Hi!

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

Not seeing many people talk about this on Tumblr, so gonna spread the word myself: Webtoon is going to start using AI for translations and an AI chat bot with comic characters. If you're against this you should delete your account, and if you are publishing on the website, you should consider moving to other alternatives and especially having your own website to host your comic.

Also needless to say that Webtoon can absolutely afford to hire translators, this is just yet another way to not pay the people who are making the company behind Webtoon absurdly rich.

And for the people who might see this as a good decision:

The wretched beast that lives in my home

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

I think that my grandmother didn’t become the first woman race car driver because she’s the sort of person who thinks that every time you eat at a dining table you need a full table placement. You can’t just bring a plate and fork to the table you’ve gotta have like tablecloth, placemats, two kinds of knives, the works. Her mind cannot comprehend a universe where you could just eat a sandwich off of a napkin at the table.

So in the same vein she couldn’t conceive of a woman race car driver because there weren’t women race car drivers when she was a kid. She was like “oh it just wasn’t done back then” so she didn’t even try even though that was her dream job.

There were people in my life who taught me how to question the rules and assert myself and I had parents who encouraged me to follow my dreams first and think about money second.

I got lucky though. Not everybody has people to teach them how to be bold and not everybody is naturally a rule breaker.