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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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A year in illustration, 2023 edition (part one)

(This is part one; part two is here.)

I am objectively very bad at visual art. I am bad at vision, period – I'm astigmatic, shortsighted, color blind, and often miss visual details others see. I can't even draw a stick-figure. To top things off, I have cataracts in both eyes and my book publishing/touring schedule is so intense that I keep having to reschedule the surgeries. But despite my vast visual deficits, I thoroughly enjoy making collages for this blog.

For many years now – decades – I've been illustrating my blog posts by mixing public domain and Creative Commons art with work that I can make a good fair use case for. As bad as art as I may be, all this practice has paid off. Call it unseemly, but I think I'm turning out some terrific illustrations – not all the time, but often enough.

Last year, I rounded up my best art of the year:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/25/a-year-in-illustration/

And I liked reflecting on the year's art so much, I decided I'd do it again. Be sure to scroll to the bottom for some downloadables – freely usable images that I painstakingly cut up with the lasso tool in The Gimp.

The original AD&D hardcover cover art is seared into my psyche. For several years, there were few images I looked at so closely as these. When Hasbro pulled some world-beatingly sleazy stuff with the Open Gaming License, I knew just how to mod Dave Trampier's 'Eve Of Moloch' from the cover of the Players' Handbook. Thankfully, bigger nerds than me have identified all the fonts in the image, making the remix a doddle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

Even though I don't keep logs or collect any analytics, I can say with confidence that "Tiktok's Enshittification" was the most popular thing I published on Pluralistic this year. I mixed some public domain Brother's Grimm art, mixed with a classic caricature of Boss Tweed, and some very cheesy royalty-free/open access influencer graphics. One gingerbread cottage social media trap, coming up:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To illustrate the idea of overcoming walking-the-plank fear (as a metaphor for writing when it feels like you suck) I mixed public domain stock of a plank, a high building and legs, along with a procedurally generated Matrix "code waterfall" and a vertiginous spiral ganked from a Heinz Bunse photo of a German office lobby.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/

Finding a tasteful way to illustrate a story about Johnson & Johnson losing a court case after it spent a generation tricking women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos-tainted talcum was a challenge. The tulip (featured in many public domain images) was a natural starting point. I mixed it with Jesse Wagstaff's image of a Burning Man dust-storm and Mike Mozart's shelf-shot of a J&J talcum bottle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

"Google's Chatbot Panic" is about Google's long history of being stampeded into doing stupid things because its competitors are doing them. Once it was Yahoo, now it's Bing. Tenniel's Tweedle Dee and Dum were a good starting point. I mixed in one of several Humpty Dumpty editorial cartoon images from 19th century political coverage that I painstakingly cut out with the lasso tool on a long plane-ride. This is one of my favorite Humpties, I just love the little 19th C businessmen trying to keep him from falling! I finished it off with HAL 9000's glowing red eye, my standard 'this is about AI' image, which I got from Cryteria's CC-licensed SVG.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Though I started writing about Luddites in my January, 2022 Locus column, 2023 was the Year of the Luddite, thanks to Brian Merchant's outstanding Blood In the Machine:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When it came time to illustrate "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk," I found a public domain weaver's loft, and put one of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes in the window. Magpie Killjoy's Steampunk Magazine poster, 'Love the Machine, Hate the Factory,' completed the look.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

For the "small, non-profit school" that got used as an excuse to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, I brought back Humpty Dumpty, mixing him with a Hogwartsian castle, a brick wall texture, and an ornate, gilded frame. I love how this one came out. This Humpty was made for the SVB bailout.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/23/small-nonprofit-school/#north-country-school

The RESTRICT Act would have federally banned Tiktok – a proposal that was both technically unworkable and unconstitutional. I found an early 20th century editorial cartoon depicting Uncle Sam behind a fortress wall that was keeping a downtrodden refugee family out of America. I got rid of most of the family, giving the dad a Tiktok logo head, and I put Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes over each cannonmouth. Three Boss Tweed moneybag-head caricatures, adorned with Big Tech logos, rounded it out.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

When Flickr took decisive action to purge the copyleft trolls who'd been abusing its platform, I knew I wanted to illustrate this with Lucifer being cast out of heaven, and the very best one of those comes from John Milton, who is conveniently well in the public domain. The Flickr logo suggested a bicolored streaming-light-of-heaven motif that just made it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/#pilkunnussija

Old mainframe ads are a great source of stock for a "Computer Says No" image. And Congress being a public building, there are lots of federal (and hence public domain) images of its facade.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax

When I wrote about the Clarence Thomas/Harlan Crow bribery scandal, it was easy to find Mr. Kjetil Ree's great image of the Supreme Court building. Thomas being a federal judge, it was easy to find a government photo of his head, but it's impossible to find an image of him in robes at a decent resolution. Luckily, there are tons of other federal judges who've been photographed in their robes! Boss Tweed with the dollar-sign head was a great stand-in for Harlan Crow (no one knows what he looks like anyway). Gilding Thomas's robes was a simple matter of superimposing a gold texture and twiddling with the layers.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

"Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes" is one of my best titles. This is the post where I introduce the idea of "twiddling" as part of the theory of enshittification, and explain how it relates to "reverse centaurs" – people who assist machines, rather than the other way around. Finding a CC licensed modular synth was much harder than I thought, but I found Stephen Drake's image and stitched it into a mandala. Cutting out the horse's head for the reverse centaur was a lot of work (manes are a huuuuge pain in the ass), but I love how his head sits on the public domain high-viz-wearing warehouse worker's body I cut up (thanks, OSHA!). Seeing as this is an horrors-of-automation story, Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes make an appearance.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Rockefeller's greatest contribution to our culture was inspiring many excellent unflattering caricatures. The IWW's many-fists-turning-into-one-fist image made it easy to have the collective might of workers toppling the original robber-baron.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

I link to this post explaining how to make good Mastodon threads at least once a week, so it's a good thing the graphic turned out so well. Close-cropping the threads from a public domain yarn tangle worked out great. Eugen Rochko's Mastodon logo was and is the only Affero-licensed image ever to appear on Pluralistic.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

I spent hours on the sofa one night painstakingly cutting up and reassembling the cover art from a science fiction pulp. I have a folder full of color-corrected, high-rez scans from an 18th century anatomy textbook, and the cross-section head-and-brain is the best of the lot.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Those old French anatomical drawings are an endless source of delight to me. Take one cross-sectioned noggin, mix in an old PC mainboard, and a vector art illo of a virtuous cycle with some of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes and you've got a great illustration of Google's brain-worms.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

Ireland's privacy regulator is but a plaything in Big Tech's hand, but it's goddamned hard to find an open-access Garda car. I manually dressed some public domain car art in Garda livery, painstakingly tracing it over the panels. The (public domain) baby's knit cap really hides the seams from replacing the baby's head with HAL9000's eye.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Naked-guy-in-a-barrel bankruptcy images feel like something you can find in an old Collier's or Punch, but I came up snake-eyes and ended up frankensteining a naked body into a barrel for the George Washington crest on the Washington State flag. It came out well, but harvesting the body parts from old muscle-beach photos left George with some really big guns. I tried five different pairs of suspenders here before just drawing in black polyhedrons with little grey dots for rivets.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

Illustrating Amazon's dominance over the EU coulda been easy – just stick Amazon 'A's in place of the yellow stars that form a ring on the EU flag. So I decided to riff on Plutarch's Alexander, out of lands to conquer. Rama's statue legs were nice and high-rez. I had my choice of public domain ruin images, though it was harder thank expected to find a good Amazon box as a plinth for those broken-off legs.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

God help me, I could not stop playing with this image of a demon-haunted IoT car. All those reflections! The knife sticking out of the steering wheel, the multiple Munsch 'Scream'ers, etc etc. The more I patchked with it, the better it got, though. This one's a banger.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

To depict a "data-driven dictatorship," I ganked elements of heavily beribboned Russian military dress uniforms, replacing the head with HAL9000's eye. I turned the foreground into the crowds from the Nuremberg rallies and filled the sky with Matrix code waterfall.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in

The best thing about analogizing DRM to demonic possession is the wealth of medieval artwork to choose from . This one comes from the 11th century 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros.' I mixed in the shiny red Tesla (working those reflections!), and a Tesla charger to make my point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Yet more dividends from those old French anatomical plates: a flayed skull, a detached jaw, a quack electronic gadget, a Wachowski code waterfall and some HAL 9000 eyes and you've got a truly unsettling image of machine-compelled speech.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

I had no idea this would work out so well, but daaaamn, crossfading between a Wachowski code waterfall and a motherboard behind a roiling thundercloud is dank af.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

Of all the turkeys-voting-for-Christmas self-owns conservative culture warriors fall for, few can rival the "banning junk fees is woke" hustle. Slap a US-flag Punisher logo on and old-time card imprinter, add a GOP logo to a red credit-card blank, and then throw in a rustic barn countertop and you've got a junk-fee extracter fit for the Cracker Barrel.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Putting the Verizon logo on the Hinderberg was an obvious gambit (even if I did have to mess with the flames a lot), but the cutout of Paul Marcarelli as the 'can you hear me now?' guy, desaturated and contrast-matched, made it sing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

Note to self: Tux the Penguin is really easy to source in free/open formats! He looks great with HAL9000 eyes.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Rockwell's self-portrait image is a classic; that made it a natural for a HAL9000-style remix about AI art. I put a bunch of time into chopping and remixing Rockwell's signature to give it that AI look, and added as many fingers as would fit on each hand.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

(Images: Heinz Bunse, West Midlands Police, Christopher Sessums, CC BY-SA 2.0; Mike Mozart, Jesse Wagstaff, Stephen Drake, Steve Jurvetson, syvwlch, Doc Searls, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/14231376315, Chatham House, CC BY 2.0; Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Mr. Kjetil Ree, Trevor Parscal, Rama, “Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center, Russian Airborne Troops Press Service, CC BY-SA 3.0; Raimond Spekking, CC BY 4.0; Drahtlos, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eugen Rochko, Affero; modified)

#pluralistic #illustration #collage #fair use #creative commons #stock art #blogging #art #practice makes perfect

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ecrivainsolitaire · 6 months

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Open Art Guild – Testing the boundaries of collective IP ownership

Experimental release: Dr. T’chem’s Office (authorised for personal and commercial use)

I’ll try to keep this brief (you can read the full thesis statement here) but as we all know, intellectual property law is broken. It’s being exploited from every side and art workers are more vulnerable than ever to automation, copyright theft and myriad other unforeseeable forms of theft from the proletariat. We as a collective need to come together and work towards the creation of a better future.

The Open Art Guild is my proposal for the first of many steps towards a far away but necessary goal: the eradication of intellectual property as it pertains to the arts. It’s based on the open source standard and the creative commons, and the goal is for us to start creating a future where we stop thinking of artworks as private property to hoard, and start sharing the responsibilities and the benefits of their creation with the collective. And as I am proposing the idea, I should give the first step.

Which is why I am announcing the release of my short story series, Dr. T’chem’s Office, into the Open Art Guild license. This is an episodic HFY comedy series about the office hours of a sleazy yet well intentioned xenoanthropologist in charge of human integration into the crew of a spaceship, who happens to find them fascinating. You can read the first few instalments here:

The basics of the license go as follows: I’m giving any artist permission to use the assets of my artwork (in this case, settings, characters, plot lines and other unique concepts) both for personal use and for commercial use, provided they commit to crediting the original artist, giving away 30% of any profit back to the hands of the collective in the breakdown the guidelines specify, and giving the same license to any works they create derivative from this series. Any artist can join the Guild by remixing existing artworks in its database or voluntarily submitting their own works. For the time being this prototype model will have to rely on the honour system, but I have outlined the basic guidelines for a platform dedicated to facilitating the Guild’s business and income redistribution.

The purpose of this experiment is to test whether this system is financially viable, what modifications it needs, and how to enforce it. It’s also a way to study what the community thinks of this model. To summarise the implications, here are the pros and cons as I see them.

Pros:

- All fan art, spin-offs, third-party merchandise and other forms of adaptation become automatically authorised and monetisable, provided both the original artist and the remixer are active members of the Guild.

- All adaptations are automatically non-exclusive and must give away the same rights as the original, diminishing the incentive for massive corporations to try and scam an artist out of their intellectual property.

- It effectively unionises freelance artists of all fields to balance out negotiations with non Guild entities.

- It encourages artists to continue their output in order to reap the benefits of the Guild, by using the redistribution system as an incentive, instead of the current status quo where artists are actively fighting market forces all by themselves in order to make enough time and resources to work on their craft.

- It provides a safety net where everyone is invested in the continuous welfare of everyone else, giving a sense of class solidarity and facilitating donations and shared resources.

- It motivates artists to invest in each other, as the growth of one means the growth of the whole Guild.

- Eventually, if the project succeeds and the proposed platform comes to exist, it would effectively create a universal basic income for all Guild members, as well as a self sustained legal fund to protect their assets from IP theft by non Guild entities.

- It will give you complete control over whether your art can be used for AI dataset training, on an opt-in, post-by-post basis, so you don’t have to wonder who might be stealing it. If the platform is created, all works whose creators have not authorised to be used for this will have data scrambling features to make sure thieves can’t use them.

Cons:

- It will require all Guild members to permanently renounce to 30% of their profit, in order to build up the funds and distribution system.

- It will have to be built entirely on trust of the collective, at least until a platform can be established, which may take weeks or may take decades depending on lots of unpredictable factors.

- Leaving the Guild will require all artworks shared with the collective to become Creative Commons; once you renounce your right to monopoly of your IP, it’s permanent, no way to go back. This is necessary in order to prevent asset flippers and other forms of IP scabs to join the Guild, extract other people’s assets and then scram.

- Due to banking regulations entirely out of our hands, some artists will have participating in the redistribution. If the platform ever becomes a reality, one of its main goals will be to remedy this immediately.

This proposal requires a high cost, but it provides an invaluable reward. If the system works, it will empower all artists to profit from their work and protect it as a collective. If it doesn’t, all that will have happened is that you will have created a lot of Creative Commons art, which financially isn’t ideal, but artistically is extremely commendable. Even in the worst case scenario, corporations will not be able to hold your art hostage with exclusivity deals. To me, the benefits vastly outweigh the costs, but I do want to emphasise: there will be costs. This is an effort to subvert the entire way art has been monetised since the 1700s. It will require a lot of work, a lot of people, and a lot of time, to make it work. But I believe it can work. If you believe it too, you are welcome to join the Open Art Guild.

Please do read the guidelines for the Guild and the guidelines for the platform before you start creating, and give me whatever feedback you have. If it’s good, if it’s lacking, if I’m overstepping legal boundaries, if you can find loopholes, anything. I tried to make it airtight but I’m not a legal expert. This is not my project, it is a project for the proletariat. Everyone should have a say on what they’re signing on for. And regardless of what you think, share it with all artists you can. This will only work if as many people as possible participate.

Doctor T’chem’s Office’s license

This work has been released under the Open Art Guild license, and has been approved for reuse and adaptation under the following conditions:

For personal, educational and archival use, provided any derivative works also fall under a publicly open license, to all Guild members and non members.

For commercial use, provided redistribution guidelines of the Guild be followed, to all active Guild members.

For commercial use to non Guild members, provided any derivative works also fall under a publicly open license, with the explicit approval of the artist and proper redistribution of profit following the guidelines of the Guild.

For non commercial dataset training of open source generative art technologies, provided the explicit consent of the artist, proper credit and redistribution of profit in its entirety to the Guild.

Shall this work be appropriated by non Guild members without proper authorisation, credit and redistribution of profit, the non Guild entity waives their right to intellectual property over any derivative works, copyrights, trademarks or patents of any sort and cedes it to the Creative Commons, under the 4.0 license, irrevocably and unconditionally, in perpetuity, throughout time and space in the known multiverse. The Guild reserves the right to withhold trade relations with any known infractors for the duration its members deem appropriate, including the reversal of any currently standing contracts and agreements.

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bleach-your-panties · 6 months

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⚡mind (and body) fuck 🛸- d.kaminari x fem reader x h.shinsou

⇰n/sfw 18+. mdni. MAJOR dark content warning.

⇰written for @bastardblvd's house of slimy horrors halloween collab.

⇰warnings: gullible reader, mentally ill reader, drug use (weed), electrostimulation, hypnosis, alien abduction, NON-CON, body horror, tummy bulge, use of surgical instruments, instrument insertion, egg retrieval, time-traveling (between present day and 1970's), alternate timelines, trippy shit, misogyny, sexism, sleazy men talk, threesome ig, excessive cursing, slimeball!denki being himself and slimeball!fake!landlord hitoshi, who claims he's a licensed hypnotist. this is degenerate, psychological filth; who wrote this?

⇰(i got the title idea from shinsou's hero name. i think it's mindbreak, but i always say mindfuck lol.)

🛸inspired by the movie fire in the sky and betty and barney hill's accounts of their alien abduction in 1961.

🛸banner images from pinterest/pic collage

🛸banner/animated divider made by me with canva/pic collage.

🛸halloween divider by @/firefly-graphics

🛸4.8k words

▶️: e. t (remix). - katy perry ft. kanye west

▶️: phone home - lil wayne

"You sure you don't want another hit, pretty?" Denki turned his head to ask you as he held the lit blunt, which was quickly becoming a roach, between his long fingers.

Hitoshi, who was sitting to your left, made a small sound of amusement.

"I think she's had enough. Just look at her fucking face."

You're Denki's new neighbor, having just moved down the hall into apartment 3E. After finally securing a day off from work, he decided to do the neighborly thing and invite you over. To get to know you better.

He met you as he was preparing to leave for work one morning.

You looked so lost and gullible, easy prey for him, but if he hadn't have left then, Katsuki would have most certainly put his ass on bathroom duty for being late.

He'd have to put his quest of getting to know you on the back burner until he had more time.

And now, the day has finally come.

He wasn't very impressed when Hitoshi insisted on coming over the same day to 'work on some maintenance issues'.

Hitoshi is a bastard, a smooth bastard, that always seems to be in competition with him when it comes to nagging hot, unsuspecting chicks and taking them home, filling them up with weed, alcohol, and dick, then giving them the boot.

They even have a scoreboard, and Denki is currently just one point behind Hitoshi right now. Just one measly point.

And Denki planned to use little ole, naive you to even the score.

"What even is in that shit? It smells horrible." The violet-haired man waved his hand in front of his face to waft the weed smoke away from his "delicate" nose.

"You know, I've never seen someone who smokes cigarettes be so sensitive about a little weed. Pussy."

"Pussy? Oh, so now we're name-calling then? If I'm such a pussy, then how come I'm ahead of you right now on the board?"

He pointed a long, black-polished fingertip at the board situated across the room in plain sight.

The girls that Denki brought back here either had to be dumb, lonely, desperate, or a sad mixture of all three. Not to mention the ones with daddy issues.

“Because you use fake status and promises of discounted rent to get pussy, while I, on the other hand, use my charm and good looks. Not to mention I actually know how to fuck.” Denki smirked and crossed his long arms over his chest.

Hitoshi just snorted and Denki knew that he had won that argument.

A soft moan and a feminine hand on his jean-clad thigh made Denki jump in surprise.

"Shit, I almost forgot you were here, baby girl. Scared the fuck out of me." Denki cooed at you and then snickered.

A steaming hot box of pizza was open on the small coffee table in front of you, along with opened cans of beer and soda.

"You still didn't answer my question, pisshead. What is in that weed and why does it stink so fucking badly?"

Denki leaned forward to grab a slice of pizza out of the box: Hawaiian-style pizza.

"It's called Pineapple Express."

"Oh you just fucking made that up."

"I swear I didn't, but okay." Denki reached across your lap to ash the roach. Your small hand shakily reached out, grabbed his wrist, and rubbed it all the way down to the crease of his elbow, meeting the flannel of his rolled-up shirt.

“What’s wrong, baby? Are you tired?” Denki asked you in a thick, honey-laden voice.

What he doesn't know, though, is that he's given you a dangerous mixture.

A toxin that would soon have you spouting fairytales and complete nonsense.

You looked up at the zig-zag blonde confused, as if you were really seeing him for the first time.

"Wait, where am I? W-what…what year is it?"

Shinsou raised an eyebrow and shot Denki a concerned look.

"You're in my apartment, babe, and the year is 2023." Denki answered without missing a beat.

You were clutching his arm now in a panicked state.

"N-no, that can't be right. The last thing that I remember was walking home and then there was this bright, green light and…"

Both males leaned into you mechanically, them wanting to give you their full attention as well as them being eager to hear what you have to say.

"It was like a fire in the sky; at first it was merely a spark against the soot of the night, when all of a sudden, it was surrounding me, a blazing hot inferno, as if I had stepped onto the Sun's surface." You explained with a shakiness to your voice.

"If you even attempted to touch the Sun, you'd vaporize before you could even reach the surface." Shinsou retorted smartly.

Denki seemed perturbed by the story that you're currently spouting, but he also couldn't deny that it had sparked his interest.

"Leave it to Denki to bring home a crazy bitch and try to fuck…" Shinsou mumbled and reached into his jeans pocket for a Marlboro Menthol Black cigarette.

Said blonde swatted at Shinsou, a silent message for the lavender-haired man to shut the fuck up lest he scare away the barista's latest conquest.

"Hmm, what are you babbling about, sugar tits? There's no such thing as aliens and time travelers." He chuckled gleefully and cradled you closer to him.

How cute and funny you are.

His dick began to stir in his jeans from having you lie against him like this. Your tits spilled over the neckline of your top and brushed his chest.

Shinsou rolled his periwinkle eyes as he continued to smoke his cigarette and watch the wispy smoke curl up into the air. The minty, smoky odor mixed with the fruity one of Denki’s weed.

Those eyes then moved to the floor where your open purse was sitting by his feet. Inside, he could see a couple of pill bottles peeking out.

While you were busy whining to Denki about how you’d supposedly been abducted by aliens in your past life, Shinsou leaned down and scooped the three bottles up to read their white labels.

‘Haloperidol, chlorpromazine, and trifluoperazine. Antipsychotics?’

He rolled the bottles over in his hand then shot another look over to Denki, who seemed to have forgotten that Shinsou was even there.

The blonde's nimble fingers splayed across your back while his other hand rubbed up and down your shoulder.

Your breathing quickened and Denki took that as your arousal coming out, but your chest was constricting; you felt like you might be having a panic attack.

Shinsou stood up off the couch and moved Denki's hand off of your shoulder. Honey snapped up to meet periwinkle.

"What the fuck, dude?"

The pill bottles shook in his face, making Denki squint as he tried to read the small black writing.

"What is this?"

"Antipsychotic medication! This chick is seriously screwed up! You shouldn't have given her that weed; it's likely the only reason she's falling all over you right now!"

Denki scoffed and rolled his eyes. In his mind, Shinsou is just envious that Denki got to you first, and the lavender-haired man was afraid for Denki to take the lead over him.

"Now when it's my chance to finally get ahead, you want to be a man of morals? Spare me the bullshit, please."

"Forget about the fucking board for a minute! You-"

Denki swiped the bottles out of Shinsou's hand and brought them in front of your face. His free hand moved from your back to your belly and down into the waistband of your skirt.

"Did you remember to take your medicine today, huh, pretty?" He asked with a teasing lilt in his voice. This revelation doesn't change anything for him; he's still hard and still wants to fuck you.

Your eyes refocus on him, only slightly, and you give a faraway nod.

"I did…I think.."

He leaned forward to set the pill bottles on the coffee table. "Good girl…" He purred like a fat cat with a bowl full of fresh tuna.

Denki grabbed your exposed thigh and used it to pull your leg across his waist. Shinsou didn't miss how your cunt gripped the chartreuse lace of your panties as Denki exposed you to his sunken eyes. He bit his lip.

"You're really going to fuck her while she's like this?" His voice was thick with apprehension.

Denki didn't falter; he even smirked.

"Sure am...not like I haven't done it before. You got a problem, you can leave. There's the door." He nodded his head behind him to the metal door that leads into the hallway.

Shinsou's jaw clenched; his pride wouldn't let him be outdone by a dumbass like Denki. Not by a long shot.

Shinsou had to think of a plan and think of one fast before Denki would have your spaced-out ass bouncing on his dick in this very living room.

"Hey…I've got an idea. If she claims she was abducted by aliens, I'll hypnotize her. That way, we'll know if she's really telling the truth or if she's just a nut."

Denki laughed at the double entendre. "She is just a nut, but I'm interested now. Do you really know how to hypnotize someone?" He asked, looking at Shinsou while standing up from the couch.

"Of course, I'm a licensed hypnotist." Shinsou lied, trying to save face.

Denki positioned you in a supine position and crossed your arms over your chest.

"I'm going to hypnotize her, not put her in a fucking tomb." Shinsou rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, whatever. Just do it, before I get bored. Also, if you think you're going to trick me into giving her up, you've got another thing coming." Denki snapped.

His tone grew darker, possessive. He settled his long limbs onto the coffee table and pushed the cans and pizza boxes off to the side.

"Shut the fuck up." Shinsou mumbled. He walked over to the arm of the couch where your head is situated and stood over you.

Smoke-scented fingers caressed your cheek and jaw. You looked up into Shinsou's eyes and they turned dark like cold, jagged amethysts.

"I need you to relax for me, kitten. Breathe slow and easy, don't force them out. Just let them come slow and easy, just like that. Good girl."

His hand moved to stroke your hair and your squinted eyes shut completely.

"Keep breathing and slowly begin to count backwards from fifty. Come on, do it for me, baby. I know you can."

Denki's golden eyes watched with intent and arousal; watching you submit to Shinsou's whim so easily was making him even harder than he was previously.

"50…49…48…47…46…"

Your arms slumped by your sides as you drifted off.

—--

1976

—--

The crickets' songs were melodious in your ears as you walked through your darkened college campus to get back to your dormitory.

The women's dorms were situated far from the main campus and the only way to get there was through a thick, wooded area.

"Silly me for not watching the time and ending up kicked out on my ass at 8pm at night. So not groovy." You chuckled.

Your platform sandals thumped against the ground, the material of your flared pants swishing over them with every calculated step that you took.

It was a bit of a chilly night, not unusual for your hometown, but tonight oddly seemed much colder.

The breeze ruffled your clothes and you looked up into the obsidian night sky. The moon was high and the stars swirled behind the dark gray clouds like a vortex, waiting to swallow up the wispy bits of condensation.

"How beautiful…"

Suddenly, one of those stars began growing larger and larger. It seemed to be moving towards the Earth; a comet maybe?

No.

It's much bigger and much wider than a comet would be and it's…spinning.

Hot.

The heat was all around you at once and you were trapped. A mechanical whirring sound reverberated in your ears and drummed against your brain.

Bright, green light emanated from the flying disk as it landed amongst the trees, crushing many of them under its massive weight.

The sound of multiple tree trunks cracking and bending under it sounded like multiple whips cracking against flesh and the sound made you wince. You dropped your books and covered your ears.

"What…this can't be happening right now…"

You whispered softly and clenched your eyes shut. The biting cold was now no match for the heat that had engulfed your entire being.

You fainted.

—--

We are not the same. I am a Martian..

(Greetings from Planet Weezy,

We will begin transmission in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…)

Phone home! (Weezy)

And if you feel like you're the best go 'head and do the Weezy-wee and

Phone home! (Weezy)

—-

You awoke sometime later in a cold room with steel walls.

"What happened to me..I..what the hell?"

You tried to move your arms, but they were strapped down on either side of your head with thick leather straps.

"What the fuck?! Let me go! Let me out of here! Anybody! Somebody - help me!"

All of your racket must have alerted whoever else was on the ship with you, because the metal door opened, lifting up from the floor slowly.

Purple smoke filtered under the door and two white-robed figures walked in.

You looked at them and they looked back at you. Then they looked at each other and began speaking in a language that your puny human brain couldn't even begin to comprehend.

The two of them looked like regular humans, but you knew that they were anything but.

The shorter one of the two, a blonde with a black zig-zag stripe through one side of his hair, focused on you.

He was wearing blue visor-like eyewear that shielded his honey-colored eyes from your vision. The man began to approach your bedside and only upon closer inspection did you realize that he was carrying a metal try with various surgical tools on it.

While the blonde situated himself on a stool beside your bed, the other, a much taller man with wild purple hair, matching eyes, and a black mouthpiece concealing the lower portion of his face sat down at the foot of your bed…table…examination table.

He said something else to the blonde, who nodded without looking up from the laptop that he was now typing on.

He moved a slim finger to press something on the screen - you couldn't read the text, it must be in whatever language they were speaking - and you noticed that his skin was a sickly-looking pale green color and his fingers ended in very sharp black talons.

Definitely not human.

—-

We are not the same, I am a Martian

And I'm hotter than summer rain like Carl Thomas

Lock, load, ready to aim at any target

I could get your brains for a bargain like I bought it from Target

—-

The purple-haired one seemed content with just watching you, but he began twisting the knobs on the sides of his mouthpiece.

Greetings, human.

The sound rang inside your head like a bell. It didn't seem to have come from his mouth, but since you couldn't see his lips, you really didn't know.

"I-I…what do you plan to do with me? Please, just let me go home…!"

You pleaded to him, but your cries didn't seem to really affect him. He just continued staring at you, as if you were an insect under a microscope..

An insect that he could easily overpower and crush if you even tried to defy him or his partner.

We plan to cause you no harm, if and only if you obey us and let us perform some examinations on you…

"W-What kind of examinations?"

The blonde, now finished with his computer work, rose from the stool and grabbed the metal tray.

He joined the purple one at the foot of your bed, having pulled the stool with him to sit back down on.

The purple one said no more, but the blonde reached for your feet and placed them into stirrups at the bottom of the bed.

This setup is one that you're quite familiar with…is he planning to… give you a feminine wellness exam?

Your thoughts on that were quickly diverted once you saw the tools that the blonde had actually picked up.

He wore thick blue gloves made of, what you assumed might be latex, but it had to be stronger or his claws would've ripped right through them.

"No…no no no no…please!" You pleaded, thrashing against the table widely.

In one hand he held what looked like a transvaginal ultrasound probe but on a much larger scale then what you'd find in any doctor's office on Earth.

The blonde spoke again to his companion, his tone coming across as annoyed.

The purple-haired man slowly rose from his seat and walked over to you.

He placed his large hand atop your sweaty hair and began to gently stroke it in an effort to calm you down.

Hush now, if you don't lie still I'm going to have to sedate you.

Why couldn't you have just done that in the first damn place!?

You wanted to argue back, but thought it less than wise to do so.

The blonde continued on since you seemed to be distracted now. Deciding to not look at whatever he was about to do to you, you focused your attention on the purple-haired man.

He looked into your eyes and his own wrinkled at the corners, like he might be smiling at you. His sharp nails lightly skimmed over your scalp creating a tingling sensation.

Very good, pet. You're doing so well…

He reached behind his head and began to undo the contraption over his mouth.

The last thing that you saw was a wide mouth full of rows of razor-sharp teeth and a long, purple reptilian tongue.

—

We are not the same, I am an alien

Like Gonzales, young college

Student, who done just flipped the game like Houston

I'm use to Promethazine and two cups, I'm screwed up

And you ain't shit if you ain't never been screwed up

Flow so sick, make you wanna throw your food up

—-

The blonde man pushed the large instrument inside of you and watched from a screen situated above your bed to make sure that he was maneuvering it correctly.

The large instrument stretched the skin of your stomach so lewdly and the purple-haired man watched it maneuver inside of you, intrigued.

Then, with a very long and very thin needle, the blonde penetrated your belly in order to get to your ovaries and retrieve some eggs.

When he finished, he removed his gloves and washed his hands in a wide, oval-shaped sink made of what looked like pure white marble.

Your face was covered in sweat and you were breathing heavily, but both men were cooing over you now, stroking your arms and legs while speaking in their strange language.

You didn't exactly remember it, but you somehow ended up back in the forest where you started.

Five days later.

Your roommate, teachers, colleagues, and parents were all worried sick about you, and finally, you were found on the fifth day, curled up in a ball in the middle of the forest.

They were scared that you might have been drugged and assaulted or worse, had a delusional episode and had wandered off by yourself and gotten lost in the forest.

You had no clothes on when they found you; the only thing covering you was a thin blanket made of a shimmery-metallic colored fabric.

The story became a big sensation in your town, but many were skeptical of you because of your schizophrenia.

You went on to finish college and live a pretty successful life, but that one night all those years ago still haunted you..

—-

I never had life and I never had fear

I rap like I done died and gone to heaven I swear

And yeah I'mma bear, like black and white hair, so I'm polar

And they can't get on my system cause my system is the Solar

I am so far from the othars, I meant others

I just eat them for supper, get in my spaceship and hover, hover

—-

Present Day, 2023

—-

"Damn, it really worked…" Denki said in awe as his eyes raked over your still body. "Isn't she supposed to like, talk, though? She hasn't said a word."

Currently, you haven't really said anything or moved much. Shinsou really had no idea what the hell he was doing, but he knew that he hadn't killed you, so all wasn't lost.

"She's so cute, I could give a damn about her stupid alien story." Denki got up from the coffee table and began unbuckling his jeans.

"Whoa, you're really going to fuck an unconscious girl?" Shinsou asked, a bit taken aback.

The blonde scoffed, "Please, cut the nice guy act, will you? It really doesn't suit you. Besides, I saw her first, so I'm going to fuck her." He shrugged, uncaring.

"Wait, stop. She just moved. She can probably hear us." Shinsou looked at your face, and sure enough your lips were moving and you were mumbling something.

"Please stop…hurts…let me go…help...someone…" Tumbled out of your Chapstick-coated lips.

"She's probably talking to the aliens, so she's not unconscious." Denki snickered. He elbowed Shinsou out of the way and straddled your legs over the couch. A zipper came down and he was now palming his hard cock in one hand while the other reached to pull your top down.

His hand then slapped your face and you jolted, but didn't open your eyes.

"With that weed, her psycho meds, and whatever the hell you just did, we just made her into the perfect little fuck doll for us to enjoy."

"Us? This is crazy…I can't…" Shinsou cut himself off as he looked at the board again.

If he didn't do this, he would be behind Denki.

He would lose to Denki.

He couldn't let that happen.

"Either we fuck her together or no one does and the board remains as is. So what'll it be, Hitoshi?"

—-

I got a dirty mind

I got filthy ways

I'm tryna bathe my ape (ape) in your Milky Way (Way)

I'm a legend, I'm irreverent, I be reverend

I'll be so far u-u-u-p

We don't give a f-u-u-uck

Welcome to the danger zone, step into the fantasy

You are not invited to the other side of sanity

They calling me an alien, a big-headed astronaut

Maybe it's because ya boy Yeezy get ass a lot

—-

Shinsou situated himself back at the edge of the couch where your head was.

He pulled his own zipper down and let his dick flop right on out and rest against your soft cheek.

"So soft and warm…" His fingers curled into your hair as he began stroking himself.

"Bet her mouth is much softer and much warmer." Denki sighed. He was jacking himself off with your pretty lace panties wrapped around his condom-covered cock.

—-

You're so, hypnotizing

Could you be the devil?

Could you be an angel?

Your touch, magnetizing

Feels like I am floating

Leaves my body glowing

They say "Be afraid"

You're not like the others

Futuristic lover

Different DNA

They don't understand you

You're from a whole 'nother world

A different dimension

You open my eyes

And I'm ready to go, lead me into the light

—-

"Probably right…let's find out." Shinsou huffed breathlessly.

He leaned over you, parted your lips with two fingers, and spat into your mouth.

His cold, thin lips covered yours as he kissed you fully on the mouth, slipping his tongue inside.

—-

Kiss me, k-k-kiss me

Infect me with your lovin', fill me with your poison

Take me, t-t-take me

Wanna be a victim, ready for abduction

Boy, you're an alien

Your touch, so foreign

It's supernatural

Extraterrestrial

—-

After releasing his warm cum all over your pussy, Denki reached for a small box underneath the couch.

Inside were two electric nipple clamps.

"These will really give her the shock of her life." He grinned and attached them to your erect nipples.

"Wanna do the honors?" He tossed the small, black remote to Shinsou, who was rubbing his swollen cock over your wet lips.

Shinsou pressed a button on the remote and your body jerked from the electric shock, making Denki giggle.

—-

You're so supersonic

Wanna feel your power

Stun me with your laser

Your kiss, is cosmic

Every move is magic

You're from a whole 'nother world

A different dimension

You open my eyes

And I'm ready to go, lead me into the light

—-

"Fuck..!"

"S-shit.."

Both men moved in a rhythm; Denki thrusting into your cunt while Shinsou did the same action with your mouth.

"I'm going to…blow my fucking load..ahh shit, she's so tight for such a dumb slut." Denki groaned, his hips jerking faster and faster, making the couch scrape back and forth against the floor.

"I'm close, too…fuck…so good…such a good kitten, take all of my cum, now. Drink it all up like a good bitch."

Shinsou's head flopped forward and he grasped one of your tits while he orgasmed hard.

His cum flooded your mouth and spilled over the sides. The lavender-haired man tutted and used his thumb to push it back inside your mouth.

"Fuck!" Denki shouted and sunk his knees into the couch as he came hard into the condom. He had to catch his breath before he climbed off of you. Your panties were stuffed in his back pocket as he went to trash the condom and clean himself up.

Shinsou sank down onto the coffee table and pulled out another cigarette while he watched you.

It was now evening and the windows had darkened along with the changing sky.

Multiple stars littered the sky outside and the moon shone through the window where Denki had left the curtains open a smidgen.

When Denki came back, you were coming to with a shocked and confused look on your face.

"It's you, again…it's you! You came back!" You cried.

Without any care for how you might've looked, you sat upright urgently and wrapped your arms around yourself.

The blonde and purple-haired men just stared at you with bored expressions on their faces.

They had gotten what they wanted and now had no use for you or any regard for your well-being whatsoever.

That blonde and lavender hair, those sharp, cunning eyes…they were the same as those from all those years ago…how could you have not noticed it before?

"Stay away from me, you monsters!"

You threw a pillow from the couch at Denki and he caught it. A smirk covered his lips as he watched you run out of the door with your skirt pushed up your hips, no shoes, no purse, and your hand haphazardly holding your breasts inside your top.

"Do you think she'll tell anyone?" Shinsou asked, smoke curling from his lips as he spoke.

Denki reached for another pre-rolled blunt that had been pushed off the side of the table during your activities.

"Even if she did, who would believe a crazy bitch like her?"

—-

You ran completely out of the building, into the night.

You didn't know exactly where you were running to, but you knew that you had to get away from there.

Ahh, there you are. We've finally found you, again.

Your head whipped around behind you, where you could see two, tall, robed figures standing there. The moonlight reflected off of that tell-tale visor, while long, skinny fingers clicked and turned the wheels on the sides of a black mouthpiece.

Our little test subject…

You screamed.

—-

I know a bar out in Mars

Where they driving spaceships instead of cars

Cop a Prada space suit up out the stars

Getting stupid high straight up out the jars

Pockets on Shrek, rockets on deck

Tell me what's next? Alien sex?

I'ma disrobe you, then I'ma probe you

See, I abducted you, so I tell you what to do

(I tell you what to do, what to do, what to do)

Kiss me, k-k-kiss me

Infect me with your lovin', fill me with your poison

Take me, t-t-take me

Wanna be a victim, ready for abduction

Boy, you're an alien

Your touch, so foreign

It's supernatural

Extraterrestrial

----

*ʳᵉᵇˡᵒᵍˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵃᵖᵖʳᵉᶜⁱᵃᵗᵉᵈ!

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iamnotawomanimagod · 10 months

Text

I can't fit them all, because they've done a billion collabs, which is why I'm asking for the best out of these ten.

But if you want to know why I left a song out:

"Tokyo Narita - Freestyle" because, while this was a very tough call, this is ultimately just a Halsey song produced by Lido (which is true about like a third of H's discography.)

"Be Kind" because it's ultimately just a Halsey song produced by benny blanco.

"H*m and I" because fuck G-Sleazy. also it's a bad song, lmao.

"Boy with Luv" because Halsey doesn't have a verse and you can barely hear her.

"Hopeless" because Cashmere Cat doesn't have a verse and you can barely hear him.

"Lilith"/"Alone"/"Without Me" etc remixes with features because the original songs weren't written as collabs.

Any other song was left off purely for math reasons.

#halsey #polls

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haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll · 5 months

Text

Tracklist:

Your L♥ve Is My Drug • Tik Tok • Take It Off • Ki$$ N Tell • Stephen • Blah Blah Blah • Hungover • Party At A Rich Dude's House • Back$tabber • Blind • D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R. • Dancing With Tears In My Eyes • Boots & Boys • Animal • Cannibal • We R Who We R • Sleazy • Blow • The Harold Song • Crazy Beautiful Life • Grow A Pear • C U Next Tuesday • Animal (Billboard Remix)

Spotify ♪ YouTube

#hyltta-polls #polls #artist: ke$ha #language: english #decade: 2010s #Electropop #Dance-Pop #Pop Rap #Electroclash #Bitpop

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meat-wentz · 1 year

Note

you mentioned you were indie sleaze, can you talk more about that scene from the 2000's? i want to get into the scene but don't really know where to start and i don't trust tiktok lol.

omg of course. so to preface this i wanna say that there is a natural emo to indie pipeline that existed from around 2006-2008 and i was fully a part of that pipeline. there's a lot of crossover especially as emo evolved into scene and as scene evolved into party scene into indie sleaze. musicians like shiny toy guns, dev, cobra starship, amanda blank, hyper crush, etc were all like natural transitional bands that held little emo hands as they transitioned into indie sleaze. for instance, does he look familiar? well, he's the dear boy from sugar we're going down.

youtube

indie sleaze was a mixture of nihilism and hedonism, a general mindset of nothing fucking matters let's destroy ourselves and fucking party. it was like this huge embrace of self-destruction and effacement, but also like a huge embrace for being young and saying fuck it and partying your face off. it glorified the unpolished, ripped stockings and hazy drunk eyes, hair plastered across your face with sweat, smudged makeup, looking like you've made out with everyone in your path and you probably have. it was body paint and underground hipsters and red bull chasers and ketamine bumps and perfect cocktails of pills. it was a bunch of jaded young people rejecting 9-5's and blending the party culture of raves with the rock and roll underground of sleazy clubs in nyc. there's a good documentary on this that follows some of the most notable bands in the nyc scene called "meet me in the bathroom" and it's available on showtime right now. they were the "new" club kid. there was a notable genre exchange, it was super eclectic sonically, ranging from techno and electronica to twangy bass riffs and dirty guitars to more folksy or preppy sounds (you'll see more prep aesthetics leak in particularly towards the latter half as indie sleaze evolved into millennial indie in the late 2000's and early 2010's, like vampire weekend, metronomy, two door cinema club, and chester french). aesthetically, flash photography became huge, rejecting the gloss of the mainstream. decade clashing was huge, drawing inspo from 70's vintage athletic wear, sleek 60's mod, 80's punk, vintage shopping was huge, neon and bright colors and american apparel basics, ironic t-shirts were huge, actually irony laid into the aesthetics and sound HEAVY, because irony indicated you didn't care but you were still fun.

photographers like the cobra snake super well documented the scene and all its most notable scenesters, and misshapes would throw these massive celebrity scattered parties with all the who's-who of musicians. they're two really good places to look into what and who and why and how. you might also want to look into kitsune maison compilations, urban outfitters playlists via the web archive, and ed banger records. soundtracks for shows like gossip girl, skins, and misfits were literally soooooooo influential to me as well.

perhaps the prime examples of what the scene looked like and what parties looked like:

youtube

vimeo

and here are some of my personal favorite indie sleaze mvs that i feel really encapsulate sort of the aesthetics and the draw:

youtube

not an official video but literally so influential, my friends and i would pregame to this edit of babel so often its literally embedded in my bloodstream:

youtube

here's some gems you might not find in any research:

my favorite musicians at the time were mgmt, metronomy, css, crystal castles, uffie, lcd soundsystem, yeah yeah yeahs, young love, the rapture, hot chip, girls, electric six, bloc party, bright eyes, the virgins, the teenagers, peaches, friendly fires, gorillaz, the xx, franz ferdinand, neon indian and kenna. i do actually have a musical archive @sleazeandscum where i just post songs every once in awhile from the time period. i hope this helps and ty for this question lol it was literally SUCH a formative period in my life and also the beginning of my time as a blogger.

#ask #anon #sorry this took a few days to answer i was collecting media!!!!!

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ottspot · 2 years

Text

EXCLUSIVE: Lillybug and Abyuse Interview - The Brains Behind Echo's Music

Music makes the world go 'round, as the saying goes. It's all around us whether we like it or not! And one itty bitty little part of the internet that music affects are visual novels. Furry visual novels, to be more specific.

Echo is one such visual novel, originally starting development in 2015 and wrapping up in April of 2021. Many people have read this novel as it was getting made, or once it was complete, and lots have praised the usage of music. Some of the tracks are royalty free, but a lot of it is original. Two of the people behind these original songs are Lillybug and Abyuse. The two of them were able to spend a little bit of their time with me to discuss the behind-the-scenes of their work.

Please note that the following interview contains spoilers for Echo.

The original text of these interviews was slightly edited to fix grammatical mistakes, as well as expanding some abbreviations. These interviews were also conducted at separate times.

Could you please introduce yourself to everyone? Name (real or online, whatever you prefer), pronouns, role on the Echo Project, current and/or past occupation, etc.

L: Hi there! My name is Lilly, my pronouns are she/they as well! I'm a musician for the Echo Project and I work full time as a barista outside of the online world.

A: Hello! I am Abyuse/Salem/Cervines. My pronouns are he/him. I worked on the soundtrack for Echo, made a few songs for A Role To Play, and beyond that I don’t do a whole lot.

How did you come to learn about the Echo visual novel?

L: One of my friends had recommended Adastra to me at first, so I played it and then checked out Echo and like, instantly fell in love with it.

A: Back in high school I happened upon Blackgate by chance. I followed it for a bit and was enamored with the idea of a visual novel (which was new to me). Echo was one of the side projects advertised on the Blackgate Patreon, so after a while, I checked it out and the rest is history.

Did the team give you any specific keywords or directions while making the tracks? You can be as specific as you would like.

L: Not exactly, because I had made both of my songs for Echo before I was even a part of the team haha. When I posted my WIP song called echo (Carl's route's ending) McSkinny then reached out to me asking to use it in game, to which I completely obliged!

A: When I was first approached with the idea of working on some music for Echo, the main descriptor that was given to me was something like “Southwestern gothic”. I know the use of guitars was emphasized as being quintessential, so I made sure to incorporate that. My first attempt at making something in that vein is the last bonus track on the Echo soundtrack. It was sort of a feeler for that kind of sound, because it wasn’t something I had done before.

For Backstage I and II, the image painted to me was essentially that of The Smoke Room before I knew what The Smoke Room was, that being a sleazy club with a perpetual haze of dust in the air, slightly sultry but muffled music playing the background, an old CRT up in the corner of the room. Also something about wood walls, I think? Maybe not. I may have added that myself.

And then for the main theme remix, it was like “hey the main theme, but make it evil.” Which was actually a bit harder than I thought it would be, it took about three full iterations before I found one I liked.

Honestly though, stuff like when your arms were around me v2, Theme for a Lonely Wolf, Shiver, and Good Morning were all things I made not because of a request, but because of personal interest. A lot of my music tends to be darker in nature, so as I grew as an artist, I ended up making things that fit Echo pretty well.

With the team's directions (if any), how were you able to get that perfect 'feel' for the music? Did you have your own inspirations and other resources to draw from?

L: I didn't exactly get any input from the team when making my tracks, but I tried to capture the atmosphere of the game the best that I could. My song blurry was pretty much written from Leo's point of view and that was the idea I had going into the track, so I guess it just worked out decently.

A: I was such a big fan of Echo that I felt that I knew, more or less, what would and would not fit the VN in terms of sound. That’s not to say I didn’t have inspiration, because my entire catalogue is heavily inspired. When it comes to sounds that fit the Echo aesthetic, I listened to a lot of music that I thought would fit. I’ll list a few but I couldn’t recount everything that inspired me if I tried.

youtube

Something I always tried to keep in mind when I made music for it was that it was not meant to be the main attraction, but serve as an effective backdrop for the writing and help to immerse the reader more into what was going on in the VN.

Could you go more in-depth to how your songs were made? This could be anything from the writing/making-of process, software and equipment used, whatever you interpret the question as.

L: So for blurry it was the first time I was using my new microphone I had just gotten, so the vocals on the song weren't exactly the most well made, but in a sense I feel like that worked even better for the song. It makes the song feel sort of jumbled, like it's a window into an afterthought into Leo's head, of him just wishing for something that could never really come in the end. echo was honestly more of an experiment than anything because it was my first time trying to figure out the DAW Ableton. I've been using FL Studio my whole career, but I liked the end result, so on a whim I just sort of posted the track in the Echo fan art channel (in the Discord).

A: It is no secret that I use FL Studio for everything, but something that is a definite secret (until now) is that I know next to nothing about the intricacies of music theory or instrumental work. I took piano lessons for the duration of my junior high and high school years, but none of that stuck with me. I have a 49 key MIDI keyboard, but it is collecting dust across the room for me.

Pretty much every single melody I make is drag and drop, which means it probably takes longer for me to write music than others, but it has never bothered me to the point of wanting to learn (that and I'm extremely stubborn).

As for my writing process, it’s different for everything. I make a bunch of different stuff so with different styles of music, comes different processes for creation. For the Echo type stuff (when your arms were around me and Leo’s theme in particular), I focus in on one aspect or sound I really like, and then build outwards from that. A lot of times I start in the main section, but that turns into the intro and I rewrite the main section. I usually make a skeleton of a melody or whatever, then do all the drum and percussion work, then go back to the melodies, then tune the drums again. Mixing and mastering is a scam (read: I'm lazy) so I avoid doing that as much as I can. Then I listen to the song about 50 times and I either revise or export it and listen to it another 50 times.

If you are able to, do you have any rejected/unpublished drafts or demos of the songs that you would like to share?

L: Yeah sure! I can try to dig up some old drafts of blurry and such, I provided an instrumental version of it to someone who wished to cover it, so that version is probably floating around out there somewhere.

A: There are a few! I have an alternate version of Good Morning, a track for ambience that was cave-like (made with the mine in mind), Salem’s theme (which ended up not being used), and a sort of chase theme (not Chase the character but chase as a verb). HOWEVER. These are pretty much all slated to come out on my next project already (more on that later).

https://soundcloud.com/abyuse/mysterious_1-salems-theme/s-cQir4lugvFO - This is what Salem's theme was going to be. Now, I may have the timeline for this messed up, but I believe a theme for him was requested before his final placement in the story was decided, so when the decision was made to kill my precious little innocent boar, this song no longer had a place.

This article will be updated as these are received.

A bit more of a specific question here. There's a song that you have released officially [echo for lillybug | Main Theme (Dark) for abyuse] that uses the royalty-free music from the novel [Look Forwards for lillybug | Pepper's Theme for abyuse]. How does that work? Do you have to go through any legal things in order to publish the music with the royalty-free sections? Go through the company to make sure it's good to be put online?

L: Honestly, I didn't really go through anything or ask the company/producer, which is a pretty big oversight now that I think about it. I mean the song isn't really big enough where I feel it will cause problems? But if some do arise from it I'll surely deal with it. My best guess is that it shouldn't be a huge deal because the song was royalty free, and I believe it falls under fair use because I changed it and put a different spin on it.

A: My lawyer has advised me to refrain from answering this question.

Have you read the visual novel yet? If so, when was the last time you did so? It could be while it was still in development, or after it was completed last year.

L: I definitely have! I've gone through it many times with friends, and more recently with my girlfriend Chaia! Not exactly sure when I played it last, I believe it was after the game was completed.

A: Yes… kind of. I followed the visual novel from update to update up until the end of Leo’s route. Then, school got in the way of things and now reading anything absolutely beats my ass and I can’t focus enough to consume literature in any form. I think, in total, I have read around half of Flynn’s route, none of Jenna’s, and then all of Leo’s, Carl’s, and TJ’s (which was the most recent, for me).

If you have read it, do you have a favorite character? Favorite moment from any route? Favorite ending?

L: It's sad to admit, but I definitely have a soft spot for Leo. I like how complex of a character he is. I think one of my favorite moments in the game was at the end of TJ's route when they're hugging by the lake and pretty much it all gets revealed, that moment packed a punch and a half.

A: Cop out answer time, I like all characters in the VN that I have encountered (except Leo) for different reasons, but I think they’re all well written. If a gun were pointed to my head, though… I think that Kudzu, Brian, and Jenna are my favorites, in descending order.

I think my favorite moment in the VN was, and it’s been a while so you’ll have to forgive my inaccuracies, was the later part in Carl’s route where it took place on a spooky college campus. I just remember liking the vibe of that section a whole lot.

My favorite ending of those that I have read is definitely TJ’s.

If you have read it, when you got to a part where your music was used, what was your first reaction like?

L: It was so crazy! When I first played the game through I sort of imagined having a track or something in the game, so seeing it come to fruition was definitely surreal.

A: It was surreal. There’s no other way to describe it. There are still moments where it doesn’t feel like it actually happened, it's hard to believe that so many people have heard my music, whether they know it or not.

I had always dreamt of making music for something or someone other than myself, and Echo was the first time that really happened. It felt like I was driven by something other than personal enjoyment for once, and it made making music feel a lot more rewarding, and a lot less masturbatory.

Do you have any favorite memory with a fan of Echo talking to you about your music that you would like to share?

L: Not a specific one, but it always really warms my heart to see people talking about it fondly. Sometimes I'll get a ping from the Echo Project Discord about someone asking who made blurry, and it's just really sweet to see that people enjoy the song and others I've made as well. always brings a smile to my face.

A: I try to avoid extended conversations when possible so I don’t think I've really allowed myself to talk to pretty much anyone about my music. I did talk to shyno about my production but my answers were so immediately off the rails that I think that only reaffirmed that I don’t like talking. I like it when people enjoy my music though, it makes me smile.

Do you have any favorite memory while making your tracks? Discussions with the rest of the team, some 'lightbulb moment', anything that comes to mind.

L: I'd definitely have to say getting a message from McSkinny about putting echo, and blurry later on, in the game. It was such a sort of surreal moment to me, because I had sort of imagined it happening before, and then it really did happen!

A: Leo’s theme. It’s a bit of an interesting story. when your arms were around me is a pain point for me, I hate that song and I hate hearing it (it's not to say I wish it didn’t exist or whatever, I'm glad people like it. My producer ears just cannot stand it anymore). So, Theme for a Lonely Wolf was made because I was so frustrated with that song existing that I wanted to make something in the same vein, but better. I was not prompted to make this by McSkinny, nor was it made with any intention to be Leo’s theme. I just made it out of spite, and the end product ended up being one of the songs I am most proud of, out of everything I made for Echo. I sent it to McSkinny, he said he wanted to use it, I made a reprise because I wanted to try that out, and then next thing I know, it’s Leo’s theme. I don’t think I could have picked a better choice in terms of usage. As much as I personally dislike Leo, he’s one of the most prominent and polarizing characters of the visual novel, and since I was so proud of that song, I am happy it was given to such a figurehead.

Another one is a track that wasn’t actually in the VN (I think), Circles. That song is not only an emotional response to the entire TJ ending, but a personal illustration of how the ending sounded. It still isn’t finished in the state it’s in, but I put so much time into it that I feel like it wasn’t fair to leave it rotting away on my hard drive.

Is there anything else related to the project that you would like to share?

L: blurry wasn't originally going to be added to the game, McSkinny talked to me about adding echo first, and then listened to blurry and wanted that in the game on a whim too.

A: I don’t think there’s much else that I know or want to share that hasn’t been shared already.

A question for Lillybug - Your track blurry is a part of your EP i'm dreaming, and not a standalone track like echo is. Was blurry originally made for Echo? Or was it a track that was already made and just picked up for the novel?

L: Sort of both? It was written about Echo from Leo's perspective (and Chase's in the outro) but it wasn't made to go in the game, McSkinny just wanted to pick it up for the game. And since the source material was written about the game, I decided to say it was written for the game, rather than sourced outwards.

A question for Abyuse - You revealed on the Bandcamp page for your Echo tracks that you had originally lost the project files to the music. Is there more insight you would like to give with that situation? Any warning to musicians to prevent it from happening to others?

A: A few years ago I wanted to upgrade my PC because it was started to get dated. I bought a really nice prebuilt that I still use to this day, but I made the fatal error of not moving any of my music making files over because I was both at a point where I wasn’t making music (Destiny 2 had me by the neck) and I thought I could just get it later. Eventually, I decided I wanted those files back, but when I dug the computer out and plugged it in, the SSD the operating system was on was nuked, somehow. I gave up for about a year, thinking that I had just lost everything. I eventually decided to try and just install Windows from a USB onto a new SSD, and that ended up working. I still lost a lot of personal stuff but I got all my music files back. All that to say, don’t be an idiot like I was and back your work up onto an external hard drive.

Final question: is there anything you'd like to say in general? To any fans of the music, or anything you want to promote, the floor is all yours.

L: I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your kind words! It all means so much to me. I've also got an album coming out soon, so stay tuned!

A: I don’t say this enough, but a massive thank you to not only everyone who has listened to my music, but supported me through Bandcamp. It is absolutely not necessary to do so, but I appreciate it immensely. Making music has always been nothing more than a passionate hobby of mine, and I honestly don’t want it to be anything more than that for the moment. Although I have slowed down quite a bit, I promise I am still making music. My latest album is all heavily inspired by games and media that have shaped me, and it currently sits at 29 tracks, with more that I'm working on right now.

Thank you again to McSkinny and Howly for everything, working on Echo has been not only an extremely valuable experience artistically, but has helped me build confidence in my music tenfold. Appreciate that forever.

Thank you as well for this opportunity! It is a bit stressful to answer all this stuff accurately but I feel like after re-writing every answer five times I got what I wanted to say across.

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Thanks so much to Lillybug and Abyuse once again for participating, and thank you for reading. It was so fun to learn something new about Echo, and I hope you enjoyed it too!

You can find Lillybug on Spotify and Soundcloud.

You can find Abyuse on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. You can also download his tracks for Echo here!

Next up: Here's How I Got 8 Copies of Bayonetta 1 (And Why I Wanted Them)

#echo #echo vn #echo project #echo visual novel #abyuse #lillybug #fuckyeahechoproject

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