I sort of came to this fandom in a roundabout way. I saw Hank Green on TikTok, and really enjoyed how he presented science. Then started listening to scishow tangents (RIP my favorite podcast). And once I listen to all I showed tangents I started listening to dear Hank and John. I wasn’t really familiar with John as “I didn’t like reading”.

I “didn’t like reading” because I grew up dyslexic, and I associate reading a real physical book with mental anguish and feelings of inadequacy from a very young age. Throughout high school in college, I got accommodations to listen to books instead of reading them. I was so convinced that I couldn’t read a physical book that any time I tried, I got a migraine.

Then I got Long Covid in 2022 and spent months and months in bed. So I got into audiobooks. But only fantasy because I needed to escape. But I didn’t listen to any John Green books besides the Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything is Tuberculoses, because I didn’t want to read any fiction books about people being ill, because I was so ill.

However, last April, I started listening to a book called Unlearn Your Pain, and realized that’s so much of my illness like migraines were associated with past traumas, like struggling to read. So I challenged myself to read self-help books so I could highlight and underline important things. And when my head started to hurt, I told myself it wasn’t real, that the pain was in my mind from fear and anxiety. And I pushed through. And I read a chapter. And another one.

Turns out I can read, and reading a physical book isn’t that much different than reading Reddit comments. I just had to believe in myself. I got the book like a month and a half ago when it came out and yet I still was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to read a novel. Self help books are medicine. I have to read them to get better, but I didn’t enjoy reading them.

I have yet to actually finish a book. and I have yet to read for fun.

But I’m determined I’m gonna finish this one.

I read Hollywood, Ending earlier this month and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. What a poignant meditation on art, love, grief, trauma and celebrity culture.

This quote, particularly, has stayed with me. So obviously I illustrated it. The idea was simple - an open door looking into a museum where Kai and Juniper appreciate a piece of art (a cover of H,E to make it extra meta) together.

My Instagram is linked here

…Matthew McConaughy?? Maybe my brain made the association because of the shared first name, but as a famous white guy of the right age, in my head Malone looked like McConaughy!

I'm running behind on vlogbrothers videos, so I just started watching this one in which John repeats the common belief that odors are particularly hard to describe-- that we lack language for them. And I thought this community might want to know that recent anthropological and psychological research shows that, actually, the problem is our language, nothing particular about odor as a sense! Specifically, a number of hunter-gatherer societies have very precise language for odors:

Wnuk, E., & Majid, A. (2014). Revisiting the limits of language: The odor lexicon of Maniq. Cognition, 131(1), 125-138.

Majid, A., & Burenhult, N. (2014). Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language. Cognition, 130(2), 266-270.

Majid, A., & Kruspe, N. (2018). Hunter-gatherer olfaction is special. Current Biology, 28(3), 409-413.

I've actually seen Asifa Majid present this research, and I recall that in addition she explored a representative sample of global languages and their encoding of smells and found that English was particularly bad at it! So it might not be anything special about smell, except in terms of how we relate to it in industrialized (and particularly English-speaking) societies.

this is from the san diego book tour stop so i assume it was hanks handwork? i saw a post about him doing some on john’s story, but i didn’t see him do mine with my own eyes.

Heya! I’m working on a photoshop project and am a bit intimidated to look through the entire internet for the best/most interesting photos of Hank and John. I want photos from eras around (2007-2010), (2011-2017), and (2018-now).

Who here has a favorite photo you want to share?

Holy moly, it is a fascinating experience to read this book while living through the age bracket of the main characters. I thought I was going to have to skip this one because my OCD is incredibly fixated on the existential free-fall that is your mid twenties and I didn’t know if I could handle it without melting down. But, because of its resonance, I tried to structure my reading like an exposure therapy exercise. There’s some amount of poetic justice in using a John Green book for an OCD exposure project.

I’m not sure that any of the previous novels made me cry, but this one did. The handling of [difficult, spoilery material] was so well done, as well as [other difficult, spoilery material]. Neither overwrought nor underplayed and both rather true (to my experience at least). I hope John continues writing adult fiction.

There is a line from TAWD that I’ve carried for the last decade, which I think is somewhat the thesis of this book as well: “Love is both how you become a person and why.” Maybe that’s the thesis of everything.

TAWD was the last novel that I brought to a therapist to help illustrator the labyrinths of my mind. Hollywood, Ending has now served as a wonderful ERP exercise and I’m adding it to an incredibly special place on my bookshelf.

It’s in the latest, Oct. 26, episode of the A Beautiful Mess Podcast. The Book Report section starts around 35 minutes. I recommend you stay for the section where her day does a meditation.

Join us tomorrow at 2pm EST in the Hollywood, ending discord for a text based Q&A with John! We’re still accepting questions for the Q&A through tonight so hop on and submit yours!

https://discord.gg/Teb5x43h2A

Stumbled upon this interview from a few years ago of a celebrity being so Kai-coded: Jack Harlow telling Emma Chamberlain “Love ya” on a red carpet

https://youtube.com/shorts/IBzHxciYXvU

Had some spare cardboard laying around, add hot glue and some spray paint and printed labels, voila.
Can't say I have any actual use for a costume like this, but had to do it!

Joggity-jog action:

https://imgur.com/a/ecmN7gL

Been a huge fan of John‘s books and writing style since I was 14 when TFIOS made it as a movie and at 26, I still am a huge fan of them 🩷

I can't remember which video I saw it in! If someone could direct me to it, I would be very grateful.

Thank you.

I know this is basically a free advertisement, but I feel oddly giddy about giving money to Focus Friend. It feels weird to pay for an app, but I love it. Using it has really helped me focus on my work and it has made me realize how often I reach for my phone for a distraction.

I just watched the new clayface movie and the whole time all I could think about is how much tom Rhys Harries struck me as my head canon for Kai. Has anyone else had this experience?

I have 2 extra Hollywood, Ending books due to going to an event and having also pre-ordered the books. Would love for them to go to fellow nerdfighters!

Willing to negotiate (:

Took John's quote "Hope is not crazy" and wrote a poem.....

me and a friend are trying to make a video on the differences between how john and hank view/have experienced fame through the lens of their books hollywood, ending and an absolutely remarkable thing. i was hoping to also grab some quotes from various vlogbrothers videos but don't have any particular videos in mind. do yall have any suggestions?

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