#I wanted to put out something as contextless as possible but the whole thing has this energy I need everyone to listen

[peacereturnedtothevalley]

The pod version of part 2 isn’t out yet but I’m losing my mind at every scene they do in Unincorporated. No context bit from when Austin visited for a moment

[athela-3]

dub-ble trouble

1.7k words; gen/comedy; sequel/companion piece to laughter is (not) the best medicine, so some things may remain contextless here; link skill CO 12% up-type nonsense; no content warnings.

Three days into Kazunari's doctor-prescribed silence, Misumi has an idea to let him be heard. After all, that's what triangle buds do for each other, right?

You think your cheap tactics can work on me? Yosh, here we go—eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen hit combo! Hah! Take your stupid DOT debuff and eat it!

“Itarun! Whassup, my man!”

“Hm? Hey, Kazunari.” Itaru's eyes don't leave his handheld console, fingers still dancing as he chains one attack after another mercilessly.

Wait a second.

Kazunari?

Itaru looks up just as the final crit finishes off his enemy, right in time to see the rest of the room also gawking at Kazunari with varying expressions of surprise. Well, almost everyone else in the room. Judging by his regular face-splitting grin, Misumi doesn't seem very concerned, while Kazunari himself is wearing a look of perfect cheerful innocence, looking every bit as if he hadn't been explicitly prohibited from saying even a single word.

A clink from the kitchen. The Director sets down her mug, brows knitting, and uh-oh, Itaru recognises that look on her face, that's the look Sakyo has when he's this close from a ten-minute unskippable scolding cutscene. “Kazunari. Why are you talking.”

Misumi turns to Kazunari, blinking slowly like a confused cat. “Kazu? Is that a question? It sounds like one, but not really…”

Kazunari nods, still wearing a smile bright enough to light a small village.

Misumi pauses. “Oh. Okay!” He frowns for a second, then opens his mouth, and then Itaru swears he hears Kazunari's voice say: “Aww, Director! It's all good! Sumi's doing the talking for me, so I don't have to say anything for real! Dope, right?”

Silence.

“Dude.” Itaru stares at Misumi, then at Kazunari, and back again. “Are you… dubbing him?”

“Yep!” Misumi nods enthusiastically, hair flying in all directions. “I asked Kazu if he wants to try it, and he said yes! I'm going to talk for him!”

“Huh?!” Tsuzuru, standing in the kitchen with a cup noodle in his hand, blurts out. “How do you even know what he wants to say?”

“Of course I know!” Misumi declares, something strikingly like indignation clouding his face. “Kazu and I are buds, so I know what he wants to say! Right, Kazu?”

Kazunari grins, throwing an arm around Misumi's shoulders. “That's right, Sumi!” he—well, not says, not exactly, his mouth and throat didn't move and the voice clearly came from Misumi's direction, but Itaru is forced to admit that was an eerily pitch-perfect imitation.

“Kazunari Miyoshi, CV: Misumi Ikaruga,” he murmurs. “Huh. Fancy that.”

Tsuzuru blinks, sighing deeply. “I feel like I'm watching a puppet show…”

Kazunari reaches a hand towards the playwright, and immediately Misumi jumps into action. “C'mon, Tsuzurun! This way, I can still say my lines when the Summer Troupe is practicing, and I can talk to you guys! It's faster than typing, too!”

“That doesn't make it any less weird!”

“Still,” the Director shrugs, “that's a good point. You can keep on LIME-ing things to us for daily conversation, but practice has been kind of tricky…”

Tsuzuru jolts. “Director—! You don't seriously think—”

“If it's for practice, why not? It'll help the others get the feel for their timing, and you have to admit, doing this sort of double-act takes a lot of skill and concentration. It's basically an extended role study.” She turns to the two, eyeing them pensively. “And like they said, it sure is faster than typing.”

“So you prefer dubs to subs, huh?” Itaru grins.

The Director shrugs. “We can try it out for today's practice,” she decides, completely ignoring his comment. Oof. “But no promises after that.”

Kazunari pumps his fist, triumphant, and Misumi mirrors him with an excited little hop. “Yay! Thank you, Director!” he shouts in his own voice, before following it with an in-character (?) “Thanks, Director! That's so poggers of you!”

“Really, you guys?” Itaru throws his hands in the air, letting his console drop onto his lap. “Isn't anyone gonna mention how scarily spot-on his Kazunari impression is? Seriously, you should consider becoming a voice actor.”

“Huh?” Misumi's eyes are round as melons. “But I already act with my voice!”

Kazunari elbows him lightly, and, oh, here we go, he wants to say something Misumi doesn't know about, doesn't he? On one hand, Itaru could step in now and explain how voice acting is a different profession from normal acting, but on the other hand, he could also wait this out and see how the dubber and dub-ee resolve this.

He expected pantomime, at least a few gestures, maybe even the return of of Kazunari's phone to type out whatever it is he intends to say. What he did not expect was a few seconds of eye contact, after which Misumi simply turns around and says, with perfect confidence is his telepathic abilities: “Whoa, is that really a thing? Can stage actors just switch and become voice actors like that?”

Tsuzuru slams his palms against the kitchen counter. “How?” he demands. “How do you do that? Miyoshi, was that even really what you wanted to say?”

Kazunari nods, and so does Misumi. Twin pairs of nettled glares pin Tsuzuru in perfect synchronisation. “We're triangle buds,” Misumi repeats, with every air of an older sibling who has to explain the same thing over and over again and is running low on patience, “so I just have to use my triangle senses! It's easy!"

Tsuzuru stares at them, confusion and frustration flashing into desperation across his eyes. Finally, he sighs, shakes his head, and takes another bite of his cup noodles.

“But, really. Can you switch from stage acting to voice acting that easily?” the Director echoes thoughtfully. “It's one thing to convey your emotions to an auditorium, but when your voice is all you have to go by… Without gestures, body language, or even eye contact, that's a whole different kind of practice, isn't it?”

“Funny, that's exactly what Azami said the other day,” Itaru grins. “But it does happen now and then. Sometimes they still do stage acting and only voice one or two characters, but some people change careers entirely. Like—

“I'm home!”

The door swings open, and in walks Tenma, eyes immediately seeking out the clock on the living room wall. When he notices the group congregating in the kitchen, he juts his chin and pops off a sincere, if somewhat exhausted, grin in lieu of greeting.

“Welcome back,” Tsuzuru says.

“Tenten! Welcome back, piko!”

“Hey, Tenma. How was the photoshoot? Did you have fun?” The Director smiles, and Itaru mentally adds it to his ever-increasing hypothetical list of Reasons Why the Director is Everyone's Mum.

“It was fine,” Tenma shrugs. “Regular stuff, just—wait a second, what was that?”

“I asked if you had fun.”

“No, not you, Director! Before that!”

“Welcome home, piko!”

And Tenma all but jumps in his own skin. “Hey! Aren't you not supposed to talk yet? You said it's going to take a couple weeks at least! It's only been three days!”

“Oh, here we go again,” Itaru rolls his eyes theatrically. “Dialogue re-triggered.”

“Kazunari didn't say that. Misumi did,” Tsuzuru rattles off, numbering the points off his fingers. “He's going to voice Kazunari for today's practice. The future is still undecided.”

“The future always is,” Itaru notes mildly, pretending not to see the dirty look Tsuzuru shoots him.

“It's all right, Tenma!” Misumi assures him, before adding in full-on Kazunari mode: “The Director gave us permission, so we'll be in your care, yeah?”

“Sheesh… Seriously, you guys?”

“It's not a bad idea,” the Director says. “Or do you prefer yesterday's drawing boards?”

“No! Not the drawing boards!” Tenma's eyes widen in panic. “That's impossible!”

“Aw, but I think your pictures were nice!” Misumi puts in, coated in pure hundred-proof sincerity. “I liked the beef with the face and wiggly bits!”

“The what?”

“Nothing! It's nothing!” Tenma shakes his hand in the air, as if physically swatting Itaru's question aside. “L–look, it's almost time for practice, right? I had to hurry back from the photoshoot for practice, you know! Don't just stand around like that, let's go!”

“You heard your leader,” the Director chides, though the twinkle in her eyes completely undermines any seriousness in her words. “You boys go ahead, I'll catch up with you after I finish my coffee.”

“Okay!” says Misumi.

Kazunari snaps a mock salute, complete with a wink.

“Yes, Ma'am! C'mon, Sumi, let's go, piko!”

And with that… dialogue? Monologue? Something in between?—the dubbing duo bustle out of the kitchen like matched whirlwinds, curtains fluttering and footsteps echoing in their wake, while Tenma trails behind with a considerable gap in energy levels.

“I'm never gonna get used to that,” Tsuzuru mutters as he watches them leave.

“Eh, could be worse,” Itaru offers philosophically.

“Like how?”

“Could be Citron doing the dubbing.”

Tsuzuru shudders, pain shooting across his face like a thunderbolt. He finishes the last of his noodles and drops the emptied cup into the rubbish bin. “Now, that's just…”

The Director shakes her head, half a smile tugging at her lips. “Relax, they'll probably get bored of it sooner than later. Just let them have their fun for now. Besides, it can't possibly get any weirder than this, right?”

[the-wiresmarvelau]

T.H.E. W.I.R.E.S.

Peter and his Friends are allowed to design the compound and couldn’t help but riddle it with secret tunels and hallways. While Peter installs said hallways he makes some new acquaintences who he has to help and gets help from.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2  - chapter 4

Chapter 3: secrets

The rest of the night was spent pacing about the compound.

Peter couldn’t stand even the thought of standing still but he knew that he was too wound up to be much good on patrol.

Instead, he took to walking up and down the corridors; until it literally drew him up the wall, how unproductive he.

Then he began distributing all the small things like pillows and decorations to all the Rooms he had roughly finished by then. Up to this point he didn’t have the nerve to do so much walking but right now it was exactly what he needed.

When he was done with the normal rooms, he did the same for the small spaces in THE WIRES he had built in for hiding or just chilling out.

The AI they wanted to install in there was almost finished and the young genius was eager to have him here.

They had decided on a male AI to even it out. His Name would be Manuel; since he was a manual for THE WIRES.

Ned loved this pun and they both were proud of their creation.

Peter tried to go through everything they had yet to code in his head in a desperate attempt to not think about Loki.

Yes, he wanted to save him and yes it had to be as fast as possible but the god had also said that it would take at least a day or two until he could contact his mother and right this moment the hero’s thoughts were too scattered to think of a solution.

As he went to bed, he was still more than a little distraught and didn’t think he would be able to so much as close an eye.

To his surprise, he drifted off fairly soon.

But it really couldn’t be called sleep as he was half conscious for most of the time and every time, he fell asleep properly, mere minutes passed until he was shaken awake again by sharp pains littering his back or threading through his mouth and lips.

Or he saw the god cowering in a cell, or being dragged out of it by his hair to be executed or to be whipped and beaten, again and again.

After a few hours spent half awake half dreaming up nightmares, he decided to get up.

It was of no use to torture himself also. There was enough pain already in this world.

Numb and slightly drowsy from tiredness he dragged himself to his bathroom.

While he showered, he tried to go through his options.

SHIELD was in ruins, therefore in no condition to house the god. Plus, they had been the ones banning him from ever coming back to earth in the first place.

They were out.

The government was similarly unprepared for this. They had neither the knowledge nor the resources to build a suitable housing and they would probably have to inform the public of what was going on, practically hanging a neon sign over the trickster’s head for Odin to find.

Mr. Stark was a whole other deal. He could build a safe facility and he wouldn’t even think about telling the media or government.

But as Loki had already mentioned. The billionaire wouldn’t hear him out in the first place.

He would berate the boy for talking to the Asgardian and threaten the god to leave them alone and to not play any tricks.

He wouldn’t see that just because someone was good at lying, didn’t mean they couldn’t also tell the truth.

And Peter knew that the New York incident offered enough opportunity for mayor grudges on his mentor’s side.

As Tony and him had grown closer both of them had opened up to each other.

The Inventor had told him about his childhood in Captain Americas shadow and the light of press cameras.

He had opened up about his time in Afghanistan, about Obadiah and Ultron and about what happened on the helicarrier and during the Chitauri invasion. Much of it during long nights, riddled with nightmares and panic attacks.

In return, the teenager had told him about uncle Ben, his guilt in his death and his sensory issues that came with his powers.

He told him about how the Vulture had found out his identity and how terrified he was when he almost drowned because of that guy.

They of course didn’t tell each other everything.

Everything Peter knew about his mentor’s childhood was pieced together from what he was told of the man’s nightmares and contextless rants.

Peter still didn’t know how Rhodes had become Tony’s friend and if Peter hadn’t seen the demolished suit, he wouldn’t even know half the extent of what went down in Siberia.

He still had no idea what exactly happened.

But that was okay. Tony was allowed to have secrets; besides, he was not the only one keeping them.

The teen had many himself.

He had never told Mr. Stark about Flash and Skip*. Or about the building, dropped on him.

Or that it was him, who he saved at the Stark Expo.

Or the meeting with DareDevil.

It was hard for him to talk after a nightmare. And other times he didn’t know how to bring stuff like this up with his father figure - because that’s what Tony had become for him at this point - even though he wanted the other to know.

Maybe that’s why he had made it a habit to look through old security footage now and again.

He wanted someone else to find what he couldn’t talk about, so he searched for hints of similar wishes and events in others.

During one of those searches he had come across the security footage of the day of the alien invasion as well as Loki’s arrival on Midgard (he didn’t want to know how and why Tony had gotten these from SHIELD) and with that, of Loki.

On that footage, something had been weird about his appearance, but back then he hadn’t really been able to name what it was, so he had let it slide pretty quickly.

After all, he was an alien.

But now, that he had seen how the god had presented himself, while he altered his looks to, what Peter assumed, was himself in a healthy condition; He was pretty sure he hadn’t been well back then either.

His pale skin had clung to his skull, the eyes sunken in and rimmed with red all around.

Keeping that in the back of his mind he decided that it would be best to keep the god somewhere close, so he could be protected.

And what was closer and safer than the very compound he currently resided in?

It was literally made to keep a hoard of super powered people safe.

There still was the part about Tony not hearing Loki out of course. But he was sure that helping the god was the right thing to do, he had to at least try and convince Tony to let Loki move in.

Unless.. he just wouldn’t know he was there.

Unsure about how good of an idea it actually was, he stepped out of the shower, went over to his closet and started to get dressed.

He needed to talk to Ned.

It was out of the question that his best friend would tell on Loki or him. He was the only person who knew everything about the superhero. And he trusted him with his life.

Together they would figure it out, though they had to find a way to get rid of KAREN.

Her Protocols would probably force her to relay all information about Peter and Loki to Mr Stark and that simply wouldn’t do.

Only problem: KAREN was still installed on his StarkWatch, hearing everything around him and simply taking it off would be a sure way to arouse suspicion, as he never took it off, save for when he showered.

Looking down to his wrist he cursed himself for how responsible he was. He had already put on his watch, first thing the moment he had towelled himself down.

He sat down for a moment to think about what he could do now.

The only reason to take another shower would be an extensive workout, after that he could pretend to have forgotten to put his watch back on again.

Peter really wasn’t in the mood for training but he needed to talk to his friend without the AI.

“KAREN, could you invite Ned over please? I wanna work on Manuel today” he asked while getting out some sports clothes and changed into them, a little annoyed with himself that he hadn’t thought about what to do before pulling on his normal wear.

‘I will text him at eight thirty, unless it is important enough to wake him up now?’ It was reassuring to hear her usual sass.

“Yeah, sure.” He answered, “it’s not urgent or anything. Please also ask Happy to pick him up and make a workout plan for the meantime. I’ve slumped on training a bit lately.”

‘If you say so’

It felt like it took an unreasonably long time for his friend to arrive.

When he finally got the text from Ned, telling him he was only five minutes away, Peter sent a text back that they would meet up in the lab and went to his room to take a shower.

He deliberately didn’t take any clothes into the bathroom and took extra-long, by the time he had to get out, he acted like he was in a great hurry, leaving KAREN behind in his bathroom.

No AI had been installed in the compound itself yet. The update for FRIDAY hadn’t been Mr. Stark’s highest priority, since the accords were much more time sensitive.

Grinning, the teenager made his way over to his personal lab. The only reason KAREN wasn’t installed there was that he had set his mind on having Manuel in there as ‘Peter Parker’s’ AI while KAREN remained with Spiderman.

Ned was already at the entrance to his lab, vibrating with anticipation.

That came to no one’s surprise, the boy was even more excitable than Peter and that was no small feat.

Additionally: this compound was massive, and he had helped design it and the fricking Avengers would live here. That was worth getting excited for.

“Ouuuuuh! This looks already soo cool. Here and there is a bare wall butit’sallcommingtogether. I can’t believe I’m actually here” The almost forgot to breathe with all the eagerness to share his mood with his best friend.

It had been some time since they last met in person. Both of them had been fairly busy and the compound wasn’t exactly close by.

But even trough is excitement did the boy pick up on the worry in his host’s eyes. The faint bags under them didn’t make it better and now that he paid attention to it, he also saw the nervous twitch in his hands and the lack of pep in his friend’s strides.

Something wasn’t quite right; and he was gonna find out what it was.

“Good to see you too Ned.” Came his greeting when Peter had come close enough to be heard while speaking at a normal volume.

Ever since the two had become accustomed to his super hearing, Ned started talking the moment he could see the other, knowing he would have no trouble understanding him.

The image of an energetic puppy was nearly impossible to shake.

A faint smile stole its way onto his lips at that thought.

The first since he had noticed the illusion in the roof last night.

Just like that the smile was wiped off his face.

“Oh no.” the shorter of the two exclaimed. “I know that look. That look means bad news and nothing good ever follows bad news”

This statement was met with a dry chuckle. “Isn’t that kind of the point of bad news?”

“Maybe;” He replied. “Still doesn’t make it any better. But you tell me, you’re the one bringing the news after all.”

“Don’t shot the messenger though. That would help none of us.”

While they bantered, they had entered the lab and spread out a bit. Ned sitting down on an almost empty table; Peter walking around, pulling up holograms manually and occasionally putting away some scrap parts or tools.

“You know I couldn’t shoot you even if I wanted to. You psychic!” his best friend taunted

His answer was a theatrical gasp paired with the super teen laying a hand over his chest in the way his mentor always did. Bringing a grin to the other boy’s face.

“Enough joking around.” He announced, getting back to serious. “Whatever it is, Stark junior. I can take it.”

Clearly, he tried to keep the mood as light-hearted as he could, which didn’t go unappreciated.

Still. Peter couldn’t help his tone becoming a little sombre.

“I met someone yesterday.” He said “On patrol.”

He had settled down a little bit; leaning back onto a table, which automatically changed its hight to fit his needs. His Hands fidgeted with the hem of his science pun t-shirt.

Patiently; his friend waited.

“It was.. It wasn’t DareDevil. Instead... I met Loki.”

Only now did he take his eyes from the floor to look at his friend.

Quite clearly, he was in shock. Staring at the other, trying to figure out what to think about this revelation.

“Before you freak out: It was only an illusion, he is still in the dungeons of Asgard.” The super-teen tried to calm his friend down. Cringing at the thought of Loki’s location.

“oh. Yeah… That’s good right? He won’t come back?”

His concern was understandable for Peter. But he was also convinced, that the god meant no harm and was truly in need of help.

In that regard, was the sentiment of his friend not the most promising. Though he knew him well and was convinced that Ned would be on his side once he knew what they did to the god.

“That’s the thing.. It isn’t.”

A quizzical look from Ned.

“He sent his projection here to ask for help, which in itself speaks volume considering ho prideful he seemed to be; but that’s not the point. In Asgard, they treat him bad! Like   I whip your back bloody and sew your mouth shut bad.”

He gave his friend a few seconds to process the new information; all the while staring him in the eyes to make sure he knew that this wasn’t a crude prank or something.

“We need to help him..”

“Wait what now!?” Ned squeaked. “They did WHAT!??!”

“Exactly.” The hero answered. “He needs our help, Ned. We can so it’s our responsibility. The plan so far is that he contacts his mother and she brings him here to earth; Our only job is to find a place where he can stay…

That’s why I needed to talk to you because this has to be thought out and I need your second opinion.”

Peter waited for his friend’s response.

After a few seconds of silence his friend looked up.

“Okay… what’s your idea?”

It took a great load off his mind to know he wasn’t alone with his opinion. If Ned was agreeing this easily it meant that he at least wasn’t completely delusional in his opinion on helping the trickster out.

“You remember that storage room slash hideout thingy at the exit to the lake? If I were to hide the entrance to the bunker behind a closet, nobody would find it; Even if we show them the entrance or have to get something from there.”

Originally, they had planned to build in there a kind of vacation home. Until they realised that the compound itself was more than enough novelty, a vacation spot was not needed.

Instead, they had made it into a small bunker in case the compound was taken over and they needed a spot to regroup while waiting on evacuation.

“Wait. Just so we’re on the same page. You really try to keep this a secret from Stark?” the shorter tried to clarify.

“He would never believe Loki. We can’t tell anyone before he hasn’t completely healed. Then we will decide how to break it to the others” The brunette got a nod in response.

“The only problem is to figure out where I will get some additional furniture from.” He added.

“And how to get his food to him.” Ned commented.

They spend some time trying to figure everything out, until they settled on ordering everything they already had and could use for Loki’s room to be brought to the compound a second time

To the millionaire, they send a message, explaining that they had managed to break one of the desks while messing around and used the occasion to reorder some stuff which had either the wrong measurements or they had forgotten to order them in the first place.

Tony replied within a few minutes saying it was no problem.

That problem out of the way, Peter began to bring the selected stuff to the hidden room, while his friend began to build a small service robot, capable of navigating THE WIRES and transporting things.

Not even two hours later, the room was done and they both turned to developing some protocols for Manuel, making sure he would be able to keep the secret.

Unfortunately, Ned had to go before they were able to finish the AI.

His mother needed him to babysit his sister but they would meet again the next day and probably be ready to install Manuel at the end of the day.

*A character from the comics. If you don’t know him, you’ll see. Don’t want to spoil a potential surprise for you.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2 - chapter 4 

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: After 13 Years, Indie RPG Masterpiece Ruina is Finally Available in English

All screenshots of Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins taken by author

  This article was made possible through the invaluable contributions of translators Dink and bool, and further aided by context generously provided by writer, translator, and RPG Maker scene dweller Kastel (@kastelwrites). Sections from their answers were excerpted for this piece and edited for clarity and content.

  Last year, at the start of the pandemic, a lapsed member of the RPG Maker community known as Dink stumbled across a screenshot while trawling Japanese free game websites: a black obelisk standing in the midst of ruins. “This is going to make me sound like I've been huffing paint, but this image spoke to something quite visceral for me — like I'd been waiting to find this game. Something about the sepia tones, the light and shadows, the elegance of its very archetype. I knew I had to play it.” Dink had stumbled across Ruina: Haitou no Monogatari (Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins), one of the most acclaimed free RPGs ever made in Japan. Released in the antiquated RPG Maker 2000 engine in 2008 by developer Shoukichi Karekusa, it retains a strong cult following and has even been translated into Chinese. Yet unlike its RPG Maker siblings Yume Nikki and Ib, Ruina is practically unknown in English-speaking countries. Dink decided to change that.  “Once I realized that it had yet to be translated into English,” he said, “it was like I’d become possessed.”

  Ruina is unique. A role-playing game that takes direct influence from tabletop games and gamebooks, it boldly defies conventions established by classic console role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Rather than controlling the main character across a top-down map, the player slowly uncovers a hand-illustrated map of nodes. Survival in the dungeon requires the use of ropes, pickaxes, and oil for your lantern, resources that are all expendable. Your party members are valuable not only for their combat skills but for their out-of-combat abilities: thieving, sneaking, even swimming. Most of all, Ruina allows for choice and consequence, a phenomenon far more common in western RPGs than Japanese RPGs. Say you stumble across treasure in a dungeon, but are ambushed by thieves who want the treasure for themselves. Do you give the treasure to the thieves? Stand your ground? Or attack the thieves before they can do the same to you? Since your ability to save in the dungeon is heavily rationed, you may find yourself having to choose between restarting a save or living with the messy outcomes of your choices.

    There’s something to Ruina that grounds it in the Japanese RPG tradition, rather than a straightforward riff on Wizardry or Might & Magic. Those earlier games gave you several choices as to building your party, but little in the way of story or character. Ruina is a far more curated experience. On starting the game, you’re offered four “backgrounds” that align you with certain other characters, just one year before Dragon Age: Origins would pull a similar trick. Rather than being given the full freedom to explore a sprawling world, your options are limited to navigating a single, contained dungeon. The characters available to be recruited into your party have defined personalities and quirks — some are already good friends of yours, others are insufferable, and still others have significant flaws that speak to the kind of person they are versus their gameplay function. These are NPCs out of the Baldur’s Gate school, given the illusion of life, rather than the team of personalized murderers you’d recruit in an Etrian Odyssey game.

  Very little else in the Japanese games scene is like Ruina. You could draw comparisons with games like Unlimited Saga and Scarlet Grace, representing the legacy of controversial SQUARE ENIX auteur Akitoshi Kawazu. You could similarly connect Ruina with Yasumi Matsuda’s experimental Crimson Shroud, which takes influence from tabletop to the point that it has the player rolling dice in-game. But Ruina is more accessible and polished than a Kawazu game, and far more fleshed out than Crimson Shroud. Even Etrian Odyssey, with its comparatively barebones story and characters, doesn’t quite compare. Ruina stands alone in the Japanese free games community, a legendary title that people respect but don’t fully understand how to replicate.

    A few days ago I reached out to Kastel, an academic, writer, and translator who is very familiar with Japan’s RPG Maker scene, about where Ruina fit in Japan’s wider field of indie games. “I know many people in the furige (free game) scene who love the game to death,” they said. “But they also found it to be a hard sell due to its unique, almost western take on the scene. The fact that the game is even this popular speaks to something.” Despite its crunchy mechanics and niche inspirations, the game is popular enough to have spawned light novels, an honor not unique to it (other RPG Maker games have accomplished the same) but certainly significant. Kastel drew a comparison between Ruina and Darkest Dungeon, another weird and uncompromising game that draws from both Japanese and western RPGs. “Ruina is sorta different from everything, but you also see dungeon crawlers get inspired by it,” they said. “Not all games take direct inspiration, but you can’t help but see a little bit of Ruina here and there.”

  So why did it take so long for anybody to translate Ruina? Dink isn’t the only person to try his hand at translating it into English; just last fall, another forum dweller placed an ad recruiting a translation team to tackle the game. The unfortunate reality is that translating text within the RPG Maker engine into English requires intensive and repetitive labor. “There’ve been tools developed by vgperson [a prominent translator of RPG Maker games] for RPG Maker 2000 and some other machine translation tools for newer games, but they all remain difficult to use for translators,” Kastel says. “The way games are scripted uses events inside the map and developers rarely name them. So not only do you need to edit it via the appropriate RPG Maker engine, but you also need to go through each event contextless unless the creator actually notes things down.” So, the enterprising Ruina translator doesn’t just need to translate all the text in the game into English. It isn’t even a question of whether or not to manually edit the game’s many pictures and custom menus into English by hand. It’s the sheer difficulty of navigating between thousands of (often poorly labeled) events and variables in the RPG Maker engine, ensuring not to introduce any new bugs or errors in the process, while also finding the time to do all of the above.

    Dink was assisted by a friend of his named bool, who played through the game alongside the translation process and gave invaluable advice and fixes. “Uncovering the mystery in the game's story sort of ran parallel with the translation of the game itself,” bool says. “As the story progressed, the characters would decipher and learn more about the lore of the eponymous ruins within the game, and as the translation progressed, the same held true for us. It really captivated me to be a part of this process, and I started to look forward to each new area that I could explore and each new morsel of the story I could understand.”

  Without bool’s efforts, it might have taken far longer to put together something workable. As it was, it took four exhausting months. “I worked long hours — 12+ hours a day, 6, sometimes 7 days a week on top of my day job — and very rarely used my free time on anything else,” Dink says. “I did manually input the text in RPG Maker 2000, which has raised some eyebrows because there are some very nice tools available for game translation that would have saved me a lot of time. However, a huge advantage of working directly in the editor is being able to see the game more or less as it appears to players. A Notepad file streamlines the basic translation process, but it also heavily obscures context, whereas the editor allows you to see what switches and variables are being used, what music is being played, and sometimes even helpful creator comments, all in the same relative order you'd experience it from within the game.” Dink had one more secret weapon up his sleeve: the experience of working with the RPG Maker engine as an adolescent. RPG Maker has a reputation of being a tool designed to churn out Dragon Quest clones with ease; but nobody knows the intense difficulty of forcing the engine to do something, anything, like a former RPG Maker developer does. 

    The English version of Ruina, as it currently exists, is a workable but inevitably compromised version of the game. Running the game requires installing the Japanese RTP pack of visual and audio resources for RPG Maker to function, along with the use of the EasyRPG player to provide English-language player name entry. There’s the matter of the custom menus, as well. Several of the menus have been replaced with functional English equivalents, but by Dink's own admission they could use an expert's attention to better compare to the original. Other pictures, such as place name displays, have yet to be replaced by English-language equivalents at all. And the strict character limits of RPG Maker 2000 led to some creative truncating when translating from Japanese to English, especially with item and skill descriptions.

  But the existence of an English-language Ruina, one that renders the whole game playable from beginning to end with a readable script, is a miracle. Speaking for myself, I started the long process of learning Japanese two years ago in part so that I could one day play this game, never expecting there might one day be an alternative. Others in the Japanese RPG Maker scene, knowing the brutal difficulty of translating a game made in the earlier engines, were shocked that a game of Ruina’s complexity and length was successfully translated at all.  Speaking for themselves, Dink and bool insist that their own story doesn’t matter much. What matters is the quality of the original game and the hard work developer Shoukichi Karekusa put into its creation. Anything else is an addendum, another version of the game that — while it cannot ever be the original — might at least make something resembling that original experience accessible to others.

    Frankly speaking, I think there’s something to that. The “true” version of Ruina will always exist in its original form, released for free by Karekusa in 2008. It stands as the defining work of a creator who sought to create a unique experience combining the appeal of console and tabletop roleplaying games, with no concessions to market sensibilities. A creator who not only released their baby on the internet for free, but insisted that a game like Ruina must always and ever be free. An austere monolith, it stands side by side with Yume Nikki, Ib, and even Cave Story as one of the great works to come out of Japan’s independent scene. Now any English speaker can pick up and play this new version of Ruina, and learn what that monolith is and where it leads to.

  You can download the English translation of Ruina here. For those who want to learn more about the Japanese RPG Maker scene, I recommend checking out Kastel’s page here.

  Are you a Ruina fan? Let us know in the comments! 

    Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he is not working through exercises in Wanikani, he sporadically contributes with a loose group of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at:@wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[grimelords]

Hello I finished my July playlist a week ago but when I went to post it tumblr was down, and then I just plumb forgot! Anyway, here it is - properly sequenced this time for a very special listening experience that seamlessly delivers you from disco heaven to black metal hell and everything in between. Also I’m thinking of making these playlists a tinyletter that people can subscribe to that comes out on an actual schedule, rather than me posting them at a random time weeks after they’re finished. Is that something you’d be interested in? Who knows. Check back next month! Anyway, here goes:

listen here

Stay Away From Me - The Sylvers: You know when you’re listening to a song and the sample is super hot but the rest is just ok, so you think to yourself well why don’t I just listen to the original instead? That’s what happened to me with Final Form by Sampa The Great. That song is good but it’s also kind of not doing enough to convince me not to just listen to this super hit by The Sylvers instead. A fun thing with this song is to try to count how many instruments you can hear because it is surprisingly densely arranged for some reason. There’s a xylophone back there going off if you listen.

Sizzlin’ Hot - Paradise: The same thing happened with this song and Sizzlin’ by Daphni. I think they were going for an Armand Van Helden style distillation of the pure essence of the song, sampling the hookiest part and speeding it up and thickening up all the percussion and all that, which can work amazingly but for me it just made me want to hear the original and so I have been all month. What’s so good about being alive now is that in most cases it’s just as easy to access music from 2019 as it is to access music from 1981 where an original copy is apparently going for $1000 on discogs. Every day I thank god for inventing mp3s and putting them on the ark.

Manaos (Canzone) - Fabio Frizzi and Crossbow: I forget how I came across this, I was going through random Fabio Frizzi soundtracks for some reason. I just love the concept of a disco song about escaping from vicious assailants. Funkily singing ‘God help us, if they catch us we all are gonna die.’ as spears fly past you.

Holding On - Julio Bashmore: I think this is one of my favourite pieces of sampling ever. The way the vocals in the background are cut they don’t even sound like vocals. They just a strange contextless textural sound that works so well before eventually revealing itself as vocals in the run before the drop. It’s just so good.

Weight Watchers - Parallel Dance Ensemble: First of all I love this disgusting bass sound. It sounds like two different indistinct bass lines playing at the same time and they both drowned. I’m also mounting a change.org petition to bring back this kind of extremely naff Tone Loc flow, it rocks.

Dance - ESG: I found this incredible band while I was looking for the rapper ESG and I’m so glad I did. Their song UFO is one of those songs that’s been sampled so many times you think of it as more of a sound effect than a song, like it comes preloaded on a drum machine everyone has or something, but it’s also a good template for ESG’s sound. Every ESG song I’ve heard so far goes like this: a straightforward beat that doesn’t change for the whole song, a functional bassline that doesn’t change for the whole song, and good old fashioned simple lyrics about dancing and having a good time that sound more like schoolyard clapping games than anything. It doesn’t sound like much but over the course of an album it adds up to this incredible sort of hypnotic post-punk funk that I cannot get enough of. It sounds like kids who have 1 idea making a whole album out of it because that’s exactly what it is and it’s great!

Crave You - Flight Facilities: I love how elementally simple this song is. The vocals are hypnotising enough so everything else just quietly supports it. The only part that stands out is the thick bass synth halfway through which makes the short sax solo at the and all the sweeter, a tiny little cherry on top.

You - Delta 5: Get a load of this band bio: “Initially inspired by the success of local heroes The Mekons and Gang Of Four, Leeds, England’s Delta 5 later emerged as one of the key figures of the feminist new wave. Formed in 1979 by vocalist/guitarist Julz Sale, fretless bassist Ros Allen and bassist Bethan Peters.” Just going to gloss over them having TWO bass players before they even have a drummer?? Absolutely amazing. I love this song because it’s such a specific, targeted fury. Imagine being the loser at your girlfriend’s gig when she launched into this one for the first time. ‘who’s got homebrew with lots of sediment?’ oh fuck that’s me ‘who took me to the Windham for a big night out?’ oh fuck that’s me ‘I found out about you’ oh FUCK

Siren - Gong Gong Gong: I love the way the bass works in this, just looping and layering different variations of this noisy, stationary riff on top of itself - steadfastly staying in the exact same place the whole song and growing in power the whole time as it sits in its stubbornness.

Changes - Antonio Williams and Kerry McCoy: This came up on my Discover Weekly and I completely fell in love with it, then I realised it’s Antwan and Kerry McCoy from Deafheaven which is extremely intriguing collaboration and fell in love even more. The vocals are so good. The pure broken-hearted anguish, and the super blunt delivery that progresses to straight up yelling by the end of it combined with the Radio Dept type instrumentation is just so powerful. This feels like it’s a song that could really be a life-changing piece of catharsis for everyone in a 5k radius done live.

Fuck A War - Geto Boys: Absolutely in love with the conceit of this song: rapping a whole song down the line to the army drafter. The incredible part being of course that Bushwick Bill would be able to dodge any draft easily, being as he was both a dwarf and blind in one eye.

God Make Me Funky - The Headhunters: I found a lot of great songs going through the samples list for We Can’t Be Stopped by Geto Boys and this is one of them. I have so much love for any song that takes its time like this: nearly two minutes to set the scene and somehow taking deadly seriously the very funny lyrical idea of desperately praying to god to PLEASE make you funky.  The way this song escalates is also amazing, moving from a hot groove that sits in place to a full-on saxophone meltdown that feels like god placing his finger on your forehead and saying ‘so you want to be funky, do you?’ in a scary voice.

Use Me - Bill Withers: Fortunately and unfortunately, because of how this song was in Anchorman and because I’ve seen Anchorman one million times I can’t listen to it without hearing the noise Ron Burgundy makes when he sees Veronica in the first few seconds. Anyway, this song is so horny. The part where he has to explain to his bro how good this shit is? Doing all kinds of weird dom shit like ‘getting him in a crowd of high class people and then acting real rude to him?’ Weird. And the escalation into the claps at BABY! is amazing, he’s just going off powered by horniness and god bless him for it.

America! I’m For The Birds - Nicolas Jaar: Unbelievably, the deluxe edition of Sirens is possibly superior to the original. It’s a whole new tracklist, new songs interspersed throughout rather than the usual ‘three new songs at the end’ and it really gives it a whole new feel. This song is my favourite of the new ones and it’s a song I had in my head for a solid week. A perfect song to sing to yourself because the lyrics are so indistinct that you just end up mumbling pleasantly exactly like he is.

Cable Guy - Tierra Whack: I’m finally catching up on Tierra Whack and everyone’s right: she rocks. The sheer restraint in these songs is amazing, they just get in and out with only the good parts and no bullshit. It reminds me a lot of To The Innocent by Thingy which is one of my favourite albums for the same reason - the economy of the songwriting just serves to amplify the feeling of it. They both have this total irreverence in the lyricism where the songs are kind of about nothing but they’re so short and heartfelt that you dig for the feeling underneath it.

No Drug Like Me - Carly Rae Jepsen: I’ve previously written that what I love the most about the Carly Rae Jepsen is how horny it is and I’d like to double down on that sentiment here. I love how slow this song is, it’s the perfect tempo between danceable and ‘fucking’.

Con Calma (Remix) - Daddy Yankee, Katy Perry and Snow: I’ve been on a european holiday for most of this month and I would like to report that across Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, France and Germany this is the absolute song of the summer. It is completely inescapable and personally I can’t get enough. Informer is one of the greatest and strangest one hit wonders of all time (it’s also canada’s highest selling reggae song of all time and Snow is thusly named because he’s white) and I’m psyched to hear it reworked by Daddy Yankee like this. Katy Perry being on the crossover attempt remix isn’t a good sign for her new album but she kills it so maybe that’s all that matters.

Chase The Devil - Max Romeo and The Upsetters: Here’s the other half of my short lived dub phase from the end of last month. This is a good example also of how completely beguiling lyrics can still be so effective. I have no idea what he means by putting on an iron shirt but it rhymes and he’s saying it with conviction so I’m nodding!

Glass - Bat For Lashes: The new Bat For Lashes songs have got me revisiting Two Suns which is an all time great five star album and this is my favourite song from it. Maybe the most powerful opening track of all time, it does as much worldbuilding as most fantasy novels do in 1000 pages. In fact almost every line in this is a viable fantasy novel title. A Thousand Crystal Towers. The Hand Of The Watchmen. A Knight In Crystal Armour. A Cape Of Rainbow. The way she sings ‘to be made of glass’ is.. incredible. I love Natasha Khan and I cannot wait to see what she does next.

Unsquare Dance - Paddy Milner: In searching spotify for other interpretations of Unsquare Dance after getting obsessed with it last month I came across this absolutely bonkers version. It’s maniacal, it feels like you would be physically and mentally drained by the end playing it because I am just listening to it. Need a little lie down.

Gimme Some Skin, My Friend - The Andrews Sisters: My girlfriend has turned me onto The Andrews Sisters lesser known hits recently and this is the best one: a song from when high fives were a novelty that those wacky blacks over in Harlem town were inventing. Extremely odd but an undeniable banger. The thing about The Andrews Sisters is one of them was an absolute force of nature as a performer and the other two were complete wet blankets and it’s kind of funny they were together as a group for their whole career because anyone with eyes can see where the real star is. The way she sings ‘baby’ at 1:25, and that whole run really, is absolutely amazing and so much better than this extremely dumb song deserves.

Kids On The Run - The Tallest Man On Earth: The piano sound alone in this is just so beautiful. This song could be about anything at all and it would still make me cry, and luckily for me: it basically is!

King Of Spain - The Tallest Man On Earth: Good song I had in my head the whole time I was in Spain. It’s incredible that his voice is so good. It feels like if it was even the tiniest bit different, slightly rougher or tinnier he would be completely hilariously unlistenable but instead he’s amazing. Plus the fact that he leans into it with the purposefully lo-fi trebly production is just so confident you can’t help but love it.

Romeo And Juliet - The Indigo Girls: A great cover I wasn’t aware of before that I heard in this great documentary Wildwood I was watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOWxnh012J0. The way she absolutely flies off the handle and nearly tears the song down around her near the last chorus is pure power and I love people who can do that in an acoustic song without it feeling overblown, just getting totally swept up in it and taking everyone along with you.

On The Bus Mall - The Decemberists: Definitely the number one song about gay teenage prostitutes who love each other and are optimistic against the odds.  

White Fire - Angel Olsen: This song feels like a piece of dark magic. It feels like a 4am moment of clarity, speaking everything true in a five minute monotone and then instantly falling back to sleep with only a dim memory in the morning.  

Glass Eyes -JW Ridley: JW Ridley is a genius and I cannot wait to see what he does with an album. Every song he puts out seems to be better than his last. The central melody in this is just beautiful, and the whole thing has so much space in it it feels so much longer than 3 minutes. It’s like a song you can live in.

Nullarbor - Floodlights: I love how rough this song is, and driving across australia because you’ve got nothing else going on and want to rattle your own cage is a Huge mood.

Made Too Pretty (Audiotree Live Version) - As Cities Burn: I’m so glad As Cities Burn are back, because it means they get to do good shit like this Audiotree session where they absolutely killed it.

Dirty Hearts - Dallas Crane: I think I’ve put this on a playlist before for exactly the same reason: it’s a song I wake up with in my head fairly often for some reason and it’s a very fun slice of pub rock that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.

Ruin This Smile - The Number 12 Looks Like You: Did you know The Number 12 Looks Like You have reformed after 10 years away and haven’t missed a step at all?? I’m salivating. This song is as good as anything they’ve put out before, and feels like it fits somewhere between Mongrel and Worse Than Alone which is fantastic news for me who always loved those a lot more than their earlier more explicitly grindcore stuff.

Nutrient Painting - Yellow Eyes: A special thanks to my friend and yours Powerburial for linking this song on his twitter. There’s something about the guitars in this song, in almost every riff, where it sounds like they’re playing backwards somehow. Like the structure of the melodies is backwards. It doesn’t make sense but that’s what it sounds like to me and it’s very disconcerting.

Jejune Stars - Bright Eyes: I think this an underrated Conor Oberst era, when he became a sort of buddhist for a while and wasn’t sad anymore but just observed earth from outer space instead. I also love the instrumentation of this song, Bright Eyes and blast beats a match made in heaven. Also the strange sample about pom’granite at the end is one of my favourite things ever. A very strange album to retire the Bright Eyes name on but a very good one too.

At The Bar - Dirty Three: When I was overseas I was thinking about cultural music, and Australia’s place in the world and things like that. I ended up thinking about Dirty Three who I think along with The Drones make the most distinctly Australian sounding music to me. Just the vastness they manage to conjure from such straightforward barebones instrumentation is incredible.

listen here

[land-of-brains-and-chocolate]

god it WILL NOT stop bothering me until i talk about it. the way we got here. it’s not just about the book anymore, not at all, and it’s certainly never been about “shipping”, at this point it’s how helpless the tactics of the guy make me feel.

step one: refer to people who have read previous venom books and noticed the trend throughout the nineties to portray eddie and the symbiote as a man and an agender alien in an ambiguously or not-so-ambiguously romantic relationship, which was picked up on and completely unambiguously canonised in the very last run, consistently refer to these people as “shippers”, lovingly condescend to them, do not ever treat “the ship” as existing beyond their imagination

[I LOVE THAT YOU GUYS EXIST]

result: make people forget that this is a complete misrepresentation and he has received no criticism whatsoever for “not making a ship canon” because that is not what he did, he decanonised it and then denied doing so and painted everyone it ever meant something to as essentially deluded - and, considering that that’s all they are, he’s being awfully kind and accommodating, isn’t he?

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step two: actively seek out these no-good shippers on tumblr! tell them that you’re watching them! read their detailed posts in which they express their grievances about your comic book to their friends and misrepresent their points on your twitter so your bajillion followers can affirm that Those People are categorically wrong about everything!

[EDDIE IS CODEPENDENT]

people are mad at him because he said eddie was codependent! not because he’s reframing the extremely rare story of a troubled queer relationship that was ultimately still a redemptive force in these characters’ lives as an unhealthy compulsion that corrupts, hm, what a fresh and unfamiliar take, no reason why this would strike a nerve - and, recently, of course, as something inherently abusive, every bit of hope and change for the better vile and fake.

literally just start vaguing about people’s personal tumblr blogs on your professional twitter account with the little, little blue checkmark and everything, use that to make passive-aggressive references to people’s posts! why not!

[LOVE EACH OTHER]

people talk about how they like a symbiote and its host getting along (and they did, that very night, talk quite a lot about ngozi)? that is so dumb and lame.

[EVERYTHING IS AWESOME]

people get sick of edgy shock factor writing that throws one dark theme after another at them without treating any of them with the consideration they deserve? people expect some moments of levity in a venom book?

they’re asking for stories with no conflict where nothing bad ever happens! but it’s okay, he knows better, he knows you just don’t know what you want! it’s not like endless sadness is just as likely to be dreadfully boring or unintentionally hilarious as endless happiness!

result: o w n e d god he sure is shutting down every point no one has ever made

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step three: literally get so mad at people on tumblr talking about your comic that you not only boil their opinions down to THE SHIIIIP but literally say that their opinions don’t matter because they literally would never say it “to your face” literally because it’s “easy to be brave on tumblr”

literally

say these words

[IT’S EASY TO BE BRAVE ON TUMBLR]

call people chicken shits for NOT talking to you directly! and then! BLOCK everybody who talks to you directly! or quote retweet them so your followers can descend like vultures! actually acknowledge that it takes bravery to interact with you if you’re in the Tumblr Demographic, you know, one of Those People, and frame yourself as in the right for it???

am i losing my mind???

[SIX PEOPLE ON TUMBLR]

get so mad at people on tumblr talking about your comic that you not only claim they’re the only people ever to talk badly of it but imply that you’re one step away from namedropping the specific perpetrators. that’s not ominous at all!

it’s an age-old question: how many times does one of marvel’s top writers with legions of fans have to imply his antagonistic awareness of your specific existence before you’re on a first name basis? and also paranoid?

result: stir shit. be a shit stirrer. faint when your shit stirring does in fact stir shit. you can’t go “you would never” and be surprised when people do, you... can’t...

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step four: whip out your ally card... to whip the people you’re supposed to be allied to with it. try to use your knowledge of queer issues to shut down actual queer people.

[I DON’T THINK IT’S APPROPRIATE TO ASSUME GENDER]

either that, or straight-up make a “did you just assume my gender” joke. i can’t find the original tweet anymore, so it’s possible it was that and he deleted it because it was too blatant, lol.

result: MAYBE YOU GUYS WERE THE PROBLEMATIC ONES ALL ALONG

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes!

step five: remember that interview where he outright stated that he just wants to, just to be the definite venom run? just to put the biggest dent in canon he can? just to break everybody’s toys and emerge victorious as the one person with the valid take on venom?

yeah, those things become more noticeable in the actual book, over time, and acceptance of that is, uh, not universal? not everybody’s up for him spending several issues in a row on e s t a b l i s h i n g  d o m i n a n c e by having eddie sit around as other characters tell him that a ton of stuff other writers from michelinie to thompson to costa to kaminski to slott to jenkins have done actually sucked and was wrong and fake and never happened? through retcons that make no sense, like, factually don’t fit?

people don’t like you walking back character and relationship development to further your end goal of recasting the symbiote as the personification of addiction and abuse instead of itself a survivor of extreme abuse who has been constantly denied personhood in a way that is frighteningly resonant and who has been going through a genuine redemption arc for years now?

people don’t like you acting like eddie never had a reason for being who he is before and you had to make one up? one that doesn’t fit the character at all, which you didn’t realise because you apparently thought the character had no characterisation before you came along?

you can imagine how these things might spark nerd rage?

and you can probably imagine who this nerd rage was blamed on, yeah?

these criticisms inherently require knowledge of venom canon, because they’re largely about disrespect for it, these criticisms are not related to shipping of any kind - but of course the only thing people could possibly be mad about is the "ship", the only ones making a fuss are those “shippers”, those casuals, Those People who only care about One Thing and don’t understand the real gritty reality of the, god you get it i’m making fun

[I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT]

you’re the only one, don. it’s true.

and i know, i know for a fact, that he’s been aware of criticism from other groups all along, that he was, for example, witness to this livestream that spends like a solid hour a month mercilessly dragging him through the dirt, and you know what the extent of his response was?

thanks for checking the book out.

that’s it. that’s all. this guy hasn’t gotten any less loud about criticising him, either. wishing for his book’s cancellation and retconning. but nothing more. he gets to keep to himself. he is #valid.

people have been taking the piss out of him on youtube, on reddit. only tumblr ever earned his ire. only tumblr gets namedropped at convention panels.

and now, now more than ever? you better believe your regular run-of-the-mill nerds, straight, male, utterly uninterested in the icky stuff, everything, are mad. almost everyone who’s truly tits deep in venom lore is mad.

and so he’s said he’s received threats. and i’m sure he has. i’ve received threats. you’ve received threats. it’s never okay. it sure as shit never helps to send them.

he’s gotten a lot of fucking inappropriate personal vitriol! lots of it actually “ship”-related! i’m categorically against contacting the guy for any reason!

but who is to blame? who do people accept as being to blame? who do news outlets report on as being to blame? when, i presume, not every single one of them actually went “i’m doing this specifically because i’m a (thunder clap) shipper”? when large-scale retcons are literally always met with nerd rage? when a shipper-less fandom probably still would’ve had threats?

[THIS IS INSANE]

[IT’S THE SHIPPERS]

result: if all criticism = “shippers”, and “shippers” = harassment, then everyone who has no actual idea of what’s going on but who doesn’t like “shippers” is automatically on his side and nobody who isn’t a “shipper” wants to risk the association by criticising him.

get this stuff out to his followers, to news outlets, to people completely uninvolved and contextless, and watch the bile run over everywhere because lots of people are ready to accept this narrative in comic book spaces.

have people in the replies and comments eagerly discussing how this is more proof that c+o+m+i+c+s+gate was right and they’re the only reasonable ones. how disgusting and crazy "shippers” are. how donny should keep doing his best to trigger the gays. there’s no pushback against these ideas.

and i’m so fucking stuck between wanting to defend the man, wring my hands and apologise on behalf of the other These People, because i don’t see anything justifiable in their actions, and in being... just... just so frustrated... with everything... with throwing everyone out to the dogs... and claiming that he doesn’t mean to... when he has this whole history of belittling "shippers” specifically... of making sure their public image is that of people who just don’t know what they’re talking about and are in no way worth empathising with... of only drawing attention to the aggressive ones and blocking the reasonable ones

when he literally only stands to benefit from doing all this. 

this is massive amounts of free positive pr.

this makes him essentially immune to criticism of any kind.

evaluation: a reason to harass him? no! really kind of manipulative? yes! 

i forgot! somewhere along the line, he did do something very good and disavowed association with co/mics/ga/te!

[C0M1C5G8]

why the fuck am i censoring? tumblr search stopped working decades ago.

anyway, it should come as no particular surprise why these people assumed he would side with them. not that any high profile writer who values his standing would, really. are there any? maybe there are, i’m not up to date on this drama.

i just think it’s funny - genuinely not his fault, but hilarious - that this was apparently enough to inspire a “boycott”? and it was a fart in the wind?

which is the least surprising thing ever because there is actually nothing whatsoever to hold these people’s ire to be found in venom? excluding aliens, there has been one real and present character who isn’t a white guy in 11 issues? it is actively less queer than it was before? donny has never caved to the essjaywoo pressure in any way, shape or form? what were they... thinking? it’s almost like these people are dumb?

all they've done is ensure that, without it actually doing anything, venom gets the commendation for being A Comic The Gators Don't Like?

anyway.

what do we do moving forward? i don’t know. nothing. not harassing anyone. keep being salty on tumblr. do not engage him. i think i’m more about stalling the chain reaction he’s caused than the man himself. if you’re not a “shipper”, of course, keep posting your criticism, maybe stand up for “shippers” who are being dogpiled over genuine criticism, don’t let people say This Is All Proof Of How You Can’t Have Queer Content Because Queers Are Crazy.

and be nice to mike costa.

[biscuitcrow]

So...thoughts about the Homestuck epilogues under the cut

I picked [Candy] first because number 1, no way I’m eating raw meat and number two, it seemed more interesting to go against *cough* Rose’s advice I’m done following her. ‘Meat or Candy’? Iconic. Enjoyed the less than subtle symbolism.

After reading both endings I’m actually happy I read [Candy] first. Even though some people say to read Meat first, reading Candy really makes the situational irony count, specifically the Obama spiel and like, the parallel timeline concept is really engaging for me because you can compare the constants like Jane’s reign and Karkat’s resistance while observing the little fluctuations but you can also see how they interact or are similar.

My personal favourite is [Candy]. Meat feels direct, more linear, like ‘this is the way this is going now.’ but Candy is basically, well I’m not sure if it is but it feels like an offshoot with its lack of Relevancy, which means it reads more like ‘what could have been’ which is really interesting to contemplate because on the surface it feels good, fluffy, but it’s also hollow? But it's not written as if hollow is bad, you know? Hollow is not good, or bad, just, well hollow. It’s written as if the conflicts are very blown up from the character’s perspective, which is is, but if you take a step back its honestly laughable. But like if I remember correctly, somewhere somehow Rose said she had never been this happy? When I read that I honestly thought she was drugged, but if she was really that happy then I guess that’s how the story frames hollow as being a neutral thing? Which I agree with so it’s refreshing, because we get a lot of content saying that being substanceless or meaningless is bad. But I feel this timeline approaches it as a trade off in this case probably happiness for relevancy. It’s a bittersweet ending.

Can’t really remember but I feel like that was the contrast between Vriska and (Vriska) in the original Homestuck.

Also I was really happy to see Vriska come back!! Oh boy am I ready for Vriska. The Gamzee thing was really weird and distasteful, frankly, I did not like that part at all, but at least she regretted it so I was all like WHEW man.

So Meat was meatier in terms of plot, but the tradeoff was a bunch of people dying. I’ll discount the edginess because it didn’t really feel that way to me. But I do feel like the deaths in the battle were a little rushed over, like it was just a fun montage of deaths, and I’m not sure if that’s intentional. If it was then I can only guess that it was written for their deaths to feel inconsequential in the grand scheme of things? Candy is more personal-feeling but Meat seems to have themes of for the greater good, whatever that can be defined as. Apparently relevancy, cough Rose. Oh yeah, Candy was also more subtle in my eyes. I relish subtlety. It wasn’t really that subtle, but I still think it was more subtle than Meat.

What I liked about [Candy] was all of the above, and also the cute Roxy/Calliope. Oh wait one big thing. The Jade/Dave/Karkat thing. In my opinion, that was a huge clusterfuck and it read that way and I sure hope being read as awkward and unnatural was intentional because if it was oh boy was that unnaturalness good. I enjoyed that tone greatly. Got kind of mad at Jade, pitied her for a little bit, then got annoyed. All the Dave and John bro times were really good too I liked them. When Dave flash stepped away from that Awkward Cafe Meet I felt that. Your mom felt that. Obama felt that.

Also I liked that it broke my heart with domestic issues. Small things can be big things even if they’re small in the grand scheme of things.

What I didn’t like about it was the kids. And also kid Vriska. That’s just unsettling to me. I got used to it after a while but well, if there was a way to take them out smoothly perhaps I would. The Roxy/Calliope low-key-break-up was also kind of weird for me? So was the John/Roxy, but I think John felt a little of that weirdness and rushedness too so that’s a plus.

And the Dave/Jade marriage. But I didn’t hate it entirely, because it brought out the idea of settling for something more clearly. Like… the notion of whether settling is like, a thing. Okay, it’s difficult to put this into contextless words but I’m sure you get it.

I also can’t believe they let Gamzee out of the fridge. Who thought this was a good idea. Which actually brings me to another thing I like about it the whole spew about his ‘redemption arc’ even though he clearly didn’t redeem himself. That was the point, I think. Words don’t equate actions. This was minor, but also the whole xenophobia thing. I thought that both sides had good points to be honest. Possible mockery of political correctness. I was glad how neither party was completely crazy or didn’t make sense. Both parties had words held weight, so to speak.

What I liked about [Meat] was well, the plot. I know I complained about this before but that’s all it’s got and it wasn’t half-bad so I’ll give it some credit. Oh, but it was good at the shift from narrative text to speaker text. You know the one. That was fun. And so was all the Dirk after that. I’m happy we got to see more of Dirk.

Also the focus on the political power of Jake’s ass is hilarious to me. And how dense he is.

ALL the Davekat. Oh, joy, don’t we all love watching two disasters figure out how much of a disaster he is and then guess how much disaster the other one is? Not as much weird Jade stuff.

The manipulation everywhere. Fun to spot. Fun to read. Fun to break your heart.

The John/Terezi thing was cute, but I think I might have preferred it in Candy. It was more open-ended in Candy. Everything was more open-ended in Candy, I think? It felt that way to me, and I like open-ended things. But those were the themes they were trying to push, like the contrast in the existence of a free will, that happiness and relevancy are two different things, something about personal and impersonal meaning, ultimate knowledge, settling or chasing after a possibly unattainable ideal, certain sacrifices, trade-offs, and definitely metafiction.

I’m awfully dense so I could be missing the mark on the Real Overarching Themes here but feel free to enlighten me if you’ve even made it up to this point.

Also, I sorta remember one line about someone saying something about when you have a perfect world it is natural to turn to inconsequential made-up conflicts. Interesting hot take because I compared it with 17776 whose entire premise is that in a utopia where everyone’s needs are met everyone just plays games like football.

The other relationships that got less screen time on Candy was also aired here so that was really nice because I definitely wanted to see people like Calliope, Dirk, Dave, Karkat, Kayana, and Meenah.

Wait actually right… now that I’m thinking about it, what was the point of the whole political fiasco in this one. I thought the focus should have been on the big battle in canon. Which I suppose it was, but seriously wait did I miss something? Is it like a foil to the big bad battle Lord English battle? Screentime for Jake’s ass? Jane’s diabolical Schemes? Pushing the political correctness troll xenophobia theme agenda?

Also hilarious that Lord English kept eating John’s hammers. Not so hilarious when John refused to let go like seriously you are committing a stupid please John look at that big gold tooth in your torso now. At least you’re more valuable to the economy now right.

What I didn’t like about Meat was that it felt fast-paced, like the bits that I wanted for it to have more exposition was too short and rushed over. I didn’t really have that feeling with Candy even though I think there were more timeskips. But at least it was explicitly stated as a timeskip. Neither did I feel the emotional investment in the characters, not that much, since it was fast-paced and plot driven. I didn’t like how Obama wasn’t in it physically. Just kidding. Also more linear and closed, as previously mentioned.

Actually now that I think about it maybe I didn’t like Candy over Meat that much. Both have their merits and weaknesses. Maybe I like it just a little bit more because it was the first one I read and it had Obama.

Okay, after I read this again in the future I’ll probably sound really pretentious and also dumb at the same time but it’s okay! I just like analysing the shit out of content of dubious quality just let me have things. I’ve seen some people say they were lacklustre, and their analysis has merit, but honestly I’m just happy there’s so much more to read. I’m just writing it down so I don’t forget, because I always do. If you made it to this point and got anything I missed or forgot to bring up or disagree with I would love to discuss it: shoot me a PM please! Alright that’s it folks I can’t wait to draw more fun stuff.

[norgad-vcd]

Revised Text

What goes on, online?

Anything and everything. It’s a beautiful and vibrant mess of human interaction. Everything from trivial and thoughtless acts to the most sincere and genuine deeds. It’s grounds for the vicious and the virtuous alike. The internet is what you make of it; a tool as good or bad as it’s wielders.

It’d take a thousand lifetimes to see it all.

How about a quick glimpse instead?

Hiya, I’m Tom! I’ve spent enough of my life online that I can confer some of my findings to you. This book is a smörgåsbord of experiences, phenomena, and memories I’ve been witness to and participant in during my time here. While not a full picture, it should help you navigate the ballpark of possibilities out there. My experiences are just one sample from billions; perhaps after this you’ll seek to venture out further into that world-wide web, or - at the very least - understand a little better those who do.

Friendships don’t care about how you nourish them, just that you do.

Catching up online is great for keeping friends close. It might be raining, someone might be away from home, or even sick and stuck at the hospital; the reason doesn’t matter. It might not be perfect - and sure, we could all get a little more sunlight - but for what it’s worth it’s good for the soul and sometimes the best thing on hand.

How do I put this?

It’s not all the same thing though, there’s different tools for different jobs. There’s a difference between how I talk to people in an idle chat and talking to someone in a formal meeting; different modes of communication for different settings and people. It’s the same thing with online modes of communication. Sending a message on Discord to one of my friends, I’d take a casual, grammarless, and very loose style of typing. Contrast that with an email to my grandmother; that’s much more structured and considered, like a half mimicry of a handwritten letter to be delivered by post. People still sign off emails with their names at the end, as if emails don’t also just tell you who they’re from in the ‘sender’ info.

Occasionally I’ll need to message someone I only vaguely know. In these circumstances it can feel a bit standoffish and unfamiliar. I’ll type out sanitised and unambiguous sentences; without tone of voice - or a history of talking to the person online before - it’s hard to judge sarcasm, emotion, and everything else conveyed nonverbally in a conversation. Erring on the side of caution seems to be the best bet, until we both get to know each other’s style of writing a bit better.

Over the first 2020 lockdown, me and most of my real-life friends started a minecraft server together and played through it for the duration of our stint stuck at home. It was like a little clubhouse, each time we logged in and saw things change slightly since last time. We left each other notes and set up gifts and pranks for when people left and returned. It was a great way to keep in touch when we were otherwise very isolated from social contact.

On a lot of platforms there’s a little indicator that tells you if someone’s online, offline, or possibly busy. This is really useful to see if someone might be free to talk or hang out. It’s also really good at betraying to someone the fact that I still have not gone to sleep, despite the fact that I said I was going to sleep about four hours ago.

To be fair, they said they were going to sleep about four hours ago as well.

[JOSH TEXT]

A big benefit to text chat is that if I’m preoccupied and all my friends are talking about something, I’m not left behind and out of the loop. I can always re-read what everyone wrote once I have time, pick up all the new inside jokes and keep up to date with people’s lives. The same can’t be said for voice chat; if I miss a hangout there I’ve missed it for good. This can get a bit weird if people are using both at the same time though; the text portion of the chat devolves into a complete mess of contextless strings of text and images out of nowhere. With a keen eye and a bit of detective work I can often piece together the general gist of the missed conversation, but other times it remains a mystery forever.

Whenever someone sends me a meme, I’m elated. I get to look at a funny picture, but I also get to send that same funny picture to someone else. Who knows how many hands the image passed through before it reached me, and how many more hands it will pass through before it reaches its final viewer. Maybe it’ll never reach a final resting place, instead getting recycled and remixed into memes anew until the end of time.

[ANOTHER GUEST SPEAKER TEXT]

Who are you, on the internet?

Online, your real-life identity isn’t attached to you by default. Of course there’s places where the expectation is indeed a connection to real identities - like Facebook for example - but this is not a requirement. I’m not known as ‘Tom’ online, people know me by my username.

It’s not a fake me, or a way to lie to people, it’s just an alternate expression of myself. We act differently to different people in so many social situations, - from time with family, to at work, and to hanging out with friends - the internet allows even more possible ways to express parts of ourselves. For me, it’s liberating to exist in a state that’s disconnected from the tangle of my real life self, and to keep the tangle of my internet presence away from real life as well.

On the internet, nobody knows who you are.

Unless you divulge them to others, your identity, physical appearance, background, nationality, gender, race and so on are completely unknown; this is the great equalizer. Free from biases based on your physical self, you can be perceived as purely another person.

A clean slate can tempt some however to act recklessly. If an identity and history can be shed so easily, some people feel emboldened to act without the threat of consequences; verbally beat someone up, and then wash their hands of the whole incident.

It’s important to remember that people online are still people; while their faces might be obscured, they still have thoughts and feelings. In general, talking to people online has about the same potential as real-life to be great, awful, or somewhere inbetween; it’s mostly luck of the draw who you’ll run into.

I don’t know the names or faces of some of my closest friends.

That doesn’t mean I don’t care about them; I just care more about who they are as an individual. I still know their personalities, their sense of humor, what they like and don’t, and everything else you’d know about a friend. We still have inside jokes, favourite group pastimes, and all the rest.

Who are you talking to?

When I was younger and my parents would ask who I’m talking to on the computer, I wouldn’t know how to respond.

Do I tell them “I don’t know” and spark images in their heads of catfishers and criminals?

Do I tell them my friend’s username and get told “that’s not a real name”?

Most of the time I’d just try to give a vague non-answer and hope the conversation goes elsewhere. Keep my little world safe.

[SYDNEY TEXT]

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Because everyone lives in different time-zones, it can often be difficult to pre-plan hangouts. Oftentimes me and my friends have planned to have a movie night at a specific time, and then once that time rolls around, one or two people are still offline, probably asleep. Oftentimes whoever was missing will come online several hours later and be sorry and upset that they held everyone up and wasted everyone’s time. Of course, we had all just postponed the movie night and just hung out and chatted instead.

Oftentimes we have to accept that it’s near impossible to have everyone hang out at the same time; it’d require half of us to be up at god awful times or to wake up at 4am for something. Instead of trying to plan big ‘everyone’ events every once in a blue moon, we try to have frequent but smaller hangouts. It might mean that we don’t get to see everyone at the same time, but it’s still workable. If we were to hold out till everyone was free at the same time, we’d never end up hanging out at all.

She should have been back by now.

A while ago, someone in one of my friend groups noted that someone hadn’t been online for two weeks. Dread set in. We all knew that our friend was very prone to getting ill, and we didn’t want to say it but we were worried she might have died. Since we don’t know each other in ‘real life’ it was entirely possible that someone could drop dead one day and we’d never get any confirmation; just left wondering what happened. We asked around in common friend circles, and nobody had heard from her, coming up on about three weeks at that point. We had to do something.

Multiple friend circles of people from all around the world, scrambling to find any scrap of information about our lost friend. One person had ‘maybe’ an address that they sent something to once, but it might have been an old house. We found about three different possible legal names, and had no way to be sure which was right. We ended up sending a letter addressed to the name we thought was most likely to be right, or to “the family of”. Someone tried ringing her house, but the people on the other end of the line didn’t know who we were, and we didn’t know who they were; we got hung up on because they thought we were stalkers. It was all desperate fumbling in the dark, but we were worried sick.

There were only ever two possible outcomes; if she came back we would find out she was alright, if she didn’t we would be left eternally hoping she would. Nobody wants to be the one to say “Hey guys, I think our friend might be dead, we should give up.” Time soon gave us our answer; she was alright. She had been stuck in hospital for a while and didn’t have access to a phone to let us know what had happened. We were all so relieved and had a laugh over how everyone overreacted, but it really did scare me. I’ve learned to really value the time I get to spend with my online friends; next time might not be so lucky, and if something were to happen it’s hard to ever get closure on it.

There’s never been a better time to pick up a new hobby.

One thing the internet’s really helped with is connecting like-minded individuals. Before the internet, if you had a niche hobby, you were probably the only person you know in your town with that hobby. Kinda lame, yeah? Nowadays, you can reach across the globe and connect with everyone who’s into the same stuff as you! Mainstream topics can have gargantuan communities, but what I find even more interesting is the weird obscure hobbies and groups, the kind that would never survive without the internet.

People online dedicate huge amounts of their free time to making resources and guides to almost everything. Need more bespoke help? You’d be hard pressed not to find someone who’s keen to chat more about their favourite pastime, if it means welcoming a new person into the fold. Guides and resources, instructional videos; it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to get into carpentry, cooking or, (mine)crafting; you’ll find support along the way.

Some things really should have stayed niche.

Conspiracy theorists. Hate groups. Radical extremists. The internet’s power to connect people can also amplify voices that really didn’t need amplifying. What once were lone people with fringe beliefs - isolated and ‘alone’ - are now monstrous communities with the power to warp people’s sense of normality. There’s a critical mass where people don’t need to interact with people with outside views, they’ve got plenty of people to talk to in your own bubble. They don’t need to ‘go outside’.

We’re all susceptible to this; it’s only human. However, it’s important to stay vigilant. While you shouldn’t keep people around that make you miserable, you shouldn’t block out the first sign of dissent. Maintain a healthy variety in the people you talk to, and the content you consume.

[ANDREW TEXT]

In the rules discussion channel of a board game group I’m in, I swear sometimes it’s like I’m stuck in a time loop. I watch a random person ask a common question about the game, and then someone else will get the rules clarified for them. A few hours will pass, the conversation drifting elsewhere as people drop in and out. Suddenly, I spot it; the same question from before, but from a different person. Like clockwork, another nameless devout will rise up and deliver the answer. And again. And again. It’s like a two-line stage show where the audience is also the cast, over and over and over.

Since profile pictures and usernames are self-selected, every time I talk to someone new I get a weird little keyhole view of what who I’m talking to might be like.

This person has a picture of a cat as their profile image. Is it their cat, or did they just think the cat looked nice? Their username is ‘Millie’, is that their real life name; maybe? Or what if it’s the cat’s name? Are they pretending to be their cat? Are they a cat?

[RAZEK TEXT]

I do a wee bit of online gaming, and in a lot of these games the people you get paired with are completely random. I know nothing about this motley crew I’ve been thrown into, and yet we’re all expected to conform into a cohesive team and work together to win. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the luck of the draw has it that I’m paired with a bunch of inept clowns, and sometimes I’m paired with intelligent and skilled players who I mesh with really well. On the odd occasion, I might even strike up a good conversation with my team, build up some rapport. Start cracking jokes and bantering.

There’s a strong but ephemeral connection..

Sooner or later, the game ends. We say our goodbyes, and the game throws us back to the wind; like two ships passing in the night. There’s a slim chance we’ll ever both be in the same game again, but it doesn’t matter that much. We still had a good time, made a brief but positive impact on someone else’s day; and hey, there’s always the chance one of us sends the other a friend request before we leave.

Having a large presence online - that is, having other people follow or be ‘fans’ of you - is a mixed bag. For me it’s been really good in allowing me to get my art out there and get clients, but it’s also weird. It feels a bit like I’m up on a stage sometimes, everyone’s watching me. I’ve lost the feeling of being ‘just another guy in the crowd’. What if someone reads something I posted the wrong way? Do I keep being aloof and carefree, or will that hurt my image. Should I care?

[CHAI TEXT]

People with large presences can feel familiar, friendly, like you’re already friends. I’ve caught myself falling into this in the past. The brain’s great at filling in the details you want to be real. I realised that I had it written in my head that this person was super cool and the best and that it’d be really cool if we hung out; all extrapolation. While it’s entirely possible that they were everything I had imagined them to be, until it’s tested it’s all just imagination and fantasy. If I’ve never talked to them, how could I even know?

[DAVID TEXT]

What happens when the digital and the physical self have to intersect?

The two identities are from the same person, but they’re not the same.

One time, my parents sent me a text along the lines of “Your sister showed us your art; looking really cool Tom!”.

How.

I’d never sent my family any of my online profiles. I check my Twitter; sure enough in front of my eyes the screen tells me my sister has followed my twitter account. Abject horror. How much did they look at? What did they think? Should I start looking for a flat?

It’s not that I had anything to hide, it’s just that it felt… misaligned. Like two worlds coming together that shouldn’t. I’m sure for them it was just “Wow, look at our son go!”, but for me in the moment it was a sudden wave of confusion and dread.

One time, I was lucky enough to have a few of my internet friends visit in real life. I was showing them around my house, when I ran into my mum. It hit me. Who do I even introduce these people as? We all know each other by our online names and had been using them in conversation minutes earlier, but that would make no sense to my poor mum. And so, awkwardly, one by one my friends rattled off a set of names entirely alien to me. We all barely managed to keep straight faces as each of us discovered “Wait, this person’s called WHAT?”.

We all promptly forgot each other’s names within about two minutes.

Thanks to the internet, I met my partner.

Almost four years later we’re still going strong, twelve thousand kilometers apart. It helps a lot that a lot of our common interests can be done online, chiefly gaming and movies. But even the other stuff, we can still do together in some aspects. We always say good morning and goodnight to each other on the phone, and fill each other in on what we’ve been up to that day. If we go somewhere and see something cool, we can still share pictures and videos. If I make a really nice dinner, I can send them the recipe and they can have a taste (though that last one might depend on their cooking skills).

Of course, it’s not identical to an in-person relationship. We have to put a lot more effort into reaching out to each other and making time to hang out and talk; it won’t happen by accident. We’re both really looking forward to being able to move together, but until then, being together apart isn’t all that bad.

[WESLEY TEXT]

Listen a moment, before you go.

I am only one person. My field of view is limited, as is my experience. Take my advice with a grain of salt, I can’t prepare you for everything. There’s so much more waiting out there for you to uncover, some good, some bad; be sensible.

[CREDITS ‘N’ SHIT]

[shirlleycoyle]

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited

In November 2007, an entirely contextless video of me being punched in the face went viral. You might have seen it. It still does the rounds every couple of months, often when something notably bad happens that warrants a response of disbelief. In these strange times, it’s managed to remain endlessly prescient.

For the uninitiated, the video in question is an 11-second clip in which, aged 16, I appear wearing a dressing gown cord around my head, a chain necklace, some children’s sunglasses and a black T-shirt. I sit down and address the camera, ostensibly about to tell the viewer what I was thinking. I am immediately interrupted by my friend Tim, who appears stage left and lamps me. Rather than react in pain or anger, I err more towards disappointment and dismay, bewildered that something like this could happen. “Ah fuck. I can’t believe you’ve done this,” I said. End scene.

It’s been nearly 14 years since I uploaded the original video and to this day it still prompts questions. Who was the guy who got punched? Why did he get punched? Who punched him? What was he thinking? Why did he react that way? Why did he leave YouTube?

In recent years I’ve come to appreciate and even enjoy its bizarre status as an enduring piece of internet history, but my relationship with the clip in the decade that followed its inexorable rise hasn’t always been easy. To understand why, it’s useful to remember that the internet in 2007 was, for better or worse, a very different place.

Having spent the best part of my school years filming stupid skits with mates instead of studying, there was something semi-appealing about the prospect of being able to put videos online to share with friends. It began in mid-2003, when myself and a group of friends would have been in our early teens. Inspired by the likes of Jackass and Bam Margera’s CKY movies, our impressionable young selves set about ignoring all relevant safety warnings, hurling ourselves out of trees, riding scooters into curbs, and racing tyres down hills on skateboards.

At the age of 14 or so, I had envisaged cutting the footage into a chaotic feature-length video of “stunts.” I’d probably have soundtracked it with music from the Tony Hawk games, alongside countless other homemade skate videos people made circa 2003 that probably featured a mix of Ace of Spades or Guerilla Radio. I still have a box full of VHS-C tapes kicking around somewhere, which can only be viewed on one of those absolutely insane VHS adapters. Having not watched any of it in well over a decade, I can safely say that the content contained within those tapes is unequivocally shit.

All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in.

Looking back, the whole endeavour was entirely aimless, but aside from coming away with mild head injuries from time to time it was an innocuous way to spend my childhood. At the very least it also means I have a bizarre, tangible record of my youth that I’ll be able to laugh at one day when I’m old and wizened.

By summer 2004, we had started filming on Mini-DV, which opened up a whole new world of editing possibilities. Plugging a video camera into a computer and capturing footage directly to editing software is pretty much a given for today’s generation of content creators, but back in the early 2000s, this was revolutionary.

We’d eventually gravitate away from ‘stunts’ towards more structured skits and sketches. Nothing was ever scripted per se, but we’d usually start out with a rough idea of something and see how it played out.

There was an ambitiously misguided 'silent horror' short, soundtracked by Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, in which someone chopped off ‘my cock’ (a banana) with a garden shear. We considered this to be the absolute pinnacle of comedy.

There was an ill-advised 'Ballers' skit in which we ventured out in sports gear to make a mock training video taking the piss out of a guy at school who fancied himself as a bit of a gangster; this painfully middle-class white kid who listened to rap metal and liked basketball. He obviously never saw it and there's no question that we looked like idiots filming it at the local park. It’s probably quite offensive in hindsight.

The author at the Bristol Climate Change Protests in September 2019. Image: Shanya Buultjens

There was a James Bond 'spoof' that involved misquoting portions of dialogue from that scene in GoldenEye where Q gives Bond an exploding pen. It was funny to about three people. One of them was my mum.

One time a mate of mine fell out of a tree when he tried to swing from a branch. He landed on his back and ended up coughing up blood. He didn’t go to the hospital even though he probably should have. He’s now a doctor and a father.

Mercifully, none of this stuff ever made it online, but I did sell a couple of DVDs to people at school who rightly/probably/hopefully never watched them. In an ideal world, I'd own the only copies. I'm also fully aware that writing about this now only makes it more likely that one of the four people that still have a copy will dig theirs out. Please do not do that.

In 2005 and 2006, YouTube was very much in its infancy. This was the time when clips were limited to about 100mb and you could only upload about 30 seconds worth of footage at a time, which basically made it perfect for bursts of frenetic, inane content. As the platform grew, it became a dumping ground for skits and footage that we’d accumulated over the preceding years. Much of it went completely unnoticed until late 2007, at which point things started to get a bit weird.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it.

The clip that people have come to know started out as an aimless skit filmed in Summer 2006. We hadn’t planned anything, least of all me being punched. In the footage building up to the event, I pushed Tim off the chair, he fell and hit his head on a filing cabinet off-camera. Rather than react to Tim, I sat down and proceeded to ad lib something that I’d venture to guess would have been considerably less funny than the act of violence that followed. Unprompted, Tim upsided me and I reacted with an inexplicable, completely incredulous response, which has followed me online ever since.

The footage sat on a tape until July 2007 when I decided to upload a brief segment under an ambiguous title. Fast forward to November and the video had somehow blown up, had its comments section relentlessly spammed, been ripped countless times and had offensive Wiki pages written about it. I also received a few direct messages which could at best have been described as ‘worrying’ and at worst ‘threatening,’ which was nice.

To this day, I’m none the wiser as to how it blew up in the way it did. I originally uploaded the video under the title ‘ ___________’ but the video somehow found its way onto 4chan where it spread like wildfire. The earliest mirrored link I could find was from January 2008, by which time it had been re-uploaded by multiple accounts, the most prominent of which had already clocked up almost double the number of views compared to my original upload.

At the time, going viral wasn't really comparable to any other experience and it certainly wasn't something I could discuss in solidarity with my friends. All of a sudden you're everywhere and it's out of your control. You either try to fight it and get destroyed, or embrace it and try to cash in. After yanking down several other videos on my YouTube channel, I opted for the latter.

When the video blew up, I got a call from a friend who informed me that the video had made the front page of Break.com. I peripherally knew what that meant: they offered a buyout scheme for videos that made the front page, which meant that I could make some money from it.

As it transpired, this wasn’t such a great idea. After signing a release form with some pretty appalling terms, over the following months I had several unnerving interactions with researchers for various TV shows looking to license the clip. Each offered far more favourable terms than those of Break. One of them harassed a bunch of my mates on Facebook. I think he even offered to pay one of them for my contact details.

By that point, it was all too apparent that I had completely fucked it. Break had the rights and I couldn't do anything with it even if I wanted to. At just 18 years old, I had sold out. In the short term, I used the money to buy a TV, which was great, but I soon started to get the creeping feeling that this was a decision that would come to haunt me. At that point, it was easier to disassociate myself from the clip, abandon YouTube, and move on with my life.

And yet, for the best part of 14 years the questions have kept coming: no, it wasn’t staged or scripted, it wasn’t a set-up, I didn’t know it was coming and, yes, it hurt. It was also very funny, which is presumably why I felt the need to upload it in isolation in the first place. Incidentally, Tim and I are still friends and contrary to some of the absolutely insane comments people leave on YouTube I can confirm that neither of us are in prison, the punch wasn’t a reaction to some sort of disagreement and he’s a lovely bloke.

To be clear, the lack of context wasn’t a deliberate choice to add intrigue either. I’d never even considered the possibility that anyone outside my circle of friends would see it. To me it was just another daft clip that a few mates would find funny.

Around the time I’d started to make peace with the issues around ownership, in 2018 it came to my attention that Break had shut down and its owner Defy Media had gone bust. The site was subsequently purchased by Yeah1 Network, but to this day I have no clarity whatsoever on my legal rights to the video. Any attempts to receive guidance have either turned up dead ends, or led to suggestions that I speak to IP lawyers, whom I have neither the means nor the time to deal with. Incidentally, if anyone has any insights in that area, I’d love to hear them.

Having said this, there’s something quite empowering in taking something embarrassing and admitting to it before someone else can point it out to you—a bit like taking ownership of an amusing surname. I’ll leave it to you to figure out what gags can be made from the name ‘Weedon,’ but I learned quite early on that if you make the jokes yourself and beat others to it, no one can fucking touch you. It’s much easier nowadays to hold my hands up and admit that I shouldn’t have sold the rights, make a joke of it and move on. At the very least, it makes for a good anecdote at parties.

As I suspect is probably the case for old content creators, if you can even call us that, the real story about I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This isn’t in how it’s aged and endured, or even how it’s impacted my life. For me, it’s tied up in issues of rights, ownership, and monetisation. As mercenary as it might be, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t regret missing out on a slice of the pie when it came to YouTubers being able to monetise their content sooner. On the one hand, that's probably a very cynical view for something that was created by a bunch of teenagers who were fooling around making videos for fun in the noughties, but on the other, that's just the world we live in now.

Perhaps the strangest thing about my experience with it nowadays is the way people engage with it on a day-to-day basis. The comments vary from young people discovering its origins for the first time, surprised to discover that it is in fact a 14 year old video and not a recent creation filmed for Vine or TikTok. At the other end of the spectrum are those who are incredulous that someone with a video that has 9.2 million views and an account that’s amassed over 15,000 followers without really trying would step away from the platform and not want to make content.

The truth is that, nearly a decade and a half later, I’m still processing it. I love seeing how it’s been re-interpreted in modern mediums and that positive association has made it easier to accept. Charles Cornell turned it into a sad song. It got sampled in a KIll The Noise track. I had a nice interaction with The Sidemen about it. Will Smith even featured it in an insane Instagram post during the pandemic. I DM’d him to say thanks and he obviously didn’t reply.

To that end, a small group of us have recently started work on a film project exploring the nature of the meme, how it grew, its impact on my life and my relationship with the internet at large. In doing so, the hope is that, while answering some of the burning questions that other people still seem to have, I’ll ultimately be able to make peace with the whole thing.

@Twotafkap

My Life as a Meme: ‘I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This’ Revisited syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[grimelords]

My September playlist is finished and it’s complete from A (ABBA) to B (bossa nova and The Big Bopper), so let’s get into it, 4 hours of hits.

Warpless Run - Tera Melos Tera Melos have always been the world’s most out of control band but it seems like they somehow pushed themselves to a whole new level on this song. I really love the middle section that just ties itself in knots over and over and over before the big release at the end. Dark Matter - Jlin and Zora Jones I love collaborations like this where you can try to pick who’s responsible for each part, and this is a great example because it feels like they literally split the song down the middle and Jlin’s manic beats give way to a relaxed hip hop vibe near the end that still compliments the ridiculous ululating vocal sample phenomenally. Kites - Bicep I’ve never been one for a lot of just straight up house but Just by Bicep is such a good song that I thought I would give their album a go and I was not disappointed. It’s so good front to back and this song is a highlight. The snare rushes are what really put it over the top. Connect - Drake I admit that I thought of this song because that vine of the AIs learning to walk while this song plays popped into my head randomly while I was driving one day and I nearly died laughing. The beauty of Drake is that he can really make you relate and feel something deep with incredibly bogus lines like ‘She just wanna run over my feelings like she drinking and driving an 18 wheeler, and I’ll allow her. Talk about pussy power’. This song is chock-full of Drake-ism like ‘you can be whoever you want, even yourself’ and I absolutely fall for it every time, eyes closed just swangin. Mayday - Thingy Listening to the new Tera Melos I thought 'man this sounds like Pinback!’ and it turns out it’s because Rob Crowe guests on a song and I felt like a genius. I’ve never been massive on Pinback but I am however fanatical about this Pinback side project Thingy that is an album I cannot recommend enough. It is world class songwriting in mostly sub-2 minute songs that is just incredible. Switch Lanes - Tkay Maidza The first of two songs on this list that feature a thumb piano heavily. Tkay Maidza is so great and I am holding my breath waiting for her to a make a song this good again. Ketchup Sandwich - Thingy Another Thingy song, this one about having 0 money. I love the two verses at once right from the start and how the background vocals move to the front at the end, I love the intro section where he says 'living on top ramen and popcorn’ where there’s almost not enough room for it. Durag vs. Headband (feat. Big Body Bes) - Action Bronson This is my favourite Action Bronson song in a while. He’s always been good at off the wall imagery but there’s some absolute pearlers in this. 'in the club with a condom on, all Under Armour on’ straight into the hook of 'when I die, make sure you spread my blood on a BMW’. Also, 'albanian style, I want to die by machine gun’. It’s pure power. Wildest Moments - Jessie Ware Can you believe this song came out like a year BEFORE Royals? the proto-Royals? I  really love this song and this whole album is just beautiful right through, but I feel like this  song especially should have been an absolute worldwide hit. FF Bada - Battles Every morning I wake up and sign a document certifying that Battles are the best band in the world and then I mail it directly to God and he throws it straight in the bin. The way every element of this song build and binds together in the climax before pulling right back down to the one little beepy guitar line and building up from there is so magical. Also the very last part of where it sounds like he is somehow playing guitar backwards just sounds so good I don’t even care how he’s doing it. Just Waitin’ - John Prine A song to watch the grass grow. John Prine’s been making country music for about a million years and hes gotten very good at it in that time. This is a perfect old fashioned country song about sitting quietly and watching the entirety of life pass you by while you think about your wife. Kanye West (feat Wyclef Jean) - Young Thug I cannot believe how good the sound collage chorus of this song is that’s three Young Thug’s saying wet wet wamp wamp wamp. It is downright hypnotizing. And it starts tomake sense when Wyclef says 'dolphins hear the signal’. Like Wolves On The Fold - Colin Stetson The clunk at about a minute in when this song really shifts into gear is so satisfying. It’s hard to talk about Colin Stetson’s music specifically because you have to talk about groans and clunks and honks very earnestly, but god this song has got some good clunks and groans and honks in it. And Still They Move/With The Dark Hug Of Time - Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld Another selection that’s on my rapidly growing playlist of music for a hypothetical RTS game. In two parts, I love how this song goes from an ambient sea in And Still They Move where the parts move together almost indistinguishably and then With The Dark Hug Of Time restates the lulling theme before immediately separating out as wide as possible. The saxophone moved to earthshaking bass and the violin disappears into the stratosphere. ilanders - Autechre Autechre good. It’s hard to explain but this song is literally just waves of dark energy crashing over each other and it sounds amazing. Hard Times - Gillian Welch I couple of years ago I made a playlist of the songs that I sing to myself when I’m at work or whatever and realised that a good 80% of them had 'hard times’ or 'blues’ or both in the title (Hard Times Killing Floor Blues) and this was one of them. A nice song promising that things will get better. The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness - The National Someone had a tweet a couple of weeks ago that was like 'The guy from The National sounds like he’s perpetually getting divorced’ and they’re right. Their new album didn’t really click with me like their others have, but this song really sticks with me, especially the little guitar bit which feels so out of place in a National sound but sounds so good. OMG (feat. will.i.am) - Usher Honey got some boobies like wow, oh wow. This song is an underappreciated classic, even if will.i.am does deliver the worst verse in history on it. Harambe - Young Thug This song deserves the grammy for best vocal performance because Thugger is rapping like he is chained up in a dungeon and transforming into a werewolf. Youme & Meyou - Einsturzende Neubauten I’ve never really listened to Einsturzende Neubauten, and I’m scared to because they seem like one of those bands that people devote their entire lives to and get tattoos of and I don’t know if I have time for that. I found this song just because some guy on twitter said 'this is a great song’ and what’s better than contextless music? It is a great song, too. It’s forboding and sad and possibly makes more sense in German. The perfect combo. Marilyn (feat. Micachu) - Mount Kimbie The second thumb piano song on this list. The new Mount Kimbie is so great, and they’ve somehow evolved their sound again to the point of sounding like a full band somehow. It’s amazing and I love this song. I’ve been singing it to myself all month and as an added bonus I didn’t realise for a while that Micachu is the very same Mica Levi that wrote the amazing soundtrack to Jackie that got nominated for an oscar last year. On Hold (Jamie xx Remix) - The xx I love Jamie xx’s thing of remixing xx songs into dancefloor hits, and when you do it to a song that was already as danceable as as On Hold the results are really something special. 6 In The Morning - Wiley The best grime beats have a maximum of maybe 6 melody notes in them. That’s the secret to grime, you just find a little triad and hammer is as hard as you can for 3 minutes while Wiley assures you that it’s 6 in the bloodclart morning and he’s not having it. Fear And Trembling - Gang Of Youths As much as a love Gang Of Youths, it’s never a good idea to defend yourself from accusations of pretentiousness in a song that only a couple of lines ago was quoting Macbeth but that’s kind of what I love about them. They unashamedly believe in what they’re doing, and that it’s incredibly important, and if you can get into it’s very easy to get swept away with them and believe it too. Earth Intruders - Bjork I woke up one morning this month with this Bjork song I hadn’t heard in a decade stuck in my head and upon listening again I remembered why I liked it so much: it ends with a full minute of foghorn field recordings. What a song. Believe Me Natalie - The Killers It’s crazy that I can listen to an album like Hot Fuss probably a million times in my life and still hear something new. This song really struck me and I listened to it three times over and it was like I was hearing it for the first time again. The drums are phenomenal, the horns and the way it builds and builds and then just stays at a fever pitch for most of the song. Amazing. Preachin’ Blues - Son House I love the way Son House plays guitar like he’s viciously tearing it apart looking for gold hidden inside, and I love the idea of this song. Becoming a preacher for the sole purpose of mooching off the pope is absolutely the life for me. Corcovado - Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto and Astrid Gilberto This is the start of my big Bossa Nova obsession this month that mostly centred on Sergio Mendes but this is a perfect place to start. Bossa Nova is a great genre because it’s almost equal parts very cool and very funny because it’s so 60s cool. The Girl From Ipanema - Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto and Astrid Gilberto That idea is probably best exemplified in Bossa Nova’s biggest hit, The Girl From Ipanema. This song was the definition of a smash hit and it’s very funny to imagine Americans absolutely losing their shit over such a nice, relaxed song. I mean, I get it. I’ve been singing it all month, but still. Constant Rain - Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 I can’t recommend this album, Equinox, enough. This song is another good example of the incongruous comedy of bossa nova, singing about endless pain in such a beautiful, laid back 'sha be shoo va’ way. I love this song and it’s probably the song on this list I’ve listened to the most this month. I just cannot get enough of that sweet sweet sound. Canto de Ossanha - Toquinho I found this song randomly via spotify radio and the playing shocked me. Of course when I looked him up it turned out Toquinho is a massive star in latin america and it makes sense that he plays like a maniac, I’ve just never heard of him before. This is niche but the voicing in this is so nice, it’s just perfect. Ring, Ring (Swedish Version) - ABBA I played this assuming it was the English version and I thought I was having a stroke. I almost prefer this version now though, it’s mixed a lot louder for some reason and so the prechorus where it’s just the drums and vocals sounds phenomenal. Ring Ring, bara du slog en signal. Mamma Mia - ABBA The instrumentation in this is so amazing. From the offbeat xylophone to the big 70s guitar that just hangs around in the background, to the strings doing the accents. The accapella with xylophone chorus. Amazing. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) - ABBA A great song about having a bad case of the night hornys. I love the duelling disco basslines of the bass and synth in the breakdown. I love the little ominous intro before it hooks into that great synth riff. Particle - Hundred Waters This song feels like if it was anyone but Nicole Miglis singing it would be a massive straight-ahead EDM hit but instead it’s this delicate, layered complex thing that I can’t get enough of. Chantilly Lace - The Big Bopper I listened to a whole Big Bopper compilation and no joke he says 'HELLO BAAAABBY’ or 'YOU KNOW WHAT I LIKE’ on like 80% of his songs so now I’ve started saying it too. This song is so dumb but I can’t stop listening to it. Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor - The Big Bopper Now THIS song is dumb. This song is like the 50s version of those Gangnam Style Call Of Duty In Minecraft?? videos and it’s slightly comforting to know that things have always been like this. Purple People Eater, Witch Doctor, Johnny B Goode, chipmunks vocals, this song has it all and I’m just gonna say it: The Big Bopper deserved to die for making a song like this. Rodent - Burial Hey Burial’s making bangers again. After the last single was such a snooze I love this song, it’s so refreshing to hear him doing upbeat Archangel type things again, as much as I love his more ambient stuff like Paradise Circus. You Said (feat. Quavo) - Young Thug God I love this song about holding someone accountable for all the wild shit they said while sexting. Here’s a list of everything I love about this song 1) the incredible harpsichord/guitar melody 2) the way he says 'freaky deaky!’ right at the start 3) you said you gone kiss from my neck to my chest to my navel then dick and nuts 4) I bite on that butt and I suck on those toes and her soul go out of here 5) how insanely long this horny song is because of the great Quavo verse that go added late 6) the way he saws 'make her squirt on that couch ew!’ 7) the way he says 'raw dog’ 8) how no joke romantic this song is 9) how unashamedly horny this song is, god. Wichita Lineman - Kool & The Gang Did you know that before Kool & The Gang were disco funk superstars they were a very cool jazz band who released this album called Live At The Sex Machine and for some reason did a very beautiful cover of Wichita Lineman. Another interesting piece of trivia is that i’m the woman on this recording who just screams at the top of her lungs as soon as the melody comes in. Open Sesame (Original 12" Extended Version) - Kool & The Gang This song has already been on a playlist but I truly cannot get over it. What an absolute jam of a lifetime. This song sounds like the intro to a cartoon called Get Down With The Genie except the intro goes for 9 minutes so the actual episode is only 7 seconds long. Hatshepsut - Jlin Imagine if marching bands were good. That’s the fantastical futuristic world that Jlin imagines for us on Hatshepsut. A far off planet where marching bands are good and there’s one guy in the band whose job it is to just blast on a synth. Watch What Happens - Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66 Another bossa nova hit that almost sounds like something from a musical. I love the harmonies in this and the rhythm of the vocals where it feels like the melody’s been adapted to a whole new set of lyrics. I almost wish this didn’t fade out because I love how almost scary that very last part is. Me Or Us - Young Thug Imagine having the gall to sample the guitar from First Day Of My Life and build a whole new song around it. A truly incredible move and a very nice song. Hunter - Have A Nice Life A thought I had while I was listening to this song in an extremely dark mood was that one day I will be 50 and there will still be days when all you can do is lay on the floor and listen to Have A Nice Life. A grim vision but at least I’ll always have songs like this to do it to. Hammond Song - The Roches My girlfriend showed me this song and I love it, I love the close harmonies, the female bass, the theremin sounding guitar in the middle. *italian chef kissing fingers* Gambling - Mia Dyson Mia Dyson sounds like The War On Drugs now and I love it. I love how much space this song has, I think she’s finally given up on trying to make hits and crack the American market or whatever and is instead just making great music again and god bless. Continental Breakfast - Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile Another great song from Kurt & Courtney about how Kurt & Courtney are friends and how it’s nice to have friends. This song is like the audio equivalent of that dumb smile Kurt Vile always has on his face. 1 Thing - Amerie 1 Thing may be the best song ever written. The bareness of the production that’s just drums and guitar stabs most of the time really highlights her voice and the agility of the melody. Also the part where she says 'memories just keep ringing bells’ and then goes 'ding ding ding ding’ in the background is really funny and perfect.

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