#but it would probably be weirder if I made twitter to do it myself

[isabeljkim]

What the hell is going on with Day Ten Thousand:

Day Ten Thousand was weird enough that I felt like it deserved directors commentary, even though I’ve stopped explaining myself mostly except when I do.

Here’s a disclaimer before we begin: don’t read too much into it. I've noticed our culture wants to explain young womens’ art as some sort of public confessional booth and our current culture has a fetish for the autobiographical. Fuck that. I didn’t write three different POVs and three interlocking nonlinear narratives about the nature of storytelling as a psychic technology to be told that my writing isn’t a calculated Craft with a capital C. Now whether it is good Craft is a decision for you, not for me. 

Anyway. 

Day Ten Thousand is a satire of an Isabel story by way of Vonnegut pastiche. We’ll come back to this. 

I called Day Ten Thousand “psychoanalysis bait” on twitter so I shall put all my cards on the table so that your psychoanalysis is at least accurate. Note that these are only my cards, because other people deserve their privacy. I guess you could probably Google all of this but like, jeez. Don’t.

I had a pretty regular time in college except for the tangential deaths. 

When I was twenty, I was the opinion editor for my university newspaper and a girl who was a friend of a friend killed herself by walking in front of a subway. There was then a sort of a small suicide bubble which was a little bit public because we were an Ivy, and one of my opinion columnists was kinda suicidal, and I, without any training, ended up in charge of writing a front page editorial about the mental health crisis on campus on account of the dead kids, etc, and talk to administration about the dead kids. 

I hate talking about dead kids. Don’t ask me about it, or about the reporting. I don’t want to talk about it. 

The whole thing sucked shit and it’s why I’m a lawyer now and not a reporter. 

If this was a story that would be the only fact, but this is reality so I have to mention that a couple years later a guy I knew got literally hate crimed and murdered in a forest. I found out about that because I saw his friend crying in public and didn’t stop to ask what was wrong. Later I heard about this in the news, and realized my acquaintance had been Literally Fucking Murdered. A few months ago I had been arguing with him in the literary magazine editors meeting about whether a poem was good or not. I think he won that argument. Then he was murdered for being gay. 

These were my introductions to the specific emotion of “sometimes people die and you don’t feel like you get to feel bad about their deaths and you still think about it a couple times a month seven years later.” 

You can probably guess where the subject material of this story came from.

Day Ten Thousand was a story about inevitable deaths, and the difference between a death in a story and a death in reality, and about…the way a death marks a narrative and a real life and how it becomes fictionalized over time. I also saw a clean way to finally do my deep time / far future story, which was something I had been thinking about on and off for a couple of years (the original version was about a shaman in the deep-time era who has a vision about having to do a murder re: preserving genetic material for the future, but it never really gelled in a way that made sense). 

I had also been wanting to write something a little metafictional, because I felt like I was writing the same story over and over (if you’ve noticed my stuff getting weirder, that’s why. I was on a bit of an experimentalist kick late last year and early this year). 

So it’s a satire of an Isabel story. I’m self-aware enough to note my obvious recurring motifs: time travel, dead people, grief, people who have a weird relationship to each other, a third-act twist, the tendency to punctuate with in-universe facts to imply emotion, to tell x in order to show y, egregious and blatant use of the second person. And then there’s the stuff that you wouldn’t know, but I do: I dislike writing in the first person, I wanted to do something nonlinear, I think a lot about stories about stories, about the idea of a story as a technology, I find myself dropped into recursive fate-like thought patterns. So a lot of this story is both my self-deprecating poking fun at myself and my habits, and also my thesis statement about…what is the point of fiction if not to make sense of the past and the future, I suppose.

The reason it is a Vonnegut pastiche is because I like Vonnegut a lot and I was trying to do something Slaughterhouse-5-ish with drastically less fucked source material. Sorry Kurt. 

There are three stories happening in Day Ten Thousand, and a secret fourth story. Each story is a suicide loop. The protagonist is trying to break a specific loop by telling a story. This story is about accepting what you have to, and changing what you can. This is a story about letting go and also not letting go. The emotional range of each narrative affects the other psychically, because by changing the vibe of the metanarrative, the individual narratives are allowed to change. 

The story in the archaic is a story that is being told postmortem, it is all hypotheticals based on fact. The story in the future is a singular narrative happening in real time until it isn't. And the story in the present is a guy telling the story about the future, which requires him to tell the story about the past as well, and mostly what Dave is doing here is avoiding the question, but it reflects how Dave thinks about the girl dying in front of the train. 

Does that make sense? No? That’s fair. That’s a postmortem explanation of what actually happened. What actually happened is that I rewrote Day Ten Thousand six times, each time more frustrating than the last, each time with the neutral-ish narrator taking up more and more air. And over time the narrator became a participant, and that’s what created the secret fourth story between “you” and the narrator. 

I had thought there were only three loops that needed to be escaped - the past (archaic, pinned story), and the future (space station, mutable fact), and that the present (the narrator’s world) was something that was static (pinned fact). After all, the girl’s already dead. She’s already stepped in front of the train. 

But the narrator isn’t doing so hot. The narrator is also Dave. And the narrator is telling the story to someone. Somewhere between version one and version six, I realized the only version of this story that makes sense is the one where the story is a conversation, and that you and I, as the narrator and the person at the other end, were also in a loop. 

So. That's whats happening.

I’m not sure if I love the ending. But I rewrote it six times and this one felt as final as it is going to get. I am done reinventing the fucking wheel. You know how it is with spaghetti. Promise I’ll write you something normal next time, I think I’ve gotten the avant- garde out of my system for a few months. 

And hey, I know I said all cards on the table but people deserve their privacy and that includes the kid i used to be when I was twenty, sitting in the shitty little windowless opinion column office, writing about suicide. 

Anyway. Day Ten Thousand is about stuff and things. Themes. So it goes. 

Thanks for reading. I’ll see you later. 

If that was too depressing for you, here are some fun facts: 

The main character is Dave after 2001: A Space Odyssey because I had wanted to make a “I’m sorry Dave I can’t do that” joke, but I couldn’t shove it in :( 

I just thought that phlebotomist was a funny word but I also fucked myself because I misspelled it every time. 

I reread half of Slaughterhouse Five to write this but then my copy got returned to the library automatically so I didn’t finish it. (yes, I’ve read it before, like three times)  

I took one single evolutionary anthropology course in college and it shows.  

I did end up looking at the wikipedia page for “the wheel” for this and then wondering exactly what I was doing with my life. 

About half the facts in this are real, and I read a couple of papers for a couple of things in it (that I promptly then ignored), but the rockets-rome-horse’s ass thing is specifically a story that my friend Max H. likes to tell. 

[animehouse-moe]

I'm terrible with timeliness and acknowledging things, but I hit 300 followers on Tumblr a couple of days ago now, which I thought was pretty cool. The conditioned response is a "thank you", but that doesn't feel right (and not in a selfish way, at least I believe). It's really cool that 300 people actually follow me and this account on a platform as I talk about anime and manga and whatnot, but it's one of those things where the longer I think about it the more I wonder as to why.

It's not like I offer anything unique with my stuff. I don't post art or fanfictions or anything that I can say is my creativity alone. As far as I see it, I'm just a crazy person scribbling away at a wall in an empty and white room. But I also don't really make any attempts to humanize myself in a lot of what I share, mostly because I struggle with riding the line between getting my point across effectively and in a meaningful fashion, and sounding like a person instead of an AI-generated response.

So maybe I should try a little to express myself some more, starting now.

I never intended to ever make something like this, nor do a lot of people. I was a university student over 2 years ago now that wanted to work on a project, but I needed a direction, a purpose. I deeply struggle with creation without reason, so I tried to find a way to drop a carrot in front of my face to encourage progress. A blog website is a very simple and easy thing to build to fill out your project portfolio, so I thought on what I'd be interested in making it for. Cars? Cool, but too costly to really do much of anything with. Computer hardware? Similar struggle. At that time, "Anime" came to mind as a cheap and accessible focus thanks to my increased watch time of media due to covid, so I ran with it.

I would just build fake or temporary blog posts to fill out the site and test it. Then I thought, if I'm going to have a blog site I should probably make a Twitter account for it as well. Oh, I should probably do this too, and that also. And so I accidentally made an entire platform based off an idea for a programming project. After about a year I abandoned the blog website because the project was "complete" and it's not like I was getting much traffic to it. But I kept the Twitter going, and going. And then one day I ended up here, and just kept going until I reached this follower count. It's weird to think about, in a sense. I never intended this for last, but it won't let go of me. It's even weirder because in all of my life I've never really been one to do anything like this before.

That's about it for the history though, I should probably add some details to the present.

As I write this I'm listening to a playlist of my favorite Nine Inch Nails songs. I'm a really big fan of their earlier work from albums like The Downward Spiral, that Industrial Rock sound is just so satisfying to me. But I'm also a bit of a music whore myself. When I say "everything except Country" I really mean it. Everything under the sun aside from Country music I'm cool with, but no matter how many phases I go through in terms of genres, I'll always gravitate towards the older music I used to listen on the radio to in my dad's car as we traveled for sports tournaments when I was younger. Foo Fighters, Muse, Soundgarden, Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, all the great bands of the early 2000s.

I also really do love art books. I'm terrible at art though I've never seriously tried, no matter how many times I tell myself I will. It does make me feel like an asshole though when I comment on art when I have no talent. It makes me feel unqualified to offer input on it, and makes me painfully aware of how shallow my analysis can be in comparison to what actually knowledgeable people can provide. I feel very similar with how I talk about anime. I refuse to view my words as an end all be all to any of the creative aspects because I've never even tried to what some of these authors/staff members have. But just like the couch potato dad will critique all the star athletes making hundreds of thousands a game, I'll sit myself down at my desk and belt out my complaints with very little reservation. A very hypocritical activity.

Sometimes I struggle with a healthy relationship between myself and this account. I think it's important to view them as two separate things for sanity's sake as well as to stave off an inflating ego, but it doesn't always happen. There's days I feel guilty for not saying something, for not making use of the platform I've created. I can feel a need to post, to be productive and compare myself to actual content creators despite my adamant declaration that I'm not one. It's a silly thing, but the internet and social media can be a terrible place that inspires people to desperation, to a deep desire for validation and popularity and that the numbers that you can see matter a great deal. It's not really fun.

Despite my (self proclaimed) "knowledge" of social media and the spheres of it that I engage with, I'm pretty terrible with outreach. Someone asking questions or challenging a point that I've written are things I can do very naturally, but genuine outreach and interaction is something that I struggle with. Should I do a giveaway? What's the best way to do it to make sure it goes to someone that deserves it? How should I go about finding similar accounts to interact or collaborate with? Is it okay if I reply to this post or ask a question? Truthfully, I might go as far as to say that I'm socially inept in regards to social media. It's a wave that I struggle to ride despite my reliance on it in several ways. But it's something I'm at least trying to stick with, so if there's any accounts similar to mine or anybody reading this thinks I'd be interesting in, tell me about them. Yes, a pathetically lazy request to make, but I just find myself intensely apathetic to a lot of the forced nature of social media.

But I'm still here, for whatever reason that may be. And I like talking about anime, manga, and all sorts of other similar things, for whatever reason that may be. And people follow me and like my posts, for whatever reason that may be.

[wack-ashimself]

Microsoft 'logic'.

I have been banned on any video game device only ONE time in my life. Probably close to over 1/2 a decade ago at least. It was for only 2 days. And it was ONLY for online communication; I could still play any games I wanted.

And I am quite proud of it. I worked HARD to figure out the best way to tell someone to fuck off.

"I am going to fuck your dad in the ass."

<and coming from a straight white guy, that pisses them off even more!>

It's short, sweet, but offends ANYONE I've ever said it to (which has been...1 technically. Everyone else I have said it to was me telling THIS story of getting banned and why. But they admitted-that's a pretty fucked up thing to say to someone.) Try it out on someone who pisses you off. It's fun! Calls their dad gay, a submissive bottom bitch (I will never imply force, only choice), and 3x worse than a your mama burn.

BUT, I was caught cuz I wrote them a message. So I knew, no matter how mad, never send a message to anyone. If anything, say it in game. Don't even send them an audio message. Don't need to give them bullets to fire, ya know? And I only would say that in EXTREME circumstances.

Flashforward to sunday afternoon. Wake up and SOMETHING I did saturday night got me reported TWICE, back to to back. Which makes absolutely NO sense. Because, again, both reports came in at the exact same time, I can safely assume that it was for the same offense. And maybe 2 different people reported me? But you get...marks, I guess? 8 marks in one year and YOU ARE BANNED FROM ONLINE GAMING FOR A YEAR!? I got THREE in ONE NIGHT?! (I had ZERO before this.) And it must be from the same person: literally, to the second, they were reported in. One was 1 second after the next. Literally. But here's where it gets weirder. 1-the first report was 1 mark. The second report was TWO marks. WHY was the second report worth more? If they came in the SAME time, it's the SAME offense, but one is worth more? WTF logic is that? 2-when I complained, they said I was being 'sexually aggressive' in nature. Did NOT say what I did, when, or to who. WTF? I never said I would rape or murder. I didn't send a dick pic. I didn't do anything! I talked a LOT of shit cuz I was playing comp with the dumbest mother fucking teams ever. But nothing sexual. That's...boring. And distracting. Like that insult above is the MEANEST thing I have said online in years. And I said it once. 3-again, I have been told to KILL MYSELF by assholes online. I made a promise DECADES ago never to say that to a stranger. Cuz they may just do it. And I don't need that on my head. But those evil fuckers talking rape and murder get to stay online?

So not only am I banned till WEDNESDAY night (4 days. 2 days longer than the last ban) but I am not allowed to play ANY multiplayer games. Tho I OWN them and have online gold. Evil fuckers.

What's even stranger? RIGHT after this happened, I had a FUCK TON of friends on twitter AND facebook saying how they were being shadow banned, censored, and straight up banned off social media, In HUGE numbers, unprovoked. My newsfeed was drenched in claims.

This isn't a coincidence. I have been doing/saying the same borderline rated R but NOT rated x in online gaming. NOW they start mass editing what we can say/do? I think this is one of those times of they wonder 'just how much shit can we get away with?'

<Side note. This was overwatch. Which I have 5 star level endorsement. The HIGHEST endorsement you can get. YOU ONLY GET THOSE IF SOMEONE GOES OUT OF THEIR WAY TO ENDORSE YOU! So are they endorsing me then doxxing me? WTF?>

Also I know I won't look like the best guy here. I am just throwing it all out there: I am not always the easiest gamer to game with, however, I don't tell people I'm going to rape or murder them. So maybe handle the PSYCHOS first? I've been told to go die! Holy shit man. That's not as evil as anything I ever said to a stranger. They're usually stupid fucking kids being cruel too. So even if they did convince a kid to kill themselves, they'd probably get away with it....that's fucked up. Here's a fun story. 7th grade. Bully. SMART bully. Literally, TO MY FACE, said 'I could kill you, declare insanity, and be out in a few years.' SEVENTH FUCKING GRADE!

#xbox #censorship #rated x #online #online gaming #online shit talk #shit talk #rape #murder #overwatch #blizzard #microsoft #bill gates sucks #video game #video games #talking trash

[waitingformyfavoritesongs]

12 April 2023 Wednesday 6:41 pmpdt

6:42 pmpdt what’s going on with NPR????? Something about Twitter. I to listened 👂 to npr years ago. It’s how I got some news 📰 . 😫😖😭😤🥵😤🥵

In 2015 I remembered still being h*run a lot and was still in relatively good shape, and looked in the mirror 🪞 b4 showering 🚿 and getting turned on, and m*sturbating for 2 hours at once. Pain tongue 👅 6:48 pmpdt it’s those hills man 👨. If you want results you have to be disciplined you can’t fake it. Right shin bone pain. I wish I did it for more than 1.5 years. I probably would have loooked more like the rock 🪨? 6:49 pmpdt I probably wouldn’t be crying 😭 like I am now. 6:50 pmpdt

7:14 pmpdt brain 🧠 storming ideas 💡 had a few days ago: if someone has been buried for at least 2 months, should quarterly exhume? Definition? Dig up all the cemeteries to recycle ♻️. Cemeteries are probably Bcz of Christianity ✝️ belief of the dead ☠️ rising coming back to life. If the body is decomposed... we should give up on that idea 💡 for that individual that was buried. 7:17 pmpdt if it isn’t already done ✅.

9:17 pmpdt when Arnold was governor of California I think 💭 I remember he wanted zero landfills. That would probably help a lot now. But we might find victims of murder in those landfills if we were to completely go through those. I tweeted 🐥 a Georgia murder case from Perez Hilton and the police 👮‍♂️ suspected the missing toddler would be found there. I think 💭 if you have something old, you should be able to take it to the store 🏬 and get credit for it towards a new item But I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ how to make something like that work. Bcz of the incubus everything and everyone looks weirder and weirder to me. 9:24 pmpdt

9:28 pmpdt Crystal Geyser and sprite? Make their own bottles so it probably would not be difficult to accomplish? But most stuff is made in India 🇮🇳 or China 🇨🇳? I don’t know 🤷���‍♀️. 9:30 🕤 pmpdt 9:31 pmpdt I think 💭 no one cares if I die. There were a lot of people who could have spoken up 🆙 for me but didn’t. So the voice is a dead ☠️ case. Ursula the sea 🌊 witch 🧙. Witchy. 9:33 pmpdt 🪝🎣 it’s ironic. Bcz there were signs 🪧 that he was going to let me win. But it looks like he’s going to kill me. Bustles. Don’t matter anymore. 9:34 pmpdt don’t even think 💭 about it. It’s a trap 🪤. I’ve been warned a lot but I wasn’t sure what was truth and not. It’s a trap 🪤 for me. Crying like a cow 🐮 mooooooo. 9:35 pmpdt (min ago digging into chest bones 🦴 again. Every time I say/think something along the lines of self pity they do that. 9:36 pmpdt since 2017. The pain was unbearable since 2017. I woke up everyday feeling like it was a nightmare. I couldn’t do much Bcz of the pain. And now I have difficulty breathing most of the time that I’m awake. Everyday since the end of April 2019. It progressed. 9:39 pmpdt life is very short. I was slow to get stuff done ✅ and time went by fast 💨. There were other stuff in my life that made me believe in the incubus but it was probably only to trick me. So I should forget about it. 9:41 pmpdt Bcz those things probably don’t matter (anus sharp pain 9:42 pmpdt) I would only be kidding (spine pain 9:43 pmpdt) myself if I believed any of it. 9:43 pmpdt

10:08 pmpdt it’s clear to me now that it’s a trap 🪤 for anyone to go after the voice. Simon cowell barely said anything clearly and he got torn down for it. And I’m dying 😵. The king 🤴 of kings made the spinning chairs 🪑 his throne. The incubus. No one can go after the voice. Don’t count on it after I lose my bones 🦴. Don’t count on it after I die. Joe’s probably too scared 😱 too. He already had a hard time too. 10:13 pmpdt

10:22 pmpdt my sister was a social butterfly 🦋. She probably dated a lot more guys than I did and has a lot of friends. 10:24 pmpdt and she pushed me away a lot so she didn’t really know me that well I guess (acid pain left eyeball 👁 10:25 pmpdt).

1:35 am pdt 13 April 2023 Thursday incubus changed words again! Diarrhea 1:36 am pdt from 1996-2000 I had a neighbor next door 🚪 who never let me see inside her apartment. Right hip bone 🦴 pain 😫😖😭☹️🥺😞 she told me she had boxes 📦 of old toys for toy 🧸 faires. 1:38 am pdt but the incubus got my imagination 💭 going. 1:38 am pdt

2 am pdt brain 🧠 storming: I don’t have enough education in this but (autocorrect: bubble by but: bit. Keyboard ⌨️ : butterfly button 2:02 am pdt) I think 🤔 he doesn’t want me to write ✍️ this:hypothesis: fires 🔥 are bad Bcz when elements are heated up 🆙 into gas Phase/states 💨... maybe 🤔 I got this wrong 😑 maybe it doesn’t stay hot enough to escape through the hole 🕳 in the ozone? But if it does. .. autocorrect says: doesn’t. Ok . So we are not losing stuff to outer space 🪐? 2:06 am pdt

3:43 pmpdt I’m so scared 😱 what the incubus is going to do next. Left shoulder pain 3:44 pmpdt more acid attacks in brain 🧠 today and missed my doctor 👩‍⚕️ appointment. It would be nice if my doctor 👩‍⚕️ would automatically call ☎️ me to at least check on me by telephone ☎️ instead of acting 🎭 like I don’t exist. 3:46 pmpdt It’s getting more difficult 😞 for me to get to the appointments with my situation. 3:47 pmpdt tired 😓 a lot.

big white truck 🛻 left with human bucket 🪣 with big arm was only here for a minute I think 💭. 11:14 pmpdt

11:36 pmpdt that’s probably a sign 🪧 I’m going to kick 🦵 the bucket 🪣 soon 🔜 . Have fun with Scott and Nick Carter! Incubus let’s them do what they want all their lives. Must be fun 🤩 to be them. Everyone who is not me, I bet they feel great 👍! No one appreciates the sacrificial lamb 🐑/cow 🐄 11:39 pmpdt

[sabertoothwalrus]

gonna put on my clown shoes cause I made it a Whole Thing that I’d mail copies of my nico zine to adam muto, pen ward, and rebecca sugar but they for sure aren’t even gonna answer my DMs LMAO. honestly I fully expected this would happen and yet. honk honk

#I haven't messaged pen yet cause I don't have twitter and idk what else he regularly uses #and I don't want anyone to message him for me cause that would probably seem Weird #but it would probably be weirder if I made twitter to do it myself #like how fucking shady would that be for some rando with a brand new account to dm you asking for your address #so they can mail you their gay oc ship fanart zine #jfdhgfjdghjfgdfhjfg'

[shadowofthelamp]

So, this was a long twitter ramble made really, really early this morning before I went to bed. I’m trying to tweak Timber’s story to be a little less... flat, I guess? It seemed a little overly simplistic, but be fair, I first made him... oh god, six and a half years ago. This is basically just talking myself through how to rework it a little while still mostly getting the same result, and it feels a little more organic this way.

I skimmed the reset timeline!M:25yl comics (the one that was only two issues) but I think an interesting dimension to add to Timber’s story is that... there were probably a lot of people who genuinely liked what Shadow had done. He was ruthless, but managed to CREATE WORLD PEACE. The idea that the second Shadow got sealed away everyone except for his very inner circle was just immediately okay with it and kept that peace up without any kind of threat feels sort of contrived, y’know?

Timber mostly likes keeping his head down and away from comparisons to his bio dad. He doesn’t like- but at least kinda gets- people who don’t like him because of it, but having people fanboy and HOPE he’ll help bring Shadow back would be 10x weirder for him, muddling already mixed signals.

I joke that he had fangirls who kept tabs on him (come on, Elias had them and I feel like with his parents being who they are, he’d be pretty cute) but people who just see him as an extension of the dad he never knew on EITHER end just stress him out. He feels like he’s never getting the full story.

And this mostly happens after the tikhaos incident, so after Shadow was on the loose. Conspiracy theories crop up by the dozen both pro- and anti-Shadow. A lot of them end up revolving around Timber who is freaked out because his powers are starting to manifest more strongly.

He started training under the daughter of the Guardian who worked high-up for Shadow. THAT sparked even more rumors, but they probably tried to shelter him from it as much as they could. The fact that he was a pretty even split but leaned towards resembling his dad didn’t help.

My initial ideas with him were more ‘oh boo-hoo I look like him so people are mean to me’ but the fact that his life and reputation is so wholly out of his hands and people twist /anything/ he does to suit their own imaginary agenda is still a solid premise imo.

That actually might help solve one of my other problems- I feel like if he caught wind of this stuff (and he would, he’s a smart kid) he’d probably end up trying to repress anything ‘bad’ to be ‘good’, instead of his parents being ooc and misguidedly doing it themselves.

Just the thought of a kid who’s realizing that people see him in all sorts of ways trying to swallow himself down to not give the people who hate him for things out of his control more ammo while fending off doubts from the praise of those who want him to be something he’s not...

He WANTS to be a good son, he cares for his parents and his siblings, but the media seems to like the twins so much more, so he tries to fade into the background so it might not hurt. He never likes what they say, whether they think they like him or not.

He REALLY has issues with feeling like a mistake to get rid of and like the twins were the ones they really wanted. Both sally and sonic do make every effort to show they care- and they do! It’s just the idea that he’s lesser burrows into his brain and refuses to dig out.

He tried to be perfect and not make mistakes, and when he can’t do that, he tried to fade into the background because no attention is good attention. He probably ends up having talks with elias about it when he gets older, since his uncle definitely knows the feeling.

He doesn’t mind positive coverage for things he actually did- like volunteering or something- but how often it spins back to his bio dad just annoys him to the point where he just wants it all to go away. It takes him years to not internalize all the garbage tabloids spit out.

Things probably get even worse after he seals Shadow off with Lara-Su again- but by then he’s starting to learn to not care. I don’t doubt this whole mess is part of why he wants to stay in Devi’s dimension- all they’d know is specifically what HE tells them.

Ugh, idk if I’m explaining any of this properly. He feels like he doesn’t know himself or what he really wants because he keeps hearing conflicting ideas and he’s unfortunately susceptible to it because of his pre-existing anxieties, so he puts up walls as a defense thing.

#timber #shadow says stuff #sonic blogging #sth

[tacosandtomcos]

Me Going Through Star Vs Tv Tropes

So while Tv tropes is a fan thing similar to the Star vs Wiki and is imperfect in many ways. i was curious to check it out and see what had been put there for some aspects i was interested in in terms of the show.

And boy, is it interesting.

I checked out cleaved first because i heard so much about how this page was outright going on about how much the finale messed up, and they weren’t wrong, it actually feels like whoever wrote this was pretty mad themselves.

There’s discussion about the implied genocide, the implied dangers of merging worlds, heck, this entire page went over obvious plot holes.

It is the most salty thing i have seen in awhile, and it’s kinda funny in a way, this one got to me man:

it hits on mos of the critisim towards the episode and some more that some people may of missed upon first glance, so for all it’s faults i give it credit for finding new ways of disscussing everything wrong with the finale in ways that make it easier to understand where things went wrong for others.

I will admit though, the page does try to jusitify star’s actions despite also pointing out how bad they are with the “Saving of the monsters”, and it feels like someone should add the fact that there were other solutions available as pointed out by previous episodes and star’s actions aren’t easily forgivable considering the damage her actions caused outweigh the good intentions.

I think people are happy she wanted to save the monsters and wouldn’t let them die but the magic destroying thing would have massive consequences and the ideas behind it are not fleshed out enough to justify this was the best course of action for mewni and it’s future.

The monsters are saved, but will the destruction of a vital source for the universe mean better for everyone across all dimensions, including the monsters?.

After i wanted to check out tom’s family junk, see what they had, and at least someone added the fact eclipsa’s family and tom’s family almost seem to be parallels because even though people picked up on it, and me myself wanted more done with that....clearly nothing came of it, so i’m glad they have a section on that.

 though someone did forget to add wrathmelior having wings to her section.

Honestly this little tidbit stings considering the ending: 

Honestly what they have for dave is the weirder section cause since his character got shoved to the wayside and little was done with him, most of his section is a lot more guesswork about his relation with tom then anything

Like some of the tropes with him and wrath are funny because well, they fall into some fun couple troupes, all his stuff with tom are more...like putting his original abusive persona mixed with what he’s like now: 

Honestly in show where tom got his anger from relationship wise is not made clear since his parents were in 2 episodes.

like THIS was a detail that was a thing when tom’s dad was still an abusive demon, but i really don’t know how much this applies now. Dave seems to maybe have anger issues (I mean the dude threw a chair out of a window), but how tom feels about it or how big they are is put into question now.

Not to mention the “Big Guy” thing also seems like an abandoned part of OG dad and it feels like the show was going to make him a major character but abandoned it.

Like again, i wonder if these details should even be there because their canoncity is put into question since this stuff is coming from the original design of tom’s dad and not this current iteration. And i’m not sure if we have enough to even imply that dave is oblivious or has a serious temper since his anger has been shown once in the series.

i mean this is interesting cause i get to see what they put as far as minor characters and yeah it makes me wish the characters were used more because then the show could’ve done something with dave to actually give him a more clear character then having people base his personality and relationships off probably outdated info?

or at least, daron should’ve actively disbanded that info herself at one point or another if it’s untrue. It just feels like dave is supposed to be a wildly different character now but his og character is leaking in cause the show refused to give him anything to make people think of him differently.

tv tropes even mentions this was the original pitch, the abusive demon thing, so it’s weird they kept these elements while knowing they were adabonded

most of the rest of his page is pretty fine i was mostly curious about his page because i wanted to see how this thing would handle a minor character who was changed so drastically

Moved on to tom’s section, it’s decent at showing his flaws but reminding the people reading of his arc and improvement.

I love at least it addresses a lot of stuff i’ve been saying for years though

as someone who is used to people downplaying tom as a character, it’s neat here they do indeed consider tom is basically be almost the 3rd most important character in later seasons.

though concept alone did not gather him such a prominent fanbase, tom was just a good and interesting character in general and even the crew knew it, which is why even after the show ended how it did so many fans still consider tom a bright spot in it.

Tom still has a bunch of haters who refuse to like him no matter what and will probably never like him no matter what.

But most can agree he had a proper arc and his character remained likable and enjoyable at a time where a lot of characters were becoming increasingly hard to watch.

Tom didn’t just have a cool design, he was just a good character, and he and eclipsa have similar reasons for still being beloved even despite everything, the show never really ruined them for anyone, if anything, people cared about them WAY more then most of the other characters because they never got butchered like moon, star, or marco felt like they did.

Then i moved on to stuff about after the finale, and yes, the page remains salty.

I mean, i knew the show was being screwed bit by bit because as a fan i was keeping a close eye on this stuff, commercials, time, dates, ect. It hurts to see it though cause at the time people thought moving to Disney channel was gonna mean GOOD things for the series.

which sucks because THIS was also very true:

they did so much on their twitter to boost star, heck, it was designed to look like star, they showed star fanart, had star livestreams. Like Disney used to push this show hard till it slowly seemed to stop caring.

The Ama is also addressed briefly, especially Daron’s reaction, and yeah....

Still makes me pretty mad tbh.

Here’s some interesting stuff i found as well

From Friend-enemies 

apparently this was gonna be a thing.

Also from tom’s section, which makes me wish we got stomco instead of what we got cause it’s so clear that finale had those implications and sad to see where it ended up.

Oh, and my favorite one:

Me too Rider, me too.

I hope someday you get better treatment for your character, especially since it was clear you loved playing him so much, i would’ve been mad too.

Yeah, so i checked out Tv Tropes under star to look at some things, it’s not perfect but kinda interesting, and hopefully i find time to go into stuff like this more in the future on this blog.

#star vs the forces of evil #svstfoe #svtfoe #Tom the Demon #tom lucitor #marco #marco diaz #star butterfly #Dave Lucitor #king lucitor #queen lucitor #moon mention #wrathmelior lucitor #analysis

[dentalrecordsmusic]

WATCH: Guilty Giraffe - “Washed Out”

Words by Catherine Dempsey

For fans of: Nirvana, Sonic Youth, 80s and 90s nostalgia

The new decade is already shaping up to be a good time for music. Bands are getting weirder and more unique with time, probably due to the saturation of groups that exist these days. Yonkers NY, especially, breeds this species of strange in a deeply artistic (and sometimes funny) way. Located just outside New York City, Yonkers is known for being the unofficial sixth borough and the music scene there is something you should be paying attention to. It doesn’t have the pretentious air of Brooklyn, but it’s also not outwardly weird -- you need to do some research to find the good stuff. 

But it is indeed there. And one of the bands making a splash in Westchester are Guilty Giraffe. Made up of Mat, Will, Shane, and Kevin, Guilty Giraffe take their influence from Cap n Crunch, avocados, and Space Jam (on top of all of the musical influences). 

Guilty Giraffe recently put out their newest single, “Washed Out,” with a music video to complement it. The first few seconds ring out like a song by The Cure but the remainder of it plays with 90s sentimentality and some heavier guitar work as well. “Washed Out” isn’t perfectly produced -- its quality is more in the realm of a VHS tape of the past. This only makes the single more charming and warm. There are certainly snippets of Nirvana worship thrown in (of course) and even a little love for Deftones in its undercurrent. While Guilty Giraffe are, at their heart, a local band, they are picking up what was put down in the 90s with their own spin. 

The music video is funny in a particularly silly way. It gives me some Barren Marys “Roaches and Fleas” vibes, as that song also includes a dude in an animal and/or insect suit walking around and drinking beer. The artistic style of the Guilty Giraffe video, however, is much more like something you would see in a Soundgarden video. Again, the 90s touch is strong in this one. As a millennial myself, there’s nothing I love more than having my heartstrings pulled with some good old fashioned Clinton-era vibes. Guilty Giraffe are on the cusp of something great and delightful and “Washed Out” is a tiny effort that packs a big memorable punch. 

Check out the music video for “Washed Out” below. Follow Guilty Giraffe on Facebook and Instagram.

Catherine Dempsey’s mom lives in Yonkers and she can attest to this level of Yonkers-weird. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter. 

Follow DRM on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Subscribe to the DRM YouTube channel.

#guilty giraffe #yonkers #washed out #new york #nirvana #sonic youth #rock #music news #album review #catherine dempsey

[mysticsparklewings]

Starfall Mountains

Alternate title: Reasons Not to Buy the Dirt-Cheapest Acrylic Paints You Can Find I normally do like to keep an inexpensive stash of acrylic paint around because even though acrylic paint is not a medium I dabble in often, it much like fabric/puffy paint can come in surprisingly handy. And every once in awhile I will use it for it's intended purpose just to stretch my artistic muscles. Well, one of my art students recently started asking questions about acrylic painting and through giving them what advice I could (knowing arguably too much about acrylic painting for someone that rarely if ever does so) I felt that familiar artistic itch settle into my brain. And then I remembered that between my own one-off projects and a couple that my mom borrowed my small paint stash for, the stash that I had is down quite a few tubes that are just completely gone/empty. And what colors are left (mostly browns and greens, maybe a yellow) are not terribly pretty or useful colors. Thus my wandering art supply eyes started watching for some cheap acrylic paints to add to and replenish the stash. And admittedly to a certain extent, I wanted to take the rare occasion to take a stab at making a proper painting, partly just to see if I could do it and partly so I wouldn't just be throwing my student to the wolves with my advice. I found such paints in the form of an 8-pack set of 9.5 ml. tubes from Dollar General. The set was $4. Now, I know and can accept that this set was not meant to be artist-quality by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever. What bothers me is that my pre-existing stash was a very cheap set that was probably at best meant to be student-quality paint (and there's a good chance that's being generous) and you can get craft paint from Walmart for less than $1 for much larger tubes, and both options are more pigmented than these paints were. Do not be fooled by the results before you; I am fortunate enough that I have a moderate amount of artistic skill, pretty good knowledge of the medium (at least for someone that doesn't use it often), and I've done enough experimenting and encountered enough problems before to be comfortable trying to power through and work with what I had. If I were a humble beginner with much more limited knowledge of art supplies and how to use them, I highly suspect this would be one of those supplies capable of turning someone away from that type of art supply, if not art as a whole, in its entirety. If you've ever used finger paints for kids--you know how in the container and one congealed drop of the paint it looks like a nice, solid color, but then when you start to spread the paint around it's way more transparent and you have to really commit to get the color pay-off you were expecting? That's an accurate description of these paints. The thing is that they aren't totally lacking in pigment. They're about as pigmented as cheap watercolors or gouache. The problem with that is that they are still acrylics at the end of the day--the paint binder is a plastic, which means they dry relatively quickly and typically will not reactivate after they've dried. So if you want the same experience but a medium that's easier to work with, watercolor or gouache would be a better option. But it gets weirder.   I noticed that these acrylics dry a little on the slower side compared to what I'm used to, which is a mixed bag. It helped with blending a little, but it also made the lack of pigment more frustrating, as it meant I had to wait longer for the paint to dry between layers, which I needed in order to make sure I was A. covering the canvas and B. getting the color payoff I wanted. Additionally, it is probably a very good thing that I was using a small 4"x6" canvas board and not one of the 8"x10" canvases I have on hand, because the size of the paint tubes combined with the lack of pigmentation means I very likely would've run out of one or some of the colors. (Almost definitely I would have run out of white because white is always my most overused color). To a certain extent, I did expect to have to layer and do a lot of "put paint on, cover it up. put paint on, cover it up, put paint on--" you get the idea. Acrylics, even when they are better pigmented, can be a more challenging medium to work with because of the aforementioned quicker drying time. But even so I feel like the work I had to do to get good color pay off, decent coverage of the canvas, and smooth blending all at once was still a little more than I should've had to put in. The most egregious and obvious offenders of this would be the orange behind the mountains and the snow/ice caps on the mountains, the latter of which I'm still not totally happy with, but I kept going back and forth with it and eventually just said "y'know, that looks pretty okay, I'm tired of messing with it, and I'd love to not use up the entire tube of white on this one small painting, so I'm done with that." The orange I think turned out fine, though the transition between it and the rest of the sky is a little harsh for my liking. (I'd say it doesn't match the reference photo but that's not really fair as overall I took quite a few intentional and unintentional creative liberties between my reference photo and the final product.) Anyway. Once I had layered enough various shades of purple and bluish-white on this thing to make an eggplant and blueberry salad jealous and fed myself up with the mountains, it was 4 a.m. and I was tired and so I decided to let what I had dry overnight and then finish it the following day. I did wrap my tiny 6-well palette up in a plastic baggie to preserve the mixed paint that hadn't already dried just in case I looked at the painting with fresh eyes and couldn't help but touch it up some more. But fortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, I used some washi tape to make a mask over the mountains and then broke out a bottle of white ink to splatter some stars across the sky, because I knew the white acrylic paint was a serious risk that was likely to not work out the way I wanted it to. (In this case. I have used white acrylic paint before that would've probably worked just fine using the same splatter method, but I didn't want to take the risk with how not-pigmented this white was.) And then I went in with white gel pens to emphasize a few stars, add some white spots in that I wasn't able to do with the paint, and I did end up adding a little extra highlight to some of the mountains in the vain hope of making them look a little better. This is where the title comes in; I think I got a little carried away with the highlight on the mountains vs. the stars in the sky, and so instead of the traditional "snowfall/snowy" mountains, I thought calling them "starfall" mountains might make more sense based on the visuals. One that was done and I was confident that everything was dry, I went over the whole thing with some gloss-finish ModPodge (which smells horrible by the way; the matte-finish ModPodge has a way less offensive smell to me), in two coats, and then re-applied my gel-pen signature in the top corner because for some reason the ModPodge just kinda wiped it off. I don't like ripping on a supply so hard, and I'm sure if you look at some other supply tests of mine that it's pretty obvious I try very hard to give the benefit of the doubt when I can. These just disappointed me on so many levels. Don't get me wrong; the end product still turned out decent, but that's because I more or less know what I'm doing. As I said before, I'm not confident that a beginner wouldn't be totally frustrated by these paints. And yet I can't deny that they're probably fine for younger kids that don't really care about proper acrylic painting, and that's really who they're probably for anyway. If nothing else, I can say this experiment has pushed me towards getting a better quality, wider color-selection set of acrylics to keep in my stash, because I really don't see these working out as a good stash set for me.  It's going to be a tricky decision though, because I want something that'll give me the option to do a proper acrylic painting like this if I want to, but has a price I can justify even if I don't use the paints terribly often. So we'll see how that turns out for me further down the road. I really don't think I'll ever be primarily an acrylic painter (not because of this particular experience--there's just something missing that doesn't draw me into the medium like other mediums have drawn me in before), but sometimes you get an artistic itch and you just have to scratch it, and I have to admit that I don't think I've fully satisfied this itch just yet, so there may be more acrylic paintings to come out of me yet. ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[maverick-werewolf]

Random Werewolf Fact #20 - How to Kill a Werewolf (Weaknesses)

The age-old question that people like to ask but seems so easy to answer in most movies, because they always die - how do you actually kill a werewolf, anyway?

I wrote a post on silver once, if you recall. But here’s a much more robust version of what can and cannot actually hurt a werewolf.

As you probably already know by now, werewolves are often essentially invincible. Often, but not always. In some stories, killing a werewolf was just as easy as killing any other person or any other wolf. Burning at the stake was common, as you might imagine.

Or more often than not, the werewolf simply cannot be killed, and you have to find a way to fix/revert/cure them instead. For more details on all this and more, you can also see one of my previous posts on werewolf abilities.

Want to get Mav all fired up? Tell me about werewolves with ridiculously stupid contrived weaknesses. Send me an ask if you want a rant. Honestly, I got very angry just writing this post, thinking about the stupid crap people do. But for now, I’ll just stick to info as well as I can.

Did NOT appear in folklore:

Silver - The big one. The fake one. The one completely made up by Curt Siodmak in 1941 when he wrote his movie The Wolf Man. The one I’ve said many times and had some people point at me and just say “So... Yeah. Wrong.” Well, right back at you, O friendly one. You’ll hear people now and then try to tell you that this whole silver thing for werewolves started around the Beast of Gevaudan; it did not, that was a fictional retelling and embellishment someone wrote years later. Some people will try to tell you there are other stories that mention silver for werewolves in a folkloric fashion. The trouble is, I’ve never seen any properly documented and accountable sources to back up these claims, so honestly I can’t bring myself to believe they exist, especially since Curt Siodmak and people who worked with him said themselves that he made up the silver thing completely from his imagination. So anyone scouring legends to find silver, picking up trails of contrivances and mistellings and misinterpretations over the years, trying to hard to make this a real thing - they’re all wasting their time. Folkloric werewolves are not sensitive to silver and never have been. Does silver appear in other folklore? Sometimes, yes. Is it alchemically associated with the moon and that’s probably why Siodmak picked it (because he chose to associate his werewolves with the moon)? Probably, yeah. Does it make for a good story? Well, yeah, it can! But, I’m sorry, it simply is not from any folklore anywhere that specifically werewolves are sensitive to, or can only be slain by, silver.

Holy ground/holy artifacts - This is also not a thing. Werewolves aren’t unholy. They aren’t like vampires or other unholy monsters like evil spirits and demons; in fact, they have absolutely nothing to do with any of those things. And even when some Satanic sorcerer court cases got mislabeled as being werewolves, the wolf sorcerers still weren’t repelled by holy symbols or unable to step on holy ground.

Vampire bites - As I’ll be detailing in a future post, the whole “werewolves vs vampires” thing is a very modern idea made by modern storytellers. Vampires have no special natural “weapons” against werewolves and vice versa. Vampire bites certainly don’t “poison” werewolves.

Fire - No, fur is not made of pure oil that will catch on fire and burn like pitch the second it comes into the tiniest contact with a single freaking match. It doesn’t catch on fire instantly and it won’t stay burning forever like some eternal flame. Also, in berserker lore, they are specified to be immune to both iron and fire. And in fact I’ve been led to understand that really the only thing that causes your hair or fur to burn is the body oils that coat it. Listing this as some kind of unique and special weakness for werewolves, like everyone likes to do, is ridiculously silly, please stop doing this. And listing it because fire scares animals is also silly because werewolves aren’t animals; they’re werewolves. Anyway, no, this wasn’t a thing in folklore, either.

Running water - This is another undead/evil spirits/vampires thing, never once associated with werewolves, particularly as werewolves are not unholy.

Loud noises/bright lights/whatnot - As you might imagine, no one in the days of actual werewolf beliefs was running around with flashbangs, so no, this never really happened either.

Wolfsbane and belladonna - This is a really popular one and another one that originated from The Wolf Man (1941) when Curt Siodmak decided to associate his werewolf with the wolfsbane flower. Basically, Siodmak dictated to the world what his werewolves are like and then everyone decided to copy him and now it’s all but universal canon that werewolves are like his werewolves. It’s pretty wild, really. Wouldn’t it be amazing if that happened to you, if you suddenly just up and told the entire world what this monster is like for essentially the rest of its existence in all storytelling everywhere?

Electricity - This seems to be an increasingly common thing. I mean, yeah, most everything is “sensitive” to electricity, right? This is another new thing, though, so it’s like whatever.

Literally everything else in all those TV shows - Yes, all those shows you watch that have werewolves in them. Supernatural, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Being Human, Teen Wolf, you name it. They all made up a gracious plenty of things, some ranging from completely ridiculous (sulfate gas, what? What does that even...?) to arguably more reasonable. Of course if you ask me most are ridiculous. Blood loss? Really? What do you think the regeneration is even there for?

Of course, making up weaknesses for your werewolves isn’t a bad thing. I mean, I’m not saying it’s innately bad; not at all (well alright except some of them and especially the unholy thing... can we not?). Especially since I hold to the idea that they should be essentially invincible otherwise. But none of these have actual folkloric sources - that is my point.

Appeared in folklore:

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING - You heard it right. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Big goose egg. Nothing. Naught. Nichts. Ekkert. Nec entem. Ingenting. And now you also know how to say “nothing” in various ways and languages, too.

Want a few of the weirder instances of how werewolves were actually defeated? All of these only happened once on an individual level. In one case, we get the idea that speaking a werewolf’s Christian name will turn them back to their human form. In another case, if you throw a piece of iron over their head, they’ll turn back.

Do any of these actually hurt, kill, or “cure” them, though? Nope, sorry.

No weaknesses. Good luck with that. You know Wolverine, right, from Marvel? He’s much more of a proper werewolf than like 95% of werewolves in pop culture.

So next time you’re making up werewolves for your world or something, if you want them to have no weaknesses - hey, that can still be on point. Or you can just use silver, because honestly everyone takes that for granted now. And I’m not denying it’s fun (I use it in my own setting, though I have a gratuitous backstory to go with the why and the how, instead of it “just being a thing,” and no one knows why/the creator[s] don’t really know why or care to know either).

But for goodness sake, if you use silver, don’t do that obnoxious thing where people act like you can somehow feed a werewolf silver and it’ll kill them (like they’ll just swallow silver for some reason lololol so funneh and trickseh). Even if they did swallow it, you realize vomiting is a thing, right, especially if it’s something actively burning your insides? Or people who act like you can actually shove it down their throat in the middle of combat. That is the stupidest thing ever in the history of everything. It wouldn’t work and you would die and the werewolf wouldn’t be anything except really mad and busy tearing your stupid head off. Get out.

*ahem* So there you have it! Enjoy.

(If you like my werewolf blog, be sure to check out my other stuff!

Patreon --- YouTube --- Wulfgard --- Werewolf Fact Masterlist --- Twitter)

#folklore #werewolves #werewolf #random werewolf fact #werewolfwednesday #werewolf wednesday #lycanthropy #silver #weaknesses

[arashikurobara]

10 Albums I Loved in 2018

2018 was the year I finally, finally started just listening to a whole bunch of music again, admittedly in good part (but not all!) spurred by getting super into one band, and then listening to members' other work, and influences.

But since I've gone from really enjoying branching out to trying to even more by doing stuff this year like switching back over to Spotify for my at-work listening and already found a bunch of stuff I'm loving even within the past week, I figured I'd make a post with 10 of my favorite new-to-me discoveries from just that last few months of 2018, and maybe use this as a jumping-off point for 2019 and beyond!

While this is nominally an album recommendations list, pretty much everything here is more of an artist recommendation where I picked one favorite album to share—there's a couple that only have the one album and a couple where I haven't gotten around to listening to more yet.

OK Go, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky [Youtube] - [Spotify]

So I know I've made an OK Go music videos masterpost, because their videos are what they's famous for, I love these guys so, so much even just straight up as a band. I really regret letting them fall off my radar and not even really looking into them much back when they were. It's so hard to pick my favorite album of theirs, but I think it's gotta be this one. Please listen to my beloved nerds.

(The live album, 180/365, would also make a very good jumping-off point though. It's heavy on stuff from this album since that was the current album at the time but it's still got a solid selection from Oh No and the… one… song off the self-titled debut that they still do a fair bit (without shenanigans).

Secret Dakota Ring, Do Not Leave Baggage All the Way [Youtube] - [Spotify]

So this was the solo project of OK Go lead guitarist/keyboardist Andy Ross before he joined the band. (He also put out a second album, Cantarell a few years after joining the band, between their albums.) It's got a couple tracks I'm not that into (a couple that are mostly monologue/speech clips from stuff that are interlude-y and one actual song that leaves me flat) but even those feel mostly coherent as part of the total package and everything else I love a ton even just on their own merits, and I think this album might be my single favorite discovery this year outside of OK Go's work as an entire band.

Pyyramids, Brightest Darkest Day [Youtube*] - [Spotify]

*The Youtube playlist absolutely used to exist but it straight up disappeared last time the auto-generated album playlists updated

This is the other OK Go-adjacent band I checked out because we know I'm always on my bullshit; it's a side project between albums of bassist Tim Nordwind with a vocalist from another band (note to self: I really should remember to check out He Say/She Say at some point). I wish I had more to say about it, I don't find myself listening to it quite as much as the Secret Dakota Ring albums but I do like it a lot or else it wouldn't be here. (I'm not so on my bullshit I'm gonna tell you all to check out something I don't actually like a ton!)

Pixies, Surfer Rosa [Youtube] - [Spotify]

Pro tip: a really good way to find media you might like is by checking out things the people who make stuff you already like like. (Primarily when working within the same type of media, like, say, your favorite band's favorite bands, since then it's likely to have actually influenced their work, but if you find out your tastes line up in some other sphere then that's also great!)

Surfer Rosa vs. Doolittle seems to be the eternal question; while it loses a little for not having "Debaser" I think this one wins out for me personally. (I'd also like to give some brownie points to Bossanova if only for that opening track though.)

Depeche Mode, Some Great Reward [Youtube] - [Spotify]

No, this isn't Violator, and yes, that's probably heresy. But while the songs I'm particularly into are spread pretty evenly across the span from this to Songs of Faith and Devotion, I think this is the Depeche Mode album where the average hits highest for me.

But anyway, I'd been meaning to try out a decent amount of new wave for a while, and when Youtube recommendations started serving me up some Depeche Mode, I figured I'd give them a whirl, and I came out really happy for it.

Muse, Simulation Theory [Youtube*] - [Spotify]

*The Youtube playlist seems to have a very hard time keeping the [super] deluxe version remixes versus the regular versions straight, so there's some missing and some duplicates

Y'ALL. MUSE IS GOOD AGAIN.

Okay it's probably an exaggeration to imply they were ever truly bad, but the two previous albums were kind of underwhelming to me (though not without highlights!), and most of my friends who like them seem to agree. But goddamn this was a triumphant return to form. And the super deluxe edition has remixes/alternate arrangements of nearly every song, so this is more like the best two Muse albums in at least a decade.

All Hail the Silence, AHTS-001 [Spotify]

This one's cheating a little bit—it's an EP, not an album, and I actually did listen to it once back in 2016 when it released. But at the time, everything but "Looking Glass" left me feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that particular track had come out back in 2012 and had me excited for years waiting for more, so kind of left it alone for years in disappointment. But recently the other few songs have grown on me a lot, so now I'm really looking forward to ‡ (read "Daggers"), which comes out… oh, this Friday.

The Slow Readers Club, Cavalcade [Spotify]

These guys are the major competition for Do Not Leave Baggage All the Way in "favorite discovery other than OK Go last year", I think it's too close to call. In probably one of the weirder ways to pick up music, I actually checked this band out off a retweet from Bands FC, a twitter account that mashes up bands with soccer team logos, when they put out a new video, and I was into their sound pretty much instantly. But while last year's album Build a Tower is great I think I might be even a little more into this one from a few years back. And maybe the word gets spread we can eventually get some tour dates outside the UK someday. =P

(And in another instance of "yo, check out the things your faves like", one of my favorite new-to-me bands this year already I picked up off a retweet their lead singer made this past weekend.)

Thank You Scientist, Stranger Heads Prevail [Youtube] - [Spotify]

So apparently TieTuesday popped this album on as background music on stream one night. While I missed that particular stream, the sheer volume of people the next day thanking him for introducing them to it got me to pop it on the next day at work. Turns out prog rock with some brass is a sound I, too, am in favor of? (Also they apparently formed pretty close to where a couple of my friends live, which is neat trivia.)

Band-Maid, World Domination [Youtube] - [Spotify]

I feel like most of the people following me probably already know about Japan's girls metal band boom, but it's a very real thing, and it's not just Babymetal! But this was another band I found through Youtube recs and I'm pretty into it even though I thought I wasn't that into metal.

(I've also really liked the few Cyntia tracks I've checked out even besides the not-very-metal "Akatsuki no Hana", and Doll$Boxx shades into metal a bit. Maybe I just like a real specific subset of metal?)

#music #recommendations #arashirecs

[moomoof]

Stop it.

I was friends with this person for almost 2 years and it the last few months it turned into a toxic relationship.

We used to do hangouts and talk about issues we cared about on his channel but i found myself not being comfortable with some of the topics

 but if i ever voiced i didn’t want to do the show he would keep pushing the issue and i was weak to put a stop to it.

 That’s not to say i didn’t enjoy the shows cause i did buti  didn’t want ot do them all the time .

The problems started with our view points really 

I personally feel like he hid his real views out of fear of being abandoned or maybe he just posed as a liberal to ge friends who knows this is all speculation on my part after thoughts . 

This post is just to let out all my angst and frustration. 

I didn’t handle the last encounter withh im well i should’ve just said what i wanted and left i hoped he would understand but what scared me was his reactions again i wanted out of his show at least for a little bit 

i would suggest he find other ppl he would pick up on the hints ...

i was going though a rough patch with my health and i had no energy what’s so ever i didn’t want to disappoint him so 

..i told him straight up i couldn’t do it  to get our mutual friend and o  it with him he seemed annoyed at least in text

 i didn’t speak with him directly then i saw the show live with our friend and ..

his reaction to my illness was annoyance he was like she’s off ill or

 whatever the hell hshe has with the biggest eye rool i ever seen

 ...and then even if i told him multiple times

 i was ill i did'nt want to talk he tried to force me by calling my hangout

...and he was rude to our friend cause i suspect he was jealous of our friend or annoyed

 that our friend was trying out his own show i don’t think my friend picked up on this  

He lied about how his old friends broke up with him 

 Of course i believed him ....well actually no for a while now i wasn't believing him cause he lied or omitted things i found them out on my own. 

That's the heart of the issue it was a slow crawl but i woke up and wasn't going to be used by him.

Like i was saying i was sick he didn't care i told him i can really do this show cause i have things to do or i honestly didn't want to i told him that once but... a disturbing patterned emerged with him. No matter what i said or did he would act like i didn't say it and want his way. In the long run i got anxious around him any time i had an opinion he will shoot it down i couldn't express myself on my twitter feed without him screaming at me and somehow making me feel dumb.

I told him on many occasions i was emotionally abused and physically abused nothing. He of course said he was there for me to chat but i don't like talking about that stuff to ppl. But i suspect it was an empty gesture put there to pretend to be a good friend but in the end he wanted just a person to speak to cause he had issues but also he would use those issues against you. one year ago he said something awful or something like that and i disagreed true i got heated he screamed when that didn't work then he play oop i'm anxious card that then played with others and me for ever more.

He had to be right all the time. He had that stupid internet idea that if you don't have evidence of what you are speaking then you are wrong! or shut up even tho i never really went to his feed after a while cause i was tired of arguing. 

He enjoyed arguing.

Then the big event that woke me up. 

We were arguing about jill stien or third party voters actually i was talking about it on my feed and he shoved his opinion in my face....

yelled at me then i tried to be funny and say get with the program! with the clapping emojis 

He flipped a switch and said i was stupid by saying oh you think i'm dumb? really? ok then your writing skills are mediocre at best or worse actually. (yes i am aware my writing is terrible) but a personal attack like that for no reason hit me hard. 

He just...went to that , that's what he thought about me ...i suposedly let go but it churned for days i have very low selfesteem it took me years to get out of a dark head space. He knocked me down. He hates everything i am cause i do agree with him. That was my head space the next few days i wrote warnings but didn't name him. 3 changes and then i block you don't care you are my friend if you hurt me and put me in a dark space i am cutting you off. He got weirder with me hostile almost after then we butted heads and we airred things but i somehow had an inkling it wasn't safe to talk in the dms i talked in public ...it was weird i suggested we should take a break i wanted it so badly....he said no... and i caved and went back to the same shit different day. Then the last draw happened 

I hate susan sarandon's white feminism i fucking hate it i hate her i hate that she cares three fucks about what she created 

He has this weird white knighty behavior that he will attack you for talking shit about his favorite ppl. 

He also probably felt personally attacked he thinks i somehow am talking about him all time. 

We got heated i was already tired of his shit i started to withdraw from our supposed friendship. Then he did it...he attacked my identiy aka my puerto rican ness and added hillary to it he later deleted it. So he can claim he didn't know what he did to cause my silence but more on that later. He knew that after Maria the hurricane i lost family i wasn't connected to the for weeks i had to worry aobut their well being for months without being able to do nothing ...i was a wreck for months he knew i told him, it was on his show too ( he since deleted all of them GOOD!) I did not deserve this more over i had a very hard anniversary coming up as well not to mention it was september ( still is) i lost my cousin and everythign that i knew as my world this month and it was Maria's anniversary. He just threw it in my fave he used my pain to win a stupid internet argument.  I decided to ignore him for a week or so until i can figure out what to do with him, talk to him again, stop talking to him so often but still be friends or completely run away in fear.

I could not speak to him it hurt it really hurt he used my pain against me i could not trust him....and the silent treatment happened. 

The next day he acted like nothing happened and asked me if i was ready to talk about gay muppets like nothing happened ( the whole bert and ernie incident) that scared me ....he acted like everything was ok ...it wasn't it could be clear for anyone that it wasn't...

i muted his feed and muted him but twitter doesn't understand that maybe ppl want not to get notification from a follower or person you are following for a bit...

He kept liking my stuff in the hopes i would be happy? this is speculation on my part...

He commented on my posts to see if i would bite. 

 i ignored him hoping he would get it i muted hangouts cause i feared he might call 

i had growing fear my heart would race thinking he was there replying liking and dming me...

This might sound dumb but ...it isn't it is harassment...

His former friends mentioned this he would use his second account to spy on them months after the fact they blocked and left him behind..that should've warned me.

He would mention them a lot. Like i said earlier i believed them but i didnt let on to him that i suspected something happened...at first i thought well they should've told him why and then block him and during the a conversation he did something and they didn't likee it's normal ...let it go ..in my head... i nodged him to write it out and let it go in a nicer way.

 But he was controlling i saw it when he hated when friends posted somethign he would scream about it...

They mentioned that they felt free from his smug behavior that he would not value their opionions and then later one of his ex friends said it wasn't the change the channel movement but the how he held certain views on gamer gate..when i voiced my own he screamed at me cause he felt like he knew better and how dare you think otherwise!

He would go into these rage fits over this topic, if you didn't agree with him , eye roll 

condescenion and disdain. This was the topic which lied about and the ppl he lied about or omitted it cause if he didn't he could push his narrative which was that gamer gate was a good movement ...by ignoring all the misogyny and abusive behavior cause he hated ppl on the attacked side. He hated that todd in the shadows blocked him for saying awful things about his friend. He kept on and on about that...like it was a bad thing...

He believed a group of rapey men that wanted a transgender woman to die and claimed she raped her sister... i will not go further into this. 

I put my feelings on that forward he would probably be annoyed in his head about it..whatever. 

He hated lindsay ellis cause she liked the tweet that told him off for harassing todd and his friend..

Sorry to his ex friends for my words about them cause i believed him for the most part and i did care about him i wanted ot make him feel better. 

i was wrong i fed a monster.

I wanted a week of peace away from him ...didn't happen he kept on and kept on ...he even got our mutual friend involved and lied .... he lied he said to him oh she's angry at me cause i don't know i did something wrong i am worried about her ...she's sad about stuff and the world is a bad place blah blah making me sound like the problem...

remember our mutual friend can't really pick up on these things 

He asked i just told him not to be dragged into this cause i was pissed off 

then i said it was nothing i was fine. and i moved on and ignored him some more...

He kept going ...

Then finally he did th final final thing and made up my mind for me.

He tried to guilt trip me into being his friend again or even to talk to him it scared me ...i blocked him completely on everything

he said you are hurting...me 

me?! i hurt him what? he hurt me he didn't care and he dares to accuse me of something i never did so he can look like victim yet again! 

That pissed the shit outta me i got tired of his toxic domineering personality 

He wanted to control you by making you feel bad about challeging him on his views about having my own views for breathing for not wanting to do the thing he wanted on the day he wanted ...

him not caring about my illness really hurt me... he hurt me and i still have the anxeity and have it in my head his words ....i want it gone...so i wrote this to stop it! 

He was not worth it...he's a bad person toxic it's not your fault...

I reached out to one of his ex friends i needed reasurance ...i needed to know i wasn't crazy and seeing something that wasn't there ....now its over i want never to ever see him or talk to him again. 

I recount times were he said awful things like ugh when my face showed up on the hangouts ...like my face is ugly...

i took pictures he would say geez or something like that ignored it..

he laughed at my lack of furniture or equipment..to do audio work...

He even got super hostile with me when our mutual was with us...cause i didn't agree with him ...

I wrote a memorial for my cousin and he sullied it by commenting on it moments after he hurt me like a psycho...

Now i know why he kept trying to bring up his friends cause i interacted with mutuals he wanted to know if they told me about him...and for weeks i struggled to find out by asking them but i never did...

He is disturbed i am stupid for allowing it to continue to this point i don't know how far he would've taken it but my psyche could not take it anymore...

He even made fun of my drinking 

it was a terrible idea to engage with him but i honestly thought he was a someone else like a person i watched turned out he wasn't he was using an account to get ppl to like him then he change later i guess...

Maybe i'm wrong maybe he isn't all bad just immature but i don't care he scares me and hurt me...sorry for this post but i need it out of me 

[c2bend]

My SamCait Theories:

marking summer 2017. Sorry this is so long.

Some background on my fandom experience first.

When this show was advertising on Starz I knew I really wanted to watch it.  My husband did too.  It looked interesting and right up our ‘alley’.  So we showed up for the first episode, I know I’m going to continue watching a show when the first episode of any show ends and you just want it to keep going, I was hooked.  I didn’t even know it was based on books until the 4th episode when I actually read the credits, ok cool.  By the 8th episode I HAD TO KNOW WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, so I downloaded all the books on my Kindle and read them – not sure how far I got before the S2 premiere. This was good and bad, now I had something to compare the film version to the book version – sometimes I wish I hadn’t read the books, since I love the film version so much.  Anyhow, I digress.

While watching this amazing show I became enthralled with Caitriona Balfe. (I love actors – really good actors – I wanted to be a casting director when I was younger and I appreciate talent when I see it) And Caitriona Balfe had a ton of it.  So like any obsessed fan I started digging into google to find out more about her, her past works, ok maybe a bit of her personal life, etc..  My initial reaction to what I found was how genuine she was, how she was with her friends on social media, her normalcy – she had not been celebrityized yet (yes I just made that word up ;) ) and I fell in love with her.  This was late 2014 early 2015, I hadn’t gotten into the interviews and the buzz publicity stuff yet – I had not followed an actor/celebrity since I was 12 yrs old (1970s) and back then all we had were magazines – so all this was actually rather new to me.  Though once I started finding these things online I notice her and Mr. Sam Heughan, and I was like hmmm?  So I looked to see if either of them had significant others in their lives.  I found some stuff on Caitriona that she maybe had a boyfriend, but very little info at the time.  I started stalking (erm looking at all the beautiful pictures) on her and her friends’ instagram and found a photo at Thanksgiving 2014 with her friends at her and Simon’s house in West Hollywood and there was a guy that was sitting next to her, but she just didn’t look very happy at all and I couldn’t tell if this was the infamous boyfriend or not.  To this day I have not seen this guy surface in her orbit and do not know who he is/was.  So because I was a naive celebrity follower and after reading trash articles that said she had a boyfriend already and seeing that Sam was apparently living it up in Los Angeles I figured okay they’re just friends, and enjoyed the cuteness of them anyways. (btw – I hadn’t seen Paley yet, it was off my radar).  Oh and somewhere in there I saw mention of Tony McGill and the Christmas video and other photos of him being within her circle of friends and was a bit disappointed that I COULDN’T FIND SHIT ON HIM and that their chemistry was so hohum.  So to keep enjoying the SamCaitness I started finding fanvideos of them and I was a shipper before I knew what a fucking shipper was – and all by myself – or so I thought!  

So by now it’s late Spring early Summer and I am one OBSESSED Sassenanch, for the show and SamCait!  Ahh – SDCC 2015 – sometimes it seems like it was ages ago and sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday.  That was my “who the fuck do these fuckers think they’re kidding, they are not only fucking they are seriously together and I’m squeeing like a school girl lovin’ it!” moment.  And I start scouring the internet while at the same time signed up for twitter, signed up on instagram, somehow came across tumblr and was like hell yeah I AM NOT ALONE! And signed up there too.  So now that I was no longer alone and there was all kinds of speculation, love of these two goobers and discussions galore you kind of end up in a herd mentality to some degree, especially the more you are on tumblr, like every fucking day – my new obsession to go along with my Outlander and SamCait obsession!  Who AM I?  I don’t care I am having fun and have found my peeps.  

Being on tumblr opened my eyes to so much more that I hadn’t seen, interviews, articles, friends of theirs, other interactions that I hadn’t seen yet.  And speculations and theories, antis – what?.  So as this little/big tumblr of SamCait shippers are going along we are getting rewarded with some incredible SamCait cuteness to the max.  There was a squee at least every fucking week for weeks.  The speculations were out of control – no seriously, looking back it was a frenzied hot mess, they’re married, she’s pregnant, she’s not pregnant, she already had a baby, omg look at them, ooh rings we see rings, ooh everything they tweet is double entendres, every photo posted on instagram has some sort of meaning to it. Every obscure photo we were analyzing to death. Omg they’re going to reveal at People Choice Awards or some other event. I mean seriously looking back we were pretty cray cray!  Then the IFH happened and our Ship took on some heavy artillery and almost sunk.  We were stupefied, how could they do this to us, how could we be so wrong, how how how…. What the Fuck just happened?

Personally, after I recovered the initial blow, it allowed me to step back and see how the frenzied atmosphere that we all perpetuated is what caused us to feel so hurt.  It allowed me to ship without being so emotionally invested yet still enjoy them (although will admit with all the peripheral fuckery going on it sometimes is a challenge).  So here we are today and things just keep getting weirder and weirder in SamCait land – why?  

The question of the decade – why did Shitner happen, why did Mackenzie Mauzy happen and continues to, why did the IFH happen, why was Kristin Dos Santos suddenly re-assigned, why the newest failed attempt of denying even though no one is asking, why do SamCait still give us cuteness yet don’t, why is ALL OF THIS STILL GOING ON?  With all these questions we need to step back and ask this one - Who is seeing this?  The average/normal fan – no.  The obsessed fans – whether a shipper or not – yes!  Newly acquired obsessed fans as the show moves forward – yes and no!  So again we have to ask why?

Who is creating this obscure Sam + Mac relationship – SamCait, The Powers That Be, Publicists?  Someone is orchestrating this narrative we are in, if we can figure out why, we may be able to make sense of it.  What is attempting to be achieved?  For whatever reason someone/s do not want fans thinking/believing that SamCait are together in real life.  So these things keep happening – we see it in real time because we are always watching (the obsessed fan/s).  But what happens is the trash articles are published all over the internet and I think about when I first started stalking erm I mean looking for more information on these two, I would read trash articles and not know any better that they are just that.  I was like oh okay, must be true – yeah I know naive as hell.  But then the question comes up again WHY do they – whoever they may be – want the fans/public to believe these two gorgeous people who are leads of a very romantic show not together? Why is it so fucking important that this narrative be pushed?  What does someone/s have to gain by having fans – current and future – believe this story?  And why is this ‘gain’ so important that they would go to these lengths – side note, here’s the thing, these efforts probably seem extreme to us for a couple of reasons – 1. we’re very aware of it all as it is happening and 2. we are not the entity who is orchestrating this and probably incapable of thinking like them, hence our confusion.  So if we can just figure out a why they want this narrative to be believed then we would be able to understand it – maybe.

So let us go through a few scenarios to see if one of them jives.

SamCait want us to believe they are not together – first question would be why? (always with the why!)  So back at the end of 2015 when the shippers were in a frenzy and then SamCait got back to Los Angeles where the IFH happened, some theories were expressed that one or both of them had been threatened regarding their ‘togetherness’ and they had to do something to diffuse this threat – IFH happened. So let us assume this is what happened, but going forward them being who they are, the ‘cuteness’ came back albeit not as intense as it was before and again threats were made.  So perhaps looking for assistance with this problem (this part I truly can’t fathom except they didn’t realize how bad it would go) they or their PR enlisted Shitner – he starts on his rampage against shippers and it leaves nothing but carnage and kind of backfires big time.  So time to bring out the ‘big guns’ enter stage left MM.  Next question that arises is who recruited her into this?  First photo of her and Sam is on a facebook page, there is a low on the totem pole Starz employee who ‘took’ the photo or was in the photo – HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS PHOTO.  Redflags are going off in the fandom.  Still assuming we are dealing with someone threatening our ‘babies’ did Starz get involved to help push the narrative forward?  Possibly.  So here’s where I start having a problem with this scenario – every fucking time SamCait are NOT in California especially and are in Europe or even South Africa, their ‘cuteness’ is on overdrive.  As soon as this starts happening OR they show up in the States, Shitner goes off, and MM is trotted out in either staged photos with Sam or innuendo photos from her or Sam.  Is there really a crazy person out there that goes off every time their ‘cuteness’ is shown? After a year and a half how come no one is able to catch this crazy fucker if the threat is real?  And if it is real how sad for everyone involved!!! Except Shitner the only sad thing about him is he’s a sad excuse for a human being.

Next up Publicists – if this is true I have no idea why and they should fire their sorry asses, nuf said on this.

The almighty powerful TPTB.  Alrighty then, what drives TPTB?  That is an easy one MONEY MONEY MONEY and POWER POWER POWER!  If ya’ll will remember SamCait missed the People’s Choice Awards because they got stuck in Costa Rica from the bad weather (I truly believe they were both there TOGETHER).   Now the PCAs for their category isn’t huge BUT it is publicity for them and THE SHOW! And lo’ and behold the stars of the show cancel at the last minute.  Big ass No No!  And now someone is in trouble!  What if TPTB did not know SamCait are together at this time, now the ‘cat’ is out of the bag and they don’t like it one bit.  They decide this needs to be ‘fixed’ NOW (POWER). So they force SamCaits’ hand and basically tell them in no uncertain terms – you see this ‘clause’ right here in your contracts? Being together in real life is not allowed and THIS is what you are going to do moving forward.  First deny that you are a couple, here’s your script SELL IT!  Well we all know how that went down.  At this point Shitner – is he just a loose cannon or did TPTB request his assistance in this ‘plan’ or was he just an unexpected benefit? Who the fuck knows and at this point it doesn’t really matter cos’ that asswipe happened.  Again SamCait being who they are they can’t control their ‘cuteness’ soooo TPTB ramp it up and bring in MM, puts her on the payroll to do what she’s been doing ever since she first appeared on the ‘scene’.

Okay, okay – we’ve heard this theory before but we can not fathom the why of it completely.  What if it is simply this, in their skewed perception of fandom and their belief that two leads of a romantic show should not be seen in real life as being together as it will somehow diminish and affect the bottom line (MONEY) –meaning their pockets.  Perhaps it is as simple as that and they will go to great lengths (POWER) to attempt to create this narrative for now and the future – as in future fans.  We as Shippers really do not matter, we are a fraction of this obsessed fandom and by having Shitner and the fucking twat Lynette Rice declare us as crazy anything we put out there to the contrary narrative will just be ignored (in their hopes).  I mean they can’t fire the leads, but they can enforce and make them ‘go along’ with this for now.  Of course, as we’ve seen time and time again SamCait just cannot contain their CUTENESS, as long as they keep showing it, TPTB will keep trying to manipulate the truth to satisfy their own ‘needs/wants/egos’…

So which theory is truth? I don’t know, I/we may never know, but it doesn't really matter because:

Always remember and never forget – IT IS NOT ABOUT US!  We are here for the SamCait CUTENESS.  That is all. 

#samcait

[chloenotknows]

This is a month and a bit too late (I’ve been busy, what can I say?), but after receiving the news that Pokemon Center London will be opening again next year for the championships, I figure I should let you in on what my experience was like for the pop-up shop when it was open.

Here’s some basic information:

I went on the night of the 7th of November for entry during the 8th.

I queued from 10:30pm and got in around 10:15am. This is because while I do live in London, Shepherd’s Bush is still around half-hour away from my university (which requires a two hour journey to get to), or around a hour from my hometown. I’d heard horror stories of the queue being massive at 3am onwards, so I queued early to be safe.

I took an entire suitcase with me, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit most of the stuff in my backpack. I took a fold-able chair to sit on, blankets, a cushion for my back, snacks, drinks, my consoles....anything to keep me going during the cold night.

As I had no disability paperwork yet proving that I could use the accessibility queue, I relied on the wonderful people queuing around me for assistance/keeping me company.

There was still a five item limit in the store.

Let’s get underway with explaining. I set off from my university around 9pm and got to Ruislip tube station to get to Shepherd’s Bush. After arriving at Shepherd’s Bush around 10pm, I fumbled around for a little bit before eventually using directions provided to me by my friend to find the queue. Around 10:30pm, I found twenty-five other people waiting there, who happily helped me into the queue! I got settled in, started chatting with the people in the queue (and offered snacks!) and waited for the long night to go past.

You may be wondering, what exactly were you hunting for, Chloe? What products were you keeping in mind? I already knew about the five item limit, so I had to plan carefully. Two of my items were for my brothers, who couldn’t go, so I got to have three for myself. I settled on one already, the London City Pikachu plush, and also wanted either a scene or a crest pin. The final product was still undetermined, though I guessed if I couldn’t decide I’d settle on a hoodie.

Throughout the night, I’d left the queue a few times for toilet breaks and hot chocolate from the McDonald’s in the area, which seemed to be open twenty-four hours. There were also people...ahem....smoking in the queue, which I wasn’t particularly receptive to due to my illness, but so long as they weren’t causing trouble I wasn’t complaining. It may have been cold, but a lovely lady I met in the queue (and who I gave cookies to!) gave me some hot packs to keep my hands warm. She was absolutely lovely, I couldn’t thank her enough!

Finally, around 4:30am, security told us to stand up and pack our bags, because we were ready to go in! And at 5am, I was practically outside the Pokemon Center! I noticed someone who asked me to ‘save a place’ for them got in front of me instead of behind me...this will come into play later on.

Of course, I took a nap as I was very sleepy...but between 5am and 9:30am, it’s quite uneventful. Everybody’s doing their own thing, the other shops open, and you start to get a little...bored. Nevertheless, security asked us once again to stand up at 9:30am, leaving me awkwardly hanging onto my giant suitcase and fold-able chair. Around this time, London Pikachu came to say hi, and I was squealing over how cute he was! 

Finally, around 10:10am, we were let in...and I was almost closed off from the group I spent the night with, thanks to the person who decided he’d queue jump! Fortunately, someone was carrying my chair for me, leaving security to letting me in as I couldn’t be separated from my chair...surely?

Unfortunately, there was nowhere to leave my bags as I shopped, meaning I had to lumber around this tiny establishment carrying a heavy suitcase and chair. But the staff were incredibly friendly and non-judgemental, obviously having met weirder people than I, and just let me waddle around the centre like a child on Christmas Day! One of the friends I had made threw me a London Pikachu plush and I happily placed the little guy in my basket, alongside a TCG mat and an Alakazam plush for my brothers. I initially had a scene pin in my basket as I couldn’t find the crest pins, but when an employee brought them out, I swapped it and happily walked with a rare pin in my basket! And on the bottom shelf...there were fleece throws. I love blankets and throws...so I picked that as my final item. I regret not getting a crest hoodie, as they look so awesome, but I’ll buy one on Ebay.

I marched happily to the tills where the lady who served me seemed so happy to be working there. The staff in general were awesome, honestly, they knew what demographic they were dealing with and seemed to share our excitement as well. Overall, I spent exactly £100, making sure to get an exclusive plastic bag in the process. (Seriously, people sell that online! It’s a bag!) I didn’t play the demo as I didn’t want to haul my heavy luggage upstairs, so I left the store with a proud smile on my face...before meeting up with one of my queue buddies for breakfast. Here’s my haul!

However, as I only got five items...I’ve been asked, was it worth it? The night, as much as it had been enjoyable, sapped all my energy out of me and allowed my illness to flare up. I was very tired for a few weeks afterwards. But because I had no official paperwork, not even a doctor’s note, I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to use the disability queue. I will say, though, that getting that beautiful plush, pin and throw blanket made it worth it...and seeing my brother’s face light up (He’s older than me) at getting his favourite Pokemon as a plush for his birthday made it even more so.

Will I be going to the pop-up shop when it opens in 2020? Of course! By that time, I should have my disability paperwork together, so if they have the disability queue, I will be utilising it. That probably still means I’ll have to queue early, but at the very least, they’ll be aware of my disability and make sure to keep an eye on me. But even if they don’t, I’ll happily go through the queue again at a chance of some more exclusive merchandise. It’s not every day a Pokemon Center opens up in London selling some nice Brit-themed merch!

Assuming the pop-up shop rules will work the same way next year, I’ll share some tips.

Get there as early as you can. And by that, I mean allow the first few days to go by and see what times people are saying the queue starts, and try getting there for that time. That’s easier said than done for most people (Londoners will find this far easier to do) but honestly, if you want exclusive merch, you will need to get there early. It sold out very quickly during the initial run, so who knows how they’ll handle it next year.

Bring entertainment, food, drink...it won’t be cold next year, but it’ll certainly still be a long wait! And even English summers can be quite difficult to get through!

Bring a friend! Or if none of your friends can come with you (as in my case), make friends in the queue. They have interesting stories, games to play and are able to keep your place in the queue when you leave for loo breaks or grabbing food. Let security know you’re going too. I found it far easier to be identified as I wore a Pikachu onesie and some queue goers would yell ‘PIKACHU IS BACK’ when I came back. It was cute and hilarious.

They’ll have a Twitter feed for the shop next year, probably. Keep an eye on that. It was invaluable to me when I was scouting out a good time to go.

If you’re a scalper, please just...don’t. Many kids missed out on getting merchandise because people constantly queued to get items to sell. I can’t stop any of you, of course, but please consider that there are many fans who come a long way to queue only for it to be snapped up by people who want to sell. I understand some of you are trying to get the merch to people in other countries by selling for reasonable prices (which I commend, you guys are awesome), but some of you just like selling things for hundreds...which is really shitty.

Overall, just have fun! You’re there to get some awesome merchandise! And I hope to see you guys in 2020!

#pokemon #pokemon center london #london pikachu #pokemon sword and shield

[lainahastoomuchsparetime]

So that’s what I’m gonna do.

Let’s get the Night Vale presents stuff out of the way because I think those are the most well-known things, and, while good podcasts, probably the least interesting for a rec list.

  Welcome to Night Vale is probably the podcast that got a ton of people, including myself, into podcasts in the first place. If you don’t know, WTNV is a fictional radio show about a little desert town and the strange things that happen it. It’s super queer, quirky, and has some really good creepy moments. Librarians scare me because of this show.

I don’t really keep caught-up on this, but I do listen to a bunch at once every so often and catch up. With 154 episodes, a couple bonus episodes, and a bunch of live-shows, you’ve got a lot of backlog to keep you busy. Start at the beginning, though.

Alice Isn’t Dead is a horror podcast about a woman who sees her supposedly dead wife on a news broadcast and sets off to try and find her. And it only gets weirder from there. This series has an episode that has creeped me out more than anything else I’ve probably ever listened to. There are three seasons with ten episodes each, plus some bonus episodes. The series has been completed.

Within the Wires is a dystopian science fiction series about a strange alternate reality world. Season One is told through a series of relaxation tapes. Season Two is a set of art museum tour tapes. Season Three is a collected group of audio notations from a man to his secretary.

I’m a pretty big fan of this one, honestly. I don’t love the second season, but it’s still very solid and the third is super interesting. This is a very strange world, and I really like it.

Each season tells a separate story, but they do all take place in the same world. Very queer, as expected from Night Vale Presents, honestly, with a neat bonus being season 3 being narrated by a trans narrator. Ten episodes each season, and season four started September 2019.

Let’s talk about some of my other favourite things!

The Black Tapes was one of the first non-Night Vale podcasts I listened to and it’s still one of my favourites. Funny story, I thought this was going to be a non-fiction podcast. I mixed it up in my head with… Lore! It was totally Lore. Oh, I forgot I listened to a bit of that. So, in my head, this become a non-fiction podcast about urban lengends the way Lore is non-fiction about scary stories/historical events/whatever Lore’s deal is, I didn’t actually listen to that much of it.

And, boy, was I confused after the first episode. Or two. Eventually I realized this is a fiction horror podcast about journalist Alex Reagan’s research into Dr. Richard Strand’s work debunking paranormal activity – specifically the cases he has not been able to debunk. (Strand is basically a fictional version of James Randi, who’s an interesting dude.)

It begins as kind of a Monster of the Week story, but eventually expands from that into bigger arcs in a very natural way. It’s one that manages to balance telling the story without losing sight of where they started out. The third season is a little underwhelming, which sucks as it’s currently also the last season, but I suspect they might be working on things behind the scenes. There’s rumours about NBC working on a TV series, and also rumours about a fourth season. I would support that. It’s one of my favourites.

There’s also a series that takes place in the same universe called TANIS, and I think RABBITS is in the same universe too, but I wasn’t really super into either of those. This, however, is a big favourite.

The Bright Sessions is a science fiction podcast about therapy for people with psychic powers, or as the podcasts says, the strange and unusual. I am also strange and unusual, so I liked this. This is a very positive podcast. It does go a whole lot into a strange world and has some really exciting plotpoints, but a lot of it is just about healing and growth. It made my heart do things a bunch. Not a scary one.

Relevant to my book people, there is a YA book featuring two of the characters coming out (whenever) and I have an eARC of it so you might be seeing a review of that soon. Hopefully.

This also has a ton of queer rep, including an explictly ace character. It also has a musical episode. Yes, that’s as cool as it sounds. There are 64 episodes, plus a bunch of bonus episodes. There’s also a spin-off series but it’s behind a paywall so I haven’t checked it out. This is a satisfying complete series without it.

ars PARADOXICA is a science fiction podcast about Sally Grissom, a physicist who accidentally invents time travel and sends herself back to 1943. And then it gets really weird. If you really like science fiction, this is the one I’d recommend the most. It’s very important to listen to this one in order, as it’s very plot heavy.

This is also way more queer than you’d expect a podcast set in the 40s to be. Sally is explictly asexual and heavily aro-coded, and there are several other major queer characters. Honestly this just has decent representation in general, and most of it is handled in a very sensitive way. A lot of things like racism or antisemitism aren’t just brushed aside as being “Well, it’s the 40s”.

Partway through this, there is a plot involving gun violence. The creators talk about their decision whether to include it or not, and they begin to give content warnings before each episode when needed. I really appreciated that.

This series is complete at thirty-six episodes, with a couple bonus episodes. There’s also a crossover episode between this and the Bright Sessions.

Now, if you’ve never listened to a podcast before and you’re a little intimidated by the idea of getting into something really long and involved, I’d recommend this next podcast.

The Message is basically a mini-series. It’s a science-fiction podcast that, and no one is going to get this reference, kind of reminded me of the movie Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invasion. My brain makes weird leaps sometimes. We all kind of just need to run with it.

Produced by GE, it tells the story of a college student making a podcast following the team tasked with decoding a message sent to earth by aliens seventy years ago. There are only 8 episodes, and most of them are only about 10 minutes, so this is a very good beginner podcast.

Not a super queer podcast, but there is a nonbinary character among the main cast.

I also listened to GE’s second podcast, Life-After, but I wasn’t as big a fan of that. The two are not related storywise.

The Far Meridian is another one I think is pretty approachable for beginners. The episodes tend to be under twenty minutes. And this one is more of a fantasy podcast than science-fiction like a lot of the others have been. I would almost say this has a bit of a magical realism theme, and the writer has talked about being influenced by that genre.

The main character of this, Peri, is an agrophobe who wakes up one morning to find her lighthouse has begun traveling the world. Over the course of the show, you begin to realize how weird the world she’s exploring actually is. The second season especially does some things I personally found super creepy, and I loved it.

It deals with a lot of trauma and anxiety, especially in the second season, but it’s handled so well. They end every episode with “May you always find your way”, and I find that really fitting and also comforting. It’s not a fake Instagram type of positivity. It feels hopeful.

Peri is a Latina woman and I believe most of the cast are people of colour. Peri is also queer, but generally does not want labels put on her yet. She’s okay not knowing. This, also, happens in a scene where another character defines her own bisexuality as being attracted to “cool girls and people who don’t really subscribe to that whole gender thing” which is great.

Overall, I’m a big fan of this one and I can’t wait for the third season in January 2020. Oh, hey, pro-tip: The Google Play feed for this doesn’t have the full second season for some reason, so you have to switch to iTunes or Spotify for the rest of it if you listen to your podcasts there.

Now this one I just finished listening to!

The Bridge is a science fiction podcast set in an alternate-world 2016 where a giant bridge (shocker) has been built across the Atlantic Ocean, taking place within one of the watchtowers on said giant bridge, which has been mostly abandoned and left to rot by the mainland.

Okay don’t make fun of me, but I’m kind of a new introductee to the idea of Lovecraftian lore/mythology? For some reason I kind of missed that whole thing until pretty recently. I only got semi-familiar with it because a Let’s Player I watch played a Cthulhu game, and then a youtube channel that talks about book adaptations I also watch did an episode about one of Lovecraft’s books.

So I’m gonna say this is kind of based on Lovecraftian stuff, but I don’t know enough to say if it’s inspired by it, or actually based on a specific work, but it has that kind of feel. The world in this is really interesting, with things like haunted houses and possessed puppets. They also do a great job with world-building of the way things were back in the heyday of the bridge.

One of the main characters, Bertie, is canonically queer, and talks about his fiance who passed away, and others have been confirmed queer by word of God, but I can’t find said word of God, so I don’t know who they mean and therefore can’t really talk about that. There’s been basically no focus on romance, though, so it not coming up hasn’t felt unnatural.

This has 14 episodes and a bunch of mini-episodes, and while there hasn’t been an update since October 2018, their twitter leads me to be it will be soon. I really like the world of this one, and can’t wait for there to be more.

Parts of it actually reminded me of:

Girl in Space, which is a science fiction podcast about a girl (duh) in space (duh) with only an artificial intelligence system, various birds, and a goat to keep her company… until she sees something on the horizon.

This is still a baby podcast, with only one season (the last episode of which I still need to listen to) but it’s interesting. There’s some things they’re hinting at that I am super excited about seeing explored in season two, and the worldbuilding is really fun. The sun is probably alive, y’all. And I mean, like, it might be sentient.

I have a couple of minor gripes with a similar thing to the Bridge, where characters have only been said to be queer outside of the actual show, but if the words “Cheese is delicious science” appeal to you, check this one out.

And speaking of mixed feelings:

The Box! The Box is a horror podcast about a college drop-out that finds a strange box (again, shocker) in the bookstore she works in, her discovery that it’s full of strange journals, and her search to uncover the truth about them.

There’s a lot I actually like in this. When I started listening to it, I was really missing the Black Tapes and they have the same sort of feeling at the beginning. I like this kind of podcast where a narrator tells you a story every episode, and then the world builds on top of that. It’s not everyone’s thing, but I’m into it. It’s a good premise, and for quite some time into the show, I enjoyed it.

And then it gets weird. And obviously it starts weird, most of these podcasts get weird at one point, but it starts to be strange in a way that I wasn’t enjoying. I started to find it more silly than scary.

There’s also a romance that I found dull as doorknobs, and there’s a thing that I would like to complain about, but I can’t confirm it exactly, and there are not transcripts so I can’t check something without re-listening to the whole podcast. As there are forty episodes and bonus episodes, I’m not about to just jump into that. So I’ll just complain about a lack of transcripts instead.

The Box also has times where the sound design is just terrible. There’s one episode where, in-world, it’s being recorded on a broken recorder, parts of it from another room. And, yes, it makes sense in-world. But to actually listen to it, I had it on full blast as high as I could and I still could barely hear it and missed a lot of the episode. And, again, no transcripts to read with it. And my hearing is okay. If you have any kind of auditory processing issues, that episode basically just says “screw you”.

However, I do like how they work social topics into the stories. At times it can be a bit clumsy, but I give them kudos for trying, at least. There’s an episode that includes real-life audio from something related to a real death of a black person by police brutality. I believe it’s in the episode Strange Fruit but I don’t remember and again, no transcripts. I find this especially frustrating when it comes to potentially triggering material.

This one’s currently on hiatus and I’ll probably check it out whenever it returns (it’s a show prone to long hiatus), but I wouldn’t recommend it unhesitantly. It does a lot of things I like, but I definitely have mixed feelings overall.

Palimpsest is another horror podcast. It tells a new, standalone story each season, with all their stories relating to memory and things that haunt us. I liked both, but especially the second season.

Season one is about loss and memory and forgiveness, and what it means to be haunted by something. It’s largely about the relationship between the MC and her sister and the romance is very minimal, but there’s some (what I call) incidental queerness. It’s not in a way like a Night Vale Presents thing is, or the Bright Sessions, or something like that, but it’s nice not to have it ignored.

GIANT trigger warning for gun violence and child death. Also, there’s thing on-going theme about the creepy sound of a wooden swing in the backyard and, as I was listening to this when I went for walks, I realized I walk past three different wooden swings.

Season two is set in the late 19th or early 20th century or so, and is based in Irish fae mythology which is totally up my alley. This is also the series where the idea of immigrants and people being raised by immigrants having accents confused someone so much I almost didn’t listen to it based on their review. I’m not salty about that, obviously.

Season two is also really freaking queer. Overall this isn’t a really scary horror podcast – it’s more eerie and a little sad. And eerie and a little sad is my favourite mood for ghost stories. My only real complaint is this also doesn’t have transcripts available.

Spines is a pretty recent listen for me, one I really enjoyed. This is kind of like a mash up of all the things I liked about The Box and Darkest Night and Archive 81 without any of the things I didn’t like in any of those. It’s definitely horror, with some body horror elements, and some… is tasteful gore a thing? Body horror and gore elements are used very tastefully and sparingly, and to great effect.

It’s the story of Wren, who wakes up in an attic covered in blood, with no memory at all, and some weird cult ritual surrounding her. She runs, and starts the podcast in an attempt to find her friends, who she’s sure were in the attic with her, and her other half, Zachary, the only name she can remember.

It’s weird but good weird. Solid world-building and really good character building. There’s a particular message that I appreciated that being someone’s “soulmate” didn’t mean you didn’t have a choice in whether or not you wanted to be romantically or sexually involved with them. It’s subtle but again well-handled.

Also, Wren is queer and this is really trans inclusive. There are several times where the show goes against the usual cisnormative thing most media would say in a similar situation, which honestly makes sense as it’s written by a trans writer. There’s also a very significant canonically intersex and nonbinary character, voiced by the writer of the show.

This is a creepy, weird little podcast that made my heart very happy. It’s complete at three seasons of eight episodes each and honestly quite underrated. Big recommend.

Finally, let’s talk about my favourite podcast.

I recently learned that the term “weird fiction” exists as a genre label. Mabel is very much weird fiction. In Mabel, Anna Limon begins a new job as a home health caretaker to an elderly woman named Sally. The house is… strange, and Sally is strange, and Anna probably shouldn’t look too deeply at any of that, but of course she does.

It is a horror podcast with deep folklore/mythology roots, possibly also somewhat Celtic/fae based, but it’s such a blend of things that I can’t draw any hard lines of things I specifically recognize besides one or two things, and that makes it so unique.

Listen to Mabel in the fall. Listen to Mabel when it might rain, when it’s a little windy, when the leaves are crunchy under your feet. When the air smells just a little like decay. Or, you know, whenever, because it’s great, but it is an amazing fall podcast. It’s also super queer, fyi.

Mabel has forty seasons currently, with I think five seasons? There is also a five-part bonus series. It’s really cool. If you don’t listen to anything else I recommend, listen to this.

I also listened to Limetown but I feel like everyone’s heard of that one, and I’m currently listening to Ghosts in the Burbs which so far is kind of interesting, but I’m only like two episodes in.

Alright! Have you listened to any of these? What did you think? What podcasts would you recommend for me? Did you enjoy this post at all? Comment and let me know!

Peace and cookies, Laina

I kinda just wanna talk about podcasts So that's what I'm gonna do. Let's get the Night Vale presents stuff out of the way because I think those are the most well-known things, and, while good podcasts, probably the least interesting for a rec list.

[originaldetectivesheep]

A Life of Riley Part 1 - The Problem With Grinckles ch 4

Chapter 3

IV

At least it was still almost warm out; at least the sun was out and it was almost warm.  That was the good part – that was as good as it got. Because if I had been freezing, or drenched in cold rain, while I was standing waist deep in this goddamned ornamental puddle between the new dorms east of the arts quad, my legs covered in duct tape to keep any more grinckle spines from stabbing me in the shins and my third-best Boca Juniors shirt rapidly declining towards being my fifth-best Boca shirt on account of the sweat and swamp water and fish slime, waving a net around while Wilson yelled and pointed to spots where I should throw more of our groundbait and getting stared at by shocked and disgusted hippies, that would have been too much, and I would have given up on this grinckle garbage and moved to Antarctica or something.  As it was it was still sort of endurable. Kind of.

"Leo!  Left! Left!  Ten o'clock!"  I turned, eyes on the water, and saw the flash of red that Wilson was yelling about.  I crushed a bread ball in my left hand and scattered it on the water over the fish; the grinckle turned and popped up for the bait, and I shifted my grip to stab in under with the net, swiping it up and out of the water in a flurry of putrid spray and dangerously stabby spines sticking through the webbing.

"Got it!  Got another one!  One second!"  I turned the handle of the net over and over, getting the bag with the squirming, spasming grickle secured so that it didn't jump out while I was getting my glove on. We'd lost a couple on the first pond before I got this down, but after three hours of fish hunting on six pools, I had it down to a science.  I flexed my hand inside the thrift-store oven mitt to make sure of the grip, then started turning the net back to open it up again.

"What are you doing?  That fish is out of the water!  You're torturing it!  That's awful!  I can't believe this!  What kind of ethical researchers are you?"  I made sure I had a grip on the fish before I looked up, dorsal spines dug into the cotton not where my hand was, its menacing tail flap flap flapping  against the side of the glove; Wilson was backed up from someone blonde and distraught in designer jeans and dreadlocks down to the backs of her knees, trying to guard the fish bucket.

"Hey lady, you're going to torture it more if you don't let me throw it to Wilson up there so he can tag it.  Bug off, science in progress." I waved the fish at her, trying to wave her away.

She turned and looked at me.  "Is that an oven mitt? Is that duct tape?  What do you mean, 'tag'?"  She was distracted, so I sidearmed the fish past her to Wilson, who caught it bare-handed; he'd grown up having to watch out and not get knifed by fish, so he could do stuff like this without worrying about the spines.  "You – you can't – you can't just throw animals like a baseball!"

She was screaming at me, so Wilson could go on with his work; he balanced the fish expertly on a knee, punched with his biopsy punch through the webbing of the dorsal fin to collect the sample, then slid the sampled grinckle into the bucket with the rest of them with a splash. He knelt down to open up the sample case to collect and document the core we'd taken from this fish; our heckler turned around at the splash, and I had to chip in to distract her while we got the data collected.

"Sure we can; we just did.  And now that we did, and got our scientific data, the fish is back in the water with the other ones we've tagged, just like it would have been half a minute sooner if you didn't stick your nose in.  Good job.  Super productive."  I did a golf clap that of course didn't sound like anything because I was doing it with an oven mitt against a fishing net pole.

The hippie's nose ring wrinkled up, and she shot a look at our bucket. "That's – that's inhumane too – that's six, seven, seven big fish in just a half-full tupperware bucket.  You can't do this – you can't do this to the earth!  Born free!  Born free!" She must have been into crossfit or something, because she was deceptively strong for her size – strong enough to pick up our forty-liter bucket, full of grinckles and pond water, and throw it out at me.  And that sucker traveled – it rotated in the air, getting a lot of the weight out in a shower of fish and a plume of pond slime that instantly grabbed everyone's attention all around the quad and was probably going to blow up on Twitter in about a minute and a half, and I dove into the water to get away from it, but the bucket itself splashed down a good ten yards past me.

"Born free!  Born free!  BORN FREE!!" She was screaming her lungs out, and Wilson was balled up on the ground, curled up in the fetal position to protect our data.  I pushed myself up out of the water, soaked and stinking and now getting cold as the water dripped off me, and just looked at her; deprived of active resistance, she eventually got herself collected together, gave us the finger, and walked off to bother someone else, mission accomplished.  I felt myself over to make sure I hadn't gotten stabbed again while I was underwater, and hiked myself up to go wade out after the bucket.

Wilson was sitting up by the time I dragged the bucket back to the shore, checking over the data  with a grease pencil, shaking his head.  I thumped the tub up on the grass and sat down next to him.  "Let's just call time on this pond," I said.  "We're short samples, but seven's almost up to what we were looking for, and it'd take us all night to catch another three fish that we hadn't caught yet.  Let's go somewhere else and see if we can't finish another pond or two before dark.  Freaking hippies, man."  I shook my head, scattering the last of the water out.

Wilson nodded, opening up his backpack and tucking the data sheet back inside.  "Yes.  I agree.  It's more important to cover more places lightly than fewer with depth, this point in the investigation."  He shook his head.  "And we need to go fast, and not make a disturbance.  I thought I understood women from this country, but –"

"Yeah, like I'm saying, man; freaking hippies.  But it's not that bad – when we get to that lake behind Pettingill Hall, we're going to have to watch out, there's frat houses over that way.  This chick at least had a reason for wrecking our bucket here, even if it was a dumb and bad reason; some of those frat bros will throw you in the water just to be a dick."  I stood up, pulling out my phone.  "I'll text Yuping and ask which of the ponds near here we should hit next – or did you have something spotted?"  I thumbed open our map and swiped it to zoom in, finding where we were and looking around for pins from the rest of the team.

Wilson had his phone up landscape, braced on his knees, splitscreening between the map and a spreadsheet.  "I think the best is to go from here to the Facilities pond next to the sand depot – it is only a couple hundred meters, and Remy has it 'not confirmed'; I think we fish there, for half an hour, and if we don't find a fish, then we can set a border.  Unless Yuping has something he hasn't pinned yet; I will text him and check."  He flipped the spreadsheet out of the way and popped up Messenger.

"Sounds like a plan," I said.  "I'll pick up the bucket and crap and start moving; we'll want to get going that way anyway, since –" My phone buzzed in my hand, and I looked down to a text from Remy:

> yo dude can I call you real quick?

This was weird.  What the hell did Remy want to talk about by voice instead of texting like a normal person?  I poked his icon and swiped over to call him, bringing the phone up to my ear.  "Yo, Remy, it's Leo, what up?"

"Hey, yeah, I know it's weird but dude, I dunno how to explain this.  It would be hard by text and if I just sent you the pictures cold you wouldn't know what the hell was going on.  Lemme take a second and think about this."

"What? What's going on?  Remy, where are you at?"

"I'm on the road – I'm over on the side of one of those access roads on West Campus, the roads through the woods around the tennis courts and the incinerator complex and all those little ponds out there.  One sec, lemme drop a pin and it'll pop on the map."  There was a rustle in the phone as Remy moved it around to check himself in, and I put the phone on speaker so that I could look at the map and see what the hell was going on.

"Okay, so I'm out on these roads out here, and dogg, you are not going to believe this even after I send you the pictures, but there are fish, like that grinckle fish you guys are hunting, squished in the road like roadkill."  I caught a notification in our group chat, probably those pictures he mentioned.  Wilson would have got it too, but he was ignoring his own phone, stood up and leaned over mine, staring into the map and Remy's mic-crinkled voice through the speaker.

"So someone dropped a fish," I said, "I don't know that that makes it a thing; these grinckles flop around and fight like hell once you grab them, and if you fill up a bucket too high, they might get out.  I know the people fishing for them aren't doing it for trophies and don't want to let their food get away, usually, but –"

"No, Leo, Leo, this is serious.  It's not one fish.  It's, like three fish, three or four fish each time, and this place I'm posted up on is like the third one of these places that I've come across.  It's like these fish are like crossing the road and getting run over.  I didn't pin it before because I didn't know what the hell was up but dude, it's wack.  It's mad wack – can you like come over here and have Wilson take a look at this because I don't know what the hell is up with this fish biology, man."  There was a note of almost panic in his voice, and I took a deep breath.  This was still just fish.  This was still just weird fish, and Remy was overreacting and seeing things, and it wasn't going to get any weirder.

"All right," I said, "we'll come over and check it out.  I can see your pin – can you pin where you took the other pictures?"

"Like I said, I didn't pin when I shot them, but I left geotagging on, so I should be able to import them into the map that way.  Give me a sec while I get that set up."

"No problem," I said, "you can do it while we're coming over. It'll probably be about fifteen minutes – we had kind of an accident with some hippies and I'm covered in pond water, so we'll have to walk instead of taking the bus."

"Gotcha," Remy answered.  "You'll probably see the map buzz in a couple minutes.  And watch out – this shit's weird enough without you go and drag water fights with hippies into it.  Catch you in a few." The grinckles themselves were weird enough without you bringing in them getting allegedly roadkilled, I wanted to say, but that wouldn't've been productive and Remy'd already hung up anyway. I lumped the bucket up onto my shoulder and checked the map for the way we'd have to get going towards Remy's pin.

I had the bucket with all our stuff to manage, and Wilson was dialed in on his phone, tracking the pins as Remy put them in and swapping around between apps like he was onto something, so Remy saw us before we saw him, coming up on where he was, him and his bike at the side of the road on a gentle curve covered in fallen leaves.  He waved, and the motion got my attention, and I picked up the pace to get over, thunking the bucket down at his feet.  "Hey, good to see you guys; sup Leo, sup Wilson."  Remy had his hand out and shook like he always did.  "This is where it's at – you see the pictures?  The last ones was from right here."  He pointed out ahead of us onto the curve: onto the splashes of red scales in the orange leaves, the smears of stinking guts and solid, knobbly backbones that hadn't gotten crushed under whatever's wheels.  I hadn't seen the pictures – too much stuff to carry – but just looking at this, it was pretty easy to see how Remy got the idea that the fish were being roadkilled.  There wasn't a whole lot else that could explain something like this.

I took a few steps out onto the road, looking and listening around for traffic.  Wilson didn't follow; he was staring driven at his phone, fingers hammering madly at the glass.  "It's… yeah, Remy, sorry I doubted you.  The spray of these fish… it's like they were just in this one line across the road, and that's where they got ran over.  It looks weird as hell, but I don't know what else it could be.  I don't know how this even happens, or what it is, but shit, you're right.  Fish roadkill.  What the hell."

"This corner is a corner because of two ponds," Wilson said behind me, a nervous energy in his voice like he'd cracked the case.  "One of them, on the inside, is marked by Yuping as a big good fish pond; there are three students who have caught at least three fish from there.  The one on the outside is 'no fish' – three different students have fished there and found nothing, but not in the last week.  These fish were killed this morning, perhaps only as long ago as last night – the guts would not be this solid if it was older. It is the same with the other two sites – they are a shortest distance between ponds with different levels of noted fish presence. If there are fish in the road, it is that someone is moving them – probably from ponds of many fish to ponds of fewer fish."

I spun around, punching a fist into an open hand.  "Of course!  If this was a dump, they probably wouldn't want to draw attention to themselves seeding every stupid pond on campus with these things – they'd use like a septic truck and barf it out the hose into a couple ponds, maybe one full truck per pond, only however as many as they could fit in one night.  But they don't want to give themselves away with a mass fish kill either, so they'd have to thin them out – like with gill nets and put it on a trailer on a Bobcat to drag the extras around to other ponds, spread them thin so that they'll melt off and we won't have nine hundred dudes doing a fishing derby on one pond to attract attention."  I paced along the road, thinking.

"If they moved fish as late as over last night, they might still need to move more fish – and if we can catch them doing it, we can find out who's behind this and then Remy can just put them in a crossface chokehold or something and we can get the whole story out of them that way instead of having to genetically analyze any more grinckles."  I looked up.  "Wilson, you've been on your phone – are there any more gaps where they might move fish into ponds that don't have them yet?"

Wilson smiled, holding up his phone with a false-colored map on the face. "Way ahead of you, Leo.  I have already mapped out the distribution space: we had to to set the parameters.  And on the way over, I found some other shortest points: there are six more spots, I think, that we might find the same dead fish, if not now or tomorrow."

Remy leaned over, looking at the spots in Wilson's perimeter.  "Yeah – yeah, I get that.  I was past a couple of those, though, and I didn't see no dead fish there – not yet."  He looked over at me.  "So what – are we gonna do a stakeout?"

I shook my head.  "There's three of us – I'm not counting Yuping, Riley's not gonna let him out of the lab – and six maybe-crossings.  We can watch half of them in person, max, and there's no telling if they're even gonna go tonight, or not till next week.  There's a smarter way to do this – but I'm gonna need to bring in someone else.  Is that ok?"  I felt bad about asking sight-unseen like this, but if I mentioned that it was Sajitha I needed to bring in, Remy's tongue would be flapping out behind him like a '30s cartoon wolf, and if I mentioned her by name I'd also have to tell Wilson that she was in the Applied Physics lab.  He'd get over it, though; to the extent that he had a type, as far as I could remember, Sajitha was Exactly It, and he'd be too busy showing off to her to worry about what she might or might not be telling Riley about what was going on.

As it turned out, I was worried for nothing.  Remy shrugged.  "Do what you like, man.  This is your deal, dogg, I don't care who spots me in, just as long as I can drop a naeryeo on this fish burglar's head when we find'em."  He mimed pulling his knee up to start the axe kick.

Wilson nodded with folded arms.  "As long as it is not Riley you need to ask, I am fine."

I nodded back.  "Yeah, no worries.  I've got a friend who works a desk in Facilities – lemme text her real quick, I'm pretty sure she can lend us some infrared motion cameras."  Remy's face was already making the connection to Sajitha's job, while Wilson hadn't met her yet and was looking at him confused; I slid that problem over to the side for the future, and went back to my pocket for my phone.

Chapter 5

#nanowrimo #alifeofriley #fiction