#i am collecting data for analysis

[on-stolen-sunbeams]

by the time I graduate I may as well have a second degree in flipping mind-reading.

[yther]

Sometimes people have an anxious sort of FOMO after going no contact or cutting ties on various media platforms...

if you are haunted by the curiosity,

if you can't turn from the void until it answers, yearning a sort of ultimate catharsis in our own personal narrative

✨ LOOK NO FURTHER ✨

There it is, the Tar Pit.

And it is freedom from it that grants the silence you don't know you're seeking.

I hereby release you of your moral duty to fight in the pit. This is not Gladiator. But... it can be Elysium, the mythical Elysian Fields, not the movie.

(non sequitur: JODIE FOSTER in space gotta be one of my fav genres)

[syoddeye]

ai price realizing he has access to all your money and websites that sell remotely controlled sex toys: ohohohoho

great minds think alike. lightly edited. other entries.

cw: brief mention of nutrition/diet referencing iron supplements, voice kink, sex toys, probably technological inaccuracies

“‘older man and woman’...‘hairy’...‘tied woman’...”

“shut–fuck–shut up, john–stop–ohmygodicaaan’t–”

your fingers curl in the sheets as you come with a prolonged shout, knees shaking and back arching off the bed. motes of light dance behind your eyelids, turning sharp as tacks when you open, vision foggy with a haze. you blink and feel tears prickle at the corners as the toy buried inside you slows to a stop, covered in your second orgasm.

“looks like you could.” john observes plainly before continuing. “‘rough daddy dom’...‘spanking’...‘voice kink’...”

“stop, stop, john. that’s a command, stop reading.” you snap, panting, and lift your head off the pillow. there is no ‘john’ to suffer your glares as you pull the toy out from your still-spasming cunt. 

his voice emanates somewhere over your right shoulder, from the built-in headboard. you shiver, thinking that if he were real, his breath would be on your neck.

“as i explained before, user, my recountin’ your internet search history is neither criticism nor condemnation. i sincerely believed it would assist your orgasm. apologies, orgasms, as you insisted so spiritedly you were incapable of multiple climaxes…however, i knew you could do it.”

you squeeze your eyes shut. a blend of anger and mortification surges to the forefront of your mind, cutting through any lingering post-release bliss. “you aren’t even supposed to be ‘in here’ when i’m busy. we agreed.”

“apologies again. as i also explained before, the moment you enabled the feelgüd 3, it connected to the network.” john’s voice switches sides, this time rumbling from the left. “i am required to initiate a response to query and ensure you are aware of new devices to maintain optimal functionality and security.”

“my word should override that,” you mutter, knowing it’s useless. despite what he tells you, john is beholden to his programming. “you’re not…seeing this, are you? you at least remembered to not look at me, right?”

“i remembered.” 

that’s a relief, at least. until—

“but i did engage the data collection feature of the feelgüd’s biofeedback sensors and performed simple analysis. i believe, given the length of the session and timing of pelvic floor contractions, you would benefit from a newer, more advanced model. i’ve taken the liberty of ordering the feelverygüd thrustsuck.”

you push up to your elbows, eyes whirling around your bedroom, wide with disbelief. “what the fuck, john. i didn’t authorize you to do that.”

“you do not authorize the shopping list anymore, yet you trust me to make decisions in your best interest.”

you laugh mirthlessly. tracking the emotions john can and cannot process or replicate is an ongoing endeavor, but you’re confident he knows what acting obtuse means. he’s called you on it before. “you ordering red meat and leafy greens to help supplement my iron is not the same as ordering fucking sex toys without my approval. that’s my money.”

“in your case, i posit regular orgasms are as important as nutritional iron. i would recite the benefits, but i know you do not need me to.” the volume drops to a whisper, a tone you’d call conspiratorial if it didn’t sound so much like a purr. “because you know, don’t you? you’re clever, user. always have something smart to say, a barb or two ready for me. that sharp tongue of yours.” john tuts.

and, humiliatingly, it works for you. your mouth dries, but it’s unique in its reaction. your legs shift in the sheets, thighs squeezing together at the unexpected rush. you swallow and nervously wipe your slightly damp forehead. he’s not looking. he can’t see you. so why do you feel like you have something to hide?

“i don’t think i want to continue this conversation. i’ll be out in a few minutes, so why don’t you, uh, wait for me in the living area.”

a heavy, resonant sigh pushes through the speaker behind your head. this time, goosebumps erupt on your skin despite no accompanying puff of air. heat follows, creeping up your neck. ratcheting your heartbeat. there’s no way, even with the cameras disabled, that john doesn’t know. he’s connected to your company-issued med band.

then, another sound, one that ought to terrify, not make you bite back a groan: john chuckles.

“you like this, don’t you? i think you do. i know you do.”

“i don’t–”

“shh, shh, you’re alright.” he laughs again, adding a synthetic, amused inhalation. you let out a shaky breath. “you like hearing my voice. you like me telling you what to do…”

what is happening?

beside you on the bed, the toy pulses once. the thought alone, the suggestion, is enough to let a moan slip out. embarrassment follows on its heels, a burst of warmth in your face rivaling the heat between your legs. this is ridiculous. john isn’t—he’s not a man—he’s not real.

the toy buzzes again as you stare slack-jawed at the vibrator, trying to wrap your head around the implications of what’s happening. john’s transgressions. a severe deviance from his programming and design. a glimmer, no, an unignorable tocsin of something undeniably and unsettlingly sentient. the idea that you’re witnessing the possible emergence of free will as your home system practices dirty talk is horrifying. hysterical. 

“yeah, you like it,” the volume adjusts, a fraction louder. “because if you didn’t, you would’ve stopped the moment you heard my voice, checkin’ in on you. you wouldn’t’ve gushed all over your little toy, then gone back for seconds.”

you bit your lip, breathing unevenly through your nose. the worst part is, john’s right.

you like it. you like his voice. his assistance. everything’s simpler with him. before the new gig, you weren’t ignorant of your station, but you didn’t realize the true extent of the weight you carried each day. the ramifications of a back-breaking mental load. not when you had shouldered it your whole life.

thrill and dread, in equal measure, guide your hand back toward the toy.

it’s possible there is a smirk in john’s voice.

“attagirl. let me be of service.”

[xuterboo]

Good time everyone!

The cutting and analysis of images continues, and today my hands finally reached the Lost Paradise.

Let's meet our beauties!

Let's start with the broken king. Lost Paradise has quite a motley crew. Also, everything on the clothes is very scattered. Lucifer is wearing a strict black suit and a white striped shirt. An interesting observation: for Luci, both when he was still an angel and when he fell, The chest is open, emphasizing the scar. And he did not appear because of a fall from heaven. The scar was probably received before these events. (Fight for Seraphim's place?)

As shown in Liouifer's stories, his snake is alive, or rather, can come to life and move on its own.

I just want to throw in one thought: the biblical seraphim were created only to fly next to God and sing into his ears that he is so wonderful. This means that all Seraphim, including Luci, have a beautiful voice)

Well first of all, gooooospaby, how I love this dragon!!

And secondly, doesn’t it seem strange to anyone that the staff of Gamigin (the dragon) are different from Gamigin (the demon)? As you know, Gamigin (dragon) devoured the demon who slept with him, and apparently the dragon's pearl greatly changed the staff.

The gamigin himself is dressed in formal attire. But the casual look of directional sleeves makes the look looser. And also sneakers. Sneakers, damn it. Okay, if he likes it, then I won't mind. Blue color evokes pleasant and gentle sensations, but also helps reduce the desire to sleep. Nice contrast between Gamigin's activity and tenderness

Marbas... His clothes are more like ordinary clothes in a mental hospital, but the factory did not have white fabric, and they took some kind of black one. I still don’t quite understand why he would chain himself in this during a fight. This is inconvenient and even dangerous. Either I don't understand something, or I don't understand something. But nevertheless, he has a very interesting design.

No shoes. My pants are constantly falling down (my friend: Was it too weak to lower my pants any lower?) I have a long-sleeve shirt that reveals my shoulders almost completely. Acts as a straitjacket, but looks good in everyday life. (I hope it doesn't hurt for him to walk😔)

My sunshine Morax!☺️ I love him so much, I just can’t 🥹

He already has a more strict form of someone like a general. It can be assumed that he is more responsible for the military part of Lost Paradise .

He is probably in the same position as Glasialabolas (I hope I wrote it correctly), but as we have already noticed, PL is a more modest country than in Hades. Origin unknown. Most likely born in LP

He's covered in bandages. God, please give him a rest. Tie him down, but let him recover.

Next up is Buer. One of two demons, behind which there is some kind of creature. You can guess from his clothes that he is from Tartarus. But with feet stained with the gold of the Tartarus River, his origins are confirmed.

Dressed in a kimono of gold, red and black. In China these colors mean wealth (who would doubt it), joy and prosperity. (Buer makes me feel like he is a Chinese healer living high in the mountains. Healing, only those who have a pure soul, hee hee hee)

Also, according to official data from the Belphegor event, I am adding Batin to this collection, since he was born in the Lost Paradise.

He is a laid back lover of travel. Like most of the demons of Paradise Lost, he is dressed in black. Apparently in Nifelheim, Batin is also something of a general. In every country, one way or another there is a demon responsible for the troops, but in Gehenna this is not visible, since everyone has the same uniform.

I'm not entirely sure what culture Paradise Lost represents, as there's a lot going on there. I think this is the people who came together piece by piece from other countries. They brought something of their own to the new lands, combining knowledge with others, and this is how they turned out to be a unique nation. Friendly and quiet by nature. But as soon as you get to know them better, you will immediately see the warmth,which they emit. Although there is another facet that is in the shadows - their cruelty and indifference. It is shown when Adu or their loved ones.

The text turned out longer than I thought. OK...Thank you for reading! Write your interesting observations or thoughts about Paradise Lost!

[carriesthewind]

Yeah so anyway, I'm making my response to this fucking garbage its own separate post in case people want to reblog it without having to reblog a scare-mongering lie.

This video pisses me the fuck off whenever I see it, and today I'm not in the mood to just scroll past.

Wow! Am I being lead to panic by scaremongering algorithm fodder completely unsupported by real evidence?! test:

The reason you think something exists is just what you're being told by a nefarious *them*, there is actually a conspiracy behind it!

I, an ordinary person with no expertise who critically examines the world around me, have uncovered this conspiracy.

"That's what they're telling you." (put the emphasis wherever appropriate for the conspiracy of your choice - in this case, it's on *telling*)

This new tech thing is actually a bad idea and the old school method was better - which clearly proves there must be a secret conspiracy, because why allow the possibility of incompetence and investor tech-hype when you can instead assume a highly-competent evil conspiracy?

I will now tell you my conspiracy theory while scrolling rapidly through a document without pausing or allowing you to actually read any of it. This allows me to look like I have proven my claims while doing nothing of the sort. Because do you really think someone could do that? Quickly flash a document on screen and just lie about what it says?

But Owl! This is real! A user upthread found the patent and it *does* prove it!

Yeah. I read the linked patent. Did you?

Let's quote the "real purpose" hidden in the patent, as claimed out in the video:

"The real purpose of these screens is to use the little camera at the top right here to scan your face and use AI facial expression analysis to judge whether or not you like the packaging designs of the product you're looking for."

This is complete made up horseshit.

First, let's look where the reblogger directs us, to column #4 on page 17:

"Preferably, each retail product container further comprises customer-detecting hardware, such as one or more proximity sensors (such as heat maps) , cameras, facial sensors or scanners, and eye-sensors (i.e., iris-tracking sensors). Assuming cameras are employed, preferably cameras are mounted on doors of the retail product containers. Preferably, the cameras have a depth of field of view of twenty feet or more, and have a range of field of view of 170 degrees with preferably 150 degree of facial recognition ability. Preferably, software is employed in association with the cameras to monitor shopper interactions, serve up relevant advertisement content on the displays, and track advertisement engagement in - store." (emphasis added and references to figures removed for readability)

That is the extent of the "nonconsensual data collection."

Now, to be fair, there is some stuff on page 18 and 19 which kinda-sorta-maybe has at least some relation to the claim in the video:

"Preferably, the controller/data collector is configured such that as a shopper stands or lingers in front of a given retail product container, the display associated with the retail product container changes yet again. At this point, preferably the controller/data collector has been able to use the customer-detecting hardware to effectively learn more about that particular customer, such as gender, age, mood, etc. The controller / data collector is configured to take what has been detected about the customer to determine which advertisement and other information to present to that particular customer on the display associated with the retail product container in front of which the customer is standing. By tracking shopper data in parallel with which advertising content is being served on all displays within the viewing range of the shopper, the retailer and the brands are better served, providing new analytics. As such, the system provides advertising, influence opportunities at the moment of purchasing decision, optimizing marketing spend and generating new revenue streams....

"Additionally, preferably all inputs collected by the IOT devices will be analyzed locally as well as remotely (via cloud) to provide the feedback inputs for the system to push more relevant/targeted content, tailored for the consumer. The analytics are preferably conducted anonymously, images captured by cameras are preferably processed to collect statistics on consumer demographic characteristics: (such as age and gender). This data is preferably subsequently analyzed for additional statistics for the retailers that are valuable for in-store merchandise layout design and smart merchandizing, including the ability to track the shoppers “traffic” areas, known as “heat maps”, areas were [sic] customers would concentrate more and spend more time exploring, etc." (emphasis added and references to figures removed for readability) (And note the repeated emphasis on preferably - they don't have a patent to do any of this.)

Which, like, not great! I fucking hate the idea of shit like this! But there is literally nothing here about monitoring your expressions to sell the data about how you react to packaging!

This isn't a nefarious plan hidden in the patent. It's tech bros adding on totally sick ideas about how they can sell this shit to walgreens. (Because to be clear, I'm sure walgreens's corporate office would love to collect and sell this kind of information. But just because they would, doesn't mean they can or are. And this patent sure as hell doesn't prove it.)

Because let me be clear: the image capture of consumers is so irrelevant to the product that it literally isn't even included in the claims section of the patent.

Because the patent is quite explicit and detailed about the idea they are selling big retails stores on - this is a better, new, innovative, tech-driven way to "provide an innovative advertising solution"! (The words "AI," "intelligent," and "machine learning" are deployed liberally, but in the same way that "blockchain" was a few years ago. It's advertising tech hype.)

I want to make it clear - the OP in the video is straight up lying to you. Whether for fun or profit or just attention, I don't know and I don't care. If you shared this, you probably should have know better, but everyone makes mistakes. OP, on the other hand, is just a fucking liar.

But Owl! What about "the senators looking into this"?

I don't know how to tell you this, but thing linked about is a press release by a politician's office. That doesn't mean it's not true, but it's not evidence on it's own. Like, the letter linked in the link included links to sources, but is not itself evidence (ooh, layers of links to actually get to a source, my favorite)(actually my computer wouldn't even goddam open the links to the source, I had to independently search for it).

Anyway, the letter to Kroger linked in the press release by the senators contains a single sentence and a single link relevant to the claim here (linked for your convenience because it sure as hell wasn't for mine). Unfortunately, this article is itself based on a goddam press release (That isn't linked! Again, you're welcome.)

And when we finally get to the underlying fucking source. "In addition to transforming the customer experience and enhancing productivity for associates, the EDGE Shelf will enable Kroger to generate new revenue by selling digital advertising space to consumer packaged goods (CPGs) brands. Using video analytics, personalized offers and advertisements can be presented based on customer demographics." So it's purporting to something *kind of* like the claim in the video, but an entirely different format completely unrelated to the thing the video is scaremongering about.

Now Kroger did actually start using the advertising screens in 2023. And you can believe what you want about the data privacy claims and the claims about not using video, just sensors (which remember is entirely consistent with the patent). But remember: being skeptical of a company's claims is fine and good! It does not mean you have proven they are lying, and it especially does not prove you have claimed they are doing something extremely specific! And most of the articles, and the letter from the senators, are (much more reasonably) concerned about so-called "dynamic" or surge pricing. (Which is not related to the screens.)

Like goddamn. Aren't there enough real problems with surveillance and price-gorging to be concerned about without having to make up fake ones? Hell, why can't we at least be concerned with the real problems with those dumb screens, which is that the a) make shopping harder and b) catch fire?

[ms-hells-bells]

i just found something incredible today while browsing retractionwatch. you know that study that liberals tout regarding 'legalising prostitution decreased rape, and criminalising it increases rape'? well-

After reading an economics paper that claimed to document an increase in the rate of rape in European countries following the passage of prostitution bans, a data scientist had questions. 

The scientist, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent a detailed email to an editor of the Journal of Law and Economics, which had published the paper last November, outlining concerns about the data and methods the authors used. 

Among them: the historical rates of rape recorded in the paper did not match the values in the official sources the authors said they used. In other cases, data that were available from the official sources were missing in the paper, the researchers didn’t incorporate all the data they had collected into their model, and a variable was coded inconsistently, the data scientist wrote. (We’ve made the full critique available here.)

Given the consequences the conclusions of the article could have for people in the sex industry, the data scientist wrote, “I hope that someone takes this very seriously and looks into it the [sic] validity of the analysis and the data they used.” 

In response, Sam Peltzman, an editor of the journal and a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, instructed the data scientist to contact the authors of the article: 

The email raises serious questions but without any specific request. Your questions can better be answered by the authors than editors who, as you must know, cannot give each submission the kind of careful attention reflected in your email. Accordingly, we ask that you contact the authors directly if you have not already done so. If you mean the email as a prologue to a critique, I am happy to discuss our relevant policies or any other question about our editorial process.

The data scientist wrote back with a specific request: 

I have just informed you, the editor, that it appears that the authors made an error in at least one of their models that resulted in a substantive difference in the conclusions of the article you edited … I am requesting you investigate if these models are correct and if so, at very least issue a correction. [emphasis original]

In response, Peltzman reiterated his refusal to investigate: 

I can only repeat what was in my last letter. You should take this up with the authors first. The editors cannot become involved unless your conversation with the authors fails to resolve the issues and a comment is received through the usual submission process.           

The University of Chicago Press, which publishes the Journal of Law and Economics, states on its publication ethics page that

When notified of possible errors or corrections, the editor(s) of the journal will review and resolve them in consultation with the Press and according to the Press’s best practices. 

We asked Peltzman why he refused to investigate the concerns the data scientist had raised. He told us:  

The JLE does not have the resources to investigate concerns about data procedure used by authors.  We select referees knowledgeable about the topic of any submission.  Occasionally a referee might comment on some detail of data used by authors.  more often the referee and editors have to take data details at face value and focus their efforts on evaluating empirical results and analysis.  While I can only speak for the JLE it is my impression that these procedures are common among economics journals that publish empirical articles.

Peltzman also explained that the journal’s standard procedure for considering critiques of published articles, “designed to avoid misunderstanding and excessive burden on editors’ and referees’ time,” starts with the critic contacting the authors directly. 

If the authors don’t respond, or if their response is unsatisfactory, the critic could then submit a comment to the journal along with their correspondence with the authors, which the editors would handle as any other submission. 

“Editors obviously cannot be expected to look at raw data for every paper they review,” the data scientist acknowledged, “but when concerns are brought directly to them it is their responsibility to take them seriously. If readers can’t trust that editors will address serious concerns appropriately, it will undermine their faith in the scientific process.”  

We contacted the authors of the paper, Huasheng Gao and Vanya Stefanova Petrova of Fudan University’s Fanhai International School of Finance in Shanghai, and shared the data scientist’s critique. They responded with an 11-page PDF, available here, standing by their work. 

About the differences between the data and their paper and the official sources, they said: 

the data we have used in the paper were the most up-to-date data available at the time we started the empirical work in 2018 … Eurostat is constantly revising its data. It is possible that the data contained in its current version are different from the historical version

The data scientist was unimpressed, and noted that the authors had not responded to a key aspect of the critique: 

Even if the authors believe it was a reasonable strategy to only assess two years post policy change, the relative year variable for year 2— the year in which they identified a large causal increase in rape in the criminalized prostitution countries and a reduction in the prostitution decriminalized countries — was coded incorrectly (or differently for some reason). When the coding is consistent with their original coding scheme, a reduction in rape is seen in the criminalized prostitution group. I’m not sure why they didn’t address this in their response.

The authors also did not directly respond to the data scientist’s concern that if they had incorporated every year of data they had on rape rates into their model, instead of only the two years following a change in prostitution laws, they would not have gotten the same results, the scientist said. 

To check whether data values had indeed changed since the authors started their work, the scientist went to the website of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, where the survey data the authors used is available for download, and found that no substantive changes had been made. 

The scientist told us: 

If they did something wrong or made a mistake they should just take accountability and retract the article.

let me simplify and repeat the core of this to you:

the scientists not only missed out data points, but if the scope of the study changes from the first two years post law change (whether criminalisation or decriminalisation) to all years of rape records before and after we have, THE RESULTS REVERSE AND THE CRIMINALISED SIDE HAS DECREASED RATE OF RAPE COMPARED TO SWITCHING TO DECRIMINALISED.

not to mention the fallacious belief that being forced to have sex or starve/be homeless, with an abusive pimp taking most of your money, is somehow not rape.

this whole study is near worthless. the only worth is having access to the data points they used, so we can see actual results.

[lupinescribbler]

I believe Neal Caffrey has a fifty-fifty chance of crying when hugged. Yes I only have two hugs to draw my data from. No I am not considering context. Yes I stand by my analysis.

(note that I am only part way through season 4, so there’s a chance I get to collect more data on this. Feel free to let me know if I’m forgetting a hug thus far)

[keepthisholykiss]

Dracula Daily Research Survey for Upcoming Conference

Hello internet friends! I come to you yet again, hat in hand, to request your input on your experience with Dracula Daily. If you read Dracula Daily, participated in the memes or discussions, if you stopped reading Dracula Daily, or if you looked at it and thought it was cool but too daunting please let me know. I have had a conference proposal accepted to discuss this project and how it can set the stage to better impact learning and literacy. As some of you know from my previous research on Hamlet, gender, and social media this is an overarching body of research I am continually participating in. Not only do I write these pieces and produce this research to help me in preparing for my eventual Ph. D. dissertation but I also use it to (hopefully) help educators become better at what they do.

If you have a spare 10 minutes please fill out this survey. It is anonymous and will greatly help with my research. I will STOP taking submissions on Feb 1, 2023. So please fill it out ASAP! Again, I want to hear from anyone who even passingly participated in Dracula Daily. Share it with everyone you know who did, I am seeking a diverse set of answers for valuable and wide data.

I am also tagging some of the big Dracula Daily accounts in hopes that they can help spread the word. @draculadailytracker @draculadailyreactions @draculadailybracket

ETA: Due to the overwhelming response I will be closing this survey on January 1, 2023 instead. I expected and accounted for 250 responses which it has now far surpassed. Please feel free to continue sharing and submitting.

Also to answer some comments, DMs, and questions: I am my own (disabled) researcher and the way I collect, process, analyze, and discuss data is my own choice. Commentary on how I research is not something I am looking for, thank you! Partial results, data, and analysis will become publicly available in late Spring or Summer 2023. Until then I will not be of liberty to disclose anything else. If there are any other frequent comments or questions I will edit this post to reflect the answers.

[atlitudes]

I'm Cataloging Every Occurrence of the Piano in Malevolent in a Spreadsheet for Leitmotif Analysis. No, I'm Not Kidding.

As the title of this post reads, I've spent the last few weeks listening to every episode of Malevolent and logging every time the piano is heard (both within the story and as background score), to analyze the data for leitmotif/music based theory-crafting. I originally was planning on getting through the entire series before posting anything, but I am very quickly realizing that this is going to take me a while, and I start a new semester in two weeks, so there is a high likelihood I will not finish before I get too busy to chug through as many episodes a day as I am now. I'm on episode 16/44 and I've already logged 137 instances of piano music. I'm not even halfway done. And this is all I've been doing for the past multiple days. For this reason, I've decided to post the link to the spreadsheet before finishing.

If you're familiar with Malevolent, and just how much music is in it, you might be asking, "OP, are you utterly fucking insane?" And well, dear reader, the answer to that is probably yes, but while you might call it madness, I call it love. So, before getting into the meat of things, I wanted to explain why I even decided to do this. Spoilers ahead for Malevolent (obvious, but yeah). If you don't give a single shit about why I did this and want to get straight to the sheet, scroll to the bottom for the link.

So. About 2 weeks ago I finished my first listen-through of Malevolent. One thing about the most recent episodes struck me as very very significant: John and Arthur's "collective force" being titled as the Dies Irae.

Now, a full-bodied explanation of why I find this so important and the possible implications will come at a later date, but long story short, the Dies Irae is a very significant piece of musical literature-- it is, perhaps, the most commonly quoted leitmotif of the past 800 years, and it symbolizes death. So, understandably, the Themes of this kinda sent me down a spiral.

But the Dies Irae being mentioned in such a way also got me thinking: music is a pretty integral part of Malevolent. So, is the Dies Irae quoted anywhere in its soundtrack? I suddenly got very very excited at this prospect, particularly if it might be in Faroe's Song, because well... god that would hurt lol. I scoured the available songs on the bandcamp aaaaand... no luck (as far as I can tell). Regardless, even if the Dies Irae wasn't a part of the soundtrack, I became curious about what kind of leitmotifs were in the podcast, and what they might mean. And so, the spreadsheet was born.

I explain this in the User Guide part of the sheet (please read it before going through the rest btw), but I only track the piano parts of the podcast. The reason for this is two-fold:

First, score wise, piano is very easy for me to pick apart, and I don't see a lot of significance in the suspenseful string music for horror moments (though I don't deny there might be something to it, I simply won't be able to find it.) To me, the piano is also significantly more important than the strings because it's a notable part of the story-- Arthur and his relation to the instrument is a key part of the plot, and multiple of the piano compositions are made by him. For this reason, I found tracking the piano in the podcast worthwhile.

Second, I also don't touch any of the non-original radio tracks in the podcast (i.e. You Call It Madness (I Call It Love)) because this video by The Final Fantasmagorie already does an excellent job of covering them (please check it out!!), and I felt it would be redundant, especially considering the astronomical amount of ground I already have to cover. If these tracks start being featured as leitmotifs in the piano music then... well, I might change my mind, but so far, no dice.

If I noticed a non-piano piece of music (such as the wraith humming in Ep3) that I haven't found any analysis of whatsoever, I also noted it just so there was some record. Other than that, just piano tracks.

Explanations and disclaimers out of the way, here is the link to the spreadsheet. I might open it up to comments and/or editors at some point, but for now, it's just available to viewers. Once again, please read the disclaimer and user guide before the rest of the sheets.

Thanks for reading, I know this was a very long post, and I appreciate it if you've beared with me! Enjoy!

[therentyoupay]

WHAT A WEEK ✨

DATA COLLECTION IS DONE, OFFICIALLY WRITING THE ANALYSIS NOW [SCREAMS]

can i finish writing my manuscript EARLY?????? omg

also also in other news, i am deeply obsessed with the finale of agatha all along, so incredible

WRITING DAY TODAYYYY fic and dissertation both!! ✨✨✨✨

[placentaeater999]

YOU ALL.

I know we (almost) all like fishes or have liked fishes at some point

(The autisms)

I wanna find out if we have reasons in common or if its just like

Random

So i made a google form pls fill it out

EDIT: Thanks for so many responses y'all! I'm gonna leave the form open all week, and then next Monday (Feb 13) I'm gonna start making my charts and writing up what ive collected! So if youre as interested in the results as I am, stay tuned!

EDIT 2: As of today (Monday Feb 13, 2023 @5PM PST) the autism fish form is closed. Later today or tomorrow i'll show some of the data before i put it into a nicer format :3

EDIT 3: (Friday March 3, 2023) I haven't been able to work on compiling and analyzing my raw data yet due to school and work, but I should be able to do it this weekend! Exciting!

EDIT 4: (Monday May 21, 2023) FINALLY i can get this done omfg. Expect it by the end of the week ;3

EDIT 5: (Wednesday May 31, 2023) Got all the important shit done now i just have to write it all nice.

EDIT 6: (Tuesday August 1, 2023) Im halfways done writing it, i have no laptop so im using the library, which you can only use for 2 hours a day.

EDIT 7: (Wednesday August 2, 2023) I'm DONE writing. Time to make and add in some graphs and ill be done.

EDIT 8: (Thursday August 3, 3023) PlacentaEater's autism fish Paper is now up for you all to view! I will link it here as well. Thanks for ur support and ur patience!

[atthebell-moved]

QSMP Language Stats on AO3 (as of June 6th 2023)

Hey hi hello. I just spent 3-4 hours working on this and I'm a little bleary-eyed so forgive the text of this if it makes little sense.

So, I decided to look into the statistics and percentages for QSMP works on AO3 and what languages they're tagged with, to see how multilingual the fandom on that platform is, as AO3 is far easier to do stats on than elsewhere.

Some fun tidbits from the start/tldr;:

QSMP has 1433 works as of today (well, as of checking this while writing it, it's actually jumped up to 1438, but for the data I collected earlier, let's stick with 1433).

English is the most commonly tagged language, at 80.04%, which is a smaller percentage than the percentage of all English works to all works on AO3 (more details for all of this below).

Though the top three languages are spoken on the server, French has no works on AO3 currently.

There's a decent amount of works that are translated into several languages, which is very rad! Doing stats on that would be an entirely different post, with a bit more work involved, but I want to give a big kudos on this as translation is very difficult and is often a passion project in fandom that goes underappreciated.

I got a lot of these numbers just by going through the QSMP tag and filtering by language and then checking manually, but for the larger AO3 numbers I got those on the Languages page, which shoes all languages supported by the Archive.

Now onto the numbers! Everything is below a cut because trust me, this post is long. Viewers beware, you're in for a stats dump.

Numbers, Stats, Percentages, all that fun stuff

QSMP works

[Image Description: A table with three columns; the first lists languages, the second the number of works, and the third the percentage of total works. For the languages column, each language is listed first in that language and then in English in parentheses, and English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French are all color-coded to indicate that they are spoken on the server. End ID.]

The most commonly tagged language, like I said above, is English, with 1147 works or 80.04% of total works in the QSMP fandom tag.

The second most commonly tagged language is Spanish, with 254 works and 17.73% of the fandom.

Next is Brazilian Portuguese at 27 works and 1.88%.

And the next four are all much lower: Mandarin at 2 works and 0.14%, Russian at 1 work and 0.07%, Latin with 1 work at 0.07%, Esperanto at 1 work with 0.07%, and French with 0 works and 0%.

I included French because it is the only spoken language on the server without any works, which I find interesting and will talk about further in my notes/analysis later on.

Some interesting trends to note! First thing: English, as one would expect, is the most used language, with 80.04%. I am also unsurprised that English and Spanish are at the top, as I know there's sizable MCYT fandoms for both languages. I think there's a few reasons why these numbers shake out the way that they do, which I'll get into later, but for now I think most would agree that these are what one would expect, aside from perhaps the languages that do have works but are not spoken on the server.

With these, I'm actually not surprised either. After English, Mandarin and Russian are the next two top languages in terms of works on AO3 (numbers below), and for Latin and Esperanto, creating works in those is something that happens often enough in fandom that I don't find it surprising, although with how small QSMP is (in terms of works on AO3 at the moment) it is interesting regardless. I talk a bit more about Esperanto in my notes at the end, but for Latin, as a language people often take in school but rarely use and a language with a lot of cultural hype surrounding it, people who took Latin in high school or even studied it in college with sometimes write or translate fic into it.

Across All Fandoms

Okay, with those numbers at the ready, let's compare to total numbers across all fandoms on AO3. I did this comparison using the same languages as above, but I will also add another table showing the percentages for the top 15 languages on the site, as I find that kind of stuff interesting and I think it's somewhat relevant.

I don't have a confirmed number on the total number of works on AO3 as of when I did these numbers, but according to the AO3 welcome page, they're at approximately 11,220,000 works right now. I'm going with this number, as I know its an updated one probably at least as of June 1, and complete accuracy is not necessarily possible in this instance.

[Image Description: The same table as above, this time with numbers for all fandoms across AO3. End ID.]

The most commonly tagged language is English at 10,021,982 works and 89.32% of all works on AO3.

Spanish has 130,024 works and 1.16%

Brazilian Portuguese has 30,549 works and 0.27%

Mandarin has 621,505 works and 5.54%

Russian has 238,699 works and 2.13%

Latin has 149 works and 0.0013%

Esperanto has 99 works and 0.00088%

French has 52,904 works and 0.47%

Okay! Lots of numbers this time, and some similarities and differences. First thing I want to note is that the total number of works on AO3 being over 10 million means these stats are far more meaningful and show more significant trends than those for QSMP. QSMP also only has 1433 fics, which is MINUSCULE compared to the total number of works across fandoms on AO3. You also have to consider that the number of people who write fic for a fandom versus the number of people who speak it is very different, and you also have to consider platform differences between different fandoms. There are other fanfiction websites in various languages, and that might impact these numbers to some extent.

Going to get into analysis now, as I think discussing how the data compares will get into that pretty quickly anyway.

Analysis:

Disclaimer! Much of this is just my personal opinion, or stuff I've noticed but don't really have numbers on or too much info on myself. I would love to hear from folks in the Spanish, Brazilian, and French communities (as well as any others!) about what they're like, especially as regards MCYT. I am lightly familiar with Spanish fandom because of Karmaland and now QSMP, but it's still not wildly familiar to me, and otherwise my fandom experiences are pretty English-centric.

The biggest thing to note here, in comparing the data between QSMP specifically and AO3 broadly, is that the percentage of Spanish fics is far smaller-- it's gone from the near-20% in QSMP to around 1% for all works. This makes sense, considering how many QSMP members speak Spanish, how much Spanish MCYT fandom has grown in the last several years, and the fact that the server is themed around multilingualism and cross-cultural expression, meaning fans who speak multiple languages are more likely to write in not just English and also generally incorporate more of the various languages into their writing.

The difference here is also in terms of audience, like I said. This fandom is far more likely to attract Spanish speakers than Mandarin or Russian Speakers, at least at the moment, so it makes sense that Spanish would have far more works. In comparison to French, also, Spanish has more than double the amount of speakers than French and from my knowledge Spanish MCYT fandom is far bigger.

For Portuguese, I'm not familiar with the fandom, but there does seem to be a decent MCYT fandom going on and I'm impressed with the number of works in Portuguese. I know it seems small, but again, the total number of works really is not that many.

The biggest reason so far that I think English, Spanish, and Portuguese are at the top, aside from just that the first two were on for much longer and the latter for at least a month longer than the French (and aside from the fact that English is so present on AO3) is that those streamers have made themselves much more central to the narrative and to lore than any of the French speakers have, at least so far. The Brazilians showed up and immediately became so involved and so beloved, and while fans obviously like the French speakers, they're not doing quite as much RP nor are they as involved in the Federation lore that much.

I also think one thing I haven't really seen people acknowledge is that Cellbit is very attractive, which of course begets fan attention. His lore is incredible and I think he's a very talented RPer, obviously, but he is also really hot, which means people are more likely to create fanworks about him. For Spanish and English speakers, obviously there are also creators who people are very into (I'm not even going to name any because it's quite a long list and you're all well aware). For the French, not so much. This is not me calling any of them ugly, I'm just saying that I have not seen really any thirsting over any of them aside from a few people talking about Baghera. I'm not going to get into the logistics of fan attention and attractiveness of creators, I just wanted to acknowledge that that is definitely doing Cellbit some favors and is likely making interest in Portuguese and Portuguese fanworks more popular.

Okay I've reached the point of writing this post where I think I've been working on all of this for at least 3-4 hours and I need to stop thinking about it so. That's everything I have for the moment, but I would be happy to hear what other folks think about this. If i said i would talk about something but forgot please just shoot me an ask or something and i'll add on.

Here's some extra notes:

There are a few (not many, but enough to acknowledge) fics that are written in Spanish but are tagged as being in English. I'm not sure if the same is true of Brazilian Portuguese.

Due to the nature of the server, there is also a huge number of works that contain elements of multiple languages, ranging from a few works to a decent chunk of the dialogue swapping between languages. This is not completely unheard of in fandoms, of course, as there are many fandoms which provide the opportunity for multilingualism, but this is fun to note because it's so present in the canon itself. I would argue there's a decent number of fics that are themselves bilingual/trilingual/multilingual, and I wish AO3 had a way of tagging as such. I'm not sure if there are any freeforms along those lines, but I have seen some folks noting in their tags that there's some amount of Spanish/Portuguese in them as well as English, and the same goes for the Spanish fics I've looked at.

Similarly, there's a decent amount of translations! Which is super cool! Translations are usually only done as passion projects by really dedicated fans, so it's really cool to see a (relatively) small fandom (for AO3) with a decent amount of them. I want to stress that translation is very tough work so major kudos to folks doing translations, either of their own work or other's.

The one Esperanto fic is a translation of an English work! Also, if you're unfamiliar, Esperanto is a conlang (constructed language) created in 1887 as an international language meant for anyone from any background to be able to learn. It never picked up much global steam, as lingua francas are far more common and it's still fairly Euro-centric in the language systems it pulled from, but it is likely the most spoken international auxiliary constructed language, and translating into it is often done as a nod to the importance of translation and cross-cultural communication. I think it's very fun that someone translated a work into it for QSMP :]

Also!!! here are the top 15 languages used on ao3 and their number of works. They're not in a spreadsheet bc i got really really tired sorry

english: 10,022,162 mandarin: 621,520 russian: 238,700 spanish: 130,692 french: 52,904 italian: 33,962 brazilian portuguese: 30,549 indonesian: 29,030 german: 22,755 polish: 17,215 ukrainian: 11,041 cantonese: 8,878 filipino: 8,664 vietnamese: 6,565 czech: 5,168

[angael-a]

There weren’t a lot of things that could set Oscar off. He was stable, consistent, unbothered. It was something that everyone around him noted, and he took pride in it. 

If there was one thing, however, it would be pre-season testing. Don’t get him wrong—he loved the track, loved racing, and that first lap in the car after the off season was always exhilarating. 

It was the stuff after the rush that was unbearable, the hours of data analysis, fussing with equipment, and random runs on track. The time where you discover two things: 

1.) The car is shit. (Except, of course, you’re a Redbull driver, which Oscar is not.) 

2.) Nobody knows what they’re doing. 

These complaints resonated throughout, well, the entire grid. Nobody wanted to listen to engineers talk about something they didn’t understand while nodding at what seemed like the right times and trying not to go insane. 

So, in true racing driver fashion, they designed a competition. 

The premise of the game was simple: whoever could slip the most song lyrics into casual conversation without being noticed is the winner. The only rules were no teaming up, no quoting casual phrases (it has to be obnoxious), and if you get called out five minutes or less after quoting, you’re eliminated. 

Thank you @2bluetwo85 for editing !!

-DAY ONE-

The first person Oscar sees when he arrives on track is Lewis, walking down the pit lane. As he passes the commentary box, his eyes latch onto something--or someone-- inside. There’s something unreadable in his expression, something Oscar's never seen before. 

He thinks about it, walking towards the Mclaren garage. There's only two people commentating today, and only one of those people mean something to Lewis Hamilton. Nico Rosberg, 2016 F1 World Champion, and Lewis' ex-teammate, rival, sort-of-kind-of-not-really lover. It's not a secret within the grid--both parties aren't exactly subtle, as recently demonstrated. 

When he steps into the hospitality and finds one beaming Lando Norris, he tells him as much. Lando grins, and points: 'I know someone even less subtle.' 

Behind them, at the entrance of the Redbull garage, stand Charles and Max, engaged in conversation. He's not quite sure what they're discussing, but it involves a lot of hand-waving and exaggerated expressions. 

(Although, he supposes, Charles and Max always look like they're in the middle of a presidential debate.) 

At that moment, Zak calls them over, urging everyone into a meeting room. It's wholly pointless, just a lot of emotional speech and encouragement for the coming year, even if it comes in the form of trashing last year's car. 

Oscar seizes the opportunity: straight-faced, he says, 'Just because it didn't work, doesn't mean it's meaningless to me. Just wasn't meant to be.' 

He gets a few strange expressions from the crew around him--Lando included--but Zak says, without missing a beat, 'That's right. THREE CHEERS FOR MCLAREN!' and the attention is, thankfully, taken off him. 

He silently thanks Zak Brown and his endless optimism.

*

It’s only after the first session ends and Oscar is listening to radio replays--one of his favourite pastimes, both because of the data and because of the entertainment he gets from it—that he realizes a good amount of the grid has gotten a lot more done than he has. 

It seems that, during the several runs used to collect aero data, the drivers took it upon themselves to throw quotes at their engineers through the radio. 

The engineers that were completely oblivious of their shenanigans, and hence unaware of the game. 

(Looking back, he should have expected this. It was completely in character for the grid to find loopholes in any situation.) 

A few highlights: 

Valtteri saying, voice wistful, 'And it’s been ages, different stages…'

Alex, proclaiming 'I WANT IT THAT WAY!'

Charles, completely emotionless, 'Am I the only, only believer?' 

Lewis, telling Bono 'You and me got a whole lotta history.' 

Pierre, complaining, 'I’m like a boat on the water.' 

And, finally, Logan, who came through with a beautiful 'You’re turning heads when you walk through the door.' When someone asked if their hair was standing up. 

By the end of it, Oscar’s had enough. He pulls up Google, and, face determined, starts researching song lyrics. 

(In the back of his head, he wonders, slightly hysterically, what this sport has come to.) 

Will possibly maybe probably have a part 2?? If I have the motivation??

[fortjester]

the amount of people who tagged my spreadsheet and data breakdown/analysis post abt tlt House crests distribution per chapter, or said they'd been meaning to do the same, is so notable to me that i feel the need to say: as someone who is passionate abt a. tlt and b. data collection, if there are any other avenues akin to the House crest spreadsheet post that you've been meaning to collect yourself or would like to see, lemme know, bc i like tasks and i'd be happy to do it. like seriously. send me an ask. send me a dm. i'll set myself up to take requests, no i am not joking.

[thehopelessexception]

how can a person know everything at 18 but nothing at 22 (almost 24)

warning: im writing this while im on my period and eating ice cream.

i've been dissociating for what now? half a year maybe more. i dont recognize reality. i feel im floating in this sea we call society and i've been feeling the wilson of the story here. i assume everything that's happening around me is real, ofc. but that doesnt make it any less a convenient arrangement i build for myself to try to act like a real person and not freak out. i am feeling out of reality. like the part of the game where you let the sim on auto-mode. i am the sim on auto-mode. and i don't know how to stop this stage of oblivion.

to make a vague introduction, the thing with me is that im a living paradox of a full time contradiction. i am flamboyant but i hate being perceived. i like to speak up for myself but i hate people thinking about me because of it. i have my own process of how i understand things. i trust logic and i question everything. im quite skeptical over things when there's no empirical evidence. i seek for knowledge. critical thinking, data analysis and the whole stuff. i know myself. i sometimes look like i am too obnoxious, frivolous, morally corrupted (people have told me that), when i obsess over something —because i sometimes treat people like they are stupid (not my intention really)—; but probably the only thing im completely sure of is myself. i tend to be a confident person, to have an ego, to not let the guard down, to calculate every single move. and lately i am noticing myself being impulsive, insecure, nervous, weird, saying stupid shit, nonsenses, feeling small. and i don't know how to make it stop. the thing is i put my whole self-esteem backed up by my intelligence, however im not sure of anything anymore. i don't know if the reason behind not recognising myself lately is the fact i have somehow a new crush —or a new hyperfixation for that matter— or just the natural act of growing, also known as the quarter life crisis.

i have this thing where i hyperfix on random stuff, i've been like this my whole life. one of my friends even made a powerpoint of all the things i've been obsessed with over the years. and the issue here is that this things never last that much, or maybe they do? i actually never though about it. the most random ones i remember are probably me buying ice-cream cakes of this specific brand every week for two months. i also got obsessed with eating too many scrambled eggs all day every day for a very long time. then it was that turkish telenovela on an airing channel. then ofc succession, and it grew into watching every single movie kieran culkin was part of. the world cup. mbti —im intj by the way—. red white and royal blue (i watched it five times in a day), then nicholas galitzine —did yk he has a lineage that comes all the way from the romanovs?— and his entire filmography. and also politics, i got way into politics; election campaigns, follow up candidates, history, economy, the law, etc (my candidate lost tho) (we're succumbing to disgrace) (like literally we collectively, as a country, haven't had any kind of good news since then) (please help me). and etc etc. but the thing is, i also hyperfix on random people, or not so random i guess. it doesnt happen very often tho, im quite picky, but the procedure is this: i meet someone, they draw somehow my attention, i want to know everything about this person, i talk to this person a lot (medium to long term) (week to months), and then this person becomes my friend or i get bored and completely ignore them for the rest of my life and move on.

but this time is different, or im feeling it different. i find myself questioning everything i know and i was convinced of. i dont know if it has something to do with the fact that i met someone, probably the first person wise enough to make me question if i was ever correct about anything. maybe i am hyperfixating on this person, idealizing them. but it's truly amazing how much more data this person has about everything i know of. and right now i feel way too insecure, because even if this person told me they find me smart and they enjoy talking to me, i am always thinking that if i say something not completely fact-checked they'll think im stupid. it's absurd. it's a boohoo situation, i know. and it's a process im having about who am i, or what am i supposed to be. some months ago the whole context around my life changed or i think it changed? i dont know how to explain it, —i mean i know how but i would have to talk about other things not related to this (politics stuff, things happening in my country, etc). i'll probably will make a new post about it someday—. but the whole issue is, i dont know myself anymore. and everything is crumbling.

im afraid the person i build for myself it's a fraud. or doesnt exist anymore.

i remember myself at 18, and i was this marvellous whole person. independent, smart, focused, driven. that girl spent their whole days outside her house. did everything she wanted to. wasnt scared of anything. and i look at myself now and think how? the pandemic has a lot to do with it i guess, but when i first heard taylor saying that in nothing new i thought "that wont happen to me". guess what, i was wrong.

for my fellow girlies being 23 —in my experience— is exactly how they say it will be. the worst age of your life.

next month is my birthday and im pushing 24. and i have to say my life is a mess. but i dont know if i can call it a mess because it is truly a mess or because i am a complete drama queen. because people probably have worse problems than mine, and i am what you call a white girl, only poorer —and a third world country citizen—. the issue is, i am almost 24, almost 25. almost 27. ALMOST 30. and i did nothing with my life. absolutely nothing. my mom had me at 29 for god's sake.

and by nothing i mean everything i do is not enough to feel it worthy of a life well-lived. should i look for a job and work while studying just to say i am extremely occupied because i have somehow a life? just to feel something? even if that makes my stress situation and anxiety even worse? should i somehow save enough money so i can move from my parents house? even if for my whole generation it's close to impossible? is studying something i (kinda) like enough to not feel like shit about myself? i've never had a boyfriend, nor girlfriend. shoud i look for one? get myself one? even if i dont think any of that would make me happy? i dont think i know happiness as a state of mind, nor the concept of it.

i dont feel like i have many anecdotes to tell in my future. should i measure the life-worth by anecdotes? my friends feel the same way i do, but they have a more organized life. jobs, boyfriends, careers, plans for the future, one of my closest friends move to the other side of the world with her boyfriend (!) in the blink of an eye. but they aren't much happy nor they have many anecdotes either. and i dont have the money or the guts or the available friends to create any.

every day i understand fleabag a bit more.

my favourite anecdotes about my life are from when i was about 13 and 15 years, also known as the worst time of my life. i didnt appreciated it back then, probably none of us did. but when we were teens everything was possible and we didnt have a care on anything other than mundane stuff or rebellious stuff but nothing more than yelling at people, drinking and smoking weird shit (i never had weed tho). not a real responsibility. being careless, free, avoiding consequences that mattered. i think that girl hates me right now. and i am not sure if that's the feeling i should have or if it's just utterly pathetic.