welcome ^^

My first actual single as aira_riri, "vessel", is going to drop later this month, and it's not so surprising that this is stressing me out quite a bit. Truth is, I'm not too sure how proud I am of it. I spent more than a year at this point altering and refining it, but the more I listen to more I think something is missing, that the whole basis of it is flawed, that the things I was too lazy to change are the exact ones I should have focused on all along.

I don't consider myself to be a great composer, writer, or producer, much less a great musician. These are forms of art that have been in the background of my mind ever since I was born. I still remember the melodies and lyrics I wrote when I was 10 or 12, the feeling of losing myself in song during service at church. It has always been one of my dreams, making music, even as part of my other artistic projects, so getting to a point in which I can make full-on songs, commercially releasing them, uniting them inside an album; That is already a dream come true, but I can't help but feel like I'm embarrassing myself.

There aren't many people aside from my closest friends willing to give my stuff a listen, and I rather much get it. I hear vessel and can't help but feel like it's not really all that fandom worthy. It doesn't touch me, it doesn't impress me, not anymore. I feel like I've moved past it, but I'm only able to release it right now, and I do have to. I've producing music for years and still I've barely any finished results to show for it. I'm trying to follow the ideal of "prove you can do it before proving you can do it well", but my ego is suffering a lot for it. I see all my inspirations, all the amazing creative musicians I take from and can't help but see how I'm simply not good enough to do what they do, at least not yet.

This is rather overwhelming, in big part because I feel insufficient in so many other ways too. I'm not well-read enough, not diligent enough, not empathetic enough, not socially aware enough, not hot enough; I'm not actually good enough at anything, really. Maybe no one is, but I wouldn't know that. I'm not bad, I think, I'm just mediocre, and it's rather embarrassing to have to admit, but I dread it. I can't just be mediocre. All of this matters so much to me, I need to at least be good. At least at art. That's all I need, to know the art I put out is good. To look at it and judge for myself that it's indeed good. I can't hear it from anybody else, it's comforting, but not assuring, it feels fake, even when it isn't, because I'm the one who should be calling it good, and I'm not.

Fuck, how many times did I use the word I? 46 so far, damn...

I need to think about myself less, maybe. I don't know. fuck you. fuck revising this shit. I'm going to sleep.

[This entry assumes the reader has played the game Immortality, thus not only contains spoilers but also will probably only make much sense to you if you did.]

Immortality by Sam Barlow and company is a story that has greatly influenced the way I conceptualize art ever since I first played the game. Told through snippets of the production of three separate movies featuring the seemingly never-aging actress, Marisa Marcel, the events of the story speak mainly of love: Love for humanity and love for the arts, as experienced by The One, an immortal being which lives on through the people it consumes.
Despite it's non-human status, The One is undeniably a person, an artist, one with similar struggles as many of us. The same self-hatred, the same fantasies of grandeur, the same wish to make a change to the world through its art, the same need to consume others, the same aversion to being consumed itself. The message told through this humanity is simple; To me it speaks of the way true ascension is obtained not through creating something so great it changes to course of history irrevocably and forever, but through placing oneself inside history's chain, taking from those that came before to give it to those that will come after.
Not exactly "sitting on the shoulders of giants", more so "climbing on the backs of your ancestors, so descendants can climb on your own".
As said before, this isn't a complex message, it has been said before Immortality and will be repeated again. But what makes its exploration through the game special is the emotional substance that underpins it. The One is tired of consuming others, of taking from them without ever giving back, but it does not know any other way to interface with the world. It tries to repay its debt to humanity through "the greatest story" again and again, believing if only it can change things for the better through its efforts, then it'll have been worth it. It doesn't work, simply because it hasn't realized that it's not the one who's going to change the world, those are its descendants, the ones who consume it.
The violence inherit to the story's perception of love is also, I believe, poignant; The One points out throughout the game the dichotomy between love/creation (artists), and fear/destruction (law), seemingly not noticing that it as an artist continues to destroy those around itself, just like they have destroyed those around them. Its violent, gross and it IS love, though it requires the last step of accepting one's own destruction to become something beautiful.
This specific element is what inspired me to start my current digital horror series, spirit.avi, actually. The first episode was meant to be a standalone, until I played Immortality and saw the ways in which its perspective on love played into that one episode's story. The violation always present in wanting to be closer to someone, the willingness to be hurt needed to be truly connected to others, these inspired me and reminded me of other stories I love.
The second episode I ever idealized (currently planned to be the forth) was meant to be a meta-textual expression of that. I'd destroy my most beloved inspirations, of course not aiming to hurt its creators (many of them are my personal friends, so I'd never do something to them with the intention of causing harm), but definitely aiming to misshape their art, distort it to my own desire and invite viewers to do the same to my own, trusting that everyone involved would be okay. Because I truly believe that's what creation is. Nothing is completely new, everything is an adaptation of something that came before it and what we call authenticity is simply the perception of genuine care; Some many people around me know this, but some little have pointed out the beauty of that. That's what I hope to steal from Immortality. That's what I love about it.
So much I hope others can steal if from me, make it into a new, better adaptation. Until the greatest story is created, not by the work of a single artist, but by the work of everyone, or rather, everything that has ever existed.

Sooo, it's been a while. It is rather embarrassing to admit I came back to this book months later only to read 9 pages out of it and nothing else, but that's what we have for today. This was the amount of reading it took for me to reach the end of the first chapter and I've been experimenting with new ways of taking notes, so it wasn't a total loss, no. Though I do hope the next time around I can be faster. 9 pages in 1 hour and a half isn't ideal.

Regardless, let's get to my thoughts on the book itself.

Now that I finished it, the title of the first chapter "The Live Creature" has come into perspective. The idea of it was first defending its approach to analyzing the subject (as denoted in my first entry on the book), and then kick-starting its analysis, which is what we'll be getting into today. From his defense of the aesthetic as experience, Dewey proceeds to explore this more broad concept and how it leads back into art.

For Dewey the experience of all living things is characterized by our relationship to whatever environment surrounds us. "Life itself consists of phases in which the organism falls out of step with the march of surrounding things and then recovers unison with it." He writes. It's a dialectic relationship, if you will, marked by this cyclical motion of not having, wanting, acquiring, enjoying, not having, wanting, acquiring, enjoying, not having, wanting, acquiring, enjoying. Through each iteration of this cycle the subject grows into a different being, that is more in tune with its surroundings than before, but still faces the conflict of falling out of sink with it.

This is important, because the book defends that aesthetic experience is akin to catharsis. Its the feeling of transitioning from a moment of tension into a moment of resolution, when the past stops being a source of shame, but instead a source of knowledge, whereas the future stops being something to be feared, but a promise of opportunities brought forth by the now. He refers to this as "being alive" as opposed to our usual "subsisting".

It's unclear to me whether Dewey is trying to argue that Art is that which seeks to generate this experience, but he definitely defends that it should be. For him, the function of Art is to bring attention to experience in this way, generate the catharsis of resolving tension.

---

I am conflicted on how to feel about this. I see the beauty in what Dewey is defending, I even see a semblance of truth in it. How many times have I felt like I was in a movie while hanging out with my friends and loved ones? How many times have I yearned to live as my favorite characters and poetic personas do? The feeling of aesthetic enjoyment does seem to blend in with the feeling of being truly alive, not just for me, but for many others, so the relation doesn't seem unjustified. It does seem fragile, though. Especially when we start defending Art as something that serves specifically to generate this moment. I do question not only if it's true, but also, and mainly, whether that perception is useful.

Mainly because I'm reluctant to accept Art as something with a specific purpose. I do believe an aim is always present, consciously or not. However, asserting one specific goal to all art, seems like overreaching. I also question if Dewey would say art that seeks to create tension without ever resolving it is categorically bad (many a horror story, or graffiti for example, both of which I consider to be really cool art-forms), or if he would argue that the resolution occurs outside of the interaction with the work itself, thus making this category valid.

All and all, I'm really curious to keep reading. I might even continue later today, who knows.

. tell me

. tell you...

. tell me...

. tell you...?

. tell me why you came all this way.
|
| your home-section is one of the farthest from here, is it not?

. that doesn't concern you.

. if I am concerned about it, then it must.

. are you concerned or are you just curious?

. ...

. ...

. come on! you have read me like the simplest of pamphlets all this time. the least you can do is give me a chance to interpret this part of you!

. i'm no text.

. neither am i.

. and that's supposed to make me want to tell you anything?

. ...
|
| maybe...

. ...
|
| y'know what? fine, but it's no novella.

. i don't expect it to be.

. hah, damn brat.

. no going back now!

. kay, shut up. i'm thinking of where to start.

. ...

. well, you have heard the stories, no? of section 32's glowing white concrete and smooth walls.

. yes. brutalism so clean, it's no brutalism at all.

. are all section 619 poets this pretentious or is that just a you problem?

. don't mind me. keep going.

. fine, yes...
|
| thing is... i've heard the stories too, the elders even say they were once true. not the case anymore, though.
|
| the place is not so different from here, actually. the black stains, the rusty cracks. it's rather nostalgic.

. what? how?

. the gods, that's how. they cursed our land years before i was born. no one remembers why. some say it was a test, some say it was due to our arrogance.
|
| babel, is what they call us.

. you don't look like you agree with them.

. that's because i don't. there is no arrogance inside that section. there could never be. our elders are humble, patient. they taught us all their secrets, all their mistakes, so we wouldn't repeat them. they are flawed people with even more flawed pasts, but none of them are arrogant.

. so why were you cursed, then?

. ...

. ... if i may ask.

. hell if i know. for fun maybe.

. the gods wouldn't do such a thing.

. yes they would. that's their role, kid... having fun.

. ...
|
| so you came here to escape from the curse?

. pretty much.

. but why come so far?

. it's been following me. all of us from 32, actually. if we stick around anywhere for too long the place rots.

. rots?

. the first sign tends to be mildew on the walls. not much at first, but whatever places i frequent too much get covered in it eventually. then mold, till the walls turn in on themselves. their insides are black. black and pulsating. eventually they start to cry, as if they are struggling to hold up the ceiling. i'm pretty sure they don't fall just because the gods want us to stay alive and suffering. the bastards.

. do the other sections know?

. the 0s to 5s all do. the rest will find out eventually. information about us travels slow but it does always travel.

. ...
|
| it wouldn't make for a bad novella.

. i wouldn't read it.

i swear to god I revise these entries multiple times. How do they still end up with so many typos?

i haven't updated this blog in such a while so I'll try to type out whatever comes on my mind.

I have been listening to Magdalena Bay a lot recently. I decided to check them out after a hot guy I follow on instagram posted a song of theirs on his stories. They are really fun, I'm really excited for their new album to come out. Maybe I should have shot the guy a dm about it, but oh well I've missed the chance at this point.

I'm also going out with this cute boy. We have lots in common, like, LOTS, so talking to him is lots of fun. He's also got a slightly more reserved demeanor than me, though he seems to have crazier stories, regardless, it makes me feel excited to possibly play a more dominant role in a friendship for a change.

I'll be meeting up with a couple of my friends later today, which is so exciting. I miss them so much. Something makes me fear everything might go wrong and I make fuck up everything, but they love me almost as much as I love them, so I doubt I should really worry. I'm actually finally getting things organized to move out with one of those friends in the end of the year. The motive is kind of shitty: I had a fight with my dad since he's been getting weirdly more agressive for the past few months. It got me really stressed for a couple of days, but by now I've calmed down. With that said I'm excited for the move.

I'm scared I'll end up being a bad roommate, but I guess that's a good sign. Like, it shows that I do care, at least. I'm also scared this friend of mine isn't as eager to live with me as he once was, but I think I don't have to worry. He's been really busy, tho. We don't talk as much as we used to since he started on his first job. While part of me understands there's nothing to worry about, other part of me is afraid he's really growing above me this time. Which would make me into a nuisance to deal with, instead of someone he has fun with. But that's stupid. He's always been "above me" and it never was a problem, so we'll be fine.

I've been managing to make good progress on my artistic projects. I've been pulling away from people that hurt me. I've been interacting more with people I love. I've been going to the gym. I've been drinking water. I've been caring for my skin. I've been masturbating a lot, for some reason. I haven't been eating well, but at least I've been eating tasty things. There's this place in the shopping mall nearby that sells this amazing coffee milkshake. It's expensive, but oh my god is that shit worth it. Anyways, I haven't been as responsible with my money as I probably should, but not by that much, so I'll be fine. I haven't been sleeping well, tho. No "but"s this time. Guess I should get that sorted.

All and all, life's been nice.

From Camila's perspective

There's something rather disturbing in the manner we talk to each other, me and her.

When we first met, our conversations stretched through cautious curiosity. Simple questions: "What's your favorite album?"; "How do play the violin so well?"; "What do you like so much about that song?" filled hours of conversation. If I'm being honest, I was the curious one. I'd ask, she'd answer. Not because she had no interest in me, but because watching her mind so effortlessly dance through passionate assertions mesmerized me. It's an ability I to this day long to have. Thus I'd ask again and again, and she'd answer again and again. It was a rather fetishistic affair, I guess. She provided me the pleasure of a speaking tongue, while I provide her with the pleasure of a listening ear.

If you can't beat them, join them.

There, though, came a time the questions ended. I hadn't understood her whole though, instead I had arrived at the limits of my own understanding. Her words slowly became too complex for me to grasp their meaning, terms too specific for me to adapt into my own thoughts. Before her steps guided me so easily through our usual routine, now she revolved under the spotlight as my wobbling legs struggled to keep up. This dreadful new reality took the innocent beauty of her monologues away, replacing it with a different kind of charm. I may have lost that warm waltz that shaped my happy afternoons, but I gained a competition to win.

If you can't beat them, join them.

So I trained, I ran, I studied her moves and adapted them into my own. Now it all seems so horribly stupid. Why would I ever make it into a race, when she had shot to start years before me? Nothing I did, nothing I said really mattered when she could express it with so much more grace. Not only through words, but also through song and sonata. I dreamed for so long of rivaling her, I wished so deeply to surpass her, that I had come to hate part of her. She never hated me though, because I never threatened her ego the way she did mine. She simply and earnestly loved me. That's what I hated most.

If you can't beat them, join them.

Then can't I just join her? If my life will reside in the background noise of her beautiful voice, can't I become another mouth for her to speak through? Won't that make my voice beautiful too?

Thus I give up. I give up speaking my own words. I give up thinking of my own melodies. I give up playing my own songs. I'll break it all with my own bruised hands if that's what it takes to empty myself, to become her vessel. As the pot helps the flower stand, and as the manure helps the garden grow. I'll devote my existence to her most hubrious dreams. They aren't too far away from my own after all.

So, for the past few days I've been experiencing a rather sudden decline in my mental health. Mainly due to gender dysphoria and the impeding threat of moving in with my parents and having to actively fight for the little freedoms I've managed to find while living away from them instead of enjoying them in secret.

For the sake of today's little vent, this culminated in a very strong urge to cut myself today night. It's not the first time, definitely the closest (as in "holding the blade against my skin and lightly brushing it between my leg hair, questioning if i should or not apply the actual pressure needed to make a cut" close). Regardless I decided not to go through with it. I've seen multiple friends put themselves in actual danger when they least expected due to going a bit too far with this kind of coping mechanism, so I should know better than to trust myself to cut with any kind of "prudence".

It made me question, though, why did I even want to cut myself in the first place? It's not like any distressing situation had happened, I literally had just gotten out of a pretty fun voice call with some of my closest friends. I didn't have a very good day at all, but I should have had time enough to calm down at this point.

The conclusion I came to felt silly, so silly I at first refused to acknowledge it (which is maybe the reason I was able to stop myself at all in the first place, such a silly reason wouldn't ever take me too far). In the end I had to accept that I wanted to cut myself as a way to prove my suffering is grand enough, that I was as deserving of concern as anyone else.

You see, I have a tendency to surround myself with people that have rather poor mental health. No friend of mine seems to ever be free of some kind of deep trauma, which makes sense, like attracts like and what not. But this does have the side-effect of making it so I'm generally the most positive/optimistic person in whatever group I'm in. Due to this I managed to convince myself of some kind of special happiness I seemed to have that proved itself fake in due time.

Truly, I am deeply unsatisfied with my current state, I've always been. Deprived of myself, I seem to lead an incomplete existence, a life which hasn't been mine for any of my years. My inability to act on my desires and responsibilities like a normal person, to look at myself as a being separate from my parents, to allow myself the vulnerability I ACTUALLY wish for; those really don't help either. Through trying to be a perfectly mature child, I not only failed on my mission, but also made myself into a childish adult, unwilling to engage with my emotions honestly. I expect myself to be able to deal with my problems alone. I get offended when offered help or advice. That's stupid and, although not my singular fault (I was raised to be like this after all), embarrassing to notice. Not to mention the traumas which preceded and proceeded all of this.

Regardless, my spirits stayed up. I have been keenly aware for years of this specific dissonance inside my mind. I simultaneously felt deeply unsatisfied with my life and truly ecstatic to be living it. I never understood it and probably still don't, at least not fully. I do though, understand it a little better.

What has always kept me happy are the simple pleasures of life. Eating, sleeping, playing, listening to music. These are all things we deeply enjoy, but I specifically made them into the meaning of my life. It couldn't be any different, really. I was raised by my parents, leaders, and honestly by my social standing, to see these not as necessities, but as special blessings. After all, not everyone has access to these. I'm granted many privileges others die while dreaming about, even if these "privileges" are things as essencial as a fulfilling meal or caring parents. This idea was essencial to my social and especially religious upbringing.

I relate such pleasures so deeply to spirituality; talking about the songs I love as "religious experiences" and seeking that specific kind of trill; thanking God so earnestly for the blessings of the day each night, for the comfortable bed I lay on, for the warm blanket I cover myself with, for the nice clothes I used while hanging out with the angels I call friend; all because these ARE religious experiences to me. Being mindful of these and grateful for them was always an essencial part of my existence, and that's what I somehow never connected.

So it's to be expected that I'd be unable to accept being sorry for myself, earnestly facing the level my dissatisfaction as anything other than sinful. Even if I experienced the same traumas, the same sadness, the same hopelessness as everyone that surrounded me, how could I ever freely vent about it with actual gravitas; how could I ever feel enough intense emotional pain to actually choose to deflect it onto my body; how could I ever sit with any of it for more than a few minutes without ending my thought process with "well, looking at the bright side..."

I didn't want to acknowledge I had any reason to be sorry for myself, so of course I'd have trouble acting sorry for myself. Of course I'd feel fortunate while still knowing how deeply I didn't want to live as myself anymore. That's the exact impulse I was raised to have.

Funnily enough, this never seemed to affect my relationship to art. I felt justified in speaking of such feelings through music and poetry, because then I'd be at least making some use of them.

Soon enough those became my only earnest outlets. Which I somewhat dread at this point.

So why did all of this make question my own pain?

I know myself. I know my fears. I know my sadness and my rage, so why would I ever consider them meaningless just because I never actually went through with any of my self-destructive wishes?

I'm rather embarrassed to say this, but my mind was brought back to one specific video essay I saw on youtube. In it, the person gave advice to fellow artists, as someone with experience creating art, and teaching art. The specific section that came to me was one about chasing the indications of success rather than success itself. What that means in the context of art and creation does not matter to us right now, rather, what that means in the context of suffering does.

I felt, for a moment, that cutting myself, like I'd seen others do, would be a way of proving to myself that my suffering was the same as the others around me. It would be a way of rejecting this conception of self-pity as sin and show myself that I feel just as much pain as everyone else. But I did have to admit. That's such a stupid idea. I shouldn't be comparing my own suffering to anyone else's anyway, let alone wanting to prove whether it's equal or not.

So I want to stop lying to myself and to others. Accept I am unhappy and enjoying some privileges which should actually be treated as necessities won't really change that. Maybe then I'll be less annoying about all of it.

I think about myself too much
I think about others to distract myself from myself
I think about pleasure to distract myself from myself
I think about sex to distract myself from myself
I think about masturbation to distract myself from myself
I think about music to distract myself from myself
I think music is a horrible distraction, since I'm rather bad at making it
I think I'm stuck in the past
I think I haven't moved on from anything ever
I think I want to hug him, and him, and her, and her, and them. I won't. It's for the best
I think I want to kiss him, and him, and her, and them. I won't. It's for the best
I think I'm gonna lose my job
I think I don't want my job. I do need it, tho
I think I'm so boring
I think I'm so two-faced
I think I'm so selfish. Am I?
I think I don't deserve anything
I think they should stop loving me
I think I want to break this damn laptop with my bare hands
I think I want to sink my nails into my skin and pull on my veins
I think I'm not sure I want to do that
I think I want to take estrogen
I think I want to be a girl. Just for once
I think I'm never going to have the life I want
I think I'll waste all my time away and die as if I never existed
I think I'm scared
I'm so scared
I'm so confused
I'm so fucking annoying

The themes of contrast and the dissolution of dichotomies are ones that always interested me, and as I grow up and learn more about the world and myself, this interest follows suit. Bringing together opposing ideas and emotions, showing the ways in which they relate and many times are actually interchangeable or come from the same source is just... fun, and very beautiful. So it's no surprise that, for years now, I have been obsessed with Iyowa's music.

Contrast fills the DNA of Iyowa's discography, both lyrically and acoustically.

Opposite themes of happiness and despair, childhood and adulthood, luck and misfortune, learning and confusion, love and hate adorn themselves with esoteric wordplay, brought together in the experience of one singular character. Mundane imagery such as watching movies while laying in bed is contrasted with hard to decipher metaphors and references to quite obscure concepts. Generating an emotional and relatable first experience, which quickly turns into a game of interpreting what these lyrics might be trying to convey.

What gets me the most though is always the production of the songs, which fully supports these opposing ideas through the simultaneous expression of contrasting emotions.

Catchy melodies sang by cutesy high pitched voices on top of seemingly random accompaniments played excitedly on the softest of instruments make up most of Iyowa's discography. Ugly chords smashed onto a piano; nonsensical verses played by an old music box; notes and rhythms bent out of shape to produce an uncanny facsimile of a children's lullaby. All of this grants the music an atmospheric feeling, despite its melodic nature.

The result is a seamless blend of chaos and comfort. Like being enveloped by the warm water of a roaring waterfall. Both falling asleep inside of its trance, and screaming in response to the power of something bigger than one's self feel like appropriate responses to the experience.



Although I have many favorites, one song stands out as a great example of Iyowa's approach: IMAWANOKIWA.

I recommend watching the music video before continuing. It's very beautiful and has english subtitles. You can click on the image or the song title above.

The song is written from the perspective of a girl who lost a loved one, and seeks to express her grief through their sweet memories together and the way in which the premature death made those into bitter reminders of everything she lost, everything she has come to hate. It concludes by calling attention to her sickened hope to see her lost friend once again. The result is a melancholic and despaired expression of a very painful feeling, that manages to paint a dark picture of the character's emotions without having to resort to any sort of graphic imagery.

The ways in which dichotomies are used is rather obvious, love and hate, hope and despair, happiness and sadness are all put against one another. The ways in which they are dissolved also, as they blend together into one singular experience, shown to not be separate entities, but intimately related parts of a whole. Parts which not only manage to coexist, but depend on each other.

As for the production, it includes all the tropes I previously talked about, while also effortlessly switching between moments of calmer contemplation and pained shouting. It's a song that couldn't exist in any form other than through Vocaloid. The inhumanity of the singer is used to great effect, most notably by abusing of its insane vocal range. To this day I haven't seen a person who can sing this song appropriately, simply because its melody climbs higher than a person can endure. This reinforces the intense feelings expressed by the lyrics in a manner only a vocal synthesizer could while also adding to the uncanny atmosphere the song seeks to create.

This is why I love Iyowa's music. It's both cute and grotesque, both fun and scary, all in a manner that's very unique. No one else sounds like him. I don't think anyone else could.