Maybe controversial but I'm going to say it. Humanistic judiasm is not Judaism
Now. If you are ethnically jewish and just want to be secular thats totally fine but this sect allows people to convert to it...people who are philosemetic like this..
These people don't want anything about judaism except for the title and the ok to leech off our culture. In fact as you can see a bit at the bottom the way you "convert" to this sect is....
THIS
YOU FILL OUT A FORM AND THEY EMAIL YOU A CERTIFICATE
I've seen a lot of posts from folk upset about the twist regarding Supes birth parents who may or may not be space fash. My take is that there’s a lot of humanistic psychology under the hood in Superman 25 trying to explain what makes a person good and how that can inspire others but lets try and simplify this.
The reason for the twist with Jor-El and Lara Lor Van in my view is very simple. Goodness is not genetic, its learned and the Superman we see got his "goodness" from his adoptive parents rather than his birth parents.
The parents who did the heavy lifting into making Clark Kent/Superman the good man that he is despite all of the power he has was the Kents, it was not his Kryptonian parents.
I don’t doubt Kal-El's birth parents loved him and wanted to protect him despite their potential failings, but they didn’t raise him to be Superman and arguably they perhaps weren't capable of doing that.
The Kent’s did, that’s why you don’t get a Brightburn or Homelander.
Even if he didn't have powers, Clark Kent would be a good man thanks to the care of the Kent's and that is the point to help viewers see that things could have gone terribly wrong for the world if not for two good, kind and giving farmers from Kansas who took an orphan in.
I finished making this yesterday and I think now is a good time to share!! I might redraw because I think I can make something more visually interesting but this is all for now. Consider this a doodle—I guess.
At least I had a lot of fun replicating the art style, I’ve been finding myself leaning more in this kind of simplistic style. And I like not having to draw eyes.
When I was trying to find a website to download the Humanistic font for free (Chatlet 1970) literally every single website wanted my personal data…so……….. “Architects Daughter” it is.
I also want to say that I posted this to my drafts and Tumbler didn’t save it. I rewrote everything and reformatted, then posted it publicly. And Tumbler still didn’t publish it. I still wince everytime I think about it. I put a lot of effort into my captions, you know!!! I had to put this in my drafts and edit it little by little so it would save. Turns out one of the images just had an aspect ratio too big. Weak.
Try not to brag on social media but I officially graduated from my Masters in November ♡ going to be registered as a CCC next and hopefully getting TF outta here soon and starting a new chapter with my family in my 36th year! Hoping to work in schools!
Abandoned Pools' first album, Humanistic was released 23 years ago today, on September 25th, 2001! For anyone who doesn't know, Abandoned Pools is my all time favorite band! I found them through Clone High in September of 2020 and immediately connected with a LOT of their songs, and in that time, Humanistic became my all time favorite album! A spot that it still retains to this day hehe.
So when I found out that the following year, almost a year to the day from when I started listening to Abandoned Pools, was Humanistic's 20th anniversary, I knew I wanted to make something big for that occasion! I ended up making a drawing based on each song in the album! This is similar to what I did for Owl City's album Cinematic later on, which I posted last year.
This is also sort of a look at proto Let's Get Back! in a way! I made this when LGB! was still just a duo act with PB and Shep, since Rye and Pumpernickel didn't join the lineup until I was about halfway through the project, and the band wasn't officially named Let's Get Back! until February of 2022 lol. The cover image here is based on the actual album cover for Humanistic, and I edited later to say "Covers by Let's Get Back!" to make it consistent with the rest of my LGB! art :3
Each piece in the series is below the cut along with the song they're connected to and some explanation about each one. Again, these pieces are three years old at this point, so some of the art is a bit wonky looking and some of these piece I'd do differently if I were to do them today, but most of them still hold up pretty well I think! :D
1: The Remedy
I based this one on the line “save your breath, your soul is hollow” and wanted to do something simplistic but still interesting! According to my friend who also likes the song, this is “exactly how that song feels” lol. It was fun working with silhouettes here, which is something I've done here and there in the time since.
2: Mercy Kiss
I decided to not actually draw them kissing bc the song says “I don’t need your mercy kiss” haha. Wanted to capture sort of a defiant attitude for this one. Posing is a little off here, and I've tweaked some minor things abt their design but overall one that I'm still pretty happy with :]
3: Start Over
I was SUPER happy with the posing on this one, I love the sense of motion it has. Basically, I wanted to express being stuck in a cycle and just wanting to go back to the way things were, which was something I was REALLY feeling at the time, but is still sort of applicable today.
4: Monster
Another one I REALLY like, with this one, I wanted to show that I can be a force to be reckoned with when standing up for myself. Or at least that’s how the song makes me feel. It’s a good rampage song too. This is another case where I really like how the pose came out. As you can also see, this is the only piece without PB since I wasn't sure how to incorporate him into this idea, but I’m sure he’s still involved somehow lol. Also this is the best song called Monster, I do not take criticism at this time.
5: Blood
Blood always feels like a sort of gloomy, spiral-y type song, so that’s what I went for. The line “we watch it burn, and we never learn, this can’t be what you’re waiting for” was really the focus for this one. A neat vibe with this one overall I think that I'm pretty happy with.
6: Suburban Muse
Suburban Muse makes me think of like, a fake sitcom town where things look normal, but things aren’t as great as they seem if you look a little closer. It even says “cue the canned applause” at one point. Also, those sort of, weird reality dreamscape neighborhood liminal space images like this where you can see where it's coming from but they just feel, off y'know
7: Sunny Day
This one is kinda weird because Sunny Day is kinda weird (though in like the best possible way, I love it). I couldn’t quite come up with a solid idea for both my OCs here, so I based them on two separate lines: “my head is inside a cloud” for PB, and “get off the bathroom floor” for Shep. In hindsight, I don't think the two separate lines approach really worked here since it feels more disjointed and not really representative of the full song, but I still like it well enough.
8: L.V.B.D.
This one was hard to come up with something for. I’ve never been super crazy abt L.V.B.D. since it feels, Very Hetero™ and I’m not about that. But it’s still sounds great and I’m definitely super glad it’s part of the album. Went for drawing Shep and PB here as little stuffed dolls, which is related to the acronym in the song’s title (which stands for Little Virgin Baby Doll) and I couldn’t think of anything better aha. I should draw plushies more often though
9: Ruin Your Life
Important: Shep and PB are only upset with upset with each other for the sake of this drawing, as I refuse to let anything bad happen between them for real. Anyways, the expressions were really fun in this one, and oh boy does this song feel very relatable over the last year or so.
10: Never
This one is very similar to Ruin Your Life for me, where it’s a sort of comforting during a dark time kind of way. Just crossing the days off hoping that things will get better soon, that’s what I went for here. The calendar is listed as 10/12 since this is the 10th song out of the 12 on the album, and the image is a reference to a previous drawing I had done of PB and Shep together :3
11: Seed
Personally, Seed is my least favorite song from the album as a whole, for similar reasons to L.V.B.D. but in a, more gross kinda way that conflicts with my ace side. The song still sounds great musically for sure. Even tho I’m not super crazy abt the song, I actually really like how this drawing came out, in fact it might be my favorite out of the whole batch, ironically enough lol. The boys are looking down into a hole from the line “there’s no more grace to fall from, there’s nowhere left to go but down” and I'm really happy with how the perspective turned out!
12: Fluorescein
Finally, Fluorescein is my favorite song of the entire album, and my favorite song in general! It’s so aggressive and loud, I love it. I decided to draw PB confronting a giant Shep bc the song makes me feel like I can take on a huge adversary and win >:] Although I do like what I chose to do here, I kinda wish I had come up with something better to represent my all time favorite song lol
So in conclusion, like I said, Humanistic is my all time favorite album and it means so much to me. Really all of AP’s work really means a lot to me, but Humanistic in particular. I found the band through watching Clone High and I am all the better for it. So thank you to Abandoned Pools for making something that I’ve gotten so much out of and I absolutely cannot wait for the sixth album coming at the end of next year!! :D
So I hope you guys liked this little trip down memory lane with me, and if you're also an enjoyer of Abandoned Pools, please let me know what you think of these and what your favorite AP songs are! I'd love to know! And if you don't listen to Abandoned Pools, I highly recommend their music if you can't tell lol. If you enjoy early 2000s alt rock sort of stuff, there's a solid chance you'll enjoy Abandoned Pools :3
