El Héroe Oscuro
IG: elheroeoscuro
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Axton
"Meet the PokeCommunity'ers" is a new series of the Daily Bloggity in which I have a one-on-one with specific members of PC in which we can get to know them more. All responses are in their own words, and questions were made on a general basis. If you would like to see a specific user in the next edition, comment below! This will be a weekly series appearing in the Daily Bloggity at 5 PM Eastern Time every Sunday.
Date: 13 April 2014
Time: 10:03 AM ET
Mood: Embracing my inner Ron Burgandy
When did you become a member of PokeCommunity and how did you come across it?
My join date'll tell you otherwise, but I first joined PokéCommunity... christ, idr how many years ago now. Probably a good one or two before I joined fully. I believe I had two accounts - the first, highly unsurprisingly, for the pure purpose of downloading ROM hacks. That's what this forum's best known for so it's pretty straightforward that a lot of us joined purely for that, haha. As for how I'd heard of ROM hacks - I was previously very active on SerebiiForums. It was my first home on the internet, so to speak, and some people I talked to there had mentioned ROM hacks so I wanted to check it out and maybe make my own. In the end I spent about five minutes doing that, got bored, and vanished off again for a while - to rejoin later (not as my main account, mind you).
My second time on PC was a pretty short-lived affair too. If I remember correctly a friend from SPPf and I had got bored with it (I think we'd had some issues with something we enjoyed doing on there going away, idr exactly now) so we joined here hoping that it'd work out a bit better. It didn't really; we chatted to a couple of people, posted in a thread or two, did some very mild trolling for the hell of it, got bored again and left. I came back to PC as a full-time member at a time in my life where I had very little to do offline - I was pretty much stuck at home dealing with some stuff and going kinda stir-crazy, haha. My friends on SPPf were all moving on so I figured I'd hop on here and see what it was like, and it finally worked out. Throw enough mud at the wall at some of it'll stick, as they say. d:
What is the significance or origin behind your username?
There is really no major significance behind it. I wanted something Pokémon-related so I picked this because I knew I'd seen it online somewhere before and thought it looked nice, and because it was one of my favourite moves as a kid. I originally tried Haunter and Magneton iirc but they were both taken - although I could always (and, come to think of it, may well) take those now assuming they're inactive.
...embarrassingly, it turns out that I had seen the username before - it belonged to a Serebii adminin. So I still sometimes get questions from people on Serebii asking me if I'm the same person / if I can do things for them on there / whatever. I'm sure the poor guy gets the same too thanks to me, haha. But yeah - the username doesn't really hold any significant meaning or history for me. It's just something that popped into my head when I was signing up.
What has the road been like starting off as a regular member to being an Administrator now?
The promotion to admin was a bit of a different case. That promotion was certainly unanticipated but I suppose it was brought on for a number of reasons which I won't be going into detail here. Needless to say though, it was pretty much amazing to think that I was in the staff at all - let alone in a position where I was actually able to change things just by pressing a few buttons. It's a really weird feeling to be in this position on a community that I joined less than three years ago, but I've enjoyed the whole way here - even, in retrospect, the bad times. Behind closed doors staff has quite a lot of drama / little issues / disagreements / whatever, but even those have helped shape PC and those who run it as it is today, and being able to look at those things from each level on the forum has been a really awesome and eye-opening experience. The way that a community like this has been built up over the years is pretty awesome, and I'd really recommend that any current (or, indeed, future) staff reading this look back over the last few years of stuff that's gone on in staff. It's definitely interesting.
So you can essentially say that you were having a hard time connecting to people in the community right? Do you have any recommendations for any newcomers who are trying to make an impact here, or for people who are having aspirations of one day becoming a Moderator?
There are a lot of ways you can go about it I guess but more or less all of them involve getting out there and talking to people on the forums. It's really easy to just join, post, and hope that someone's gonna come to you and don't get me wrong - it can happen eventually if you're a particularly good poster. But the quickest way to really become integrated here is to find someone whose posts you like and just say hi. Chances are that if you're interested in them, they'll be interested in you, right? So find someone interesting and get talking.
The people here who are imo the most influential - and those who I've seen become influential - are those who are interested in what people have to say beyond just idle posting. Posting's great and it's what keeps PC alive but taking a real interest in others is such a key thing to making a name around here. PC's not some kind of gigantic popularity contest or circlejerk like a lot of people make it out to be. I kinda see it as a cycle of interests; someone joins, is interested in some sort of prominent member, talks to them, rinse and repeat. And as they get talking more they gain confidence and influence on the community and people start looking at them - "what's their PC story?" "they seem confident on here, how do they do it?" "they know so many people! Maybe they're a good person" - and talk to them. Suddenly this person who spoke to people they found interesting is now the person that everyone else finds interesting because they built on that initial curiosity of other prominent members. That's how I see it, anyway. ...if that makes sense. You can get places just by being a really great and interesting poster but it sure as hell takes longer.
What has been the hardest job about being an Administrator?
Coding. @_@
I'm still reasonably new to the position and I'm sure that I'll get more to grips with this over time and I'm also sure that with time will come new responsibilities and situations which are particularly difficult for admins, but for now, fwhiuehiuwiuwa coding is a nightmare. PC uses a lot of little modifications here and there (and quite a number of larger ones too) and learning how to work with them or even understand them in the first place has definitely been a challenge. A really good one, though - coding's a valuable skill and learning at least the basics of how to interpret code, edit it somewhat, and all that jazz is really interesting and helpful. It's definitely something that I want to learn more about, but it's still quite frustrating when I get a load of messages asking me to fix something / update something / whatever and I still have no idea how, haha. I will get there though; I've got some people (more on them later) helping me get to grips with things and with the amount of modified code that PC has that I've got to learn from, all the tools are there. It'll just take me some time.
In a general hstaff role the hardest part of the job for me is absolutely firing staff. It's an unusual occurrence (thank god) but it happens and it really sucks to be asking people who put a lot of their time and effort into PC to leave its staff. I can't be going into any specifics here, but yeah. I can deal with putting up with rulebreakers, handling dumb questions, losing votes, banning people, whatever, but removing fellow staff probably is the only part of the job that I outright dislike. That and name changes. Because no-one likes name changes. d:
Daily Music - "She Just Likes To Fight" by Four Tet
Spoiler:
I get asked this quite a lot and never manage to come up with a good answer, haha. On the technical side of things I'd make vB less nightmarish to work with (I know Audy has a lot of gripes with it too, haha) - and that's something that... may or may not happen down the line with further improvements to PC but if it does happen it'll be an extremely long and slow process. But that'd be nice. It'd also help put staff on less of a pedestal in the community which is something I'd personally like to change since I feel like we're a little too central sometimes.
Having total staff transparency would be theoretically great. If we were able to post in CQ&F or something and say "Hey guys, we're discussing this, what do you think of it?" then it'd be awesome. Of course why we don't do that now is really obvious and why it's impractical should be obvious too; arguments, too many voices, disorganisation, blah blah blah. But in theory it'd be really cool to involve the community more in stuff that the staff decides on since at the end of the day, they're being impacted by it just as much as we are. Unfortunately though it's totally impractical. ):
Honestly... most of the 'features' and whatnot I'd want to see in PC are coming or have come. Mentions, more customisability, the (just rolled out) new notification system, a general overhaul of how the place works and feels, are all in the work. PC's gonna be changing into something really cool in time so a lot of what I'd say here could well happen. What I wanna see changed therefore are more fundamental... and hence harder to change things - both on a level of practicality and actually communicating the ideas in the first place. Stuff like what I said above, a generally more chatty environment that's far more lax on rules (in general I think we're maybe unnecessarily strict at times), things like that. They're hard but we can work towards them.
Do you ever feel like there is a gap of communication between you and members of PokeCommunity because they see you as a high ranking official here on the site? More specifically, do you think general members are intimidated to talk to you because of this?
Haha. I could write an absolute essay on that question, and probably an entire book if you were to widen it to the entirety of hstaff (or staff in general) and the members. Almost thankfully, though, you didn't, so I won't.
I'm aware that most of the people I talk to on PC are staff. Some people'd call that exclusivity or elitism, but I don't really agree with that at all. Like how you make friends with people in your workplace, I make friends with staff more readily than members because they're the people I see most often. I think people have a tendency to forget that the upper levels of staff are primarily concerned with behind-the-scenes forum management as opposed to public actions like looking after a section (put crudely, mind; we do, and should, still have a large public presence - but the primary domain of our work is hidden behind closed doors) and I guess they can see that as us being withdrawn and unapproachable. Plus there's what you mentioned, the obvious 'rank' issue where I'm able to do things that could impact them. I guess that power can seem intimidating so, as much as I'd like to deny it, yeah. Perhaps there is a sort of gap in communication and a sort of intimidating from me - but I don't believe that's because of who I am. It's just in the nature of the position - it's something that I alone don't think I can fix, but we're collectively working on it.
Personally, though, I like to think I'm quite a warm and open kind of guy, rank aside. I'll talk to anyone who comes to me and I'm trying to make more effort with approaching people - one of the reasons why I did this interview in the first place, I suppose. It's certainly difficult given the whole rank issue but I do believe that I'm not intimidating or detached and the impression that because I'm an admin I'm not approachable is something that I'd really like to dispel - because I really don't believe that it holds any rational weight. I said earlier that the only thing I dislike about the position is removing people, but I'd actually amend that and say that the sort of inherent unapproachable vibes that my rank can give off are also something I could do without. Something I should definitely try harder to get rid of. >_> So tl;dr yes, although it's not something that holds much weight in reality.
Which forum do you see yourself gravitating towards the most and why?
Good ol' Chit Chat Café. It's the most relaxed place on the forum by a way and that's really what I came here, and still do come for, in the first place. I like that you can just sit back, relax, talk about such a range of things from nothing in particular to exploring some really deep and interesting thoughts that you and the other members have. You can talk about almost anything you want to in there and that's really what I feel should be at the heart of a strong community (and, as statistics show, CCC apparently is at the heart of ours with the highest activity). Some of the topics in there are kinda mundane but it's something we're improving on, and hey, it's not like everything you've ever talked about offline is highly interesting, right?
It's a great place to get to know people and generally relax and have fun, and I'm working with its mods and a couple of others right now to help make it even more laid-back and open up conversation there even better than it already is. The end goal is to make it like any chat with your friends offline would be, and I'm really excited to see it slowly moving in that direction. You won't see me shifting away from it any time soon
I do agree with you on the "mundane topics" part, some of them have been pretty dry as of late. You did say though that the staff and yourself are trying to work on that: how exactly are you guys doing that, or more specifically, what kind of topics are you guys looking for?
I can't say too much, but a fairly hot topic as of late has been rules vs flow of conversation. We're trying out lightening up what we call "spam" in CCC making threads like these (okay, the last is C&M, but still) more permissible. I'd rather not go into more depth on this one, although there's significantly more to it, as it's something we're still talking about in the staff forum and it's very much a work in progress.
You may or may not have been a part of this, but on April Fool's day this year Dipu (aka Dakota) fooled many of us by declaring that the Chit Chat Cafe was going to be closed forever. If you had no power in the decision, what would your thought process be like if you saw the CCC was shut down?
I actually had no idea he was gonna do that, haha. I just played along with it by demoting him for authenticity but there was no prior discussion to it - so while I knew it was an AFD thing since it hadn't been discussed beforehand, I was as surprised as you when I saw it.
Shutting down CCC would be such an impossibly stupid idea, bluntly - and I'm only being that blunt because I'm sure most people would agree with me. We simply don't have another chat forum because the one we've got is just fine. I mean, there's tons of discussion, a load of DCCs, PMs, VMs, and one could say that we'd still have enough ways to communicate but... not in the public eye where it all matters, really. A lot of my reason to even come to PC in the first place would go with CCC so in a word... needless to say, I'd be pretty pissed off. Haha. I'd probably end up pioneering some mass complaint thread in CQ&F about it and eventually ragequit or something to that nature. d:
What is your favorite pokemon and why?
I don't have one. It's Starmie then it's Lugia then it's Suicune then it's Tyrogue then it's... you get the picture. I like a lot of Pokémon. I tried to list them all on my profile once, but I ran out of space, haha. I can't really think of any trend in particular ones that I like other than I know that very few of them are Fire types and a lot of them are Water or Ice types. Add Lapras to that list, haha. And Glalie. We could be here all day so I'm gonna stop now.
Daily Comic - "Snack Money" by Corpse Run of Dorky
Spoiler:
Probably Borderlands 2, although as a series Pokémon absolutely takes the cake. I've never been a really massive gamer so the options here are kinda limited, but I love BL2 because it's one of the few shooters that I've experienced that doesn't take itself way too seriously and allows you to go around shooting a load of stuff in head and mass murdering stuff while letting you laugh about it at the same time. That sounds kinda sadistic when you put it like that but really, it's one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. Plus I absolutely love its graphical style. Not for everyone but the dark outlines on everything and cartoony characters make it a really unique, beautiful experience that's gone down a path other than making everything look crazy realistic without sacrificing being visually stunning. "Good graphics" obviously aren't something for me that's easily defined since to me it's definitely one of the best-looking games I own for sheer eye candy, and I know there are a lot of other graphically great-looking games out there which others'd put leaps and bounds ahead of BL2. Aside from the graphics and the humour of it all I absolutely love the RPG element in there. It's certainly not taken it to the heights of 'pure' RPG games but it once again takes what could have been just any other shooter and makes it really different and standout. The number of possible weapon and skill combinations along with the reasonable ability to play the game how you want to in the order that you want to really makes it a winner for me. Then there's its character development; I don't think I've ever played a video game with such unique, distinctive, memorable characters. Almost. Here comes a bit of competition with...
Thomas was Alone. This is definitely an honourable mention and if you've not played it yet, play it. It'll take you a few hours at most (about as long as it's probably taking you to read all this rambling. heh.) to play but it's such an emotional and beautifully executed game. In the right mood it'll near enough have me in tears from, despite its sheer simplicity, how incredibly well-conveyed its characters and their own unique thoughts and feelings and positions are. Especially given how they're all nothing but goddamn boxes. You're literally playing with little boxes of personality, and that's something I found really beautiful.
Heck yeah, high fives for Borderlands 2! That's one of my favorite games as well, I put a lot of hours into it! Speaking of which, have you seen the reveal of Gearbox's new Borderlands game entitled The Pre-Sequel!? What are your feelings towards that?
I've heard of it but I've not looked very much into it. I'll still give my... rather mixed feelings on it, though. On one hand - great! More Borderlands! As I've explained it's an awesome game and I really hope they take everything I loved from BL2 and transfer it over to make it even better. But my issue with it is that I feel like they're moving way too fast.
I've sunk literally hundreds of hours into BL2 and still haven't got my head around all the DLC, add-ons, headhunter packs, etc that they've released for it, so needless to say I don't even feel like I've really 'finished' BL2 in the way I like to - that is, got everything out of everything there is to do in it. BL2 felt like more an investment to me than just a game because of the amount of stuff that they released for it and when you total up the cost of all that DLC + the main game, even with the Season Pass factored in - well, it ain't cheap. And it was clearly made to keep you going for a long time, which credit to them - it has. But it'd last even longer and be less, dare I say, stressful to keep up with if they took longer between releases of new content and gave the players more time to enjoy and less time to invest. I'd prefer they just left it lie for a wee bit now, you know?
I feel like they're bombarding us with content but not really giving us long enough to enjoy it before THE NEXT BIG THING IS OUT. I kinda worry that this new game is gonna be out and on its sixty-seventh DLC before I even finish having fun with BL2, haha.
Who is your favorite video game character and why?
Scooter from the Borderlands series. His character in-game is alright for most people, but it really clicked with me because he reminds me a lot of one of my sadly departed best friends. Like, it's crazy - so much of what he says just has me thinking "damn, I could imagine you saying that". Which doesn't sound like a great honour since Scooter is, bluntly, thick as anything. But it's more the resemblance rather than the character being particularly strong / smart / whatever. It's the really overbearing sense of fun, carefreeness, contentment, stuff like that which really likens them for me. It's almost like he's still around within a video game and I guess that's given me a pretty tight emotional attachment to Scooter - which doesn't sound even remotely creepy at all! :D
Not going to lie, that's a pretty obscure character to be a fan of; he played a very minor role in the game, at least that's just how I see it. What were your feelings towards the characters of Tiny Tina and Claptrap? A lot of people were pretty annoyed by those characters, especially towards Tina.
I always thought Scooter played a fair role for an NPC outside of the old Vault Hunters, who were always gonna have fair role themselves. But perhaps that's because I have such a connection to him which I explained earlier, haha.
Claptrap was brilliant f da haterz tbh. I get why he was annoying as hell but I just couldn't get annoyed by something so... well, obviously intended to be annoying, but cute as hell at the same time. When you listen to what Claptrap's actually saying beyond the tinny high-pitched nattering he's actually really lonely and naive but behind all that glaring enthusiasm in his voice I just couldn't help but go "...awww, Clappy ;---;" several times when he was talking, haha. I really appreciated the little guy and thought he made the whole game experience so much better than just some generic bot that does things. He's another huge personality that made BL2 what it is for me. Tina... idk. I liked her a lot and I wouldn't say she was annoying, but I'd have liked to know more about her. In comparison to other characters I don't think that we ever got very far into who she is and what exactly made her into who she is. We got glimpses of her real character in her DLC - which was, for me, a massive improvement on her otherwise lacking backstory - and obviously some more details in one of the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve side-quests, but I'd have liked to see more gems out of her and not just stuff for us to piece together later. I didn't wanna write her off as "just some crazy girl", yanno? BL2 is full of unique characters but she was... something else, but just didn't have the depth in her story to match.
Who is your favorite artist/song?
Like the Pokémon question, this one's changing all the time. I find a lot of stuff in music that I really like and it's varying pretty constantly but just answering for stuff lately I'd say I've two favourite artists and one favourite song. The artists'd be Four Tet and WU LYF - the former an IDM (blergh, I hate that 'name') producer based in London and the latter a... sort of indie I guess band from Manchester where I live. Not too sure why I like the former - I just find it musically really interesting and unique and generally pretty nice to listen to. I've seen him live twice and both times were really, really awesome experiences - the first at a weekend festival-ish thing, the second on a night out at this massive spacious atmospheric warehouse venue. Really incredible experiences.
WU LYF are a bit different - I've not seen them live and they split up on some rather weird terms which I'm not fully aware of (I don't think anyone really is tbh) but their music just kinda clicks with me. If you look up the lyrics, you'll realise why I say that I have no idea what it's about - yet to me it's the execution that matters. I find their music to in general be really good fun and energetic but with an underlying acknowledgement of more serious matters. I guess that, in a way, somewhat describes how I am too. That's probably one of the more pretentious things I've written in a while and I have no idea what it means but it makes sense in my head and just works really well with me, haha. I'll talk about the song too here since it's related - actually introduced to me by maccrash, a member here, by Ellery James Roberts - former WU LYF singer. The song's called Kerou's Lament and if you plan to listen to it I really recommend you find it on Soundcloud since its video's distressing as hell. Honestly, the whole song is. It's quite heavygoing and I don't really know why I like it (although I think I figured out what it's supposed to be about and dear christ it's not good) but I just find it to be a really beautiful listen. Give it a shot if you want but stay open-minded. It's pretty heavygoing and pretty weird if you're not used to kinda out-there stuff. Then again, so is everything else I mentioned in this question, haha.
Daily Video - "TR4PVILLE Episode 0 "Pilot" (Borderlands Machinima Series)" by filmmakers thecreaturehub
Spoiler:
I don't. I tried a few times to get into it but had very little success; odd, I suppose, when I spend so much time on somewhere like PC, haha. I thought about it and could never figure out exactly why I didn't like it so I just ended up putting it down to a cultural thing. Some people here are really into that kind of culture, which is great; I'm all for embracing other cultures and that, but for me, I just couldn't really understand or communicate with it on such a level that I really managed to enjoy it. I guess saying "I couldn't communicate with something absolutely fictitious" sounds really dumb, but it's more than that - the art style, the lifestyle the characters lead, the general themes, and even the language itself just screamed incompatibility more than interest with me. I do feel like I'm kinda missing out, but oh well. Maybe one day I'll come back to it - but for the times I tried to get into anime I always ran into the same "I just can't follow this" block. Then again I watch very few movies / TV series / things like that, so maybe that plays into it somewhat. The only anime I ever got somewhat into was Death Note, so I suppose that'd be my favourite if I had to give one.
Outside of PokeCommunity, what are your favorite hobbies? What interests you?
I do a lot of stuff. I've played guitar since I was 7, so 12 years now and I used to play lots of sports (football, tennis, hockey, cricket and I ran a lot) but they've both kind of dwindled since I've been at university and don't have so much time for them any more. It's a shame really since I did those for ages pretty heavily, although I suppose if it's unfeasible it's unfeasible - nonetheless I do still like the old kickaround with some friends or going on short-ish runs, although never very long ones any more since my health's been a bit of a mess for a while and I don't have the energy much any more. I don't actually have a guitar with me where I live now but if a friend has one I'll be all over that. I used to work in a music shop specialising in guitars so I learned a lot about their electronics and setups and whatnot so it's an instrument I know pretty well and something I wanna get back into fully one day. Maybe teaching on the side or something, idk. I also used to draw a lot and was pretty good at it but that was more a boredom thing than anything. I've found new things to do with life these days and it's fallen by the wayside badly.
These days a lot of my free time goes towards music, video games and socialising. I love finding new music and talking about it with friends or just sitting there listening to it and I've made some friends recently who I occasionally enjoy an album or two with, which is really nice. It looks like I have an interst in electronics in general since I recently, with the help of Morkula, built a gaming PC of my own which left a hole in my bank account for sure but a feeling of deep satisfaction nonetheless. Putting it together was really rewarding and it was cool learning how these things work and it's definitely something I'll do again some day.
Weird as it sounds, I really enjoy studying, haha. In UK universities, from what I understand, the course content is so much more specific and tailored to what you want to do - I study biochemistry so everything I learn is tailored to that. There's no english, no maths, no languages, no nothing like it seems a lot of my American friends have. Just pure biochem which sounds nerdy and boring as hell to some people but I find it one of the most interesting things to lose yourself in. A lot of the time you'll find me lost in some research paper or textbook on the most obscure cellular bullcrap just because I want to know about it, haha. It's sad but great at the same time and I feel absolutely no shame admitting it.
I'll break away from PC's general PG-13 stance here a bit and talk about something else I really enjoy which... maybe I shouldn't, but what the hell. It's not often I make a tl;dr of this magnitude about myself and damn it I'm gonna make it good. As a number of my friends on here are... well aware, I take quite a lot of drugs - and I'd definitely consider them a hobby in their own right. Less as a "HELL YEAH LET'S GET MESSY" kinda thing and more as a sorta tool to explore my own mind and the things that I can do with it when I change how it works. I've had some really beautiful and incredible experiences while on them and felt ways I never knew it was possible to feel, thought things I've never thought I could think. When you change how your head functions just for a little while it can be such a mind-opening experience and really change how you see life on the whole even long after the effects have worn off. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of not being in control of their own heads, and that's an absolutely fair concern, but I think it's awesome just to see what happens. Plus they're loads of fun, haha. I'll stop talking about this before it gets inappropriate. Obligatory kids, don't try this at home!
Seeing as you are from England, has there been any customs from Americans that you've found strange or made you just go "what the bloody hell?" (and yes, that may have been a little bit of a stereotype right there...my b)
As a minor note I'm only a bit English, although I've lived here for long enough now that I don't really care. I'm from Ireland but moved when I was like... three. So idm what you call me but that's for clarification's sake more than anything, haha. Anywho...
Yes. It's partly customs and partly cultural differences and if I was to list them all and say what I thought about them I'd be getting no sleep tonight aaaaand probably end up far less popular with PC's general populace! :D I will say though that I do sometimes feel like near enough the only thing we share is a language. For two countries who appear to live the same way we're different as hell on a cultural level in so many really profound ways - how we spend our spare time, what certain things in our lives mean to us, how we're brought up, how education and jobs work, our quality of lives, everything. I'm not saying all Americans are the same here but it just seems that the Americans and the English work in so many different ways on a core level on the whole. There obviously are exceptions, but you get that everywhere. It's pretty amazing, although a lot of it I outright can't accommodate, haha.
One such thing I guess would be gun laws. I'm gonna try not to go off on one tooooo much here since my opinions on this are crazy strong and I don't wanna start a debate on anything but I really don't understand the idea of guns being legal. It just... idk. It's probably because I've never seen them around or experienced them other than in movies or whatnot where they're being used to kill people but I guess we're just very conditioned over here to see them as tools used to injure or kill other people and I don't think I've ever met someone in England who feels like that's something we need for the sake of our own protection. It's just such an unheard-of thing here and it's not something I can wrap my head around at all.
I never would have guessed that about the drugs part haha. My view of drugs has always been as long as it's not affecting me, than go right ahead. But it sounds like you've got a pretty level-head when it comes to the experimentation of them. You spoke of having a "mind-opening experience" when on them, have you ever used a certain drug to let your creativity flow or help yourself destress from a specific situation?
@ level-headedness - I like to think I know what I'm doing with them, but then again, so does everyone who uses them, haha. Not that I feel like I have any sort of problem; I'm just probably cautious about them.
Anyway! It's really hard to explain what I've got out of using them. The mind-opening experience comment really refers to the first time I tried shrooms where the long and the short of it is that I ended up challenging a load of negative ideas I had about myself and life in general - I used to blame myself for things that went back which were out of my control, used to put way too much emphasis on things that didn't matter, used to overthink things and confused myself, loads of stuff that I could really have done without a long time ago and I felt like they just... cleared all that up. I feel like I know what I want, understand how I'm feeling, realise that I'm not always the problem and that I can be fine as I am, differentiate what's important from what's just padding that we like to think is important, stuff like that. I could go on for ages about these kinda things but they all boil down to me being open to new ideas and ready to let go of negative beliefs that I held onto for way too long. It literally feels like my mind is open to so many new ideas and directions and possibilities now, which is why I use that specific phrasing.
As for using them for the sake of creativity or stress management - for the creativity side of things, I'm sure I could. I've had the most wonderful thoughts and ideas and felt the most awesome things on them that I'm sure that if I was to project that into some kind of creative medium - writing, drawing, whatever, the results'd be really cool. I'll try it out one day I'm sure, but as of yet I've just not had reason to. The experience alone was always enough. As for stress, I'm really heavily against the use of drugs for stress management. I feel that the only way to deal with stress is to handle whatever's causing the stress if possible, or address it directly so that you can learn to accept it / move on from it / whatever it is. Drugs are not an answer to these issues; you feel stressed, you take drugs, you feel better, you feel stressed, you repeat. If you're not careful you can get very rapidly addicted to them if you're using them while you're in a bad place. That, and certain drugs can backfire nastily if you're not in an emotionally stable state to be taking them. Using them to target issues, fine, but using them to cover them up and just feel better about something that's only gonna come back is playing with fire imo.
Want to give a shoutout to a fellow PCer for their hard work on the site?
Jesus. I could make a massive list of everyone who's made PC a better place for me and others but it'd make this even more unnecessarily long than it already is. The members are the heart of this place and I really appreciate them as well as the entire staff team who work with its best interest in mind, but if I was to highlight a select few who go above and beyond on PC - Owl, Hiroshi Sotomura, Link and Peitharchia. These days they contribute to PC beyond their regular duties by churning out styles, coding, features, and some of them by helping me to learn what I'm doing on here too - refer back to question four. Everyone's brilliant but these people make the website itself a better, more intuitive place to be and it's people like these guys that use their talents brilliantly to help keep PC moving forward.
‡ As always, the "Daily Bloggity" is self written by myself and includes just some of my opinions on different mediums. If you have a subject that you might want me to touch on, feel free to PM me or comment below! I would love to hear some of your ideas! Tune in tomorrow at 5PM Eastern Time for the next edition of the "Daily Bloggity!" Cheers! ‡
- elheroeoscuro
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