#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.

[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

[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

[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

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 1: numb

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

chapter text: 1: numb

This chapter has had the most edits over time, as my writing skills increased, and I got ever more annoyed at the state of the opening, which ought not to be the worst writing in the fic, if I wanted anyone to stick around. It still needs work, but I was not made of infinite energy. I largely just tried to improve what was already there, rather than do what I really ought to have done, which is do some proper scene-setting. None of the early chapters have much in the way of description, especially of places. I was very much working on the principle that it was fanfic, and the whole point of fanfic was that I didn't need to do that. My assumed reader was intimately familiar with Seyda Neen, because my assumed reader was myself. I was absolutely writing only the bits I enjoyed writing, which was dialogue.

I'm still torn on the first paragraph, because in trying to make it more interesting, I mostly only succeeded in making it florid and purple. The reason I let it stand is because of a favourite excuse of mine for slightly ridiculous writing - it accurately reflects the mental state of the protagonist, i.e. tangled and confused. I will use this excuse again.

(See, maybe there's no description because Iriel's really out of it, and can't register anything! Bad writing is diegetic if the characters are having a bad time!)

Iriel was dragged

Not the exact wording of the original first-draft opening line, but I edited it in for symmetry, after I wrote the last words of the last chapter ("Iriel moved forwards").  Which was, according to an email I sent at the time, in June 2015, so less than three months after I wrote the first words? That seems crazy. I do remember writing a first draft of the ending chapter quite early on, but... that early? Gosh.

When I say I wrote the ending three months after the beginning, I mean that I ONLY wrote the ending. I then spent two more years, filling in the 198 chapters in between.

The contrasting significance of the beginning and ending lines was expanded from something Philip Pullman said about making sure the first and last words of His Dark Materials were both "Lyra", because it's her story, and she encompasses it.

the guard had seized the elf by his bony wrist

A running theme of Iriel's physical trauma triggers: grab him by the wrist and he's liable to shut down completely. A jail thing, of course - make sure the magic user can't cast spells.

His bare toes snagged between the planks of the jetty

Every time I read this, I flinch, and feel the exact sensation, because it is such a terrible, terrible sensation. I know I do worse things to Iriel later, but I might hate this one the most.

Oh gods. Come on, Ire.

Many people have told me they found they were pronouncing Iriel wrong, when they read him sound it phonetically in chapter 90: "Iriel. Eye-ree-el." I can see their point, but in that case, I want to know how they were pronouncing "Ire", the shortening he gives, right at the start! Which is an English word, pronounced like the Ire in Ireland, so I hoped that implied the pronunciation of Iriel

Regarding Iriel's name: I chose it because it was visually short, having a lot of long, thin letters in it, and I liked the symmetry of the capital I and the lower-case L at the end. The shortened version, Ire, is even more featherweight, barely more than a pronoun. This is a real boon for a protagonist name that's gonna turn up in almost every sentence - you can throw it in a lot, for clarity, and it doesn't look awkward. 

I think I found it in a name list on uesp.net, and I don't think it was specifically feminine-coded at the time? ESO was only just out, so I refuse to be blamed for things it added to canon, such as two female NPCs called Iriel. My personal headcanon is that it's a unisex Altmeri name and the first i is pronounced short when it's feminine, and long when it's masculine. In his not-strictly-canon tumblr bookclub with @quickchangeartist's OC Moraelyn, Iriel says of his name:

P.S. i rolled my eyes gently at your “dear little bird” bit, but did you actually know my name is avian-derived, or was that an adorable accident? an iriel is a very pretty but sadly extinct type of finch (I am less pretty, but also less dead, a condition with which i am (on good days) content.) My mother selected the name in order to make me more matrimoniably palatable to her bird-mad noble friend. So mercenary

Iriel’s eyes jittered from surface to surface. “I was in the hold! I didn’t see anything! I don’t know anything about boats! I mean, the sail’s clearly square-rigged, but a brig should have at least two masts, I really have no idea what you’d call it, I didn’t get a chance to examine, I… I was in the hold. I don’t know anything.

In draft one, all Ire said was that he didn't know anything about boats. Then I reread it later, when it had been established that Iriel's dad was a fisherman, Iriel knows how to sail a simple boat, has absorbed a fair amount of nautical terminology, and, in general, KNOWS ABOUT BOATS! Which, I have to warn you, from a writer's perspective, is a fucking terrible thing to have your character know about. The research is a nightmare. Never have a character know anything about boats!

Anyway, I decided it was much funnier if he reeled off a bunch of technical stuff about boats, while still claiming he didn't know anything about them, because... he's just that confused? His reflexive paranoid guilt makes him deny knowledge under questioning on general principle? He doesn't think of himself as someone who knows about boats, in comparison to his dad? Yes.

someone a head taller than he was

I forget at what point I established Iriel's precise height. He's 6'4", which is below average, for an Altmer, but tall for Morrowind, a shift of identity and perspective he never quite adjusts to.

“Oh. Well… my name is Iriel of Lillandril. Which is far too many Is and Ls in one name, and really, you’d think my parents would’ve known better. We Altmer use loconymics, as I’m sure you know, so–”

Again, I chose Lillandril more or less at random from the Summerset map, based on it having a lot of Is and Ls, which felt right, all tall and Altmery, and a little bit ridiculous. Say it three times fast and you're basically yodelling. Later, I established Lillandril as Fantasy Wales, accent-wise, which made it even better.

ESO might have since established something different with Altmer surnames, lore-wise, but I don't know or care. Loconymics (being named for the place you come from) seem the norm for Altmer in Morrowind, and I like that.

I made up "loconymic", though googling now, there are other uses. I probably should have used toponym, as loconym is a greek-latin mix, which is bad practice. But I wanted a word for "named after a place" where the meaning was easily inferrable, without knowing either Greek or Latin, and "locus" is more familiar from words like "location" than "topos" is. I was trying to keep my linguistic technobabble vaguely intelligible!

In the very first draft, Iriel claimed he was a foundling in this line mentioning his parents, which was my attempt to stick to the exact terms of the whole Morrowind "uncertain parentage" thing. But I very quickly retconned it, realising there was far more mileage in having Iriel know he was connected by blood to his parents, and all the Altmeri angst he has over that. Only the first of many, many in-game "facts" I decided to bend or outright contradict! But it took me a while to realise I was allowed to do that, now, that I didn't have to keep to canon, as long as everything hangs together. In this case, I justified it later, by saying that the Empire had recorded Iriel as having unknown parents, because that's what he told them when he was arrested, in a futile attempt to prevent his family finding out.

pale-gold Altmer face, amber eyes and soft brown hair.

I had read something that advised writers to give hot, fiery angry characters warm colouration, and cold, reserved characters cool colouration, and I thought that was stupid. Iriel's not exactly cold (just numb), but Altmer in general are seen as cold, especially in contrast to fire-themed Dunmer, and... anyway, I wanted a warm-toned Altmer, because why not? Amber eyes is pretty, but not extravagantly so. I didn't want him to be exceptional, in any way - he's someone who can easily vanish from sight and memory, after all. So, he gets the most "boring" hair colour, mouse brown, which I have a soft spot for.

@Sinilakki sent me a picture very soon after I posted this chapter, and I was delighted, because clearly my limited physical description had worked - it was perfect. My first ever picture of Iriel, and it's still one of my absolute favourites.

“You are male, aren’t you? Hard to tell with you elves.” Ire racked his addled brain for the sort of lacerating response he would have given to that, in better days, but failed miserably.

The first thing to produce an actual spark of defiance in Iriel, even if he doesn't manage to act on it. Ire's experiences of Imperials having offensive ideas about elven gender will reoccur, once he's in a fit state to lecture about it.

Ire squeaked, and shifted as best he could, stumbling towards the door and struggling with the handle until it finally obeyed him.

All this is so early Pratchett, isn't it? Rincewind, but younger and gayer. Make a wet, nervous wizard and give him problems.

previous: 0: intro next: 2: labels

[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.

[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…

[hawaiigrants]

Hawaii Grant Summit

The Hawaii Grant Summit, hosted at the Entrepreneurs Sandbox in Kakaako and featuring Learn Design Apply! Mahalo to HTDC, Hub Coworking Hawaii, and Neat for their support!

[scrvn]

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