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hollybourneauthor · 4 years

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“How Teen Fiction Can Change The World”

The Patrick Hardy Lecture has been running annually since 1989. Guest speakers from the world of children’s books, including the likes of Jacqueline Wilson, Meg Rosoff, Juno Dawson, and Michael Morpurgo, have taken to the lectern, and this year I had the overwhelming privilege of speaking to those who work in the industry.

“How Teen Fiction Can Change The World” Holly Bourne, Patrick Hardy speech, 2020

Before I get going, at the risk of sounding like a yoga teacher, I want to ground us all in this room. Right here. In this moment. It’s a Wednesday night in winter, you’re sitting in a library, and you’re about to listen to me give a lecture about stories. So, high chances are...you really like books. At some point in your life, you stumbled across a story that won you over. You became consumed by the magic of fiction, and could never go back. There are probably a few key books that you’ve read that you honestly believe changed you. Improved you. And reading those books may have led to you making a number of small decisions throughout your life that paved the way for bigger decisions, that, all collected together, led to this very point in your life. Right now. This room. The people sitting around you. Your passion. Maybe even your career. Reading is likely the part of your identity that you feel the proudest of, and the most nourished by. I know that’s true for me.

So, I just want you to take a few moments to think about the books that led you here today. Directly, or indirectly. The books that you’ve no-doubt read and reread countless times. The books that you feel are etched onto your soul. That made you who you are. That helped you through life and steered you towards becoming someone you’re proud of… And I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, I’m guessing that those books – those life-changing books – are books that you read as a teenager.

This is the topic of my speech today. How I believe teen fiction doesn’t only have the power to change a young person’s life. But how that magical transformation can start ripples that can actually change the world for the better. I truly believe that YA books – writing them, publishing them and distributing them – is an act of activism that can start huge, positive, social change.

But how?

Before I talk about teenagers, I want to explore the powerful nature of stories themselves. Our brains are wired for stories – they are how we learn to survive in the world. Human survival needs two things – the basics of how to keep yourself out of danger, and how to keep in favour with the social group around you. We are pack animals. We need the surrounding community to survive. And we constantly tell each other stories about how to live. Information is more palatable if it’s in the form of a story. Rather than saying to someone “Don’t eat those red berries”, we’re much more likely to engage with that life-saving information if someone says, “Did you hear about Ig, the caveman from next door? Oh my God, it was AWFUL. He ate those red berries on the bush outside, and his stomach exploded ALL OVER THE CAVE. It was so gnarly. They’re still cleaning it up…”

The same is true with instructions on how to be socially accepted by others. Linguistic experts have found humans spend most of their conversation time gossiping about people who aren’t there. Telling stories on each other. Gossip is actually narrative that instructs humans on what is and isn’t acceptable in their social group. Again, we’d get bored of an information manual. But if someone comes over to you, wide-eyed, saying, “Have you heard that John left his wife for his twenty-two year old secretary? And now everyone has turned on him and he isn’t welcome at the Safari Supper any more,” you’d be lapping it up. But you’d also be learning important lessons about how to behave. Instructions are boring, but stories are riveting. Our brain rejects one, and embraces the other. And, through narrative, we learn how to survive – both emotionally and physically – in this world.

I find the work of Sigmund Freud hugely influences how I write stories, and how to ensure they connect with my readers. Some of you in this room will, no doubt, have done English degrees and will be familiar with how Freud’s theories relate to narrative. So apologies if this is a recap, but it’s something I try to remind myself of whenever I’m writing.

Freud believed all humans lived in a state of constant conflict between three parts of our psyche – our Id, our Superego and our Ego.

Our Id is the totally subconscious, primitive and instinctual part of us. It’s our selfish desires. Our animal selves. And it’s always there.

I’m hungry.

I want that.

I want to have sex with that person. NOW.

A newborn baby is completely Id-driven – at the mercy of its desires. And that part of us never goes away. The Id is always with us, steering us to survive. Utterly reactive and animalistic.

Whereas the Superego is there to tame the Id. The Superego is the cocktail of messages we marinate in throughout our lives, telling us what a person should or shouldn't do. The Superego is about consequences. It’s your values. Your moral compass. Don’t steal. Don’t snatch. Don’t dry-hump that person on the Tube even if you really fancy them. Essentially the Superego socializes us. The most powerful influence on your Superego comes from your parents and your early childhood experiences. But society has a part of play. Laws are part of the Superego – telling us what is and isn’t legally acceptable. And culture plays a huge part in shaping it too. What should a man be? What should a woman be? What is right, or wrong? And the Superego isn’t always a good thing. It provokes a lot of guilt in us, and, if taken too far, feelings of shame can make us unhappy.

And, finally, the Ego is the navigator of these two conflicts. It’s the “weigher-upper” – listening to the Id and the Superego and making the best judgement it can. I like to believe that the Ego is essentially who we are as a person, based on the decisions we make as a result of this eternal internal conflict. Rather than beating ourselves up for having “bad thoughts”, we should judge one another, and ourselves, on our actions. It’s our actions that make us who we are. We are what we do, not what we think.

We learn about Freud in creative writing because, to some degree, every successful story represents the struggle between the Id, the Superego and the Ego. We are drawn to these stories because they reflect the battle we fight in our heads every day. If you consider the huge, ongoing success of comic book films, you can see how Freud’s theory explains their popularity. Baddies in these stories are often very Id-driven – selfish, compulsive and uncaring of how their actions impact those around them. Whereas superheroes are disguised “Superegos” – representing goodness and morality.

But what excites me most about Freud isn’t how I can use his work to shape my books, but the belief I have that reading powerful stories can actually contribute to a person’s Superego. How the act of reading a work of fiction can actually cause a psychological change in us that makes us better people in our non-fiction lives. And the nature of the adolescent brain makes the opportunities for this even richer.

So why books? What makes fiction the most potent vessel for activism compared to, say, films, TV, video games or even an Instagram caption? It’s because the very nature of reading itself is an irreplicable act of immersive empathy. When I go into schools, I always tell teenagers that novels are like really safe, legal, hallucinogenic drugs. I once read a funny tweet that said that reading a book is crazy when you consider what’s actually taking place. Effectively, you are staring at symbols printed onto a dead tree and vividly hallucinating. That’s pretty magical when you truly consider it. Even with all our technological advances, even with virtual-reality goggles, nothing quite recreates reading. How a reader is effectively transplanted into the mind of someone who doesn’t exist – feeling their feelings as they’re feeling them, experiencing their experiences as they experience them. When written well, and used for good, stories can educate readers about all sorts of social issues by provoking an empathetic and emotional response. You can open a reader’s eyes to the truth of what life is like for people who aren’t like them – from being on the receiving end of racism, to experiencing mental illness, trauma or physical disabilities. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus tells his children that, in order to understand a person, you have to try and crawl into their skin and walk around in it. That’s exactly what books do.

It can also be truly revolutionary and reassuring for a reader to find a book where they see themselves in a main character. Especially if this main character’s hardship or thought processes are something you believed was unique only to you. Being seen, heard, understood – sometimes the first time someone feels like that is through the pages of a novel. Alan Bennett once spoke of the magic of this moment and how it’s like a hand has come out of the pages and is holding yours. And if you’re reading about a main character suffering how you suffer, and yet this character is able to stand up and be brave... Whether that's speaking up, fighting back, or simply just asking for help...well, this connection between writer and reader could well inspire the reader to be brave themselves.

Now, let’s go back to those books you had in your head. Your favourite books that you read when you were younger. The ones that really lodged in. What’s going on there?

There’s actually some neuroscience that can explain this. Scientists have found that during puberty, when a child’s brain is rewiring to become an adult brain, a side effect is that we make memories more strongly compared to any other time in our lives. You can recall and connect with your teen years more easily and potently compared to your twenties, thirties and onwards. I certainly know this to be true for myself. Ask me to close my eyes and remember being fifteen and, yeah, I’m there. Hell, I don’t even need to close my eyes. I can already smell the Lynx Africa, remember who kissed who at the school disco. I can remember the full names of all the popular people in my year group. And yet, if you ask me what I was doing at twenty-five, twenty-eight, thirty-one, I’d have to think about it. Trying to recall what job I was doing, struggling to remember certain people’s names... It’s vaguer, and certainly less visceral.

On top of this they’ve found that teenage brains are hyper-attuned to social stimuli. From an evolutionary perspective, adolescence is when you have to figure out how important you are to your social group and that impacts your chances of survival. This means teenagers are constantly asking themselves: Am I important? Do I matter? Does anyone care about me? Because of this, they’ve found that teenage memories particularly linked to identity and sense of self are even stronger. So if a teenager stumbles across a book that is holding their hand through its pages, just consider the POWER of that memory.

And let’s not forget just how wonderfully malleable young people are. Teenagers are so much more open to change – both in society, and in themselves. They haven’t calcified yet. They haven’t had as many years of repeating unhealthy patterns and gathering biased evidence to prop up unhelpful theories – about the world and their sense of self. I saw a talk once by a psychologist who said we need to stop dismissing our younger years as being unimportant years of freedom that do not matter. Actually, your youth and what you do with it paves the way to the future, and tiny adjustments, over time, can see you end up in a totally different place. She used the analogy of aeroplanes, and I love to think of teenagers as aeroplanes taking off from Heathrow airport. The planes all soar up in the same direction, but with minor changes in angle, they land in New York or Brazil or the Arctic.

I’ve started to see evidence of my books causing angle changes in the journeys of my readers’ lives. I’ve now written ten YA novels, and have built my career by being honest with teenagers about the hardship of their reality, as well as encouraging them to fight for a better future and a better world. I educated them about feminism through my Spinster Club series, asked the question Is mental illness preventable? in Are We All Lemmings And Snowflakes? and, most recently, wrote about an emotional and sexually abusive relationship in The Places I’ve Cried In Public. I’ve been touring the book with Women’s Aid and have become an ambassador for their Love Respect campaign that educates young people about healthy relationships. I’ve always believed that my stories were activism, and hoped they’d create positive changes in the Superegos of my readers. And I’ve now been in the game long enough to see my faith wasn’t misguided.

I met my very first Spinster Club alumni only last week, at a Women’s Aid event I did at Bristol University. After my talk, a young woman came up to me, squealing, and revealed she’d read my Spinster Club books as a teenager and they’d made her a feminist. She then went on to say she’s now studying law, and has got a barrister traineeship and wants to use law to protect vulnerable women. I’m not going to lie – it was probably one of the happiest moments of my life.

And the ability to tweak a person’s journey has never been more evident than in my latest book, The Places I’ve Cried In Public. Since it’s been published, it’s had more crossover appeal than I thought, and I now get several messages a week from women in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and even sixties, telling me their own harrowing abuse stories. They tell me about their PTSD, the university degrees they never got because their partner never let them go, their fights through family court, their lost years, lost self-worth, their therapies and their ongoing recoveries. Each tale is just as heart-wrenching as the last. And all of them write to me, I wish I’d read your book when I was younger, or I wish I could go back in time and give this to my 14-year-old self. They wish they’d known the red flags to look out for that could’ve prevented them from going down a path they’re still on.

And when I talk to teenage readers about the same book…

“Well, those sorts of relationships sound terrible. I’m never going to let myself get into something like that.”

“I HATE Reese. I want to kick him in the eyeballs.”

“The book made me cry so much. I never want that to happen to me.”

I’m not saying preventing awful things is that simple, but, also, maybe it can be? When you combine everything I’ve spoken about, what’s to say we can’t use fiction to nudge teenagers into making healthier decisions that will benefit them? As well as hopefully entertaining them along the way.

When we start reflecting on the power of teenage fiction, as people who work in the industry, we need to ask ourselves: how do we utilize this? Maximize this? And, to me, the most important thing is to remove as many barriers as possible between teenagers and the stories that can change their lives. I see the need to address this in three ways.

Firstly, we need to ensure books are available to all teenagers, regardless of their means. Novels, and their life-changing magic, should never be allowed to become an elitist item. So we need to fight to keep libraries and school libraries open, and to keep trained librarians in position. Librarians are experts at matchmaking teenagers with the best books for them.

Secondly, we need to fight for all teenagers to be able to see themselves in books by making the publishing industry more diverse, and therefore the stories it produces more diverse. The magic of fiction can only work if there’s an authentic connection between writer and reader, and diverse voices are an essential component for this to occur. If we think back to that reminiscence bump, and how memories about identity leave a particularly strong mark, just imagine how it must feel to be a marginalized teenager who finds a book that finally gets them.

And thirdly, we can’t let our own maturity and “calcification” accidentally erect barriers by letting literary snobbery shame a teenager for what they are reading. There is no such thing as good or bad reading – there is only reading. We need to celebrate and reward the books that teenagers are connecting with. It’s the connection that changes a life, not the beauty of a sentence. Yes, perhaps ideally, we want them to read the classics, but they’re much more likely to get there if the world of reading seems like an open, non-judgemental, non-elitist place. Let’s also recognize how hard it is to write a book that’s “easy to read” – the craftsmanship that goes into creating a story that pulls a teenager away from the huge list of distractions fighting for their attention. Literary snobbery is an unhelpful stance that will only inform a teen’s Superego in a negative way, leading to shame and exclusion. In trying to crowbar a teenager into reading a certain type of book, you’re potentially putting them off all books for ever.

I started by grounding us in this room. And now, after geeking out on you for half an hour about brain science and psychology, I want to bring it back to this room. I want us to take a moment to reflect on just how much power sits within these four walls. Collectively we have access to thousands upon thousands of young people, and a passion for the stories we want to give them. Just think of the ripples we can create by the simple, wonderful act of activism which is giving a book to a teenager. I honestly believe that giving the right book to the right teenager at the right time can change and possibly even save their lives. And I also believe that all those teenager aeroplanes, taking off from Heathrow airport, feeling empowered and understood, will go on to achieve remarkable things. Teen fiction really can change the world, and make it a better place.

A long time ago, someone gave you a book that led to you sitting in this room today. Let’s go out and start that journey for others. Who knows who will be sitting listening to the Patrick Hardy lecture in twenty years’ time, and what they will have achieved. But every time I think of this, I feel nothing but hope.

Thank you so much for listening.

#PatrickHardylecture children'sbooks childrenspublishing activism teenageactivism yabooks yareaders hollybourne

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kenmaiii · 6 years

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stop being jealous and bitter!

Now i know you cant outright just throw away your jealousy in the art community. You see a really cool popular artist or just someone with absolutely amzing art and you think “wow holy shit their art is so good i wish that was me and that i could do that....” I understand that spite can be a good thing sometimes; it can be what motivates you to improve and do well, especially if the artist is well... not the best person in terms of personality. Great, that’s even more motivation to do well right!?

But when does all the comparing go too far?

----------------------------------------long post incoming------------------------------------------

Now i’ve had people very close to me do this. I’ve been told that im ‘popular’ which im honestly not seriously. They could probably be reading this right now, but this has been bothering me for awhile so i must get this out there. Let’s step into a certain mindset for a moment:-

You hate your artwork. You hate your current skills. Sure there are artists you like. But then there are ‘THOSE’ ones. You have very specific artists you follow just because theyre so good and popular they make you feel bitter and you still check up on them regularly to fuel that bitterness. You know good and well that they make you bitter and angry and peeved but you just keep going back.

Step back for a moment and think.... why on earth am i fucking doing this???? Comparing and feeling bitter about another persons skill or popularity and letting yourself stay sad and bitter isn’t good for ANYTHING, art aside. It’s good to want to feel validated at the work you spent time on but it WILL get tiring if you keep complaining that ‘your art is bad’, ‘your art isnt good’, ‘its shit’ or ‘garbage’. Your brain is just internalizing that and hindering your work and future improvement. It’s most importantly WASTING YOUR own time, YOU the creator. And not to sound snobby here, i really truly dont intend for that, but some of you know good and well that you keep belitting you work because you only just want people to compliment your art when youre only doing the bare minimum to improve! I can only tell you as a friend or an on-looker that i love your art so many times (as much i really do love it and hope for your improvement) if you continuously decide to still turn around and say you hate your work and tell me im wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why reach for compliments then! Why continuously turn them down?

And i’m not saying you cant ever not like your art (cause it happens) or decline a compliment, but to do it every single time....it leaves a bad image for your work. You either start to believe it, or the person complimenting you will get put off from your negativity!

It makes people feel bad, especially if theyre also artist AND also your friends. You can’t keep saying you prefer their work and still put down your own. It makes your artist friend uncomfortable. They might not know how to respond when you keep doing it. And im sure they wouldnt want you to keep making yourself feel bad. Personally, i wish all my art friends success and improvement, and i want them to love and feel proud of their work more than the times they hate it. We really need to uplift each other as artists.

Thanks.

What you think and say is what you become and if youre always negative and comparing youre gonna tear down both the person you admire and yourself. Ie, if youre constantly thinking ‘ill never be as good as this person’,’no ones ever gonna like my work’, ‘i cant color as well as they do’ or saying that your work is only ever garbage... newsflash asshole! your mind absorbs that negativity and makes you believe it! u fool!!!!! Because brains are stupid and can be your worst enemy at times!

Sometimes you just need to stOP looking at certain peoples work completely if it gets you that bitter or angry or sad. Unfollow them! Block them! Delete their name from your search history if you have to! Stop hurting yourself and forget about them, it’s like trying to think about an ex thats moved on. Pointless.

Negative emotions such as sadness and anger are our brains direct ways at trying to reach out to ourselves.

You: seeing cool art Your mind: remembering you dont have some of those skills or popularity + comparing = sadness/ anger/ bitterness at not being able to be at that lvl withtin the same timeframe or less

Your brain is trying to tell you to fix this! But you know you might not have the tools to gain that much popularity or become so good at anatomy, coloring , compositions or backgrounds overnight, so the only solution for your brain is to self-sabotage.

It’s just the same as suddenly feeling sad for no reason. It’s your mind trying to work out a problem you never resolved. Maybe your friends haven’t replied in awhile and you feel ignored. Or you subconsciously remembered a bad experience without really realizing. You’ll get sad. Your mind is is saying ‘Hey asshole im sad. I know it might be out of your control but I’ll stay sad about this one thing until you resolve it somehow. ’ (whether it be blindly distracting yourself on purpose or fully wallowing in the feelings)

So we realized youre feeling intensely about this persons work vs your own...then what exactly happened there? The answer is pretty simple. Some kind of information processing happened in your brain. The result of this processing made the your mind conclude that one of your existing problems (art in this case) can never be solved; whether conscious or unconscious, and this explains why your mood might change all of a sudden without any kind of warning signs (in relation to what you saw).

Inspired VS Jealousy When youre inspired youre working against yourself in a GOOD way. You’re feeling motivated to make something great! Youre feeling motivated to make something better than the last piece!! And honestly thats wonderful!!! That is a lot nicer than being in art-block, comparison negativity hell.

YOU are the only one responsible for where you are as an artist. That goes towards every artist of every skill level! There’s always someone better than you and there’s always someone worse than you. People get better at art in different intervals depending on how much they take in or put into practicing. Some people just get some concepts and fundamentals a lot easier and quicker than others but that doesn’t mean they naturally had that ability from birth. They put in the work just as you should be doing instead of feeling so intensely negative! But when you’re jealous and negative all the time, that’s when it starts to go downhill. :/

Jealously is a very human emotion at its core. And im not saying its super easy to deal with and just suddenly get over, but there are things you can do to slowly help yourself do it at least a little less.

Here’s the best things you CAN do instead:- - Write down some of the things you find yourself feeling bitter over about, especially when you look at another artists work? Ask yourself why these specific things? If it’s something you yourself can work on in your own pieces then maybe uh do that? - Find the time to practice your work. - Practice even more. - If it’s your style that you arent happy with think of the artstyles you like and set aside time to mimic the way that artist might draw something (hence adding that to YOUR style). Take a sketchbook page or two and just draw entirely in those styles. - Practice. I can’t stress this enough. I know artists say this a lot and it can kind of just be thrown around carelessly, but if you keep putting this off and saying you don’t want to practice or talking about how time is going by when you should be practicing things.... and STILL refuse to practice then???? I cant help you sorry. Time waits for no one, so sometimes you need to grab time by the horns and kick its ass for awhile. Put in that effort! - Please use references. Even better if you use it nearly EVERYTIME you draw something, especially yknow...if its a pose, body part or background that you know you have no idea how to properly express! Find a stock image or a variety of websites to use! Save poses that you like from online magazines, other artists and photographs you see anywhere online. I like to look at online magazines from other countries or photographers, and there are tons of places like pinterest or instagram and whatnot. - Stop comparing and being bitter. Ii cant say this enough it gets me so ticked off, but my stubborn taurus self refuses to fully go off until it all piles up and this post is the result lol. If you know you can’t let go hating on a certain artist (for no good reason) then dont hate-follow them! Don’t check up on their work constantly! Don’t even talk about them!!!!!!! Try to get them out of your head for goodness sakes. Majority of the time they dont even know who YOU are so why are you worried about what they’re up to. - STOP SHITTING ON YOUR OWN WORK. - STOP IT RIGHT NOW. - AS THE ARTIST SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO FORCE YOURSELF TO SAY ‘’hey, my work isn’t exactly where i want it to be at this point in time and it may never be but i can appreciate that i’ve gotten better at a lot of things and im better than where i was a few years/ a year/ a month ago/ even weeks ago.” - ”I’m proud of this piece and can’t wait to get even better.” - Art is a struggle that takes time, effort and a lot of work. There’s always going to be someone better than you and there’s always going to be someone worse than you. You can only strive to get to the level that would make you happiest, otherwise you will get irritated with it and feel absolutely miserable about everything you produce. - PUT IN THE WORK TO GET YOUR ART OUT THERE. Social media has been both a curse and a blessing to artists all around. It’s made it easier for us to share our work around and opened paths for making money online and at home and connecting with other artists, but competition grows everyday as more people post their work in the same market. (ie another reason why it can be hard to get your commissions out there) Also as artists we want that dopamine rush you get from people liking your stuff, i get that its gucci. -But if you aren’t tagging your works well, posting somewhat consistently, not really bothering to talk to people in certain art communities (even people in your fandom because hey potential friends and even partners on future projects), not adding your works to groups (a big problem i see with people on places like deviantart mostly), joining and sharing them in art group chats/aminos/discords, joining events to get yourself out there (such as zines/big bangs/gift exchanges etc), giving tips and advice or even little helpful tutorials to people then how do you expect to be noticed? How. If youre not doing at least TWO of these things then hoW can you complain about not getting attention. :(

Of course you dont have to do ALL of this. Im just saying ...if you arent out there advertising how will more people know about you? This leads to you thinking no one likes your art (skill level excluded because even my cringiest old art would have a few comments or encouragements to see my future improvement, and i still want to hide when people like/comment/reblog said old art to this very day).

I understand mainly OC artists feel this way that no ones gonna like their characters, or it just doesnt get reblogged enough in general but thats understandable too. No one is ‘selling out’ if they only do fanart. No one is ‘snobby or scared to get themselves out there’ if theyre really enthusiastic about their stories and worlds. Otherwise we wouldnt have fandoms int he first place, theyre all someones work. And hell, good for you if you draw both. It really is just a matter of how you put yourself out there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’ll take some time but there IS always someone out there that likes your stuff. And sometimes you just have to be content with making work for yourself, work that makes you happy. The online art world is tough especially when youre small but once you fall into the depths of bitterness its hard to rewire your mind...

This is how yall should be looking at your/others work majority of the time: You: seeing cool art Your mind: omg thats beautiful! i wish i could draw and paint like that. i should practice more , try out some poses and anatomy or implement what they do into my work. i wanna make a cool ass piece like this too i feel so pumped to draw and work!!

And that’s that! Do yourself a favor and be happier you bastards! Its tiring being negative and sad all the time and i want tf out of it. Its so very tiring and annoying to be sad and bitter as shit!!!!! My goD

I can’t really think of anything else to add to this and the text may appear angry sometimes as i was very heated when i wrote this but tried to tone it down a lot hfkds. Im not some ‘art guru goddess with supreme skill uwuw’ but advice is advice! It’s always up to the person listening to take it or not.

I’m gonna end this with one of my favorite art quotes of all time from t h e Arin Hanson himself. Because it really is true.

Get yourself out there, practice towards a level that makes you content and try to have more fun with loving your work.

It’s taken me a long while to post this, as i’ve been feeling this way for...at least a couple months??? but i finally put it all out there i just needed to do this lol. Sorry if i mightve repeated info sometimes here and there?

This post is just as much of a call out to my own actions but more so @ those of you that specifically do this!

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feralhogs · 4 years

Note

ANSWER 1 THROUGH 65 HO

65 Questions You Aren't Used To

WPOOOOO LETS GO

Y E E T

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

nnnnooooooo. its called holding onto my last marble.

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

1. sometimes i can freak myself out going to the bathroom at night but bro. i take walks at like 11pm or whenever the hell i please. and i LIKE IT.

3. The person you would never want to meet?

i would not care to meet dick face

4. What is your favorite word?

worm

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?

well darn i dont really knowwww!!!!!!! the big jungle one from minecraft. but i love weeping willows of course.

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

i didnt think

7. What shirt are you wearing?

my pyjama shirt from new vegas. las vegas. oh my god. not that i went there. my friend did. ive been wearing it for 3 days now. because its fine.

8. What do you label yourself as?

androgynouOOUUSSSSSSS i heard it described the most accurately for me as “in between blue and pink, purple is a blend while not being either of them.” yes this SPECIFICALLY. i could never be feminine while female presenting, but now that im usually read as masculine i go around seeming gay as fuck. and even though this sounds like heresy considering how i instinctively want to throat punch people who feminize me, i have comfortably considered myself a woman lately ONLYYYYYYYY BY being as butch as a butch can possibly butch. maybe without the cars. i would NEVER go by she/her NEVER NEVER NEVER. like there literally are butch women who go on T and use he/him pronouns. that brings me euphoria too and i find people reallllyyyyyy get mind-bent at this point. i really also get irritated at the idea that identifying with both lessens one or the other... thats why i like the purple thing so much. like im 100% of the thing. i was watching on queer eye, once, there was this part where all these women met up and one of them who was really masculine was saying how “a woman can look like this too” and i was like “i am probably crying for an important reason right now” and sometimes i feel attraction to women that is nOT of the ManTM just... i can do what i want.

but my point is it’s like im only happy if i have a blend. theres even a particular quality of it i can put my finger on, like a rugged, handsome feel... and then a flamboyant, passionate feel... mix em all up...

9. Bright room or dark room?

BRIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

GUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

transition juice, or fucking around with cs paint with some gentle existential dread

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?

this one, because my life is not hell, and i know a few basics about adulting now

12. Who told you they loved you last?

the sister. i said it for damage control because she had blown a fuse the other day. i was being very fake on purpose because i’m not being vulnerable with someone who will blow up. when she says it all i feel is pain. like cold paralyzing needles in my soul. i cant say i love you to her and mean it, even if i want to. honestly i wish people would say this to me. the most i love yous i remember are from family members putting band aids on the wreckage of our relationships, so i can feel a little twang of guilt and longing for what could have been and should have been. and feel like i should be doing something more. and feeling awkward because you both know they fucked up and it’s the elephant in the room. and i can feel their confusion and sickness causing them pain, feeling that pain for them.

13. Your worst enemy?

hmmm. anyone who made me feel like less than i am. anyone

14. What is your current desktop picture?

cherry blossoms and a city at night that i stole off the internet

15. Do you like someone?

like like crushes right? i fucking wish. i am so god damn sick of myself. i dont feel fuck or shit for anyone. its a fucking wasteland. yes im on T so i want to fuck anything that moves. and yet? can i please have some feelings? please may i have some feelings? not aesthetic appreciation. not moral, personality appreciation. or even just a deep respect and compassion. these are all fine things of course. but cant someone just drive me crazy? cant i have that extra spice of life? cant i just have a little bit of happy crazy? i will know a perfectly lovely person and ill WANT to have feelings for them. but i FUCKEN DONT. I DONT!!!! SHIT!!!!! WHAT IS THE MEANIGN?!?!??!??!?!1 i have fucking YET to meet anyone im more obsessed with than some really gay ocs. come on universe!!!! bring it!!! poor oscar. poor fucking oscar. whatever wavelength im vibing on man you are not on it. i wish you were on it. i wish you were on it oscar. you are hot you are hot with your bike oscar. and the rose quartz i gave you. the rose quartz you wanted. but i feel no authentic electric connection to you. i feel like all i just see is how your brain works with a coolheaded certainty. all i do is analyze what you are wearing so i can be as hot as you. maybe id like to draw you. and girls from work. you are so beautiful and amazing. i see you in bikinis on instagram. and im like oh beauty standards. look at you go, adhering to them. my heart rate goes right along at the same old pace. dont tell me this is principles. does someone have to smell bad? like edward cullen?? CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE JUST SEDUCE ME?!!!?? ID LOVE SOME EXTRA WILL TO LIVE! THEN MY STORIES WILL BE BETTER!!!! see this is the whole problem

16. The last song you listened to?

what am i to you by finn the human or actually that asgore fight song that i do not know the context of and dont want to until i play the game for myself

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

i would save this button for a karen.

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

jk rowling. every time i see her face in a news article about why her bland new transphobia anvil book is pretty bland without addressing the raging transphobia in it and around it, i take a minute and contemplate shoving a pie in her face, and agonizing that i cannot do it from this distance.

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?

a... slave? is this a kink thing? im fucking laughing this is going to be so honest. probably a toxic person from my past i have unresolved sexual tension with, especially since i was in my abused kid shell and was a huge doormat so now im all vengeful with issues. since this is totally something i am open to considering right now i would like to browse this concept’s menu

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

yknow what? yknow what? i am just going to say all of me. i am feeling very body positive right now. i often feel isolated as fuck because of trans stuff and male body standards, but thats Also What Makes Me Special :) i like me, i like my face, i think i am very cool and unique, and i can walk fast.

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?

GOD DAMN IT THIS FUCKING QUESTION AGAIN

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

yes. but it’s a secret.

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?

deep sea creatures. idk. even if its small and not even ugly. i just lose my fucking mind. i jump out of my chair. i get the heebies and the jeebies.

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

okay. chicken. cheese. something spicy so it wont be boring. a fuck ton of veggies so i can be healthy. and some olives, fuck olive haters.

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?

IM GOING TO GIVE IT TO MY LANDLORD <3

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?

mexico city to see what all my friends are talking about.

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?

............................................................................

w h y

okay. i would go around tasting a bunch of fucking. really fancy old wines. listen i dont really drink okay. but with a very fancy old wine i can go around with a like, glass and look really sophisticated and tell gay things to gay people. hello boys. so id find one that strategically i would like the most for the rest of my life and choose it. and if its expensive i can sell it.

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

i would stick a bell in the middle of it and all of us have to go there at six o’clock and throw bread at each other and fuck.

29. What is your favorite expletive?

cunt. i dont really use it ever, but boy it can pack a punch!

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

that means my trees because theyre living things? good. my phone. i need it to function. everything else i have on the clouds and i can just write on a napkin if i really need.

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

i wanna say nothing because the good and the bad made me who i am and all that. and they’re learning experiences and healthy stuff. but some of my sisters abuse that has destroyed my psyche, literally just ruined my life, it would make things easier if that hadnt happened.

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

WHAT I WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS LIFE STOP TELL ME HOW I GET THERE

Okay i’m moving to... greece and i’m going to study ancient greek everything and live right on the edge of the sea where the water’s lapping the doorsteps. and im gonna learn greek by immersion

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?

i am not surprised whatsoever death is a cool entity.

probably someone who died really sadly and too soon in my life (no one close to me thank god) but just as a service to society

34. What was your last dream about?

wolves with bombs were chasing me around a giant university. it was all part of the game. i was trying to protect some people... soldiers were chasing me... i was hiding under the floor... hiding from authorities and war are VERY common dreams for me

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?

Writer? Yes. am i saying that to sound full of myself? no. i am fighting very hard to maintain some self-confidence. i have done some writing recently and i am proud as fuck of myself. i caught myself thinking, “now that was banging, i know that was banging.” and so i just admitted it to myself.

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

nooooot reeeaaaalllyyyyyy. i went in an ambulance for my face swelling up! still dont know if i needed to. still think i was allergic to the person i was talking to at the time. seriously when i stopped talking to them the hives went away. they literally gave me hives sdjfnskjndsjknfkjsfnjskdnfdsjknfjknf

37. Have you ever built a snowman?

yes

38. What is the color of your socks?

they have inuyashas on them

39. What type of music do you like?

dark, longing, aching, angry, raw, disappointed, serious, low songs that get intense as fuck.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

sunrises for the concept, sunsets for the looks

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?

you know what? i dont really like milkshakes. they dont feel good in my tummy even if it’s not my stomach having a fucking meltdown.

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)

the fuck is football

43. Do you have any scars?

yes, most of them are from dermatillomania, two big cool-looking ones on my hands from touching a cookie sheet without an oven mitt and pouring microwaved coffee all over my thumb because literally every inch of the counter had a foot of dishes on it and i didn’t simply heat up the water normally because everything was dirty

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

i want to be a psychologist and an author

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

id like a dong please

46. Are you reliable?

yeeeeeesssssss...... but the adhd wins sometimes

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?

future self: even if you’re in a worse off place than where i am right now, don’t regret anything, don’t beat yourself up. sometimes it’s realistic to have hope. you don’t have to be hard on yourself all the time just because it’s familiar and natural to you. so stop thinking “if i see a note from my past self ill be filled with rueful self awareness”

48. Do you hold grudges?

yes. i feel like im saving my soul a little and taking some power back when i am able to say “that hurt, that was wrong, and you don’t get access to me anymore, i don’t have to forgive you” it’s admitting that my own pain is real so i can listen to and protect myself. i wish i was more of a forgiving person but i spent too much time trying to forgive unorganically for the sake of being moral that i just can’t, can’t can’t now. it hurts so existentially and i deserve better. time for me to be mean and hold grudges. a little mean is okay.

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?

a DOG CAT????????

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

“doesn’t having a human-shaped robot with smoke coming out of it in the corner of your shop scare you late at night?”

“yes, sometimes i see it and jump a little”

51. Are you a good liar?

yes, when i’m dedicated. getting my birth certificate back? oscar worthy

52. How long could you go without talking?

i live like this lmao

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?

once upon a time i had bangs. and a bob cut

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

yes bitch

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?

yes bitch i can do a convincing british accent but i don’t want to broadcast that fact because being british is cringe and plus my name is gordon and im already trans and interested in cooking and my greatest fear is that people think i am trying to become him when i am deeply offended when people assume i make personal decisions for anyone other than myself. no one has ever actually voiced this theory to me but it haunts me late at night. i can honestly probably do any accent if i listen to it for a little bit. i find it very easy to imitate sounds and like individual speaking styles to the point of stealing them even when i dont want to. like actually this is something that just comes to me easily i think.

56. What do you like on your toast?

fuck toast. i make a grill cheese. cheese and garlic.

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?

i tried digitally painting a generic girl who ended up looking really simliar to someone i went to school with only i made the eyes way too small and i would show you except it’s too much work

58. What would be you dream car?

vw bug with giant monster wheels, black with flames, big booming stereo. eyelashes in a drag way. ill run pickup trucks off the road

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.

i sang in the shower back when i felt free to annoy everyone in the house. oH WAIT IT DOESNT ANNOY PEOPLE WHO ARE KIND TO ME

...........

they taught me i was annoying. ANYWAY. i am too shy to sing in the shower but id love to. i dont really do anything unusual except that i take really long in there but yknow im not actually doing what people think im doing when i take long. im literally just sitting there decomposing, head empty.

60. Do you believe in aliens?

yes, of course, i have been telling everyone theres water under mars since day one and now look. now look

61. Do you often read your horoscope?

yes. im a sagittarius and clearly it is needed because CLEARLY theres no other fucking sagittariuses

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

G, because my name starts with that and i’m just great. really, i like... it has a chonk to it. like a reliable chonk to it

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?

YKNOW WHAT? im going with dragons because of the fantasy, fire breathing and so on but yknow for my wip i was going to have both dragons and dinosaurs at a reptile like shelter

64. What do you think about babies?

i think they should be loved and nurtured, but they are too much work for me to want for myself at this point of life, and you should definitely read some manuals before having one if you can because people can and do mess this the fuck up

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.

you didn’t ask anything here so im just going to tell you something. i am going to tell you that i have always been so hell bent on writing even when i hate it because sometimes when things are going well i feel like i am just so in another world and i feel like im doing something im really really supposed to do. it is such a euphoria and it has an effect on my whole aura. i really wish i had never made myself stop but we can’t change the past so i shall just have to never stop again.

THANKS HOOOOO

#chatty #notthecanadianaverage #bug

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sailorrrvenus · 5 years

Text

Film is Alive!… But it May Have a Terminal Illness

The defiant cry of the nostalgic hipster that’s become a hashtag: #filmisnotdead. But why? It’s 2019, people — the digital camera reigns supreme; why won’t this analog trend die? Rationalism abandons the old way in recognition of the new’s superior efficiency. The combine harvester supplanted the scythe, clocks replaced the sundial, and electric lights extinguished the candle.

However, technology in art does not often follow such a linear path of progression, as art does not demand rationality — sometimes it can even suffer for it. Part of this is because fashion and trend influences so much of what people consume, and film is just trendy right now.

Kendell Jenner wears a Contax T2 on The Tonight Show and suddenly every teen girl and her dog wants a film camera. But I’m not a sociologist — I am a photographer and a lab operator, and I have a few insights into why film has risen from the deathbed and another reason why it might very soon go back to it.

Why Film is Still Kicking

Ever since I started photography, I have always had the luxury of choosing either film or digital. In fact, I had two cameras when I first started: a Nikon D40 and a Pentax ME. Both were serviceable, and being that I only shot amateurish street photography, landscapes, and portraits, both cameras did essentially the same thing.

Most of the time I shot at shutter speeds less than 1/1000s and with ISOs rarely higher than 1600. Arguably, the Pentax did a better job, using a 50mm f/1.8 prime lens compared to the plastic-fantastic kit 18-55mm on the D40, and it offering full frame resolution with a quality scan.

Yes, I could take more photos with my D40, but that did not guarantee better shots. In fact, I would generally waste them, receiving the instant gratification of the LCD compared to the slow contemplation and cost associated with C-41.

Comparing image quality, a middle of the road digital camera and basic film scans offer roughly the same resolution. I rarely ever print over 12×18-inches large anyway, so the difference is academic. And provided I have used the right film and exposed properly, I can get a decent print up to A1 size without too much grain.

I printed this at A1 size. Shot on Kodak Gold 200 with a $5 Canon Sprint Point and Shoot.

Quality wise, there is not a vast difference between digital and film for most everyday applications other than the ability to review images instantaneously. The greatest advances in digital photography — faster and more accurate autofocus, low light performance, internal stabilization — generally only make great breakthroughs in areas outside of the everyday experience of photography, like astrophotography, sports, news journalism, and professional shooting.

The processing and storage of digital are both unlimited and far easier; but what if you only shoot a few hundred pictures a year? Is this so important? In focusing on the professional demand, we neglect the importance of the consumer market.

The consumer digital market has hit its peak and is rapidly decreasing; pros want the latest and greatest digicam, phones have all but replaced the compact camera.

Chart by Forbes. Data by Tokyo-based Camera & Imaging Products Association.

It seems that the consumer just wants something light, cheap and unobtrusive to take happy snaps, which leaves either their phone or a nice, simple point-and-shoot film camera for special occasions.

During my time working in the minilab (2016 to 2018), I saw a huge uptick in the number of young people bringing in 35mm rolls or disposable cameras. We went from developing around 20 rolls a day to 80+ at a time when even more competing labs were opening. The majority of our sales were to the under-25 crowd, whose interest in film was because it did what it needed to do and not much more.

It is practical to them, but also fun with its inherent mysteries and spontaneity. A recent report can testify to my own anecdotal experience: “About a third of new film shooters are younger than 35, and roughly 60% of film users say they started shooting film in the last five years.”

The rise in popularity is evident in the increasing cost of film cameras, that has gotten so ridiculous that heavily used second hand mjus sell more than what they did when they were new.

Technological advances outside of photographics have altered the way people share photos. In this regard, digital photos from a camera can be more time consuming and arduous to share for the amateur shooter- requiring the pictures be imported to their computer, edited and then moved back into their phone to be shared.

At my lab, Dropbox changed the game for us. People found new convenience in the scans being emailed directly to them, with the pictures available straight on the camera roll, ‘filter’ preapplied. All it needs is a #filmisnotdead hashtag and it’s Insta-ready. Film processing is costly, but it’s also like outsourcing the file management of digital so you can concentrate on the photography part of photography.

So the niche seems to be deeply carved out for film photography and the manufacturers, at least in the short-to-mid term. The real prognosis for analog is ironically tethered to the lifespan of certain digital cameras: the minilab scanner, which is slowly going extinct.

Why Film’s Death Clock is Ticking

Professional minilab scanners are key to film’s continued survival. Yes, you can scan with any digital camera or flatbed just as well as a dedicated film scanner, provided you know what you’re doing and build a good mask to hold the film flat. But the efficiency of a scanner like the FP-3000 is unrivaled, and essential for a lab to remain profitable.

Fuji has long discontinued production of these machines, and their assembling plants have long been shut down. Parts are available, but get fewer and more expensive every year, and most of these are being stripped off old, dead machines. When the motherboard or power supply goes, that machine is ready for the scrap heap, because these parts are no longer in production either.

Possibly caused by the rubber chicken that fell into the feeding lane…

I don’t know what it’s like for Noritsu labs, but I have a feeling it’s a similar story. Without professional film processing, there’s not really much appeal to film at all, and processing at large volume depends on dedicated film scanners. Unless someone starts making new scanning machines that can be both as efficient and deliver similar image quality, the long-term future of film looks bleak.

About the author: James Cater is a digital and analog photographer, film lab operator, and model. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Cater’s work on his website and Instagram. This article was also published here.

source https://petapixel.com/2019/01/07/film-is-alive-but-it-may-have-a-terminal-illness/

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pauldeckerus · 5 years

Text

Film is Alive!… But it May Have a Terminal Illness

Why Film is Still Kicking

I printed this at A1 size. Shot on Kodak Gold 200 with a $5 Canon Sprint Point and Shoot.

The consumer digital market has hit its peak and is rapidly decreasing; pros want the latest and greatest digicam, phones have all but replaced the compact camera.

Chart by Forbes. Data by Tokyo-based Camera & Imaging Products Association.

It seems that the consumer just wants something light, cheap and unobtrusive to take happy snaps, which leaves either their phone or a nice, simple point-and-shoot film camera for special occasions.

The rise in popularity is evident in the increasing cost of film cameras, that has gotten so ridiculous that heavily used second hand mjus sell more than what they did when they were new.

Why Film’s Death Clock is Ticking

Possibly caused by the rubber chicken that fell into the feeding lane…

from Photography News https://petapixel.com/2019/01/07/film-is-alive-but-it-may-have-a-terminal-illness/

0 notes