#anyway*‚ this was one of a very few films made with a pioneering two tone technicolor process that was quickly abandoned in the face of

[mariocki]

Doctor X (1932)

"If you ask me, I think Dr. Xavier is using very unethical methods."

"Necessity has no ethics, sir."

[tales-unique]

QUARANTINE  II

—Question from DeadlyNighshade97: That’d be interesting... What if, for a separate chapter also, Reader gets sick anyway, despite best efforts not to? And all four of them, burdened by guilt for all the stress caused that likely made Reader sick in the first place, /all four of them/ pay Reader back in the same fashion? I can’t tell whether that’d be chaos or peaceful maintenance... or both?

“Ah— Ahh-choo!” It’s about the seventh sneeze that’s come from you in a row and you almost feel as though your body is going for a world record. It’s no surprise that you’ve become sick after taking care of the Horsemen when they were ill, but what did catch you off guard was how slowly it had taken to manifest itself. Weeks had come and gone since then and all of the Four were back to their normal selves and, at first, you had only suffered a small cough. However before long you found yourself overcome with a fever, your throat sore and scratchy, while your nose grew stuffy and useless.

Whimpering from the nest you had made from every blanket you could find you curl up tighter, trying to get as much warmth as you could without much success; your body burned, raging with your fever, but you still felt cold. It was one of those moments where you truly hated life and were very much feeling sorry for yourself. As you wallow in misery you conclude you’ve had enough of the hell that is daytime television, feeling as though your brain may begin to dribble out of your ears at any given moment. With a frustrated huff you toss the remote of your T.V. aside, leaving the drone of The Pioneer Woman behind you as you shuffle to the kitchen, kicking off the sheets as you go. As you rummage around for another bottle of Cold & Flu you’re oblivious to the sound of your front door opening and closing, the rumble of footsteps approaching, because your clogged sinuses prevent you from hearing properly. Strife and War easily enter your home with the key you’ve given them, having gone ahead of Fury and Death so they can conclude business in peace before they too come over. “She really does have it bad,” the elder of the two murmurs, shaking his head as he flicked his gaze over the mountain of blankets strewn about your couch and the crumpled tissues overflowing from your bin. “Hey!” He calls out, peeking his head into the kitchen to see you chugging the medicine like your life depended upon it. This causes the Horseman to snort in laughter, beckoning his brother to come and see but War had already settled on the couch after pushing the blankets to the other end of it. With a shake of his head he looks back to you, all tired eyes and wild bed hair, and gives a sympathetic smile. “You look rough,” his voice was low and quiet and you’re thankful that he’s considerate of the pounding headache you have. “Yeah,” you croak, voice raw from coughing, “because of you guys.” It’s all in good humor, he can tell from the smile on your face as you shuffle past him to return to your blanket nest. War looks troubled upon your return, his brow creased with concern at your awful complexion and scratchy voice, but remains quiet and inviting when you come to him. He sits back as much as he is able on your small couch, allowing you to curl up with your blankets against his side for warmth. The behemoth is always devilishly hot and it’s glorious right now. Strife follows close behind and can’t help but feel a slight tug of, well, something that he doesn’t care to name when he sees how you’re already making yourself quite at home leaning against War. “You’re so warm,” you groan in delight, burying your face into the crook of his flesh arm without a care in the world. It doesn’t take long for Strife to ditch his armour and helmet in favour of taking the unoccupied space at your side, spreading out, ( laying claim , you would say ) and lazily running a hand through your locks. They’re damp with perspiration and he frowns when he feels how your skin is hot to the touch. Sharing a look with War, who is equally perplexed at the scorching heat that’s radiating from you, Strife decides that it’s time they gave you a little TLC. It’s the least they can do after you so dutifully looked after them when they were ill. War is the first to speak up after the mutual, silent agreement between the two, mimicking his brothers low tone to minimise any pain it may cause your head. “Perhaps you should got to bed? It would be more comfortable than here,” he suggested, grumbling when you responded by burrowing deeper into your blankets against his side. “C’mon, sweetheart, we’ll come too,” Strife chimes in, trying his best to coax you out with a loving nickname and the promise of cuddles. “No,” you reply stubbornly, voice muffled from the fabric. It goes on like this for a few moments before it’s obvious that you’re not budging, so War decides he’s had enough and proceeds to lift you up, blankets and all, and escort you to your room. You try to make it difficult, squirming and grousing the entire way, but you’re no match for the towering Horseman. Once again Strife is quick to follow, laughing as War sets you down, a pout on your tired, pale face. “That wasn’t fair.” “Life isn’t fair, sweetheart, now c’mon, snuggle up, it’s time for the cuddle pile!” You stick your tongue out a Strife, who returns the gesture, and you can’t help the small giggle that escapes you at his antics as you make yourself comfortable. Strife, obviously, is quick to be at your side, joined by War on your other side, once he has shed the bulky armour he sports. The sudden heat erupted from such contact has you melting into the sheets, a blissful smile on your lips. You’re unsure what time it is when the sounds of hushed voices rouses you from your sleep. Your throat is dry, your nose still stuffy, but you feel a tiny bit better after such an undisturbed sleep. It’s then you notice the flowing, magenta hair of Fury as she sits perched on the edge of your bed, speaking with Strife. Deciding that you have no real need to move you stay where you arm, resting your head against Strife arm, War’s warm body at your back; still asleep, you assume, from the way his breathing is deep. “She’s still no better? Sickly little thing. She’s been ill for weeks!” Typical Fury, always impatient, but her tone betrays a note of worry. “You know how Humans are, that’s why she needs us,” Strife counters, voice warm and affectionate, “Has Death made that tea yet? I want her to have some before she goes down for another round of z’s.” Death. Making tea. For you. Oh, this you have to see, if only to prove it’s not a fever-induced hallucinations. Wriggling slightly against the confines of the blankets, you let out the most believable yawn you could muster, blinking up at the two Horsemen, who now turned their attention to you. Strife shifted so he could brush your hair from your face, smiling as he did so, while Fury turned to sit cross-legged in front of you. “Hey sleepyhead, you have a good nap?” Strife teased, and you caught Fury’s eye-rolling as you nodded. “Yeah, I feel a lot better.” “Good,” Fury soon chimes in, tilting her head as she looks you over, “you’ve been moping around in this place for too long.” “Well, being ill will do that to ya, Fury,” you chirp, watching with a cheeky smile as she huffs and turns away. You were feeling much better with them there to raise your spirits, but it wasn’t long before your flu reared its ugly head and you began spluttering, trying to hold your cough in. Strife, sporting a frown, rubbed your back soothingly while Fury left to get Death and the tea he had been brewing. The commotion cause War to wake, blinking bleary white eyes for a moment before sitting up straight, panicked by your hunched over form. Before he could speak you quickly shake your head, hand practically flailing. “I’m fine!” You quickly wheeze out trying to contain yourself, “just coughing!” It’s hard but you manage to stifle the awful cough, laying back to catch your breath just as Fury returned, closely followed by Death. Sitting up straighter, you wipe at the slight wetness that pooled at the corner of your eyes, smiling to the masked Horseman as he offers you a languidly steaming mug ( your favourite, the one with the minimalist crows flying on it ) before crossing his arms. “Drink all of it,” Death starts, pointing to the mug held cautiously in your hands. It doesn’t smell too pleasant, but then again the best medicines never do and you trust Death to not give you anything that would harm you. “It’ll work better that way,” he added, softer this time, but still firm. He was affectionate in his own, muted sort of way, and you nodded with an appreciative smile. He wouldn’t coddle you, not like the others, but would come and offer you support when needed. “Thanks Death,” you called out when he turned to leave, catching his gaze as he glanced over his shoulder at you, watching you sip the drink before giving a nod of his own, satisfied you would do as told. He would be back and so you let him leave the room, allowing him his moments of solitude while you soaked up the attention of the remaining three. “Every drop, sweetheart,” Strife teased as he watched you drink Death’s tea, chuckling warmly at the way your nose crinkled at the taste once you had finished, setting the mug aside. Now you could focus on lapping up the attention they were giving you. With a satisfied hum you curl up between War and Strife, beckoning Fury to come lay with you all once she’s finally settled on a film to watch; Wonder Woman. You can hear that the T.V. in the living room has been turned off, no droning of cooking shows or as-seen-on-tv adverts, which prompts you to conclude that Death is settled there, no doubt on standby should anything happen. It isn’t long before the Horsemen have all fallen asleep to the sound of glorious battle and Wonder Woman’s iconic image. You give a soft, relaxed sigh at the sight of War laid back against you headboard, content in his rest, and Strife curled at your side, clutching a blanket that no doubt smelt of you to his face, is equally as content. Fury, unlike her brothers, slips in and out of sleep, dozing here and there as she tries to stay awake to watch the movie. Her voice is soft when she calls your name, having heard and felt you shimmying out of the covers and get to your feet. “Where are you going?” She asks, leaning her head onto her hand from where she lays, stretched out like a cat, along the width of your bed. “Getting some water,” you hum, looking to the door, “and to check on Death, I was hoping he’d come join us.” You keep your voice quiet out of habit, not wanting him to hear you, but you know he probably still can and it causes you to frown slightly. The female Horseman notices and sighs, eyes stark in the light from the T.V. “Death is...Well, Death. He likes his own company sometimes, always has, but he does care.” It’s awkward and her gruff tone doesn’t make the words sound sincere, but you know her better than that and you know what she means. With a warm smile and a nod you leave your room, pulling the door behind you so it’s mostly closed. Padding quietly into the living room you don’t make it far on your path to the kitchen before Death gives a small cough to gain your attention, though he doesn’t get up from his seat. Instead he reaches out a hand, a simple gesture, and beckons you over. It’s not uncommon for Death to be affectionate like this and you accept his advance eagerly, forgetting your need for a drink altogether. “Are you feeling well?” Death asks, voice quiet and soft yet still firm. It was a delectable mix, one that always made you weak to him. “Yeah, much better,” you murmur as you settle on the arm of the chair he’s sitting in, his outstretched hand coming to rest on your lower back. “But that tea tasted awful,” you added, laughing lightly. “As long as it helps, does it really matter about the taste?” Quips the Horseman as he easily pulls you from your perch to his lap, allowing you a moment to get comfortable. “Yeah, actually! It does!” You huff, but there’s a grin forming on your lips and you’re struggling to keep your laughter at bay. Death’s snarky humor always makes you feel better, almost as much as his medicines do. “Hm. I beg to differ,” he answers easily, leaning back in the seat. You settle against him with practiced ease, able to find him comfortable despite the sharp features his body possesses. With a turn in your fever you’re thankful for the coolness of his skin, it helps to dampen the raging heat that radiates from your flesh. You swear that, at this point, you rival War in how hot you are. Blowing a piece of hair out of your face you hum in contentment, finding solace in his quiet presence. “I’m glad you all came today, I feel a lot better thanks to you guys,” you mutter through a yawn, eyes closing. “It was no trouble,” Death answered, chuckling slightly when he could feel how your breathing became rhythmically slow and deep. At least you didn’t snore, unlike his siblings.

[dramallamadingdang]

I really like your new hood. What kind of visual editing are you doing? Also, what exactly are the rules of this hood? I tried looking it up with the tags, but alas, it wasn't explained fully. Is this a Zombie Apoc challenge? I'm doing a variation of the one on MTS2, but it takes place in post-War California, circa 1939, if Germans invaded the US. Please let us know your rules for this hood! Thanks! child_of_air

Oh dear, this is going to be really long, sorry. :)

1) The pic-editing. I made a Photoshop action to do that. At first, I was going to edit pics of that neighborhood in a warm, low-contrast sepia-tone. Because I like sepia-tone. So, I fiddled with an existing sepia-tone action I had (one meant for regular photographs) to make it work with Sim-pics. It does everything non-destructively, with adjustment layers, so the original image remains intact "underneath." But then I decided that I wanted SOME color but still low-contrast and matte and kind of grainy. So, on top of the sepia-toning layer group, I plopped down another copy of the original image and set a "Soft Light" layer blend with the layers below to merge it with the sepia-toning. THEN I edited a "film" Photoshop action that I had on hand to make it work better with Sim-pics, then ran THAT on the copy of the original image. Again, it works via adjustment layers, non-destructively. Then I reduced the opacity of the "film" layer group and the second copy of the original image so that the sepia-toning below merged better with the added-back color, resulting in the kind of images I've been posting.

THEN I recorded ALL of the above into a one-click Photoshop action that'll work on most Sims-pics. It'll sometimes need to be further adjusted, especially if the original image is really dark, like an outdoor nighttime pic with little or no light source, but for many pics, it's just one click.

I could share the action, if anyone would be interested in having it or fiddling with it for their own use, but it is still dependent on the other two actions that I edited. I'm not sure how to share all three together since one of the dependent actions is bundled with about a dozen others. I don't know how to extract just the one. I suppose I could just share the whole bundle, though. It's a very nice bundle that offers lots of nice effects, actually! :) I'm pretty sure it's one of the hundreds of free ones my hubby has, since he has the ones he paid for in a different folder on the networked external archive drive... Well, if anyone wants it, let me know, and I'll look into it. :)

Now as for the rules....

There really isn't a hard-and-fast set, I'm afraid. I'm kind of making things up as I go along. Initially, this was SUPPOSED to be just a neighborhood to test out some of Sun & Moon's stuff and some playing ideas prior to using those things in another neighborhood I'm developing but where I don't want to experiment. Then it kind of took on a life of its own. *laugh* It has BACC elements merged with the "backstory" of an Apocalypse that can also easily be a "pioneer" or “homesteading” kind of thing with no apocalyptic undertones. :) There are also some elements of an "integrated" playing style. In its pure form that would mean that everything has to be "built" in-hood, with nothing just appearing out of the air. I don't want to go full-on with that -- too tedious and therefore un-fun, IMO -- but I do have some supply chains. More on that further down.

Basically, it goes like this: The end of civilization was coming (Plague, nuclear war, zombies, who knows? And who cares? :) ), and only one person seemed to realize it. That one person was in college at the time. So, rather than focus on his studies so much -- After all, civilization was ending so there goes that MBA and lucrative corporate career, right? -- he focused on making as many friends as possible and convincing them that, "Hey, world's gonna end, we need to get outta Dodge and make a new world." Slowly, he gathered a group of friends -- people who lived in the dorm, a few professors, hell, even a cheerleader -- who believed him and started to make preparations. Everyone else made fun of them, of course, but who cared about that? They were all gonna die or whatever. After graduation, they left, trekking out into the wilderness with (in my imagination) enough stuff like preserved food and potable water and seeds to plant and candles to burn and shovels and saws and stuff like that, to get them by for a while.

And sure enough, they were right! Civilization collapsed. Infrastructure was destroyed or became nonfunctional. Telecommunications systems were gone even if there'd been electricity to run such devices. This group of 16 is out in the wilderness, and other survivors/escapees/whatever are wandering around, too. But the core group has a collectively-agreed-up mission to work cooperatively to make a new and better and simple-living world: Peaceful, completely egalitarian, communal, a world where money and power neither exist nor are desirable, where everyone works together, willingly, for the good of the collective, a world living in harmony with nature. (Basically, my ideal world. *laugh* I really am a communist at heart, only without the oligarchical totalitarianism that modern attempts at communism have been corrupted by.)

At first, they all lived together in one place, sleeping in quickly-built, rough cabins, doing potty business in bushes, collecting rain water for makeshift showers, and eating food that they brought, that they grew/gathered, or that they caught. All the while, they were busy putting together the "raw materials" they needed to build individual houses to live in, each dedicated to a specific function that benefits the community as a whole, the fruits of which would be shared equally with the entire community. Each time a production goal was reached, one person/couple could move off the communal "raw materials" lot and into the lot that could be "built" from the gathered raw materials. And the community grows from there.

Meanwhile, there are those other folks, wandering around alone and frightened and helpless in the wilderness, having escaped whatever the disaster was that occurred. Sometimes, members of the community meet up with them while they're out scoping out the territory. Those poor souls can be brought into the fold as well, added to the communal lot and becoming contributing members of the community.

And that's as far as the "story" goes for now. :) Bear in mind that my neighborhood is age-modded with this mod, so my Sims have PLENTY of time to live out their lives. Not sure playing this way will really work with the standard-length lifestages. You'd have to figure out ways to speed things up rather a lot, I would think or else your founders will be dead before they can even earn a house, much less reproduce and stuff. :) But anyway, the "rules," such as they are, so far:

1) No careers. No vacations. No Uni after the initial "gather your founders" part, if you do that. No subhoods at all. And no money, so if you want to you can give your households a million simoleons because it simply doesn't matter.

2) No electricity. No indoor plumbing. (I intend to add those things as they are "earned," down the line, but only at the earliest when the first born-in-game generation are adults. Haven't figure out exactly HOW it'll be earned, though.) No phones. No nannies, repair people, maids, gardeners, etc., unless you want to set up some sort of in-neighborhood system for that. (Which is certainly doable; I plan to do it later, once my supply chains are in place and I'm looking for "employment" for new people.) No vehicles except "vehicle horses." (Only once you have a horse farm!) Use candles for light sources. Use only charcoal grills for cooking. (Unless you want to download an historical-type oven, but I'm trying to run this with less CC, not more, and I want there to be some big rewards for earning electricity.) Don't use an electric fridge. (I'm using this one.) Use an outhouse, not indoor flush toilets. Use mods so that water has to be gathered to use to fill bathtubs and sinks. Stuff like that. 

3) I recommend using the Visitor Controller to ban all but playable Sims from every lot. Also ban mail and newspaper delivery. You COULD make the neighborhood from empty templates and no stealth hoods, yes, but then you're going to lose the "meet people by hiking" thing, which is how "new blood" gets added to this neighborhood. That function draws from the NPC household that includes things like the BV tourists/locals and the hobby leaders and stuff like that. If you use empty templates and whatnot, you won't have that.

4) Get yer founders. I did this via sending Komei Tellerman to Uni and having him focus on making friends amongst the dormies, professors, and Uni NPCs so that all the founders would at least have a strong relationship with him, if no one else, but you could just make a bunch in CAS if you’d rather skip that part. Or if you don’t have Uni installed, of course. :)

5) Build an initial lot to dump everyone on. (I teleported them with the Sim Blender, aged them to regular adults, gave them the extra want slots they should have as college graduates, etc., since they weren’t yet playables in Uni.) Include everything they need for basic motive-filling but not much else. (You could put a working stack of books somewhere if you want them to skill, but really? With no careers, skilling isn't really all that necessary.) There will also need to be ways to make/gather raw materials. Here's the layout of the one I made, with some useful links to stuff I used on it. This lot houses the founders, any new members added to the community, and ALL born-in-game Sims once they reach teenhood, until they earn individual lots.

Note: For me, I did not want kids on this lot. They have to wait until they earn an individual lot for that. So the only place to autonomously woohoo is the park benches I used as seating for eating. But, I have ACR set so that woohoo on sofas/park benches requires privacy...which is hard to get on a lot with no real walls and a bunch of other people living on it. :) If you DO want them to have kids, then they could woohoo in the cabin-tents, but ACR doesn't enable autonomous tent-woohoo, so...yeah.

Note 2: I let the communal lot run pretty much entirely on free will, only commanding certain Sims to do certain things at certain times. That way, the residents form their own relationships and either succeed or fail at taking care of themselves. They also develop different sleep schedules, which is nice for the player, less of them to keep an eye on at any given time. :) It's also easier to NOT micromanage 16 or more Sims at once, naturally. But this, of course, would be up to the player and how you like to play.

4) Earning a lot: The communal lot has choppable trees, the mining rocks from Sun & Moon's mining set, and Nixnivis's blacksmith station on it. I have fiddled with the trees and the mining rocks to make them autonomous, and the rule is that Sims can never be commanded to chop trees or mine ore. They must decide to do that themselves, so production is limited by how industrious your Sims are. Further, the mined ore has to be "refined" (into things like nails and other things that go into a house). For this, I use the blacksmith station, just having a person make that object's basic single horseshoe object as as "stand-in." (This isn't autonomous; it's one of the things that Sims can be commanded to do.)

NOTE: I could share the edited autonomized choppable trees if someone wants to use this idea; I don't think Beck would care. But sharing the edited autonomized mining rocks would break Sun & Moon's policy, so if you want that, you'd have to do the editing yourself. It's not hard, if you can run SimPE.

In order to earn each new individual lot, the communal lot must produce 75 bundles of chopped logs and 40 horseshoes. And each horseshoe “requires” 2 buckets of ore, so you need to keep track of how many buckets of ore you have in inventories and subtract out the appropriate number of ore buckets when a batch of horseshoes is made. (Just sell them "to the air;" money doesn't matter. Much of the crafting in this hood will work the same way, too, with "prerequisite" objects that need to be produced somewhere first, so get used to the technique. *laugh*) So to get those 40 horseshoes, 80 buckets of ore have to be (autonomously!) mined first. Once you have the required materials, remove them from inventories and sell them to the air. Then, you can build an individual lot and move whoever you want to own the lot out of the communal one.

(You might want to adjust the requirements needed for how you play. For instance, if you don’t want to go pure free-will, you should probably have much higher requirements. If you don’t age-mod, then you’ll want to adjust simply because you just won’t have time to earn lots with enough time left over for your Sims to have kids to keep the neighborhood going. So, yeah. That’s certainly not set in stone; it’s just what works for my set-up.)

5) Supply chains and stuff: Before you build your first individual lot(s), you're going to want to choose what that lot will be dedicated to, because that will dictate how you build it. My list of possibilities -- so far, that is; it's ever-growing as I get new ideas and figure out how to implement them -- is as follows:

RobotsFlower ArrangingToy-MakingPotterySewingSpinning/KnittingWeavingCattleChickensHorsesPigsSheepGoatsWineryPaintingDog/Cat BreederBeesBakingMarijuanaCandle-makingFishingHayCornMaxis OrchardBasketryHerbs/WildflowersHunting/TanningTrappingApothecary (Plus reagents, if witches)Blacksmithing

Some of those are Maxis things. Some of them are CC. Some of them don't actually exist and I'm using stand-ins instead. (Like, for instance, candle-making. Sun & Moon's beekeeping set produces beeswax as one of its end products, along with honey. They didn't yet make a candle-making station, though, so in the meantime, I'm just gonna use the robot station or something and pretend. They can make toy robots that can be one-for-one "exchanged" for functional candles, which can then be distributed. It's easy to do because money doesn't matter.) Most of them have "prerequisites." I'm not going to go into how all of these will work because I'd be here for days, but I'll give you one example of a supply chain and its prerequisites and stuff.

Let's talk about the sewing supply chain, clothing and blankets and stuff being the ultimate end-products of that supply chain. In order to have new clothing and towels and quilts/blankets and other nice decorative things like that, first, at the very bottom of the "pyramid," you gotta have someone who'll grow hay. Because you can't have sheep (and other livestock) without something to feed them. And you can't have wool without sheep. (Or growing cotton or flax for linen or making silk or something, and if I can figure out how to make THAT happen, I will. I have an idea brewing for marijuana -- think hemp -- but for now...sheep.) And you can't knit a sweater or produce fabric without cleaning and spinning that wool into yarn/usable fiber/thread. And you can't have fabric without someone with a loom to weave it. And you can't have leather (for shoes and stuff) without someone killing some kind of animal (domesticated or hunting wild ones) and tanning the hides. ONLY THEN can you have someone making new clothing. And at each step, there's a kind of conversion. Like "1 spun basket of wool = enough yarn to make 1 sweater." So, you sell the basket of wool (obtained from the sheep farmer) to the air, then "spin" (via a CC spinning wheel plus an invisible sewing machine to make a few potholders or something as a "stand-in" for the process), then you sell those potholders to the air and use Beck's knitting ball to make one piece of clothing which can then be distributed and used to "buy" one sweater or whatever.

That's how everything basically works in a supply chain, some of which have more steps than others. Producing new clothing would be the longest one I've come up with so far. So, when building your lots, if you want to use supply chains at all, you must start out with the "anchors" of the supply chains you want to have. If you don't want to be that complicated, you could just pick randomly or pick whatever appeals to you.

6) Individual lots: Plop down a lot. On that lot, build a house but leave room outside for the lot's function plus the outhouse, the outdoor fridge, a well/water pump and a garden. (Eventually gardens can go away, once you have enough food-producers that can consistently produce enough to distribute amongst the population. But until then, folks will need to grow stuff.) The size of your lots is gonna depend on you and how you play. Me, I like smaller lots and I don't mind cramming large families into small houses...which suits a "pioneer" sort of lifestyle, anyway. So, my individual lots are no bigger than 3x3, and the house itself (they're all the same, just different colors, different furnishings, and oriented differently on the lot), for a child-producing household, is a 9x9 square with a 3-tile deep front porch across the front. Floor plan here.

7) Unlike a BACC where CAS Sims are “earned” by certain events, any new, non-born-in-game Sims have to be met via hiking. (It’s one of the possible outcomes of hiking.) It’s a substitute for being out “exploring” or “looking for wandering domesticate livestock to capture” or whatever. If a non-pet “someone” is met, that person gets added to the communal lot, joining the “queue” for an individual lot. (I just use the Sim Blender to teleport them into the communal lot and add them to the household.) I prefer to age up any children to teen and age down any elders to adults, but that’s up to you, of course.

Annnnnnd that's about it, really. I have yet to figure out exactly how the "economy" is going to run. At the moment, the individual lots are still producing stuff with not enough to distribute yet and I don't have any full supply chains yet...but I need to figure it all out soon. I'm leaning toward just equally distributing end-products in truly communist style, but I'm not sure yet. I could list some more miscellaneous rules...but I think that's enough for now. *laugh*

[curiousview-blog]

Electronic-her? (Part One)

I’ve been working on a ‘back burner’ research project exploring the lives and work of underground techno DJ/ Producers (DJPs) in the UK for some time now – looking at how to navigate a successful career among the grass-roots of the creative industries and in particular how technology has reshaped the industries these guys work in – for better, worse and all the timbres and grooves in between. I’ve written ‘guys’ for a very important reason, because with one or two exceptions, the DJPs I’ve interviewed and heard interviewed on podcasts (such as Lowering the Tone) are all male. In fact, with one or two exceptions, the DJPs that I know and/ or listen to, are all male. To underscore the naturalness of this fact, my partner’s son (who was 8 at the time) was visibly gobsmacked on discovering my Traktor controller sitting on the sideboard in my house: “You can’t be a DJ, DJs are men!”, he said. Out of the mouth of babes…

Now there are many reasons why I probably can’t be a DJ, but the fact that I am female shouldn’t really be one of them. Choosing, buying, playing and mixing tunes doesn’t require enormous physical strength, excessive body hair, testosterone, or a penis – so far as I have discovered at any rate - but (being a researcher) it got me thinking. About the same time, I listened to a Setting the Tone podcast, and heard two of my favourite techno producers equate women’s absence from the electronic dance music scene with sexuality, which really hammered home how entrenched sexuality is as a ‘go-to’ explanation for why women don’t progress in certain fields. Whilst there may be some truth in this explanation, being a social scientist, I also know that the reasons are without doubt far more complex and systemic than the fact female DJP’s are put off from having a go because they don't want to be seen to be using their sexuality to get on. So I’ve decided to put my social science talents to good use to find out why there are so few women working (visibly at least), in the music scenes that I know and love.

These issues are too important to deal with as a footnote to my main project, and so I had put them to one side as something to address once I’ve actually written up the findings from the project I have on the go now (see my previous posts “writing on not writing” and “procrastination”). Preferably this will be with a grant from a nice research council and involve lots of field-work in clubs and festivals around the world #niceworkifyoucangetit. But recently I’ve been reflecting on the gendering of the electronic dance music scene in relation to my own experiences – learning to DJ, how to use the technology, understanding music theory and so on – and so like it or not, I have found myself dipping into feminist writing on gender and technology, and thinking about my own formative experiences as a geeky teenager with a love of synthpop and all things electronica, and who, with hindsight, coveted Alan Wilder from Depeche Mode’s Moog synthesizer more than she idolized him (and that's a lot).

Watching a ‘Life in Waves’ was the first time I had ever heard of Suzanne Ciani, an American pioneer making sounds from humungous Buchler modular synthesizers. I went to see this film at House of Vans, in the arches under London’s Waterloo station, as part of an event put on by London Modular Alliance who describe themselves on their Facebook page as ”…a live electro act... No laptops, no button pushing, everything is created on the fly using modular synthesizers - live improvisation!” A crowdfunded production, the film tells the story of how Suzanne struggled to get her electronic music taken seriously, but achieved considerable commercial success making what she called ‘music effects’ for TV advertising in the 1970s and 1980s. 

The story is part-told by Suzanne herself, partly from commentary by friends and family, and edited with captivating old video footage and clips from the compositions she and her team made for advertisements. It was Suzanne Ciani’s studio who synthesized the fizzing sound of a coke bottle being opened and poured (yep, that's not a recording of the ‘real thing’), the sound of Zanussi washing machines, and Atari video games, to name just a fraction of her creative output.

What struck me as so goddamn cool about this woman was the fact she seemed to be completely unphased by the technology, blazing a trail not only with a medium heavily associated with men – both computers and experimentation with electronic sounds – but carving out a niche for herself in advertising, a very male dominated industry (think Mad Men…). A Life in Waves makes very little of this, which I liked and appreciated because it was nice to watch something about a woman in a “man’s world” that focused on her achievements rather than her gender and the battles she fought. And it stirred something old and important in me. Why had I not pursued my fascination for synthesizers when I was younger? Until now, I’ve never given this much thought, and as my Mum and Dad will tell you, my request for a “synthesizer” (probably aged around 14) was a pie-in-the-sky Christmas list request waaaay beyond our family’s means, and anyway, where the hell would I have put it when my bedroom was a 6’x7’ box room? But I think there is more to the story than this…

The second film I’ve seen recently was Northern Disco Lights: The rise and rise of Norwegian Electronic Dance Music. This time in a quirky little bar just off the main drag in Cardiff. Another heartwarming documentary about the origins of the ‘Scandilearic’ scene in the rather unlikely – and very northern – Norwegian town of Trømso. Better known for being the gateway to the Northern Lights, Father Christmas, Elves and reindeers, than for radical electronic dance music, we nonetheless heard stories from lads who tuned into pirate radio stations and were inspired to experiment with disco sounds made from cobbled together bits of electronic equipment, building such rave staples as ‘a homemade strobe light’. Apart from two women (one of whom was a protagonist’s mother), once again, this was a story about men’s involvement with electronic music – also mostly narrated by men. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s no less of a delightful and fascinating film for that, but my musings about music and gender were now becoming a repeating refrain, why have there been/ are there so few female DJs and even fewer female Producers?

A friend once told me he understood life’s little coincidences were signs that the universe was assuring him he was doing exactly what he should be doing, right there and right then, and so I was pleased to see a Mixmag article on the ’20 women who shaped the history of dance music’ pop up in my Facebook news feed just as I was thinking about what to write in this post. And even more pleasing was seeing the first woman Lisa Blanning and The Black Madonna include in their list is ‘Delia Derbyshire’, who I had just been hearing all about in Paul Sheeky’s fabulous podcast series on The History of Electronic Music. Clearly, I take these synchronicities as de facto proof that it’s OK to be starting a new investigation when the last one is not yet done [insert eyeroll emoji here]. And even more encouraging is the fact that as I type these very words, the latest edition of Dancecult: The Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture has today published  a special issue on Women in Electronic Dance Music. Vol 9 (1). Including a paper about Delia herself. Just lovely.

Delia Derbyshire produced the first piece of electronic music for television – the Dr Who theme tune – and alongside Daphne Oram, was one half of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop established in 1958 to experiment with electronic music production for TV and film (you can watch a wonderful short film about Daphne Oram in her home studio – looking uncannily like Mrs Merton – on YouTube). 

Yet it is the composer Ron Grainer who is credited with writing the Dr Who theme tune, even though he is cited in Sheeky’s podcast as saying “did I write that??” when he heard Delia’s electronic interpretation of his composition. 

Debating the line between composing (having the musical ideas) and production (the technical arrangement of the sounds) continues today, and its long been the convention that the ‘writer of the notes’ gets far more credit than the producer of the finished piece - and of course these boundaries are becoming further blurred with the collapse of engineering into the work of the DJ as they increasingly need to produce tracks in order to be taken seriously. But here, what interested me was the effect of the gendered nature of the attribution. History records that Dr Who theme was written by Ron Grainer – Delia Derbyshire only ‘realised’ or ‘arranged’ it, as you can see in the small text below the headline entries above. 

As Lisa Blanning reminds us in the Mixmag article:

History can be a tricky business. No matter how many facts are recorded, it's still written by those in power. Often omitted are the deeds and lives of the oppressed—not only the injustices perpetrated against them but also their accomplishments. Millennia of institutionalised sexism, in tandem with misogynist sexism, have prevented (continues to prevent) half of the world's population from enjoying access, opportunity, aid and recognition. Women get left out. A lot. Of everything. Dance music is no exception.

It's the ‘institutionalised sexism’ bit that really interests me in what Blanning says – and Mary Beard’s recent book Women and Power: A manifesto does a good job of reminding us that the exclusion of women from anything public, technological, economic (e.g., valued and powerful) has such a long history that we have forgotten its roots, and over the millennia, women have learned to keep themselves out of these spheres because they don’t feel comfortable. As the 2002 adverts for Yorkie chocolate bars controversially famously told us, we have learned that whatever it is, “It’s not for Girls”. So in the next part of this series, I’ll be sharing some of the things I’m finding out about the ways electronic music has become gendered, and what impact this could be having on the careers of female DJPs, as well as the aspirations of girls and women (young and not so young!) who are taking their first trepidatious steps into electronic music production, all without the aid of a penis.