#Remixable Review

[techtuv]

Remixable Review: Navigating Internet Marketing with AI-Driven Insights

In the fast-paced world of internet marketing, staying updated with the latest strategies is key. Remixable emerges as a revolutionary tool, offering comprehensive insights into internet marketing realms such as product creation, website development, traffic generation, and monetization. With the power of AI, Remixable simplifies and streamlines marketing strategies, making it an invaluable asset for both beginners and seasoned marketers.

Unlocking Marketing Potential with Remixable

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Embracing Remixable for Digital Marketing Success

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Website Building and Design: A Key Aspect of Internet Marketing

A successful website is a blend of user-friendly design and aesthetic appeal. It should offer a seamless user experience (UX) while being visually attractive. This balance ensures that your site is both accessible and engaging for visitors.

Responsive Design and UX Principles in Web Development

Responsive web design is crucial in today's mobile-dominated world. A website that adapts to various devices and screen sizes provides a consistent experience for all users. Additionally, applying UX principles like intuitive navigation, structured content presentation, and clear labeling enhances usability.

Tips for Enhancing User Experience on Your Website

Utilize headers and subheaders to organize content.

Implement a clear menu and site structure.

Choose readable typography and font sizes.

Ensure fast loading times to prevent user frustration.

Optimizing eCommerce Websites

For eCommerce sites, the focus should be on optimizing the purchasing journey:

Use high-quality product images with detailed descriptions.

Streamline the checkout process.

Offer multiple payment options and display trust signals like SSL certificates and customer testimonials.

Conclusion

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This article provides a fresh, SEO-friendly perspective on Remixable, emphasizing its significance in internet marketing and website development.

Click for more details

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Sandra Newman’s “Julia”

The first chapter of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has a fantastic joke that nearly everyone misses: when Julia, Winston Smith's love interest, is introduced, she has oily hands and a giant wrench, which she uses in her "mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines":

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

That line just kills me every time I re-read the book – Orwell, a novelist, writing a dystopian future in which novels are written by giant, clanking mechanisms. Later on, when Winston and Julia begin their illicit affair, we get more detail:

She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She 'didn't much care for reading,' she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.

I always assumed Orwell was subtweeting his publishers and editors here, and you can only imagine that the editor who asked Orwell to tweak the 1984 manuscript must have felt an uncomfortable parallel between their requests and the notional Planning Committee and Rewrite Squad at the Ministry of Truth.

I first read 1984 in the early winter of, well, 1984, when I was thirteen years old. I was on a family trip that included as visit to my relatives in Leningrad, and the novel made a significant impact on me. I immediately connected it to the canon of dystopian science fiction that I was already avidly consuming, and to the geopolitics of a world that seemed on the brink of nuclear devastation. I also connected it to my own hopes for the nascent field of personal computing, which I'd gotten an early start on, when my father – then a computer science student – started bringing home dumb terminals and acoustic couplers from his university in the mid-1970s. Orwell crystallized my nascent horror at the oppressive uses of technology (such as the automated Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear systems that haunted my nightmares) and my dreams of the better worlds we could have with computers.

It's not an overstatement to say that the rest of my life has been about this tension. It's no coincidence that I wrote a series of "Little Brother" novels whose protagonist calls himself w1n5t0n:

https://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

I didn't stop with Orwell, of course. I wrote a whole series of widely read, award-winning stories with the same titles as famous sf tales, starting with "Anda's Game" ("Ender's Game"):

https://www.salon.com/2004/11/15/andas_game/

And "I, Robot":

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_I_Robot.html

"The Martian Chronicles":

https://escapepod.org/2019/10/03/escape-pod-700-martian-chronicles-part-1/

"True Names":

https://archive.org/details/TrueNames

"The Man Who Sold the Moon":

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/05/22/the-man-who-sold-the-moon/

and "The Brave Little Toaster":

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_212

Writing stories about other stories that you hate or love or just can't get out of your head is a very old and important literary tradition. As EL Doctorow (no relation) writes in his essay "Genesis," the Hebrews stole their Genesis story from the Babylonians, rewriting it to their specifications:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/41520/creationists-by-e-l-doctorow/

As my "famous title" stories and Little Brother books show, this work needn't be confined to antiquity. Modern copyright may be draconian, but it contains exceptions ("fair use" in the US, "fair dealing" in many other places) that allow for this kind of creative reworking. One of the most important fair use cases concerns The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall's 2001 retelling of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind from the perspective of the enslaved characters, which was judged to be fair use after Mitchell's heirs tried to censor the book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suntrust_Bank_v._Houghton_Mifflin_Co.

In ruling for Randall, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals emphasized that she had "fully employed those conscripted elements from Gone With the Wind to make war against it." Randall used several of Mitchell's most famous lines, "but vest[ed] them with a completely new significance":

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/268/1257/608446/

The Wind Done Gone is an excellent book, and both its text and its legal controversy kept springing to mind as I read Sandra Newman's wonderful novel Julia, which retells 1984 from the perspective of Julia, she of the oily hands the novel-writing machine:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/julia-sandra-newman?variant=41467936636962

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both Wind Done gone and Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. For Winston, the world of 1984 is totalitarian: the Party knows all, controls all and misses nothing. To merely think a disloyal thought is to be doomed, because the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnicompetent Party will sense the thought and mark you for torture and "vaporization."

Orwell's readers experience all of 1984 through Winston's eyes and are encouraged to trust his assessment of his situation. But Newman brings in a second point of view, that of Julia, who is indeed far more worldly than Winston. But that's not because she's younger than him – it's because she's more provincial. Julia, we learn, grew up outside of the Home Counties, where the revolution was incomplete and where dissidents – like her parents – were sent into exile. Julia has experienced the periphery of the Party's power, the places where it is frayed and incomplete. For Julia, the Party may be ruthless and powerful, but it's hardly omnicompetent. Indeed, it's rather fumbling.

Which makes sense. After all, if we take Winston at his word and assume that every disloyal citizen of Oceania is arrested, tortured and murdered, where would that leave Oceania? Even Kim Jong Un can't murder everyone who hates him, or he'd get awfully lonely, and then awfully hungry.

Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

Julia is also perfectly positioned to uncover the vast blank spots in Winston's supposed intellectual curiosity, all the questions he doesn't ask – about her, about the Party, and about the world. I love this trope and used it myself, in Attack Surface, the third "Little Brother" book, which is told from the point of view of Marcus's frenemy Masha:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531/attacksurface

Through Julia, we come to understand the seemingly omniscient, omnipotent Party as fumbling sadists. The Thought Police are like MI5, an Island of Misfit Toys where the paranoid, the stupid, the vicious and the thuggish come together to ruin the lives of thousands, in such a chaotic and pointless manner that their victims find themselves spinning devastatingly clever explanations for their behavior:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460

And, as with Nineteen Eighty-Four, Julia is a first-rate novel, expertly plotted, with fantastic, nail-biting suspense and many smart turns and clever phrases. Newman is doing Orwell, and, at times, outdoing him. In her hands, Orwell – like Winston – is revealed as a kind of overly credulous romantic who can't believe that anyone as obviously stupid and deranged as the state's representatives could be kicking his ass so very thoroughly.

This was, in many ways, the defining trauma and problem of Orwell's life, from his origin story, in which he is shot through the throat by a fascist: sniper during the Spanish Civil War:

https://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/soldiers/george-orwell-shot.html

To his final days, when he developed a foolish crush on a British state spy and tried to impress her by turning his erstwhile comrades in to her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwell%27s_list

Newman's feminist retelling of Orwell is as much about puncturing the myth of male competence as it is about revealing the inner life, agency, and personhood of swooning love-interests. As someone who loves Orwell – but not unconditionally – I was moved, impressed, and delighted by Julia.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

[tio-trile]

I made this remix as soon as I got access to the voice recording files for that episode and then proceeded to play it for any crew I came across. Reception was mostly positive, however our supervising producer heard the first few bars and turned to walk away.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Derby-hat-and-briefcase Percy ain't leavin' my brain

@houseboatisland

[faultychips]

Old and New; The Moon, and 24 Killers

MOON. A classic “anti-rpg”, Influencing some of the most popular video game artwork of recent history, from Toby Fox, who said he... didn’t play it, but “(the game's) concept was an inspiration for UNDERTALE”, to Tony Domenico of Petscop, who doesn't know anything about it but notes perhaps he “saw a screenshot of that "catch" text somewhere and forgot about it”.

…In all seriousness, it’s really fascinating how even the vague idea of moon, in screenshots and summaries, has changed the landscape of video games. It’s hard to tell exactly how much it’s responsible for when the influence of its initial Japanese-only release in 1997 was of course very concentrated in Japan, and I wasn’t around to experience that era of video games myself… but there’s just so many novel ideas in moon that you can’t help but feel a spark of inspiration light up in your brain the more you know about it. The good news is that in 2020, they translated the game to English, and many people who only knew of the game from forum posts and anecdotes can now play the actual thing for themselves. So, let me tell you about my experience playing "moon" for my own self.

In moon: Remix RPG Adventure, you play as a young boy who gets sucked into his television and transported into the world of the stereotypical RPG videogame he was just playing. You don't have a proper body in this universe, but an old lady tells you that she is your "Gramby", and she happily welcomes you "back" into her home and gives you clothes to wear, allowing you to interact with the world around you. Now is when the game introduces it's main gameplay mechanic - a ticking clock, with both a daily and weekly schedule that advances whenever you're not in a dialogue or cutscene. There's a little arrow on this clock, and when the ticking hand reaches it, you will pass out and be given a GAME OVER. As a little bird Yoshida tells you in the town square: "If you ain't got love, you'll stop breathing and pass the heck out." If you want to be able to move around for longer before having to rest in a bed, you'll need to interact with the citizens of "Love-De-Gard" and catch the souls of the animals slain by the HERO to gain love and grow stronger.

The time limit is pretty harsh when you haven't gained any love yet, but thankfully there are a few easy ways to get around it and raise your level. Gramby gives you a task you can complete for love right away, and she will also give you a cookie every day. Eating food will move your time limit forward, giving you more time to move around, so you don't want to miss your opportunities to stock up here in the early game. There's also plenty of animals around to catch, though you'll have to follow the HERO around for a little bit first. Don't worry too much about the weekly schedule - it's really only important for getting all of the NPC related love, and you'll probably need an external guide for those anyway.

Speaking of guides, it should be noted that moon is pretty much impossible to play without one. You can go for a pretty nice long time without any help (I think I lasted about 5-10 hours on my own?) but inevitably you run out of answers, and to be honest, the game doesn't provide a way to get all of information you need to complete events or progress the story, so I don't think you should bother trying to struggle through figuring out everything on your own. That being said, I would go as long as you can without one, since lots of the things you can do in the early game aren't too complicated to figure out by yourself. When you do need one, I personally found this generally spoiler-free guide very helpful, and when I needed to understand how to progress the story (the Mushroom Forest in particular gave me some trouble) this speedrun worked nicely. There's a translated version of the official manual, too, which you can read before you start playing since it's good for a simple introduction.

One thing I appreciate about moon is that while it has some frustrating elements, the game sets itself apart from other obtuse titles from the same era in that it never absolutely requires you to do anything besides the main plot line. Once you reach the end of the main quest and reach love level 22, you are free to go straight to the ending, and there is no "true" ending to be gotten from catching all the animals' souls or doing everything the game has to offer. Still, I figured this was the case and rescued all 51 animals anyway, and stopped just a few hearts short of the max love level. Barring some few particularly annoying sidequests, moon is compelling enough that you want to experience and enjoy as much of it as you can. (...With a guide, of course.)

If there's one ultimate negative about moon's daily/weekly schedule mechanic, which causes certain events to happen only at certain times of day or even certain days of the week, it's that you will often be sitting around around waiting for something to happen, potentially for multiple in-game days...especially if you miss your cue and have to wait for the event to occur all over again. Thankfully moon has a really delightful way of making waiting pleasant: your character has a portable "MD" (Moon Disc) player, which you can get songs for and make a tracklist to listen to while you walk or sit around. I wish I had access to more MDs sooner, but save for two random discs, you can't get the majority of them until you get past the Rainbow Rocks area, so I recommend exploring that area as soon as possible and solving its puzzles so you can advance forward. You'll be able to get most of the obtainable tracks at an MD store afterwards, and thankfully, all the songs on my tracklist of favorites are sold there. You should give all of the tracks a try eventually –you'll have plenty of time to do so, trust me– but I think these are some nice, reliable ones to get you started. There were many times that the forced waiting, laying back while the music plays, was actually really enjoyable...it can be nice to slow down and pause sometimes, and not many video games take the initiative to actually abate tediousness like this. It should definitely let you use the MD player in more areas, though, since too many of them disable it completely, and still others allow it to play but have distracting background noises.

...Of course, you can only stand so much waiting before getting bored of even your favorite tracks, so when you start checking your phone during these musical breaks, it may be time to start wrapping up. When you are satisfied with your time in moon, you can probably go right ahead and see the main quest through to the ending. I had more than enough love to meet the endgame requirement when I was ready, so I went straight in, not looking at any guide for the final section. That...may have been a mistake. In "anti-RPG" fashion, the game throws a bit of a curveball at you in this part, giving you a choice to make after about 20 minutes of (unskippable) cutscenes. I chose effectively the wrong option, and the game ended abruptly. My first conclusion was that the last 20 minutes of dialogue was actually telling me that I had to 100% the game first before I could get a satisfying "true" ending, so I spent about a half hour in deep frustration thinking about all the things I bounced hard off of that I would have to return to, before checking an 100% playthrough and realizing that the game ends exactly the same there as it did in mine, and the ending depends entirely on that final choice from earlier regardless of your completion percentage. Ahhhhhhh. After going through the final cutscenes again, the true answer is a bit more obvious, but if you want to skip doing this ending twice, maybe check the guide before you lock in your answer. Regardless, the cinematic buildup is really well done here, both endings are fitting for the game, and on a broad level I like them both.

...So having played it, what is moon, and why does even just the idea of it inspire? It's a game about subverting the tropes of typical RPGs with knights in shining armor, calling into question the "inherent goodness" of an almighty, violent hero and the "inherent badness" of scary looking creatures. At the same time, it clearly loves the RPG genre; the world of moon is brimming with life, full of silly animals and goofy characters, all playing out their role in the narrative of the RPG, and it wants you to love and care for everything in it. I think I do love a lot of what moon is. You can feel its dated-ness in many, many ways, but there is –if you'll excuse me for this– a lot of love for videogames in its heart, and it offers new ways to think about and experience those games.

With this in mind, it's not at all surprising that moon was so influential - and clearly I'm not the only one who felt a spark of imagination light when they played it. Here’s a game that came out just last year that is truly, concretely inspired by moon, while being unique and quite modern; let’s take a look…

24 Killers initially caught my eye because, as the game's Steam page explains, it was inspired by moon. Since I was in the middle of playing moon when I heard about it, it seemed like a great followup title. And while 24 Killers implements some solid game mechanics and style from moon, like the daily energy allowance that refills with food, and progression centered around helping funky monsters, I found that the game's vibes and aesthetics also remind me a lot of something like Earthbound; it's a vibrant and whimsical world where anything can happen, and you're just settled in for the ride. There's almost a toy-like feel to how everything looks and sounds; it's got this upbeat "fun" energy at its core that's extremely charming. I have to admit I've never fully completed any of the Mother titles due to the grinding and the external guidance necessary, but 24 Killers offers up the same energy without either of those barriers.

In fact, one of my favorite things about 24 Killers is that I didn't have to look at a single guide to figure out any of the puzzles for my entire 11-hour initial playthrough. Everything in the game is pretty self-evident and figured out quickly through some decent thought and trial-and-error. moon offers a good point of comparison: for many puzzles there, you would have to open your inventory, select the specific item necessary, and then use it while standing close enough to an NPC to get them to react, requiring the player to guess at what item they would need to use to progress...assuming they had the item they needed in the first place, or that using an item is what they needed to do at all! In 24 Killers, you simply can't offer items randomly like this; if you talk to someone and you have the item they need, the game will ask you if you want to give the item. If you don't have the item, the game won't prompt you. Usually if characters need an item from you they'll also make it very clear when you talk to them. This, among other adjustments to old formulas, cuts out a lot of potential fumbling and blind guesswork, and I much prefer it above checking the guide for moon over and over. In this way and many others, the game feels very anti-esoteric, meeting the player on their level and making sure that even the grand exposition and lore doesn't go over your head. Even in the dialogue the characters regard you pretty plainly; "Bro please ferry me to the afterlife" is probably my favorite line from the whole game.

In moon, you would appease or disturb a monster, and then catch its soul so it can be revived and rescued. It's delightful to discover all these different creatures in that game, but you don't interact with them much besides grabbin' at 'em. In 24 Killers every monster is its own sentient person--and every one has something they'd love to yap to you about. You'll run laps, bounce balls, play games, and drive cars around with these guys, and I found that to be another much welcome deviation from moon's formula. moon frames its monsters as adjacent to wild animals, but the monsters of 24 Killers are just genuinely guys hanging out, and if you engage them, they can be your chill buds.

But why are you befriending the monsters? Because you are HOME, a cursed spirit doomed to wander in limbo until they are dragged into the corpse of a soldier and given a chance at escaping their affliction--as they befriend the monsters inhabiting the remote island of the game's setting, they lose the resentful bitterness that caused their curse to develop in the first place and can slowly heal themself. Basically, HOME is a lonely bro, and could use some good friends. We've all been there, you know how it is. Honestly, HOME is probably my favorite character of the whole game; their dual mixture of sarcastic attitude that can flip to genuine goofy dramatics and flair, based on essentially "if it would be funny, do it", was great and really made my time with the game; their personality a worthy selling point in its own right.

Now, I should mention the two small hiccups I encountered with this game. Somehow I made an extremely similar mistake to the one I made with moon - I assumed that "completion" of the game required a lot of extra steps and took a break, when in fact I was right at the finish line and just needed to step over it. To explain with relatively few spoilers: you need to collect three "Echoes" to reach the end credits. I collected two Echoes, which gave a cutscene with almost identical dialogue each time. I assumed that the repetition meant that you would be required to gather a lot more echoes to finish (maybe 24 echoes in line with the games namesake...?) but it takes a long time to get just one Echo, so I stopped playing that save file in order to check out the others. Whoops. Don't make my mistake; you just need three.

A quick explanation is also necessary for the save file gimmick; this is where the 24 in 24 Killers is actually relevant. You start the game with four save files, each offering a "blessing" that you obtain once you "meet the Husbandman" (i.e. progress to a certain point) on that file. Then, you can use that blessing from the start of your next fresh save file. For instance, I chose the file C-4 which has the "fast-forward" blessing; once I met the Husbandman in that playthrough I was able to start new games with that benefit, where it caused cutscenes and general animations to play much faster. If you get all the way to the credits on a save file, you then unlock another save file slot, with a limit of 24 available save files - 24 parallel universes with 24 "Killers", hence the title.

Once you know how to beat the game, you can get far enough in each save to get its blessing in about 3-4 hours each. I did this a couple times to see if there was anything new in these save files; aside from a few minor changes, the save files are identical to each other. I think the idea of having multiple different save files is fun, and the concept of creating a new "universe" (extra save file) every time you beat a session, which you can then also beat and then create another universe and repeat the cycle, is delightful fiction. However, I feel like it's mostly only substantial for the storytelling of the game; I can't really recommend playing the game over and over unless you genuinely just want more of the same experience you already had. Which is a legitimate draw of this title! I enjoyed playing around in 24 Killer's world quite a lot, enough to just go straight to replaying the game a couple times without extra fuss or worry that I was doing something wrong or right. I'm disappointed there wasn't much new to find outside of a few extra blessing-related lines of dialogue, but I don't regret the sidetracking; 24 Killers is just nice to play. Not necessarily “24 times over for 90+ hours” nice, but “extra time besides what's absolutely required” nice. ...Oh, and the other hiccup is that there's a little too many constant flashing lights in the game! Thankfully there's a "photosensitivity mode" option in the settings that works perfectly. Just worth mentioning because I think just about anybody would get bothered by the constant blinking lights in the UI.

Altogether, in its directness, (good) simplicity, and general vibrance and whimsy, 24 Killers is a genuinely "casual" game. It's a lot more appealing than many games I've seen that have grappled for the "cozy" brand; I hesitate to apply the same label to 24 Killers because it's usually reductive and honestly not that fitting here, but instead I found 24 Killers to be another game, like moon, that you can really enjoy just being in. If I had any extra criticism, I wish some dialogue and cutscenes played out a little slower, giving time to soak everything in just a little longer. I never really had this experience (my consoles growing up were all just Nintendo handhelds) but I can imagine it being the kind of game you could have purchased for your PlayStation back in the day, and you'd come home after school and plop down in front of the TV to mess around in it for a while to blow off steam. I hope that sounds like high praise, because it is, at least in my eyes. It definitely helps that the game picks up on the good bits of its predecessors, while making much desired quality of life changes to the old bits that needed work.

It can be a little hard to recommend moon for how old and hard-to-follow it can be; you might be better off watching a long-play online. I have no such issue with 24 Killers, and I encourage anyone who's remotely interested in the things I've mentioned here to check out the game on Itchio. (It's on Steam too of course, but the Itchio download comes with a Steam key anyway...!) Also as a final note, if you've got a switch and/or steam deck, both of these games are great candidates for handheld gaming; being able to pick these up whenever compliments their gameplay styles nicely.

moon: Remix RPG Adventure is available for $18.99 on: Steam, Nintendo Switch

24 Killers is available for $19.99 on: Itchio, Steam

[helshollowhalls]

Rambley Review [Electro-Swing Remix]

[instructionsonback]

[mr-seamonster]

I just finished reading 'Most Ardently; a Pride and Prejudice Remix' By Gabe Cole Novoa and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I completed it in roughly 2 or so days, that's not to be a reflection on the level or quality of the writing, merely my excitement and desire to read the story. This book very quickly rose to take the place of my favourite book.

I wish that I could have the book wiped from my memory just so that I might be able to experience reading it for the first time again. As a trans guy who is very much attracted to men and who also absolutely loves P&P(and has always had a mega crush on Darcy) I can't even begin to express how amazing it felt to see someone so like myself in one of my favourite stories.

I went into the book store looking for something completely different, but I'm so glad I saw this one on the display shelf first. Reading this has genuinely healed me.

Again, I cannot suggest this book any more than I am. I truly love it, most ardently.

[essential-music]

In the summer of 1981, a musical phenomenon swept across airwaves and dancefloors, a track that dared to weave together the timeless melodies of The Beatles with the pulsating energy of disco: Stars On 45, a Dutch-produced single.

It wasn’t just a song—it was a bold experiment, a medley that stitched together hits like “No Reply,” “Drive My Car,” and “You’re Going to Lose That Girl” with The Archies’ sugary “Sugar, Sugar” and a teasing riff from Shocking Blue’s “Venus.” What emerged was a vibrant celebration of music’s past and present, a track that climbed to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the UK, proving its universal allure.

The genius of Stars On 45 lies in its seamless composition. The medley flows effortlessly, each song transitioning with a precision that keeps listeners hooked, as if the tracks were always meant to dance together under a disco beat. There’s a subtle storytelling arc, too, with the song choices hinting at the rise and fall of a relationship, adding depth to what could have been a simple nostalgic mashup. The production is crisp, layering a driving drum machine and funky guitar riffs over re-recorded vocals and instrumentation. These aren’t sampled snippets but fresh performances by Dutch musicians who channel the originals with uncanny accuracy, voices brimming with energy that matches the track’s relentless tempo.

What sets this single apart is its ability to bridge eras. It took 1960s classics and gave them a glossy, dancefloor-ready sheen, introducing them to a new generation while rekindling memories for those who grew up with the originals. Its infectious rhythm and catchy “Stars On 45” jingle made it a staple at roller rinks and clubs, a soundtrack for carefree nights and unbridled joy. The track’s influence is undeniable, laying the groundwork for modern DJ mashups and beat-matching, earning it the title of the “granddaddy of all mashups.” Even today, its timeless quality shines through, resonating with listeners as young as 11 and as seasoned as 81, all drawn to its uplifting vibe.

Stars On 45 is more than a medley—it’s a time machine, a jubilant fusion of nostalgia and energy that captures the spirit of its era while transcending it. With its stellar production, authentic vocals, and groundbreaking format, it remains a testament to music’s power to unite and uplift, a shining star that still burns bright.

Year: 1981

Composer/Lyrics: Various

Producer: Jaap Eggermont

[talesfromthebacklog]

Are you looking to click with a new game and want something genuinely different?

I am always hunting for new titles to reinvigorate that click I feel with video games. Not all video games will click but when they do they can be something truly special. I wanted to go over some of my favorite games I’ve played in recent years that are available on current gen consoles. I’m not covering anyone upcoming, these are titles you can pick up today. Cheaply at that. Several of which are on sale on Steam right now as of writing this.

So. Enough chit chat. Lets’s start with an easy one:

Paradise Killer:

PC Switch PS4/PS5 Xbox

I just finished this one and am in the middle of writing my review on it. Painfully stylish with a killer vaporwave soundtrack this game oozes aesthetic. Kaizen Game Works understood the hauntology assignment and took it to the MAX. You are an investigator trying to solve an immortal god-like council’s murder in a dystopian society. You’ve returned to this gorgeous open world parasite paradise from your exile of 3 million days (about 8219 years)! If you’ve played Outer Wilds this is among that same vein. (And I will caution you, while not hard, the game relies on you wanting to just explore. It will provide hints but it won’t hold your hand.)

This is an Ace Attorney-esqe collectathon mixed with open world and exploration. There is no combat. Both the writing and the world are spectacular. Don’t deny yourself something this wonderful, because it is.

This has quickly risen among my gaming ranks as a favorite and it hits to being as close of a favorite as my number 2 suggestion…

Outer Wilds:

PC Switch PS4/PS5 Xbox

This is perhaps one of my favorite games of all time. I wanted to talk about this second because Outer Wilds has received more of the notoriety it deserves in recent times and I wanted PK to get the main spotlight. Don’t get it twisted though If it wasn’t for UpIsNotJump’s video (<— Spoilers) I would have never realized what I was missing. And I still think a lot of people don’t understand what they’re missing too. It is an absolute masterpiece. And seeing it getting released physically again is a god send. I want people to play this game. (And it’s DLC Echoes of The Eye)

No combat. You are a scientist exploring your local solar system in your spaceship in an open “universe” instead of an open world. The sun explodes every 22 minutes which sends your memories back in time. Again, I will caution you that the game relies on you wanting to explore. It will not direct you.

Eastward:

PC Switch Xbox

Too much exploring. Let’s reel it back with Eastward. A Zelda-like where you control an older man and a little girl with psychic powers in a post apocalyptic world. If you’re looking for those fun pixel games that pack that quirky feel this is it. A bit existential, a great sense of humor, and fantastic writing are all part of the Eastward package. (You startin’ to see a theme here? Ha ha)

All while boasting a seriously killer pixel soundtrack. The original Iron Carbine trailer for the Nintendo Direct had an immediate impact on me as a gamer. I knew this was a game I would fall in love with. Sometimes you just know when something is special. This game is beautifully pixelated and packed with lovingly crafted content. Puzzles are the right amount of challenging and there is so much fun side stuff to do. Including a Dragon Quest-esqe game inside the game! It also received DLC via Eastward Octopia! Which I also love.

Moon: A Remix RPG

PC Switch PS4/PS5

I do play games with combat. I swear. Several of these games just don’t have it! (Ha!) This will perhaps be the hardest game to sell to you on this list. I have a soft spot for quirky games like this, but know that this was a PS1 Japanese exclusive game in the 90s. And it sure acts like it. Slow to start, weak tutorial, and doesn’t provide a ton of direction. This game was ported into English for the first time in 2020 and I love it. It is a trial and error experience though.

This cult classic is one of the games that inspired Undertale and when you play it becomes wildly apparent. I dare say it reminds me more of Undertale than its other main inspiration Earthbound. You are a little boy that’s been fallen into his video game and you have to save the souls of monsters the hero has killed using love. (Sound familiar?)

Light hearted and weird this game also has a great sense of humor as it pokes at classic RPG tropes. And that slow intro comes into play providing a unique perspective as you journey through the game befriending people. It won’t be for everyone, I would research this one before sinking the… $18.99 on the purchase. But I think it is worth experiencing if you love Undertale.

I think I’ve yakked enough. If folks like the post I’ll follow up with a part two with a little more genre variety! I wanted to the first post to include my top favorites. So. I hope there’s something in there that invigorates you the way these games did for me.

[techtuv]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Adventures of Mary Darling

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PITTSBURGH on May 15 at WHITE WHALE BOOKS, and in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG. More tour dates (London, Manchester) here.

Science fiction great Pat Murphy has written some classics – including books that were viciously suppressed by the heirs of JRR Tolkien! – but with The Adventures of Mary Darling, she's outdone even her own impressive self:

https://tachyonpublications.com/product/the-adventures-of-mary-darling/

The titular Mary Darling here is the mother of Wendy, John and and Michael Darling, the three children who are taken by Peter Pan to Neverland in JM Barrie's 1902 book The Little White Bird, which later became Peter Pan. If you recall your Barrie, you'll remember that it ends with the revelation that Wendy, John and Michael weren't the first Darlings to go to Neverland: when Mary Darling was a girl, she, too, made the journey.

Murphy's novel opens with Mary Darling and her husband George coming home from a dinner party to discover their three children missing, the window open, and their nanny, a dog called Nana, barking frantically in the yard. John is frightened, but Mary is practically petrified, inconsolable and rigid with fear.

Soon, Mary's beloved uncle, John Watson, is summoned to the house, along with his famous roommate, the detective Sherlock Holmes. With Holmes on the case, surely the children will be found?

Of course not. Holmes is incapable of understanding where the Darling children have gone, because to do so would be to admit the existence of the irrational and fantastic, and, more importantly, to accept the testimony of women, lower-class people, and pirates. Holmes has all the confidence of the greatest detective alive, which means he is of no help at all.

Neither is George Darling, who, as a kind of act of penance for letting his children be stolen away, takes to Nana's doghouse, and insists that he will not emerge from it until the children are returned. He takes his meals in the doghouse, and is carried in it to and from the taxis that bring him to work and home again.

Only Mary can rescue her children. John Watson discovers her consorting with Sam, a one-legged Pacific Islander who is a known fence and the finest rat-leather glovemaker in London, these being much prized by London's worst criminal gangs. Horrified that Mary is keeping such ill company, Watson confronts her and Sam (and Sam's parrot, who screeches nonstop piratical nonsense), only to be told that Mary knows what she is doing, and that she is determined to see her children home safe.

Mary, meanwhile, is boning up on her swordplay and self-defense (taught by a Suffragist swordmaster in a room above an Aerated Bread Company tearoom, these being the only public place in Victorian London where a respectable woman can enjoy herself without a male escort). She's acquiring nautical maps. She's going to Neverland.

What follows is a very rough guide to fairyland. It's a story that recovers the dark asides from Barrie's original Pan stories, which were soaked with blood, cruelty and death. The mermaids want to laugh as you drown. The fairies hate you and want you to die. And Peter Pan doesn't care how many starveling, poorly trained Lost Boys die in his sorties against pirates, because he knows where there are plenty more Lost Boys to be found in the alienated nurseries of Victorian London, an ocean away.

More importantly, it's a story that revolves around the women in Barrie's world, who are otherwise confined to the edges and shadows of the action. In Barrie's Pan, Wendy is a "mother," Tiger Lily is a "princess," and Mary is a barely-there adult whose main role is to smile wistfully at the memory of when she was a girl and got to serve as Peter's "mother."

And Holmes? Apart from one love interest and a stalwart housekeeper, Holmes has very little time or regard for women. This is so central to the Holmes cannon that the Arthur Conan Doyle estate actually sued over Netflix's Enola Holmes movie, arguing that Enola displayed basic respect for women, a feature that doesn't appear until the very end of the Holmes canon, and – the estate argued – those final stories were still in copyright:

https://www.cbr.com/why-enola-holmes-has-nice-version-sherlock/

Murphy's woman's-eye-view of Peter Pan, Neverland and the Lost Boys dilates the narrow aperture through which Peter Pan plays out, revealing a great deal of exciting, fun, frightening stuff that was always off in the wings. She gives flesh and substance to characters like Tiger Lily, by giving her the semi-fictionalized identity of one of the many American First Nations people who toured Europe and Africa, putting on Wild West shows that won eternal fame and cultural currency for the "American Indian," even as the USA was seeking to exterminate them and their memory.

Likewise, Murphy's pirates are grounded in the reality of pirate ships: democratic, anarchic, and far more fun than Robert Louis Stevenson would have you believe. While Murphy's pirates are about a century too late (as are Barrie's), they are in other regards pretty rigorous, which makes them extraordinarily great literary figures.

If you read David Graeber's posthumous Pirate Enlightenment, you'll know about the Zana-Malata of Madagascar, the descendants of anarchist pirates and matriarchal Malagasy women, who pranked and hoaxed British merchant sailors for generations, deliberately creating a mythology of south seas pirate kings:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/24/zana-malata/#libertalia

This hybrid culture of bold, fierce matriarchal Malagasy women and their anarchist pirate husbands play a central role in the book's resolution, and Murphy's pirate utopia is so well drawn and homely that I found myself wanting to move there.

This is a profoundly political book, but it's such a romp, too! Murphy has a real flair for this kind of thing. Back in 1999, she published the brilliant There and Back Again, an all-female retelling of The Hobbit (in spaaaaace!) that was widely celebrated…right up to the moment that Christopher Tolkien used baseless copyright threats to get the book withdrawn from sale:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_and_Back_Again_(novel)

Billionaire failsons of long-dead writers notwithstanding, you can still read There and Back Again by borrowing a copy of the book from the Internet Archive's Open Library:

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15436385W/There_and_back_again

Murphy's mashup of Holmes, Pan, South Seas pirate anarchists, and other salutary and exciting personages, milieux, furniture and tropes of the Victorian adventure story is an unmissable triumph, a romp, a delight.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/06/nevereverland/#lesser-ormond-street

[wanderingavians]

Max Rambles: Most Ardently

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve GOT to talk about this book !!! I’ve decided not to frame this post as a review because I’m honestly just going to be rambling here.. anyways, let’s get to the point. There may be spoilers in this post, though I haven’t typed far enough to know yet. Seriously just typing along as I go here, folks.

This was my fourth book finished this month and out of all four I think this one and Hell Followed With Us were the two I couldn’t put down. I mean I was having to resist the urge to read this at work. Work! The brainrot is far too real. That being said, the book was fabulous. It was fairly short and incredibly enticing read. Most Ardently is a book reimagining Elizabeth Bennett as Oliver Bennett, a trans man in the Regency era. All of the social expectations of the time make for plenty of hurdles to jump, and it made for a very satisfying climax and conclusion. Hell, all of it was satisfying. I enjoyed every minute of this book and it definitely didn’t over stay its welcome. In fact, I would have easily eaten up another fifty or one hundred pages if that had been in the cards for this book. Seriously, it was that great.

Most Ardently was flavorful. The descriptions of the environments, clothes and even the sounds surrounding Oliver was just a delight to read. I could easily picture everything described. Everything was vivid. And I just love picturing the fashion and cities of that time period. The architecture! It’s all just really fascinating to me and I devoured every little description given to me like I was starving. Which, I was. I need more books that fit into this little niche of lgbtq folk in the past that I’m so ravenous about.

I felt Oliver’s emotions on such a strong level. His joy at finally being able to express himself in a way that feels natural to him is something that I can certainly relate to and it was really refreshing to read about those moments. I felt! Emotions! The happiness I felt for him at the conclusion of this novel was just so good.

Things turned out okay- amazing, even. I was so so overjoyed to read a story that involved a trans person coming out who received acceptance from both parents when everything was revealed. It was refreshing for me.

Also, real talk, I’m not as intimately familiar with the original source material as most people are. I’m officially putting the Pride and Prejudice on my TBR after finishing this one. I’m only now just getting back to reading and I’ve already got this huge pile of books to read beginning to grow. I love it though, and I’m definitely enjoying returning back to reading. Most Ardently has only served to make me more enthusiastic about continuing to read, and for that, I thank it. I’ll definitely be returning to this one sooner rather than later.

[derelictlovefool]

Achilles Mini Reviews

I got back into reading physical/published books last year and I found some of them thanks to review lists here on tumblr so; I wanted to share three historical books I read last year that have trans protagonists!

1. A Lady For A Duke by Alexis Hall

A Lady For A Duke is a historical romance novel that follows Viola Carroll, a trans woman who got the chance to live life as herself after being presumed dead after the battle of Waterloo. The price of her freedom is the loss of her wealth, title and childhood friend Justin Gracewood. In the wake of her return home she discovers how deeply her absence affected Gracewood, finding him a shell of the man he used to be, struggling with addiction to stave off his grief and PTSD. As Viola tries to help her old friend return to himself old feelings with new names reaurface and she's forced once again to face the possibility of losing everything all over again.

Reading this book had me on the edge of my seat, kicking my feet and covering my face at times and clutching my pillow with anxiety and holding my breath at others. It's an emotional journey from start to finish and the individual character development as well as the different relationships present is so well done. The writing flows so well from one scene to the next and the author does an amazing job with Viola's internal conflicts and the handling of everything in relation to the time period. I closed this book feeling attached to more than one character and overall extremely satisfied with the conclusion, as a transmasc enby I get overjoyed reading any book with trans joy and I adore Viola with my entire soul.

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 5/5

Worldbuilding: 3/5

Pacing: 5/5

Enjoyability: 5/5

2. The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a historical fantasy horror novel set in London in 1883, following sixteen-year-old Silas Bell, a trans, autistic boy with violet eyes that mark him as a medium capable of communing with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society. Silas resists the societal expectation that he become an obedient Speaker wife and attempts to escape an arranged marriage by stealing another boy's identity, but he is caught and sent to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanatorium, where he is subjected to abuse and mistreatment. The school is a place where students are either molded into eligible wives or disappear, and when the ghosts of missing students begin to seek Silas's help, he uncovers the dark secrets of the institution

This book had me on the edge of my seat and biting my nails the whole way through, it is gripping and anxiety inducing and more than once I cried for and alongside the characters. Silas is a compelling protagonist and as a fellow trans person I resonated heavily with him, so reading through everything he was going through was an emotional punch after punch; you definitely have to be in a good headspace to read this as a transman/transmasc. There are happy moments sprinkled within the horror of the entire situation and I clung to them just as much as Silas did, they offered breathing room that is well needed. This is my first time reading medically leaning body horror and it was incredible, the imagery is masterful and it made me just as squeamish as it set out to. This one is a must read, I plan to reread it after I'm done with the author's other books.

Characters: 5/5

Plot: 5/5

Worldbuilding: 4/5

Pacing: 5/5

Enjoyability: 5/5

4. Ardently Yours by Gabe Cole Novoa

Ardently Yours is a Pride & Prejudice Remix that follows Oliver Bennet, the second eldest Bennet child, a young trans man struggling with hiding his identity and the constant pressure from his mother and the rest of society that expects him to play the part of Elizabeth Bennet. He is constantly masquerading in dresses and only ever feels truly free when he is able to sneak away dressed in proper gentleman attire. During one of his secret excursions he runs into Mr Darcy, who had been particularly rude to him when he was presenting as Elizabeth, he expects him to be just as disagreeable but quickly finds that away from the peering public eye Mr Darcy is very kind and warm hearted. As tension grows at home and Oliver spends more time as himself, he has to soon decide if he's willing to settle and be miserable for the rest of his life or be himself and follow his dreams for his future.

After reading Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice and then jumping into this Remix not long after I can say I was quite pleased with this rendition. I will admit I was biased as a transmasc with a huge crush on Mr Darcy, this book was a giant wish fuffilment with the fluff and happy ending I would expect in a fix-it fanfiction. Some events were changed or removed to properly fit the new plot of this book and it's done so pretty effectively, some things did leave me missing the depth and back and forth between Darcy and Elizabeth in the original though. Oliver and Darcy have a more positive relationship through the book due to them meeting and spending time together while Oliver is presenting as himself and I did love this but I would have loved to see Oliver be more 'prejudiced' as Elizabeth was in the original and be less lenient. It all feels a bit too easy and the conflict that is there didn't feel like an actual barrier to the happy ending. I did cry near the end of the book and I would recommend it for any transmascs into fluffy historical romance.

Characters: 4/5

Plot: 3/5

Worldbuilding: 2/5

Pacing: 4/5

Enjoyability: 5/5

[hardcore-gaming-101]

I.Q Remix+: Intelligent Qube

It’s a challenge to figure out how to follow up on a puzzle game. The temptation’s always there to introduce more mechanics, to increase the complexity and provide a suitable challenge for experts of the original, but that can just as easily throw off a perfectly maintained balance. Intelligent Qube‘s designer Masahiko Sato once discussed how he originally planned to feature more complex cube shapes, until he realized that it made the game too complex and unpredictable.  Another option is to rework the presentation, using the same classic gameplay but bringing in new sights and sounds to revitalize things (2018’s Tetris Effect is a famous example of this working like a treat). But that’s a big risk to take when Intelligent Qube‘s tone and feel is so uniquely crafted by its stark visuals and haunting soundscape.  Perhaps it was due to the jump to the next generation, as a title that came just weeks after the PS2’s Japanese launch, that it was decided to try both with the next game in the series. I.Q Remix+: Intelligent Qube provides a new take on the gameplay and visuals, and while the attempt is noteworthy, it also results in a weaker game and the most visually abrasive title by far.

Read more...

[fantastickkay]

Top 5 new additions to my collection in 2024!