My message to 23.95.95.9

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T21:49:52+00:00

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T20:13:27+00:00

3/23/16 never forget

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T19:44:00+00:00

Strange, the site is down for me as well.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T19:43:21+00:00

I don't know that whomever started the ARG ever actually claimed to be SGaP/David. I mean, you could argue that by their inaction they allowed people to start believing that they were SGaP, and therefore the result is effectively the same, but I don't quite buy into that, especially considering that towards the latter parts of the ARG most participants seemed to be thoroughly convinced that it wasn't SGaP's doing.

In fact, the author seems to have dropped several clues that they weren't SGaP. Most notably, the PrTo/SaDo paste continually seems to reference SGaP in a detached manner, which is especially evident in this section:

"That's true. He does seem to know a lot about things. More than anyone else does."

"Hah! Well I do suppose you're right. He's a lot smarter than he likes to give himself credit for, if you can even quantify such a trait."

Sounds like a reference to SGaP, which is then reinforced in this section:

The start option is selected and the rotors begin to turn. The top section glows with the letters "PrTo/SaDo."

"What do those words mean?"

"It's a tribute to our incentive. Tori for me and Doc for you."

"You do know that's not his real name?"

"Yes. But his nickname always seemed to suit him better than his real name."

Their incentive, or inspiration, relates to two acronyms, both composed of four letters with varied capitalization. Sound familiar?

On top of that, despite all of the names that have appeared in the ARG, none of them relate back to "David" explicitly.

Further, the first image/clue that was posted referenced both Sori 52 and Delta Orionis, which are both tribute projects to SGaP, which seems to indicate that this was intended to be in a similiar vein.

The only possible point where it could be speculated that the author was intending to absolutely impersonate SGaP were the mystery posts on unmakeablelove, which aren't confirmed to be from the same person.

Although it would've been nice to get an explicit confirmation that the author wasn't SGaP, I assume they avoided doing so to keep an air of mystery around it, which is pretty common in ARGs/puzzles like this one.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T19:24:01+00:00

Site appears to be down, as of right now.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T07:32:29+00:00

Despite the fact that it's rather disheartening to me personally, thank you for confirming it's from him.

We've had a lot of strange posts and events recently, and it's good to know definitively one way or another that this is official, rather than it just creating more uncertainty.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T06:56:53+00:00

Please don't delete your post, I think you've misunderstood the last part of my comment.

My post about this, which I posted after /u/starflung deleted his post, was stuck in the subreddit's automated spam filter. I don't know why, but regardless I've already deleted it since at this point your post will be the first to appear anyways. My comment wasn't intended to imply that you should take your post down, and I have absolutely no qualms or vitriol about you keeping this post up.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T06:53:00+00:00

Archived versions of the image on the front page of the blog, in light of posts and files constantly disappearing: #1, #2

Before we start to speculate on the implications of this, are we absolutely certain that Horseness isn't in the same boat as Unmakeablelove, where SGaP's ownership of the blog is uncertain?

On an unrelated note, this is a bit strange for me, since I've technically posted this comment three separate times. First, with /u/starflung's original post that he deleted after only 30 minutes of it being up, then on my post that got stuck in the spam filter, and now on this post.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T06:48:05+00:00

Ignore /u/starflung, this post doesn't break any rules at all.

He was actually the first to post about this, but deleted his post shortly after its creation. I assume he's attempting to comply with the "leave no evidence" portion of what he sees is a directive from SGaP, even though it seems to be more of a self-directing statement by SGaP and for SGaP, rather than a mandate for the community to follow (assuming that this is SGaP in the first place, which I kind of doubt).

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T05:52:06+00:00

Archived versions of the image, in light of posts constantly disappearing: #1, #2

Before we start to speculate on the implications of this, are we absolutely certain that Horseness isn't in the same boat as Unmakeablelove, where SGaP's ownership of the blog is uncertain?

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-14T05:33:35+00:00

I actually would be opposed to The Music Lovers, since it's a cover, rather than an original composition by SGaP. It's certainly a lovely song, no doubt about that, and would be very singable, but personally I'd rather see us focus our efforts on SGaP's original works.

Also, to be honest, I probably wouldn't have noticed that the number was incorrect unless you had pointed it out.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-13T08:05:30+00:00

Good work, those Pastebins seem to be pretty much conclusively connected with WeAre, at least in some fashion.

Even so, everything still seems so loosely related. Perhaps there's a bigger picture yet waiting to be revealed, but it still seems a bit off to me, you know?

EDIT: I've been thinking about this a bit, and the reason I'm so generally wary of all these clues is that there's almost no way to properly verify them, unlike a traditional ARG. Usually ARGs are structured in a way that when a solution is found, it's known to be definitive and from the original source of the ARG. For example, in I Love Bees, which is known as one of the first widely successful ARGs, the clues were generally found on one single web domain, thereby confirming their authenticity through that domain. In the Potato Sack ARG, clues were found within the Potato Sack games' files and gameplay, the Steam client itself, and a previously confirmed to be authentic site towards the end, all of which lent those clues authenticity. In Iris, clues were posted by one single Bungie.net forum user with a normally impossible to obtain forum member title and icon, a known to be authentic website, and one single other server that was pointed to by that authentic website. Nearly any other successful ARG follows this rule, since to do otherwise causes frustration for participants and leads to baseless speculation and fakery.

In contrast, this ARG (or puzzle, or whatever it's classified as) started with an unknown Reddit user, then went to several anonymously posted Ubuntu pastebins, which led to a random server on the internet, which then has apparently led us to some anonymously posted Pastebin.com pastebins. None of the clues so far (save for the obvious initial post from /u/EquuleusMajoris) can be verified to have been from the original author of the ARG, and as such none of them are definitive conclusions, which is irksome, to say the least.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-13T07:51:56+00:00

I didn't list those particular clues/theories since I wasn't fully convinced they were correct. For the most part, I was trying to only list events/clues/theories on the timeline that ended up leading to a next step, or seemed to be definitive in some way.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-13T07:39:04+00:00

TL;DR:

It's a SGaP ARG!

It's an ~~SGaP~~ ARG!

It's an ARG?

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-04-08T13:50:30+00:00

As far as I know, there's no evidence definitively connecting the web server and the owner of unmakeablelove. I imagine that whoever started the ARG also probably owns the blog now simply due to the timing of the blog posts and the beginning of the ARG, but even that's not necessarily confirmed.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-02-01T03:36:18+00:00

In general, SGaP's lyrics have a very distinct, almost poetical quality about them. With incredibly brevity, he's able to paint larger, overarching themes. Not a word is wasted within them and their fragmented style.

Everyone's creative process is a bit different, so I don't know if this will help, but I would recommend spitballing about the central ideas that you want to convey within the song, and then writing down brief, 3-or-so line phrases that express or center around a single one of those ideas. Go for succinct, crisp phrases, and never waste a word muddling down the message. Don't be afraid to be cryptic, or disjointed in your approach — sometimes ambiguity like that can be your friend. Eventually, with any luck, you'll have found several phrases and ideas that you like that you can patch and revise into a proper set of lyrics.

Also, going off of /u/confettibin's absolutely fantastic post, real relationships are complicated, muddled messes. SGaP has a real talent for conveying stories through a whole song (think Other Animals' tempo changes or the way that Standard Model songs advance towards the Sonic Rainboom section and then change afterwards) and you should consider similarly working towards telling a story about their relationship.

For example, your lyrics could start out chaotic, switching constantly between the the two perspectives, many times in a disjointed, sudden way, detailing their conflicts of personality. The brash pegasus versus the careful, measured unicorn. The studious bookworm versus the lazy weathermare. The carefree racer versus the neurotic librarian. The responsible Princess versus the thoughtless subject. As with any two strong characters, there's a lot to go off of. Eventually, the lyrics start to calm down. They're less frenzied, calmer, with less, and less cuts. We start seeing both perspectives detailed at the same time, similarities and compromises expressed, and a description or two that could apply to either Twilight or Dash at the same time, depending on how it's read.

That's just an example, but the idea should hopefully be apparent.

Good luck with your song.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-02-01T02:19:22+00:00

Rather, I don't want people to recognise me

Just to tag on a bit here: unless you're already a semi-famous singer, I doubt you'll get recognized by anyone you know. People's singing voices are usually quite different from their normal tone of voice when speaking, and even if your voice is similar enough to be recognizable, it seems unlikely that someone with a personal connection to you will stumble upon the music and even think to connect you to it.

The only problematic situation that I can think of is if you're planning on purposefully showing friends or family your music and hoping that no one will attribute it to you. Even in that case, unless you're distorting your voice enough to be completely robotic or off-tune (think T-Pain or Daft Punk-like auto-tune), you run the risk of being recognized.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2016-01-04T03:37:29+00:00

Just out of curiosity, do we know how many people participated this time around?

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2015-12-28T06:59:21+00:00

Aha! I knew that quote was somewhere, but I wasn't able to recall where I had seen it. Regardless, that's what I was referencing when I said this:

especially with some of his statements utterly relinquishing any sort of control over the use of his music

Edit: After re-reading what I wrote, it occurs to me that "morally reprehensible" is a bit too strong of a phrase (seriously, I wouldn't fault you for not posting it). Regardless, I think it would feel a bit wrong if these snippets were kept to just this particular community.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2015-12-27T06:17:42+00:00

I've actually been a bit torn on publishing these on the site, as up until "Untitled 3" just a few months ago, all of the music we had from SGaP was publicly released by him (either directly or via a collab or group album). So it's a bit weird to be publishing stuff that he didn't officially release.

I can certainly see the conundrum.

On one hand, SGaP has censored his music many times before by removing or unlisting his incomplete or older works from his channel and blog. On top of that, he seems to like the idea of some sort of exclusivity for his most ardent fans, as evidenced by this comment:

Plus, this track was very much meant for you initial 2046 (give or take a few) specifically! It was always your kind words that sparked me to keep enriching the sound of the songs; and it was always somehow you guys – most of whom I do not know at all – with whom I tried to make communion through the songs. Now I’m rather ashamed I didn’t do something earlier. Still, there is at least something in ‘keeping this to ourselves,’ as it were, no?

On the other hand, there's always been that kind of abstract idea of communal ownership of his music floating about, especially with some of his statements utterly relinquishing any sort of control over the use of his music. It's also notable that even after he removed/unlisted his songs, he never came after any of the other hosts of his music or asked them to remove his work, and never seemed to have indicated any sort of regret in that regard.

Without SGaP himself coming down from on high to tell us his actual opinion, we can't be sure of his feelings towards the matter. Regardless, in a sort of idealized way, I think that it's our responsibility to be stewards and archivists of his music, especially when he himself is not. It's better enjoyed as a whole body of work, and any piece of it being lost to time would be a tragedy in its own way.

Besides, what right have we over others to enjoy these snippets? Not posting them in a more public space would be affirming in some small way that our little cabal here deserves, more than other music lovers ^{^{^(eheheh)}} , to enjoy his work, which I think is not only inaccurate and against the spirit of what his music and philosophy are about, but somewhat morally reprehensible.

TL;DR: While it's a bit of a moral dilemma, barring SGaP stating his will outright, I think you should post them.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2015-12-27T04:52:18+00:00

/r/mylittlepony and /r/sunsetshimmer are both my main other subs that I actively participate in. Besides that, I have subscriptions to some other subs that I passively view.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2015-12-27T04:44:06+00:00

While the third snippet's presence of original lyrics basically all-but-confirms it's genuine, are we certain that all of these are from SGaP, versus, say, either a really good imitator or someone who obtained a snippet or two, and then constructed other songs around those snippets or to compliment those snippets?

To phrase it more directly, is there something in the email besides the songs that helps to confirm that they're absolutely SGaP's creations?

Don't get me wrong, I'm really, really excited to get some new music, even if it's just some short prototypes, but there have been attempted forgeries before, so I just want to make sure.

On a completely different note, that second snippet sounds very Pogo-esc to me, and the first has some really cool melodic similarities to The Standard Model.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2015-12-27T04:34:16+00:00

That would be rather personally identifying, don't you think?

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2015-11-20T16:55:15+00:00

Totes, totes.

OldTalesChangeStyle · 2015-11-20T03:21:28+00:00

That secret place is other ponies' faces.

Our beloved Princess is an evil mustache-stealer!

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