2024... year of the royal we

Finally...

your wiiness

i often think about that deep diving expedition where a toad was caught on camera at the bottom of loch ness

i wonder how he’s doing

if i'm totally honest from day 1 everything that is possible to help palestinians in gaza is a drop in the ocean—you can literally chain yourself to the walls of the white house and go on hunger strike, you can set yourself on fire in front of an israeli embassy, hundreds of thousands of people can march in washington, and israel will keep killing babies with impunity. all of this has already happened and it's been seventy-one fucking days.

in the short term, there are some things that help—largely done by yemen. donations to families who ask, e-sims, the field hospitals and aid trucks are some of them too. they are limited in scope but they help. but these global protests and global actions and global pressure—this is long term work. it's more about you and your coworker and your friend than it is about gaza because you and your coworkers and your friends are laying the groundwork for the global shift. it's about your politicians first then israeli airstrikes second. it's the result of decades of organizing and awareness palestinians have put in and it is facing one of the most brutal, well-funded and coordinated suppression campaigns in history. this is a slow-shifting tide and you have to be part of it without overestimating or underestimating your place in it.

i don't mean to understate this support for palestine and the urgency of doing everything possible to help gaza rn. its actually the opposite. this is all of the utmost importance.

but i mean to say there is no "stop the genocide now" button. i wish there was. this genocide was 75 years in the making, 75 years of groundwork laid by both israel and the US to make it possible. half of this is appealing to the forces who already agree and believe palestinians should die to show mercy. it is slow, excruciating, sabotaged work. anyone who believes that there is some magic organizing that would've made this better doesn't understand the reality palestinians have been living under or the political reality at stake. all the magic organizing was decimated years ago—entire countries were destroyed in the process. instead these are the tools at our disposal now. we don't have a "stop the genocide now" button because it doesn't exist. to stop the genocide you must liberate palestine from apartheid and occupation. to liberate palestine you must seek life, dignity, freedom and self-determination for the palestinian people. this isn't a button. it's better to picture it as a lever, and all we can do is pull it as hard as we can until it reaches a critical mass. everything you're doing right now is pulling it, slow but constant pressure. it will inevitably fall. the genocide will stop as we pull, but we keep pulling after.

absolutely lost in the sauce

Dungeon Meshi - Monster Tidbits: Kensuke (Part 1) (Part 2)

thinking about artist alleys made me recall a memory

comic i made about hollow knight a year ago

pic in my basement (you can get the tapestry here)

mipy

sustainable.

i'm seeing people losing hope for palestine i'm begging you seriously please don't. the death toll is high but there are still people alive, there are still journalists risking everything to make sure the world sees what is happening. please continue protesting if you have the option to, keep demanding for a ceasefire and keep talking about palestinians both alive and dead. you have to keep going until the very end or else you really did fail them.

Reminder that before all this, the population of Gaza was approximately 2,300,000. The current death toll is around 15,500 - possibly as many as 20,000. That's horrific, yes. But that means that there are still at least 2,280,000 gazans alive and kicking. There are 2.28 million people who would benefit from a permanent ceasefire; for an end to Israeli hostility; for increased aid and reliable access to food and water. There are still 2.28 million people that Israel has not managed to kill.

So keep making noise. Do whatever you can to help those 2.28 million living people, and to remember and honour the 15,000-20,000 lives that have been taken. Giving up on Gaza helps no one but Israel.

warning for discord users

If you're on the app, immediately go to your dms and then "add friends". After the latest update they allow your contacts to find you and have that option turned on by default, so make sure it's unchecked!

This is very obviously not great for a multitude of reasons, but especially for people in vulnerable positions who do not want people in their contacts to see who they are on discord and/or know they have discord in the first place. I've also tried finding out if this is a thing on desktop but haven't been able to find any mention of it, so either it's not a "feature" (yet) or they've hidden it. Either way, stay safe, and turn off finding friends via contacts!

[ID: three screenshots from the discord app with circles around the buttons to press to get to this "feature". 1: the messages/DM button, 2: the "add friends button", 3: in the add friends page, the "allow contacts to add me" checkbox. /END ID]

For anyone who finds the check turning itself on, go to your settings in the discord app > privacy and safety. Scroll down to "Sync Contacts" and turn it off.

Edit: Also turn off both phone and email under "Discovery Permissions" while you're there.

the solution for taking care of "unsightly" homeless people is to house us. that is the only solution. if you can't stand the look of someone living on the sidewalk, you shouldn't stand for them being put into that situation to begin with. housing us is the only answer.

people NEED to stop gatekeeping making music like ohhhh i don’t have an instrument ohhhhh i don’t know music theory ohhhhh i’m not gonna pay for some program. SHUT UP. take my hand.

you need NONE of that shit!!!!! there’s a website called beepbox.co. literally all you have to do is press things until it sounds a modicum of nice. it’s easy it’s free and it works on anything which has a browser because it’s a website.

if even ONE person starts making music bc of this post it will be worth it.

making bad music is just as important and okay as it is to write badly or draw badly or sing badly. you AREN’T BEHOLDEN TO MAKE GOOD MUSIC. making music is not utilitarian HAVE FUN. HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!

love how people will encourage people to just start making shit and see what happens when it comes to drawing and writing but when it comes to beginner musicians (music makers if you wish to be less formal) it’s just COMPLETE RADIO SILENCE. it feels like no one even knows you MAKE music it just sprouts up from the ground one day and some guy picks it up. am i alone in this dark cave

Fuck it

I'm gonna try and make music

Call me betovan bc I'm deaf as fuck /j

HELL YEAH!!!

Alternatively if you wanna get into music producing in a more “proper” way, you still don’t need any money.

Ableton has excellent free websites to learn the basics:

Learning Music

Learning Synths

You can learn basically everything you need on YouTube. I recommend:

Mercurial Tones Academy

Dan Worrall

Bthelick

A lot of your favorite artists, mainly in electronic music, likely have done track breakdowns, you can watch those to learn how they do things.

DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) ultimately all do the same things, and Cakewalk is a great FREE fully fledged one. Sure it has some issues, and doesn’t have many plugins included, but it works just fine. All the music I released so far was made there, before I made the jump to Ableton.

As for VST plugins:

Vital is an excellent free synth

Native Instruments Komplete Start is a good free collection of plugins

TDR Nova is a great free EQ

There’s a lot of others and I don’t wanna name everything I’m aware of here, but feel free to DM me for more (Or if you have any other questions and stuff too).

And as for samples, you can get a bunch of free ones at:

Cymatics

Ghosthack

Having good headphones is nice and what I’d recommend you invest in first once it comes to it, but even your current ones will probably be fine, mainly if you slap AutoEQ onto them to flatten the frequency response. And ultimately, music isn’t all about the mixing, the most important part is conveying an emotion.

I know this goes against the spirit of the original post a little, but I want people to know that getting into music production also no longer costs thousands, you can just do it at home on your computer without no money.

Yeah, there is still quite the learning curve, I get that, though it’s also why it’s managed to hold me as a hobby for so long.

I do however have something of the exact opposite variety too, the most simple way to make music I know of, and a wonderful little semi-social experience, along the lines of the game Journey:

hi op i think you should know that i did indeed make a song for the first time because of this