#well that got THAT off my chest

[shakibone]

I hate AI voice replicators

See, I like musical genre remixes. Things where a popular song is done in the style of another artist, or another era. The Baseballs understood this, with their cover of Rihanna’s Umbrella:

I’m about to go off, so more under the cut!

Neil Gaiman once said (here on Tumblr, which I'll have to paraphrase due to an unfortunate inability to find the source):

“I enjoy songs. Sometimes I enjoy them too much and they grow tired. A good cover allows me to enjoy them again for the first time.” -Neil Gaiman, heavily paraphrased

Scott Bradlee understands the power of these covers, stylistic remixes, enough to launch multiple careers off of it. Such as with his own remix (featuring Casey Abrams & The Sole Sisters) of the afore-featured Umbrella by Rihanna:

Or one of my own personal favourites, Sugar, We’re Going Down originally by Fall Out Boy:

But!

These era-adjacent (or era-divorced) covers need not be wholly original performances to have value. Let’s return to Sugar, We’re Going Down by Fall Out Boy. While Scott Bradlee and singer Joey Cook reworked it in their own way, YouTube user Johann Olsson made his own era-divorced remix, this time transplanting them Boys what Fall Out to the 80′s using the original singer’s (Patrick Stump) vocal recording re-interpreted to an entirely different genre, rythm, and style:

Listen to both covers listed here and then the original and tell me they don’t each reveal something different about the subject, that they don’t highlight new facets of the same material. This is why I love covers that work on the premise of transplanting a song to a completely different style/genre. And it’s not just divided by era! Here’s what you get when you take John Denver’s classic anthem to pastoral paradise and nature’s magnificence and run it through it’s philosophical antithesis. This is Melodicka Bros rendition, which (to my reading) seeks to find that same beauty in an industrial world stripped of it:

You can hear the singers (identified only as Joe and Dave) yearning for that beauty which John Denver knew but they will never be afforded. Or at least...

That’s my interpretation.

These stylistically remixed covers afford such great exploration of the original work alongside what the covering artist bring to the material, that it inspires awe in me. I adore this genre of remixes and covers.

And now

AND NOW.

YouTube reccomends me garbage AI covers. I’m served up the digital ghost of Frank Sinatra singing Poker Face, Spongebob (which is to say Tom Kenny, the actor who gosh darn voices him) singing Gangsta’s Paradise or some nonsense, and the entire Team Fortress 2 cast (Nathan Vetterlein, Rick May, Dennis Bateman, Gary Schwartz, Grant Goodeve, Robin Atkin Downes, John Patrick Lowrie, and Ellen McLain) singing Bohemian Rhapsody or whatever. Stolen voices twisted to shallow purposes, with no regard to the artists whose voices are taken and their wishes regarding such uses:

https://catnippackets.tumblr.com/post/722596290851176448/catnippackets-listen-i-say-this-with-patience-bc

The use of these human beings voices to speak words they did not utter is horrifying, but on a personaly level it fill my algorythmically generated feed with utter tripe.

I don’t want to end on a downer, so here’s a final example of the types of stylistic remixes I adore. Presenting Brady Love with a beutiful rendition in the style of Luciano Pavarotti of Apple Bottom Jeans (Originally by Flo Rida):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIZz2PMnEDM

This one is without preview due to Tumblr’s limitations. Perhaps we can find a metaphor in that.

[basslinegrave]

pin-up

b&w originals

[corvidcall]

None Of You Know What Haiku Are

I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.

If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?

Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!

First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.

For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.

In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).

Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?

Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.

(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)

Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.

Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.

Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音 (Furu ike ya　kawazu tobikomu　mizu no oto) (The old pond — A frog jumps in The sound of the water.)

You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.

English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.

Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.

Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)

The piercing chill I feel: my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom, under my heel

We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.

"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:

meteor shower . . . a gentle wave wets our sandals

When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.

"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?

I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards

a year at most . . . we pretend to watch the hummingbirds

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Further reading:

Forms in English Haiku by Keiko Imaoka Haiku: A Whole Lot More Than 5-7-5 by Jack How to Write a Bad Haiku by KrisL Haiku Are Not a Joke: A Plea from a Poet Who Has Had It Up to Here by Sandra Simpson Haiku Checklist by Katherine Raine

[drenched-in-sunlight]

Theory: If Messmer is Marika’s sword (spear), Godwyn is her shield.

Yes I made another doomed Mother & Son presentation slide: eldest sons edition 🙏😔

EDIT 1: adding a bit to this, the theme music of Godwyn's Death Knight is a rearrangement of Erdtree Knight OST (aka Tree Sentinels theme)

(Messmer’s timeline) (discussion of Radagon’s shady behavior)

[agtavio]

who we really are

[preoxxupy]

whether you like her or not, she played all the cards to her advantage and is getting exactly what she wants.

[poebrey]

I’m tired of seeing all these caveats on The Acolyte saying that the writing could’ve been better or it wasn’t as good like there’s a need to preemptively defend criticism of it when saying it deserved to get renewed. It was just as good or bad as most of the other star wars live action, none of which in terms of either quality (everything except Andor) or performance has surpassed The Mandalorian.

The Acolyte had a good first season, set the stage for a new direction, was able to build word of mouth and attract new audiences, and by the end of the season was going viral in a way that only Obi-Wan managed to do by bringing in a second legacy character (Anakin). This is now the 4th production including the sequel series that received a targeted hate campaign, by which I’m placing strong emphasis on the words targeted and campaign because both Ahsoka and TBOBF received large amounts of racist abuse.

Star Wars is a stagnant media property, coming off of a widely-panned sequel series (which managed to achieve the rare feat of alienating both the racist and misogynistic parts of the fanbase and just about everyone else in refusing to properly develop the new leads as it re-tooled itself to appease the former.) Just about every actor of color in a leading role has been subject to widespread racial abuse, it frequently undermines its own initiative to focus on female characters, and in refusing to stand by its own IP it’s destroying any long-term plan to revitalize the fanbase before it even gets off the ground, the High Republic era now having years of investment and buildup cast aside.

When all of the following media projects fail because no one has faith in them after how they handled their previous projects (looking at the upcoming Rey-centric Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy led film) its going to once again be blamed on ‘bad quality, bad production, whatever the racist dog whistle of the season is like the current “wokeism” etc.’ and not an inherent refusal of a company to stand by its own work. This is Star Wars, no one, not even the biggest fans of the prequel films were coming out of theatres thinking this was Oscar-winning high art. What made it work is George Lucas’ refusal to give in to criticism and fundamentally change his own creation, for better or worse, whether it be bad CGI and Jar Jar Binks, or making an annoying little kid named Ani the central protagonist of the first film in decades. That same attitude stood by giving Anakin a padawan named Ahsoka. It should be ushering in a new era of Star Wars, instead half the audience is convinced Lucasfilm hates its own IP.

[sieglinde-freud]

IM PULLING MY HAIR OUT OF MY SCALP

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

yk, its weird being Way Too Aware & In Control of yourself bc technically i believe im having a panic attack. but somehow i am Very Unbothered by this, bc i know whats happening and its illogical. my body's having an overreaction and i couldn't be fucked to join in

[luck-of-the-drawings]

THAT WOUND. THAT VILE WOUND. it throbs in time with your speeding heart, and the ache it carries through your veins is oppressive, its hot, it tangles around your jaw and through your spine and behind your eyes. there are needles, sprouting from the lacerations like the most heinous ivy, and it strangles your lungs, rips tears from your eyes, lures bile to your throat. it hurts. oh god it hurts. you cant think, you cant breathe, you cant swallow, you cant see. you cant see. you cant see. you cannot see but you know when your eyes are closed, because there are colors stained upon the backs of your eyelids. they form images of loved ones, of viscera, of bile and blood and blackened mud. its jarring, they make anxiety spike outwards, frantic ferro fluid, frightened from faces too scared, too pained, too dead, too piercing with eyes staring straight at you, straight at you. actually, you cant tell when your eyes are open.

SAUCE FREE VERSION UNDER THE CUT.

[sysig]

How is skeleton shaped (Patreon)

[alxclaremont]

had an absolute shit day at work, got off of work, remembered lando and oscar’s beef, almost started crying, went on twitter, saw that they ate mcdonalds and played monopoly on the plane back to monaco, almost started crying again, no longer feel like shit thank you and goodnight

[aroaceweirdos101]

TW: VENT ART, BRIGHT COLORS, SCOPOPHOBIA

No comment(mostly because Idk what to put here)

[chushanye]

Why must people be so rude to emily and ally, the fact that ally has to even joke about needing a bodyguard because of the shit that’s happened to them on the street is concerning.

It's very annoying. If you'll allow me, I have a long, petty rant about two specific things I read that annoyed me.

I honestly think it's this weird entitlement people have in online spaces where they feel like creatives "owe" them a story that plays out exactly how they want it to.

I got several comments where a person ranted about how Ally doesn't know their actions have consequences ("ally the central concept of an actual play is that your choices matter") ...which is just ABSURD when we're talking about Ally "emotional speech" Beardsley who keeps meticulous notes every season and ties in little details from previous episodes. just because their play style isn't serious or they like making ridiculous shit happen doesn't mean they're bad at dnd; if you wanted a polished story where nothing unpredictable happens, go read a published novel that was thoroughly edited because the central concept of actual play is improvisation. I think that person would actually implode if they ever listened to Dungeons and Daddies.

which ties into this thing in fandom spaces I've been noticing for a while, which is people cannot just say they dislike something without making it seem like the person who made it is problematic. (and it's not just the d20 fandom, it's everywhere) I remember during 'Starstruck discourse-gate' I saw a thousand-word textpost ranting about how Ally is a "toxic player" because they made a joke about how Norman Takamori used to touch Margret's lower back when passing by her. they made the argument that players shouldn't come up with stuff for other's characters because it universally makes people upset when you mess with their oc's and how it (apparently 'obviously') made Zac uncomfortable. and ended the post saying "that's why I'm going to ignore that that happened because I believe Norman is a lot more nuanced than people give him credit for."

here are my 2 cents about all that- Norman canonically verbally abused his staff, underpaid them and was a prideful high-ranking officer in a literal military but you draw the line at him being creepy to women?

why do you have to go out of your way to prove that REAL LIFE PERSON ALLY BEARDSLEY is problematic and bad and making their friends uncomfortable rather than accepting that the FICTIONAL person you like is shitty? and why do you have to defend Norman to like him? why has fandom become so insistent on ONLY disliking "immoral" things and only enjoying "moral" things? why is it not enough to not like chaos, why do you have to imply Ally is bad at their JOB to justify your opinion?

The last thing that I have to say is that you'll notice this never happened with Brennan. because the same people who bring down Ally and Emily have a weird idolizing view of him. In fact, you'll often see them attack Ally and Emily "for the sake" of Brennan. (the person who talked about Ally not knowing their actions have consequences implied that Brennan refused to retcon blimeygate to "teach Ally a lesson") they treat this show like it's HIS story, where the players are unwanted nuisance. it's fucking weird.

[lunar-years]

I need to not get into pointless ship arguments on the internet with people who are never going to agree with me I need to not get into pointless ship arguments on the internet with people who are never going to agree with me I need to—

[2pen2wildfire]

So summer's coming up and cuz I'm a nanny I'm gonna end up having to take the kids to the pool a lot, does anyone have any good swim binder or alternative recommendations? Really don't wanna be wearing a sports bra in public all summer.