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leetaehwan · 1 year

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✨ content creator year in review ✨

very late to the game but tagged by @chanrizard thanks sa 🥰

first creation / most recent creation

2021 wrapped: top ten songs - my very first creation actually! wild that it's been a year since i started giffing !!

gtkm top 5 skz songs - honestly turned out better than i thought it would :)

2. one of your favorite creations

this favorite + negative space set, which admittedly is not that great and i would def do it a little differently now but still i think it's kinda neat conceptually. also this hyunjin venom set where i started playing around with noise and it kinda worked !

3. a creation you're really proud of

this seokwoo cb stage set . it was swirling around my brain for ages and when i finally made it i really liked the way all the colors turned out

4. a creation that took you forever

BRO THIS GOT7 LULLABY SET 💀 my boys were GHOSTS in that video and this was before i knew what color balance was so i was fighting for my life with like 3 selective color layers to get them to look moderately normal again </33

5. the creation that received the most notes

coincidentally it was also the got7 lullaby set lmao (thanks aghaseblr 😘)

6. a creation you think deserves more notes

fr i don't think any of my gifs deserve notes; i do this for fun and don't expect anything out of it but ofc it's great whenever someone likes or reblogs my stuff . sa said it best that i may know how much effort i put into something or how proud i am of the end result of something and then it doesn't pan out the way i thought it might, but that doesn't mean anybody owes me a note nor does it lessen the value of what i make ! i'm cool with any notes i get it's not that deep for me man

. . . that being said i will highlight any and all treasure content i've made bc they are literal gems and everyone should luv them i think 😋💗

7. a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it

at this point i'm p sure i have become ur resident lino skztual HOWEVER where my abnews at ?! i love these boys i hope to make more stuff for them in the future !

8. a creation you made that breaks your heart

this mashiho set i made for rachel's birthday . it obviously wasn't heartbreaking at the time but now that he's left it just makes me miss him even more :'(((((

9. a "simple" creation that you really love

this lil set i made for jaehyuk's birthday <3 i really didn't do much to it and big jae gifs bring me joy 🥰

10. a creation that was inspired by another one

my top ten albums set was inspired by this one by siyuan ! i was gonna do jewel cases instead of vinyl but my dumb brain couldn't figure that out in ps so we went with plan b

11. a favorite creation created by someone else

too hard there's sooooo many too many to count

12. favorite content creators for the year

i'm giving all of u a forehead kiss with permission y'all inspire me keep it up ! 💓

#feel free to ignore the tag i mostly just wanted to say hiii and that ur all wonderful creators and i'm very glad to be here with u 💛#kass.txt #games

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weaselandfriends · 2 years

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hi, i had a casual question if you don't mind answering it. would you say that NGE has had any influence on your work? some examples of your writing that made me think this were primarily Terminatrix 405 from Chicago and chapter 12 "I need you." from CxC. of course, the latter is identical to the EoE title card, so the homage seems direct enough. the conclusion of kyosuke and yuria in the airlock, alone and surrounded by space, is aesthetically similar enough to the "hellbeach" (your words not mine, hah) of EoE's last scene. but a lot of that chapter seemed reminiscent of instrumentality, just with the psychosexual aspect being turned into actual text with the explicit rp. and 405's "senseless coagulation of souls" piqued my interest during a reread due to the way sage asserts her selfhood by using her memories of aurora. kinda reminded me of asuka clinging to the presence of her mother during her final battle.

of course, i'm really not trying to imply your work is derivative! it's just that you've spoken about liking EoE and it was sorta fun trying to find any similarities while reading.

PS. sorry about not having any art this time. was trying to decide between drawing murrie and hemet hanging out, or a few outfits for sister in the style of a dress-up doll game. any preference?

Eva had an influence on my work in an unusual way. I first learned of the existence of Eva in college when a group of people in my dorm were watching the climax of the second Rebuild film in the common area. Knowing nothing else about the series, what really stood out to me was how the story would keep cutting from the kids piloting the mechs to the control room where three generic-looking characters in beige uniforms would spout technobabble and give reactions to the mech fight. For some reason I really liked the vibe of the control room and wanted to write a story where the most important characters were people observing the action from afar and trying to influence it by relaying instructions over radio. This idea eventually crystallized into a novel I wrote in 2012 about Luxembourg.

I didn't actually watch Eva until after I wrote Fargo about 4 years later. While I do like it in general and think EoE is excellent, I don't think it's had as much of a conscious influence on my later works compared to what the half-glimpsed back half of Rebuild 2 had to my Luxembourg novel. The Kyosuke and Yuria scene is actually influenced by another thing I only kinda saw once in college when someone else played it in the common area, that thing being Xenosaga. All I know about Xenosaga is that there's a female android named KOS-MOS and that there are enemies that turn people into pillars of salt in reference to Lot's wife, and that was the technological-religious blend that I was specifically thinking of when I wrote that scene. Eva also blends sci-fi with religious iconography, so it's easy to see connections there as well, but Eva's bent is more cabbalistic in nature. Royce does explicitly name drop Eva in one of his spiels, though.

For me, it's a lot easier to be consciously influenced by things that I have barely heard of than things that I have seen a lot or care deeply about. You never want to feel derivative and by pulling ideas I like out of stuff I only have a basic conceptual understanding of, it feels less like I'm ripping something off, because I'm being influenced by general broad strokes rather than specific character and plot beats. Ironically, this can sometimes lead to my references being accidentally more overt than intended; multiple people have pinpointed that the x.Nihilo scene is modeled on Xenosaga, for instance.

As for art, you don't need to apologize for not having drawn something! I always appreciate your art and love to see it, but I'm also glad just to get some nice asks to answer. I'm interested in your "dress-up doll game" idea, mostly because I'm not sure what that would look like exactly. Although I also enjoy your interest in Murrie, because I think she's an interesting character herself despite her being a bit less prominent than the other two main characters of Chicago.

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frenchfrywrites · 2 years

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Do you have any tips for writing NSFW or just writing in general?

First of all: omg I'm flattered that you'd ask! 💖

Second of all, feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt. This is mostly stuff that I try to keep in mind when I write so hopefully it aids you?

For nsfw writing the best advice I got was from @teeth-farie, and I will pass it on to you: "once you lose your restraint when writing smut it becomes that much more fun." They were so right!! If you think you're the only person into something, chances are you're not. So get nasty with it ;)

Other nsfw tips that I have are: research! Either hands on or not! Like, writing about lube and the importance of it comes from my experience of needing it. However there are plenty of people who never do a hands on approach and write fantastically, leading to my next point: look up the basics and whatever else you're going to write about online, even if you're going to take artistic liberties. Although you may decide to write a couple using spit as lube for anal, conceptually understanding that is a horrible idea will ultimately help I believe. Plus you can find out fun stuff with research! I found out about reverse/retrograde ejaculation when researching sounding lol

Also, read A LOT!! Break down what you like from other fanfics and use that as inspo. You'll see how other writers handle the same situation differently. You'll find what you like best. Plus it helps with spelling (or so I'm told (I'm notoriously trash at spelling, full disclosure)). PS: Read other stuff too; fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc. all genres will inspire and help you in different ways.

This is general writing advice but, think about what you want to write all the time. And for the love of God if you have a good idea write it down (this is me reminding myself to do this, because I think to myself "oh I'll remember that and write it later"… and then I don't). More advice that I have for myself that I think could be helpful is to re-read your works. It may make you cringe, but that's just a sign of growth. As well as past works re-read your current work before posting, look for words that may sound repetitive and search up synonyms!!!! I always have a tab open with [word] synonyms! Additionally re-read your work and imagine it's your first time reading it, you may find that you didn't add enough detail so you can't tell what position the people are in. This also helps with insecurity surrounding your work, you're going to be your harshest critic, remember that.

Last but absolutely not least, practice practice practice. I've only been making my stuff public in the last few months but I've been writing for years and years. And you can get extreme with this, like people who do writing exercises before they actually write (bonkers to me, but it works for some). Honestly my advice is just write a little each day. Start with 5 minutes and soon you won't want to stop, and you'll be writing for hours. My advice for writers block is to shift gears completely, that's why I write both nsfw and sfw.

Got a little carried away! Sorry if this makes me sound pretentious or arrogant 😔 Hope my advice helps!! 💖

#what a fun ask! thank you for letting me ramble!#although im not sure if i gave good advice #and im so so worried i sound like a pretentious academic 😬#french fry replies #spice

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asuka--langley--soryu · 3 years

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have any thots on Asuka and Hikari’s relationship?

hi hi so I just rewatched the series and waited on answering this until after i was finished bc tbh I didn’t really have any opinions about hikari before. sad 2 report that after my rewatch i still really dont have a lot of thoughts-- or at least not a lot of fully developed and interesting thoughts. probably bc i love mean women and hikari’s main trait is being nice so :/

anyways i think hikari is good ‘normal girl with normal feelings’ representation as much as she is also a little naïve/unaware of the pain of the two people closest to her (toji & asuka). she does a lot of ‘shoujo protag’ stuff and probably if this was a different show shed be the main character and probably that is the point. in terms of her and Asuka, I think Hikari is both a source of relative normalcy/comfort and also demonstrative of the distance between asuka and others emotionally (I’m thinking specifically of the scene w asuka breaking down in hikari’s bed and hikari giving her kind of bland platitudes in response).

i have like 3/4s of an idea about hikari having a kind of blandish maternal energy in a ‘helpful/nice but largely emotionally ineffective’ way and how she might fit into the nge failed motherhood matrix. pseudo-parental as the class rep, meal making for toji, offering asuka a home--all kind of physical/tangible gestures of care but lacking a significant basis of genuine emotional support, if that makes sense. almost like play-acting motherhood, which is kind of the best anyone in this world so absent of mothers can manage--imitating gestures w/o understanding their contexts, without having the structures to possibly understand but trying and trying and suffering for your effort. Even in that she does these kind of acts of maternal service and even in that she has a crush on toji there is an amount of emotional vacancy/disconnect between her and the pilots bc she just like baseline cant actually conceptualize their experiences. hikari’s world is threatened but, as far as we understand it, pretty uncomplicated. she also has, iirc, a more solid familial support structure than most of the other students, which might be way she comes across so normal and unable to really understand/empathize w the eva pilot trauma vortex. maybe?

hikari is largely only interesting to me in that ‘failed mother’ way i mentioned before. tbh in terms of asuka’s relationship shes pretty low on the ones that I think are particularly compelling but idk maybe im missing something! open to hearing other thoughts/or interpretations.

(PS: if you were angling for more of my opinion on them romantically while i am deeply deeply dedicated to asuka lesbian truth i dont think hikari is the girl for her)

#i said i didnt have thoughts and then wrote too much ops ops ops #nge #evangelion #asuka langley soryu #asks #also hello hi if ur the person who also snt me the asurei ask. im working on it i promise.#ty for ur patience xoxoxo #also maybe this is incomprehensible idk my brains soup #Anonymous #this has been a text post #i think that this is maybe like 4 different topics at once. it makes sense in my brain in a kind of branching way #i have only a vague memory of hikaris last name and i could look it up but like. w/e.#mine

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foryourinformationmd · 3 years

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Advice from a Professional Doctor, Asher Nitin.

Ignore all the portrayals of life in medical school by your pre-med lecturers. If they begin a med school narrative with, “My nephew is a doctor and he told me…,” instantly disregard it. His nephew did not tell him that. He told him much more. Those are merely the parts he wants to remember. If it isn’t a recently-graduated doctor telling you what life in med school is like, it isn’t going to be anything like what they will tell you. So what is it like instead? Grey’s anatomy? House, M.D.?

Neither. Med school is more like Scrubs and The Knick than it is like Grey’s Anatomy and House, M.D. Unlike Grey’s Anatomy, you and your fellow medical students will not be that good looking. You will not sleep with each other as much. You will not cry over your patients (you’ll have a hard time remembering their full name). And you will not monkey around with barely-tested experimental procedures. Ever. If you do, it’ll probably be the last thing you do because good-bye medical school. Unlike House, all medicine will be diagnostic. Your professors will only appear to be brilliant (it’s really just decades of specialized knowledge and experience; with their subject and with your type). Diagnosis will be algorithmic, and even that algorithm won’t be your own. But you will still get a kick out of it. Like Scrubs and The Knick, your medical school will be your life. You will eat, sleep and dream medicine. Your entire social circle will consist of your colleagues. Your family will be the one stable point in your life. You’ll date your colleagues.

Speaking of dating, your sexy does not go up when you become a doctor. I mean this practically. Theoretically, I’m told doctors are hot. I can see why. They undeniably have inherent value: social standing, (the promise of) money, proof of intelligence (actually, no) and actual power over life (more than you know). But practically speaking (especially if you’re male) your dating life will not get better as a medical student. That is because the demands of medical school will swamp you. You will come home tired. Your pool of prospective partners will mostly consist of your medical colleagues. So while your newfound status as a doctor might have value in non-medical circles, it will mean nothing because you will almost never frequent those circles. But within the circle you’re in, your status as a medical student means nothing, because so what? Everyone is one too. “But Asher!” you say, frantically gesturing at me to pause, “I’ll be smart and date outside of medical school.” No, dummy. You’ll be a dummy if you do that because…

The more friends you have outside of med school the harder it is to excel. Med school is about an ethos. You’re not just part of a course. You’re part of a community. This is now your primary identity. All your self worth are now belong with us, bi*ch. There is this neurological phenomenon seen in people trying to study. When you’re focused on something, if you break off and engage with something unrelated, your brain takes up to twenty minutes to fully refocus on the original task once you return to it. In life as well, broadly speaking, I’ve observed a similar phenomenon. I’ve known three students in med school whose circle of friends mostly lay outside of med school. One hung out with mostly dancers and choreographers. One was a socialite. One hung out with the sons of politicians. They all were (and still are as of now) the worst doctors I have ever seen. This is because they constantly take breaks from the ethos of medical life. They miss out on the rhythm of life in the world of medicine. So you should know that…

You will leave most of your old friends behind, and you won’t even mind. Of all the various professions, I’m told, physicians tend to default the most on school reunions. That is partly because they don’t have the time, but also because they don’t care. It isn’t that we become arrogant or unsocial. It is that the act of medical education deeply changes you. It makes you more functionally intelligent. It makes you less prone to fake drama. It makes you calmer in crisis. All these after-effects will permanently drive a wedge between you and many of the people you used to know. This is a surprising side-effect no one anticipates; least of all your elders. And that is an amusing paradox. They anticipate your becoming a doctor because they know medical school is elevation. They don’t realize the side effect of this elevation is you will now talk down to them.

Your most important subject in pre-med is physics. Look, pre-med isn’t really about information continuity. The organisms you will dissect in pre-med will be phylogenetically disconnected from med school. You dissect a plant stem, a plant root, an earthworm, a cockroach, a frog, and then… a human being? See? You won’t be seamlessly connecting domains of knowledge. Pre-med isn’t even about building a conceptual base. Many things you learn in pre-med biology will be repeated in so much greater detail in med school that your prior knowledge will only partially help. Pre-med is about picking up mental skills you will need. Let’s talk about those.

You need to learn to form a train of thought fast. The great thing about learning to solve problems in physics is that you learn to solve problems in general. You learn to quickly identify variables and constants. Sometimes there will be constants in the problem that would normally be variables in real life. You learn to work with those too. Physics allows you to become mentally agile with concepts. If you get fluid mechanics, you can handle the physiology of hypovolemic shock. If you get lever mechanisms (in different orders), you can handle applied anatomy in orthopedics. If you get optics, you can handle a lot of neurology and ophthalmology. In my experience, the students who have the hardest time in med school are the ones who didn’t learn to think on their feet within a fixed framework of time.

You hate memorizing? Actually, you don’t. It’s all about the context. Literally none of us salivated at the prospect of memorizing taxonomies. We hated it and struggled over it and were glad when we were done with it. That was because it was something we knew we would never use. In med school, you will do a lot of memorizing. But you will enjoy it (or at least you can, if you choose; I’m a huge nerd). Many doctors will tell you how easily drug classifications embed themselves in their brains. This is despite the fact that the latter are more complex than zoology taxonomy charts or botanical floral formulas. The difference is that your knowledge of drug classification will impact what you will say to your aunt when she confronts you over her persistent back pain over Christmas dinner (poor posture, it’s always poor posture; she sits like a potato). So you will memorize a lot. It won’t be anything like memorizing was before. Rest easy. You will find it easy to like it.

Your persona does not matter. Caring for people and being compassionate and wanting to cure disease are the least important things in medicine. You need to be able to meaningfully link vast amounts of information to come to a correct diagnosis as per established algorithms. You need to perform surgical procedures within a reasonable amount of time with a decent degree of success. All else is secondary. When most of your non-doctor relatives tell you that a doctor’s personality matters, they’re doing something called argument from ignorance. You see, the world of medicine is so big and so complex that most of it is technically incomprehensible to the general public. So they latch on to the few aspects of a doctor’s life they are mentally capable of understanding (and commenting upon; remember their first reaction to meeting someone with an education superior to theirs is to give them tips). So they will talk about a doctor’s personality because it is the only part they can presume to have some expertise on. Even that they do not. Don’t ever do stupid things like falling in love with your patients or building deep and personal relationships with your patients. You will never last in medicine. This is not because the emotional trauma of losing them will wreck you. This is because you will go bankrupt fighting lawsuits accusing you of patient preference. You will feel the pressure in the things non-doctors will say behind a good doctors back. “He’s so boring at parties, he can only talk work stuff.” If that is your destiny, so be it. Own it. They find you boring? So what? You were not put on this earth to entertain the illiterate at parties. You were sent here to be a lifesaver; not to have a personality that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

I’m telling you it does not matter. The practice of medicine is life on the edge of reality. All personalities are welcome because medical school is a personality in itself.

The materialists among us are taught the value of wisdom and the ascetics among us learn to knot a Double-Windsor.

The atheists among us will pray frantically and the religious among us will find no time for church on Sunday.

The loudmouthed learn to whisper in the NICU and the soft-spoken learn to yell, “Stat!” in the ER.

The type-A personalities among us learn to break the news of a patient’s passing to his relatives and the type-B personalities among us learn to argue medico-legal cases.

The clumsy among us learn to suture wounds and the nimble learn to administer CPR.

Materialists. Ascetics. Atheists. Theists. Loudmouthed. Soft-spoken. Type-A. Type-B. Clumsy. Nimble.

In medical school, we all meet in the middle.

PS: Photo not mine. Credits to the rightfully owner.

#advicedoctor #medtech #premed #FYIMed

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thewritingace · 4 years

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Writeblr Re-Introduction

Hello everyone! I’m Ace (or Flame), welcome (back?) to my writeblr!

As the title suggests, I’ve been around for a while already, but I never really got into posting my original stuff here because things (mostly depression).

But now I actually have a WIP I am diligently working on, and I think it’s time I put it out there.

So I just wanted to re-introduce myself real quick! A few facts you might want to know about me: -I’m a university student -I live in Europe -I’m an agender aroace (AAA, like a battery lol) and my pronouns are they/them -I have a bullet journal and collect stationery -I love coffee!

wow that was a lot of “I” sentences (my biggest weakness, the unvaried sentence structure, is coming through again).

anyways, in terms of writing, I am not that picky. I have a lot of projects and WIPs of all sorts of different genres and media (mediums?). Though I have a tendencies towards employing some sort of fantastical elements. The tone in my works can vary from very realistic to very unrealistic, but generally there is some sort of supernatural occurrences or at least some sci-fi. I don’t do well with slice of life. I’ve also written poetry and short stories. Basically I am all over the place. My main WIP, the one I want to talk about on here, is actually a superhero story that I conceptualized as a 10 season tv show (ambitious, I know). But since that is probably never going to happen, I will be writing the story in prose instead. WIP Intro post coming soon!

Also: feel free to tag me in tag games! Even if we haven’t talked before. Or send me asks when I reblog ask games. Or just asks in general. I promise I don’t bite. ^^

Feel free to reblog this if you’re a writeblr, I’d love to get to know some more people on here!

Thanks for reading, see you guys around!

PS: I was told that it’s smart to tag writeblrs you admire and are inspired by in your intro, so I’m going to tag the amazing @pens-swords-stuff , the sweet @marewriteblr and the lovely @storyteller-shealie !

#writeblr intro #writeblr introduction #writeblr #new writeblr #sorta

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atimefordragons · 3 years

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He means more to me than you will ever know.

☾♔; December 22, 2020 ☾♔; 10:07pm ☾♔; sotd: Imperial March x Dark Troopers Theme - Samuel Kim ☾♔; cotd: Luke Skywalker ☾♔; Rewrite the Stars (I guess, it's really more like Pedro/Din thirst) ☾♔; Conceputalizing or something

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Din's clapback @ Moff Gideon.

Set consistency? Never heard of her. //sigh// whatever. Imma just make trash and accidentally make a good set once in a blue moon forever. I no longer care.

Anyway, another conceptualizing or whatever set because I am nothing, but frustratingly chaotic and disorganized. I have like no hard ideas for months, just random thoughts, and then boom, 600 all at once and an inability to try to work it out one at a time. Nope, it's gotta be all or nothing, all at once. In case anyone was wondering exactly what unique brand of mess I am, it’s basically 2.5 days till Christmas and I am only just now giving thoughts to presents, but meanwhile, I’ve been planning stuff for valentine’s 2021 since May, and on top of that, there's a star wars group, moscow ghoul, into the unknown still, and a hundred other projects. Okay, like 15-20 things, but it feels like the hundreds 'cause of my character and world building problems.

PS: Shoutout to everyone who enjoys the clearly not obvious chanel boots joke in the set. I love you nerds.

#urstyle #high fashion layout #rewrite the stars #concepts #wip #mine #preamble ramble 2.0 #star wars

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artgroves · 4 years

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Well I was just on tumblr boppin' around before I went to go scour AO3 for fics to read, but now I'm gonna go read the fics from the bangs you arted for. Quality art, and I'm sure quality fics. PS. I love your art. I know you say just practice, practice, practice, but I'm still floored that you manage to take something out of your head and put it on paper! And it looks amazing! askkghsgsksxuennekskdhdkag!!!! *heart eyes* *melts* *happy puddle*

ASDFGHJ I think this has been sitting in my inbox for a hundred years, I’m so sorry I didn’t reply in a timely fashion D:

I stand by practice practice practice but I confess I’m not the most conceptually creative people, I really love to illustrate things that other talented people have written! So it definitely doesn’t just pop out of my head, I love to read and visualise and then smash my emotions all over that good stuff. I hope you enjoyed those fics!!

#thank you darlingface #i'm sure you've probably forgotten all about this msg but I didn't and you made y day with it #thank you so much <3 #hidinginthestacks #talk to me hudson

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twyllodrus · 6 years

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"all art is quite useless..."

honestly, gifs are such a fascinating medium it's like a very specific niche of graphic design?? perhaps??? as to the argument whether gifs are art or not...

i, personally, for a very long time, didn't view gifs as such, as art. and i make gifs myself, like: 'the fuck, alex???' ajfhklsdhgl;s i know, i know let me explain

a little of unnecessary background. my first encounter with making something in graphics interchange format was about a decade ago. i didn't post anything i made back then. i didn't even know a good platform for it existed (and, unsurprisingly, tumblr is quite gif-friendly platform, but that's a different topic entirely).

my father was the one who showed me how to make an animation in photoshop. it was just a moving stick figure, made in some crappy version of PS, like this:

it is really simple. it's a two frame animation. two layers. simple, right?

(now, everything i write further on reflects only my own experiences, and is most likely not universal; i was just a dumbass who didn’t have good software lol)

later on i discovered for myself that gifs were a big thing. and, y'know, they were really really pretty. and i wanted to do smth really really pretty w/ my favorite movies too! the thing was that, unlike two frame stick figures, most of the stuff you see, on average, is around 100 frames, give or take.

at the time, i didn't know shit. the only way to make an animation i knew was to manually take two or more frames, put them together, make sure every right layer was visible and vice versa. all done manually. i had no idea about any software that would capture the frames for you (i actually sat and clicked 'c' button multiple times, rapidly) or software that'd immediately make the moving image for ya (like you can now do with PS; from a video clip to a ready-made animation. there are now resources online that'll make this as well – beware of watermarks tho). also thank god for actions!!

another thing about making gifs from captured frames – usually they are in specific format, to be exact .bmp; you cannot make a gif out of a .bmp file. you gotta convert them to .jpg or .png – so, in old days, i'd sit and reformat every single .bmp image into .jpg. all 100+ frames. and it was... quite fun actually! i loved the routine. it was self-indulgent and manual and repetitive; open a file –> save as –> .jpg –> ok; open a file –>

rise & repeat. it was a routine.

putting together each frame, by hand, working with each & every layer – kinda felt therapeutic. that's why i’m making meaningless moving pictures & plunging them into the interwebs now.

back then i didn't even think about the editing part. like, for example, here’s a gem from when back when (i freaking loved wanted):

notice how there's really nothing special about this one, editing-wise? yea, because there's no editing. it was one of the gifs made manually. just by capturing multiple frames (and slowly breaking that 'c' button), converting them to the right format and them putting each frame, each layer atop the previous one, making previous frames visible, making sure i didn't fuck up and so on and so forth.

here you’d probably wonder: why’d you do it then? it sounds tiresome and looks ugly™ anyway D:

when i got to tumblr, it became clear that editing is an integral part of the process. you know, to make your stuff look pretty™ the aesthetics are the shit. and that's the beauty of gif-making. it's not only fun to make, but it also looks nice. and if you happen to conceptualize something with it, some idea, something grand, something people can connect with and it may even spur on certain meta discussions, or just general appreciation, just simply because you sat down and did something pretty for hours in PS, putting a lot of thought into it – it's all pretty gratifying actually!

so, taking everything into consideration, do i consider gif-making an art form now? yes, absolutely, because a huge part of the process are all the digital modifications to the original footage. the quantity of editing done is very relative; it's not only about the alteration of the original coloring, but also the positioning, the way frames are cut out, the font that was used etc. and then there's the concept behind it that should be taken into consideration as well.

and saying that gifs aren't art is kind of the same like discrediting the idea that graphic design is an art form. they're very different, but they share certain core aspects. and for me personally making little moving pictures is a great stress-reliever and a way to artistically express myself, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tl;dr: yea, one could say 'gifs aren't real art', but that kinda dismisses the time that editing took, dismisses the artistic value somebody tried to convey through such an 'easy' medium.

because just making a plain moving image from a video, with all the software at our disposal, with all the tutorials available now – it’s not too hard, sure. however, a lot of it comes down to the editing, to the thought that was put into the creation of a particular gif. and also, you know how they say that all art is kinda useless & beauty is subjective anyways? well, i think, it really applies to the stuff in graphics interchange format in particular.

if you view it from such angle, yea gifs are kinda useless, just like many things in life. but you know what?

gifs r real pretteh so :^)

#long post #idk why i've written all of this out #gifs #gif making #this blog is titled шик важнее гнозиса #to paraphrase: aesthetics over knowledge #it's kinda satirical in a way #but at the same time not #bc sometimes you just gotta appreciate the beauty that has no pragmatic #or utilitarian purpose whatsoever #(and i get that art in general can be impactful)#(and therefore 'useful' and 'valuable')#(im just saying sometimes it doesn't do that)#(and it's fine)#also don't steal from creators #that's like basic decency

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utopianparadoxist · 6 years

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this is possibly a question that was fandom-solved in the prime days of the HS fandom, but what are yr opinions on the ghost-realm in a sort of conceptual-sense? By that i mean, since the ghosts we see in the dream bubbles are offshoots of the alpha timeline (e.g. god-tier alts of the trolls), is there a hypothetical alternate-alternate world where the conditions that rolled the troll-verse are different? Is the ghostrealm conditional to the universe that spawned it, or is it truly infinite?

the ghost stuff has definitely not been solved, per se–a lot of the legacy fandom would probably say hussie phoned it in there for various reasons, though I would definitely not agree.

To answer your questions:

Is the ghostrealm conditional to the universe that spawned it, or is it truly infinite?

The furthest ring–the black void surrounding all Sessions and Universes–is truly infinite. The eldritch horrorterrors that inhabit it are also infinite, since they’re part of Sburb’s design.

The dream bubbles, and the ghosts that inhabit them, however, are conditional to the universes that spawned them. The horrorterrors glub up those bubbles, but as far as we know, they don’t do so for every session.

They glub up the afterlife for our Heroes thanks to the influence of Feferi Peixes-the Witch of Life. She was actually raised by a horrorterror as her familiar, and is able to commune with the gods to request they establish the bubbles.

You could read this as Feferi changing the nature of Life in Homestuck, granting everyone who perishes a sort of second life in a weird limbo of half-existence.

Later parts of the story suggest that the horrorterrors were manipulating Feferi and all of the ghosts of the afterlife to protect themselves from Lord English, and to serve their mysterious goals by both A) Ensuring Lord English’s destruction and B) Enabling his creation in the first place.

Which brings us to…

is there a hypothetical alternate-alternate world where the conditions that rolled the troll-verse are different?

No, definitely not. That scenario is theoretically possible for other species elsewhere in PS, but not for trolls–or humans, for that matter.

We’re not sure what the limits are on variations of existence and choice in Paradox Space, but Aranea tells us there are some, and goes into some of the philosophical problems that come with the admittedly attractive idea that there might not be any:

But really, the problem is logistical. Having even potentially infinite variations of a particular universe isn’t necessarily impossible in Paradox Space, but it is impossible for the worlds and characters trapped in Homestuck.Because of Lord English.

Aranea gives us this little spiel about how the choices and possibilities available to everyone in Paradox Space are limited by the fact that PS itself is using the characters to propagate its own existence. Only choices and scenarios that allow reality to exist and continue to propagate are allowed to flourish.

And by the very nature of his existence, Lord English traps every universe and person we see in the comic in existential stasis. He’s a notable influence in the Alpha Trolls’ session through Kurloz, Damara and Cronus, and he’s THE reason Alternia exists as it does and the Beta trolls are who they are.

He made trolls what they are, so their reality can’t actually exist unless he exists,and if trolls existed in any other way they wouldn’t create and interact with the humans the way they do, meaning the humans wouldn’t eventually create LE, meaning trolls wouldn’t have existed in the first place.

It’s a grandfather paradox, but on a cosmic scale. Trollkind may be able to exist in varied ways from Earth C,’s Troll Kingdom onwards, which is now free of the influence of Lord English. But its origins--and those of humanity--are forever entangled with Lord English. Them’s the br8ks.

#videodante #Trolls #Alternia #Beforus #Lord English #Dream Bubbles #The Furthest Ring #long post #analysis asks

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landywinslow · 3 years

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The Ides of March

What do you call the anniversary of something you didn’t want to happen? Is there a name for that? Maybe it’s just “anniversary,” but with a dark timbre of voice? Either way, there’s an experience that most of us shared about twelve months ago, and I’m not sure exactly how to commemorate it. Like, part of me feels like celebrating something. Resilience. Survival. Etc. But part of me wants to spend the day laying in the fetal position with a bucket of strong drink.

Overall, I feel proud. I’m proud of the ingenuity of our species collectively and individually. I’m proud of all of us for navigating (however awkwardly) the restrictions and profound anxiety of all of it. I’m proud of the millions and billions of us who have stolidly continued to place one foot in front of the other amidst loss of loved ones, loss of income, loss of any and every sense of security. I’m proud of all the people trudging forward with ravaged mental health, emotional exhaustion, and the crippling sense that we aren’t moving forward at all but sliding and struggling down a filthy muddy slope of futility. Despite everything, we continue. Maybe not to do anything but we continue.

March 13th, 2020 was a Friday. In The Before, I joked about Friday the 13th’s being bad luck. I haven’t joked about it since. It hasn’t been an intentional avoidance, just the fact that our collective existence in the past year has felt like such a string of unbelievably heartbreaking bad luck that I can’t conceptualize it as lighthearted anymore.

I mention all of this because that thirteenth day of March, the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty was, unbeknownst to me at the time, my Last Normal Day.

A year ago my family was at the end of a long and grueling battle with a cockroach infestation that had taken up almost every waking thought for a month. The exterminator had come twice, prompting us to completely disembowel and deep clean the kitchen three times. I was kicking myself for the gentle “All Life is Sacred” approach to the small, seemingly non-roach insect I had caught on the counter weeks earlier, and dumped gently into the bushes outside without a second thought. Dealing with a colony of pests while parenting four young kids and starting a new job at a big event venue in town (insert ominous music) was exhausting me faster than I could caffeinate.

All of the vague news circulating about a virus swirled around the periphery of my very challenging present. I saw an infographic that said it was less dangerous than the flu, and that eased the itch of anxiety enough for me to put it on the back burner. Dozens of doomsday prophecies had come across my proverbial desk, and had amounted to nothing. I doubted this would be any different. I joked to my neighbor, “Everyone else is talking about this coronavirus stuff, and I’m over here like, ‘Virus? What virus!? My house is FULL OF ROACHES!!!’” as we stood together watching our kids tumble around with each other in the twilight. “The only part of it I’m nervous about,” I remarked, “is school closing. I had a horrible homeschooling experience and my education is shit. I’m terrified to be responsible for their learning, and I’m at the end of my rope as it is!”

Oh sweet, innocent child. If only she knew how much could (and would) be woven, tied, taped, and glued on to the end of that rope.

That Friday was drizzly and cold. I decided to be uncharacteristically optimistic and make the best of it by doing something out of the ordinary with the kids. We drove to the nearest indoor mall and wandered around, window shopping and riding the escalators. When we got to the little spongy, rubbery playground they wanted to play, so after depositing their shoes and socks next to a dozen others in the little cubbies, I opened up my phone to zone out a bit. I stumbled across a meme that said, “Just a warning, this week starts with changing the clocks, moves to a full moon, and ends with a Friday the 13th… Good luck people! Ps: Don’t forget to wash your hands.” I chuckled and sent it to a couple friends.

Everything was fine until a little toddler I didn’t know came up beside me, sniffly and coughing. As I reflexively shifted away from her, a shadow of dread crept into my chest; Maybe we should go wash our hands. I called my kids over and reminded them to not touch their faces until we were finished playing there, which in child-code meant: Pick your nose and/or lick your hand immediately. I rolled my eyes and went back to my phone. A friend or two had posted about closures in their cities, cases beginning to accumulate. I began to worry, but it wasn’t here right? I became increasingly aware of the crowds of people around us, the very first anxiety about group contagion that I can remember experiencing. It’s not here I reassured myself, malls seem contagious in the best of times. But even as I worked to calm the bubbling fear, my passive assessment of risk silently transitioned into something more tangible. I gave the kids a five minute warning, and seconds later a text alerted me of a new post in our school’s parent portal. My stomach dropped, somehow cognizant that this was the fateful moment. My hands trembled, hesitating over the preview: “Dear Staff and Families...” until finally the weight of not knowing was heavy enough to push my thumb across the screen, unsealing the portentous message.

I skimmed it so quickly for bad news that I ended up having to re-read it three times before finding the key information: “There has been a community-based transmission of COVID-19 in San Diego county. As such, we are cancelling all field trips, social events, and learning center instruction through April 10th.” The hammer fell so gently at the end of that sentence that it didn’t sink in all at once, but rolled around on the surface of my mind for a few moments. All instruction... Cancelled until April 10th. Tears queued up along my lower lids, the first of a very long line. No sense in putting it off, I sighed after a moment of silence for the coming trials. I called my kids to leave and to give them the news, already knowing that their initial reaction would be the opposite of mine. School closed for a month was a dream come true for them. But I knew it wasn’t a month off of school, it was a month of not going to school. A month of my brain stretched thin, full of holes, having to face up to one of my most visceral and life long insecurities. Homeschooling meant working double time, through crippling self doubt, first to learn all of the concepts myself and then, juggling four grade levels, attempting to translate the information to humanoid pinballs who would much rather be doing something else. I felt sick with dread.

In reality, a month would have been such a lenient sentence, wouldn’t it? The disbelief I experienced back then while attempting to look forward is an inverted version of what I feel now looking back. The exact same sense, but from opposite views. Last March I couldn’t believe how impossibly long a month seemed. Now I can’t believe that I thought a month was so long.

After we left the mall, I dropped by our school to pick up a workbook and spoke with one of the teachers. We laughed together at how silly it all was. We were sure that it would pass quickly and said that maybe we’d make the most of it by snagging one of the newly affordable flights. The next day I went to work and repeated that conversation ad nauseum with my coworkers. “They say it’s not even as bad as the flu!” We parroted back and forth, because it comforted us. At the end of our shift we all gathered around to ask our boss about job security. “None of the shut down orders apply to us,” she assured, “and we’re booked solid for the rest of the year. Nothing to worry about here!” That was my last shift.

I recently rewatched some of the entertainment content that came out a year ago. Clunky interviews and table reads done from whatever corner of the house was quietest; celebrities looking slightly dishevelled in their own clothes and diy hair and makeup, recording from iPhones and laptop cameras without proper lighting. Everyone kind of hunching over a screen that was balanced on whatever flat surface was nearby, just like my friends and I do it. It was like everyone’s mask came off, and underneath we were all the same: exposed, scared humans attempting to hold on to any semblance of normalcy within reach. During my rewatching, I found a Tonight Show interview with Lin Manuel Miranda that aired five days after my Last Normal Day. Following a maladroit preamble, Jimmy Fallon says, “A lot of people are saying to me, ‘You must be getting a lot of work done right now, a lot of writing done.’ Are people asking you that?” and in the desperate tone of every disoriented parent, Lin replies, “I’m not getting work done! I’m learning how to teach math!”

I found the interview equal parts endearing and heartbreaking. We were still so bright eyed and cautiously optimistic that a solution was right around the corner. We just had to flatten the curve. A year later, it feels like all capability for optimism has been sapped, leaving nothing but an indigestible husk. And yet, here I am. For months and months and months every plan has had to change, every expectation has had to pivot, and every experience has been seasoned with disappointment. The reflexive code of, “I can’t do this. I can’t possibly do this.” has run through me on an infinite loop. But I did do it. I am doing it. All of us are. We continue. Despite the stress and isolation and loss and grief we experience. We exist. We are self sustaining verbs, even in what feels like stasis.

Do you see what I mean about not knowing how to feel about this anniversary? Even at our most beaten down, we are remarkable and there is such a tension between the positive and negative of that. In her poignant and encouraging article for The Atlantic titled “5 Pandemic Mistakes We Keep Making,” Zeynep Tufekci writes, “Hope nourishes us during the worst times, but it is also dangerous. It upsets the delicate balance of survival—where we stop hoping and focus on getting by—and opens us up to crushing disappointment if things don’t pan out.” In all honesty, I’m not ready to hope again. It’s too much to ask, after these last twelve months have burned through every reserve. But I’m also not ready to mourn this last year. The weight of loss has already hung so heavily that asking anything more of us is unthinkable.

A few months ago I began casually looking into the 1918 flu, as a sort of morbid self soothing exercise. I enjoy reading about it because, while the impact was devastating, the similarity of restrictions and the photos of everyone wearing (less fashionable) masks brings a comforting sense of camaraderie. But mostly I like reading about it for one single fact: it ended. I think that’s the most hope-adjacent perspective possible. We don’t know when our pandemic will end, but whenever it is, it is inevitable. When I put it like that, acknowledging that there was that day last March when everything changed for me, and acknowledging that there will be some other day or days where things inevitably continue to change… acknowledging that there’s no way possible to get back to old normal and no way yet to get to a new normal… it brought a sort of acceptance. I’m not ready to hope or celebrate or mourn, but I am ready to accept. Ultimately, I think acceptance is the only possible way I can commemorate this milestone that is not a beginning or an end. This anniversary of my Last Normal Day simply exists. Just like me. Just like you. I accept that it is a single milestone on a long, treacherous path, and I will keep trudging forwards through however many more days are before me, finding little spots of color and beauty as best I can. The other thing I notice while reading about the last pandemic is how it segued almost seamlessly into the Roaring Twenties. I don’t know about you, but whenever it is that we finally look around and find ourselves in the falling action of this pandemic’s narrative, I sure as hell plan to live it up.

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the-keionbu · 7 years

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YEAH SO no to be melodramatic but i like, never really wanted to make this post

like, in the past when i kinda just... disappear from here for a few weeks, to months, i never give any warning and that kinda sucks cause you’re (probably not) left wondering “what happened to keionbu/kim???”

basically, I’m gonna go on like, temporary/semi hiatus

a few months ago i announced I had gotten a job with a pretyt dang well known company and it has been beyond my wildest dreams that i didnt even realize i had. and F IN ALLY, i’ll be starting right after this weekend after i make the trek to move to my job

now, this is only gonna last a few months, but i know my social media patterns on here: if i’m busy with life, tumblr is the first social media i kinda stop with.

and it pains me to say this, but especially this blog in particular

I enjoy hopping on here every once in a while to see my gaming or anime trash, or see some good ol memes, but my relationship with this blog has just been... not great lately

if it isnt already so blatantly obvious, I find posting Good Content for this blog not as much fun anymore.

I STILL LOVE K-ON, dont mistake that. This series always and will forever hold a special place in my heart, and I will still fight and stand by that I honestly think this is legitimately a masterpiece of an anime.

HOWEVER, the “standard” that i hold myself here, and a sort of nonexistent or maybe it is kinda exsistent pressure to serve up “quality content” and posts of analysis, headcanons, fics, or even general yelling has made this blog feel more like a chore than a hobby

which, kinda of sucks

And you might say “What pressure???”

I mean, I basically just yell about fictional lesbians, and lately I post about how hot I think I am, but I suppose like Ritsu, I don’t like “letting people down” or failing. And not thaat numbers really like, matter, on this site, or at least they shouldn’t, but trust me, when that number gets pretty hefty into the couple thousands, the perspective of that to please these people that deem me worthy of a follow can be kinda daunting.

Yes, blogging should be fun, and yes, I love talking about these girls, but it sucks that I feel like my motivation for making posts this past year has been “make something good” rather than “make something you love.”

which, conceptually, sounds easy.

But when I boot up Google Docs and try to put one sentence down, or even get whole paragraphs, only to reread it and not be satisfied, the concept is much harder to practice.

AND TYING IT INTO WORK, I HAVE A POINT FOR TTHIS HIATUS

I know when I get home from work, I’m going to want to do stuff that is relaxing to me, that helps me recharge for the next day. And that could be a range of things: talking with friends, playing games, eating, running, destressing on tumblr, whatever.

The last thing I would want to do when I come home from work, is to do more ‘work.’

I say is jokingly, but I hate this site.

Not because of the people, not because of staff, not because of how toxic this site is. Those are all factors that contribute bits and pieces into it, but what it comes down to it is that I at one point started associating this site, and this blog, to just producing content.

My relationship with this site wasn’t to have some good laughs and reblog stuff and have fun indulging in my trash animes here with friends. It had turned into: what content do I need to produce today? It turned into my own version of ‘work.’ whether it be reblogging stuff for the girls, replying to messages, starting conversations, pulling trash headcanons out of my BUTT. my motivation was very forced, and it was not fun.

like, i even downloaded the xkit thing to change your dashboard backgroud bc the tumblr blue honestly felt suffocating like look????

(its disneyland bc im a nerd)

And my prideful self just... neveer wanted to make a post about how honestly burnt out I am in blogging.

I say numbers never matter but I crap you not, when you get that count up, it feels GOOD. And I know announcing a hiatus and basically saying I’m not sure what I’m doing on here anymore is a Big Risk of losing some of you guys

Not because of that number, but because im a dang people pleaser I feel like I failed that person?? YEAH I KNOW IRRATIONAL BUT WHATRE YOU GONNA DO

This is much longer and less structred than I hoped, but whatever. It needed to get off my chest and be said, whoever ineloquently it came out.

I WILL BE BACK. I want to come back.

I want to fall back in love with K-ON

I love K-ON, I will always love K-ON, but I have come to the harsh realization that I’m not IN LOVE with it anymore. My passion for it has deflated, and thats sad.

These girls mean so much to me, but I want to come back naturally, after falling back in love with each of them, and I can’t put a timestamp on it, but I know it will happen.

I may pop in here and there, but for now, See Ya’ll Later !

** also ps: i love talking to people on here, any above I say replying to messages is ‘work,’ but things that have geuninely helped me stay here is the people. Those that have encouraged me, that check up on me, that just want to be friends. And I whole heartedly appreciate and love each and every one of you, and lowkey sorry for letting yal down, BUT I WILL BE BACKKK (still, hit me up tho lol)

#in the meantime theres so many good blogs out there rn!!!#i may make a highlight post but for now i'm gonna take my vacation #and like #if by chance anyone actually needs me or wants to talk #hit me up and i MAY give out my other social media if anyone so cares #i talk kinda meloramatically but the message is the same

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piotrbezhukov-blog · 7 years

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So I Wrote a Concert.

Hey everyone. This is a longer post, so fair warning.

I didn’t have a terribly productive summer, musically speaking; a lot of my time was taken up with other stuff (work, an internship, other personal obligations, a depressive episode I’m still not on the other side of, etc, etc). That’s not great, because usually the summer is when I compose most of my stuff (usually, in the sense that I have a composing schedule after only a couple years of composing--ha!). With all that said, I did manage to write enough for a short concert of chamber music, centered around the solo piano and the piano trio!

I’d never really written for the piano before-- the polyphonic nature of the instrument scared me, as someone who writes melodies by ear and has no real grasp of harmonies. However, I like to think that I have a good grasp of rhythm (that tap dancing background is good for something after all!) and that was my guide through the instrument. As for the piano trios: I love the cello, and can tolerate the violin. Why wouldn’t I write some trios.

With all that said, I’ve included links in the title of each piece to rough MP3′s of each of the four pieces for the concert. Below each link are the program notes I’ve drafted for the concert program. I’d really appreciate it if y’all let me know what you think!

Grazie,

T.A.R.

PS-- As always, PDF’s of the scores are available upon request.

Link and Program Notes for the Piano & Piano Trio Concert

I remember the first time I read a Bernard Shaw script. It was his Saint Joan, and, like most of his scripts, contains a long essay about what he as the playwright wanted to accomplish by writing the play. The essay is nearly as long as the play itself. Since then, I’ve tried to keep two goals in mind: first, to use program notes to explain clearly at least one thing that might be of interest to the audience for each piece that I write, and second, to avoid Shavian long-windedness in my program notes. Success is, as ever, illusory. With those goals in mind, I’d like to take a few paragraphs to offer you a guide through the pieces you’ll be hearing tonight. These remarks follow no particular pattern, nor do they dwell on a consistent topic—the focus, broad as it may be, is merely to offer some context (whether personal, aesthetic, or what-have-you) fr each of the pieces in the way they’ll be presented tonight. None of the pieces are so complicated or obtuse to make this guide essential reading (or at least I hope they aren’t), but you might like something to do while you wait for the concert to start.

A Minor Catastrophe:

The first piece in this concert for piano trio is actually not a piano trio at all; instead, it’s a piece for solo piano. It wound up on the program tonight simply because I think it serves as both a warm-up (and then some) for our wonderful pianist [insert name here], and because for better or worse I think it does a good job explaining my particular musical ‘voice’ (how I hate that pretentious term) or idiom. The piece is titled A Minor Catastrophe, which sums up the structure of the piece well. There is relatively little thematic material holding it together—instead, the cohesion comes from a relentless rhythmic intensity, and constant tension between various rhythmic patterns. The title also contains a pun to the constantly recurring theme—a simple tracing out of the A minor chord, which underpins the entire piece in the manner of minimalist harmony (that is to say, the harmonic structure of the piece is relatively static and entirely tonal). This three-note theme creates a tension with the other material of the piece, which shifts between phrases in multiple different times—that is, a phrase ‘in three’ (with a one-two-three, one-two-three rhythmic pattern) with pull and push against a phrase in four (a one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four pattern). I’ve used this pull and push to create some of the rhythmic energy of the piece, and if nothing else it keeps it moving along briskly.

Entirely in one movement, the whole of the piece finishes within the nine minute mark. In that sense, and given what could generously be called a rhapsodic form (and less generously a rambling one), it’s probably best to call this a “piano prelude,” according to the formal conventions of ‘classical’ music. Those conventions aren’t a language I’m entirely comfortable using; I was raised on ‘popular music’ and never had any formal musical training or education until college, and what education I have is introductory at best. I’ve always composed entirely by ear and inspiration, which probably accounts for some of the structural ambiguity (or incoherence) in the first two pieces you’ll hear tonight.

However, despite (or perhaps because of) the lack of a rigid structure of this piece, I think it offers a good look into my mental process and the way I think about music, as both a composer and as someone who listens to music. In that sense, I thought it would be a useful way to start tonight’s concert. Unrestrained by outside conventions, this piece, I hope, will serve as a workable introduction to the kind of music you’ll hear tonight.

With that in mind, let’s look at the second piece.

Quick and Dirty:

Having established a sound world for this concert that is essentially without traditional conventions or forms, this second piano prelude takes us a little further down the path of modern music. By that, I mean that the harmonies are more jagged and dissonant, the rhythms less predictable and more unsteady, and the melodies completely fragmented.

I wrote this piece, like virtually all of my pieces, by ear. Usually, this process entails a stunningly bad first draft of a piece that I then slowly whittle down and shape into something that comports with my limited knowledge of traditional conventions (sonata form, tonal triadic harmonies, etc, etc). And usually I wind up reasonably content with the result—I say reasonably content because as an artist I’m never truly happy with my work. This process, however, does lead me down the path of neo-romanticism, or sometimes minimalism, or so on. In other words, I worry that it tends to make each piece sound derivative of someone else’s music. So I tired something different.

With this piece I tried to create something that was purposefully *ugly* in the way it sounded. Hence, the title “Quick and Dirty.” (It’s also a comparatively short five minutes, thus the first part of the title.) I intend for this ugliness to remove the impersonal polish to try and find a more distinct musical voice underneath all the convention. As always, however, that is a judgment that is ultimately up to you the audience.

I was interested in ugliness, specifically, for a few reasons. First, a lot of my effort usually goes into disguising the work that goes into a piece–that is, making each piece look effortless and sound, if not pretty in the stereotypical sense, at least polished to a sheen. The other reason is that I’ve never really used music as an outlet to explore my mental state; it’s never the way I think about it. My usual approach is to create a piece for someone or something else– that is to say, I write a piece for X instrument because a friend needs a new piece to pad out their recital, or because I want to see what I can do with an odd instrumentation (i.e. two clarinets and a viola). I thought I should probably look inward at some point, and this is a somewhat clumsy first result.

Triage:

Having used the first two pieces of tonight’s concert to show off the pianist, I thought it would only be fair to similarly showcase our excellent string players [insert names here]. This second piece, a short piano trio, was built around what are called ‘extended techniques’ for playing string instruments. In other words, there are instructions for the players to use their instruments in some odd ways, to produce sounds that are rather different from the normal lyricism and rich song-like lines of the violin and cello. The intended effect is to add an ethereal element to an already somewhat mournful piece. (Of course, you know what they say about artistic intentions.) It might be that mournfulness that led me to the title Triage, which to me conjures up an image of the dead and dying, but I honestly think it was the shared prefix with the word Trio. I’m very drawn to surface similarities as a way to connect seemingly disparate concepts. On top of that, I do like a good pun. Sadly, between the title of the first piece and the title of this one, apparently I have to make do with remarkably poor ones.

The form of this piece is essentially undefined, floating between one idea and the next. There is an occasionally recurring metronome in the piano, and few moments when all the players elaborate on a syncopated scale. But aside from those occasional grasps of familiarity, the players glide from one gesture to the next, sometimes echoing or reflecting back to each other, but never stopping to relentlessly drive a musical idea into the ground. It’s a dreamlike and insubstantial conjuring of a particular tone, or mood.

It’s also resolutely tonal, with very conventional harmonies and so forth. While I would hardly call myself a neo-Romantic composer, I’m certainly more comfortable writing the sort of music you can hum on your way out of the theater than I am writing more avant-garde or conceptually intense music. That’s probably a function of my composing style—I like to hum up a melody before I ever sit down at a piano or computer to work out the harmonies, the instrumentation, or any other aspect of a piece. And sadly, I never learned to hum in set theory tones. (Any singer could tell you I never learned to hum in any kind of tone, but that’s another conversation.) All of which is to say that, while I’m a great fan of most of the quote-unquote “new music” composers and the pieces they’re putting out, and while I admire the artistic talent it takes to write that sort of music, it’s a talent that I either don’t have or haven’t cultivated. My sound world is entirely blue-haired.

Which brings us to the final piece of the evening.

Piano Trio No. 1, ‘Repartee’

I very rarely like any of the pieces I write. Part of that is just the standard-issue self-loathing of the artist, part of it is that I’m still a relatively immature composer and I can see the amateurism in what I write, and part of it is simply that by the time I’ve finished a piece I’ve heard the playback from my electronic score so frequently that the familiarity renders it loathsome. The larger part, however, is a kind of conceptual loathing—very rarely does my original idea for a piece survive contact with the actual process of writing it. However, with this piano trio, the original idea sails through in fine form. That’s probably why this piece is one of my personal favorites.

I had a very basic idea for this trio. I wanted to write something glittering, light, and adorably entertaining. Forget artistic pretensions, or rigorous theory to back up every choice of chord. This is a piece that I had fun composing, and that you’re going to have fun listening to. The informal title, Repartee, reflects that idea: a jaunty conversation where the verbal volleys banter back and forth and around the room as everyone laughs gaily and has a grand old time.

The first movement is a light allegro: open, airy, dashing along to leave you suspended in a pleasant haze. The second movement, though a slower adagio, maintains the airy feeling through the use of transparent orchestration and delicate quavers in the right hand of the pianist. Throughout the third movement, a faster tempo creates tension with a lethargic two-step time signature; this tension propels the piece into the fourth and final movement, an ecstatic release for both players and audience, with the notes rushing by on their way to a triumphant finale that seems to arrive altogether too soon. The structure is fairly straightforwardly linear and old-fashioned. Each movement follows the rough pattern of fast—slow—faster—now-really-fast structure of most classical pieces, to present a clear contrast between movements, and to make sure there’s enough variety to keep everyone (me included) interested. One note about the musical theory: the first movement sits in B major, and every subsequent movement sits one half-step above the previous movement (so the second movement is in the inescapable C major, the third in C sharp major, the final in D major). I like to think this gives us a sense of rising up through the progression of the piece, even as we slow down to look at the pretty scenery.

The key to this piece, I think, is the incredibly simply and open harmonic pattern. In a word, I eschew the chromaticism of the neo-Romantics, and avoid the atonality of the avant-garde in favor of something closer to three-chord rock & roll. By keeping each instrument confined to a particular distinctive timbre, and by avoiding cluttering up their respective lines with excessive and extravagant harmony, the interplay between each of the short melodies—not quite full melodic lines, but more substantial than quick motives and phrases—is highlighted. The forward motion comes from a bounding and delightful rhythmic energy and the changing interplay of these short melodies.

Don’t remove any part of this caption and don’t steal shit, y’all.

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