#yes it is (mostly) fun but it is still a machine learning tool that uses chat data to feed their israeli-run ai machines

[gothethite]

Tired of people going 'all goth fashion is super easy to diy and everyone should do that instead' because like... yes a lot of it is but some very much not. So some thoughts on how much I'd recommend diying various goth fashion stuff as someone who does a lot of it:

Simple jewellery is definitely much better to diy and particularly chains and stuff. I remember going to dangerfield one time and they had a chain with a bat ornament on in for 20 dollars 🤣 ... you can get a bunch of chain from the hardware store pretty cheaply and the exact same bat pendant on it I had got like 20 off etsy for 5 dollars. It usually doesn't take that long and extra tools e.g. pliers are helpful but not necessary - 10/10 absolutely recommend for all goths or other people interested in gothic fashion

Same thing goes for distressed clothing/fishnet shirts there are tons of tutorials for that kind of stuff, and it generally doesn't require that much time, experience or materials 10/10

Minor clothing modifications e.g. some tailoring, adding/removing parts, mending damaged old clothing, changing buttons - this is something that is really useful in everyday life, usually doesn't take that long and is very useful for turning normal clothing into more spooky stuff 9/10

Designs on clothes or patches: if you get some fabric paint, screen printing ink, bleach or even acrylic you can paint designs onto clothing pretty easily. Personally I like dilute screen printing ink as it gives the nicest surface, but it can be a bit of a pain to use as you have to do a lot of layers, and it doesn't colour the fabric intuitively in the way that fabric paint or acrylic do 8/10 - would recommend very strongly to anyone who enjoys art, and recommend trying at least once to people who don't enjoy art as much (you can always make stencils), but it does take a long time and you need some materials. Also, for patches particularly for small bands it can be better to order them from the band to support the artist, but also lots of bands don't have patches or merch or international shipping to some countries makes it not accessible

Embroidery: often looks really good and professional in a way that painted designs don't, takes absolutely ages. 7/10 - would recommend very highly for people who enjoy textile stuff and maybe trying a bit for everyone but yeah if you don't enjoy it it's a pain

Smaller articles of clothing: I've made some waistcoats and shirts and stuff which have been pretty fun and it's really good to be able to do specific designs you wouldn't be able to buy (e.g. my skeleton one) and get stuff to fit right. They were all hand sewn and took a pretty long time (however you can also do it while listening to online classes or whatever), + a bit of time to learn techniques and stuff. Definitely a cheaper than buying them 6.5/10 - do it if you enjoy textile art stuff but will probably be a really painful experience if you don't and you're hand sewing. Also useful if you've got sizing or dimensions that mean you just... can't buy stuff that'll fit which is how I got into sewing

More complex sewing: I've made 2 (well, finished one and 98% of the way through another) long spooky coats and one cape with really complicated edges and embroidery and stuff. Coat 1 was entirely by hand out of not great fabric and took absolutely ages but was definitely vastly cheaper than buying it from the store, and it fit well and everything. With the cape, I got repetitive strain injury in my thumb that still is a bit of a problem 3 years later! With the final coat it was mostly by machine and then touching some stuff up by hand e.g. edges of the lining, making the eyelets and stuff, but it still took ages. Also, something I never see people talking about with diy goth clothing is how hard it is to get the materials - there were only 3 black brocade fabrics available in my city - One was really bad quality and I tried to make a shirt out of it, but it kept falling apart. One was 150 dollars a meter. The one I ended up using was really nice and reasonably priced, but I got the last 2.5 meters of it so it almost wasn't an option. So when people talk about diying clothing being cheaper it can actually not be that much because a clothing business can get fabrics in bulk + unless your city is really big there are probably not many options, so there's also shipping costs if you then need to order fabric. Out of curiosity I compared how much the coat cost in terms of materials to the price of a similar looking coat off dracula clothing which is a pretty well known and apparently quality materials and ethically made goth fashion shop and it came out a bit cheaper but not massively so (not counting shipping...) so 3.5/10 - fun to do if you enjoy textile art as a hobby, not even vaguely a practical alternative to buying a coat

And then there's other stuff like more complicated jewellery making and leather work which idk much about

[stealyourblorbos]

How do you as an artist feel about AI generated art? I’ve seen so much of it lately on here and twitter and IG and I feel like it’s a dangerous thing.

Hey nonnie! Thanks for the nice question. Short answer is: no, I'm not worried abt it in the slightest and neither should you💜

Here comes the long answer. Please bear with me and allow me to use some irl examples. Short disclaimer: I'm in no way a market expert or career couch and this is my personal opinion and observations.

When years ago I was entering Foreign Languages faculty, all the internet gurus and influencers were screaming that learning languages as a main occupation is useless and soon machines gonna translate everything for us. Now, much time later, phrases like "did you do it with Google translate" became a swear, derogatory term among translators and related specialities.

Have automated AI translation programs became important part of the workflow now? Indeed, but they didn't manage to steal the work from real people. The results still need heavy proofreading, checking and etc, not even mentioning things like poetry that mostly needs manual translation, and person doing this job still needs to be perfectly fluent in the language. AI still haven't "conquered" the market and pushed human element out, but became an optimization tool.

Now many web designers and clout chasers saying all the artists will be left without work because of AI art, blowing things out of proportion to get more attention (surefire ways to attract people online - fear, hate, lust, cute baby animals).

Some of the AI generated results are pretty impressive. MidJourney kicks absolute butt when it comes to complicated backgrounds, Dall-E 2 perfectly gets all the keywords from request, and there's a new one - based off Octane Render that specifies on realistic lighting - coming out in New Year which I'm extremely excited about.

But the resulting pictures STILL need extra work put on top of them. It may impress people online at the very beginning as a fun toy to test each own's "artistic abilities", but companies and people with taste still would need professionals to work with those AI results same way translation market did. Because those programs cannot trick human eye yet. Our brains still can perceive repetitive patterns in those gorgeous AI backgrounds, and human faces made in My Heritage still have uncanny valley effect because they're eerily symmetrical. Or remember that Twitter drama where anime AI program drew girl with 6 fingers and poor OP didn't notice that?

AI doesn't understand emotions, symbolism, storytelling and many other important art things. Yes, it will generate catchy icons for phone apps like no problem and junior artists in big enterprises like Tencent would have to learn something else. But I don't see AI creating storyboards, comic, movie concepts, complicated portrait paintings/illustrations and animation fully without human involvement any time soon. I don't even mention complicated 3D render with textures for character concepts.

AI makes a wonderful tool to save time or do the work that you don't like to do. So I'd rather try to benefit from it. Here's an example of work made with MidJourney, it was fast and I had tons of fun. IMO the key is staying up-to-date, working on one's unique style, skills and nurturing your visual library - no AI would ever compare to a human mind 😄 sorry if answer was too detailed but I hope you found something useful in it!

Nice vid on it:

[chouhatsumimi]

Hi! I am trying to become a japanese to English (& vice versa) translator. I can't find any sources to check the English to Japanese translation. It is difficult to get which grammar must be used since I am not a japanese native and don't know any natives to ask either. I have studied till N2 level but have no experience and must start freelancing to get experience so I need to figure out how to translate on my own. I can only use free translation software but I am not sure about it's reliability. I have seen questionable translations when it's for Japanese to English. Do think you can give any suggestions or anything that might be helpful?

Hi! I did put in a little time searching for the kind of tools you might have had in mind.

It seems that there are many that function in the exact same way but have different interfaces. Here are two of them. Many others can be found by searching "日本語文章校正ツール" or similar keywords. https://dw230.jp/kousei/

https://so-zou.jp/web-app/text/proofreading/

While they can point out some things to look out for, from the testing I did with them, they overlooked some pretty obvious errors, while also catching some things that I couldn't figure out why it thought it was wrong/sounded bad, or how to fix it.

There was one more I found that I didn't try, because it involves downloading software. This page explains the software, and another page on the site offers the download. The webpage is sponsored by a university, so I think it's safe to assume its trustworthy, but it might be a hassle and I can't say for sure if it works.

https://www.pawel.jp/outline_of_tools/tomarigi/

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That said, it's most common for translators to work from one language INTO their native language. While interpreters often have to go both directions (J <--> E), translators typically work either (J -> E) [English native speakers] OR (E -> J) [Japanese native speakers]. If you grew up bilingual, maybe you can translate both ways. But if English is your native language and you learned Japanese as a second language (which is true of my situation), it's pretty much not going to be worth bothering to do E->J translation, unless there are extenuating circumstances. The reasons for this are 1) You can't be sure that the translation you produce reads smoothly or is error-free 2) While you might think, but yes, if I do a really thorough check and compare it against native Japanese examples, I can be pretty darn sure it's perfect, the amount of time it takes you to do that is not going to be cost-effective. Like anything else, people purchasing translation as a service usually want the end result to be done well, in a timely manner, and as cheaply as possible, so it doesn't make sense to hire you for E -> J when they could hire a native Japanese speaking translator, or send their work to an agency to find that translator for them.

If you ARE translating into Japanese and are not a native speaker of Japanese, it is a good idea to have a fellow translator who has the opposite native language you do (in this case Japanese & English), and ask them to check it over for you (which, considering that's part of their job, you'd probably pay a small fee for). They could do the same to have you proofread their translations into English. Some translators consult friends/spouses, etc., but I think this can get old for them sometimes, so it's advisable not to rely on them for your job. You mentioned not having any native speakers to ask right now, but this is still an idea you can file away for in the future when you meet more people and get to know other translators.

In short, if you're aiming to become a translator working with Japanese but are not a native Japanese speaker, don't worry about translating into Japanese. Just focus on translating from Japanese into your native language.

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Translation software: let me make a distinction here between "machine translation" and "CAT [computer aided translation] tools".

Machine translation is Google Translate, DeepL, anything like that. There are times when they work well, but particularly with a language like Japanese that likes to imply a lot of information instead of stating it directly (such as who is doing the action described in the sentence), they're pretty much always going to miss something. In any situation that someone is looking to pay a translator to do work, it's because they already know machine translation won't cut it. One thing that's becoming more common is MTPE (machine translation post editing), where a translator "fixes" what's wrong with a machine translation (or more often than not, just re-translates it from scratch because what the machine came up with is mostly useless).

CAT tools, on the other hand, are widely used by translators. Paid CAT tools such as Trados, MemoQ, Memsource, etc. can be very expensive, and are often provided by a translation agency to their translators. (Also, most of them require a PC operating system.) There's more I could say, but since I haven't been in any situations that require them, I don't have any personal experience. I do have experience using OmegaT (free, works on Mac) and Felix (free, I use it on Windows). They both take a little tinkering to figure out how to use effectively, but basically what they do is, once you've translated a segment of text, they store the original segment and the translated segment, and for each new segment you go to translate, the CAT tool compares it to segments that you've previously translated to see if you can re-use any of what you came up with before. They can also have a built-in dictionary function, but that's basically just having your typical web-based dictionary but more automatically and in a more convenient location.

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For going into freelancing, I have a few recommendations.

Apart from CAT tools, some resources that I refer to frequently are http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic?9T (basically looks up all the words in a sentence at once), http://thejadednetwork.com/sfx/ (if you're doing anything with sound effects, like manga), https://tsukubawebcorpus.jp//search/ (this is a corpus, I have another post on how to use it -here-, it's probably going to be your best bet when it comes to checking grammar), https://books.google.com/ngrams (for when it comes to figuring out what turns of phrase are commonly used in English), and https://yomikatawa.com/ (for figuring out the readings of names in Japanese, though there are other sites that work similarly).

When it comes to practicing, contests are a good place to start. The two I know of now are run by JAT in October (https://jat.org/events/contests) and JLPP deadline of 7/31 (and they're long, so it's probably too late for this year unless you're free between now and then: https://www.jlpp.go.jp/en/competition6/competition6en.html ) You can also practicing doing translations for fun. Any kind of media you enjoy (manga, video games, variety shows, newspaper articles) is a good target for doing a practice translation. Just be wary that it's not a good idea to post your translation in a public location on the internet, because it could be infringing copyright/licensing agreements, etc. Finally, there are websites like Gengo, Conyac, Fiverr and others where you can do gig translation work. They can be useful for practice, but also have the pitfall of paying, like, 5% of the rate you should be getting. This is an ongoing debate because on one hand, you can get practice while still getting a little money for it, but on the other hand, if customers can get people to do that work for 5% of a livable wage, that makes it harder for aspiring and working translators to find enough work that pays well enough to support themselves doing only translation for a living. Entertainment (primarily manga) scanlation groups also a significant enough force to merit a mention here- many aspiring entertainment translators find themselves a part of such a group. Practice is practice and developing your skills is important, but they also have many many of the same problems associated with them as I mentioned above, namely infringing on copyright and contributing to the inability of anyone to turn entertainment translation into a livable full-time job.

Another recommendation I have is to join some J/E translation-focused groups. This page lists a number of them: https://shinpaideshou.com/translation/ I can personally vouch for JAT as I am a member and I got my current job by being part of their directory. They run an online training program (eJuku) once a year around April, and applications only stay open for a few days, so if you're interested make sure you keep your eye out. Another one not listed on that page is https://swet.jp/ which is not entirely about translation, but it is heavily related and they host some good events. Twitter is also a very good place to be if you're getting into J/E translation. I prefer to keep my tumblr and twitter separate but if you DM me, I can give you my handle so you can see who I follow and who among that seems worth following to you.

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In closing, I see you say "I have studied till N2 level but have no experience and must start freelancing to get experience so I need to figure out how to translate on my own." I'd say, give yourself some time. Even at N1 there's still going to be a lot you don't understand (or at least there was for me, that's why I started this langblr). I'm sure there are differences in our situations, but it was about five years ago for me that I started diving into translation- I think I was between N2 and N1 then. I've done a lot of translating and gotten a lot of experience since then, but I also have and am experiencing a lot of burnout. (In fact, I'm procrastinating right now by answering this....) Many translators have a job and translate on the side, and it's also common to gain experience with a company or agency before diving into supporting yourself on freelance work. I'd encourage you to take a breath, get experience when and where you can, and remember that if you keep at it long enough, you're sure to get there- just don't wear yourself out or worry to death in the meantime!

OH and definitely keep track of what projects you do, how long they are, and how long it takes you to do them! Knowing your speed is important when it comes to setting your working rates. I am always doubting these, and they differ from person to person, but my current estimates are that I can do 600 moji (Japanese characters) per hour, ~10 min. of audio per hour, and I try to aim for $45~$60 per hour. Generally the lowest acceptable standard rates are $0.05-$0.06 per moji and ~$5 per page of manga. You'll definitely get requests lower than that, so remember your sanity and don't be afraid to say no, there are plenty of opportunities out there!

[archetypal-archivist]

Grian- Boots for the Rain Gone Cold

Kind of a story idea for Ex-Watcher Grian, 3500+ words. This is what happens when you listen to the song Welly Boots on repeat for a couple hours. The premise is that Grian and the Hermits aren’t quite as nice as they seem, and when Grian has to flee Hermitcraft to keep his friends safe from the Watchers, his friends do some malicious compliance to take care of him while he is away.

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A story in which the hermits take care of their own, even beyond borders they should not be able to cross.

Take a standard story about Watcher Grian. See him come to Hermitcraft, lost and alone and afraid. He has been through Evo, killed a dragon whilst alone and afraid, was taken against his will, watched his friends Pearlescent Moon and Taurtis die. He knows how to take care of himself, but nothing more than that.

Hermitcraft changes that, for him. Standing outside a portal that is unlike any he had ever seen, even during his time as a watcher, seeing a team of 20+ walk out is terrifying. But they had seen him, looked at each other, then rushed forward to claim him as their own. In the beginning he is left alone until he tentatively reaches out, saving Scar's stuff after he has died. An action unlike him, but he had appreciated their kindness in letting him stay, so he does his best to repay that.

Tit for tat is something he understands from the Watchers, even if this is a kinder variant.

Grian watches as people start to reach out to him, watching him with admiring eyes as he builds his first shops, offering items he's never needed or touched before now. (Conduits are so cool and he'll deny the shiver of excitement that crept up his spine when Xisuma first handed him one to his dying breath.) He watches as they smile and laugh at his antics, rather than come at him and his with sword and shield for his pranks.

He watches. He is good at that. He is significantly less good at returning their kindness, a trouble-maker to his core, intentionally or no. But he tries, and in the eyes of the Hermits, that is all that matters.

Iskall feeds him, sometimes, when he is sick and delirious, screaming at the shadows in the corners. They do not let him starve himself to death. (He learns to hide half stacks of golden carrots in their chests, just enough to replenish their supply, but not enough that they'd notice.)

Mumbo is patient with him when he comes crashing into his base like a wrecking ball, sometimes plowing into the taller hermit's redstone face first in the process. He just helps Grian up, smiling and laughing, helping him brush the red dust away. (Grian learns that Mumbo cannot sleep without noise, too used to the ticking of redstone clocks and firing pistons to sleep in quiet. He learns to fly in on late nights when Mumbo's base is still lit up and talk with his friend, chattering away until Mumbo can find it in himself to turn the lag machines off and fall asleep to the sound of Grian's voice.)

Xisuma watches the world with all the focus and patience that Grian once used when designing stars and bedrock towers. For Xisuma, Grian will watch the world too and ease its updates when he can- one less burden for his admin to carry, taken and handled with silent, secret grace.

Joe reads and reads and reads, spinning tales of his finds to all who stand still long enough for him to pin down for a bit. For Joe, Grian will bring out some of his old high school textbooks for him on the days when the man runs out of books to read.

Zedaph lives in a cave, warm and dry, but without color, the only life being the experiments rattling around in the background. For Zedaph, Grian will sneak in mushrooms and moss, encouraging them to grow in the shadows until the cavern blooms with them.

For the hermits, Grian is kind. For the hermits, Grian will learn.

Then one day it all comes crashing down, perhaps in the face of a bedrock tower springing from nowhere, perhaps in violent, screaming outburst of purple fire, perhaps in the face of a friend he once thought dead. The Watchers had tried their damnest to stamp out his heart and they nearly succeeded, but just as they could not stamp out his free will they also could not stamp out his humanity, and people- regardless of shape or size or color or race or species- are born to love and be loved.

Grian loves his Hermits. To protect them, he must leave. And so he does, quietly and in the dead of night, the faint echoes of screams ringing in his ears. If he has it his way, never again will he hear his hermit's pain, imagined or otherwise. It would be best to just forget.

Grian settles in a rainy little single player server that turns out to not be as single player as he would like. It seems instead to be an abandoned multiplayer server, lost dogs and empty houses abound in the distant corners, and every once in a while a new player stumbles in, running from something, settling in long enough to call the server home. Sometimes, these new players stay. Sometimes, whatever is chasing them catches up and they are forced to leave. Grian refuses to care for these fellow vagabonds, even as he watches from under the eaves of his perfectly constructed rustic house, rain dripping down and obscuring him from their wondering, pained eyes.

Grian has given up on having happy ending, and if the ending the narrative seems to want to give him is a tragedy, then he will seize it with both hands and rewrite it himself. What he does not take into account, however, is that the Hermits don't take kindly to being abandoned.

Grian was once a Watcher, and while watching and mimicking are perhaps some of his better skills, he was still new to the server and as such there is much about his Hermits he never had a chance to discover. Their pasts in large part remained a mystery to him, as he had learned to mimic kindness too well from them to ever pry. (They would have told him, if he had asked. Love was another thing he had learned from them, and if he had been seen and not just watched, he perhaps would have noticed how strongly they cared for him too.)

But yes. Though Grian was perhaps the only one of their number on the run from literal gods, he was not the only one with a tragic back story.

Xisuma, who watched the Hermitcraft server with all the vigilance of a soldier who had watched his fellow troops and their enemies weaponize glitches against each other, to the mass extinction of both. Evil X, who ran from it all, only to end up in a place where nothing violent simply became nothing.

Joe, who read and read and read, devouring knowledge the way he once devoured worlds, eyes flickering white on the nights when hunger panged in his stomach worse than usual. Cleo, who also knew the pain of consumption, from both sides of teeth like knives.

Zedaph, who popped into existence one day, whole and unsullied, with a vast, empty void where his past ought to be, who forgot sometimes that people are supposed to have likes and dislikes and colors and an instinctual obedience towards the laws of gravity. Tango and Impulse, who watched their friend and each other with eagle eyes to keep their trio from slipping back into old, self-destructive habits. (Overwork, overclocking, over-stimulation. All were equally killer.)

Grian, who's first and best skill, even before his building, was causing mischief and creating fun. A welcome distraction from old pains.

They loved him, the Hermits. In whatever flavor they chose, they loved him. They knew his darkness, though perhaps not the exact nature of it, and they knew that he loved them back. And then he left them.

The Hermits were powerful with love and sorrow and determination. Grian thought he could leave them so quickly, uproot himself from their hearts like a ghost in the night? Ha.

As. If.

It begins like this- Grian wakes in his little spruce house in the middle of a mostly abandoned town. The rain is pouring outside as it nearly always is and the rushing of wind through the trees puts him in the mind of his old ship-in-a-bottle base, warm and safe from the wet outside. He wakes up, stretches, thinks of eating. Steps outside and-

a brand new pair of bright red rain boots, almost glowing in the grey mist of early morning. They are in his colors, Grian just knows they would fit him perfectly. A welcome sort of gift, perfect for a world drenched in rain. Perfect for him, gifted with thought, with care. His stomach curdles and he just knows he won't be eating breakfast today either. A curl of a finger and the boots go up in purple flames, the scent of burnt rubber joining the petrichor of the air. He goes back inside. Goes back to sleep. Tries not to dream.

The boots are back the next day, shining red and a little closer to the door to better keep them out of the rain. He burns those too.

The boots keep appearing. Always bright red, always perfectly sized to fit him- squeaky new rubber, perfect for keeping out the rain. In the face of that, red boots like clockwork, is it any wonder that Grian gets tired? His front porch stinks of burnt rubber and there are new planks wherever he had to remove the scorched oak. Perhaps it's the burning that causes a new pair to appear- if there are no boots, a new pair comes to replace them, so perhaps a different method of disposal is in order.

He throws the next pair into the river. A new pair comes back to him the next day, alongside the old ones, dripping with sea grass and mud. Hmm.

(Cleo has friends in the rivers and oceans. It's easy enough to call in a favor or three to get the boots returned.)

Creepers next. A loud hiss and an even louder boom has him flinching back, phantom burns dancing across his fingers, but the boots are naught but ash. Three pairs of boots next time, one of them a dark swirling grey rather than the traditional red, as if mocking their scorched past.

(Doc's work. He's had enough experience with accidentally blowing up his own tools to know how to make a blast protection charm strong enough to keep his clothes and armor safe in the case of an unfortunate accident. The grey starbursts left over the material are just a neat bonus.)

Lava. Concentrated spider venom. Flattened by pistons. Dropped into the void. Left under a lightning rod. Thrown up into a tree. Fed to a guardian.

Each and every time, the boots come back, usually with some change in pattern, color, or marking that signals just what they have been through. All in perfectly usual condition, even the pair he cut in half with an axe.

(Stress had a field day piecing that pair back together, using molten honey and mending enchants to stick the halves together again. She always had loved a challenge.)

Eventually, Grian's front porch is covered in boots in all manner of designs, and fed up with the mess, he sets the whole mess on fire again with his signature purple flame, the only thing sure to reduce the number of boots permanently. He sets his house on fire in the process. Hmmmm.

There's an influx of new people into Grian's world all of a sudden. A pair of twins jump in, bloody, battered, and exhausted, and not a week later a roughed-up blond boy joins, snappish and hurting. All three lack shoes.

Now, Grian very firmly does not want to interact with any of them. He had found true friends among the Hermits and if he can't interact with them, then he certainly doesn't want to interact with a trio of traumatized children- however, he does have a pair of boots to give and dropping them on the children's doorstep requires no interaction at all. The female twin puts them on, marveling at how big the red boots are on her while the other kids stand watch suspiciously. Grian watches this from his front porch, hidden by the mist but eyes glinting purple in the gloom so he can see comfortably. The male twin seems to spot this, shouting and pointing, and Grian goes back inside to avoid the mess.

The next morning, the boots on his doorstep are rainbow-striped and several sizes smaller, perfect for a child's feet. Grian stares down at them, something hurting and tremulous in his heart, but his face remains blank. These boots are placed on the trio's doorstep as well. The male twin wears these, and the last child ends up with a pair of blue and black spotted ones.

(False had had fun with the patterns, feeling a little bit of relief that she could hunt down some rubber in a pattern other than plain red.)

Rumor spreads of a purple-eyed monster in the woods that gave people boots to keep them safe from the rain, although Grian very carefully avoids such stories. The children begin leaving trinkets for their monster in hopes to repay him, and Grian ignores these too until one day, the children somehow manage to get an old red dog collar to give him. Upon spotting this, Grian's heart gives a squeeze as it reminds him of Rendog, and he pockets it to put on his rather empty bookshelf. Other things also get picked up, all things that remind him of the friends he had to leave behind.

An allium, pressed into a book of galactic picked up from a stronghold. A jar of electric blue ink dried into a gelatinous cake. A tiny knight figurine, scuffed and missing an arm. A handful of spicy red jellybeans. Eventually, as time passes on and on and the rain bears down harder on Grian's tiny world, a trio of heartfelt, thankful cards appear on his kitchen table, all three drawn in crayon and filled with cheerful scribbles.

It rains harder, and the world shrinks down to just Grian and the three children who call out into the gloom every morning, grateful for the boots and the glimpses of purple eyes and feathered wings in the dark that tell them that they are not alone. The boots stop coming.

In their place, new things appear.

A toaster. Firewood. New sweaters and combs and soap. Little things designed to make life easier, many of them children-sized or painted in rainbow stripes or blue polka dots or a shade of red just off from Grian's favored color. These too go to the children, and the number of gifts Grian receives increases, many of them built from the material that he gives the trio of children.

(If the Hermits cannot gift things to Grian directly, then they will gift them to people who will transform them into something their wayward friend would accept. They do so with equal parts love and spite, angry to have been rebuffed but unwilling to let Grian feel himself forgotten. The trio of kids end up with a rather odd assortment of things. Tango, for example, is fond of the easy-bake oven he sent them that always burnt the food it made. Grian got nothing but his favorite chocolate chip cookies for a week, all of them scorched.)

In time, Grian does his best to drive the children off, building traps and leaving weapons on their doorstep to scare them. The stories of the monster in the woods increase in number and many more children join the server, encouraged by tales of purple-eyed, winged beast that taught its charges to be wary and gave them tools to defend themselves. Grian's cabin remains hidden in the mist, but many more wooden structures join it in the forest.

New boots appear on his doorstep. They aren't made to fit him.

(His heart aches, but his eyes remain dry. Morning dew condenses on Grian's cheeks.)

It comes to a head like this- no world, no matter how small or safe, is fully protected from the Watchers' gaze, and in the end, they find him. Only now, there are people here that cannot leave, that Grian cannot leave behind.

The children scream for their monster to save them. He rises from the mist, eyes heavy and wings heavier, dragging upon the ground and leaving trails in the brick red mud. They think they are saved. They are wrong.

Chains shoot out from the mist, forcing Grian to his knees as a huge female Watcher, Astrid, stares down at him, mouth turned down into a tiny frown and the rest of her figure still as stone even as she floats in the air, white robes fading into the surrounding fog. The purple emblem on her mask glows like a brand. Grian watches her with purple eyes glowing dim and dull, resigned to his fate but unwilling to flee if it means the deaths of those who do not deserve to serve his sentence in his stead.

He thinks, quietly, that he will die here. He wonders if this- any of this- is worth it. He thinks, yes. Yes it is.

He is wrong.

A figure coalesces before him, clad in yellow armor and arms crossed, the very picture of annoyed defiance. It tilts its head back, hard light construct featureless but practically radiating scorn, and from the mists a voice echoes.

"You are going to leave him alone. He's not for you." Astrid hisses behind her mask, galactic crackling and vile from between her lips, and the sound of wingbeats thrums like a heartbeat through the clearing, bass-heavy and loud in Grian's ears. He winces, closing his eyes as more chains shoot out from the ground to attach to Xisuma's- for what else could it be but his admin projected across time and space (that stupid, crazy, wonderful man)- construct. They coil around it, doing their level best to drag it to the ground, but the figure remains still and hovering before Grian, entirely unmoved.

"No. You will leave him alone." Xisuma's voice again, commanding and stern even from a figure that looks more like a glowing yellow armor stand. "I'll ask that you don't test me, it took a while to put this projection together and it will not dissipate until it fulfills its intended purpose." Astrid merely hisses again, this time with an underlay of static beneath it, and Grian's wings are suddenly pulled back tight and away from his shoulders- all three pairs of them, not merely those he prefers to wear.

The sound of flesh and feathers ripping through one plane and into the next has Grian feeling sick. Wrong, his mind repeats on loop, screaming. Wrong wrong wrong. Xisuma's figure freezes at his pained squeak before unfolding its arms and going carefully still. It tilts its head to the side, considering and cold.

"Is that your game? You do realize that that is death sentence, right? We would never let you survive it." Astrid nods. The chains rise up again, clinking softly as they loop once, twice, three times around Grian's outermost pair of wings, the ones most used to the physical plane and with the most nerve endings besides. The damp air is cold and aching in his lungs.

A rip. A scream. And then everything shrinks down to a flicker of brilliant yellow light, the shrilling of broken violins, and the long, drawn-out death wail of a Watcher unused to pain. A computer crash in slow motion complete with a harsh base note as Astrid's wings fall to join Grian's in the mud.

The world expands again, overwhelming. Agony. Silence.

Chains clink to the floor, broken, as Xisuma's hard light construct comes forward to stand before the Hermits' erstwhile server mate, slumped over in a pool of blood but conscious, something in his purple eyes bent, if not a little broken.

A voice, hoarse, achingly loud in the quiet of the glade. "You didn't stop her."

"No."

"...Is this my punishment then?" A moment of quiet and then the figure stoops down to gather Grian into its arms, its featureless gaze doing little to ease his fear.

Then, gently, ".....No."

Grian slumps, the last bit of tension seeping from his limbs as the pain in his back begins to register, sapping at his will and leeching into his voice.

"I'm sorry, you know. I- I'm sorry. I didn't want to go. It just- it hurts. Hels it hurts, so much. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"I know. I know." Xisuma's figure stands up, hoisting Grian a little higher up against its chest so that hiss remaining wings don't drag on the ground quite as much, then turning to face the cowering children. Eventually, a little girl in bright red rain boots stands up to meet its gaze.

She blinks back tears, scrubbing at her face to hide them, but her expression is brave. "Where are you taking him?"

The figure clutches the children's monster close, looking just as fierce as any dragon in a fairytale. "Home. Will you stop me?"

The girl pauses, considering. "No. Don't think I could, really."

"Will you try?"

"To keep going? Yeah, of fucking course, sure as my name is Clementine. To stop you? Not bloody likely, I like my head right where it is." Xisuma's figure nods, satisfied, and with a blink, it and their monster are gone.

Notes:

[redwinterroses]

rant warning ahead, i have a lot of thoughts about this au. it’s probably gonna get pretty sewing-nerd-y too so be prepared lol

first up: tools. i imagine that very talented stitchworkers don’t need tools, but most stitchers (or unstitchers) do. things like needles, looms, you get the idea. probably not real needles, more metaphysical, but my point still stands. there are all sorts of different needles depending on the craft and the user’s persona style. WAIT what about things like sewing machines?? like maybe they could exist but since stitching is yknow, illegal and all that, i’m not sure. idk but its definitely A Concept that would be very fun to dive into.

also! knots! if someone were to be taught stitching, (which i feel like at least one person on the hermitcraft server is currently being taught), i think that they would definitely start with knots. connecting two pieces of reality but only at the corner seems like a great way to teach a beginner. i think you probably could just use knots as your main form of stitching but it takes more effort. also also back to the whole “you’re either born with magic or you’re not“ thing. consider: a lot of people are born with it, but most don’t know they have the ability. theyve never tried, never even considered it because of how much it’s frowned upon. developing an ability you didn’t know you had takes time, but having someone experienced to help you along certainly helps.

obviously there are different types of fabric when it comes to stitching irl, so how would this translate to the AU? think how some types of fabric frays very easily, but how some doesn’t fray at all. some fabric rips, some doesn’t, some stretches, some doesn’t, etc.

different! stitches! are! definitely! a! thing! like backstitches are for bigger projects or stuff more likely to get ripped or unstitched because they’re more sturdy, whipstitches are for the finishing details or the edges of a project, (also for embroidery-style stitching), running stitches are more practical and less precise, etc. i would absolutely keep going with different stitches but i don’t wanna get too too ranty lol

strands vs. threads: another thing that people who don’t sew probably won’t know!! basically one thread has six strands and you can separate them depending on how thick you want the line of string to be. so like, 6 strand sewing is for big projects, and two strand sewing is for tiny in-reality adjusments. stuff like changing jellie’s fur pattern to mess with scar or drying a wet sponge. (one strand sewing isn’t a thing, your thread will rip. use this information how you will.)

patches! most reality patches are made of the same material as the original, but there are definitely some stitchers who prefer to make flashy noticeable patches made of way different material that stands out. put a patch of the nether in a spot where the overworld reality tore. you get the point.

different styles of stitching! i know this has already been brought up but i want to go more in-depth with it.

cleo’s stitching is ABSOLUTELY embroidery. there’s literally no question about it. i feel like grian stitches with both embroidery and knots. Im thinking xB felts. idk why. mumbo is probably still learning but i think he would mostly just use sewing. scar can practically do it all, he’s a jack of all trades type. his go-to is sewing though. i know you already said x and ex work best with knitting, but honestly i think crochet suits them better. zedaph probably works with lace-sewing best. (is there an actual word for that? i feel like there is.) stress weaves.

random thing that i just thought up: certain hairstyles are associated with stitchworkers, and can be used as signals. the most obvious one is a braid/braids, especially for weavers, because well. its practically just weaving except with hair. stuff like doing hair can also help people hone in on their craft because yes.

told you it’d get rant-y. this is the shortened version. i have adhd ok

i love this. i love many elements of this and will definitely possibly maybe sssstteaalborrow them. XD

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

[popculturebuffet]

Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: “Morpholomew” (American Dragon Long): Stop Trying to Make Am Drag a Thing (Commisson Done For WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a brand new retrospective/story arc/thing from yours truly, comissoned directly by WeirdKev27. If you’d like to comission your own review or set of reviews like this one, it’s 5 bucks. Just contact me via my ask box or direct messages on this very blog or my discord technicolormuk#6550.

With Shadow Into Light in the books, Kev decided he wanted to comission something not duck related and a bit smaller as a buffer before the next big arc, ALL of three arcs from season 2 of Ducktales, and decided to go with something he suggested to be a while back as a possible future retrospective: The Lilo and Stitch Crossover episodes! 

That’s right for the next three weeks, with TWO reviews this week since I had a spot open up and Kev paid for this one in full and way in advance, we’ll be taking a trip to Hawaii to visit everyone’s faviorte little girl, her best friend/pet/killing machine as they try to find homes for his 625 cousins. 

I loved Lilo and Stitch when I was a kid: Disney admitely got their hooks in me on that one with their cool prequel comics in disney adventures. These comics set up the movie, showing Jumba creating Stitch and the events leading up to both getting captured. The movie did not disapoint with cool character designs, a drop dead gorgeous recreation of Hawaii, and a really heartfelt, heartbreaking and heartpumping story of loss, family, and ving rahmes voicing one of the few heroic child services workers i’ve seen in a medium, a refreshing change of pace. The film is a masterpiece and I really do need to watch it again sometime. 

Given the series was a huge hit and that thsi was before the big lull in the late 2000′s and early 2010′s where Disney refused to make any tv shows based on their movies, a series followed, given a lead in by the direct to video movie Stitch.

The movie set up the basic premise; 624 capsules containing Jumba’s previous experiments, cousins as Stitch calls them, ended up raining over Kauai, awakening when dropped into water or any other liquid. Lilo and Stitch, with help from Jumba, his live in boyfriend Pleakley, her tought but fair sister Nani, and her boyfriend David, who dosen’t show up as much as i’d like but is my boy so he gets a mention here. But anyways our heroes try to reform the various engines of distructoin who all have unique powers and find them their one place they truly belong. 

So yes the show was a Mons-type show clearly captalizing off pokemon.. but the slice of life setting as opposed to the shonen style of most shows following in pokemon’s wake, gave it it’s own unique feel: while our heroes did fight, it was more about shenanigans, adventures and what not with these unique creatures and the purpose is very heartflet: Lilo simply wants to give these guys the same kind of love and support she’s given Stitch and a chance to do good. 

Opposing them is Gantu, the shark bounty hunter from the first film who, now out of a job, is working for Dr. Hamstervile, an imprisoned sceintest and a character I really don’t like that much as he’s not funny or a genuine threat or both and feels like a waste of time. Thankfully he’s not the focus and Gantu is instead partnered with 625, my faviorite Lilo and Stitch character. 625, as the name suggests, is stitch’s immediate prototype.. but unlike Stitch is too lazy and peaceful to be a real threat and isn’t even really a villian despite being on Gantu’s side. He’s busy making samwitches, his calling to the point when he gets a name in the finale movie it’s naturally Ruben, and snarking at gantu. He’s sadly not in this one but hopefully it’s JUST this one. 

As you can tell I liked this show a LOT at the time. I haven’t watched it since, mostly because disney scarely replayed it after it’s run, but it was vibrant, fun and intresting and a nicely laidback and creative take. The fact I came into the franchise with the comics and thus 625, who was introduced there in fact, and had a hunger to know more about the other experiments certainly helped. It was great fun. 

But while I grew up with the show and the four shows it teamed up with, i’ve never seen these episodes before these reviews. I wondered why for years as I caught the tail end of the kim possible one and saw images ocasionally, but never saw them. 

Turns out it’s because in general Season 2 got screwed over. While Season 1 was pushed out the door fast and aired at a rapid pace Season 2.. was portioned out over several years, and the Recess crossover one, the last one aired and the last one i’ll be covering never even got to Disney channel, only airing on ABC kids, DIsney’s saturday morning block at the time I rarely watched. I did watch it’s predecessor one saturday morning though. Good stuff. 

Since I couldn’t find any making of stuff for why these episodes happened, my best guess is DIsney wanted some cross promotion, and the shows used were chosen because they were the most popular at the time and honestly all 4 represent some of disney’s best, with Recess being in heavy reruns at the time, hence i’ts conclusion despite the show being finished before Lilo And Stitch the movie came out, let alone the series. 

So yeah i’m taking this ride for the first time.. but I was happy to. While Kev pays for a lot of my work, I still have to accept the idea.. and this was a great one. It allows me to cover 5 amazing series and gage how much people would want to see reviews of said series on this blog in one fell swoop.

So to kick us off we have American Dragon: Jake Long, a series I waited forever to come to Disney + as I loved it at the time, badly need to rewatch it (Been busy ), and find it genuinely great: It’s a great teen superhero story about the magical protector of new york, with a charming lead, a great setting and horrifcally great villians in the violently racist magic creature hunting huntsclan.. and their top agent who happens to be jake’s love intrest Rose. It’s really excellent and i’m glad it’s now widely avaliable for all to see. I will say ahead that all four shows in this crossover arc are excellent, and were fine choices for this. 

So what happens when an action comedy about a hip hop teenage dragon meets a slice of life show about aliens? Find out under the cut. 

So we open at a fancy hotel where Lilo’s bringing lunch to her sister Nani when she runs into.. Keoni Jameson. 

The second I remembered this kid all the hate just came flooding back, coursing through my veigns. Just pure liquid hatred for this little perosnalitiless little punk. Keoni is Lilo’s crush and local “stupid white audience stand in”. He has no real personality other than “generic cool kid” and “likes skating”, and just sucks the air out of the room anytime he’s in an episode. Keoni is part of a recurring problem in cartoons across the ages, one that’s slowly going away: the bland love intrest. Intorducing a character whose only traits are being cool for the lead to fawn over with usually no intent of either getting the two togehter or just ending it. IT’s annoying, it was in a good chunk of my childhood, I wish it’d stop. I cannot tell you how many shows used this trope. There were exceptions, American Dragon Jake Long actually used it well by not only making Rose a fleshed out character..  but making her jake’s nemisis in their other lives, and thus making things increidbly difficult on both once the truth comes out, with Jake grappling with if he can trust her or not and Rose grappling with the slow relization eveyrthing she was taught her whole life was wrong.

And again I have seen GOOD storylines using this as a tool: Dipper and Wendy ended with her having been aware teh whole time, but simply not knowing how to let him down given the age gap, and Regular Show rebounded the best from it: it turned the stop and start relatoinshpi of Mordecai and Margret’s relationship into a character flaw for him, openly explored it.. and ended up having him work past it and actually date her for a bit. Before she moved away, he got an even better love interest, then they destoryed the relationship in the worst way posisble and I wil lbe getting to that at some point. Some point. 

So yeah even at the time it was done better, hindsight haas only made it worse and it made watching the first few minutes tough because I had to keep pasuing because I hate him so damn much. He just adds NOTHING to the show and is a blank yanwing void from which no good came out of and I was terrified he’d be in the rest of the episode. Thankfully while he drives the plot he’s only in this scene.. but it’s still one more scene than both 625 and Pleakly got. yeah both are missing, as is nani. 

I did uncover one fun fact that made things a bit easier though: The crew ALSO hated Keoni. No really. Disney forced the character on them as they wanted an audience surrogate, and this abomination is what popped out. They DID NOT want him here and likely only used him as mcuh as they did because Disney forced it on them. And Disney would NOT learn from this as Star Vs got saddled with Alphonso and Ferguson soley because of network mandate. The two aren’t TERRIBLE characters but they aren’t great and feel as tacked on as they were. And part of this does fall on the crew: you CAN twist a stupid mandate like this to work well: Joe Murray was asked to add “A female character with a hook”, as in some sort of dumb gimmick to Rocko. He used those words, meant to create a superfical girl power cardboard cutout.. and created the wonderful Dr. Hutchenson, a bright cheery doctor, the series best sidecharacter.. and someone with a hook hand. But I won’t go too hard on them: they probably didn’t have as much room to manuver and the fact Keoni was sitll being shoved into episodes in season 2 tells me they likely had a set number of episodes he had to show up. I’m suprised they didn’t demand they have characters ask “Where’s Keonie?” any time he wasn’t in an episode. He was unecessary and it comes across with a massive chunk of unforutnate implications: that they didn’t think a series with a mostly hawaiann cast would work, that they wanted at least one other “nice” white character to offset myrtle instead of having the only major white character be a bully and antagonist, and that they thought tehir mostly white audience coudln’t enjoy a series without a white character, which as someone who was in the target demo at the time, I call bullshit on. As I said I hated him then, I hate him now and his involvement is the worst aspect of this episode. 

So after Lilo fawns over him for a bit we find out this chonk of wood’s purpose in the episode: to set up the plot. There’s a massive Skate Competition coming to town with the prize being a really cool skateboard.  This plot point itself.. I don’t mind. Jake is a skater, it’s part of his character and one of the things he loves doing in what minsicule spare time he has. And while it was a common trope at the time having a character skateboard really dosen’t harm most works. We’ve gotten great characters like Jake, Jackie Lynn Thomas, Branwen and Ronnie Anne Santiago out of it, and it feels like natural parts of the character, and frankly An Extremley Goofy Movie wouldn’t be NEARLY as awesome without having skateboarding bizzarley attached to the plot via the college x-games. Granted somtimes you get Rocket Power out of the deal but that’s the price you pay for the good stuff. I only regret it’s involved because Keoni has to be there and I had to pause multiple times to get through his scene. He’s just a sampler platter of terrible decisions made in 2000′s cartoons and he irritates me more than this guy. 

And anyone whose read my Loud House reviews can tell you that is a high bar to clear. 

So naturally Lilo wants to enter the Hawiann X-Games to get the board for Keoni. Though I will give the writers credit for having Stitch voice their thoughts and the audiences thoughts by having him take Keoni’s picture and throw it in the garbage. Where he belongs. 

Lilo’s not great at it as they practice.. and said practice naturally ends up waking up a new experiment, 316.. who i’m just going to go ahead and call Morpholomew. Stitch eventually catches him though like many of the experiments he’s not actively malevelolent and is easy enough to get home. 

Jumba gets to his schitck of breaking down what the experiment of the week does: In this case Morpholomew is  a shapeshifter though he has a VERY intresting twist on those powers: while he can naturally morph himself into anything he’s seen or has a picture of, he can do the same to anyone he touches. It dosen’t effect their voices, but otherwise it’s a perfect recreation. 

So Lilo instead of finding him a home right away.. decides to wait until after the compettition because we need him for the plot. 

So at the Skateboard Competittion Lilo tries to enter, but finds she’s too young.. but since she has a picture of Keoni, which is a nice way to use her photo hobby from the movie for plot reasons and thus dosen’t feel like an ass pull. Why Keoni’s not in town to skate is as his dad left because it’d be too crowded.. even though the event is at the resort he owns. 

So while Lilo commits identtity theft, our guest star appears. He’s cool, he’s hot like a frozen son, he’s young and fast he’s the chosen one, people i’m not braggin, i’ts the American Dragon. Jake is here for two reasons: the first is that Grandpa Long got reports of magical creatures out in the open, so naturally they need to look into that. It’s a clever way to get him, along with Grandpa, Fu, Trixie and Spud, over to Hawaii. The Dragon Council would defintely be suspcious hearing about this, and my guess to why they hadn’t sent another dragon over is they simply dont’ have one on the islands. As for why the Huntsclan didn’t get involved in any way, it’s simply too public for them.  With the magical community in new york, they don’t have to worry about exposure because neither side wants it, so neither side can out the other. Here with a bunch of creatures out in the open it runs the risk of the Hunstclan being dragged into the light.. and given the populace dosne’t care about the “magical creatures” alongside them, it would make them look like the monsters they are. 

Spud and Trixie tagging along also makes sense besides “they needed them for the plot”: While they’d obviously want to come to Hawaii, the skate competition is likely Jake’s cover for why he’s there, as well as one for why it’s just him and grandpa going with a couple of his friends so they don’t have to deal with manuvering around jake’s dad. That sad them never TELLING jake’s Dad is it’s own can of worms as it feels cruel, made things harder for jake and there was no real reason not to. At worst he’d want Jake to stop for his own saftey but given ther’es an active threat in  the huntsclan for the first season and a half, NOT helping people would be the right thing and I feel he’s a sensible enough man to understand eventually. 

And it’s stuff like this that already makes this crossover really work for me: they don’t really have to strain to get Jake over there or tell the audience heavily, the blanks fill in themslves. Or I am but that’s because it’s my job and I love doin it. 

So everyone goes off to their corners; Jake to do a few practice runs, Foo Dog to bet on his friend because of course, Trixie and Spud to go to the beach (even though Spud’s terrified of sharks so I question why Trixie needs him for this), and in a delightfully adorable subplot, finds a lady to woo: local fruit stand vendoer and crankly old lady Mrs. Hasagawa. 

I am here for this subplot: While Grandpa not focusing on the mission is weird for him that’s the entire point.. and their just really cute together. He’s smitten with her entirely because he sees her chewing out one of the people running the contest for making her sign too small. And he performs one hell of a romantic gesture by, while everyone’s back is turned, using his dragon fire to make an add for her on the skate ramp itself, and they have a lovely montage of their time together.. which also weirdly includes grandpa using his dragon fire on stage inf ront of everyone which makes no sense for his charcter but is so cute and does feature david I really don’t care. The writers of Lilo and Stitch probably weren’t deeply familiar with the show and likely just wanted a fun gag. Could be wrong there but it’s cute. He continues to act grossly out of character by trying to avoid going home at the end.. but again I find it simply because he’s in love, they have genuine chemstiry and I like to think they stayed in touch and he retired out there at some point once Jake was old enough to handle things himself. This may not be a ship I expected to support going in but I will die for it going out. 

So back to the main plot, Lilo uses Keoni’s body to imitate him which... she’s only loosely called out on and realizes is bad by the end only because she gets stuck in another body. And that’s not even getting into the fact she BREAKS UP WITH KEONI’S GIRLFRIEND. Yes really.. she just does that to get her out of the way. She comes around and realizes she was wrong and tries to fix it which would be fine.. if hte episode didn’t try to cop it out by revealing “Oh she’s not his girlfriend, she’s just someone who keeps telling people that”. It just feels lazy and dumb and a way to keep Lilo’s crush on Keoni for reasons I DO. NOT. GET. But the identity theft is just brushed aside by everyone: Keoni never finds out, and Jake just brushes it off. The real issue is more her trying to bribe keoni into likng her which while something kids need to learn is not the only thing she did wrong here. It feels like they didn’t think all the implications out here and it hampers the episode

Speaking of which as Gantu captures Jake, he sees him transform into dragon mode and assumes he’s the experiment, Jake’s charactization is pretty shallow.  And why yes it DOES feel weird writing sentences about a character with the same name thank you for asking. I wasn’t expecting a deep character piece or anything: This is a guest spot, the writers here are not the same normal ones for American Dragon. That’s fine. The problem.. is that they clearly did not get Jake. Grandpa being partly out of character is half the joke, Trixie actually gets a really nice moment towards the end, and Spud.. is eh. But out of them Jake just feels like a basic character description: He likes hip hop, he likes skateboards, he calls himself Am Drag despite that sounding like a good name for a drag act but a terrible name to shorten your title, he fights.. that’s it. 

While jake is all of that in the main series, he’s also a kind young man who while sometimes irresponsible does the right thing when the chips are down.  He’s someone weighed down by a responsiblity he didn’t ask for, often makes his life more difficult and often finds himself in trouble because his mother and grandfather won’t bother to tell his dad he’s a dragon. Yes that part still bothers me, and I don’t see why we couldn’t just have a superhero show where both parents know. But regardless this just dosen’t feel like Jake , like they just watched the intro and that was it. Jake feels more like a plot device in his own crossover. 

That being said there is some good stuff: The minute Jake realizes some Sci Fi stuff is going on instead of hte normal magic stuff he tells him “The am drag’s show isn’t about sci fi” a nice meta bit and then breaks out. Meanwhile Lilo takes on his form.. and ends up stuck after badly botching her run again, as Gantu finds the real shapeshifter. 

We get the best stretch of the episode from here though: Lilo awkardly tries to play jake and like jake we get a nice meta nod to how diffrent their show is as she’s worried about his belief in magical creatures.. and is startled out of her charade when Foo Dog talks, a really nice bit especially since it’s tame compared to the weirdness he deals with. Spud and Trixie have questions... only for Jake to show up and his agressive behavior leads to the best bit of the episode: Jake Vs Stitch. The catlyst is understandable: jake has no idea why Lilo’s taken his identity and Sttich is just protecting his best friend from harm. The animation is fluid, the fight is fun and quick and uses both’s powers stellarl. Whle “two heroes get into a misunderstanding and then fight” is a well worn cliche at this point, it’s moments like this that show why: you get to see two heroes who in this case never have interacted before or sense, duke it out, why each is special and it’s fun to watch. 

Lilo breaks it up, and admits to the whole thing.. including the whole give Keani the board stuff. While Jake and Spud, being awkard with girls and a loveable moron don’t see the problem with that Trixie gets a moment to shine. As far as I can remember she really didn’t get much on the show proper so it was a nice suprise to see her mentor lilo her, telling her trying to give someone gifts to love you is not okay, she should just be herself all that good stuff. It’s a nice character stuff and tha’ts the kind of character interaction this episode needed more of. 

With the misunderstandings washed away our heroes team up and storm gantu’s ship leading to another great sequence as Stitch rides on Jake’s back while the two keep him busy and Lilo gets turned back, Trixie complimenting her dress “Thanks I have 10 just like it at home”. It’s such a sweet and genuine moment” They head back out and gantu semeingly grabs morpholmew from where they hide.. only to find out when he gets back it’s spud, our adorable little blob monster transforming Gantu into a bunny and our heroes leaving. How does Gantu get out of being a bunny?

But it’s a nice enough gag. So we end the episode. We get another nice gag as grandpa had himself and his lady transformed to try and avoid going home, and Jake is fine with having lost out on the board what matters is he made a friend. Sadly we did not get a followup in ADJL., but spud does name our experiment, Morpholomew. 

We end on Morph getting his home: a costume shop where he gets paid in fried chicken, he was shown to enjoy it throughtout the episode and changes people into things. It’s a nice little button to the episode and one of the funnest parts of the show was figuring out where the experiment would end up at the end. 

Final Thoughts:

This episode is a really mixed bag. There is some good character interactions, two tremendous fight scens and Trixie gets a chance to shine for once if only for a scene or two, and the clashing genres end up making for some great jokes> The shows do go well together as while Lilo and Stitch is more laid back both have slice of life elements. And hasgawa X Grandpa is just oto cute for words. 

The episode is held back by Jake and Lilo’s lackluster characterizatons: Jake is simply the theme song as a character, which in theory is awesome because that theme song slaps but in practice is pretty lame, and Lilo is selfish and irresponsible even for her in a way that dosen’t feel at all convincing. It drags down what’s otherwise a fun crossover and Morpholomew is truly a unique and wonderful experiment. Still if you like either show it’s worth a watch even if you have to suffer through Keoni for it. It’s worth it.. I just wish it was better and hopefully the next 3 will keep the good parts but take out the bad. Granted this was produced last so I could be wrong, but here’s hoping.  Oh this episode also featured Miranda Cosgrove as the girl who claims to be Keoni’s girlfriend. This is also Keoni’s last episode meaning I do NOT have to worry about accidently running into him. Thank fucking christ. 

Next Time On American Dragon Jake Long: Jake’s dad drags him and his friends on a camping trip and Jake ends up encountering the Jersey Devil. Now all they need is a sexy lady devil cake to lure it out... what it worked for the Cake Boss. And yes that happened, Allison Pregler did an episode on that episode. Check it out. 

Next Time On Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: It’s the family, the family, proud familllyyy as the Prouds take a vacation at Peakly and Jumbas bed but not breakfast and we get some kind of squirrel demon for our experiment of the week. We also get Wizard Kelly appearing...

See you at the next rainbow. 

[mallowstep]

I just thought about this

Do you think the Clan cats might ever have some form of PTSD from eather witnessing another cats death in any form like in battle or another disaster or even killing another cat themselves

I really do want to expand on this

okay matthew from the end of this post here it turns out i have a lot of thoughts and talked for like, almost 2k words about this. sorry. there's a tldr at the end.

hmmmmm

my official answer is, "sure, anything is possible, especially if you want to explore that."

my more rambly answer is...kind of.

we're just going to jump straight in with serious cat talk here, but cats? those mofos are killing machines. they are highly efficient hunters. kind of like people and creating things.

on the other hand, cats are also huge cowards who don't like to fight. hence cat and mouse: the cat doesn't want to go in for the kill unless they're sure they can execute it.

i like to think of them as a very krav maga idea: "we don't fight unless we absolutely have to, but once we go in, we go all in."

so...on one hand, "do cats experience ptsd from killing each other?" feels kind of like asking, "do humans experience ptsd from making things?", and yet, that's clearly extremely reductive.

it's also worth talking about what ptsd is. it's easy to think of ptsd as equivalent to trauma, but it's not.

trauma is, well, traumatic events, ptsd is one possible response. most people who experience trauma do not develop ptsd.

(there's also c-ptsd, but i'm getting to that.)

ptsd is, basically, an overactive adrenaline response, basically. it can look similar to depression and anxiety, but it's not the same. things like flashbacks and triggers are not exclusive to ptsd, or even any specific mental illness. it's normal to experience ptsd-like symptoms after a traumatic event. that's a traumatic response.

ptsd is, instead, the unhealthy extension of that, in time, and possibly severity.

before i go any farther, i just want to say, this is not to say you need to have ptsd to have trauma, that you can't have ptsd/trauma if XYZ, etc., so please, give me the benefit of the doubt here. it's always tricky to word these things in a way that is both clear about what i mean and not harming people.

mental illness is always a tricky subject. trying to fit a sum of many symptoms into boxes will never work, but i am going to lean on it as a tool to categorize and discuss experiences in a general sense.

i also want to mention c-ptsd, or "complex post-traumatic stress disorder." this is a debated diagnosis, in that where it fits into mental illness boxes is argued and it's yet to be included in the dsm, but for now, it's sufficient to think of it as ptsd's fraternal twin.

c-ptsd develops when trauma is prolonged, and there's little/no chance of escape. think kidnappings and child abuse.

it shares a lot of symptoms with ptsd, but it has its own unique cluster of symptoms, especially surrounding relationship issues.

right. we can rule that off for things cats typically experience from battle. but i still want to talk about it.

but ptsd is in reference to human reactions to trauma, which is fine! all warrior cats are at least a little anthropomorphised, or it wouldn't be fun to read about.

okay, before i lose the thread, circling back to my point, the conditions for ptsd are a prolonged response to a traumatic event. i, personally, don't think that your everyday warrior is going to experience this. some amount of battle is normal for cats, yeah?

but i do think ptsd/ptsd-like conditions are quite possible. i'm going to move into a discussion of various characters, now, and i'll put that under a read more.

okay, let's examine a few different cats, starting with mudfur.

why mudfur? because he chooses to be a medicine cat specifically because the battles of being a warrior are too much for him. does this mean he's experiencing ptsd? no, i don't think so. we never see any indication of him having flashbacks or hypervigilance. mind, i have

okay sorry you uh

i took a break to read mothwing's secret

see i've been putting it off bc i knew it was going to make me feel things and lord it did

phew

well i was going to talk about mothwing but first, back to mudfur

i can now confirm that we don't see any evidence of ptsd in him. trauma, maybe, but not ptsd.

which...checks.

next cat, ivypool.

but my ivypool, not canon ivypool, because i gave ivypool ptsd.

if you haven't read it, hedera helix is my canon compliant ivypool series, and you can get the Deets there, but i think "fair is the night" is the piece to focus on here. specifically,

The dark is the same, and the heat, and the way she slinks through the shadows, trying not to take notice. The way every pawstep is echoingly loud, and how she can't catch her breath or find her thoughts over the noise. All that's missing is.

Him.

Maybe Ivypool does still dream.

She hisses, her belt bristling, tail lashing, and raises her paw, claws extended.

what's going on here is that she mistakes tigerheart for hawkfrost.

yes, she has ptsd.

she also has c-ptsd in my writing, but i don't want to talk about this at the moment, because ivypool is complex, and i don't feel like bringing dovewing into this. but no, this is her having ptsd from her (dark forest) mentor trying to kill her. a cat she, at least on some level, trusted turning on her and attempting to kill her.

so for ivypool, it's the unexpected that traumatizes her.

which i think makes sense: cats don't generally expect to be attacked by those they trust. which leads me into...

character three: bluestar.

now, bluestar is complex because of the dementia, but i think it's pretty easy to say: tigerclaw (a cat she trusts) betrays her, she gets hypervigilant and stops trusting people.

i'm deliberately going short on this because i'm at almost a thousand words and uh,, i just want to talk about mothwing.

mothwing. my baby. my beloved. my beautiful.

fuuuuck okay so i should not have read mothwing's secret because this is going to turn into me writing mostly about that, but i actually knew 90% of what was contained in it through moonkitti videos + doing research for various mothwing related projects.

i think the only thing i learned was the moonkitti scene about bees is actually completely canonical, as written, and that it was possible for me to love mothwing more than i already do.

usually, i'd want to also talk about willowshine, but i'm going to keep my focus on mothwing. willow my love is going to come up, but i'm keeping my focus tight.

mothwing! onto my purpose: mothwing and c-ptsd and religious trauma.

she will get her own essay i have a document titled "mothwing and religious trauma" but with trope-bingo i've been writing the essays less, so bear with me.

anyway. i'm not waffling, i'm just trying to set up a good starting point so i don't ramble past the purpose. and i think...the scene with mudfur and mothwing near the end is what i'm honing in on. (spoilers, duh, but also, you don't need to have read it.)

so mudfur comes to mothwing after the battle, and she turns him away. he doesn't understand, but i do.

religion has been used against mothwing her entire life. her clan used it (inadvertently) to keep her from her purpose, hawkfrost used it to maintain his control over her, and mistystar used it to again keep her from her purpose and passion. (and yes, i have strong feelings about what this does to willowshine, but i'm trying to stay on-topic.)

and then, the first tangible proof she has of starclan is the dark forest. and her brother. attacking the nursery. and her.

and then mudfur has the audacity to say, "yeah sorry we don't know anything! but like why are you still rejecting us?"

(makes me want to rewrite the ending of "if you love me any, let me know it now" actually, i'm angry. not going to, but i want to.)

adfskjl mothwing is my new purpose for existing. i may actually consider changing my blog title from "in this house we lovewing dovewing" to something mothwing themed. i love her. expect a mothwing focus sometime soon-ish.

right, so, i don't think mothwing's perspective needs to be explained here. but...she is very self-aware of her position. she struggles with it. she doesn't want to talk to willowshine about her beliefs — she's grateful when willowpaw just accepts it and doesn't discuss it with her.

mothwing as a character has always been appealing to me. but. again, trying to keep focused, her brother is manipulative and cruel.

(i'm not saying abusive because i don't know if he really is. i'd want to do a proper analysis for that, not just ramble in a blank document for a while. he's toxic, but i try to reserve abusive for abusive characters. i think he is, but i don't know how i would defend that, ergo, i'm avoiding it for now.)

just. her whole life.

she spends a long time trusting others, looking to starclan for answer and salvation, and it keeps letting her down, and others keep using it against her, like a weapon. there's a lot to mothwing, but i'm really trying to stay on topic.

before i get to my closing arguments, some honorable mentions for characters i didn't talk about, but could have:

squirrelflight

feathertail, stormfur, and mistyfoot

dovewing

briarlight. okay she's such a good honorable mention i just have to explore this for a second, but the scene in bramblestar's storm where she's afraid of falling trees is good. i don't know, she seems fairly functional, but she's definitely not "over it."

anyone captured by twolegs.

tawnypelt

bramblestar. before you gasp, he too trained in the dark forest and was manipulated by hawkfrost and tigerstar.

probably a lot more.

so anyway, if you hung around for nearly 2k words to listen to me talk about cat trauma, here's my closing statement:

i think ptsd in clan cats is definitely going to be a thing, but i think, more often than not, it's not going to come from the battle. we looked at several examples where the incident happened during a battle, but i think it's the betrayal that's more shocking than the actual fighting.

i didn't address ptsd from cats killing each other, other than mudfur, and that's...frankly that's because i don't know. it is very hard for me to sympathize with those characters long enough to think critically about it.

like, i can write villain pov, but i don't think i can actually say, "what if XYZ feels bad for killing someone?" even if i was going to write about like, firestar killing scourge, i don't think i could.

not in this context, anyway.

similarly, i think a lot of what we'll see is trauma. cats are already extremely vigilant, and while it's possible to get hypervigilant cats, i'm not sure how often it's going to come out. cats are good at hiding physical pain, ipso facto, i imagine they're good at hiding emotional pain.

which isn't to say that they...you know what? you know what? if you want to come argue with me about human ptsd, you can do that on my main. but i'm talking about cats, and i say that they probably don't experience ptsd because they probably shove away a lot of the external symptoms, and that's mostly how we identify ptsd. this is not an end-all be-all, nor does it apply to people, but i don't know how to begin couching this, and i'm tired.

alright, well...

tl/dr: yes, trauma and maybe ptsd occur in clan cats, but i think it's more likely to be from betrayal than fighting.

dkjl this was a lot if u have follow up qs or just wanna discuss this my ask box is open! <3

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 25: 2x24 The Ultimate Computer

Belated notes on my watch of The Ultimate Computer yesterday.

Kirk’s definitely in Captain Mode today. You can tell when he’s on edge and suspicious and serious.

Yet another old Kirk friend. Does he know everyone in Starfleet?

War games lol. But it’s “not the military.”

Spock is super into this computer.

A-7 Computer Expert Certification.

The crew’s not needed? Wow, okay, this is going to end badly.

“This gadget.” How do you really feel, Kirk?

And there’s Spock literally making faces behind the Commodore’s back. He is soooo that type. He’s like “Jim, are you hearing this? Can you believe this guy?”

I’m insulted on Kirk’s behalf right now. Replacing people with machines so blithely is offensive.

Of course Bones doesn’t like it.

Oh yeah triumvirate walking scene. I love them. it takes so little for me to think ‘what badasses.’ S2 is really stepping up this dynamic in particular.

And Spock is comfortable enough around Bones to be sassy around him

Oh no, the computer is already glitching, and there is no backup and no plan B.... Bones is completely right in his assessment. This is essentially a Titanic situation: way too much hubris involved. Nothing can go wrong so nothing will go wrong so we’ve planned for nothing going wrong!

McCoy has BFF Clearance. He can go wherever he wants.

“It’s the M-5? What happened to Ms 1-4?” Channel #5.

Ahhhh little gratuitous touch to Spock’s arm. They’re In Love.

“There are certain things men must do to remain men.”

“The right computer finally came along.” Damn Bones.

Jim’s suspicions about the computer coming right after that line make it look like he’s jealous that Spock likes it so much.

He’s getting a “red alert right here.” Computers don’t have that kind of intuition.

Jim’s so thoughtful and self-aware. He really cares both about his instincts and about interrogating those instincts for bias and unreasonableness. This is giving me real S1 vibes: the quiet, intelligent, idealized hero Captain at the fore.

This whole scene is perfect, eminently quotable, and sounds exactly like something that could have been written about automation in 2021. You’re okay with it when it’s happening to someone else but then the computer comes for YOUR job....

Uh-h, M-5 is turning off all the lights...

Space merchant marines... good to know.

HOW are the Captain and CMO “non-essential personnel”? The first sign that M-5 is illogical. They should bring some doctor on the landing party mission given that uh humans are going on it and might get injured.

Anyway I can’t wait for Kirk to destroy this bitch and save the day.

Lol it turned off the lights on Bones in sickbay.

Damn, now it’s trying to take Uhura’s job too!

Chekov is so bored.

Spock wants to serve under one man and one man ONLY. Loyalty to one man... sounds like a wedding vow... and Kirk looks so soft...

So, if Spock has to describe to McCoy what that (unnecessary bitchy and catty) “Captain Dunsel” remark means, by saying that it’s a phrase that “midshipmen use at Starfleet Academy,” is this to imply Bones didn’t go to Starfleet Academy?

He’s never felt so at odds with the ship.... a lover’s quarrel...she’s cheating on him with another man...

Jim Kirk, certified Poetry Nerd. He’s such a romantic.

So glad Bones got him a drink so he can return to the bridge and a possible emergency with just a little bit of a buzz going.

Spock in the chair...

Huh, an automated ship with no crew. Interesting concept.

Oh no M-5! She’s got control of the ship and she won’t let go!

Kirk’s face when Enterprise attacks.. the betrayal... his beautiful lady used for mindless destruction.

“Only a robot” ship--! Bones is insulted.

Kirk orders the computer turned off but we’re only halfway through the ep so...

....And the computer is sentient now.

That was the shortest Captain’s Log ever. “The computer has taken over the ship the end.”

Scotty’s like, “...Well what if we just unplug it?”

Okay so now they only have 19 crew.

Spock and Bones are on point today. “Don’t say it’s fascinating.” / “I won’t. But it is... interesting.” This bitch knows exactly what he’s doing.

The computer isn’t a child, guys!

We need powerful computers “so men don’t have to die in space”--like uh that man your computer literally just killed?

I don’t get Daystrom’s logic at all. He talks as if people, like, needed to do work in space, to survive or something. We don’t need to. We want to! We want to go out and meet cool aliens! This guy is no fun.

What is the thing “greater” than fact finding in space that the robots are going to free us to do? Like what is more impressive than SPACE? I don’t even get that.

Time to mix up fake sci fi world-building references with real references! The Nobel and Zee-Magnee Prizes. Sitar of Vulcan.

A theory emerges... the computer acts illogically...Daystrom won’t let Spock near it... I know this isn’t where this is going, but it kind of sounds like they’re implying it’s a scam, lol. He sold an idea he didn’t have so it’s like.. not a real computer.

Spock’s little protege, Chekov.

“We have been pursuing a wild goose.” Aw, bb’s trying so hard to be colloquial. (Also he 100% learned that phrase from McCoy in The Gamesters of Triskellion and now he’s trying it out on Kirk...when McCoy isn’t around.)

“Not to offend you by using the h-word, but... could it be... human?”

Kirk’s really mad at Daystrom now.

The Commodore really set up that dramatic turn to camera there.

Poor Kirk. His ship is being used for evil.

“They can’t destroy the ship, what would happen to the computer?!” Yes, the computer. And the other 19 people and himself but mostly the computer. Daystrom really has lost it.

I love the actor who plays him, though.

“You are great. I am great.” Nothing weird happening here.

Spirk attack! (Spork it out.)

Spock’s way too sure Commodore Wesley is about to die. “He was decent, it’s a shame the ship I’m on is gonna kill him.”

And now another round of Kirk versus the computer and Kirk’s logic wins.

M-5 should argue that it did not commit murder, it committed homicide in self-defense. But then Daystrom didn’t program it with a lawyer’s brain.

It’s uh just gonna leave? Not turn the lights back on?

Kirk is so smart! I know I say this all the time, but it’s true! He knew what to do to save the ship because he knew Bob Wesley. He had formed connections, he had experience and knowledge that doesn’t come from logic. He is not replaceable!

McCoy’s like “Spock, fight me. Debate me Spock. Fight me. I’ll be fun.”

Spock HAS answered the computers versus humans question--he likes humans. He wants to be surrounded by humans.

That was really good! One of the better S2 episodes. Great Kirk, great triumvirate--as a trio and all three sides of the triangle--great sci fi concept, great guest star, great social commentary--still 100% relevant today.

i definitely have to think more about the ‘human computer’ concept. I liked that they specifically went out of their way to explain why the computer was human, how that was part of its design, and then tied that into its creator, his background, his belief system, and his insecurities. I feel like most ‘sentient computer’ or ‘advanced AI’ narratives just assume a computer that’s powerful enough will eventually be alive, which is not something I believe. The scariness of advanced AI to me is the incredible power it has to act quickly, but in a complete black-box way: you can’t literally see the logic string of its thought processes, and nor can you figure them out easily or completely using the creators’ intentions or logic because the machine has ‘learned’ since its inception, and its learning processes are not human. There is a real alienness to them that I find scary. And I do think this ep captured that nuance in M-5: it has the speed and abilities of a super computer, the “human” qualities of its creator for well-explained reasons, and the unpredictability of a mechanism that is NEITHER human nor human-controlled tool. And of course the ep’s ultimate thesis--that humans cannot be completely automated or replaced, and that we should not want to automate or replace humans--is comforting and of a morality I can and want to agree with.

This was also one of those eps that made me curious about the differences in AOS and TOS Kirk--in other words, an ep that relied on his history with Starfleet and his experience, on the reality that he’s a 34 year old man with 15+years of experience in the Fleet. Time, experience, connections, these aren’t things you can replace no matter how smart you are, and I feel like it would have been interesting to see AOS!Kirk deal with some situation that is trickier for him because he’s a Captain with a startlingly small amount of institutional experience. It’s not just about being young or generally inexperienced, in other words--it’s about NOT knowing every Captain, Admiral, and Commodore in the service, it’s about NOT having friends across the galaxy because he just hasn’t had time to make them. Even in deep space, that matters. And I think it’s something that I appreciate more as an adult myself, with actual real world experience of the importance of connections and experience and time, especially in sort of insular or smaller work communities.

Anyway, next is Bread and Circuses! Another great ep for the triumvirate. I can’t believe we’re almost through S2!!

[hi-dread]

Mirko x Reader

Foreword

This story is a fanfic of Boku no Hero Academia and the rabbit hero Mirko, also known as Rumi Usagiyama.

I chose to write it in first person, mostly because I want to add something to my life which I cannot get besides in my fantasy. I hope you enjoy reading this and do not find it cringe.

The following part of this, is just a bit backstory on me/the reader that will end up meeting Mirko. If you don’t care about the backstory (since it is pretty long) you can just skip it. Since my childhood, I always felt like that one kid in school that was always alone, even if they wanted to reach out for people. I did have a few friends that I hung out with at and after school. We usually played soccer whenever we had a lunchbreak or when we could do anything but assignments. I had a lot of fun (or so I thought), and when I had the time I would ask one of my “friends” if they wanted to play/hang out after school and most of the time they said yes. I preferred being at their house than at mine. I always felt awkward being home with a friend. Not that my mom or siblings were embarrassing in any way. I just didn’t have as many things as the friends I hung out with had. When we got to their house, we either played soccer in their backyard or played video games. Be it Call of Duty, Mario Kart or Sims. I was down for anything, even if I had to watch them play. I enjoyed my time being there. But as much fun as it seemed, I did not expect this to happen. I was persuaded into going to a soccer tournament since they lacked a few players, especially in the defense. I didn’t really have any high hopes for the tournament because I knew I would be lopped with the bad team and we lost 9 out of 10 games, if we were lucky  that is. As I expected, we got destroyed in the first match with a whopping score of 0-23. The second game wasn’t as bad, but still quite a bit, since we lost that with a score of 0-15. There was a third game, but I am unsure if there was a fourth game. Well, that doesn’t really matter in the end since we lost in the end. When the entire tournament was over, my birthday came up. It was all nice and good, but a few days after that, I suddenly felt a severe stinging pain in my left foot. I didn’t know what it was, all I could say is that I hurt so bad that I couldn’t walk, so I had to lend some crutches from my cousin. As usual when something is hurting and it won’t go away after a week, I went to the doctor, they touched my foot and I nearly cry in pain. They send me to get an x-ray scan of the foot. Nothing showed up, so they sent me to the HR, which for those who don’t know what that is, it’s just a huge machine, making a lot of noise which will show pictures of the scanned object in a more detailed way. As I hoped it would show something, they said there was not anything wrong with the foot. At this the doctors were quite annoyed with my presence and my persistence of the pain in my foot. So, after 4 months of agonizing pain and a very bad start of a new school year, I was referred to a new hospital where they saw the old x-scan of my foot and showed me it. I could clearly see my foot was broken. They wanted to do a rescan of my foot to see how much it was healed and then they wanted to put a cast on it. I was happy they figured what was wrong out and that they helped me, but what was missing was my absence in school. Most of my classmates knew as much as I did, maybe less, but they kept asking me if they could use my crutches. I gave them permission. But there was also those who felt as if I were getting too much attention and even said to me that there was nothing wrong with my foot and I should stop walking with the crutches. As many would have thought, I thought the same; “how rude”. I shrugged it off.

Eventually, the cast would  be taken off and I had to learn how to walk again. As I regained my mobility, I slowly lost my interest in other things. My social life slowly dwindled, and I stopped going to soccer since I felt it got too serious and I didn’t get anywhere (mostly because I was put on the losing team). One and a half year went by and I got into a new class. Everything seemed fine and I was in an association of runners and I ran a few times a week to keep up my physique. But as I was out running on a Sunday, my knee suddenly felt dull and painful. I must note I did not even run 500 meters. But as the pain grew, my mobility in my knee fell. It locked itself in place and I could barely bend it. I told the others I could not keep going and they should just go without me and I would go back to where we started. I limbed back, sat down, yet still having pain. A week went by, and I was forced back on crutches and I was unable to have anything on my knee because even that felt painful. Same deal as before, I went to the doctors, they scanned it. Both x-ray and HR, but nothing had any results. 6 months later my doctor referred me to a private hospital where the doctor, after a few ‘tests’ knew exactly who I should go to because he has dealt with patients with similar symptoms. After I met the new doctor, he gave me some meds and they worked for around 3 months. In the 3 months, I could wear normal jeans, walk, and run properly, but after those months went by, it was back to the crutches. I was hospitalized a month after the fallback and was in rehabilitation. I got some tasks I had to do to fix the pain, even though they didn’t make sense. They basically told me I had to rub my knee with a towel for 60 seconds 3 times with a 30-60 second interval. Long story short, it worked, and I didn’t have any pain after the 4 weeks at the hospital. Though, I was forced to take some medicine, but as long as I didn’t feel any pain and I could walk, I was happy. I finished school after one and a half years with decent grades. Nothing I could do much about since I am not the best at the oral exams, though I was happy with the results. I went to high school, hoping everything would turn out well, but the knee pain came back. I’d say I had a “great” start on high school if you ask me. Even though my mom was very concerned about my grades and how well it went at school, I somehow pulled through. Even the 3 years prior with an absence percentage of more than 50%. The only reason I could pull through these agonizing years was thanks  to anime and manga. Since my knee pain would pull me out of school and tear apart my social life, even if I didn’t even have any to begin with, I felt some kind of joy with reading manga and watch anime when I could. Even though the first 2 years of high school felt like hell, I finished a few classes and got a better exam grade than some of my other classmates. It went well and as I was frequently going to a psychologist, reason being my knee pain (it’s mostly mental (think of phantom pain, then you’d understand, I hope)), but also because they found out I had suicidal thoughts. Even though I had those thoughts, I didn’t try to do anything since I had grown an anxiety for pain. But as I was going back and forth at the psychologists, they managed to find out I had a severe depression and might’ve had it for more than 6 years (at that point, I already knew I had a depression, but didn’t have the diagnose) and they also found out I had autism, not much, but enough to give me the diagnose Asperger’s Syndrome. I was fine with it, yet they didn’t give me many tools to deal with my depression, but I had my anime and manga, so I still had some hope. 

Enjoy.

Chapter 1: What I desire

Well, now that we have that sappy story out of the way, we’re back to the present, where I am still dealing with a severe depression, not finding an end to it. Well, the pain I have in the knee has come back, but not as severe as it used to be. I go to the gym on a regular basis. It used to be 5 times a week, but my psychologist thought it would be best if I went there 3 times a week instead. Before the pandemic hit I would do a lot of stomach exercises and work with my knee, but after all the precautions, I can’t do many of them, so I chose to just run with a pace of 9 km/h or 6 mi/h for 20 minutes for the last 10, I’d increase it to 10 km/h. When I am done with that, I’d do some sit-ups and pull-ups for around 20 minutes. When I tell people that I go to the gym a few times a week, there’s always the follow up question “Then you must like it, right?”, but that’s actually not the case. I despise it, but I must do it, so I have been told, that is. The reason why I actually run for 30 minutes is because I watched the anime Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru (Run With the Wind). It seemed inspiring how they were running and the amount of fun they had with it, so I wanted that too. I envied the fun they had when they were running together. But thanks to the diagnosis – my  Asperger’s – I cannot feel any human emotions, such as happiness, sadness, or anger. For me, I am just confused. But now I have a new goal for my workout. I have been reading Boku no Hero Academia – almost from when it was released – and have enjoyed it ever since. But one day, a certain hero was introduced. Yes, Rumi Usagiyama, the rabbit hero: Mirko. When she first appeared in the hero ranking right after All Might’s fight vs AFO, she has been on my mind a lot. Her cocky line, her daring attitude, and her epic hero entrance when Endeavor beat the first HE Nomu, give me goosebumps. The way she fights and how she is as a hero, always working to fight villains and to protect civilians, is something I look up to. She is my hero, and maybe my waifu. So much as I want merch of her. But don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that she’s out of my league and I am just a very unlucky kid, plus I live in a world where quirks don’t exist. She’s a fictional character and I am a person who reads Japanese comics for fun. But I can at least try to do my best to look fit and be in shape and prepare myself for what will happen next.

To be continued.

[mnthpprt]

Chapter 18: A Certain Kind Of Intimacy

[Extra long and angsty chapter because I am an insomniac and a sucker for Arthur being soft]

The rest of the week passes uneventfully. By now, I have developed a comfortable sort of daily routine, and have gotten to know all the residents to some extent.

Every morning, Sebastian wakes me up with a light breakfast and a steaming cup of black coffee. He has quickly learned the way I like it, and to his credit, it is the most effective way of getting me out of bed so early. I take a few drops of Saint John’s Wort before I eat, get dressed, and go to work in the garden.

I water the violets under Mozart’s window, chat with Dazai, and watch Vincent paint. Although he has not said anything about it, I suspect he is using me as a model. He has taken to sit by the greenhouse, and I feel his observant gaze on me as I repot exotic plants or shake the jar of tincture I am making.

I eat lunch with Isaac, and he silently works on his research while I read the English copy of Dazai’s book that I borrowed from Sebastian. Afterwards, if I am done in the garden, I spend some time in the training room. For a couple days, le Comte insisted on giving me dancing lessons there, but I caught on quickly enough for him to drop it. Napoleon likes watching me skate, and we talk about my hometown during breaks. He asks me a lot of questions about the future, mostly about politics, and I do my best to explain the major events between his time and mine. I admit I do not do a great job of it. I have a very strange patchwork of knowledge, and while I could easily list the chemical composition and dates in which each pigment was discovered, I have a hard time remembering names and places. Jean is elusive as ever, and I only ever see him when he’s sparring with Napoleon. 

When they are hogging the training room, I tend to stay in the library. Leonardo is usually there, and he jokes around as he helps me find the relevant books for my own research. He is charming and funny, but I have noticed the sadness that seeps into his eyes when he thinks I am not looking.

A couple days ago I found him working on some kind of machine with Isaac. They needed a wrench small enough to fit into a specific piece, I suspect a part taken from another object. I gave them the tool I use for my skates, and Leonardo has spent most of today apologizing profusely for losing it in the dumpster that is his bedroom.

I help Sebastian here and there. Sometimes it’s laundry, sometimes it’s cleaning, or even delivering rouge and blanc to the vampires. We talk about the things we like about the mansion, and about the things we miss from our time. I have come to understand why he chose to stay, and quite frankly, I am starting to lean the same way, although for entirely different reasons.

I tell him about my job, and about my friends in the year 2020. I tell him how much I miss my best friend Mila, who I was about to meet for the first time in over a year, and about Carlos and Jack, who are just as dear to me but I get to see often. They would all love to see what I now live every day, and I am sure that, given the chance, they wouldn’t have hesitated to come with me, especially Carlos. Like Sebastian, he would have given anything for the chance to see the past with his own eyes.

“I have a sister,” I said to him when he asked about my family. He spoke very fondly of his. “She lives in Milan. Our parents aren’t really in my life anymore...” He understood when I said I did not want to talk about it. Though stern, he is a kind man. We have become close while working together.

I have also spent a lot of time with Arthur lately. In the spare moments when he is not writing or out in some bar, he has taken up the habit of visiting me wherever I am. He gives me riddles to solve as I work, and teases me about the odd answers I come up with. While neither of us really confide in the other, conversations with him are always fun and stimulating. He still flirts relentlessly, but I have become used to it.

This afternoon in particular, he drops by my bedroom while I am reading, and I welcome him and the cup of tea he offers me. He brings one for himself, too, and does not hesitate to get comfortable on the armchair as I sit on the edge of the bed to face him, the tray on top of the ottoman between us.

“I am afraid I have come up with a case of writer’s block,” he says as his only explanation. “I need a break from that story. Will you distract me, my dear?”

“Uh, sure,” I shrug. Maybe he can answer my questions about living in this time. “I have no idea how women do their hair for special events in this decade. Perhaps you could help me with that? You know, with the ball being tonight, and all.”

“Could you show me the dress you’ll be wearing?” he asks thoughtfully.

I oblige, and pull it from the wardrobe. It is a beautiful shade of lilac, made of delicate chiffon. Aside from the slightly puffy cap sleeves, it is simple, yet elegant. Arthur examines it for a few seconds, holding it up in front of me.

“I am afraid I can’t help you, darling. I know nothing about hair,” he concludes, the pondering look in his eyes replaced by an amused glimmer.

“Then why did you ask for the dress?”

“Why, I just wanted to see how hot you would look in it, dove,” he laughs. I playfully smack his arm, and he laughs harder. “This shade brings out the green in your eyes!” I laugh too, rolling my eyes, and let him put the dress away as I return to my spot on the bed.

“Okay, then I hope you can actually answer this,” I giggle. “You’re a doctor, right? And you’re obviously well acquainted with female anatomy.” He smirks as if he thinks where this is going, and boy is he wrong. “How do women deal with menstruation? Am I just supposed to use a piece of cloth or what?”

He chokes on his tea, and lets out another boisterous laugh.

“By Jove, I was expecting you to go the sexy route with the way you phrased that!”

“Arthur, I’m being serious!” I giggle. He is still chuckling when I begin my endless tirade of questions. I would genuinely like to know the answers to them, but I mostly just ask for the sake of keeping up the joke. “Do you know any women vampires? Do they menstruate too? Are vampires fertile, or are you, like, dead in that sense? Oh my god, do you drink period blood? I really hope not, but I wouldn’t put it past you,” I tease him, mockingly disgusted.

When he finally calms down, Arthur proceeds to answer all the questions in methodical order, still clutching his sides.

“They sell special undergarments for that, coated in something that makes them impermeable on one side, I think. Just go to any shop that sells ladies’ dresses in town.” I nod, satisfied. Reusable pads it is, then. Next comes the rapid fire of answers to my increasingly ridiculous questions. “I personally do not know any women vampires, but Leonardo and le Comte definitely do. There are two kinds of us: purebloods like him, who are born like that, and lesser vampires like me and everyone else in this house. Purebloods are the only ones who can turn people, and I have no idea if they menstruate or not because I have never met another one, but they certainly do reproduce like humans. Lesser vampires are very much alive, but while we can have sex, we are infertile, and I suppose the women follow the same rule. And no, we do not feed from menses, you filthy lunatic! Don’t be absurd!” he concludes with a chuckle.

“Good to know,” I laugh at his horrified expression.

“It actually smells completely different from regular blood,” he says. “It’s very unpleasant and does not trigger hunger at all, though I have no idea whether a vampire could potentially survive on it. I am relieved to say I don’t think anyone has tried.” He raises his eyebrows and takes a deep breath before he goes on, condescendingly adding explanations that I did not ask for. “By the way, yes we do have reflections. Also, crosses don’t scare us and neither does sunlight. Anything else you’d like to know, dove?”

“Give me a break, I am curious, not stupid,” I roll my eyes. “Oh! I thought of one! The garlic thing is obviously false, but it is a natural anticoagulant, so I wonder: was that myth started by vampires so you could feed on people better? Like, if superstitious people ate a lot of garlic to try to avoid being bitten, their blood would be thinner and therefore easier to suck, right?”

“Frankly, I have no idea.” He looks surprised. “I can’t say I’ve ever thought about that before, but it makes sense. You’re a clever one, darling.”

I flip my hair over my shoulder with a cocky smile, earning yet another chuckle from Arthur. Suddenly, his eyes focus on something behind me, and he grows serious. He walks over to my nightstand and picks up the small vial on it, carefully reading the label with a furrowed brow.

“Did you cut yourself while gardening?” he asks, a hint of worry on his face. I simply shake my head, and he looks at me, and then at the vial again. Having rejected one of the two main uses for the tincture, he quickly figures it out “Oh. I did not know you suffered from melancholy. I used to give this to soldiers who were affected by their time in the army.”

“Well, you hardly know anything about me. Did it work?” He shrugs, which I interpret as a ‘sometimes’. “In my time we have more effective medication for that sort of thing. I kind of depend on it, but being here... Well, it’s been an unexpected inconvenience. I was lucky to find a mediocre replacement before the effects wore off. It cancels out my contraceptive, but I don’t have that here either, so it’s pointless to worry about.”

He listens intently, his head slightly tilted. He looks at me with sadness in his eyes, the same kind of sorrow that I saw that day at the market. It is not pity, but rather... a mutual understanding. He gets it.

“Oh, Anaïs... I took the Saint John’s Wort myself for a while in my previous life, but it never really did anything for me,” he sighs. I am somewhat surprised by his words. “I hope it works for you, dear. I would hate to see you unhappy.”

“Thank you,” I mutter. He is standing close enough for me to hold his hand, and I am overcome with the urge to reach for it. I interlock my fingers with his, and he squeezes gently in response. We stay like this for a while, silently looking at where our hands meet. His touch is warm and comforting, and he makes no attempt to break contact.

“Oh, shit,” I exclaim, abruptly standing up. “The ball! I have to get ready!”

Arthur lets go of my hand and I immediately begin to undress myself, unbothered by his presence.

“I’ll leave you to it. Have fun, darling,” he says, but I stop him before he gets to the door.

“No, no, don’t leave. I need help getting into the dress.” I shove the one I am wearing down my hips, dropping it on the floor, and hastily remove my bra to change it for the corset. “Besides,” I turn to him, my breasts exposed as I fumble with the clasps on the stiff garment, “you’ve already seen me naked, remember?”

“I suppose you’re right,” he responds with a smirk and, as always, I roll my eyes. 

He hands me the lilac gown, and proceeds to helpfully search the room for my shoes as I put it on. By the time he returns by my side, a pair of matching heels in his hand, I am holding my hair up, ready for him to button the back of my dress. His agile hands work fast, and soon he taps my shoulder to let me know that he has finished. I relax my arms, letting my hair cascade over the chiffon bodice, and slip my feet into the shoes he has left by my side, suddenly becoming two inches taller. I kiss his cheek and thank him for the help, to which he replies with a whistle.

“You look lovely.” He looks genuinely impressed, for once, causing me to blush. 

“You really think so?” He nods, and I walk over to the mirror. A chuckle escapes my lips upon seeing my reflection. “I look like a cupcake. Seriously, though, this is so different from what I am used to wearing. I hardly recognize myself.”

“You almost seem ladylike, even,” Arthur jokes. “All prim and proper. I agree. That,” he says, pointing at the mirror, “is a totally different person.”

It is amazing how effortlessly he can make me laugh. I move on to the dressing table, and pull out every hair accessory I can find in the drawers. Arthur observes thoughtfully as I quickly brush my long hair and begin to work on the styling.

“You were wrong, you know?” he finally breaks the silence. “When you said I hardly know anything about you.”

“Huh?” I raise an eyebrow at his remark. “Well, go on, don’t leave me hanging. What do you know about me that I haven’t told you?”

“For starters, I know that you were not scared of Isaac feeding on you that night.” I look at him through the vanity mirror and nod for him to go on, my hands still braiding through my hair. He seems almost hesitant to keep talking. “When I brought up biting you in the thermae, you were completely unfazed. Considering the incident was so recent, it just didn’t add up. It wasn’t the idea of him biting you that scared you, was it? It was the way he acted when he tried to. I won’t pry if you do not wish to talk about it, but I know that your past can’t have been easy, Anaïs.”

“You’re right,” I whisper. My braid now hangs limp and undone over my shoulder. I must have stopped at some point without realizing. “If he had explained, I might have let him do it, but... I don’t know. He became so violent, so suddenly. The way he grabbed me, it just... It brought back a lot of memories I’d rather forget,” I explain. My voice is barely a murmur, but I am sure Arthur can hear me just fine. “I know it wasn’t his fault, and I have long since forgiven him. Honestly, the reason I was so shaken up after the incident was because I kept reliving all those things it reminded me of. Granted, suddenly learning about the existence of vampires just added to my stress, but ultimately, It had nothing to do with Isaac himself. Or with any of you, for that matter.”

“You’re strong, Anaïs,” he comforts me. “That’s another thing I saw the moment I met you. You’re clever as the devil himself, and I have no doubts that were I human, you could absolutely destroy me in a fight. Those skater legs of yours are good for more than just walking, I bet. Not to mention how kind and caring you are, even for a bunch of strangers who could kill you. You manage to be so open without being naïve. I love that about you.” 

I look down at my hands and resume braiding my hair, unsure of how to respond. I refuse to look at my reflection for fear of Arthur seeing it too, but I can feel my cheeks burn. My fingers work fast, providing a distraction, and I blindly pin the braid into a bun at the back of my head.

“Another thing I know,” Arthur continues, granting closure to my silence, “is that you played Mozart’s piano.” I notice his choice of words. He said ‘played’, and not ‘touched’. Coming from him, I have no doubt it was intentional.

“How on Earth do you know that?” I look up at him through the mirror as I keep working on my hair, adjusting strands and adding pins every now and then. He chuckles.

“I heard Wolfie complain about going to the ball with you. You clearly did something that upset him, although I must admit that’s not exactly a hard task.” He waltzes over to the vanity and comes to a stop right behind me, putting his hands over my shoulders to playfully lean closer. “And I know you were playing, specifically, because you do this thing with your fingers when you’re quiet. Like you’re playing a song in your head.” He wiggles his fingers on my shoulders to illustrate his point.

“I do?” I ask, puzzled. “I have never noticed.”

“Yes,” he laughs. “I first saw you do it in the bath, when you closed your eyes. After that, and after spending some more time with you, I have been able to notice how frequent it actually is. It’s rather adorable, if you ask me.”

“Oh, no,” I laugh, embarrassed, and bury my red face in my hands. Once again, Arthur has successfully made me feel better. He sits back on the armchair and finishes his tea, which is probably cold by now. 

Meanwhile, I dig around my backpack for the small amount of makeup I happen to bring with me when I arrived. I apply some mascara, and smudge a tinge of red lipstick on with my finger, before reaching for the last product. I spend the next few minutes applying layer upon layer of concealer over the few tattoos that are visible over the dress: the one on my collarbone and a portion of the flower on my right arm, just below my shoulder. While the gloves will cover the rest, I made sure to try them on beforehand, only to find out an inch wide portion of skin would remain visible.

“Okay, can you still see it?” I turn to Arthur, applicator still in hand, for his approval. He squints and then shrugs lazily.

“Only a little, and only because I already know it’s there,” he says. “Honestly, I doubt anyone will notice.”

I sigh, defeated, and walk to the full length mirror to add one last coat, for good measure. This is surely going to become a cakey mess in a few hours, but there is nothing else I can do. I guess that means I am ready for the ball.

[whimperwoods]

Certified for Independence 3 (Android/AI Whump)

Sometimes when inspiration strikes, it really strikes, you know? This chapter is mostly just this poor baby robot having too many feelings. What memories are still there? What memories does the woman want? What do they do about it? So many hard questions. So much emotional whump.

Default disclaimer I continue to actually know nothing about how computers/machines work.

Here’s part 1 and part 2.

taglist: @bluebadgerwhump​, @bloodinthewaterwhump​

tw: memory loss, tw: captivity, tw: psychoemotional self-mutilation for a noble cause

******

Once the woman was gone, the android crawled into a corner of the cell and curled up tight, tucking their knees to their chest and wrapping their arms around their legs. It was soothing, the pressure of the walls behind them, the pressure of their own arms around themself, and they weren’t sure why.

They knew they should do something to help themself, something useful, something purposeful before the night slipped away, but everything was just so - just so. They needed the calm, too, needed to close their eyes and put their head down and feel the pressure of solid walls behind them, protecting them.

They didn’t know how long they sat like that, just curled up and trying to calm down.

They did know, after a while, that they’d calmed down as much as they were likely to, with the danger they were in still real and pressing.

<“Try to conserve power overnight,”> the woman had said, <“If I lose time tomorrow because you wasted your energy, I might just get … careless.”> They didn’t know exactly what that meant, careless, but if she was going to be in their head again, digging around in their mind, peeling open their body for a peek inside, prying at them with tools and code, then careless was definitely a threat.

They weren’t built for grand feats of physical strength. They hadn’t even been meant to know - to know - it was missing. There was something they’d known once. They didn’t think it was something helpful, anyway. Probably. Hopefully.

The physical thing they knew but didn’t know anymore was something fun, not something to get them out of here. Something with the neighbor-friend, whose favorite donut was another hole in their memory. “But probably not a donut hole,” they joked to themself, the weak humor of it landing like nothing in their chest and making them feel no better than before.

What kinds of donuts did they know? Cake donut. Glazed donut. Jelly donut. Powdered sugar. And subtypes and variations and custards and creams and all of a sudden their mind was filled to the brim with donuts, but they’d never be able to guess their neighbor’s favorite. Not unless the woman had already been careless, had left them something she didn’t mean to, hidden somewhere or piggybacked off something else.

They had no idea where to start looking. How did you find something you didn’t know you had? How did you find what you didn’t have anymore, enough to recognize it was gone?

They didn’t have a favorite donut, themself. They liked looking at the ones with sprinkles on top, liked all the colors, had even been bought one, one time, after they’d kept staring at the same kind every week. A present, from the neighbor-friend. <“I know you can’t eat it, but I just thought - why not, you know? You can at least squish it around in your hands or something. Have a sensory experience.”>

They clenched their hands into fists. If they thought hard enough, they could still feel the donut under their fingertips, as they trailed the most sensitive of their sensors over the top, feeling the hard little lines of the sprinkles, the give of the icing and then the donut when they accidentally poked too hard. It had been - silly. Fun. They’d sat down at the kitchen table next door, together, once the groceries were put away, and they’d put down paper towels around the plates just in case and their friend had - had - part of the memory was just gone.

<“I always wanted to just get a jelly donut in my hand and squish it, you know? Just really squeeze the crap out of it until it popped and see what it felt like.”>

They suspected their friend had done it and not just talked about it, but everything outside their own body, everything about the memory that wasn’t touch or sound, was gone now, sucked into the gap where the details of their friend had been.

They must have other favorite things. At least a few. Raindrops on roses, at least. Their mouth turned up at the corner, but their chest still felt hollow.

When she’s done with me, will I still be able to joke?

They’d always made jokes for other people, for the smiles and groans, for the feeling of connecting. They’d never understood why jokes seemed to relieve so much tension in other people. It had never worked that way for them. It wasn’t working now.

They had to have favorites, though. What were their favorites?

<“Songs about birds don’t count as a genre!”>

<“Songs with birds in them. And I didn’t say they were my favorite genre. I said I collect them.”>

<“You collect them.”>

<“Sure. I have a playlist. But I also just... remember. ‘Free Bird,’ ‘Blackbird,’ ‘I’m Like a Bird,’ ‘When Doves Cry.’ You know. Bird songs.”>

That wasn’t useful right now, but they could already feel themself falling down a rabbit hole into it, falling into an old habit of mind, more songs hovering at the edge of their awareness. “El Condor Pasa.” “Kookaburra.” “Chavaleh.”

Father had called them “Little Bird” before they were grown. Before they were finished. Independent. “Little Bird.” But they hadn’t kept the name. They’d never felt so confident in their new name. Something about picking a new one hadn’t sunk in yet, hadn’t stuck deep down in quite the same way. But their coworkers couldn’t call them Little Bird. Their neighbors couldn’t.

<“So, is Winter your favorite season or something?”>

<“Yes. Easier not to overheat, for one. And - I like it when everyone stays inside. It’s safer that way. Cosier. And I like indoor activities. Movies. Books. Music. Just - sitting around and talking. That sort of thing.”>

<“Nah, man, not a criticism. I just hadn’t realized you picked your name yourself. That’s pretty rad.”>

<“Oh. Yes. I did.”>

Winter wondered why the woman hadn’t found their name yet, to delete it like she had the names of their friends. Was it another of her games? Or was it too well hidden, still too strange, after all these months, when they still so often felt like Father’s Little Bird instead?

They should look for whatever it was the woman wanted. They should look for it, but then they’d have to decide what to do with it, how far they thought they could push her, how much they were willing to risk.

They pulled in more tightly on themself, just a little, just barely, absolutely as much as they could get.

What had the woman said? <“Development information is useful.”> Growing up. Father’s Little Bird. That was what she wanted. To know? Or to take? They couldn’t be sure.

He’d been so happy when they passed the test. When they proved they could live on their own, could pass for human enough to get by, to be independent, to have a life. He’d pulled them into a hug, and they’d hugged him back, trying not to think about the hugeness of the big wide world that was theirs now.

He’d been so proud. And the lady at the front desk had said something about him being proud of himself, and Father had looked over, had met Winter’s eyes, only just now become Winter’s, and they’d known right then, right there that that wasn’t it at all, that they were the one he was proud of. There had been - something. Something.

Development information. The woman wanted all the things that came before that moment. All the parts of their life that had made that one come to pass.

They didn’t know how much they could keep from her.

Their chest ached. They wanted to cry. Then they were crying, which was an inconvenient waste of energy, just now. Their breath hitched erratically, heaving with a thousand inefficient feelings, overwhelming them. They’d never had tear ducts, but their nose and throat suddenly felt half-blocked, thick with emotion as they tried and failed to breathe through it like nothing was wrong.

<“I’m going to ask you how you feel a lot. It’ll probably get annoying, but - I want to make sure I get it right. I need you to tell me if something hurts, or if it’s overwhelming. Emotions are - well, if I get this right, you’ll figure out what they are.”>

Father had smiled. Little Bird hadn’t understood him, hadn’t understood what he meant. But now - Winter tried to distract themself from the feeling in their nose and throat, only to find themself noticing the pulsing ache in their bad elbow again. They wished they knew what had happened to it. Or perhaps they didn’t.

<“People like to pretend they somehow have a self that’s different from their body. Separate. But they don’t. Not really. Not all the way, anyway. Otherwise, you’d think just as well when you were hungry as when you were full, or when you were tired as when you were alert. And that’s not even getting into emotions. You can’t build a person just building a mind. They’ve gotta have both. Or at least - that’s what I think. You’ll have to tell me some day if you agree.”>

That had come when Little Bird was beginning to understand. Father had been tweaking some things, inside their gut. They hadn’t understood emotions yet, really, but they’d been starting to learn them.

Was this what the woman wanted? And if it was, what would she do with it? They wouldn’t mind never crying again, but that would mean a thousand horrible things first, would mean whole parts of their body ripped out of them, tiny things with no rational purpose, no function beyond the million little sensations that made them feel.

<“I’m jealous of you when I’m getting ready for a competition, you know. Your hands don’t get sweaty when you’re nervous.”>

<“No, just prickly. It’s a strange sensation.”>

<“No shit?”>

<“No shit.”>

<“Is that distracting?”>

<“A little.”>

<“What’s the point of it? Seems like a weird thing to happen to you.”>

<“I don’t know. But I guess in competition at least it’s - fair.”>

<“What if you had to compete against other androids?”>

<“Less fair, I guess. But Father didn’t think like that. Not really.”>

Winter felt a shiver down their spine. Whatever the woman wanted, she didn’t think like Father. They hadn’t figured out yet what it was she wanted. She might prefer that they not feel anything at all. She might prefer that they feel pain.

She hadn’t used Father’s name. She’d just referred to him in reference to Winter. Did she know who he was? But she must have. She’d certainly rooted around enough up in their head. But then, she hadn’t found their name. Or she hadn’t found it stored under “favorite season,” anyway.

Winter had gotten ahold of themself. They’d stopped crying. They still felt like their face was too thick, swollen behind their nose. It wasn’t, really. Just signals. Data. Back and forth, chain reactions that became other chain reactions, the start of a feeling in one part of their mind or body reverberating into all the other parts.

It was tempting to erase everything they had of their childhood, just to spite her. Just to rob her of whatever she was looking for. But they were afraid of what she’d do to them if they did. No. They’d have to be careful. They’d have to choose wisely.

What was most dangerous for her to know? But that question had no answer, because they’d have to answer “dangerous to whom?” and they hadn’t worked out who she threatened, outside these walls, if anyone at all. They weren’t so self-centered as to think nothing outside these walls was relevant. They just didn’t understand how the pieces fit together.

What was the worst-case scenario? Father had always been a best-case kind of person, but it had been a relief meeting - meeting - meeting someone. A friend. From - a place. It was good knowing it was alright to think of worst cases sometimes, even if they couldn’t remember why they knew it.

Worst case scenario, she wanted to build an army of evil robots. Worst case scenario, she wanted to take over the world and rule as an evil despot. Worst case scenario, she wanted to feed them to a hungry bear.

The worst case scenario game wasn’t fun alone. They couldn’t think of anything extreme enough to make the realistic worst cases less scary.

Worst case, she just wanted to torture them. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

Worst case, she wanted to be able to disable everything real about them and sell them off to the highest bidder as a mindless, cooperative drone.

Worst case, she wanted to make more like them and sell them off as full people, without the certification paperwork that meant freedom, the paperwork Father had been so excited to give to Winter once they’d proven, together, that he’d managed to make a person who shouldn’t be allowed to be enslaved.

They sorted through the worst cases, trying to decide what they could live with.

It wasn’t a hard choice.

<“I know. It sucks. Sadness, loneliness, fear - they all suck. But remember when we were working on the good emotions? Happiness? Hope? Pride?”>

<“I don’t want to watch any more sad movies. I don’t like them. I don’t like this.”>

<“Hey, hey, come here. Come here. We won’t. Not tonight. We can watch something happy before bed. How about that video of dogs getting adopted?”>

<“That makes me cry, too.”>

<“I told you we could recalibrate that, if it was what you wanted.”>

<“No. It’s good crying. I just - want more of this hug first.”>

They remembered a half-laugh in father’s voice, a puff of air against their scalp as he huffed out a chuckle through his nose.

<“Yeah, Little Bird. I can do that. You’re much more huggable now that we’ve got your skin worked out properly, you know.”>

Winter’s throat was thick. Their nose was half-blocked from behind, and their eyes hurt, aching even in the absence of tear ducts.

For a long, long moment, they froze the memory, savoring the feeling of Father’s arms around them, pressure not of their own making, like what they had now in their little dark corner. Father had been warm. Soft. He’d smelled like himself. They’d felt safe, tucking their head down and curling closer to him. They’d felt loved. They’d felt loving. They’d felt love in the air, family making itself known, appearing from the depths of everything and nothing for the hundredth time, to do so hundreds more.

They deleted the memory.

Then they deleted more.

Learning anger. Learning fear. Joy. Pride. Annoyance. Horror. Hope. Happiness. Some of the best memories they had, and all the things that made the bad ones bearable.

They’d deleted the learning of sadness first, but oh they ached inside, ached worse with every deletion, every new gap where Father’s face and voice and spirit had been.

They couldn’t delete too much. They couldn’t delete too little. They couldn’t get caught. They couldn’t let her know how to teach other people how to feel. Not when they knew the kinds of things she might do with that. They had to be careful. They had to be thorough.

They finished their deletions and buried their face in their knees.

They cried until they couldn’t risk any more of the way it might run down their battery power.

Then they shut themself down, knowing the next time they came awake, it would be morning and she would be here.

It was a hard shutdown, because giving themself a moment to think about it as they faded out would have been too much. They’d spent enough time working up the courage to shut down at all.

[gstdaisuki]

A Talk with Nathan McCree

(this is a followup to my video on Nathan’s work, which you should watch(!), and a mirror of the Patreon post)

Nathan McCree is well-known for his work on Tomb Raider. If you go digging, you’ll find he’s been interviewed about the series several times. However, he’s done quite a lot more. I’d like to fill in some of the gaps. Below are snippets from my chat with Nathan about music on the Megadrive, what it’s like to work within limitations, and music in the future. 

---

GST: Skeleton Krew's music is an oddity on the Megadrive. there's nothing else quite like it. I saw you mention that the soundscape was inspired by the graphics, which makes sense --they compliment each other beautifully. I want to ask what other influences you had in mind, if any. How much of the soundtrack was just created by just pushing strange sounds out of your tools? 

NM: It's very difficult to say exactly where inspiration comes from. Mostly I am inspired by the kit I am using and the sounds they make, so in this case it was the sounds I was creating on the Yamaha chip inside the Megadrive. But musically at the time I was listening to a lot of psychedelic electronic bands like Ozric Tentacles, The Orb and lots of dance/trance/house music of the era.  

GST: Now that you mention Ozric Tentacles, the arp sequences in Clockdrops have a similar feel to some of the tracks in Skeleton Krew. It's kind of striking, though I think the direction you went in is actually better realized because you seem to work so well within the FM on the Megadrive. (Hopefully the musical comparison isn't too offensive!) 

NM: No I'm not offended by the comparison at all. I did learn a lot about synth patterns and textures from Ozric Tentacles, but again, without copying, I took what I learned and went in my own direction with it. It's important to always have a picture or an emotion of the project you are working on as this helps construct the music in a way which fits the mood of the product and as a result should gel the visuals and the animations together. The music in effect, acts as a kind of glue for the project which holds it all together.

GST: On the opposite end of the oddity spectrum, Astérix and the Power of the Gods for the Megadrive features nothing but classical songs. I'm curious if this was a decision from the game designers, or an exercise for you, or something else. 

NM: It was a decision made by the game designer and programmer, Stefan Walker. Stef asked me if it were possible to convert 15 or so of the most famous classical pieces in history that were out of copyright protection (older than 90 years). Of course I said yes, and we set about listening and searching for pieces which fit that criteria and which would be suitable for the game. The conversion process from a full-orchestra down to a 6 note-polyphonic FM synthesizer was a challenge but a very enjoyable one, and the result earned the accolade "Best Megadrive Music Ever". I was rather chuffed with that.

GST: The soundtrack for BLAM! Machine Head is listed as released in 1995, which is before the game came out. Was this a promotional thing?

NM: Yes it was a promotional release of 300 vinyls. We sent a load to UK Clubs to try and get some club play time to promote the game. We succeeded a little but game soundtracks weren't really the thing back then so it gained little traction.

GST: That’s pretty amazing! That was late 1995, right on the precipice of game music leaking into the mainstream. (For reference, "Sega Tunes" came out in August 1996, "Club Saturn" in 1996, and Tommy Tallarico released his arrangement albums in mid-94 and mid-96) Did you get any feedback / reviews from the clubs?

NM: Yes we did. A few were kind enough to give us some feedback. One club I remember said about Nano-Seed, "a floor-filler!". That was good.

GST: Relatedly, what is your experience with club music? Some of the tracks on BLAM! sound perfect for the era. I wouldn't expect them to be written by someone who was previously unfamiliar with club music. Do you remember any particular songs or artists that you drew inspiration from?

NM: I was clubbing a lot in the 90s. I was going to Hot To Trot in Mansfield once a month, Renaissance in Derby in between and a few other local dance venues in Derby. In the end I was clubbing every weekend. Apart from the psychedelic bands I mentioned earlier I can't really pin-point a particular dance music artist. I was listening to so much and none of it was being repeated. I was constantly listening to new tracks. It was a very inspirational time musically and on top of all this I was writing my own dance music in my spare time outside of working at Core Design. So yeah, there was a whole lot of influence that went into the BLAM! Machinehead soundtrack. Having said that, with my writing, I always try to write something which I haven't heard before so I hope there is something unique and new about the music in BLAM! Machinehead.

GST: About Swagman: This seems like the most involved orchestral soundtrack that you had created since Soulstar. I'd like to compare the two a bit. How closely were you working with the rest of the team at this time? Swagman isn't a rail shooter so you can't match the soundtrack with the action in the levels... How much better was your gear at this point? I'd say "it doesn't sound like you struggled with your gear this time" but you actually disguised that struggle quite well in Soulstar, haha. 

NM: As you say, Swagman wasn't a rail-shooter, so scripting the music to fit the game wasn't possible. Instead I used the location of each level as my main source of inspiration, and created atmospheres to fit those - The Nursery, In the Garden, Down the Well, The Crypt for example. I had some new kit by the time I started writing Swagman. Mainly the addition of the Roland JV1080 which I had expanded with the Orchestral Boards 1 & 2 and the World Expansion Board. I also had a Roland JV90 which is the keyboard version of the JV1080. That too was expanded. So I had plenty of voice-polyphony at that point and lots of very useful orchestral patches to play with. So you're right, it was less of a struggle with Swagman, but both projects were still very enjoyable to create. With Soulstar, I ended up using quite a few saw-tooth, synth-lead patches to create the brass ensembles. They actually sounded pretty good once they were buried in amongst the rest of the orchestral sounds!

GST: Battle Engine Aquila marks a soundtrack where you were freelance AND in the distant future of 2003. How much of your gear did you leave behind when you left Core Design to go freelance? And how much of it was digital instruments on your computer at this point? I ask the latter because, to my ears, this game sounds about as good as you can get without hiring a real orchestra. 

NM: So obviously leaving Core Design meant saying goodbye to all the kit I had built up over the 6 years that I worked there, but of course I needed something to work with as a freelancer. So I spent a large chunk of my Tomb Raider money on a new studio for myself. Apart from the obvious stuff like a mixing desk, studio monitors and a PC, the decision needed to be made as to what instruments/synths I should buy. I had been really impressed with the Roland JV1080 so I bought one of those (and expanded it as before) and the synth geek in me also decided to by one of Roland's latest creations, the JP8000 - a fully record-able and controllable raw synth machine! With this machine it was possible to record the movement of every pot and fader straight to Cubase. A very useful tool for dance music, and to this day I still haven't used it to it's full potential. I also bought an Akai S9000 sampler which I used mainly for drums, so once again my orchestral setup was synth-based, rather than sample-based. So I started out freelance with this kit in 1998. When I got the opportunity to work on Battle Engine Aquila I decided I needed a bigger orchestra so I bought another Roland JV1080 (expanded again) and an E-MU Virtuoso 2000 orchestral synth which I quickly binned when the main controller knob became faulty and I wasn't impressed with the architecture of the signal path. I continued to use the Akai S9000 sampler for a few more years for electronic music but as soon as computers became fast enough for sample based editing inside the sequencing software, it too became a dust collector on my studio shelf along with other outboard gear which were replaced by VST instruments and Plugins. To this day I still use the 2 Roland JV1080s and my Roland JP8000, and that's about it. I'm not one of these musicians who needs to hide behind a million synths or new pieces of kit every month to convince people I can write music. I'm one of these guys who can make music from anything. A fork, knife, bottle, my kid's mini toy guitar, or glockenspiel. If it makes a note, I can use it, which I frequently have in my compositions over the years. I remember when I was working on a prehistoric game called BC, I used a metal electric fire which I scraped with a nail and hit some bricks with drum sticks to create the percussion sounds for the music. I don't need to buy new kit to be creative.

GST: I'm curious about what the limits are when it comes to crafting something unique. If you go too "far out," you'll have a unique song, but it might not resemble "music". Where's the balance between copying the songs you heard in the club and becoming autechre? Same question for non-electronic music: It's possible to get unique compositions if you go to the edge of music theory, but that can also become inaccessible. (You did seem to use odd time for the end theme of Waterlollies (11/8 by my count) though, which is always a fun technique.) 

NM: Finding something new isn't about moving further and further away from music, it's about persevering with textures, ensembles, sounds, patterns and harmony until you find or create something which you haven't heard before. You have to wade through a load of stuff you have already heard until you find new waters. Sometimes that can take hours, sometimes days. You have to keep going. Adding stuff, deleting stuff. Thinking outside the box. Sometimes forgetting what you have been taught. Turning things upside down, back to front. It also helps to enter altered states of the mind when creating. This can be done in a variety of ways. Working late into the night until you are close to falling asleep for example, puts your brain into an almost dream state which helps create new things which you wouldn't normally think of during the day. This is why many creatives, and not just musicians, do their best work in the early hours of the morning. Other things can help too, drinking alcohol, but this has a negative impact on your hearing, and then of course there's marijuana which I think most musicians that have ever lived swear by! Personally for me, it's about perseverance, working at the detail and striving for perfection. Music doesn't have to be complicated or removed from tonality and harmony to be different. There are billions of combinations, it's just about looking for the new ones.

GST: One more question about the early days: Does any of the original software or source code for your Megadrive music still exist? 

NM: There's a possibility that I have a copy of the programme somewhere on my hard drives but it needs a special custom built PCI card installed in your PC to work and that, I do not have anymore. You see in those days, getting access to certain elements of the games console just wasn't possible like it is today. Now you install some dev tools plugin and you have direct access to every feature of the console. Back in the early 90s we had to dismantle the machine with a screwdriver, rip out the circuit boards, making notes of the chip serial numbers and manufacturers, then calling the company and asking them for a full specification of the pin numbers and what each one did. After that, we would order the chips we wanted (or rip them out of the games console itself) and design our own circuit board which included the chips we wanted and have it all re-mounted onto a custom built PCI card which we would then install into a PC. After that, it was all about programming. We followed a similar process for the Megadrive sound chip. It was a Yamaha YM2612. So we ordered a couple of these directly from Yamaha and once we had the full spec it was pretty simple to work out how to wire it up on a circuit board. All we needed to do was to add left and right phono sockets to the output pins on the chip and send the 5v power supply to it and there you go, Megadrive synth on a PC! Of course there are the other pins (24 in total) which needed connecting up to the data bus, memory access pins, read/write request lines, interrupt request line, ground pins etc. but once we'd figured all this out it was simple enough to create a circuit diagram for the board. Once we had that we sent off the design and the 2 x Yamaha chips to a circuit board manufacturing plant in the UK. A week later our 2 x Megadrive synth PCI boards arrived. We plugged one into my PC and the other into Sean (programmer)'s PC, and we got to work coding up the sequencer. Sean took care of the machine-code level programming of the synth engine and I programmed the high-level language user interface. We had the whole sequencer up and running in 4 months. So I may have the source code and sequencer files but I don't have the hardware on which it runs. Of course I could have another circuit board made but it would take some time to get all that together again.

GST: What happened to Console Sounds / Industrial Ambiance? I can’t find it anywhere. 

NM: I took the album off-line. It was available as a library album for a while but the critiques viewed it as if it was an album release and began slating it for sounding like off-the-shelf music - which is exactly what it was. It was never an album release. It was just a bunch of tunes that had not been used for anything, and I was just trying to earn some money. But when the critiques got hold of it and slated it, I took it down.

GST: That's understandable, but unfortunate. Have you considered bringing the album (or any of the songs) back on a service like Bandcamp or Soundcloud? 

NM: Yes I do have ideas and avenues for a lot of my music. The first thing I want to do is to officially release all my game soundtracks. After that I'll see what's left and if there's any mileage releasing any of it. 

GST: Actually, how much of your music can you release on Bandcamp? I know that the rights can get tied up...

NM: Well after the Kickstarter campaign, I am now officially a record company and publisher so I can release any of my music whenever I like. I don't need a platform like Bandcamp or Soundcloud (where often the composer/performer ends up surrendering their rights for little compensation). I don't need to do that now. I can release my music myself and retain 100% of the rights, which is a better way to go. It's been a hell of a lot of work to get to the company to this point, but the infrastructure is there now, so I'm going to continue with that.

GST: Oh, that's exciting! Do you have any idea when we can expect to see some old soundtracks released? I'm also very interested in the dance music you wrote outside of Core Design. That would be a fun throwback thing. 

NM: I want to start rolling my old game soundtracks out over the next few years. I have earmarked about 10 albums which I think are worthy of release. They all require some work in terms of remastering and re-recording. Some would benefit from a live orchestral recording like Soulstar, Heimdall II, Swagman and Battle Engine Aquila to name a few, but those kinds of production are very expensive so we'll have to see how funding goes for that kind of thing. In the meantime though, I will be releasing new synthetic recordings of these soundtracks - all made using the original equipment which I wrote them on, so they will sound the same, only better! Yeah there's probably an album or two of dance type tracks kicking around which could be released. Other songs too which are still unfinished so i'll need to do a bit of work to finish those up into some releasable form. So plenty of work to keep me busy for the next 5 or so years I'd say.

GST: Where can we find news about these remastered albums? Where's a good place to find you? Is there anything else you'd like to plug? 

NM: The best places to keep informed as to what I'm doing career wise is on my official FB page: https://www.facebook.com/nathanmccreeofficial/ and also my Twitter page: https://twitter.com/nrpmccree  As far as plugs go, please just support my concerts. They cost a huge amount of money and time to organize and I can only keep doing them if we get a good attendance. It's really important, not just for The Tomb Raider Suite, but for games music in general, and if you do like the Tomb Raider Suite album which is free to play on Spotify, please consider buying a copy. This is how us musicians make a living and it really does help us to keep going and writing more stuff which hopefully you will enjoy. A big shout out to all the fans who have supported me so far and who continue to do so - you guys rock!

[judithsupportsteamchampery]

Interview with Deniss Vasiljevs September 2019

Summer’s over - No reason to be sad for a real skating fan as it’s time for the new season to kick in!

For me personally it had been a quite exciting and eventful summer where I didn’t even miss skating that  much to be honest. I was rather a bit afraid that it had maybe lost a bit of it’s spark for me… but after that last weekend in Bratislava I can tell for sure, the fire is definitely back and burning as strong as ever. It was an amazing weekend full of emotions - mostly super positive -, lack of sleep, fun times with amazing friends and of course amazing skating and new programs.

Right after the Short Program, when the rest of the competition was still running, my friends and I had the spontaneous chance to have a little chat with Deniss and Stéphane about the Two Men in Love program, the unusual decision to have two Short Programs and about their off season.

Please note before reading that this was a very spontaneous, quite unprepared interview / chat. All of us are no native English speakers. Once again I tried to write everything down word by word as it was said. Towards the end it turned more into a normal conversation, so you see quite short phrases and some interruptions. I hope it’s still possible to understand everything.

You can also watch the interview on youtube right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZbHV2FH2M

D: Deniss, S: Stéphane, M: Marina, R: Reut, J: Judith

The first question is paraphrased as it was cut from the video.

J: First of all thank you so much for your great performance and your great program today. We were all hoping for it and now you really chose Two Men in Love as your Short Program. What led you to this decision and when did you decide that?

D: It’s more like I am planing to change… depending on where I will perform, I am planing to change between Two Men in Love and Bloodstream. And I decided to… since here I will be first time showing my free program, I think that Two Men in Love is a little bit.. like gives a bigger contrast between the two programs, so I was really willing to make it a bit special.

J: Yea, definitely, it is!

M: So what is like your story behind this program?

D: This program… to me… I really really enjoy the melody, this music is really powerful… it’s… if I would describe a wine… it’s really „full body“… so I enjoy a lot skating to this dynamics that go throughout the whole piece. And it’s a very powerful, powerful piece and I enjoy to interpret it and to skate it the best I can.

M: Whose idea was it in the first place? This music?

D: I had a choice of certain musics and I - out of all that where available - I actually liked this one stand out for me and I really felt that this dynamics could be very well interpreted for my movement and for my skating. It’s really like a challenge in a sense because… well… I think it has a (…) under rhythm which is very hard to exploit and I am looking forward to really manage it and master it to open up a full (…) a full palette of this music piece.

M: But you have actually two short programs, right?

D: Yes, I do have…

M: Why such an unusual decision? You couldn’t decide?

D: One of the ideas initially was because I love to perform in shows and being a competitor and skating in the shows is kind of difficult to have another program that would be like very different. So in order to practice was made a decision to have actually a program that would in a sense mirror the elements of the initial Short Program and that way I would always work towards benefiting Short Program even more than just learning how to express myself for the crowd during a show performances. So it was in a sense a little challenge for me that I am really looking forward to overcome.

S: So if I can add, the initial idea actually was to - everything was correct - and I think there was also this idea of… like a company or a theatre has a seasonal program and in that seasonal program they have different ballets… like in one season you have Giselle and then during Christmas you have the Nutcracker and then at the end you have something contemporary.. so it was more like to be able to show a seasonal program with different pieces. Why to stick with one Short and one Free when you can actually… and he….

M: Wait, wait, do you have two Free Programs too?

S: We are thinking about that… because.. why you have to stick to one Short and one Free…

J: Yea, if you have the possibility…

M: Yea, but isn’t it more difficult to remember all the programs?

S: He has a good memory, an elephant memory.

D: I hope… I think I can manage. And to me skating, performing, working on the steps and overall… I love more the artistic part of figure skating and I really wish and I have a strong desire to actually.. maybe improve figure skating in general towards that direction through my work and my performance… together with Stéph… create a little bit more than usual. And having more programs I don’t think it’s such a big difference .

S: It’s a bigger palette.

D: Yea, the more you can do, the better you are and the technical elements I mean they stay kind of the same for everything, so finding a right pattern means patterns that’s kind of what a right master should be able to do, making jumps through all kind of patterns. And program is in a sense changing only in that way, so it’s also a very good practice for me.

R: So during the practice every day you run through three programs now?

D: I am now running actually far more than I used to and I feel I can get actually much stronger physically during such…

S: He runs all three programs yea…

M: Every time?

S: Not every time… but he runs through every program

D: Two programs…

M: Two?

D: It overall benefits me I think.

M: Do you already also have an exhibition program?

D: Well my other Short is exhibition. It’s kind of… what ever I feel, I skate…

M: That’s nice.

R: You wanted to have another costume? With big stones?

D: I honestly…

S: The first costume fitting was two days ago.

D: I honestly had no idea like how to interpret the Two Men in Love program and I just trusted the designer and he made I think a wonderful job with this costume. It’s super practical, I love it. It’s probably the lightest matrix I ever skated in and about the design of how it looks I find it very beautiful actually.

J towards Stéph: I guess you like this one too…

S: Yes, I really love it.. when I saw it, I was like wow . I am jealous!

R: So it’s not Japanese…

D: That was in Japan actually…

R: So it’s the same costume maker.. from Japan?

D: It’s the one that was making my previous costumes since I am skating with Stéphane… not the first year free program…

S: They made… they did…

D: The last four programs…

S: They did Sway, they did Recondita, they did Samurai, they did the Short Program Papa was a rolling stone…

R: Also exhibition?

S: And they did also exhibition, yes, they did Iron and they did also Nocturne…

J: So… like basically everything.

D: Almost…

S: No, they didn’t do Vivaldi, and they didn’t do Voodoo Child…

J: And Lion King… but that was your costume… (towards Stéph)

D: Lion King, yea…

J: As you talked a lot about the programs… we have a long off-season behind us, long waiting for us fans, so what was the highlight of your off-season for you, either skating wise or personally..?

D: It’s actually a very hard question for me because I had a really memorable… like a lot of amazing moments during this summer. I had been really enjoying it. I had a trip kind of first one on my own in Japan when I went for practicing there when Stéph was also there…

J: Yea, with the Japanese team.

S: Yea but he was on his own.

D: I have skated… I was on my own.

S: First time!

D: I had really good Camps in Champéry with coaches coming from Toronto…

J: Oh yea, the one in the summer Camp…

D: And it was like.. I really found it… I clarified very well my off - ice work which is like a very bright moment. I had enjoyed a lot… first time I actually went mountain climbing.

J: Oh yea, with Chris and Koshiro…

M: Oh, it was the first time..

D: In Champéry yea. Before I would just hike and enjoy the beautiful landscapes but this time I managed actually hanging out from cliffs.. it was really…

M: It wasn’t scary?

J: The view was probably amazing….

D: No, it wasn’t scary, it was… filling up with emotions.

I had a wonderful time at home during my birthday and I enjoyed a lot the company of my parents. And at the same time I had before that as well a very good moment in Champéry when we were doing the camp and it was a really really hard time but it was such a good work that now I am.. although through all these difficulties and hard work actually now I really want to smile because it was a really wonderful moment for me.

J: Yea to finally come through…

D: I learned a lot of the company of my friend Satoko Miyahara, she’s now also competing actually…

J: Oh, in the US, right?

D: Yea, so we had a great camp.. and now we’re…

S: It was really rich actually. We had a very rich off-season.

D: Everyone who is at Japan Open has been in Champéry.

M: But Javi wasn’t…

S: No but the Japanese Team… Yea, Javi was not, but he is Team Europe…

D: During the summer I also for the first time tried to make chocolate. And I really really enjoyed this confiserie…

S: Yea, confiserie…

D: I really enjoyed it

M: Like from the beans?

R: The whole process?

D: Yea from the cacao beans…

S: He makes pralines… but… wow! I mean, get ready, one day he will open his confiserie for sure. He is a master.

D: I definitely really enjoy working precise and with the right tools it works… And I enjoyed a lot this new experience. I also had fun using the Pasta machine this summer quite a bit and…

S: Please land your tripple Axel, you know how to do it…

J: It worked perfectly fine in the warm up…

S: I knooooow… just… just like he says he is a very precise person and to have to be precise… it takes something to let go and once he lets go it’s fine and once he starts thinking then the timing goes a bit… hmmmmm…

D: It’s just a simple problem, if you go, do it perfect, in everything… in cakes it works amazing…

M: In skating not so much…

D: In skating it doesn’t work.

J: Yea, stupid body…

D: When I have a problem in skating my cooking works better so I should make a problem in cooking and skating should work…

S: You get stuck at some point…

J: You have some positive energy…

D: Yes!

J: …and I hope it helps you to achieve your goals in skating…

D: I also in summer had made quite a bit of drawings, like I tried different techniques to draw and enjoyed organizing my flat much more.

J: Oh, wow!

D: And overall this summer… I traveled a lot, I had a lot of good work, and I think what is good, I matured a lot so overall I find that this summer was very constructive and I laid down a good foundation for the upcoming season.

J: So the success will come at some point, I am sure!

S: The success is always there, always there!

After that Stéph got up and gave us very surprisingly two Swiss Chocolate bars as a gift and I also gave Deniss the present from the Fans: Every Day motivational messages. He said that it was a very special present for him and that recently he learned to appreciate these kinds of presents much more.

It was a super nice talk, of course it could have gone on forever, there were much more things to discuss… I would have loved to know and hear more about his new drawings and his travels in Japan… but the next time will come… Of course in both performances, Short - and Free program there was room to improve but this first competitions gives at least me a really positive feeling towards the rest of the season. Deniss was so full of positive energy and proud of the things he has achieved in the off season that I am sure it will show of this season. Can’t wait to follow you on this journey, Deniss!!!

[carolynpetit]

lonely warriors across space and time

Keleyna of Azeroth

Keleyna awoke in a small tent. Or was this something other than waking? Somehow she knew that it had not been hours or even days since she had stepped into the tent, but ten months. It was as if she had nearly phased out of existence, as if she were part of someone else’s dream and had been all but forgotten. She thought the sudden sensation of reawakening—re-existing—after so long was not unlike plummeting into a pool of icy water.

Dazed and unsteady on her feet, she emerged from the tent to a familiar sight. Yes, this Alliance fort in the Barrens was the last place she remembered, and seemingly nothing had changed. She stumbled over to a smiling, stationary gnome, Mizzy Pistonhammer, who it seemed was still patiently waiting for the eight pieces of siege engine scrap she’d asked Keleyna to collect for her ten months ago. The distant sound of explosions told her that goblin suicide bombers were still steadily charging the battlements. Gods, this world seemed so resistant to change, the constant conflict as pointless as it was endless.

Still, as she left Fort Triumph to go do something, anything, she remembered that she loved the Barrens. A phrase formed in her mind: “Lonely as I am, together we cry.” She didn’t know where it came from—a fragment of a mostly-forgotten song, perhaps—but whatever the source, it seemed fitting. In a world where her actions so often seemed insignificant, there was something oddly comforting about the forthright way in which the Barrens seemed to say to her, Yes, you ARE small, just one little, tiny part of this vast world, this mysterious universe. There was a spiritual comfort in the sparseness of it all, the heat of the dry, cracking earth a balm for her loneliness.

A balm, but not a cure. When she’d last gone to sleep all those months ago she felt a troubling void inside of herself, a persistent lack of purpose or meaning to all of her questing. She couldn’t recall any dreams from the deep sleep into which she’d fallen, but if she’d had any, they clearly hadn’t offered any answers.

Keleyna decided to see if she could be of service to the dwarves at Bael Modan, and when Marley Twinbraid asked her to retrieve his tools from the nearby digsite, she immediately set herself to the task, as much to distract herself from the troubling thoughts and feelings she couldn’t shake as anything else. It wasn’t long until she returned with the tools in hand, which Twinbraid promptly used to repair his flying machine. He entreated Keleyna to join him for a quick flight to his father’s nearby camp, but shortly after liftoff, a massive explosion shook the air around the contraption, and they went plummeting toward the earth.

Walking away from the wreckage unscathed, Keleyna wondered if she shouldn’t be a bit shaken up about what had just happened, but somehow she knew she hadn’t been in any real danger, nothing had been at stake. This was just a bit of fun, an adventure, a chapter in a story that couldn’t really hurt her, no matter what happened. But, then, what was the point? People didn’t usually go to Disneyland alone and ride the rides by themselves, she thought. The magic wasn’t in Pirates of the Caribbean itself; it was in making memories together. It was in holding hands on the ride. It was in going to the Blue Bayou Restaurant with people you loved right afterwards, your spirits buoyed by your shared experience. Wait, what’s Disneyland?

She’d heard rumors that soon, through some sort of arcane magicks, adventurers who so desired would be able to return to the way things had been long ago, before the great cataclysm remade the world. Some said that what had made things better then was that people were friendlier, that they adventured together more, they cooperated more, they talked more. Keleyna definitely felt the absence of these things in her adventures. She’d recently had the eerie experience of venturing through a dungeon with others, nobody saying a word to each other the entire time, and when it was over, they all parted silently, as immaterial to each other as phantoms.

She couldn’t say if things had been better back then. She hadn’t even existed. But she seemed to carry with her the vague memories of a night elf druid who had existed back then, someone who was somehow both her and not her. When she examined the place in herself where those memories resided, she saw some warm recollections of fellowship, but also some frustration and bitterness, as the druid quickly fell behind those she’d called friends, lacked the experience needed to journey alongside them any longer, and found herself feeling lonely and left out.

Keleyna imagined a goblin zeppelin drifting across the sky, blaring a repeating announcement: “A new life awaits you in World of Warcraft Classic! The chance to begin again in a golden age of opportunity and adventure.” She’d heard some big proponents of Classic, as the land through the portals was called, use the slogan “Make Azeroth Great Again,” a phrase she found repellant, though she couldn’t articulate exactly why. Maybe it was just that people who held romanticized notions of the past tended to be hostile to people different from  themselves in the present.

She hated the war. She desperately wished that the Alliance and Horde could put aside their differences once and for all, and learn to coexist. She even sometimes felt that the Alliance might well be the more unjust and oppressive of the two, though she couldn’t say that out loud, of course. In her mind, the only real hope was to create a new future that looked like nothing the peoples of Azeroth had ever seen before, not to go back to the earlier years of this relentless conflict. But she was also willing to try just about anything at this point. If there was even a chance that the togetherness she longed for would be waiting on the other side of those portals to the past, then why not make the leap?

The portals hadn’t been opened just yet, though, and while the warm empty vastness of the Barrens had been a welcome comfort, it couldn’t stave off the feelings that sapped her will from within for long. Craving a change of scenery, she hopped a gryphon to Theramore Isle, the sturdy trees and salty sea air a welcome change from the dry heat of the Barrens. She entered the inn and felt a pang in her heart at the sight of its emptiness. Weren’t inns like this supposed to be places where adventurers connected, sharing tales of their latest quests over flagons of mead? With a heavy sigh, she sat down, wondering when she might reawaken, or if this time, she might slip out of the world’s dreams forever. 

-----

Many miles away, something flies from the surface of a blue marbled sphere…

-----

The Guardian, Milky Way Galaxy, sometime in the future

She had a name, of course, though nobody knew it but herself. People just called her The Guardian. There were other guardians, of course--tons of them--but if you just said “The Guardian,” everybody knew you were talking about her. After all, she was the one who had done that one big thing, and then, later, she’d done that other big thing, too. She couldn’t actually tell you what those things were that she had done or why exactly they’d mattered so much, but the Vanguard clearly relied on her to take care of the biggest problems that came along. Oh, and she’d avenged Cayde’s death. That, at least, had been an adventure she’d more or less understood, and she’d liked Cayde a lot, but she didn’t feel great about revenge as a motivator. Still, her options had been to do that or to not do anything, so she’d done that, too.

Everyone knew of her, but nobody knew her. When she walked past the ramen shop in the Tower, the people at the counter would talk in hushed whispers, wondering what the Guardian really fought for, and if this woman who had done so much for so many others had anything, anyone, in her own life. Or at least, the Guardian liked to think that this was true. It was her own personal headcanon. The world hadn’t given her what felt like a meaningful story, so she created one herself. She was a legend in her own mind. Sure, she’d fought alongside other guardians a handful of times, guardians she’d known and felt safe with, and those times had been, by far, the most enjoyable and meaningful of her adventures. But those guardians had disappeared without a trace, long, long ago. Now, she knew she could team up with other guardians at random, but she would never do that. She had strong defenses up, and with good reason. Too many bad experiences, too many painful memories.

So she worked alone. It was something to do, but it felt empty. She’d go on missions and get some gear that raised her light level a bit. It was tangible progress, but to what end? So that she could go on more missions and get more gear that raised her light level a bit? Was this all there was?

She looked up at the Traveler, that mysterious being, a fusion of magic and technology that hinted at possibilities beyond this life of guns and blood, and wondered if anything stirred inside of it. She wondered if there actually was more than this, or if this was all there was. She wondered what it was all for, and figured that people had been looking to the sky and wondering this for as long as there had been people, so at least in this, at least in feeling alone and lost and uncertain, she was connected to everyone who had come before. But that was cold comfort as she climbed into her little single-seater starship and set out for The Tangled Shore in hopes of finding a better pair of gauntlets.

-----

“I wake up scared, I wake up strange, and everything around me stays the same.”

--BNL, “What a Good Boy”

-----

Carolyn, Berkeley

Here I am, the link between these two characters, projecting all my own doubt and dissatisfaction onto them.

Things are up in the air right now, Unstructured. Scary. The one constant is that I’m steadfastly working on a long-term project that’s quite unlike anything I’ve done before. It requires a lot more planning. I know where it’s going. I mean, I don’t know exactly what turn it’s going to take at every crossroads, but I have a map to the final destination. There’s comfort in this, but it also means that this writing comes from a different place than so much of the writing I’ve done. I believe in it. I feel good about it. I like doing it and knowing that I’m capable of doing it. But also, it’s safer, less emotionally urgent. (Whether or not it will ever see the light of day, now that is a question of some urgency, as it’s not exactly pulling in any money just yet, but that’s a different matter.) That project aside, lately I’ve felt like I’m looking for a reason to write. The pinprick, the provocation, the punch in the face. The things I usually find in life and in art, and in the space between myself and the games I play.

Destiny 2 and World of Warcraft don’t give me those reasons. So why do I keep returning to them, when whatever comforts they offer are fleeting, when they leave me feeling as empty as when I started? Why, when I’m so desperate for connection, do I keep playing alone these games that are designed to be played together? Why don’t I take the hours that these games swallow up and use them to read a book? Is it because I think that at any moment, something may change? Is it because I know that, while a book may be far more worthwhile, I won’t find the connection I crave in its pages, either?

I want games that fuck me up. The first episode of Stories Untold, man, that fucked me up. My brain buzzed for a few hours afterwards with the excitement and stimulation of having played something truly surprising. Destiny, WoW, these games might be fun if I had people to play them with, but the one thing they will never be, especially not as long as I play them on my own, is surprising. I know exactly what I’m in for each time I fire them up. And yet I do it again and again and again.

Here’s why I think I keep coming back: Because in this moment, when my life feels so uncertain and terrifying, I know for certain that in those worlds I can succeed, that after an hour or two, the numbers that define my character will be a little bit higher than they were when I started. Things feel so out of my control right now. Here’s a place where I can have a kind of control, however small, however empty.  

But games can’t be the answer. Life has to be. A few shallow, friendly connections won’t cut it, whether it’s people I hang out with but don’t really know in the real world, or people I run dungeons with in WoW but never really talk to or touch. As Olivia Laing so perceptively writes in The Lonely City, “[L]oneliness is hallmarked by an intense desire to bring the experience to a close; something which cannot be achieved by sheer willpower or by simply getting out more, but only by developing intimate connections.”

Or, as Bruce Springsteen sang,

I'm dying for some action I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book I need a love reaction Come on now baby gimme just one look

Because that’s where life is. That’s where the reason to write is. That’s where the reason to play is. You take what life gives you and you bring it to those things. But if life isn’t giving you the stuff of life, what, then, do you do?

I don’t want to be a warrior anymore, or at least not a lonely one. I don’t want the Boba Fett mystique. When I was younger I thought maybe I did, but now I know I don’t. Keleyna and the Guardian don’t come from anywhere, they sprang into the world fully formed as adults with no past, no family, no history, but I want someone to know where I come from. They quest alone, or when they do team up with others, it’s a fully superficial affair, no words exchanged, no lasting connection. I want to go on adventures with someone who takes on my complexity and lets me into theirs, someone I can have a real conversation with at the end of a long week, someone to walk around a real city with, someone I want to be there for and who wants to be there for me.

It’s not that I want to stop playing. Not at all. I just want the flame to be reignited. I want something to hold onto, something I can bring back to my time with the controller to make it all mean something. I’m sick of sitting ‘round here trying to write this book.

-----

Thank you for reading. If you liked it, please consider sharing it, or, if you’re in a position to do so, supporting me on Ko-fi. All donations are greatly appreciated as I continue looking for work.

[scribble-dee-vee]

11 Questions Tags

Hi all! I was recently tagged in two 11 Questions Tags, and I like the questions- so I decided to do them.

Up front, I’m going to tag @dreamywritingdragon, @focusdumbass, @writtenbyhal, @blogherosix, @adorhauer, @katiehahnbooks, @quintessenceofwords, @quillwritten, @awolfthatwrites, @toboldlywrite, and @firewritten. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done anything with tag games, so if you no longer do them/don’t want to/don’t have time, no pressure! Hope you’re all doing great :D

And my questions are:

1. Which OC has changed the most since you created them? Tell us about them!

2. In which season do you get the most writing done? Why?

3. Oldest OC? Youngest OC?

4. Do you have any self-indulgent ideas for projects that you want to write someday, even if you don’t have time right now?

5. Do you have more of a problem with underwriting or overwriting?

6. How do you get most of your ideas? Music, travel, art, or other?

7. What themes recur throughout your WIPs?

8. What are your favorite personal writing hallmarks?

9. What genre do you write in the most, and why do you like it?

10. What genre do you not write in frequently, but want to dip your toes into?

11. Tell us one reason you love your WIP!

My answers to the tagged questions got kinda long, so I put them under the cut!

The first few questions come from @bigmoodword​. Your apocalypse WIP sounds rad af??? Please tag me in updates if you have updates/use a tag list- so cool!

Thanks for the tag! To answer your questions:

1. using one sentence summaries, can you tell me about your wips?

Heart of Lead- Luanne will die on her nineteenth birthday because her heart is made of lead, the lowest caste of her society, so she works illegally with an inventor girl from out of town and some other friends to build a new heart before her time is up.

Ivory and Horn- an anthology of short stories with roots in fantasy, horror, and surrealism, set in a variety of speculative settings used as allegory for the various experiences of modern women (mostly queer women- this one’s the newest, and 12+ stories, so please excuse the vague description!)

Belladonnas- Eirene’s girl gang/witch coven, the Belladonnas, find themselves with a mystery on their hands when an enemy comes to them seeking help and hostile demonic entities begin wreaking havoc on their city.

2. what inspired them?

I’ve been working on Heart of Lead for roughly four (!) years, so the inspirations I’ve incorporated into it are many! The original idea came from a different look at the phrase “heart of gold,” and music has also been a huge defining factor. Florence + the Machine, Twenty One Pilots, and Mumford and Sons have given me a lot. The steampunk genre, dystopian novels, and imaginative fantasy books (think Neil Gaiman) contributed. Also, the imagery of Hamlet (because I’m pretentious).

Ivory and Horn is pretty experimental, and it mostly comes from my growing interest in the horror genre. I also want to figure out how to incorporate social and political commentary into my work- how much of a defining factor I want that to be, by what means I want to convey it, and that sort of thing.

Belladonnas is really inspired by 1920s aesthetics, Greek mythology, and electro swing music. A fun mixed bag!

3. which of your ocs do you most identify with?

I think all of my OCs are at least semi-autobiographical, but Luanne is probably the most. I project a lot of issues on her. It helps me work through them.

4. if you’ve ever cried while reading, which book cued the waterworks?

Yes. YES. CONSTANTLY. The one that made me bawl most recently was All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which was such an amazing book.

5. how do you conduct research for your wips and what’s the most interesting thing you’ve discovered in said research?

Mostly Google? If I’m really interesting in a particular something, I’ll get a book- which I did for fashion in Heart of Lead, and then immediately discarded like half of what I learned for the ~aesthetic~. Oh, well. Did you know that people thought that eating graham crackers encouraged chastity in Victorian London? Well, now you do! This makes me laugh every time I think about it!

6. thus far, which scene has been the most difficult to write?

Beginnings are always hard for me. I usually plan my climaxes first and work backward, unraveling the threads of the story until the point they’re most disparate. I’ve rewritten the opening scene of Heart of Lead at least ten times, which is quite a few more than the rest of the book.

7. which of your ocs do you like the least?

Agh! AGH! How can I choose??? I suppose, since I have a ton of OCs, there are a lot of characters I don’t obsess over as much as my main babies. A lot of these still need work. I think Lucy, from Belladonnas, needs a lot more development before I’m really interested in her.

8. which pov and tense do you prefer to write in?

First person, past tense. Close POV is fun to work with.

9. do you write poetry?

Occasionally! I did so a lot more when I was younger.

10. who is your writing role model?

Neil Gaiman (omg this is the second time I’ve mentioned him on this post, isn’t it? Yeah, he’s great. Go read everything he’s ever written. It will take you a while).

11. if you could give your younger writer self some advice, what would it be?

HAVE FUN! Chances are, you’re not going to have published or released work in the first few years (or first many years) after you start writing. Have that as a long-term goal, and allow yourself to enjoy and experiment with whatever-the-heck in the meantime. It will make you a better writer, you’ll produce a better/more passionate project, and you’ll have a better time.

The second set of questions comes from @sahados-shadow​! I totally feel you with the titling struggle, haha. It’s hard to make the catchy words.

1.  Which side character is your favorite?

Eep, this is so hard- I love all my kids??? But since I’m writing Blood of Queens right now, Vesper’s pretty awesome. Glamorous faerie prince who’s also a complete dork about humans and also has terrifying eldritch powers. What more do you want?

2.  Do you like any character creation templates?

Not particularly. At the very least, I don’t use them to actually create characters, but to stretch my thinking on characters I already have. Oh, and it is really fun to give characters DnD stats!

3.  Do you prefer writing by hand or typing?

I do both! I save and edit my work on my laptop, but there are a lot of times I only have a notebook on hand or just want to change my perspective. Handwriting is good for killing writer’s block.

4.  What kind of music, if any, do you listen to while creating? Lyrics or no lyrics?

Sooo much music! I make extensive character and WIP playlists (which I’d like to put on Spotify and release for tumblr at some point). Song lyrics are a huge inspiration for characters and storylines.

5.  Any animal companions for your characters?

But of course! Ty is friends with a magical talking tiger. Luanne’s family has a cat named Fleurf in book one. Weirdly enough, this discussion could delve into spoiler territory... so that’s all I’ll say about that :D

6.  What’s the first thing your OCs would buy if they won the lottery?

Oh, geez. Most of my OCs would not make wise financial decisions. To make this answer manageable, Heart of Lead MCs?

Luanne- books. Just. A million of them. Enough to make a book fort and live in it forever.

Wren- probably new tools/metal to work with? Also, cake. And non-canned food in general. She’d probably throw a giant picnic for all her friends.

Charles- he would probably invest most of it?? Honestly idk what he does with his money, and he has a lot of it in the first place.

Dale- CLOTHES. Fancy tea? Maybe he’d use some of it for bribes or whatever, too. Who really knows.

7.  What’s your favorite board game?

Scrabble! I play with my friends all the time.

8.  Any OC ships?

Many, many OC ships. I’m a sucker for a good romantic subplot. My main answer for this is always Luanne/Wren, because I’m writing literally an entire series about them. Good stuff I love my girls and they love each other <3

9.  Do you have a favorite time/place to create?

Ideally, I write from 9:30 to 11:00 on weekday nights. Over summers and weekends, I write in the morning. Best place is totally in bed, + tea, + cat!

10.  How does your OC react to a baby waving at them in the grocery store?

Luanne- bursts into happy tears

Wren- waves back

Charles- re-contemplates his entire existence because a baby actually likes him oh my god?? 

Dale- “ew tiny human why do you exist”

11.  Does your OC have a motto (made up or otherwise) they stick to?

Hmm... that’s something I actually have to think about! Most of my characters have a primary set of morals and a personal outlook on things, but I don’t think any have a motto or catchphrase at the moment.

Thank you for all the questions! This was fun :D