#htdc

[chameleonspell]

due to a little flurry of interaction on my ancient longfic (WHERE are all these little guest kudos coming from suddenly btw?) i ended up re-reading the second half of HTDC for the first time in... five years??

i didn't mean to, but i got hooked... it's been long enough that i had actually forgotten many details, so i could enjoy being entertained and surprised by it.

obviously there are still things that bug me and that i did not succeed as well as i wanted to at

but

my god, i gave that thing everything i had, didn't i? fuck. i genuinely think i will never write anything ever that goes THAT hard.

i was really racking up the cliffhangers and emotional peaks in that last half, i don't know how anyone reading week by week survived the drama, honestly. i put those elves THROUGH it.

i wrote HOW many full-length song lyrics???

oh god all the conlang, why is there so much untranslated conlang, was i insane? i can't even translate this now.

i will never write anything this romantic again as long as i live??

jeeez, i really dedicated my soul to writing this, for better or worse.

[ailelie]

Rec: How to Disappear Completely

I am finally listening to How to Disappear Completely.

Y'all. I am in love.

Go. Listen.

In, oh, 2007 or 2008, I listened to How to Disappear Completely on PodioBooks (amazing website, sadly terrible now) and adored it. Theo, one of the leads, was living in a foreign country and trying to figure out what her life is supposed to be. Meanwhile, I was also living in a foreign country and utterly at a loss. I didn't even feel homesick then. Instead, home felt like a cursed prophecy I couldn't avoid. I couldn't make myself call home for fear I would get sucked into mundane low expectations.

The author, Myke Bartlett, was recording and releasing chapters as he wrote them. I had a few concerns with later storyline about people with no history, but otherwise, it was one of my favorite stories.

And it has remained so, but a podcast book no longer online is hard to share with people. Bartlett later released a set of short stories (that I adore), but these were sequels to an unreleased revised version of the original novel. Also hard to explain to people.

Then, I learn he has rewritten HtDC and, more than that, he is releasing it as a podcast again.

Initially, as excited as I was, I didn't listen. Spotify didn't have the first episodes and I let that be my excuse, but really I feared the possibility that the story wouldn't live up to memory.

But. I finally started listening. And I am in love.

HtDC is a time travel story. The time travel is not really explained until chapter 8 and so you'll spend those first seven with folded over events, people meeting and it is the second time for one and the first time for the other. People appearing where they can't be. Future events folding back and causing past events. It is a tangle. I love it, but I know not all do.

Accept that, though, and you'll get a fantastic story. Theo Jones is a prickly, stubborn woman who is certain her life was supposed to be better than this. When her boyfriend disappears, she is the only one to remember him. Refusing to just let the matter be, she decides to find him, more out of guilt than love. Her quest leads her to Kilbey Salmon and one of my favorite characters of all time, Nero Dusk.

Nero is the best. If you listen to this podcast for one reason at all, listen for Nero. He's a grump with a gigantic heart. He's Kilbey's muscle, minder, and best friend. Kilbey thinks he has the brain cells in their relationship, but really, he can only conjure his own during chaos. The rest Nero loans out as needed.

Kilbey is the face and the mouth of their operation. He's all calculated charm pasted over a rather big secret and a deeper well of care than he'd like to admit exists. I think Kilbey would love to not care about other people, but he can't not. So he just pretends really hard that he doesn't instead.

14 episodes are out. I'm on 8. I am so so happy this story has been revised and is being released again. I am so incredibly thrilled that the writing not only holds up, but is improved, and that the characters are still recognizable and interesting. I cannot believe I can finally share this with people again.

Go listen to How to Disappear Completely. You won't regret it.

[themossdweller-blog]

How to Disappear Completely - Seraphim

I am a heavy listener of dark ambient and this has quickly become one of my favorite albums. Its droning distant sounds of toiling and dark winds capture the spirit of the homeland of my soul. It immediately wisps me off to some windswept grass land with massive peaks surrounding. The skies are dark and foreboding yet not scary. There is comfort to be found here. A place I can wander freely to contemplate the cosmic forces.

[moritzakgae]

moritz playlist. based on my music taste alone.

[spghtrbry]

help me

[yansurnummu]

Listen, I LOVE these characters and what u have to say about them is so good. Your description of the Alchemist specifically is just. Chefs kiss. That's the good stuff.

I did go in knowing from the start that I would probably get attached to Bern (which u DID say and I feel so seen) but oh man. I love a grump who's actually a sweetheart and just hurting and putting on a brave (but prickly) face. So as much as I love all of them and they all have some absolutely stellar moments and character progression, Bern's story is the one that resonated with me most!

Also big agree on Yaz. She is everything to me <3

what's your favourite thing about each of the main chymicalia characters? and do you have a favourite child? :'D

Yan, you're one of, like, four people who've finished the game, I want to know what you think about the characters, and who's your favourite! Thank you for asking, though...

Anna is incapable of moderation, and I love that for her. She is trying to do everything, all the time. She is feeling every emotion to the absolute maximum, hurtling from one end of the scale to the other every few seconds. She is so clearly 3 to 6 months away from the hugest mid-twenties burn-out you've ever seen in your life, but out of the ashes of her political disillusion, she's gonna rebuild herself as one of the most bad-ass lesbian anarchists in history, and the world is not ready. She should totally get that motorbike.

Bern. Oh, Bern. Love to see a classic, dour Yorkshireman. Love to see a 32-year-old guy who's clinging to the dour Yorkshireman archetype like it's the last plank from the shipwreck of his youthful dreams, because at least then people won't expect him to be cheerful about it. Love to see him say things like, "Mustn't grumble" through gritted teeth. Love to see his thousand-yard stare, as he mentally takes someone apart at the joints for telling him, "It Gets Better!!!" Love to see occasional glimpses of fragments of his soul he thinks he's drowned, rising and falling behind his eyes, like half-dead tropical fish. This metaphor is getting out of hand, but as a literature graduate, Bern would appreciate the thematic effort.

My favourite thing about Nimone might be the dumb little gimmick of her clip-on sunglasses. Because at first you think she's all cool and goth and mysterious, but then she flicks them up to reveal her thick lenses and deer-in-the-headlights expression, and it's like... oh! She's just a huge nerd! Who is so totally out of her depth, once the conversation gets beyond the narrow radius of her comfort zone. It's okay, Nim. It's over, they've gone. You can go back inside your van, now and spend the next 48 hours recovering from the social and sensory hell of standing in full sunlight, talking to a stranger for five minutes.

Voss has one of my favourite traits in a character, which is "humour as defence mechanism". Aw yeah, babe, deflect that personal question with an exaggerated lie for comic effect. Self-deprecate to defuse criticism in advance, that's so hot. Never say how you really feel about anything, keep the bit running instead. Commit to it harder than you've done to any job, school, friendship or relationship, which is definitely not* why you've been constantly crashing and burning on them your entire life. It's okay, it's fine. You can just keep getting new ones, with your charming personality and hilarious witticisms!

(*This is true. It's only 20% of why. The other 80% would be the undiagnosed ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia.)

Last character I'm gonna talk about is the player character, who you can name yourself, but I refer to as the Alchemist. You can mould their personality through gameplay via raising or lowering 12 character trait-type stats, but their past life and current situation is set in stone, and... oh, wow. This is bad. This is... really bad. Your character has the kind of life story that stops conversations dead and makes people immediately treat you like a leper, because no one really has a social script for talking normally about it. So maybe it's for the best that you can't talk about it - because you're literally cursed not to. Literally. Yeah, it's cartoonish, honestly.

The result, though, is perhaps my favourite thing about the Alchemist. Chymicalia is, structurally speaking, a helping-customers game. It's supposed to be the customers who have the problems, and the calm, bartender-style protagonist who has the tools to fix them, help them, save them, all that stuff. But here, it's... complicated. Because as the game proceeds, it becomes more and more obvious that the person here who REALLY needs help, is you. But... there's no mechanic for that! You can't use alchemy on yourself. You can't tell anyone about your problems. For a million overlapping reasons, you can't ask for help. You don't even believe it's possible for you to be helped. And in a game where you spend all your time trying to needle other people into spilling all their personal problems to you, and trying (successfully or unsuccessfully) to fix them, that's delicious.

Finally, you can't ask me to have a favourite child. That's illegal. So I'll pick my favourite non-major character: Yaz, the Worst Librarian. I have been, and still am, a librarian. Yaz is where I put all my evil fantasies, the things librarians aren't supposed to say or do, like let people steal things, or have Incorrect Opinions about the value of books. Plus, she's the funniest character in the game, and unlike Voss, she's not even trying.

[PLEASE ASK ME MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT MY GAME, ANY QUESTIONS!]

[sentintheclowns]

unpopular opinion how to disappear completely is the best sav solo it’s one of my fav solos of all time i could go on and on about it

i LOVE htdc totally agree it is one of her bests. i just think that every solo she has done could be her best she has the best solo set truly!

@birdgowrl ur fav solo

[pinkfloydfan4578]

in rainbows and weird fishes

but for fun, here's my fav from each album

creep, just, paranoid android, idioteque, pyramid song, there there, lotus flower, daydreaming

yes i know these are all the most popular options, if it helps my fav on kid a besides htdc and idioteque is morning bell. like, nobody talks about it it's so good

ooh i mean they’re popular options for a reason! What’re your thoughts on the amnesiac version of morning bell?

[bucephaly]

Tonight I will get high and start rereading htdc

[gothluke]

there’s something about luke singing “friday i’m in love” by the cure & having a HTDC tattoo that feels very…familiar

[tutuprincesse]

rank savannah manzel’s best dancer solos — in your wondering gold how to disappear completely tango

HTDC

Gold

In Your Wondering

Tango

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 29: pride

[Looking back at HTDC after nearly ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 29: pride

In which Viatrix completes her pilgrimage, and proves that even though she's irritating, she's cooler than Iriel in every possible way.

“We are about to pass through the sacred barrier of the Ghostfence, which shields us from evil through the combined faith of thousands of souls of the honoured departed.

It's actually easy to include in-character exposition, if your characters are tedious pedants who like to lecture everyone! But yes, the final stage of the Temple pilgrimage involves a brief trip onto Red Mountain proper, which is terrifying at low levels. Especially if you get turned around in the blinding red ashstorms, and your "brief" trip turns into a panicked flailing skitter, trying to find the shrine before something horrible catches you.

The "combined faith of thousands of souls" powering the Ghostfence is another example of the Tribunal's extremely literal take on the power of faith. Though here, the souls are dead, so it's probably just the regular Tamrielic magical application of soul energy to act as a battery for something. I'm sure a Temple priest would disagree, but I don't think souls have anything as individual as faith. The faith came in when they chose to donate their souls to the Ghostfence, it's not still there afterwards. That would be like saying that because Grandma donated her body to medical science, this vaccine thinks you need to fix your hair and find a husband.

Iriel glared at her through bloodshot eyes, until the light became too painful, and he had to close them again. "You.” he said. A surge of nausea forced him to stop.

Red Mountain might be the least of Iriel's troubles. Moon sugar withdrawal was bad, but skooma withdrawal is on another level.

liKE my fucKinG SKoOma yOu SpOiLed, selF-CentrED–

I love random-capitalising "slightly unhinged" text like this, in defiance of everyone telling me it's cringe and a tacky, unprofessional writing habit. One person even threatened to stop reading the fic, if I kept doing it! Sadly, no one has yet managed to get me to stop, though I may have to, if it becomes too embedded in pop culture as "mocking spongebob voice", since that's not my intended reading. That said, picturing Iriel using that tone is making me giggle, so even that may not work to restrain me.

“Well, I’m not standing for it,” she said, planting a hand firmly on her hip.

There's a little idle animation like this that female NPCs do, in Morrowind. Clearly, they thought it was too sassy for men, with the little hip tilt. Cowards. Anyway, I'm assigning it to Viatrix specifically, because Iriel later recognises her by it, when she's wearing a full-body plague doctor outfit.

Over the course of the next hour, the force of Viatrix’s will propelled Iriel through a bath, a comb, and into a clean shirt and pants

Powerful as Viatrix's will is, there's a more powerful force at work here: authorial engineering. I need Iriel to look a little bit less dead rat, marginally more like someone who has his shit together. Fortunately, not much more, because he only has to beat Julan, a man about to undergo disassembly by Daedra.

It doesn't matter. The important thing is that we cleansed ourselves. It’s symbolic.”

You wouldn't think that this statement of Viatrix's would stick around long, in Iriel's skooma-starved brain, but here he is, quoting it to himself, months later. Bitterly and sarcastically, but still. As if she gave him an oddly-shaped piece of metal, that he never figured out what useful thing he could do with it, but he can't quite throw it away, either. Iriel feels this way a lot regarding matters of symbolism and metaphor, ways of looking at the world that simply aren't true enough for him. And yet, these weird little fictions hang around in his mind. What are they good for?

“Don’t like robes. Too magey.”

Iriel dislikes the mage label, and prefers to avoid visual signifiers, but he could still wear a robe if he wanted to - lots of other people do. He's just making up a plausible excuse for what is really no more than a personal, non-psychologically-significant dislike of having a whole ton of extra fabric all around his legs, as he moves.

Once we’re on the mountain, you could catch the Blight if you don’t take better care.

There is a crack, a crack in everything, That's how the Blight gets in.

- Dunmer Leonard Cohen.

Sorry, that wasn't fic commentary, just something I needed to get off my chest. Carry on.

“Thanks, Ma,” he muttered, but wrapped the scarf she gave him around his mouth and nose. It was made of stoneflower-blue silk, and embroidered with tiny sequins.

This scarf! If people were gonna set textual analysis essay questions about HTDC, a really good question might be: what is the symbolism of the stoneflower-blue scarf? Not because I know the answer; I don't. I just want to know what other people would write. You could absolutely invent some sort of thesis, I'm sure.

The scarf was a throwaway moment of detail that Iriel invested with way more personal significance than I expected. It'd been so long since he'd had something nice, something frivolously pretty, that suits him, and makes him feel good about himself. And, unlike the silk shirt he finds later, practical enough to wear on the regular! It became his signature clothing item in art - though opinions differ on whether the sequins are silver or gold. I can't remember if I ever specified.

“Plain and simple pilgrim fare again, I see,” he said, and took satisfaction in her expression as the barb hit its mark.

Iriel is being so spoiled with all these "valid targets", lately.

“It’s true that my clothes are expensive. When I left home, they were the only kind I had. I could have sold them and replaced them with rags, but what would that achieve? I am who I am. I see no purpose in hiding it.

And then she absolutely bodies him, in return. Just destroys him, with her whole "refusal to be ashamed of personal qualities she can't control", and "rejection of the idea that she should camouflage herself towards others, to make herself safer or more acceptable to them."

Dagoth Ur, lived in the central crater, plotting the destruction of the Tribunal, and cursing the land with his evil ash-blight.

I dreamed about you baby, it was just the other night. Most of you was naked, ah, but some of you was Blight.

- Dunmer Leonard Cohen again.

Reverently, she placed a soul gem before the shrine, and knelt before it, praying aloud. “Thank you for your pride, Lord Vivec. I shall not doubt myself, or my people, or my gods…”

Pride is one of the core Temple virtues, and Viatrix is showing Iriel why. How it's a necessary defence mechanism, when others would seek to destroy you by targeting your insecurities and your self-esteem. Obviously I'm not gonna bring in the whole real-world "gay pride" angle in the fic, that'd be cheesy as hell, but of course, it's not unrelated. Pride is refusing to let other people hate you into hating yourself.

he felt like he’d been pushed through a sieve

Still love this image. Brief but evocative.

He realised, with irritation, that his last Recall point was set right outside Arobar Manor, which was not somewhere he should risk re-materialising.

Teleportation: not narratively overpowered, provided your characters are stupid enough about it!

His reverie was shattered by something small, grey and furious

They're not the most dangerous, but ash slaves are so annoying.

he returned fire from his prone position, but only succeeded in intercepting the next attack, the two spells colliding in mid-air and detonating.

At least, they are to Iriel, because of how frustrating magical battles are in Morrowind. Spells that hit each other collide in mid-air, wasting everyone's magicka, and I always get stuck in a poor-timing cycle of never actually getting a hit in. I know, I should just fucking dodge, but I'm really bad at video games, you guys.

On the plus side: look, I'm writing a fight scene! It's brief and poorly written (too many long words bogging down sentences and ruining the pacing, fight scenes need to feel sharp and tense), but at least I'm trying!

He was almost at the tunnel when he realised he could hear screaming, but it was coming from the other side.

While this chapter doesn't have what you'd call a climactic ending, and leads straight into the next, it's technically the end of the first narrative arc. As defined in my notes, anyway. The arcs have names, and I may or may not share them with you because, intended to be seen only by me, most of the names are kinda stupid. Case in point: the first 29 chapters are labelled "Sad Elf In Swamp". If you think you know what that's a reference to, no you don't, and what were you doing at the devil's sacrament?

It's the end of the arc, because it's the end of Ire's solo career, and the beginning of a complicated collaboration.

next: 30: possible & 31: help previous: 28: faith

[ailelie]

Podcast Rec: The Terrible Business of Salmon and Dusk

Link: https://salmonanddusk.com/episodes

Notes: This is the ongoing second (third? fourth?) draft of a podcast novel was that was completed back in 2008/9. Old version (named How to Disappear Completely) was fantastic and the new version is better.

Key Terms & Tropes: Expats, Time-Travel, Time-Traveling Cab, Maps, Secret Places, Cities-within-Cities, Sarcasm, Friendship, Potential

Official Summary: A podcasted novel (of sorts). When Theodora Jones’s boyfriend disappears, she is the only person in the world who remembers him. Trying to find him leads her to the door of Salmon & Dusk (Detectives, thieves and time-travellers). Her life, your life and everyone else’s life will never be quite the same again.

Why I Rec It: The writing is absolutely stellar and the characters are deeply engaging. Theo, Kilbey, and Nero are very flawed people, full of secrets and hopes.

Nero Dusk is one of my favorite characters of all time in any medium. He is grumpy, but deeply caring; very protective, but feigns otherwise. He is brimming with potential, but doesn't seem to realize it.

But, Kilbey and Theo are also amazing. Kilbey is smart and sly, but tosses up smokescreen after smokescreen to keep anyone from looking too closely at him or from expecting anything of him. He thrives in chaos.

Theo has never quite fit within her own life. She starts arguments as a protective measure. She's stubborn and refuses to let Kilbey know just how much his world is phasing her.

The setting is also great. Time travel runs by burning potential futures. Potential futures are popular currency. Manors are places unmoored from time that remain always, say, 1976. You can only find them by knowing where they are--hence the need for people like Nero who knows the entrances and for maps that show where to go.

And the enemies are terrifying: the dark that swallows past and future; undead butchers who stop at nothing, and simple, human greed and cruelty.

[hawaiianai]

Takeaways from AI Marketing Revolution

Sean Watase, developer relations lead at Thirdweb, was the featured speaker in an HTDC webinar on Jan. 25, 2024 titled, “AI Marketing Revolution: How AI Is Transforming Content Creation.”

Watase is a Web3 enthusiast with experience in building NFTs, smart contracts, and building Dapps, and has started an AI agency called Blockstudio3 to introduce AI tools and automation to Hawaii businesses.

[bitcoincables]

Hawaii Drops Crypto Licensing Pilot, Leaving Industry Unregulated

The state of Hawaii has made a significant shift in its regulatory approach towards digital currencies, as it no longer requires digital currency companies to obtain a Hawaii-issued money transmitter license to operate in the state. This change comes after years of debate and failed attempts to find a solution in the state legislature. Previously, Hawaii's financial regulator classified cryptocurrency exchanges as money transmitters and imposed strict reserve requirements, making it challenging for these exchanges to do business in the state. As a result, major exchanges like Coinbase and Binance refused to serve customers in Hawaii.

To address the issue, the state of Hawaii established a Digital Currency Innovation Lab (DCIL) in collaboration with the Hawaii Technology Development Corporation (HTDC). Under this pilot program, exchanges were temporarily allowed to serve customers in Hawaii without the risk of regulatory action, in exchange for sharing data on their business activities. More than 30 digital currency companies applied, and 16 were admitted to the program. The pilot program saw significant activity, with as many as 146,000 customers transacting up to $284 million in one quarter. However, there were concerns about scams in the crypto space.

Despite the efforts made through the pilot program, the state legislature failed to implement a decisive regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. Consequently, the state has decided to leave the regulation of the cryptocurrency industry to the federal government. The Division of Financial Institutions (DFI) and HTDC jointly announced the conclusion of the DCIL, emphasizing a commitment to balancing innovation and regulatory responsibility. With this change, digital currency companies operating in Hawaii will need to comply with applicable federal licensing or registration requirements. It remains to be seen how this shift in regulation will impact the crypto industry in Hawaii.

------ Original article link: [Read More]

Related hashtags: #digitalcurrencies, #cryptoregulation, #Blockchain, #cryptocurrency

[echoesofadream]

when i read htdc i think i was 20 turning 21 and there was a sort of relief and comfort that jk was like 24 i believe but now im turning 23 and im still there…