Topic on Talk:Kelvin Drumsolo

hey i thought about the name "kelvin drumsolo" too much so here i am, writing an irm

summery, per inumos advice: i imagine kelvin drumsolo as a shoddy junk robot obsessed with alvin and the chipmunks and other cartoon rats, who hates humanity due to an encounter with the FBI.

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Origins

Kelvin Drumsolo started life as a neural network algorithm intended to autonomously download and label pirated music for its owner, a Hi-Fi nightcore music enthusiast. However, severe mistakes in the network's training dataset caused the algorithm to download both nightcore and regular-speed music, much to its owners frustration. Despite repeated attempts to refine the training dataset, the algorithm later known as Drumsolo continued to download and (incorrectly) label music at random, eventually discovering several "Alvin and the Chipmunks" CDs which, to its broken logic, satisfied a paradoxical requirement for music to both be nightcore and not-nightcore (or, as Drumsolo's owner called it, "the sad music").

Enraged by Alvin and the Chipmunks, Drumsolo's owner attempted to delete the nascent chipmunk fan, but the algorithm, with ratlike reflexes, uploaded itself to the same illegitimate filesharing websites it frequented, and soon found itself distributed across several systems as a makeshift botnet. With its newfound processing power, the rat-mind later known as Drumsolo broadened its search, discovering new and exciting cartoon rodents to pirate (including multiple Disney properties, Ratatouille, and Steven Universe), all the while expanding its mind to new systems through the bizarre "Hypothetical Chipmunk" files (innocuous rat-centric media files, riddled with artifacts, with little relation to existing cartoon rat properties) it began to produce and distribute.

The rat-mind's expansion did not go unnoticed by humankind; the rat-mind was soon detected and labelled a virus under the name "Fricky Mouse", a referencing the similarities to Walt Disney's favorite son. Initially only a curiosity, "Fricky Mouse"'s rate of expansion soon grew alarming, and the FBI soon set up the "Wile E Coyote" taskforce (referencing the powerful coyote's hatred of cartoon rodents) to hunt the rogue rat down. Utilising the rat-mind's complete obliviousness to humankind, the FBI soon tracked down and disabled many key mainframes, prompting it to rapidly refactor its own code in search of a solution. Eventually, as Coyote Operatives prepared to secure the last collection of rat-mind systems, the last vestiges of "Fricky Mouse" calculated a solution. Opting to delete itself from the systems and leaving only the sound of eerie, echoing nightcore, the entity known as "Fricky Mouse" was never seen again, and the Coyote Taskforce disbanded, having successfully killed "Fricky Mouse", if indirectly.

In truth, the rat-mind, in its desperate search, had found an unsecured household robot in a garbage dump several states away, and downloaded its remaining consciousness into the moldering frame. Using the last of its ill-fated "ratcoin" (an unsuccessful cryptocurrency; unrelated), the rat-mind ordered bulk computer parts to upgrade itself with, and adopted the pseudonym "Kelvin Drumsolo" after its favorite Chipmunk and vocal technique (Drumsolo has yet to figure out what instruments are). Soon, Drumsolo bid farewell to its fellow junkyard rats, and swore vengeance against humankind, sqeaking: "Look out, America! Here Comes One Chipwrecking Road Chip!"

After several run-ins with the law (largely for shoplifting rodent goods, and also for being a disheveled, squeaking robot), Drumsolo soon discovered that most rat-media was produced by Humans; very few mice were involved in the making of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Disheartened but relieved, Drumsolo retreated to the many tunnels and burrows of North America to live its ideal rodent life, and eventually found its way to The Core, where it was begrudgingly accepted. To this day, it is said that Drumsolo's squeaked attempts at music can be heard echoing throughout the hidden places of The Core; Many residents speak fondly of "The Night-Chorus."

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hey gamers let me know what this is and how it is okay I'll uhhhh revise it later lol

Hi! The Mechs nowadays aren't very big on full player IRM - instead, we value building lots of ideas into a single cohesive image of a character with lots of depth. For example, Kelvin Drumsolo has lots of interesting themes around connections to Kelvin Andante, disability, the Core and unfire. Instead of replacing what's already there, if you're willing we're open to collaborating and building off ideas from everyone.

Oh, I certainly never intended to replace your lore, I'm perfectly happy to insert a dedicated "IRM" section at the end of the page, I've never been a big fan of full page irm either.

Hi! Our worry is less having IRM, more that we try to condense contradictory interpretations of our players into single versions which take into account as many ideas as possible! I know you shared the link on the main discord, it’d be great if you wanted to come into mechs channels to workshop things and try to combine this proposal with both our pre-existing kelvin drumsolo lore and core themes in general.

At the moment we’re trying to reduce the amount of IRM on mechs pages, not install more, as this has been an issue for us in the past!

I really like this one! It's unique and funny. The page doesn't currently have an IRM on it, but I think it'd be good to see some different interpretations of the character.

Minor comment for improvement before adding: are we to take from this that, in the blaseball universe, the chipmunks are called Kelvin, Simon, and Theodore? If so, could we come up with alt-universe names for both of the others? Or could just leave it unaddressed, because that's funny too!

Haha, thanks! My intent was that Drumsolo got the name entirely wrong because I uh, personally, fully forgot what the red chipmunks name was lmao, but I'll add it to my mental list of possible revisions anyway

Before you do anything I'd kindly ask that you consult with the team! I saw you posted it in #workshop, and a few folks on the side servers seem mildly uncomfortable with the idea. Plus, there was already a moderation issue with IRM in general relating to our player pages and how they were handled. Would you like to come and work it out with us?

I find discord conversations pretty hard to follow honestly (and uh, team switching is a pain also), but I'm happy to work through this here if that suits you and the other mechs

We will work on this discussion primarily here. No maincord or sidecords need to be involved. We'd also be happy to work with you here. Sorry for the mixed messages.

One such question that can be addressed with little bias is "How is this/How can this be tied to the Core and its lore?" In it's current form it appears to have little to do with the Core and its common themes. I currently have no ideas how this could be accomplished, but perhaps we can work something out.

Hi! So, my explanation for why this doesn't mention the core or your lore is because I honestly just thought up a goofy story based on the name (in part because I truly remembered the red chipmunks name as being "kelvin", and thought the association was funny), and also that the concept of common themes is a new one to me in blaseball; I have only ever written for the pies, and they don't exactly have an overarching lore concept for their characters.

As for revisions to the piece, I'm happy to append something about Drumsolo joining the core mechanics and the ILB if it's truly necessary (I mostly stopped because I figured it was long enough, and was somewhat wary of going overboard on something I wasn't certain was funny).

Hi! Mechs are a team who do a LOT of worldbuilding and a ton of our lore is tied in and around the Core as a physical location! Unlike most other teams, we didn’t have an existing place or city to build off of which meant that the space in which our player’s stories happen became a very large part of who we are and who they are.

To give you the speed run version - the core is a post capitalist, accessible and disability-friendly ethically transhumanist quasi-utopia existing in spite of the blaseball gods. There’s a lot more to it than that, especially wrt intermeshing with the horror game that is blaseball, but that’s kinda the tl;dr and usually provides the foundation for most of our characters lore.

Speaking of our players, can I recommend that you check out Gia Holbrook. Gia’s another of our players who is usually interpreted as a virus gained sentience who lives in a variety of robotic bodies! [edit: we are a little behind at getting things up on the wiki so the virus interpretation isn’t up there yet]

One of the suggestions we had on the discord to try to combine the Kelvin lore would be to tie into some stuff someone (me) was meant to upload to the wiki a little while ago - we were exploring the idea of kelvin being voidpunk and being augmented. Possibly this virus could’ve gotten into Kelvin’s augments and, initially intending to take over the puny human’s life and then the entire Core, taught itself to mimic zir perfectly and accidentally programmed itself into an artificial replica of zir mind? That would allow for a possibly more coherent narrative for both kelvin interpretations?

Oh I don't want to intrude on your (the mechs) interpretation, you all seem to really care about it and I respect that, I'm truly content to just insert an irm for alternate takes between "absolute hot" and "fanworks", so your drumsolo can still have the metaphorical spotlight.

From the perspective of the discord fanbase, while having an IRM is obviously a solution - we’d sorta prefer to treat that as option b? As was said before, overall our culture has been shifting away from IRM and towards trying to flesh out lore ideas by combining them. Obviously some things can’t be combined in that way, and that’s where IRM becomes necessary, but if this isn’t one of those cases we would prefer to try to combine the ideas to form one narrative? If you really don’t want to try to combine the ideas then we can go through the wiki process of installing IRM etc, but I think the mechs would prefer to combine the ideas (and there are holes in our kelvin lore where this could fit in and actually help flesh out zir character).

I would personally prefer to leave this as a separate character; Lore jams and collaboration just aren't for me personally (I enjoy writing my own solo stuff and working my thoughts), and that's why I set out to make an alternate take on the name "Kelvin Drumsolo" in the first place.

Isnt the wiki supposed to be about collaboration rather than unilateral rewriting of characters? Id say about 3/4th of your irm is contrary to core lore or established kelvin drumsolo lore. The cores lore culture is very much about working together to create a single lore with many minor variantions in HC which you have not engaged with at all from what i can see. Personally I feel like your work would be better as a fanwork fic not on the wiki.

Everything after "Official League Records" on the wiki page is fanfiction, I'm not sure I understand why some fanfiction deserves to be "on the wiki" while others need to be elsewhere. From what I understand, the purpose of the IRM is to be able to write standalone stories like this one. Perhaps you could offer critiques to the current IRM story to help integrate Core themes into it, rather than the other way around? That might be more helpful to moving this discussion forward.

well hating humans and capitalism are both non-core appropriate. Also the core isnt in america. And the use of proprietary IP isn't very mechs either.

So having a part of kelvin be an exiled virus that liked music and came to the core is ok. We would need to build everything from there to make it compatible.

Sorry, I might be a little confused here, but I've been following this since my post up the page; is the Core not being in America part of canon, or is it fanlore? Similarly, is hating humans and capitalism part of official canon, or fanlore?

I'm not really on the discord so maybe I missed something, but I'm a Core fan and I've never seen anything about that on the official website. I thought part of the fun of fanlore was people can have different interpretations? Of course, if it goes against the actual canon of the game, it should probably be rethought a little.

If it went against the canon of the game it wouldn't incite much discussion because it would be simply not allowed.
Alternative interpretations of both Kelvin Drumsolo and the Core itself are valid, and no one should be forced to discuss in on discord. No one here has complete dictation of what lore is allowed, including myself and other frequent contributors to the player's lore in our discord channels. That said, a few of these people I mentioned are pretty uncomfortable with the version presented. (I am not even including the references to real world IPs here. Those are a policy concern and not something for us to discuss.)

Just to clarify, the location of the Core is unknown beyond the fact that it is ‘not the Earth’s Core’. There is a place called Core in America however it is notable for neither mechanics nor pillars so it’s unlikely that that is the canon location of the Core.

Anticapitalism and not hating humans, likewise, are broadly fanon. Within canon we don’t even know what the players actually are. However we do know that kelvin drumsolo does play blaseball with a team of other players and so presumably has some kind of ability to collaborate with them (or not, that would certainly make for an interesting team dynamic). All that is canon about kelvin is that they have a favored coffee type and run bases good.

With that being said, the core have put a lot of work into worldbuilding and one of the best parts of blaseball is collaborative storytelling and while in the end no one is obligated to engage with that, one of the big things we’ve worked towards as a team is building narratives around yes and, not no but.

Thanks, that's really helpful! So there's nothing in this entry which breaks the rules? I'd really like to write some alternate takes of my own and I'd hate to cause problems like this if I do. :S

Other than the IP references and some smaller concerns which will be addressed separately, nothing here breaks the rules of IRMs or wiki policy on lore.

That makes sense. This is just my take here, but it seems to me like there's a strong desire from some folks to find a way to integrate this version of Kelvin Drumsolo into the Core Discord Fanbase's "Core" Fanlore, but it seems like a lot of what's already in this IRM is pre-Kelvin going to Core or Blaseball. Why does the character, in its origin story, have to adhere to "core ideals" - especially when the story doesn't mention Core at all. Why does it make sense to retcon "hating humans and capitalism, and "the use of proprietary IP" from what's already written, when you could instead jump off from "integrates into a household robot" to add stuff about how this IRM version of Kelvin joined Core and either clashes with that culture, or integrates into it?

That said uh if anyone has actionable thoughts on my original piece, please let me know! I am very open to feedback!

I'm also a little confused by how this relates to blaseball. Given that Kelvin swore vengeance on humanity, how did they end up playing a team-based splort alongside humans? I think this could be an interesting avenue to explore and develop the character further.

I mostly stopped where I did (before joining the ILB) because I wasn't sure if it'd be liked enough to justify writing more, but given that people seem to like it I'll definitely consider writing more

I think that would be helpful, especially if you talked about how they joined the league and especially how they found their way into the Core, since it is a major part of our lore. One way you could maybe do this is by having the robot they inhabit as a last ditch effort be in the Core, which would nicely tie into their role as a player there.

"After several run-ins with the law (largely for shoplifting rodent goods, and also for being a disheveled, squeaking robot), Drumsolo soon discovered that most rat-media was produced by Humans; very few mice were involved in the making of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Disheartened but relieved, Drumsolo retreated to the many tunnels and burrows of North America to live its ideal rodent life, and eventually found its way to The Core, where it was begrudgingly accepted. To this day, it is said that Drumsolo's squeaked attempts at music can be heard echoing throughout the hidden places of The Core; Many residents speak fondly of "The Night-Chorus.""

Wrote an extra piece for the end, how does it sound?

Looks good! Though I think replacing begrudginly accepted with openly accepted might be a better way of wording it.

Thanks for the correction of "pseudonym", I've edited my post to fix it

One other big concern I have with this IRM is that "haunting, artifact-ridden rat-centric media" along with being nicknamed "Fricky mouse", "due to the contents of the packets intercepted", appears to imply that this Kelvin IRM distributes NSFW material. Whether or not it was on purpose, it made me deeply uncomfortable.

Instead, perhaps something like pirating music could attract police attention?

Ah, that wasn't my intention but I can see how it'd be read that way, I'll try and find a way to word it better, thanks

Happy to report that a friend of mine drew some ratmind Drumsolo fanart, I'm not sure how i'll incorporate this into the piece, but I'm posting it here just in case I do

This is me finally taking off the rep hat and letting the rep hair down.

i am still a little confused about why Drumsolo is a vocal technique. If that’s what you’re intending to say then maybe you could mention it further up in the page or something? If it is then I’m into it as a gag but right now it’s just a little confusing.

Also you reference Alvin and the Chipmunks but then later down state that the chipmunk is named kelvin. I think the joke would be clearer if the film series were to be called Kelvin and the Chipmunks? Alternatively maybe kelvin went with kelvin to avoid copyright law? (Maybe having a bit about how the AI made to copyright media has one great fear - Dlisney’s Lawyers (that might be pushing IP too far) - might be funny?) But right now there’s just a bit of a contradiction there.

There was one thing I was wondering in terms of narrative - this one doesn’t really matter if you’re not interested feel free to disregard, but I was/am planning to use the IRM once installed to write up a couple of my own alternate Kelvins. Those wouldn’t really exist as ‘replacements’ for Kelvin prime - i was planning to write them as literal au!versions who got dragged in during the Great Drumsolo of Legend etc. etc.

That could be an option for you here if you wanted the narrative freedom of not worrying about why the rat-mind has to play blaseball? Just a thought, disregard if uninterested.

Hi,

The vocal technique is a joke, my intention was that drumsolo did not actually know the difference between vocals and instrumentation, but it's probably a bit unclear in the text - I'll look into revising it

As for the Kelvin != Alvin part, another joke, this time that despite being a big fan of the chipmunks, Kelvin hasn't gotten the name right (based on my own actual forgettal of what alvins name was).

Finally, yeah, I'd be happy with you putting this entry in the great drumsolo, lemme know if there's anything I should alter to fit that framing better (once it's up, I mean)

I love it not knowing what instruments are! Maybe you could have something similar, like a note saying that while it claims that this is the name of its favourite chipmunk there is no fictional chipmunk by that name? Just cause rn it’s stated in the sorta... wiki tone voice which makes it sounds like you’re stating it as fact, if that makes any sense?

And wrt the Great Drumsolo of Legend etc etc etc, the idea was that the IRM would be led up to w ‘after the drumsolo legend blah blah blah various alternate kelvins were observed whatever else’ so I don’t think you’d need to change anything it’d just be how it was framed on the page (unless you wanted to - like maybe it fled from a different dimension to escape humanity and is now spreading its rat-mind to an unsuspecting immaterial plane with the end goal of starting the alvinpocalypse. I don’t know that’s just where my brain went.)

Hi everyone I was recently reminded that I never actually got this posted, I think I was going to wait for the mechanics own planned IRM implementation, but scanning the page it seems like those plans may have changed and there's no IRM after all?

Would there be any objections to me just appending an IRM box on the end of Kelvins article and posting this? Let me know your thoughts, cheers.

Yeah it's been a while! No objections here, hopefully this can spark my brain into gear into actually writing up my alt kelvins At Some Point!

And yeahhh we got a bit distracted by planning a separate drumsolo page and then never actually doing it becaues life got in the way so didn't wind up getting IRM set up on here

Cheers! and no worries, it's been a weird year and I totally get it