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topweeklyupdate · 3 years

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TØP Weekly Update #142: A Formidable Album (5/21/21)

So... how 'bout that album release week?

There's so much to cover; the release of nine new songs, the hype that's building for the World's Best Band to return to the stage, and (if we're able to come up for air) the massive speculation of what the future brings for our band.

I'm gonna get right into it, laying out my thoughts regarding this bold new album and covering all the most notable news from the week. I'll be sharing my (mostly) positive opinions about Scaled and Icy under the Read More line; I hope they're the start of a fun conversation with all of y'all who have stuck around through this last year.

Scaled and Icy Review

First, my general thoughts on the album: It's good! Really good. Do I think it's a no-skip like Vessel or a cohesive piece of art like Trench? Absolutely not! But it's also not the potential misfire that I worried that we might be getting when I first heard "Saturday" (more on that later); I think all of the songs are at least good, and some of them are downright great tracks that hold up with anything else that our band has ever released. It is also indisputably very different, but I think that generally works pretty well. Many of the songs evoke '60s rock or Britpop sounds and structures that you can tell Tyler is still trying to navigate, but I think he does a very solid job at adapting them to suit his strengths- namely his lyricism and knack for melody- rather than change to suit them. Unfortunately, this does result in a bit of square-peg-in-round-hole syndrome at times; most of the rap verses on the album feel like they're here just to fulfill an obligation to fans who would be mad if they weren't here, and most of the songs that use them are the weakest ones in the project.

"Good Day" plays a major role in getting the rest of the album to work as well as it does. Its gradual ramp-up, introducing the sound that will be used throughout the rest of the album. Its playfulness belies its message about how one can project a somewhat false optimism for oneself in the midst of tragedy: the type of dark stuff in a bright package that Tyler is so so good at. It's perhaps not an instant classic, but I am excited to see how it comes across when it's eventually used as a show-opener. 9/10

I've of course already discussed "Shy Away"; an anthemic, inimitably catchy track that I just wish had a bit more going on under the hood. Still going to be so good to hear thousands of voices scream "An 'I LOVE YOU' that isn't words!" someday. 9.5/10

"Choker" definitely took a little bit to grow on me. I think part of that was a bit of disappointment from over-inflated expectations and the environment I was in when I first heard it. With further listens, I fall more and more in love with the melody of the song... well, most of it. Like the rest of this album, the biggest weakness in the song is when Tyler tries to tick the box of having a rap verse; it just feels really out of place, unfinished, and almost amateurish, and it doesn't end the song on the note that it really should. Without it, it'd be one of my favorites on the album; with it, "Choker" is a solid 8.5/10.

Speaking of unfinished-sounding songs really hurt by their rap verse: "The Outside". There's a definite something to the vibe of the song, but that seemingly nonsensical verse is one of the two weakest parts of the entire project for me. The way the song meanders only adds to the feeling that there wasn't as much energy and attention paid to it compared to other parts of the project. It's pretty easily my least favorite track on Scaled and Icy, and the only one I might regularly skip. I've also seen plenty of people saying it's the best song on the album, so please tell me why I'm wrong! 6.5/10

"Saturday", as mentioned above, had me really nervous about this album. Like "Choker", it's grown on me a bit since I first heard it, in part because it fits better with the context of the rest of the album. However, this one really does feel undercooked lyrically and overreliant on the novelty of using a disco-inspired sound that seems to chase trends more than almost any other TØP track. The inclusion of that very sweet audio clip from Jenna boosts the song in some ways, but also adds to the disappointment in others; there are many other songs on this project that would be more worth surrendering time watching Friends. Thankfully, those come next. 7/10

"Never Take It" is fascinating. I never thought I'd hear a Rolling Stones-style song from Tyler Joseph featuring a gd guitar solo of all things, and it actually sounds pretty great. However, I also predict that this song will see some of the greatest critical scrutiny out of all the songs on the album. The lyrics seem to be Tyler's criticism of the media for playing up division in our society, but he's extremely vague when discussing which entities are spreading said division and ultimately recommends that people "educate yourself, but never too much". I'll be honest: maybe it's the fact that it sounds like something my dad would listen to, but it feels like this would get tons of play on Fox News. Since it makes specific reference to the events of last summer, it's hard not to feel like song is at least partially inspired by Tyler's brush with cancellation last year. Maybe I'm reading too deeply into it, but those reservations come from the song's lack of specificity, which is an issue of songwriting more than politics. They hold me back from truly loving a song that still manages to be one of the most exciting the band has ever put out. 8.5/10

"Mulberry Street" seems like the perfect realization of the entire album's intended tone. It is so pleasant, so lush while also simply produced, full of great lyrics, metaphors, and imagery. It really brings the whole project together, even if it's missing That One Line to really move this up to the top tier of the canon. 9.5/10

"Formidable" is the best song on the album and one of two songs I would truly rank in the top tier of the band's canon. Extremely pleasant and brimming with well-crafted lines to make your heart swoon. Jenna (and Rosie) is (are) a lucky gal(s). Or is it about Josh? Who's to say? 10/10

"Bounce Man" is just plain wild. I think Tyler's smuggling someone to Mexico to escape the feds? The playfulness of it all really covers up any frustration I might have with the clarity; it makes it clear that there's not really stakes here, just vibes. 8.5/10

"No Chances" sees the album take a turn that I'm sure the Reddit Clique is going to have an absolute field day with; it and "Redecorate" both sound quite different from the rest of the album and evoke enough elements of Trench to make me think that's it's actually possible that all this 'SAI is Propaganda' stuff might actually have something to it... until I actually pick apart the lyrics, then I'm even more confused. The song has some of the best rapping on the album, though that's not saying much (the feng shui line is a groaner right out the gate) and the gentle pre-chorus is really pleasant. I still haven't made up my mind on whether the chorus is effective or just plain goofy. This one might get worse or better on repeat listens, impossible to say for now. 7.5/10

"Redecorate" rounds out the album by opening with a Clancy quote (Tyler, you bastard), firmly setting this as a coda to Trench more than the album we just listened to. The rest of the song is really storytelling, with Tyler describing a bunch of people who are struggling deeply. The idea of "redecorating" here stands for how they are faced with the option to clean and resort their own spaces and lives or leave that to their loved ones to do after they're gone. By the time it gets to the album's name drop, you begin to wonder how much of this is potential autobiographical of the last year. It's moving stuff, a callback to some of the great strengths of the band's discography. 10/10

If I average those scores all up, this project ranks below almost every album among the Pilots discography on my rating scale, very narrowly edging out Self-Titled. That's still a very solid 8.6. Scaled and Icy is a very good album on first listen. We'll see how I feel about it after having a little more time to sit with it, but I've rambled enough: let's move through the rest of the week's news.

Other News

Of course, there was a lot else going on this week! To accompany the release of "Saturday", Zane Lowe over at Apple Music dropped an interview with Tyler. As usual, Zane did a pretty solid job of getting to the heart of the craft and the creation process. However, Tyler also wound up skirting a lot of the questions to just talk more about how much he loves being a dad, which makes me happy; if the cost of getting a little less attention and mental energy devoted to the music is that little girl getting all of his attention, that's honestly preferable for me.

The album rollout is not even close to over. Later today, the concert will be streamed live. It's our first real performance that we've gotten from the band since 2019, but the previews that we've seen have completely exceeded any of my expectations, and really anything that we've seen from the band. It appears that they've transformed the entire arena (which I think is the ol' Schott at Ohio State) into a whole TØP world, with different sets laden with Easter eggs and a cast of backup dancers. If the website can hold up to the traffic (and I acknowledge that might be a big ask), this could really live up to Tyler's promise of this being the best livestreamed concert ever.

Oh, and this guy dyed his hair pink.

What a time to be a fan. Catch you all tomorrow.

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

#twenty one pilots #scaled and icy #tyler joseph #josh dun #good day #shy away #choker #the outside #saturday #never take it #mulberry street #formidable #bounce man #no chances #redecorate #top weekly update

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tiny-smallest · 4 years

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STEVEN UNIVERSE FINALE THOUGHTS: SPOILERS ABOUND

My criticisms mostly lie in how short it was. This whole epilogue season needed to be longer. More episodes, or longer episodes. I'd lean more towards longer personally because as much as I'd love to revisit old friends who didn't get any time in SUF (FUCKING. NEPHRITE.), I'd rather the stuff that exists were fleshed out more. If I had my way we’d have more episodes (maybe 30-40, and not all of them painful; some more like Why So Blue or Guidance- ones that hint at his escalating mental illness but aren’t a sheer punch of pain) as well as longer episodes when needed (some of these were perfect for their length; others could’ve used a longer run time to really flesh things out) but if I had to pick one, I’d pick longer episodes over more episodes.

So far the biggest things that bug me are Connie's speech and White's breakdown.

Connie's speech only because she started it. In a show that kind of finally called the adults out for how much Steven had to give to them, it's a different child who rallies them to a clear head so they can figure out what to do. I'd much rather Greg have started the speech and Connie then interject. And then Garnet comes up with the actual plan? That'd have been perfect. They got so close to that too, since Greg is the only adult not falling apart instead of focusing on what Steven needs; he admits his faults and is obviously super upset about it, but his statement is a declaration of action: that this time he’s not running to let the magic people deal with this, he’s going to be there too. THEY WERE SO CLOSE TO THAT MOMENT BEING ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AUGH.

White's breakdown. I get what they were going for here, I really do: we’ve all seen The Big Bad be dealt with by stabbing them real good a lot and rarely is there ever any nuance applied to the concept of toppling a tyrant and where that would leave people, and the show is BUILT on the idea of what happens when you try that (or... fake the succeeding of it), so I get why they decided not to straight up kill her. But you also built White up to be like... Mother Gothel meets Frollo and then SHOWCASED IT IN ACTION and I'm forever gonna have a hard time swallowing the concept that she could ever be so utterly repentant of her crimes, I guess, both on a personal and universal level? I’d have almost rather she remained toxic and kept at a distance?

Add-ons to this are not a word about humanizing Pink/Rose in Steven's viewpoint and not a word about what White did to Steven-- which is possibly the most traumatic thing that happened to him.

That being said, corrupted Steven was a fucking HELL YES. And they USED THE WORD CORRUPTED SO HATERS CAN SUCK IT. I thought the corruption was solved a little too... easily and quickly? If other corrupted gems weren’t reachable just by talking to them Steven shouldn’t have been either even with being half human, and I would have loved if they’d had to go into his mind in order to reach him with their words--which would’ve been an interesting parallel to Change Your Mind, actually. But this is an example of what I mean about wishing episodes were longer. For this to be a thing the episode would’ve needed to be longer. As it was, it was fine. The emotion of it still got through. Everyone got to say their piece and that was important. It teetered a little dangerously close to ‘Connie fixes Steven’ but since everyone else did talk and said some really important stuff it’s more like Connie just happened to go last and not that her words in particular were important above everyone else’s.

Steven hanging up the poster from the song Mr. Universe also is like- another mild criticism in that the implications there could use A WHOLE EPISODE OF THEIR OWN (he has accepted he is a Universe, he has accepted his father; there may or may not have been a talk about Greg’s decisions and why he made them) but the implications are there nonetheless and I love it.

STEVEN. HAS. A THERAPIST. THEY SAID THE WORDS ON CAMERA.

STEVEN'S COOKING AGAIN!!

A final conversation between him and his father and it was of a decent length yes thank you god.

He said goodbye to all the Crystal Gems not just the three he lives with YAY

CONVERSE KISS. AT LAST. Sure, it didn’t get to be the big dramatic moment we were hoping for, but it was sweet and THERE.

A CONFIRMATION OF A TIMESKIP which is good because he'd really need a stable place for those first few months following something that awful.

I'm glad they established there had been time between that and his road trip. I’m also glad they made sure to establish that his support system is going to be in contact with him constantly. My mom instincts are screaming that he’s still too young and too sick to be on the road alone and I’d rather that have happened in a year or two, but since he’s gonna be in constant contact, can, go home at any time, and is probably 1-2 months away from being eighteen at the time he sets out, I can accept that.

The implication that Steven might return is a deeply appreciated one, because I’d rather this ended where it did last time-- a family together on a beach. But Steven needs time to grow and learn and he can’t do that in Beach City right now which is a thing I get- but the fact that he’s just as likely to return as he is to settle elsewhere means that after he’s seen all he’s wanted to see he can always return to his family and find a new adventure waiting in Beach City. (Personally I’d like to think he opens a restaurant.) And for those who’d rather he settle elsewhere, they get to have that, too!

It’s a way to leave it open-ended without feeling cheap, because the whole season has been building up to him needing to get away at least for awhile, and I appreciate that.

I realize that Being Human was sung in pieces by (I believe) Sugar over the course of the season in the way that Love Like You was to hide that the speaker is Steven the way it was previously done to hide that the speaker was Rose, but man, my final criticism: I wish Steven had sung the song as he was leaving. Just. A short version of it maybe as he drove off. If the lack of Steven being musical this season was supposed to be a nod to his worsening mental spiral then it would make sense for him to sing one final song as he’s healing, a sign of hope, and to leave the viewers with one last goodbye from the boy himself.

(And also so our only Steven song isn’t the incredibly sad I’d Rather Be Me With You.)

But all in all? It was a good finale. A solid finale. I adored it and it made me Feel Things. It was amazing to see some theories come to fruition. It was amazing to tackle the wounds that the original series would have left on a child’s soul. It was an amazing experience overall and while I feel some things could have been done better, I am so, so glad I binged my way through the original series to experience Future as it happened. I regret not keeping up with the original series as it aired and I am so, so glad for the experience of getting to do that with this series’ last hurrah. It kind of hurts; I’ll be mourning this show’s loss for a long time. But in an internet littered with cartoons killed before their time, I am incredibly grateful this show got to come to a proper close, got to tell its story through to the end.

In this world of people there really is no one like you, Steven. We will always be your family, and each other’s. Thanks for the ride.

#steven universe #steven universe future #i am my monster #suf spoilers #steven universe future spoilers #steven universe finale

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morgandria · 3 years

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Moon Musings

I am on day #!^* of One Of -Those- Migraines (thanks, March), so while I’m sitting here trying not to be miserable, you’re getting some moon stuff. I have a pile of random thoughts that are trying to coalesce themselves into a coherent lunar-focused project in the future, so the moon has been on my mind. In many ways, I miss the moon. I live on a street corner in town where two separate lights shine directly on my yard, and since they installed new LED lights there's no such thing as darkness at night. Even my backyard, which would be in the shadow of the house normally, is lit since the LEDs spill farther and brighter now, and my neighbours keep their back porch light on all the time. We won't even talk about the fact that out of the last 16 months, I think we had full cloud cover for about 14 of them. That's the reality.

So this is more of the woo side. This is UPG, 100%. I often don’t use traditional names for the different Full Moons - some of them don’t resonate, so I do what works for me. Secondly, my personal lunar lore behind the names I do use is all mashed up with a whole lot of synesthesia, and some personal experiences. So...if any of this works for you or entertains you, cool. If not? No worries. Do your thing, and I’ll do mine. I also live in Ontario, and always have, so my experiences and practices are absolutely rooted here. Weather patterns and seasons won't work the same elsewhere, so you need to work with what you've got.

January: Wolf Moon

I do use a traditional name for this moon, but only because I used to go howling with the wolves in the back 40 when I was a teenager. I used to be able to take long white walks in the fields when they were all lit up, and were fortunate to have some lupine neighbours. I love the sharpness of the night sky, and finding moments of silence and stillness. More practically these days I bundle up at home away from the ice and the cold and enjoy a good cup of tea when I can. The vibration of this moon's energy always seems to bring me insomnia, though. The colours I associate with January’s moon are white, silver, red, and a deep amethyst. Other things, more randomly: birch trees, the sound of cracking ice, the hissing of river reeds in the wind.

February: Storm Moon

There’s a tempestuous feel to February’s moon for me. It’s usually the month we get intensely cold. January is often a icy, thaw/freeze mess, but February always feels like the time when Winter decides it’s time to really throw its’ weight around with some serious storms. The feel of this moon’s energy is sinuous for me, sliding around and into everything, but also fierce. There’s something profoundly cleansing about letting a sharp winter wind pierce through to your bones and strip away all the gunk cluttering up your energy. My colours for this moon are grey and deep blues, like Prussian blue or steel blue. Other things: labradorite, blue tiger’s eye, and the smell of wintergreen,

March: Crow Moon

This is the moon when my crows come back to my neighbourhood. They usually move out around the start of December, and I start to see and hear them again around the start of March. Nothing about March in Ontario is spring-like: it’s either a solid mass of ice coating everything, or faded grey-brown and thick with mud. Ugh. I actually used to camp on March break as a teenager, but inevitably it ended up with a dozen frozen teenagers in a friend's kitchen having an impromptu Sunday breakfast while I woke up and wondered where everyone'd gone. (Stir-crazy kids in the sticks with nothing to do for a week do silly things.) Nowadays, I’d rather look up at the skies than down at the earth during this moon, and I choose to focus on my corvid friends because they make me happy. Crow Moon is somehow all aquas and peacock blues in colour, and mare’s tails in impossible blue skies, and the world smells once again of fresh, clean Earth, when the ice lets it through.

April: Seed Moon

Maybe the moon where (people who are better gardeners than me) start to get their seeds in the ground. I live in a snow belt, so I don't trust myself to plant anything until May. It's still not super warm, or even remotely dry, but there starts to be hints of things like warmer sun and breezes around the edges. Later in the month you get those days where pollen and snow can fly at the same time. There's no leaves yet, but you can see the buds getting fatter. I think of it as a "restful" time during the year, before summer gets really busy with family and friends. If we're having a good Spring I might get a day or two where I can actually get outside and tidy the yard some. I associate Seed Moon with the colours of soft buttery yellow and pale peridot green, which starts to invade around the rust-brown-green background. It's a citrine month, and also one where those little blue flowers come up in people's lawns.

May: Hare Moon

We don't have hares here. I wish we did - I used to see snowshoe hares in the country when I was wee - but I have rabbits, at least. And yet, this is not "Rabbit Moon". A hare is a different beast from a rabbit entirely. They have a fierce wildness that our Eastern Cottontails do not. And for me, the moon of May, the month of Beltane and the nuptials of the Lord and Lady, have a fierce, wild joy as the world finally explodes with warmth and light and leaves and flowers. I don't ever really trust winter is gone until mid-May. Hare Moon is emerald and violet and velvet, the shadow of leaves and sweet intoxicating aromas. There's something tactile about it - you want to run your hands through it, let it brush past you and run its' fingers through your hair.

June: Mead Moon

I sometimes also call this the Honey Moon. It is the sweetest time of the summer for me, before it's mind-meltingly hot. You get those gorgeous days that are still draped in gentle grey veils of rain on the growing, swaying green fields, and the flowers are growing tall and tangled - honeysuckle, clover, alfalfa and St. John's Wort. There are bees -everywhere-, and the very first of the summer fruits are coming ripe and I spend eight months of the year absolutely dying for the four when we get local, seasonal fruit. It's an idyll, before I'm completely sunbaked and dried out in the heat. Mead Moon is all sky blue and honey gold, saffron and ultramarine. It's warm sand and cold lakes, the smell of hay drying in the fields, and long drives down country roads to escape the concrete of town.

July: Satyr Moon

This month's moon is probably the time when folks in these parts get up to the most outdoor activity. I associate it most with a kind of revelry and hedonism - hence the 'satyr'. We get people taking their vacations, heading to the cottage, the campsite, and having their reunions and parties. Concerts, fairs, festivals...we have a lot to cram into a short time. The lilies in my yard finally have bloomed their brilliant orange, by the start of the month, and July is one long stretch of pure jewel-like greens, under bleached blue skies. This is the other month, like April, where everything feels like it's just poised, waiting to explode with the brisk business of harvest. For me, this moon is natural life in its' prime, and despite my dislike of intense heat and humidity I try to remind myself to enjoy it where and how I can. Satyr Moon is an endless mosaic of greens, a heady musky smell of wood and water, cedar and leaf, shadows and firelight dancing, and distant music everywhere.

August: Barley Moon

This moon is the first harvest moon, here, when the wheat is finally harvested and all that dust in the air makes it ripe and golden and warm. Haying season will sometimes give the moon a bit of a gold tint earlier on, but not those deep amber rises I adore in August. I am an August Virgo, and I adore the Barley Moon - I mean, I quite literally worship wheat. All the first fruits of harvest are peaking, there's SO much goodness in the fields, and yet I can feel summer slowing down, and gradually waning to a bronze-green glowing that I absolutely adore. The nature of daylight changes, subtly, and I try to catch onto every sunset and fix it into my brain, to save it for those white winter days when we haven't seen even the notion of sun for weeks. When we slide from the scorch of the dog days into long, gloaming evenings and cooler nights and the hints of colour on the leaves at the end of the month - heaven. Barley Moon is wheaten and speckled browns, endless golds, blackberry and peach, the smell of dry grass and fresh corn. It's countless toasted tomato sandwiches, far too much zucchini, and penetrating spears of bronze light through the trees as the sun slides away to let the fat amber moon rise up.

September: Harvest Moon

There's no stopping harvest. This moon is when -everything- comes down, and you have no choice but to get your ass moving. You try to get as much of it off the vine while it's best. I get very hobbity when Harvest comes, and I want to be living a simple life. I start to miss home, and rural life, and my family, a lot. It feels different than my youth, and it's...wrong now, somehow. These days it's more like Second July - it rarely cools off below 20°C., it's often stupidly humid, and can be much, much warmer. Our changing climate makes it feel like a month of dragging what I dislike most about Summer out, and it just feels unnatural. Add into that everyone still running around trying to pretend like Summer isn't ending, and I do not like it much for that reason. September always ends up cluttered and rushed, just too much going on in our lives for various reasons. I wish I appreciated it more, but I don't. But there are moments: the deepening indigo of September twilights, the movement of the birds (both those ready to move on and those snatching up all the food they can before the cold comes), the exuberance of goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace and asters. Harvest Moon is indigo and wine-red, the sweetness of a frost-touched grape, the musk of a yeast-laden apple's skin, and the first cries of the migrating geese.

October: Hunter's Moon

Hunter's Moon has two sides. From the start of October, until Thanksgiving, is gorgeous, brilliant leaves and bright crisp skies. It's deep blue waters reflecting streaks of smoke and high cloud. Any time after that, it can snow. It certainly will get wet and windy, at the very least. And then everything is grey, torrents of wine-dark leaves all with that sugar-sweet rot as they lie where they fall intertwined with the smell of the cold and everyone's woodstoves firing up. I cannot tell you how much this season refills my spirit. It's always been a hunter's moon for me. Various hunting seasons start (turkey, duck, deer, then into moose later in the fall), and I have many fond memories of delicious game meat meals with family well into the spring. It was a vital part of life, and always done with respect and thanks. Hunter's Moon is grey on grey, the edges of smokey obsidian and crimson-carnelian-red. It is antler and bone and slow-burning hardwood, the hissing of the corn stalks drying in the darkening fields.

November: Snow Moon

You'll see Snow Moons all over the winter calender, depending on where you live. For me, winter starts at Samhain, and it is inevitable that we have snow here very close to that date (whether before or after). It was true living on the Rideau, and it's still true over here in the Central Ontario snowbelts off Georgian Bay. November's is another two-sided moon: there's the gold, and the grey, The gold is of a clear day's sun through the last of the golden maple leaves clinging to the branches is clarion, of wetland reeds and cow corn still standing in the now-frosty fields. The grey comes softer than October, creeping softly across lawns and windows and the brown leaves curling on the ground, and as drifting veils of snow blowing in to cover the land in its' first lingering solid coats of white. I love the world's withdrawal into silence - I too, withdraw into myself and listen to inner voices. Snow Moon is white and silver (but also pearl grey and ash and brown) and the nights are long, powdery indigo, mounted by silent owl wings, iolite eyes set in silver frames.

December: Oak Moon

This last moon is curious for me, in that I do not know precisely why I continue to use this name. I like it - it has many associations for me in my Craft - but I guess I haven't thought much about it. Many oak trees do keep some or all of their rich tannin-brown leathery leaves through winter, though, and I do enjoy their song (along with the remnants of the leaves on our ash trees) in the wind... but that's not it. Neither is the whole Oak King/Holly King construct, which I don't really engage with. I have a strong connection with a particular energy, that of an aged, Green Man sage-type spirit that comes with this moon, so perhaps that's part of it as well. I suspect it will always be a bit of a Mystery, which I'm ok with. December's night skies seem curiously leeched of their blue hues, as the nights grow longer, a velvety black glittering blanket. Oak Moon comes dressed in the deep, rich colours of the Earth element - glossy evergreens, rich brown, deepest black, and is redolent of pine and cedar, and the flash of cardinals and blue jays at the bird feeder.

I don't know if any of that is useful, entertaining, or even intelligible. I hope at the very least, it prompts you to think about how you interact with the moons of the year, and the seasons, and how you perceive the world around you.

#lunar calendar #full moons #UPG #witchcraft #musings #personal #seasons #Ontario #i miss living in the country

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ngame989 · 5 years

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Starco Fic Recs

Disclaimer: This list is largely curated to my own personal preferences (minimal feelings angst, minimal AUs, character development >>> plot) and has a fairly high bar for quality in characterization, etc. There will likely be many popular/beloved fics that I really don’t think highly of at all and therefore don’t make the cut. Feel free to DM me things you think I should consider adding, but I make no promises.

And of course I’d be flattered if you gave my own works a chance - stop by my About Me section for links! Thus far I’m particularly proud of the post-canon series I just started in collaboration with an awesome team, The Greatest Gift.

(Updated 9/26 - I decided to redo the list since people might appreciate seeing it in the tags again. To anyone whose own work is featured here that I haven’t personally responded to - I’m a tough critic with a lot of strong personal preferences so PLEASE do not take my gripes as condemnations of your skills - if they make the list at all, I think they’re worth a read!)

See below for the very thorough list!

Bolded titles indicate must-read.

Italicized titles indicate work is incomplete (in the case of continuous stories).

Asterisks indicate new additions from last update (3 for brand new, 1 for status update).

I’ve VERY loosely organized the categories by personal priority order this time around, but read the descriptions and decide for yourself!

Must-Reads

Forevermore - A Starco wedding story (with a bit of Jantom as well). Simply one of the best fics I’ve read in the fandom. I have no meaningful criticism to give it, and that’s the highest praise I can possibly give something.

Monarchs of Mewni (+ Traditionally Lovingly Yours) - A series of chronologically disconnected oneshots set years after the show. The backstory is very dated given how long ago it started (Jarco was kinda serious for a few years, Tomstar v2 never happened, etc) but overall it’s lovely. Has a bit of plot, a bit of Jantom, a lot of other character interactions, and a boatload of Starco - plus a Starco kid who is a decently developed character but also doesn’t just take over and crowd out Star and Marco themselves! That alone deserves merit.

Ruined - Aftermath of a hypothetical return of Monster Arm. Angst with a happy ending (and one of the few angsty fics that gets my seal of approval), so read this extra early if that’s more your schtick than mine.

study buddies - Y’know what, fuck it, I’m putting this here. It’s a short ball of Starco fluff but it’s one of the sweetest and fluffiest fluffballs I’ve seen in a long time and it’s very emotionally immersive and y’all needa read it.

*When Two Worlds Collide - One of my favorite postcanon series thus far. I admit I’m really not big on “magic returns!” plots in postcanon (which this has), and the sections that focus on that are hit or miss for me, but overall it has some of the funnest and cutest characterization and gags I’ve seen in any SVTFOE fic, ever. Absolutely worth following (and it has a fair amount of art to go along with it!)

***Star Chef - Oneshot (two chapters, so twoshot technically?) set in the same universe as Starlight Justiciar (see below) and is just a day in the life of Star and Marco. Goes absolutely above and beyond at emotional immersion and little nuances and details to bring the world and characters to life, which elevates it to something special to me.

Light of the Sun and Stars - (Promoted to Must-Read!) One of the few heavily divergent AU fics I care for. Marco is an orphan raised by monsters, and meets Star after running away. Just finished its “first season” and I've loved the recent chapters, am very excited to see where it goes.

*Don’t You Let Me Go - Wonderfully fluffy post-Cleaved Starco, one of my favorite oneshot “epilogues”.

i want to tell you (but i don’t know how) - Post season 3 fic detailing the growth of Star and Marco’s relationship. It’s spectacular writing and shows off a lot of the true depth of Starco beyond just being cute.

Adult - NSFW warning, non-explicit (aged-up characters). It’s a story about the journey towards Star and Marco’s first step into adulthood together - it’s not graphic and way more focused on the emotions involved, but it still is definitely more explicit than your average FFnet rated-T fic. If sexual themes ain’t your thing, I totally respect that, but this is a charming and funny piece of writing.

Lawchan’s various oneshots - There isn’t a great compilation for them right now so the best I can do is give you her tag for it and you can comb through it yourself. I like some more than others here, but they’re all very well-written - my only gripes with some of them are my own tastes in subject matter, so have fun perusing this on your own.

I Will Always Be There For You - A really pure and wholesome Starco oneshot. Very well-written.

Post-Canon Series to Follow

I figured with the show being over, and so many people starting their own series, I should include a lot of them here even if I’m personally not the biggest fan just to help gather them up so people can decide for themselves. Little bit looser on judgment here.

*Life on Earthni A to Z - Non-chronological postcanon slice of life oneshots, Starco and some Globclipsa and Jantom. Overall really good so far, one of my favorites in terms of direction.

*When Dimensions Cleave (sequel - Unforgettable Getaway) - Another postcanon series hellbent on bringing back magic queen lore, but it has some solid Starco fluff still. Credit where it’s due, the “Star constantly freaking out over what a horrible person she was” bit that I called preachy in the prior rec post gets somewhat less preachy and does end up actually going somewhere as part of character development, but I’m left scratching my head at how they all act sometimes. The good parts are certainly good, though, and in terms of quantity of lovey dovey Starco, it really can’t be beat (especially the sequel) and that’s worth something by itself.

We’re a Miracle - Extra adorkable postcanon fluff. Lighter on the “but ACKSHUALLY MAGIC IS BACK” stuff compared to the others, but it’s there, like almost every postcanon fic in existence.

Star vs the Sands of Time - Heavy politic/lore postcanon fic, not my fav but if that’s more your thing then great. Has some casual Starco too.

Goodbye Isn’t Forever - More POV dives into Cleaved.

Fake Proposal - Some decent jokey but cute fluff

The Stars Above - Some exploration of Earthni

New World - A bit over-the-top meta, but fun fluff

The Starlight Justiciar - Four years after canon, some social change plot stuff and some decent Starco. Not the biggest fan of some of the plot stuff but check it out for yourself!

Starco vs the Forces of Evil - Another collab fic/art thing. Fair warning, I really am not personally a huge fan of a lot of the characterization and plot decisions here (see my notes on Sign of the Moon waaaay down below) but decide for yourself, don’t let my pickiness dictate your own preferences!

Ready For The Future - Technically a oneshot (with some Starco) but sets up some Mina plot, if you’re interested in more give it a follow/review.

Worlds Together - Some Starco and exploration of Earthni.

Epilogue - Some Starco and exploration of Earthni.

***A Dark Horse - Has a few really nice lovey dovey Starco bits but also lots of superdrama with politics stuff. There’s a lot of fics here that I honestly just windowshop the scene I like for a quick fix of dopamine every now and then and skim at most otherwise, and this is one.

Revolution - end of canon AU where Moon is as anti-monster as Mina, dark as fuck. Only putting it here cuz some of y’all angstlords might like it.

Shorter Works/Oneshot Collections

I’ll Carry Your World - Big ole’ ball of wonderful Starco fluff with an important moment between them (written before end of show so a bit divergent).

***LoveIsTheStrongestKindOfMagic - Very short and basic fluff.

Starco Week 5 (Hugs Included) - Some of it is postcanon Earthni oneshots and others are from the Light of the Sun and Stars AU (see above). Great author, fun as hell writing style.

Fragile - Star worries about keeping her boyfriend Marco safe.

Complete - An older Star reflects on her past and present. Short and sweet.

Knighthood - Simple fluff piece on if Star and Marco got together after Storm the Castle.

Too Hot to Move - Star and Marco try to survive a heat wave on Earthni. Also funny fluff.

Marco Make-out Mayhem - Star really likes kissing Marco. Funny fluff.

Cleaved Together - NSFW warning, non-explicit (aged up) - Star and Marco’s first time. Very very overly focused on the whole purity/sacredness of first time thing, but still pretty cute.

Like Us - Really nice, sweet casual reflection on her life with Marco from a future Star’s POV.Toothpaste Kisses - Short fluff about its title.

A Friend’s Memento - Starco fluff with some reflection on the results of destroying magic

Plum Pie - Some goofy antics and hurt/comfort.

Not Losing You - A little dive into Marco’s POV at the end of Cleaved. Also adds a kiss.

We Belong Together - More speculative slightly angsty comfort/fluff.

Enough - A nice study of the emotions and thoughts during the last scenes of Cleaved, adds some depth to it.

Heartless - A bit of angst over magic going away with some sweet Starco comfort.

Together - Post-Cleaved Starco megafluff.

My Prince - Starco fluff set in a world where they were together before Cornonation.

Dancing with a Star - Starco fluff from alt S4.

Love in the Time of Pancakes - Written hours after my last update of the list, another little ditty based on the pancake promo.

Pancakes - Fluffy S4-promo-based little oneshot.

Hers - Hurt/comfort/confession-y fic, has some really nice moments and shows off a lot of how much they care about each other. Nice to see after such a drought.

Someone to Stay - Another hurt/comfort fic, nice and simple.

A Viola, a Violin, and a Butterfly’s Sword - some nonlinear oneshots about Starco. Some kinda weird directions gone in with the “plot” but it’s pretty good overall.

Falling - One of many, many fics from throughout the fandom’s history about Star and Marco getting together. Short and sweet.

forget about white horses & once upon a time - Drabble collection of various moments scattered throughout Star and Marco’s lives. Cute fluff.

The One Where I Thought I Lost You - Post-BFM fic where Marco realizes his feelings for Star earlier. Very wholesome.

christmases when you were mine - Established relationship fluff.

lightning in your veins, thunder in your heart - Post-season 3 established relationship fluff (slightly divergent, written before 3B).

once upon a december - Established relationship fluff.

Flags - Alternate rendition of the episode “Flags” with Starco.

Spells and Hot Chocolate - Wintry fluff.

5 Ways to Say ‘I Love You’ - Post BFM with some events in Star and Marco’s lives.

You’re My Wish Come True - This is just indulgent Starco trash. I won’t even argue for the characterization/writing quality, this is just a straight-up guilty pleasure.

Wands and Nachos - ^

The Princess and the Safe Kid - ^

A Day in the Life of Starco - ^

A very Starco Xmas - ^

Could It Be -^

All the times Star wore Marco’s hoodie - ^

Protect Me, Squire - ^

Crushed - Star and Marco both get turned down by their respective crushes and find comfort in each other.

Stay - Cuddly fluff. There’s another Stay out there which I frankly can’t stand with will-they-won’t-they melodrama out the wazoo, so don’t get confused.

Longer Series

*The Inescapable Us - Really tropey miscommunication will-they-won’t-they type of thing. Not my fav, especially now that the show is over and finished that leg of Star and Marco’s story once and for all (I’m personally WAY less interested in things that redo something canon already did). However, where it’s at now has some really good Starco moments. Fully admitted that I hella skimmed most of it until the parts I enjoyed, but And if you’re more fine with that type of thing then you’ll probably really like it, it’s well-written otherwise.

Together We Fall - Throwback S2 AU fic where Star and Marco go to the dance together instead and Toffee makes moves earlier. Gets kinda dark but has a lot of nice Starco along the way.

Safer, Sorrier - A recent rewrite of an older fic, Better Safe Than Sorry, where Star has to leave early to become queen and Marco is alone for a few months before they reunite. A very dated premise (post season 1 ish) but quite good.

Sugar and Spice - NSFW warning, non-explicit (NOT aged-up characters). In this fic, Star and Marco have gotten together after BFM, and a spell gone wrong leads to Mewberty relapses with obvious consequences. This fic has adorable Starco moments, but what I love this for above all is the other character interactions (especially Glossaryck and Star’s parents). This is probably a controversial add-on to the list, but I stick by my decision - if the subject matter isn’t your thing, then by all means avoid it.

Beyond Dimensions - Plotfic + established Starco where some ancient sorceress has to trap Star to escape and try to take over Mewni. Maybe y'all are more into plot stuff than me but the Starco that’s there is quite good regardless.

Starfall - NSFW warning, explicit (aged-up characters). Probably the most popular one to make the cut. Star and Marco are forced apart and have to find their way back together. Very old fic, lot of dated stuff here, and the narration and plot itself can get kinda questionable sometimes, but it has a lot of good Starco and some interesting plot elements that make it, in my opinion, worth a read despite a lot of flaws. A few epilogue chapters contain rather explicit sexual content, so be wary of that (and the epilogue itself after Ep 6 kinda transitions into a nextgenverse, so maybe just skip that entirely).

The Star Butterfly Effect - The sole fic on the list that is purely plot-based, with very little actual Starco development whatsoever. I can’t even really explain it, just give it a shot and see what you think; I was rather engrossed by the plot, and that’s rare for me.

The Princess and her Knight, Return of the Empire The former fic in this series is way more character-based, while the latter is very heavy plot stuff. Pretty decent character writing with some fluff. There’s a third that I honestly can’t recommend because I completely dropped it because it was just a nonstop war story.

Experimental - REALLY heavy, dark AU where Star and Marco are tortured and corrupted. It’s pretty decent.

Blood Moon Blitz - Alt BFM fic of Marco going to fight Toffee with Star. unfortunately dropped without completing, but what’s there is pretty solid.

Read at Your Own Risk…

The Sign of the Moon, The Dance of the Stars - Starts post-3A, involves the growth of Star and Marco’s relationship as they take on foes in and out of the castle and learn more about the Blood Moon. This series is rather… melodramatic, and there were some chapters and character interactions I flat out did not enjoy reading. But some people aren’t as strict on character interpretations as I am and would love such a long plot-based Starco fic, so overall I still will at least list it and let you decide for yourself. There might be a third entry in this series now, but I dropped it before then.

Photos - I hesitate to include this one here because the “Tom is a perfect angel who must sacrifice his love for Star” thing pisses me off. But just skip all that (and ignore the random “a part of me will always love Tom” line) and it’s a really nice post-s3 confession fic.

#starco #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #fanfic #ngame

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crasherfly · 4 years

Text

Weekly Update

It’s a privilege to write about personal shit this week.

There’s not much I can add to the conversation about the election, suffice to say it was both better and worse than expected, and I’m glad that society isn’t immediately collapsing, at least this week.

Which is to say I’ve never been so glad to focus on my stupid, deeply low-stakes life updates. Obviously, the future is still uncertain and there will be plenty of work to do in the days and years ahead, but a week ago, I wasn’t certain if I’d be witness to a reality where questions like “how did a week of not drinking go” and “what are you playing” still matter.

So without further ado...

It was a challenging week, obviously.

Not just the election- I’m talkin’ for like- EVERYTHING. Home life. Work life. Creative life. I could go on. You get the idea.

I went on full blown quarantine as of last Friday after learning a member of my household may have covid. You wouldn’t think it was much of a change from my normal every day, but man, I did not realize just how many little things were working together to keep my sanity together.

A short list- weekend walks to pick up morning coffee, Friday night carry-out sushi and pizza, my weekly groceries at the co-op, and most importantly- trips to the weight room- all suddenly off the table until testing results come in.

In my state, testing often requires booking at least 3 days in advance, and it can take another 3-4 days just to get results back. Luckily, everyone in my home works remotely, so this doesn’t put us out too bad. I can’t imagine now non-remote workers manage. Even so, having to toss all the precious little things I’d managed to keep despite the pandemic stung. I even had to put my wrestling watch parties on hold- they took place on Discord, but one of my friends would normally come over to watch.

I’ve worked through a lot of huffy anger and annoyance over the course of the past few days. Losing my ability to get to the gym as the weather turns especially hurts. As a weight lifter, I’m pretty reliant on what the gym offers. Early into the pandemic I got a lot of folks snidely telling me to go lift paint cans. I resisted the temptation to tell them they could in turn pay for my back surgery. Thanks to the pandemic I’ve learned that the gym is actually a need for me, emotionally and physically. Losing it, even for a week, feels awful. I can’t wait to get back to it.

Until then, jogging and biking will have to suffice.

One positive- I’ve gone a week without drinking!

Based on my tracking, that’s actually the longest I’ve since June, which is nuts.

Predictably, I have gained weight. Because no good deed goes unpunished.

I don’t know if I’d say I notice any life-changing effects yet. For all I know, my body is still adjusting to the sudden absence of all the shit it’s normally used to working in overdrive to break down.

A few things I’ve noticed- my runs are going slightly better, I can stay up later working on games or creative endeavors, and I’m actually experiencing REM cycles again- meaning I’m dreaming, and dreaming vividly. I also get incredibly hungry around 10:30 every night- because, surprise!- that’s when I’d normally sit down with a beer or glass of sake. So I’m working on finding ways around that.

I can’t say I’ve felt a huge urge to drink. I occasionally wonder when, or indeed if, I’ll grab a glass of beer again any time soon. But beyond that, it’s been pretty easy to lay off. The fatigue alone was just such a pain to work through, not to mention the way a glass of beer would just kinda pin me into place for the rest of the night. I like how active my brain is now in the late hours.

But I do watch a lot less anime now :(

On that note, here’s what I’ve been playing lately!

Outer Worlds (XBONE)

So, you probably missed it last post- probably ‘cuz I forgot to write about it in my first draft, but I wrote about my Total Kill Run that I just wrapped up in Outer Worlds.

The short and dirty version for those of you who can’t be bothered to go back and read- I tried to do a run where I killed every NPC in Outer Worlds, a space RPG from the Obsidian, and instead got sidetracked with completing the nefarious Board’s story and ended up doing a Board run instead.

I was surprised by how humor and wit the game brings to its commentary on your wanton slaughter. The devs were not bluffing when they said you could kill anyone and anything in Outer Wilds and they even prepared a few nice moments in anticipation that some players would try.

I was disappointed to find that the Board’s mission- and indeed, some of the progression points I followed on my own go-it-alone-and-kill-everything story, mirrored the Good Guy story beat-for-beat, basically shrugging and saying “well, you’re gonna do this anyway, like it or not”. At several given points you can kill everyone you like- but you’ll still have to find that keycard, access that terminal, or visit that far off map point now matter how hard you try to get out of it.

I was finally struck by how little I missed. I skipped A LOT of stuff- almost every sidequest and all the companion quests. And you know what? I had a fine time. I might even say I had a better time. So much time in Outer Wilds is devoted to fetching, traveling, and sitting in load screens. Turns out you do less of all of that when you just go guns blazing into every civilized map.

Some friends earlier this week were talking about revisiting old Bethesda-style RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim. It got me thinking about whether or not I would bother doing that myself any time soon. It’s true those are better games than Outer Worlds. But if the point of Outer Worlds is to echo those positive experiences so closely...what does my recent experience say about the source of that reflection?

Just a thought I’m chewing on. I don’t have a good answer. But feel free to HMU if you have your own thoughts!

NeoGeo Arcade Stick Pro- Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury, World Heroes 2

Friday night I sat down at my desk, dimmed the lights and hooked up my NeoGeo Arcade Stick Pro. On my second monitor, I brought up move lists for King of Fighters ‘95 and started my fighting game learning journey.

I did OK, in my opinion. I stuck to just learning the hero team- Kyo, Daimon, and Benimaru. I even managed to trigger a few level 1 supers. I think I could safely beat the average player at an arcade now- but there’s definitely plenty of system I came nowhere close to learning all the ins and outs. However, after trying out a few subsequent KOF games, it seems like my learning should transfer forward.

I also tried out a few other games on the stick. Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury aren’t games I’ve had prior exposure to. In my experience, they seemed a little slower than KOF. The command lists were definitely shorter. Samurai Shodown was absolutely gorgeous and felt really, really good to play. I could see getting really into it.

My big highlight was World Heroes 2, which I ended up playing most of the night. It’s a bit sillier than the previously noted titles, but it has a really fun roster and a good, medium-sized move list that isn’t too taxing to remember. I had seen some of the characters, like Johnny Maximum, on the Spriteclub roster, so it was cool to see them in their native environment.

Overall, the Arcade Stick Pro is holding up nicely. The stick itself is solid, and the deck is a natural fit on my lap or desktop. I’m not noticing any serious input lag and the buttons seem really responsive. Of all my retro consoles, this might become one of my favorites.

Endless Space 2

AMPLITUDE’s 4x sci-fi has entered hallowed realms of my “Games I will Be Playing 20 Years From Now” list. A massive, sprawling turn-based strategy about managing a spacefaring empire, Endless Space 2 is great for those weeks where I want to play a 4X that I can resolve within 20 hours.

For my most recent run, I once again took up my favored faction, the Riftborn. Every game is a learning experience, so this time around I was determine to try and tackle the massive and deeply inconvenient quests that Endless Space 2 mercilessly slews at you every_damn_turn.

I was mostly successful. I didn’t finish my faction’s quest, but I did complete the Academy quests. Throughout every game the Academy looms as this impartial faction that hires out heroes and provides boons to those who donate resources to it. In the endgame, the Academy offers a quest that forces every active civilization to choose sides regardless of existing alliances. Depending on the results, the last phases of Endless Space 2 can look very different

I finished the questline, unlocked a cool cinematic and learned that next time I should definitely not ignore those quests, however obnoxious they might be. The faction buffs earned from successful completion are....pretty wild.

Sunless Skies

Another week, another dead captain in Sunless Skies. This captain had a particularly long run- I had managed about...15 hours with him before losing him to some enemies that I was not at all prepared to fight. Death comes quick in Sunless Skies- a single bad decision can lead to swift death.

This run I at least managed to bank a ton of valuable supplies and upgrade my engine. My next captain will have a better shot as a result. I’m not sure when I’ll pick the game back up. After a particularly long run I usually take a long break- weeks or even months. We’ll just see what happens.

Pokemon Shield

I’ve finally, FINALLY beaten the endgame of Pokemon Shield. At least, I think I have. I’m sure there’s a few more things to do here or there, but for the most part, I think I’m done. I beat the champion and saw the credits roll. There’s some DLC to visit and more ‘mon to catch, but mostly, I’m done.

I had the opportunity to take care of some trade evolutions and partake in a friendly battle with a friend. It was the first time I’ve done that since...I kid you not...the playground in 5th grade.

It was...really fun?

I’m a deeply casual pokemon player. I don’t search for shiny ‘mon or suss out perfect numbers. I just use who I think looks cool and I try to keep type and consideration in mind. As a result, my friend and I had to agree on some ground rules for average levels- but the result was a compelling match.

I found myself afterwards making plans for another battle night. This tends to happen in November- I get really into Pokemon again for a few weeks. Historically, this is ‘cuz I’m normally traveling a lot for the holidays. That won’t be true this year, but old habits die hard.

Maybe I’ll even bust out my 3DS again soon. Who knows?

Quest 2: Revisited

Last week, I posted some thoughts about the Oculus Quest 2. I’ve spent another week with the headset, testing some new features and trying some more involved experiences. I’m happy to report my thoughts on the machine are still positive.

If anything, my impressions are MORE positive than before. My eyes have grown used to the world of VR. I’ve found a setting on the out-of-box headstrap that I don’t hate. And I’m finding more experiences than I initially suspected I might.

I’ve had a change to run the Link option, for instance, which allows you to use your Quest 2 as a Rift. It’s actually pretty seamless, requiring only a good desktop and a USB cable. My cable seemed to suffer from some bad speeds, so my experience was pretty laggy, but with an approved cable, I have no doubt the Quest 2 could handle just about anything you throw at it.

I finished Superhot, and have only raving reviews to offer. It is a perfect introduction to all the Quest 2 can do. Given limited space, Superhot places you in do-or-die situations where you must dodge, duck and shoot your way through enemies. When you move- time movies- so you will often find yourself forced to take stock of your surroundings before making your next step.

It is sharp, offers a great mix of puzzle solving and brisk action, and even serves as an ad-hoc workout. Picking it up with your Quest 2 is a must.

Encouraged by Superhot, I gave Job Simulator a try. It is a zany VR experience that humorously simulates a number of white collar job environments. It is short, funny, and with no shortage of silly interactions. I spent several minutes in my digital office cube shooting staples into neighboring cubes and giggling at the angry responses of my co-workers. WHO THREW THAT. STAND UP.

Finally, I’ve taken some time to try and get into the streaming world beyond the Mozilla app. It has been both encouraging and...well, not so much. I’ve mostly been dinking around in Bigscreen, an app that offers a number of Pluto TV channels in digital theater environments. You log into a room with other people, who appear as avatars, and you all watch the shows together.

Well, sorta. Most people don’t really watch the shows so much as they throw digital tomatoes at the screen and shout upsetting shit at each other. The server population seems really low, so the massive theaters take on the quality of a creepy XXX cinema, where one always feels a bit apprehensive of who they might meet.

At its best, Bigscreen is genuinely funny. I’ve made nightly stops at the Star Trek theater, which plays old reruns of Next Generation. The most enjoyable moments come in the spirit of MST3K, with witty comments and memes as people throw digital refreshments at the screen. I’ve found myself giggling despite myself.

At its worst, Bigscreen is a deeply racist and sexist hideaway full of the types of folks you’d normally shush the hell out of in a real theater. You can mute people, but it’s a tedious task. A reporting function also exists, but who knows how or if its being enforced at all. Finally, unless you’re doing a film rental, you’re going to be subjected to commercials on everything from erectile pills to The Blaze. I’ve described it to others as being Peak Late Night Cable: The App. If that appeals to you, well, it’s there and it’s free.

I’ve tried streaming my desktop, both on Bigscreen and via Oculus Link. Both were very laggy. There’s a very popular desktop streaming app I could try, but it costs IRL money. Honestly, most of what I’d want out of my desktop streaming I already get from Mozilla.

I like the Quest 2 a lot. I hope we see more experiences tailored specifically to it, as opposed to through the Link function or via desktop streaming.

Dungeons and Dragons

I finally wrapped up my improv sessions with my local DND group. Having just finished The Lost Mines of Phandelver, I wanted to take some time between campaigns to improv and get off the grid a bit.

The result was 4 sessions, 2 hours each, where I had nothing prepared in advance and I let my players take the lead. I gave them a map I’d built of the region and told them we could go anywhere they like.

My party ended up splitting into two groups- one heading to Castle Grayhawk, and one to Neverwinter. Antics ensued, personal quests furthered, and by the end, everyone felt ready for our next adventure at the Salt Marshes.

An interesting takeaway- when doing improv sessions, I had almost zero fights. I never once broke out the battleboard and only a handful of attack rolls were even attempted.

I, personally, like combat a great deal. So I don’t think that will be my style forever. But it was interesting to see what my sessions could look like without it, especially after such a combat-heavy campaign.

Anime

I’ll be honest- I’ve fallen really behind on this season’s anime. I have so many hobbies, and one thing gets shoved aside for another, necessarily so. This time, it’s anime and manga. I promise I’ll get back on the horse soon.

As the year winds down, I’m already thinking about my experiences over the past year and what my end of the year experience list will look like.

I’ve seen so many amazing titles this year.

Like, I get deeply, viscerally emotional when I think about Re:Zero.

My heart races as I think of the thrilling high points of Tower of God.

I delight in my inner goth kid as I ruminate in experiences like Gleipnir and Berserk.

I’m going to have a lot to talk about. Just thinking about it motivates me to get out there and see more.

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txtdiaries · 5 years

Text

Momentum - Chapter One

SUMMARY | Your perennial crush on campus golden boy, Choi Soobin, isn’t one you think is shared; but a late night study session in the library with the man of the hour might just be enough to prove you wrong.

PAIRING | Soobin X Reader

CATEGORY | college au, crush, slow burn, studying, academia, etc.

WORD COUNT | 4.1k

WARNINGS | swearing

SONG REC | Edge Of Desire - John Mayer

PLAYLIST | momentum playlist

Preview / Chapter One / Chapter Two

Your fingers are itching to slam the book in front of you shut.

Itching to slam it shut so hard that it echoes throughout the practically empty library you’re in - so loudly that the librarians shoot daggers at you with their eyes. You want to lean over, zip your backpack closed, and run out of the ancient hell hole as fast as you can.

You don’t.

You know you could - exams and you don’t mix well, so you’ll probably flunk all of them anyway - but you force yourself to stay rooted in the uncomfortable wooden chair beneath you. You force yourself, for the sake of your future.

Studying physics isn’t exactly what you’d like to be doing on any given Friday night, especially this one, but here you are. After flipping through a book twice the size of your pencil case propped next to you, you finally settle on a chapter explaining thermodynamics. Your eyes scan the words helplessly. You’re totally going to flunk. Luckily for you, though, you don’t have a lot of time to dwell on this sad fact, because a certain gray haired boy makes his presence known suddenly, taking you away from the matter at hand.

“Hey loser.” His voice cuts through the silence surrounding you, and you look up to see Yeonjun, your best friend, sliding into the chair across from you. He’s grinning widely like he knows something you don’t, and you tilt your head at him in curiosity.

“Hi yourself. What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just that your soulmate is on his way down to the library and should be here in about thirty or so seconds.”

Now you’re really not worried about physics. Except maybe the kind going on with you.

His words send your heart lurching in your chest, and your hands fly up to sort out your hair, your top, and embarrassingly, even your skirt.

“Twenty seconds,” Yeonjun chuckles as you rip open your pencil case, flipping open your small compact mirror to try and fix your appearance, “Not much longer now.”

“Shut up.” You hiss. Usually, you wouldn’t care about how you looked, especially not for a guy. But this was different.

Because it was Soobin. And Soobin was different.

You’d be dumb to pretend that you were the only one on campus to like him. Most of the girls did, and even a few guys did, but you couldn’t blame any of them. The boy was a sight for sore eyes, and his personality only made him that much better. You didn’t put him on a pedestal by any means, you just really liked him. Unfortunately though, other people did too, and the black-haired boy probably knew it. Which means that your chances were close to non-existent. That being said, it didn’t ever hurt to try and put a little more effort in.

“Five, four, three…” Yeonjun counts after awhile of you straightening out your makeup. You click the small compact shut and shove it back into your case, coughing lightly to clear your throat before straightening in your seat. Perfectly on cue, as if timed by Yeonjun exactly, the one and only Choi Soobin walks into the library silently, bag thrown carelessly over one shoulder.

Your breath shouldn’t squeeze from your lungs when you see him, but it does. Amid staring the tall boy down as he walks cluelessly to a table just to the left of you, Yeonjun laughs at you. You ignore him and watch sneakily as Soobin sits down. You’re completely enthralled by his very being, and all he’s doing is sitting down. God, get it together, you think to yourself.

It’s completely silent on your part as Soobin unzips his backpack and pulls out his laptop and study supplies, but you’re internally screaming. You truly understand right then, just why they call it a crush. Every single thing he does adds a dangerous pressure to your chest, and you feel like you could burst with adoration just by watching him do a regular, everyday thing. Yeonjun on the other hand fails to take notice your internal battle as he pulls out his own supplies himself, slapping his notebook and textbook on the table noisily.

You’re about to glare, but you catch sight of something on one of Soobin’s notebooks suddenly, and your heart starts pounding again.

A small bunny sticker in all its glory is stuck to the bottom right corner of his black notebook, and for some reason, it’s absolutely adorable to you.

Choi Soobin, the six foot something man, who - when he’s not wearing his usual button up and skinny jean combo, is usually clad in all black head to toe - has a bunny sticker on his English notebook. Your heart is about to burst on sight, so you look away with a dumb smile adorning your face.

Yeonjun flips through his math textbook, but stops when he sees you.

“What- he can’t be that cute, can he?” The boy glances over as you hide your face shyly, hoping he doesn’t draw attention to the two of you.

“He can, but it was just something I saw. Don’t even worry about it.”

“I think you should go sit with him.” Yeonjun suggests as he pulls a worksheet from its place in-between his textbook’s pages before starting to work.

“What?” Your voice raises a few octaves and a librarian glares at you from behind the front counter rudely. You smile apologetically before leaning in a bit closer to Yeonjun, shocked, “Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t just go... sit with him. He probably already saw us sitting here together anyway. It’ll look desperate.”

“Desperate is your middle name, is it not?” Yeonjun smirks at you playfully.

“I will not hesitate to deck you in the face right now.” You frown at him. He snorts at this before doing an equation on his paper.

“Maybe I should just make the move for you then, since it’s clear you won’t ever speak to him.” He jokes, unaware of the fear that shows through your eyes as you register his words. You’re unable to speak as panic shoots through your entire body, and Yeonjun only looks up with a wide smile, as if he’s just figured out the entire meaning of life.

“Actually,” He starts again, eyes lighting up, “I think I will make the move for you. What do you think of that?”

“Yeonjun, don’t-”

You’re too late as the gray-haired boy leans over in his seat boldly, hands pressed flat against the oak table to stable himself as he calls out gently, “Hey, Soobin right?”

Your blood runs cold as Soobin looks up from his laptop, eyes landing on Yeonjun before flicking to you. He hesitates a second before looking back at the boy, head nodding gently as he says, “Um, yeah. What’s up?”

You feel heat pool in your stomach when he speaks, because damn, you really fucking forgot just how deep his voice actually was, and you feel dizzy as he smiles softly, his kindness evident.

“Well the thing is,” Yeonjun starts, your eyes moving from Soobin to your best friend, “Y/N here, she’s really bad at physics. Like, embarrassingly bad, and I was just wondering if maybe you could be of any assistance? That is, if you’re good at it. I’d help her, but I’m only good at Math, and I’ve also gotta get going soon.”

You open your mouth to defend yourself because one, you’re not that bad at physics, and two, what the hell is Yeonjun actually doing? Before you can say anything, though, he’s talking again, and you silently ask God if the ground can swallow all of you collectively up or something equally as tragic because the boy in front of you will not shut the fuck up for the life of him.

“She’s really shy so she didn’t want to ask you herself, but I said I’d do her a solid just this once and ask instead. Isn’t that right, Y/N?” Yeonjun finally looks at you, and so does Soobin, causing you to feel sick.

“I-”

“Well there you go.” Yeonjun nods firmly, flipping his math book shut before stuffing it in his backpack. He hardly lets anyone else talk before he’s speaking again, “Anyway, thanks Soobin! You’re the man. I hope the study sesh doesn’t cut into any of your own work. If it does, Y/N can buy you a coffee or something to make up for it.”

Your eyes find Soobin again, and he looks just as confused as you. You could kill Yeonjun for this.

“I’ll see you later.” The boy finishes before lifting his backpack over his shoulders and giving you a playful salute, walking backwards towards the exit while giving you a double thumbs up as he leaves, only causing the anxiety in you to grow even more. Scratch what you said earlier, you were definitely going to kill him for this.

“I’m sorry.” You start breathlessly when Yeonuun finally disappears. You look at Soobin, and your cheeks burn when you meet his eyes again, but he doesn’t look annoyed like you expect him to. Instead, his lips are tilted up in a small grin, and one perfect dimple is hollowing out on his right cheek.

“Uh,” He starts, “Do you want to come over to my table or should I move to yours?”

You’re taken aback at his words, and you watch as his eyes widen slightly.

“I mean- what I mean by that is, like, I’m not the best at physics but I can help you if you want.” The boy clarifies, his shyness seemingly getting the best of him. You want to laugh at his change in attitude.

“No it’s fine I can-”

“I’ll just-” Soobin says at the same time, standing clumsily before swinging his backpack over his shoulder. He struggles to get all of his things together, and you pretend to not notice when his pencil falls on the floor as he walks over. He sets down his things, bends over to swipe his pencil off the ground, and you’re hit with the smell of his cologne suddenly as his stuff surrounds you. You could pass out.

You bite your lip and turn your focus to the window, trying to not stare directly at the boy now less than ten inches in front of you as he flicks through his notebook again. It’s snowing outside, mercilessly coming down in small white clumps, and you already know you’re going to dread the walk back to your dorm later.

Soobin clears his throat and flattens the bent page in front of him, finally getting your attention again. The last thing you expected when you came into the library tonight was to be sitting right in front of the boy you were helplessly in love with, but here you were. And it was all thanks to your pain in the ass best friend Yeonjun. Maybe he was onto something when he had Soobin come over, though.

“So, uh, what are you having trouble with?” Soobin asks. His glasses are perched on the edge of his nose, and the lenses glare slightly when he moves his head just a bit closer, talking softly. You try to not stare at his white button up, or the way the sleeves are rolled up to expose his arms, before clearing your own throat and looking down at your book.

“Um, thermodynamics.”

You look up as Soobin hisses almost silently, “Ooo, yikes. Thermodynamics and me, we don’t mix well.”

You grin just a bit and breathe out a laugh, because that’s exactly something you would say, Soobin smiles back shyly.

“It’s fine,” You shake your head, “I understand if you only came over because of what Yeon said. I’m actually not that bad at physics so I’ll manage if you wanna head back over to your table.”

Soobin furrows his eyebrows at you, as if he’s actually confused on why you could have said such a thing. You feel dumb all of a sudden. You should have kept your mouth shut.

“No, it’s okay,” He shakes his head gently, “It’s actually nice sitting with someone else while studying. It’s a nice distraction when things get boring.”

You try to not stare at his lips when he talks, but you can’t help but notice the slight lisp that softens his speech, which causes your eyes to switch from his gaze to his lips. You nod in agreement with him, even though you barely comprehend his actual words. He’s just that distracting.

“Oh- okay then.”

Soobin grins at you and then opens up his english book, starting to write on the paper in front of him messily.

You try your very best to try and read again, you really do, but there’s no way it’s happening now. If you couldn’t understand the words before, there’s no chance you can now, with Soobin sitting right in front of you.

You’re staring at the pages, eyes moving left to right to feign reading, but really - you’re hyperfocusing on Soobin’s every little detail - scared that if you don’t, you won’t be able to remember any of it the next time he isn’t near.

“What are you studying?” You speak up, surprising even yourself as you look away from your work and over to Soobin’s, leaning over greedily; desperately. You’re sharing the same space as him, you may as well make it worth it.

“Subject and object pronouns,” His dark eyes flick up to you, “And when to use them.”

“That’s not that bad.” You smile softly, meeting his eyes. He looks down quickly, back to his messy handwriting. “No, it’s not.”

Silence falls over the two of you again, and you mentally curse yourself for not being able to hold a conversation. You’ve fantasized about this moment for months: The day when you’d finally talking to Soobin and capture his attention long enough that he can’t physically look away, so much that he has no chance but to fall for you. It’s sad, really. You’ve thought of making him laugh so hard he throws his head back in amusement, or making him smile so big both of his dimples carve a permanent place on his cheeks. You’ve thought a hundred times over about everything except this - sitting right in front of him - in pure silence.

You take notice of the slight bags under Soobin’s eyes as he works, before you look down at your book again. You allow yourself to really hope that he isn’t overworking himself, but you know better. Soobin, who was clearly an overachiever, admittedly did a lot. Not only was he one of the very few University Prefects on campus, but he also did a number of extracurriculars, followed by sports as well. Because Choi Soobin was just that: a golden boy who was just good at… well, everything. As well as being one of the very rare students to be in the top percentile grade-wise at your university, he was also the type of person to always work, work, work. He wasn’t just a pretty face, and he proved that to everyone, every single day.

“So your friend got out of here pretty fast,” Soobin speaks up, still looking at his work, “That wouldn’t be because of me... would it?”

You open your mouth to deny it, but a part of you - a really small part of you - wonders what would happen if you were to actually tell Soobin the truth. That, yes, he left so we could be alone and I will probably kick his ass later for it. Soobin looks up at you slowly, folding his arms gently on the table as he leans forward just a bit more. He’s testing the waters, you realize. He’s offering himself up.

You almost choke.

“I-I don’t know.” You lie, “I think he just really hates studying.”

What the fuck? You want to scream at yourself. You weren’t normally so bad at lying, but under Soobin’s stare, you could barely remember your own name, let alone an excuse to save your behind.

You think all hope is lost, and you’re mentally planning your own funeral before the edge of Soobin’s lip twitches, and then stretches into a tiny grin.

“Well,” He says, almost hesitantly, “I’m glad he hates studying, then. I actually, uh, I wanted to come sit at your table when I walked in, I just didn’t want to intrude or anything.”

You don’t know what to say. You don’t know if you should take it as a compliment or not. Surely it was meant to be taken positively, but you just didn’t know how to process it - Soobin complimenting you.

“You wouldn’t have been intruding,” You finally say, noticing how his brown eyes soften a bit when you do, “Yeonjun doesn’t really study anyway, he just talks the whole time.”

Soobin laughs suddenly, and you feel your heart practically explode in your chest at this because you made Soobin laugh, and the sound was so beautiful it left you laughing along with him. You barely feel bad for exposing Yeonjun. After all, he was the one who got you into this mess. He deserves to be exposed.

“I have a friend like that,” Soobin momentarily drops his pencil as he perks up a bit. You do the same, listening to him intently.

“His name’s Tae, and whenever we get together to study, like, debate topics or whatever-”

You mentally clock that Soobin does that as well - Debate Team. He really has no limits.

“-I’ll be trying to do flash cards or something, and he’s there like, ‘Hey Bin, why don’t we play some video games instead?’ or, ‘Honestly, who cares about the economic crisis in Venezuela?’”

You laugh at his words, and he scratches the back of his neck, visibly blushing. You notice as he looks down, most likely mentally checking himself.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to bore you with studying stories or anything, I just think it’s funny that our friends are so similar.”

“No, it’s fine,” You give him a genuine smile, “You aren’t boring me. I kind of wanted to take a break anyway. Physics is boring.”

“Not as boring as english.” Soobin quirks an eyebrow, “The questions are all, ‘which pronoun should be placed in the sentence, blank walked in the classroom.’ like, this is elementary stuff. I could do it in my sleep, if I ever got any.”

“Oh my god, literally.” You agree, “It’s not hard to tell a pronoun from a noun, or vice versa. I wish they’d actually give us challenging stuff to do for English rather than just refreshing us on grammar or, uh, parts of speech? It’s draining.”

“It is,” Soobin says, voice deepening slightly, as if his exhaustion agrees with you as well. You nod again, still looking at him.

“I feel like… well, you do a lot, don’t you? Apart from studies.” You creep dangerously close to the line dividing curiousity and nosiness, allowing yourself to voice your thoughts at his small comment. After all, if you were careful, what could it hurt?

Soobin rests his chin on his folded arms on the table before nodding up at you, looking a lot younger in the moment. Your heart skips a beat at the sight.

“Yeah, I do way too much. Sports like baseball and soccer that have overlapping seasons - which is literal hell by the way- and also stuff like debate and student council. I’m also part of this literary club which, if I’m being honest, really kills me.”

“Yeah, I’d die on sight. Even hearing all of that makes me wanna collapse.” You tell Soobin honestly, and he chuckles at your words. The effect is not lost on you as your heart starts picks up frantically against your chest again.

“It’s not too bad, I just consume a lot of coffee and run on exactly zero hours of sleep.”

“All while keeping honors?” You question, giving him a teasing grin.

“All while keeping honors.” He shakes his head at himself, almost in disbelief. You notice this and tilt your head.

“I actually think that’s pretty amazing you know, the fact that you’re able to do so much.”

“It could be more.” He says, shaking his head. You furrow your brows and he backtracks.

“I mean - it’s a lot, don’t get me wrong - but I could be doing more. A lot of people think I should be doing more, anyway.”

You think of your words carefully before saying them, “I think that if it was more, you’d run yourself into the ground. You’re already great, don’t strive to wreck yourself.”

Soobin stares into your eyes as you say this, looking almost stunned. He was probably glad you weren’t telling him to pile on club after club. Telling him that the him he is now, the him who tries as hard as humanly possible, isn’t good enough. For a second, you’re saddened at the thought that someone, somewhere, already had.

“That’s just what I think anyway-” You get cut off by Soobin speaking again in a rushed voice.

“Do you want to do something sometime?”

The question shuts you up instantly.

“Do I… what?” You ask incredulously, staring into his eyes.

Soobin hides his face in his hands suddenly, his shoulders shaking with his laughter.

“Wait, I’m sorry.” He says, hands dropping only after a few moments, “I didn’t mean to spring that onto you like that.”

You almost think that he’s going to take the whole thing back, and the thought makes you panic. Instead though, the dark-haired boy shakes his head before he speaks again.

“What I meant to say was-” He clears his throat, “Would you want to do something with me sometime? Like, dinner or something?”

You catch onto his awkwardness and bite your lip to keep from smiling too widely.

“Where did that come from?” You ask shyly, trying to keep it together. Soobin bites his bottom lip gently before saying, “I just... well, I’ve been wanting to ask you for awhile. Last week in our communications class when you did that really pretty thing with your hair. When you smiled at me when you saw me leaving my literary club. I don’t know, I’ve been meaning to ask for awhile, I just never got the chance to... until now. Also, we haven’t exactly talked until now, to be fair.”

You feel like you can’t breathe. You didn’t think in a million years that you would even talk to Soobin, let alone be asked on a date by him. He takes your silence as doubt before starting to ramble.

“We could go see a movie or something- oh! We could go to that cool new roller skating place they just built off campus? I can’t remember the name of it right now but maybe that would be fun?”

You chuckle as he continues.

“Um… maybe a picnic? Wait, actually, it’s too cold for a picnic. An indoor picnic could be cool though?”

You lift your hand up between the two of you, momentarily silencing the boy in front of you so you can speak, “Yes I’d like to do something with you, whatever it is.” You watch as he visibly sighs.

“I mean-” Your eyes go wide at yourself, “A date! Obviously. I don’t mean anything else.”

Soobin visibly panics as well, cheeks tinting a harsh pink suddenly, “Oh! I-”

“Well, I-” You try to combat your words, but then quickly slap a hand over your mouth. You’d rather be punched in the stomach than admit to Soobin himself that you thought he was attractive - enough to the point where you thought of doing rated things with him. You feel your own cheeks heat up as he hides his face again. You look down and laugh nervously after they drop.

“It’s fine,” He chuckles, “It’s fine. I feel the same.”

You look up again and smile, noticing that he doesn’t hide his blush this time.

Soobin’s the first to make a move, and he wordlessly slips over a small piece of paper with his number scribbled onto it messily after leaning over it to write for what seems like hours. You feel your body buzz with nerves, as if it’s a sacred thing. The Choi Soobin has just given you his number, and he wants you to actually use it.

“Okay,” He finally says, slipping his stuff into his backpack, “So, uh, you’ll text me then?”

“Yeah.” You nod a bit too eagerly. Soobin doesn’t notice. And if he does, he doesn’t seem to mind as he nods back at the same pace.

“Alright, I should get going then. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you with physics”

You laugh, smiling lightly, “It’s fine. I’ll text you soon.”

“I look forward to it.” He says before swinging his backpack over one shoulder and taking an awkward step back from the table.

“Bye-”

“Bye Y/N-”

You two cut eachother off before laughing together a final time.

“Bye Soobin.” You retry, “Get to your dorm safe.”

He nods, “Bye Y/N. You too.”

And then he’s gone, leaving you on cloud nine, and ready to scream the news to Yeonjun from across campus.

You couldn’t believe it.

Because Choi fucking Soobin asked you out. And you said yes.

What could possibly happen when you finally decide to text him?

164 notes · View notes

bedlamgames · 4 years

Text

Q&A #103

Today we have the Twine conversion, lesbian training mantras, social lube, a bunch of random stuff from the discord, and a whole lot more.

[Anonymous said]: I'm really curious what the tally means for your twine conversion posts. Can't seem to figure out what its suppose to represent progress wise...

- Answered this last Q&A. Because of you asking I’ve now also added the explanation to what it’s about to every stream post so I hope that helped with understanding what’s going on with that.

[Anonymous said]: Suggestion: For races that start with a random corruption (ie: Succubi), have an option in full custom to spend points to either narrow what that corruption is (to be one of the four types, for example) or to outright pick one (for a much higher cost).

- That’s a good idea. Being able to pick specifically I think would be too much. There are ALOT of corruptions so that would mean many many menus to be able to select everything. Being able to pick one of the four types seems fair to me as something to spend points on in Full Custom. Added it to my notes.

[Anonymous said]: Have a succubus slaver who used to be a lamia. On level up, she had the option to get the Fleet trait, which I thought was off-limits for Lamia due to their body shape. I think it's a bug?

- Good spot and should be fixed as of the last update.

[Anonymous said]: Noticed a bug with No Haven 0.903: If you select a human (or once-human) for your character, and then quick restart, your next character will keep the human's Racial aspect Social Lube. On the topic of that Racial, it says " includes one human, and three other different races/subtypes gain an additional Success" Does that mean one human and three non-humans, or one human and three slavers each of a different race from each other?

-Took me awhile to work this out as going from human to human seemed fine. However you’re right that those with a heritage like demi-angels or succubi will incorrectly keep the previous racial.

The second so as long as you have at least one human you can get the buff by say having a northerner, noble, wastelander, and convent.

[Anonymous said]: hi bud, xfto/x421 here, its been a long time i guess. wanted to ask about the status of the no haven/twine conversation. i joined your picardo lately but couldnt post some reports since you dont allow guest-posts. well anyway, the report is about something ridiculous i have found after some restarts, the chosen main charakter (lamia) starts as male with the hard carry aspect(immense shaft) and different description than the ones the perks would give. 1/2

another question, feels like i asked something similiar in the past, how about the integration of different artpacks/access to older pics, or deletion of those that never get used? i guess that would requiere some more access to the game than you allow atm. maybe with twine? do you have a roadmap on tfgames or somewhere for the future of no haven? i know there are some more races you want to implement and improve some systems, but thats it, hope you are doing well in these times. 2/2

I do an update on the patreon every two weeks which is linked on the twitter. You do not need to be a patron to read these and is the best way to stay informed about what I’ve been up to. That includes the status of the conversion. To quickly sum it up;

It's at a stage where all the RAGS to Twine code conversion is basically done. What I need to do now is translate all that work into something playable and there's currently big logic issues with a bunch of the conditions and passages. So what I'm currently doing is trying to tidy up the visual look of the code with a bunch of idents with the theory that will make finding the errors easier.

Alas it’s not me disallowing guest posts... Picarto had some massive stonking issues and so they locked things down hard due to that preventing guests from chatting. I suggest a throwaway email site to get around that.

I don’t think there’s any art in the game file that’s not used as I try to keep on top of deleting the old ones. Not really down for doing art packs of the old ones as due to that not being my art so I see them as placeholder only until they can be replaced by commissions.

I probably do need to do some kind of roadmap sometime. I’m less keen as it’s kind of a dirty word these days as due to the miss-use of them by others it’s got some bad connontations, but I’m also aware the alternative which is me randomly mentioning stuff on discord/picarto streams leaves the vast majority of my audience in the dark which is also really not ideal.

[Anonymous said]: [no haven 0.903] [Crit no longer grants Bimboborn] okay, but how do I get bimboborn now?

- It’s a corruption. Specifically Blessings of Perversion.

[Anonymous said]: With the change to training where hypnotic slavers can fully embed the relevant mantras for blowjob, bimbo, and sissy training, could we also get that for lesbian training?

- Yes that’s the plan when I do the third part of lesbian training. Got a set of commissions planned just got to sort the funding and work out who I’m getting to do it.

[Anonymous said]: hey bud, x421 here, again, might be already fixed because thats from no haven .903, but i recently had the witch queen super rare quest, you might want to proof read the quest and results, there are a few typos. i really did enjoy the writing nonetheless, just a quick question about that quest, as far as i understood this one, you only change your odds of the final result depending on how good you do on your way to the final, but the reward in the end only depends on the final result? 1/2

2/2 it just dawned on me that its been a while since you made an Q&A post so i guess i ll go and lurk on the tfgames forum in the next days, just one last question: i asked early in development about camp upgrades and you were not that convinced about that stuff, i understand you want the slaver camp as some bandit camp and not some castle/bastion or whatever, but since you added camp upgrades, maybe add proximity to a certain region? or something to spend supplies and gold in a 13month+ run?

- Hah! Okay will give it another read through.That’s correct yes. There’s also rewards on the way if you Critical those parts.

There is a new gold sink coming soon in an upcoming update. I’ve also got plans for more camp upgrades coming later.

[From the Patreon]: I'm that guy you replied to about the patch notes in Q&A 101. Solid updates. Bugs in the outfit system has driven me nuts since like, 2015, has it been that long already? I think it has. I like collecting them and something always blows up. This time, I ended up with a slaver wearing both the ooze outfit and ponygirl outfit. So there's that. Also I was disappointed the new Quicker then You'd Like wasn't interactive. Solid in any case though, thanks!

- I'll get them all one day I swear! Don't suppose you remember the chain of events that led to that? New QAYL was a patron requested one with the idea of having a big pay off for playing submissive which often involves playing sub-optimally.

[From the Patreon]: 1-ive been noticing when you choose to repick choices for an slave training assignment the slave gets added to the list of choices 2-also just how rare is the post-slave princess city assignment, cause i can never seem to get it even after selling multiple slave princesses 3-another thing is that the nightly puppet-leader stat is almost impossible to get again(either that or i have bedwarmers incapable of usurping me even thought i my current stats mean i couldnt win against even the subbiest slave)

- Will check 3 as you've not been the only person to mention that. 2 I know exists for sure as other people have definitely got it. Should be no rarer than any other rare City assignment, and thanks for the spot on 1.

[From the Discord]: Top 3 Animes of the 2010 to 2020

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica the series was staggeringly good. Just redefined what anime could be to me. Film is a... well it was a thing. A beautiful thing with an ending which I still quite know how to feel about.

Shirobako. It’s about creativity, craft, and about how people can come together to make something. It might not be something good, but dangit it’s been made and that’s worthwhile. It’s also from personal experience by miles the most accurate depiction of working in an office I’ve ever seen.

Oh man this is very very hard deciding on the third so pick one of the following and I could probably make a strong case for it.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, Darling in the FranXX (yes really, yes even the ending), Lupin III: Part 5, Kill la Kill, Monster Musume, Flip Flappers, Demi-chan wa Kataritai, Zombieland Saga, or Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai.

Also while I was taking the question to mean series both Your Name and Promare are absolutely phenonemal films.

[From the Discord]: Best recent Eurovision Act

Lena. Always Lena.

[From the Discord]: What's the agricultural technological level of No Haven like

It’s not hit industrialization yet. What makes the difference is and allows cities like Aversol and even bigger to exist is that the organization of the human empire is far better than it has any right to be for the other levels of development being able to keep an incredibly complex supply chain constantly flowing even if on the ground level it barely seems to be moving at all. There are also some much, much larger farms both on the Great Plains and further to the north compared to the much more isolated single/couple of households ones that your slavers raid.

[From the Discord]: What have been some of your all-time favourite assignments, both in terms of working on them and how they turned out?

Love When Week’s End Comes for a recent one. Writing all the results in colour commentary (and all the variations for weather, events and outcomes) was a real challenge and I do like how it came out.

Witch-Queen and Arisin’ for being the first times I tried to go for a different, more potentially disturbing/freaky mood, and I’m pleased with the results.

Sable Masquerade as I really like the ‘bad end’ I came up with. Actually I like the whole thing as while the pitch from the patron obviously helped, a lot of it was inspired by a random superhero bondage party picture I saw on HF, which I decided to run with, and had a bunch of fun exploring.

[From the Discord]: Weirdest bug and most difficult bug

The one that resulted in a male wisp riding a griffon was a fun one.

Most difficult has to be the clothing management which as a previous question suggests I’ve still not entirely solved.

[From the Discord]: If No Haven was an MMO, what race/class would you play?

Kreen rogue mainly as I really like the edit I did for the portrait which MidnightonMars later translated into a commission.

If not definitely a lamia.

[From the Discord]: Knowing what you do now about the design of the game, are there any game mechanics you wish you'd have implemented differently?

Clothing management. So very much clothing management. I’ve redone it entirely twice now, and it’s still not where I want it to be.

[From the Discord]: What was your inspiration for creating the setting of No Haven? Has the direction the game has gone varied from your initial idea? If so what has been the biggest change?

- It started off with adapting the chan game Deeper Dungeons which was basically a certain popular mmo with nothing different about it outside of it being porn along with some possibly unwise options of personal abuse. I first changed it by ditching gnomes for neko which to my mind was a clear upgrade. There even used to be an examine refference in the RAGS version to suggest they’d been in the region of the dungeons before being driven out.

Then it was a gradual process of adding with the occasional subtractions to get it closer to a more Warhammer feeling setting which has always been a major love of mine when I was still doing Whorelock’s in RAGS.

With No Haven it was a case of building on what I’ve done there and expanding upon that with the race lore and assignment descriptions. Biggest was probably when I did the favoured/unfavoured stuff and added a ton of extra backstory to various races to justify the choices made there.

#Q&A

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elliepassmore · 5 years

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Crown of Midnight Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: Throne of Glass, fantasy, magic, mystery, court intrigue, multiple POVs, strong female leads I think it’s funny that these first two books focus so much on mysteries when the next five put the mysteries on the backburner. They’re still there, but I definitely feel they’re more present in this one and ToG. As a brief reminder, there will be mild spoilers for the previous books reviewed. We’ll start with Chaol, since he was the one I had the biggest complaint against in the last book. He’s better in this one, in my opinion. Something changed since Celaena won the Championship and he killed Cain, and he’s a lot nicer to Celaena. Unfortunately, it seems to be at the cost of a soured relationship with Dorian, which is a shame since I did like their friendship. There are still moments of it here, but both men are too wrapped up in their emotions, and eventually their own problems, to really be able to fully get over themselves and go back to how they were. Chaol’s eyes are being opened throughout the book to how he’s had a blind loyalty to a king with such vile plans. It takes him a while, but he does come to the realization that his complete obedience to the crown has the ability to do more harm than good. Despite all this, he does still have his moments when he’s unaccepting of Celaena and easily willing to believe the worst of her. I really don’t know what he expected, getting into a relationship with an assassin, but he definitely seems to have issues with her job. All in all, though, reading Crownback-to-back with Throne makes it obvious that Chaol has experienced leaps and bounds of character development. While Chaol moved forward in his development, Dorian seems to have regressed a bit. He’s snippier in this one, and more closed off to the people around him, showing a stark difference from Throne, when he seemed more engaged with the people around him. It’s a bit of clever character-to-plot play Maas has going on, since I think a lot of Dorian’s change in behavior is not only due to Celaena turning him down, but also due to the ancient powers awakening. In this context, it made Dorian and interesting character to have narrate, but in the context the change being based on bitterness and jealousy re: Celaena…then it’s not my favorite move. Aside from that, Dorian has some interesting things going on in his life that make his scenes and POV a bit livelier than they would be otherwise. He adds another layer of complexity to the world of mystery and ‘magic is gone….right?’ that Maas created in the books. I can’t quite tell what I think about Celaena in this one. On the one hand, she’s in character for how she acts and everything she does and says slowly inches her closer to the apex of her overall arc, and especially the arc Maas has planned for Celaena for the first three books. On the other hand, after seeing what Celaena can do in Blade and Throne, I felt like she decreased in skill for a lot of the book. Sure, sure, there are scenes where she’s most definitely the superior fighter in the room and lives up to her name as Adarlan’s Assassin, but there are also scenes were someone with far less training and experience than she is able to get the upper hand, which was frustrating. I really, really liked how dark she got in this book. We saw some of it in Blade, but haven’t really seen it since, and I was glad it was back out during certain parts of the book. Nehemia was a character who definitely came through in this one. We get more scenes with her, as well as some parts of the book from her POV, which was nice. You also get a better sense of how much she loves her country and how far she’d go to protect her people. Having read the book before, and knowing just how many secrets she was keeping during it made me want to t h r o t t l e h e r. I (perhaps obviously), unlike Celaena, understand why she was keeping the secrets. She looked at all the available options and decided the one she took was the one that made the most sense in the long run not just for her people, but for everyone under Adarlan’s control and beyond. It was a damned shame it had to go like it did, though, and I understand people’s complaints re: representation. But I will say, I do like Nehemia’s character a great deal *SPOILER* and I wish she was in the books for longer*SPOILER END*. Archer Finn was a new character, sorta. And by ‘sorta,’ I mean he was briefly mentioned in Blade. Um…as a subjective reader, not a fan. As an objective reader and as a fiction writer myself, I like how his character was written. Subjectively, he’s oily and a dick, but at least for most of the book he’s a dick that helps rebels, so that’s a plus. The level of ease with which he handles the situations he finds himself in is astounding, which is why, I suppose, Maas has him as the character doing…stuff in this book. Like Celaena, I was easily captivated and fooled by the desperate courtier face he put on, even knowing how his arc was going. It’s easy to say that knowing everything he does combined with his comment about Rourke Farran makes me want to rip his head off on Celaena’s behalf. Objectively, however, I think he’s a wonderfully written character with complexities and motives we only really get to scratch the surface of. Like, we know he wants free of Clarisse—the brothel lady—but it’s not quite obvious just how desperate he is to be free of those chains. In this sense, he reminds me a bit of Sam, as in, he’s one of the few people so far who understand that Arobynn Hamel and Clarisse whatever-her-last-name-is might not put their proteges in literal chains, but that the shackles are there just the same. It makes everything Archer does that much more interesting. One character I’m bummed we didn’t get to see more of in this one was Philippa. She’s mentioned a few times, but I don’t think we get a solid interaction with her throughout the entire book. The only lines of real dialogue she has are toward the beginning when she addresses Nehemia and Celaena while they’re breakfasting. I really liked her character, and she made such an impact on Celaena too, not just in Throne, but in this book as well, and it’s such a damned shame we didn’t get to see more of her. As for the mystery in this book, it really goes round and round in circles for a while before revealing even an aspect of itself. I liked it, since it made it feel contained within the book while also giving off tendrils for the future books and even tying off some of the ones from the last one. Elena is back in this one and we also have a new helper, Mort, who is a pain in the ass, but at least he’s a funny pain in the ass. Elena kind of makes my blood boil with her sympathies and missions and general unhelpfulness. Like before, Elena offers a shred of the mystery and leaves the rest up to Celaena, who then has to deal with whatever slick and dark creature has clawed its way up this time. Despite the mystery creating more questions and problems than it answers and solves, I find it has a satisfying conclusion within the book, with said conclusion making it feel like the mystery has been closed at least a little bit. There’s been a lot of foreshadowing set up in Throne, Blade, and even this book, for what turns out to be a reveal at the very end. If you’re looking for it, you’ll be able to see the pieces and thread them together. I think it’s absolutely brilliant, and love that that’s where Maas took the storyline and all the potential that the reveal brings. While, admittedly, these first two books aren’t exactly my favorites out of the series ( Heir of Fire holds that title, actually), I definitely still enjoyed them and think they’re crucial for the set up of the rest of the story. Plus, it’s funny going back and rereading them after the end of the series and seeing all the Easter eggs Maas put in as well as how much the characters have change over the course of all eight books. Also, I always end up liking these first two books more than I remember liking them, so that’s a bit of an added bonus/surprise.

#book #books #book review #book recommendations #assassins blade #throne of glass #crown of midnight #heir of fire #queen of shadows #empire of storms #tower of dawn #kingdom of ash #sarah j maas #celaena sardothien #chaol westfall #nehemia ytger #dorian havilliard #adarlans assassin #king of adarlan

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ear · 6 years

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PLEASE share your vld reboot ideas aja the show canon is garbage and your mind is so galaxy brain

OK OK ALRIGHT!!!!!!!!!! alright so idk what kind of. earth landscape this reboot occurs in…. like yallve got this retro 80s/90s neon future verse going on but i didnt think my reboot version would fit into that so yall go wild with whatever hc for this earth reboot thing u want cuz im not creative and i didnt really think that far ahead

ALRIGHT here we go. this is so long i HAVE to put this under the cut but i hope yall enjoy the creations of my MIND……

- akeno “KEITH” shirogane: (age: 19) [gay] hes japanese/black/galran. hes still half galra in this reboot bc i fuck with that honestly but hes got more visible galran traits. his bottom canines are larger than usual and poke out from his bottom lip so he wears a mask to cover his mouth and his eyes r still purple but instead of his sclera being yellow(tinted), hes just like. got some odd golden flecks in his eyes. he normally wears a dirty mechanics jumpsuit with the top half tied around his waist and a black or white tank top underneath (hes still a high school flunk out so he works full time at a car repair shop so hes able to buy food and shit at LEAST + hes still got his motorcycle to keep in shape). his casual clothes r just regular grey sweats, hoodies, and adidas or whatever brand is closest in their future lol. hes blood related to shiro who ill get to in a second.. shiros blood related to him as his uncle (brother of keiths dad) ALSO his hair isnt long in this reboot, hes got a short messy head of hair that he mostly just pulls back into a TINY little pony tail on his forehead (like in the game show ep) so it doesnt get in his face while hes working. he also has goggles bc thats the one thing from yalls reboot ideas i actually like (endgame lion: he momentarily pilots black during shiros disappearance but his permanent and stationary lion is red)

- fal’allura “fala, ALLURA” naguna’ephy: [lesbian] (age: 21 or close to that in alien standards) shes altean on her fathers side and teem (what we’re gonna call nymas race) on her mothers side. she bares more altean features except her eyes are solid yellow and shes only got four fingers on each hand. instead of crescent shaped facial markings, she has painted on red and golden lines across her nose and her upper lip. her hair (very dark purple with silver highlights and literal glowing, twinkling stars) is VERY long, brushing the floor as she walks except and (now bear with me cuz this might be hard to explain) her hair, the farther down u look kind of fades away? like it becomes semi to absolute transparent… idk how else to explain it but i hope u understand…. she does wear a crown but its more like a headdress.. (imagine beyonces headdress).. she doesnt wear it often, usually only on diplomatic missions to greet other worldly rulers bc its heavy and it makes her neck hurt :/.. her dress! looks like this! but a little more spiffy .. u know.. her casual/training clothes are just…. idk imagine a royal looking sports bra and leggings?? i guess … ALSO ALSO ALSO she can still shape shift but instead of limiting her shifting to just the changing of skin tone and height, she can completely mimic different alien species but only humanoid races.. like she can have those indented looking knees and huge ass horns and all that but she cant like. turn into an earth lizard u know what im saying. also also also also she still speaks with an accent just… not a british one….(endgame lion: no lion. she keeps leading and piloting the castle ship until destruction, where she leads and pilots the atlas)

- alejandro “LANCE, ale” reyes-leon: (age: 19 ½) [bi] hes cuban/black/vietnamese. his dad is black and vietnamese and his mom is cuban! hes got longish afro textured hair he keeps back in a pony tail most of the time like this or a bun when training bc hes too lazy to put any actual effort into styling it. hes got a couple moles/freckles scattered across his face and hes got sectoral heterochromiaaround his left pupil so theres a little bit of blue in one of his other wise dark brown eyes (like this).. i havent really figured out what his clothing style is.. i thought about keeping his clothes close to vld canon like his jacket (bc that was a really good jacket) but im gonna go a little wild here so hold on. he wears one of those surfer type looking skin tight turtleneck shirts underneath his heavy bomber jacket.. he wears just regular ripped jeans and hightops like in canon…….. hmm……. he wears a pink bead necklace under his shirt that was made by his little cousin just a couple weeks before he was shot off into space and he hasnt taken it off since…………. he also has a tiny stick and poke tattoo on his ankle he did when he was thirteen bc he thought it would look cool but it turned out kinda lop sided so he never takes his socks off in embarrassment (endgame lion: blue to red (during keiths reign as black paladin) then to black when shiro leaves voltron to lead the atlas alongside allura)

- takashi “SHIRO” shirogane: (age: 31) [gay] hes japanese/black. hes keiths uncle and the only family keith really has .. his design doesnt really change much except hes got long hair (like kuron) but its pulled up into a messy bun or pony tail.. in MY canon hes still gay and married to adam (whos name isnt adam i just cant think of a new name for him yet) (and adam lives dont worry) and theyre working on adopting a daughter before shiro has to leave for kerberos. shiro usually dresses in work out outfits so like. gym shorts… tank tops.. leggings.. imagine those white blonde dudes who always wear a man bun and only eat vegan and drink chai from starbucks bc thats exactly how shiro acts but ONLY ironically ……… when shiros abducted on the galra freighter and forced to fight in the ring, his hair streaks white but instead of just a clean scar across his nose, he has multiple long scars scattered across his face from a one x one between his face and some debris thrown at him by a gladiator. his prosthetic looks and remains kinda the same i guess but this time its decked out with claws on the finger tips so it looks a little more galran yeah? (endgame lion: no endgame lion. he pilots the atlas alongside allura)

- francesca “frannie, frankie, PIDGE” eleonora: (age: 15) [trans girl lesbian] shes . just italian i guess. so anyway shes not gonna be an asshole bitch like canon pidge.. shes gonna be the caring sweet but KINDA mean little sister we always wished we had.. the little sister who would tell u, with all honesty, that ur winged eyeliner was smudged before u hit the town with the girls and made a fool of urself……. ANYWAY shes still gonna be the ‘hacker’/computer geek techno girl but not as much ykno? shes JUST a little girl so she just kinda does her own thing. i rlly like all the fanart i see of her wearing overalls and stuff SO thats her canon design…… she wears faded overall jeans over a short sleeved pale pink tshirt w a dog one it and scuffed up chucks. she wears glasses but instead of just taking them from matt she has an actual prescription and is basically blind without them. i literally cannot stress this enough but shes such a nice girl like the team pretty much adopted her as their little sister the moment they boarded the castle ship. idk what else to add on to her!!!! i literally did not put any thought into pidge at all! (endgame lion: permanently green)

- opetaia“HUNK” tuitama: (age: 19 ¾) [bi] hes samoan/black. hunk was adopted and has two moms and three other siblings, all of who are younger than him. im not sure about his fashion other than i KNOW deep down in my heart that he would wear cargo shorts…. i cant find it in me to get rid of his bandana thing so i let him keep it except he uses it to tie his hair up instead of using it as a head band thing….. HUNK in my au is more of a tech freak/engineer than pidge so he handles most of that stuff with the occasional help from pidge (like wiring… she has tiny fingers that can grab the wires easier) hunk probably wears the crocs/sandals with socks combo but just because he loves hearing lance bitch about it whnever he struts into a room. hunk also looks good in his vest so im gonna let him keep that but it looks more modified… like it has a bunch of pockets and stuff to keep bolts and nuts and other stuff he needs to work with.. thats also why he wears cargo shorts; just for the pockets.. (endgame lion: permanently yellow)

also ur probably wondering “if lance is in black and keith is in red and allura doesnt pilot a lion, THEN WHOS PILOTING BLUE????” …….. heh… peep this………..

- ADAM elsammak-althani(thank u mal @fuckvld for ur gorgeous arabic adam hcs..): (age: 32) [gay] i dont have much to say about him other than read mals hc lists and that ADAM LIVES IN MY REBOOT and he also joins the voltron team and pilots the blue lion (i FIRMLY hc that hes a very free/wild spirit and just loves to make jokes and is just.. a really fun guy to be around and obviously blue would open up to him in a SECOND. dont even @ me) (endgame lion: BLUE!)

#VOLTRON #this is SO long im sorry mobile users :^(#ALSO..... HEH...... ill draw them soon...... someday... i promise..#also if i messed anything up just tell me and ill fix it.. muwah #Anonymous

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beastofeasto-blog · 6 years

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GENERIC JAPANESE PUN AND/OR OBVIOUS CULTURAL REFERENCE: My Experiences At Hyper Japan

The people at Hyper Japan, which ran from Friday until today, ranged from a duo dressed as the twins from Ouran Highschool Host Club, Godzilla himself (whose terrible hand I had the pleasure of shaking), and dozens of people wearing meme t-shirts. So far, so MCM. What set Hyper Japan apart from a more usual celebration of mangakas and mecha were the somewhat terrifying woman in johdpurs from the Tea Authority, a room dedicated to over a hundred different types of sake, beer and spirits, and the significant attention paid to Japanese craftsmanship.

But of course, since this is after all a food blog, let's talk about the food. At the very beginning, I was collected from the front desk by two charming women from Fourteen Ten. We headed immediately to The Ramen Experience, where I was given a choice between shoryu, paitan and tonkotsu style ramen, and a chance to sample all three before deciding on which one I was to have in my bowl. Each comes from a different region, and each is distinct in flavour and mouthfeel. Shoryu, or soy sauce, was rich and roasty, effortlessly smooth and slightly sweet. Paitan, which, on the website was described as a chicken-based soup, was in person labelled as seafood stock. Either way, it was remarkably unfishy, and had a prominent, pleasant taste of both fresh and roast garlic. Tonkotsu is the neighbourhood darling style, a milky-cloudy broth made by cooking bones and feet for dozens of hours. A good tonkotsu should be gutsy, slightly thick, impossibly creamy and pure tasting. While the one I tasted was perfectly adequate, it did not live up to my expectations about what tonkotsu ought to be. As a result, I had a delicious bowl of shoryu ramen, with both gari, aka pickled ginger, and something that tasted like yacai, Szechuan pickled mustard greens (sour, slightly funky, a little bitter and lightly spicy) and along with the obligatory slice of chasu. Despite that the noodles lacked much of a bounce or snap, and the chasu wasn't fatty enough for my taste, it was a bowl worth finishing. That sounds like a lot of criticism mixed in with some faint praise, but no, outside of a couple stylistic choices, it was a bowl I'd be more than happy with at a restaurant, and would have been proud to make at home (I've tried making ramen. I've followed Binging with Babish's method, J Kenji Lopez Alt's version, and the edition found in Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, whose title is possibly the biggest lie ever told. All of them were difficult, all of them were an obscene amount of work, all of them were frankly not worth the effort. If I find a method that works and doesn't make you want to die, I'll be sure to let you know.)

After that, the Fourteen Ten people let me loose on the stalls. I wandered past a woman selling EGL (Elegant Gothic Lolita) fashion, several weapons salesmen and a very busy stall selling manga both in the original and translated. Nearby, there were tables groaning with dolls and plushies, and there, over the way, were dakikamura, or body pillows, featuring characters from the Boku No Hero Academia anime. On the main floor, there was a condensed area where Japanese designers, artists, and craftspeople sold beautiful things, such as calligraphy, immaculate flowers made of silk, and shamiasen, traditional stringed instruments. I asked the person running the shamiasen stall if I could touch, and she leaned forward, rested a single finger on its body, and gave me a thumbs up. In short: no. I managed to get (very brief!) interviews with four different stallholders. I felt that since I was there, I might as well go do some journalism. I got brief peeks into the minds of two artisans, and one of the husband-and-wife teams selling swords, axes, and blades of all kinds:

The weapons sellers, Lee and Catherine, used to be in the business of selling replica toy handguns, until the law changed (presumably following the Dunblane massacre but neither mentioned it and nor did I). When that happened, it made replica guns a lot harder to sell. So instead, they moved on to selling swords, and especially movie replicas. It only made business sense for them to go to Comicon. Catherine's favourite is a massive bastard from World of Warcraft, while Lee favour's LOTR's Andruil. They don't think that any of their wares ought to be used for anything other than ornamental purposes, though you could technically use them for bushcraft.

The next pair I spoke to were Tomoko Kuroda, and her friend Yuko. Since their design heavily featured a pair of cats, one black, one white, named Alain and Jean, I asked whether they belonged to them, and about their personalities. While Alain and Jean aren't their real names, they are indeed their cats, and the characters of the globetrotting gatos – ones that are “curious and fickle, but very fussy with their travel items”. have existed for two years. Kuroda collaboarated with the famous artist/illustrator called Masako Hirano. A fact about each cat is that Alain is very interested about everything and very positive, while Jean is sensitive and naive, and likes to study hard. However, according to the info card I received, “Our effort to analyse their psyche might be pointless but this is our pleasure and mission nevertheless. This interpretation of the world seen by cats' eyes is our unique brand story.” Here, here!

You can find their e-boutique here.

While many people have heard of origami, comparatively few know about kirigami. I had the privilege of speaking to Susumu Yamayoka, who won the Grand Prize for the Charming Japanese Souvenir Contest back in 2011 for his City Postcard kirigami series. Kirigami is the art of paper-cutout. Yamayoka's series celebrated traditional Japanese scenes in aching, intricate detail – unsurprising, since Yamayoka told me that he's been doing papercraft for the last two decades. It took Yamayoka two months to design four postcards.His website is here

While there were many other stallholders, demonstrating mastery in mulberry-paper bookbinding, and watercolours, I did not have time to interview them all.

Then, I made a nice trip into the grimy speakeasy at Hyper Japan known as The Sake Experience. You rocked up, received about sixteen drinks tickets and two snacks tickets, and waddled around from table groaning with artisanal handmade drinks to table groaning with artisanal handmade drinks. Now, for those who've not had a sake experience, let alone The one; sake is a fermented rice beverage with a taste that uninitiated westerners may find quite unfamiliar. A good way to describe it is “like a grassier, fruitier dry sherry”, but since there are as many styles and traditions in sake brewing as there are in, say, French winemaking, the description I gave is insufficient. Another point about sake is that it can be drunk hot or cold. I remember saying when I was fourteen, having tasted my first hot sake, I said it tasted like “warm, unminty mouthwash”. It probably wasn't good stuff, but, as with many things, it's an acquired taste. I imagine that a mug of warm sake on a howling and bitterly cold Nagoya night would be comforting. As for the process of making sake, it involves inoculating cooked rice with Aspergillus oryzae, known in Japanese as koji, a fungus that transforms starches and sugars found in rice into alcohols. It's absolutely nothing to be afraid of, it's the rice edition of our homegrown hero, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, without whose noble efforts we'd never slug down a sixpack of PBR again – not that PBR has much of a future in our world. Cooked rice, koji, water, yeast and lactic acid are combined – at least in sake-houses that forsook the old way of doing things, where the rice and koji mixture is pounded to a paste – and the resultant mixture fermented. This is then pressed to remove unfermented solids, filtered once more, and then left to mature, like one would with wine.

For absolute beginners, I would suggest investing in a bottle of Shochikubai Shirakabegura Mio Sparkling Sake, not just because it doesn't have that much of a challenging koji flavour, but because it's significantly nicer than cat piss cava or bland prosecco. It has a gentle fragrance, is just the right side of sweet, and the carbonation adds both a sour note and makes it feel more refreshing. It isn't brut like champagne, more, a gentle, friendly face to pick up for a pleasant night in. I had the luck of picking up a bottle for £4 at the event – they were practically giving it away.

For those still a bit too afraid, there are a wide variety of Japanese fruit liqueurs. These often aren't like schnapps or are lighter fluid with a few drops of synthetic peach essence. Many Japanese fruit liqueurs, such as umeshu, have an ABV of about 12%. Umeshu is made by soaking whole green plums in grain alcohol, which is consequently watered down and sweetened. A different liqueur that I had the pleasure of drinking at Hyper Japan was Yomeishu Pink Grapefruit and Ginger (top); “precisely what it says on the tin!”, according to my tasting notes; a lusciously smooth and mild bev, tasting of real – if candy-sweet – fruit, like a boozier, top-quality alcopop. It was only later that I discovered that Yomeishu's flagship is a TCM (I use the “C” here generically) herb liqueur containing, of all things, the processed skin and organs of the mamushi pit viper, Gloydius blomhoffii. Unfortunately, I did not taste the snake tonic since it wasn't on offer, but had it been, I would probably have declined because I don't want to drink snakies. Nevertheless, snake-flaying aside, the good brewers at Yomeishu can make a lovely drink. The one umeshu I sampled , Urakasumi (buttom), was “bracing[ly] plummy” with an “almond bitter aftertaste”. As I don't have considerable umeshu experience, it was perfectly nice.

There were other types of sake on offer, such as the Yamabuki Gold, an aged sake, or koshu. The difference between a younger sake and a koshu is rather like a tequila blanco and añejo: the aged edition acquires a bronzeish colour and a deeper, often honeyish taste. I described the 7-time-in-a-row International Wine Challenge gold winner as having a “burnt toffee” character, “hypersmooth”, and with a “savoury aftertaste.”

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum was the Junmai Ginjo Sachihime Dear My Princess, charmingly subtitled in block capitals with ALL THE BEST WISHES FOR YOUR FUTURE LIFE. I described the unpasteurized sake from what is apparently the smallest brewery in the Saga prefecture (found on Kyushu, the southern island making up Japan proper) as “sweet, creamy, esteric and smooth.” Following some basic research into sake tasting terminology, this “esteric”- or “fruity” quality is also known as ginjo, which is the resulting fragrance from the slow and low fermentation of rice whose exterior is mostly removed. Two compounds that contribute to ginjo fragrance are isoamyl acetate, well known to any brewers in the audience to being one part of the duo in many Hefeweizens, the other being clove. Due to my experiencing isoamy acetate almost always in conjunction with the phenolic compounds that made up clove, I iniitally had written down “phenolic” instead of “esteric”, and then had second thoughts as I noticed more classical fruit elements evolve, such as ethyl caproate – another ginjo component – which is common in many fruits, including apple and pineapple.

There were, oddly enough, what appeared to be luxury bottled tea., from the imaginatively named The Tea Company. It's here where I ran into the absurdly fashionable and intimidating woman from the Tea Authority. She recommended the Thé D'Or Gyokuro, which turned out to have “excellent clean bitterness”. It was a “very green” green tea, with a pleasing “sprightly slight salinity”. I preferred, however, the Ibushi, from the same label: it “tickles the throat”, had “topnotes of fruit, then smoke and malt”, and was “silken, bitter, refreshing and savoury”. The tea used to make the Ibushi was apparently smoked over Japanese cypress. Do I approve of bottled tea costing between £11 and £30 per bottle? I honestly have to say, even if it was absolutely delicious tea, that I can't.

Finally, there were two spirits I tried. One was the Satsuma Shiranami, which is a spirit made from sweet potato- and it sure tasted of it: “earthy, nutty, popped rice, sweet but not sugary, and filling” is how I described it. This would in my mind be a fantastic addition to a hot toddy or pre-Christmas lunch drinks. The second is something I don't anticipate many of you ambling out of your wells to get, but I'll rec it anyway: the Kyoya Shuzo Yuzugin, combines two things that unsettle many people: gin, our proudest spirit, and Japanese botanicals, which can not be to everybody's tastes. Unsurprisingly, it had a deep, floral, long-lasting yuzu fragrance, and remarkably, I noticed a light tongue-buzz feeling, due to the sansho peppercorn. I won't fully get into this now, but the short is that the fruit of the Zanthoxylum trees produce compounds called sanshools, which give an anaesthetic, electrocuting, tingling, numbing sensation, most prevalent in Szechuan cooking, and one that I adore. Sansho peppercorn is Z. piperitum while good ol' Szechuan peppercorn is Z. simulans or bungeanum. While overall I can see more applications for the Satsuma Shiranami, not just in drinks, but as a nice thing to spin around a highball glass while relaxing, as one does when one is 23, if you like both yuzu and gin, and manage to find a bottle, go get it. Also, the bottle's pretty.

In the drunken stupour that tends to accompany having too many small drinks, I stepped outside and saw a stand selling three of my favourite Japanese snacks: takoyaki, sweet potato korroke and karaage. I got three for three, and sat down heavily in a chair, and watched the crowd pass me by as I had my snacks. Takoyaki is an orbular delicate wheat pancake, filled with chopped octopus. Mine were decorated traditionally, with aonori, aka green laver, mayonnaise and a sweet-savoury glaze made from Worcestershire sauce and reduced sake, soy sauce, mirin, kombu, and katsuoboshi (shaved dried bonito tuna). I like them because they have a wonderfully crunchy outside, and the inside is still kinda like a just-underset egg yolk or slightly underdone pancake batter, or a bechamel sauce. I think it's obscenely delicious, and was thankful at the paucity of octopus bits in the ones they gave me.

Karaage is a deep frying technique different from the better known tempura. In karaage, marinated pieces of meat, most usually chicken, are tossed in potato starch and deep fried until crispy. These had a crusty, gloriously msg-laden shell with tender pieces within. The crust had big crumbs in it, lending a nice variation in texture.

Korokke is a Japonification of “croquette”, where usually mashed potato is stuffed with a filling, rolled in panko, and deep fried. These ones were pure sweet potato, and utterly fantastic. I have a long-held suspicion that the Japanese sweet potato cultivars tower head and shoulders above those grown anywhere else. They tend to have the most amazing chestnutty taste and yielding texture. These were no exception. The korokke were “fudgy” and satisfying, the panko crust so ethereal, it might not have even been there. Of the three fried snacks, they were without a doubt my favourite.

In short, I did not eat or drink one thing on Friday that wasn't delicious, and there were a few that were completely exceptional.

As I walked back from Kensington Olympia to take the bus home, I thought about how I'd been exposed to so many different aspects of the culture of another somewhat strange, tea-obsessed island, and how valuable it was that events like Hyper Japan are put on; raising awareness in not just the more massively marketable aspects of another culture, but their unique traditions also. I had a great time. Since it's now over, I honestly can't wait for the summer one!

#hyperjapan #food #sake #karaage #ramen #bad photo quality #shochu #swords #alain et jean #kirigami

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airadam · 3 years

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Episode 144 : Multiples Of Twelve

"It ain't f-ing sensible."

- Strategy

I ended up completely changing the selection this month when, taking the lead from a few tracks I was considering, I decided to go with an all-downtempo selection - a continuous unbroken mix once the first lyric hits. That said, there's a serious mix of genres so you get a bunch of variety inside the hour-long show! Get yourself plugged in...

RIP to the legendary Chi Modu - the man responsible for some of the most iconic images in the culture.

Twitter : @airadam13

Twitch : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Duett : Video

An extremely short track to open things, just for the flavour! Duett, is a UK synthwave artist (only one person, despite the name) who has released some amazing records channeling that electronic 80s vibe. This one is drawn from the "O U T L I N E S" mini-album from last year - all tracks that were done in a day each - and is a bite-size motif that you could imagine as the sonic logo for a film company or TV station from the VHS era.

Meyhem Lauren ft. Hologram & Big Body Bes : Lexus In The Lobby

I was originally saving this for a future mix, but even though it would have fit perfectly thematically, it's so much slower than pretty much everything else that it may not have ultimately made the cut. This is an absolute gem from the original "Glass" EP, with Harry Fraud on production building an absolute vibe with a quality sample that may be familiar to German listeners and some heavy 808 action. Meyhem Lauren is of course the best MC on the cut but Hologram on the first verse definitely kicks a memorable opening quatrain!

Mikhail Chekalin : As If It Was Not From Here

Going super left-field early for this instrumental bed! Chekalin was a radically-innovative composer from Russia who was not embraced by the Soviet government - they felt his work was too "Western" and while his music was heard by some plugged-in people in the outside world, he wasn't able to tour internationally or release his music outside the USSR. Thankfully for music lovers, times have changed and the "ГАР001: Михаил Чекалин «Экзальтированная Колыбельная 1979 – 1987»" collection (don't even think about asking me to pronounce that) is now available on Bandcamp, and is a great collection of his electronic work - his own take on what could be done with the synths of the time. His sound is a worthy companion to the other greats who were also experimenting at the time, from Jan Hammer to Jean Michel Jarre.

TY ft. Rootz & Deborah Jordan : Eyes Open

It's been a year this month since TY passed and I was glad to find one of his tracks fitting into this pace perfectly, one from his excellent final LP "A Work Of Heart". He was always an excellent MC from the first to the last, and he does himself proud here, spitting thoughtful lyrics with a rapid sharp flow. OG Rootz (formerly Durrty Goodz) is a solid complement, and Deborah Jordan adds a vocal decoration that puts the whole self-produced track over the top. I do like the unexpected switch to French for the hook later in the song too, just *chef's kiss*.

Bumpy Knuckles : Step Up

If you're a real Hip-Hop geek, the highlight on this track might just be the brilliant cuts by DJ Rukas on the hook, not only sharp but incorporating a very clever manipulation of a line from the stone-cold classic "Top Billin'" by Audio Two. Bumpy Knuckles goes in with a quasi-double-time flow in typically rugged fashion over the production of BeatBanga, who gets his only Discogs credit in fine style. You can find this on the "Konexion" album, which is well worth having.

Flatbush Zombies : Laker Paper

It might not be the most conscious track in the world, but it does have the exact type of sonic energy to fit into this spot! Despite the production style (courtesy of Erick Arc Elliott) and the track title, the clue is in the name - this is a trio from Brooklyn who released this cut on their debut mixtape "D.R.U.G.S". They don't try to dazzle with a quick flow on this beat, they stick to their style and settle into it at its native speed.

Samantha James : Come Through

Even for those who might not be into a record like this most of the time, I thought that bassline and the underlying lazy drum break might draw you in! This track was one of the highlights of the 2007 "Rise" LP from LA-based Samantha James. If you like a varied electronic music album, it's one you should check out - a little house, a little broken beat, some singer-songwriter vibes, a showcase for a singer comfortable with working with different production types.

Jake One : Evelen Gravest

We bridge the first and second mixes with a beat from the man Jake One, taken from his free gospel-themed "#PrayerHandsEmoji" beat tape. It'd be worth a purchase, but for zero dinero it's a must-have!

Kano : Ps & Qs

Coming out of East Ham, London, this is one of the early breakthrough grime tracks from a pioneer of the scene. This 2004 debut 12" release was a bit hit on the underground and helped Kano build momentum into the release of his "Home Sweet Home" album. DaVinche's big bombastic beat is an iconic one - a perfect underscoring for Kano, and can still mash up a dance even today.

DJ Quik ft. Hi-C and James DeBarge : Ev'ryday

One of my favourite cuts from Quik's 2002 "Under Tha Influence" LP (which, being a relentless perfectionist, he probably hated the minute he finished it). At the time there really wasn't much, if anything, out that sounded like this, and it was interesting to hear a musician and engineer of his skill level bring that to that double-time style. That stuttering bass and the skipping drum pattern work together brilliantly, and James DeBarge coming through with that hook might just be the vocal highlight.

Strategy : LengBreak

Time flies, and it's already been ten years since the release of the "Pre-Season Training" mixtape from Salford's Strategy, who continued to build his skills in fine style. "Bleep Test" and "Kill 'Em" were the standout tracks for me, and this one kind of passed me - maybe it was my personal taste in beats, maybe it was that I just didn't smoke! I gave it another listen this month and very much deserves a proper airing. One question for those of you who partake - all these years later, how do those prices sound? 🙂

Tobe Nwigwe ft. Royce Da 5'9" and Black Thought : Father Figure

Easily one of the best and most unique MCs to emerge in years, you'll have heard Tobe on this podcast a few times before and his collective have continued to impress and to elevate their profile. This killer is from last year's "Cincoriginals" album, and it's a meeting of heavyweight MCs. The fact that Tobe holds his own against both Royce and Thought, who is widely regarded as the MC's MC, while maintaining his own style, shows that he deserves all the praise he's been getting and more. Nell on production, as always, with the heavy low end for your system.

9th Wonder : Black Album Rejects, Track 15

One more of the instrumentals that 9th Wonder brought to Jay-Z for "The Black Album" that was ditched in favour of the brand-new "Threats" beat that launched him into the consciousness of many. The "rejects" were still dope as anything though.

Children of Zeus : No Love Song

Brand new Zeus! If you know what's good for you you'll be going to place a pre-order for the upcoming "Balance" album, but we've got this as an appetiser for now. Beat Butcha provides the laid-back soulful groove on which Tyler and Konny emphatically don't give you the love song that most other artists would given the same production. If you've been following this podcast, you would have first heard CoZ in the SoundCloud days, and it's been amazing to see this Manchester crew continue to produce great music - and the rest of the world catch up!

Corinne Bailey Rae : Walk On

Representing the city of Leeds lovely, Corinne Bailey Rae is a fine musician who brings the quality every time out. Her third LP, "The Heart Speaks In Whispers", was a worthy follow up to "The Sea", and saw her pairing with Steve Brown on production. This starts with a jazz club reserve and builds from there as she offers inspiration to keep on pushing through difficult circumstances - a message certainly relevant to the current time.

Rae & Christian ft. Lisa Shaw : Should Have Known

I'd somehow forgetten I even had this one! Lisa Shaw is best known for her deep house career, but her sublime voice is a versatile one and she's also on some soulful/downtempo stuff like this Manchester production from the Grand Central Records founding duo. The "Central Heating 2" compilation might be worth owning for this alone.

Zero 7 : Spinning

We finish a coincidentally all-UK segment with a track that didn't make the cut for the original UK release of the "Simple Things" album (twenty years ago!), but I believe was on the US version (plus the recent special edition release) as well as on the B-side of the "I Have Seen" 12". Sophie Barker takes the vocal reins, and it's a beautiful song.

L'indécis x sad toï : Dog Days

For the final instrumental break, we go to the Chillhop label, which specialises in releasing this kind of material - in this case, on the "Chillhop Essentials - Fall 2018" compilation. This track is an all-French connection, with sad toï (sic) alongside Grenoble's L'indécis for a relaxed and partly-acoustic beat that suits a lazy summer day just as much as the autumn.

Scritti Politti : Brushed With Oil, Dusted With Powder

"The day began to decline" - I think many of us can relate to that feeling! One more UK track to close the episode, and this is the one that I think will divide listeners the most. Personally, I love this. It's one of those tunes where no-one seems to agree on the exact meaning of the lyrics, but when Green sings "...some keys they found there"...well, that could be read multiple ways! This was a great close to the "Anomie & Bonhomie" album, with a long instrumental outro to cool us all the way out at the very end of the episode.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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homeworldheathen · 7 years

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Gem Hierarchy Theory/Possible Homeworld Gemsona Statuses

This theory is mostly based on the Mohs Hardness scale for minerals, and most people just leave it at “the bigger the number, the higher class,” and while i agree with that roughly, there must be more to it. So I sat down at recorded themes i saw among gems of certain hardnesses.

First off, the Diamonds are reeeally easy, as they’re shown to be the leaders of Homeworld, and they’re clearly the hardest material on the list. So I’m just gonna leave that one alone lol

Corundum is the next hardest mineral, and corundum is what both rubies and sapphires are made of. Its fairly clear to see in Steven Universe that Sapphire is a very rare and powerful gem held in high esteem, making me to believe that gems around 9 mohs are aristocratic in status. Yes, I see you in the back raising your hand with a question; “If corundum are aristocratic, what’s up with Rubies??” Well, my thoughts are that Rubies are actually higher class than we think, and I’ll cover that more in depth below.

Next is topaz at 8 mohs, with aquamarine being 7.5-8 mohs right next to it. The reason I chose to label this area “elite and specialist gems” is because both Topazes and Aquamarine are both adept at fighting, and they seem specially suited to the mission. If the diamonds knew about the Crystal Gems from Navy, it makes sense to send powerful, elite gems to deal with them once and for all. I also overlapped the aristocracy and elites because it seems that Aquamarine is of a more elevated status than Topaz. It might be due to more experience, powers that we don't know about, or even the fact that Topaz is a fusion (and seems to want to be a permafusion if she isn't already). This group is the majority of the upper class of Homeworld without delving into aristocracy or nobility.

The next section doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense with some people, but like, its kind of necessary for a successful society so i added it. Anyway, government positions don’t necessarily mean governing other gems like the Diamonds, but rather assistants, lawyers (like we’ve seen), it could mean scribes, it could even mean overseeing the development of new colonies. I overlapped this a little into Military because in times of war, military officials often take overseeing positions in the government. This also adds Agates into the “Government” type jobs (”An Agate terrifies” is probably a metaphor for them being managers/ drill sergeant type figures). This section also allows Zircons to have jobs other that just lawyer, as that seems awfully specific for my personal taste. This group is like the mid-upper class of Homeworld.

Military is the section i went with for the Quartzes, since its pretty heavily inferred in the show that Quartzes are meant to be soldiers and p much nothing else (though they can take other jobs in times of peace probably). I made this go all the way down to 6 mohs not only because not all quartz is exactly 7, but because it allows more gems to have this ranking. In the Bismuth special, Bismuth brings up a Homeworld pilot who is a Nephrite (coincidentally, Centi is ALSO a Homeworld pilot, hmmmm). Since Nephrite goes down to 6, i started the Military section there, but it might change in the future. I think of this group as a sort of upper-middle class that could be elevated to lower-upper class with enough merit (like Jasper).

Honestly I should’ve made this section bigger (like maybe 4.5-6.5 lol), but I’m too lazy to fix it right now. Anyway, this covers jobs like technicians, enigineers, architectural designers, scholars, basically all the stuff that actually makes a society function. These are like the middle class gems of Homeworld to me, the ones that work hard but at least get some recognition for it. Not enough recognition to get your own Pearl though, apparently (according to Peridot that is).

Finally is the lower class gems, the absolute hardest work, the most dangerous work, and the most demeaning work. I say that because all of the gems we’ve seen with mohs at or below Lapis (5.5) have absolutely rough lives. Bismuth at 2 is a builder, with some really blacksmithy themes. Smithery and construction are pretty tough and dangerous jobs, usually reserved for lower class citizens. Pearls are servants, often acting as maids, footmen (people who open doors and shit), and even private entertainment for their owners. Not only is this an extremely unwanted job, but can be tough depending on the gem they are assigned to. Lastly in this section is Lapis Lazuli, our resident terraformer. In case you don't know, terraforming is the act of physically changing a planet to better resemble Earth and sustain life, however in this setting it might be carving out areas for Kindergartens, since in both the ones on Earth have notably river-esque patterns. It makes a lot of sense that Lapis has water powers for terraforming, but its probably backbreaking work, like if you were to landscape an entire planet.

And now we’re at the Ruby debacle. first off, i do think they’re like at least upper class gems, but as they are less powerful and have less useful powers, other upper class gems get preference. I mean which is more useful to the sustaining of an empire, future vision or a gauntlet? That and Sapphires are probably more rare than Rubies on Homeworld. But the reason i think they are higher class than others might, is because they’re more like personal guards than infantry, they have more specific jobs. It’s not “go smash up the enemy,” but rather “protect this rare and noble gem” or “rescue this elite war hero from danger since she obviously can’t come back herself.” Also, the fact that Eyeball believed wholeheartedly that she might “get her own Pearl” can be used as solid evidence of Rubies being higher class than Peridot (who laughed and blushed at the notion of little ol’ Peri getting her own fancy Pearl~).

Phew, that was a bit longer than I expected, but I think it was worthwhile! Ask questions, discuss other theories with me, etc.

#steven universe #homeworld gems #gemsona help #homeworld hierarchy #steven universe theory #/long post

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realchrisilluminati · 7 years

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Writer’s Block Is Bullshit -- Here's Why You're Stuck

For a substantial number of years, at the onset of my writing career, I absolutely believed in writer's block. The inability to breakthrough while writing an article, book or short story usually crept its ugly head at two precise moments — the seconds before sitting in front of a computer to get to work and the hours spent thinking about the task that needed to be completed.

Yeah, basically writer’s block happened all the damn time.

My form of writer's block always involves chasing the "feeling." Being overcome with the motivation or inspiration to write. To be in the mood, in my case, demanded this perfect scenario of setting, time of day, physical sensations and a hundred uncontrollable factors that must align.

Eventually, I came to a few realizations. First, nothing in life will ever be perfect. Second, I realized writer’s block is fictional, and I was just fucking scared. What if I put all my eggs in one basket and that basket is made of wet paper?

Now I know the truth.

Writer's block is a bunch of bullshit. Writer’s block doesn’t exist. As much as every working writer wishes it were an actual ailment, I repeat, writer’s block does not exist. Writer’s block is self-doubt. There's something you don't want to write, think you can't write or feel you're unqualified to write.

You don't have writer's block you're just scared of something. First, let’s figure out what…

The Common Fears That Cause Writer's Block

Here are some of the common issues that plague writers.

The “I Suck” Syndrome

Every writer, even the literary greats, begins the writing process with an awful first draft. No author vomits perfection all over the page every single time he or she sits down at a keyboard.

Most writer’s block issues can be traced back to personal feelings about yourself and your writing ability. You believe you haven’t written anything “great” in a while and have lost your mojo. The work on the page isn’t up to your often immeasurable standards, and it’s causing internal conflict. You don’t want to spend another minute sitting in front of a computer.

Here’s the bad news — you do suck. Here’s some fantastic news — every writer sucks (at some point). But you're in good company with every other writer ever. Welcome to the club!

“The first draft of anything is shit.” Ernest Hemingway

You Have “Nothing To Say”

One of the most prolific writers of the last 50 years is Robert Shields. You’ve likely never heard of him because he never published any work. Well, not really. He did, however, bang out an estimated 37.5 million words over a few decades.

“Starting in 1972, Shields was hit by the urge to document every moment of his life in his diary. It was estimated that he spent about four hours everyday typing, relaying the day’s most major events alongside the most brutally minute details while sitting on his back porch in his underwear.

He described what he had for every meal, what kind of heartburn he had (along with what he took for it and how long it lasted), who stopped by to visit him, and what he fed the cat. He was particularly precise about his bowel movements, documenting when they happened and every detail about what came out of him. (He even had a number of different ways for cataloging urination.)”

Everyone has a story. Everyone's life is interesting. Even though Robert Shields and his list of daily activities. Admit it — even though you don’t know Shields personally and every detail of his life sounds monotonous and crazy, you kinda want to see at least one of his journals.

You’re putting something off because you feel like you don’t anything original to say or add to the topic. You’re wrong. Every person adds their own unique angle to a story, and other people are interested in reading those opinions.

Famous Writers (Who Are Also My Friends) Give Advice About Writer’s Block

In case you’re thinking “who’s this idiot saying writer’s block doesn’t exist?” Well, first off, my name is at the top of this website. That’s who I am. Second, I’m not the only writer that’ll say bluntly that writer’s block is BS.

I reached out to fellow freelancers, writers, editors, authors and a few people who write just for the fun of putting pencil to pad (or digits to keys). I gave them one prompt. “Writer’s Block. Go!” They shared the first thoughts that sprung to mind.

“Anyone who says they have writer's block isn't writing...THAT is the problem. Writer's block is an excuse for distraction. Write until it's not there.” - Jason Donnelly, author, Gripped

“Some people think writer's block is like a dam, where all the ideas just get backed up and will start flowing again eventually. Others think it's a drought, and eventually, the rain will come. Writer's block is when the river is still flowing as usual, but the water's turned to piss. The flow is still there, but there's nothing worth drinking.” - Daniel Coffman, author, Four From Below

“Writer's Block is a funny thing. I think it comes from trying to come up with something perfect. The perfect topic. The perfect opening sentence. The perfect follow-up sentence. The perfect closing sentence. And for the most part, we overthink it. We end up blocking ourselves from thinking of what to do next because we just want to get the damn thing right.” - Rey Moralde, writer, The No-Look Pass

"My writer’s block generally stems from self-doubt, when I start wondering why the hell anyone might care what I have to say about a subject. I'm usually working on multiple projects at the same time, and I often find that if I'm struggling with one, it cripples my other writing because it starts occupying all my thoughts and I'll set aside time to work on it, then spend all that time thinking about how stupid it is and what a colossal waste of time it has been and how if I actually practiced what I believe about sunk costs I would scrap it altogether and move on. Being in the news business sort of forces you to get over writer's block when it comes, since sometimes you simply have to cover something, and even if you suspect all your words are dumb and bad, you need to be willing publish them to ensure future paychecks. And after writing professionally in some form for the past 10 years, I've come to understand that there's not always a correlation between the stuff I write that I think is good and the stuff people seem to enjoy reading.” — Ted Berg, sports columnist, USA Today

“The first thing that comes to mind when you say Writer's Block is a scene from the best running moving ever: Run Fat Boy Run. He hits the wall in running his first marathon, and it's a wall. No really, a wall. I think that's what writer's block is like. I don't want to spoil the end of the movie, but he gets through it, just like I do in writing life.” — Jen Miller, author, Running: A Love Story

“Writer’s block is the unavoidable flu of writing. It must be pushed through, survived, repeated, and conquered.” - Elysia Regina, writer

How To Break Writer’s Block

I’ll humor you for a few minutes and pretend writer’s block does exist but I won’t call it writer’s block. Instead, I’ll say you’re stuck. Here are some ideas and items to get the gerbils in your head back up and running on those wheels.

The first method is one of my own creation, named after one of my favorite professional wrestlers.

The Lie, Cheat and Steal Method

Eddie Guerrero is a former world champion and a member of one of the most revered families in professional wrestling. Right before his untimely passing in 2005, Guerrero was one of the most popular wrestlers in the WWE. During the height of his heel run (that’s wrestling speak for a “bad guy,” Guerrero preached the three tenants of getting ahead in wrestling or any walk of life. Lie. Cheat. Steal.

Guerrero’s advice isn’t practical or sound for any profession other than the fictitious world of professional wrestling, but it’s solid advice for a writer. Here’s how it work…

Lie: Sit down with a blank piece of paper and conjuring up the biggest bullshit lie ever. It can be about yourself or even your subject. Write a lie so massive it would be impossible for anyone to ever believe. Now, prove that lie to be true. Make your prose convince you, a family member or total stranger that this massive lie is a stone cold truth. I’m certain that by the time you’re done either a new story, new article idea or angle to a project you’ve been putting off for months will emerge.

Cheat: Go back into your archives and find a finished article or story. Now take the opposite argument. If it’s fiction, write the story in a new direction. If the story was about a man, make it about a woman. If the article was about donating time to shelter animals, take the opposite stance. (Yes, that’s a jerk thing to write about, but this is an exercise in breaking writer’s block). Find the piece you’re most proud of and turn it on its god damn head.

Steal: Grab your absolute favorite novel off the bookshelf. Open it to a random page and begin reading. Find the first sentence that really grabs you by the genitals and copy it, word for word, into a new document. Start typing a brand new story based on that one line. When you get far enough, go back and change that first line to your own words. I’m not telling you to literally steal another writer’s work, just temporarily channel their mojo for prose.

Take A Runner’s Approach To Writing

Jen Miller alluded to this approach in her quote earlier in this text but one of the best approaches to writing is similar to how people tackle the task of training for long distance runs. A runner doesn’t always feel like running, especially those long distant athletes who have to log miles and miles every single day to stay in top performing condition.

So what’s their secret to running on the days when they just don’t feel like it? They just start running. It’s that damn simple. They lace up the sneakers and hit the road. The same goes for writing. What should you do when you don’t feel like writing? Sit down and write. Every mile is a step towards running farther. Every sentence is a step towards something, even if it’s absolute gibberish.

Buy A Writer’s Block Book

There are countless apps and websites dedicated to breaking writer’s block through writing prompts. I’ve tried a few, mostly just for inspiration, and my far and away favorite is 642 Things To Write About.

“This collection of 642 outrageous and witty writing prompts will get the creative juices flowing in no time. From crafting your own obituary to penning an ode to an onion, each page of this playful journal invites inspiration and provides plenty of space to write.”

Buy A New Notebook

Five-and-dime stores were crack to me as a kid. If you’re unfamiliar, or not as ancient, a five and dime store was a step above a dollar store but not quite a Walmart. Places like Murphy’s and McCrory’s littered the land in my youth, and I loved every single one of them. What I loved most about these stores was that they sold just about everything. Toys, clothes, games, housewares, tires, magazines, records. I’d get lost in the aisles and never want to leave.

A similar feeling overcomes me each time I step foot in a stationary store. Just staring at all of the journals, pens, and accessories for writing and I GET SO FIRED UP!

How Other Writers Bust The Block

“It's like anything else: Ask for help. Sweeten the deal with cookies if you have to. It also helps to take a walk Or just physically move. I get my best ideas when I'm driving or in the shower or boxing, so basically never when I am in a situation where I can actually write something down.” - Jessica Sager, writer

"The best way to conquer writer's block is to engage your brain that can mean anything from listening music, watching a favorite show, or sometimes I find a good walk gets things moving. Failing that, sometimes it helps just to write and I mean write anything, even if it doesn't make sense. Sometimes just the act of putting words on paper, even if it's putting words on virtual paper, can get the juices flowing." — Karl Smith, editor and former newspaper columnist

“The best cure I've found for writer's block is pushing forward through something even when I think it sucks, because I'm not going to get anything else done until I'm finished with it anyway and because there's a non-zero chance the dreck I burp out when the words aren't flowing will prove more popular than the stuff I write when I feel great and invincible and dope.” - Ted Berg

“I'm a big fan of music, usually a good instrumental track works. I mix it up between jazz and new stuff like Tycho. Wine also works really well” -- Andrew Ward, writer & strategist

“Step away from it and do something else. Something out of your norm. Whatever you need to concentrate on it. Then take a nap. Or just fuck off for as long as you want to like George R.R. Martin.” — Carl Ceposki, writer

The End Of Writer’s Block (For Now)

If you still believe in writer’s block, there could be something deeper behind the inability to sit down and get work done. It’s up to you to figure out the issue and fix it. None of these problems ever go away. You’ll still have doubt, think you’ve got nothing to say or continuously chase the perfect “time” to put out a best seller or finish a work project. In the end, the only way to break through is to literally break through.

If worse comes to worse, and the words don’t come, just write about what you know. As Charles Bukowski put it “Writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all.”

Chris Illuminati is the author of five books, countless articles, a billion post-it notes and a 323 million incomplete works of fiction.

FOLLOW CHRIS ON: FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | TUMBLR

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stompsite · 7 years

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Im-prey-ssions

So, I started Prey 2017 up around midnight last night. Eleven hours later, I had to stop playing because I needed sleep. The only reason I’m not playing Prey 2017 right now is because I promised you I’d blog once a week, every week, and since I was busy apartment hunting, playing Prey 2017, and going to the hospital.* I still feel awful; I need several treatments, not one every six months, but dang it, I told you guys I’d write something this week, and I’m gonna do it, even if it’s just one draft. Then I’m going to go play more Prey 2017.

So, right off the bat, this game’s like a 9/10.

Like, if that’s what you want to know, there you go. I love playing this game. Now to get into the nitty gritty. I’ll be talkin a lot about positives and negatives, and I’m trying to be somewhat comprehensive. Just bear in mind: from what I’ve played so far, I like it as much as Dishonored 2 and Doom, my favorite games of last year. It’s Extremely Good.

As some of you may be aware, I really did not like Prey 2017’s demo. There are a few reasons for that, chiefly the fact that I desperately needed to go to the hospital. Literally everything was irritating me and getting under my skin. Everything. This includes Prey 2017’s melee system. Now, let me be clear here: I don’t like the melee system. I didn’t like it in Dead Island, and I don’t like it here. But the melee system is a small part of a huge game, and I happen to enjoy that game a whole heck of a lot.

Would the game be better without a stamina bar? Yes. Absolutely. 100%. The stamina bar adds nothing but annoyance to the game. It does not benefit Prey 2017’s design in any way. If they patched out the stamina system tomorrow, Prey 2017 would only benefit.

So, after the demo, I was pretty worried.

Now, something like 10 hours in: this game is a delight. I love how the station feels persistent; leave a room, come back later, find all the bits you moved right where you left them. It’s WONDERFUL!

The level design overall is Extremely Good Stuff. So far, my favorite level is Psychotronics. It feels the most reminiscent of System Shock 2, and it has two of the my favorite moments in the game so far, which I won’t spoil here. There’s an area above two big metal pods I’m still trying to figure out how to access, so I’ve got reasons to go back.

The Arboretum is fantastic. Crew quarters are ace. On and on I could go; I like every single level in this game with the sole exception of G.U.T.S., which is a long tube with zero gravity and some annoying enemies with it. Zero G outside of the station is super cool. Zero G in G.U.T.S. isn’t my thing. As a System Shock 2 comparison, G.U.T.S. is The Body of The Many. But this is one level out of like... a dozen, and as far as I can tell, you don’t have to use it again once you unlock the elevator.

One of the coolest features of Prey 2017, which I hope everyone copies in the future, because it’s great, is the crew tracking feature. Everyone who dies leaves a corpse behind. You can use computers to pick a person to track, then find their corpse. Doing so can net you things like key cards and supplies, which opens up more of the station, allowing you to explore.

There are two kinds of Looking Glass fans, those who prefer Thief and those who prefer System Shock. I’m one of the fans who prefers System Shock; I enjoy exploring more than sneaking. It’s why I prefer S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to System Shock. It’s why I’m enjoying Prey 2017 so much. Finding a keycard and having that ‘oh yeah, I remember where that is!’ moment, going back to that spot, and finally getting to open a locked door you’ve been keeping in the back of your mind for the past few hours... it’s a great feeling.

One of the issues I had with Bioshock is that you rarely had a reason to navigate Rapture. Bioshock 2, my favorite game in that series, went in the opposite direction, turning into a series of linear sandbox maps, like Thief. Dishonored and Dishonored 2 do the linear sandbox thing too. It’s perfectly fine design, but I’ve been hungry for a game world that I really felt like exploring.

Prey 2017 is the first truly satisfying game world I have explored since S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky in 2008. The entire thing is open, you just have to find the right keys and hack the right doors and lift the right crates. It’s a game that rewards exploration, not with a “+100 XP: Crawled a vent” popup, but because as you explore, you get this really satisfying sense of “oh, this goes here, and that goes there, and it all works like this...”

Prey 2017 satisfies my exploration itch. You have no idea. It’s why I didn’t want to stop playing until I physically couldn’t play anymore. The only games that have held my attention so strongly in the past few years were Dishonored 2, Doom, Metal Gear Solid V, and Mad Max.

The symbiotic relationship between “hunt for crewmembers” and the station’s many locked doors creates this insatiable urge to explore. I love it.

Do I have complaints? Yes. The stamina system doesn’t benefit the game. G.U.T.S. isn’t fun to explore or traverse. The dudes who stop you from moving are just Not At All Fun To Encounter. The combat is something where I sigh and go “oh well, here I go again.” Great combat should be emotional combat; there should be highs and lows, a great rhythm, elation and relief in victory.

It’s not like a great stealth game, where you don’t want to enter combat because stealthing is more satisfying. It’s not like System Shock 2, Alien: Isolation, or STALKER, where combat can be thrilling and terrifying in equal measure, due to player vulnerability. It’s... just kinda there. It’s easily the game’s greatest weakness.

Prey 2017’s combat is annoying. The enemies feel samey (they’re all fast, teleporty, and take a bunch of shotgun damage before they die) and are way too visually consistent to be exciting. If you look at System Shock 2′s enemies, there’s a lot more interesting visual variety in the designs, which makes the experience more enjoyable. There was a lot more tactical/strategic depth in System Shock 2 as well.

Fortunately, you spend far more time exploring than you do anything else. It’s so effin good, man. Like... I’m over here writing about Prey 2017, when all I really want to do is go hop back in Prey’s world and explore Talos I some more. The level designers outdid themselves.

Even fundamental, basic stuff like mantling and crouching feels super good to do. The game world is just a joy to exist and interact in when you’re not fighting dudes. The only problem I have with the game world is that certain areas (especially the maintenance/labs area) have really predictable enemy spawns, which makes the world feel a lot less ‘real’ than it might otherwise.

Basically, I like the game. I like it a lot. I like it better than every game that has come out so far in 2017. It’s right up there with Dishonored 2 (which I adored) for me. It’s engrossing, thrilling, and awesome.

With some better combat and enemy design/spawning, Prey would be as close to perfect as a game can get. If my opinions change significantly as I continue the experience, I’ll probably right a review. If I was the scoring type, it would be an easy 9/10 for me.

So, one last thing: the default settings are a bit strange.

Change mouse sensitivity to 50, turn off Damage Numbers, rebind ‘tab’ to inventory, and bind your mouse wheel to weapon changes. It’ll feel a lot better. It’s still kind of weird to navigate menus (you can’t use the scroll wheel to scroll down lists?), and for some reason, moving your mouse moves your ENTIRE CAMERA when reading computers (compare this with Doom 3′s more satisfying implementation of computer screens). Sometimes, clicking works, other times, you have to press F, and sometimes, you have to press G. It’s kind of strange. It makes sense to use G to, like, repair items in the world, but less sense to use G on a menu where it seems like F or Mouseclick will do.

The game has a ton of these weird little UX issues that, if tweaked, would significantly improve the game. I wish they’d been caught prior to release, but I hope they get patched.

There’s no FOV slider, but that should be coming soon. For some reason, the intro videos are unskippable. You can’t click through them or anything. You can, however, turn them off by editing your game files.

I do have Extremely Negative Impressions about how the game’s been handled, though. You see, I like Prey. That’s the Real Prey, the 2006 FPS Prey. The one with Blue Oyster Cult and Art Bell. I liked that Prey a lot. If you install Prey 2017, and you have Prey installed, 2017 will be installed in Prey’s directory. It’s frustrating.

It’s also frustrating that the game is named Prey at all; did we really have to lose the original game on Steam for THIS? Did the sequel really get canned for us to play this? I can take Prey 2017 on its own merits, and it’s a great game, but the way Human Head was treated, and the way the original game is being treated leave a really bad taste in my mouth. I love Arkane. I love Bethesda. I don’t like how the whole “Prey” situation has been handled. They could have given this game so many names and avoided the problem entirely.

The Prey for the Gods Situation is really bad. Some Bethesda PR dude said somethin on GAF about “we have to protect our trademark,” but that appears to be untrue. Here’s CDPR talking about that very subject. So it seems like folks at Bethesda are being dishonest, and that really rubs me the wrong way.

It sucks that a game I’m loving right now is associated with so many negative things.

Overall, best game I’ve played since Dishonored 2, appeals to my personal sensibilities a lot more, I don’t really like the combat so I try to avoid it as much as possible, I love this world so dang much.

*I was in the hospital because of my illness.

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suzanneshannon · 4 years

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How to Simplify SVG Code Using Basic Shapes

There are different ways to work with icons, but the best solution always includes SVG, whether it’s implemented inline or linked up as an image file. That’s because they’re “drawn” in code, making them flexible, adaptable, and scalable in any context.

But when working with SVG, there’s always the chance that they contain a lot of unnecessary code. In some cases, the code for an inline SVG can be long that it makes a document longer to scroll, uncomfortable to work with, and, yes, a little bit heavier than it needs to be.

We can work around this reusing chunks of code with the <use> element or apply native variables to manage our SVG styles from one place. Or, if we’re working in a server-side environment, we can always sprinkle in a little PHP (or the like) to extract the contents of the SVG file instead of dropping it straight in.

That’s all fine, but wouldn’t be great if we could solve this at the file level instead of resorting to code-based approaches? I want to focus on a different perspective: how to make the same figures with less code using basic shapes. This way, we get the benefits of smaller, controllable, and semantic icons in our projects without sacrificing quality or visual changes. I’ll go through different examples that explore the code of commonly used icons and how we can redraw them using some of the easiest SVG shapes we can make.

Here are the icons we’ll be working on:

Let’s look at the basic shapes we can use to make these that keep the code small and simple.

Psssst! Here is a longer list of simple icons I created on holasvg.com! After this article, you’ll know how to modify them and make them your own.

Simplifying a close icon with the <line> element

This is the code for the “close” or “cross” icon that was downloaded from flaticon.com and built by pixel-perfect:

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In this example, everything is happening inside the <path> with lots of commands and parameters in the data attribute (d). What this SVG is doing is tracing the shape from its borders.

A quick demonstration using mavo.io

If you are familiar with Illustrator, this is the equivalent of drawing two separate lines, converting them to shape, then combining both with the pathfinder to create one compound shape.

The <path> element allows us to draw complex shapes, but in this case, we can create the same figure with two lines, while keeping the same appearance:

We started by defining a viewBox that goes from 0,0 to 50,50. You can choose whatever dimensions you prefer; the SVG will always scale nicely to any width and height you define. To make things easier, in this case, I also defined an inline width and height of 50 units, which avoids extra calculations in the drawing.

To use the <line> element, we declare the coordinates of the line’s first point and the coordinates of its last point. In this specific case, we started from x=0 y=0 and ended at x=50 y=50.

Here’s how that looks in code:

The second line will start from x=50 y=0 and end at x=0 y=50:

An SVG stroke doesn’t have a color by default — that’s why we added the black value on the stroke attribute. We also gave the stroke-width attribute a width of 10 units and the stroke-linecap a round value to replicate those rounded corners of the original design. These attributes were added directly to the <svg> tag so both lines will inherit them.

Now that the stroke is 10 units bigger that its default size of 1 unit, the line might get cropped by the viewBox. We can either move the points 10 units inside the viewBox or add overflow=visible to the styles.

The values that are equal to 0 can be removed, as 0 is the default. That means the two lines end up with two very small lines of code:

Just by changing a <path> to a <line>, not only did we make a smaller SVG file, but a more semantic and controllable chunk of code that makes any future maintenance much easier. And the visual result is exactly the same as the original.

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Same cross, different code.

Simplifying a clock icon with the <circle> and <path> elements

I took this example of a clock icon created by barracuda from The Noun Project:

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This shape was also drawn with a <path>, but we also have a lot of namespaces and XML instructions related to the software used and the license of the file that we can delete without affecting the SVG. Can you tell what illustration editor was used to create the icon?

Let’s recreate this one from scratch using a circle and a path with simpler commands. Again, we need to start with a viewBox, this time from 0,0 to 100,100, and with a width and height matching those units.

We keep the same styles as the previous icon inside the <svg> tag. fill is black by default, so we need to explicitly give it a none value to remove it. Otherwise, the circle will have have a solid black fill, obscuring the other shapes.

To draw the <circle> we need to indicate a center point from where the radius will sit. We can achieve that with cx (center x) and cy (center y). Then r (radius) will declare how big our circle will be. In this example, the radius is slightly smaller than the viewBox, so it doesn’t get cropped when the stroke is 10 units wide.

What’s up with all those letters? Check out Chris Coyier’s illustrated guide for a primer on the SVG syntax.

We can use a <path> for the clock hands because it has some very useful and simple commands to draw. Inside the d (data) we must start with the M (move to) command followed by the coordinates from where we’ll start drawing which, in this example, is 50,25 (near the top-center of the circle).

After the V (vertical) command, we only need one value as we can only move up or down with a negative or positive number. A positive number will go down. The same for H (horizontal) followed by a positive number, 75, that will draw toward the right. All commands are uppercase, so the numbers we choose will be points in the grid. If we decided to use lowercase (relative commands) the numbers will be the amount of units that we move in one direction and not an absolute point in the coordinate system.

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Same clock, different code.

Simplifying an envelope icon with the <rect> and <polyline> elements

I drew the envelope icon in Illustrator without expanding the original shapes. Here’s the code that came from the export:

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Illustrator offers some SVG options to export the graphic. I chose “Style Elements” in the “CSS Properties” dropdown so I can have a <style> tag that contains classes that I might want to move to a CSS file. But there are different ways to apply the styles in SVG, of course.

We already have basic shapes in this code! I unselected the “Shape to paths” option in Illustrator which helped a lot there. We can optimize this further with SVGOMG to remove the comments, XML instructions, and unnecessary data, like empty elements. From there, we can manually remove other extras, if we need to.

We already have something a little more concise:

We can remove even more stuff without affecting the visual appearance of the envelope, including:

version="1.1" (this has been deprecated since SVG 2)

id="Layer_1" (this has no meaning or use)

x="0" (this is a default value)

y="0" (this is a default value)

xml:space="preserve" (this has been deprecated since SVG 2)

We can move the CSS styles to a separate stylesheet if we really want to get really aggressive.

<rect> needs a starting point from where we’ll extend a width and a height, so let’s use x="5" and y="5" which is our top-left point. From there, we will create a rectangle that is 300 units wide with a height of 180 units. Just like the clock icon, we’ll use 5,5 as the starting point because we have a 10-unit stroke that will get cropped if the coordinates were located at 0,0.

<polyline> is similar to <line>, but with an infinite amount of points that we define, like pairs of coordinates, one after the other, inside the points attribute, where the first number in the pair will represent x and the second will be y. It’s easier to read the sequence with commas, but those can be replaced with whitespace without having an impact on the result.

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Same envelope, different code.

Bonus shapes!

I didn’t include examples of icons that can be simplified with <polygon> and <ellipse> shapes, but here is a quick way to use them.

<polygon> is the same as <polyline>, only this element will always define a closed shape. Here’s an example that comes straight from MDN:

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Remember the circle we drew earlier for the clock icon? Replace the r (radius) with rx and ry. Now you have two different values for radius. Here’s another example from MDN:

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Wrapping up

We covered a lot here in a short amount of time! While we used examples to demonstrates the process of optimizing SVGs, here’s what I hope you walk away with from this post:

Remember that compression starts with how the SVG is drawn in illustration software.

Use available tools, like SVOMG, to compress SVG.

Remove unnecessary metadata by hand, if necessary.

Replace complex paths with basic shapes.

<use> is a great way to “inline” SVG as well as for establishing your own library of reusable icons.

How many icons can be created by combining these basic shapes?

I’m working my list on holasvg.com/icons, I’ll be constantly uploading more icons and features here, and now you know how to easily modified them just by changing a few numbers. Go ahead and make them yours!

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