Tenchi ryoko theme midi

Japanese themed homebrew compediums that arent Ryoko's Guide?

2024.05.05 16:27 Acceptable-Artist201 Japanese themed homebrew compediums that arent Ryoko's Guide?

I'm asking since Ryoko's Guide isn't fully out yet from my understanding, and I want to start my next campaign in an area themed around Japan. I'm mainly looking for monster statblocks.
submitted by Acceptable-Artist201 to DnDHomebrew [link] [comments]

2024.05.05 03:56 Tracer-Quarterly [Prism] MIDI Sequencer - Coming soon for iPhone and iPad

[Prism] MIDI Sequencer - Coming soon for iPhone and iPad
Hey Everyone,
I was posting here a few months ago about a new MIDI sequencer in development. Well, since then I've been hard at work and I think the app has come leaps and bounds in functionality, stability, workflow, UI, and is really starting to come together as a unique musical instrument. I'll be creating more materials to showcase as I get ready for launch, which will be soon! I'd give a date but this is my first time doing this and I'm sure there'll be unknown unknown delays. Until then here's a link to some more recent videos and a list of the updated features! There's still a lot more to go and I'm looking forward to growing out this device with input from the community, so don't be afraid to over share.
P.S. I changed the name from Ouroboros to Prism
​
![img](6ips95f7liyc1 "Some updated pics ")
Key Features
  • Creative Multi-track MIDI Sequencer
  • 16 tracks all ready with unique drum and tone sequencing features
  • Arp, Harmonizer, MIDI slicer & Hue fx seq per track
  • Freely flow between integrated and modular workflows
  • 512-step sequencer
  • Enhanced Navigation (uniquely designed for the massive step count)
  • 3 × Chord input modes
  • Organize ideas with scenes, mute profiles, & patterns
  • Customizable MIDI Profiles
  • All designed to prioritize the workflow experience with an iPhone!
Prism Sequencer Features
  • 8 x Patterns per track
    • Individual pattern length per track (up to 16 bars)
    • 1/32 step resolution
    • Individual time scale multiplier per track
    • Individual swing (per song, track, drum pad)
  • 512 x Trig steps per pattern
    • 8 x Note polyphony per trig
    • Customizable trig conditions & trig chance
    • Micro timing and offset
  • 3 x Methods to process trigs
    • Standard - play trigs as programmed
    • No Overlap - cut off any notes when a new trig is reached
    • Trig Legato - play all notes until the next trig
  • Swing (song, track and drum pad granularity)
  • Live-recording - multiple modes / quantize
  • 1 x ‘Tape style’ MIDI Slicer per track
  • 1 x MIDI Looper per track/pattern
Tone Track Features
  • 8 x Scale Modes
    • all midi transformations, across every track, are warped to maintain the selected key & scale (more scale modes planned)
  • 4 × Note input modes
    • Standard Poly
    • Chord Triads
    • Chord MutiMode
    • Chord Blocks
  • 5 × methods to direct the flow of MIDI between tracks - [FUSE]
    • Standard
    • Watch - Overlay a visual of another track’s sequence for comparison
    • Play - play the sequence from another track
    • Mix - Program the rhythm in one track but but play another track’s note values
    • Mirror - Duplicate the output across channels (including MIDI fx transformations)
  • 4 x creative tools to shape the MIDI (All applied post MIDI interchange [FUSE] to enable further differentiation of a common seed)
    • Filter
    • Harmonizer
    • Arp
    • Hue Sequencer
Drum Track Features
  • 16 x independent Prism sequencers make up a drum track
    • Modular link options
    • Adv. layering between drum pads and tone tracks
  • 6 × methods to direct and share MIDI between tracks - [FUSE]
    • Standard
    • Watch
    • Play
    • Layer (Drum to Drum)
    • Mirror
    • Mix (Drum to Tone) - whenever a drum pad’s trig is hit play the note values from one tonal track across any number of selected tracks
  • Customizable drum profiles
  • 1 x Rapid Navigator to effortlessly move between even the longest sequences
MIDI FX & Tools
  • 1 x Arp per track/pattern (tone only)
    • 16 x customizable steps
    • 6 x Creative Modes
    • Swing
    • Rapid Navigator
  • 1 x Fuse Filter per track/pattern
    • Shift notes by steps and octaves
    • Apply mono or limited poly [1-8]
    • Filter on lowest, highest, middle, or alternating notes
    • Note, velocity, and random gates
    • Velocity Limiter
    • Choke - offset the length of all notes
  • 8 x Sequential Harmonizers per song (tone only)
    • Filter any track through any of the 8 harmonizers at any time. Each contains:
      • 1 x Harmonic sequencer that controls the playback between
      • 4 x Harmony Pools with
      • 8 x Harmonic steps per pool
  • 8 x Hue Sequencers per song
    • Filter any track through the Hue sequencer to shift the output in a shared fashion. Each Hue Sequencer is
      • 1 x Prism style sequencer
      • Each trig step sets the selected track’s output shift amount (always in key)
  • 1 x MIDI Looper per track/pattern
    • Loop playback of a sequence page or select bars
  • 1 x ‘Tape Style’ MIDI slicer per track
    • Cut, copy, paste and inject to mangle and remix a sequence pattern
    • Wield silence as an active tool
  • 4 x Block stacks per song
    • 8 x Blocks per stack
      • 8 x Notes per block
    • Save and load collections of chords as block stacks
    • Optimized workflow for experimenting with & creating chord progressions
    • Chords added to trigs as blocks are by reference
      • Change the block or load a stack and every instance of the block across any of the tracks will update to match
General Specs
  • iOS AUV3
  • iPhone & iPad
  • MultiTouch Keypad Matrix and Sequencer
    • Slide to rapidly add trig steps or play notes
  • Dark & light graphic themes
  • External MIDI in/thruput
  • Internal & External Host Saving
  • Extensive copy, paste, mute, and select options & workflow optimizations
  • 480 PPQN
​
Tutorial on Prism's Chord Blocks Tutorial on Prism's Harmonizer
submitted by Tracer-Quarterly to ipadmusic [link] [comments]

2024.05.04 08:47 bktnmngnn Avalonia appreciation

Avalonia appreciation
Some time ago I was planning on creating a live keys rig app I can use with my midi keys and was almost sure I can only do the ui in some game engine like godot. Not really thinking that Avalonia could be a better choice
Much to my delight, I was able to achieve that in Avalonia with just custom themeing, and all of that with buttery smooth performance. And it's still cross-platform, which is great!
Although I am having some problems in the mobile side of things, especially file access. How does the appdata folder work in android? I can seem to access and modify files in that folder, but unable to see them in my file manager. Is using a folder in the internal storage a viable option in Avalonia on android/ios?
submitted by bktnmngnn to AvaloniaUI [link] [comments]

2024.05.04 06:40 omegacluster New Music Additions 2024-05-03

Today's additions are:
submitted by omegacluster to ctebcm [link] [comments]

2024.05.04 02:07 Throwaway-namepro AITAH for giving feedback when it’s asked of me despite it frequently leading to hurt feelings/conflict?

My husband does some freelance music composing sometimes, as a side gig. I think he’s great. We’re both creative people. I make music too, as a hobby, and although I’m definitely less skilled at the technical stuff, I have an ear for music and I’ve written a few songs I’m really proud of, the best of which he plays guitars on and mixes. We collaborate with music sometimes. So it’s not like I don’t know anything about music, despite not having a background there.
Whenever he does a new composition, he plays it for me and asks me what I think. I never lack an opinion on music production/composition. But it seems like he just wants praise. And yet, if I try to hold in any criticism, he can tell from my face and tone, and will badger me until I (immediately) relent. This is fresh in my mind because it just happened. He played me a theme he’s doing for someone’s podcast, which goes from orchestral to rock, and although I could hear some wonkiness in the first part of the theme, I said “sounds cool, I like the second part a lot,” and he read between the lines and said “what’s wrong with the first part?” I listened to it a few times and eventually identified the bum notes in the orchestration that were sticking out to me. He said changing it was making the song more generic, yet to my ears, I want all the notes to be in the right key, to sound harmonious, especially since it was supposed to emulate a classical orchestral style. I didn’t even say anything rude, I mostly was listening very hard to the melody to try and identify any areas that seemed off, and giving feedback on tweaks (midi instruments at this stage, so it’s a click of a button to change a note, and he could always undo it if he disagrees).
Anyway, he got pretty upset and was like, “why do you always do this? Why can’t you just be like, ‘good job’? Why does this happen every single time I play something for you??” My answer was that I can’t help but have opinions, and I actually care about the end result being as good as possible. I see that it hurts his feelings, which I regret, and yet I feel like it’s the lesser of the two evils. To me it’s like the artistic equivalent of telling someone they have food in their teeth.
Then he asked how I’d feel if he had criticism for me when I show him my artwork or writing (I do both professionally) and I said, honestly, that I’d appreciate it. And in fact, I’m more likely to get annoyed when he’s just like, “nice,” rather than engaging more with what I show him. Because in my case I know I sometimes don’t notice an error in proportion, or I might miss a storytelling opportunity; even if I disagree with a criticism it can still help me identify problem areas. And most of all, it shows actual engagement.
Anyway, it wasn’t a huge fight, just a disagreement that left us both annoyed for a bit. I can’t help but wonder if I should just offer unconditional praise and support in the future, when clearly criticism bothers him. And yet it feels very counter to my own values to do so. I often have up and coming illustrators ask me for advice, and the ones who I think are hopelessly awful I tend to bullshit and be like, “oh nice, love the creativity, keep working on fundamentals!” And people who actually have promise, I tend to give them actual critique and advice. It just feels weird to coddle and treat my husband like I would a talentless hack.
submitted by Throwaway-namepro to AITAH [link] [comments]

2024.05.04 01:54 No_Presentation_7714 How do I connect my yeti to the app so I can record.

How do I connect my yeti to the app so I can record.
I have a yeti it says it's connected but still won't work
submitted by No_Presentation_7714 to FL_Studio [link] [comments]

2024.05.02 18:11 Old_Parsnip6227 my songs sound quiet when exporting and i tried everything

my songs sound quiet when exporting and i tried everything
https://preview.redd.it/u2r3libre1yc1.png?width=372&format=png&auto=webp&s=86382e43a26d6e27681c141f5fcd9adf9df10e3d
idk why this keeps happening, its so annoying
submitted by Old_Parsnip6227 to FL_Studio [link] [comments]

2024.05.02 14:30 pillowcase-of-eels [Book/Music] Emilie Autumn's Asylum, pt. 3 – Retconned friendships, abstract deadlines, eternal returns: author's endless tinkerings cause delays and aggravate fans

[Thumbnail🪞]
Welcome back to this write-up about a complicated artist's complicated book.
Don't be absurd, of course you have time!
Part 1 Part 2
Now that we've established what the book is about, let's take a look at The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls' rich publication and re-publication history. I promise, it's more scandalous than it sounds.

“HER SPEECH IS NOTHING, YET THE UNSHAPÈD USE OF IT DOTH MOVE THE HEARERS TO COLLECTION” (HORATIO, ACT IV SCENE 5)

As I've mentioned in the last installment, TAFWVG has been released multiple times, in multiple editions – four of them, to be precise. And I wish I was exaggerating when I say that three of those four releases have been veritable masterclasses in testing your audience's loyalty. In case you're wondering: the secret is to alter your source material in strange and unpredictable ways, while also constantly messing up on the customer service front.
Most of this installment condenses and combines these two excellent write-ups, which contain most of the receipts: TAFWVG: A History / The Bloody Crumpets: An Inconsistent History. 🔍 Anything that isn't sourced with links is in there. While there were only minor differences between the first and second pressings, the third and fourth editions came with significant alterations to the structure of the book and the story itself, notably the cast of fictional Asylum inmates... a handful of which had, in fact, been obvious avatars of EA's IRL friends and collaborators.
It turns out there are good reasons why most fiction authors don't do real-life inserts so overtly – but in EA's case, it did make sense, and was warmly embraced by fans upon release. When the book first came out, some of these people had been familiar to the fanbase for years, frequently appearing in candid pictures on EA's blog and leaving comments on the forum; some were also involved in her music and show. Recognizing that one character's name was a pun on So-and-So's username was a nice Easter egg for veteran fans, and newcomers got to learn about fandom lore; it brought the story to life and the community closer.
One side character, for instance, was named after EA's best friend from Chicago, whom many fans had had direct interactions with: she co-ran EA's online stores during the Enchant years, and acted as admin, main moderator and EA-liaison of the forum throughout its near-decade of existence.
One crazy girl who thinks she's a pirate is 100% OC... but her description and illustrations 🪞 were explicitly modeled after pictures of Bloody Crumpet Vecona (one of EA's back-up performers), who became the first stand-in pirate character 📺 in the live show. Captain Vecona was also celebrated as the “Asylum Seamstress” 🪞🔍: most of the iconic early Opheliac costumes were her design. She had a following of her own, even prior to touring with EA, for her professional costuming work and her collaborations with German photographer Angst-im-Wald. (Shitty archive link, sorry - most of those badass photoshoots seem to have been lost to time. But if you were a European goth in the mid-2000s, search your old hard drives: I promise you, you've downloaded some of those pictures.)
Inmate “Veronica”, a cabaret girl diagnosed as a nymphomaniac, was a doppelgänger of her namesake, burlesque dancer Veronica Varlow 🪞 – the ride-or-die Crumpet, whom EA often lovingly called her “husband”, saying they had been lovers in a previous lifetime. Veronica was part of every single tour post-Opheliac release and developed a solid fanbase of her own, which she maintains to this day.
Even the brave and well-mannered talking rats (oh yeah, there's talking rats in the Asylum story) were named after EA's real-life pet rodents, who had featured in glamorous photoshoots. (Slight NSFW for sideboob.)
You get the general gimmick by now: EA turns her personal life into art, which she turns into a fictional world, which she then prompts the audience to inhabit with her. The whole Asylum concept was essentially an open invitation to self-insert parasocial fanfic: “Here's this very personal world that I've created, in which I, the artist, exist as a fictional persona, alongside all these quirky inmate characters that you've seen in my stage show, and who are avatars my real-life friends. Come on in, make it your home, and populate it with your own zany Victorian alter egos.”
And it worked, to an extent: like I've said, most fans were on board before they'd even read the book, and the Asylum became “real” in that sense.
But it can get a bit disorienting to find your place in a fantasy world, when said world keeps changing based on the author's shifting feelings about her story, her target audience, and her friends... plus, you'd love to read the book, but the darn thing still hasn't shipped.

ROUNDS 1 & 2: THE HARDCOVERS

\A MINOR ADJUSTMENT\
TAFWVG was first teased in spoken-word bonus tracks 🎤 on a 2007 EP. In spring 2008, EA started reading excerpts from her upcoming book at live shows. Early excerpts from the Asylum narrative featured a character named “Jo Hee” 📺; in the story, she is a cellist from “the Orient” (love that Victorian geography) and Emily's childhood confidante.
In real life, Lady Jo Hee, Center of Happiness, was the OG Bloody Crumpet. 📺 She had been there since from the very first Opheliac show in Chicago in 2006, accompanying EA on the electric cello – the only instrumentalist ever featured in the line-up besides EA herself.
In August 2008, Alternative Magazine ran a feature about the upcoming book.🔍, teasing some of its pages. Fans were quick to spot a very sisterly picture of EA and Jo Hee 🪞, borrowed from a fan-favorite photoshoot of the two. (An aside: this specific picture also became famous in the fandom for another reason. At some point, someone made an edit replacing Jo Hee with Amy Lee from Evanescence; for a while, it kept making the rounds in alt/goth internet circuits, casual onlookers kept getting excited about it, and Plague Rats kept having to step in and disappoint them.)
Anyway. For reasons undisclosed by either party, Jo Hee quietly left the Crumpets after that tour, never to be mentioned again.
By the time the book came out in late 2009, the character of “Jo Hee” had been renamed “Sachiko”. (I guess it didn't matter whether the one non-white character in the story was meant to be Korean or Japanese.) Jo Hee's face had been edited out of the (still clearly recognizable) photograph, and eerily replaced with Nondescript_Asian_Woman_023.jpg from Shutterstock.🪞
You'd think that the switcheroo would have raised more eyebrows, or at least some awkward chuckles, among fans of an artist whose better-known lyrics include “If I Photoshop you out of every picture, I could / Go quietly, quiet - but would that do any good?”. Yet to my knowledge, it did not. Possibly because, by the time people got around to reading the book, some fans had been waiting for their copy longer than Jo Hee had been a Crumpet.
A ROCKY RELEASE
Although the book seemed just about ready for publication at the time of those 2008 readings, the initial release was delayed by technical difficulties (some data had been lost during the editing process). And then delayed some more when, a year later, EA cancelled the US leg of a tour and slammed the door on Trisol, accusing the label owner of exploitation and embezzlement (he was allegedly selling fake tickets to her shows on a phony website). In August 2009, she signed over to The End Records, and we were back in business, baby!
Not only was The Book on its way to the presses, but the long-awaited release would coincide with a “Deluxe” re-issue of Opheliac, with new cover art and bonus tracks. For $100, you could pre-order the “Ultimate Book/Album Collection”, which included the revamped album, the book, a t-shirt, a tote bag, a recipe booklet and some bonus digital downloads, to be shipped in October. Or, for a more up-close-and-personal experience, you could purchase a VIP bundle for her upcoming shows in the fall: $50 plus ticket price would get you the book, a swag bag, and a meet-and-greet. (VIP tickets were capped at 20 slots per show; from what I gather, informal interactions with fans at the merch table were becoming overwhelming on previous tours. Again: fast-growing audience.)
Alas, due to printing issues this time, the making and shipping were soon pushed back to December. VIP ticket-holders were assured, at the start of the tour, that their copies would be shipped first as soon as the books were printed, with handwritten dedications from EA. Purchasers of the “Book/Album” bundle would receive theirs shortly thereafter. This seemed like a reasonable trade-off for a minor delay, and no one was too upset. (Well, some might have been, but at that juncture in Asylum history – for reasons that will become apparent in a later installment, when we get to EA's altercations with her fans – I guess they knew better than to get mouthy about it.)
The bundles came first... and in many cases, “bundle” was a generous term, because they arrived incomplete. When the t-shirt or tote bag weren't missing, they were printed the wrong colors. Many digital download codes had to be requested via email. The book itself was beautiful, but poorly bound, typo-ridden, and missing entire pages. (This was largely fixed in the second hardcover release.)
As far as I know, everyone who complained to the distributor got their money back – and I imagine it was a nice surprise when some items showed up, inexplicably, months after they had already been refunded. But it was still a bit of a “sad trombone” moment for many loyal fans, who had to request a refund on the Ultimate Super-Cool Preorder Exclusive Bundle to purchase the book and album separately.
As for the VIP package books, those didn't start shipping until late 2010 – a whole year after the official book release, months after less invested fans had already received their non-preordered copies. Worse: none of the books were signed, much less lovingly adorned with a personalized handwritten note as EA had promised. (And had tweeted about doing during the year-long shipping delay!) After enough fans meekly expressed their intense disappointment, EA's BFF-forum-admin mailed out signed bookplates that people could stick in their book in lieu of a personalized autograph. No real explanation was given. As far as I know, this particular let-down didn't cause a mass exodus of disappointed fans – but, in the midst of other goings-on, it certainly contributed to eroding many fans' trust in EA's word.
EA TAKES ON HOLLYWOOD
The 2011 release of the largely-identical second edition was better planned and overall uneventful, which gives me time to catch you up on contemporaneous events – like the reason EA ditched the Opheliac red and went platinum blonde. 🪞
Around that time, EA got herself a supporting role and a solo number 🎵📺 in The Devil's Carnival, Darren Lynn Bousman's psychocircus-themed movie musical. (If you're scrambling to place the name: depending on what kind of deviant you are, DLB is either the guy who directed half of the Saw movies or the guy who directed Repo! The Genetic Opera.)
If you've clicked the last link: see the bad boy greaser she's dancing with at the end of the song? That's the titular “Scorpion”, played by Marc Senter, and they were totally hitting on each other while shooting this. 📝🪞 They've been an item for twelve years now, in what appears to be a loving and mutually supportive relationship, and they seem besotted with each other. That's only marginally relevant to the story, but it's nice to know that at least one nice thing worked out in all this mess.
Back to 2011. Through her friendship with DLB and the Devil's Carnival cast (a motley crew of top-shelf B-listers 🔍 that included Bill Moseley, Paul Sorvino, the chick from Spy Kids, and the clown from Slipknot), EA also made a bunch of new industry connexions. That's how she came to decide that TAFWVG was meant to be more than a book, more than a live show: it had to become... a musical. Full company, full orchestra, big names, the works. Her 2012 album, Fight Like a Girl, was written and recorded with this project in mind, with most songs narrating events from the book and EA singing as various characters – which turns love duets into finger food for Dr. Freud. 🎵
Shortly before the album release, EA announced on Twitter that the Asylum Musical was scheduled to debut in the London West End, under the direction of Bousman, in 2014. "Casting calls to be announced soon!" (They were not.)

ROUND 3: THE AUDIOBOOK

2014 came, and brought... another TAFWG re-release announcement.
But wait – this time, it was going to be an audiobook! EA had been teasing one since before the original release, so people were quite excited. (It also sounded like a more achievable goal for the calendar year than a West End debut.) In early 2014, recording was well on its way, and the 6-CD boxset was due to ship in May.
PLEASE STAND BY, YOUR ASYLUM WILL BE PROCESSED SHORTLY
First, EA discovered “a new microphone ... that, upon testing, produced a recording of far greater beauty and expressive quality”, which naturally meant the whole thing had to be re-recorded. Two month's delay. No biggie. Our girl is a perfectionist.
But our girl also had to write, coordinate and rehearse her upcoming “Asylum Experience” – an afternoon-long interactive theater event, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, which would be performed at five dates of the Vans Warped Tour in August. (It's not exactly the West End, but it's a start! 🔍) And then she had to prepare for the filming of the Devil's Carnival sequel in the fall. So, obviously, the July deadline was not met. When she finally gave an update in late 2014, the ETA was basically “we are ever so close, but the audiobook gets there when it gets there; feel free to ask for a refund if you're not along for the ride”.
And then she signed with a literary agent. TAFWVG was going to be made into a “real” book, that readers could purchase in stores for a normal price and request from their local library – big event! (More for EA, I think, than for her fans. By that point, the second edition could be purchased as a PDF, and I believe most people who pre-ordered the audiobook had already read the story.) But this involved tailoring the narrative to a more general audience, which meant portions of the book had to be re-written... which meant further delays.
...Besides, and let’s have a teacup of “honesty time” here, if the new Asylum becomes an internationally best-selling novel, not only can we enact more change for good, but the Asylum Musical takes over Broadway faster, the Asylum Movie takes over theatres faster, and YOU are all dressed up as rats/inmates in said movie, you guessed it, faster (“Asylum Audiobook Announcement from EA”📝)
Well, you know what they say in show business: if you can't make it in London, there's always New York.
As EA assured her fans, their patience would be rewarded with a brand new, professionally polished version of the story – and in due time, I guess, a role in the movie. (“Let's hope she doesn't find another new microphone!” 🐀)
From that point on, there seems to have been an ever-widening gap between EA's enthusiasm and fan expectations. When audiobook snippets 🎤.mp3) were released, many fans were unimpressed by the oddly flat, overproduced recording (turns out a microphone can be so good it's a problem! 🐀), which highlighted EA's stilted, uncanny diction and not-quite-transatlantic accent. That caught everyone off guard, because she didn't use to read like... that. Even die-hard apologists had to concede through gritted teeth that, tragically, it was giving William Shatner. (If you're curious, you can find more previews here 🎤📝, along with EA's captions.)
Fans weren't just getting irritated with the various delays and excuses: they were baffled, angry, and embarrassed. When EA clapped back “U know U can just get a refund, right? That is totally within your power to do” on social media, and it came out that requests for refunds had been getting ignored for weeks or months 🐀, seasoned fans were like “Yeah, that tracks.” The whole never-ending ordeal was just starting to feel silly.
All told, the audiobook took two years to complete, with little to no new music in the interim. Two years is a long time for a young-leaning audience! Fans who had preordered at the end of their sophomore year were graduating high school by the time it came out. Others who had been in the middle of undergrad were now looking for full-time jobs. People had gotten pregnant, given birth and potty trained, or had houses built from the ground up. Genuine ultra-fans of the book had had time to... presumably, read other books. (“I wonder how many people passed away waiting for this shitty audiobook to be finished?”)
When the audiobook came out, many long-time Plague Rats had defected, either lamenting the misguided decisions of their favorite artist, or just calling EA a money-grabbing fraud and a lying liar. And a number of patient and unbothered fans had, quite simply, grown out of their EA phase.
Your humble servant, for one, ordered the audiobook the week it went on sale, and stuck with that preorder through five address changes and two graduation ceremonies. Now, bear in mind: through all the ups and downs, even as the charm dispelled, my taste in music evolved, and my perception of EA herself changed, I never formally stopped considering myself a fan. (Mama didn't raise no quitter.) To this day, and to my profound embarrassment, I give enough of a shit that I'm taking the time to write this story at all, and that I was able to draft most of itfrom memory.(Mama didn't teach me how to prioritize.) Well, get this: I have never once listened to the audiobook. I remember unwrapping the signed boxset (minimal artwork, flimsy cardboard, no liner notes), thinking “this could have been an email”, telling myself I'd get around to it for old time's sake... and then I never did, because it was ten hours long, and I just couldn't force myself to care about that story anymore. I was not an isolated case.
In light of this, I apologize in advance for any potential errors in the following paragraphs; others listened so posers like me wouldn't have to 🔍, and I'm going off of their word. The new and improved edition was, indeed, a different book – in that a bunch of things that felt meaningful to fans had been either reworked or excised.
THE AUDIOBOOK EDITS
The hospital narrative had been shortened in favor of the asylum story, and the controversial “Drug / Suicide / Cutting” diaries had been scrapped. Part of the fanbase applauded this decision, but others were disappointed 🐀, as they had found the diaries to be the most (some said only) personal, authentic, and insightful chapters in the book.
Curse words, some abuse, and all mentions of abortion had also been purged. It made the book tamer, but not by much... because Emilie's age had been changed from 27 to 17. Apparently, the literary agent had suggested this to make the book more marketable to a Young Adult audience. No other biographical detail had been altered, so the main narrator was now a 17 year old girl with no parents but an established music career, who checks in by herself into a high-security adult ward, no questions asked. (I'm still perplexed by this one. Did they not expect YA readers to know how hospitals work...?)
The pirate captain, formally known by her “mass of tangled black hair”, was now... a blonde. According to EA, this was a purely aesthetic change: it made the three main Asylum girls a redhead, a blonde and a brunette, which would look better in the stage adaptation. Between the lines, it also distanced the character from its original dark-haired muse: Vecona, who had left the Crumpets in 2008 after a rumored falling-out with EA over unpaid costume work.
The minor characters based on EA's old Chicago friends had been discarded entirely. Which likely made sense for EA – she hadn't lived there in years, the friend group had drifted apart as friend groups do, and by that point, there no longer was an EA forum to administrate or comment on – but not so much for her readers. Some fans had grown fond of these fictional inmates (wasn't that the point?), and weren't too happy to see EA symbolically treat them as disposable. Others were saddened that EA would just scrap these remnants of her old life, and of what felt like simpler, happier times in the fandom. Either way, children, this is why you shouldn't get a neck tattoo of your first boyfriend's name, OR openly base the “good guys” in your career-defining book on friends you made in your early twenties.
To compensate for the loss of... most named inmate characters, Veronica was given a much more prominent role in the plot. Namely, instead of being best friends, Veronica and Emily were now... in love! Lovers! Lesbian lovers! Which naturally meant that Veronica had to die. 🔍 Besides, fans famously love it when you pull a gay ship out of thin air between your two main characters, and then kill one of them off so that the other suffers more.
One last one, because I find it especially goofy: a scrappy teddy bear named Suffer, given to Emily by the talking rats, was replaced with...a Very Large Spoon, which gets its very own number in the musical. 🎵 The rationale was that Emily could use the spoon as a weapon in the climactic uprising against the Asylum doctors. Which, fair enough... except that, prior to being a cute and anachronistic 🔍 MacGuffin in the fictional Asylum story, Suffer the Bear had been a beloved mascot🪞 from the early Opheliac live shows. Some still remembered when EA had raised HELL, even starting a #FREESUFFER campaign on Twitter, because she thought someone had stolen Suffer from the stage (it later turned out that he had been misplaced in a flight case). All that noise back in the day... and now Suffer didn't matter anymore? The nerve. “She made shirts and everything!” 🐀
All this to say, reception was lukewarm. EA hadn't performed live since 2014 and the Devil's Carnival sequel had failed to make a splash (despite decent reviews, the franchise and main collaboration fell apart before the end of the promotional tour 🔍). People were checking out. There was only one way to correct this. A true paradigm shift. A fresh start – a new theme?
Hell no. It's another edition of The Asylum for Revisionist Tortureporn Friendfictions!

ROUND 4: THE E-BOOK & THE QUEST FOR THE SPOON OF ROYALS

In 2017, about a year after the audiobook release, EA self-published a digital version of TAFWVG through Amazon. The literary agent hadn't worked out in the end: publishers were put off by how dark the book was, even after the audiobook edits. EA explained that she hadn't been comfortable with some of the alterations in the first place; she respected the agent's input and had tried to give it an honest shot, but in the end, she wanted to do it the way she wanted to do it, solo... and this was it.
EA had reverted a number of the audiobook cuts (including swear words, mentions of abortion, and the narrator's age), but kept most of the changes to the Asylum narrative – namely, the omission of Former Friends Characters, and the romance between Emily and Veronica. In the newsletter announcement, she mentions being in the process of “re-recording the few little bits of the audiobook to reflect the current text version”. Not sure where we're at on that front; it's never been brought up again, and I don't think anyone's checked. (I assume most fans had war flashbacks when they read the word “re-record”, and instantly repressed that part of the communiqué.)
The “Drug / Suicide / Cutting” diaries were still omitted in the first release of the e-book, but re-included as a coda soon after, by popular demand, under the title “Evidence of Insanity” – with fantastical “doctor's annotations” like“W14A seems to have disassociated her own identity, episodic, each lasting for a longer period of time. We suspect she will continue further in this – stronger medication is needed, schedule electroconvulsive therapy.”
A physical paperback edition was released a few months later; in anticipation of this, the e-book was a stripped-down, text-centric version of the story. (Honestly not a bad call, because the digital version from 2012 was a scanned, non-searchable, 1.3GB PDF behemoth – not super Kindle-friendly!) No elaborate backgrounds and color photographs in this edition, but the pages were still illustrated with inserts of rats, keys, teacups, and... hold on... ciphers??🪞
As always in the Asylum, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. In a throwback to the prelapsarian days of the Enchant Puzzle (remember? the one that no one ever managed to solve?), the e-book illustrations contained puzzles, which formed the master-key to... a scavenger hunt! And in keeping with tradition, the grand prize was an extravagant adornment hand-crafted by EA: the “Spoon of Royals”.🪞📝 Oh my!
Some of the puzzles are simple anagrams that can be solved for keywords. A clickable word within the adjacent text takes you to a password-protected link, which takes you through to an audio file – a song or an atmospheric instrumental that goes with that moment of the story. There are also more complex ciphers that decode into riddles. Each key depicted in the book has a number or letter engraved on it. The total number of rats in the book is apparently significant. One link takes you through to a blank page whose source code contains a list of coordinates from various bridges around the world.
Oh, it was a whole thing. When the book came out, you could send a picture of you doing EA's signature “rat claw” hand sign🪞 to request admission to a private Facebook group (the “Striped Stocking Society”) where people could help each other solve the clues and EA would occasionally pop in for a chat. There was also a series of mysterious newsletters in early 2018, culminating in a Los Angeles event where EA showed up in person to pass on extra puzzle-solving material to a handful of lucky fans (although said material raised more questions that it answered 📝).
Overall, it was a great idea! Although the fanbase was generally smaller and less active after four years without a new tour or album (and a fair amount of other drama, which we have yet to get into), the e-book puzzle did pique people's interest in purchasing yet another version of the same story.
Unfortunately, once again, EA overestimated either how intuitive her fans were, or how invested they would remain. After months of collaborative efforts across multiple platforms, a number of puzzles had been cracked 🔍, but it was still unclear how the individual anagrams and numbers and riddle-solutions all fit together as scavenger hunt clues.
EA kept up the hype for a while, but the few hints that she gave on social media only revealed yet more encryption factors without really helping fans connect the dots. One cipher remained unsolved on Instagram for days and days before EA caved in and hinted at which key to use. She did helpfully specify that if you didn't know how to read music, you'd better start learning. (...Was this a fun puzzle, or a prep school admission test?) The in-person LA event had also sown some confusion as to the rules and constraints of the game: would winning involve traveling to a physical location? That didn't seem very fair. EA had mentioned physically burying some items – but could you solve the puzzle from a distance? Is the Spoon of Royals literally just buried under the Shakespeare Bridge in Los Angeles, California?? 🐀
I'm just saying: if this had come up in 2008? People in corsets and platform boots would have been out there digging.
But this was 2018. As we've mentioned, the core of EA's active fanbase (a lot of whom had been teens and young adults when she was touring Opheliac) was fast aging out of the years when most folks have the spare time, dedication, or desire to essentially do super-involved homework out of love for their favorite singer. Uncovering new songs was a fun perk the first year – but after the new album came out in 2018, none of the passwords led to exclusive material anymore. It felt a bit lacklustre for something so labor-intensive.
(The new music itself wasn't a rallying point either. Behind the Musical was, quite literally, an intended vocal guide for the Asylum musical – so, basically a collection of demos. The sound was VERY Broadway Revival, somewhat Phantomish 🎵, in a way that's either good or bad depending on who's saying it. The violins, to fans' chagrin, sounded all-MIDI; no sign of actual instrumental recordings. EA sang all the parts herself, as she had on her previous album. I'm not saying there's no merit in a one-woman Andrew Lloyd Weber tribute. Many old fans enjoyed the new material well enough, some even really liked it – but most agreed that it just didn't hit like her earlier stuff used to, and that it felt rather unfinished.)
Unlike with the Enchant Puzzle, the prize itself was not much of an intrinsic motivation. While the Faerie Queen's Wings were a straightforward concept that evoked EA's own signature stage costumes, the Spoon of Royals was... a large spoon attached to a necklace, community-college-art-teacher style. It looked impractical both as a spoon and as a necklace, and more importantly, I'm not sure how many readers felt a deep emotional connection to the spoon in the story. The spoon that had usurped Suffer the Bear, no less!
In short: people gave up on the game because it was too hard, it came too late, and they had other things to do.
Thus, the Spoon of Royals remains unclaimed to this day, and I doubt I'll see anyone crack the puzzle in this lifetime. The Striped Stocking Society FB group was terminated in 2020, around the same time a bunch of fansites folded and EA closed her Instagram comments for the first time. By that point, both EA and her fans had bigger rats to skewer – but we have a ways to go before we reach that part of the story.
I would encourage you to give the puzzle a shot for the hell of it (in case you're a cryptography nerd and currently under house arrest or in a full-body cast) but... I just tried a bunch of the links, and the passwords don't work anymore. So I guess that's that. To quote old Bill by way of conclusion: “Much ado about nothing”.

ROUND TOO-MANY: I'LL SEE YOU ON BROADWAY OR I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL

So, what now? Well, not much.
By the late 2010s, what kept many fans semi-invested – if nothing else, because it clearly meant so much to EA herself – was the prospect of an upcoming stage musical adaptation. The way EA talked about it 📺, it was very much a “when”, not an “if”. Sure, ten years on, we were still collectively stuck in the Asylum, but it would at least be a new format – and a return to EA's main field of expertise, ie songwriting and performing. Not only did the core fanbase long for new music and new shows, but Fight Like a Girl and Behind the Musical had brought in small influxes of new fans who were very eager for any chance to see her live. So whether it was out of genuine enthusiasm for the project, or out of “let EA have her musical so we can maybe finally move on”, the fanbase was overall supportive.
Even though people still joked about the 2012 announcement of a “2014 West End debut” (seriously, what was she thinking?), EA had really buckled down in the intervening years, and it looked like the project was plausibly well underway. As in, we had more than just EA's word to go on: the involvement of other people, who did not reside in the Asylum, seemed to confirm that the musical was a thing.

[CONTINUED IN COMMENTS because Reddit is being ridiculous about the character count. I swear I was under 40,000!]

submitted by pillowcase-of-eels to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]

2024.05.01 19:19 Smash_Nerd On some project files, FLStudio freezes and crashes when MIDI devices refresh

On some project files, FLStudio freezes and crashes when MIDI devices refresh
I'm running v21.2.2 (build 3914] on Windows 11 23H2 22631.3447, (Though it also happened on Windows 10) and one of my project files crashes every time I turn my MIDI keyboard on or off. I've tried changing the MIDI settings, which port it goes to, enabling and disabling every setting, but it never fails to crash.
I'm being driven mad as I need to record keyboard into this song and it's infuriating to do so right now, and EVERY other help thread with this issue has had it's solutions archived and deleted. Very frustrated.
https://preview.redd.it/954g4567muxc1.png?width=695&format=png&auto=webp&s=5db425ab1fc25471d25e1f76e14401a40b37c28c
These are my settings, not sure how much they'll help as I've tried toggling everything to no avail.
I'm running an Intel i7 9700f, 32GB RAM, a Focusrite 4i4 Gen 3, and a YAMAHA Arius YDP-144. If there's any other info I need to provide to best be helped let me know, this is driving me insane.
EDIT: I have also uninstalled and reinstalled the device drivers, as well as copied the project file. No change. Genuinely losing it rn.
submitted by Smash_Nerd to FL_Studio [link] [comments]

2024.05.01 05:22 PennroyalTea Thinking about having this shortened, add a small slit, and possible ruffles attached to straps

Thinking about having this shortened, add a small slit, and possible ruffles attached to straps
I’m going to a wedding in July, and it’s going to be pretty hot (probably 90s F). The attire is cocktail, and the theme is garden/nature, so I’d like to wear something earthy (greens, blues, etc.).
I like the way this dress fits me but I’m 5’1 and it goes down to my ankles. I think I’d like to shorten it to maybe midi length or a bit shorter, but still over the knees. Maybe add a small slit to it so I don’t look like a total rectangle? I have some iridescent indigo chiffon fabric that I thought might look kinda cool on the spaghetti straps too.
What are your thoughts? :) I know nothing about tailoring so I would be bringing this to a professional.
submitted by PennroyalTea to Tailors [link] [comments]

2024.04.30 16:14 lykwydchykyn I want to trade some things I made to mangle up your sound; and what I yearn for in return is what you've lying around.

The Cliff's notes version of the post:
I got:
I want:
Chapter 1: In which I make a few glib blandishments about whatnot
May Day May Day! Oh wait, that's tomorrow. Hope everyone is enjoying springtime. Still hoping to get some spring cleaning done, to move out some of these pedals to make room for those half-finished projects lingering on my bench. All trade offers are welcome, though I'd be happy if anyone wanted to offer some cash because I need to do a couple parts orders here soon.
Chapter 2: In which I describe my hand-made musical devices for trade
(If you are NOT into handmade stuff, scroll down to chapter 3 because I have some other items at the end.)
This is hand-built stuff that I made, mostly relatively unique or heavily tweaked designs built on vero or point to point. Many are housed in upcycled tins, a few in Hammond boxes. They all run on standard 9v pedal power. These aren't clones for the most part, unless they are; but normally I actually monkey about with the circuits quite a bit or just test out wacky ideas. If you want something nobody else has, you're in the right place…
I have the handmades valued in 4 tiers:
MOBILE USERS: There are 4 columns in the tables below: Name, Tier, Links, and Notes. If you don't see all 4, scroll over or ask for more info.
Fuzzes
Name Tier Links Notes
Bazz Me Fuss You #1 A PIC DEMO A bazz-fussified perversion of the Escobedo push-me-pull-you, featuring controls for octave and volume. This is the first unit I've built using my own custom PCB. Housed in a painted 125B with top jacks.
SwirlFuzz B+ PIC DEMO Modulated octave fuzz prototype. It's an octave fuzz, but you can switch on an LFO to modulate the octave amount. Controls for Rate, Depth, Gain, and Volume, plus switches for waveshape and mode (Normal/Octave/Modulated). In a circular tin reinforced with recycled plastic.
Baller Fuzz B PIC DEMO Another Bazz-Me-Fuss-You build with an added BMP-style tone control. In a slightly beaten-up heart-shaped basketball tin. Y'all ready for this?
Big Green Fuzz for Attractive Bass Players B PIC Demo Like my bazz-me-fuss-you circuit, but with a big muff tone stack, a clean blend, and optional clippers for more compression. Housed in a big round tin reinforced with recycled plastic and designed specifically for attractive bass players. Unattractive ones may not really gel with this.
Creature from the planet Chyowngg B PIC Demo Prototype of a unique fuzz I've been developing that I call the Chyowngg fuzz. It's a 2-stage octaver that gives a bright synthy tone with a distinctive envelope (hence the name). You can toggle each stage from octave to non-octave mode for a variety of interesting timbres. Also has a tone control, but the tone control is before the octave stages so it results in interesting behaviors depending on the switch settings. It's in a tin meant to be painted like an alien, though some say it looks more like a triceratops.
Avengers Fuzz 2 C PIC Demo A harmonic percolator-based fuzz with three modes: "Captain America" mode gives a modest fuzz with good cleanup; "Hulk and Thor" mode is a fat, saxy fuzz with modest gating; "Iron Man mode" is a compressed high-gain fuzz with heavy gating. Housed in a puzzle tin with the Avengers on it.
Happy ChrizzMuss Tree Fuzz C PIC Demo Another gated double-bazz-fuss type fuzz, this one features a bias knob for adjusting the bias of the first stage and a bass boost switch. Housed in a Christmas tree tin.
Dumbo's Bazzrite Fussrite C PIC Demo A bazz-fussified mosrite fuzzrite circuit I cobbled together in point-to-point wiring style. Housed in a little Dumbo puzzle tin with GLITTER! Controls are for balance (kind of tone-cum-gain) and volume.
Wiff Spwinkles on Top C PIC Demo This point-to-point fuzz lives in the same neighborhood as the Harmonic Percolator, but has a few differences. I altered the way the gain knob works, and added a switch to toggle bass cut. It's housed in an ice-creamity welly tin.
Drives, Distortions, and Boosts
Name Tier Links Notes
Bronze Drive A PIC Demo This is a point-to-point, transistor based overdrive I designed based loosely on the Davisson Easy Drive. Good for low-gain crunchy tones and plenty of output volume on tap if you want it for a boost. Tone circuit is like a BMP stack but with a mid hump instead of a mid cut. Housed in a painted 125B.
Copper ZenerMorph Drive B PIC Demo This is an experiment in zener diode clipping. Nice crispy drive that gets beefier as you turn up the gain, lots of good edge-of-breakup tones to be had. Housed in a decorated tin reinforced with some recycled plastic.
Shining Hope Drive B PIC Demo Differential mirroring drive, gives a kind of overdriven-mixer-channel distortion. Controls for gain, tone, and volume. Housed in a star-shaped Christmas tin.
B is for Beast C PIC DEMO This fun little drive/boost consists of two cascading MOSFET gain stages with optional clipping in between. It goes from clean and loud to massive wall-of-gain distortion nicely. Controls for gain, clipping, and volume. In a small heart-shaped tin about 4in by 4in.
Green Sparkler Boost D PIC Just an Escobedo Duende JFET boost built point-to-point in a sparkly little round tin. Gives a little gain and a bit of warmth to the tone.
Non-Dirt
Name Tier Links Notes
Droid Love Syntheficationatorifyer TRADED A PIC DEMO A dirty, raw sounding guitar synth based on the Escobedo Square shaper and the Nurse Quacky. It converts your guitar to a synth wave that can vary from saw to square with the "shape" knob, then runs it through an envelope filter with adjustable sensitivity, range, attack, and cutoff. The switch smooths the envelope, and the envelope can either be taken from the dry signal (default) or from the sidechain input on the side. An LFO can also be routed to cutoff for some wub wub. All this is housed in a heart-shaped R2D2 tin.
Gift of Chykka Wakka B PIC DEMO First build of an all-transistor envelope filter I designed. Built point-to-point style and housed in a little giftbox tin reinforced with recycled plastic. Controls for Q and Sweep, switch toggles envelope smoothing.
Vortex of Funk B PIC DEMO Second build of the Chykka-Wakka circuit, this one features attack, Q, and range controls. Built point-to-point and housed in a painted tin.
Tacklebox Vibes TRADED B PIC DEMO A prototype vibe/phase/ring-mod sort of circuit I've been working on. A little difficult to tame, but full of neat sounds. Built on vero, housed in a fishing-themed tin reinforced with recycled plastic.
BZZZ BOOP BEEP B PIC DEMO A basic square wave oscillator on a momentary switch. Can go from bzzz to boop to beep with a sweep of the big knob. Also has tone and volume controls, and a 3-way switch for different decay amounts. Use it to simulate a spring door stopper or dying cow. Or bleep your foul-mouthed frontman. Or mess with the sound guy. Or send Morse code to the bar. I dunno. Housed in a painted tin reinforced with recycled plastic.
Little Amps
Name Price/Trades Links Description
Ample iMank $65 PICS DEMO This is a Runoffgroove Ruby Amplifier built into this old multimedia speaker enclosure designed to look like an old iMac. Glows blue when you turn it on. It runs from a standard 9v pedal power. It's not terribly loud, nor terribly clean, but if you dig the classic mac vibe it might be fun. Controls for gain and volume, and a power switch on the back.
Nosy Amp $75 PICS DEMO Another solid-state amp based on the Ruby amplifier, housed in a repurposed bookshelf speaker. This one actually has pretty decent volume, even on 9V (can run on 12V as well for more), and can stay clean while getting loud enough for a quiet jam with friends.
Fleur-de-Lis Amp $90 PICS DEMO A tiny bookshelf speaker turned into a practice amp. This one features a class D power amp for lovely cleans, and a custom designed discrete preamp that gets punchy & crunchy when cranked. Runs on 9V but pretty loud nonetheless.
Chapter 3: In which I list my Non-DIY Stuff
Make an offer. I respect Reverb Price Guide values, though I may lean high if it's a feeler.
Brand Name Condition Notes
Danelectro Fab Chorus Excellent Cheap plastic chorus, but sounds great. Probably just a make-weight, too cheap to trade on its own.
Caline 10-band EQ Good Works fine, I just don't really need 10 bands of EQ. Has velcro on the back, and sometimes makes a weird noise when you turn on the pedalboard. Another make-weight.
Ibanez PH7 Good Tonelok phaser. Great pedal, has some glue on the bottom I couldn't get off, but works fine.
BOSS TU-12H Good Crusty vintage tuner from Boss. Still works great, but it's missing the outer case (still has the inner part). If you had one in the day and want to relive the magic, feel free to make an offer.
Digitech RP360 Very Good Great multifx, I've gotten some fun sounds out of it, but it isn't seeing much use. I'm just more of a discrete FX guy I guess.
MOTU MIDI express Good This is an antique MIDI patchbay and interface. It's pre-USB and uses the parallel cable (PC) or some kind of Apple-specific DIN cable (Mac). Could be used standalone, or maybe you're into retro MIDI setups? Comes with box and cables anyway.
unknown builder PedalPCB Cataclysm Very Good This is a really solid build of a PedalPCB cataclysm (Disaster Transport Jr clone) built by someone other than me. Pics here. Not sure who built it, nor is the person I got it from, nor am I sure what to value it, but make an offer if you like it.
Local (Nashville TN area) ONLY
Brand Name Condition Notes
TEAC A3340S 4-Track Reel-to-Reel Good Cleaned up, oiled up, and in good working order last time I tried it out. Meant to do some analog recording, but just haven't gotten the time or space. Would trade for a decent instrument of some kind. Might even throw in a copy of Craig Anderton's "Home Recording for Musicians", which uses the same unit.
Altec-Lansing Power amp (9442A) Fair 300 W, 2 rack-unit power amp, can work in stereo or bridged mode. Last time I used it one of the channels was a little flaky. Couldn't be bothered to fix it myself. Heavy as all get out, I'll sell for cheap if you're local.
Chapter 4: In which I describe what would I trade for
I'm wide open to trades for music gear of all kinds and other items of value.
Some Priority Wants:
Other things I'd likely trade for:
Probably not wants (doesn't apply to C or D-tier builds, offer anything for those):
Epilogue
A Note about mods/repairs/custom jobs: Feel free to shoot me your ideas, but probably I'm leaning toward not doing these. Expect to pay/trade way more for something custom than what I ask for the pedals I've already built.
And now, with apologies to Jon Postel's Robustness Principle, I leave you with these words:
"Be conservative in what you WTT, liberal in what you WTTF."
submitted by lykwydchykyn to letstradepedals [link] [comments]

2024.04.29 01:42 Cute_Praline2307 Does anyone know or have a midi of the lake theme from fnaf world?

Or at least a visual piano cover that i can replicate on fl studio? I would appreciate the help :3
submitted by Cute_Praline2307 to fivenightsatfreddys [link] [comments]

2024.04.28 21:13 Putrid_Care_9888 ryoko tenchi muyo, pintura digital

ryoko tenchi muyo, pintura digital submitted by Putrid_Care_9888 to animebrasil [link] [comments]

2024.04.28 19:19 pillowcase-of-eels [Music] Emilie Autumn's Asylum, pt. 1 – How one alternative musician got tangled in her own fantasy... and a decade-long passive-aggressive feud with her own fanbase [Hobby History - Long]

General Content Warning for this entire write-up, so everyone can have a good time: - Extensive discussion of topics related to mental illness, including self-harm, suicidal ideation, mania / bipolar disorder, distortion of truth, medication, involuntary hospitalization, medical abuse in a hospital setting, and romanticization of mental illness. - Non-detailed mentions of domestic violence (implied abuse by intimate partner and parents) and sexual / gender-based violence (including rape, child sexual assault, grooming, sex trafficking and torture). These last few items feature prominently in one installment, pertaining to a work of fiction; descriptions may be a bit more specific/detailed in that segment, but not graphic. - Mentions and quotes of unchill bigoted behavior, including ableism (mental and physical), white nonsense / white fragility / racism, fatphobia, prejudice against drug users.
Additional CWs may be added at the beginning of specific segments when relevant. While these are heavy topics, the tone of this write-up is generally light-hearted and aims to entertain. If this approach sounds uncomfortable or trivializing, this may not be a good read for you; please trust your gut!
*
Picture this: it's the early 2010s, somewhere in the western world. Instagram is a novelty, Harvey Weinstein runs Hollywood, almost no one on Earth leans one way or the other about RNA vaccines, and Donald Trump is that one real estate guy you vaguely remember from Home Alone 2. New player Lady Gaga is the most interesting thing to have happened to pop since Madonna, and the whole industry is attempting to catch up; Miley Cyrus is the chick who used to be on Hannah Montana; Melanie Martinez hasn't hatched yet. The time of Oddball Concept Divas is dawning just below the horizon.
You're a Bowie-loving student who skipped goth night at the club to tag along with your art school friends for a very special evening. You're a giddy sixteen-year old rocking cat ears, purple Wet 'n Wild eyeliner, a polyester petticoat, and a coffin-shaped backpack. You're an effete theater kid who sewed his own waistcoat for the occasion, but won't dare wear it to school the next day. You're a buff, bearded dude in a Venom shirt who's trying not to look too excited, since your girlfriend supposedly had to drag you here. You're a slightly bemused parent leaning against the back wall of the venue, sipping a warm half-pint, wondering if this isn't all a bit dark for a tween. (“It's called 'Victoriandustrial', mom,” you've been told in the car, “and it's not dark, it's art.”)
On stage is a pink-haired woman, with red porcelain-doll lips and a heart painted on her cheek. Among a set of antique consoles, twee tchotchkes, teacups and plastic rats, she pounces and twirls in glittery platform boots, tattered striped stockings, and a tightly laced crystal-studded corset that looks like it's splattered in blood. This is ostensibly a concert, but there is no live band. Where one would expect a drum kit or a bass, three bedazzled burlesque vixens act as back-up singers and dancers, with the occasional vaudeville act – a fire-twirling number, a fan dance, throwing pastries and spitting tea into the audience. Lots of wholesome girl-on-girl kissing, too. The music on the backing track is a genre-bender of clanging beats and beeps, lofty orchestral strings, and the frantic hammering of a MIDI harpsichord, as the pink-haired frontlady sings of heartache and betrayal and drowning. Think if the Brontë sisters had invented industrial rock.
The audience gasps in excitement when the lady whips out a vamped-out wireless electric violin. With rockstar cool and virtuoso poise, she leans into the instrument, touches the bow to the strings, and tears out a single plaintive, impeccably distorted high note. Then her fingers go wild, and for a few seconds, everything is perfect suspended animation. Uncannily perfect, almost. Just behind you, you hear someone whisper: “Wait, is she miming it?”
*
Forgive the theatrical intro, but I had to set the stage for... the drama. And I do mean drama in the thespian sense of the term! This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Shakespeare play: wordy and confusing, but it's neat how the main character's opening lines foreshadow the tragic climax. It's a Greek tragedy for the digital age – if, instead of killing his dad and banging his mom, after becoming king, Oedipus was doomed to becoming uniquely obnoxious. It's The Rocky Horror Show under the grim direction of Samuel Beckett. Like all good theatre, this story is about how fiction bleeds into reality – through the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and how all the world's a stage and all that.

WHO IS EMILIE AUTUMN, AND WHAT'S THE DRAMA?

Here's the Broadway Weekly blurb, so you can decide whether the show is worth your time: Emilie Autumn, also known as EA, is a US-American alternative singer-songwriter, author, and actor. She became known in alt circles in the mid-2010s for her violin skills, unique fashion, outspoken stances on feminism and mental health advocacy, and the way she dramatized and sublimated her own life story in her art. In 2009, she self-published a semi-autobiographical book that became a sort of bible to her creative universe and fandom. She toured extensively and enjoyed niche, but considerable success until the mid-2010s – with hordes of devoted fans adopting her fashion sense and lingo, and crediting her music for getting them through dark times.
For the past twelve years or so, EA has mostly been focused on adapting her book into a stage musical, releasing two more albums of songs intended for the libretto. At the time of this write-up, it has been six years since the last album and a decade since the last live show. Although she still talks about the musical as an ongoing, Broadway-bound project, in recent years, she's often gone dark for months at a time on social media. There is no forum, no large Discord, no active community to speak of; comments are restricted on her currently-inactive Instagram and blog.
Who is she hiding from, you ask? Why, you've probably guessed it: the hordes of devoted fans whom she infuriates every time she does anything.
And what are they furious about? (Or frustrated, flummoxed, or plain ol' flabbergasted?) Well, it depends who you ask. For some, it's disappointment in her artistic and marketing choices (what are fans for?). Others cite unkept promises or absurd release delays. For others yet, it's the AliBaba merch sold at jaw-dropping markups with three paragraphs of purple prose in the product description.. Or maybe it was the angry rants on Twitter? Okay, it's the casual bigotry that she staunchly denies or dismisses. It's the criticism she can't take. It's the fact that she won't stop lying about her own life! Either way, I don't personally know of any fanbase that has been so consistently exasperated, for so many years, and for such a diverse array of reasons, by their favorite artist.
In truth, each individual mini-scandal isn't all that juicy or scandalous. Nobody died, no one got sued; nothing of significant value, other than time and sanity, was taken away from anyone. What I find interesting here is the years and years of bizarre parasocial codependency (and antagonism) between a fragile woman who became addicted to her own poppycock, and an obsessive fanbase who cared way too much not to take it personally.
Before we even get to EA's relationship with her fans, you're going to need some lore about EA herself. A “Hobby History” of sorts. Strap in! There's romance, tragedy, laughter, character development, variety numbers, numerous costume changes, (actual) celebrity cameos – and based on how long this OpenOffice doc already is at the time of my writing this, we're probably going to need several intermissions too. This write-up is link-heavy, both with receipts and with additional watching and listening material. Not all of them need to be clicked in order to understand the story; I'm merely providing the rabbit holes. I've tried to make things more easily navigable by including a little glossary about the nature of links; one emoji-indicator carries over the next link until I use a different one.
🪞 = picture / visual 🎵 = music 📺 = video 📝 = primary source / receipt 🔍 = press article / write-up / further reading 🎤 = song lyrics / spoken word audio 🐀 = anonymous fan confession 🦠 = reaction / meme

BAROQUE BEGINNINGS: THE VIOLIN YEARS

VampireFreaks: Do you ever smile to yourself knowing your old music teachers might be seeing your success? EA: I smile to myself knowing they might be dead. (Long-lost interview, late 2000s)
Born in Malibu in the late 70s, Emilie Autumn, often known as EA, was originally trained as a classical violinist.
By her account, she started playing the violin at age 4, and was homeschooled at age 9 so that she could focus on her instrument. After stints at various performing arts colleges, some rather prestigious, she dropped out of formal schooling in her mid-to-late teens to embark on a solo violin career.
In 2001, after disappointing experiences with major record companies, she created her own label, Traitor Records, and released a EP of chamber music, with minor success. The stuffy industry of classical music didn't “get” the twenty-something manic-pixie-fiddler, who played Bach just a bit too fast, but with electric stage presence – wearing period corsets, combat boots, and the occasional fairy wings. But EA evidently knew that there was an audience for that somewhere.
And that somewhere – drumroll – was Illinois.
VW: What do you most hope to accomplish? EA: Everything. (‘Virtual World Radio’ Interview, 2002 📝)

ENCHANT ERA: BRUSHES WITH FAME ON FAERIE WINGS

What if I'm an ocean, far too shallow, much too deep? (...) What if I'm a siren singing gentlemen to sleep? (“What If”, 2003 🎵)
Soon, EA relocated from her native California to Chicago. There, in between odd jobs, she veered away from baroque and began performing her own “fantasy rock” stylings at piano bars, holiday fairs and local venues – and building a decent following through her LiveJournal, website, and IRL friends. People loved the whole renegade genius thing, loved the violin, loved the nightingale voice, loved the fairy wings and costumes🪞, loved the handmade merch and general disdain for The Business, loved her deadpan humor and bookish nerdiness. In 2003, she released her first LP, Enchant 🎵 – an ethereal, introspective indie-pop joint, born under the sign of Imogen Heap, with a moon in Fiona Apple and Tori Amos rising.
Everything about EA's act was exquisitely DIY, personal, and intricate. For instance, the Enchant booklet folded out into a Masquerade-style puzzle of her own design.🪞 The first person to solve the puzzle would win “the Wings, Ruff, Fan and Scepter of the Faerie Queene herself” – all lovingly handmade by EA, and depicted in peak 2003 graphic design on the booklet. For months, YEARS after Enchant came out, people poured over the cryptic metaphors and literary references, the historical symbolism and visual puns of the artwork, looking for hints and patterns. They read every fan chat, every interview, every relevant Shakespeare play, hoping to decipher the inner workings of EA's mind and find new keys to the puzzle. Sure, it's been two decades now and no one's ever managed to crack the damn thing 🔍, which is by now widely assumed to be flawed and unsolvable; still, it's the kind of zany, brainy, immersive experience that tends to cultivate a niche but hyper-invested fanbase.
So it makes perfect sense that underground aficionada and internet frontierswoman Courtney Love (she haunted public AOL chatrooms as early as 1995! 🔍) would take an interest. Just a few months after releasing Enchant, EA was off to southern France to record violin and vocals for Courtney's new solo album; a few months after that, in early 2004, she joined Courtney's band on a brief tour to promote the record.
Alas, no cigar: America's Sweetheart flopped. Maybe because most of those summer recording sessions were ultimately lost to an engineering oopsie; maybe because Courtney was having an especially rough year – and going through all the “rock-bottom moments” that she would discuss in group therapy, later that fall, when she began her sobriety journey at court-ordered rehab. EA, a former homeschool kid who had never done drugs, seems to remember the tour as a generally terrifying experience; she later stated, with some bitterness, that the experience was not worth the time it had taken away from her own solo career.
But it was a good year for TV appearances! Here she is on the David Letterman Show in March 2004, rocking out on a perfectly inaudible violin as C-Love fades in and out of her own body. 📺 She also landed a cute tutorial segment on HGTV's Crafters: Coast to Coast, making sushi-shaped soap and fairy wings. In December, she accompanied Billy Corgan for a Christmas song on a Chicago station.
All of this was chronicled in quirky, wordy posts on her blog – interspersed with late-night musings about casual misogyny in the media 📝, including against Courtney, handmade crafts and clothing auctions, candid pictures of outings with friends in Chicago... as well as periodic updates on the progress of her next opus: Opheliac.
God, too much to even begin to tell right now, and I’m recording anyway, but I can give you this update: I just finished yesterday recording violin parts and backing vocals for B. Corgan’s first single (...) More later, recording piano for my new track “GOD HELP ME”…why do I torture myself with my own self-inflicted drama…or is it a way of exorcizing…yes, I’ll go with that one for now…☠ (“Whirlwind...”, December 2004)
By that point, EA was starting to be more open about her conflicted relationship with what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. The galaxy-brain moments, the trance of creative frenzies, the liminal high of going three days without sleep, the magic... the crippling sensitivity, the restless anxiety, the Zoloft that one both needs and hates, the ever-lurking suicidal thoughts. As EA gradually revealed over the course of 2004, Opheliac would be an exploration of the “mad woman” archetype. The title was a medical neologism for “the syndrome of Ophelia”, as in the tragic character from Hamlet 🔍, driven to insanity and ultimate self-destruction by the fuckboys who rule her life. Here's EA explaining it in her own words. 🎤 The album would dive into how psychiatry and romantic relationships are governed by old misogynistic tropes, and how the “mentally ill” label is used to silence and downplay the justified anger and hurt of abused women.
In a striking case of life imitating art (are you picking up on the theme yet?), this concept was about to become more painfully relevant than ever to EA's personal existence.
CW: implied partner abuse, suicidal ideation.

DISENCHANTMENT: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

In the lake, you will find me Behind your house, behind your house (...) My ocean is bluer than the heart you had to break My sea is deeper than your lake (“In the Lake”, 2005 🎵)
Where were we? Ah yes, the Christmas song with Billy Corgan at the end of 2004. Around that time, EA was also recording violin parts and backing vocals for his upcoming solo album. 🎵 They had presumably connected through Courtney, they both lived in Chicago, I guess something clicked.
In January of 2005, EA abruptly went off of her meds, broke up with her live-in boyfriend-slash-bassist, packed up her violin and corsets, and moved into Corgan's mansion. In March of 2005, she posted very melancholy lyrics about drowning in a lake to haunt a deceitful lover. The post was entitled“In The Lake (The Zoloft is calling my name...)” 🎤📝. Later, after the song was released as a B-side, EA disclosed that it had been intended as a public suicide note 📝.
Blog entries from that time touched on a “whirlwind of action and emotion”, “changing residences” and feeling like “you're falling through the air, but you don't know if you'll hit the water or the rocks” 📝. But, EA being an expert vague-poster, her posts remained very elusive about what was going on, who was involved, and how it impacted her. (The specifics were pieced together years later, by fan-led forensic efforts – which, obviously, involved ascertaining the existence of an actual body of water in Billy Corgan's backyard 📝).
Whatever happened over the course of those months was never disclosed explicitly by EA, but is widely assumed to have inspired songs such as “Liar” 🎤, “Misery Loves Company”, “Let the Record Show”, and “I Know Where You Sleep”, , recorded that same spring. A solid quarter of the Opheliac tracklist – which was shaping out to be decidedly darker and grittier than Enchant.
You can lie to the papers, you can hide from the press (...) I know your tainted flesh, I know your filthy soul I know each trick you played, whore you laid, dream you stole I know the bed in the room in the wall in the house Where you got what you wanted and ruined it all I know the secrets that you keep I know where you sleep
Even as her personal blog posts grew more somber, nihilistic, and generally fed-up in the face of what she called “the worst breakdown of her young life”, even as the songwriting process had her rummage through traumatic memories [CW: CSA] 🎤, and even as the Corgan-adjacent trauma was compounded by various rushed moves and broken friendships over that summer and fall, EA remained remarkably (some might say frantically) prolific.
Other than progress on Opheliac, 2005 saw multiple violin collaborations with alternative bands, numerous auctions of, mh, visually strident “punktorian” fashion pieces 📝🪞 (“STRESS COUTURE!” 🦠📺), and an updated re-issue of her 2001 poetry collection, complete with audiobook. ("...The book has been selling like crack in a limo with Courtney Love (and believe me, I know)." - Ooooof, EA. Low-hanging fruit. 📝)
In October, she started recruiting:
WANTED: Hot goth bitch to join touring band of other hot goth bitches. (...) Must be able to: sing backing vocals in a wide range with excellent pitch, growl à la Kittie, handle minimal keyboard parts, push buttons/turn knobs with killer attitude, be extremely comfortable on stage in bloomers and a corset, reside in the Chicago area, know the difference between a crumpet and a scone, have at least one hidden talent. 📝
By winter, most of her blog post titles were written in THIS FORMAT!!!!!!!! In December, she announced that “Emilie Autumn and the Bloody Crumpets” would preview Opheliac live at the Double Door in Chicago, on Friday the 13th (ooh!) of the following month. “We are coming to destroy your world,” the post threatened enticingly. "Miss it and suffer. We really don't want to hurt you.” The flyer advertised a dress code:
Masquerade, Ophelias, green girls, Victorian insane asylum escapees, princes of Denmark, bloomered harlots and rogues – general burlesque ribaldry!
Exit diaphanous butterfly wings and elven tiaras 📺, enter the haunted murder-doll with the blood-red heart on her cheek; out with Elizabethan chamber-pop, in with Victoriandustrial. The fairy had to die to make way for the iconic, the sublime, the tragic, the ridiculous, the positively bananas...

OPHELIAC ERA: LET THE RECORD SHOW

EA: What's more interesting, and what's more fun to watch, than a crazy girl's self-destruction? Nothing. Nothing in the world. (The Opheliac Companion, 2008 🎤)
If I'm going down Then I'm going down good I'm going down Then I'm going down clean (...) The prettiest broken girl you've ever seen (“Let the Record Show”, 2006 🎵)
CW: mania, self-harm, abortion, suicidal ideation, hospitalization.
If you haven't gathered as much by now, what fans were witnessing in real time on EA's blog, without necessarily seeing it, was the ebb and flow of a months-long manic episode. That's not me armchair-diagnosing: EA herself has discussed penning and recording a lot of her best material in a trance-like rush, “when you're writing on the ceiling because there's not enough paper to contain your thoughts”.
...Once I became stable and healthy, I realized that I had no memory of how a great deal of my music had been created. I had written and even programmed most of my best work in a similar manic state, and, when stark raving sane, I didn’t know how to do it anymore, because the part of me that really composes never needed to know how to do it, it just did. (2019 Instagram post 📝)
It's not an uncommon experience for artists with bipolar disorder. Before you burn so hot that you wind up in the back of an ambulance, and/or before the pendulum swings back towards debilitating depression, the boundless energy, heightened sensitivity, and unexpected thought patterns associated with mania can lead to periods of prolific and effortless creation.
Mania also has the potential to lower your inhibitions, making you more bodacious, more quick-witted – more dazzling, more fun at parties, more dramatic. All traits that are valued in the entertainment industry, especially one that, with the rise of social media, was coming to rely increasingly on parasocial engagement and “personal branding”. Why would you refrain from oversharing, overreacting, overworking, overpromising, overcurating a fantasy image of yourself... when new industry models reward exactly that?
My point is that, in retrospect, “the end was built into the beginning”: all the things that would make fans go “What the hell, Emilie!” in subsequent years were brewing below the surface before the album even dropped.
In the summer of 2006, EA said goodbye to her Chicago friends and returned to California, where she moved in with her new beau, another Illinois-born guitarist with an impressive forehead: Brendon Small, of Dethklok/Metalocalypse quasi-fame. (If you're into that sort of thing: the orchestral strings on “Detharmonic”? Yep, that's EA! 🎵📺)
In September, Opheliac was released into the world. Expectations were high... And many sources agree it was a goddamn banger. It was ultrafemme, ultradark, unhinged, hilarious and deadly and brilliant. It had gnarly kitchen-sink drums layered under angelic string harmonies, fauxperatic swells, and guttural screaming. It had sarcastically self-aware double-entendres that were also literary references that were also musical notation jokes. You get the idea: it was the album that a small, but sizable demographic of tormented millennial teens had been waiting to obsess over. Some time in late 2005 or so, EA had signed with German label Trisol Records, which gave her access to better promotion, press coverage and touring opportunities in Europe when the album came out in the fall. By winter, she was on the cover of alternative mags, and the talk of the town on underground music webzines. Within a year, she was embarking on the first of three almost-back-to-back European tours.
It was around that time that EA started giving her fanbase a more defined, aesthetically on-brand identity. EA, funnily enough, disliked the term “fan” due to its proximity to “fanatic”, and started calling individual supporters “muffins” or the "Bloomer Brigade". (After The Book came out in 2009, they would become “Plague Rats”. You know how pets get weird if you re-name them too many times? I wonder if the same is true of fans.) Meanwhile, EA's fanbase as a collective – as well as her home, her recording studio, her online forum and her inner brainspace... – became canonically known as “The Asylum”. Cue infinite jokes about her fans being “committed.”
And they really were, in a slightly more intense way than your average indie-alternative fanbase. Many fans enthusiastically adopted facets of EA's mannerisms and lingo, which gave the fandom a definite LARP-ing bend; and the official forum did, in fact, offer a subforum for Asylum-themed role-play. (In a number of ways, the Asylum was basically Juggalos for socially anxious theater goths. Substitute the clown facepaint, Faygo, and hatchets for cheek-hearts, Earl Grey tea, and obsolete medical tools.) While there was always some side-eye at the embarrassingly candid, often very young Plague Rats who took the Asylum thing too seriously (always speaking in character and worshipping the ground Mistress Emilie walked on), a lot of people were quite thrilled to play romantic Victorian madhouse with their new favorite artist. Live shows were like costume balls. The forum thrived.
It was like Opheliac had opened a portal to this vibrant and inclusive alternate dimension, which the community was now bringing to life in the real world. And each tour brought more inmates (muffins, Plague Rats, you get it) to the Asylum. “Spread the Plague!” was the name of the game.
So, on paper, in the three years that followed Opheliac, EA kind of won the high-concept-indie-artist equivalent of the lottery. After going through her own personal hell of abuse, major upheavals and serious mental health crises, she had decided to gamble on a radically different tone and musical direction. She came out the other side with critical acclaim for her soul-baring record, tons of live shows with a badass girl squad, photoshoots so iconic they pop up on random Pinterest boards to this day, snazzy corporate sponsorships (including Manic Panic and RockLove Jewelry), and an exponentially growing fanbase who couldn't get enough of whatever she had to give. And she gave quite a lot!
Within those three years, in between tours, EA released A Bit O' This & That 🎵 (a compilation of demos and back-catalogue curiosities), Laced / Unlaced (a full-instrumental double album - one side was the baroque recordings from her late teens, the other was demented, distortion-heavy classical-prog), and three EPs packed with new songs, covers, remixes and bonus content. There was also a deluxe reissue of Enchant, without the puzzle, but with a brand new booklet of handwritten lyrics and marginalia. All came in lovely inter-matching digipaks that really made you want to collect them all – much like the handmade merch 📝🪞 that EA still sold on some legs of her tours. She spent time with the fans at most shows, eventually holding meet-and-greets and private showcases for VIP ticket-holders. She also released “The Opheliac Companion”, a kind of “director's commentary” of the album – roughly 10 hours worth of lyrical deep dives, microphone specs, tangents within tangents within tangents, and whacky (tipsy, sometimes unintelligible) banter between EA and her sound engineer🎤. On top of all that, she wrote, designed and self-published a fully illustrated 200-page coffee-table book, the first print of which sold out within a year. Not bad!
Of course, things that seem to good to be true usually are: at this stage in the story, EA is never as enthusiastically prolific as when her personal life is falling apart behind the scenes.
In the three years that followed Opheliac, along with soaring success, EA got to experience: more rapid-cycling between manic phases and the pits of depression, multiple harrowing medication adjustments, an very-much-unwanted pregnancy followed by a traumatic abortion, a suicide attempt, at least one inpatient stay, and a break-up in the aftermath of it all. There were also a few physical health scares that required hospitalization. On one occasion, she had to go off all her meds cold-turkey when they were confiscated at the EU border right before the start of a tour. In some pictures from her summer 2007 festival appearances, you can make out faint self-harm scars on her thigh through the layered stockings. (Obvious CW, for the morbidly curious.🪞(But if you weren't, would you still be reading?))
So yeah. EA was not doing great.
She didn't share any of these struggles with her fans in real time; her posts were all droll banter and updates on tours and releases. Most of what I just listed was disclosed in late 2009, in the autobiographical part of The Book. (The Book gets at least one instalment of its own. Bear with me, there's a LOT to unpack.) And The Book, while never specifying a timeline, kind of really made it sound like the Bad Stuff (the abortion, the suicide attempt, the hospital stay) had taken place a while back, before the release of Opheliac. In fact, EA plainly stated as much, citing “getting locked up and being put in the asylum" 📝 as the reason for the shift in sound between Enchant and Opheliac.
She repeatedly referred to herself as “stabilized” and “now properly medicated” in interviews. As far as the fanbase was concerned, she had triumphed over her abusers, turned trauma into beauty, and lived to pass on her story of survival. And now she had found balance and community and true acceptance of herself, all that good stuff – and all was fine and dandy within the Asylum. On stage, she sang about blind rage and all-consuming despair and general hopelessness, but she didn't actually feel like that – not anymore, right?
This narrative was both inspirational and quite convenient for the fans. We love our Mad Hatters 🎵📺, our Rainmen, our manic pixies. We love and celebrate “crazy” when it manifests as outside-the-box brilliance and/or bubbly eccentricity. But in my experience, even in spaces that ostensibly focus on "destigmatizing mental illness", positivity and support can quickly turn to rejection and awkwardness when your “quirks” manifest in more challenging ways – like through erratic decisions, aggressive or dishonest behavior, or increasingly untethered beliefs about yourself and the world. No matter how much people claim to “embrace the madness”, it just isn't that fun or in good taste for a large group to play-act ~ whimsical insanity ~ with someone who is for realsies mentally falling apart.
Before time has had time to do its thing, "revisiting your trauma" is just called ruminating. And it's rarely good for you, even when you commit some of greatest art in the process.
I think fans had to assume that there was some critical distance in EA's act, that these extreme negative emotions were all theater – because if they weren't, then the Asylum wasn't an empowering performance about healing from past hurt. It was more like a years-long reality show in which a woman picked at her wounds publicly, again and again, in real time, to the cheers of oblivious strangers who thought they were watching a play.
All I'm saying is that EA was essentially still in the thick of raw trauma when she became a poster-child for overcoming it; that the last thing a person needs, at such a vulnerable stage in their life, is an intense parasocial relationship with sad goth teenagers, let alone one centered around romanticized retellings of their own darkest moments; and that if more people had declined to actively engage in pretend-play that toed the line of self-harm... there is a chance that things might have turned out differently. Maybe EA would still be a successful musician whose career isn't plagued by conflict and mutual disappointment, and maybe some fans wouldn't have wasted years getting red in the face at an over-exposed mentally ill woman for not getting her shit together.
OKAY, THAT GOT HEAVY (and preachy), apologies and thank you for your patience. I will now quit my soapboxing, resume telling the story, and let you draw your own conclusion as our dark plot unravels.

EPILOGUE: DEAD IS THE NEW ALIVE

A quick taste of the poison A quick twist of the knife When the obsession with death, the obsession with death Becomes a way of life ("Dead is the New Alive", 2006 🎵)
I am still over-glorified My reasons to live Were my reasons to die But at least they were mine (“306”, 2006)
In summation: becoming an overnight success thanks to your darkest trauma will do things to person's mind.
As EA kept hyping up how much her fans meant to her, and what an amazing and inclusive and free-thinking motley crew the Asylum was, she was also growing more and more controlling of her increasingly large (and opinionated, and overall rather young) fanbase – and more generally, of the way people ought to talk to and about her.
It was during the Opheliac era that she started reveling in made-up stories about her own life. Then came the habit of losing her shit on fans that she perceived as ungrateful or disrespectful. It was also then that massive kerfuffles became routine on the merch and planning front, and EA's creative output started to routinely fall short of her promises. The more fans started raising legitimate complaints, the more defensive and uncompromising EA became in her public interactions. The more people expressed weariness of the Asylum theme, or started questioning EA's hot takes on mental health and feminism, the harder she doubled down on the Asylum lore and fictional universe. Which is where the drama really starts.
Alright, the time has come. Let's talk about The Book.
...Actually, let's not. I'm nearing my character limit, and you could probably use a break and a stretch after making it this far. This is our intermission, and we'll get to The Book in our next instalment.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned if you're interested in how it all comes tumbling down.
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2024.04.28 13:11 bluemoon992 If you guess my age right by my top 10 songs this month, you'll get a cookie. Get it wrong and you get a sad face 😢

If you guess my age right by my top 10 songs this month, you'll get a cookie. Get it wrong and you get a sad face 😢 submitted by bluemoon992 to GenAlpha [link] [comments]

2024.04.28 01:24 Illustrious_Rise_699 help: am I missing something?

help: am I missing something? submitted by Illustrious_Rise_699 to abletonlive [link] [comments]

2024.04.27 23:45 Many-Laugh-186 My journey so far

I feel like I've hit a huge wall in my journey and just wanted to share my thoughts about it with you all.
I first learned about kibbe 4 years ago, but hadn't tried to impliment the principles of the system until recently, which was probably a good thing since the only resources I had available were on youtube. 😅
About 2 years from then I had a baby. 🥰 It took what seemed like forever and I felt so blessed to finally be a mom, but I also felt even more insecure about my appearance than I ever had in my life. The need for physical comfort overrode my desire to feel somewhat like the person I was before I became a mom, though. And I stopped chasing her quite some time ago anyway. I honestly just want to be whatever new version of me exists right now. But my style has left much to be desired.
It's been almost 2 years since then and I went from leggings and hoodies to midi length athletic type cotton dresses or longer dresses with floral patterns. It was comfortable and I felt slightly more feminine and put together. But I know that it was quite matronly. My mom said that it reminds her of an unfortunate era of my/our childhoods. And I'm not going for that look. 😅 I just want to be able to play with, nurse and hold babies/children without being self concious about what I'm wearing, but feel confident and beautiful.
So, I thought maybe revisiting the kibbe system would help. I joined this community and made my first post asking if I could rule out petite. I'm 5'1", but knew that there were a few conventionally petite celebrities placed in dominant vertical ID'S and figured I would start there. Anyway, the theme was "possibly, but probably not". However, someone had commented and said that petite can't be seen in photos. So there went that.
Then I found out that metamorphosis is in the wiki for free. 🥹 So I read it. And I came to the conclusion that I have more yin than I thought I did. So I started posting some outfits and overall got a mixed bag of feedback. Some of it was extremely helpful and some was just quite discouraging to be honest.
So I started to back track a little bit and now...I feel quite lost. I've been seeing a lot of users that seem knowledgeable about the system say that accommodations don't equal ID. And I think that's where I'm getting stuck the most. In addition to doubting where I was headed, I started focusing on accommodations and my style is now a mess. I have clothes in my wardrobe that I picked up to be able to try on at home and I can't wear half of it because it either doesn't look good on me or it isn't practical for my lifestyle. When am I ever going to wear a white blazer? 🤦🏼‍♀️ I have found some really great pieces this way, but overall I'd say it hasn't been the most helpful.
I've also seen recently an emphasis on dressing in one's season (which I think I've been way off on), dressing for the occasion and focusing on what wants to be said through the HTT. I really love the idea of doing this, and I think that's where I want to start focusing my energy for now.
I don't want this post to come across as me complaining. Since reading metamorphosis and conversing with a couple of the mods and some other users I've learned more about what accommodating curve is and isn't. And I wouldn't have stumbled upon the advice (although not directed to me specifically) that I want to take if it weren't for this community. I've fallen in love with draped necklines, softly knitted dolman tops and have a better understanding of how to put outfits together than I had before (though definitely not where I would like to be yet 😅). So there's definitely been some great take aways so far. I've just gotten side tracked.
So, for those of you that are moms or work in a capacity with small children/babies, how do you dress for your ID? Of course, if you aren't a mom or work with children please feel free to share your thoughts, too. And if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading. 🩷
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2024.04.26 23:33 SnooDogs5524 My attempt on passive music for Arclight Sera using her champion theme MIDI

My attempt on passive music for Arclight Sera using her champion theme MIDI submitted by SnooDogs5524 to SeraphineMains [link] [comments]

2024.04.26 19:48 Vegetable-Rest7205 [TOMT][SONG][2000s] A rock song that plays at the start of maybe an action scene or some sort of rollout?

MIDI I tried to get as close as possible
After this, the song proceeds to some long drawn out distorted guitar chords and drums. After that I can't think of anything. It's not any of the following:
Back in black
School's out
Highway to hell
but it is in a similar genre / style. I noticed it because of the first few notes of Godot's theme being similar.
submitted by Vegetable-Rest7205 to tipofmytongue [link] [comments]

2024.04.26 13:35 peacethruwar Back again - £1000 budget for music production

What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.
What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?
When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.
What, exactly, do you need included in the budget? (ToweOS/monitokeyboard/mouse/etc\)
Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? If you're in US, do you have access to a Microcenter location?
If reusing any parts (including monitor(s)/keyboard/mouse/etc), what parts will you be reusing? Brands and models are appreciated.
Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?
Are there any specific features or items you want/need in the build? (ex: SSD, large amount of storage or a RAID setup, CUDA or OpenCL support, etc)
Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?
Do you need a copy of Windows included in the budget? If you do need one included, do you have a preference?
Extra info or particulars:
Thanks in advance as always!
submitted by peacethruwar to buildapcforme [link] [comments]

2024.04.26 06:54 MrKathooloo MrKathooloo's Chiptune Contest #31: Vote Here!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, chipsters and chipesses, we've made it through yet one more month of chiptune contest submissions! If you haven't seen, I've been hosting monthly chiptune contests here on chiptunes for quite a while now. Each month, we have a theme, and this month's theme was "Rain". Composers could choose to take this theme however they wished, and as a result, we got a nice variety of tunes! It's time to vote for your favorite tune, so listen to them all below:
P Crema - Turtle Rain "Imagine you're on a passenger leisure flight in space, and all of a sudden you look outside the window and it's raining. "But... it's impossible! We're in space!" Oh really, my dear Einstein, thanks, I hadn't noticed. Technical data: Protracker 2.3F / Amiga 1200 / M-Audio Oxygen 8 as midi input / Most samples created in Aegis Sonix for Amiga. Drumset mostly sampled from C64, except for the one bassdrum sample from ST-01 disk. / A couple of instruments sampled from my Casiotone MT-820"
Carf Darko - Rain "The Megasynthesis loves singing in the rain."
Niko Guzen - Rain Summon
Neff Trail - Cocktail Cruise Twenty Exty Seven "Raincoat in the dive - Investigating glasses - goes out for a drive. Nanonloop v.2.8.6 / Game Boy Advance SP 101"
Voting is very straightforward this month: Vote for your favorite below! Vote based on which you like the best as well as which you think fits the theme best. If you submitted, you are not only allowed but encouraged to vote! If you did submit, please just be honest when judging your tune in comparison with others.
And other than that, there's not much else to say! If you think this post is missing anything or have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. In the meantime, please share this with anyone who you think might be interested in voting, and check out these goodies:
Join our Discord server!
Thanks so much to u/CreativeNameIKnow for making this awesome table of all the past contests!
Please say I'm not the only one who loves this way too much
View Poll
submitted by MrKathooloo to chiptunes [link] [comments]

2024.04.25 00:19 BackgroundBag7601 The Beauty of Leitmotif

Some of the best themes in wrestling history are built upon easily recognizable leitmotifs. It truly is a thing of beauty when the leitmotif carries on to new themes, so there's a new song but the identity is clear. That adds storytelling to a character's evolution without needing any mic work. Some of my favorite examples:
  1. Roman Reigns: He adopted the guitar riff from the Shield's original theme when he became the Big Dog. Later, when he became the Head of the Table, def rebel gave him a new leitmotif (played with harpsichord samples, I think). However, the original guitar riff is still referenced on the turn-around of phrases. Very decent job of storytelling.
  2. The Rock: His guitar riff had quite the evolution. I believe it was first introduced in his 1997 theme when he was still Rocky Maivia. It was palm-muted, subtle, and lacked most of its melodic element. Through 1998, the synth that reinforced the two-chord progression became more prominent. Around 1999, what we all know as The Rock's theme was basically complete: prominent guitar riff accompanied by a synth. Every theme that came after is just a variation, the two most famous being "...Is Cooking" and "Electrifying." It probably wasn't too difficult for def rebel to mash the two together since all they had to do was add a bridge that modulates the key and slows the tempo.
  3. Alexa Bliss: All of her themes have some kind of variation on the repeating two note leitmotif from the beginning of "Blissful." Her weakest theme might have been "The Evil is Mine", which very weakly references the "Blissful" leitmotif and tries to introduce a new leitmotif that didn't stick very well. It was brought back to prominence with "Fight Me" and the remix. A decent return to form, if you ask me.
  4. Finn Balor: Everything about "Catch Your Breath" is basically perfect. The main riff is easily recognizable, and all the other sections are unique and build upon each other. "I AM DANGER" tried to repackage the identity established by "Catch Your Breath"...and kind of fails. It starts with the crescendo of "Catch Your Breath" but warbled, which doesn't really work since the main identity of "Catch Your Breath" was the guitar riff. Speaking of, the main guitar riff was replaced by...brass horns? Sounds like a tuba sample played on a MIDI keyboard. It's strange because the composition implies that the main leitmotif is the previous song's crescendo (that's then drowned with overused drum samples).
My fourth example highlights my biggest gripe with def rebel: their mishandling of leitmotifs. Sometimes, it's great or decent. Most of the time, it just doesn't work OR the song lacks a leitmotif to even latch onto. That's a massive issue when composing thematic music.
I'll illustrate how goofy def rebel is. They did a good job with handling Jimmy and Jey's themes when they split up. They both retained the "USO" yell in their songs to connect them together, but the themes are extremely different. Jey's theme is just a reinterpretation of CFO$'s "Done With That" legally distinct song that pays homage to a song which WWE doesn't want to pay rights for anymore. Jimmy's theme has a completely new leitmotif that references Roman Reigns and probably uses the same harpsichord(?) sample. Solo Sikoa's theme, on the other hand, doesn't really work. It's mostly a rap track, and the horns at the beginning don't really build the theme. What's jarring is that I'm pretty sure that these are the same samples used in "I AM DANGER" and "All Mighty."
Def rebel's probably at their best when they keep the music compositionally simple and focused on building around one or two ostinatos. "Locked In," for example, is instantly recognizable by the horns that begin the song. The next section also has a unique ostinato played by what seems to be a flute. The rest of the song is just these two ideas blending together until the loop happens. That's perfect; never fucking get rid of it. Don't fuck with it by adding more drums or bass. Just let the melody carry the song, and the crowd will do the rest. "Welcome to LA" works for the same reasons. The synth plays the leitmotif intermittently, and the song is also sprinkled with this F F C D, F F G E D motif first played by sampled strings and then quietly by a piano. Again: simple and great.
Def rebel's at their worst when they're emulating a genre or a feel but have no idea how to give the song an identity. "Rise for the Night," Damian Priest's new theme, is a victim of this. Yeah, it sounds "metal", but I can't tell this "metal" song apart from...any other metal song. There's no leitmotif to speak of. Am I supposed to recognize the song purely off of Damian Priest telling me to rise? How about Sol Ruca's "Chasing Surf"? There's no way you can tell this was meant to be a wrestler's theme song. There are several examples of this and plenty of examples of missed opportunities, like Lexis King's "King."
All the catchphrases in the world can't make up for a song without a good identity (let alone an identity). An easily recognizable leitmotif can lead to moments like this. Def rebel needs to step up and pay more close attention to this simple principle since it's important for a wrestler's presentation.
submitted by BackgroundBag7601 to SquaredCircle [link] [comments]

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