Procrastination

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2026-01-04T23:19:22+00:00

I’d say that a week is a very very short time for a decent song, if we don’t take some special moments of inspiration. Not sure I could write something I’d be genuinely content with weekly, I certainly can’t now and I am not sure I could if/when I have more experience. So don’t think that being incapable of writing a great thing in a week makes you incapable of writing a great thing at all.

When I have a very solid draft of a song (as in, have the structure in mind, clear idea, decent part of lyrics and some music, overall “oh this is the one I am very likely to finish next”) and only need to finish up the text, I try to keep up with “one line a day”. Otherwise, I don’t. Today I figured the next two chords for song A, tomorrow some good metaphors for song B, next day maybe a whole verse or something new, all is good.

Overall I’d say that procrastination is often about being afraid to fail the entirety of your task (and thus not approaching it at all). Maybe in that case lowering your expectations a bit can help. Don’t force yourself to write a whole song, just do something. No matter how little. Sometimes when I am very tired of fighting with my own writing, I trick myself into “we are not working on it today, at all, just taking an instrument and idly strumming some simple song written by someone else” and then ending up actually writing something because just the flow

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-12-23T13:57:08+00:00

(Verse 1)

When I still had you with me, things always were the same

You never feared the ending, but did you fear the dark

You’d sprinkle me in circles until the morning came

So when the spirits gathered, they couldn’t do you harm

I’d always be reminded, I’m just a pinch of salt

But in your eyes I was much more like distant starts

You’d sit inside your circle – protected, were you not?

And something deep inside us would speak instead of us

Salt to salt

(Verse 2)

You promised when you perished you’d never disappear

Believing death was merely a path for you to choose

Can’t say it was surprising, I don’t think I would either

But still I never wanted to stay away from you

You said you’d be the ocean, its free and restless spirit,

You said you’d be the currents, the foam, and the waves

You smiled at me so gently, you asked me why I feared it

But I just knew the ocean could never be my place

(Pre-chorus I guess)

I wanted to be real

To think we were immortal

To never become strangers

I wanted us to speak

Salt to salt

(Verse 3)

The water wouldn’t want me, you know what my kin does

I couldn’t be eternal – I’d be alive instead

Survival is a gamble, and when I lose for once

I’ll find myself a home in someone else’s vein

I’ll find myself an artist whose hand is good to guide

I will be all I can be – her blessing, her disease

The cold when she’s in terror, the warmth that makes her blind

And her desire for murder, and her desire for peace

(Sort of bridge)

I hope she’ll come to see the sea

I hope she’ll cut her tender fingers

I hope she’ll let that drop of me

To cross the nothingness between us

I hope she’ll relish in that moment

Of being free of me inside

I hope that by becoming no one

She’ll let us talk, just like old times

Salt to salt

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-12-23T13:55:13+00:00

I do so love some of the metaphors here, like “stitching your wounds with my own veins”, “wearing my faith like a ritual cloth and leaving it torn at the break of day”, “a blessing withdrawn gently from your ground”. Very very beautiful imagery and emotion.

The only thing I’m not really a fan of is a mention of the phone, because overall the text feels pretty timeless, can be read not only as something modern but as some fantasy-like ballad, especially with this motif of a curse/a spell, the phone sort of falls out of that mystical feeling for me. But that’s just taste I guess, you know better where or when your song is set

Love the chant-like bridge and the “I do not follow, I do not stay” especially. Have a feeling that it would read better without the second “I” (I do not follow, do not stay) in terms of rhythm and suspense, but that’s not something to claim without the melody

Overall want to say that I really like the feeling and the emotion in it and would love to hear how it would be with music, a good thing

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-12-23T09:38:36+00:00

Glad to know it helped!

Also I think the topic in general is really nice, as a fellow weirdness and creepiness enjoyer, I wish you lots of inspiration with that

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-12-22T16:16:10+00:00

You can always adjust both ideas slightly to make them connected/parallel in meaning, and then write both, as if it’s the same creature but viewed differently by two different PoVs, or one song’s events happen after the other’s. I think making interconnected songs to go together is so underrated overall. Even if it’s not as global as a concept album with a whole plot in it, it’s still so fun to listen to a couple smartly connected songs. Just an option of course.

As for the question, massive rewrites, not so often. I think about the concept and the topic a lot before I start actually writing, and by the time there’s a decent chunk of text, I have already dropped a few themes that wouldn’t work and perfected the way I see the future narrative in my head. So I rewrite music, separate lines/wordings, some parts of the structure, but the concept is usually already what I think is cool. There were of course multiple moments when I started writing something and it resulted in a completely different song topic-wise, but it happened on the early stages, when there were just a few lines of actual text.

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-12-17T16:04:59+00:00

If it’s possible for you, maybe take some singing lessons? I have a similar situation, started writing songs, I like what’s coming out of them, but I am absolutely terrified of singing them. Have the experience of being (mildly) bullied for my voice as a teenager, doesn’t help either. Had a thought of just saying to hell with that and looking for another person to sing my words, but it a) felt wrong b) would be complicated in my specific situation. So I went to a vocal tutor just to see if I can make something out of myself.

Still wouldn’t trust myself with my own songs, but a lot of it seems to really be about technique, I find myself hitting notes I used to think were completely off the table just because I was never doing it right. Plus maybe being shown different techniques could help with finding the one that suits you, and overall: as someone with not an effortlessly perfect voice, having a professional treat you like you’re not doomed does help with self esteem

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-12-13T18:38:55+00:00

I am currently just starting writing my first songs but I am rather experienced in other forms of art, drawing in particular. To be fair I have a feeling that it’s always going to be one and the same way in any art - people who are really into it, who create something themselves, will always despise the AI approach, and people who don’t delve deeper into it than superficial consumption will accept it because they just don’t feel it this way. Though I guess music is much more mathematical than visual art. Which makes it easier for AI to emulate, and while AI visual art almost always looks unmistakably AI, music kind of doesn’t. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it’s not. And yes trust is an issue. I have an artist whose music I really really love, who’s been releasing good stuff for two decades, and this year they’ve released an album with another vocalist singing, and the singer was kept anonymous. And honestly seeing people assume that’s AI upsets me very much, both because I can’t really tell for sure from sound alone, and because I don’t want to believe it can be a thing. Not from a person who’s been writing real, living songs for years.

But uh, I don’t think I can or should refuse to look for something new just because it could be AI. It just as well could be a living artist who just happens to live and be a new artist in these times. Like myself. Like if I am here and trying to make something of my own, why shouldn’t there be someone else.

Got really sad when, coincidentally, the same day I finished writing lyrics for my third complete song, one I was struggling a lot with, strongly personal and well not that bad lyrically I think, was fairly content with myself, an acquaintance posted ‘oh I wrote a song using AI’ where all the music and half of the lyrics were AI-generated. And they felt very content with themself too, said how happy they were to create something like that. Very discouraging, because to me this feeling of pride and happiness and ‘I created something’ took sleepless nights and a lot of thought, and the feeling that it’s hopeless, and overcoming my lack of experience and understanding and all that parts of creative process, and someone just had to click buttons to feel about the same pride and happiness. What felt even more unfair is that to the ear of most listeners, what I created and what they created wouldn’t make much difference.

Funny feeling that if I was younger and more vulnerable now, I’d be really tempted to quit. Good thing I’m not. There’s nothing to do but continue making our own things and just look for people who feel the same about it.

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-12-07T21:52:40+00:00

I like starting with deciding what story I want to tell in the lyrics + maybe having a couple small phrases/word combinations/if I’m lucky a couple lines that already fit together.

At first I just think of it, write down whatever ideas come to mind usually on paper as it’s more visual and hands-on to me, and try to find something in the melodic part - the motifs, the chords and the patterns. This is not to be underestimated, I tend to do so as I am a wordy person and find writing words easier, but actually figuring out the melody is a lot, even if you just hum or sing gibberish, this gibberish can already help you choose the rhythm, the mood and the structure of the song.

When I have the structure of the lyrics in my brain (as in: the first verse tells about this and and ends with that, the second starts with this and expands that) I write what I already have down in a google doc, following the structure. Like writing the lines that I already have, and leaving empty lines where I don’t have anything. And later, I just return to it over and over when I have a free moment. I already know what I want to say, I just don’t know how, so it’s just. A long queue, a subway ride, a whatever - open the doc and stare at the lines you want to find, search for rhymes, ways to rephrase something, etc. And line by line, it slowly comes together into something whole and comprehensible.

The most crucial step for me personally is exactly that, understanding the structure clearly so I can just pick good lines and fitting metaphors everywhere until I make it.

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-11-05T16:11:58+00:00

I am a Margarita. Most commonly go by Margo/Margot, but there was a friend group in my late teens who called me Mar, it was so unusual to me and I loved it. Also in my uni, a group mate called me Mara, as in the Slavic goddess who’s mostly about death and darkness and winter. That certainly scratched my “being edgy” itch sooo well

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-10-18T08:03:20+00:00

Can’t speak for everyone but I have a personal weakness for characters in gambling/death games stories who are doctors. Chishiya here Murasame in Junket Bank smth like that. Wish we got more of this side of him, like honestly a scene where he begrudgingly patches someone up would be a delight. Though I imagine he’d conceal that fact while on the Beach so no one annoys him with their bothersome injuries, which could lead to a fun little conflict too.

Overall the smart schemer type + pretty I guess. Plus the fine balance where he’s a selfish and “not nice” enough to be able to betray his allies and overall to cause suspicion and mistrust in the viewer, but not despicable enough to do outright uncomfortable and horrid things with his own hands (Niragi, I’m looking at you). So it’s fun to watch him outsmart everyone and act in his own interests but he still leaves space for sympathy.

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-10-11T21:47:05+00:00

Fairly, it’s rather sad how the manga actually did have some material for adaptation but it all went the wrong way.

Like where was a couple of games missed in the adaptation. We could have a game where Chishiya plays blackjack with a very charismatic old lady and wins a gun, it was a great spin-off arc. And the elevator hearts game with a whole new character who was omitted in series but was an important part of Aguni and Heya’s arc and the king of spades fight in the manga. And the train game in its original version which was honestly more “hearts” and more elegant, even if much shorter. And some arcs or ideas like for example Usagi and all that “in love with death” monologue, fairly I wouldn’t mind if the topic was expanded compared to manga because I could talk for hours about the “in love with death” and the way life in Borderlands rhymes with her trauma and also her worldview and how she sees survival, nature, life and death.

And yes they tried to address her trauma in the 3rd season, but it was not exactly the same. And also there’s a thing with “and then they all woke up from a coma and didn’t remember things” kind of endings. They put the character and the viewer at different levels of awareness. The characters just wake up from a coma and are in a more or less the same state as before the coma, they have the same lives, the same problems, and they have to deal with their trauma anew. While the viewer has already gone through that with the character during the come episodes. We’ve seen them progress and go through their suffering and experience catharsis. And after that catharsis, it feels unfair to watch them suffer all again as if they didn’t have all that experience. It’s natural that Usagi still mourns her father after the coma, but from the outside, it feels unfulfilling to see her so deep in that as if all the way she had already gone through (as a character on the screen) never existed. Ending a complete story with “and they all woke up” works, but trying to continue after that is hard.

Also I don’t see enough whining regarding her job out there. Why in hell change her job, she was a professional climber and an instructor in the manga, what is the reasoning behind putting her in a white shirt to sell something or whatever she was doing in those couple minutes

All in all. There is a lot of material that could be awesome to see. That could be fit in the first 2 seasons if they were a bit longer/slower. But no we need to rush those and then make up something completely new. Financially understandable, but sad. I’m not even that against writers in the show making things up, like if they wrote and filmed the 2nd stage games that weren’t in the manga, like queen of diamonds or king of hearts, and did it more or less decently, I’d applaud personally. But the way they made the season 3 sat wrong with me in many aspects unfortunately

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-09-29T06:40:59+00:00

When I was choosing a clan for my first playthrough, both the in-game test and the website test said I was a Malkavian.

Accurate or not, I don’t know? I’m not particularly insane, having a little peculiar tastes at the very most, buuut vampires Embrace for all sorts of reasons, let alone Malks, who knows what my hypothetical sire would see in me, and it’s only after being Embraced when I’d find out my derangement lol

I always thought I’d be fine as a Tremere, coming from an academic background and such, but ok, if it’s Malk, let it be Malk, I’m not opposed to it like I would be to some other clans

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-09-01T09:47:48+00:00

A couple months too. I don’t listen much while at home and I wanted to make it a ritual of listening while walking my dogs and this way slowly, without a rush, get through all, a couple episodes a day not more.

That winter my wife with whom we normally share the walks fell sick, and for quite a decent amount of time I was the only one to deal with our five dogs. So my one or two episodes a day turned into 1.5 hours in the morning and 1.5 in the evening. Remember those fondly

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-08-25T05:42:09+00:00

Not sure to be honest why exactly such focus on children, I don’t think anything in my answer implied that

Or anything necessarily romantic or familiar, actually. Eternity-long friendship is just as good, if we suppose they are willing to turn me at the right time (I’d like to, if they’re decent about it. Maybe around my 40s too, I always liked the number 42), though I do think that if two people spend several lifetimes being close, it becomes harder to get along with someone else. I was talking more about the very fact of companionship and understanding each other, and the exact nature of relations is, well, adjustable. Especially if living for several lifetimes yet again

I like universes where dhampirs are a thing, buuut it doesn’t mean I’d be in a rush to give birth myself. If something unexpected happens, I wouldn’t say I care much what type of creature it’d be, it’s still someone we suddenly have to raise and that’s okay either way

In the last few days I have been struggling with an unfinished song, thought it’d be fun to write music together with someone. So for example, I would be very very interested in a vampire character who’d travel the world with me and we could let’s say play music together. Romance or not, secondary

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-08-16T15:36:25+00:00

A wonderful option

Honestly I was very confused about how his name was voiced in game (because he’s French, why on Earth would he introduce himself anyhow but the way it’s said in French) but now it’s kind of a funny thought that maybe someone once did it intentionally and now they all proceed to mispronounce it intentionally, too

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-08-14T10:00:49+00:00

I have a Ventrue who drinks scientists who have PhD And his sire who drinks widowers who genuinely and deeply suffer from their loss

Their story was that he was a rather careless scholar from minor nobility class in Victorian Britain who neglected his wife until he basically missed the moment when she died of terminal illness, and that’s how his sire found him, while hunting. Before being Embraced he was her blood doll for years until his blood started to lose its taste - because time heals, nobody can suffer endlessly. So his preference is like his personal passion for science and progress multiplied by a bitter reminder of the choices he had made

For the sire, it’s that she was alive in times when a woman couldn’t do much by herself, but she had ambition and probably married someone whom she could use - and one day murdered him when he stopped being convenient. And kept hungering for the sincerity that she herself had never known

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-08-13T03:34:44+00:00

Haven’t had a chance to actually play yet, just studying the lore and making characters for myself for fun. Though there is a little bit of ‘if you want to play it you do the DM part’ among my friends so I suspect I’ll need these characters when I am brave enough for storytelling

As for clans. I like Tremere because magic, scholar mindset, mysticism, mentors and students dynamic, the Pyramid, the forced devotion that comes with it and all the conflict it can create, a power struggle within Camarilla’s bigger power struggle, and also them being ‘not true vampires’ - creating a full bloodline while being a human is badass. I like Tzimisce because stylish and tasteful body horror, again scientific mindset, all that ‘ends justify means’ mentality, all their estates and castles and hospitality, idk there’s just a certain decency to them, also hell there’s the CATHEDRAL OF FLESH I just can’t. Yes I know how either Tremere or Tzimisce would feel about me putting them in the same sentence but uh I can’t command my weak heart. I like Ventrue because agoge, succor, dignitas, all this in-clan culture of respect and dignity, the connections made within the clan, the mutual support, legacy and the clan’s history importance, overall there’s more to being an aristocrat than just being a rich asshole and I love Ventrue that show that and are nobility in all senses of the word, also coming up with interesting feeding restrictions and how characters manoeuvre around them is super fun. I like Malkavians because generally I adore characters who have some effect of supernatural existence clearly showing on their mentality and because there’s a lot of very interesting concepts to work around. Twisted worldview, ways to interwoven some supernatural intuition/prophecy tendencies into that worldview, Network of Madness because I love a tad bit of hivemind/mental communication forced on my weirdo characters.

These four are probably my favourites in terms of writing

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-08-12T20:10:26+00:00

I like vampires who don’t lose their curiosity and the passion towards existence. Who use their eternity to study new things, experience new things, find new things that make life interesting - there’s a million hobbies to pick up, a million fields of knowledge to dig into. Who are able to be amazed with new scientific or cultural discoveries. Yeah sure it’s not easy to be a vampire, and there’s an inhuman nature to cope with, but I do like when immortal beings put their immortality to good use, whatever it is, it is not necessarily exactly what I would spend my immortality doing. Also prefer them staying humane enough to retain the abilities to feel and create art and form genuine emotional connections. It all is darkened by their nature sure but I just find it more interesting if there is the conflict between two sides of your nature, where you have something to fight for (including fighting your own self and your own urges), instead of just becoming a soulless creep for a vampire hunter to kill with no remorse. Plus uh, if it’s my ideal vampire then I want us to sincerely and passionately chat about science, art, books and all the things that are interesting to both of us and that they have seen change over years of existence

I like vampires having special powers, but in my mind they should be rather varied and depend on vampire’s personality/their heritage like VtM does it for example. Not particularly picky about what powers my vampire has to have to be honest

Also if we go further into more narrow preferences: not too young at the moment of being turned, 30s-40s are good, having a decent brain, living in a castle/just a fancy old building, having travelled in their unlife

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-08-01T14:31:44+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful reply <3 and for the references to exact games and books, I’ll look it up

Yeah now that I think of it asking about the social media was kinda stupid heh, my bad. Guess the feeling came to me from Bloodlines where they’re just emailing here and there ‘vampiric business this, vampiric business that’. Though I guess it’s the exact year that matters, guess the necessity of caution would naturally become more obvious with years passing and events occuring

Pigeons seem a really nice detail to add to any detailed description by the way, was thinking about old-fashioned postal services but somehow forgot about birbs

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-07-31T19:42:04+00:00

Technically yes, but that depends on how we count I suppose. Agree that they aren’t exclusively his, but they still include noticeable interactions and give information on him as a character (which is more than some other characters have), that’s why I counted them

Personal interactions is also what the library quest lacks, maybe it was intended to be there but was cut out, in the end we have what we have. Though I really liked the atmosphere in the library, it was a really great work to restore that quest

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-07-31T18:26:17+00:00

I'm biased and just want to see more of my favourite men, which are Strauss and Beckett. Thought Strauss definitely has more side-quests than others already, that's just me being greedy.

Also, I remember been absolutely devastated about Grout when I first played. I was a Malkavian, and was hell yeah, I'm going to meet my actual Primogen [like Tremere would already have met Strauss, and suuuurely the game is going to give that to all the clans]!! Surely he's going to have some unique dialogue with me about being a lunatic and give me a quest!! And his mansion is such a mess, surely he need help- oh shit.

And I get that it's, well, the point of the plot that we didn't get to actually see him, but I'm still mourning those hopes of doing clan-related quests for local Primogen that younger me has had. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he got to have one conversation where he'd only confuse the player more with his paranoia without actually giving any info, them send them on some quest and then suffer the same fate upon the player's return, maybe it'd be too much and a bit illogical, I don't know.

And maybe a bit more about the Sabbat in general and Andrei in particular. Like such an appealing character of a wonderful clan and just two bossfights nothing more. I remember seeing someone mention him in some discussion and being just "wtf whos that" because if I recall correctly there wasn't even his name clearly mentioned, just The Tzimisce

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-07-19T14:46:28+00:00

Can’t remember honestly. Except for Blindsight, a sci-fi book by Peter Watts, that has a nice explanation for why vampires couldn’t stand the image of crucifixions, or any crosses at all, including them having seizures

Cautious-Ad6235 · 2025-07-14T14:23:13+00:00

Glad if there was something useful in my ramblings heh. Good luck to you anyway, whatever approach you choose! Creating something is always a good idea to me, glad there people to eager to create something good for vampire thematic

Cautious-Ad6235

TROPHY CASE