#it's nebulous and meandering but trust me on this

[kariachi]

Ach, I must ask after liveblogging my Dungeon Meshi read at you what are yer thoughts on it? (also I don't know if its just me but I felt like there's some parallels with Dorohedoro in some ways)

It seems like a damned good story. The characters are interesting and engaging, the story itself has a solid and very focused plot, the worldbuilding is just directly on point. And that without touching on the character and creature designs, which are awesome. This is a story that knew what it was going for and even at it's most meandering points, which seem to have been hardly meandering at all, still made sure it prop up it's main focus on the characters, their development, their growing companionship, not just among the main characters but beyond, while maintaining the steady use of food and as metaphor for damn near everything good in life.

Which is where potential parallels to Dorohedoro come in. I mentioned in another post that food appears to be a mainstay of that series as well, though not nearly so forthrightly as in Dungeon Meshi. Food seems to represent power in that setting, those that strive for power have bottomless appetites or often go hungry, the most powerful are heavily associated with food either by their powers or their skillsets, and so on.

Dungeon Meshi seems like a... words... An equal opposite, of sorts? Food is power in Dorohedoro, but in Dungeon Meshi food is togetherness, food is caring, food is life. In Dorohedoro while the sharing of food is used to represent companionship, it's also a valuable tool- through offensive magics, through Turkey's clones- while in Dungeon Meshi food is by far more associated with care, both for others and yourself.

It's certainly not a coincidence that when Shuro abandons the team at the beginning, decides instead to call in his family's retainers with whom his bond seems to vary at first from nebulous to 'that girl is literally property', he also stops eating.

Food as life and the cycle of life and death are major themes of the manga, but food as companionship and trust and care are also a big deal.

And then you get the demon and it's ceaseless hunger, it's obsession, it's use of other people's obsessions and desires to drag them down onto it's dinnerplate. In Dorohedoro hunger seems to represent the yearning for power, especially by those that in one way or another lack it. In Dungeon Meshi I would say it looks like hunger may more be tied to social and emotional distance.

Farin always ate alone until there was Marcille.

Chilchuck works to stay underweight as well as maintain emotional distance from his team

Senshi is a hermit who hasn't built strong bonds since the loss of his family, and is the first of the team to have hungered for monster.

Laios has always craved the chance to eat monster and has spent his whole life as on outsider among a crowd.

The demon hungered eternally but never ate with anyone, even in the scenes we see it at a full table it's either not eating or being eaten.

And in a way all these characters' salvations seem to come in the form of eating. From Senshi getting the greatest weight of his life taken from his shoulders to Chilchuck reaching a point he can try to repair things with his family to the demon being released from it's entrapment in a cycle that's unnatural to it.

And hunger like that, unending, eternal, is unnatural. To be so alone is unnatural. To be so caught up in one thing- jealousy of your kin, safety from death, finding your chosen one- is not a natural, healthy state.

Then you get to the end, where Laios has been left with this hunger, and he breaks from the cycle of obsession and the divide in makes between us. Puts in the work to do so and allows this hunger and these urges to drive him closer to those around him. And in that he finds further companionship.

And I have no idea if that makes any sense. Um...

TL;DR: The line from Dungeon Meshi to Dorohedoro I- as someone who hasn't read either and has only seen liveblogs for both and the anime for one- think goes like this-

Dungeon Meshi = Life = Companionship = Food = Magic = Power = Dorohedoro

#thinky thoughts

[beastofwant]

I really, earnestly want to learn more about Judaism to be honest.

I'm not sure if I could (or should?) convert, in no small part because of the tension I have with God, with religious institutions, and with law

... Not because I want to break laws or something like that, but I've always found it difficult to grapple with the idea of such a loving God punishing his people when it is he who made us this way, you know? But there are things which I read and learn that really do fill me with a sense of peace and reassurance and love, so it's Incredibly frustrating I suppose to love God and yet be so angry with God at the same time. You know?

It really is like... Having a fraught relationship with a parent, sometimes. I love you, you put me here, but I am so angry with you for all that you allowed to pass.

And I'm also nervous about delving further into learning or reading, because I'm worried about appropriation or accidentally being antisemitic and hurting someone, I would never ever want to do that :(

I've been going through an extensive Weird About God arc and it appears to not yet be over, and if it keeps coming to my mind like this I think I should listen and explore it.

I wish that less mainstream, or perhaps more esoteric, views and writings were more easily accessible, because when I talk about God I don't really mean some... Nebulous Guy In The Sky, I think it's bigger than that, some sort of force which permeates all of us, all of the living things around us, all of creation, some sort of force we cannot see but which connects all of us together and which is the root of all existence. I really strongly believe this!! I think they/it/he/whatever pronouns you want to use for God listens, and is present. And I am glad that I have finally pushed past my religious trauma enough to, in a way, recontextualize and forgive God, if that at all makes sense.

I don't feel lost persay, but I do feel like I'm meandering and want some sort of direction. I'd love to attend some kind of service, or meeting, but I am really nervous about doing so because my beliefs are far from mainstream and if anyone asked me anything I might clam up out of nervousness, and I'd hate to embarrass myself like that 😅 But I do so strongly crave that sense of community and oneness! Yet reading and practicing in solitude always feels so much safer-- I know this is both because of my history as a heavily closeted pagan in the buckle of the Bible belt, as well as trepidation with socializing in a religiously oriented setting; I'm nervous of being taken advantage of or manipulated again, like I was as a child. But I'm grown now, and I think I've got an alright head on my shoulders all things considered, I just worry and sometimes find it difficult to truly trust myself and my perspective on these things.

#mad scrawl #I'm also worried about fucking it up. What if I do a bad job and I don't try hard enough? That would be a disgrace :( #I've definitely still got those unwitting Fundie Trauma cognitive anchors. I hope I may severe them soon.

[asktheredreaper]

Remarks about my writing Grell as Jewish

Firstly, I am not Jewish. 

I’m not Christian either, and in fact am Muslim. So I understand the feeling of belonging to a marginalized faith, and underrepresented or misrepresented faith, a demonized faith, probably a lot better than most Western Christians would, and so I come with that background. I also know many people of the Jewish faith, religious and non-religious. 

But I am not Jewish. Nor do I claim to understand at all the Jewish experience. 

So why would I dare headcanon a London serial killer as Jewish? Let me explain--

Firstly, I not only warn you, but ask for forgiveness, in making my decision solely based upon analytical patterns and tropes of Jewish characters throughout history, without at all considering the ramifications of enforcing stereotypes, of demonizing a people. I ask for forgiveness for originally using the faith as a plaything for dress-up for my little shitty fanfiction, entirely forgetting that Judaism is not only a very real and very deep faith, but that antisemitism is still alive and well.

So here goes my original decision making process--

I had been reading up a lot on Jack the Ripper’s history, mainly because I wished to start my own project involving the subject matter, and had found some interesting bouts of historical antisemitism throughout. Forgive my naivety, but they don’t really teach this sorta shit in American schools, the fact that antisemitism originated and existed before the Holocaust. I was dimly aware, having toured many European nations and recalling remarks that tour guides made about certain architectural choices due to historical antisemitism, and having read one book by accident that was a series of monologues from documented middle-ages life stories, several of the monologues dealing with historical antisemitism. But somehow it never all came together than in 19th century London, anti-Jewish attitudes were a thing, until I researched, and I became fascinated by this strange stereotype--that Jack the Ripper must have been Jewish because only Jews could be capable of such savagery. It was weird to me, never having considered Jewish persons to be anything outside of heavily involved in musical theater, and it reminded me of the stereotypes facing my own people, Muslims, of us being bombers and rapists capable of savagery.

And knowing that the name “Grell” was a German name, it got me wondering--a German Jew?

It was a smaller headcanon of mine, where I somehow kept going “ah yay, representation!”  in my head without understanding the ramifications of negative representation. 

But it only ran deeper when I was introduced to Judaism in Shakespeare and other English literature. I learned of Shakespeare’s Shylock, of Dickens’s Fagin, their wickedness in English society. Thieving, maniacal, malevolent, melodramatic, and--Jewish?

I couldn’t help but be brought back to cartoons I had seen of my own people, with big white turbans and big, thick beards, holding guns with dumb looks on their faces as they held goats in their arms and addressed them as “wives”. I thought of Ahmed the Dead Terrorist, of The Dictator, of Tintin and the Land of Black Gold, of Homeland, of American Sniper, of Raiders of the Lost Ark, of Call of Duty, and couldn’t help but wonder if Grell had been handled by a Victorian English author, would he have been coded as Jewish?

What really was the kicker was this article, this article, and this article, that made me adopt wholeheartedly the idea that Grell, in a Victorian-English context, would have been coded and Jewish, as there have been depictions or written remarks throughout all of history of Judas, David, and Esau having red hair. Due to this, in literature throughout history, red hair has been an identifier of malevolence, of hot-headedness, and of Jewishness. Both Shylock and Fagin were often depicted with red hair, after all, Grell only doubly so. 

So my conclusion, in the end, is that a case can be made for coding Grell as Jewish--

Unfortunately, that is not the conclusion of this post...

Recall my earlier apology?

In my research and soul-searching of Jewish stereotypes, relating them to the Muslim stereotypes I know so well--I had forgotten about how much those stereotypes hurt. Perhaps it is the Muslims who are now being depicted as big-nosed and hairy, rather than the Jews, but it wasn’t too long ago that the Jews were where my people are today. Not only was it not that long ago, but even the slaughter of my people is under the guise that these are “Islamic terrorists”-- “terrorist” being the keyword that defends Islamophobes, making the rape of the Muslim world seem justified. Jews weren’t even afforded this title of “terrorist” or anything of the like, the word “Jew” alone being bad enough as far as I am aware.

So now I must finish my apology--I am sorry for neglecting the fact that writing a serial killer known for his savagery and brutality as Jewish, especially a serial killer from a time period where such traits were ascribed the Jews, is highly offensive and misrepresentative of the Jewish community. It’s as bad as the stereotype of the brown, grinning, sooty-eyed, fang-toothed Arab Muslim sheikh, leering over young maidens as he puffs on a thick cigar bought with blood money. It’s as bad as the black as night, absurdly strong savage warrior, who dons a loincloth of leopard print and prowls the land as some half-human, half-animal hybrid. It’s as bad as the thick-lensed, creepy, mathematically inclined Asian who speaks in a high, effeminate stutter and masturbates to animated women.

But I am not taking down the headcanon--and here is why.

I wish instead to make Judaism less a cause of his savagery and cunning, and more a simple trait. Grell Sutcliff is the savage Jack the Ripper, but is also the brilliant engineer, the talented singer, the queer, and the born and raised Jew.

I choose instead of reinforcing Jewish stereotypes, to research and respects customs and cultural traditions, and to use faith as moments of the split from savage animal to a ponderous human, who recalls the hymns his mother sang to him--Hine Ma Tov and Oseh Shalom--in moments when he almost reaches humanity. For psychopathy is not raised in a vacuum, and religion is not taught only to the righteous. Grell will never be excused of his actions nor his perverse worldview, but a human being, even a psychopath is not simply made up of their perversions. There are multiple facets to each human being.

I know it’s hard to swallow, that serial killers are indeed human, even if their actions and perversions are not deserving of such a distinction. There is no humanity in their actions, as they are unimaginably cruel, but they were born from a mother and father, sometimes even raised by said mother and father or other guardians, they had a childhood and a life, perhaps even a faith. And that is what I wish to explore with Grell...

That is what compelled me to Grell’s story in the first place--that he is an awful, terrible, cruel person, but is (or was) certainly a person--a person who does not confine to the social norms of the da. Grell may be a horrendous person, but Grell is also written as a marginalized person. The following information is canon after all:

 Grell is a person of the LGBT community, a community that was shamed, disgraced, and even killed by the law itself, as it had maimed and killed notable English minds such as Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing. 

Grell suffered mental health illnesses (conditions that were not only overlooked in the era but even cause for brutal, violent force and abuse), that led him to suicide. 

Grell’s actions are inexcusable, but Grell himself is complicated, full of such richness (that Yana Toboso unfortunately did not exploit thus far) and story that is so often ignored in Victorian English history. Thus I wish to write him for another seldom talked about group, the English Jews and Jewish immigrants, as I have evidence to back up my claim. And I feel that I can wholeheartedly relate to the feeling of being a demonized minority in a majority nation as an American, immigrant Muslim. 

****NOTE: The precocious among you may remark that the name “Sutcliff” is not a Jewish name, hence why I must remark here that I also headcanon him as biracial, having a Jewish mother and an English father. Unfortunately, it did not come up in the post, but the remark still stands.

#tw: judaism #tw: religion #tw: goyim #tw: gentiles #tw: antisemitism #tw: holocaust #tw: long post #please read to the end before arguing with me #it's nebulous and meandering but trust me on this

[featureenvyproductions]

Also here's the main characters....I don't really like the formal reference sketches I did so here's some random frames from some of the penciled pages that I think show off their personalities best....one is surprised and disappointed at the same time about everything and the other one is mad but in a smart way.

This is Eyan, the main character, who is a former mechanic, has facial hair because I said so, and is also a vampire. In space. Yes trust me I make it work. I tweak a few rules but it's fine just go with it. WHEN I SAID THIS COMIC WAS SELF INDULGENT GARBAGE IN THE MAKING I MEANT EVERY WORD OF THAT AND YEAH THAT MEANS SPACE VAMPIRE.

This is the ?antagonist?? (I'm not good at writing), Zero, who is a perpetually annoyed sentient robot, because why the precious fuck would I write a sci fi story without a robot,,,,,,

A note on their genders....the social construct of gender doesn't exist the same way this far in the future as it does now. My call is like if they existed today they'd be comfortable with a nebulous non binary masculine identity. The pronouns I'm going with at the moment are he/they for both but like I waffle around a bit on this and might ultimately go with they/them for both. The reality is that they come from the same society and in that society when you leave the weird communal child nursery (or less commonly if you're raised by parents, you reach a certain age) you pick a name and then your reference words (they're like pronouns) are derived from your name. But I didn't really have time to get into that or the language they originally spoke in this story because it's not supposed to really meander about in the realm of exposition even though GOD ALMIGHTY IS IT HARD FOR ME TO STOP MYSELF.

#Eyan Eternal #Self indulgent bull shit #My art #Comic #Bit of a retcon: they don't come from EXACTLY the same society #But if I say why it's not exactly the same it'll be spoilers for if I ever make the prequel I'm also loosely envisioning right now

[setaripendragon]

Ursakoda Soulmates - Part 4

This part of the series is kind of short, and really just extremely self-indulgent.

For all that Ursa was the one to instigate leaving the celebrations, she doesn’t actually want the night to end. She doesn’t want to face the uncertainty of what comes next, doesn’t want to face the reality she knows is waiting beyond the bubble they’ve wrapped themselves in, so instead of heading directly for home, she takes the longer, meandering path, and if Hakoda notices, he doesn’t complain. Instead, they talk about lighter things, silly stories – of which Hakoda has a lot – and fond memories.

Finally, she can’t draw it out any longer, and they come to halt on the front step of the little old cottage that’s been Ursa’s home for the last couple of years. Uncertainty fills the air between them and steals their words, and they just stand there, looking at each other, for longer than Ursa would care to think about. “When are you leaving?” Ursa forces herself to ask.

Hakoda grimaces, but doesn’t flinch from the unpleasant topic now that she’s raised it. “Our plan is to leave tomorrow, on the first good tide.” He tells her, which doesn’t surprise Ursa, although it does make her heart sink. She feels a little better when Hakoda reaches out and catches her hands in his. “I could probably get away with extending our stay a little longer, though…” He offers hesitantly.

Ursa thinks about it, but in the end, she has to shake her head. Hakoda looks disappointed, but like he understands. “Postponing it won’t make it any easier.” Ursa says anyway, and he nods. “Besides, you shouldn’t let me keep you from your duty.” Hakoda nods his understanding of that, too.

“Maybe once the war is over…” Hakoda begins, like he wants to believe what he’s saying.

Ursa quirks a wry smile. It’s a lovely dream; the world at peace and full of new beginnings for everyone, and a chance for the two of them to figure out how they might fit together. But the war’s been raging for the last hundred years, and it’s showing absolutely no signs of slowing down any time soon. And even if, by some miracle, it didn’t last much longer, there was still every chance that it would kill one or both of them before the end. “Maybe.” Ursa agrees anyway, because it is a nice thought.

Then she kisses him, because she doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, and with the future so uncertain, she’s not going to pass up the opportunity to kiss him while she still can. So she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him until they’re both breathless and dizzy with it. And then she lets him go and makes herself turn away and walk inside, because postponing it won’t make it any easier.

Neither of them says goodbye, though.

Ursa stands in her small living room and listens to Hakoda’s retreating footsteps in something of a daze. When she can no longer hear him, she closes her eyes, and tries to ignore the fact that she can still feel the ghost of his kisses on her lips. Even that isn’t enough to banish the sense that’s stealing over her that this is all just a dream. She’s spent so long avoiding getting too close to people, keeping them at arms length out of fear of them discovering her secrets, that suddenly having a soulmate seems like it has to be a fantasy. Never mind one like Hakoda.

She smiles, despite herself, thinking of him. The thing that’s struck her most is how easy he is, how confident. He’s the Chief of his Tribe – Chief of all the Southern Tribes, if Ursa’s been reading the clan symbols and the flow of power among the Water Tribe men right – but you wouldn’t know it from the way he acts. Only, that’s not true, Ursa decides, shaking her head at herself as she heads into her bedroom. You would know. You do know. It’s just that none of it stops him from acknowledging that he’s human, that he’s one of them. He goofs about and makes stupid jokes and dances and sings just for fun.

She remembers, back in the early days of her marriage, when she still thought the world of her husband, that she treasured the moments that Ozai would unbend enough to share a joke with her, a little moment of indignity. It had made her feel special. Honoured, to be trusted enough to witness such vulnerability.

It’s better, she thinks, when it’s a thing to be shared. When humanity isn’t a thing to be ashamed of.

The thought lingers as she climbs into bed, and though she tries to sleep, mostly she just tosses and turns, turning memories and moments from the evening over in her mind. She naps in little hour-long snatches, full of dreams of that night, and flashes of golden-touched fingers, and strange twists of panic that send her waking with a jolt.

When grey dawn light is seeping in through her window, she gives up, flings off the heavy rabbit-goose down quilt and rises, glaring at nothing in particular. There’s some nebulous, terrified fury roiling in her chest, and she teeters on the edge of turning it into resolve, second-guessing herself every step of the way. The last time she made a decision to act, rather than to react, it shattered her world, and she’s afraid she might do yet more harm if she tries again.

I’m so tired of being afraid.

The thought comes to her almost as if it belongs to someone else, but she can’t deny the truth of it even for a second. It’s a strangely distant revelation, that for all that she wouldn’t say she did nothing, in the last five years, she hasn’t managed to build anything that she would regret leaving behind, nor has she done anything that she’s significantly proud of. While she wouldn’t quite call the time wasted, it still feels… hollow, to stand on this precipice and realise that she has not one reason not to jump.

Spurred into motion, she marches over to the battered little chest of drawers that holds most of her personal possessions, and begins to pack. She has moved around enough in the last five years that it’s not hard to whittle her things down to the most essential, but she hesitates over her clothes.

This… feels oddly momentous. Always, before, she’s taken the most inconspicuous clothes, the greens and pale yellows, the dresses and long skirts that make her look exactly like every other poor Earth Kingdom woman. But this time… she takes the loose brown trousers, and the long-sleeved beige shirts, and the short dark grey-green dress with the open front and the brown-green one with the splits up the sides. It’s nothing at all like the pinks and reds of home, but then, she’s not that woman anymore. It’s… somewhere in between, and it feels right.

The last thing to fix is her hair. Five years, it’s been the same simple, practical bun at her nape favoured by the lower class Earth Kingdom, but it’s always been a disguise. Instead, she pulls the top half of her hair back and… a topknot would be too much a give away, even though the lack still sends a little pang through her, so instead she braids it, and leaves the rest down. It’s strange, to feel the fall of it over the back of her neck and shoulders, but she feels more herself than she has done in over ten years as she writes a note for Gen and Biyu, shoulders her pack, and leaves her entire life – what little there is of it – behind.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #ATLA #Ursa #Hakoda #Ursakoda #Soulmates AU #soulmate identifying marks #hakoda/ursa #hakoda x ursa

[xxelloss]

HC on Xelloss' outfit? Do you like the pants with the pattern on them or without? I'm not going to ask about the mantle without the cape. Do you think he'd ever seriously change his look?

I honestly think Xelloss’s outfit is almost entirely informed by practicality and efficiency. In his first novel appearance Lina makes a wisecrack about how his accessories look like they “came straight out of the discount bin,” and, fair, but I actually also think he does that to make himself appear innocuous to strangers, which allows him to operate more openly on missions without impediments. Remember that he prefers to succeed without unnecessary violence–not out of any moral compunction so much as the fact that the priest side of his dual personality dominates in problem-solving scenarios, giving him a penchant for refinement and nuance, rather than brute force. In a word, it’s a matter of pride…and so wearing a goofy brooch and using a goofy staff that scream “sorcerer” makes people write him off as a fruit loop.

I of course headcanon that the predominance of red in the brooch jewels and staff jewel signify an alignment with Shabranigdu.  But the funny, tricky thing about Xelloss is the whole planet is identified as “Red Orb” or “Ruby,” and Ceiphied, too, is a flare or red dragon. So Xelloss doesn’t even show his cards then.  Also, when I cosplayed Xelloss years back, the friend who made the brooch for me added the seal of Ipos behind the stone, because in the Ars Goetia Ipos is equivalent to Zelas Metallium, the Greater Beast. So I’ve added that that’s suspended in all the red orbs on his clothing. 

The predominance of black (mantle, cloak and pants) is a practical solution: conceals him in shadows and under cover of night.  The looseness of the pants is also to enable him to engage in combat without restrictive attire.  

The pattern on the mantle that almost looks like Greek meander has always fueled my headcanons that Wolkpack Island is the Slayers equivalent of the Minoan or Cycladic Islands off of Greece: Mediterranean in nature.  It’s why he has that hairstyle, imho, and it’s why I always portray him with olive skin. Any people near his home base are probably somewhere on the gamut of dark and swarthy. 

Satchel (which I believe has an astral pocket inside it) and shoes are practical.  Plain cream turtleneck is practical. Not much to it.

We all know Lei Magnus gave him the Demon Blood Talismans during the Kouma War. 

The gloves are an item of focus for me:  Xelloss wears them all the time, and they are unwaveringly pristine, despite being a kind of pale periwinkle, or white, depending on the series and scene.  I honestly think he does this to brag about his comparably immaculate reputation for getting shit done, cleaning up messes, tying up loose ends, and concealing any “blood on his hands,” metaphorically and literally speaking.  The gloves only come off around very special people.  

Of course the best part of all this is that his “clothes” are as “real” as his projected body, all an illusion nebulously connected to his true, astral, form.  So if he gives you any of his clothes, he’s giving you a part of himself that can be damaged by white or holy magic, some shamanistic magic, and a handful of black magic.  He’s trusting you.  You matter to him.  

I doubt Xelloss would ever permanently change his look. He’s kept it for a thousand + years and he clearly thinks it functions well for his purposes. But it’s an interesting thing to consider.... 

#headcanons #naiokiara #Xelloss #Xellos

[gaming-rabbot]

Salmon Run and Presentation

A (not so) brief dissertation on narrative framing in video games, featuring Splatoon 2

With the holidays in full swing, I took advantage of a deal one day when I went into town, and finally got my hands on Splatoon 2. Having loved the prior game as much as I did, waiting this long to get the sequel felt almost wrong. But like many another fellow meandering corpus of conscious flesh, I am made neither of time nor money.

Finally diving in, I figured I might take this excuse to remember that I write game reviews, sometimes. You know, when the tide is high, the moon blue, and the writer slightly less depressed. I ended up scrapping my first couple drafts, however. You see, a funny thing was happening; I kept veering back into talking about Salmon Run, the new optional game mode the sequel introduces.

Also I might look at the Octo Expansion later, on its own. After I get around to it…

Look, the base game already has a lot of content to explore, and as previously stated, I am sadly corporeal, and not strung together with the metaphysical concept of time itself.

My overall thoughts, however, proved brief, so I’ll try to keep this short.

(Mild spoilers coming along.)

Gameplay wise, I think the story mode is much improved upon by handing you different weapons for certain levels which were specifically built with them in mind. Whereas the prior game left you stuck with a variant of the starter splattershot all the way through. This keeps things interesting, pushes me outside of my comfort zone, and it’s a good way to make sure players will come from a well-informed place when deciding what weapon they want for multiplayer; which, let’s face it, is the real meat of these games and where most players are going to log the most time.

I also love the way bosses are introduced with the heavy drums and rhythmic chants and the dramatic light show. It endows the moment with a fantastic sense of gravitas, and manages to hype me up every time. Then the boss will have an aspect of their design which feels a bit silly or some how rather off, keeping the overall tone heavily grounded in the toony aesthetics the series already established for itself.

Narratively, I felt rather okay about the story aspect of Story Mode. The collectible pages in the levels still have a certain amount of world building, though this time it seems more skewed toward explaining what pop culture looks like in this world, such as, an allusion to this world’s equivalent to Instagram.

Cynical as it is…

That’s definitely still interesting in its own right, though perhaps it’s less of a revelatory gut-punch as slowly piecing it together that the game takes place in the post-apocalypse of Earth itself, and the inklings copied ancient human culture.

We still got some backstory for this game’s idol duo, though. And that, I appreciate. It means Pearl and Marina still feel like a part of this world, rather than seeming obligatory for the sake of familiarity, given the first game had an idol duo as well.

Meanwhile, perhaps it is a bit obvious that Marie’s cousin, Callie, has gone rogue, and that she is the mysterious entity cracking into the radio transmissions between her and Agent 4. If I recall correctly, that was a working theory that came about with the first trailer or two. That, or she had died.

As soon as Marie says aloud she wonders where Callie has gone, I knew right away. And that’s just in the introduction.

That said, on some level, after stomaching through certain other games and such that actively lie or withhold information to force an arbitrary plot twist for plot twist sake, it feels almost nice to go back to a narrative that actually bothers to foreshadow these things. Plus, having gotten already invested in Callie as a character from the first game, I still felt motivated to see the story through to find out why she went rogue. And, loving the Squid Sisters already, there was a hope in me that she could be redeemed, or at least understood. In terms of building off the prior game’s story, Splatoon 2 is moderately decent.

Also, I mean, c’mon. The big narrative drive might be a tad predictable, but hey, this game is for kids. It’s fine.

That, I think, is something I love the most about Splatoon. Despite feeling like you’re playing in a Saturday morning cartoon, and being aimed primarily at children, it doesn’t shy away from fairly heavy subjects. Such as the aforementioned fact that the humans are all long dead and you’re basically playing paintball in the ruins of their consumerist culture.

Which brings me to what fascinates me so much about Splatoon 2: the way in which Salmon Run is framed.

You see, on the surface, Salmon Run appears to be your typical horde mode; a cooperative team (typically comprised of randoms) fights off gaggles of foes as they take turns approaching their base in waves. Pretty standard for online shooters these days, as was modernly popularized by Gears of War 2, and Halo ODST.

I say “modernly,” as the notion of fighting enemies as they approach in waves is not exactly a new concept for mechanical goals within video games. Rather, the term itself, as applied to multiplayer shooters, “horde mode,” became a point of game discussion when Gears of War 2 introduced the new game mode by that same name back in… 2008?

No, no that can’t be right. I played Gears 2 back in high school (I had worse taste back then, okay?). Which, from my perspective, was basically yesterday. That game being ten years old would mean I myself am old now, and that just can’t be. I’m hip. I’m young.

I am, to stay on theme here, fresh.

But okay, existential crises and game talk terms aside, the writing team behind Splatoon 2 probably decided to absolutely flex when it came to the narrative surrounding Salmon Run. It is one of the most gleaming examples of the nontraditional things you can do with writing in video games, to really elevate the experience.

Let me explain.

You see, narrative in video games typically falls into one of two categories: either the story sits comfortably inside of the game, utilizing it like a vehicle to arrive at the destination that is its audience’s waiting eyes and ears. Or the narrative, on some level, exists rather nebulously, primarily to provide something resembling context for why the pixels look the way they do, and why the goals are what they are.

Not to say this is a binary state of existence for game writing; narrative will of course always provide context for characters, should there be any. It’s primarily older, or retro games that give you a pamphlet or brief intro with little in the way of worrying over character motivation, and the deeper philosophical implications of the plot, etc (though not for lack of trying). These would be your classic Mario Bros. and what have you, where the actual game part of the video game is nearly all there is to explore in the overall experience.

Then you have games like Hotline Miami that purposely sets up shop right in the middle to make a meta commentary about the state of game narrative, using the ideological endpoint of violent 80’s era action and revenge-fantasy genre film as inspiration and the starting point to draw comparison between the two. It’s bizarre, and I could drone on about this topic.

But I digress.

Despite falling into that latter category, that is to say having mainly just an introduction to the narrative context so you can get on with playing the game, Salmon Run is a stellar example of how you can make every bit of that context count (even if it does require the added context of the rest of the game, sort of, which I’ll explain, trust me).

First, a (very) brief explanation of how the game itself works, for the maybe three of you who haven’t played it yet.

A team of up to four inklings (and/or octolings) have a small island out in open waters. Salmonid enemies storm the beaches from various angles in waves. Each wave also comes with (at least) one of eight unique boss variants, who all drop three golden eggs upon defeat. Players are tasked with gathering a number of said golden eggs each round, for three rounds, after which their failure or success in doing so shows slow or fast progress towards in-game rewards.

And it’s all an allegory for the poor treatment of labor/workers, utilizing the fishing industry as both an example and a thematically appropriate analogue. Yes, I’m serious.

First, Salmon Run is not available through the main doors like the other multiplayer modes. Rather, it is off to the side, down a dingy looking alley. And when you’re shown its location, either because you finally entered the Inkopolis plaza for the first time, or because the mode has entered rotation again, Marina very expressly describes it as a job.

A job you should only do if you are absolutely, desperately hard strapped for cash. You know, the sort of job you turn to if, for one reason or another, you can’t find a better one.

An aside: technically, playing Salmon Run does not automatically net you in-game currency, with which to buy things, as regular multiplayer modes do. Rather, your “pay” is a gauge you fill by playing, which comes with reward drops at certain thresholds; some randomized gacha style capsules, and one specific piece of gear which gets advertised, to incentivize playing.

The capsules themselves drop actual paychecks in the form of aforementioned currency, or meal tickets to get temporary buffs that help you progress in the multiplayer faster via one way or another. Which, hey, you know, that helps you earn more money also. Working to get “paid,” so you can get things you want, though, still works perfectly for the metaphor it creates.

When I first saw it open up for rotation, I found out you had to be at least a level four to participate. Pretty par for the course, considering it’s the same deal with the gear shops. But, again, it’s all in the presentation; Mr. Grizz does not simply say something akin to the usual “you must be this tall to ride.” He says he cannot hire inexperienced inklings such as yourself, because it’s a legal liability.

After returning with three extra levels, I was handed off to basic, on-the-job training. Which is only offered after Mr. Grizz (not ever physically present, mind you, but communicating with you via radio), the head of Grizzco, uses fairly typical hard sell rhetoric when it comes to dangerous, or otherwise undesirable work: calls you kid, talks about shaping the future and making the world a better place, refers to new hires as “fresh young talent,” says you’ll be “a part of something bigger than yourself.” You know, the usual balancing act of flattery, with just the right amount of belittlement.

Whoa, hang on, sorry; just had a bad case of deja vu from when the recruiter that worked with the ROTC back in high school tried to get me to enlist… several times… Guess he saw the hippie glasses and long hair and figured I'd be a gratifying challenge.

The fisher imagery really kicks in when you play. Which, I figure a dev team working out of Japan might have a pretty decent frame of reference for that. A boat whisks you out to sea with your team, and everyone’s given a matching uniform involving a bright orange jumper, and rubber boots and gloves. If you've ever seen the viral video of the fisherman up to his waist in water telling you not to give up, you have a rough idea. Oh, and don't forget your official Grizzco trademark hats.

It’s on the job itself where a lot of what I'm talking about comes up the most; that is to say, despite buttering you up initially, Mr. Grizz shows his true colors pretty quickly. While playing, he seems to only be concerned with egg collecting, even when his employees are actively hurting. This is established and compounded by his dialogue prior to the intermediate training level, in which informs you about the various boss fish.

Before you can do anything remotely risky, even boss salmonid training, Mr. Grizz tells you he has to go over this 338 page workplace health and safety manual with you. But, oops, the new hire boat sounds the horn as you flip to page 1, so he sends you off unprepared. “Let’s just say you’ve read it,” he tells you, insisting that learning by doing is best.

This flagrant disregard employee safety, in the name of met quotas; the fact we never see Mr. Grizz face to face, making him this vague presence that presides over you, evaluating your stressed performance with condescension; that we are not simply given the rewards as we pass thresholds to earn them, having to instead speak with another, unknown npc for our pay… It all drives toward the point so well.

The icing on the cake for me is when a match ends. You, the player, are not asked if you’d like to go back into matchmaking for another fun round of playtime. Rather, you are asked if you would like to “work another shift.”

The pieces all fit so well together. I shouldn’t be surprised that, once a theme is chosen, Splatoon can stick to it like my hand to rubber cement that one time. It has already proven it can do that much for sure. But it’s just so… funny? It’s bitterly, cynically hilarious.

Bless the individual(s) who sat in front of their keyboard, staring at the early script drafts, and asked aloud if they were really about to turn Mr. Grizz into a projection of all the worst aspects of the awful bosses they’ve had to deal with in life. The answer to that question being “yes” has led to some of my favorite writing in a video game.

All of these thoughts, as they started forming in my skull, really began to bubble when I noticed Salmon Run shifts become available during my first Splatfest.

Splatfest is, to try and put it in realistic terms, basically a huge, celebratory sporting event. Participation nets you a free commemorative t-shirt and access to a pumping concert featuring some of the hottest artists currently gracing the Inkopolis charts.

The idea, the notion, that a hip young inkling (or octoling) might miss out on one of the biggest parties of the year because they need money more than they need fun? It’s downright depressing.

It got me thinking. I looked at my fellow egg collectors. In-universe, we were a bunch of teen-to-young-adult aged denizens missing out on all the fun because we desperately needed the cash. We became stressed together, overworked together, yelled at by our boss together. But in those sweetest victories, where we’d far surpassed our quota? We celebrated together.

Spam-crouching, and mashing the taunt, something changed. I felt a greater sense of comradery with these squids and octos than I did in nearly any other coop game. And it’s all thanks to the rhetorical framing of the game mode.

It accomplishes so many things. It’s world building which wholistically immerses you in the setting. But mainly, its dedication to highly specific word choice does exactly what I mentioned earlier: it elevates the experience to one I could really sit down and think about, rather than use to while away the hours, then move on to something else. So many games make horde modes that feel inconsequential like that; it’s just for fun.

There’s nothing wrong with fun being the only mission statement for a game, or an optional mode of play. But this is exactly what I mean when I say this is the nontraditional writing games can do so much more with. And Splatoon 2 saw that opportunity, and took it. And what a fantastic example of bittersweet, cold reality, in this, a bright, colorful game meant mainly for children…

Happy Holidays, everyone!

#Rabbot Reviews #video games #review #Splatoon 2 #Salmon Run #narrative #framing

[vaguely-concerned]

PG-13, Hanzo Shimada/Jesse McCree, 1500 words, unmitigated fluff

On ao3

When they got back to their room they both collapsed face first on the bed as if by mutual agreement, still fully dressed except for their shoes and too full and contented to do much in the way of moving for a while. The music from the party could still be heard through the open window — Hanzo reached out and pulled Jesse close to him, wrapping himself around him when he made a pleased sound and snuggled up against his chest. Despite having had barely anything to drink this time he felt unwound and unconcerned with anything that wasn’t Jesse breathing peacefully under his hands. He vaguely wanted to hum.

“Damn, Reinhardt’s got some moves,” Jesse said eventually, into Hanzo’s collar bone.

Hanzo grunted in agreement. “I have never seen anyone simply pick up the punch bowl and drink it all in one go before.”

“I was thinkin’ about the dancing, but that’s fair too. Guess I’m just used to it, he always does that when he’s had a few already and gets impatient.”

“Ah. So that was how you knew to sneak an extra glass of it right away.”

“Suppose I should’ve warned you, sorry. Just old habit at this point.”

“No need for apologies, you shared it with me.”

Jesse offered a conceding noise and rubbed his face against Hanzo’s shoulder like he was scratching an itch on his nose. “That’s how you know it’s love. Not like Torbjörn doesn’t mix it strong enough that you could clean brass with the stuff anyway, good bang for your buck there,” he added, trying to push up on his elbows and making a confused face as he somehow managed to get several limbs entangled in the bedclothes. In his attempts to extricate himself he only got further trapped.

“Well,” he said eventually, squinting down at the cocoon he’d made of himself.

Shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter Hanzo managed: “Let me help you with that before you hurt yourself.”

Or tear the sheets again, he added to himself as he untangled his hapless partner from a duvet cover. For the most part Jesse had impressive control over the prosthetic hand and how much pressure to apply with it, but every now and then if he was distracted or tired enough he’d forget himself and then you had a pillowcase to mend. Hanzo might have only touched barely tipsy tonight, but he didn’t trust himself to get anything straight right now, back stitches included.

“...thanks,” Jesse said when Hanzo got him safely free and pulled him half on top of him. “See, this was more how I meant for that to go.” He nuzzled into the curve of Hanzo’s neck, then stopped when Hanzo squirmed minutely. “Tickly?”

“No,” Hanzo lied, then made a strangled sound when Jesse immediately called his bluff and did it again with a satisfied ‘hah!’. “Fine, fine, that tickles, it’s the beard, now stop it before I — gah!”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re in any position to be makin’ threats, Mr. Shimada.”

In retaliation Hanzo decided to pull out the big guns. “Big words from a man who is reduced to incoherence if someone as much as breathes against his ribs,” he said, and Jesse squawked as Hanzo used his years of experience to tickle him into submission. “I could do this all day. The expression ‘hoisted by your own petard’ comes to — oof — mind.”  They wrestled on the bed for a while, rendering the sheets even more of a disaster, Jesse’s laugh hanging bright under the ceiling as he tried to fend Hanzo off.

“Truce,” Jesse wheezed eventually, pawing weakly at Hanzo’s hands. His face was pink with laughter. “Truce, I got my medicine, I’ll probably never do it again until the temptation inevitably overwhelms me, promise.”

Hanzo placed a peck to Jesse’s brow and lay down next to him again, rather pleased with himself. “This was poor strategic thinking on your part. You have always been far more ticklish than I am; you are meant to pick the battles that flatter your weaknesses, not the ones that directly target them.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Sun Tzu. Thought I’d found a new opening and got cocky,” Jesse sighed mournfully, taking Hanzo’s hand in his and playing with it, twining their fingers together. “Pride before the fall and all that. You’re real sweet when you get all competitive, though, so arguably I win either way.”

Cuddling with Jesse when he had this kind of restless energy was like wrangling an affectionate if somewhat uncoordinated puppy; Hanzo found he was unable to stop himself from kissing him, smiling against his mouth when he perked up and parted his lips in welcome.  

He went easily when Jesse shifted them so Hanzo ended up on his back with Jesse hovering over him, their legs tangling as they made out — it felt bright and warm and oddly chaste, trading touches back and forth until everything flowed into a background hum of affection.

When they broke apart Jesse blinked slowly at Hanzo’s undoubtedly flushed face and then went in for more, brushing his lips over Hanzo’s cheek, his brow, his jaw. Hanzo closed his eyes and turned into it, Jesse’s hair soft and wild under his fingers.

“I like this,” Jesse mumbled, nosing at Hanzo’s temple.

Hanzo paused where he’d been stroking through Jesse’s hair. “Hm?”

“The touch of gray. You look distinguished these days,” Jesse said, scattering kisses along his hairline. “Suits you.”

“Is this your circuitous way of saying I look old?” Hanzo laughed, running his hand down to the small of Jesse’s back where his t-shirt was riding up and gathering him in closer.

“Silver fox,” Jesse insisted. He pushed up on an elbow and gazed down at Hanzo, touching the fingers of his left hand very gently to his mouth. Hanzo smiled against the metal.

“Can I get a quote on that?” he asked. “I should put it on my resume.”

“Sure, I stand by that. I’ll tell anyone who cares to know.” Jesse started unbuttoning Hanzo’s shirt, leaning down to place a kiss to the dip between his collarbones as he did.

Resting one hand under his head on the pillow Hanzo watched with some amusement as Jesse encountered more of an obstacle further on in the process.

“Fuckin’ buttons,” Jesse murmured. “How come they make ‘em so small and slippery and — nrgh.”

“Should I do it?”

“Nah, don’t worry, I got this, just lemme…”

Hanzo lay back with a grin and let Jesse conduct his mildly inebriated work uninterrupted, only moving to shrug the shirt all the way off when Jesse finished with the buttons and tugged at it.

“That’s more like it,” Jesse crowed, stroking a hand down Hanzo’s newly bared torso. “Injustice righted.”

“Huh. I had no idea my shirt had even been on trial.”

“‘S consistently been your most glaring fault, the way you’re always wearin’ too many clothes when I need to kiss you all over,” Jesse said, unselfconsciously burying his face in Hanzo’s chest. Hanzo sank his fingers into Jesse’s hair again.

“I can only apologize and promise to do better in the future.”

Jesse chuckled — soft lips closed over a nipple and Hanzo shuddered, cradling Jesse’s head closer to him. Jesse pulled back for long enough to mumble: “I’m willing to go full cheerleader for this cause. Anythin’ I can do to help, just give the word and I’ll be there, pom poms and all .”

“Such magnanimity,” Hanzo drawled, shifting into it as Jesse kissed a slow, cherishing path over his chest. Jesse held him close by an open hand resting in the middle of his back, making small happy noises as he trailed his lips over Hanzo’s skin, seeking out the sweet spots and dwelling lovingly over each. “Mmmh. Jesse.”

As Jesse lavished some attention on his other nipple as if to ensure it didn’t feel left out Hanzo bit his lip and arched into the warm yielding touch of his mouth. Jesse kept going until every inch of his skin was tingling blissfully with kisses, pausing only when Hanzo stilled his head with a touch. 

“I needed to — come here,” Hanzo said, guiding Jesse’s face up to him so he could slide their lips together. The kiss turned out a lot less chaste this time and Hanzo’s fingers tightened possessively in Jesse’s hair; Jesse melted against him and made a sound in his nose that set something in Hanzo’s gut joyously ablaze. When Jesse wrapped his arms around his waist and lay back he pulled Hanzo with him, draping him on top of himself.

“I have heard rumors that you possess some moves yourself, Mr. McCree,” Hanzo said, his hand meandering down to the buckle on Jesse’s belt. “I think I might enjoy a demonstration.”

The belt buckle opened with a practiced flick of his thumb and Jesse grinned into the kiss and captured his mouth again, holding him close enough that Hanzo imagined he could feel Jesse’s heartbeat in his own chest.  

 Nebulously set in the Scoundrels and Thieves ‘verse, which you can find here!

#mchanzo #overwatch #hanzo shimada #jesse mccree #mchanzo fic #Scoundrels and Thieves 'verse #Perhaps there is still a future for anachronisms #my writing #idk it's unpolished as fuck but I wanted to write something happy and not sweat it too much *shrug*

[fumpkins]

Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription

IF you’re a writer — of essays, scripts, books, blog posts, whatever — you’re familiar with the phenomenon: a looming deadline, the blank screen, and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier.

If you know that rumble all too well, this post is definatley for you. Maybe it’ll help you get out of a rut; at the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination.

Here’s the core idea: thinking out loud is often less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology.

Of course, dictation is nothing new — and plenty of writers have taken advantage of it. Carl Sagan’s voluminous output was facilitated by his process of speaking into an audio recorder, to be transcribed later by an assistant (you can listen to some of his dictations in the Library of Congress!) And software like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has offered automated transcription for people with the budget and patience to pursue it.

But it’s only in the last couple of years that automated transcription has reached a sweet spot — of affordability, convenience, and accuracy—that makes it practical to use it more casually. And I’ve found it increasingly useful for generating a sort of proto-first draft: an alternative approach to the painful process of converting the nebulous wisps inside your head into something you can actually work with.

I call this process idea extraction (though these ideas may be more accurately dubbed brain droppings).

Part I: Extraction

Here’s how my process works. Borrow what works for you and forget the rest — and let me know how it goes!

Pick a voice recorder. Start talking. Try it with a topic you’ve been chewing on for weeks — or when an idea fits your head. Don’t overthink it. Just start blabbing.

The goal is to tug on as many threads as you come across and to follow them as far as they go. These threads may lead to meandering tangents— and you may discover new ideas along the way.

A lot of those new ideas will probably be embarrassingly poor. That’s fine. You’re already talking about the next thing! And unlike with text, your evil thoughts aren’t staring you in the face.

Consider leaving comments to yourself as you go — e.g., “Maybe that’d work for the intro.” These will come in handy later.

For me, these recordings run anywhere from 20–80 minutes. Sometimes they’re much shorter, in quick succession. Whatever works.

Part II: Transcription

Once I’ve finished recording, it’s time to harness ⚡️The Power of Technology⚡️

A little background: over the last couple of years there’s been an explosion of tools related to automatic speech recognition (ASR) thanks to huge steps forward in the underlying technologies.

Here’s how ASR works: you import your audio into the software, the software uses state-of-the-art machine learning to spit back a text transcript a few minutes later. That transcript won’t be perfect—the robots are currently in the ‘Write drunk’ phase of their careers. But for our purposes that’s fine: you just need it to be accurate enough that you can recognize your ideas.

Once you have your text transcript, your next step is up to you: maybe you’re exporting your transcript as a Word document and revising from there. Maybe you are firing up your voice recorder again to dictate a more polished take. Perhaps only a few words in your audio journey are worth keeping — but that’s fine too. It probably didn’t cost you much (and good news: the price for this tech will continue to fall in the years ahead).

A few more tips:

Use a recorder/app that you trust. Losing a recording is painful — and the anxiety of losing another can derail your most exciting creative moments (“I hope this recorder is working. Good, it is… @#*! where was I?”)

Find a comfortable space. Eventually, you may get used to having people overhear your musings, but it’s a lot easier to let your mind “go for a walk” when you’re comfortable in your environment.

Speaking of walking: why not go for a stroll? The pains of writing can have just as much to do with being stationary and hunched over. Walking gets your blood flowing — and your ideas too.

Audio quality matters when it comes to automatic transcription. If your recording has a lot of background noise or you’re speaking far away from the mic, the accuracy is going to drop. Consider using earbuds (better yet: Airpods), so you can worry less about where you’re holding the recorder.

I have a lot of ideas, good and bad, while I’m thinking out loud and playing music at the same time (in my case, guitar — but I suspect it applies more broadly). There’s something about playing the same four-chord song on autopilot for the thousandth time that keeps my hands busy and leaves my mind free to wander.

The old ways of doing things — whether it’s with a penor keyboard — still have their advantages. Putting words to a page can force a sort of linear thinking that is otherwise difficult to maintain. And when it comes to editing, it’s no contest: QWERTY or bust.

But for getting those first crucial paragraphs down (and maybe a few keystone ideas to build towards)? Consider talking to yourself. Even if you wind up with a transcript full of nothing but profanity — well, have you ever seen a transcript full of profanity? You could do a lot worse.

This article was originally published by Descript.

New post published on: http://www.livescience.tech/2018/09/17/overcoming-writers-block-automatic-transcription/

#transcribing #transcription #writers #writing

[sharionpage]

Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription

The Self Improvement Blog | Self Esteem | Self Confidence

If you’re a writer — of books, essays, scripts, blog posts, whatever — you’re familiar with the phenomenon: the blank screen, a looming deadline, and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier.

If you know that rumble all too well: this post is for you. Maybe it’ll help you get out of a rut; at the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination.

Here’s the core idea: thinking out loud is often less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology.

Of course, dictation is nothing new — and plenty of writers have taken advantage of it. Carl Sagan’s voluminous output was facilitated by his process of speaking into an audio recorder, to be transcribed later by an assistant (you can listen to some of his dictations in the Library of Congress!) And software like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has offered automated transcription for people with the patience and budget to pursue it.

But it’s only in the last couple of years that automated transcription has reached a sweet spot — of convenience, affordability and accuracy—that makes it practical to use it more casually. And I’ve found it increasingly useful for generating a sort of proto-first draft: an alternative approach to the painful process of converting the nebulous wisps inside your head into something you can actually work with.

I call this process idea extraction (though these ideas may be more accurately dubbed brain droppings).

Part I: Extraction

Here’s how my process works. Borrow what works for you and forget the rest — and let me know how it goes!

Pick a voice recorder. Start talking. Try it with a topic you’ve been chewing on for weeks — or when an idea flits your head. Don’t overthink it. Just start blabbing.

The goal is to tug on as many threads as you come across, and to follow them as far as they go. These threads may lead to meandering tangents— and you may discover new ideas along the way.

A lot of those new ideas will probably be embarrassingly bad. That’s fine. You’re already talking about the next thing! And unlike with text, your bad ideas aren’t staring you in the face.

Consider leaving comments to yourself as you go — e.g. “Maybe that’d work for the intro”. These will come in handy later.

For me, these recordings run anywhere from 20–80 minutes. Sometimes they’re much shorter, in quick succession. Whatever works.

Part II: Transcription

Once I’ve finished recording, it’s time to harness The Power of Technology.

A little background: over the last couple of years there’s been an explosion of tools related to automatic speech recognition (ASR) thanks to huge steps forward in the underlying technologies.

Here’s how ASR works: you import your audio into the software, the software uses state-of-the-art machine learning to spit back a text transcript a few minutes later. That transcript won’t be perfect—the robots are currently in the ‘Write drunk’ phase of their careers. But for our purposes that’s fine: you just need it to be accurate enough that you can recognize your ideas.

Once you have your text transcript, your next step is up to you: maybe you’re exporting your transcript as a Word doc and revising from there. Maybe you’re firing up your voice recorder again to dictate a more polished take. Maybe only a few words in your audio journey are worth keeping — but that’s fine too. It probably didn’t cost you much (and good news: the price for this tech will continue to fall in the years ahead).

A few more tips:

Use a recorder/app that you trust. Losing a recording is painful — and the anxiety of losing another can derail your most exciting creative moments (“I hope this recorder is working. Good, it is… @#*! where was I?”)

Audio quality matters when it comes to automatic transcription. If your recording has a lot of background noise or you’re speaking far away from the mic, the accuracy is going to drop. Consider using earbuds (better yet: Airpods) so you can worry less about where you’re holding the recorder.

Find a comfortable space. Eventually you may get used to having people overhear your musings, but it’s a lot easier to let your mind “go for a walk” when you’re comfortable in your environment.

Speaking of walking: why not go for a stroll? The pains of writing can have just as much to do with being stationary and hunched over. Walking gets your blood flowing — and your ideas too.

I have a lot of ideas, good and bad, while I’m thinking out loud and playing music at the same time (in my case, guitar — but I suspect it applies more broadly). There’s something about playing the same four-chord song on auto pilot for the thousandth time that keeps my hands busy and leaves my mind free to wander.

The old ways of doing things — whether it’s with a keyboard or pen — still have their advantages. Putting words to a page can force a sort of linear thinking that is otherwise difficult to maintain. And when it comes to editing, it’s no contest: QWERTY or bust.

But for getting those first crucial paragraphs down (and maybe a few keystone ideas to build towards)? Consider talking to yourself. Even if you wind up with a transcript full of nothing but profanity — well, have you ever seen a transcript full of profanity? You could do a lot worse.

This article is originally published by Descript.

Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription published first on https://bitspiritspace.tumblr.com/

[spooky-froll]

You’ve heard it all before: there were the various “surges” (though once upon a time sold as paths to victory, not simply to break a “stalemate”); there were the insider, or “green-on-blue,” attacks in which Afghans trained, advised, and often armed by the U.S. turned their weapons on their mentors (two such incidents in the last month resulted in three dead American soldiers and more wounded); there were the Afghan ghost soldiers, ghost police, ghost students, and ghost teachers (all existing only on paper, the money for them ponied up by U.S. taxpayers but always in someone else’s pocket); and there was that never-ending national “reconstruction” program that long ago outspent the famed Marshall Plan, which helped put all of Western Europe back on its feet after World War II.  It included projects for roads to nowhere, gas stations built in the middle of nowhere, and those Pentagon-produced, forest-patterned camouflage outfits for the Afghan army in a land only 2.1% forested. (The design was, it turns out, favored by the Afghan defense minister of the moment and his fashion statement cost U.S. taxpayers a mere $28 million more than it would have cost to produce other freely available, more appropriate designs.)  And that, of course, is just to begin the distinctly bumpy drive down America’s Afghan highway to nowhere.  Don’t even speak to me, for instance, about the $8.5 billion that the U.S. sunk into efforts to suppress the opium crop in a country where the drug trade now flourishes.

And considering those failed surges, those repeated insider attacks, those ghost soldiers and ghost roads and ghost drug programs in the longest conflict in American history, the one that most people in this country have turned into a ghost war (and that neither of the candidates for president in 2016 even bothered to discuss on the campaign trail), what do you suppose Donald Trump’s generals have in mind when it comes to the future?

For that, let me turn you over to a man who, in 2011, in one of those surge moments, fought in Afghanistan: TomDispatch regular Army Major Danny Sjursen, author of Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Let him remind you of how that war once looked from the ground up and of what lessons were carefully not drawn from such experiences. Let him consider the eagerness of the generals to whom our new president has ceded decision-making on U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to... well, let’s not say “surge,” since that word now has such negative connotations, but send thousands more U.S. troops into that country in a... well, what about a “resurge” in already vain hopes of... well... an American resurgence in that country.

 Tread Carefully   The Folly of the Next Afghan “Surge” By Danny Sjursen

We walked in a single file. Not because it was tactically sound. It wasn’t -- at least according to standard infantry doctrine. Patrolling southern Afghanistan in column formation limited maneuverability, made it difficult to mass fire, and exposed us to enfilading machine-gun bursts. Still, in 2011, in the Pashmul District of Kandahar Province, single file was our best bet.

The reason was simple enough: improvised bombs not just along roads but seemingly everywhere.  Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Who knew?

That’s right, the local “Taliban” -- a term so nebulous it’s basically lost all meaning -- had managed to drastically alter U.S. Army tactics with crude, homemade explosives stored in plastic jugs. And believe me, this was a huge problem. Cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to bury, those anti-personnel Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, soon littered the “roads,” footpaths, and farmland surrounding our isolated outpost. To a greater extent than a number of commanders willingly admitted, the enemy had managed to nullify our many technological advantages for a few pennies on the dollar (or maybe, since we’re talking about the Pentagon, it was pennies on the millions of dollars).

Truth be told, it was never really about our high-tech gear.   Instead, American units came to rely on superior training and discipline, as well as initiative and maneuverability, to best their opponents.  And yet those deadly IEDs often seemed to even the score, being both difficult to detect and brutally effective. So there we were, after too many bloody lessons, meandering along in carnival-like, Pied Piper-style columns. Bomb-sniffing dogs often led the way, followed by a couple of soldiers carrying mine detectors, followed by a few explosives experts. Only then came the first foot soldiers, rifles at the ready. Anything else was, if not suicide, then at least grotesquely ill-advised.

And mind you, our improvised approach didn’t always work either. To those of us out there, each patrol felt like an ad hoc round of Russian roulette.  In that way, those IEDs completely changed how we operated, slowing movement, discouraging extra patrols, and distancing us from what was then considered the ultimate “prize”: the local villagers, or what was left of them anyway.  In a counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign, which is what the U.S. military was running in Afghanistan in those years, that was the definition of defeat.

Strategic Problems in Microcosm

My own unit faced a dilemma common to dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of other American units in Afghanistan. Every patrol was slow, cumbersome, and risky. The natural inclination, if you cared about your boys, was to do less. But effective COIN operations require securing territory and gaining the trust of the civilians living there. You simply can’t do that from inside a well-protected American base. One obvious option was to live in the villages -- which we eventually did -- but that required dividing up the company into smaller groups and securing a second, third, maybe fourth location, which quickly became problematic, at least for my 82-man cavalry troop (when at full strength). And, of course, there were no less than five villages in my area of responsibility.

I realize, writing this now, that there’s no way I can make the situation sound quite as dicey as it actually was.  How, for instance, were we to “secure and empower” a village population that was, by then, all but nonexistent?  Years, even decades, of hard fighting, air strikes, and damaged crops had left many of those villages in that part of Kandahar Province little more than ghost towns, while cities elsewhere in the country teemed with uprooted and dissatisfied peasant refugees from the countryside.

Sometimes, it felt as if we were fighting over nothing more than a few dozen deserted mud huts.  And like it or not, such absurdity exemplified America’s war in Afghanistan.  It still does.  That was the view from the bottom.  Matters weren’t -- and aren't -- measurably better at the top.  As easily as one reconnaissance troop could be derailed, so the entire enterprise, which rested on similarly shaky foundations, could be unsettled.

At a moment when the generals to whom President Trump recently delegated decision-making powers on U.S. troop strength in that country consider a new Afghan “surge,” it might be worth looking backward and zooming out just a bit. Remember, the very idea of “winning” the Afghan War, which left my unit in that collection of mud huts, rested (and still rests) on a few rather grandiose assumptions.

The first of these surely is that the Afghans actually want (or ever wanted) us there; the second, that the country was and still is vital to our national security; and the third, that 10,000, 50,000, or even 100,000 foreign troops ever were or now could be capable of “pacifying” an insurgency, or rather a growing set of insurgencies, or securing 33 million souls, or facilitating a stable, representative government in a heterogeneous, mountainous, landlocked country with little history of democracy.

The first of these points is at least debatable. As you might imagine, any kind of accurate polling is quite difficult, if not impossible, outside the few major population centers in that isolated country.  Though many Afghans, particularly urban ones, may favor a continued U.S. military presence, others clearly wonder what good a new influx of foreigners will do in their endlessly war-torn nation.  As one high-ranking Afghan official recently lamented, thinking undoubtedly of the first use in his land of the largest non-nuclear bomb on the planet, “Is the plan just to use our country as a testing ground for bombs?" And keep in mind that the striking rise in territory the Taliban now controls, the most since they were driven from power in 2001, suggests that the U.S. presence is hardly welcomed everywhere.

The second assumption is far more difficult to argue or justify.  To say the least, classifying a war in far-away Afghanistan as “vital” relies on a rather pliable definition of the term.  If that passes muster -- if bolstering the Afghan military to the tune of (at least) tens of billions of dollars annually and thousands of new boots-on-the-ground in order to deny safe haven to “terrorists” is truly “vital” -- then logically the current U.S. presences in Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen are critical as well and should be similarly fortified.  And what about the growing terror groups in Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Tunisia, and so on?  We’re talking about a truly expensive proposition here -- in blood and treasure.  But is it true?  Rational analysis suggests it is not.  After all, on average about seven Americans were killed by Islamist terrorists on U.S. soil annually from 2005 to 2015.  That puts terrorism deaths right up there with shark attacks and lightning strikes.  The fear is real, the actual danger... less so.

As for the third point, it’s simply preposterous. One look at U.S. military attempts at “nation-building” or post-conflict stabilization and pacification in Iraq, Libya, or -- dare I say -- Syria should settle the issue. It’s often said that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Yet here we are, 14 years after the folly of invading Iraq and many of the same voices -- inside and outside the administration -- are clamoring for one more “surge” in Afghanistan (and, of course, will be clamoring for the predictable surges to follow across the Greater Middle East).

The very idea that the U.S. military had the ability to usher in a secure Afghanistan is grounded in a number of preconditions that proved to be little more than fantasies.  First, there would have to be a capable, reasonably corruption-free local governing partner and military.  That’s a nonstarter.  Afghanistan’s corrupt, unpopular national unity government is little better than the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam in the 1960s and that American war didn’t turn out so well, did it?  Then there’s the question of longevity.  When it comes to the U.S. military presence there, soon to head into its 16th year, how long is long enough?  Several mainstream voices, including former Afghan commander General David Petraeus, are now talking about at least a “generation” more to successfully pacify Afghanistan.  Is that really feasible given America’s growing resource constraints and the ever expanding set of dangerous “ungoverned spaces” worldwide?

And what could a new surge actually do?  The U.S. presence in Afghanistan is essentially a fragmented series of self-contained bases, each of which needs to be supplied and secured.  In a country of its size, with a limited transportation infrastructure, even the 4,000-5,000 extra troops the Pentagon is reportedly considering sending right now won’t go very far.

Now, zoom out again.  Apply the same calculus to the U.S. position across the Greater Middle East and you face what we might start calling the Afghan paradox, or my own quandary safeguarding five villages with only 82 men writ large.  Do the math.  The U.S. military is already struggling to keep up with its commitments.  At what point is Washington simply spinning its proverbial wheels?  I’ll tell you when -- yesterday.

Now, think about those three questionable Afghan assumptions and one uncomfortable actuality leaps forth. The only guiding force left in the American strategic arsenal is inertia.

What Surge 4.0 Won’t Do -- I Promise...

Remember something: this won’t be America’s first Afghan “surge.”  Or its second, or even its third.  No, this will be the U.S. military’s fourth crack at it.  Who feels lucky?  First came President George W. Bush’s "quiet" surge back in 2008.  Next, just one month into his first term, newly minted President Barack Obama sent 17,000 more troops to fight his so-called good war (unlike the bad one in Iraq) in southern Afghanistan.  After a testy strategic review, he then committed 30,000 additional soldiers to the “real” surge a year later.  That’s what brought me (and the rest of B Troop, 4-4 Cavalry) to Pashmul district in 2011.  We left -- most of us -- more than five years ago, but of course about 8,800 American military personnel remain today and they are the basis for the surge to come.

To be fair, Surge 4.0 might initially deliver certain modest gains (just as each of the other three did in their day).  Realistically, more trainers, air support, and logistics personnel could indeed stabilize some Afghan military units for some limited amount of time.  Sixteen years into the conflict, with 10% as many American troops on the ground as at the war’s peak, and after a decade-plus of training, Afghan security forces are still being battered by the insurgents.  In the last years, they’ve been experiencing record casualties, along with the usual massive stream of desertions and the legions of “ghost soldiers” who can neither die nor desert because they don’t exist, although their salaries do (in the pockets of their commanders or other lucky Afghans).  And that’s earned them a “stalemate,” which has left the Taliban and other insurgent groups in control of a significant part of the country.  And if all goes well (which isn’t exactly a surefire thing), that’s likely to be the best that Surge 4.0 can produce: a long, painful tie.

Peel back the onion’s layers just a bit more and the ostensible reasons for America’s Afghan War vanish along with all the explanatory smoke and mirrors. After all, there are two things the upcoming “mini-surge” will emphatically not do:

*It won’t change a failing strategic formula.

Imagine that formula this way: American trainers + Afghan soldiers + loads of cash + (unspecified) time = a stable Afghan government and lessening Taliban influence.

It hasn’t worked yet, of course, but -- so the surge-believers assure us -- that’s because we need more: more troops, more money, more time.  Like so many loyal Reaganites, their answers are always supply-side ones and none of them ever seems to wonder whether, almost 16 years later, the formula itself might not be fatally flawed.

According to news reports, no solution being considered by the current administration will even deal with the following interlocking set of problems: Afghanistan is a large, mountainous, landlocked, ethno-religiously heterogeneous, poor country led by a deeply corrupt government with a deeply corrupt military.  In a place long known as a “graveyard of empires,” the United States military and the Afghan Security Forces continue to wage what one eminent historian has termed “fortified compound warfare.”  Essentially, Washington and its local allies continue to grapple with relatively conventional threats from exceedingly mobile Taliban fighters across a porous border with Pakistan, a country that has offered not-so-furtive support and a safe haven for those adversaries.  And the Washington response to this has largely been to lock its soldiers inside those fortified compounds (and focus on protecting them against “insider attacks” by those Afghans it works with and trains).  It hasn’t worked.  It can’t.  It won’t.

Consider an analogous example.  In Vietnam, the United States never solved the double conundrum of enemy safe havens and a futile search for legitimacy.  The Vietcong guerillas and North Vietnamese Army used nearby Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam to rest, refit, and replenish. U.S. troops meanwhile lacked legitimacy because their corrupt South Vietnamese partners lacked it.

Sound familiar?  We face the same two problems in Afghanistan: a Pakistani safe haven and a corrupt, unpopular central government in Kabul.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, in any future troop surge will effectively change that.

*It won’t pass the logical fallacy test.

The minute you really think about it, the whole argument for a surge or mini-surge instantly slides down a philosophical slippery slope.

If the war is really about denying terrorists safe havens in ungoverned or poorly governed territory, then why not surge more troops into Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan (where al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza bin-Laden are believed to be safely ensconced), Iraq, Syria, Chechnya, Dagestan (where one of the Boston Marathon bombers was radicalized), or for that matter Paris or London.  Every one of those places has harbored and/or is harboring terrorists.  Maybe instead of surging yet again in Afghanistan or elsewhere, the real answer is to begin to realize that all the U.S. military in its present mode of operation can do to change that reality is make it worse.  After all, the last 15 years offer a vision of how it continually surges and in the process only creates yet more ungovernable lands and territories.

So much of the effort, now as in previous years, rests on an evident desire among military and political types in Washington to wage the war they know, the one their army is built for: battles for terrain, fights that can be tracked and measured on maps, the sort of stuff that staff officers (like me) can display on ever more-complicated PowerPoint slides.  Military men and traditional policymakers are far less comfortable with ideological warfare, the sort of contest where their instinctual proclivity to “do something” is often counterproductive.

As U.S. Army Field Manual 3-24 -- General David Petraeus’ highly touted counterinsurgency “bible” -- wisely opined: “Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.”  It’s high time to follow such advice (even if it’s not the advice that Petraeus himself is offering anymore).

As for me, call me a deep-dyed skeptic when it comes to what 4,000 or 5,000 more U.S. troops can do to secure or stabilize a country where most of the village elders I met couldn’t tell you how old they were.  A little foreign policy humility goes a long way toward not heading down that slippery slope.  Why, then, do Americans continue to deceive themselves?  Why do they continue to believe that even 100,000 boys from Indiana and Alabama could alter Afghan society in a way Washington would like?  Or any other foreign land for that matter?

I suppose some generals and policymakers are just plain gamblers.   But before putting your money on the next Afghan surge, it might be worth flashing back to the limitations, struggles, and sacrifices of just one small unit in one tiny, contested district of southern Afghanistan in 2011...

Lonely Pashmul

So, on we walked -- single file, step by treacherous step -- for nearly a year.  Most days things worked out.  Until they didn’t.   Unfortunately, some soldiers found bombs the hard way: three dead, dozens wounded, one triple amputee.  So it went and so we kept on going.  Always onward. Ever forward. For America? Afghanistan? Each other? No matter.  And so it seems other Americans will keep on going in 2017, 2018, 2019...

Lift foot. Hold breath. Step. Exhale.

Keep walking... to defeat... but together.

#Freeblr #Afghanistan #U.S. Foreign Policy #Middle East

[fumpkins]

Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription

IF you’re a writer — of essays, scripts, books, blog posts, whatever — you’re familiar with the phenomenon: a looming deadline, the blank screen, and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier.

If you know that rumble all too well, this post is definatley for you. Maybe it’ll help you get out of a rut; at the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination.

Here’s the core idea: thinking out loud is often less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology.

Of course, dictation is nothing new — and plenty of writers have taken advantage of it. Carl Sagan’s voluminous output was facilitated by his process of speaking into an audio recorder, to be transcribed later by an assistant (you can listen to some of his dictations in the Library of Congress!) And software like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has offered automated transcription for people with the budget and patience to pursue it.

But it’s only in the last couple of years that automated transcription has reached a sweet spot — of affordability, convenience, and accuracy—that makes it practical to use it more casually. And I’ve found it increasingly useful for generating a sort of proto-first draft: an alternative approach to the painful process of converting the nebulous wisps inside your head into something you can actually work with.

I call this process idea extraction (though these ideas may be more accurately dubbed brain droppings).

Part I: Extraction

Here’s how my process works. Borrow what works for you and forget the rest — and let me know how it goes!

Pick a voice recorder. Start talking. Try it with a topic you’ve been chewing on for weeks — or when an idea fits your head. Don’t overthink it. Just start blabbing.

The goal is to tug on as many threads as you come across and to follow them as far as they go. These threads may lead to meandering tangents— and you may discover new ideas along the way.

A lot of those new ideas will probably be embarrassingly poor. That’s fine. You’re already talking about the next thing! And unlike with text, your evil thoughts aren’t staring you in the face.

Consider leaving comments to yourself as you go — e.g., “Maybe that’d work for the intro.” These will come in handy later.

For me, these recordings run anywhere from 20–80 minutes. Sometimes they’re much shorter, in quick succession. Whatever works.

Part II: Transcription

Once I’ve finished recording, it’s time to harness ⚡️The Power of Technology⚡️

A little background: over the last couple of years there’s been an explosion of tools related to automatic speech recognition (ASR) thanks to huge steps forward in the underlying technologies.

Here’s how ASR works: you import your audio into the software, the software uses state-of-the-art machine learning to spit back a text transcript a few minutes later. That transcript won’t be perfect—the robots are currently in the ‘Write drunk’ phase of their careers. But for our purposes that’s fine: you just need it to be accurate enough that you can recognize your ideas.

Once you have your text transcript, your next step is up to you: maybe you’re exporting your transcript as a Word document and revising from there. Maybe you are firing up your voice recorder again to dictate a more polished take. Perhaps only a few words in your audio journey are worth keeping — but that’s fine too. It probably didn’t cost you much (and good news: the price for this tech will continue to fall in the years ahead).

A few more tips:

Use a recorder/app that you trust. Losing a recording is painful — and the anxiety of losing another can derail your most exciting creative moments (“I hope this recorder is working. Good, it is… @#*! where was I?”)

Find a comfortable space. Eventually, you may get used to having people overhear your musings, but it’s a lot easier to let your mind “go for a walk” when you’re comfortable in your environment.

Speaking of walking: why not go for a stroll? The pains of writing can have just as much to do with being stationary and hunched over. Walking gets your blood flowing — and your ideas too.

Audio quality matters when it comes to automatic transcription. If your recording has a lot of background noise or you’re speaking far away from the mic, the accuracy is going to drop. Consider using earbuds (better yet: Airpods), so you can worry less about where you’re holding the recorder.

I have a lot of ideas, good and bad, while I’m thinking out loud and playing music at the same time (in my case, guitar — but I suspect it applies more broadly). There’s something about playing the same four-chord song on autopilot for the thousandth time that keeps my hands busy and leaves my mind free to wander.

The old ways of doing things — whether it’s with a penor keyboard — still have their advantages. Putting words to a page can force a sort of linear thinking that is otherwise difficult to maintain. And when it comes to editing, it’s no contest: QWERTY or bust.

But for getting those first crucial paragraphs down (and maybe a few keystone ideas to build towards)? Consider talking to yourself. Even if you wind up with a transcript full of nothing but profanity — well, have you ever seen a transcript full of profanity? You could do a lot worse.

This article was originally published by Descript.

New post published on: https://www.livescience.tech/2018/09/17/overcoming-writers-block-automatic-transcription/

#transcribing #transcription #writers #writing

[fumpkins]

Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription

IF you’re a writer — of essays, scripts, books, blog posts, whatever — you’re familiar with the phenomenon: a looming deadline, the blank screen, and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier.

If you know that rumble all too well, this post is definatley for you. Maybe it’ll help you get out of a rut; at the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination.

Here’s the core idea: thinking out loud is often less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology.

Of course, dictation is nothing new — and plenty of writers have taken advantage of it. Carl Sagan’s voluminous output was facilitated by his process of speaking into an audio recorder, to be transcribed later by an assistant (you can listen to some of his dictations in the Library of Congress!) And software like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has offered automated transcription for people with the budget and patience to pursue it.

But it’s only in the last couple of years that automated transcription has reached a sweet spot — of affordability, convenience, and accuracy—that makes it practical to use it more casually. And I’ve found it increasingly useful for generating a sort of proto-first draft: an alternative approach to the painful process of converting the nebulous wisps inside your head into something you can actually work with.

I call this process idea extraction (though these ideas may be more accurately dubbed brain droppings).

Part I: Extraction

Here’s how my process works. Borrow what works for you and forget the rest — and let me know how it goes!

Pick a voice recorder. Start talking. Try it with a topic you’ve been chewing on for weeks — or when an idea fits your head. Don’t overthink it. Just start blabbing.

The goal is to tug on as many threads as you come across and to follow them as far as they go. These threads may lead to meandering tangents— and you may discover new ideas along the way.

A lot of those new ideas will probably be embarrassingly poor. That’s fine. You’re already talking about the next thing! And unlike with text, your evil thoughts aren’t staring you in the face.

Consider leaving comments to yourself as you go — e.g., “Maybe that’d work for the intro.” These will come in handy later.

For me, these recordings run anywhere from 20–80 minutes. Sometimes they’re much shorter, in quick succession. Whatever works.

Part II: Transcription

Once I’ve finished recording, it’s time to harness ⚡️The Power of Technology⚡️

A little background: over the last couple of years there’s been an explosion of tools related to automatic speech recognition (ASR) thanks to huge steps forward in the underlying technologies.

Here’s how ASR works: you import your audio into the software, the software uses state-of-the-art machine learning to spit back a text transcript a few minutes later. That transcript won’t be perfect—the robots are currently in the ‘Write drunk’ phase of their careers. But for our purposes that’s fine: you just need it to be accurate enough that you can recognize your ideas.

Once you have your text transcript, your next step is up to you: maybe you’re exporting your transcript as a Word document and revising from there. Maybe you are firing up your voice recorder again to dictate a more polished take. Perhaps only a few words in your audio journey are worth keeping — but that’s fine too. It probably didn’t cost you much (and good news: the price for this tech will continue to fall in the years ahead).

A few more tips:

Use a recorder/app that you trust. Losing a recording is painful — and the anxiety of losing another can derail your most exciting creative moments (“I hope this recorder is working. Good, it is… @#*! where was I?”)

Find a comfortable space. Eventually, you may get used to having people overhear your musings, but it’s a lot easier to let your mind “go for a walk” when you’re comfortable in your environment.

Speaking of walking: why not go for a stroll? The pains of writing can have just as much to do with being stationary and hunched over. Walking gets your blood flowing — and your ideas too.

Audio quality matters when it comes to automatic transcription. If your recording has a lot of background noise or you’re speaking far away from the mic, the accuracy is going to drop. Consider using earbuds (better yet: Airpods), so you can worry less about where you’re holding the recorder.

I have a lot of ideas, good and bad, while I’m thinking out loud and playing music at the same time (in my case, guitar — but I suspect it applies more broadly). There’s something about playing the same four-chord song on autopilot for the thousandth time that keeps my hands busy and leaves my mind free to wander.

The old ways of doing things — whether it’s with a penor keyboard — still have their advantages. Putting words to a page can force a sort of linear thinking that is otherwise difficult to maintain. And when it comes to editing, it’s no contest: QWERTY or bust.

But for getting those first crucial paragraphs down (and maybe a few keystone ideas to build towards)? Consider talking to yourself. Even if you wind up with a transcript full of nothing but profanity — well, have you ever seen a transcript full of profanity? You could do a lot worse.

This article was originally published by Descript.

New post published on: https://www.livescience.tech/2018/09/17/overcoming-writers-block-automatic-transcription/

#transcribing #transcription #writers #writing

[fumpkins]

Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription

IF you’re a writer — of essays, scripts, books, blog posts, whatever — you’re familiar with the phenomenon: a looming deadline, the blank screen, and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier.

If you know that rumble all too well, this post is definatley for you. Maybe it’ll help you get out of a rut; at the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination.

Here’s the core idea: thinking out loud is often less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology.

Of course, dictation is nothing new — and plenty of writers have taken advantage of it. Carl Sagan’s voluminous output was facilitated by his process of speaking into an audio recorder, to be transcribed later by an assistant (you can listen to some of his dictations in the Library of Congress!) And software like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has offered automated transcription for people with the budget and patience to pursue it.

But it’s only in the last couple of years that automated transcription has reached a sweet spot — of affordability, convenience, and accuracy—that makes it practical to use it more casually. And I’ve found it increasingly useful for generating a sort of proto-first draft: an alternative approach to the painful process of converting the nebulous wisps inside your head into something you can actually work with.

I call this process idea extraction (though these ideas may be more accurately dubbed brain droppings).

Part I: Extraction

Here’s how my process works. Borrow what works for you and forget the rest — and let me know how it goes!

Pick a voice recorder. Start talking. Try it with a topic you’ve been chewing on for weeks — or when an idea fits your head. Don’t overthink it. Just start blabbing.

The goal is to tug on as many threads as you come across and to follow them as far as they go. These threads may lead to meandering tangents— and you may discover new ideas along the way.

A lot of those new ideas will probably be embarrassingly poor. That’s fine. You’re already talking about the next thing! And unlike with text, your evil thoughts aren’t staring you in the face.

Consider leaving comments to yourself as you go — e.g., “Maybe that’d work for the intro.” These will come in handy later.

For me, these recordings run anywhere from 20–80 minutes. Sometimes they’re much shorter, in quick succession. Whatever works.

Part II: Transcription

Once I’ve finished recording, it’s time to harness ⚡️The Power of Technology⚡️

A little background: over the last couple of years there’s been an explosion of tools related to automatic speech recognition (ASR) thanks to huge steps forward in the underlying technologies.

Here’s how ASR works: you import your audio into the software, the software uses state-of-the-art machine learning to spit back a text transcript a few minutes later. That transcript won’t be perfect—the robots are currently in the ‘Write drunk’ phase of their careers. But for our purposes that’s fine: you just need it to be accurate enough that you can recognize your ideas.

Once you have your text transcript, your next step is up to you: maybe you’re exporting your transcript as a Word document and revising from there. Maybe you are firing up your voice recorder again to dictate a more polished take. Perhaps only a few words in your audio journey are worth keeping — but that’s fine too. It probably didn’t cost you much (and good news: the price for this tech will continue to fall in the years ahead).

A few more tips:

Use a recorder/app that you trust. Losing a recording is painful — and the anxiety of losing another can derail your most exciting creative moments (“I hope this recorder is working. Good, it is… @#*! where was I?”)

Find a comfortable space. Eventually, you may get used to having people overhear your musings, but it’s a lot easier to let your mind “go for a walk” when you’re comfortable in your environment.

Speaking of walking: why not go for a stroll? The pains of writing can have just as much to do with being stationary and hunched over. Walking gets your blood flowing — and your ideas too.

Audio quality matters when it comes to automatic transcription. If your recording has a lot of background noise or you’re speaking far away from the mic, the accuracy is going to drop. Consider using earbuds (better yet: Airpods), so you can worry less about where you’re holding the recorder.

I have a lot of ideas, good and bad, while I’m thinking out loud and playing music at the same time (in my case, guitar — but I suspect it applies more broadly). There’s something about playing the same four-chord song on autopilot for the thousandth time that keeps my hands busy and leaves my mind free to wander.

The old ways of doing things — whether it’s with a penor keyboard — still have their advantages. Putting words to a page can force a sort of linear thinking that is otherwise difficult to maintain. And when it comes to editing, it’s no contest: QWERTY or bust.

But for getting those first crucial paragraphs down (and maybe a few keystone ideas to build towards)? Consider talking to yourself. Even if you wind up with a transcript full of nothing but profanity — well, have you ever seen a transcript full of profanity? You could do a lot worse.

This article was originally published by Descript.

New post published on: https://www.livescience.tech/2018/09/17/overcoming-writers-block-automatic-transcription/

#transcribing #transcription #writers #writing

[fumpkins]

Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automatic Transcription

IF you’re a writer — of essays, scripts, books, blog posts, whatever — you’re familiar with the phenomenon: a looming deadline, the blank screen, and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier.

If you know that rumble all too well, this post is definatley for you. Maybe it’ll help you get out of a rut; at the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination.

Here’s the core idea: thinking out loud is often less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology.

Of course, dictation is nothing new — and plenty of writers have taken advantage of it. Carl Sagan’s voluminous output was facilitated by his process of speaking into an audio recorder, to be transcribed later by an assistant (you can listen to some of his dictations in the Library of Congress!) And software like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has offered automated transcription for people with the budget and patience to pursue it.

But it’s only in the last couple of years that automated transcription has reached a sweet spot — of affordability, convenience, and accuracy—that makes it practical to use it more casually. And I’ve found it increasingly useful for generating a sort of proto-first draft: an alternative approach to the painful process of converting the nebulous wisps inside your head into something you can actually work with.

I call this process idea extraction (though these ideas may be more accurately dubbed brain droppings).

Part I: Extraction

Here’s how my process works. Borrow what works for you and forget the rest — and let me know how it goes!

Pick a voice recorder. Start talking. Try it with a topic you’ve been chewing on for weeks — or when an idea fits your head. Don’t overthink it. Just start blabbing.

The goal is to tug on as many threads as you come across and to follow them as far as they go. These threads may lead to meandering tangents— and you may discover new ideas along the way.

A lot of those new ideas will probably be embarrassingly poor. That’s fine. You’re already talking about the next thing! And unlike with text, your evil thoughts aren’t staring you in the face.

Consider leaving comments to yourself as you go — e.g., “Maybe that’d work for the intro.” These will come in handy later.

For me, these recordings run anywhere from 20–80 minutes. Sometimes they’re much shorter, in quick succession. Whatever works.

Part II: Transcription

Once I’ve finished recording, it’s time to harness ⚡️The Power of Technology⚡️

A little background: over the last couple of years there’s been an explosion of tools related to automatic speech recognition (ASR) thanks to huge steps forward in the underlying technologies.

Here’s how ASR works: you import your audio into the software, the software uses state-of-the-art machine learning to spit back a text transcript a few minutes later. That transcript won’t be perfect—the robots are currently in the ‘Write drunk’ phase of their careers. But for our purposes that’s fine: you just need it to be accurate enough that you can recognize your ideas.

Once you have your text transcript, your next step is up to you: maybe you’re exporting your transcript as a Word document and revising from there. Maybe you are firing up your voice recorder again to dictate a more polished take. Perhaps only a few words in your audio journey are worth keeping — but that’s fine too. It probably didn’t cost you much (and good news: the price for this tech will continue to fall in the years ahead).

A few more tips:

Use a recorder/app that you trust. Losing a recording is painful — and the anxiety of losing another can derail your most exciting creative moments (“I hope this recorder is working. Good, it is… @#*! where was I?”)

Find a comfortable space. Eventually, you may get used to having people overhear your musings, but it’s a lot easier to let your mind “go for a walk” when you’re comfortable in your environment.

Speaking of walking: why not go for a stroll? The pains of writing can have just as much to do with being stationary and hunched over. Walking gets your blood flowing — and your ideas too.

Audio quality matters when it comes to automatic transcription. If your recording has a lot of background noise or you’re speaking far away from the mic, the accuracy is going to drop. Consider using earbuds (better yet: Airpods), so you can worry less about where you’re holding the recorder.

I have a lot of ideas, good and bad, while I’m thinking out loud and playing music at the same time (in my case, guitar — but I suspect it applies more broadly). There’s something about playing the same four-chord song on autopilot for the thousandth time that keeps my hands busy and leaves my mind free to wander.

The old ways of doing things — whether it’s with a penor keyboard — still have their advantages. Putting words to a page can force a sort of linear thinking that is otherwise difficult to maintain. And when it comes to editing, it’s no contest: QWERTY or bust.

But for getting those first crucial paragraphs down (and maybe a few keystone ideas to build towards)? Consider talking to yourself. Even if you wind up with a transcript full of nothing but profanity — well, have you ever seen a transcript full of profanity? You could do a lot worse.

This article was originally published by Descript.

New post published on: https://www.livescience.tech/2018/09/17/overcoming-writers-block-automatic-transcription/

#transcribing #transcription #writers #writing