#chose a few names arbitrarily and then realized I started a pattern

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hey Quil! It's June and I just wanted to say, I love your bookshelf! I can't believe you made it yourself! Everything looks much more organized and accessible now (I hope it stays that way) and I love your stuffed animals, they look so cute! What are their names? And also, I've been wondering about your pets for a while, because again, they looked so cute and seem to have such interesting stories. If you're okay sharing, that is. You don't have to, if you don't want to

June! Thank you!! I am also very fond of this new bookshelf and it was definitely long overdue. I mean I was able to nearly completely fill two entire bookshelves with the contents I had shoved almost entirely onto one, so really I think it's just impressive how I was functioning with the one before. Basically the only shelf that wasn't double stacked was the keeper shelf because I reference those books so often.

I also can't believe I made it myself! I always knew that when I got a new bookshelf I'd want to make it myself so it could match the one I already have because I really like it. However like I mentioned, we bought that corner bookshelf from a closing bookstore that was selling everything they had, and they had it custom ordered from somewhere so there was no way to purchase one.

A few things are different, like you may notice the original bookshelf has holes along the planks and is secured with different hardward, while the new one has no holes and is secured with screws. The original has adjustable shelves but I haven't adjusted them in the like seven years i've had it so I didn't feel the need to add that to the new one.

It's so strange but nice to be able to see all my books at once. I haven't been able to do that for years! Like I can just look over and see oh yeah I have TSOA and the first and third book in the Black Witch Chronicles but am missing the second, like it's so nice to see the spines. I've been relying on a complete catalog I made of all the books I own (and their prices) in google sheets, but now I can have that and see everything! Hopefully the organization lasts, but we shall see! Regardless it's so much better now.

Not all of my stuffed animals on the shelves are named (I'd like to, I'm just particular about names and haven't gotten to every one yet), but I can tell you which ones are! Okay so on the top shelf of the corner one the little giraffe is named Moo (Moo was a gift from my partner) and the red panda is currently unnamed (and was a gift from my sister). On the flat shelf the purple unicorn at the very top is named Majestad (picked it as a prize from the library this summer because it's all wonky and misshapen and I love wonky), the four bunnies next to it are unnamed or their names have been forgotten, the alicorn on the shelf below that is named Glitter Butt, the elephant next to it wearing the Happy Shadow Thoughts shirt is named Ella (both were a gift from a friend who also loved kotlc), the skull and dragon below them are named Mold and Mildew respectfully, and that's about it! There's two other dragon figurines but they don't have names. Then I also have other stuffed animals that aren't all the shelves including but not limited to a sparkly red dragon named Mr. Snuggles (from the same friend who got me Glitter Butt and Ella) and a mini squishmallow named Dexter (named by the company and bought by me because of the name).

I have an M name theme going on with stuffed animals I name, but if someone else names them they're allowed to deviate from that :)

As for my pets, what would you like to know? I have no problems talking about them and shared all their names and when we got them in this post! You wondering about them is just a little vague so I'm not 100% sure how to answer it or with what. Nothing you've done, i just have trouble answering questions like that sometimes. So is there anything about my pets you're curious about in particular? If so I'd love to answer!

[houseofsannae]

A Fistful of Munny - Extended End Notes

Notes for A Fistful of Munny that don’t fit within the character limit under the cut!

Please, read the fic before reading this post

           All right! Welcome to the extended notes, in which I go into excruciating detail over a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter, because I like the sound of my own voice!

           Let’s start with some more broad stuff that didn’t make the exclusive end notes space. To do the Fistful of Dollars homage, I needed a place where I could have two villainous factions intersecting for Strelitzia to play against one another. After some brainstorming and asking for help from other people working on the Entwined in Trine Sorikai zine (and ultimately ignoring all their very good suggestions (Sorry, guys!)), I eventually realized that the Wasteland from Epic Mickey was a perfect place for this story, both in the sense of having mooks to destroy without Strels committing actual murder, and in the thematic sense of forgotten characters. There was just one issue.

           I hadn’t played Epic Mickey.

           And that is how I spent my summer, playing both Epic Mickey games. Both, because I was looking for a good location to set the story in in-world. Since the Wasteland is based on the Disney theme parks, I was hoping to find one based on Frontierland, their Western section. Such a location did exist – Disney Gulch – but only in the second game. Which meant I had to play Epic Mickey 2, as well. (The first one is a better game, but that’s not really the fault of the developers; they were not given the time they needed to make it as good as the first one. Here’s a video with trivia about the series that goes a little into the development.) I also needed to learn the Mad Doctor’s ultimate fate, since I wanted his Beetleworx/Blotworx to be one of the two villainous factions. In the game, depending on whether you chose the Paint (Paragon) or Thinner (Renegade) path, the Doc is either redeemed… or dead. Neither of which was helpful, so I had to invent.

           But let’s talk about characters and why I picked them in order. The short version for why these choices, at least on the Final Fantasy side, is set-up for later. Obviously I can’t go into detail why. Before that, let’s talk about the Beanie Baby.

           Chi is, as I hope you were able to guess, Strelitzia’s Chirithy. I’ve brought it up several times, but I personally do not like mascot characters. There are a few exceptions, but Chirithies are not one of them. Like I said, KHUx isn’t what happened in this AU, so you’ll have to wait for in-universe answers on why it’s a cat now. Out-of-universe reason is this was the only way I could make it palatable for myself. I arbitrarily decided on a gender for it because as a real cat, it would have a sex. Canonically Chirithies appear to be genderless, and in Japanese refer to themselves with the gender-neutral (but masculine-leaning) boku. I would’ve left Chi that way, save for the fact that he’s a completely normal cat now. (And before you ask, no, not every real cat that appears in KHΨ from this point on is a Chirithy.)

           As for Strelitzia herself, it’s hard for me to pick up a character’s voice when they’re… not voiced. Intonation and cadence do a lot for me mimicking the way a character talks, so it’s a bit more difficult when they don’t technically speak. I tried for a mix between Sora and Kairi, while still keeping her defining character traits of being shy, but also impulsive.

           You may notice that while she’s started remembering faces, if not names, the Player’s name and face still eludes her, despite her (canonical. Deal with it.) crush on them. There is a story reason for this, and will become clear once Luxu takes centre stage.

           The name “Jane” was chosen with more consideration than just “Jane Doe” being the standard name in (at least my corner of) the English-speaking world for a woman of unknown identity. See, the Man With No Name actually has three names. In A Fistful of Dollars, he is referred to (by one character in one scene, once) as “Joe”. “Joan” might have been a more clear homage, but I figure Jane makes sense. And as you might guess, in the next fic, Strels will be going by a different name, still not her own. She’ll remember her name… eventually.

           One might think I could’ve picked any old Cid, and one would be wrong for reasons I can’t explain yet. In fact, I can’t explain much of anything surrounding him yet. What I can say is no, Cidney Aurum is not dead, she’s just not related to Cid Sophiar in this fic verse. An unfortunate consequence of where I wanted to put each of them in the narrative; making them not be related was the only way it made any sense, geographically speaking.

           Hyperion on the other hand, I can talk about. He’s one of the Gremlins in Epic Mickey, and… wait, first things first. Gremlins are from an abandoned Disney film based on a Roald Dahl book, itself based on the cryptids that supposedly haunted airplanes and caused them to malfunction, the earliest known written-down mention of the concept being from the 1920s. The film never got made, but the designs Disney would have used were adapted into a second printing of Dahl’s book, and they were later used in Epic Mickey. Hyperion is, like the publishing imprint that Disney owns, named after a street that Walt Disney used to live on. In-game, Hyperion is in Bog Easy (based on the Haunted Mansion), not Disney Gulch, but his name stuck out to me as being particularly fun, so I picked him instead of trying to figure out what Gremlins actually are in the Gulch (they have names in the files of Epic Mickey 2, but not in the actual game, so it would have been a hunt).

           Regardless of where the setting ended up, for the second villainous faction, I was always going to plop down the good old Don. More things I can’t talk about. For everything FF7, know that I’m always going to be pulling from a mix of the original game, Remake, and Machinabridged. Hence, Corneo’s outfit is a mix of his original and Remake designs (which basically just means he’s wearing blue jeans instead of brown). I didn’t think bringing in his three lieutenants from Remake was necessary, especially since this was supposed to be a kind-of small operation.

           Leslie is picked up and dropped from Remake pretty much unchanged. I needed someone to do the murders Strels couldn’t, and even if he’s not a complete asshole, he’s still mostly an asshole. Have we ever seen small, Materia-like balls used to cast magic before…?

           Onto the fun bits, which is the Disney characters. We’ll start with Percy, who is from a Goofy short called “How to Ride a Horse”, from 1950. And that’s about it. The conceit in Wasteland is that all of the Toons there were basically actors, and they wound up in Wasteland if they were forgotten (that’s not exactly correct, but I’m generalizing). This is interesting, since two of the Toons in Epic Mickey are Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow, both of whom… are residents of Disney Town in Kingdom Hearts, having shown up in Birth by Sleep. So that’s an interesting continuity snarl that I’m going to just ignore.

           Persephone and Pluto, on the other hand, are from an earlier short called “The Goddess of Spring”, from 1934. It was one of the projects Disney tried as practice for Snow White. If you’re about to protest that his name should be Hades, not Pluto, then you’re going to need a time machine so you can tell them back in the 30s. The Goddess of Spring is a musical, in the sense that every single line is sung. Watch it for yourself. There’s a video with better quality floating around YouTube, but for some reason it’s the French dub. And that’s why both of them sing most of their lines. I tried matching the meter of their actual parts, but Persephone’s doesn’t actually follow a syllabic pattern that I could make out. I eventually gave up and just gave her the meter from the start of the short. Pluto’s was easier to manage (and more consistent).

           The skeletons are Disney veterans, presumably the same ones from “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), but more specifically they’re mimicking what they did in “The Mad Doctor” (1933), the first appearance of our other villain. They’re fun.

           The original Mad Doctor was supposedly named “Dr. XXX”, according to the name on his door. This was before the modern film rating system was put in place; it was a different time. In the original short, the Mad Doctor kidnaps Pluto (the dog) with the intent of cutting him in half and putting his front half on a chicken For Science!, and Mickey follows him to his castle to rescue the purloined pooch. The short wasn’t a musical in the same vein as “The Goddess of Spring”, but… the Mad Doctor’s only spoken lines were a song (aside from evil cackling). While I had already decided to do the “Toons that sang in their short can only communicate through song” with Persephone and Pluto before starting on Epic Mickey 2, I hilariously discovered that the game developers had done the exact same gag with the Mad Doctor, most of his lines in the game being sung. (In Epic Mickey there were no fully voiced lines, so he speaks as normally as anyone else does). Which made it easier to write his songs here, since I could just rewrite his songs from the game. I used to write alternate lyrics for songs back in high school, so this was an interesting trip back in time for me. They were stuck in my head for weeks afterwards, but it was worth it.

           I believe that’s everything for the characters. Let’s talk about Keyblades.

           It irks me that three people in KHUx have the same Keyblade. Ephemer, Skuld, and Strelitzia all have variations of Starlight. Now, in KHΨ, there is only one Starlight, and it belongs to Luxu, so I’m going to have to decide on different Keyblades for each of them. (Ephemer’s has already been decided, and I haven’t started brainstorming for Skuld yet. No I do not need suggestions, thank you). Pixie Petal bears a noted (by KHWiki) resemblance to one of Marluxia’s alternate scythes, so that tangential connection was enough for me. Both siblings have flower-themed Keyblades – it makes sense to me.

           You might notice a few disparities in the magic. These are on purpose, and will eventually make sense. And that’s all I can say on that at the moment. ;)

           Oh, yes, one important thing I probably should have said on the main notes: I’m not going for a realistic depiction of amnesia here. Anything I got right was entirely accidental, and I’m fairly certain there’s not much. There might be a story reason for why it works the way it does… and it might be the same reason why other people from KHUx have or had amnesia in the present day…

           You know what’s funny? Although Orcuses look more impressive than Invisibles, their stats in Days are actually worse. I’m fairly sure that this is because the only time we see an Orcus, it’s actually an illusion cast over Xion so that Roxas will fight her to the death. There are no other stats for them (according to KHWiki), since they’ve never been used elsewhere.

           A friendly reminder that Apprentice Xehanort invented the term “Heartless”, which was why Aqua didn’t know what to call them until Mickey told her. Thus, nobody from the era of the Keyblade War should know the term “Heartless” without being told by someone in present day. “Darkling” was the term they used instead. I’m fairly certain KHUx ignores the continuity on this (so why should we trust its continuity for anything else, hmm?)

           I think that covers everything! Or at least everything I’m willing to share at this point. If you’ve read this far, thank you! I appreciate your dedication! ^_^

[photonicolo]

Travel notes from my year in India (2003): Goa. 5 of 16

December 31

Here I am sitting on a beach in Goa looking at the sunset, in this day both meaningless and loaded with expectation. It is windy and the Arabian sea is ruffled. The waves and the reflection give life to a golden snake, continuously swirling towards me in a familiar movement: the same I saw the moon create in Big Sur this summer. The sun rushes ahead, eager to bring this last day to you, the ones I love, so far away. Soon this same sky, now so passionately colored, will become transparent and reveal once again the enormous emptiness and darkness of the universe around us.

What a kind miracle that such terrifying isolation should be hidden from us during our active day by such an elegant blue blanket. The same one that keeps us alive. The same one that also regularly disappears in itself to still remind us of where we stand. The way we have converted sunsets from the panic of the disappearance of life light and color to romantic and reflective is utterly similar to all the other 'conversions' we do unconsciously every day. Fear is intrinsic to our existence. The more we hide it from ourselves, the more we fall down the cave. And do we really want to spend this brief moment of existence in a hole, where all we see are the infamous reflections on the walls? At the same time I ask myself how many more times I will have the strength to intentionally destroy the comfortable cocoon I have had to rebuild so often already. How many times will I have the courage to stand in naked isolation in dark night, knowing full well that every time it will be darker and colder than the previous? Only I need to remember how every sunrise is equally more piercing of true clarity. Is it thus the ego or the fear that I need to chase? So far I have only really acknowledged both the power and the links between the two. I see now the ego driving me around all day, the flirtatious mind desperately active in hiding both the night and the sunrise.  How I wish at times that I could skip a few cycles and jump ahead to the next chapter! It might not be about the destination, but the journey sure is rough at times.

 January 7   What is 'real'? We arbitrarily set reality and imaginary apart in an illusion of control. We choose to believe that the 'real' is scientific, conscious, controllable, and predictable. But of course it is not. So we narrow our focus more and more, sinking deeper and deeper in a dark hole that is more unreal than any reality could ever be.  We negate all that is there to help us: our dream, feelings, visions, fantasies. The moon is just a big rock, a butterfly is only an insect with big wings, and a 'moment' is nothing but a moment.

The unconscious retreats and becomes our own enemy, chasing us with doubts and fears and dissatisfaction. We intellectualize and rationalize even more, hoping in a relief, but to no avail. Some choose to retreat, to hide behind all sorts of distractions.  Most, when confronted with a crack in their 'reality', choose the blue pill: forget all about it and go back to somewhere where the crack cannot be seen. I chose to jump in the dark, eat the red pill, the one with no return path, slipping right through and into the crack. I am piercing through the layers of our collective conditioning, in awe of a fluid space, all of a sudden free of borders and walls. I surrender, and in so doing I am freed. Partly. That is how I find myself in Goa. The full moon rave at the beach, by the temple, under the palms. There is a fully dressed cow dancing to the beat of trance music. Yes, she is truly shaking on all four legs, following the rhythm of the music.

I close my eyes and the music takes forms, in shapes and colors that my body instinctively follows. At sunrise the party moves inland, in a bamboo forest at the bottom of a valley. And goes on until sunset. I meet Lorenzo, American, tanned, tattooed, in his late 40's. He has also been to Esalen and Burning Man (a new community in the making!). And his wife, who's name I did not understand, beautiful, young, delicate. We share a moment in time, deep strong brief. We part as brothers, maybe never to meet again. And it is OK.

 January 15   I have decided to join a Yvengar yoga intensive course and am lucky to find place in one of only 4 Tee-Pee's that are within the complex that sits under the palms, caught between the sea and a river. The location is stunning, in splendid isolation. An island of peace in the craziness of Goa. After a few days I enter for the first time in some of those 'impossible' asanas. A sense of accomplishment: at least the body is responding! That night the moon smiled at me in her reflection from the river, the shadows of the palm trees bowing respectfully.  The class (there is about 30 of us) is a muesli mix of ages, accents, personalities, and life histories. I met Chris, he tells me about the sexual habits of a famous writer. I feel an initial sense of disenchantment, almost betrayal. But after further consideration I realize that I am placing a moralistic and conditioned judgment on his sexual life.

I am caught in the old paradigm that a 'spiritual' person should have a monastic life, that enlightenment only comes through privation, sacrifice, suffering.  I share my thoughts with Chris and in reply he tells me about his latest research on sexual behaviors in the stone age. Apparently the ratio of testicular volume to body mass is a sure indicator if an animal species is monogamous or not. Of course I ask, and it turns out that humans are somewhere in between.

I argue that we are different because of our consciousness. He counter-argues that consciousness gives us the power to love, which is different from our natural sexuality. We end up disagreeing a bit on whether it is possible to love one person but fuck many. But then again... Looking back in history, it is true that monogamy has mostly been driven by need, and that the wealthier members of most communities always seem to have been polygamous.  Also, I have reached some time ago the conclusion that love is not an institution, nor any of the many forms of dependency (father/mother figure, need of affection or security, etc.). But rather the conscious decision by two individuals to follow the same path for a period of time. Together, but still respecting the individual identities. So, if we are truly free of all conditioning and dependencies, can this go as far as been monogamous emotionally but not physically? Most would agree rationally that jealousy is a form of possession, but is a long step to actually not feel the pain at the idea of our loved one being fucked by someone else! In my personal case I feel like monogamy has been a social conditioning, while polygamy has been a parental conditioning. And the path forward is impossible to predict, control, or judge.

January 22   Midnight, riding on my motorbike back to my Tee-Pee tent. A long ride back in the complete darkness of Indian back-roads. The sky is full of stars, there is no moon, and the air is warm. All of a sudden I am on the long bridge over the river, the one that took 12 years to build. Orange lights on high poles disappearing in the distance. Nobody else on the road. Two realities mixing together: that one of other such bridges back 'at home', and the one I am supposed to be in. Where such bridges are an abnormality, an exception that is there to catch me off-guard in my perception of space and time. Four cows sleeping in the middle of the road bring me back.

February 03

Surf Club, my local hangout bar here in Arambol since a couple of weeks. Communities and friendships start fast here. It is sunset; I am lying on a hammock. The two local waiters are playing pool in the background. The palm leaves all around us slowly turn into intricate golden patterns with the last sun rays. Time is different here. Well, so is space. What a folly to live in the belief of one singular and linear reality.  Then suddenly everybody leaves for some birthday party. I will follow, later.