BLOGGING LIKE ITS 2004

> mom and i are casually checking out the eventual-new-town's volunteer/events list in their local newspaper
> sees that the public library has an animanga game night
YESSS.jpg
> looks closer and sees it's only for teenagers lol
>> IT'SJOVER

mom, sympathetically: you could set up one for adults :D
(note she is the furthest thing from a gamer. but views it as more 'ok if it makes you happy and keeps you out of trouble...')

literally, though. i gotta recreate my college smash melee tournament nights!!!!!

it would be kind of slightly funny to crash the teenage event for a night. :p rolling up with a literal working gamecube plus 4 controllers a la 'how do you do fellow kids'.

having so many anniversaries this year and so many art projects coming out this month is making me idly wonder what the hell my reputation is online with this handle, lol...

especially tricky to guess at because - attempting to look at myself from how i act online - the one "constant" is refusing to be put in a box, ha.

specifically in art circles there's been a growing physical separation in terms of the more mainstream & palatable versus the seedier, sharper, "guilty pleasure" (crack, selfship, 4chan shitpost humor, whatever) and outright kinky works; maybe i was young enough on dA i didn't see it then but from what i remember it was all mashed up in the same place there. regardless if it's original works or fanwork circles, doesn't matter, it's a pretty sharp divide now, and i do get the vague sense of having one foot in both (mainstream reputation probably borrowed from my iron crown days, and generally more tame fanwork posts).

reputation here being in types of artwork, actions, and general "vibe". i def flip flop inconsistently between said mainstream work and the occasional wiggy as hell "bomb"; part of it truly just depends on whatever i'm in the mood to finish that day, part of it is slightly intentional "rent lowering firing a gun" so i don't get too known for one Thing and be put back in a box.

i don't go actively looking for what people say; it's really none of my business (and they have the right to say whatever). what i do sometimes see is the kind of activity on posts that suggests they're being passed around on discord servers (totally cool). i know some folks dislike me (i'm sure i've earned some of it...), but also probably because being annoyingly loud for defending lolisho for so long even when it was more of a third rail controversial topic (and something i don't usually draw). def know i read as intimidating/reserved at neutral, lol, my ex mentioned it a few times.

it's funny to be a known entity, especially how i never intended this handle to be anything but an anonymous escape.

for somebody who technically actually failed out of a summer online course (pre covid) and had horrible executive dysfunction for certian kinds of tasks for half of my life i am shockingly good at project management now. (have had multiple senior operations/PMO's mention to me they love working with me as a designer because i don't need any handholding lol).

half saying this as encouragement that it's a skill that *can* be learned, whether you're neurodivergent or not. so much of this is slowly figuring out the patterns your brain responds best to and iterating accordingly.

i don't have the brainwidth to do a long review, but james baldwin's 'no name in the street' was. gripping.

it was my first introduction to his work, and it won't be the last.

what grabbed me first: the deep and quiet alienation. i described to the doujin group that he feels like a self-aware/self described quote unquote traitor to so many groups (not out of a lack of a moral compass, just by how the chips fell with being thrust in the spotlight by fate, and by holding onto his sincerity at the cost of being quietly left out on the shore by various tribes.)  i ... don't ever think i've seen a writer accurately capture how that feels before him.

what grabbed me second: i don't ever think i've seen a writer hold such (tight! well defended!) intellectual cynicism and yet a genuine dignity for all life in the same hand as dexterously as he does. he has earned grievances to be sure. but too many intellectual-heavy authors i get a sour note of contempt at some form of otherness-in-their-mind whether it be queers, children, or the disabled or what have you.

not from him.

anyway if you were a fan of malcom x (the autobiography) and its prose/history mix, even more of a reason to read it. for such a heavy read on the civil rights era the prose itself made you want to tear through it to hear more of what he had to say.