And This Is Because It Hurts.

Day Nine - My Favourite Pillow

My favourite pillow - it used to be a t-shirt but when I grew out of it, my mum altered it into a pillow cover and now it sits behind me in my comp chair

Nik.

Faith in humanity restored.

Day Twelve - Relationships with My Parents

"Bloody parents - they're worse than children" ~Me

My relationship with my parents hasn't always been perfect, like all children I started off seeing them as opponents - everything was a struggle, everything was a contest, but thankfully as I grew up I began to realise that they were actually there to help and that between us we could get far more done by pulling in the same direction than in opposites and I can safely say now that while we don't always see eye to eye, we're always there for each other.

My parents have always been fantastically supportive of everything I've tried to do and always been there with advice and gentle guidance to help me find the right path.

"Just because you know how it's done, doesn't make it any less magical"

I've always been somewhat in awe of my dad; his musical talent (and his humility when anyone comments on it) and his ability to do DIY tasks that almost seemed mystical to me, when I was growing up he always had a little story or a joke for every situation and it was always him that made me feel better when I'd fallen over, he's also always protected me as best he can (an example that springs to mind is him making a particularly draconian English teacher of mine actually cry infront of me) I think it's because of this that I've always strived to make him proud of me (though I have occasionally missed the mark considerably).

"Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease." ~ Lisa Alther

My mother has always been the organiser from my experience; while she insists that she doesn't hold the power in our household, in truth she does (our house operates on a fully democratic system: myself and my father get one vote each, my mother gets four votes) Again really, I've been in awe of my mother for a long time, she works very hard for our family, keeping up fairly long hours in a job that was the only thing that kept us afloat for the last few years, in that time she's had to cope with a lot of stress and while I would hope that we've helped her through that as best as we can, she's mostly coped by herself and for this reason it is my firm belief that my mum is truly the strongest person I know.

If either of you are reading this (which I don't doubt will happen) I love you both so very much and am truly grateful for everything you've done for me over the last 22 years.

Nik.

Day Seven - The Arts

Of all the subjects so far, this is one of the ones I've looked forward to least. I'm not really a big person for art - I can't draw, I despise dancing in all but a few cases and I'm not in the slightest bit musical, so my interest in the arts is more from a consumer point of view. Seeing as I know next to nothing about painting, the obvious choice is music.

I've grown up listening to quite a wide range of music - from early to late 90's pop music (thanks to local radio and television) to Blues and Rock music (thanks to my father's influence) to Classical music (thanks to my maternal grandfather).

Ever since I was small, the majority of the music that my father would play in the house was Blues and so it was obvious that my tastes would start there, my enjoyment of this genre was cemented by my dad's performances in multiple local bands, appearing in various venues through the south of England and being roadied for (more than a few times) by yours truly.

My interest in pop music tailed off to near nothingness in the late nineties when I began to notice just how similar each song was becoming, I started to see just how corporate pop music had become and how it almost seemed production line based.

I've had a love hate relationship with Classical music since I was young - at first it just felt like lift music - tinny noises in the background that were more to be ignored than admired, but in the following years I've grown to see it as a pure art-form in itself, capable of being just as soothing as modern music and just as rousing and energising as any rock music.

Thanks to a few of my friends, my real passion in music over the last few years has been rock, it seems I found bands like Evanescence, Fightstar, Within Temptation, Paramore, Nightwish and The Foo Fighters (to name but a few) at exactly the right time in my life in order to provide relief and some guidance.

...well that's sort of a potted history of my musical tastes - can't really say I feel like I've done a good job on this one, feels like I've rambled again, but what the hell, right?

Tomorrow you get to watch the fun as I attempt to write a poem... yay

Nik

a lot of TERFs speak like they’re giving a speech in a movie. One time one of them referred to me & my “brethren”, which they then had to clarify meant trans people and their supporters. I still think about that and laugh sometimes. “you and your brethren” fedgyejgfjhdgsjhksa like what are we, viking warriors?

autism culture is seeing a post about ADHD culture that has a Very Relatable Feel but being unsure if you can reblog it because you don’t have ADHD

Two of my main mtg decks need tokens, so I figured rather than shelling out on some, I'd make my own

If you want to use them for your own decks, feel free

Alternately if you want me to make any more in this style, inbox me and I'll see what I can do

Black History Month Day 9