#no music for this one. no clips. no videos. no more hours required on the stage.

[radioattic]

for a couple years there, Sinead would hang out in the square with all the other regulars whenever she was in Atlanta. She had a thing for big doofus guys, so, lots of people on that scene were faced with the realization "I don't have a chance here" despite being so charismatic cool and hot. HA HA.

Her entrance into our community was standard: she put 10$ in the kitty for a beer party, then showed up and demanded her cut. <456

though it took me a long time to really act on the lesson, she showed me a lonnnnng time ago why never to get involved with The Arts outside of the immediate world, the immediate community - not to sell my artistry but rather individual works & engagements. Despite / while scrabbling after moneys in various ways in The Arts, her lesson stayed in my mind, taking years to become comprehensible.

…her manifest unhappiness was palpable, no matter what she did or how gentle she could make her presence, no matter how much she distanced her offstage life from her onstage one

that deal with SNL actually messed her heart up 💔

one of the more tragic figures from the old days, in my perception

I'm heading in the same direction, no question about it.

Sorry about the world, ms O'Connor, acquaintance of yesteryear. You'll be missed, by people you made connections to. We were all bettered by your short stint in our world. I hope we were able to give you some measure back - to make you happy for a little while.

[daceydeath]

Learning from Mistakes

Pairing: Jeongin x reader, Hyunjin x reader Word Count: 3.3k Genre: Angst, Fluff Warnings: Swearing, heartbreak, cheating, slightly suggestive

Keeping your relationship secret was a bit of an issue was he ashamed of you? Was he embarrassed? Or was it better than you didn't know the real reason.

"Baby, I have to go" Jeongin whispered softly into your hair as he kissed you goodbye on your cheek.

"Do you have to go? it's 2 in the morning" you groaned opening your eyes slightly to take in his freshly shower appearance, his hair still slightly damp and scented by your shampoo.

"Yeah I have to get back before the guys figure out I'm missing" he sighed apologetically before kissing you sweetly.

"Will you ever actually stay? or are you embarrassed because I'm just part of the staff?" you whispered against his lips accidently letting your internal monologue become words.

"I will stay but I can't tell them yet, you know how protective they can be, it's easier this way for now" he let hand cup your face while he rested his forehead against yours.

"Hmm, I guess I will see you later then" you pecked his lips softly letting him leave into the darkness of your hallway listening for the front door to open and then close again the electronic lock humming as it relocked. It always stung you to watch him leave in the middle of the night as though he had been recording, working out, practicing or just eating alone.

You had gotten a call in the early hours of the morning that you were needed for the Stray Kids music video shoot as one of the other make up artists had called in sick. Your boss at JYP had rearranged your schedules to make it all work but it was going to mean a long day for you even if that long day was at least in the vicinity of Jeongin. You arrived early for the first call on the set, prepping your make up kit and going over the looks one last time to ensure you made no mistakes. The members would be arriving in an hour or so for today's shoot and you knew it was going to be hard work to not spend your day stealing glances at him and pretending you didn't know each other more than work acquaintances. You were working on Felix, Hyunjin, Seungmin and Chan for this shoot and you knew that no matter what happened you were never going to be working on Jeongin, he always made sure that he was able to keep you as separate as possible even when he didn't know you were going to be working together.

Loud laughter and noise always preceded Stray Kids and you were well and truly used to it but now, it never bothered you, but today the laughter was slightly different to the normal chaos. You watched on smiling as they piled into the dressing room, all iced Americano's, snacks and headphones as each one went to the area they were required in first Felix to hair, Chan to wardrobe and Hyunjin straight to your make up chair.

"What are you doing here? We have missed you! How have you been?" he smiled sweetly as you clipped his hair back from his face smiling.

"I am alright, busy. I mean not as busy as you guys are but I am just covering today" you smiled in return always happy to chat with any of them about anything.

"You sure your ok? you seem I don't know sad?" he hummed watching you in the mirror closely his eyes soft.

"I'm alright really Hyunjin, I just didn't sleep well I woke up far too early and couldn't get back to sleep" you shrugged not really lying to him just only telling him half of the story.

"I hate when that happens, it's like you can't turn your brain off" he hummed closing his eyes as you started blending the base and applying concealer. You took your chance to glance around and figure out where the other members were, Han was on his phone in the make up chair behind you and you guessed from the loud noises coming from the next room Changbin was in wardrobe too but there were no signs of Jeongin anywhere.

"Are you looking forward to the shoot? I heard there was some super fun looking things on set but I haven't been able to check it out" you returned your attention to Hyunjin hoping that you could distract yourself.

"We're all so excited comebacks are always so much fun, teasing stay and watching them try to figure out what is a spoiler" Hyunjin grinned his eyes lighting up "plus some of my art is being used today".

"That's incredible Hyunjin" you met his eyes in the mirror "You always show such beautiful art to stays".

"Oh you have seen what I post then?" his eyes softened as you nodded silently.

"I've noticed that there has been teasing going on, there are dozens of articles popping up to analyze everything you guys do. It is hilarious sometimes" you giggled.

"Oh yeah what have you seen?" He quizzed as you turned him towards you to make sure his eye make up was even.

"There are articles about what you guys have changed your backgrounds to on bubble, something Chan said about stargazing, rumors about whether you spoiled things in lives. Stay are so intense about it" you continued as his smile widened as you spoke.

"What do you think?" he asked teasingly letting you apply the lip gloss he would be wearing.

"I think you guys are too chaotic for me to ever know what is happening" you teased right back "you're all done now Hyunjin so I guess I have Felix next" you grinned spinning his chair for him to stand.

You finished all the boys up before you grabbed your touch up kit to take to set for any fixes and alike while they filmed, walking down the hall to the set you could still hear loud laughing but as you stepped out onto the quiet set you found yourself looking at what seemed like an art gallery, it was an attractive aesthetic that you though was going to be an interesting visual to watch once it was filmed. Putting your things down in your little area so that you were fully prepped you heard giggling followed by Jeongin's voice hushing someone, with your curiosity piqued you wandered through the set to find him only to catch a glimpse of him sitting on a deep blue couch with a pretty brunette in his lap. Freezing you watched her run her hands through the same blonde hair you had the night before while he leaned in and kissed her while whispering something that made her giggle again.

"Inn-ah your up for makeup" Changbin's voice echoed around the empty space as you slipped back behind the set to go back to your station and wait your heart shattering in your chest. There was no way that you could be in the same room as him especially with some other girl hanging off of him. You sat alone on the edge of the set hoping your hardest that no one would come looking for you for the next twenty minutes just fixing your make up and putting in some eye drops to cover your breakdown. Gathering your anger and sorrow you walked back to the make up room to finish anything you needed to do before they started.

"There you are sorry I didn't get the chance to tell you how glad we were to see you this morning" Chan smiled as you reappeared in the room you had been working out of.

"Sorry I was just prepping the set touch up station for once filming started" you explained going back to where he was sitting in your make up chair. You had finished the four members you were responsible for so Chan staying in your make up chair was a little strange when he could be eating or resting before the shoot.

"I wanted to ask you a few things if you don't mind" Chan asked quietly trying to keep from being overheard even though you were alone at that moment.

"Of course Chan" you smiled although you knew you must have looked nervous.

"It's nothing bad I just wanted to ask you not to mention the girl that Jeongin brought with him today, I'm sure you will see her around but were all trying to keep as much privacy as we can he hasn't had a proper girlfriend in a while" he continued trying to ease your nerves and instead unwittingly breaking your heart further. He had told them all about her but had hidden you for the last six month making it dawn on you that he either was ashamed of being involved with you or that even worse you were the other woman.

"Oh I'm never going to mention anything that happens on set to anyone I don't want to be responsible for spoilers or scandals" you swallowed hard hoping you could keep your emotions in check.

"I also wanted to ask if you were seeing anyone, not that I am asking for myself, but one of the kids...." he trailed off looking concerned as your eyes widened and your face fell slightly the mask you were trying to hide behind slipping for a moment.

"I'm not Chan, I only just broke up with someone so I'm still feeling pretty heartbroken" you mumbled feeling more unshed tears burning the corners of your eyes.

"Shit that's horrible, I'm so sorry" Chan apologized instantly reaching out and grabbing your hand to squeeze as Hyunjin and Felix came into the room.

"It's alright Chan, he cheated so it's still painful" you tried to reassure him as his eyes looked increasingly worried and angry.

"What's wrong?" Felix quickly shut the door behind him to give you some privacy.

"She has just broke up with her boyfriend and he treated her terribly" Chan filled them in quickly as you dabbed the corner of your eyes to keep your make up in place and avoid totally breaking down a second time.

"No don't cry over an arsehole, you're worth too much for that" Hyunjin whispered taking your other hand and squeezing it.

"Thank you, I try to keep my personal problems away from work, there is enough going on with you guys that you don't need me sobbing in the background" you tried to smile again but it failed.

Chan, Felix and Hyunjin had taken extra care of you that day and as each other member had found out it was becoming painfully obvious to you that Jeongin realized that he had fucked things up even though you would never have told anyone it was him that it was the mystery ex. You could see the way his behavior had shifted at the information he had been given by Felix and then his 'girlfriend' had suddenly been whisked away by staff. When you had finished for the day and sadly slunk your way home you had simply stripped your bedding and slept on your couch unwilling to risk smelling his scent again until you could wash your sheets and clean any trace of him away from your apartment.

So many months had passed and you had worked a lot more with other artist in the company spending time getting past your heartbreak and to a point where you were almost happy again, and although eventually you had gotten to a point where you would be able speak to Jeongin civilly while the others were around you were never going to fully forgive what he had put you through. You also had not had any follow up conversations with Chan about who he had been talking about so you assumed it had simply been one of the members harboring a simple crush that had faded while they toured.

It had been so long before you worked with the Kids again and you had been requested to do the make up of all of them for a dance rehearsal video they were filming to surprise Stay. Which you were nervous about but knew that you would be able to do, you had spent a lot of time healing yourself.

You arrived at the studio they were filming in with your kit and set yourself up in a corner not needed by the cameras and got yourself set up, since it was just a rehearsal video it just needed to be natural and make them look less washed out on camera. They all wandered in at different times the noise level going up with the addition of each member but they had seemingly organized who would be getting their makeup in what order so Chan instantly sat himself on the stool for you to start after he walked in.

"Hey Chan" you smiled softly "Tour been going well?"

"It's been amazing it's a shame we couldn't bring you along no one looks after us quite like you" he smiled back as you started on his base.

"There is always next time" you laughed rolling your eyes as you heard Han and Lee Know start shouting about something.

"I don't know if you remember I mentioned that one of the kids wanted to know if you were single it was a while ago" he trailed off keeping his voice low.

"Yeah I remember I assumed the interest had faded if I'm honest" you hummed as you began his eyeshadow.

"It hasn't I can assure you" he chuckled "but are you available or have you moved on from that last wanker with someone new?"

"I am still very single Chan" you admitted softly your face heating up despite your best efforts to keep yourself calm. Chan just grinned while you finished up getting off the stool and letting the next member, Seungmin, take his place.

"I'm sorry" Jeongin muttered quietly taking his spot on your stool halfway through the eight of them, you didn't answer immediately just quickly adding concealer to his already, annoyingly, bright skin.

"I am too, but for different reasons" You mumbled back not looking at his eyes as you quickly smoked out his eyeliner.

"I was so stupid" he sighed as you made the mistake of meeting his eyes and seeing how resigned they looked.

"Yeah you were" you swallowed moving away from him "all done".

"I hope the next guy makes you happy" he whispered leaving you feeling dumbfounded but you pulled it together and got through the others make up fairly quickly and were only partially deafened by Lee Know and Changbin's shouting as Han hit high notes while he sang. Making you rub your ear subtly as they continued playing around until everyone was ready to go.

Sitting silently you watched them smash out the recording in one take working together like a well oiled machine as they ran through it like it was as easy, you couldn't help that your eyes flicked to Jeongin for a second or so before falling back onto the others, noticing how each of them looked like they were moving with so much more confidence and power. After they watched the playback they decided to do one more take so you got yourself more comfortable and watched as they cooled themselves down a little before going straight back in. You were surprised how the second run seemed even more intense they were all looking so in sync and fierce and they moved and this time you couldn't help be drawn to watching the danceracha boys who were almost hypnotic as they danced.

"Ok that is a wrap" the director called after the second take and you shook your head to break the spell they had you under and began to get your things together.

"Can you hang around for a little bit we need to make some changes to the next schedule we have you booked for" one of the other staff asked as you finished your clean up.

"Of course" you nodded pulling out your phone to look up your schedules with the JYP artists that you already had. As the members slowly left waving or shouting goodbye it was just Chan, Felix and Hyunjin left and their manager who smiled at you producing a envelope with your name on it.

"This is a contract that we would like you to look over that would have you moved from floating between the groups to a permanent member of the Stray Kids team" he explained as you took the envelope from him and opened it "You don't need to sign it now but we have decided to juggle our team a little and we think it's time we had three full time make up artists instead of two and several assistants".

"Thank you, I will look over this and get back to you but I am very grateful for the offer" you grinned brightly as he finished collecting his stuff and left leaving you with just the three of them.

"Was this your doing Chan?" you turned to him the envelope still tightly gripped in you hands.

"Not all my doing but still if you agree I'll take credit" he teased as he turned to Felix steering him towards the door.

"Can I help you with you stuff you always seem to have your arms full?" Hyunjin asked almost shyly.

"Thank you Hyunjin" you smiled warmly at him as he helped you get your other things together.

"I was meaning to ask you something..." he trailed off shyly.

"Of course what is it?" you turned back to him meeting his eyes as his cheeks flushed pink.

"Did you want to go on a date...with me?" he mumbled stuttering over the last words

"You want to date me? Are you sure? I'm just a make up artist no one special" You rambled wide eyes looking at him like he had mistaken you for someone else, as he smiled affectionately at you.

"Yes and that is exactly why. You are so special but you just don't know that you are" his voice was soft as he stepped towards you taking your hand in his and stroking your knuckles gently.

"I'm just me, I'm just going to embarrass you" you looked as his fingers wrapped around your own your heart beating hard in your chest.

"Is that what he told you? because I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I will prove that to you every single day" he whispered as you looked up at him with watery eyes "Will you give me that chance?" his eyes were so hopeful as you looked into them chewing on your own lip.

"Alright Hyunjin" you nodded slowly as he broke out into a breathtaking grin carefully pulling you closer to him and placing his lips on your forehead.

"Jeongin should have treated you so much better than he did" he admitted softly pulling himself back to look at you "I promise you aren't making a mistake choosing me".

"You know about Jeongin?" you swallowed hard.

"Yes, he told me while we were on tour after the others found out I was interested in you" he smiled reassuringly "We talked and we realized that we both fell for you at the same time only he got you first. He knows he's an idiot for letting you go but he also knows that if we are together he has to just live with it".

"Are you sure you want that, the possibility of fracturing your group over a girl?" you asked cautiously.

"For you yes" Hyunjin whispered back stepping closer to you his eyes flicking from your own to your lips and back again.

"Would you just kiss her already!" You heard Changbin yell from the other side of the door as six faces peered through the glass panel of the dance room door making you tuck your face into Hyunjin's chest embarrassed but happy as the arguing out side the room got louder.

a/n: Thank you for reading this little drabble all your lies, reblogs and comments keep me going so thank you endlessly for those xx

Taglist (open): @christopher-bangnaldoskzz, @armystay89, @damnyouficc, @roamingpolar, @tara-skyhold, @bakedlilgoonie, @krishastumblernow, @mrsseals16, @fawnpeaks, @leeknowinggg, @uno7, @tanzen-ist-gold, @junebug032

[crack-in-the-chassis]

FAQ

What is Crack?

In short, it's a fanwork--traditionally fic, but we're inclusive--which is absurd, ridiculous, ludicrous, and other -ouses. Imagine the kind of thing you come up with at 3AM during a fit of the giggles. It's exuberant, it's shameless, it's unfettered creativity.

For a lengthier discussion of "crack" with a historical lens, see also: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Crack

Is the event Cas-centric?

No. The line "crack in his chassis" refers to Cas in canon, and we do anticipate plenty of entries to feature Thee Treasured Blorbo, but you can produce fanworks about any characters, items, episodes, monsters, etc. from canon you like.

Is this a bang, or a reverse bang?

It's both! It's neither! Participants will be divided into Pitchers (who create their fanwork first) and Catchers (who select a pitch during Claims and create a fanwork in response to it.) This event is not limited to the traditional fanart and fanfic.

What is the minimum required work?

Minimum word count for fic, meta, and other text-based fanworks: 1,500

Minimum length for audio or video based fanworks: 30 seconds

Minimum size for visual fanworks such as art, comics, sculpture, etc: one image suitable for web browsing, so about 750px width or height. This is very hand-wavy. Gifs can be smaller in dimension because they're technically multiple images stacked in a trenchcoat.

Is there a maximum word length or art size?

No! The minimums are calculated to be feasible for the average creator within the time allotted for the endowed, but if you are endowed with the hubris of gods, then go ahead and write that 150k epic or stage a three hour opera with full sets, score, and costumes. Just make sure it’s done by your posting date, mmkay?

What types of "other" fanworks are allowed?

Fanworks must fit two criteria:

1. Your fanwork must be able to be displayed via a public website. Fanfic and digital fanart are de riguer. Traditional 2D artwork can be photographed. Serial 2D art, such as sequential art aka comics, are displayed in much the same way. But we can do so much more than that.

3D or non-traditional art with a primary visual element--like cosplay, sculpture, cake decorating--can be displayed with photos from multiple angles and accompanied by an artist's statement advising of any elements that are lost (e.g., textures, flavors, scents, mild electrical shock.)

Performance art, music, a podcast or radio play, theatrical skits, etc. can be recorded by video or audio and supplemented with text and photos as needed. Video games which can be played in a browser window also work. (Shameless plug: Dean Dodge https://4mortea.itch.io/deandodge as an example.)

2. Your fanwork must be something that you are considered to be the sole owner of, and which is fair use. So, for example, if you're a filker and you claim a pitcher's fanfic, you can't just set the fic to music, as the ficcer is the owner of the text. But you can compose your own lyrics which comment upon or respond to the fic.

Note that co-creators are allowed--so an author who writes lyrics and a singer-composer who then sets the lyrics to music could present the resultant song as a single pitch or catch, with the "duo" being considered the sole owner.

Fanvids and gifsets that are just clips of canon footage without significant transformation (e.g., other than cutting and color correction) also don't qualify for this event. (We still love them, though.)

Types of transformation which would qualify vids and gifs of canon footage include, but are not limited to: juxtaposing different shots or scenes to create new meaning; adding commentary; altering the images (mod's personal favorite is adding cat ears to the characters). You can also include captions, subtitles, musical accompaniment, etc.

PLEASE NOTE: We know this is a huge tradition and genre, and this hurts us, it does, but using another artist's music on the video without written permission* is not permitted. Youtube will throw your ass under the bus and we will not be able to help you. Crack in the Chassis isn't tangling with Universal Music Group. Nuh uh. Don't go where we can't follow, Mr Frodo.

* if you manage to get permission somehow then holy snackballs please let us know.

For further information on fair use:

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/copyright-laws-30-seconds-music-61149.html

https://www.transformativeworks.org/faq/ (specifically the section "What exactly is Fair Use?"

How will Claims work, since you're being so complicated about it?

All of the pitches will be presented in a single gallery for all the potential catchers to review and select their preferences. (Pitches may be split into two categories depending on how many under-18 participants and NSFW pitches we get.)

In addition to stating what elements they would and would not like (e.g., yes to gothic horror, no to adultery and A/B/O), pitchers will also specify the kinds of catches they would and would not like. E.g., If you are a fanficer and the idea of a catch piece that is also fanfic unnerves you, you can restrict fic catches. If you are THRILLED with the idea of a companion fic, you can request *only *fic catches. If you grow weary of traditional fic and fanart, you can specify that the catch piece must be an "other" type of fanwork. Any and all choices. There will be ticky boxes.

Can I sign up as a Pitcher and a Catcher?

YES! For the sake of anonymity for Claims, however, you will be restricted from the Pitcher's channel in the Discord server until Claims are over.

How many Pitches and Catches can I submit?

Each person or team can only submit a maximum of three pitches. Each pitch must be fully completed before submitting additional pitches. E.g., You can submit one pitch that is 50% completed for claims. If you want to submit two pitches, your first pitch must be fully complete and the second one 50% complete. For three pitches, the first two must be fully complete and the third 50% complete.

For Claims, each catcher will recieve their most preferred pitch which is still available, on a first come, first serve basis. If there are pitches remaining after the first round, we will do additional rounds of claims as needed. Catchers can pick up only one pitch per round.

Can I discuss my fanwork before it’s submitted and posted?

No. You are not permitted to publically discuss your fanwork in detail or post any portion of it outside the designated channels in the Discord server prior to your assigned posting day.

Pitchers, we ask that you take precautions to prevent the catchers from being able to recognize your pitch piece at claims. This may mean not publicly discussing your piece at all, or keeping discussion to a private chat with your alpha/beta, or just being obnoxiously vague in shared spaces. We know there will be slip-ups. Catchers, please pretend you Do Not See It and uphold the spirit of the event: to be paired with someone based on their pitch, not their identity, and to make some new friends! This may mean deliberately not choosing a pitch because you know who the creator is.

Can I create a work that’s part of a series?

Yes, as long as the work meets the criteria of the event and the work (but not necessarily the series) is posted in its entirety on the assigned posting date. Pieces that can stand on their own are strongly preferred. Be aware that your catcher may not have the time or inclination to brush up on the parts of the series other than the event piece. Catchers, if you’re creating something that happens to fit into a series you’ve been working on, please make sure your pitcher is okay with that.

Can I use a work I’ve already started?

We do ask that you create a new work specific to this event. However, if you’ve already started on a work but haven’t posted it or discussed it publicly anywhere, the mods aren’t really going to know, are we?

Is this restricted to SPN?

Your work should engage primarily with SPN or The Winchesters, but crossovers are allowed. If you want to focus exclusively on quasi-canon materials, like Supernatural tie-in books, graphic novels, or the Ghostfacers webisodes, that's welcome, too.

What about RPF?

There's two prongs to this.

1. Canon includes fictionalized versions of several crew and cast in the s6 episode The French Mistake, and the character Chuck establishes the conceit of a writer as god of the 'verse who engages with the characters he's manipulating. So anything in that vein is allowed, and godspeed.

2. SPN RPF is a different fandom than SPN, so any SPN RPF fanworks would have to be crossovers--meaning the fanworks must *also *be SPN related. E.G., a Cockles coffeeshop AU wouldn't be eligible, but a Cockles AU where they're interacting with the Ghostfacers would. RPF other than SPN RPF is also allowed under the same mechanism--as a crossover.

Are there restrictions on content?

Other than it must be cracky and SPN related, nah.

There must be something you don't allow.

The limits will be 1. the laws of the area in which you reside (e.g. don't do crime. or at least don't get caught about it.) and 2. the ToS of any services you use to host your fanwork: e.g., Tumblr won't host sexually explicit images, YouTube will scan for copyrighted material, and AO3 does not allow commercial promotion.

No, I mean, do you allow content that is... problematic.

Yes.

Surely you jest.

No.

But what about the panopticon? What about being seen at the witch's sacrament?

Look, fandom isn't a workplace or a church picnic. It's a subculture for freaks.

When posting fanwork, your responsibility is to provide metadata--e.g., tag and warn for potentially upsetting content--so people can curate their own experiences.

When engaging with your pitcher or catcher, your responsibility is to honor the restrictions stated during claims, and use care when bringing up subjects which they may not have explicitly listed but that are commonly considered to be upsetting. In this house we respect hard and soft limits. Informed consent is king (gn.)

Other than that, go wild! It's a crack event. Self-censorship is gonna make the fanworks sad and boring and we don't want that.

[te-pu-si-ti]

Punchdrunk as hypertext

I am in the greenhouse room, and I clutch at my heart. What I see before me is a person in black latex receiving a drug on their tongue like holy communion. There are only two characters in the room: Kampe, and their dealer. But what I experience is much greater, because I can hear the music echoing: the music signalling that on the other side of the city, a city has fallen and a princess is dead, hanging up above, bare-chested and bloodied for all to see.

I remember her. It was her birthday, we danced with her, she stumbled into the arms of her lover.

I know this from an hour ago, before time reset.

I am in the flower shop, and I gasp. A tango is playing through the tinny speaker of the radio. The shopkeeper picks up a bouquet - her bouquet - and he twirls around, holding it in his arms, dancing a tango with a prop that is the start of Persephone's story, to the music that is the near-climax of her story.

I know this from months before, because I have been here before but it was different. It's different every time. There's so much to take in, and I have to choose who I see and what I focus on, and the context I bring with me is constantly developing.

That's a familiar criticism. Too many choices, no coherent story.

But Pope (2009) isn't a criticism of a Punchdrunk masked show - it's a criticism of a HTML novella, These Waves of Girls, hypertext, a story that you wade into by clicking through links. A story that leads you down many different paths, depending on how you choose to follow them.

Don't worry if you get lost - you're already lost. Embrace your curiosity. Turn your fear into desire. Fortune favours the bold.

The link is the most important new form of punctuation since the comma... Links make manifest the way texts relate to other texts, the way they structure themselves, and the way they restructure our thinking.

A reference to another scene, a repeated movement hearkens back to something you witnessed minutes ago, hours ago, weeks ago. A prop moves across buildings, touched by many hands along the way. Characters intersect, and you take a different path, thrown into another story before you reunite for a finale.

You ever gone down a Wikipedia rabbit hole? Clicking link after link, opening up a dozen new tabs, somehow finding your way from Scooby-Doo to Leukemia to learning the Yupik word for bread?

Her Story is an FMV video game where you uncover the story by searching a database of video clips for keywords. As you search for clues, things that don't make sense stick in your mind, because they might be important later. A new piece of information can cast something you've already seen in a completely new light.

You can stay with one thread, or you can let your curiosity guide you, bouncing around from one storyline to the next. It might not make sense at first, seeing everything out of order - but then as you make sense of it, you will form those connections, perhaps even more strongly than you would have done if you had watched a linear story that you didn't have to work for.

...the spaces of reading and writing shift in a hypertextual environment and the reader is required to adopt a mode of engagement in terms of an unstable textual terrain, which involves them in productive and creative processes as well as receptive ones...

"Because everything is constructed, everything becomes significant, in the artistic context everything ordinary becomes extraordinary." - Sam Booth

Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse is a collection of digital and physical ephemera - notes, photos, lyrics, scribbles, all telling the story of this man you knew as Uncle Buddy, who has now died. You leaf through them, choosing what to pay attention to, taking away what you deem significant, building an image based on what he left behind.

 It does have an option to spell out the answer to the riddle if you want to skip that, but the significance might be lost in the process. ...

Description of Tamara, an example of theatre dubbed 'hyperdrama', theatrical hypertext.

"Punchdrunk's Sleep No More is an astonishing production that does nearly everything I had imagined hyperdrama could achieve, and much that I had assumed it could not." ... "The experience works here, but it is going to be different for everyone. How many people get to see Mrs. DeWinter’s scene? Of those, how many are in the bar when the band strikes up Paper Moon ? How many get the Woyzeck allusion the next day, or ever? This is the nature of the medium."

Seriously, read this article by Mark Bernstein.

 It’s not a game. Nothing you (or they) can do can prevent the fall of Troy or its terrible aftermath. Yet your choices (and chance) matter, and your reading of Those Trojan Girls is likely to differ from any other reading.

(hypertext is also, sadly, ephemeral, linked to its time and place. The above linked work is less than a decade old but I doubt I'd find what I need to read it, the right software and the right hardware of the right version with all the right features. Digital rot everywhere. Who has a floppy drive anymore? Who has Flash anymore? Just like nobody will experience The Burnt City anymore. Just like, soon, nobody will experience the McKittrick Hotel anymore.)

My first show: I see a man swinging upside down, hanging from the ceiling. The image haunts me. I do not know him, nor do I know the two onlookers. But it stays with me.

Many months later, I see him again, and he is an old friend - his name is Laocoön, a seer, and he is burdened with a prophecy from Apollo. Cassandra looks on, distraught, while the vengeful god puppets him. He is showing her the fate of her sister.

I remember her. It was her birthday. We danced with her. I watched her die, over and over and over. I remember every moment, every branching path, every intersection, and she isn't here, but she's all around us.

"There is no longer one author but two, as reader joins the author in the making of the text" - Jay David Bolter, "Literature in the Electronic Writing Space" "Go back into the light. Remember what you've seen... We love you so deeply. It's nothing without you." - Lily Jo Ockwell as Persephone, September 24, 2023

Lily photo by @rhianbwatts

[discar]

HZD Terraforming Base-001 Text Communications Network

Chapter 3 | Prev chapter | Next chapter Chapter Index

Zo: GAIA, I had a question about the data we've been studying.

ADMIN [GAIA]: Of course. How may I help?

Zo: Where did it all come from? You told me that you don't have access to APOLLO or any other Old World archives. This seems like far more data than what Aloy could have found on a few scattered devices.

Zo: I scanned some devices around the base and only found a few lines in each.

ADMIN [GAIA]: Before the Faro Plague, even the most commonly available devices could store libraries worth of text and hundreds of hours of high-resolution video. While most people rarely filled their devices to capacity, they would often be filled with many incidental articles and video clips related to their favorite topics. Time and inevitable data corruption rendered many of those files difficult or impossible to read; however, the last file the device accessed has minimal corruption and is most intact. With time, your Focus can restore many corrupted files, and I can accelerate this process. The restored files are then placed in an archive.

Erend: I WAS WONDERING HOW ALOY FOUND SO MUCH OF THIS CONCRETE BEACH PARTY STUFF.

ADMIN [GAIA]: Yes, she found several devices with many hours of their music. The redundancy is also why I was able to ensure the final archive versions were of such high quality.

Erend: NO COMPLAINTS HERE!

Varl: Many complaints here.

Zo: I suppose that explains why so much of the data is entertainment and history, rather than more directly useful information, such as farming.

Erend: I FOUND STUFF ON HOW THOSE FARO MACHINES WERE BUILT. I MEAN, I KNOW IT'S IMPORTANT, THESE WERE THE THINGS THAT WERE ENDING THE WORLD, BUT THERE'S A LOT OF TECHNICAL SPECS IN THERE. HARDER TO READ THAN THE CRAZIEST TINKER'S BLUEPRINT. AND I'VE SEEN SOME CRAZY TINKERS.

Erend: WHAT, DID ALOY JUST FIND SOME TINKER'S JOURNAL SOMEWHERE AND DOWNLOAD ALL HIS DATA?

ADMIN [GAIA]: That is not impossible. However, I do not believe I have properly impressed upon you how easy it was to access information. Once the threat of the Faro Plague became clear, all information on their design, weaknesses, and specifications was available for public perusal, and anyone could choose to download such information from the global data net at a moment's thought. Many of the devices Aloy scanned had gigabytes of data on the Faro Plague.

Erend: GIGA WHAT?

Zo: It's a measure of information. It should have been in one of the first files GAIA gave you, the terminology file.

Erend: UH, I SKIMMED THAT.

Zo: Sigh.

Varl: Did you just typed sigh?

Zo: It's difficult to convey tone and expression in a text.

Varl: I think the Old Ones must have had some way, considering how much they texted. I'll loom into it.

Erend: SO WHAT'S A GIGABYTE? LIKE, HOW MUCH DATA IS IT?

Aloy: A byte is eight bits, or the amount of data required to encode a single character of text. It's basically the smallest measurable amount of data.

Varl: Aloy? You were listening? Or reading?

Aloy: I have a minute. I can text while I ride.

Zo: That doesn't seem safe.

Erend: OKAY, OKAY, BYTE IS ONE LETTER, GOT IT. SO WHAT'S A GIGABYTE?

Aloy: Ten to the ninth power bytes.

Varl: What?

Zo: I don't understand either.

Erend: OH, MATH. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT WOULD BE MATH.

Erend: SO IT'S A STUPIDLY BIG NUMBER. BUT, I MEAN... HOW MANY BOOKS IS THAT?

Aloy: One gigabyte of pure text is probably more books than you could read in a lifetime.

Erend: SO, WHAT, THREE?

Aloy: I'm glad I took time out of my busy day to explain this to you.

Erend: I AIM TO PLEASE!

Chapter 3 | Prev chapter | Next chapter Chapter Index

[theyhitthepentagon]

Dogen I wanna get into rtv But idk where to start Do you hve any tips on where to start to get into them

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM yes i think i do Maybe

i first got familiarized with the members by watching the among us streams since you can put names to voices and stuff. i also read the tv tropes page (which i kinda dont recommend you look at BCUZ im pretty sure some information is inaccurate. like theres a thing about how miras vtuber avatar mimi is based on miku. which isnt true. trivia page should be accurate though). i think the rollercoaster tycoon 2 streams are also good to watch but maybe after the among us streams

clip compilations are always fun but they do tend to only pull from the same streams. they also tend to pull clips from the more popular members like wayne and scorpy and Sometimes holly. baaulp, gir, and mira stream often and theyre both really funny but people dont rly include them in clip comps so Like if you think theyre funny tune into them live. branch out

theres also stream highlights which are good for if you dont like sitting down for a long time to watch one thing. shoutout to Foster who releases highlights every friday BTW. he just released a highlight vid cutting down the 80 hour sonic subathon streams down to 10 hours (CRAZY)

ALSO ALSO they have a podcast (Where Do We Begin) which i like to listen to when i go for walks and stuff. they talk about whatever and its fuuuunny.... theyre on spotify and probably other podcast websites

OH ALSO ALSO. scorpy does vhs viewingz stream on the last thursday of every month iirc, those will always have a bunch of rtvs members in there ^__^ theyre also fun to watch when ur like eating or something. not really good for listening to in the bg because theyre video based

scorpy also does media share streams sometimes, people just send in music. these usually arent uploaded or available on youtube for copyright reasons but if you catch one live theyre nice. i think the first rtvs stream EVER that i caught live was a scorpy media share stream. ive found nice music in there

other than that im not sure so all i can give are stream recs.. miras neon white streams from a few months ago are good to listen to in the bg, gameclam is funny, faxmas streams are Also good esp the one from i think 2022? 2021? i dont remember tbh. UMM hollys psychonauts 1 and 2 streams, scorpys best buy stream, i think wayne has some roblox streams that are kinda funny. i dont remember the stream name but genius vs antichrist is so fucking funny. MIRAS INSCRYPTION STREAMS ALSOOOO i watched those i think. iirc the gnome commentary streams include explanations of a few inside jokes but dont quote me on that. moupi has a stream archive on youtube. ALSO ALSO ALSO scorpys wall-e speedrun. WAIT ONE MORE miras dbd streams theyre good and that reminded me of waynes dbd egg eating stream. which also reminded me of waynes ai cooking stream which is funny. edited this rq to add that i havent watched all of waynes sonic subathon streams (80 hours? are you crazy?) but the sonic krazy kult segment of one of the streams is SUCH a fun watch PLEASE watch it. its so funny and i dont think you require any prior knowledge on rtvs to enjoy it

thats all i can really think of rn. idk ummm theres an rtvs forum . they have tumblr accounts i think. scorpy and gir have short and rly old videos on their yt channels that are fun to watch if ur bored. "supplemental" content is ur best friend for getting into rtvs lol

[ridiasfangirlings]

If the K characters were youtubers/live streamers, how would the do their intros?

Fushimi either does not have an intro because that requires too much effort, or he has this really neat animated thing that he coded himself and claims he just did because he got tired of people asking him about making an intro but really he’s secretly proud of it and thinks it’s cool. Maybe when Fushimi and Yata were kids they had this cool intro that Fushimi put together using music clips and video game cutscenes and Yata used to tell him how amazing it was, when they split up and Fushimi went his own way he initially refused to have an intro at all out of bitterness. Yata makes his own intro though, it’s like a very crude single image of himself with crow wings drawn with flames all around it and he thinks it turned out pretty cool. Fushimi then makes an intro just so he can tease Misaki for having such a useless one, Yata responds by adding even more flames to his picture and some awesome music, like oh yeah I’ll show you I’ll have the coolest intro. 

Mikoto’s another one who probably doesn’t do much intro, just ‘here’s the stream.’ Totsuka thinks that’s a shame, like you should have more fun with your intro King. Totsuka I imagine being someone whose intro changes every single stream, like he’ll see something cool another streamer did and use that as inspiration for his intro until he gets bored and goes for a different intro the next time. He even works his hobbies in there, like once his intro involved a puppet show for a few weeks, then he carved his channel name into a block of cheese and put that up as part of his intro the next month. Kusanagi prefers a more streamlined intro, like a little music and maybe a small video clip of wine being poured into a glass. The rest of the Homra guys go for more flashy intros, Akagi and Bandou help code a bunch of animated intros with flames and stuff and everyone likes to use loud popular music. 

Munakata I could see initially having a long intro where he likes to open every stream with some words of wisdom, until Fushimi informs him everyone turns his streams off before the actual video begins. After this Munakata changes his intro to be like himself stating the name of his channel and pushing up his glasses, causing them to shine at the camera. Awashima I imagine has an unexpectedly girly intro, like some popular idol music and images of her favorite stuffed animals to begin each of her streams. Gotou absolutely starts his streams by introducing his newest statue, Hidaka’s started introducing his by talking about how many hours of sleep he lost to Gotou’s last cursed statue. Akiyama and Benzai probably start their joint stream with the sounds of cats meowing over their channel logo.

Kuroh definitely starts every stream with an important Ichigen Miwa haiku. Shiro has tried to get him to cut it down or shorten it but Kuroh refuses, how could he deny this chance to spread Ichigen-sama’s words to the world. Shiro himself I imagine just having a very quick ‘hey, this is the channel’ opener and Kuroh’s always offering to share haiku with him, like there’s plenty to go around. Jungle all probably have state of the art intros, Sukuna I could definitely see wanting like some big splashy one with his avatar and animation and cool music. Yukari doesn’t have an intro so much as every stream starts with a ‘get ready with me’ type opener as he puts on all his makeup and educates the audience on the importance of moisturizer.

[arcticdementor]

TLDR: I wouldn’t recommend it, except for it’s maybe being amongst the most important films of the Century, and 100% necessary pre-watching if you plan to visit India. NSFW, NSFL, Warnings for everything humanly possible, refused rating, beyond NC-17, contender for scariest/most disturbing film ever made, IRL Infohazard, IRL Lovecraftian Horror, IRL Spiritual danger, might be a crime to view/own/recommend in Europe, probably read the review first.

…

It is said by the wise anons of 4Chan and Twitter that one can never be truly Fascist until they watch the first season of the anime series K-On. 

…

Only by immersing oneself in Japanese sentimentality can one see an approximation of what Victorian and Edwardian sentimentality was, and why Fascists were willing to fight so hard against the sudden imposition of Weimar’s Proto-21st-century culture and conditions.

…

In that case then, the “Nature Doc” India: The Worst Country on Earth, also known simply by the Anti-Indian Racial slur Pajeets (Akin to Cunts, Kikes, or Niggers), is a film much more unique than simply being the first AI Feature Film and the first proof of concept that an Amatuer with AI can now compete with Hollywood… or atleast with the BBC and Michael Moore. Made by the mysterious creator known only as “Thames”, It is the immediate opposite and ideological complement of K-On.  If the light of K-On’s innocence does not permanently kill your egalitarian universalist values and sense of human brotherhood, convincing you that some people and ways of life are uniquely worth fighting for, then, for the purposes of analogy, Pajeets’ pitch black horror would almost certainly convince you there are certainly some uniquely worth fighting against.

…

It is a testament to the writer’s extraordinarily refined sense of racist 4Chan humor that the film remains as watchable as it, indeed the raw quantity of racist humour and ironic references required to stomach any of these realities is almost certainly why so much of this is vaguely felt but almost entirely unknown and certainly unexpressed in the West.  Even then, by the time we reach the title card, precisely at minute 3, I wouldn’t be shocked if a great number of viewers had already turned off the film in sheer physical revulsion. Many who make it that far report turning it off by minute 16.  I’ve watched it in its entirety multiple times now. And still I find myself intuitively bracing for cuts and edits… not specific cuts and edits, but in general. Any shot that lasts too long creates a brief window of comfortable familiarity, and resultant nervous anticipation… knowing that safety will end any second. However those who bear through to reach the title and hear the inspired musical choice of Open Your Eyes by Guano Ape soon see the sight of men touching live high-voltage wires, dead bodies floating in the Ganges, dozens of deaths of stupidity, multiple rapes, scatalogical and hygenic horrors straining comprehenision, and even worse things I cannot bring myself to describe.

…

And, oh yes, it is all real. Artificial intelligence has only been used to digitally draw David Attenborough from his aged retirement, and add a few humorous cartoon-ish stills. Thames has assembled presumably hours of viral videos, internet memes, 4chan gross-out clips, liveleak clips, documentary footage, TikTok videos, and news stories to make this film. I recognize many of the clips, stories, and “cultural curiosities” having seen them make the rounds on Twitter and 4Chan to memery and disgust.

…

Thames has just assembled it all into a feature film length package so violently racist it is doubtful the likes of Goebels, Bull Connor, or the racist terrorist factions of Revisionist Ultra-Zionism such as Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira or Moche Orbach, have ever produced its approximation. The humor and conceit of the BBC nature documentary format, as well as his technical and literary mastery of the 2000s-2010s environmentalist polemic, merely serve as the artistic structure for perhaps the most uninterruptedly hateful film ever produced.

…

And this is why I think the film is artistically significant. Setting aside Thames’ Attenboroughian auditory appeal to abhorrence and animosity, as a connoisseur of horror films and shock productions I can't really think of anything so unbroken in its aesthetic hatefulness, its visual vitriol and verisimilitude of valueless violence. The pestilence of it! I’ve never seen such gross gangrenous gutter gore portrayed so unflinchingly and unbrokenly.

…

However aside from the depressing damage to the environment, epidemiology, world cuisine, animal welfare, and the gag reflexes of the poor viewer… the most disturbing part of the documentary is the Sexual violence: against woman, child, man, and beast.  I have never seen a documentary with so much real footage of real rape and sexual assault. I’ve seen footage of sexual assaults, one cannot peruse Twitter or 4Chan without the seeing the newest outrages, likewise the presentation of real criminal sexual assaults in documentaries is not unheard of, but on top of everything else you see in the documentary, if the cruel and unhygienic horrors imposed on animals and wallowed in by men did not tempt you to shut off the film, the sexual horrors certainly might.

…

Why make this the first film reviewed on Anarchonomicon if we don’t count Macbeth 2015 and Blackberry (neither of which anyone read). Am I just scoring points in my unending quest to become the great curator of Forbidden Knowledge, to gain clout amongst extremiscists and connoisseur of the callous?  Maybe… but I think there’s something more here. The Shocking is necessarily the surprising, and the disturbing is necessarily the confusing.

…

Meanwhile surgeons and anatomists do not find gore disgusting, they might find violence or jump scares difficult… but they’re used to bodies coming apart. Seeing it happen vividly on film doesn’t violate their intuitive subconscious expectations and models of the world the way it does for most people. Likewise veterans of major wars (notably several of Napoleon’s Marshals) have been noted to seemingly ignore gunshots or grievous wounds even to themselves the second they find they’re non-fatal. They’ve seen it countless times before and it’s merely a nuisance for it to have afflicted them as opposed to others. Likewise farmers, butchers, paramedics, and horror fans are often shockingly calm in comparable medical emergencies even when it’s themselves. So if even gunshot wounds and maimed limbs can be ignorable discomforts to those already familiar with their like, in the immediate second and even first person… How is it so much visceral shock, horror, and lasting disturbance can be attained through a screen… depicting archival and documentary footage!

…

This isn’t some great violation of all expectations and norms. When Samara crawls out of the TV Screen at the end of The Ring after an hour and half of built up tension and filmic and narrative tricks to get your mind feeling threatened and expecting a violation of all laws of physics, whilst employing every editing and pacing technique to subtly trick your mind into fleetingly thinking that she’s crawled out of your TV and she’s coming for you! That provokes a lesser reaction in most people.

…

Whereas India: TWCoE has people shutting off the video before the Title and opening song at minute 3. For archival and cellphone footage! Nothing fictional, no jump scares, no ghosts coming out of the TV itself, no tricks or spooky artificial atmosphere. The only filmic conceit: an AI voice changer meant to make the subject matter funnier, more tolerable, more intellectually distant. “It’s disgusting” Do you react to footage of farm animals in manure covered barns this way? What about photos of roadkill or decaying animals carcasses? I see both all the time on long bicycles rides through the country. I showed this to a family member who immediately wanted to turn it off… she regularly watches horror movies of the most disgusting violence, the film Ready or Not which she considered a fun horror/comedy, had a scene in which a woman shot in the hand falls into a “gore pit” of animal carcasses, and must crawl over the decaying flesh using her mangled bleeding hand to escape (it is a genuinely fun/funny movie). Yet she could endure that laughing and wincing, but not this.

…

This has been the state of a country of 1.4 billion, comprising 1 in 6 human beings on earth, for the entirety of your life. Why is this shocking? Why is this surprising?  What overwhelmingly massive truth has been purposefully concealed from you, such that this experience is maybe amongst the most violently unpleasant and soulshaking experiences a western can endure without leaving their living room?

…

But whereas most countries and societies are improving… India is one of the few countries in which such metrics are getting worse. Indian height and penis sizes are shrinking, both proxies for nutrition as well as exposure to pollution and parasites. Indian civilization is quite literally “degenerate”, they are physically deteriorating before our very eyes. And while I cannot bring myself to describe the hygenic horrors, one need not watch much of the documentary to more than sufficiently understand why.

…

Egalitarian minded Westerners, even after accepting that IQ stats measure meaningful differences within national and ethnic groups, or who accept many of the tests and proxies for intelligence, protest that if the average IQ was so low as the international scores suggest, then low IQ societies would not be able to function at all, that they’d go about in a violent, horrifying, screaming, shit-covered madness…  Such Egalitarian minded westerners react less than happily when you point out that they in fact do so go about.

…

The dark truth is that morality, cleanliness, and almost all ordinary exercises of will and judgement necessary for any human functionality, are all IQ tests. Very simple and easy IQ tests… but ones which billions of people are incapable of. Indeed according to many classical western definitions of “person” the bottom 1-2 billion are not “people”. If you define “man” as the moral or rational animal then these are not men. Many dissident linguists have noted many sub-Saharan languages do not have any functional way to express abstractions and indeed the concept of promises or other moral commitments are alien to the tribes who speak them, or only are expressed through elaborate metaphors taught to them by white missionaries.

…

But Whilst Africa has countless slums equally as horrifying, as of yet the population density is such that the Africans are not universally forced into the urban and sprawling horrors we see in india. Whilst they pollute at comparable rates, one may still see large areas that are tribal, post-tribal, and suitably primitive such that the median African settlement is not sickly and decaying as what is witnessed in India, primevally wild Africans still go in states of relatively noble health, analogous to the beautiful wildlife of Africa, they are not yet past the population density event horizon of becoming the sort of decaying hive societies beset by cults of Nurgle, which we witness in India. Median Height, intelligence and Penis size is not yet shrinking. Indeed the much maligned African Warlord, acting as apex predator, serves to keep various regions and populations thinned to a less than truly horrifying state of health. In India, and as Egyptian and other commentators have noted, in an expanding suite of countries, we see the true nightmare scenario of the modern state just barely existing in an anarcho-tyrannical form able to sustain and regulate the human organism well past the point of degeneration, and able to prevent the wars and violence so desperately needed to restore the slow march of IQ and other markers of genetic and physical fitness.

…

The violent discomfort and horror felt by the Western egalitarian at India: The Worst Country on Earth which is not felt upon viewing Pigs wallowing in manure or seeing roadkill or animals dead in equally bizarre, miserable or stupid manners, The reason we recoil at the sexual horrors of India but feel relatively little for the incest sexual assault and worse that occurs in the animal kingdom… is because the Western Egalitarian is trained to identify with the brown foreigner, in many instances even beyond their identification with their own ethnicity or race. In their religious and now post-religious ecstasies, purity spirals, and consciousness raising, in their more than decade of moral instruction under the priesthood of the public school teachers, and the legacy priesthood of the lamb of God; in their daily prayers and religious contemplations of diverse television, film, and media, the modern westerners are taught the belief in the universal moral merit, intelligence, worthiness, and nobility of man irrespective of race, religion, sexuality, and creed… it is not simply A moral good, but THE moral good. The Axiom upon which all civilization, moral worthiness, and hope of salvation rests. At the moment of death their passing or failing the final judgement of God or “History” depends on how sincerely they earnestly believed, in spite of the constant knawing of evidence, in this universal equality and brotherhood. India: The Worst Country on Earth inflicts violence of a spiritual and metaphysical variety upon the westerner. If only Samara was crawling out of their TV to kill their physical body, they might die cursing a white girl and their salvation would be assured. Instead India: TWCoE attacks their very soul. The Westerner MUST identity with the foreigner. MUST empathize. MUST psychically place themselves in the Indian’s shoes. MUST Imagine themselves one and the same.

…

They MUST empathize, and their gag reflexes must activate and they must feel their skin crawl as if beset by parasites and sexual diseases welcomed in through a million disgusting wallowing practices. They cannot do what Hundreds of millions of high caste indians and upper class third worlders do every day: Stop Empathizing. Stop looking on them as your fellow man, and instead look upon them as revolting stupid bottom feeding animals, akin to diseased racoons or possums…or various mamilians who wallow in their own filth, or seek their missing nutrition in the droppings of more noble creatures such as the bovine. For to stop empathizing, so the western thinks, to stop believing “there is only one race the human race” or “that all men are created equal” would be to abandon all that is good and true and transcendent in this world. Except for the what is obvious to plainly see: it is neither good, nor true, nor transcendent.

…

Of course if one disagrees, and still believes in the universal egalitarian brotherhood… they can just Watch the Movie. 

…

In the end I can guarantee you the most offended by this film or this review will be a white westerner. Intelligent and upper-class people from the third world are very aware of the decayed state of their lower-classes and keenly aware of the Caste, ethnic, class, and genealogical differences that separate them from those horrific masses. Amongst the intelligent aristocratic upper-classes of more decayed countries they develop very specific exclusionist identities to describe their separateness from the masses about them (mostly accurately, some are delusional… but none who read this blog). Ironically the people who suffer the most racial panic upon accepting HBD ideas are intelligent mixed race westerners who, in the egalitarian doublespeak of the west, never have anyone to tell them that they actually are exceptional or actually can achieve great things, or actually should feel empowered and confident… as opposed to all the fake empowerment, fake expectations, and fake encouragement we pour upon the 75 IQ illiterate urban criminal classes.  One need only speak to people in commonwealth countries to see many of the most opposed to mass immigration are earlier waves of Immigrants who had to pass a higher standard and were of that aristocratic upper class, and now don’t want the people they’ve escaped following them to the west.

…

But the most significant impact of the film, which is already showing a surprisingly viral interest, is going to be on Western political discussions around diversity and Immigration. “This is what we’re importing” as the warning goes.  But beyond that the wider politics of disgust, and its relation to conservative, fascist, ethno-exclusionist and other right wing politics is a long established phenomenon. A film this vomitously moving, cannot but become a modern staple of the online right. Like K-On it too immediately sums up the worldview of far-right politics to be ignored I may have been the first to write a review of this film, and I am almost certainly the best. But I will not be the last.

[frostyyyroyalmilktea]

Nevermore!Tyler x Thorpe!Reader pt.6

part 1 part 7 this fic on ao3

Hi loves! I know it's been like three months since I updated this story and I'm sorry! Life happens and school does too and also my health started acting up a bit so yeah. It's a lot. This chapter is Tyler's POV with a little bonus at the end. I'm thinking I might starts writing more of his POV, I hope you'll like this format. I'm still going to write MC's POV as well but it'll probably be somwhere around 50/50 split. I just love writing Tyler's perception sm (°◡°♡)

Hope you enjoy! Don't hesitate to drop me a comment telling me what you think (*σᴗσ)

Tyler

Tyler spent a lot of time learning how to tune out the noise in crowded places. With his enhanced senses that shit didn’t come easy. Dr. Shin has been a tremendous help in all of it, and these days Tyler has almost perfected the ability to just not hear every conversation or discern every smell in a 1000 feet radius.

Today, however, something feels off. Tyler can feel the attention directed at him itching under his skin. It’s been like that since he sat down for breakfast 15 minutes ago. People keep throwing very much not stealthy looks at him every couple of minutes like they’re expecting a bomb to suddenly go off where he’s sitting. The conversations are hushed and Tyler’s growing anxiety hinders his ability to concentrate and listen in on at least one of them.

So he just sits there, pulled taut like an exposed nerve, and waits for the other shoe to drop.

Y/n is late again, which by her standards is not late at all. Her morning cup of tea is steaming next to his own breakfast. Cereal was not on the menu today so Tyler grabbed some sugary thing that may or may not be a croissant under all those layers of strawberry jam and nutella. Makes him a bit nauseous to even look at it. Y/n devours it in three bites and calls it God’s gift to humankind. Figures.

Tyler is wiping nutella off her face, the two of them pretending that it is beyond any shadow of doubt a task that requires outside help and not just some awkward flirting technique—God, they’re so bad at this—when Enid plops down at their table looking like she hasn’t slept at all and is already operating on at least four coffees. It gets more concerning, though. She’s followed by Wednesday, who’s followed by Xavier fucking Thorpe himself. Tyler is still confused about their conversation on Saturday. Xavier on the other hand seems to be less hostile towards Tyler this morning than usual. Which is very worrisome.

Enid takes a chair next to y/n, Wednesday sits down next to Enid, and Xavier sits down next to Wednesday, which coincidentally also puts him next to Tyler. Y/n doesn't seem awake enough to comprehend the sheer weirdness of the unfolding scene until Enid turns to her and asks, wide-eyed and distressed, “Have you seen it already?”

Y/n blinks at her a few times, confused. “Seen what, babes?”

Enid passes her phone with trembling hands. Tyler can hear the beating of Enid’s heart, which at the moment resembles a rabbit on Red Bull.

Y/n plays the video that was already pre-loaded. It’s a clip from Good Morning America, a musical segment in Central Park. The title reads Jeremiah Elffire Presenting His New Single “Trust Fund Baby” Live From Central Park!  

Tyler is vaguely aware of this guy because he remembers watching a show on Disney with him as the main character a couple of years ago. Tyler is generally clueless about pop culture so he’s somewhat confused about why exactly is Enid freaking out so hard right now. Did this guy get super famous after his Disney days?  The view count is already sitting at over 500k even though the video was uploaded less than an hour ago.

When y/n hears the first verse, she goes uncharacteristically still.

“I don't want a girl who gets a car for her sweet sixteen

Or spends a stack of dollar bills on a limousine

I want a girl who takes the bus and who wears baggy jeans

Rockin' Nike Airs, what the hell are Louboutins?”

Tyler’s still not sure what exactly is going on here but the angry grinding of y/n’s teeth tells him it’s not anything good.

Xavier leans into his ear and in a conspirational whisper about as subtle as a tornado warning siren informs Tyler, “That’s her ex,” gesturing at the screen of Enid’s phone with his spoon. Then he goes back to eating his oatmeal as if nothing happened.

The video goes on.

“Don't want no fake tan, short skirt, daddy's money don't work

Shop until you drop on the town

I want a smart girl, stronger than her father

Someone who will laugh at tryna fit in the crowd”

“And all we used to dream about

Is getting rich and getting out

Move to the nicer part of town

Where we'd have numbers on our house”

“You little asswipe,” y/n seethes, “you’re from fucking Palo Alto!”

“I don't really want no trust fund baby

I like my women independent

And I say to people, that's my lady

And we don't need nothing else”

“I don't want a girl who takes selfies, want her makeup free

Don't want no mean girl, lady in pink, prom queen”

The plates and cutlery on every table in the dining hall start rattling. Y/n doesn’t notice and Tyler fears that any second now she might accidentally shower people in their own breakfast.

“I want a throwback kid who loves Missy Elliot

Who for my birthday, makes a mixtape and puts it on cassette

Want a girl with common sense, who's dripping in competence

Don't wanna die to get rich but she loves Fifty Cent”

“Alrightie,” Tyler says with confidence he doesn’t feel. “I think we got the general gist here,” he gently extracts the phone from y/n’s deathly grip with some help of his superstrength and hands it back to Enid. 

Enid starts rambling like someone has put her on 2x speed, “I am so sorry to be the one to show you this, oh my god, I hope you don’t hate me or anything but I just, I just thought it would be like a thousand times worse if you haven’t seen it and everyone will be talking about it at school because you guys were absolutely an it couple and all, and then you’re going to be caught off guard and…” Enid runs out of breath, but before she can continue y/n gently catches her hands—which were flying in every direction as Enid tried to reinforce her point with frantic gesticulation—and catches her eye. “It’s fine, Enid.” 

Y/n’s soft and steady voice momentarily deflates Enid’s agitated demeanor. “But, but…” Poor thing tries to form a coherent sentence but she’s not very successful. To be completely fair to Enid though, if Tyler was in her position right now, with y/n’s attention focused on softly comforting him, he probably wouldn’t even be able to recall his own name. 

“It’s just a gimmick. A former Disney kid desperately clinging to relevancy at the expense of a high-profile relationship he was in and a catchphrase that will cause some stirring in the media. Don’t get worked up over this, love. And don’t comment on it to anyone. Publicly or privately. Present company excluded.”

“Yeah no, I would never discuss your personal life with anyone like that!” Enid looks horrified at the thought. 

“Mon petit furet, I know you wouldn’t,” y/n says, sympathtic. “It’s just people know that you’re my friend and any comment you offhandedly make can be twisted and sold off to TMZ by some loser chasing his 5 seconds of fame.”

To an outsider’s eye y/n would seem like the epitome of calm right now, but Tyler already knows some of her tells though. He can see that she’s actually far from calm and he has no idea what to do. He turns to Xavier who lazily watches y/n’s exchange with Enid, chin propped in one hand, sipping from a coffee cup in the other one. “Does this not worry you?” Tyler hisses at him. “Even a little? You can’t not see that she’s not okay.” 

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win,” Xavier says like it’s a completely normal thing to say about your sister’s trashy ex disrespecting her in front of the entire country.

“Are you quoting The Art of War at me?” Tyler asks in disbelief.

“He is,” says Wednesday without looking up from her gigantic dusty old book. 

Xavier sighs. “What I’m saying is, have patience with her. If you do, it will pay off tenfold.”

“Okay, I don’t know why you’re talking like a fortune cookie right now and I’m not sure I’m too keen to find out,” Tyler says.

At this moment y/n’s phone starts ringing. She declines it on the little screen of her terrifyingly futuristic phone and a second later it starts ringing again. It happens another three times before she shuts the phone off altogether and gets to her feet. “We’ll see you in class, guys,” she says to the rest of the table as she picks up her and Tyler’s bags. “Have a good day.” Tyler catches the tiniest crack in her voice before she takes off towards the exit.

He takes it as his cue to follow her.

***

They skip class. Not that Tyler really expected that they would attend it today. Y/n walks way faster than usual, clutching their bags in both hands like she’s taking them to execution. 

Tyler realizes she leads them to that little shed near the dormitory that he walked her to the night she saw him as a Hyde. The classes have already begun so the forest is very quiet and peaceful. The same can’t be said about y/n.

She throws Tyler’s bag on the ground, then grabs her own with both hands, and covering her face with it she starts screaming into it.

Tyler is so out of his depth here. 

He decides to just wait until she gets it out of her system and then maybe she’ll talk to him or something.

His hopes don’t come to fruiting because when she’s done screaming, she just slumps on the ground, her back leaning on the outer wall of the shed, and starts crying.

Tyler carefully sits down next to her and she leans into him as she tries to take her sobbing under control. He wraps one arm around her and she tucks her face in the crook of his neck. They just sit like that for a while until her breathing evens out.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tyler asks quietly.

“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s so stupid, Tyler. Like, I meant every word I said to Enid. I know what this is. It’s all about business and trending and getting into charts. It’s not supposed to hurt me but it fucking does and I hate it…I hate it.”

“I think, in a way, it’s good that it hurts.”

“Dafuq?” Y/n asks, raising her head a bit to look him in the eyes. She’s not angry though, her eyes are soft and curious.

Tyler doesn’t really know what to do with this level of trust from someone. 

“It means you’re not like him,” Tyler starts, trying to put his words together with care. “Your feelings make you…well, you. That guy seems to be more like a cardboard cutout of himself rather than a real person. Thornhill tried to make me into something like that too.” I thought she succeeded until I met you, he doesn’t say.

“That’s a nice way of looking at it, I suppose. I just…I hate remembering the good stuff. Because there were good times too, at the begining.” She says quietly, hiding her face again.

“What changed?” Tyler asks.

“On a larger scale, everything did. His career was taking off—mind, not without the help of media coverage he was getting for dating me—and he started to become more and more obsessed with his “persona”. His mom hired this new publicist who, like, tried to mold him into another Harry Stiles or some shit. Steady girlfriend was very much not in the cards for this kind of image. And on a smaller scale, he broke up with me after my powers manifested. Which is such an idiotic display of bigotry too," she scoffs, "like, both my dad and my brother are outcasts, you couldn’t seriously expect me to end up a normie.”

“Probably still hurt, though,” Tyler says, gently petting her hair.

Y/n just hums.

“So what’s next? You’re just going to ignore everything until people forget about it?”

“I really don’t even want to think about him anymore. But ignoring it won't work this time,” y/n says, slowly disentangling herself from Tyler. “I already gave him too much agency over the situation by staying quiet.” She gets to her feet and offers her hand to help Tyler up. She doesn’t let go even after he’s standing firmly on his own. The look on her face is absolutely captivating, eyes burning bright with determination. Tyler is unable to look away.

“This time I’m gonna fight back. Fuck being the bigger person. I’ll hit this fucker where it hurts.”

***

Y/n Thorpe Just Posted On TikTok For The First Time Since The Release Of Her Ex’s Jeremiah Elffire Controversial Song Allegedly Aimed At The 17 Year-Old Influencer And Her Fans Are Setting The Social Media Ablaze

Jemma Young for Buzzfeed News 

This week proved to be particularly eventful for the fans of a 17 year-old TikTok influencer Y/n Thorpe, the younger daughter of a well-known Hollywood medium and soothsayer Sébastien Thorpe. 

After y/n’s outcast status was publicized without her consent a few months ago, following a controversial split from the former Disney golden boy Jeremiah Elffire, y/n deleted all social media sans TikTok (where she unfortunately also stopped posting for a while but was previously known for her musical covers) and went completely off the grid.

This prompted a lot of speculation from the fans on what the cause of the sudden breakup might’ve been and whether y/n’s outcast status had anything to do with it. The official statement from the Thorpe estate's publicist came later that month, assuring fans that the split between two teens was amicable and for now y/n is focusing on her education, switching to a school that specializes in helping young people master their supernatural abilities.

Fans of young miss Thorpe were delighted to see her come back to TikTok with a heartfelt rendition of Rufus Wright’s Hallelujah [watch the original tiktok here] a few weeks ago. Some fans noticed that the song was a bit out of y/n’s usual repertoire, which sparked a discussion on Twitter regarding miss Thorpe’s mental state and well-being. Many of her loyal fans came to y/n’s defense though, stating that they’re just happy to see her doing what she loves, sharing her positive energy and creativity with the world again. 

Some people still had their doubts, though, when a video from one of miss Thorpe’s schoolmates surfaced a few days later where young influencer gets into a verbal altercation with a fellow student. We reached out to the user who posted the video but didn’t get any further comments about that situation.

A new wave of scrutiny came Y/n Thorpe’s way when Jeremiah Elffire released his new single titled “Trust Fund Baby” this Wednesday. He premiered it live on Good Morning America and the video hit one million views in less than two hours. The accompanying music video was released a few hours after that and sits at a comfortable 3 million views at the time of writing this article. However, the like/dislike ratio was disabled almost immediately and fans on Twitter point out that the comment section seems to be heavily filtered. 

Miss Thorpe stayed quiet for the first 24 hours after the release so fans expected her to not make any comments regarding the issue, same as after the breakup. However, this morning a new tiktok was uploaded to y/n’s account that seems to be addressing the brewing drama in a subtle, yet cutting way. 

In a short clip with a Taylor Swift’s song playing in the background, y/n shows what appears to be her morning routine: she creates an extravagant make-up look with vibrant pink eyeliner, her short haircut is tastefully styled with two gold-rose hairclips shaped like little crowns, and even though her outfit isn’t lavish by any means, being simply the school uniform of the educational institution she attends, some watchful fans pointed out the peculiar detail that might’ve escaped the notice of everyman.

[screenshot of the comment by the user “littlemissgetwrecked”]

Guuuuys!!! I don’t think you understand the gravity of this shade!! She’s wearing fucking Louboutins!!! You can’t tell at first because they’re sneakers and not signature high heels but you can see the red soles when she spins!!!! 

Another user followed with a comment supporting this statement.

[screenshot of the comment by the user “notyomama”]

I know!!! I’m literally going feral over this! I scoured the Louboutin website to make sure and she’s wearing Louboutin Fun Vieira , their comics-themed sneakers. I LITERALLY CAN’T EVEN WITH THIS GIRL. The tea is scorching hot *sips aggressively*

The caption of the video boldly proclaims “what’s a girl gonna do, a diamond’s gotta shine” with the hashtag  #makethewholeplaceshimmer, mirroring the lyrics of the song playing in the background.

This particular choice of song is hardly a coincidence. Y/n mentioned many times before that Taylor Swift is one of her favorite artists and a big inspiration for women who want to achieve success in the music industry despite the sexist scrutiny media puts them through. For those of our readers who are unaware, Bejeweled by Taylor Swift was allegedly written about an ex-boyfriend, famous DJ  Calvin Harris, and describes her partner’s emotional absence, as well as him taking the singer for granted. 

Thorpe’s fans quickly connected the dots and the speculation on what exactly led to the Thorpe/Elffire breakup resurfaced with more vigor than before.

 Elffire’s loyal fanbase also joined the conversation to defend their fave, stating that this is “exactly the self-conceited behavior to be expected from an out-of-touch nepo baby [in regards to Thorpe]” and that they are happy that the “toxic influence is finally out of [Elffire’s] life for good.”

The fans are taking sides and the comment section of y/n’s video reminds a battlefield at the moment, yet at the time of writing this article the comments still haven’t been disabled and the tiktok video keeps racking hundreds of thousands of views every day, currently reaching a little bit over 4 million with 1.2 million likes.

Subscribe to our social media so you never miss the fresh news from the celebrity world!

***

author's note:

Enid is so baby in this chapter, this girl was more worried about y/n’s drama than her own brother lol

Btw, MC calls Enid "mon petit furet" which google traslate assured me means "my little ferret". I though it was a fitting nickname because MC likes to give everyone nicknames and Enid is cute and ferrets are cute and also are very good and sniffing out and finding things, like Enid is with gossip.

The song I used as the one MC's ex used to shade her is actually Trust Fund Baby by Why Don't We. No shade to the band whatsoever, I think it's funky little pop song but it fitted my story perfectly so I used it. Jeremiah Elffire is a completely random character I came up with and is not based on any real disney actors. Also I don't really remember if Xavier's dad's name was mentioned in the show and I coudn't be bothered to check so I just made one up for him.

*Palo Alto is an expencive neighbourhood in California so that's why MC reacted the way she did to that line in the song

Btw it's been so long since I updated, idk if people are still interested to be tagged so if you are, please let me know in the comments!

[wallblaster]

How to make an AI Cover: The Longform Post

A friend of mine is in need of a detailed instruction for how to make an AI cover based on the only method we both found to work. So I'll be posting it here for both ease of creation, and to aid anyone else who might see this post and wants to learn how to do this themselves.

STEP 1 (or 2): Find your voice

Before anything, you must first either choose a voice or a song to use. One will determine the options available for the other because certain voice types to better with covering certain songs' vocalists. If, for instance, you tried to get a character with a british accent to sing a song in Spanish, you may run into issues with the voice not only sounding odd, but also having gaps and glitches where the voice AI was not trained to make certain noises associated with Spanish that are not associated with british English.

STEP 2 (or 1): Find your song

Songs are much more widely available for download on sites like Mp3Juices.io, so we will be using it to find our song. This will also allow me to walk you through how to download a song from Mp3Juices.io because it is less simple than is used to be.

I will be using the song Eleanor Rigby by Dirt Poor Robins because it is voiced by a woman. We will see just how well the voice types match up, but I cannot be sure just yet.

Click the Play button to watch the video being pulled from YouTube just in case it isn't what you're intending on downloading. The download button will allow you to choose whether you want to download the video or the sound of the video. In this case, we will be downloading the audio.

When you click "Download MP3", it will extend the section to provide 2 buttons. Both buttons will take you to the exact same place. A new tab where you can find the video or audio to download.

The website should look something like this. Unfortunately, the script glitches out with certain video links, and so, it stays frozen as seen above. What should be seen after what looks like a video player is this:

If you click on the circled button with three dots, it will provide a small menu with two options: either alter the playback speed, or download the audio. We will want to download the audio.

Unfortunately, this doesn't download the file as an MP3 like one would expect when clicking a button and being taken to a website, both of which say MP3 on them. Instead, this little troublemaker downloads all of your music files as M4A files. So what you'll need to do next is go to cloudconvert.com to convert the file from M4A to MP3 as shown below.

Uploading the file should result in the webpage looking like this:

Press the Convert button on the bottom right, and an audio track will pop up with a download button. Press that, and you have your MP3 file.

STEP 3: Edit Samples

If you have collected your samples of voice clips of whichever character you intend to recreate, it is time to begin editing your samples. Many samples will require very little editing, but others may require up to a couple of hours worth of work. The sample I am working with will require a large portion of work because every time Uzi is on screen is not every time she speaks.

SIDE STEP: Audacity

For all audio editing processes (of which there are many), I am using a program called Audacity. It is free for download, and allows users to record from both their headphones or their microphone. However, it may be difficult to get it to do that. So the following section will be a tutorial on how to set up Audacity for recording audio from the computer.

Once you have your audio set up, you can begin recording your music and/or the music that you intend to use in your AI cover.

STEP 3 (Continued)

To edit and clean up your audio, you want to cut out any and all sound from the audio file that isn't your chosen character's voice. Something important to keep in mind is that this does NOT include background music. We will address background music later, but for now, we do not need to worry about it unless it is too loud for the character to be heard.

In order to delete problem portions of the audio, you can highlight the portion of time in the clip by clicking and dragging over the track, and pressing the DEL button on your keyboard just above the Left Arrow Key.

Keep handling all of these until you have a track only consisting of your character's voice. Don't forget to get rid of all silent portions as well.

Once you are finished cleaning your sample audio, you are ready to extract it as an MP3 or WAV file. WAV files are larger sized, but preserve the quality of your audio.

PART 4: Separating Music from Voice

Now that you have your audio properly extracted, you need to specifically get the vocals of your music and voice clips. You can do that by using the following website called x-minus.pro/ai

STEP 5: Training your AI

Surprisingly, this is the most time consuming part of the whole process. First you will need to go to the following public Google Colab file. It contains a Python script that creates an instance of a website that will allow you to train an AI voice file, and then use that file to cover songs.

Once inside, press the play button on the first cell circled below.

This will gives you a warning prompt that the program was not made by Google. Run it anyway.

The cell's output will go through a lot of stuff, and some of it will look like links or other things. DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING YET. Eventually, the code will reformat itself to look like this:

Once it gets to this point, click the link at the very bottom of the cell, just above the textbox. It should be preceeded by "Running on Public URL: ". This link will take you to the instanced website called Grazio.

The URL opens to this page, but to build the AI, you will need to go to the "Train" tab circled in Red.

Once you have extracted the pitch, press the blue "Train Model" button circled in Yellow. This can take up to a couple of hours as it goes through 250 intervals of training. If you change the setting above it to a higher number, the voice will be more versatile, but it will take much longer to train. It will also take more time to train the more audio you have in your dataset.

Once the model is trained, press the "Train Index" button below the encircled "Train Model" button. This should only take a few seconds. Then you can press the grey "Download Model" button. This should output two files for you to download directly beneath the button. One will be a .pth file and the other will be a .index file.

STEP 6: The Final Stretch

We're almost done. Once your two files are downloaded, send both of them into a zip file by highlighting both of them, and right-clicking one of them, hovering your cursor over the "send to" menu, and then clicking "compressed (zipped) folder". You will upload this zip file to your Google Drive or other equivalent. This combined zip file is your voice ai.

You may have to refresh your google drive in order to see and/or access the file. Once you can access it, you must make it accessible via a shareable link.

Now you have a link to the file in your clipboard. Be sure not to copy anything else during this process. If you do, you can use WIN+V to pull up your clipboard which should have a list of things you've copied or cut recently. (WIN or Windows Key is located between the left CTRL and ALT buttons. If you do not have a Windows key, check your computer's settings for how to open the clipboard.)

Next, you will need to close the Grazio tab, and go back to the Google Colab page. You will need to create a new instance to ensure the program works properly. This is because training the voice causes a mess in the other sections of the website, and the instance only lasts for a limited amount of time. As a result, not restarting the instance may cause your work to be interrupted and you will have to restart anyway.

Once you are back in the Grazio page, you will need to go to the "Download Model" tab to the left of the "Train" tab we used earlier.

Go back to the "Inference" tab once the output box at the bottom reads "success". If it reads "error" or something similar, create a new instance, and try again.

Important note: uploading the vocals file will do the same thing as uploading voice samples in the "Train" tab in that you must wait for the file to fully upload before continuing to the next step. This is crucial.

Your output audio should look like this.

Unfortunately, sometimes your predictions for how the voice will sound are... bad. Take for example, Eleanor Rigby by Dirt Poor Robins covered by Uzi AI.

(Audio was too big to put directly in the post so listen to it on the Google Drive link below)

This completes the tutorial. If you want to reunite the lyrics with the instrumentals, all you have to do is import both your new AI generated audio and your instrumental track you downloaded earlier when getting the vocals for your song. Usually, you shouldn't need to alter them in any way for it to work, but if you have a good cover, using the reverb effect does wonders. After they're in the same Audacity project, all you have to do is extract that as a WAV file, and you're done.

[daveinediting]

The year so far has been about up-scaling and posting YouTube videos with custom thumbnails. Hundreds of clips with a lot more to go plus managing a database of the work done so far including the data attached to each clip, resolution, captioning, playlists, series, show of origin, geographic location, and so on.

This year so far has also been about projects carrying a lot of question marks. A lot of elements we need... but the client isn't making those elements available yet for whatever reason. A lot of questions about intent... but those questions are going unanswered so far for whatever reason.

In both circumstances, wrangling YouTube videos and dealing in question marks, prioritizing thinking is key. It's giving myself time to think through both processes because they're tricky. Because they’re complicated.

In the case of the YouTube videos, there are adjustments and improvements I’m making along the way because I gave myself time. Because I allowed myself to occasionally come up for air instead of relentlessly cranking out videos.

Don't get me wrong, cranking out videos is the point. But feedback's built into my process. My own feedback. As in Am I doing something wrong here? Is there another way I to do this this? Is there a better to do this? What have I done so far? What's still in front of me? And so on.

Here's a little story that captures the reason for these questions:

A long time ago I was creating a stop motion video using my DSLR with a shutter cable. At the beginning, I framed up the scene and then started moving figures around, snapping a picture with the shutter cable each time I advanced the scene, working this way as fast as I could. It still took a lot of time... and I was totally jazzed to see the finished work. Which turned out exactly as planned....

...until about halfway through when all my figures move quite intentionally out of frame. Just BAM. Out of frame.

I wasn't double-checking my work, you see. So I wasted about half my effort by plowing relentlessly ahead.

Actually no. I had to start over. From scratch. However, in setting everything up again, I hit on a better idea of what to do this next time around. And that lesson was not lost on me. My process is one of iteration and course correction even when it's on the fly. 

Sure, if I have to do something in one go, I can do it. My work kicks ass, though, when I take the opportunity to put more thought into what I'm doing before I do it, while I'm doing it, and afterward.

So.

If there's the time, I take it.

If there isn't the time, I put as much thought as possible into what I'm going to do. The 48 Hour Horror Film Project was like that. I had from early afternoon Saturday 'til around three or four the next afternoon to do the edit, sound design, music integration, color correction, and coordinating with the composer and then the writer and director.

The amount of time I had was never gonna change. 

But.

I did spend the entire week before that edit getting ready for it. 

The Real Road Adventures series was a bit the same way. We were using all new production and post production tech for these shows and spent weeks figuring out the details and setting up a process so editing would just flow once we were into the schedule.

Even my composing efforts were front loaded. The time I had to actually composed, record, arrange, and mix all the music for the series was also never gonna change... so I spent weeks beforehand logging all the virtual instruments, sounds, and sound effects I had at my disposal. I marked which were my favorites. I tagged each one according to what I imagined its use to be in the kind of series I was cutting.

That effort paid off, by the way. Whenever my brain started reaching for a different idea, those ideas were easy to manifest with sounds I already identified (ish) for such purpose.

Anyway.

At this point, I’ve got the YouTube process pretty well in hand (but for the ever expanding database that requires constant tending to). As for the question mark projects, well, there are clients and there are clients. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, even if they haven’t sent you the elements you need, you can conjure them. In my case, the missing elements in the script are things I can make a pretty decent educated guess at. Which is what I did. Based on my own research, I created animations that illustrate the sections of script in question.

So...

Am I good to go?

Of course not. I’m fishing for feedback from the client. A bit of direction.

I’m also strategizing a little with other undefined parts of the script that I’ll have a go at for similar reasons. To give the client something to see. Because that’s how it is with some clients. They have to have something they can see before they can start guiding you in the right direction.

Yeah.

The year’s starting with brain-teaser projects.

Not impossible. Not chaos. Not frustrating.

I’ve just...

Gotta think my way through.

[nitw]

hiii just want to ask when you do mp100 edits how do you decide on which part to use and how to make clean scene without subtitles? Is there like a simple how to in making edits?

hi there!! you didn't specify which kind of edit so i'm going to assume you meant videos? i'll try to explain what my typical process looks like!

video editing, especially when it comes to things like amvs or other projects that require specific timing, is a lot of rinse-and-repeat. the nanana amv i made that only lasts the length of the song took me MANY hours to make, and i undoubtedly spent most of that time running scenes back over and over to check if the timing could be improved, or if a clip from the show could be replaced by a different one. i've been doing stuff like this for over 5 years so i've kinda developed the patience for it along the way but now you've been warned, it can be a pretty tedious process lol.

when it comes to choosing which clips to use for stuff like this i only have my super autistic special interest memory to thank GJSJEJFHSJF....i barely had to rewatch anything in order to make that video because i already had a pretty clear-cut idea of the direction i wanted to go, and i remember this whole show pretty intensely. but regardless, it's good to already have some kind of specific theme or template to go by in your head before you start editing, so you don't end up wasting a bunch of time on something you end up changing anyway! (this can still happen though =w=)

this is more for amvs/music edits specifically, but here are some tips for timing clips to a song:

make it consistent! try to select clips that have a similar ~vibe~ to them so a cut doesn't feel out of place. also take the song's genre, tempo and lyrics into consideration to make it all fit nicely with the theme you're going for! it's a Music Video after all, right?

timing is important but FLOW is most important! giving your transitions or cuts into new scenes a smooth, rhythmic, but also visually appealing flow is what makes any good video project. it's often best to avoid making all your clips the same length and cutting after every beat - instead try to really listen to the song you're using, and think about creative ways you can incorporate your clips into the song's short individual sections! though this MIGHT also depend on the genre, i've found that fast-paced rock songs are some the easiest for playing around with this.

lay out guidelines, notes, templates, etc for as much as your can beforehand! i don't have a lot of experience with any video editing software other than vegas pro, but one of my favorite features are MARKERS. markers are like pins you can place at any section in your video project, that stay in place unless you decide to delete or move them, and automatically redirects your cursor to that point when you click on them. you can mark as many sections as you want in your project, and that REAAALLLY helps with planning the flow of your video cuts before you get your clips. but honestly, just use any tool you can think of that might help you speed up the process and keep track of your own ideas!!! even writing down text notes could help!

this got a bit longer than expected but i really hope it helped!!!! :]

[newworldproductions]

How AI is Reshaping Creative Industries: The Role of AI in Video Post-Production Editing

The creative industries have always been at the forefront of adopting new technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) is no exception. From music and art to film and video production, AI is transforming the way creative professionals work. One of the most significant areas of impact is in video post-production editing, where AI is not only streamlining processes but also enhancing the quality and creativity of the final product.

Automating Routine Tasks

One of the most immediate benefits of AI in video post-production is the automation of routine and time-consuming tasks. Traditionally, editors spend countless hours on tasks such as sorting through raw footage, logging scenes, and organizing clips. AI-powered tools can now perform these tasks with remarkable speed and accuracy. For instance, AI algorithms can analyze video footage to identify and tag different scenes, detect and remove duplicate or unnecessary clips, and even match shots based on specific criteria. This automation allows editors to focus more on the creative aspects of their work, such as storytelling and refining the visual and audio aesthetics of the video.

Enhanced Editing Capabilities

AI is also enhancing the technical capabilities of video editing software. One example is the use of AI in color correction and grading. Traditional color grading can be a labor-intensive process that requires a keen eye and a lot of time. AI-powered tools can automatically adjust the color balance, contrast, and saturation of footage to achieve a desired look. These tools can analyze the entire video to maintain consistency and even suggest creative color grades that align with the mood and tone of the project.

Similarly, AI-driven audio editing tools can automatically clean up audio tracks by removing background noise, balancing audio levels, and enhancing dialogue clarity. This level of automation and precision significantly reduces the time spent on audio post-production and ensures a high-quality sound experience for viewers.

Intelligent Scene Analysis

AI's ability to analyze and understand video content at a granular level is another game-changer for post-production editing. Intelligent scene analysis allows AI to recognize objects, faces, actions, and even emotions within a video. This capability can be leveraged in several ways. For example, AI can automatically generate metadata for footage, making it easier for editors to search for specific scenes or elements. Additionally, AI can assist in creating rough cuts by identifying key moments and arranging them in a coherent sequence, providing editors with a solid starting point for their work.

Creative Collaboration

AI is also fostering greater collaboration among creative professionals. Cloud-based AI tools enable multiple editors to work on the same project simultaneously, regardless of their geographical location. These tools can synchronize edits in real-time, ensuring that everyone is working on the latest version of the project. Furthermore, AI can provide real-time feedback and suggestions, helping teams make informed decisions quickly and efficiently.

Pushing Creative Boundaries

Beyond automating tasks and enhancing technical capabilities, AI is pushing the creative boundaries of what is possible in video post-production. AI-generated effects, transitions, and animations are becoming more sophisticated, allowing editors to experiment with new styles and techniques. For instance, AI can generate realistic visual effects that would be time-consuming and expensive to create manually. It can also assist in creating motion graphics and compositing elements that add a unique flair to the video.

Moreover, AI can analyze viewer preferences and feedback to suggest creative edits that are more likely to resonate with the target audience. This data-driven approach to editing ensures that the final product is not only artistically compelling but also commercially viable.

Conclusion

AI is undeniably reshaping the creative industries, and its impact on video post-production editing is profound. By automating routine tasks, enhancing editing capabilities, enabling intelligent scene analysis, fostering collaboration, and pushing creative boundaries, AI is empowering video editors to produce higher quality content more efficiently. As AI technology continues to evolve, its role in the creative process will only expand, opening up new possibilities for innovation and creativity in the world of video production.

[jacksonjb]

Year 13 Production Day

For production day this year, we again had access to our film departments entire range of gear and tech to help us in working on test footage and becoming more familiar with some of the gear we were using. Since the filming of my music video was in the development stage, I wanted to get some test footage of some of the shots and scenes I had in mind for my MV, to see if they work, and to see if there's any extra precautions I need to take before doing them. I had a number of reference shots and gear to use in mind, including films like Apocalypse Now (1979) and Persona (1966), coupled with dolly tracks, DJI Gimbals, and a macro lens.

Preparation

Prior to the day itself, there was a lot of planning to do - sorting out what gear I needed and why, where I wanted to shot, at school or off campus, who I needed in my footage, and who needed me for their footage. Using the below template, and after an hour or so of through organization with my working group, I figured out the details of the day. There were about seven or so shots I wanted to try and get sorted, but I also needed to act in and assist with some of my groups shots as well, a few of which would be shot off-site.

The Tracking Shot from Wings (1927)

One of the shots I want to recreate is this shot from the 1927 silent epic Wings, directed by William A. Wellman:

After analyzing and going over the shots a few times, I sketched up a quick, robust diagram of how I might want to go about filming this scene:

I found but one photo of the behind the scenes of the shot from Wings, and using that alongside repeated rewatchings of the clip, I figured out how I wanted to shoot it.

The gear I was going to be using included simply a tripod and dolly tracks, but I needed a lot of setting up of my set beforehand. As you can see above, I wanted to organize my shot so that the camera was flanked by extras on either side, internally framing my subject. I set up chairs on either side of the dolly tracks and filled them with extras I borrowed from a Y10 class - they worked perfectly! As you can see above, I set the dolly tracks up in a straight line in front of my main subject, and pushed the camera forward slowly before coming to rest on the actor. Below is the final shot.

Overall, though an exact recreation of the shot, I am very happy with how it came out. The framing worked very well, and I was able to develop my set-dressing abilities as well as get my first taste of working with the dolly tracks.

Apocalypse Now (1979) Colonel Kurtz Lighting

The next shot I wanted to work on was a bit more technically-inclined than the previous:

This shot from Apocalypse Now is considerably lighting heavy in terms of design, and so I realised I would have to venture into utilizing some pieces of tech I had very little experience with. The set up for this shot required a lot of fiddling around with lighting for me, and I needed to use the small but effective aperture brand lighting blocks from the gear cupboard.

My lighting set up was fairly simple, though it did take me a while to figure out the logistics of it all. I set up a light to the left my actor, and behind, and after dialing the settings to a dark red, and suitably dimming the lights, I was able to create a similar, though not identical recreation of the shot. The effect turned out well, and I was glad that I was able to wrangle the lighting that I'd so struggled with before in order to make the shot I wanted. If I were to do it again however, I would make some adjustments to my camera over anything else - pulling it back a little more more from the subject, and ensuring it was in focus, and also slightly adjusting the frame rate.

Bergman's Overlapping Face Shot from Persona (1966)

This shot was probably the most straightforward and simple of all my shots I did on production day, all I needed was to sort out the framing and blocking of my actors and I was good to go.

I made sure to keep referencing the actual shot to make sure I had the right adjustments, but after a little bit of instructing and placing my actors I was able to get the right positioning for my shot.

This is one of my favourite shots of the day, as simple as it was. After working some colour grading in post to match the B&W of the original film, I was able to blend the right mix and contrast of light and shadow, in a way different to the original shot, given that it used far more shadow than I did.

Blade Runner (1982) Macro Eye Shot

The final shot I wanted to try and work with, and one I'm keen on using in my MV was this one from one of my favourite films of all time Blade Runner. Though this shot did have some computer effects included, I was able to successfully recreate by use of a macro lens, allowing me to get an extreme close up shot of my subjects eye.

It was a pretty simple shot to do, the only technicalities I needed to sort out was the configuration of the macro lens. I had never used a macro lens before, and so I had some small technical bumps to get over first, but managed to get it in line to get the shots I needed.

Final Product:

Evaluation

Was I able to get everything I wanted done?

Although I did definitely get a lot of work done and a lot of shots I wanted to shot, I wasn't able to get everything I wanted done. However I prioritized the most important shots and gear, and so what I did get done was stuff that was the most worthwhile and valuable to me.

What did I gain out of this experience?

I was able to work on my organization and time management skills in regards to shooting on and off set, as well as being able to work with people among my cast and crew. Most importantly however, I was able to gain a lot of experience shooting in new ways and with new gear. such as a gimbal, dolly tracks, various studio lighting set-ups and more.

What would I change if I had to do this again?

There isn't a lot I would change if I had to do this again - the crew and cast I worked with were very supportive and great, as well as being knowledgeable and confident in working with gear and cameras, and I felt for the most part is was well organized and planned out - however, now having experience with shooting on a schedule like this, perhaps if I were to do it again I would try and fit more projects into the day, to get the most value out of it, as well as ensuring I cover all grounds on the shots and gear I want to shoot and use.

[podmasterz]

Pricing

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That's why we go the extra mile to create customized solutions tailored to your requirements. We carefully analyze the scope of work, desired services, and any additional features, ensuring that our pricing accurately reflects the value you will receive. This fosters trust and confidence in our customers, knowing you’re getting a fair and customized pricing structure. We also offer flexibility, allowing you to choose different add-ons that suit your preferences. Our goal is to empower our customers, giving them control over the pricing and ensuring their satisfaction.

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Podcast elements shape quality, identity, and experience. Intros set tone and familiarity. Spots drive revenue. Audio effects captivate and enhance content. MORE ->

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Bed music in podcasts is carefully selected and timed background music, that adds depth, emotion, and professionalism. It enhances storytelling, sets the mood, and captivates listeners.

The optimal podcast length varies, but around 30-50 minutes strike a balance, keeping listeners engaged while allowing for in-depth discussions or storytelling. The raw audio recording should not exceed +25% of the raw audio recording.

Short videos and audio clips on social media are vital for successful podcasts. They attract users with shorter attention spans, provide previews, and build brand identity. Sharing them expands reach, encourages interaction, and boosts engagement, maximizing exposure and driving curiosity for podcasts. MORE ->

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[tastydregs]

Meta's Open-Source 'MusicGen' AI Is Like ChatGPT for Tunes

AI has managed to intrude on most artistic endeavors, and now it’s fully come for the music industry. Meta has now announced the release of the open source version of its music generation AI model that uses simple prompts to generate music like ChatGPT or other large language model-based AI generate text.

Netflix Passwords, ChatGPT Can’t Detect AI, and No More CoTweets | Editor Picks

Felix Kreuk, an AI research engineer at Meta, showed off the “MusicGen’s” capabilities in a Twitter thread late last week. The system can take some music and modify it, such as making an ‘80s pop song out of a classic musical refrain.

As described by Kreuk, the model uses an EnCodec audio tokenizer based on a transformer language model. Users can demo MusicGen through Hugging Face’s API, though, generating some music could take some time depending on how many users are using it at once. You can use the Hugging Face site to create your own instance of the model for much faster outputs. Otherwise, you can download the code and run it yourself if you have the know-how and the rig to support it.

Our own tests included a synth-heavy “symphonic rendition of the happy birthday theme” and a rather crackly “Lo-fi hip hop track with samples from nature including crickets.” There are no lyrics included in the songs by default. Gizmodo tested the system by trying our own optional audio track featuring lyrics from yours truly (if you really want to stress your ears on my glass-cracking singing voice, you can find that in our previous tests of Apple Music’s karaoke feature). The prompt “Grunge song with heavy bass and violin accompaniment” came out more crackly with the added lyrics than the same prompt running without it.

It’s unclear how much the AI comprehends certain composers. We asked it to create a “Hans Zimmer score for a steampunk medieval film” though it’s hard to say if the AI could really replicate Zimmer’s themes.

Hans Zimmer score for a steampunk medieval film Clip

Hans Zimmer score for a steampunk medieval film Clip

While plenty of other models are running text generation, voice synthesization, generated art, and even short video, there haven’t been many quality examples of music generation released to the public. According to the accompanying research document available on the preprint arXiv repository, one of the main challenges with music is that it requires running the full frequency spectrum, which requires more intense sampling. That’s not to mention the complex structures and overlapping instrumentation found in music.

Meta also compared its system to Google’s MusicLM text-to-music model. Meta has its own page showcasing the features of the two models for direct comparison.

Though for artists, what may be most concerning about the model is its training data. According to the research paper, MusicGen was trained on 20,000 hours of licensed music from an internal dataset that includes 10,000 music tracks. In addition, the company used around 390,000 instrument-only tracks featured on Shutterstock and Pond5. The Meta researchers claimed all the music their model is trained on was “covered by legal agreements with the right holders.” This includes a deal with Shutterstock.

Shutterstock signed a deal with DALL-E creator OpenAI last year, and it already has its own AI image generation tool that’s pre-trained on all contributors’ images. Still, that doesn’t mean artists are necessarily happy about their work being used to train AI. Some artists have already sued some of the biggest AI art companies like Stability AI and Midjourney, with allegations aimed directly at how AI datasets suck up mass amounts of licensed content without user permissions. This grows more complicated when big tech companies like Meta can afford to license creative content for use in its AI generation. For a user, the risk that the AI is directly plagiarizing other musicians’ work, licensed or not, looms in the background.

Like most big tech companies, Meta has been on an AI kick as of late. Compared to its big tech brethren, Meta has stated it wants to release more open-source models into the ether for anyone to pick up and use. It’s an interesting tactic to make the company stand out from the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google which have become increasingly secretive. Still, it doesn’t mean Meta can avoid controversy, especially as creatives are concerned companies will use AI for artistic tasks rather than real flesh and blood creatives. In their paper, the Meta researchers acknowledged that AI “can represent an unfair competition for artists.” But they claimed that using open models can give music amateurs and professionals new tools for making music.