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drowning-inmysleep · 8 months

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love me while I leave. my persona yours to keep

“Maybe someday your 'maker' will come…haul you away, take you apart, and announce the recall of a defective product. What if all that's left of the 'real you' is just a couple of lonely brain cells, huh?”

[edit: 9.26.23] this has since been edited and updated a month post initial release, edits will be notated in red, feel free to skip them to read the original writing. [/] August 20th, 2023 I played my last show in a town (Austin, Texas) I moved to to be with my at the time girlfriend. We're separating now, as I'm returning home (Saint Louis, Missouri), the place I left behind. During my stay in Texas I had a hard time making friends, though that's not to say they weren't readily available. I intentionally avoided making them, partially because I was afraid of leaving them behind if anything were to change and call me back home. I have a crew of friends (Materia) in Saint Louis - the best I've ever had. When I moved, I wanted to take a leap and leave the place I'd spent my entire life, and try to fix my relationship by moving closer to them.

Leaving behind those who loved me so much was something that affected me in a way I wouldn't understand until much later. Saint Louis is one of the top rated most violent cities in the United States. Growing up there I normalized a lot of the things I saw and a lot of the trauma I gained from being in that environment. It's shaped me as a person, both good and bad. I got good at existing there, as I spent most of my teenage years in the inner city going to DIY shows.

Most of the shows were Emo / Screamo revival, and eventually that's where I started as a musician. I think Emo / Screamo music is so prevalent in the Midwest because the Midwest is a comfortable but at times very bleak and sad landscape. In the city you can see someone get murdered in front of you, and in the plains farmer's kill themselves because the world moved on without them. The veracity and unrelenting emotional outpour of these genres is some sort of ancestral representation of growing up somewhere like that. Paired with the ignorant approach to song writing / sound engineering, it represents the lack of educational opportunities whether it be due to generational financial issues or dismal public schools, paired with familial trauma from living here. It's pure.

I always dreamed of being a musician as a child, if anything it's the only dream I ever had. Once I started working on my solo project, I was having a hard time being booked in Saint Louis since there wasn't a scene for the music I made. So - I decided to make one for myself. That's how Materia came to be. I wanted to bring as many different people together as possible, so we formed the crew in a way that each member represented a different aspect of the Saint Louis music / night life community. Our first shows were in peoples basements, or shitty bars in the bad parts of town. Just like the DIY shows I started out in when I was 19. Over time Materia got big enough to where I finally became recognized as my solo project in my own city, but by the time it took hold I fear I was too jaded to appreciate it. Before Materia, I had been playing shows all over the country, and was recognized globally for what I made and what I was involved in. Even with that being said, playing shows out in places like LA and NYC revealed a dark reality to the dream I had. That reality being that even if you do blow up, the lifestyle of being a internationally recognized musician doesn't create a long-term sustainable lifestyle. What it can / inevitably will create, is a perception of you others hold based on your art and performance of it. At first it felt really cool to have people think I'm a celebrity of sorts, that I am the dark persona I portray in my music. Over time it felt less and less genuine, that being others opinions of me. As I got bigger I built up a slow poison of being paranoid people only saw me for my plays on soundcloud, follower count, or pre packaged brand I created for myself. Eventually that paranoia showed itself as not just being paranoia, it was partially true. A lot of the music and art I make is representative of the difficulty I've endured mentally. I spent most of my childhood/teen years disassociating and hiding away in MMORPGs. I felt more able to genuinely express myself in these digital worlds. In the real world I was being made fun of for looking like a girl, and being forced to fight others to just be left alone. I had to survive, and eventually I started fighting myself. I tried to kill myself multiple times.

These experiences alienated me in a way that my friends that did experience my breakdowns eventually distanced themselves from me, and I don't blame them for it. It's a lonely feeling. I try to replicate that in music, both that feeling of yearning for lost times / feelings of comfort felt in a video game, while knowing that those times are gone and they weren't that good of escape to begin with and - the feeling of knowing the damage you've caused. I can't listen to a lot of the music I've made in the past because it hurts too much, it's like reading a suicide note from a failed attempt. Jumping back to me now, a 28 year old DnB / Trance musician, I am pretty consistently swarmed with people praising and celebrating me. On one hand I really appreciate it, on the other it is the actualization of the paranoia mentioned above. My fans enjoy my music because what they earn from it, they have no idea what I was going through when I made it. I've been told I've helped people going through similar things that I went through as a teenager, and I love that. Last night at my final show in Texas, a genuine fan of mine expressed that I was a good example for them to follow as a trans woman. This is the case in which that paranoia I mentioned is not true.

As I had a hard time making friends in Texas, I also had a hard time getting booked or respected for who I am as an artist. Even though I'm arguably one of the biggest contemporary electronic artists in this city, a city in which there's so many shows it's oversaturated, I was hardly ever booked. This is similarly due to why I did not have friends, as I didn't want to have to put the work in again. I felt like I didn't need to, and that's my fault.

The show we threw last night in Texas was with my crew of people gathered semi randomly through hilariously unplanned circumstances. This crew is called Unreal.

Two months ago, someone on instagram hit me up and told me they had a generator, asked if I wanted to do a show. Through my jaded eyes I almost laughed at the idea, like sure, lets try and throw a show in 2 days. That person became one of my best friends almost immediately. It's like we were meant to of always known eachother. [edit.9.26.23] This friend has gone on to completely isolate themselves from me along with my ex, as they started to hangout only two days after I left. I guess that paranoia mentioned above bleeds into more than just fans right? These are two more people that proved to me they loved me for the caricature presented in my music more than the person I am in real life.

I will do my best to not let this further validate my paranoia of getting close with anyone who know me only as Manapool. [/] I grabbed a friend from a failed show in Texas, my girlfriend and lastly another who arguably was the only friend I had during the almost year I lived here. The first show was a success and we decided to do it again when my girlfriend returned from her trip to Europe. Last night was that show. I'd been working on a album that represented the dark place I'd been in for the past few months, mainly stemming from preparing to leave my partner. This project is called Mana no Uta, or The Song of Mana. While a genuine portrayal of the dark place I'd been in, it was also my attempt of taking a semi ironic genre (Nightcore) and making it painfully authentic. Nightcore is a genre that mainly takes pop songs and speeds them up, with the lyrics usually being romantic or broken hearted in subject manner.

Every now and then I come across a Nightcore version of a song that hits in a much more graphic way than it's origin. I have attempted to bottle that lightning into six songs, pushing their Maker to their nightmarish limit. In a way this circles back to my taste for being punishingly nostalgic. To me, real art not only moves you but haunts you. [edit: 9.26.23] While I genuinely loved my partner, this year I had spent living with them ended up doing an immense amount of psychological damage. I'm doing my best not to write about her in a negative light, but I consistently felt neglected. I wanted things to work, all in all that's why I sacrificed the life I had in Saint Louis in the first place. That feeling of neglection and failure to recognize the effort and love I'd given led to deep rooted feelings of resentment. Eventually this resentment bled into my perception of self, and in a way it poisoned me. I felt guilty for being unable to rid myself of these, regardless, I was constantly in a state of accepted defeat paired with anger at myself for leaving Saint Louis behind just to end up unhappy.

These feelings are what I wanted to represent in this album. Isolation paired with wishing you could salvage the love you have for someone while knowing it's already too deep.

It's part of you. I often felt sick. [/] I wanted people to feel sick listening to it, like you're at the club and you took too much ketamine but you can't go home. Or you're about to play a set but in a fight with your girlfriend. Everyone around you is having so much fun but you're not and you won't. Both the ketamine example and the ladder are things I've experienced in achieving the dream mentioned above. I don't want people to relate to this album. I want it to hurt them. Last night, I played the album in it's entirety as a parting gift to fans like the ones that said such sweet things to me last night. Me and my (now) ex-girlfriend got into a fight on the way to the show. It went over very well, and by the time the live performance phase of my set (Mana No Uta) was over, I began to cry as I transitioned into djing for the last portion of my set. I finished the set and tried to escape to go clear my head. On the way out someone gave me ketamine, I took some and went outside to be alone and get myself together after performing my most emotional piece yet. I wasn't really able to decompress, I kept thinking about how I'd be moving away from here and leaving everyone behind. As this is happening, I'm getting swarmed by people telling me they loved my set, complimenting me, celebrating me. I appreciated it but I wanted to be left alone. Performing that album felt like a instance of public self harm. I was literally going through what I wanted the album to represent. I was the character I created in the screenplay I wrote.

As the night ended the sadness I felt for leaving these new friends and my girlfriend overtook me. It scared me. I'm scared right now. But the worst part is it felt familiar. It felt exactly like leaving Saint Louis. These people will never leave my life permanently, but i'm leaving them behind. [edit: 9.26.23] I will most likely never engage with my ex-partner nor the friend mentioned in the last edit ever again. [/] To reiterate, as I'm realizing this and being consumed by it (at the show) people are coming up to me celebrating me. They're telling me how cool I looked. Telling me how amazing my set was. Telling me how much they love the character I play. I had just played the one of the most genuine sets of my life, and still at the end of it I didn't feel like they understood. My emotion was on my face, my true persona on my sleeve. My eyes were red from crying, my hands were shaking from amphetamines. Still I'm seen as the persona I sold them. Once you release your art to the world, it is no longer yours. The experiences people have listening to it are something I'll never fully understand, as they will never understand me. If they actually knew me, would they still be so impressed with what I've done? Who I've become? [edit: 9.26.23] Looking back on this writing and the album now that's it's finished, and now that i'm no longer in the heart of it's conceptual storm - I can truly say I am proud of what I made. I am most proud of being able to create something that had the emotional relevance that it could even put me in a situation mentioned at the end. In a way creating such a dark piece punished me and I will always love this album for that. I spent a lot of energy on making something that'd make the listener uncomfortable, and being the person to perform it made me just as uncomfortable. That's pure.With all that being said I don't feel as if I won't be able to listen to or play these songs out post release, as while it was based on the miasma I was in, I also wanted to make some dark club friendly Nightcore for the girls to grind to. Without:Me is my favorite song I've made in a very long time. I made it in one sitting on Umami's computer the day of Materia XX. The final song will most likely be the most difficult to revisit, however. I finished the song and then two hours later broke up with my girlfriend. It's titled: In Goodbye. [/]

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surlifen · 3 years

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i dont waste energy hating closed species And You Can Too!

alright you asked for it

Claim 1: “Closed species limit creativity in the art community by locking off certain concepts.”

No, they don’t. If you believe that, then you also must believe that copyrighting in general-- or just generally the fact that making a design exactly like someone else’s is viewed as kind of wack-- are stifling creativity. Why? It’s easy to accidentally make a concept that is similar to someone else’s, because there are literally just not that many Things That Exist. There will ALWAYS be repeats. Generally, if a design coincidentally looks like another, there will be a mixture of backlash from people who believe it was an intentional ripoff, and total acceptance from people who understand that it was an accident. Ultimately, the correct way to live is to understand that 1) these coincidences can happen and should not be punished, but 2) intentionally ripping off someone else’s work is wrong. It isn’t black and white, you must process 2 or more concepts at once.

Species owners understand this. I have never seen a species owner come after someone for accidentally making something similar or inspired. This is a myth. Species owners are busy as fuck, generally Normal People, and simply do not have the time or energy or desire to moderate things outside their community. Please talk to literally any of them for more than two minutes and you will discover this. Every species owner I have met is friendly and kind and I’ll go into detail on exactly how bullshit this stereotype of them chasing people down for similarities is later.

So, given that some randos will get upset and harass people over harmless inspiration/coincidence but most will not in ALL cases of accidental over-similarity: this is NOT a species-specific problem and happens just as often--if not MORE often, because of how much people fucking despise closed species-- with non-closed-species characters.

Secondly, species owners do not create a closed species with the goal of closing off a concept from use. They do it to create a community they can manage and share a concept they have created.

Take the world of Nephfei, created by the artist Queijac. The closed species of Nephfei are called Spinxyn, and they are very much sphinxes. They are not a brand-new concept Jac is claiming to have come up with, they are intentional and very direct references to sphinxes. What sets them apart is their species LORE, WORLD, and COMMUNITY.

[image ID: a screenshot of the Spinxyn species guide on deviantart, created by queijac. Text reads “IMPORTANT NOTE: Spinxyn are a species OF sphinx. Yes, they are sphinx, and yes of course anyone can make sphinx characters and designs using similar appearances! I claim no ownership over design aspects! Spinxyn as a CS community, however, which offers social art related activities, world building, themed events, etc., to use the characters in, simply relates to my own PERSONAL WORK and how i want to enrich peoples experiences with it! Please understand this, thank you!!!”]

This species is not closed so that Jac can copyright the idea of a sphinx. It is closed so that Jac has some control over the world and lore they have created. Were anyone able to create a Spinxyn without an approval process, not only would the community become too large to manage too quickly, but all sorts of Spinxyn with aspects that don’t fit the lore would pop up.

[Image ID: screenshot of a message from Queijac in the nephfei official public Discord server. Text reads: “theres just a total disconnect that 99% of ppl making closed species are making. a Group...... its about.... the community....... and building the community around One concept that someone makes and puts rules in place for so that they can actually. U kno. MANAGE THINGS... and make a cohesive group experience....... the reason CS have so much popularity is because they come with a community, not because theyre 100% unique never before seen or heard of concepts”]

Jac explicitly acknowledges that sphinxes do not belong to them and even says that borrowing some spinxyn-specific appearance details is okay!!! The ONLY thing off-limits here is a WORLD, COMMUNITY, and LORE.

Except it isn’t. Because Nephfei also hosts not one, not two, but THREE open species of intelligent beings, plus NINE official species of non-intelligent animals, so that anyone can participate.

Claim 2: Species owners harass and police people who make similar concepts.

I touched on this already re:species owners are busy as fuck & Jac openly encouraging people to make sphinx characters and even borrow spinxyn-specific traits, but this note from ground-lion/seel, the creator of Chimereons, really does it for me.

[Image ID: a DeviantArt note from ground-lion to me. Text reads “hello, thank you for showing me this! we don't actively do anything to police offbrands, since it causes more trouble than i think it's worth. i like to avoid drama wherever possible, and it seems like most people who participate in offbrands are just looking to press people's buttons so we can't/won't do anything to these people, i think it is best to just try and ignore it and move on.”]

Here you have the owner of one of the arguably most shit on and hated species saying outright “we don’t bother doing anything about intentional ripoffs”. For context, this WAS 100% intentional, I had noted ground-lion about a user I saw posting adoptables that were LABELED “offbrand chimereons” (so if anyone was hArAsSiNg PeOpLe oVeR SiMiLaR cOnCePtS here, it was me, calling attention to intentional and stated copying).

Sidenote: I think it’s shitty to intentionally steal a concept. Ground-lion has also said there is no issue with making anthropomorphic chameleon characters, just that chimereons were inspired by a set of traits, a word, lore, a desire to create a community, and their own personal stylization of anthro chameleons. It’s fine to take inspiration from how someone else stylizes an animal, but the degree to which people do it-- just outright copying every aspect of Seel’s work-- rubs me the wrong way. Not enough to say anything because that is only my personal opinion and because I do not have time for that shit.

The Dainty mod team + owner (Pajuxi-Adopts) also have a section stating that to make a design no longer a Dainty, all that’s needed are the following changes:

[image ID: screenshot of Dainty species ToS. Text reads “ Visual edits must be made for discontinuation, here is our standard discontinuation options: - remove the stockings completely and give them fur like an actual satyr - keep the stockings and give them human legs - make them an anthro - keep the stockings but they MUST start at least a quarter to halfway up the bottom portion of the deer leg with a clear divide between the stocking and leg with fur poking out underneath - you are free to suggest your own edits as well! “]

This may be speaking specifically about discontinuing a former Dainty due to the context we found it in, but this means that a design is not considered a dainty if, for example, its stockings show fur underneath and are not part of the body. That’s it. That’s all they ask. Pajuxi is not saying “this is my closed species of SATYRS WITH SOCKS and if you DARE make a satyr with socks i will COME FOR YOU!!!”, they clearly state that satyrs with socks are an acceptable Not A Dainty. I personally think the lore behind the stockings being physically part of the body and all the specific rules they entail is interesting and original and I do not think it’s such a wild ask to say “hey, please respect this and if you see it, don’t rip it off on purpose. You can take inspiration in all these valid ways but I want to have some control over the concept I came up with”.

Claim 3: Species owners are rich elitists making small artists suffer.

Species owners are small, independent artists. Artists being hated the instant they get even moderate success (that’s still usually BARELY A LIVING WAGE) is its own huge discussion and internalized issues + capitalist brainwashing you all have to deal with on your own damn time, but I want to emphasize that someone making a living or even comfortable wage from their art is Good, Actually, and is something we should all be happy to see and want to see more of.

Furthermore, no one is being taken advantage of. CS characters are a luxury item. You do not NEED one. If you absolutely will die without a sock deer, make one where the sock isn’t part of their body. If you will die without a chimereon, make an anthro chameleon and use your own ideas. If you will die without a sphinx character, I’m overjoyed to inform you that fucking nobody ever asked you not to make one. CS involvement is voluntary. If you don’t like them, don’t participate in them, but keep in mind that someone saying “hey, please don’t blatantly copy this design concept I spent time creating” is The Same Thing as someone asking you not to copy their individual character designs. You could live without stealing character designs. You can live without making something exactly like an existing CS.

Claim 4: CS put concepts behind a paywall and make them inaccessible.

Again, these are a luxury item. Most closed species MYO slots cost $10-$45. That is not a ridiculous amount to aspire to. Closed species owners WANT people to participate in their species, so there are a ton of ways.

- Chimereons hold First-Time Owner flatsale slot raffles every single month to ensure people who are new to the community have a greater chance of nabbing a slot than existing participants - Dainties have an art prompt every month, which rewards every participant regardless of skill level one prompt point (the art can be visual or written). Six prompt points can be used to buy an MYO slot for free. If you desperately need a dainty and are flat broke, you can get a free one by writing 150 words a month for six months or doing one drawing each month. Skill level doesn’t matter, ALL participants get a point if they follow the rules. - I joined a raffle for a free pre-made Spinxyn. I did not win the raffle. Jac randomly decided to give out 7 MYO slots too, one of which I won. I entered a raffle that DID NOT HAVE MYO SLOTS AS A PRIZE and got one for free anyway. CS owners want people to participate, I promise. - Dainties just had a 24-hour turn-in event (that they warned about a month in advance so folks could prepare designs), meaning every single person who submits a design in that 24hr time frame gets a slot. Normally slot sales are limited in number and sell out in seconds. - Jac sporadically draws quicker, messier Spinxyn designs which always cost $5 and raffle-flatsales them on Discord. $5 is not a gatekeepy price. - Tomoyokis recently had a free-for-all event where everyone could claim either a free common slot or a $10 uncommon slot. These are just specific examples I remember of easier or free ways to get CS. Non-specifically:

- art = reward systems are common, so again, just writing or drawing enough can equal a free MYO slot or entry into a raffle for a pre-made design - many many species that are relatively new have FREE turn-in events or giveaways to build a community - free FTO slot raffles - paid but discounted FTO slot raffles - random free design giveaways - trading art for a CS character or MYO slot (I’ve gotten a dainty and two dainty MYO slots this way, and I realize not everyone’s art gets accepted, which is why this is a whole list of ways that don’t require artistic skill whatsoever)

So getting your hands on one isn’t the worst thing in the world. You might need a little luck (as in, you have a completely fair chance that is equal to everyone else’s) or a little dedication (6 months of wanting one, or having to have a design ready within a limited time for a free turn-in event).

Also, there’s a reason CS prices cannot change much: this causes issues with the value of all existing CS characters. Dainties will ALWAYS be $35. The MYO slot price will NEVER increase. If it did, all previous dainties would be worth less, or would have to have their worth increased, which is logistics hell. Inflation doesn’t affect CS the same way it does everything else.

Claim 5: ok but legally nothing is stopping me from making one lmaoo

That is true. It’s also true that there’s not really any effective laws in place to protect artists when they say “Hey, please don’t quote retweet my art on Twitter” or “Hey, please don’t repost my art even with credit”. Sometimes, we just respect artists and do what they ask because we are Nice Fucking People, but apparently, species owners are a whole different thing, evil, and do not deserve the same basic respect.

IN CONCLUSION

Talk to a CS owner. They’re reasonable and kind people. There’s an exception to every rule, of course, but what I’ve found overwhelmingly is that they’re literally just people like you and I who were excited to make something cool and share it with people. The emphasis is HUGELY on community. I used to dislike the idea of CS too, but since participating in them and talking a ton with the owners (who are super down-to-earth and active in their servers-- Jac helped me with a confusing horse video game and gave me a Free Horse in there), I’ve realized that the caricature of CS owners as greedy and bitchy, laying claim to basic concepts like A Cat With Wings, is just bullshit. The stereotype that CS community members are an angry mob who will roast you over a fire if you draw a chameleon on two legs is bullshit. The idea that CS are impossible to get, are for the bourgeoisie, and cost thousands of dollars is bullshit (I bet you’re thinking about scarfoxes right now. Hot take: I think it’s great that an artist is selling their intellectual property for that much. I think we all should be able to. I think if someone chooses to spend that much on a design they think would make them happy, that is literally not a fucking problem, and since it was their choice and their money no one is being taken advantage of unfairly. Let people buy the shit they want to buy, I promise you will fucking survive).

I like CS, I think they are neat, I wish people would give the owners a break. They are just independent artists like me. They get lied about and stereotyped over this stupid drama bullshit and they’re so tired and saddened when the subject comes up. They literally do not police anyone-- they don’t have the time or the desire, and it wouldn’t work anyway.

I won’t post CS content here anymore. But I like participating voluntarily in these communities. I don’t understand why that’s something YOU get to have a problem with.

Stay out of my inbox. Thanks.

#long post #LONG LONG POST #seriously im not inviting argument so please please do not slide into my inbox or replies #anon ASKED; i am ANSWERING. the dialogue ENDS here.#not art #also this isnt meant as a like. Woke Post to Blow Up #it's my personal explanation and thoughts #so only read it if you want to.

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