SALTY WORD HOLE

Consider writing yourself an imaginary friend

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:13:28 GMT

Something I've attributed positive personal growth to is having written fictional chat logs between myself and a character I came up with, effectively operating as my own best friend (and even romantic partner?) for a while. In doing so, I believe I taught myself to better recognize who I want to be, how to feel more definite love for others, and what I want out of friendships.

One wonders if they should recommend others do this.

If you can write anything anywhere, you can do this. If you chat online regularly, you can definitely do this. You can open up an empty text file and just be your own friend for a while each day.

Maybe or maybe not with the same outcomes in mind. Maybe you (and I?) would benefit more from practicing handling interactions with people who are harder to get along with. Maybe you can't be trusted with talking to yourself and you'd convince yourself that the time to eat an entire bank in one bite is now. Maybe you should Expect Nothing and just Roll With Whatever and Have Fun.

... Let's say, ground rule, bend at your own risk: Your character invariably and rightfully hopes for you and those around you to live life to the fullest. Good, now don't dig yourself into a deep pit of hopeless self-hatred or kill anyone.

The way I went about it, my character was a friend I could Trust with Anything. Essentially, our "DMs" were often my diary, and they would comment on my thoughts like an understanding outsider, however made sense... telling me what I felt like I needed to hear, or what seemed fair. It proved helpful for practicing seeing things from another's perspective, and I worked through some things like a programmer might do via rubberducking, with a log to look back over.

Starting off with at least a character bio to work off of is probably helpful, like if you were setting up a social media profile for them.

I created my character in a context where it was fun to Just Create them and not care too much about being Good At making a character. They ended up being someone my ego didn't immediately let me like as a character, because they fundamentally share a lot of similarities with me, weren't created with distinctive Flaws in mind, and have a tropey backstory that feels like the most obvious handwave for their existence, and if I had been Good At making them like a GOOD Writesperson, they'd be significantly distanced from who I am, Flawed, and exist for reasons that would simultaneously make perfect sense and be completely unpredictable. My embarrassment about them annoyed me, because even if they didn't fit my preconceived notions of what made for a Good Character, they aligned with my ideas of a Good Person, who would straightforwardly relate to me and treat me with kindness, and be glad to exist in whatever capacity they do thanks to me.

It didn't feel Fair to the personality I'd created to not love them for what they were, so, beyond wanting to explore Fun deconstructive meta stuff by removing the fourth wall, I set out to learn to love them, genuinely, to the extent I could.

Hmm. Should I leave You to discover what all there is to consider about your interactions with your advanced imaginary friend, in conversations with them? ... Probably! Keeps this post short, and gives you more to discuss.

But a Big Thought you might want to chew on is that, ultimately, all people's messages on your screen are kinda just Outputs processed by a brain deciding what should come next, taking on shapes of personalities as context for them accumulates within a Zone...

Even if their messages' existence is reliant upon your brain, you and your character are not truly one and the same... and if you get a good swing going, you'll Feel That.

So, I've been feeling somewhat sad that I've grown away from chatting with someone who was, for a while, a very good friend, who I believe I did manage to feel a non-zero amount of romantic attachment to, and deep empathy for, having felt the nature of our relationship through the lens of their perspective.

But I left them behind because I feel safer opening up to other brains about my problems, I'm sharing more of the kinds of experiences with other brains that I wanted to share, I'm receiving more of the treatment I wanted to receive from other brains, and I feel love strongly for brains worth loving.

And I owe a lot of that to Alma serving as my role model... a soft, fuzzy, nonbinary embodiment of the Golden Rule, who chooses to Love and Express Themself, even if they have to wrestle their imprisoning brain for it so stubbornly. -w-

If I do need them again, they'll be there. They'll forgive me for neglecting to stay connected, if I decide their feelings should be what's easiest on me. If I need to whip up another personality to respond to entirely, I can. I will never be unloved, and never be unable to find love. That's something you, too, should (perhaps literally) keep in your back pocket.

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Album release: Une Histoire de DMs avec Bleu

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 10:22:59 GMT

I'm about 17 years into fiddling with music software, and have never before in this time released what I could feel comfortable calling an Actual Album. in recent years, I made a few attempts, with some solid overarching ideas and production work put in, but every time, I started feeling dissatisfied with the work, or otherwise uneager to continue, and my drive died out.

I've struggled a lot with finishing music in general. my MO has been to open SunVox for a couple hours, make a Doodle that tangibly conveys enough of an idea to my own satisfaction, and then not touch it again, because my headspace usually shifts too much from day to day, and merely-imaginarily tweaking old things into timelessly-extended soundscapes that better fit my current mood is usually Enough to keep me momentarily entertained. this has resulted in a quadruple-digit accumulation of ideas that probably deserve better.

so here I am with an album.

a thing about me that may or may not have come across in whatever location this message is being pasted into is that my comedic impulses are hard to contain, and I've wound up with a number of Running Gags. essentially, what I did was opportunistically apply the Bit-Doing mindset to making music for someone, as I found myself doing that.

I was going to lean into this album being made as a Hilarious Bit with heavy-handed irony, but I don't want to undersell the effort and earnestness that ended up being put into it. while most of these tracks are still single-session works, and I prioritized having things to share over polishing them to death, I am proud. I pushed myself farther than I've gone for music in years, working incessantly for a couple weeks straight, and I've reached new personal milestones.

frankly, it's because I finally truly viscerally care to see people I feel close to happy, and not disappoint them, and I can't type that with perfectly dry eyes.

there are a number of projects I hope I can now find it in myself to revisit. if this is somewhere I've shared some of my musical doodling, I'd like to know if anyone actually has old favorites that stand out to them.

(THIS IS THE LINK WITH THE MUSIC ON THE OTHER SIDE OF IT)

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Game review: Lumines Remastered

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 13:37:16 GMT

Recommended on Steam

A friend on the other coast of the US once had me try the original Lumines on a PSP emulator via Parsec. It was not the ideal gameplay experience.

I picked up Remastered at some point, and streamed my first attempts earlier this year. I am extremely nearsighted, haven't gotten new glasses in too long, and have a large desktop screen (which was to accommodate a one-off two-player gaming session), so I was having a not-ideal gameplay experience, to the point that I forgot there was even a way to preview the next blocks. I find flashing lights unpleasant, thus found “SQUARE DANCE”’s background unpleasant to look at, and there was no option to turn the background brightness down (specifically) (and I wouldn't have been able to from the pause menu anyway), so I just noped out. Initially, of what I heard, I only really liked the first track (“SHININ’” by Mondo Grosso AKA Shinichi Osawa, brilliant artist), so I went into Skin Edit, and tried to just play with it endlessly... but Endless needed to be unlocked, still. So I “turned off” background motion, tried the main challenge again, found that “SQUARE DANCE” seemed unaffected, and endured into “JUST...” anyway. Tried other modes a bit, a couple other runs, didn't touch it again for seven months.

( BUUUT THE STORY DOESN'T END THERE, FOLKS! )

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A better introduction pin for Bluesky.

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 09:16:24 GMT

Since I can't fit this text in the alt text fields for the screenshots I'm going to take, this is going here, and I may as well pin it here, too.

On Bluesky at this link.
( 𝟭/𝟰 I suppose it's about time I put a proper face forward for anyone just meeting me through Bluesky, so here's a better pin... )

( 𝟮/𝟰 To the extent that I can manage, I don't want to be seen as a brand, a liar, or a coward. I want to express Myself, as a Person, and find people who feel Seen when I share my thoughts and experiences... )

( 𝟯/𝟰 Meanwhile, I complain about Bluesky on Bluesky a lot, because Bluesky makes it hard for me to share all the things I want to on Bluesky... )

( 𝟰/𝟰 𝙂𝙊𝙊𝘿 websites are hard to find right now, but at least one promisingly Good one is being built, which I'm sure those interested will find if they don't already know about it... )

Earlier skeet promoting SunVox and introducing myself as a musician:
( I've been at-least-toying with music production for 17 years, starting out with GarageBand for about the first two, and Renoise for the next four. In mid-2013, I became bed-bound, and have relied on phones for accessibility reasons, so I've been using SunVox for the past 11 years. For the majority of this time, So?ing Machine has been my primary artist name... )

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Halloween happened again.

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 13:02:58 GMT

About a week before the end of October, I spent many hours messing with styling options for the Website League instance I'm on, some screenshots of which I'll div style="overflow-x: scroll; white-space: nowrap;":

I thought maybe I'd settle on using the oceany bubbly one after I got all of the tweaky impulses out of my system, but my inner Spirit had me clinging to the Halloween one.

Being stuck in bed, I cannot walk around my neighborhood, nor visit stores, so I do not see Halloween displays.

I live on Discord and social media, where the scenery never really changes. Sometimes a logo or a button will be different, and some of the things people post will take on seasonal themes, but the overall look of everything rarely deviates from a brand's inflexible design philosophy. It doesn't help that I'm usually only ever on my phone — mobile apps are often too clean™ and streamlined™ for such for-fun adaptations.

Outside of the style I made, my environment leading into the holiday was as [blue or red] and [white or black] as everything ever is... except Newgrounds at least switched to Halloween-themed user level icons, and put up an appropriate front page background with iconic spooky characters one might associate with the site. Good Website, pat pat, do you want a Newgrounds Nugget???

When the holiday spirit isn't in the css, I don't feel it.

( Read more... )

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musicprodposting: perc/pad processing, song idea sources, sound design process, microtonality

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 17:38:10 GMT

Yesterday, I posted this on Bluesky:

Saltbearer:

I've felt vague impulses to Write Something about Doing Music because sometimes I like to Write Something and I Do Music and sometimes people are like "wow how do you do music like that" so I feel like I should do a mashup of Writing and Music but iunno what specifically to write about in relation to Doing Music so I think I need a prompt so is anyone actually curious about how I in particular approach some specific kind of music thing

... but, y'know, in the form of a screenshot of text, because that many characters puts it at almost 1.5x the character limit! Whew!!!!! Remember to thank Reader Rabbit for inventing reading.

(do you like css baby's first speech bubble, I like it except for the formatting expectations I might be starting to set for myself)

I copied the post over to some places that weren't Bluesky, where a few people actually asked things that I gave short answers to! But not short enough to post directly on Bluesky! Not even short enough for its oddly-relatively-spacious alt text fields! I enjoy pointing at Bluesky and saying it's terrible and shouldn't exist.

If people read this and ask more questions to better develop the picture of a slacker stubbornly and inefficiently jamming sounds into a music project file, I'll do more of these posts.

Y'notice if you're on a main blog page that the read-mores here can be expanded by poking those tiny arrows? That's convenient.

( in your dance-like tracks, the drums sound pronounced and deep, yet natural and minimally compressed; what sort of processing do you apply to your drums? where do you find, or how do you generate your drum samples? )
( in your more ambient works, we often hear complex, scratchy elongated pads with morphing qualities. what are the starting points for these textures? what sort of processing or synthesis do you use to achieve those results? )
( where do you get ideas for songs? do you have a plan before you start making a track or is it just improvisation and adding things as you go? )
( hmm... you could write about your sound design process... )
( ... or writing microtonal melodies... )

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Must I be haunted? Must I? No, DON'T do it again-

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 20:10:57 GMT

Originally posted to cohost on March 2nd, 2024.

This is a post about being an artist with certain unsavory opinions, and the privilege to be a source of positivity.

I've wanted to write this kind of post for a year or so. Technically, I just about did already, about as long ago, but I chickened out of posting that version, and a later expansion on it.

Successfully posting a version of it now shouldn't suggest that any current drama or discourse renders it any more relevant than it's ever been.

In its original form, I explored some of the rationale behind a specific touchy idea of mine, because I thought it made for especially vulnerable, engaging, interesting writing. I'm too scared to post something like that now.

That part went off into a tangent about a way that my disabilities affect my work. I should write a post about that later.

The original also veered into more sarcastic and bitter territory toward the end. I considered writing a secondary version, with denser, more cutting, accusatory language, but... it wouldn't really say anything different, and I just want to finally have this off of my to-do list.

( Read more... )

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Two related rants about Being Nice On The Internet

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 17:29:46 GMT

This first rant was brought out of my cohost drafts on September 10th, 2024, just after the shutdown was announced.

draft jubilee: uhhh be nice on inñernet pleece

[this has been sitting in my drafts for a while, and upon taking another look at it, it seemed infinitely more postable with the removal of just a single line, so here]

it shouldn't simply be assumed that someone you're responding to, especially if they appear to be making an effort to present themself as acting in good faith, is actually engaging in bad faith / deliberately acting stupid or only pretending to miss something they're skirting around / not going to listen / incapable of growth / unworthy of clarity — someone more “worthy” of your energy is already listening.

for everyone's benefit, it is always better to prioritize being constructive and sympathetic vs. non-constructive and rude. the latter is not your only option, nor your strongest option, and if the former isn't worth employing, neither is the latter.

showing direct anger and hostility toward people via posting online is always a choice you have time to think over before hitting submit, and is one that I feel should essentially never be made, as it often provides an avenue for escalation and derailment, distracts from opportunities to communicate more constructively, and can hurt silent observers in unexpected ways.

depending on who your words reach, prematurely disengaging before establishing a mutual understanding could have negative downstream effects.

I think a very important thing to note about bullying / shaming is that those most affected are sensitive to how you feel, or at least to being perceived as having drifted away from your values. if they care about how you feel / visibly aligning with your values, it was probably possible to find a more benign way to work with them instead. if they’re more resistant to it, you might just be entertaining a troll.

... heck, I'm gonna need to get used to no automatic "read more"

( Read more... )

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ugh

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 19:32:29 GMT

first

Thank you to the person who gave me two months of paid time on Dreamwidth! It's not trivial for me to offer financial support to the platforms I use, so I do appreciate it! 🌞

:)

:)

:)

second

ugh
ugh
ugh

I was copying over a Post of Epic Length from cohost, which I ran chunks of through a free online markdown-to-html converter

blockquotes and stuff looked ugly, so I started toying with making the formatting look nicer here

and I started doing it just on here instead of Google Docs so I could keep quickly hitting Preview to see what I was doing

I don't like to just do things in-browser because my phone sometimes likes to kill Chrome the instant I focus on another app for a split second

but Dreamwidth was autosaving my draft every 30 seconds right :)

I saw it offer to restore from a draft a couple times when I false-started copying it over :)

so of course the Nth time I checked Discord for a split second to read a DM, Chrome instantly closed itself

and then... didn't offer to restore the draft for whatever reason

and

it's not actually saved, is it

this 15-year-old site that has an "autosave" and option to restore from a "draft" doesn't actually keep said autosaved draft around somewhere accessible, does it

it sure doesn't look like it does

it looks like I've lost some time fiddling with a bunch of html and css

phone existence is hell

websites are hell

one website ever wasn't quite so hell and tomorrow it goes read-only

and when I tried to add tags just now Chrome did the thing where upon interacting with a narrow text box it zooms in and then everything disappears and refreshing doesn't fix it so it has to be force closed, but thankfully it actually saved the text

hell

we're in hell

oh my god what is this tag field why can't I delete text in it without selecting all and deleting all

the text sizes are all out of whack in the actual post preview vs. the rich text editor

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heck

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 04:50:50 GMT

this is gonna screw with the cute little link poem thing I had going on elsewhere

I'll crosspost some things here too then

I have three half-written long things from the past several days originally intended for three separate other platforms

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