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Leave a comment saying, something that indicates you want some wordz, and I will give you five words I associate with you. Then post about what they mean to you, along with this, at your journal.
From kisei_prophet
Ska, video games, Gaia, IRC, Madrigals
Ska - I actually got into ska from a friend on Gaia (so this post is like super thematic), and I love everything about it. I think that ska has a strange honesty to it that not a lot of musical genres have; to be able to sing and talk about topics like heartbreak and death and still sound that peppy and upbeat, it seems to be a reflection of life to me. Bad things happen to all of us, but even so, we keep a straight face and keep moving. Besides that (probably) too deep interpretation into it, I'm a pretty happy person, and I like happy sounding music. It's always upbeat, repetitive, and catchy, and besides that, I love the strange variety of instruments used in a lot of ska songs.
Plus it's very inspirational drawing music, and visualization of characters and events can always be set to ska music. It's interesting, really.
Video games - I believe my very first video game I ever played was Super Mario on the big fat Game Boy which my dad gave to me when I was like 4 because we were really poor and my dad went out and bought this Game Boy and my mom was so pissed at him for spending money on that. I was pretty terrible at it, I think I only ever got to like, level 7 (and don't get me started on how bad I was at Tetris), but I still liked to play. I didn't even get a new Game Boy until like 4th grade when my dad got me a Game Boy Color for my birthday.
Besides that though, I was not a gamer as a child. On IRC especially, people always talk about the classic gaming experiences they had with the NES and the SNES and things and I just sort of sit there because I didn't have any of those and I hate emulating. My first system I got outside of that Game Boy was an N64 and even THEN I didn't play it very much until like 5th or 6th grade when I got hardcore into Zelda, which was probably my first video game fandom. I probably wouldn't have been into video games at ALL if I hadn't met my friend Chris. I met him in elementary school and it turns out that we were neighbors, which was awesome. I was there almost every day after school and I spent nearly every weekend at his house and even though he was a terrible student (I couldn't believe he was satisfied with Cs, it blew my mind), he played video games like a champ. We would stay up obnoxiously late and play things like Resident Evil (which is how I got into that) and and other Playstation games, because I never owned a PS1. He moved away right before the transition to middle school, and I saw him once when my dad and his dad managed to get into contact and I went and stayed with his family for about 2 weeks 4 or 5 years ago, but both of our phone numbers got changed and I can't find him on the internet, so that's a no-go.
Nowadays, I'm way too busy with art to play video games much anymore. I will always be a faggot for things like Pokemon and will play them always, and stuff like Final Fantasy and other RPGs because that's my favorite thing to play. For the last year and a half I played video games about never until I got Persona 4, which really got me back into gaming again. Of course, without video games, I'd never have the Boss Battle system (see the IRC section).
Gaia - Gaia Online. Gaia was probably my first real exposure to having internet friends. I was on IRC before Gaia, but most of the friends I'd made at IRC I talk to very very occasionally on Facebook and that's about it. I have made friends on Gaia that I still love and talk to (kisei_prophet :>) and I was even a moderator at the guild that I posted at for 3.5 years. During my time at Gaia, I had the largest personal growth period for sure. I went from being a normal kid to my emo phase that lasted a couple years to my current totally awesome incarnation that I am now. I guess somewhere along the line I got bored with Gaia because, although I'd made friends there that I still talk to and love, and even currently hang out with in college (one's even in the room while I type this), I'd gotten all the items I'd ever wanted and I was closer to the people in IRC than I ever was with most people in Gaia (aside from 3 or 4 exceptions). Gaia was an extremely important part of my life, and without it, I would definitely not be the person I am today. I would not probably have had the courage to go for my graphic novelist dreams without seeing the works and being influenced by some of the people I met on there, and that's utterly invaluable to me now.
Currently, I usually check it. I don't post as often as I'd like to, and I miss it to be honest. I don't know that I'm ready to get back into it, though.
IRC - If Gaia was influential to who I am today, IRC is 5x as much. My very first internet experience was with chat rooms on a Digimon fansite, and even though I wasn't there for very long, and I never really knew or remember the members who were there, it was my first experience making online friends. From there, I went to duelmonsters.ca and got into the #yugioh chat there. That was probably my first solid, concrete experience with making online friends and I met many many people, a few I even know still today, e-dated a British girl (which, at 13, probably also makes her my first girlfriend), taught me how to not suck on the internet, taught me what an emote was and how to use them (even if I used to use awful ones like oO), dealt for the first time with trolls, dealt with for the first time internet badasses, and all of the other internet ins and outs that we all deal with pretty much subconsciously now. I got my first chat client, X-Chat, and I loved being there, until duelmonsters.ca died slowly and painfully. I would've quit IRC altogether if a friend of mine hadn't invited me to the new network, zIRC, where #Roleplay and its sister channel #RoleplayX used to reside. There, after having experience from #yugioh and the LSG on Gaia, I was suitable to be accepted by the channel members and I fit in really fast. These people quickly became the best internet friends I had, with, as I said, a few exceptions on Gaia. It was here that I was exposed to and fell in love with the Boss Battle system and concept, and even released my own. It's still my favorite internet community that I am/have ever been in, and it's a big part of who I am now.
Madrigals - Madrigals was our very select 16-person choir group in high school, comprised of 4 sopranos, 4 altos, 4 tenors, and 4 basses. Madrigals quickly became a huge part of my life, right up there next to Peers Who Care and Drama. The group itself was audition-only, and every year we had probably 100 auditions to get into this 16-person group. Usually there weren't more than 7 or 8 openings, because once you auditioned and got in once, you didn't have to again, so the only time openings happened was when people graduated or people just stopped wanting to be in choir. My junior year rolled around and I was totally convinced I could not sing, and I had resigned to that fact without much trouble. Madrigals auditions for that year opened, and I didn't really care; I didn't know anything about classical singing, much less what the "Madrigals" really were. A friend of mine convinced me to audition, and so I did. I was nervous, and I was probably pretty bad, but I was very good at holding pitch, and, according to our director (which I found out right before I graduated), I was a shoo-in for the bass part that I received.
So apparently I could sing, and I was very proud of this fact. Senior year began, and I, the only one of the 16 of us without any past choir/band experience, was quite overwhelmed. It was difficult to not get swept up in it. By being a Madrigal, you were automatically a rock star. You were one of the chosen 16, one of the 8 best singers in the school of your gender. It was intoxicating, and I was and still am very proud of our group. Our group especially, the 2008-2009 Madrigals, was one of the best groups in a very long time. We could harmonize at the drop of a hat which is quite a difficult thing to do, and overall, a very impressive group. We once even went to a concert and our director ended up calling and said his wife was going into labor. Ready to sing, but without a director, we sang without one, without anyone to lead us, and we dazzled the audience. Madrigals was a huge part of my life that really helped to shape me as a person during my final year of high school, and again, I probably wouldn't have the confidence to be going for a career in art without what Madrigals gave me.
From kisei_prophet
Ska, video games, Gaia, IRC, Madrigals
Ska - I actually got into ska from a friend on Gaia (so this post is like super thematic), and I love everything about it. I think that ska has a strange honesty to it that not a lot of musical genres have; to be able to sing and talk about topics like heartbreak and death and still sound that peppy and upbeat, it seems to be a reflection of life to me. Bad things happen to all of us, but even so, we keep a straight face and keep moving. Besides that (probably) too deep interpretation into it, I'm a pretty happy person, and I like happy sounding music. It's always upbeat, repetitive, and catchy, and besides that, I love the strange variety of instruments used in a lot of ska songs.
Plus it's very inspirational drawing music, and visualization of characters and events can always be set to ska music. It's interesting, really.
Video games - I believe my very first video game I ever played was Super Mario on the big fat Game Boy which my dad gave to me when I was like 4 because we were really poor and my dad went out and bought this Game Boy and my mom was so pissed at him for spending money on that. I was pretty terrible at it, I think I only ever got to like, level 7 (and don't get me started on how bad I was at Tetris), but I still liked to play. I didn't even get a new Game Boy until like 4th grade when my dad got me a Game Boy Color for my birthday.
Besides that though, I was not a gamer as a child. On IRC especially, people always talk about the classic gaming experiences they had with the NES and the SNES and things and I just sort of sit there because I didn't have any of those and I hate emulating. My first system I got outside of that Game Boy was an N64 and even THEN I didn't play it very much until like 5th or 6th grade when I got hardcore into Zelda, which was probably my first video game fandom. I probably wouldn't have been into video games at ALL if I hadn't met my friend Chris. I met him in elementary school and it turns out that we were neighbors, which was awesome. I was there almost every day after school and I spent nearly every weekend at his house and even though he was a terrible student (I couldn't believe he was satisfied with Cs, it blew my mind), he played video games like a champ. We would stay up obnoxiously late and play things like Resident Evil (which is how I got into that) and and other Playstation games, because I never owned a PS1. He moved away right before the transition to middle school, and I saw him once when my dad and his dad managed to get into contact and I went and stayed with his family for about 2 weeks 4 or 5 years ago, but both of our phone numbers got changed and I can't find him on the internet, so that's a no-go.
Nowadays, I'm way too busy with art to play video games much anymore. I will always be a faggot for things like Pokemon and will play them always, and stuff like Final Fantasy and other RPGs because that's my favorite thing to play. For the last year and a half I played video games about never until I got Persona 4, which really got me back into gaming again. Of course, without video games, I'd never have the Boss Battle system (see the IRC section).
Gaia - Gaia Online. Gaia was probably my first real exposure to having internet friends. I was on IRC before Gaia, but most of the friends I'd made at IRC I talk to very very occasionally on Facebook and that's about it. I have made friends on Gaia that I still love and talk to (kisei_prophet :>) and I was even a moderator at the guild that I posted at for 3.5 years. During my time at Gaia, I had the largest personal growth period for sure. I went from being a normal kid to my emo phase that lasted a couple years to my current totally awesome incarnation that I am now. I guess somewhere along the line I got bored with Gaia because, although I'd made friends there that I still talk to and love, and even currently hang out with in college (one's even in the room while I type this), I'd gotten all the items I'd ever wanted and I was closer to the people in IRC than I ever was with most people in Gaia (aside from 3 or 4 exceptions). Gaia was an extremely important part of my life, and without it, I would definitely not be the person I am today. I would not probably have had the courage to go for my graphic novelist dreams without seeing the works and being influenced by some of the people I met on there, and that's utterly invaluable to me now.
Currently, I usually check it. I don't post as often as I'd like to, and I miss it to be honest. I don't know that I'm ready to get back into it, though.
IRC - If Gaia was influential to who I am today, IRC is 5x as much. My very first internet experience was with chat rooms on a Digimon fansite, and even though I wasn't there for very long, and I never really knew or remember the members who were there, it was my first experience making online friends. From there, I went to duelmonsters.ca and got into the #yugioh chat there. That was probably my first solid, concrete experience with making online friends and I met many many people, a few I even know still today, e-dated a British girl (which, at 13, probably also makes her my first girlfriend), taught me how to not suck on the internet, taught me what an emote was and how to use them (even if I used to use awful ones like oO), dealt for the first time with trolls, dealt with for the first time internet badasses, and all of the other internet ins and outs that we all deal with pretty much subconsciously now. I got my first chat client, X-Chat, and I loved being there, until duelmonsters.ca died slowly and painfully. I would've quit IRC altogether if a friend of mine hadn't invited me to the new network, zIRC, where #Roleplay and its sister channel #RoleplayX used to reside. There, after having experience from #yugioh and the LSG on Gaia, I was suitable to be accepted by the channel members and I fit in really fast. These people quickly became the best internet friends I had, with, as I said, a few exceptions on Gaia. It was here that I was exposed to and fell in love with the Boss Battle system and concept, and even released my own. It's still my favorite internet community that I am/have ever been in, and it's a big part of who I am now.
Madrigals - Madrigals was our very select 16-person choir group in high school, comprised of 4 sopranos, 4 altos, 4 tenors, and 4 basses. Madrigals quickly became a huge part of my life, right up there next to Peers Who Care and Drama. The group itself was audition-only, and every year we had probably 100 auditions to get into this 16-person group. Usually there weren't more than 7 or 8 openings, because once you auditioned and got in once, you didn't have to again, so the only time openings happened was when people graduated or people just stopped wanting to be in choir. My junior year rolled around and I was totally convinced I could not sing, and I had resigned to that fact without much trouble. Madrigals auditions for that year opened, and I didn't really care; I didn't know anything about classical singing, much less what the "Madrigals" really were. A friend of mine convinced me to audition, and so I did. I was nervous, and I was probably pretty bad, but I was very good at holding pitch, and, according to our director (which I found out right before I graduated), I was a shoo-in for the bass part that I received.
So apparently I could sing, and I was very proud of this fact. Senior year began, and I, the only one of the 16 of us without any past choir/band experience, was quite overwhelmed. It was difficult to not get swept up in it. By being a Madrigal, you were automatically a rock star. You were one of the chosen 16, one of the 8 best singers in the school of your gender. It was intoxicating, and I was and still am very proud of our group. Our group especially, the 2008-2009 Madrigals, was one of the best groups in a very long time. We could harmonize at the drop of a hat which is quite a difficult thing to do, and overall, a very impressive group. We once even went to a concert and our director ended up calling and said his wife was going into labor. Ready to sing, but without a director, we sang without one, without anyone to lead us, and we dazzled the audience. Madrigals was a huge part of my life that really helped to shape me as a person during my final year of high school, and again, I probably wouldn't have the confidence to be going for a career in art without what Madrigals gave me.