#is that how you pluralize that word

[senselessalchemist]

My horrible bastard brain: haha what if you tried to make the line "time for your medicine" poignant

Me: bet

Me, 80k worth of words later: this was a mistake (tm)

[bardkin]

been doing some internal questioning that boils down to “is it the auADHD or i am plural in some way???”

and i’m. not sure if i want to know the answer. at least not yet.

[imjustaf444keriguess]

also i think people's opinions on what they're comfortable being called or would prefer being called can differ from what they find as acceptable as an umbrella term to describe the experience itself, so saying "would you be comfortable if someone called you specifically a certain label" is MUCH different than "would you be comfortable if someone labeled the experience that you also have as a certain label"

for some, the answers would be the same. for others, they might understand why the umbrella term(s) might differ from their comfort term(s)

[mourniepoo]

Jamaican patois my beloved U are suxh a helpful referwnce

[coffeeastronaut]

while im sure that rvb's portrayal of systems is not exactly the best* i do think that it says Something that like. 99% of the plurals i know are rvb fans. this isnt a bad thing btw like to be clear i think it's nice.

*im singular and not the most educated on thr subject beyond being nice to people + my friends who are plural's shared experiences so i dont want to commit to an opinion on that point here at the piss on the poor website

[just-eyris-things]

Vent post. Because i feel like kicking a hornets' nest.

Honestly im just tired of how people will call someone ignorant/uneducated and will go for the throat for every little thing, while they themselves say shit like pierogis all the time. If you're going to point fingers at others, you yourself should be without fault.

The question is... can you?

[ava-of-shenanigans]

Awhile ago I made a post saying that my favourite dualistic Horus and Set epithet was rHwy, but I have since learned that there’s another spell in the Pyramid Texts that calls them snwy (which is just the number two in Egyptian), so I’ve changed my mind, that’s my favourite one. A dou so iconic that the Ancient Egyptians will literally just call them “the two” and expect you to figure it out.

The translations of this spell add another word usually to make this make sense, like “the two (assailants)” or “the two (contestants),” but that is not there in the Egyptian.

(The spell in question is Pyramid Text spell number 407/Pharaoh Teti’s spell number 284, if you want to have fun figuring out the huge mess that is Pyramid Text spell numbering in order to find it. The line in spell where this occurs is about the pharaoh deciding court cases, so that does make it pretty obvious which two gods they must be talking about, but this is still very funny.)

[veilk]

one time i tried that "mentally ask yourself if anyone else is in there" thing & i didn't get a Direct response but the song stuck in my head (which i Do Not control) would change and the new repeating lyric would function as a response to whatever question i asked. so that was kind of fucked up & i don't know if i'm supposed to do anything about it. it just kinda sounds ridiculous to say "there are entities in my head attempting to communicate with me via song lyrics"... i realize now i don't actually have a specific question i just wanted to tell someone about this sorry

THAT'S. HOW IT GOES SOMETIMES... yeah i have no idea what's up with that either brains are weird

[bear-man74]

I don't wanna post this per say cause idk how the other hms will feel about it so check tags.

[buffintruder]

on the scale of 'monolingual english speakers assuming gender in all languages works the same way it does in english' this is so low in the importance scale that it doesn't matter

but sometimes i see people making posts on tumblr about japanese speaking characters using they/them or it/its, and like those words barely exist in that language, and any words you could use would just be weirdly convoluted and odd when its so easy and normal to not use any pronouns at all

like i know it's a joke but it is fun to imagine those conversations happening in japanese and being utterly baffled as to how it would actually work

[sunlessys]

let’s see if i can phrase this in a meaningful, legible way…

Problem:

we introject characters that we are fully capable of talking about for hours. they don’t ever get more distinct if that isn’t true. but that leaves us with the question: if you know that character so well, isn’t there implicit pressure for the introject version of them to be exactly the same guy?

if they act in a way that isn’t in character, you’ll notice. they’ll notice. sometimes the pressure comes from other system members; sometimes it’s internal pressure to prove that you are who you say you are. some people are immune to it; some people are more sensitive. as with everything, it varies between individuals.

and there’s an additional problem called “this person’s source is something i could talk about for hours on end and never be done with.” that is: this introject is here because we like their story. the easiest way to prevent an introject from feeling pressure to conform to their source is to give them as much room as they need to decide their relationship with it. this is made harder and more complicated by sharing a head with someone who’s obsessed with them/their world/their story. it becomes a balancing act: how do you let the introject decide where they stand on their source without make other people feel like they aren’t allowed to enjoy a story that they love?

that is: how do you talk about the character in the story without implying things about the real man in your head? how do you examine the character’s traumas without hurting the real man in your head? how do you decide what personal details to share with friends who wouldn’t otherwise know anything without sharing things the real man in your head would prefer to keep to himself? how do you criticize a character’s flaws without shaming the real man in your head? and on and on. nobody wants to force anyone to be something they aren’t. but nobody wants others to give up the things that bring them joy, either.

Solution:

fictional characters and the introjects that resemble them are different, distinct people. when we talk about a story, enjoy fanart, engage with a source, or talk about the character, we are talking about the fiction. we often specify this in the way we talk: Loid Videogame, for example, is different from Loid; the line between the fictional and the real is clearly defined. in this way, Loid can decide for himself what is real to him; he is always free to say “that thing from the story also happened to me,” but it’s never assumed before he decides. this is also useful in the cases in which a system members has some kind of attraction to the character; defining it as “I’m attracted to this character but not the person I need to share a brain with” handily removes the fear of making someone in your brain uncomfortable for having feelings for a character.

this is also helpful for the introjects whose sources haven’t been completed, or who introjected before they reached the end of the story. if it does turn out that later events don’t feel true, or if there’s a wild twist that casts them in a bad light, they can say “well, that’s the story. my life went differently.” and it’s okay, not even surprising.

it means that even people familiar with the source have a chance to get to know the real guy more personally; we’ve always felt better about it when people remember facts about us and not just facts about our various sources. Bren doesn’t even share what his source is if he can help it; he doesn’t want people making assumptions about his character based on something he didn’t share himself.

obviously there’s more nuance to all of it than this. there are as many ways for an introject to experience themselves as their are introjects. but as far as a simple, stopgap rule that lets most of our people live with just a bit less stress? we’ve found this extraordinarily useful.

[airenyah]

on analyzing acting: ohm pawat as an example

attention: read my additions to this post first for some more context as it might help you understand a little better what i'm on about here...

ok so this post was born out of me wanting to give an example of what i mean by "actors perceiving something" bc you can see that really well in bad buddy ep 3 [3/4] in the music shop scene where they're hiding and pat smells pran. however, i realized i actually have a lot more to say on this moment and that i can also use it to try and showcase what i mean with "(having) thoughts"/"creating images" as well as what "directions" are supposed to be (i'm struggling the most with explaining directions in english lmao). i ended up having so much to say that it absolutely is worthy of its own post, so here it is

so this here is the moment in question that i'm going to analyze and i'm going to look at ohm specifically:

[sorry for the image quality of this gif, i had to compromise it in order to get the file size down]

before i say anything, here's a little disclaimer: obviously i have absolutely no idea what was going on in ohm's head in that moment when he was shooting that take. so whenever i make a mention of a specific sentence that the actor or the character could be thinking it will be my very own interpretation of what i personally am seeing or getting out of it. there are many thoughts and emotions one can read out of an actor's performance (often multiple at once!) and there are many ways of putting all of this into words. i will try to keep everything as technical as possible but sometimes i do need to say what i think is going on in the actor's/character's head in order to explain my point

ok so let's go and break down some of the acting things that ohm is doing here

[gif 1]

this is a wonderful example of an actor actually and actively perceiving something. at this point pat hasn't actively smelled pran yet, he hasn't reacted to that smell yet. in fact, up until this point pat is more focused on not being caught by chai. what ohm is doing here is showing us the process of going from "don't get caught" to "pran smells good af". and it starts right here. in order to do so, in order for this change of topic to work smoothly pat has to become aware of pran's smell first. and ohm is acting it out for us: he really is perceiving and noticing that smell as the actor and we can see the controls in his brain going "oh my nose is sensing something"

another thing i want to point out here is his "spielrichtung" (god i GOTTA figure out a word for this in english) aka this is where i talk about his "directions" even though it's difficult for me in english bc it sounds rather clunky. (for those who didn't read my original reblog where i talk about acting concepts: the literal translation of this german term is "direction of playing" or "direction of acting". this direction can refer to many things, such as where the focus is directed, or an action, a thought, etc...)

here in this moment ohm's directions are both downwards and very inwards. as in: his focus goes downwards to where the smell is entering his nose while his thoughts are very much directed inwards. this is a private moment for pat and ohm shows us this by acting towards the inside (ohm/pat is completely inside his own head in this moment) ("by acting towards the inside" – sorry, this sounds so clunky in english, i mean to say "indem er nach innen spielt")

alright, moving on. so in real life, once a person has perceived something and the brain has processed and determined it... what happens next? the person is going to react to it and have one or the other thought. in real life we go through a process of perceiving - processing - (re)acting and the same thing should happen in acting:

[gif 2]

first ohm showed us that pat has perceived something, now ohm shows us that whatever pat has perceived causes some thoughts/feelings inside of pat

(quick side-note on his directions: he's still very much inwards in his direction, the private moment in his head is continuing. and despite his eyes going to the side, the focus of his actions is still directed downwards because again, that's where the smell is)

(edit: i had my mom read this post and on the topic of directions in gif 2 she pointed out that you can actually split it up in three directions even: everything is happening on the inside, then you have the sensory direction that is going downwards because that's where the smell is, while he's sending his thoughts sideways)

i can't read minds, nor can i time travel so i have absolutely no idea what thought was crossing ohm's mind in that exact moment, but it has to be something along the lines of "i gotta smell that again". ohm/pat has perceived the smell, he considers it for a moment and whatever he's thinking here leads to the next moment where pat smells pran on purpose (note: i do love how his head is subconsciously moving slightly down towards the source of the smell again even before he's actively taken the decision to sniff pran):

[gif 3]

(edit: another thing that my mom said is that in gif 2 it's like his thoughts aren't quite focused yet, they're not quite formed, while in gif 3 his thoughts are very much focused. it's like his thoughts went from a subconscious level in gif 2 to a conscious level in gif 3. anatomically speaking you could even say that in gif 1 and 2 he percieves the smell emotionally and in gif 3 it goes over into a cognitive perception of the smell. because he percieves the smell subconsciously in the beginning and the very first thing that happens when you perceive a smell is that it goes to the emotional center of the brain. then the smell goes on to the cerebral cortex and only then you get the cognitive perception of the smell. ohm's performance here really is FLAWLESS. in the words of my mother, a trained nurse: "he plays that EXTREMELY WELL because you can analyze it anatomically even, and use his performance to showcase how the sense of smell works")

and now we have arrived at the point where pat is sniffing pran. what i really like about this is how subtle ohm portrays this. he doesn't stick his nose into nanon's back and we don't even see him breathe in. and yet we still know that pat is smelling pran here, all bc of ohm's body language where he moves his head down to the source of the smell and the thoughts that ohm is having in his head in that moment. you can just see that ohm is really and actively smelling something here. and by that i mean not only just the motion of him moving his head down, but rather that again he is actively perceiving a smell as his head is filled with thoughts (his thought process goes from something like "what was that smell" to "ok i'm smelling, i'm checking this out")

and now we're back to the point where we were earlier. once again our character is perceiving and processing something, our actor is acting it out for us and so what has to happen next? exactly, a reaction to the new information the character's brain has just processed:

[gif 4]

and again we can see that ohm's head was filled with actual thoughts in that moment (probably something along the lines of "wow he smells really good" or "oh what a nice smell". and it looks kind of unexpected to me, as if there's also some surprise coming with it along the lines of "oh i wasn't expecting to like his smell so much" or "i didn't think he would smell this nice")

i keep going on and on about thoughts, and it's because that was hammered into me by my fave monologue teacher. he kept going on about "getting your thoughts straight" and "having thoughts" ("die gedanken haben") and whenever we students had no idea what to do with our bodies he'd tell us that if we know exactly what we're thinking in that moment we shouldn't worry about our body because our body will follow our thoughts automatically. we can see that beautifully in gif 2 where an underlying thought (and i don't necessarily mean thought as in an actual thought or sentence inside the mind, but thought kind of in the sense of an emotion or feeling, if that makes sense), anyway in gif 2 there's an underlying thought along the lines of "this smell is good i want to get close to it i want to keep smelling it" and ohm's/pat's head is already moving slightly downwards towards the smell before ohm/pat has taken a conscious decision to take a purposeful sniff. the power of thought y'all. thought is a powerful tool when it comes to acting. and it's really obvious when an actor is in no-thoughts-head-empty mode. unfortunately i don't have an example of a thought-less actor on hand, or i would show you. ok, that's a lie, actually. i do have some examples, but they either don't work as a tumblr post (once again i wish i could do this one acting analysis project i did with my uni friend with online people as well) orrrr i don't want to share them publicly bc i don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings and i want to avoid angry anons in my ask box or getting into arguments with random internet users (i quite like my quiet, peaceful tumblr life where i'm a nobody, thanks)

okay, now back to bad buddy and ohm:

in the other post where i talk about acting i mention that while my monologue teacher would talk a lot about thoughts, my mother instead likes to talk about "creating images". my mom likes to think of it as a flipbook where you have individual pictures that make a moving image when going from one picture to the next at speed. personally i think you can also think of it as individual panels of a comic book that together tell a narrative arch. if we look at the first part from this perspective, as if if were a comic, we can see that ohm provides the audience with these clear images:

image 1: perceiving a smell, becoming aware of it, noticing it

image 2: reacting to that first whiff, something along the lines of "is this pran's smell? i gotta smell pran. for science. to see if that nice smell is him"

image 3: smelling on purpose, there is an aim to the action, it is motivated by thought and by what happened previously

image 4: another reaction to the perceived smell, this time it's a realization and/or a conclusion (the realization could be something like "oh i like the way pran smells" and the conclusion would be "yes what i sensed earlier was in fact pran's smell")

in full:

[gif 5]

it has only been three (3!!) seconds (yes i went and checked the duration of that clip on premiere pro) and ohm has already told us an entire story arc. god, i LOVE it when actors do actor things

alright, let's continue with part 2:

so now we get to the part where pran (nanon) comes in with an impatient "what now?" and pat (ohm) reacts

[gif 6]

since ohm is a good actor he once again presents us with that split second where we can see that he was actively listening to nanon's line, we get to see the moment where pat's brain is processing pran's comment and comes up with a reply. once again ohm is acting this all out for us. this is also what helps make it look like everything is spontaneous: as if the character didn't know pran was gonna say something and what he was gonna say, even though the actor, having memorized the script and likely having discussed it with his co-star and/or the director, definitely knew about it

now let's look at his directions again before we move on to the next gif: he's still in inwards-mode, but pran's line distracts him and snaps him away from the downward focus and now it's going to the side instead, towards nanon/pran

remember what happens after the processing? that's right, a (re)action. pat reacts to pran's comment with the action of saying "you smell good"

[gif 7]

what i find particularly interesting here are ohm's directions. before i sat down to gif these 10 seconds of scene i distinctively remembered ohm's spielrichtung (fuck it, i'm going with the german word bc "directions of playing" or "direction of acting" just doesn't sound right – quick german grammar lesson: spielrichtung = singular, just one single direction; spielrichtungen = plural, two or more directions) being very much towards the inside. and i had assumed that pran's comment would snap him out of it, that nanon's line would trigger a jump in his spielrichtung. but looking at it now? this... is not quite what i'm seeing. what i'm seeing instead is actually fascinating to me

you see, his actions and his line definitely have an outward focus, to the side where nanon is. however, it looks like that outward focus hasn't quite reached his eyes (it's in the way his eyes travel towards nanon, but they're not really focusing on anything in particular, he looks very distracted instead, as if his mind is somewhere else)

to reiterate: his words are traveling outwards while his eyes look like they're still in inwards-mode. outwards and inwards – two opposing sides. this creates conflict and it's exactly what makes me as a viewer sit up in curiosity and go "huh? what's this? what's going on here?" it fills me with a lot of questions about the character: why can't he snap out of it? did pran's smell really affect him this much? so much that his mind is still on it even when pran starts talking to him? why is it affecting him so much? what's going on inside him? aww does he have feelings? (yes. yes he does 🤭) it's these little subtle things that make me start caring about a character, that make me want to keep watching in order to find answers to my questions. (also! this would be an example of what i meant in the reblog from the other post when i talked about actor's showing conflicts that aren't in the plot/the script)

to be honest, i'd love to double check ohm's spielrichtungen during this line with my mom, but unfortunately it's gonna be another two weeks until i go home for semester break. because this is one of those moments where i realize that i still need to practice my acting analysis skills a lot, because to be quite honest i'm having a moment of is it just me or...? where i'm not entirely sure if i'm seeing this "right" (not that there's much of a right or wrong here...)

alright, moving on... once he finishes talking?

[gif 8]

right before ohm says his next line he falls back into inwards-mode again and once again we see that there are actual thoughts going through his head. what those thoughts are exactly i can't say, but to me it comes across as if pat is reflecting his statement of "you smell good", it looks like pat is lost in thought about pran smelling good (to be honest? at the end of the day it doesn't actually matter what ohm's exact thought process was, the important thing is that he had one at all, because now i as a viewer get to have fun with interpreting it)

and now we're finally coming to the end of the sequence i've decided to analyze. after a short moment of reflection pat adds "you smell so damn good" and goes to sniff pran one last time

[gif 9]

and what's ohm's acting choice here? this time he goes for an exaggerated sniff, he points his entire nose at pran and breathes in loudly (which we can't hear in a gif, of course, but we can definitely very clearly hear that sniff in the episode itself). and delights me very much because this sniff right here? in comparison to the ones in the beginning? is very much for show

the first two times pat/ohm smelled pran was very "quiet", rather small and subtle, and very much for himself. it was a private moment. this sniff now? it's loud, it's exaggerated, it's big with ohm bending his entire face down in order to almost shove his nose right into nanon's back. and of course he sniffs extra loudly, to make sure pran can hear it (and yes, i'm specifically referring to the character now, bc ofc nanon should hear the sniff, but more importantly pran should hear it bc pat is about to be a little shit to annoy him)

the reason why this big sniff delights me so much (especially with regard to how the scene continues after the excerpt that i have chosen for this analysis) goes away from the technical aspect of it and is much more about my own interpretation, but i'll tell you anyway: again, in the beginning it was a private moment, pat was smelling pran just for himself. but this causes him to fail to react to what pran just said about chai being gone now and that pat can get up. having that little story arc where pat notices pran's smell and goes to check it out causes pat to linger and that makes pran suspicious. pran more or less catches pat in his own private moment, and so pat turns sniffing pran into a full on show. "you smell good" he says, "do my laundry", he says. pat was nearly caught having feelings for pran (bc we all know this is why he's so affected by the smell) (fun fact: in german we have this idiom that goes "jemanden nicht riechen können" which translates to "not being able to smell someone". it means that you don't like someone and that's why you can't or rather don't want to smell this person. this idiom actually showcases how important the sense of smell is interpersonal relationships) pat was nearly caught and now he deflects. he gets annoying on purpose (by shoving his nose into pran's back and loudly insisting that he likes the smell) to keep pran from asking more questions, he jokingly demands that pran does his laundry bc obviously pat likes the smell of the detergent, it's definitely not the smell of pran that he likes, okay? yes, exactly, pat likes the detergent, not pran, and him sniffing pran definitely had a heterosexual reason and there were definitely no romantic feelings involved. that's the story pat is putting out into the world, that's the show he's pulling off here. ohm goes from quiet and inwards to loud and outwards (spielrichtungen!) and it just delights me because there is so much i can get out of it when it comes to my interpretation

alright, so i've now reached the end of my chosen excerpt and now that we've gone through the entire thing i just want to talk about one last thing: changes.

in the reblog of the other post i mention that when i analyze acting i look out for whether anything changes. (i didn't explicitly say it in that reblog, but it gets boring when an actor keeps doing the same thing over and over again). in the reblog specifically i take emotions as an example, but also make a note that changes can apply to things other than emotions as well. in this scene of bad buddy ohm provides us with a beautiful example of what changes look like when it comes to a specific action

in this 10 second excerpt that i have chosen, pat smells pran 3x in total:

do you see how each time the action of pat smelling pran is different? each time when pat smells pran it's motivated by a different thought, each time there's a different reason behind it:

the first time is all about pat noticing the smell in the first place, becoming aware of it at all. at this point it's rather accidental: pat never made a decision of "i'm going to smell pran now". no, it just happens. he percieves the smell on an emotional level. sniff one is all about the thought of "oh, i'm sensing a smell".

the second time is where the active decision to smell pran comes in. now he starts perceiving the smell on a cognitive level: this time pat is smelling pran on purpose, it's no longer accidental. pat has a reason to smell pran, he has a goal and it's to investigate that smell that he has just sensed. and as i've already said, he is in his own head and it's a private moment. his thoughts are kinda unfocused and he almost gets a little lost in these thoughts, in the smell. and it's a quiet, subtle action, he only slightly moves his head down to be a little closer to the source and get a better whiff, but that's it, no big loud breathing in, no exaggerated head bending. that sniff right here is for pat. that sniff is between pat and that smell, no one and nothing else. what ohm is doing here is creating a relation between pat and pran's smell

the third time the sniff also comes from an active decision. and again, it has a purpose behind it. this is also what happens in sniff no. 2, so in theory the same thing is happening twice, right? except no, bc the way ohm sniffs nanon for the 3rd time is completely different. while sniff no 2. was quiet and small, now sniff no. 3 is loud and big. it's exaggerated and it's for show. this sniff is no longer only between pat and pran's smell, no, now pran himself is involved too (whether pran likes it or not)

i've said it before and i'll say it again: i LOVE it when actors do actor things

alright, i really am done now. to be honest, i wish i had the time to go to my hometown and go through this whole analysis with my mom first before i post it. despite 3 full years of drama school and 2.5 years of intensely analyzing asian drama with my mom i still don't feel confident in the knowledge i've gained so far and i feel like i need someone with more experience to check my thoughts before i can go publish them for the whole internet to see. but i guess it's time for me to become a big girl that doesn't need to rely on her mommy's opinions. i guess it's because i feel like there is still so much more that i need to learn and there is so much more that i don't notice yet and so i'm afraid that what if what i'm saying is wrong? what if i'm talking bullshit here? but i guess it's time i trust the skills that i have gained so far. besides, when it comes to this there often isn't necessarily a right or wrong but rather a what do you see and how does that make you feel? so i'll go and post this anyway without having anyone look over it, because this is what i see right now at this point in time as i'm writing this. and if at some point in the future i realize i disagree i can always write an update (or another post)

all in all i had fun with this not so little analysis. and i hope you too had fun reading it <3

(edit: as you could already see from the previous edits, well, i actually did have my mom read this whole post at some point after all. she was very impressed and said my analysis is extremely well written. she had almost nothing to add. it's truly about time i start trusting my own skills fklslkkdlsf)

[larryrickard]

i had a dream that i made little cards that say "THEY!" on them that i handed out to people at work who got my pronouns wrong, immediately after they got it wrong. and in smaller text (or on the back) it said "i don't want an apology, i want you to do better" or "don't say you're sorry, DO BETTER" and ..... i kind of want to do it. maybe i'll get some moo cards made lmao

various scenarios included:

me slamming it down on a desk in front of them.

instead i had stickers, would slowly peel one off while they watched, and stick it on it on them.

handing out a quarter sheet piece of paper based on the 'i caught being good' tags we'd get in kindergarten which said 'i got caught misgendering hallie/my coworker'. it would have their name and date on it and a giant 🙁 face. i had them as a pad of paper and would hold up a finger to say 'wait a second', dramatically pull it out of my back pocket, take my pen out of another pocket, slowly fill it out in front of them, and hand it to them while staring them in the eyes.

getting a whiteboard for the outer side of my cubicle wall that said '[days] since i was misgendred' (with a bonus by saying 'last offender: [name]'

i also dreamt that i got into trouble for it because i was making people feel bad and was 'creating a hostile work environment'. i was just like.... okay and how do you think i feel? and my boss shut up real fuckin quick. dunno if that would be the case irl but if that does happen i can only dream.

[https-chaos]

Can someone who is familiar with English grammar and they/them pronouns explain how to use them? You'd say "she does" and "he does" but "they do", if you were using the plural pronoun.

But when someone's own pronouns are they/them you're NOT using the plural (right?). If I were to correctly use the they/them pronoun would I say something like "this is Alex, they does ceramic art"? Or would you keep the verb conjugation plural for the sake of clarity, "this is Alex, they do ceramic art"?

Please don't think this is a sarcastic joke or I'm poking fun at nb people! I'm genuinely curious. I want to do it correctly even if I need to learn to use new grammar. I'm a HUGE grammar stickler generally but the plural pronoun argument is embarrassing to English nerds everywhere. I don't want to add to the problem, you know?

[icelogged]

Separate anon here... we love and care for you too, we had things happen to us too and can only pray karmic justice be done upon them. <3 u

hello angels !!!

i read this on the day i saw [redacted] so thank you so so so so so much.

it’s is incredibly special to hear from folks who understand in such a way. thank you all for your love, care and time.

i’m sorry that knowledge of what could be described as, “hell on earth” is something that we have in common. my hope is all of you are taken care of in respects to your health regarding such evil.

you are all survivors! adapting to allow continued existence despite what has happened is incredible and shows the strength you all share.

🕯️for the safety each and every one of you and unending justice for us all.

again thank you guys for reaching out. it’s always amazing to hear from others, to have confirmation that we can live despite it all.

it also helps me gain the confidence to be more candid about my own existence. mwah mwahhhhh <333

[noraqrosa]

TL;DR: in this post, i wax on about the abandoned concept album/multimedia project Lifehouse by Pete Townshend/The Who in the context of algorithms and artworks

people on Twitter aren't understanding that this is an ad for a scifi novel. it sounds interesting, to a degree.

the first sentence reminds me of [The Who's] Pete Townshend's Lifehouse, still one of the most fascinating musical experiments i've ever read about.

i wish i knew about all that back when the Lifehouse Method website was a thing. for those unaware, it was a site created by Pete in conjunction with composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon in which someone could input their personal data and generate "authentic musical 'portraits,'" pieces of music customized via algorithms that work based on whatever data you input. if you know anything about The Who, you'll probably recognize this as a facet of what would eventually become the album Who's Next, Lifehouse, a huge multimedia project involving a rock opera album, live performances with audience participation and complex tech on stage, a movie, who knows what else.

https://archive.is/8tYoM

i've always wished i could do one of these "musical portraits." i remember when I first heard about algorithmic (i refuse to call it AI because it isn't true AI) music generators, this was the first thing i thought of. back when they were in a rudimentary state, i played around with one for my own amusement (not for my own music, all that comes from my own head unfortunately for you), and while it was fascinating, it didn't go far enough in the direction i hoped. thinking of OpenAI's MuseNet, it takes a few notes worth of MIDI data & a style suggestion and then kinda randomly guesses what would be a good fit after those notes.

<image sourced from https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20190426-muse-net>

and y'know, it makes for some fun meme videos:

<shoutout to the papaya>

but you can also see it only goes so far, and still requires musical input. it isn't quite on the level of being usable for much. and it really isn't quite the same. it's using inputted data, but not, say, biometric or biographical data. it's musical parameters that are being input as the data.

i really want to one day see a true realization of Lifehouse. one of my wildest goals is to be the one to do that. admittedly, i feel like in the current artistic climate the art world might no longer be ready for it; people would see it, instantly think "AI ART EW," and back away. but in this case, i don't feel like that's a fair assessment of what the concept is. the idea was to find each person's unique signature melody via these musical portraits. it isn't meant for anything really beyond personal identification, when it comes down to it. it fascinates me from a musical standpoint, and as a person who holds a psychology degree. imagine what someone can learn about oneself via this process! would your musical portrait be different at different points in your life? what could you tell about your personality from a single melody, or about your life history, or your beliefs and values? how would all of that reflect in your music? what genre is your soul? could a musical portrait truly capture any of that? with sufficiently advanced tech, sure, but idk if we're there yet.

heck imagine the therapeutic implications! imagine this tech being used in an art/music therapy setting, in which you work with a therapist to input your data, get a melody, and then use that melody with whatever form of musical expression you prefer (e.g. if you prefer to play the piano, guitar, a DAW, etc). what would you and your therapist be able to learn about you?

i truly do believe that, when it comes down to it, everyone has their own musical identification, "a song in their heart" if you will. i wish to expose people's hearts to get that music out, so that people may hopefully understand themselves better.

we might actually be at the level of tech necessary to truly realize a project like Lifehouse, but the tech isn't being used in this way. our current tech relies on predictive algorithms that kinda mostly draw on established musical forms, tradition, and there are only so many notes in the musical alphabet and only so many combinations and permutations thereof. a true realization of this tech would work, say, maybe in a similar way to how Pokémon speedrunners essentially break the game and essentially reprogram it to do what they want via a series of unexpected inputs. arbitrary code execution is what that's called, and i bet a similar function might help greatly in creating a uniquely generated musical portrait. because, when it comes down to it, are we not all Glitch Pokémon who cannot be contained by the boundaries of our programming?

anyway that was a long ramble. feel free to gimme feedback like you're a guitar held up to an amp or feedback like an echo chamber, whichever you prefer. this post idk if it'll make both pro & anti AI people mad or not, but that's what happens when your position on a thing is more complicated than a simple binary.

currently homeless still, so please help me if you can:

My partner's donate links are here: https://linktr.ee/IzukuLeeYoung. that's the best place you can send us money to keep us in our current hotel room and off the street.

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