#like I follow a bunch of podcasts that I plan to listen to

[dontmindmejustdoomscrolling]

I have so many cool horror podcasts to listen to…. Unfortunately there are so many other cool horror podcasts to listen to…

[lastweeksshirttonight]

We're back with Strike Force Five episode two, which seems to have randomly dropped at some point after I went to bed on Saturday. I enjoy when podcasts just randomly drop episodes, honestly, makes the whole thing feel more authentically chaotic.

I started listening to this while trying to figure out how to draft for fantasy football. I am not a football fan. I don't follow football. I don't know how to do fantasy. I very much procrastinated on that by doing these notes. My team is graded C- by Yahoo btw, which is two full grades higher than I expected.

Notes under the cut y'all.

This episode opens with Fallon talking about how he forgot his show's shirts glow in the dark. Apparently Billy Crystal tried to sleep in one recently and discovered this; John also noted a time when he was trying to get his infant son to sleep while wearing one of Fallon's shirts and saying it glowed "too well".

The audience for this podcast is obviously 30-something office drones like me. I say this because Atlassian is now running ads during the podcast. They must sense that everyone listening to this has it open in tab one while having their task-overrun Jira boards open in tabs two through five. John also completely "ruins" this ad - which was very on the rails for a decent amount of time! - by suggesting that Atlassian sounds like "one of those plans G. Gordon Liddy had to relect Nixon". Fallon also claims Atlassian is the name of his Fortnite character. (I wonder how my boss feels about both of those lol)

Everyone opens by briefly talking about how many staff they have. Stephen has 210, Kimmel has about 180 + 13 writers + a bunch of crew, Fallon thinks he has 305, and John jokingly says he has 500 people before admitting he misses his legal and research staff. He's ready to say things he thinks are true, instead of "things that are legally defensible".

Stephen: "Would you guys be okay if I had a little Casamigos, I got a bottle right here...?" John: "It's 7:30 in the morning, why not?" Seth: "That's like a 24 ounce 7-11 cup..." I'm so glad this is all in an auditory medium.

John is going to continue shitting on whatever alcohol company he shat on last week, and called it "pond water". I am guessing it's somehow related to Bud Light but that doesn't really track with tequila advertising, so who knows. I have in a past life had Bud Light Margarita in a Bag once, maybe John also suffered that unique hell.

If it IS Bud Light John is talking about, I have no idea how Stephen talking about Budweiser wanting him to be the voice for a Budweiser energy drink/caffeinated beer called B to the E/B 2 the E didn't get cut. This was in about 2001-2002, so well before Four Loko, and the ad copy contained things like "your friends are heading home AND YOU'RE JUST GETTING STARTED!" (John is quietly dying in the background the entire fucking time before Googling if it ever came out. It did! Fallon is flatly like "that's illegal" in a completely baffled tone early on.)

We are 8 minutes into an hour-long podcast. Just informing you, in case you were wondering. Why yes I am obsessed/bad at football why do you ask

Kimmel insists that his early seasons - "for the first eight to eleven years" - were the worst of anyone's on the podcast. He said this after talking about, on his show, Mr. T and Jim Belushi hating each other and almost about to fight each other, his cousin doing pillow-fights early on and causing a catastrophe one episode by fighting Lennox Lewis culminating with Anna Nicole Smith falling into a cake, and another pillow fight with Tom Arnold ruining his suede jacket. I forget that Kimmel is partially of the Jerry Springer era, if not on his late-night show then from his other work, and this just really reminded me of that.

Mariah Carey wanted to be interviewed by Seth Meyers during Christmas in a functional sleigh. John tells a story about watching Watch What Happens Live where Andy Cohen, on live TV by himself, said that Mariah Carey was in the building but would not sit on the side where guests usually sit on his show and was desperately trying to fill time. Mariah seems fun.

If I had to imagine Hell for Stephen Colbert, it would be "having to fill in for a guest on The Daily Show and turning down an advanced screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring". That scenario seems tailor-made to completely destroy him.

I'm glad I remember that Ben and Jerry bit Stephen and Fallon are talking about. I would love to know what this whole explanation sounds like to someone who does not remember the whole "best friends" late night "wars" of the time. Here's the bit btw. (Your daily reminder that the CC website sucks ass.)

I forgot Fallon started his show two weeks before Seth. I must have completely blanked out how quickly all of those hosts changed in 2014 (and then John starting the same year).

I'm with John on this one, "Allen key" makes waaaaaay more sense than "Allen wrench". It's a fucking key! The amount of shit I've had to put together with those goddamn things, it's not a wrench at ALL.

One thing I learned today: chairs are very serious business for most of the hosts. Fallon keeps a chair backstage to see how someone will look in chairs on the set, and to confirm that's okay with the guests. Seth, meanwhile, had chairs that John feel like he was being interviewed to be on Seth's show. And Stephen has all different sizes of chairs, to make everyone feel comfortable when they're on the show. (This is where things go predictably off the rails, as Seth then claims he has chairs that get smaller and smaller to keep guests on their toes.)

John's guest are was the most expensive part of his set, and they never used it. Somehow that doesn't surprise me. I was shocked they have a guest booker, though. (Stephen: "Wow what a cushy gig!")

Kimmel's live show ceased being live when Thomas Jane said "fuck" nineteen times on air and affiliates/censors were mad. Apparently on network you CAN technically say anything past ten p.m., according to Kimmel, but that's not the reality of the situation.

Seth: "People forget about the early 2000s. If you were a sports fan, you would often say, 'I wonder who won the big game... let's watch the Kimmel monologue.'" This is exactly what the 2000s were like, kids.

Seth and Fallon both were told by SNL showrunner Lorne Michaels that it would take them 18 months to get comfortable with their shows and figure out how to use them. Seth definitely felt that was wrong and he'd only take 6 months... but the first time he started the show from behind his desk was almost 18 months to the day from his first episode.

Stephen has an unaired 3-minute opening credits sequence that he wants to show on his last episode if possible. John also had a longer title sequence that he loved, but that his producer said he'd be constantly going over for time and he'd need to cut it down, lest he get continually furious over not having enough time for his actual show.

Fallon talks about how his first interview was with notoriously reticent and quiet Robert DeNiro, who gave Fallon one-word answers for literally everything. John asks if anyone told him he was starting from a high difficulty degree, but is interrupted by Stephen remembering a Space Train sketch in the middle of Fallon's interview featuring DeNiro.

Stephen remembers more about Fallon's show than Fallon does, which is wild. Stephen probably remembers more about everyone's show than they do, based on the first two episodes.

Stephen calling The Colbert Report "a totally different beast and maybe doesn't even fit in this conversation" made me sad. Tell me all the Report gossip!!!

Stephen telling the story of how he made the Public Access Show for Monroe, Michigan prior to doing late night is incredible. I remember watching him and Eminem do that show the day the internet became aware of it, and it is just a fascinating bit of transitional Colbert work. Also, had no idea they took over a real show... or that they got almost 0 viewers for it, lol. Here's the link to the bit, for your viewing pleasure:

Fallon must realize that John has said literally nothing for a while, because he asks how the first episode of Last Week Tonight went. John actually talks about hosting The Daily Show for three months. He says he'd never interviewed anyone before then (I'm guessing he means that as in "I've never interviewed someone seriously and with the eye of not taking the piss out of them", because he'd done MANY filmed interviews for correspondent pieces before then) and talks about the episode where the power was cut. They taped the episode on a camcorder and had to feed it to Comedy Central through Stephen's office.

Stephen then talks about how his first episode almost doesn't make it to air because it couldn't be exported from Avid. Everyone in the editing bay insists this is fine, and it did end up being fine, but the contrast between how CBS editing works and John having to go to another office to feed a show to Comedy Central is so interesting.

Stephen also kicked down a door after this. Please enjoy this mental image, you freaks.

John and Stephen sharing a bitter laugh over John's joke about Les Moonves in the background is fantastic.

John is the first person to bring up that Ryan Reynolds turned around Wrexham the team AND the city. I really should watch that show.

We now return to Last Week Tonight, which lawyers refused to allow to be live. (Knowing John's comedic sensibilities, I completely understand Legal's stance.) He acknowledges that they had too many ideas going together in the first episodes, including a pre-taped guest. The big thing they learned was that they were doing one show a week, which lead to research coming in throughout the week that undermined their segments, rewriting whole shows on Thursday, and the realization that doing the show that way was completely unsustainable. Having watched those early episodes recently (and I promise I'm still doing that in the background), this context totally explains the franticness and weird pacing early on. Of course things feel more didactic and surface level - they were writing full episodes in two days! The show completely restaffed and changed after year one, and John's "bones were as hollow as a sparrow". He also knew that anyone who didn't like episode one was going to hate episode two, because it was about the death penalty.

Seth's first guests were Amy Poehler and Joe Biden, because they'd been on Parks and Rec together and Biden gladly accepted being after Amy.

Seth's misplaced confidence in his pink eye sketch is very relatable.

Fallon texting everyone that he is basically dying of heat stroke in his room and is trying to leave to save himself is hilarious. Poor Jimmy, he's suffering and getting clowned so hard for it. AND THEN Stephen talks about the opening of Fallon's first episode and all the change he dumped on his desk and him. And Fallon had to run up to the roof with change falling out of his clothes. Again, all this while Fallon is having a heat episode. As John says, "we should rename this 'Asphyxiating Jimmy Fallon'."

Fallon is also vaguely losing his mind and forgets he can talk on a podcast, because he keeps texting the others his thoughts.

They actually address the hosting schedule! Next episode, Stephen is hosting. After that, it's John (I'm excited for the inevitable LMFAO retrospective and/or extensive discussion of penii on rooves), then "James Theodore Fallon".

Thank you for reading this ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE BLOCK OF TEXT I'm so sorry that this is apparently my niche right now, thousands of words on a 45 min to 1 hr podcast featuring five white guys. One day the John pictures will again outnumber my blatherings, I promise.

[disasterarea-podcast]

Okay, wow, so a bunch of new people followed me. Hi! *waves shyly*

So just for a little Podcast 101 introduction:

My name is Jennifer and I’ve been doing this podcast since the very last day of 2015. I’m a neurodivergent bisexual with a very cute beagle mix named Professor Pancakes. I like road trips, gay romance novels, and little crafty things like paint by numbers kits and mini DIY dollhouses. My personal Tumblr is @trollprincess.

Each episode of the podcast is focused on one disaster in particular, although I do sometimes stretch one disaster over multiple episodes if necessary. For example, not long ago I covered the Grenfell Tower fire, which took three episodes. I’ve also covered tangentially related emergency organizations and groups like care teams and the RNLI.

I wish I could say I get an episode out a week, but I have two other jobs, one full-time on the weekends and one part-time during the week, so episodes come out when they come out. To get them early, I have a Patreon for the podcast which can be found at the link below. I post episodes there as soon as I record them, and they’re also ad-free there.

My definition of “disaster” is pretty broad. I will cover anything from shipwrecks and plane crashes to financial disasters (“Cats” the movie is on my request list) to DashCon. Yes, I did an episode on DashCon. I couldn’t resist. (It’s episode 132, fyi.)

As an addendum to that, I also cover mass shootings. (It’s my podcast, I make the rules.) The rule for me on covering mass shootings is that the shooter’s name will only be mentioned once, if that, and that each victim will be named if possible.

As an addendum to THAT, disasters and tragedies can be very difficult subject matter. Please understand that episodes may feature death and destruction and decide accordingly if listening to each episode will be good for you and your mental health. I provide more specific trigger warnings at the start of each episode if necessary, but I will completely understand if a new episode is not something you’re comfortable listening to and you’d rather go watch Taskmaster or something.

There will be mentions of politics in episodes, but very much because emergency declarations, evacuations, regulations, etc. are an important part of disaster response. I also talk about mental health a lot, both for my own sake and to normalize talking about it. Like I said, difficult subject matter.

I am not a conspiracy theory sort of person. Don’t expect me to use the phrase “false flag” with anything other than sarcastic disdain.

You don’t have to start at the first episode! Honest. The first episodes of a podcast are almost a mess with people trying to find their footing, and this one is not any different. I’m not perfect, and I make mistakes, but I’m totally up for correcting myself if I screw up.

Every hundredth episode I cover a fictional disaster like a real one. Episode 100 was the attack on Nakatomi Plaza, and Episode 200 was the events aboard Trans American Flight 209. I’ve got a while before I decide what to do for episode 300.

Episodes I’d recommend: I’m very proud of episode 170 about United 93 (I read and watch everything I can get my hands on about 9/11, but I don’t plan to cover the whole event on the podcast because with the way I cover disasters, it’d be twenty episodes long at LEAST). I also very much recommend Episode 72 on the “Twilight Zone: The Movie” helicopter crash, mostly because someone told me to stop mentioning American movies so much so I did a whole episode in which I mentioned as many movie set disasters as possible. I’m also absurdly proud of myself for the Chernobyl series, because I never did finish the AIDS series and I learned I very much could pull it off. (I did mispronounce roentgen, but that’s on me.)

If you listen to older episodes, I have taken requests in the past but I am currently on hold with those because my request list right now is at 62 disasters. (Yes, including “Cats”.) So give it a little bit and let me get a few more done and we’ll see if we can start those back up again. 🙂

Thanks so much for being here!

[copperbadge]

Same, Polkadot. 

I’ve been taking it easy on the cleaning this holiday weekend, in part because I’ve been spending energy on socializing; I was at thanksgiving dinner for about half of Thursday, and I spent most of Friday at a housewarming/get-together for friends who just bought a gorgeous new place and had pie they needed help eating. Both were really fun, but I’m still working out where my boundaries are, energy-wise, for socializing -- with medication it’s a whole new ball game. I had a lot of fun at both events and I think both were entirely manageable, but I am a bit tired today so I’ve been...

Well, resting, in the sense that I’m not making myself do anything, and trying to stay off my ankle. I did a bunch of maintenance cleaning today (dishes, tidying) and a bunch of cooking, so I can’t say I haven’t been active. I made chicken stock, pizza, refried beans for nachos (I have tortilla chips to eat up), and then ran to Target for necessities -- mainly bug spray, since I find myself facing down a particularly endemic Chicago pest, some kind of tiny pantry beetle that has moved in behind the stove. I’ve been sweeping and scrubbing which I think has been driving them out of their hidey-holes, but I had no way of actually ridding myself of them wholesale since they live behind the appliances. So, I’ve got some spray and I’ve put down a preliminary layer of it everywhere I think they might be hiding. We’ll see how it goes. 

With only a few days left on NaClYoHo, I have a bunch of stuff I didn’t get to but didn’t expect to; I got a ton of stuff done on the more DIY end than the cleaning end. So I think for a few days I might try to focus on “digital” cleaning -- clearing out my “to watch” and “to listen” folders, sorting my “file these” files, et cetera. I really should just plan every November like this, because one does get very tired towards the end of the month and sitting down is a great help.

Listened to a bunch of podcasts while cooking, but mostly old episodes of A Date With Dateline, because Kimberly&Katie have very soothing voices and it’s not super vital to follow everything they say to enjoy it.

And then I built a kitchen hutch while listening to Argentina beat Mexico in a Cup prelim (Messi just LIT UP when he scored), but I’ll post photos of that tomorrow because I still have to assemble and install the drawers. 

[ID: A photograph of Polk the tabby, lying on the back of the sofa; she has her head pillowed on the edge of a quilt, turned towards the camera, and her eyes are clearly about to close for a nice long catnap.]

[rigelmejo]

Okay the 'lazy' study post ended up being several 'pages' long (I will put it under a readmore), about 1-2 year's worth of study plan, and the step 3 just could not be fully 'lazy.' I could not think of a way to make the transition from 'warming up to learning' to 'watching and reading stuff for native speakers' to be super low effort. Because the thing is... even if you memorize nothing, don't do intentional reviews, and just pick up words/understanding over time, well. Practicing the actual act of trying to understand is really mentally draining the first few months. It just is.

There's no way to really lessen the difficulty curve. You can try to delay the difficulty curve by reading graded readers and listening to learning podcasts longer, which might make the difficulty jump a little 'shorter.' Or you can try to purposely study/review a bunch of words, to prepare for the difficulty jump and make it 'shorter,' but then the purposely studying will also have it's own difficulties of increased focus and time demand required compared to the prior study plan you'd been doing.

And whether you do those additional things or not, when you actually read your first webnovel or try to get through your first episode of a cdrama entirely in chinese only... you're going to be trying to hard to recognize things you HAVE seen before, but never practiced recognizing at that density/speed, and trying hard to guess all the plethora of new UNKNOWN stuff, and the first several times your brain is probably going to be so busy trying to sort between 'known' and 'unknown' and 'unknown but can guess from context' and 'what's the main idea from what I know and guess' that it will not feel as simple as just 'going through something' until you've practiced doing watching/reading for a while. Even if the thing you watch/read is the easiest next step like a 1000 unique word novel, or re-watching a show you know very well from watching before in english.

I just can't make that step 3 totally low effort. The fact is even if you only study 1-2 hours a day like I suggest (in the post i'll put out) or 2-4 hours (if you're trying to rush through step 3 lol), those 1-2 hours will feel DIFFICULT for a few months. They might even feel difficult for 6+ months. For me, that stage felt difficult for 8-10 months (10 months if we count how hard the first graded readers for 2 months felt to read until I got used to them, and the other 8 months because I really just felt novels and shows were intensely confusing until I'd read like 50 chapters of webnovels, and watched 20 cdrama GYADL episodes all the way through). So you still can spend just 1-2 hours a day on it, but the difficulty during that time just takes a while to get easier, until your brain gets used to actually Recognizing and parsing the many words/grammar you've studied in the past. I think I studied 1-4 hours a day, most days during that stage, and like I said it still was several months of reading in tiny 20 minute bursts or watching cdramas in 10 minute chunks until I worked my way up to the full 40 minutes, because comprehending was just so mentally intensive. And I did look up words during this stage: not all unknown words, but keywords for main idea. I think this stage would work fine if someone looked up ALL unknown words (and can understand the rough main idea if they look up all unknown words), or none (as long as they pick materials they can follow the main overall idea of).

The main thing is: you'll keep increasing your vocabulary and clarifying your grammar understanding as long as you read/watch things you can roughly grasp the main idea of. You can clarify the main idea more if you look up words (just keywords or ALL unknown), or look up truly confusing grammar aspects you run into, which will allow you to read texts/watch shows that are a bit Higher Difficulty. But regardless of strategy, as long as you're doing enough to get the main idea gist, or picking materials where you already can get the main gist just by reading/watching, then you'll learn.

And even if you know enough words, and should understand everything, like when you start reading graded readers? The first few months just feel hard anyway. You have to practice comprehending what you've learned. After that, it still feels hard, but you've developed the skills to tell between 'what I know and just am practicing understanding in an actual material' versus 'what I've never seen before and need to guess or look up.' After those first few months, you develop the skills you got your native language when you were younger: reading a paragraph that is not entirely words/grammar you know and figuring out the main idea, watching a show you don't know all the words of and guessing what's going on based on the visuals. We all have done those before, for years of our lives, but everything is so much easier for us as adults with huge vocabularies we rarely on purpose watch say a lecture on particle physics when we've never heard of any concept mentioned in the lecture before. Learning to understand a new language is like that. You turn on something like say Spongebob in chinese, and for the first time in a long time you don't know all the words they're saying - but the visuals will make the story pretty clear anyway. The skill of learning new information from context, parsing the main idea from visuals and what you can understand, takes some practice to get used to heavily using again.

[lynmars79]

— MUTUAL CATCHUP —

tagged by @rinzukodas

LAST SONG: "Flow" from FF14 Endwalker. I was listening to a bunch of FF music earlier and that's one of the last ones on that playlist.

CURRENTLY WATCHING: Just Candela Obscura at the moment; haven't really been following the main Critical Role campaign for a few weeks. There's a buncha shows and films I do want to catch up on though...

THREE SHIPS:

Goliath/Elisa Maza (saw some saucy art the other day)

John Sheridan/Delenn (Reactor Mag's starting a B5 rewatch)

Clive Rosfield/Jill Warrick (Fire & Ice slowburn in FF16)

FAVORITE COLOR(s): Blues.

CURRENTLY INTO: Agreeing with Rin's change of wording here. So in no particular order:

Midst - Podcast, weird scifi western, 3 unreliable narrators, a fascinating cast and unique setting. Morally questionable people who think they're each in control of things (they're not) and a cult/government that uses morality for currency and social status. Hosted by Critical Role, but they let Third Person do their own thing. The videos are mildly animated art, the sound and music are amazing, I love how they use words and like combing through the transcripts, there are appendices with lore each episode. It's in its 3rd and final season, wrapping up a distinct story. Episodes are only 15-40ish mins long, 19 episodes a season. It's great please listen (with headphones on for the sound design).

FF7 Rebirth - Watching a friend play. It's pretty great but oh so many sidequests and minigames! The story changes are fascinating and often clarifies or explains things that were nonsense or ignored in the original. Adds new mysteries and oddities all its own. Adds in some things from side games in the same world (like Cissnei).

FF16 - Have to watch friends play this too as I have no PS5 and am waiting for the PC release. I love the characters and the overall story (tho I have my quibbles). Also could use some more sidequests and minigames, but Rebirth took all of them.

Flight Rising - clicky browser game where you breed pretty dragons, giving them patterns they can pass on to offspring. Can dress them up, give them familiars, play games, fight coliseum battles. I've been playing to one degree or another for 10+ years. I'm currently trying to catch up my neglected familiars and max out their bonds.

FIRST SHIP: Probably from the 1980s cartoons when I was a kid. I don't remember. There's been so many.

PLACE OF BIRTH: The clinic no longer exists, actually.

CURRENT LOCATION: My bedroom.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Happily Single

LAST MOVIE: Legit cannot remember; rarely watch movies, though there's plenty on my To Watch list…

CURRENTLY WORKING ON: an original fantasy story. I know the characters, I know the plot. I know the world state. Backstories. Figuring out where and when it starts, how characters get to various points and places (and what they change in my plans along the way). Have more research to do but want to have the general shape wrangled into place to narrow that down.

TAGGING: whoever wants to!

[t1meslayer]

Going in for round 2!

I had a lot of fun with my Debrief for "Stone-Cold Lovers (Ch. 3)," and I think there's a bunch of interesting, insightful aspects to my writing here given Splatoon's setting offers plenty of aquatic-themed worldbuilding.

So, let's get into it! Check out my full author's commentary below the cut — but only after you've had the chance to read "By Moonlight," my latest Splatoon fanfic.

I've been playing Splatoon since the 2015 original on Wii U. But to be completely honest, the series never hit me until Splat3. I never bought Octo Expansion (though I did watch most of it), so "Return of the Mammalians" may have just become the first time I truly appreciated how insane the series' lore is. Playing through the final battle during a road trip back from San Francisco with a couple of buddies is something I'll remember forever.

I also fell in love with Shiver and Marie as a couple, spawning a whole host of fanfictions.

But that's neither here nor there. Because this story is about Pearlina.

(The featured image evolved over time)

Another consequence of my foolishness circa Splatoon 2 is I didn't realize how much I liked Off the Hook's music. In fact, the origins of this very fanfic came from a brief obsession with Marina's piano-playing prowess on songs like "Tentacle to the Metal" when Splatoon 3 released in 2022. A connection to the 1st Movement of "Moonlight Sonata" was baked into the premise by their similar set of three notes playing in succession.

Though, I should be clear: I am not a classical music nerd, nor any kind of music nerd. I have a pretty terrible ear for music, and as a result don't listen to much (video game soundtracks notwithstanding, most of my ambient noise is YouTube videos, TV, or podcasts).

If we want to get really deep into the weeds of how pathetic I am, my main attachment to "Moonlight Sonata" stems from Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak (2002) on the GBA.

My rendition of Marina playing the song even ends at essentially the same point as this game's usage, since it's baked into my soul.

When's Hamtaro coming to Nintendo Switch Online, cowards?

That being said, I largely based the in-universe playing on this video by Rousseau, a YouTube channel that creates fancy visuals for piano covers of classical and pop music:

My original plan was to have Eight gift the Beethoven book to Pearl and Marina as an oddity acquired through raiding Grizzco facilities following "Return of the Mammalians." However, the idea came back in full-force with the release of Splatoon 3: Side Order. There was a brief period where I considered applying to the Pearlina zine "You and Me Against the Universe!" with something similar, but that was before I fell into my drive to write for zines.

Side Order definitely feels like a test run for more fleshed-out Roguelike modes in future Splatoon games, but I'm enjoying it all the same. And I just had to include tidbits of lore like Eight joining Off the Hook's world tour.

As one final note on "Moonlight Sonata," this is the first time I've written a musical performance as prose. My Mariver fic "Harmonic Frequencies" ends with a bit of choreography for Deep Cut's tribute to "Calamari Inkantation," but that's about as far as it goes. Luckily, my sister is studying Music Education and Music Performance in college (and she graduates soon!), so I was able to lean on her as a source of knowledge.

She just had to suffer through my insufferable gay seafood to get there.

Her main advice was to think of writing musical prose not as a literal translation of sheet music, but instead to really hone in on the emotions of listening to music. It took a bit to figure out the right balance between describing the performance itself and the more emotive images it conjures in Pearl's head, but I love the outcome!

My sister said, "Also the moonlight stuff is fire af." Clearly I've peaked.

===

Fun Fact: She told me I should look into the creepier aspects of "Moonlight Sonata" while writing. Did you know that the song is dedicated to then-16-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi (per Brittanica), a student whom he fell in love with (per New York Times)?

Because I didn't.

===

My presentation of Pearl changed a fair bit over the course of this writing. Pearl's They/She pronouns were pretty spur of the moment, and the idea of They/She Napoleon has since become a running in-joke between me and my beta reader, the incredible artist Trybard (who was the source of my great screencap preview post that I blocked out for anonymity of personal socials).

Pearl with full tattoo sleeves was also a sudden decision that's entirely inspired by a Twitter post; I unfortunately cannot find that post anymore, it disappeared after I shifted pages. Likewise, Pearl learning Octarian is part-cute girlfriend stuff, part-excuse to use the joke about them reading Beethoven as "Beat-Havin'" that came to me in a flash of divine inspiration.

Marina doesn't get nearly as much love in the personal headcanon department, it was Trybard who suggested she might wear a citrus-y perfume smell. I added the motor oil.

I also added the fact that she's living it up in Pearl's downtown apartment, and lending out goofy manga-themed sleep shirts.

Off the Hook's apartment setting only includes the windowed hallway and main foyer (which I hope adds to the sense that Pearl is rich enough to afford the most ridiculously huge apartment of all time). However, there are two tidbits about the setting that I quite enjoy:

First, did you catch the bit about the charred piece of hull? I wanted to keep it subtle in writing, but my intent was referencing the NILS Statue! Did Pearl or Marina take the trophy? Who knows.

Second, Off the Hook's wall of records went through hefty trial-and-error. I settled on the idea of giving them Gold/Platinum/Diamond records (ala the real-world practice of Recording Industry Association of America certification) while listening to the collective works of Off the Hook. Given this is pre-Splat3, I imagined that the new recording of "Nasty Majesty" and their Splatfest theme "Color Pulse" would have among the most attention.

I also imagined that Splatoon wouldn't just use an exact 1-1 copy of our record certifications. Thus, the Recording Industry Association of Inkadia (RIAI) was born.

Rather than using precious metals to delineate sales, I decided to go with the more Splatoon-feeling marker of "neon records." I actually did a minor amount of research, predominately leaning on the website of Brigham Young University physics and astronomy professor Harold T. Stokes to figure out Neon's color spectrum.

Using this, I equated:

Violet = Gold (500,000 sales)

Green = Platinum (One Million sales)

Yellow = Double Platinum (Two Million sales)

Red = Diamond (Ten Million sales)

I even formatted the text to look like an actual RIAA plaque, just with the color's name rather than a literal record. AO3's HTML formatting can only go so far.

I used the "acronym" formatting to add extra context in the form of each song's to-date sales, which was all I originally planned to say. Learned all about that option in my horrific opening chapter to the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet fic "Paradiso," in which Arven has a nightmare that breaks the text "House of Leaves" style.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote.

I could go way deeper into the minutia Pearl's boisterous tone or Marina utilizing mechanical terms, but the broad strokes of where certain ideas originate seems like a better use of my "Debrief" time. Let me know what more you might want to see me discuss going forward, or what ideas for Splatoon fics you wanna see added to my eternal backlog! (The poll-winning Stardew Valley piece has to take priority now — no more game release distractions~)

Though, as one final note: Yes, the title is a Sailor Moon reference.

You're welcome.

[oswednesday]

Affirmation: You are so cool and fun and you have impeccable taste and it was so delightful to hear you delighted about Writing and Story improvements in the most recent episode of the podcast because your delight is like contagious omg I had to stop myself from going to listen to Halloween at the Gas Station instead of following my plans to listen to Unwell at my roommate's recommendation (I'm still gonna go listen to HatGS I just gotta figure out where to slot it in dhdh)

i need to catch up to unwell!! i think its wrapping soon? i like it so much, are you far into it yet? theres a line in it that stuck with me forever since and its so Aesthetic its so Core its so The Moment its such a rewarding listen to but i do have a beef here and there about character logic but such is such, theres like this guuuuuy and then this other guuuuuy who is like such a gnc slay and theres this peeerson and even the lesbian ladies are a delight how rare to actually be written characters and not just like, check boxes or plot devices and it handles certain topics with much more body than some other stuff like really in the Gut

but also hehe thank you! please do a listen through when you have the time for it! check out his little blog too i had a bunch of fun doing that recently, thank you for all these kind words / x \!! like omg genuinely

[uneconomy]

There’s this whole social media detox thing but like have you ever made a list of things you consume on the internet. Terrible. East Asians literally killed the internet and we are suffering.

So I really like podcasts and I thought like I’m fairly progressive and like the longest running podcast I’ve listen to is by two black queer people. And like the weird thing is I felt like I’ve looked nothing really is about politics or like how the government is run, like how do big development real estate projects runs. But I guess it’s fine because we can laugh at Trump and swoon over Obama.  Like I’ve listened to the couple of Asian American podcasts and like basically it’s evidence that they are cardboard people at best.  Asian American are really terrible too but here is a list of podcasts I’ve listen because I feel like I really tried to look for interesting and meaningful media. ( And like that’s why we internet right, why do we succumb to internet overlords.) 

Current Podcast List (Yeah it’s mostly by African Americans cause who always gets it and much more (I actually never know what to do about the hierarchy, internet hierarchy  is also weird ) 

Vibe Check with Sam Sanders 

Into It with Sam Sanders

The Stacks with Traci Thompson

The Read with Crissles and Kid Fury

Freaknomics MD

Hyper something with Sean Hayes

Happy Hour Pop Culture 

Code Switch

Lady Don’t Take No

Thirteen 

(The following is either seasonally or post whenever)

How to Citizen with Baruntude 

This is Good For You

When Diana Met

Marlon and James Read Dead People

Point Forward

Revisionist History

Legacy of Speed

Bitter Brown Femmes

What’s Your Problem

Okay Podcast

Not Overthinking

the unmute podcast

(Sometimes I listen to)

Deep Background With Noah Feldman

Some of My Best Friends Are

How to be AntiRacist

Tim Ferris Show (the guest has to be really interesting)

I generally check for Jamal Greene because podcasts are weirdly apolitical and he’s like the only person working. 

I tried looking for Heather McGhee podcast but it’s like only on Spotify I think.  It took 5 years to actually get to read a book by a black economist and now I have to figure out where they put her podcast. There’s another one I think it’s called Third Wave Urbanism podcast but I think they stopped publishing. 

My Shit List because as an Asian American, like it’s horrendous how these people got a platform and didn’t talk about the chronic mess of being in two technospheres.  Like East Asians it’s bad enough there’s authoritarianism and a whole bunch people were look cool bro let’s keep doing that but than also as the internet is about information East Asian also failed their people and like the future.  What is up with that.

NuVoices

Time to Say Goodbye

GGV

Escape Plan A

China Insider Sports

Authentic as Fuck

Also I wouldn’t say shit list but stop making junk infotainment like I don’t went to see anymore sex expert podcasts or wellness or girlboss it’s like so dumb. Millennials are now going to be 40 we want to know about the world.  For all those into galaxy go pack your bags and go and make room for those who want to do something about it.  Earth is pretty cool. 

[msvorderofoperations]

Another dream journal, and this one is a real weird one.

It starts out with hearing about a new video game from a podcast I listen to regularly. It is described as a weird indie game that somehow has gotten away with having some licensed mecha designs (specifically Gurren Lagann) in it while having nothing to do with the show they came from. It sounds very interesting, so I end up playing it for myself.

I am immediately struck by the strange but impressive visual design. It is cel shaded (like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker) but still maintains a great level of detail. It also doesn't really play like most games I tend to play. There's not much actual gameplay, it's mostly cutscenes driven by occasional choices you have to make. It also becomes quite clear that this story is VERY weird. It begins with people working together at a garage to try and capture roaming mechs to scrap them for parts so they can attempt to build their own. Everyone has a reasonably powerful but patchwork car to try and corral the mechs into the space where they can be disassembled.

The choices have not even begun at this point, it's all still in the preamble to set the story. The cutscene continues with having two small but very nimble mechs herded into the garage to be taken apart. Notably however, they are still operational and are still quite dangerous. So everyone piles out of their cars and posts up next to the entrance of the garage. This eventuality has been planned for, as a great many large logs of wood have been piled next to the door. The plan is that once they try to escape out of the building, the group pushes over the logs and either disables the mechs by damaging them or makes the ground so unstable that they pitch over.

This is not what happens, however. The logs get released, but nothing comes out the door. At least, not what was expected. Instead, some old guy appears at the door and informs everyone that they are to be recruited into an unrelated conflict. No one has any idea what this means, but people begin falling immediately ill and the player is presented with the first choice: let the illness take you, or reach into your mouth. I opt to reach in, and pull out a fully grown emperor scorpion. Unfortunately, this is something of a false choice, as once you pull it out another one appears. Eventually the player character succumbs, and falls into a coma.

It fades back in to a command centre, where all of the people that were present at the time of the en-scorpioning happened. As the old man said, they are now fighting an ongoing war against a fully unseen threat. The way that this manifests however is wholly unique. It is shown that if power is lost in the conn, or if a majority of people fall asleep, random objects will turn into other things. Such as: a mouse (the input device) turning into a tennis ball with a string tied to it, or a input panel turns into a bunch of chewing gum pellets. These changes are reversible, but while the changes have occurred the object can act as a conduit for the person we are fighting against. This makes maintaining a defence very difficult, as one might imagine.

So it follows that a lot of preventative maintenance must be done to ensure constant operations, as well as aggressively staggered shifts to make sure that too many people don't fall asleep. Additionally, this change and control extends to the world at large, so it's very difficult and dangerous to trust the outward appearance of anything. This manifests in a number of choices you have to make going forward. A consistent thing that comes up is finding resources of varying kinds left out inside something that could be construed as a mouth. I am aware enough to not trust them when I come across them, and will only extract the stuff if I have something I can prise them loose with, without risking a limb.

Soon, after doing random tasks to keep the lights on (literally) I have some free time to explore a nearby shopping centre. As I do so, however, a cascading changing event happens. First it's small things, but as random people succumb, it starts changing big things. Until entire stores now are subject to the will of this unseen adversary. I will say at this point, that while the first examples I gave were relatively innocuous, the changes and animation of these things very much has the vibes of the flesh technology in Videodrome, which is to say POWERFULLY unnerving.

Eventually, the character I'm playing as gets stuck in one of these spaces with no way out, and gets engulfed. Shockingly, however, he does not die, nor has anyone else in this event. We've all been taken to an auditorium, where a lecture is taking place. As it happens, it's the old man who is responsible for the change at the garage and the person this war was ostensibly against. It turns out however, that the whole point of this conflict is to prepare us for an even greater threat. He has been holding off another entity that has far more destructive potential that has only sporadically made attempts to change things on earth. While they are similar in their manifestations, the old man can change things into others that look similar whereas the otherworldly entity can only change things that have a similar function. In their first attempt, they turned a pair of glasses that someone was wearing into a focal element of a ridiculously powerful laser, and destroyed the entire building that person was in.

The character I'm playing as begins to freak out, because they wear glasses and want to know if they are going to become a vector for the destruction this entity wants to wreak on earth. Some vague dream-logic justification is given on how that won't happen, and it is about here that I woke up.

[aristocraticelegance]

I read so many books in May! We’re back, baby!!! Granted, this was mostly because I had a few depression weekends where I just binge read all day, but you win some, you lose some.

Grimdark round:

The Justice of Kings, Richard Swan (2022). I enjoyed reading this one, but overall I ended up with mixed feelings. It teetered just on the edge of certain world building pet peeves I have, where authors want to slap a bunch of disjointed details from medieval/early modern Europe into a fantasy setting without following through. The biggest culprits are usually religion and the role of women in society, which end up muddled and incoherent, and if the writing had been worse I probably would have given up on this. I generally enjoyed the characters, and the fantasy Perry Mason stuff, and the weird eldritch horrors that show up in the second half. I think it’s weird that none of the central characters believe in their own religion, and it’s weirder that every female character aside from the narrator ends up dead or mad. The only woman thanked in the acknowledgements is the author’s wife, so: lol.

A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, Anna Smith Spark (2023). It’s wild that both of these books get thrown under ‘grimdark’ because this one??? Is art. It’s amazingly dark, written with skill. Generally, the plot follows a character from the Mabinogion (or similar mythic tales) who ended up as a farmer and mother of three, and has to contend with her past catching up with her. The writing is gorgeous, and it whips between the mythic and the mundane realities of her life in a way that enhances both. Highly recommended. I will say that the cover/title aren’t doing it any favors—if any book deserves an Alan Lee cover, it’s this one.

Space ambassadors round:

(I recently listened to the episodes on these two on the Wizards vs. Lesbians podcast, which I also recommend)

Translation State, Ann Leckie (2023). I really liked the Imperial Radch trilogy, but Provenance didn’t really stick with me so I wasn’t planning on reading this one. I’m glad I did, because my favorite weirdos, the Presger translators, are back! I like that even learning more about them doesn’t make them any less weird. You could read this as a standalone if you’re more interested in weird aliens and diplomacy than space battles.

Foreigner, C. J. Cherryh (1994). I’ve had mixed experiences with Cherryh’s books—I liked Heavy Time, but I bounced off parts of Downbelow Station. I bought this on a whim but wasn’t really sure if I’d be into it, so I was pleasantly surprised! What struck me initially was how dramatically publishing conventions have changed—there are like four chapters (and over fifty years) of setup before the main character shows up. If you tried to write a book like that today, the publisher would shoot you. I actually wonder if there was a reverse requirement, that you had to start a sci-fi book with ‘hard’ SF because no one wanted to read about a hapless ambassador unless you tricked them. Anyways, this book is largely Shōgun in space, which could be a downside, but the characters are fun. My favorite subplot is the main character’s attempt to steer infrastructure towards building train routes rather than highways. This is what sci-fi needs.

Chaos round: Spies

I didn’t think these two had anything in particular in common, but technically they do both involve spies.

The Nova Incident, Dan Moren (2022). Book 3 in the series. Basically Cold War spies in space. I really like this series, even though I preordered this book and then didn’t read it for two years. There’s a good balance between the plot/problem of the individual books and the overarching background plot, and generally they are a fun read. I preordered the next one, hopefully I’ll actually read it sooner.

The Electric Forest, Tanith Lee (1979). This is a wild one. Content warning for … not great treatment of disability, which is my main complaint. Otherwise it’s got all the Tanith Lee greats: gorgeous descriptions, beautiful people acting horribly, something deeply fucked up going on. There is a twist at the end that completely reframes the entire book, and I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it. It’s interesting, but it kind of undercuts the beginning of the book. Or does it? Idk.

[ammenvs3000f23]

Week 2

Describe your ideal role of environmental interpreter. What might it entail? Where might it be? What skills might you need? (Keep these all-in mind as you begin to work on your assignments – tailor these to that ideal job!)

When I think about my ideal role in environmental interpretation, no specific job comes to mind. I do however know the type of impact I want to have, no matter where I am working, I want to help people obtain a deeper understanding of natural areas, and if possible obtain a personal relationship with the land in order to spark an interest- or even passion- about its future. 

A lot of the research done in ecological sciences is released through scientific papers. However the amount of scientific jargon used in peer review papers renders the information virtually inaccessible to the general public (those who do not have a background in science). After taking botany courses at Guelph the past couple years, my perception of the natural world has changed. Looking at a tree, or a flower, or any plant, I no longer saw just a a green stem and some leaves - I saw all the energetic processes and interspecies relationships that have evolved over millennia to allow this being to survive and reproduce in the most efficient and successful way possible. Learning the mechanisms of plants made my appreciation for them grow tenfold. Many people, especially those who have grown up in urban landscapes don’t often see a tree as anything more than that thing that grows on the corner of their yard or street. My goal is to be able to communicate nature science to the public in a way that makes them care more about the natural world. From there, more people will care about the destruction of these beings and ecosystems, and hopefully then we can create real change for endangered areas in need of protection or restoration.

A couple years ago, I spent some time at Fairy Creek, on southern Vancouver Island, protesting the logging of old growth forests. Many people I talked to outside of the movement had either not heard of the protests at all or had, and just pictured a bunch of tree-hugging hippies in the woods getting in the way of natural resource extraction. Although that isn’t totally off base- many of them didn’t understand the intrinsic value of these ecosystems as the media outlets broadcasting the news were limited or largely biased. I believe understanding is caring so if I can help people to understand what makes endangered areas like this important then, with luck, I can make them care about the future of them. Hopefully then they will be more inclined to stand up to government figures and big companies that plan to wipe them out.

One nature interpreter I love to follow on social media and podcasts is “Nerdy by Nature”. I find him quite clear and interesting in the way that he explains ecological issues at hand and why it is important for an area to be protected or restored. I would love to hear more recommendations for any nature podcasts, so if you listen to any please share!

Here's a picture from Fairy Creek

[nenekiribookwyrm]

April 2023 Update!

Happy end of the month! I've got quite a bit of news to share so let's get into it.

I finished my project for the Werewolf Jam and I'm pretty pleased with how May The Hunt Be Everlasting and May Nature Guide You Home turned out. I think I did something neat within the time frame of the jam and I got a chance to jump back into Twine development after many years away. I also used public domain art and some creative edits in GIMP to make the cover art for the game. I didn't have quite enough time to draw or paint an image like I wanted to, so I felt like this was a good compromise. If you're interested in playing the game yourself, it's available for free and runs in your browser over at: https://nenekiri.itch.io/may-the-hunt-be-everlasting-and-may-nature-guide-you-home

The voting period for the Werewolf jam runs until May 6th, so if you have the time I'd appreciate a review and what you thought about the game!

I was lucky enough to have a poem of mine featured on the Voice of Dog this month for National Poetry Month and it turned out really good! This piece of writing is a really personal one to me and I'm glad that Rob let me read it for the podcast this month. If you'd like to listen to it you can do so here: https://thevoice.dog/episode/forest-by-nenekiri-bookwyrm

There's going to be a few more of my poems planned to be read out on the podcast at a later date, so I made a poem section for the website. If you'd like to get a sneak peek of what could be featured you can read my poetry in my collection I have on my SoFurry page: https://www.sofurry.com/browse/folder/stories?by=520851&folder=66067

I've sent in my author bio for the Post-Self short story anthology titled Clade and gotten word that Madison is targeting a summer time release. So get excited for that later in the year! I wrote my bio in-universe and I really like how it turned out. Since the story focuses on more human characters rather than the usual furry animals, I opted to use my human name. Don't cast any binding spells on me with that deep knowledge! It's also a bit of an experiment to see how using that name works out. If I end up writing more fiction that deals with humans primarily over animals, I may end up using that name for those kinds of stories in the future. Would be an easy way to let potential readers who are familiar with my work engage with the kinds of stories they're looking for.

I've started working on a new big project! Until I hear back about the short story anthology with dragons, I'm kind of at an impasse with working on that for the time being. So I'm switching gears for a while and I'm going to try and write a story featuring butterflies. I was very much into butterflies as a kid, but haven't found a good angle to write a story about them now that I've fallen into furry writing. This project is an attempt to do that. The basic premise is that I'll be following a group of butterflies as they perform their annual migration from one side of the world to the other. This migration can take a very long time, depending on the butterflies you're looking at, it can anywhere from 3-6 generations to make that trip. I think this is the angle I've been looking for. What would it be like to be a butterfly on this journey knowing that you will never see the destination that you're traveling towards? How do they get through their day to day? What hardships do they face in their travels? All of these questions excite me terribly and I'm itching to get started writing.

But before I fully commit, I want to do some preliminary research. This is going to be a lot bigger of a project than I'm used to. Depending on how I end up tackling it, it could very well end up being novel length. And if not that, at least the length of a novella. Which means I should get a decent baseline of information on butterflies before I get too far into the weeds in writing a bunch of characters for the story.

Thankfully, my local library had a ton of books on the subject and I'm working on reading through a bunch and taking copious notes. One of the books, The Language of Butterflies has had a very interesting first couple chapters. There seems to be a concerning amount of butterfly researchers who had some sort of experience when they were growing up that led to them spending their lives studying them. In an obsessive fashion. The author makes references to this phenomenon as a kind of “Butterfly Madness” (I am paraphrasing, she doesn’t actually call it that) and I’ll be honest that it gave me pause as I was reading through the first few chapters, lest I fall into this pattern myself. I was enamored with them a lot when I was a kid, so maybe I’m immune? Or was it a long dormant madness waiting to re-emerge at the correctly precise trigger? This is the closest I have come to actually experiencing the unease that is supposed to be common in cosmic horror. Perhaps, I too, will become an acolyte of Prodryas before long.

Speaking of the library, they had a big book sale this weekend and I picked up a good few books that I'm excited to dig into at some point. The Dragon's Luck book is probably the one I'll dig into first, but the animal anatomy and painting with acrylic book are going to be invaluable for me to practice painting more.

Work has unfortunately been very busy as they shift my job duties around. I don't see it slowing down any time soon unfortunately, so I'm hoping to stave off burnout for the time being with being able to work on my personal projects in my free time.

On a brighter note to end out this update post, the weather has been good enough to take walks again and I've really missed being able to do that.

That's about everything I have for this month. Hoping that the next month treats you well!

[bringinbackpod]

We had the pleasure of interviewing Lybica over Zoom video! Meet Lybica, a dynamic instrumental 3-piece force from south Florida that seamlessly blends flavorful guitar melody with powerful metallic crunch. Lybica will take you on an epic musical journey of peaks and valleys where the possibilities are endless. Lybica was first conceived in 2020 when it became clear to Justin Foley (drummer of Killswitch Engage) that he wasn’t going to be spending much time with his normal dudes for a while. Quarantine days still needed to be time well spent, and he’d been working on some demos that he finally decided to share with a few local friends in south Florida. “I’d written a bunch of stuff that didn’t quite fit into traditional song structures,” explains Justin, “and I’ve always been drawn to bands where the instruments provide hooks, rather than relying on a lyric. It seemed like a good time to start something new and see where it could go.” Justin had met fellow musicians Doug French (Gravel Kings) and Joey Johnson (Gravel Kings, Barriers Now Bridges, Days Spent) back in 2016 and they had repeatedly talked about jamming together but never actually got around to it. Justin and Doug, both drummers, often spoke about trying something different that allowed them each to get out from behind the kit. “I’ve always wanted to play a stringed instrument”, says Doug, “and bass felt natural since it is the other half of the rhythm section.” Guitarist Joey Johnson grew up playing shows all over Florida, heavily influenced by early punk and then both hardcore and metal. “All the good places to get a beer kept asking me if I had met Justin, since they know I play music. I heard about him in our town for about a year before we actually met through mutual friends. We hit it off when we started talking instrumental music.” So when Doug and Joey eventually received the demos from Justin, they really liked what they heard. For several months the three emailed music back and forth while learning the parts, especially Justin (guitar) and Doug (bass) on instruments they weren’t experienced playing. They eventually started playing together with the drum tracks from the demos blasting through the PA speakers. Before too long they had enough music for a full record and the direction of the band was starting to take shape. The trio soon discovered that they had something else in common besides music. “The three of us are pretty big cat people,” Justin points out, “so it only made sense to call the band Lybica.” Named after a small wildcat species native to Africa that is widely considered the godfather of the modern house cat, Lybica is the first known feline species to be tamed and domesticated by humans. Fast forward 10,000 years, and today Lybica the band are as addictive as catnip. With plans to release their debut self-titled full length album later this year, Lybica is poised to make some serious noise in 2021 and beyond, fur-real! We want to hear from you! Please email Tera@BringinitBackwards.com . www.BringinitBackwards.com #podcast #interview #bringinbackpod #LYBICA #KillSwitchEngage #JustinFoley #NewMusic #zoom Listen & Subscribe to BiB https://www.bringinitbackwards.com/follow/ Follow our podcast on Instagram and Twitter! https://www.facebook.com/groups/bringinbackpod

[likesrandomstuff]

Part 2 of my AFLW game day experience

Did I format this last time, idk @heywhereisperry

I had planned my travel to and from the game with minute accuracy with the tools available to me (cough work programs cough). And it hinged on getting this one train from my local station, cross over four platforms in two minutes at North Melbourne, then get off at the station near the ground.

I decided last minute to put on sunscreen. From the free samples I got from a previous game two weeks ago. Why they were handing it out when it poured for the second half and hailed at the end, idk. Not the easiest to get out of the tube, so that put me behind, but I made it to the first train.

You can see the train coming if you zoom in. Got on that, made it to North Melbourne, which is a major train station in terms that a lot of different trains run through it, but useless in my role as you can’t move trains to different platforms or turn them around there. Got to the other platform in time, and the second train was delayed. Which stressed me out a bit, but I saw someone wearing a St Kilda jumper, so my goal was to stalk him when we got off, so I wouldn’t get lost. Thankfully the Melbourne train system allowed me to do the trip with only one train changeover.

North Melbourne Station. Featuring a very nice weather day. This train was late, and then took forever between two of the stops, but considering my back-up plan was the next train, wasn’t too bothered by it.

Once on the train it was my “once every four years” trip to that side of Melbourne via train. Did so at the end of 2014, and mid 2018, so yeah. Get a cool look of the city, then gets boring. Spent the trip listening to podcasts, checking how many stops left, and the score of the AFLW game that was on then. Got to the station, got off, saw the guy from before. Lost him cause my ticket (Myki card) wouldn’t register end-of-trip. I keep the card in that blue case. Basically know that’s not going to slip out of my pocket, and means that I can commute with it in my pocket and don’t have to put it in or out of my bag. There were other people wearing gear so followed the crowd. Crowd sort of all went different ways outside the station. Ended up following throw couple who only seemed slightly more confident of where they were going than I did.

Got to the ground, bag check, ticket scanned, no metal detector though. Passed through. Walked through the building to the field. Was going to do a lap around the ground to check it out, but was blocked off on the left, so went right. Walking to their stand and see someone familiar, I wave, only to register that it’s my team’s co-captain. Not the one who is missing the season due to a knee injury, but the other one. This one wasn’t playing for both suspension and concussion reasons. Would have been her 50th game otherwise. That’s the big game number milestone that players are finally getting to after 6 years. The wave was thankfully not noticed, and I was like “do I say hi or something”, but then I didn’t cause she was in the middle of a conversation and I didn’t think it was worth interrupting. So walked past.

Saw the seats were filling up, so grabbed one and since the game was still 30 minutes away, started reading. Soon after Captain and a bunch of other players out injured/ weren’t picked, had moved over to stand right in front of me, me sitting five rows back. Started holding the book obnoxiously to show the cover and so I wasn’t just staring at them. Soon before the game started they moved to a nearby section, to where I later saw was a reserved section for Collingwood associated people, which made sense.

Part 3: Game Time!

[strange-destinations]

what's the game of rassilon thing???

Oh, thank you for giving me permission to invite all of your into my current hyperfixation hole.

The Game of Rassilon is a fan-made actual-play RPG podcast where a bunch of very funny and very creative people play the official Doctor Who roleplaying game. If you've been following me on Twitter recently you may have noticed I've done a fuckton of art for it. That's because it's extremely good! the adventures are well-thought-out, the roleplaying is choice, the goofs are hilarious and the emotional beats hit hard. it feels quite a lot like listening to a canon series of tv doctor who, except it's all improv and dice rolling and rpg.

the first two seasons are typical monster-of-the-week doctor who adventures with a gradually building plot revolving around the Doctor & co running from... someone (or perhaps something), and a Big Plan that even the Doctor isn't sure of the details of, at least at first. there is the Power of Friendship! there are Pokemon battles! there is freestyle jazz scatting, much to the Doctor's exasperation! it's all excellent. i haven't started season 3 yet because of Time Issues on my end, but I have no doubt it's going to be just as good as the first two seasons.

You can listen to it on their website (go to the start of the archive and start from the beginning) or on most podcast apps. The episodes are about 1/1-1/2 hours long each, and there's currently two and a half seasons out (20ish episodes each season, i believe) so it's not quite as intimidating as like. TAZ is. definitely not as scary as CritRole.

also i wrote fic for it. i would link to it here, but it's spoiler-y for all through to the start of season 2. and i am writing more, because i apparently just can't help myself when it comes to One Certain Character.

so yes. go listen to it and then come back and let me know so i know that i've got more people into it. i'm on a roll here. i will drag everyone i know into this very good podcast!

if you're curious about the content and don't mind mild spoilers, then come with me beneath the cut and I will introduce you to the Party, featuring some Fun Art From Me

The Doctor

played by Riley Silverman. eternally delightful force of chaos. 'the most 90s doctor', according to michael, and honestly he's not wrong. canonically trans! in the sense that her player is also trans and said 'if you think she's trans also i'm 100% behind you' and i choose to think she's trans

got stranded in the 90s for a while, which explains why the interior of her TARDIS currently resembles a 90s coffeeshop. gives very good very doctor-y speeches. stubborn. curious.

Travis Killian

played by Dan Peck (who is the sort of RPG player who breaks the game at least once every session. and it's great). worked at a library in New Jersey, 1998, and then Things Happened and now he lives in a time machine. you know how it goes. 'gentle ball of confident anxiety'. Star Wars fan, Pokemon nerd. basically half his character sheet is based around how much he loves his friends. Best Boy!! with a really genuinely excellent character arc.

welcome to the travis killian stan club. i love him very much.

Millie Earhart

yeah, that Amelia Earhart. big strong lady with a wrench who is very good at flying things! planes in particular but she's very adaptable. a bit of a walking paradox, considering she's supposed to, you know, die on a plane trip, but it's fiiiine. it's all fine. trust her! she's amelia earhart!!

Roman

technically an NPC (it's a bit complicated). still a member of the party, in my heart if nowhere else. i will not spoil anything to do with roman because his reveal is just too good to spoil. but please rest assured he's a delight and by s2 you will love him just as much as i do.

Carrie Vu

played by châu kate lê. carrie 'i think time lords should unionize' vu is also a delight who i will similarly not spoil, simply because she doesn't show up until about mid-s2. but i couldn't not mention her. also, she has a softball bat, and is keeping the doctor who tradition of 'tiny women going to town on aliens with blunt objects' alive and well. queen

Gunther

is the doctor's cat. she is a sweetheart and she is perfect and she is also currently my profile picture on most of my social media. we all love Gunther.

in conclusion come join me in the game of rassilon. i need someone to cry over roman with and i need to justify the fact that i've written over 50k of fanfiction from travis's point of view somehow