#Having not really invented anything in the entire recorded history of the world

[josephkeller]

During the Exandria GM's roundtable following Calamity, Brennan made a point while shouting out Matt's worldbuilding of Exandria that most fantasy is really bad with time.

Like, if you look at Narsil/Anduril in LOTR, that's a sword that was forged in the First Age, some 6,000 years before the Quest for the Ring. It's still considered one of the best blades ever created. Moreover, the people of Middle-Earth are still making similar weapons made of steel. For comparison, 6,000 years ago in the real world, we weren't even working with steel.

One of the strengths of Exandria, and the Calamity and Divergence specifically, is that while much was lost, it wasn't everything. People survived, continued, and, in many cases, remembered just enough to move forward.

One of Exandria’s best qualities as a setting is how well it exemplifies a place that’s been through an apocalypse. It’s not one of those endless fantasy histories that never really evolves just so it can justify all its adventure sites, this one momentous period of time left irremovable scars on this world, and you can FEEL it in the present, so this skeleton ravine moment feels like a sign of how well Brennan gets Exandria’s whole vibe.

[brettanomycroft]

Signals from Somewhere Else

After episode 22 of Protocol, there’s one thing (okay, maybe two things) that everyone is going to be talking about. But I don’t want to talk about that thing (yet. Okay, I lied, it might come up). Instead, I want to dive into some of the implications of this week’s case and how they might relate FR3-D1 [Error], and even Isaac Newton.

Spoilers for TMAGP episodes 21 and 22 below the cut. CW: we’re gonna talk about the brain stuff; probably overuse of the words “fleshy” and “wet” by I blame AJN for that.

Our case in this episode, graciously recounted by Peepaw Augustus, focuses on real-life German psychiatrist and neurologist Hans Berger, whose work led to the invention of the EEG and furthered our understanding of how brainwaves work. The experiment described in the case mirrors actual experiments that Berger completed while working at the University of Jena, including experimentation on a subject with a deformity that allowed easy access to the brain and the placement of silver wires under the scalp to measure electrical activity. Even Berger’s disappointing initial results seem to be in line with history.

Like in real life, the cosmic horrors of this case begin when Berger takes a little depression nap.

The description of “an ocean, deep and unforgiving… full of dark secrets” creates a striking image to be sure, but what’s more interesting to me here is what he recalls next: the “radio signals, invisible and unknowable.” Berger laments that it’s a “shame these two things would never meet,” and then proceeds to enable such a thing to happen, whether he realizes it or not.

He wakes up and is immediately “inspired” to alter the setup he is using to record Herr Schmidt’s brain activity. While Berger is unable to explain how he came up with the idea (we could tell him: it was The Horrors, bud), he transforms his recording device (an early version of an EEG) into a two-way wireless telegraph, using poor Herr Schmidt’s brain as the receiver for the very radio waves that, perhaps, were never meant to make contact with the world below. Berger sent a politely phrased request into the void, and the void screamed back.

Who or what was on the other side can only be guessed at. Was it John/Martin/Jonah, individually or Frankensteined into some horrid chimerical conscience (please read this great post and have your heart broken like me)? Was it The Fears of the Archives-verse, recombined and tossed about like naughty pears in a pear wiggler? Or was it something or someone else entirely? I’m leaning towards JMJ, in parts or as a whole, specifically because I suspect that Hans Berger’s strange (and wetly explosive, thanks Alexander J. Newell) discovery provides a clue to how [Error] and possibly FR3-D1 operate.

Let’s start with [Error]. Here’s what we know about them so far:

They were locked up in tunnels or a basement space under the Archivist’s office at the Manchester Magnus Institute

Something about them causes people, dead and alive, to recount their fears or horrible things that have happened to them (I am not using the word compel here, even though it is used in the transcript for episode 21, and that is on purpose)

They seem very invested in getting the entire story out (this is, admittedly, speculation, as it’s unclear as to whether “THERE IS MORE” is in reference to more victims or more of Gwen’s story)

They have some really weird dogs

I’ve seen a lot of folks speculate that [Error] is or was the Head Archivist in the Protocol universe, and I’ve also seen a lot of folks speculate that [Error] is or was John (and therefore also The Archivist). I think either of these could be true, but more than anything, I think [Error] is a high-powered antenna with the ability to turn the people around them into speakers. Or maybe Speakers? I do love a good capitalization.

What if the “esteemed brethren” of The Magnus Institute were all too aware of the unusual results of Berger’s experimentation, and hoped to tap into the unusual consciousness(es) floating around in the radio waves and ether of the universe by creating their own version? Perhaps they thought they could create a direct conduit (think almost like a psychic medium) through a person, someone who might be able to communicate with whatever is out there and be able to relay its/their esoteric knowledge to help further the Institute’s goals of “Universal Transmutation.” We know already that the Institute was interested in doppelgangers and perhaps alternate universes and that they had a lot of irons in the fire (the Millenium Dome, the gifted child programme, Welling’s Mutare Materia research program, the various outreach centres), so it would hardly be surprising if they were also experimenting in communicating with “the beyond” to try and gain more knowledge.

And maybe it worked. Maybe they were able to create or transmute someone into an antenna, capable of receiving these strange signals, except these mixed signals were too powerful and ultimately took over. Perhaps [Error] is the natural consequence of who or whatever was speaking to Berger finally getting “OUT.” And if who or whatever was speaking to Berger happened to include the fractured consciousness of a hungry Archivist, well then, we have an interesting case for [Error]. [Error], whether or not they were an/The Archivist in this universe, could now be directed by the desires of The Archivist, channeling The Archivist’s thoughts and abilities but with a power greater than that we ever saw in John (or, perhaps, the same power but completely unrestrained by his remaining humanity). Or [Error] could be channeling The Fears themselves, bringing parts of them through not unlike they were brought through in The Magnus Archives.

Either way, I doubt that creating a connection between whatever was out there and the physical world led to the results the Institute was hoping for.

[Error] is receiving the signal to feed, but the signal coming through is so loud and so powerful that instead of politely asking to snack on some horror stories, coming into contact with them instead allows them to pick up on a person’s horrible experience and forces them to broadcast it to the world. It’s possible that, upon creating [Error] or losing control of [Error], those at The Magnus Institute locked them up and cut them off from the dangerous signal they were receiving… Sam accidentally poking a big hole in the floor (and the alchemical signals inscribed in it) could have reestablished the connection between [Error] and the force guiding them.

Now let’s talk about FR3-D1. We know that FR3-D1so far is that it

Is a “bespoke” internet software developed sometime in the mid-90s, apparently designed to search the internet for spooky stuff

Has German source code

Crashes, constantly, much to Colin’s dismay (? Or maybe he’s helping those crashes along to stop it from listening in… but that’s a theory for another time)

Has, within the last year or so of Sam joining the O.I.A.R., started running a text-to-speech program that reads certain cases out in one of three voices, two of which are familiar to anyone who has listened to The Magnus Archives

Occasionally has some unusual .JMJ errors

Seems to be “targeting” Sam with specific cases related to The Magnus Institute

Is believed to be “listening in” by Colin, Alice, and Sam (which is supported by what we know as the audience)

Has been working “better” since Colin has been on mandatory mental health leave

May have some connection to the Stasi, the secret police force of Communist East Germany before the fall of the USSR

Is assumed (by us as the audience) to have some kind of sentience

There are some other items (notably the spreadsheets found in the ARG that appear to be from or connected to FR3-D1and the emails Sam and Gwen have received) that could be connected to FR3-D1 but have not yet been confirmed. Yet aspects of FR3-D1 do seem to share some commonality with [Error], namely a level of sentience and the ability to locate the stories of people who have had horrifying supernatural encounters.

My speculation here is that FR3-D1 and [Error] were both constructed using the same premise or with the same goal in mind: to receive and channel the signals of entities or consciousnesses existing in or coming from “Somewhere Else”: FR3-D1 through a supernaturally or alchemically conceived software program, and [Error] through a supernaturally or alchemically conceived transmutation on a living human.

If this proves to be the case, then the results seem… distinct, albeit with the potential to be equally dangerous. FR3-D1 is more “controllable” and could potentially be better able to separate out the signals being received, manifesting as “Augustus,” “Chester,” and “Norris.” Now these “three” could still be part of homunculus-esque JohnMartinJonah consciousness, but perhaps the computer program is a little more stable and delineated than the fleshy wet mess of the human brain, and therefore what remains of each individual consciousness is able to act more distinctly and independently. In contrast, [Error] (and their fleshy wet mess of human brain) is receiving the signals all mixed and jumbled together, with no failsafes to keep them from “overloading” or being entirely taken over by The Horrors or JMJ or The JMJ Horrors. Given their spectral descriptions, it’s possible that fleshy human brain and body couldn’t take it anymore and, pun intended, gave up the ghost.  

[Error] could be, in some ways, a bodiless, mindless soul acting on a confused mess of instinct and hunger; FR3-D1 is then, perhaps, the elevated mind, in (more) control but disconnected from a body and perhaps from a soul. Given the heavy influence of alchemy in The Magnus Protocol and the importance in alchemy of the number three, the Tria Prima, and the balance of mind, body, and soul, there may be a third entity we have yet to meet who, like FR3-D1 and [Error], are tuned into these signals from beyond and is eager to reunite with the rest… or perhaps FR3-D1 and [Error] are looking for a body of their own to inhabit and find balance (Sam, anyone?).

I feel like I myself am beginning to mix the signals I started with, but before I attempt to wrap this up, I do briefly want to throw one more piece of spaghetti on the wall, because I think it’ll wind up being something: the mention, specifically, of the silver wire the Berger used in his experiment.

It was Dr. Caton who recommended that Berger use the silver wire, as silver is known for being an effective conductor of electricity. Silver also holds importance as one of the seven metals of alchemy and as a possible base metal in the creation of a Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps equally important here is that the Diana’s Tree, also known as the Arbor Philosophorum, is created using a solution including silver (or more accurately, silver nitrate) and mercury (one of the elements in the Tria Prima)… yep, the (sort of) same spooky tree created by Newton in TMAGP 19, where Newton gave his dog an existential crisis and Robert Hooke was like “burn it all down.” The conclusion we could draw here is that silver is used in both TMAGP 19 and TMAGP 22 to connect organic life to the unseeable Knowledge of some other plane… with potentially disastrous effects.

Whether it ends up being the case that FR3-D1 and [Error] are big antennas wirelessly receiving The Horrors or I’m totally off base, it seems pretty clear that Hans Berger “tuned in” to an unusual—and dangerous—signal, and what’s more, enabled that signal to connect with the Protocol world in a way that likely never should have happened.

[sporkandpringles]

my problems with discovery's spore drive have nothing to do with the wacky mushroom science. Like this is Star Trek™ not some bonefide diamond on the Moh's Scale of Sci-Fi hardness like The Martian. I know to expect the writers playing a bit fast and loose with physics and how the real world works. I'm here for that wackniess, actually. Love me some technobabble about mycelial spores or tetryon particles or whatever! the thing that doesn't work for me is the way the spore drive acts narratively, and how the technology was introduced within the timeline of the series. Like it's just obvious that the writers aren't willing to let anyone else but Discovery have access to the spore drive. They twisted up the Glenn in season one, so Discovery is the only ship with a spore drive. They hemmed and hawed about genetic modification in season 2 so no one else got a spore drive. They purged records of the spore drive's existence from history and claimed that no one else had tried to make anything like it in 900 years despite a massive dilithium shortage and canonical search for other methods of propulsion in season 3. And then at the very end, just when you think, oh hey maybe the entire population of Kwejian will make for a nice crop of new spore drive pilots, the writers fucking blow up their whole planet just so they don't have to let anyone else have the spore drive. And to be fair, they can't really let anyone else have it, or else Discovery loses it's right to be "the only one we can turn to in a crisis". And that's really all it has going for it. So, I get it! Still hate it, though. And, even moreso than all the silly narrative contrivances that are used to nerf transporter technology so that the plot can still happen, this bothers me. Because sure, all the ion storms and interference can get a bit stupid. We all make fun of star trek for inventing a technology that could immediately yoink our blorbos away from their problems, only to turn around and force it to not work when it's needed most. But at least there isn't just one ship that has the ability to use the transporter at all. That would be ridiculous. Everyone would want their own transporter. And yet, that's the situation we have in Discovery. Only one ship can travel across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. The show writers keep contriving to keep it that way. And given how useful instantaneous travel is, the fact that it hasn't been replicated once, by any species in the galaxy, not just the Federation, in 900 years is just stretching the limits of my willing suspension of disbelief.

[jeonstellate]

flashpoint: forward

junhui’s post-9 pm overthinking led him to you, ten years into the future.

๑༄ wen junhui x gender neutral!reader

๑༄ time travel!au — little fluff(?), mostly neutral

๑༄ bulleted list format — 3K words

masterlist | flashpoint: backward

[gif’s full credit belongs solely to its owner]

๑༄ wrote this almost a year ago && decided to wait until i made significant progress on the second part, but i kinda— anw. long story short, here’s the first part even tho the second one isn’t done yet *insert dancer emoji here*

๑༄ personally loved this, if you can’t tell by the word count lol, so i sincerely hope y’all do too <3

for this specific universe, the world lives in whichever time they wish

however, the ability to jump through time isn’t a common ability

nor it is a well-studied area of science

it isn’t necessarily a regulated movement(?), either — time travelers don’t carry passports or any documents that record their movement from one time to another

to top if off, no one knows exactly how one gets the ability to jump through time as well; it just appears randomly once the blessed individual comes of age

what people do know, however, is the fact that there is a set of rules every time traveler is strongly advised to abide by

first & foremost, every time traveler mustn’t mess with the flow of events — specifically those that concern an entire population

which means they can’t prevent any public figure from crossing onto the other side of veil — political or otherwise

they can’t introduce a current technology to the people of the past, either — especially since inventions have the power to drive social advancement

basically everything that can impact how history is told is forbidden

saving endangered animals through time travel is included in that btw

tragically

&& also bringing forward obsolete stuff to the present

[that means no bringing forward quality web-based flash games or the psp. sigh]

second, every time traveler cannot reveal to the people of time periods prior to time travel becoming "common" knowledge that they are, in fact, time travelers

that sounds like a trippy sentence to comprehend completely, so let’s paraphrase

time travelers can’t change when time traveling became something that people just know to exist

if they travel to some time in the BCE, they can’t mention anything abt time traveling to the ppl there — bc time travel isn’t heard of yet during that time period

same thing if they travel to any CE period when time travel is basically "non-existent" still

truth be told, no one can exactly pin point when time travel became a common knowledge

so it’s a little tricky

that’s why it’s advisable to keep quiet abt it when going to the past

unless it’s recent past, then that should be fine

but not so much when going forward in time

since yk, they fs already know that time travel exist if people of the present already know abt it

the third advice for time travelers is to not stay too long in the past or the future

the unofficial handbook for time travelers didn’t really specify how long is too long, so everyone interprets it differently

some think it means a few days max, while some think it’s a few weeks

some even think it means a few years

but anw

the point is, according to the handbook, if one stays too long in the time they don’t belong in, changes will occur in their present

which will domino effect

to not only their future, but potentially to everyone else’s lives as well

[write that down—]

in a way, that connects advice three to advice one

thankfully, you aren’t blessed to be a time traveler

sure, you don’t get to experience the perks that comes w time traveling

but at least you don’t have to remember all those rules

&& wtv unmentioned precautionary tales there are abt time traveling

unfortunately for wen junhui, though, he is a time traveler

which means he has to keep all those rules in mind whenever he enjoys the perks of time traveling

sigh

.

.

.

.

.

junhui doesn’t have a favorite era to travel to

he, quite honestly, just travels on a whim

remember that "end of the world" talk bc of the mayan calendar?

yea

junhui didn’t believe in it either

but, nevertheless, he still time traveled to the day after the supposed end date just to prove to himself that he was right not to believe it

&& that there was definitely still tomorrow after the so-called "end of the world" day

ngl that extremely brief stay in that particular date was for his post-9 pm self — the one that worries abt every little thing that has ever happened in his life & that he has ever heard of in passing

basically his post-9 pm self has some sort of heightened anxiety or smth, that’s why he never trusts anything he thinks of from 9 pm onwards

[i personally believe this btw. this belief has saved me multiple times. i highly recommend :D]

still, whenever his post-9 pm self gets too worked up worrying abt nothing, it’s difficult for him to sleep

so it’s best to quell anything that can be a source of anxiety asap

esp since he needs — wants — all the sleep he can get

junhui has also traveled into the year 3000

solely bc he heard his friend hansol play a song abt it

&& the lyrics mentioned smth abt ppl in that year living underwater

now, that lyric could’ve been entirely fictional, a result of merely observing the trend of global climate change

but, considering the world they all live in, it’s also plausible that at least one of the songwriters for that song is a time traveler

so, naturally, junhui wants to confirm it for himself

to his surprise (not really), they do live underwater by then

&& remember the flying cars ppl of the past collectively envisioned for the future?

they’re apparently floating vehicles instead, like submarines, which can give the impression that they’re flying

it’s actually pretty cool to see

almost like the future in meet the robinsons, but like . . . underwater

anw

junhui doesn’t just fact-checks the future or any future-related things, he also has a similar habit for the past

aside from making sure wtv he read abt in books are accurate, he also fancies seeing tourist spots in their young state — before the effect of time & tourists took a toll

just to name a few . . .

he went to see the great wall at its peak condition: complete & still intact

he had admired the taj mahal as a recently completed building

same goes for the eiffel tower & the entirety of intramuros

not to mention the not-yet-green statue of liberty

& disneyland, back when there were merely 20 attractions in the entire park

suffice to say, junhui enjoys his time traveling abilities to the fullest

despite not actually using it often

in fact, by this point in time, he hasn’t time traveled in a while: his last time jump being more than half a year ago

it was, if he remembers correctly, to visit the cats in ancient egypt

sure, he could’ve looked around for the pyramids too & the other wonders of ancient egypt, but he was literally just there for the cats

cause, yk, he just thought of them & how dissimilar they might be to modern-day cats

to no one’s surprise, there wasn’t any notable differences

so, yea

no other escapades followed after that trip

that is, until his post-9 pm self got better of him

wen junhui, like any other night prior, just wants to sleep

well, at least his body does

his mind, though . . . it seems like it has other plans

bc it just . . . wouldn’t . . . shut off

[i fcking hate it when that happens]

his brain, for wtv reason, just decided that it was the best time to think abt the future

not just any future, though: his future, specifically

sure, he has traveled to the future countless of times, but those trips were never to catch a glimpse of his own future life

partly bc he was never actually interested in knowing beforehand

but mostly bc he knew that the future isn’t exactly set in stone

sure, the near future might not change drastically when he decides not to eat his usual breakfast, but there’s no telling how much each choice dominos into the distant future

thus, it’s reasonable to assume that, just bc he sees it when he time travels, it doesn’t automatically mean that that’s how his future will play out exactly

really, a part of him just wants to stay cautious abt accidentally changing his future

‘cause he can totally see that happening:

after seeing how his life is in the future, he might potentially develop a conscious preference towards things that he thinks will build into the future he saw

not knowing that the decisions he made due to his hyperawareness actually altered how his future will eventually play out

wen junhui doesn’t want to experience that

like, at all

bc it’s def a recipe for disappointment & heartbreak

but, apparently, his brain begs to differ

bc it’s still trying to convince him that it wouldn’t hurt

to know how his life will going exactly 10 years from now

if anything, it might even provide some comfort . . . to know that, yk, he’ll be just fine 10 years from now

but at the same time,

what if he gets so obsessed w making sure he doesn’t change his future after he goes back to the present??

he would be so stressed for the next 10 years until his present finally catches up to the moment he time traveled to

oh heavens

junhui of the present just — quite literally — want to fcking sleep

so he tossed

and turned

blanket off

blanket on

one foot out

foot back in bc he remembered abt the monsters that might try to pull him by his leg

lie down on his stomach

lie down on his back

put one arm under his pillow

and—

nothing

absolutely nothing

he’s still wide awake

tragically

once he sees a semblance of sun rays through the window curtain, he defeatedly decided to compromise

and finally time traveled 10 years forward

truthfully, time traveling for wen junhui is v easy

at least after he mastered it

which took a bit ngl

he just has to think of time & place he wants to travel to, mean them, close his eyes, & let the magic do its thing

normally, he would open his eyes as soon as he feels like it was safe to do so

just to confirm that he did end up in the time & place he intended

but for this one specifically, he didn’t even want to bother confirming that he arrived at his destination

instead, he settled for accepting the different feeling of the sheets under him as such

contrast to how uncomfortable & hot his own bedsheets and blanket felt to him tonight,

the ones currently touching his skin felt comfortable & cool

aka literally the perfect recipe for sleep

junhui personally has been begging his body to sleep for hours now at this point

so after processing the sweet relief of comfortability, he basically knocked out cold almost instantly

[he was getting so frustrated—]

[i’m so happy for him *wipes tear*]

now, don’t get him wrong

he’s normally cautious whenever he time travels, esp if it’s within his lifetime

given that it’s a "special" circumstance of sorts

that shall be explained later . . . after he wakes up

he’s just really tired, okay?

let him be

let him discover how much he fcked up once he wakes up

from a deep sleep he so deserved

.

.

.

once junhui finally wakes up from his slumber, it took him a moment to remember what he did before he slept

still unaware of his night shenanigans & barely awake, he makes a beeline to the bathroom

except the path that normally takes him to the bathroom didn’t actually take him there

but rather to a closet that he doesn’t even recognize

undeterred, he turns & tries the second doorknob he grasps

thankfully, that door opens to reveal what he’s looking for: a bathroom

the harsh lighting essentially forces him to fully open his eyes

and he finally notices that there are two toothbrushes by the sink

he could’ve sworn he only has one toothbrush out of the box

so he absolutely has no idea which one he should use

much less why there are suddenly two in the first place

junhui decides to not think too much of it

and just takes the safest option: only using a mouthwash & moving onto the rest of his morning routine

he’s not abt to take a risk abt that yk

who knows what he uses the other toothbrush for that he just can’t remember atm

now refreshed & completely awake, he finally finally remembers what he did last night before he drifted off to sleep

he has time traveled 10 years forward

which means he’s currently in his body 10 years into the future

alright, guess this is the right second for a quick rundown of how time traveling works in this universe

if the time he wants to travel to is within his lifetime, his consciousness will enter his body during that time

which means he’s inside the time flow & whatever he does may impact the succeeding events

which also means he has to be extremely mindful

if the time he wants to travel to is outside his lifetime, may that be before or after, then he’s just . . . an entity with no actual form

like an invisible ghost

which means he’s outside the time flow & he’s free to say wtv & move whichever way he wants without bothering ppl

or even worrying abt accidentally altering the timeline

however, if he’s not skilled enough, he might accidentally manifest as a person that didn’t/doesn’t rlly exist during that particular time

which means that, once again, he’ll be inside the time flow when he shouldn’t be

actually, if he’s a seasoned enough traveler, anything is possible: he may still touch things without necessarily being inside the time flow, he may potentially alter the timeline without having a vessel, etc.

but anw

now, with all that knowledge in mind, wen junhui looks around with purpose

first he turns to the mirror to intently observe how he physically changed over the years

then, once satisfied, turns his attention to the bathroom itself: how he recognizes some of the brands but not exactly the packaging

and how painfully obvious it is that his future self shares the place with one other person

has inflation gotten so bad that he had to share his apartment w someone?

truthfully, he doesn’t rlly mind that

but it means his chances of getting caught are higher

esp if his flatmate happens to be home atm & he has no idea who they are

junhui takes it upon himself to explore his bedroom too

& look for clues abt who he might be living w

assuming that they are close enough, that is

it doesn’t take him that long to find what he’s seeking, thankfully

bc there are two framed decorations on his bedroom walls that basically answered all his current questions

one of which is an intimate wedding photograph of him and someone else

which means . . .

wen junhui of the future is fcking married

and his flatmate can only be his spouse

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

alright

now

it’d be a complete lie to say that wen junhui of the past anticipated that

bc he totally didn’t

and honestly, who can blame him?

dude doesn’t even have a significant other in his present

and, judging who he ends up marrying,

he hasn’t even met the person he ends up w yet

nor has he heard of them

bc he has yet to hear the name that he can only assume is theirs next to his on the other framed decoration

which has his name & [first name] in large print — surrounded by small handwritten messages

all of a sudden, junhui has more questions than what he started w prior to discovering the identity of his flatmate

how did they meet?

how long were they a couple before they wed?

how long have they been married at this point?

when did they marry?

when did they me—

and as if on cue, a soft knock resonated from the door,

instantly freezing junhui in place

followed by a: "jun, are you awake yet?"

thinking on his feet, junhui quickly busied himself w making the bed

so when the person who knocked inevitably opens the door, he can use it as an excuse

"oh, good. you’re up."

junhui immediately thought the picture has done you no justice as soon as you appeared by the doorway

he swears he even stops breathing for a sec after seeing you

"yea . . . i was just fixing the bed . . ."

he has no idea how he’s able to act like he didn’t just fall in love at first sight

but perhaps his fear of giving himself away is the one to thank

hopefully, his acting was convincing enough to foul you

not that he wants to lie to you or anything

he’s just being cautious bc he doesn’t know if his future self has let you onto his secret

and he certainly don’t wanna be the one responsible for that talk

"once you’re done, come join me for breakfast, yea?"

phew

it seems like you’re none the wiser

that’s good for him

now, all he has to do is to play along & not blow his cover

sounds easy enough

right?

right?

"ofc. lemme just grab my phone & we can head out tgt"

.

.

.

wrong!

bc, for one, he has no idea who you are

besides being his spouse, and your name,

and perhaps also how you physically look like,

junhui doesn’t know you

and what kind of husband doesn’t know anything abt his spouse???

not a good one, for starters

sigh

all of a sudden, he was so glad he bothered to take acting classes when he was younger

to be fair, he did take them to help him blend in whenever he wants to travel w a body rather than as a ghost

which is exactly what this situation is

except this one’s a bit different . . . in a way

‘cause now he gets to use it to keep his marriage intact

and for the sake of his future, he needs to not mess it up

no pressure at all ammirite

[unnervinglyferal]

List of European countries and why I hate them, in alphabetical order:

Albania - I've never heard fucking anything about the people here, do you people even do anything save for having beef with everyone else in the Balkans. Fuck you.

Andorra - I don't think this place is even a real country. It's like the size of my dick. Fuck you.

Austria - You know what you did. Fuck you.

Belarus - Sucking Russia's dick just for the novelty of getting to be featured in their ongoing cringe compilation. An utter embarrassment. Fuck you.

Belgium - If there's two things I hate, it's colonialist brutality and the fucking smurfs. Fuck you.

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Despite all the rest of their shitshow, at least the rest of the Balkans can at least agree whether they're one country or two countries. Make up your minds. Fuck you.

Bulgaria - The best thing you've got going on is the yoghurt and even that isn't as good as the greek ones. Fuck you.

Croatia - Out of all the countries in Europe whose existence I had literally forgot about, this is the oldest and the largest. How do you trace your history back to the fucking antiquity and only barely seem to exist at all? Fuck you.

Cyprus - I actually had to google to check that Cyprus isn't just a part of Greece, but apparently you gained independence from the UK in 1960? How the fuck are you in Europe and get colonized by Europe. Fuck you.

Czech Republic - Your main export is utterly unpronounceable last names. There's a reason why you can't shouldn't be allowed to put five consonants in a row. Fuck you.

Denmark - Annoyingly smug golden retriever-ass mushy-faced fucks. If I pressed my open palm into a dane's face, it would ooze through my fingers because these mushy fucks don't have bones.

Estonia - The bitter, prettier and smarter sister to Finland who is passive-aggressively better at everything but still doesn't get the same attention. Finns show up to your shores to raid the booze stores, vomit on everything, and leave, and you just let them. Fuck you.

Finland - An entire nation of spoiled ivory tower whiners who just will not understand how good they have it. The entire country would die out by mass suicide if things ever got half as bad as they are in the rest of the world. Fuck you.

France - The only reason why the french aren't known as an equal mass of colonialist brutes as the brits are is the language barrier. They're just as stupid but you'll never know what they're thinking because they consider learning another language to be beneath them. Fuck you.

Georgia - The americans stole your name and put it on a state and you just fucking let them. Now we have to hear about their utter lack of understanding of geography every single time some shit happens at your borders. Fuck you.

Germany - I'm jewish. And looking at your involvement in Israel, I'm starting to think you people don't really even care that much whose side you're on, if there's a genocide happening anywhere, you just like to be included. Fuck you.

Greece - You have like 4000 years of recorded history verifying that you've spent that entire time thinking you're smarter and prettier than anyone else in the whole world. You specifically invented the word hubris to describe yourselves. Fuck you.

Hungary - I'm pretty sure that you guys are the reason why people think all of Europe is a backwards shithole. Fuck you.

Iceland - The only reason you people can dedicate all of your time in inbreeding ponies and people is because your climate is so miserable that nobody wants to move there. Fuck you.

Ireland - Your climate is just as wet and miserable as Iceland, but you still got colonized by the english. Fuck you.

Italy - I've never met an italian who was capable of doing anything in a punctual and organized way. Imagining a whole country being run by italians seems impossible. Like having 15 cats successfully operating a tank. Fuck you.

Kosovo - What the fuck even is the Balkans. You guys don't even have your own language. Fuck you.

Latvia - Like Estonia without any of the good parts. Fuck you.

Liechtenstein - This isn't even a real country, this is just the quarantine containment where Switzerland ships the people who are too annoying for Switzerland. Fuck you.

Lithuania - The most boring of the Baltics. Fuck you.

Luxembourg - There is no way this place is fucking real. The fuck do you mean your citizens are called luxembourgers. The fuck do you mean your official language is luxembourgish. What the fuck is any of this. Fuck you.

Malta - Same thing as Liechtenstein, but for all surrounding countries around the Mediterranean sea. Fuck you.

Moldova - How and why is there a tiny-ass country the size of my dick on the border of the Balkans. How does this exist. Fuck you.

Monaco - This isn't a real country, it's a french ploy for tax evasion. Fuck you.

Montenegro - Oh won't you look at that, another teeny tiny Balkan country. Montenegrin is the stupidest name I've ever heard for a language, that sounds like a comedy bit. Fuck you.

Netherlands - Fuck your weed and fuck your bicycles. Fuck you.

North Macedonia - This also feels like a country they just made up just to make the list of European countries longer. Fuck you.

Norway - Fuck your oil and fuck you.

Poland - Your main export is far right politics and porn-addicted communist furry femboys. Fuck you.

Portugal - Spain but a little bit to the left. The only way to tell the spanish and the portugese apart is by whether they get mad when you call them spanish. Fuck you.

Romania - Get your fucking shit together. Fuck you.

Russia - Fuck you.

San Marino - Italy has two stupid little city-states as pets. This one is the one I hate less because it only contains tax evaders.

Serbia - The only thing I know about Serbia is A Serbian Film. Fuck that film and fuck you for making me remember it.

Slovakia - The wettest, saddest slavs of all the slavs of Europe. Fuck you.

Slovenia - Slovene is the second-stupidest name I've ever heard for a language. Fuck you.

Spain - I have no idea how the fuck a people who are as disorganized as italians managed to also be as competent as france and britain at colonialism. Fuck you.

Sweden - As smug and mushy as danes and as inbred as icelanders. Fuck you.

Switzerland - You know what you did. And continue doing. Fuck you.

Ukraine - You wouldn't be in this fucking situation if you hadn't trusted Soviet Union's pinky promise to never invade. A russian's promise is not worth the oxygen it wastes. You guys are cool but nonetheless, fuck you.

United Kingdom - Fuck you smug bastards for everything.

Vatican City - Italy has two stupid little city-states as pets. This one is the one I hate more because it contains the pope. Fuck you.

[lovejustforaday]

Shoegaze Classics - Loveless

Loveless - My Bloody Valentine (1991)

Main Genres - Shoegaze, Noise Pop, Dream Pop

A decent sampling of: Experimental Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Alternative Dance

DUT DUT DUT DUT VREW VREW VREW VREW VREW VREW VREW

Well, if you knew anything about shoegaze going into this series, you knew that this review was going to be inevitable.

Today I take on the most truly revered shoegaze band, and probably one of the most legendary indie bands of all time. God help me, I'm going to do my best, so here goes nothing. Let's talk about My Bloody Valentine and Loveless.

The Band

My Bloody Valentine is an awesome band. Plain and simple. The name is awesome, the sound is awesome, their public persona is awesome. Just, lots of awesomeness.

Okay, I can probably do better than that. Hmmm... Okay wait, stay with me here.

My Bloody Valentine were originally an unlikely, little-known post-punk band from the 80s, that somehow went on to being one of the most important and influential bands of the 90s whilst only having dropped one record for the entire aforementioned decade.

After a series of lineup changes that coincided with a search for the bands' sonic identity, the true My Bloody Valentine lineup solidified as Kevin Shields, the madman musical genius leader of the crew on guitars and vocals, Bilinda Butcher, a feathery soft-spoken punk on guitar and vocals, Colm Ó Cíosóig as the animated, flappy-haired drummer, and Debbie Googe as the badass butch bassist (BBB) who was originally from the anarchist punk scene.

I've been trying to consistently use the term "British Isles" to describe the epicenter of the initial first wave of shoegaze. I wanted to be careful not to just say "Britain" or the U.K., because that would be somewhat revisionist.

Proto-shoegazers A.R. Kane may have formed in London, but other "proto" bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and Cocteau Twins were from Scotland. As for the band most credited with the true inception of shoegaze by its strictest definition, that would be My Bloody Valentine, hailing from Ireland, folks who often (for very good reason) don't take too kindly to being described as "British". That being said, Debbie and Bilinda are English.

I won't waste too much time going into the history of the band for this review, mostly because this is already gonna be a long one and I've got so many things to say about the record itself. So I'll give you the sparknotes version.

Like most early shoegazers, My Bloody Valentine dropped a few EPs before their first full-length LP, albeit in some completely different genres. C86 style Jangle Pop, Post-Punk, and frigging Psychobilly of all things apparently?

The band really found their sound, and pioneered the definitive collective traits of shoegaze in 1988, signing with Creation Records and dropping the EP You Made Me Realize and, later that year, their debut full-length Isn't Anything which, depending on who you ask, is the first true shoegaze LP (Though a very little known post-punk band named A Primary Industry may have something to say about that).

Shoegaze was invented with the propagation of a new world of sonic timbres discovered through the usage of guitar pedals, and My Bloody Valentine in particular really loved their pedals. On top of those pedals, the band laid a lot of distortion and harsh volumes.

Likeswise, My Bloody Valentine has pretty much always been just as much a noise pop band like their contemporaries The Jesus And Mary Chain. The two scenes overlapped a lot during the first wave (just like dream pop and neo-psychedelia), and some even describe the shoegaze formula as essentially being dream pop + noise pop = shoegaze. Personally I think this is a reductionist definition when there are many shoegaze bands that don't fit nicely into either of those other categories. But I digress.

Isn't Anything was the record that launched a thousand (shoegaze) ships. It's certainly a bit more overtly post-punk in its foundations, and rougher around the edges than what would come next. But I also really do love this record. "You Never Should" and "No More Sorry" in particular are two of my favourite My Bloody Valentine songs.

What came next, however, is a whole different beast entirely.

The Record

I'll start with the disclaimer that everything I could possibly say about Loveless is probably already a cliche by now.

Insanely fuzzy and warm. Layers upon layers of sound that demonstrates a level of musical precision and perfectionism that almost doesn't seem human. Reinvented the guitar like virtually no other record before or since. Oddly arousing and potentially even sapphic if you read into the lyrics (tbf Debbie is a confirmed gay indie icon). Sounds exactly like the neon shades of magenta displayed on the cover art.

2023 is frankly a little bit late to be writing a review about this heavily celebrated 1991 record. Others have already written entire dissertations about this revolutionary LP. I don't promise this is going to be the most definitive and thoughtful review of this record, nor am I anywhere close to being the first or last indie nerd to ever champion and fanboy over this goddamn masterpiece of its genre, but I do wanna talk about how I myself personally experience Loveless.

Funny enough, my favourite memory of listening to this record (which I've been loving since 2015) was actually when I was dog-sitting for a friend's mom at her house in 2018 during the early autumn. The dog herself even seemed to wanna dance with me while I was spinning in little circles to the rhythms of "Soon". I think that's the season when I enjoy this record most - probably a mix of the coolness and crispness of the autumn breeze, and wearing the same kind of cozy sweaters that the My Bloody Valentine members are wearing in like half of their 90s photoshoots.

Okay, enough chitter chatter. Let's get into it.

"Only Shallow" is one of the most iconic album openers of all time, period. Instantly overpowers the listener with those first few overblown snare stabs before exploding into a pounding noise pop delirium of screeching banshee guitars. Letting up only slightly for the verses, where Bilinda Butcher describes something sweet, soft, and warm, in a brazen contrast to the blustering razor guitars that are unleashed after each verse. This track most perfectly encapsulates a pervasive trend across the rest of the album, wherein the sonic mosaic of textures can be described paradoxically as both cushiony and razor-sharp at the same time.

Lyrics and their delivery will continue from this point on to be every bit as textural and vague as the music itself, creating abstract entities that are transient and androgynous. Indeed, I struggled a lot on my first few listens to discern which tracks were being sung by Bilinda and which were Kevin or the both of them. Bilinda recalls that she would often take naps in the studio when they were recording Loveless and would do her vocal tracks soon after being awoken, which lends itself to her very tranquilized delivery in which I feel like I can picture the drowsy bags under her eyes in some of these songs. Likewise, most of this entire album is best appreciated in a half-awake mental state, even more so than other dream pop / shoegaze records.

"Loomer" is the dark underbelly of Loveless, like listening through the old floorboards of a basement ceiling to sounds of the band playing a live house show in the living room upstairs. It's a grainy, gloomy bed of sound that feels as though it could be physically slept on if desired.

I have no idea how many actual layers of track recordings went into the concoction of the heavily experimental "To Here Knows When", but it feels like hundreds. This song is a whirring helicopter blade of thousands of little sounds, scattering everywhere until it creates a thick, opaque, sparkling lilac mist that obscures the upbeat melody that's utterly buried in the fog of noisy drones and distortion. The mastering sounds as though you're listening to all of this happen through a small tubular opening in a giant glass wall, as if all of the tonal anarchy is happening from the other side, perhaps in another dimension. For a bonus observation, this one in particular sounds even more unreal and transcendental when you're tired as fuck on an early morning bus ride after a night of zero sleep (Don't ask me).

"When You Sleep" is probably My Bloody Valentine's most acclaimed and influential song. That de-tuned, icy, fluorescent glowing pop melody motif is seriously addictive, and it sounds almost deranged. The heavily compressed drumming provides the propulsion needed for a track that feels like its intensely vibrating every last quark of matter in its audible vicinity. I really have to remind myself that these crazy sounds are being made by guitars with effect pedals, and not with synthesizers (or, as the meme goes, vacuum cleaners).

The record really crunches in on those guitar textures with "Come In Alone" a track that you'll be hearing echoing in the back of your mind long after its finished (note: this record is NOT recommended to those especially prone to having tinnitus). This track is like all of the blood rushing to your head when you would hang upside down from the monkey bars as a kid. It feels intoxicating in the best way.

The band takes an unsuspecting turn for gut-punching emotions on "Sometimes", likely the only song with a more or less discernible lyrical theming on the record, about sharing intimacy with another person and the insurmountable fear of isolation from someone you love. The timbral effects are applied minimally on this song, but the dozens of recorded guitar tracks drone in a wondrous hum that resonates with the vibrations of a lonely soul. Usually, I'd say this is my favourite My Bloody Valentine song, though "To Here Knows When" and "Only Shallow" occasionally compete for the number 1 spot as well.

"Blown a Wish" is cool, dreamy shoegaze that fizzles and melts in your mouth like an ice cream soda. Pure pleasure is the best way I could describe its sensation, with all of its rippling, neck-tingling guitar effects that dance in and out of the foreground. Alternatively, this is like being high on helium and having so many butterflies in your stomach that you actually start to feel like you're levitating in a luscious trance. Delicious song.

The record closes with its poppiest and most accessible number "Soon", a mix of comparatively light shoegaze psychedelia and alternative dance beats that sounds enormously sexy. Evokes psychoactive substances, gently swaying hips, and grassy fields filled with buzzing fireflies. A very stylish way to end the record and solidify My Bloody Valentine's status as indie music legends.

What Came After That?

Loveless was a certified gold commercial success, about on par with the success of Ride's Going Blank Again, but it was also purportedly so expensive to make that it bankrupted the Creation Records label (serves you bastards right for making Oasis happen) and caused the band to be dropped.

I honestly kind of laugh to myself whenever I think of Alan McGee's pompous ass looking at the numbers and having a panic attack, almost as much as I laugh when I remember how Catherine Wheel gave him a big fat "NOPE!" to being signed after he pestered them. Have I mentioned I really don't like Creation Records ways of doing things?

*seething* ANYWAY, My Bloody Valentine basically disappeared for the rest of the 90s. Members moved on to different projects.

And then, after years of teasing a third record, the band's self-titled mbv was finally dropped in 2013. This one seems to divide fans a lot more than their other records; it wasn't as universally received as the Slowdive comeback record a few years later. This one is arguably more experimental than Loveless, and there's even a couple of tracks with some DnB influence. I think all things considered, it's a pretty great comeback record. I think many folks were probably expecting a Loveless 2, and it probably helps that I didn't even listen to this band before the new record came out, so I had no expectations built over years for this record.

There is allegedly a fourth record (and possibly fifth) LP in the works, but Shields has been teasing at it for years now, and its sort of becoming a running joke in the shoegaze community that we're gonna be waiting another five or ten years.

But hey, good work takes time. After making a record like Loveless, I personally think you've earned the right as an artist to afford yourself all the time in the world. I certainly wouldn't know how the hell to follow upon something that masterfully crafted, and some bands probably wouldn't even try to.

But besides all that, Loveless speaks for itself. It is a singular album experience. Nothing really sounds anything quite like it, to the point that newbies often getting into shoegaze for the first time with this record often lament the fact that the scene is not full of other records sounding just like this. It's for this reason precisely that, if you are totally new to shoegaze, I don't recommend this as a starting point. A lot of other great shoegaze records are unfairly compared to this record a whole fucking lot, and it can have a spoiling effect for some folks. But not every shoegaze band should sound like My Bloody Valentine, or have a Loveless in their discography.

But, at the same time, holy crap this is one of the coolest records of all time and if you haven't already heard it by now then you're doing yourself a huge disservice by not listening to this some time in the next week at the latest. Loveless is something that every fan of music should experience at least once, and there's only a handful of albums that I could confidently make that statement for.

So, yeah. Go listen. (✿ ᵔ ᴗ ᵔ )y

10/10

Highlights: "Sometimes", "To Here Knows When", "Only Shallow", "When You Sleep", "Blown A Wish", "Soon", "Come In Alone", "Loomer", "I Only Said"the

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - NUMBER ONE

HAPPY EASTER! TIME TO CELEBRATE WITH THE MOST NON-EASTER-Y THING EVER! Welcome, everybody, for the final entry of “A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes!” Throughout this month-long event, I’ve been counting down my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more! We’ve finally come to the end of March, and the time has come to unveil my topmost personal pick.

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

NUMBER ONE IS…Sherlock Holmes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous creation is one of the most frequently adapted, reimagined, and referenced characters in the history of English literature. I think the only other pieces of literature who can compete are Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and possibly Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” stories. Therefore, while so many other characters have carried the title in their universes of “the World’s Greatest Detective,” it’s no surprise most people still associate that phrase with Holmes, and it’s no surprise that Holmes takes the top spot. Through sheer universal appeal and constant reinvention, he’s clearly earned the rank. If Edgar Allan Poe invented the modern detective story with C. Auguste Dupin, then Doyle’s Holmes perfected the formula, and created the icon that pretty much every famous detective character since then has tried to emulate or push against since then.

It's not entirely clear WHY Conan Doyle made Holmes. I’ve heard multiple different accounts and explanations for how the concept came into Doyle’s mind, and what prompted him to create the great detective. However, if the reasons for his creation are unclear, what IS clear are Holmes’ origins. Doyle was chiefly inspired by a former teacher of his, Dr. Joseph Bell; a slightly eccentric surgeon who was one of the first forensic experts in history, and would eventually gain some recognition when helping the police on the infamous Jack the Ripper case. (He also may have taken some inspiration, according to at least one source, from the real-life Scotland Yard Inspector Richard Tanner, who worked on the slightly-less-well-known Franz Muller case - the first recorded murder committed aboard a train.) Mingling this inspiration with various unique qualities that seemed to stem from his own imagination, Doyle created the ultimate detective: the first Private Consulting Detective in fiction, and easily the most renowned.

It is humorous, in hindsight, to then realize that Doyle didn’t actually care that much for Holmes, overall. A bit like Agatha Christie with her own much later creation, Hercule Poirot, Doyle came to feel dissatisfied with Holmes. This wasn’t so much because of Sherlock’s personality or motivations, but simply because Doyle saw the Holmes stories more as a sort of lucrative hobby than anything else; he sensed that other works of his, which he felt far more passionately about, were being sidelined by this strange gumshoe. Doyle, like Christie, attempted to kill off Holmes…but unlike with Christie and Poirot, Doyle could not keep the detective dead. After a few false restarts, he finally brought Holmes back for good, and really didn’t stop writing for the detective till 1927, only three years before the end of his own life. The reason for this was simply money: Doyle came to realize that Holmes was what paid the bills, and what everybody wanted most to read. So, for all the other great things he created (Holmes was far from Doyle’s only literary claim to fame), it would be his contribution to crime fiction for which the good man would forever be best recalled. For better or worse, Doyle had created a character who truly seemed immortal.

The Sherlock Holmes stories set the benchmark for just about every famous detective to come. All of the classic tropes are basically here. Eccentric main character with multiple layers? Check. More mundane sidekick who provides an anchor for the audience? Check. A touch-and-go relationship with the official police, riding a fine line between rivalry and amiability? Check. Ability to solve crimes that no one else can seem to figure out? Obviously check. It all begins with Sherlock Holmes, before and beyond anything else. Nearly every character on this countdown up to now would not even EXIST if Sherlock Holmes had not been created, and had not been a success. He is the first great, true hero of literary fiction, I would argue: yes, there’s mythology, folklore, and other such things, but in terms of something with defined roots in what can be classified as resembling contemporary times, Holmes was the one who started everything.

Obviously, there have been way too many interpretations of this character to even ATTEMPT to list. I mean, for God’s sakes, I did a whole countdown – much like this one – where I listed no less than forty-one separate interpretations, including the honorable mentions. And even that one couldn’t cover EVERY version of Holmes I know and have some fondness for. He’s EVERYWHERE. He’s fought Dracula, Jack the Ripper, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde almost as often as he’s tackled his arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty. He’s been depicted in stories that are romantic, comedic, “edgy,” and every other tone you can think of. He’s made it into just about every medium there is, and has been portrayed excellently from seemingly all four corners of the globe. (Which is especially impressive, because a globe shouldn’t HAVE four corners!) From his roots in England, to America, to Russia, and even to Japan: Holmes is inescapable. Whether he’s focused on playing the violin, pumping cocaine into his veins, dealing with a three-pipe problem, or engaging in fisticuffs or even swordplay, he’s always on the move and always up to something odd, and we love him for it. I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say that, for sheer recognizability above all else, Sherlock Holmes more than earns my recognition for being My Favorite Fictional Detective. “It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson.”

Thank you all for joining me! Were there any famous detectives you like that didn’t make the cut? Any in particular you’d have placed higher or lower? Feel free to let me know! Take care, everyone, and make sure to get a clue. ;)

[kingdeath000]

Fursona notes 🫣

BURGER:

born in 200,000 BC as a hybrid of a tyrannosaurus and another, unidentified dinosaur, Burger fell into an ice cavern while hunting feral mammoths. His entire body became frozen so suddenly that no damage was done to his internal organs

Revived in the year 2000 by arctic researchers who stumbled across the ice cave by accident while looking for something else

now hes into metal and prog rock and loves eating cheeseburgers and living off of money he gets paid by allowing researchers to study his unique DNA

Often misses raw meat and doesn’t understand the invention of salmonella poisoning

Very skilled with a spear and a club

is most at peace when surrounded by ferns

discovered video games and learned to play very quickly. Really enjoys survival horror. His reasoning is that his life in 200,000 BC was survival horror, so now these video games give him some escapism without the real threat to his life

loves dr pepper

can’t watch jurrassic park. “They did not look like that.”

Gets easily overwhelmed in bright lights. Claims that the invention of fluorescent lights is cool and all but people weren’t meant to get that much light from anything but the sun

very strong

thinks caveman memes are hilarious. Runs a discord server where people roleplay as cavemen. Sometimes it hits too close to home.

Does not remember his real name. Thinks he never had one. He prefers “burger”. This was a nickname given him by the scientists who found him after offering him a selection of foods upon his reawakening, only to have him devour the raw hamburger in literal record time.

has slight memory loss from the millions of years stuck in ice. Can only vaguely remember his life as a caveman. The only things he vividly recalls are eating raw meat, hunting feral mammoth, his mother's face, and the feeling of the ice giving out from under him

Pathological fear of thick patches of ice

hopes that someday time machines are invented so he can go back to his family and bring them cheeseburgers

hasn’t lost his affinity for decorating rooms with bones

feels at home in dark, enclosed spaces

appreciates the invention of language and writing but thinks spoken word and rock carvings carry more symbolism and meaning

periodically sheds his teeth and regrows new ones. Like a shark. He tends to use the teeth to make decorations

Doesn’t understand most social norms, such as “staying in one place until it is appropriate to leave”

finds it very satisfying to practice his “war bellow”

Thinks its appropriate to sniff as a greeting

Doesn’t understand why most bugs are “so small now”

loves the idea of piercings but regrets that he has no appendages which can be safely pierced

Loves to study history of any and all cultures of the world, jokingly refers to it as “catching up on things”. Regrets that written history does not seem to exist before 3500 BC.

gay

thinks violence is the answer to most things

[anamericangirl]

GENDERING TEDDY

The Babylonians developed the first written numerical system

Back in 3400 BC

Their system was base 60, which we still use today for telling time

But, um, for everything else we ditched that in favor of

The base 10 system

Which the Egyptians came up with

A few hundred years later

And this was rounded out by a notation for zero

Courtesy of the Mayans a couple hundred years after that

Giving us the numbers zero through nine

Upon which is built our entire mathematical architecture

Now

Before this it's not like humans didn't have a concept of numbers

Any more than we didn't have a concept of time

Before clocks were invented

We've understood natural numbers just fine

Since before recorded history

It's easy to understand after all that if you have one chicken

And your neighbor has two

That they have more chickens than you do

And it's just as easy to show someone that one plus two equals three

Because we can see our chicken

We can see their two chickens

And then, as if by magic-

Oh no!

Now we now have three blood stained chickens

This is simple and observable mathematics

We didn't need language to make sense of this

Beyond this, though

Things get abstract and theoretical really fucking fast

And I'm not even talking astrophysics here

Just getting into numbers larger than 60 or 100

Poses serious problems in a world

Where you don't often have 60 or 100 of anything

And inevitably somewhere adrift in the abyss of history

Is the first human who faced the challenge of trying to

Describe the concept of one million to a poor friend

Who was, understandably

Less interested in a number with no practical application

Than they were in society's state of the art advances in

Avoiding being eaten by fucking lions

But in this one person's brain was an idea

Of a number bigger than anyone had counted

Something that they knew was real

That they knew was out there

But which they couldn't hold up and show anyone

Which they couldn't even clearly explain

Because the language had not been developed yet

And if, as has been theorized, our species' intelligence

Is intimately tied to our capacity for language

Then an abstract concept without a word attached to it

Well, it might as well not even exist

When I was born

I was given a teddybear

That I called Teddy, because some days you just phone it in

And I took Teddy with me everywhere

And one day, when I was around four

My mum and I were getting ready to go out

And mum asked, "Where's Teddy."

And I said, "Upstairs."

And Mum said, "Well, go and get him then, we're leaving."

And I remember feeling jarred by this

It was an unfamiliar, visceral feeling

Powerful enough for me to still be processing it

Way, way in the background, thirty years later

I said, "Teddy's not a him."

And mum said, "Oh. Her then."

And I said, "No, that's still not right."

"Teddy's not a her either, " I said

Struggling to find a word for what I knew Teddy was

A word that I felt must exist

Because on a purely conceptual level I could imagine it

And because my experience thus far had been

To point at something and ask what it is

And to be told

Oh, that's a table, that's a chair

That's a deactivated exploder for a mark ten torpedo

And I just assumed, naturally

That in my four long years on the planet

I had yet to come across the word for when something doesn't quite fit

Into the girl box

Or the boy box

But ha- what did I know?

Now, I know

Teddy was

(Is, actually, I still have them

They are sitting in the next room as I record this)

Teddy is just clumps of fluff stuffed into a furry bag

There isn't any objective truth to be found

As to whether Teddy is a girl or a boy

Or something else

But that's not the point

The point is

That this is one of my earliest memories

This, not skinning my knee or losing my mum in the supermarket

Is what has stuck with me

When I was four years old

Before I had any exposure to anyone beyond the gender binary

In real life or in books or on the TV

Before I even had a concept of what it might mean

Socially and politically

Gendering Teddy felt like it went against something tangible

That apparently only I could see

This is why I have so little patience for people who smirk and say

That we don't need new words to describe gender

The reason that these people

Constantly belittle and undermine the words

That trans and non-binary people use

To describe themselves and the world around them

Is not because the words are meaningless

It's because these people know fine well that words are powerful

And dangerous

And they know that their last hope of stalling progress

Is preventing people from having access to language that

Validates and vindicates their experience

Not to mention the frankly fucking ludicrous idea

That new words somehow erase their identity

Rather than give them a deeper sense of understanding of it

And the notion that

It is somehow unnatural to invent new words for things

As if that hasn't been one of the leading preoccupations of humanity

For the past 6000 years at least

We are trying to do something

That cannot be accomplished without a new language

Without it, the concepts that make up vital parts of our identities

Are formless and amorphous

Without it

It becomes impossible to build support networks and communities

Or to be taken seriously when your rights are being violated

Or to tell the people you love who you actually are

Or to even recognize yourself in the fucking mirror

And that lonely, early human

Who struggled to explain the concept of a million

If they could, maybe they would have said

You know what, you're right

We don't need a formal numerical system

To know that one plus two equals three

But we will need one

To build a worldwide communication network

To point telescopes into the darkest parts of space

To plunge with no regard for our own safety

Into the deepest parts of the sea

Maybe some of you think it is unnecessary

Even dangerous to be coming up with new words like this

And in the process validating things that you don't believe in

Things that you can't see

But for me, I can't see it as anything except progress

New words are new tools

Which can be used to build a marginally better world right now

And maybe

Many thousands of years in the future

These new tools that we drop and break and wield clumsily

Will be used in ways that we can't even conceive of today

To build miraculous, unimaginable structures

With our distant descendants

Standing atop them

Being the people that we always wanted to be

That's nice invent all the new words you want but making up words doesn't magically bring other genders into existence. Gender is a scientific, biological, observable reality. It's not a feeling. So making up words to describe feelings and ideas doesn't change genetics. Gender isn't infinite like numbers are, it's a binary. And trying to prove that it's not by using what your mind was like as a four year old who doesn't know anything isn't exactly helping your case.

[everygame]

Super Breakout (Arcade)

Developed/Published by: Atari Released: 8/1978 Completed: 27/07/2023 Completion: Played all the modes. Still didn’t clear a screen. Version Played: Atari 50 (Nintendo Switch) Trophies / Achievements: n/a

One of the most fascinating things in history is how often something was invented, some idea was realised, and… someone else had come up with the same idea at the same time. Known as multiple discovery, simultaneous invention, even (appealingly) “railroad time”--Alan Moore has hypothesised that there exists a plane called “ideaspace” where we visit to bring back ideas, and sometimes people come home with the same thing in their bag.

It’s what makes me think that had Tomohiro Nishikado not designed Space Invaders in 1978, someone else would have. Not exactly the same game, no, but something essentially similar. The history of video games is littered with rip-offs, but it’s also interestingly littered with almosts and not-quites, like people took a trip to idea space, tried to bring home the excalibur of ideas but only came home with a broken off bit of the hilt.

We’ve seen it already. Avalanche… isn’t Space Invaders. Air-Sea Battle, an Atari 2600 launch title features a few modes that… aren’t Space Invaders. But they’re not a world away.

I suppose that’s what makes Super Breakout so interesting. Nishikado was so obsessed with the original that in many ways Space Invaders was his “take” on Breakout, and when Ed Rotberg tasked with making a sequel to Breakout he would, mere months after Space Invaders was released in Japan, release a version of Breakout where in one mode, Progressive Breakout, the bricks slowly move down the screen towards the paddle.

(Heck, it’s starting to sound like Tetris, actually.)

Now, I can’t say for sure that Ed Rotberg hadn’t seen Space Invaders; but dates don’t line up with enough time for him to have seen it (very early) and to incorporate it into Super Breakout; it’s more likely to have been inspired by Avalanche if anything–tearing off the same bit of idea space.

It’s really with Super Breakout that you can see the genius leap that Tomohiro Nishikado made. He didn’t need the intermediate step of “bricks moving down the screen” or “falling rocks” he went straight to enemies marching forward, shooting lasers.

By comparison, Super Breakout feels every bit the incremental improvement, if you can call it that; of the three modes here only Progressive Breakout has the spark of anything, with the other two extremely nothingy ideas. Cavity is just Breakout, but there are two extra balls held captive in the brick formation, and when you release them you can try and keep them alive. Doubles is… well, you’ve got a second paddle further up the screen which matches your first paddle’s horizontal movement, and there are two balls straight away.

That’s it. Really both are things that would barely be interesting as temporary power-ups in a later clone, and the things you might expect (different block patterns, etc.) are nowhere to be seen–not that it particularly matters, the game is as brutal as ever with it’s tiny paddle (although I was able to get blocks to bounce off the top row in Progressive Breakout, so that’s something. I mean my score has reached the hundreds, now!)

Will I ever play it again? I’m less interested in playing this than I am the original, honestly.

Final Thought: The weirdest thing about Super Breakout was chosen for Kid Stuff Record’s “The Story of Atari” book and tape/7-inch sets, which recounted the stories of Atari games such as Asteroids and Star Raiders. Apparently written based entirely on the cover of the Atari 2600 version which features an astronaut. Seems like the kind of thing that probably should have stayed in ideaspace, but what do I know.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[rayshippouuchiha]

Hi Ray! So, this is a long ask, sorry. But I was riffling through my google docs and I found a concept for like, a time-travel dimension hopping etc Naruto AU, but I'm not gonna make anything with it so I wanted to put it out there in case someone finds it funny to play with.

The idea is that there's a clan hanging around whose kekkei genkai is time travel, reincarnation, dimension hopping (people from the real world and other fictional ones). Basically, all the people who have clear recollections of a different existence, either from the past in the same world, the future in the same world and/or another world entirely. Basically, a clan that harbors every time travel fix-it, self-insert and cross-over character that was ever born into the naruto world.

Not all people of the clan are “travelers” but it happens often enough that they’ve been recording everything they can about it from very long ago (since before the villages). The ones who travel back in time not always can change what they want (sometimes they’re not even in the right time to do so), but everything they remember is still carefully recorded in hopes that it can serve the future generations, if they went way before the point of change. And they're very thorough about teaching history, in case any of them ever get boothed back in time.

They also have notes on weird technological inventions that are nowhere near posible in the current state of affairs but that can give interesting thoughts to the scientists of the clan (the travelers don’t always know how things from their world work but they know that they existed. Do they know how to make an athomic bomb? No, but they know that no-one should, either). Also, notes on weird abilities and skills (magic, bending, force, flames, haki, reiatsu, whatever) for the same reasons: they might not be possible in this world (Yet. Maybe) but they can give interesting ideas and perspectives.

They have a philosophy of “we all benefit the most when the world is calm and everyone is happy”. There’s an undercurrent of team effort to the thing, “the greatest changes can come about if we all work together”. Even the ambitious ones are aware that you can’t do much on your own, and that people are way more likely to help you do your thing if you help them do theirs (and if they're in a position to afford caring about others. That’s why systemic wellbeing is important!). Also an understanding of “diversity is fine and good. The more perspectives we have, the more perspective we have”. Which also translates into a great axceptance of exentric personalities.

The elders job is to keep an eye on the bigger picture, trying to keep eachother from prejudice and preconceptions. They’ve studied the scripts as much as possible (the scripts are open to anyone who wants them. They know from many accounts that keeping things secret is detrimental. “You never know who has the missing piece to a puzzle or who might finally connect the dots in the right order”).

Kids are encouraged to keep dream journals from as soon as they learn to write and to talk about any dreams or feelings or instincts that they think are worth talking about. And temporal names would be a thing. you give your kid a name and one day your orange haired son who can see ghosts tells you that actually, he likes Ichigo better.

And he might even befriend the other orange haired kid, who's been saying since he was two that he has to get back to Ame soon to befriend his small-again siblings. Maybe Nagato can even relate to another pseudo-god who's been lied to since birth.

Just, something I thought would be cool to explore the logistics and culture for, and could bring hella lot of hijinks, but I have no clue nor real motivation to insert into a proper plot

Oh yeah this could be really fun for someone to play with!

[fernpost]

Cycle 0 - Interviews

[read on ao3]

[next]

Taako Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in transmutation and inventive magical applications.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

Davenport likes to think of himself as calm and composed. It’s hard to throw him off. He has to be in order to have gotten this far in his mission as fast as he has.

But when he turns around from shutting the door to see his interviewee with his feet kicked up on the table, twirling a wand through his fingers, he’s a little shocked. He’s been doing these interviews for two days now, and even the more relaxed and confident people have held a bit more sense for decorum.

It’s a bit rude.

It’s also a little interesting.

He sits at his desk, pulling the elf’s papers away from his boots (shiny, and though they look expensive he can see they’re worn down and well taken care of) and glances down. “Tell me, Taako Taaco, what makes you want to explore the planerverse?”

“Bored.”

If the feet on the desk threw him off for a second, that floors him entirely. “Bored?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do on this plane, why not, you know?”

“No burning desire to go further than any being has gone before?” That’s one of the normal responses, the well-planned out speeches he keeps getting in response to his opening question.

The elf crosses his feet, leaning back somehow further into the provided chair. Davenport worries for a second that he may fall as he continues on, “that’s cool too, I guess. But I figure, why wouldn’t you want the great Taaco name aboard your ship.”

Davenport picks up a pen from his table and makes a small note on the paperwork, “no offense, Mr. Taaco, but you’re rather cavalier about this interview that determines whether or not you’re accepted into a program that may redefine our understanding of the world.”

The elf shrugs and takes his feet off of Davenport’s desk, flashing him a smirk, “you’ve seen my sister’s paperwork, yeah? No way you’re not going to accept her, and we’re a package deal. Says it right there in bold at the top of my application, my man.” It does, in fact, say that at the top. Cursive words noting how he refuses to accept any position on the ship if his sister isn't there too. When reviewing who he was interviewing today, he saw similar words on Lup Taaco’s paperwork.

“You’re very confident in your sister’s abilities.” Davenport begins, pausing for a second as he notes the way the elf begins to tense up before continuing, “however, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short. You also graduated top of your class, and excelled in the art of transmutation multiple times. One of your letters of recommendation even noted how you made many spells easier to cast, somatically speaking.”

“What can I say, I’ll find any short cut I can.”

Davenport makes another note on his paper. “Now, I do need to ask about your record of petty theft.”

“Oh, natch.”

Lup Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in evocation and applied magic regarding planar research.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

“Lup Taaco, it is nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Captain.” The woman in front of him smiles. The resemblance to her brother couldn’t be more clear, and though her demeanor is quite similar, she at least doesn’t have her feet on his desk.

Not that his desk is anything fancy, but the point stands. “I’m not technically the captain yet, you know.”

“Potato, potato.”

Davenport is fairly certain that’s not how that phrase is used. “You did research into the planes at Tredore, correct?”

“Quite a bit, yeah. I’m sure my brother told you?”

The slight tilt of her head and lit of her voice tells Davenport this is some sort of test, which is confusing and a bit disconcerting, considering he is the one conducting the interview. He checks a quick box on his papers. “He talked you up a bit, yes. But this is your own interview, and I wanted to discuss your own knowledge with you, personally.”

She smiles, a touch more warmth to it than her previous attitude. “Oh, of course. Did quite a bit of studying at Tredore. First real school we attended. Kinda boring at times, you know?”

“If you’re accepted into this program, it’s going to be four intense months of studying and teaching you the more complex workings of the ship. Plus the two months of actually being on the ship.”

“That’s the fun stuff. Not a third semester in a row of another language I already figured out most of years ago.”

“How many languages do you speak, Ms. Taaco?”

“Including common, five languages.”

“Impressive.” Davenport himself only speaks three. “Now, I would like to ask you about your criminal record, if you don’t mind?”

Her smile grew sharp as she laughs.

Honestly, he isn’t surprised. Her explanation is the same as her brothers. Grew up on the road, needed food and other items on occasion. Didn’t always run fast enough. Davenport can’t fault them, and certainly won’t hold it against them.

He glances down at her paperwork, about to ask another question about her education, when she speaks up. “I’ve got a question for you, Captain.”

“Oh?”

“The ship- we’re really going with the name ‘The Starblaster’?”

Davenport sighs. He knew this question was coming, but he was expecting it to come during a press conference from a reporter, not a potential shipmate. “Yes. To be fair, it was a communal name we put to a vote from everyone who worked on building the engine.”

Ms. Taaco smiles. “Dope.”

Barry J. Bluejeans. 37 years old. Human. Wizard; specialization in applied magic regarding bonds and planar research.

Previous experience: Current assistant professor at Duffman University of the Arcane, part-time employee at the Institute of Planer Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Previous altercations regarding necromancy; no crimes against the nature of life and death ever committed.

Mr. Bluejeans is an interesting man. By the look of him, you’d expect to see him fumbling his way through a PTA meeting for his two kids. Instead, Davenport is staring down the word ‘necromancy’ on his paperwork on an application regarding literal planar travel on a ship called 'the Starblaster.'

So far, the interview has been going well. He’d listened to the man explain his research into the arcane, and he’d understood planar travel as well as any of the current scientists and engineers at the Institute. He was called in often for conferences and meetings about the bond engine. He’d seen the man walking around on occasion. They’d never been in a meeting together before, but he’d seemed nice.

But he also had a history of necromancy.

Now, Davenport doesn’t like to judge people. However, being in an enclosed space with someone who needed to specify he had never technically committed “crimes against the nature of humanity” isn’t the most comforting.

But, he was a smart man. Easy to get along with, too. So far. Necromancy notwithstanding.

Best to get it over with, “so, Mr. Bluejeans. I do need to ask about your criminal record-”

“Oh! Yeah, I never killed anyone. Or un- killed anyone. Uh, resurrected, I mean. Just did lots of studying into the application of necromancy and necromantic spells. Got in trouble because I toed the line of ‘research’ and ‘bringing my cat back to life,’ but got a stern talking to. Didn’t try it again, and don’t plan on needing to deal with those types of authorities again.”

Okay, normal enough answer, far as the situation applies-

“My current research into it has stayed purely theoretical, and it won’t interfere with the mission at all.”

So the man is still into necromancy.

Davenport glances down at the man’s file, thick with it’s attached papers Bluejeans has done on planar research. He’s not even stuck up about his level of education, and that’s extremely rare for the field.

Holding back a sigh, Davenport asks, “Can you explain the paper you wrote on the outer planes interactions with the inner planes for me?”

It was a really good paper.

But the man is still into necromancy.

Lucretia. 20. Human. Chronicler; Specialization in journalism.

Previous experience: Due to multiple NDA, she is unable to give us the exact number and titles of books she has written, but she sent letters of recommendation from Duke Rensburg, Lady Norabelle, and Warren of the Seatree Clan.

Criminal Record: Acquisition and attempted use of a false ID.

“So, Ms. Lucretia, I understand you cannot provide us with most examples of your works, but from what you have provided, you seem to be very, very good.”

“I like to think so, yes.” The young woman in front of him seems polite. She’s quiet; he saw her waiting outside with a few others before her interview, and while most of them were engaged in some awkward small talk, she sat away from them. Likely partially due to her age- she is much younger than the people outside- but she also simply seems quiet.

Which wouldn’t be the worst quality in someone you would be sharing a small, enclosed space with for an extended period of time. But, if she couldn’t bond with the others sufficiently, the bond engine won’t work.

(Hell, the bond engine was already finicky, they figured out the tech only a month ago, and they only have four months to bond an entire crew to pilot it and-)

“Can you explain to me why you acquired a fake ID and tried to use it at a, uh,” Davenport glances down at the records in front of him, holding back a chuckle, “at the forbidden section of the Library of Runar?”

Lucretia looks uncomfortable for a second, and he’s sure if the lighting in the room were better he would be able to see her flush with embarrassment. She gives him a hesitant smile, “I can’t get into the explicit details, but I was working on a book for an older client whose memory was becoming patchy, and I wanted to confirm some details before I put their name to it. They wouldn’t allow me into the section without the proper documents, but my client refused to agree that I should double check his work, even though I was almost certain he was wrong, so I simply… found a way to get past their guard. I wasn’t going to steal anything and I was going to use the proper equipment to read through the documents.”

Davenport smiles, “pursuit of knowledge and truth is important to you, then?”

“I don’t think spreading lies, especially in that context, is very honorable, no.” Her hands are folded in her lap now, and she seems a bit more relaxed.

Considering the others he is planning on accepting, he may be wrong about her getting along with them. Anyone willing to break the law just to prove an old man wrong would at least get along with him. Davenport refuses to have any pushovers aboard his ship.

Magnus Burnsides. 19. Fighter; Specialization in protection fighting and mechanical engineering.

Previous experience: Current bouncer at Apex Club. Currently enrolled in Gallier’s Fighter Academy and College.

Criminal Record: One count of assault and battery, appealed for defense of another person present. One count of indecent exposure and public intoxication.

Davenport will be the first to admit it can be tricky to follow human aging patterns, but he knows he’s not mistaken in thinking the man in front of him is barely out of “child” territory. Nineteen is a very, very small amount of time to be alive. Also, a very, very small amount of time to learn important things, like how to run what is basically a ship right out of a science fiction novel- complete with breakthrough technology.

Despite this, it’s hard to not find the young man in front of him to be endearing, and mostly knowledgeable in the things they need him to be.

“Magnus. You’re very young, one of the youngest applicants we have. What makes you think you’re qualified as the head of security of the ship?”

The young man in front of him- Gods, he really is young- grins and lifts his arms to flex, a show of pride and ego almost unbefitting of an interview setting, “Have you seen my muscles? I’m very strong, and a very good fighter.”

Many of today’s interviews have been quite different than he was expecting.

“I was referring more to job experience.”

“Oh!” Magnus shifts in his seat, fingers drumming against the table as he thinks. “I worked as a bouncer for a club while I was in college and did, if I must toot my own horn, a very good job. You should have a letter of recommendation from the owner-” He leans forwards, reaching a hand out as if to look through his own files to show him the letter.

“Yes, I did read through it. She was very thorough in stating how eager you were to help.” Davenport glances down at the papers in front of him, holding back a sigh. It truly was a glowing review of this young man. While his grades from the aforementioned college weren’t the highest, especially in classes one might consider important for an institute of planar research, the two letter of recommendations he submitted from teachers of his explained how Burnsides was very persistent when he wanted to learn something he didn’t know. He also had taken quite a few classes regarding vehicles- not enough to claim the young man was an expert but enough to provide a solid basis to show him how things worked and could be repaired on the ship.

The kid’s attitude was something of a breath of fresh air in this place. However, there was one glaring concern.

“I was also a bit concerned about the criminal record we have on file for you. Assault and battery as well as the indecent exposure and public-”

“In my defense for the second one, I was drunk with some friends and maybe thought it’d be funny to streak in the lake. Who hasn’t been to a party that gets a little out of hand.” He holds his hands out as if to say “am I right?”

Off the record, Davenport is inclined to agree that he was right. On the record, he is choosing to ignore it. “And the assault and battery? The file says it was in defense of a young person.”

Burnsides grins, “that’s how I got hired as the bouncer!”

He waits a moment, expecting Magnus to continue. When it seems the young man is assuming that is enough explanation, he prompts, “by beating up a man outside the club?”

“Yeah! He was harassing someone outside, and I was walking home and passed by. I told him to step off, and he didn’t. So I decked him, and he was out right away.”

It lined up with the records he had, and honestly, seeing someone so ready to step up to the defense of a stranger was a good quality. Better than some of the older applicants who were much more… formal in their training. He wonders briefly how Burnsides would react to an altercation against someone with magic.

Glancing down at his records, he guesses he would run headfirst without thinking.

Stifling a small grin, Davenport continues, “Now, tell me. Assume we’re up in space, and something goes wrong with the bond engine. What would your course of action be, Mr. Burnsides?”

Merle Hitower Highchurch. 214. Cleric; Specialization in botany, religion, and medical treatment.

Previous experience: Current botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. Professor of botany at Narvick’s University for four years.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of loitering.

The door is pushed all the way open before Davenport can even call out the next person.

A short dwarf slides into the room with a wide grin, “hey Dav!” A mug of tea is pressed into his hands.

“Hello, Merle. You do know this needs to be at least a little formal, yes?”

“Formal schmormal. Ask me your silly questions already, bud.” Merle Highchurch, resident botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, plops right down in the seat he’d taken to commandeering once a week, for the past three weeks.

Davenport had seen him around before, but a botanist in an institute designed for exploring other planes that had little capabilities to actually go to those places yet was rarely busy, and even more rarely called upon. He still barely knew the guy, but after the day they’d gotten stuck in the elevator for ten minutes when it broke down, the dwarf had come to his office for tea each Wednesday.

It was a bit strange, but the tea was good.

“Tell me about your work experience.”

Merle laughs heartily, “they barely have me do anything around here, ‘cept tend to the couple of plants they’ve grabbed from the ground plane.”

“It’s the Elemental Plane of Earth, and don’t sell yourself short, Merle. This is basically a job interview, you know.”

Merle slurps loudly at his own mug, “aren’t you planning on nepotism hiring me, because we’re buds?”

“That isn’t even what that word means, Merle.”

“Isn’t it?”

Davenport stares into the tea, “is this made from the Earth plant?”

“Maybe?”

Davenport. 276. Captain and navigator; Specialization in mechanical engineering and arcane components combined with contemporary technology.

Previous Experience: Crewmate on the Lady Blue for twenty years. Graduated from Grensville University. Current staff at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Unlawful resistance of orders from captain, raising of commotion on board ship while employed.

Davenport handed the six files over to Selune, “These are them.”

The halfling woman flips through them, eyebrows raising higher with each one she sees. “You’re sure you grabbed the right ones? A few of these I understand, but you do know we had the Issaiah Broler apply.”

He folds his hand in front of him, nodding. “I also know that during the interview he made me want to pour my tea on his lap. There’s no chance of getting the bond engine going with him. These are the six I picked. They’re all qualified- and the ones that are less educated in the specifics in the field I’m sure will pick up on the important information quickly. The Taaco twins already will give the bond engine a huge boost. Ms. Lucretia will ensure we have everything chronicled, something I’m sure you can appreciate, Selune. Mr. Bluejeans previous work shows he will thrive given the opportunities awaiting us. Mr. Highchurch is an educated man, and I trust him to keep the crew healthy and provide ample information on anything botany related we encounter, and I’m certain Mr. Burnsides will provide ample help in any task we show him how to do.” He sighs, glancing out the window of her office. There were a few people lingering outside in the courtyard of the Institute. “We have been given a tremendous opportunity to explore beyond what we can imagine, Selune. The last thing I want is to be bogged down by people stuck in their ways, who have been working in this field long enough to have their preconceived notions about what to expect and who will react badly when they’re proven wrong. I trust my own judgement in picking a crew, and I hope you trust my abilities to get these people ready to set sail in four months.”

What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want a bunch of stuffy jackasses on his ship. He’s not even sure picking all the over-qualified people would pass through the higher-ups' inspection of the crew. The people he picked were qualified enough to get a quick sign-off, but not too much. Anyone “overqualified” would probably get rejected. The ship had been built in basically six months. It’d get them off the ground, sure. It wasn’t going to explode on them once they got up there, but it wasn’t safe. There was a reason Davenport was the captain at all.

The six candidates in those files didn’t have a name for themselves as “important” to any stuffy scientific group or noble family. These people he picked were just that- people. A group of people who he believed deserved this opportunity. If anyone was getting the chance to make a name for themselves- to have the chance to redefine everything they know about the planar systems, he wanted to make sure they deserved the chance. A dangerous chance, sure. But what was science if not a little risky.

She sighs, opening the file on top. Her hand reaches for her pen, “Davenport, I got the final say on the name of the ship, I suppose the least I can do is give you final say on the crew.” She begins to write ‘approved’ at the top of the file, flipping through each one before giving him a pointed look. “But when I get angry calls about how you approved a bunch of nobodies and two people not even old enough to drink, I’m transferring them straight to your crystal.”

“And I will not be answering a single one.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, Captain.”

[words-writ-in-starlight]

where's the essay op

Okay so bayonets.  I don't know why I ever pretend that I want to talk about anything but military history and battlefield medicine.  I checked all my sources in the waiting room of a doctor's office so you're just going to have to trust me because they are Gone.  I’m pretty sure this can all be found on a few Wiki dives, though.

First of all, to recap, let me clarify a common misconception.  The triangular bayonet was NOT outlawed in the 1949 Geneva Convention, nor any future revisions—as it was originally a musket weapon, it was fading out of use by World War II and the subsequent Convention.  However, you'll notice that I opted to use to word "violates" rather than "were banned by," which is a fine semantical hair to split and, I suppose, debatable.  Most bayonets were not explicitly banned in the GC, in that there is not an article in the GC saying you can't use them.  However there IS an article in the GC, adopted from the earlier 1899 Hague Regulations, stating that it is prohibited to "employ weapons...of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" (originally part of Article 23 of the HR, now Article 35 of the GC, expanded in 1977).  Personally, as someone who knows a lot about how a lot of weapons impact the human body, I think that is a more expansive statement than most people would expect, and should be treated accordingly.  Regrettably I do not work for the UN.

Point is, triangular blades specifically are known to cause wounds that are difficult to heal, highly prone to infection, and extremely likely to never fully recover, while also having a relatively low mortality rate.  This is because the axes of a triangular wound, which is shaped sort of like a Y, make it very hard to stitch closed, and very easy for any "twisting" of the blade to create a large hole with ragged edges that's functionally impossible to stitch closed.  As an added bonus, because of the way scar tissue forms, it's possible for one "line" of a triangular wound to pull open other parts of the puncture while the scar tissue forms and pulls on the skin.  Even by standards in the 1700s, triangular bayonet wounds were phenomenally likely to infect and consistently difficult to repair, and modern medicine has made only limited improvements on that situation.  As such, cases have been made that certain types of bayonet/triangular blades in general are therefore in violation of this article, despite not being explicitly banned.

(Side note: yes, the American military violates the GC on the regular.  The American police violate the GC.  I am excruciatingly aware.  The GC is interesting reading generally, but especially if you're an American and you ever feel like being appalled for a few hours.)

Anyway, with that covered again, let's actually talk about the development of triangular bayonets, which might've been out of use by the time of the GC but DEFINITELY violated that article in a big way for a good two centuries prior and are also a fascinating insight into the fact that humanity, as a whole, is really determined to do things in the dumbest way possible.

The first thing you have to understand about bayonets is that they were originally invented as a way to integrate pikes with guns, not knives or even swords.  When arquebuses and muskets were first invented, you were lucky to get a rate of fire around one round per minute, and you still had to protect your army while they were reloading their clunky black powder guns.  Therefore, most infantries between like...the invention of the gun and the late 1600s were comprised of soldiers equipped with muskets, and also soldiers equipped with pikes (a type of spear).  The idea of a bayonet was "what if we put a pike and a musket TOGETHER and then we could give everyone THAT and have way more guns in our army because we don't need pikemen anymore." Which makes sense when you think about it.

What makes less sense is that the initial effort at bayonets was something called a plug bayonet.  You'll never fucking guess what these geniuses (first record is Chinese infantry around-abouts 1600, popular use of plug bayonets recorded in Europe around the 1630s) figured out for their first try at a bayonet.  Here's a hint!  There's not a lot of places on a gun where you can "plug in" a sword. 

Obviously plug bayonets did not exactly catch on as a fantastic solution, because these guns were either a gun OR a short spear and neither was especially good at their jobs.  A bunch of battles hinged on this problem. Which brings us to the end of the 1600s, when English forces in Scotland got absolutely obliterated by a bunch of Highlanders in 1689 because the English were so busy trying to fix their bayonets that the Highlanders literally just charged them, fired one volley, and cut them down with swords and axes. The English took that one very personally (which, you know what, fair, it was a humiliating defeat, especially since the Highlanders had been using that tactic very successfully for a while) and started developing better bayonets.

This is where we get to socket bayonets, AKA what you would probably recognize as a bayonet from a period TV series or a museum.  Socket bayonets have a metal sleeve that gets attached around the barrel of a gun (in this case a musket), so that you can still theoretically use the damn gun while it's attached.  There were problems with the development of socket bayonets (notably, it took a while to figure out how to keep them from falling off the gun during battle), but overall they worked much better and armies started getting rid of pikemen. This was also when bayonets were shortened to a little over a foot, which isn't really important but made them much easier to maneuver.  Socket bayonets were the European order of the day by the early 1700s, and mostly came in three flavors: single edge (like a knife), double edge (like a sword), and spike (like a...spike).  There were pros and cons to all of these (single edge wasn't great for stabbing, spike was ONLY good for stabbing, and double edge was kind of okay at stabbing and kind of okay at slashing), but most importantly, both single and double edged bayonets were fragile.  The heads of polearms were shaped on patterns other than "sword on a stick" for a reason, and it's because "sword on a stick" is not very sturdy.

Triangular bayonets were the solution to this problem.  Triangular bayonets are basically a single piece of metal creased long-ways, with both edges sharpened and the top fluted to form a third edge at the crease.  This makes a much more resilient weapon than a flat blade, because a twisting motion doesn’t risk snapping the blade in the middle.  It also means that now you have three edges, and human nature is to figure “more knife better.”

And don’t get me wrong, as a weapon of war, the triangular bayonet was a great one.  It was introduced in the 1710s and then got used regularly to maim and terrify through the start of the 1900s.  In fact, the triangular bayonet worked so well that it only began to get phased out of use when the style of war itself started to change dramatically during the World Wars.  When warfare was focused on pitched battle (your old school “two armies enter, one army leaves” kind of warfare), the emphasis of a bayonet was on extending the reach of a gun.  A bayonet lets a soldier have a weapon for closer range combat, where a gun—especially a long gun like a musket—is not as effective.  So when you had two armies on the field and a bayonet was first and foremost a way to keep the enemy at least gun-length away, longer bayonets were better.  

But World War I was the advent of trench warfare, which was a terrible idea and also meant that a long weapon, like a gun with an extra foot and a half of sword on top, was much, MUCH harder to work with.  Either fighting took place in no man’s land, where you probably weren’t going to get close enough to use a bayonet anyway, or in a trench, where a weapon as long as you were tall was just impossible to work with.  

(If you know anything about WWI, you’re probably asking me about bayonet charges right now, specifically the concept of “going over the top.”  Contrary to every media representation of WWI ever, “going over the top” of a trench faded out of use pretty quickly.  It was a type of bayonet charge where the soldiers in ONE trench fixed their bayonets and tried to charge no man’s land in an effort to reach the OTHER trench, but it was basically never effective because no man’s land was often heavily trapped and strafed with gunfire and mortar shells.  Also, it was the kind of battle tactic that military history books talk about with phrases like “total annihilation of whole attacking battalions,” so that’s the kind of mortality rate we’re talking about here.  The Battle of the Somme featured a good number of bayonet charges by the British, for context, so people learned and started using other tactics.)

So, since bayonets were only useful in trenches, suddenly everyone was scrambling to shorten bayonets and guns so that their soldiers could get ANYTHING DONE.  And THEN soldiers started admitting that they were literally taking their bayonets off their guns and using them as knives instead, because for trench fighting that was way more useful, and so everyone just decided fuck it, let’s just make bayonet-knives, which is why WWI weapons with bayonets usually look, very literally, like someone duct taped a short knife to the front of a gun.  This was the start of the decline of the triangular bayonet, a full two hundred years after it hit the battlefield, which is a frankly spectacular run for any weapon since the invention of the gun.  Triangular bayonets held on, here and there, through part of WWII, but they were almost entirely gone by the time of the Geneva Convention being ratified in 1949.  However, spike or knife bayonets are still issued to many armies as a weapon of last resort to this day, although they aren’t often used in actual attacks.  Now we have bigger, worse weapons for actual attacks.

 TL;DR, the development of bayonets went like this:

“What if we put a pike ON a gun?  …oh wait, you still want to use the gun?  Sucks to be you, I guess.”

“What if we put a sword on the gun instead?  Then we could put it somewhere where we can still use the gun!  Good luck keeping it on there, though.”

“What if we actually made something designed to get put on a gun and stab people effectively?  Like, what if we designed something with that purpose in mind?  Perhaps?” SMASH CUT TWO CENTURIES

“Well if you’re just gonna take your bayonet off and stab someone with it anyway, can we just go back to giving you knives, then?”

And now you’re caught up on all the dubiously successful ways we’ve tried to mutilate people with a knife-gun.

[tahwan]

didn't wanna bother on that last post but the stuff people call "prehistoric" really is not prehistoric. it's not even a question of being annoying about specific eras or dates it's just that no one knows where the limit is between "history" and "pre-history"... because.... it's a made up limit..... the widespread definition in the historical field is that "pre-history" refers to things that happened before writing was invented, so circa 3500 BC (iirc, too lazy to check the date). which is nice and all. it's nice to think of "history" as "when men started recording things in writing", philosophically speaking. but it doesn't mean anything technically, and it's just one example of how colonialist the entire field of historical research is.

most of the languages in the world are not written. most languages die without ever being written. that doesn't mean the people who speak them are prehistoric, right? that seems obvious to anyone with half a brain.

in that prev post, those are instruments with a very long musical, technical, and artistic history, probably older than 3500 BC, but they are not prehistoric. they were being made by indigenous people when europeans colonized the american continent, they are still being made today... they were musical cultural artistic elements of life at the same time as idk, plato was writing, or alexander the great was warring around, or the first gothic cathedrals were being built. you'd never think of those things as prehistoric, right?

it goes deeper than the seemingly obvious "western man sees traditional/indigenous item, deems it antique/prehistoric/craft rather than modern or artistic" and all. it's like when people joke about how the gauls were shoving big rocks against each other at the same time as egyptian mathematicians and architects were building pyramids.

time is fake but more importantly, history is a tool twisted around by (and for!) colonialism, and time, which is a human invention, is seen differently by different cultures. religions like christianism which see the world with a beginning and an end will figurate it as a chronological straight line... religions based on the belief of reincarnation tend to figurate it as a circle, a loop, a spiral... time is different in different cultures.

even more than the overall colonial arrogance regarding indigenous history, the western understanding of time as a strict, linear sequence of eras, imposes a sort of race between civilizations. who invented the wheel first? who knew how to sail by [given date]? when did the classical period take place for this or that culture?

and thus, those who aren't as far "ahead" in the race can't be called "modern", despite being in the exact same linear era. and indigenous wind instruments crafted and played at the same time french and english cathedrals were built become prehistorical.

it really all seems so obvious anyone reading this is probably like "you took so many words just to say that" yes i did and i have 3 good reasons

1- this stuff is insidious ideologically and needs to be taken into account if you ever want to dip your nose into history, geography, language, religion, politics, and basically any human science ever imagined

2- it's my blog and i can do whatever i want

3- people talking/writing/singing about the beginning, the end, the middle, the endless spiral of time have existed since people started existing, and we're all still sitting here not understanding time at all.

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #5

Feel free to message me about possible corrections, and please consider supporting the creators by purchasing digital copies of the official releases: Novel || Manga || Fanbook. In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

← Previous || Index || Next →

Iolite of Cloudy Skies

Iolite. Its Japanese name was “blue flower stone”. The gem was blue with a purple tint stronger than that of a sapphire and had a unique viscosity that made it seem as if it was coated with a bit of dew. The level of hardness was seven. It was called iolite when treated as a gemstone, but when treated as a type of mineral, it was also called cordierite. It was an eccentric stone, which also appeared to have a grayish brown color instead of blue depending on the angle that one looked at it. Etc., etc.

“What happened, Seigi? Your eyes are dead.”

“How can I put it...? Surfeit, I guess.”

“Haah?”

I couldn’t memorize the stones’ names. They were too many.

The client who left just now had come because they wanted to see many sorts of blue stones, so Richard’s treasure box was packed with a great variety of blues. There were sapphires, of course, and also tanzanites, lapis lazuli, blue chalcedonies and this iolite.

Half a year before I had started working part-time in Etranger, the image I had of gemstones was limited to things such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, I believed. Now I knew about the existence of a stone named zircon, which shone in the same way as a diamond, and also knew about the spinel, which was red like a ruby, as well as that the color of sapphires was not just blue, having a wide range from purple to yellow, and I had seen transparent jades that were impossible to tell apart from emeralds.

If I had as much knowledge of minerals as Tanimoto-san, I would’ve managed to sort stones inside my head by the differences the in chemical composition of each, but unfortunately, I was unfamiliar with such things, and I currently didn’t have enough enthusiasm or willpower to study them. If I were to explain figuratively, it felt like going out to hunt for clams at a beach, and when you innocently dove into the lake, you’d see the Mariana Trench spreading out below. It was a beautiful world, thus also too wide and too deep. And endless. To a terrifying extent.

When I told him roughly this, Richard laughed, the depths of his throat trembling with giggles. “It is not as if you are aiming to obtain a GIA or FGA qualification or anything, right? Isn’t it all right for you to observe as much as you like?”

“That might be the case, but...”

I found myself thinking that it was a waste.

After all, I’d be on my knees listening as Richard went, in earnest, through the trouble of introducing all kinds of stones to me one by one. I often heard from my senpais that “job hunting is a connection for people”, so I felt sorry that my connection with stones remained scoreless. Regardless, it wasn’t like I was suddenly going to get any smarter.

As I said this, Richard laughed again and beckoned me with a hand gesture. He then took something out of his suit’s pocket. One of those subdivision vinyl bags that I’d often see when he was handling jewels in the back room. It seemed there was an iolite inside. There was a label stuck to the bag packed with absorbent cotton, and something was written on it in horizontal letters. “Viking sunstone,” it read. Vikings? Like the ones that you’d imagine wearing horned helmets, carrying axes and coming from the sea on a ship? As I asked for confirmation, the jeweler nodded with a “precisely”.

“The words written on this label are associated with the former ‘purpose’ of the iolite. In the past, people used iolites as sun stones.”

“‘Used’ them as ‘sun stones’...?”

I didn’t understand anything from A to Z. What did that mean? For starters, why was gem of such a cold-looking color made into a stone of the sun?

Before I even had a breach to ask, the beautiful shopkeeper began talking, a smile ghosting his lips, “You might already know this, but a portion of the people residing in the current Britain are descendants of those who went through the Norman Conquest that began around the ninth century - in other words, of the Vikings. They were famous for having the skills to travel long distances, which was unusual at the time, so Seigi. If you were someone who travels the sea for long periods, how would you know your way?” Richard asked me.

A means to know the cardinal directions in the open sea. So it was a situation where there’d be no piece of land to act as a mark. The only thing I could use in such a case was a magnet. No, wait. Richard had said earlier that it was the ninth century. The compass would be invented only much later. I recalled memorizing that this was the invention that triggered the Age of Discovery back in high school for history class. If so, I recalled the words on the label. “Sunstone”. Yeah, it connected.

“They knew the directions by using the stone of the sun?”

“Good for you. Exactly. Isn’t it clear?”

“K-Kinda!”

“Then, what about under cloudy skies, when the sun is not visible, Mr. Enlightened Part-Timer?”

Speaking of which, the weather changed easily at sea. I had also heard that England was a country where the skies tended to be overcast. Bad weather must be frequent in those coastal waters. If the sky stayed cloudy for three or four days, what should I do? Was there nothing more that could be done at sea?

When I made a puzzled face, Richard smiled as though he had hit the nail on the head, his white hands displaying the iolite under a fluorescent light. “For instance, let’s try to put a mark on any of this iolite’s faceted sides with ink. Another one on a different side. On sunny days, we would record in which direction we can see the sun from one of these two points at given times, and on cloudy days, we would look for parts where the two points overlap. When doing so, since this stone can detect even the faintest light, we would be able to tell the sun’s position,” he said.

“So we can know the position of light with that stone...? Then couldn’t it be any other stone?”

“Light refracts. If it were passing through thick clouds, the human eye would find its shine in a different direction from the sun’s actual position. Iolites acted as polarized lenses, so to speak. By using this stone, the sailors could tell the correct position of the sun. Yet the most famous sunstone is not iolite, but a type of refraction stone called ‘Iceland spar’.”

A polarized lens. Now he was talking about physics? But I did remember the stuff about light refraction. Got it; so that was why it was a “stone of the sun”.

“I don’t get it very well, but I feel the gemstone romance from it. I like that kinda thing,” I said enthusiastically, Richard giving me a calm smile.

“You do get it. Just as you said, you ‘don’t understand stones very well but like them either way’. That is exactly why your eyes were open, so you thought only about how far your destination was and felt your teeth set on edge at it. You mustn’t expect to be able to understand everything overnight. Go steady, without rushing. Do not waver at the impatience stuck back-to-back to your ambitions. That is different from having no one to depend on due to not knowing where you are headed. The hardest times are probably the ones when you have no idea where you should go, but you know the exact position of the sun.”

So, in short, I knew exactly where I wanted to be?

While I remained quiet, Richard shrugged and added, “Of course, this is a metaphor. Even if little by little, the stones should definitely be leaving a trace inside you. Aren’t you supposed to be treasuring this instead of chasing after what goes away?”

Lastly, Richard threw in the trivia that, in the world of power stones, the iolite was said to be a stone that showed people the “right direction”. Taking the backbone of it into consideration, that was indeed a convincing talk. But more than that...

“It’d be great if you were by my side forever.”

“Hah?”

“You’re an expert at noticing what’s troubling other people, aren’t you? I really think you’re a handy guy, like a compass. Aah, ‘the world’s most beautiful compass’, huh?”

“Those are quite irrational words, on top of being illogical. You were born in Japan, raised in Japan and aspire to become a public servant of Japan, so why are you calling an English jeweler a ‘compass’?”

“Well, I don’t plan to ask you about how to prepare for the public servant exams, but I can rely on you when I run into bigger problems, right?”

Richard sighed with a face of thorough dismay. I could understand how he felt. This was like a child in nursery school saying, “It’d be great if my teacher could always be there to help me out.” Long story short, I was acting spoiled. Even though he was my superior at work.

“That’s right; about the custard pie that today’s costumer brought, it looks like it’s quick to expire. Wanna eat it? I’ll make some tea.”

“If you would. Aah, the sugar...”

“Holding back on it this month, right? I know.”

“Help me with half of it. The amount of sugar in it concerns me.”

“Leave it to me.”

This guy was truly good at leading the mood around, and the same applied for the not-too-straightforward way that he phrased himself when recommending gemstones to the customers. Apparently, he thought I was feeling down.

I cut the crunchy pie in half while the tea leaves boiled, then shared it with Richard in the reception room and we both ate it. Covered with powdered sugar, the pie was a dangerous white little thing, as the colorless powder could scatter around from the pie’s surface just by us breathing on it a tiny bit, so the snack time turned into a moment of silence. I felt like laughing at the much too surreal sight several times, but if I happened to cause a big damage to the beautiful shopkeeper’s high-grade suit by doing that, my pay would be reduced. In the end, I ate the pie entirely while looking at the wall.

On the way back home that day, as I looked up at the night sky, I thought about the Vikings of over a thousand years ago. It was said that they were after new lands. What about me? Where was I headed? Would there ever be a day when I would fall into a philosophical concern, like, “I have no idea where I’m trying to go”? Perhaps Richard too? I insolently prayed that the stones may help us out at least in times like those.

Stars were beginning to twinkle in the purplish-blue night sky. There was no doubt that the stars appearing in the sky had not changed ever since the Vikings’ era. Thinking about that as I walked, I mistook one of the streets I should have turned. I had the feeling that I heard Richard’s voice, telling me to mind at least my own steps. I get it, geez.

I decided to wait patiently for the benefits of the stone. It was best for something like that not to happen, but there was no guarantee that both of us wouldn’t lose our ways at the same time one day.

[cheri-translates]

Kiro’s Official Art Book (Eng Translation)

Credits to @minjee98​ for sending me photos of Kiro’s official art book and requesting this translation!

This post contains details on Kiro’s outfits, items, backgrounds, letter, and interviews with his CN voice actor, the Copywriting Team, Art Team, and Production team

More: Gavin l Lucien l Black Swan l STF l Loveland City

💛 KIRO’S OUTFITS 💛

[ White Casual Outfit ] 

Even though it’s been a long time, you can definitely remember that day - Kiro wearing a white coloured casual outfit, earpieces hanging around his neck, smiling as he broke into your world.

When you reached out to grab that bag of chips, you never would have thought that from then onwards, you would own a unique nickname and a person who would journey alongside you.

[ Informal T-shirt ]

If you hadn’t acted without thinking and broke into the hackers’ convention, it wouldn’t have been possible to guess that Kiro is “KEY”, who is renowned in the hacker community.

When he removed his hood, fingertips flying and tapping on the keyboard, did your heart thump and jump along with it?

[ Striped Casual Outfit ]

Do you still remember how Kiro wore this striped casual outfit when the two of you went to Japan together?

I’ll tell you a secret. When he was redeeming the vow at the shrine, he had actually made a new wish - he wished that the deities would give all the beautiful things in the world to you, and wished that he could be with you forever.

[ Pink and yellow striped shirt ]

Do you still remember that day - when Kiro pulled you along excitedly to look for springtime. When you held his hand and looked at his profile, did you feel as though your entire person had become warm?

Actually, whether it’s the fuzzy bear. the blooming sunflowers, or the pleasantly warm spring sunlight, in your heart, all the warm and adorable things have long since been attached to Kiro.

[ Swimming Outfit ]

Even though you knew Kiro worked out, would you have known that he had such a good figure if you hadn’t bumped into him in the shower?

Next time, you have to be more careful. Don’t boldly appear in front of him, or you might get “teased” by him for a very long time.

[ Foreign Prince Outfit ]

Whether it’s during that Qixi activity or in real life, Kiro is the most dashing “foreign prince”, isn’t he?

Just thinking about his breathing when he had leaned in close, his sly smile... Do you feel as though your heart is skipping a beat once again?

You should be grateful to that troublemaking little cat. If it weren’t for it, your face would have definitely turned a familiar apple-red!

[ Wedding Outfit ]

When he had held your hand, walking step-by-step towards the middle of the hall, didn’t you feel as though every second became incredibly long? It was so endless that you could reminisce on your long past, and sketch a faraway future.

Every day in the future, your world will be filled to the brim with Kiro’s presence.

[ Purple Jacket ]

The Kiro in your dream wore a purple jacket, singing his new song to you gently, the breath falling on your ear reminiscent of the most brilliant, warm sun on a winter day.

But... were you slightly hesitant back then? The sun in your dream - was it really the sun? The real Kiro - where exactly is he?

[ White Overcoat ]

Helios is Kiro... When you realised this, did you take a long time for it to sink in?

However, no matter what his current identity is, no matter what his objective is, or what appearance he has, he is definitely still the most important person to you, right?

This time, it’s finally your turn to proudly say that phrase to him - “I’ve found you.”

[ Student Uniform ]

It’s said that countless program teams have asked Kiro for his childhood photographs, but he has never made this photograph public.

In other words, only you can see this Little Kiro who has ice-cream at the corners of his mouth, which means this little cuteness only belongs to you!

-

💛 KIRO’S ITEMS 💛

Potato chips cake - This unique chip-flavoured cake is the most delicious cake I’ve ever eaten.

Smart bracelet - Did you know that to me, your existence is a miracle?

Torchlight - Miss Chips, isn’t the hacking technology I invented really amazing!

Massage oil - An exclusive physiotherapy. It’s the first time I’m making a house call, and it’s an experience exclusive for you. 

Astral stone - Wait for me to return. I’ll definitely return.

Doll shoes - I don’t seem to have the talent to tell ghost stories... Next time, it’d be your turn to tell me one.

Brown sugar - Actually, I’m not sure if this is effective either... I can only accompany you at your side. Will keeping you company make you feel a little better?

Egg noodles - I miss the days of our midnight crimes together, so... don’t try to lose weight, okay?

Star bottle - In 365 days, I want to secretly you the response to each and every star in your ear.

Autographed CD - I remember how you once said that every serious autograph can convey the greatest well-wishes to one’s supporters.

Live video camera

Romantic poetry collection

Superhero card

Teddy bear recorder pen

Snacks hamper

Teddy bear doll

Potato chips

Portraits

-

💛 BACKGROUNDS 💛

[ Mangrove Forest ]

On the day, you took up the challenge of 10km long-distance running. With his company, you seemed to complete it more relaxedly than you imagined. The two of you witnessed a miracle - that beautiful “forest on the water”. It doesn’t seem to be mere beautiful memory, and you should remember that phrase - “To me, your existence is a miracle.”

[ Kiro’s Living Room - Lights Off ]

The Kiro in your memory is rarely as despondent and helpless as that time. It was perhaps the first time you saw his lonely appearance outside the spotlight. Your heart ached slightly, and you didn’t really know what to do. You couldn’t help but use singing to comfort him. This seemed to be effective, and he fell asleep by your side peacefully.

[ California Seaside ]

The scenery along State Route 1, the unexpected breaking down of the car, unlocking a new method of travelling on foot, and him changing into a cowboy after several incidents... The sunset at the fallen castle and the sight of the whale leaping out of the water - they are definitely the most dazzling existences in your memories.

[ Gallery ]

That day, you had gone on an “adventure” with him while he dressed as a bear mascot. It was the first time you officially worked together with him. That elderly grandmother fan and her house filled with love deeply influenced you. Did you also gradually experience the charm possessed by this man who is just like the stars?

[ Kiro’s Music Rehearsal Room ]

Even though the rehearsal room is decorated simply, it has the necessities. You’ve spent countless days and nights with him here, which contains his sweat and all the sincerity he has expended.

[ Flower Arch of the Church ]

Do you still remember the kiss seared onto your ring finger? Accompanied by the affectionate vow, it had entered straight into your heart. His words still seems to linger at your ear. “I hope... that you can reserve this finger for me, for the wedding ring.”

-

💛 INTERVIEWS 💛

[ Interview with Bian Jiang, the voice actor for Kiro ]

“Sometimes, he can actually be more wilful, and more self-indulgent.”

Q1: Teacher Bian Jiang, having interacted with Kiro for such a long time, do you have any new insights regarding him?

Bian Jiang: Ahh... (suddenly sighs, finding it difficult to explain succinctly), the feeling he gives me is really difficult to illustrate using words. Normally, given his young age and him being a naturally easygoing, innocent and romantic person, he should live more happily. But at the same time, he has to shoulder so many responsibilities, and has to face a few inescapable problems in his position. So... he’s really very amazing, truly amazing. Always standing in the darkness, but having his heart facing the sunlight.

-

Q2: Are there any characteristics of Kiro you appreciate a lot?

Bian Jiang: He’s very manly. He never reveals his tiredness or negative sides in front of MC. He carries gargantuan matters by himself. But this really causes one’s heart to ache. Sometimes, he can actually be more wilful, and more self-indulgent. When he has any unhappiness, at least he can always talk to me about it.

-

Q3: What do you think of Kiro’s Evol?

Bian Jiang: Why do I find both of his Evol not very practical? Firstly, whether or not I have Evol, I’m still loved by all, haha (he laughs after talking about himself). As for Absolute Control, it’s even more unnecessary. You have to win people over with good virtue.

-

Q4: Is there anything you’ve always wanted to tell Kiro, but haven’t?

Bian Jiang: Nope, and that’s not possible. I would have definitely said whatever I’ve always wanted to say. The two of us don't hide anything from each other. If there’s something we want to say, we’ll say it directly.

-

Q5: Has Teacher Bian Jiang recently chanced upon a restaurant which you want to bring Kiro to?

Bian Jiang: He knows how to eat more than I do. He should be the one bringing me out to eat.

-

[ Interview with the Copywriting Team ]

“He’s like the only bottle of water in the world without impurities.”

Q1: The storyline of the game has several science fiction elements. What made you consider including science fiction elements in a game targeted at females?

Actually, we felt that romance is often underestimated. Love isn’t simply effete language without substance, or honeyed words. Love can give us courage, and bring us to a whole new world, opening new journeys, finding your unlimited self. A romance story is naturally appropriate to be melded with any other motifs. In love, we can explore various issues: personal growth, contradictions in society, the truth of civilisation, the rise and fall of history...  The story we wish to convey to the players is one of “the cruel competition between love and power”. This isn’t just a complex story with science fiction elements. Actually, it’s also very related to the lives of every person.

-

Q2: What are Kiro’s fans called?

They’re called “Little Sodas”. His biggest fan club is called “Kiro No Regrets Fan Club”. Their cheer is “Kiro No Regrets, Accompanied by Sodas”.

[Note] I’m not sure if the fan club name is supposed to be a pun for “起落无悔”. It isn’t an idiom, but 起落 (“rise and fall”) and 棋洛 (“Kiro”) have the exact same pinyin and intonation “qi luo”, and it kind of suits Kiro’s wish of there being no regret of sticking by him whether he’s in brightness or darkness

-

Q3: Which websites have Hacker Key hacked into? List some examples.

You’re limited by your imagination while there’s nothing he can’t hack into.

-

Q4: Which role is Kiro best at when it comes to MOBA games?

He’s very good in every role, but he likes being the jungler most.

-

Q5: Which flavour of donuts does Kiro like best?

He likes them all. Recently, he finds the sweet and spicy coconut mushroom flavour pretty good.

-

Q6: What’s Kiro’s original name?

He doesn’t know what it is because he’s an orphan. But he feels as though “Kiro” is his original name, and he likes it a lot.

-

Q7: Copywriting sisters, what do you think is Kiro’s core charm?

He’s like the only bottle of water in the world without impurities. This bottle of water has reflected all the impurities in the world, but has continued to remain clear and transparent, simple and kind.

-

Q8: In the 2018 Qixi Festival event, Kiro’s ancient garb left a deep impression on people. Why did you design Kiro this way?

Just like how he is in real life, he is prince who hails from a foreign land.

-

Q9: Is Kiro a dog or a cat person?

Dog.

-

Q10: What do you think is Kiro’s most classic line? How did you think of it?

"I’ve found you, and you’re not allowed to leave me again.”

It’s slightly overbearing, slightly coquettish, taking the initiative and resolute. This is Kiro.

-

Q11: In relation to Kiro, are there any scenes that you’ve always wanted to write but haven’t fulfilled yet?

He’s just too versatile! Which is why we want to let him try everything we haven’t written yet.

-

[ Interview with the Art Team ]

“He’s a large consumer of snacks who everyone is envious of!”

Q1: In relation to the various scenes in Loveland City, are there are any real life references?

The answer to this question has already been discovered by some meticulous players. We have indeed made references to a few real sceneries, such as the The Bund.

We want to give players the sense that the romance is happening right next to them, which is why we’ve brought our city’s scenery into the game, so everyone can feel a sense of familiarity and realism.

-

Q2: Art Sisters, what you think of the “Papergames Art Style” as coined by players? What is the biggest difference between the art style in Mr Love Queen’s Choice and other games by Papergames?

Actually, we don’t really understand the meaning of “Papergames Art Style”, and we don’t know what it means specifically. It probably refers to how the tone and atmosphere are more clear and romantic? Even our own department finds that the art styles from different games are very different. In making a comparison, Mr Love Queen’s Choice is much “harder” (laughs). After all, our main characters are four adult men. Right now, the style is basically “hard but not coarse” - there are parts which require meticulousness and delicateness, yet can’t be too soft.

-

Q3: Just how many types of snacks are hidden in Kiro’s house?

He has pretty much hidden a little of every snack available and unavailable in the market. He’s a large consumer of snacks who everyone is envious of.

-

Q4: Kiro has a t-shirt with the word “paper” on it, and it looks pretty good. Where did he buy it?

He bought it from a premium ready-made shop near the Subway station. It’s really expensive.

-

Q5: Have you ever considered changing Kiro’s hairstyle? For example, giving him a perm?

Actually, his current hairstyle is already slightly curly. Doesn’t it suit him? Or does everyone want to see big waves?

-

Q6: Kiro seems to always wear a black ring. Has he ever taken it off?

He wouldn’t remove it unless he meets special circumstances. It’s a ring which holds special meaning to him.

-

Q7: What differences are there between the initial and final design of Kiro?

They are all very fashionable and youthful styles. In the end, however, we chose the style which is most difficult to draw (cries).

-

Q8: Flowers appear frequently in the game. Could I ask the Art Team which flower best suits Kiro?

Small daisies. It’s incredibly suitable, isn't it!

-

Q9: When it comes to Kiro’s home decor, what do the Art Sisters find the most special?

What’s special lies in the combination of “cool yet interesting”.

It has a professional, first-rate work area for hackers. Yet, it is filled with all sorts of small hobbies Kiro has: superhero merchandise, his favourite youth comics, and the uncountable snacks he keeps hidden! During his idle time, he will play games with you, hug his guitar and play an impromptu song. Trophies he has won and gifts from fans are also cherished and kept in his cupboards.

-

Q10: What’s most difficult to draw about Kiro?

How exactly does Loveland City’s brightest boy look like when he’s melancholic? How exactly does one draw that feeling in between early youth and youth... sigh.

-

[ Interview with the Production Team ]

“He gives people a sense of security, like the ‘Ah Sir’ in Hong Kong films!”

Q1: Why did you produce a game like “Love and Producer”?

Producers: Since 2015, our company has already started producing this game. As a mobile game with romance at its core, it’s something not many companies have tried before. The company had a lot of discussions on the possibility of it. In the end, we decided to do it, and the reason for making constant iterations, updates, and persevering after three years is especially simple. No matter what age you are, no matter whether you’ve dated before, no matter whether you're married and have your own family, we believe that in every woman’s heart, there remains an anticipation for romance and heart-stirring experiences. Which is why we believe “Love and Producer” has a reason for its existence. This belief has always guided our production and operation process, and we hope we can continuously bring even more beautiful romance experiences to everyone in the future.

-

Q2: Where did the name of the game “Love and Producer” come from?

Producers: I don’t know if anyone remembers that in the very beginning, our tagline on the official website has always been “Love and dreams need to meet their match.” Why is this game called “Love and Producer”? That’s because the link between you and him not only encompasses the narrow scope of love, but also permeates into to your life journey together.

-

Q3: Are there any deeply hidden “Easter eggs”? Could you disclose them to us?

Producers: They aren’t really that hidden, but there are indeed some “Easter eggs” which should have already been discovered by some players. For instance, you can see a certain poster during City Strolls. In “Go See Him”, the coupling of certain outfits and sceneries could bring out a few hidden lines. We welcome everyone to give it a try.

-

Q4: What do the people in the Production team call Kiro?

Producers: Kiro, Little Kiro, Ro Ro, Idol, Helios.

-

Q5: How do the males in the production team view Kiro?

Producers: The type of golden-haired big celebrity many girls like. He's even mixed blood. It’s a good thing he plays games well, or we wouldn’t even give him ‘likes’ on Moments.

-

Q6: If you had Kiro’s Evol, what would you use it for?

Producers: To own the entire world’s love in an instant... it might be a little terrifying.

-

Q7: If there comes a day when you can be a big celebrity like Kiro, what would you want to do most?

Producers: Stand in the middle of the spotlight, and greet my thousands and ten thousands of fans!

-

Q8: If you became Kiro’s stylist, is there anything you’d want to say to him?

Producers: Your skin is really good, your eyes are really huge, and you are even more dashing than on television...

-

Q9: Lastly, do you have anything to say to the players?

Producers: This interaction between the Production Team and the players is already sufficient enough to cherish. The world we created has only become perfect because of your participation. Our days alongside Loveland City have already become an important stamp in our lives. This world is still constantly becoming richer and broader. Kindly look forward to it!

-

💛 KIRO’S LETTER 💛

Hello! Miss Chips!

Is the weather good today? Are there clear skies or it is raining?

When I was busy with work earlier, I thought I was full of things to write. But when I lifted the pen, I didn’t know where to begin.

So I’ll start with the overused topic of the weather - there’s been torrential rain the past few nights. I leaned against the side of the window, looking at two people who forgot their umbrellas and were running while making fun of each other. For some reason, I thought of you soon after.

Do you still remember when we were at the beach last summer, and how there was similar heavy rain? That was the first time I detested the rain. I was worried you would go out into the rain while waiting for me, and I was even more worried that I wouldn’t be able to find you.

Before I met you, it had been a very long time since I felt such a sense of urgency. 

Of course, the thing I didn’t expect most was how the girl who had reached for the same bag of chips as I did in the supermarket, would slowly become the most important person in my life.

In movies, don’t they call this “fate”?

But sometimes, I’ll start thinking - it’d be great if our movie could progress even faster, skipping those unhappy scenes, and rushing straight to the ending where I can roar with laugher and be boisterous with you.

But when I turn around and see the periods of time that you’ve accompanied me through, I realise that it’s exactly because of those imperfect days that I could become the Kiro of today.

The songs I sung for you, the birthday surprises you prepared for me, the 100 things we agreed to do together... These uncountable moments cause every minute and every second to sparkle. Spring, summer, autumn and winter have been accorded different meanings.

Of course, there’s one point I firmly believe in without doubt - from today onwards, there will be an uncountable number of such moments. You singing for me, me secretly preparing you birthday surprises, and expanding “the 100 things we must do together” to 1000 things...

And that no matter what day it is, I can always lift my pen and write you a letter whenever I miss you.

Savin is starting to rush me. I’ll leave the important words to the next time we meet, and I’ll tell them to you personally!