl your tongue? I think I can’t xD 49. Are you an innie or an outie? Innie xD I don’t get why, but I feel awkward about this x’DD 50. Left or right handed? Right-handed. 51. Are you scared of spiders? YES. Any insect really. 52. Favorite food? Don’t have ONE, but my favourite ones are “mixed” food (sorry, I don’t know how to name them, but I refer to foods made with a great amount of ingredients: paella, Spain stew, Russian salad, rice with lobster or Chinish fried rice) I’m seriously getting hungry now x). 53. Favorite foreign food? CHINESE FRIED RICE (“Arroz 3 delicias” in spanich, if you know what I mean :’)) 54. Are you a clean or messy person? Cleanly messy?. I can find anything in my own mess and I feel good about it. Though I can’t stand other people’s mess, I guess I just feel control over my mess (?). 55. Most used phrased? I don’t know really D’: “How can this be so cute?!!”? 56. Most used word? Kawaii. I love all fluffy, cute characters, persons, animals, objects, moments or whatever thing it is. Sorry, not sorry. 57. How long does it take for you to get ready? 30-40 min. normally. 58. Do you have much of an ego? Not an arrogant ego, but I totally respect everyone’s honour because I hate feeling humiliated. And I have a say in that… 59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Suck them then bite them? 60. Do you talk to yourself? YES. Sorry not sorry. It helps organazing your mind. 61. Do you sing to yourself? ALSO YES. I sing every single of the day, practically xD I’m usually at home, listening to music in my PC.

62. Are you a good singer? As I said, I enjoy it, but I don’t sing well, so I’m not doing this publicly if it’s not with people I trust, and even then...

63. Biggest Fear? To die alone not prepared for it as I realice I didn’t live my way. And to be constantly critized by society. Why can’t I live my life freely?! 64. Are you a gossip? I hate it but like the 80% of my whole family is. So many times it’s very difficult not to be. I hate criticisms and don’t feel well recieving so I don’t want to be like this. I’m working about it now :c 65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? Mmm… don’t remember L 66. Do you like long or short hair? Both. I have it shoulder-leight right now :D 67. Can you name all 50 states of America? No xD Not good with geography… if it’s Japan, then… 😝 68. Favorite school subject? Music/art. I enjoyed Language too. But my favourite ever was PHILSOPHY. 69. Extrovert or Introvert? Introvert. INFP, remember? ^^ 70. Have you ever been scuba diving? No, but I’d love it too! :D I’m afraid of sharks, though, not sure if that’s actually a problem… (think) 71. What makes you nervous? SO. MANY. THINGS. I’m a little too much shy, so formalities/awkward social situations are the worst… terror and scary things, not feeling confident… normal things, I guess. It’s pretty easy to make me jump out of fright LOL 72. Are you scared of the dark? Only if I’m alone and not feeling well. 73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? Yes… sorry about that :c I like being corrected if I need to, though, so feel free to tell me so that I can improve myself J 74. Are you ticklish? OMG. I don’t want to answer this xD Yes, but it’s embarrasing. Shhh… >-< 75. Have you ever started a rumor? No. I’ve never thought about it, but they usually turn bad/worse, o… I don’t feel like hurting someone else’s feelings just ‘cause I can, thank you very much. 76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? Yes, as a Preschool Teacher on practics, only J Though I’m not good with authority stuff xD 77. Have you ever drank underage? NO. Still don’t, and I don’t plan to, at least for the moment. 78. Have you ever done drugs? NO. Same as before. 79. Who was your first real crush? A high-school classmate. I’ve not fallen in love since then, btw. 80. How many piercings do you have? None. 81. Can you roll your Rs? Yes, I’m Spanish, so I’ll think of this as if I’m good with other languages’ diction. Yes, I am  x) 82. How fast can you type? I guess fast enough? 83. How fast can you run? Not much, I guess. Never good with P.E. :’) 84. What color is your hair? Brown. 85. What color is your eyes? Greenish brown (?) 86. What are you allergic to? I don’t know, I never did the allergy tests because our Sanity is so good  they never gave me an appointment ot it even if my family asked for it :’) 87. Do you keep a journal? No, but I’d like to. 88. What do your parents do? Jobs? My father’s tiler (?) and my mother “works at home” (I don’t like the “housewife” term). 89. Do you like your age? I… guess? I have had quite a number of existencial crsis already, but I want to enjoy the present and work on as many projects I can in life, so… 90. What makes you angry? MANY THINGS ABOUT THIS WORLD. Ass/arrogant people, cruelty, society giving pressure to our individual needs, … 91. Do you like your own name? Yes J It’s an ordinary one, but not that ordinary, and it’s kinda “beautiful”, I think (?) (like, it sounds good and I like it written too. There are words I just like, and there are researchs about synesthetic people, if you wanna try a look). 92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? YES. For a girl, it’ll be Sakura or Hikari. If it’s a boy, I don’t know yet, but might be something related to Luffy, as the name of an Spanish youtuber (Lutffi, and yes he’s aware of the character, and no it wasn’t on purpose lol). I’m a weeb, aren’t I? Sorry ‘bout that >o< 93. Do you want a boy or a girl for a child? I don’t  know. I always wanted a girl, but now I’m starting to like the idea of a couple like siblings… 94. What are you strengths? Emm. I think I have great empathy, are good with psycological aspects and very flexible/open-minded. I like to try new things. 95. What are your weaknesses?Pysic aspects, not good with formalities and kinda socially awkward… I’m not a good at organizing (but I’m getting better) nor with  routines… 96. How did you get your name? My mother named me? xD 97. Were your ancestors royalty? No, I don’t think so xD. And NO, I don’t want to :( 98. Do you have any scars? What? Again? It’s a mistake, right? :o 99. Color of your bedspread? Many bright colors xD (light, not “shiny” though) 100. Color of your room? Purple and light pink.

PD: Sorry, I’m not really an interesting peroson, but I can’t help sharing this tests, I love doing them x)

[d00dt00nz]

Obligatory promo stuff at the top because it sucks and I hate it and let's get it out of the way! follow me on twitter where I'm active, check me out on spotify for music, or like my facebook for sparse updates on music stuff. Thank you. The Cover art is by Ellie Tison

I'm 27 years old. It's a really frightening number to look at. It's been frightening for about two years. Honestly I'll probably only come to terms with being that age when I reach 30 – a much more frightening number. I'm told that at 30 is when my body will just absolutely start falling apart, so that's something to look forward to. That said, mostly I just try not to think about it. Obviously a high number is not a problem in and of itself, but I definitely feel like I haven't accomplished things that I'd like to have accomplished by this point. That said, if you're a millennial and you're on the internet and especially if you're reading this, then you probably are in a similar crisis. We simply don't have the economic and social mobility that our parents had.

Many people my age don't dream big. Our dream is of comfort – of building something of our own, carving out our own nook in life. Somewhere deep inside, we want to live as our parents did. We want to brazenly rush into things as our parents did but we cannot. I think a lot of millennial anxiety comes from growing up in the colossal fallout of mistake after mistake from a generation that not only could, but did rush into things. It's made us hyperaware of our own place in the world while being envious of people who don't know their place – people who just seem to fuck up over and over again while running away from their problems and pretending they don't exist.

Some people are good at running away from their problems. I'm very bad at it. It's not for lack of trying either. You'd better believe I'm prone to clearing out like Fred Flinstone. Unfortunately it doesn't work out for me. I'm bad with change and easily stuck in the past – like many people my age. Others seem to handle it better. It's not some kind of moral blame game either. In a world where we don't have a lot of freedom, escape is the only real power. Escape is, after all (in theory), a change.

Which is all to say I know a bunch of people who went to china to become english teachers. On the surface it can seem like a fun white middle class adventure. Personally I feel the reasons are much more complex and (sometimes) a little bit more sad. Most people, I've noticed, go to escape a life where they feel stuck and unsatisfied. China the final cheat-code of the aimless middle class slacker. Of course it's a fantasy because you can't escape yourself. You'll just be you in a different place. The goal I guess is that you become thrown into such an intensely alien situation filled with so much stimulation that you'll temporarily become somebody who isn't you. Again, there's no blame here. I'd probably do the same, but I've got that nagging hyperanxiety about losing what I do have.

That basically wraps up the “inspiration” of the song. Specifically it came when me and one of my good friends shared a beer on my driveway in the middle of the night. He was leaving the next day to teach english in China. I had a sneaking suspicion he was doing it to escape from a relationship where things had fallen apart, but both were too afraid to let go. I remember feeling incredibly alone. There was so much movement around me and I felt like I was staying still.

Instrumentally the song started out as my third attempt to capture the feeling of Fleetwood Mac's Think About Me from Tusk. I heard the song and immediately became obsessed with it's relatively minimalist groove and vaguely manic energy. I've always admired how Lindsey Buckingham can write an interesting song on a small amount of meaningful chord changes. I also very much enjoy that 70s production style of having a million different guitars, organs, and keyboards in that make up a big, simple, layered groove.

The melody was difficult for me because it's at the edge of my vocal reach. It took a long long time to get a good performance and then it took another long time to get another good performance as to double track the vocals. As well, the chorus melody that I originally planned was too high to song so I had to figure out another melody. In theory I could have took the song down a key, but I'd already recorded the verses as well as the backing track at that point and liked how they sounded.

I mentioned earlier that I was trying to mimic the minimalist vibe of a Fleetwood Mac singing-blindfolded-naked-at-3am type song but this finished product is obviously a little less minimalist. I'm not sure if it was actual good decision making or self consciousness, but I felt like the song felt boring (I am deeply afraid of moments in songs where nothing is happening). I added the Phil Spector sounding oo-la-la's in the pre-chorus purely as a “uh I gotta put something there” type reaction, and I guess it just turned out like that because it's my default mode of indulgence.

The whistle at the beginning was put there because the opening sounded pretty dull. There wasn't anything to grab onto, and frankly the guitars were just .... there ... There wasn't any feeling like “ta-da! I'm here!”. The song just felt like somebody strolling into your house and eating your food without acknowledging you. I didn't like that. The whistle might sound synthesized, but it's not. It just sounds like that as a result of the double tracking, and the compression, and the limiting, and the eq, and the reverb, ect. It's a penny whistle that I found lying around in my basement, which, who knows what bacteria was on that mouthpiece (am I patient zero of coronavirus?). The thing was actually a little bit difficult to record because the penny whistle was in C and the song was not. I saw a guy on youtube half covering holes on a penny wistle to get sharps and flats so I just kinda imitated that technique and figured out which fingerings I needed in sequence. It took some pitch bending with my mouth as well but that's okay, it worked out in the end. I doubletracked it for good measure to make it better mesh with the existing instrumentation. I'm actually worried that it sounds a little “asian” now, which makes me worry that people might miscronscrew it as a racist gesture, given that it's also on a pentatonic scale which some people associate with chinese music (don't get me started on that). I promise it's not mean to sound “chinese” or anything stupid like that, and it's not even on any kind of asian instrument.

In general, love the song. I'm very happy with it turned out. It might be my favourite song on the album. I tinkered with it for almost a year, which typically just ends up with a big vortex sludge of a song, but somehow it came out better for it.