Hoping to be more of my authentic self here, as this is the first social media platform I’ve been where nothing is linked to people that know me, and that in itself is very freeing. I also always tend to want to ramble about things like a rabid, insane person and feel like this is the kind of place where you’re meant to do that? Cheers to new experiences, I guess.
Mediocre fanart, personal art, crafts, writing, poetry, and rants to come?
Intro and info-dump?
I will go by “Li” for now.
I am a queer asian in my mid 20s (they/she) that is messily trying to figure themselves out by garnering personal insights from media. I possess a fucked up, little burnt-out, existential heart.
But I let myself scream at the walls and inanimate objects about the state of the everythingness when the horrors are too much to fathom. It’s healthy. Promise.
I am closeted and strongly suspect I am an undiagnosed neurodivergent, but don’t want to self-diagnose.
I grew up in an environment that relied heavy on fear of failure and people-pleasing as motivators, but have actively been trying to fight those compulsions through my adulthood. I still struggle. A lot, to be honest. The balance between authenticity, trying to be successful, and wanting the people you love to feel comfortable is much harder to maintain than I could have known.
But I try to respect myself and others to the best of my ability. I fail sometimes. Everyone does. Empathy is hard to come by in the current state of the world and internet culture, but I strongly believe in holding onto it no matter what.
With that in mind, I also believe having an online presence means you have an obligation to respect boundaries by remembering everyone you can’t literally see is still just a human— like you! And being a human means being imperfect and contradictory and messy. Especially with famous creators (damn, guys).
I love good story-telling and character development in video games/films/books/podcasts, etc… Especially when they ask the hard questions, even better when theres no clear answer. Nothing so good as a morally gray story with a dash of hope to cling onto. Things that make you annoyed or hurt, but then you ask yourself why. Maybe you’ll realize, “Oh. Its because I’m like that, aren’t I?”
I think it’s incredible when fiction can provide a space for you to discover and reflect on deeper aspects of yourself.
Personal insights to be gained. Be the red string conspirator of your own fucked-up, mysterious, little overly wrinkled (or smooth) brain! If you can spend hours on picking apart your favorite blorbo’s personality facets, you can do that for yourself too! You deserve it, even.
Also, proper queer and minority representation are incredibly important to me, for obvious reasons.
Interests
I love Disco Elysium and The Magnus Archives.
They hold an important place in my aforementioned existential little burnt out heart because they helped me recognize and come to terms with certain facets of my personality and identity.
I don’t heavily engage with fandom culture (scary place) but I will lurk and post art and stuff.
I like playing ttrpgs (mainly DND) and also do a lot of digital art, jewelry-making, scrapbooking, etc.. always picking up (and randomly dropping) crafts. Love alt/punk rock and make playlists for just about everything.
My current profile picture is my own art of my dnd character, Kaeliros. Hoping to post more of my art in the future and practice not being overly conscious of what people think of it.
"Joy as an Act of Resistance." – IDLES (2018)
The Vibe: A Bloody Nose and a Warm Embrace
If their debut, Brutalism, was a scream into the void, Joy as an Act of Resistance. is a hand reaching out of it. It’s an album that weaponizes vulnerability, turning the traditionally "tough" sonic palette of post-punk into a vehicle for radical empathy. The vibe is a chaotic pub brawl that ends with everyone hugging and discussing their mental health. Joe Talbot leads the charge not as a preacher, but as a man deconstructing his own masculinity in real-time. It’s loud, it’s ugly, and it’s profoundly beautiful—proving that in a world of rising cynicism, choosing to be happy and kind is the ultimate subversion.
Standout Tracks
• "Colossus": A slow-burning masterpiece of tension. It starts with a low-slung, menacing trudge before snapping into a frantic, high-speed garage-rock freakout that exorcises the ghosts of father figures and expectations.
• "Never Fight a Man with a Perm": The band’s sharpest wit on display. It’s a rhythmic, driving takedown of "toxic" bravado and "small-man syndrome," featuring heavy, distorted basslines and some of the most clever lyrical barbs in modern rock.
• "Danny Nedelko": An unapologetic pro-immigration anthem that manages to be both a mosh-pit starter and a genuine tear-jerker. It’s high-energy, incredibly catchy, and carries a heart-on-sleeve message of unity.
• "Samaritans": A brutal deconstruction of the "boys don't cry" trope. The music builds into a crushing wall of sound as Talbot screams "I'm a real boy!", highlighting the suffocating weight of traditional gender roles.
• "Rottweiler": The chaotic finale. It’s a sprawling, noisy assault on the tabloid press that descends into a feedback-drenched jam session, leaving the listener exhausted but strangely purged.
The Sound
The production on Joy... is brilliantly visceral. It feels "live" in the most dangerous sense of the word. The twin guitar assault of Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan isn't about flashy solos; it's about texture—screeching feedback, jagged rhythms, and percussive stabs that sound like glass breaking. Beneath them, the rhythm section of Adam Devonshire and Jon Beavis provides a concrete foundation; the drums are mixed loud and dry, hitting with a mechanical, relentless force. There’s an intentional lack of polish here that allows the raw emotion of the performances to bleed through the speakers, making the album feel less like a studio product and more like a physical confrontation.
The Verdict
Joy as an Act of Resistance. is a landmark record for the modern era. It successfully reclaimed the "punk" label from tired tropes, replacing aimless nihilism with a fierce, constructive love. IDLES managed to make an album that is politically charged and socially conscious without ever feeling like a lecture. It’s a reminder that strength isn’t found in silence or aggression, but in the courage to be open. It’s messy, it’s loud, and it’s essential listening for anyone who feels a bit broken by the world.
Final Rating: 9.5/10
wild having moral OCD while also believing in the inherent goodness of humanity/the necessity for restorative justice, because it’s like: yeah, people are a product of their circumstances. very rarely is anyone truly incapable of change and there’s no such thing as a person who is fundamentally evil. except for me of course.
I’ve had to write many “about me” sections since I started this new era of sort of interacting with online communities. Its always entertaining listing hobbies, pronouns, and cheeky little tibits about myself when really, I just want to say something pretty insane like:
I am a nuclear reactor nestled within fleshy tarpaulin, powered by the energy generated from the hypocrisy of being filled with both the persistent, existential dread of being perceived and relentless hunger for art generated from the human experiences of others— loosely bound by, I don’t know, those long ass used fruit-by-foot paper wrappers, delicious second-hand cigarette smoke from someones casino granny, and earl grey. Oh, and I make sure that the flesh is moisturized by the tears that get vacuumed back into my sockets when my limbic system is shocked in public. As a little treat.
Make no mistake. I am a nearly functional adult. You do not know what lay within the bounds of the word “function” for each person, though. It’s a sisyphian effort. It’s a sneaky little secret doctors dont want you to know!! ;^)
I did quite literally lose my ability to cry in front of others due to some generational trauma, but who needs that. *cue banana slip sfx*
I’m actually doing a bit better for myself, all things considered. /srs
"'I have led a toothless life,' he thought. 'A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on--and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone. What's to be done?'"
Disco will make your silent conversations with yourself a whole lot more entertaining and introspective—if not a bit more insane. I still sometimes hear skill check pings in my head when I look at an objectively normal thing and start “conceptualizing” about it.
What do you mean driving past a dirty lawn chair left out on the curb doesn’t make you wonder how it felt when it got created in the factory? How it got to its decrepit state, all the generations of a family that sat on it, all the secrets it bore witness to? Now just a future of slow, cruel, multi-centennial decay awaiting it? How lonely that existence might be? Unless… it becomes a respite for some poor spectre that has wandered the tarmac for far too long, hoping for a place to rest.
Then [LOGIC] reminds you that the truck is coming to pick it up in a few days time and the family’s just glad to have finally cleared some space in their shed.
Sorry for the personal dump but I don’t really have anyone I feel comfortable talking with now and would feel a little validated knowing my feelings exist outside of my messy journal.
Today is my ex’s first birthday alone since we broke up. It was a decently long time we had together. Five years. And toward the end, we were cordial as possible and agreed to genuinely focus on ourselves. We still love each other, but it developed into platonic love for me personally a few years ago and it was not the same for him. Our space didn’t feel safe for me anymore for various reasons after I spent years trying to communicate, ask for reassurance, and hitting a wall repeatedly. I am a ridiculously complicated and cynical person, persistently hard to love, and I have almost come to terms with that.
When we had our last few heavy conversations, about what to do going forward. He started journalling and trying to figure out how to verbalize/confront his thoughts. He’d always been emotionally repressed, overworked, and had a lot of familial pressure on him. I think he was still having bouts of depression from his past history with it, but he would never tell me outright when it was happening again. I could always tell and confronted him about it but he would always just say he was fine.
I tried to detach from everything, my compulsions, paranoia, learn to come to terms with my queer identity and tried to live in the moment instead of panicking about the implications of what that means for my future. I went to work everyday spiraling, repressing panic attacks, thinking I could feel better if I talked to my friends (this has never worked with these particular people). Staring at those horrible windowless white walls and having to work long days that blurred into the next. I finally chose to cut myself off from everyone so I could breathe for once. I ended up heavily depressed. I’m coming back from it now very gradually, but its still… always there in the background. Sort of. Thats not relevant now. Maybe I wrote too much about myself already.
I saw that he deleted everything from his socials today. About me, about not me. I panicked. I couldn’t believe that I hurt him so badly that he needed to do something so drastic. I thought he was doing okay (he said he was still journalling, going to the gym, etc.) because thats what he told me but the other day he suddenly told me he had been “absolutely devastated” these past few weeks while he was out getting plastered. Im not judging him for drinking, its fun, I get it. But its nerve-wracking to think I caused this change in him—he who would choose to stay home on nights I wanted to take him out to bars with my friends—it’s even more painful that he promised to tell me about his problems when we split and has been entirely dodging that while I continue give him updates on my own mental health. I thought for the first time in a while that I wish I could hug him and tell him it would be okay. I wish I could so badly, but I gave up that privilege, and he would always want more from me that I can’t give.
So now Im left wondering the same question I have asked myself so many times, if I just tried harder could I have made us work? Then I wouldn’t have to feel so deeply guilty all the time. If I wasn’t so egotistical, could I have stepped away from my constant chase of trying to find myself and others that understand me? Could I have spared him the pain? Was the idea of a break up on “good terms” pure delusion?
Deep down I know the answer is there is none. I just have to keep living. Thats all there is, really, until theres nothing. Sitting here, typing this out, I have lost so much time living to time spent consumed by my thoughts. I feel a little better? I dont know. I’m still lost.
Rating my attempts of various artistic endeavors over the last few years, Pt. I.
Context being that I come from a digital and traditional hobby painting background and have the unrealistic expectation that if I just try really hard, completely throw myself into something to the point of foregoing basic necessities, I’ll succeed on whatever I try in a small frame of time cos Im just that talented (this is just completely wrong do not be me).
flower pressing? - 9/10 - actually quite good, i made a mini makeshift press out of cardboard and paper towels, then collected little flowers around uni or saved petals from bouquets in it. They preserved well, if you don’t much care about the color staying. I planned to use them in scrapbooks or resin crafts but never did. I want to try drying a full bouquet next. I’ll get to feel like a real modern witch with that hanging from my wall.
junk scrapbooking - 9/10 - great! Still one of my go to art forms when drawing feels too overwhelming to begin. Really fun and lower pressure method of practicing form/color/theme. Unfortunately, I started compulsively hoarding so much paper scrap i started feeling claustrophobic and it made me stop.
Can be super stress-relieving if you let go of perfection and just go ham.
Nice way to feel less wasteful while preserving memories.
Learned you can glue pretty much anything into a page if you flatten it enough.
dicemaking - 3/10 - discovered that it is pretty much impossible to get the air bubbles out of resin without a proper vacuum chamber. Thats really not okay, because it makes the dice unfair. Plus I do not have the funds or space for that equipment and resin fumes are scary in a small room. I just wanted to be a cool dice maker like the one in Disco Elysium—it’d be such a flex to be able to say, “yeah. I make dice.” And theres nothing as great as customising the perfect dice for your character. oh well.
You really can’t use UV resin in place of 2-part epoxy. Thought it didn’t matter until I realized the UV dice remained unpleasantly tacky after curing. ugh- sticky dice nonono
I’ll be back… when I’m in the proper living situation. I want to make them so badly.
jewelry-making - 9/10 - this is by far my favorite and most consistent. Even sold some pieces! Similar to scrapbooking in enjoyment, that it is mostly based in form and color.
Being able to make bracelets and keychains is incredibly useful for gifts and costumes.
It’s also very nice to make your own merch for whatever your heart desires.
sewing/cosplay + foam armor making - 5/10 - Did not anticipate how difficult using a sewing machine would be!! Made me want to launch myself out of a window. The armor was good fun though! Eva foam and heat guns and painting and aging things is awesome. Having a stupid little bobbin get stuck and then having to spend hours pulling out tangled threads is a new purgatory. I give up on sewing! This taught me I was meant for painting and just… physically uncomplicated things?!
This is not for people who struggle with time management and have a deadline for a con
I pulled a week of all-nighters and came into work closest to death than I had ever been in my life making a Hades cosplay (Artemis) a week before comic-con. Then I went and literal pieces of the armor fell off me as I went. It looked great in photos but was not tested for comfort at all... Was madly uncomfortable and moderately cranky the whole time (sorry to the people that dealt with that)
Bought myself a lunchable today because Im convinced indulging in nostalgia keeps the demons away. Every ham and cheddar cracker fuels my grand escape from the quarter-life crisis.
Hey Alex, I’ve recently been creating a fiction podcast of my own and was wondering if you had any advice on how to manage your time and the stress of creating something this large-scale? Totally fine if not!
Have a wonderful day :D
Hey,
I thought long and hard about whether to answer this one or not. It's a perfectly reasonable ask but I think it's based on a misapprehension and I think I need to address that.
I often fear I don't have much advice on how to manage time and stress because, being blunt, I believe I am bad at those things.
I know that I have probably hit the point I could be called "prolific" in some circles and I have definitely learned some efficiencies over the years. I'd even dare say that on a good day I am better than most at what I do but the thing you have to realise is that is not coming from a place of well-regulated selfcare and a balanced Work-life.
I absolutely wrecked myself to make Rusty Quill a reality. My mental health was in the toilet for a lot of it, complicated by undiagnosed neurodivergence, and there is long-term damage to my physical health directly caused by that level of chronic overwork and stress for all those years.
The only thing that let me get everything done is that there is a sort of bedrock in my personality. I don't know how or why but there are some things that I physically can't quit. It's seems like a good thing from the outside, I keep going when stuff gets hard, I seem "determined," but that sword is double edged. I keep going even when I should stop. Even when keeping going is pointless and all it does is get me hurt. For me, a lot of the time it's not grit, or pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, its compulsion. I just got lucky that my obsessions are compatible with what people think is "productive" so they mostly continued to enable me instead of shame me or stop me.
I'm not saying all this for sympathy though. I am incredibly privileged to have been granted all these opportunities. Teenage Alex would be ecstatic that I have managed to dodge Office work so far. I'm just saying this so that you understand I don't think anyone has this stuff locked down (except maybe strict Buddists). The people who look like they do are just better at making it seem that way and have invisible advantages (heteronormative, neurotypical, affluent etc.) and if they make a show of telling you how efficient they are etc. often their worth is literally dependent on convincing you that they have it sorted.
Comparison isn't just the thief of joy, its the assassin of self-worth; don't invite the vampire in.
All that said, I know you probably just wanted some life-hacks (which is totally fair) so I have a few reliable tricks I have resorted to:
1) If you cannot face doing what you are supposed to do, do something else that is still productive work but will feel like a naughty treat because you are still "avoiding the real work". E.g. if you are meant to be working on a script but you literally can't then treat yourself to some audio editing. If you can't edit today, treat yourself to some writing. This is a good tactic to keep you going but I think of it like medication. It can help with neurodivergence or a short-term problem but overuse it and you will be ignoring your body's warning signals that something is wrong. That ends badly.
2) If it takes longer to add a task to your to-do list than it does to actually do the task, just do the task. The extra 1 second efficiency you'll get from a perfect to-do list is not worth the time it takes to make it. Sometimes the best way is the quick and dirty way. Better no to-do list and three things done than a perfect to-do list with nothing done. (I HATE doing it this way but it works)
3) Success is built on small, incremental, compounding improvements, NOT huge efforts. A huge effort will get you ahead for a day. A repeated small effort will get you ahead forever. (I know this is true but I still fail at this personally). The main benefit of the small improvements is they don't carry a hangover/ energy debt the way the monumental effort does. The more you work on a project, the bigger that debt will get and when the bill is due you have to pay it from somewhere.
4) Take how long you think something is going to take. Your best, most detailed estimate. Now triple it. That's how long the task will take. If you're wrong you just gained time for that thing that isn't quite right, if you're right, you're a smarty pants, either way you win.
5) Something will give. The timeline, the runtime, your health, something will break during the process. Recognise when it has happened, and ACCEPT IT before you do your best to mitigate it otherwise you will just bounce from one crisis to the next. i.e. There's no point breaking your arm making a splint for your leg.
Sorry if this wall of text was a bit much/ overshare. I just want people to understand that from my perspective, I got where I am by just failing harder, faster and more often than anyone I know, whilst still trying to learn the lessons. (that last bit is important).
I have never seen such a dead-on explanation on what productivity/fear-based compulsions feel like, as someone who has struggled badly with that for years and not understood why. Definitely did not expect it from one of my favorite creators. I figured out a few of these tricks at some point but seeing them listed out like that so concisely… Thanks, Alex. Genuinely.
