Guestbook

Wow, I randomly found your site, and it's something else... it's hard to describe with words. It's like a huge rabbit hole... I felt disconnected from the world when browsing it. Really awesome, I wish we had more of this stuff instead of petty social media profiles or whatever. ~~Anonymous 2023-05-07(Sun)09:38:58 No.145

Cheers! I can't say for sure, but I believe people usually feel like that when they browse the so-called "small web" AKA personal sites, at least the ones that aren't just a bunch of links to petty social media profiles. It is said that every person is a world of his or her own, and even if you don't believe that, (good) personal sites certainly are worlds of their own. cidoku.net barely has any content compared to some of my favorite sites, so it's quite the small world, indeed, but I do what I can. Have fun browsing and thanks for coming by! ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-05-07(Sun)14:25:38 No.146

It would be nice for a place like this to have a webring of personal blogs. ~~Anonymous 2023-05-20(Sat)20:46:13 No.151

Pretty colors WOAH So much gud stuff too! I wish I could make something like this (well, technically I am, but I’m regretting how it looks) ~~Feido 2023-05-16(Tue)05:15:17 No.147

Thank you! I'm sure you'll be fine; Rome wasn't built in a day. ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-05-17(Wed)20:59:37 No.148

"Now I am become an hero, Destroyer of LOLz..." -Gay Robert Emoheimer. ~~Anonymous 2023-04-23(Sun)14:57:30 No.144

I'm supposing you write creatively? Your notes are quite well put together, and I notice you have some OCs under the 'stars' page. I write creatively myself. Currently I'm writing a short story based off of DH Lawrence's 'The Prussian Officer'. I think short stories and TV episodes are a good place to analyse story-writing (Movies as well). Due to their briefness, they concentrate storytelling to a very fine point. One thing I've noticed about successful stories is that they are essentially all about desire and tension and stakes. Desire is what your character wants. Stakes are what they might lose by not getting it. From there they essentially spend the whole story balanced on a knife-point of ever increasing tension. I think tension is the most important, and the one I'm personally having most difficulty with. If you open any random book; a good one, or at least a bestseller, you will notice a certain tension right from the first sentence-- a feeling that things are not quite right, that things are just a bit uncomfortable, that things aren't quite what they used to be--that something is about to 'happen', essentially. That something *has* to happen. 'Father Azetti was tempted.'- The first line of 'The Genesis Code' by John Case. Post truncated. Enter the thread to view. ~~Anonymous 2023-04-23(Sun)06:50:28 No.141

I never expected such an effortpost here. Life truly is all about surprises. >I'm supposing you write creatively? Your notes are quite well put together, and I notice you have some OCs under the 'stars' page. Hmm. I'm not sure. Writing, in general, is not something I do very often. I was focusing on character design until very recently, but I have written a few stories here and there (that I never published anywhere, of course). I make characters to use them in stories, and I do have a writing project in the works featuring one of them that I'll publish here, time permitting. As for your comment about my notes, thank you very much. >One thing I've noticed about successful stories is that they are essentially all about desire and tension and stakes. I loved this mini-essay of yours. As the most amateurish of amateurs, I had never noticed this consciously, but in hindsight the importance of conflict is quite clear (and dare I say "obvious"?). I went through the books in my bookshelf and, indeed, tension is felt right from the first sentence, as you said. This all reminded me of a hilarious book I read a few years ago titled "How NOT to write a novel"; one of the first mistakes it mentions is writing a story without conflict and that, therefore, goes nowhere. Marvelous! Your thoughts on emotions and "micro-tensions" are interesting and make sense. You say the story you're analyzing "crackles with tension" and has "little points of conflict and conflicting emotions". Are all successful stories like this? It sure seems like it when I think about it, as I can't put my finger on any stories that lack this. I'm not sure if you're gonna see this, but what are some examples of stories that fail at this? Or are they hard to find precisely because they aren't engaging enough to remember? Good luck with your story and thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-04-23(Sun)13:49:17 No.142

>I'm not sure if you're gonna see this, but what are some examples of stories that fail at this? Or are they hard to find precisely because they aren't engaging enough to remember? It's definitely hard to put your finger on specific stories which fail at this. When I struggled to think of published work, my mind wandered to fanfiction, where examples are rife, but still, I couldn't name any one particular story. The problems themselves are easier to remember than the works which feature them. Various 'low tension traps'; like leaving your characters with nothing at stake (nothing to lose), or leaving them with no desire (nothing to gain), or having nothing that opposes them... Poorer works often begin with things that are naturally anathemic to reader enjoyment; Exposition dumps, descriptions of how great life is for the protagonist before the story gets rolling, descriptions of the weather... The biggest sin would be that there is nothing to lose. In real life, when you see a car accident, you find yourself transfixed. The fact that you are witnessing a real event with your own eyes brings a sort of intimacy to it. You'd think 'There but for the grace of God go I...' Essentially it makes you think about hoe you too could lose your life. In fiction no such tension exists, since you know from the outset that none of it is real. You know you will not lose your life or your sanity or whatever. You have nothing to lose. So an author must introduce you to a character, make you bond with them, and then give *them* something to lose, so that you, who cares about them, will start to worry, and keep those pages turning. However, poor writers dont give their audience anything to worry about. Their characters are physically invulnerable, socially on top, emotionally stable-- whenever an unpleasant situation seems to rear its head the writer quashes it before the audience had any time to fret. A writer should be like a torturer; putting the thumbtacks to their victims until it becomes almost too much to take. Only then can they pull back and provide some relief. For example, a tense dialogue exchange would start with something like 'So let me get this straight...' From then on the dialogue is a conflict; one character struggling to convice the other of something. It could also start with 'It's not right to...' after which it would probably be an argument about morals; two worldviews in conflict, always interesting. Post truncated. Enter the thread to view. ~~Anonymous 2023-04-23(Sun)14:52:44 No.143

I'm not sure how I ended up here but your place is pretty cool dude! Very inspiring ~~cupid 2023-04-22(Sat)16:14:36 No.139

Thank you and don't worry, I have no idea how people find this place either. ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-04-22(Sat)16:44:27 No.140

Exploring the road less traveled ~~Buzzo 2023-04-21(Fri)23:53:33 No.135

An adventurer, I see. Have you found anything good? ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-04-22(Sat)00:09:10 No.136

My name is Elaine Kim and I think you're the coolest! I'm a huge fan of your site! I even used to live right by you. Anyhow, I always see people doing these video essays or stories in web magazines about the 'indie-web', but they always suck. So I'm gonna start my own webmagazine. It's gonna be the best websites and pics of me naked (just kidding). It's gonna be full of copyrighted music and will have a fancy mouse icon because I made so much money stripping and hooking (Just kidding. Or am I?!?) Anyways, you're gonna get the full Elaine Kim treatment. ~~Elaine Kim 2023-04-21(Fri)05:37:39 No.133

Good to know the person living inside my walls is a fan of the site. Thanks! As for your magazine: sure, sounds fun. Don't forget to share it when you're done, but if you make me look bad, I'll have no option but to destroy you. Cheers! ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-04-21(Fri)19:24:01 No.134

Your site is wonderful, cidoku. I especially liked your music, the maze game, and i'm in the process of processing your huge anime list, but i'm already discovered quite a lot titles i love very much. I hope you enjoy life, see you later when fate makes our ways cross again. ~~Torsades 2023-04-17(Mon)01:38:58 No.130

Cheers, Torsades! It's funny; I never thought anyone would read those lists. It's sad how I don't find much enjoyment in anime these days, pretty much only reading books and manga instead. I think I may have already watched everything I wanted to watch, but I'm glad I did. Thank you for passing by; may life treat you well! ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-04-17(Mon)12:17:24 No.132

What a berry nice place. Your music made me consider getting a real synthesizer instead of just using VSTs for my music. Have a wonderful day! ~~Berryn 2023-04-09(Sun)19:45:57 No.123

4 posts omitted. Enter the thread to view.

Thank you for the kind words, friend. I never want to stop trying. I was lucky to find my synths locally, used, for "reasonable" prices. Aside from the Volca Sample (which is a real fun machine, even if I'm not too sure how I feel about its raw sound), the other two machines I have (a Minilogue and a TD-3) are analog. I might be wrong, but I'm of the impression that digital synths are no different from using VSTs, except with buttons and knobs; and even though buttons and knobs are good enough reasons to get a physical digital synth anyway, I can use a cheap MIDI controller with VSTs for the same experience, so I went with the analogs... Of course, making your own synths is waaaay cooler than buying a synth, and I bet you could gain a much deeper intuition for sound design that way. ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-04-15(Sat)14:39:18 No.128

>>128 So great you found some. Now that I think about it, the shop guy used to have a broken minimoog but he sent it to be repaired; maybe once it gets back to the store I might be able to get it, who knows? Btw I meant VST, sorry. I thought digital synths were computer programs but apparently they are their own hardware after all. I already learned some audio engineering for mixing and I am wondering if maybe learning how to synth might be the next frontier. LADSPA sounds fun to try. ~~Berryn 2023-04-16(Sun)19:03:49 No.129

Oh, don't worry, I knew you meant VST. Making your own hardware synth is, of course, a completely different story. Well, what else can I do but to wish you good luck? If you ever end up making something, don't forget to show it to your good pal cid! I'm always reading this thing. ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-04-17(Mon)12:07:32 No.131

I want to kiss your lips, handsome! ~~MeeMa 2023-03-31(Fri)23:20:35 No.121

I appreciate it, but can you recite the New Testament in less than five seconds? ~~cidoku ## Admin 2023-03-31(Fri)23:40:55 No.122

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