dragonessie | Reading

I dunno, why not make yourself more anxious this week. It Could Happen Here has the ability to send James Stout, an experienced war journalist, to LA to cover the uprising against ICE kidnappings. There's a lot of coverage in today's episode, which I'm currently listening to, but for detailed reporting, listen to "On the Ground in LA."

The scale of the so-called riots will surprise you—they surprised me, and I've been to LA. It's a very big city and unlike during the wildfires, very little of it is actually on fire. The uprisings, which are direct responses to people's families, neighbours, and colleagues being kidnapped by an out-of-control paramilitary organization, are actually only a few thousand people. Which is not to denigrate the bravery of those people—quite the opposite!—but to poke holes in the regime's propaganda.

P.S. If you are going to a protest this weekend, please ignore that "non-violent wave" thing and other similar memes going around. It is an op. If violence erupts and you do not want to be involved, don't sit down. Get out of there. I do not want to see a generation of young protestors with traumatic brain injuries, please. Also avoid bridges (don't let yourself get kettled or arrested en masse), and if you get teargassed, use water, not milk or anything else. Stay safe, I love you.

garote

One of the earliest and most memorable computer games I played as a kid was "King's Quest II", for the Apple IIe. It was pretty hard, and I only managed to get about 1/3 through it, because there was a bridge in the game that would collapse, sending my character plummeting into a canyon. I never figured out that the bridge could only be crossed a set number of times before it would always collapse, and the saved game I was playing only had one crossing left.

So I remained stumped, until I got a "hint book" as a Christmas present. The book was full of questions with empty boxes beneath them, and you could run a special pen over the boxes, causing the answers to slowly fade into view before your eyes. I revealed the answer to "Why does the bridge keep collapsing?" and slapped my forehead, then started the game from the beginning, carefully counting the times I crossed.

Later that day I finished the game. All the rest of the puzzles were easy, and I barely needed the hint book, but I used the marker to reveal all the answers anyway. From those I realized there were multiple way to solve some of the puzzles, which added a few more hours to the fun.

Over dinner that night I said "Let's get King's Quest III!"

My father smiled and said "Well, the last one cost 40 dollars, but eight months of entertainment for 40 dollars is a pretty good deal, so we'll see."

I played and enjoyed King's Quest III, and then King's Quest IV, but that was the last sequel that would run on Apple computers. Then I left for college, and everyone was playing console games and getting well into 3D graphics. King's Quest V, VI, and VII came and went, but I was distracted by multiplayer games and girls.

When King's Quest VIII appeared, I only got vague news of it from gaming magazines and the early internet. I read that it was a massive departure in tone and technology from the earlier games, and that disoriented all the people playing and reviewing it. I assumed it wasn't very good, and wouldn't sell.

Fast forward 25 years...

Apparently the game found an audience, and once a patch was released to fix the glitches in it, reviews and ratings went up. It's true that it was weird, and very unlike the rest of the series, and suffered greatly by being too ambitious for the scrappy state of 3D graphics technology at the time. To be honest, in terms of both visuals and motion, it looks ugly now, even while 2D games from years earlier still look completely acceptable to the modern gaming eye.

For a fun comparison, check out this bundle on the "Good Old Games" retro gaming site. They're selling Kings Quest VII and King's Quest VIII in one package, and they show screenshots from each side-by-side. Flip though and you'll see nice-ugly-nice-ugly-nice-ugly-nice-ugly...

Still, I got curious, and discovered a few video walkthroughs of the game. While watching those I noticed that the background music was eerily compelling, and had a sudden need to hear it in more detail. There were mp3 versions of some of the musical cues sitting around online, but I wanted higher quality. So I went to the source: The Internet Archive copy of the original King's Quest VIII CD-ROM.

I downloaded that, mounted the disc in an emulated copy of Windows XP, and went trolling around. Turns out there are hundreds of files just sitting there on the CD:

But what is this ".AUD" format? Well, long story short, I tried a bunch of different utilities in both Windows and Mac, and eventually did this:

Copy all the .AUD files into a folder on the Mac
Install ffmpeg via homebrew
Go to the folder via Terminal, and run for i in *.AUD; do ffmpeg -i "$i" "${i%.*}.WAV"; done

That gave me a long list of uncompressed audio files to work with, and I went poking through them, and gathered the longest ones into an hour-long collection, converted to Apple Lossless format with proper tags.

Here, have an hour-long compilation of music from King's Quest: Mask of Eternity.

And then I discovered something else. There are some voicover outtakes scattered into the rest of the audio.

"There is a curious slot in this pedestal. Something must fit here. Let me try... this. Zip... Ugh... Ow... No, doesn't work."

And so on. In all their horrible glory, here they are. Another amusing detail is that in addition to the usual walkthroughs, you can find complete transcripts of the game made by automated software trawling through the data files, and the outtakes are right there in the transcripts. Surely someone else has noticed these in nearly 30 years? Good grief, I hope so.

Anway, I recommend the music. To me it sounds like a companion ambient album to the soundtrack of the film Labyrinth. (Another favorite of mine.)

eldritchhobbit

On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa (Episode 758), I discuss science fiction, nuclear weapons, and the ongoing relevance of the classic Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald.

Here is the link!

sabotabby

Just finished: Dakwäkãda Warriors by Cole Pauls, I don't have tons to say about this comic—it'll take you maybe an hour to read if that, and it's really cute and fun, and then you read the context around it and it's quite moving and beautiful as well. It's basically a language revitalization project wrapped up in a pew-pew-pew space opera story. It's cool that this exists and I want there to be more of it.

Withered by A.G.A. Wilmot. Listen, cozy horror and other cozy authors! I will make you a deal. You get one (1) scene where the asexual protagonist comes out to their appropriately diverse love interest and they talk about their sexuality and consent in a mature, healthy way, infused with Tumblr therapyspeak, and agree to just hold hands or whatever. In exchange, I want y'all to try excise or subvert toxic tropes like having your main human antagonist being a woman who is haunted by a ghost no one else can see and locked up in a mental institution for 25 years, who has no agency at all, and who at the end realizes the error of her ways and is...cut loose to just be homeless and wander forever, I guess????

Like, aesthetically, I hate cozy. I fucking hate it. I try really hard to not judge the taste of people who like it, because intellectually I get the appeal and there's nothing wrong with liking what you like, but it's very much not for me. And when I have to read and rate a cozy book, I try to keep the ideal reader in mind, not me, a grim and cynical person who likes messy characters and tension in my storytelling. I think there are some cozy, or cozy-adjacent books that are done well (Regency and Regency+magic does low-stakes, mostly good characters in ways that I enjoy, for example) and I don't want to judge the entire subgenre either.

But I do think that there's a tendency for specifically cozy fiction to use didactic storytelling (casts include one of everyone and/or a lot of twofer characters, but these identities tend to be very shallowly written except for where they reflect the author's, conflicts are easily resolved by talking things out, good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished or reformed, discussions about emotion or sexuality are always direct and never in conflict). So if you are going to write a book that includes, for example, instructions for the reader on how to navigate a relationship with an ace person, or how to approach therapy for a mental illness, I'm going to also need you to examine your work for unintentional messaging in a way that I wouldn't necessarily do if you're writing, say, Gothic horror where the protagonist can't decide whether she wants the vampire to eat her or fuck her.

Which is to say that in a world where we get to see multiple Zoom therapy sessions, I do not buy that a mental institution merely drugs a character and does not attempt to help her heal at all. I think that sets up a dichotomy between Good Mental Illness (you know, the kind that makes you pretty and kinda tragic) and Bad Mental Illness (where you get your mess all over other people/try to burn down the family house) that is not good or wholesome at all.

Also, the climactic battle at the end was a huge WTF.

If you, like me, would like to join in on Cozy Horror Discourse multiple years after it was live, here are some links I appreciated:

The Material Basis of Cozy Horror by Moreau Vazh
In Praise of Discomfort by Simon O'Neill

Currently reading: Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This one starts with a robot valet murdering his master and not knowing why he did it, so, promising beginning. Humanity increasingly relies on robots to do everything, and as a result, is dying out. Charles, the valet in question, doesn't know what to do without explicit orders, and so he reports to Diagnostics, only to find that robot repairs are backed up due to funding cuts that have eliminated the entire human staff. Also he may have developed a Protagonist Virus that gives him agency and self-awareness, which he very much doesn't want.

The voice in this is great—the first two chapters are basically the robots navigating their way through the murder without being able to deviate from their programming, and it's bitingly satirical and very funny. I'm rather enjoying this.

marta_bee

I'm back from the funeral. Mostly I'm exhausted and angry, primarily about an arcane theological thing. My grandmum was very speciic about her funera plans, and they centered on a Catholic eucharistic mass. About half her family, mine included, aren't practicing Catholic so can't take communion. There are ways to structure things to downplay the eucharist things, like you could have a memorial without a eucharist or have the priest invite non-Catholics to come up for a blessing, say. She didn't do that and the impact was most of the family in atteendance couldn't participate.

Which was very excluding and pulled up a lot of old pain: she wanted her whole family to be Catholic, very much so, to the point I always felt like all the hard and serious work I've done to make my peace with God was just discounted and not taken seriously because I don't don the right label. Which is bizarre because, with everything I've gone through with religion and life generally, it's a minor miracle (if you'll pardon the pun) I've not gone full atheist.

I don't doubt I'm reading into this in a big way. Funerals have a way of opening up old wounds, and there are some things I'd rather do most anything than think about those parts of our relationship. I wish I could think less generally, just now.

Anyway. Long day. I'm sure things will seem less sharp-edged in a few days, or even once I've slept in my own bed. Thanks for all the sympathy, and the space to think out loud. It really is hugely appreciated.

sabotabby

They are going to beat you, and eventually kill you, regardless of whether your protest is violent or non-violent.

sabotabby

I dunno, what do you guys want me to rant about? The Freedom Flotilla? LA vs. ICE? The fact that my government is planning more pipelines while sending in the army to deal with out-of-control wildfires? Or, closer to home, Bill 5 or the Toronto bubble zone law, or...?

This is why people curl up and retreat into fiction.

marta_bee

I'm down at my grandmum's house. Funeral is Tuesday. I wanted to come down to be around and so I didn't have to hit the road so early today. Being here, things are starting to sink in a bit more, which is hard. We were sitting in her sitting room, and theres the corner where the Christmas tree used to stand. Knowing we won't ever use it again sits heavily on me. Never mind we haven't done Christmas Eves there for years, and never mind that my childhood Christmases weren't always happy. But the finality is hard.

Real is good, though. I've mostly felt very fuzzy and depressed. I was kind of tapped out before. It's been a hard six months.

I can do this though. It does feel good to be strong, even to feel strong. All things told, it feels powerful.

Hope you're all doing well !

craftyhobbit posting in

smallweb

Hi, I am a neocities user, but recently I've found that the social media-like follow function, profile commenting and recent activity page has started making me feel uncomfortable using the site. I would like to find a free host like neocities that allows me to create a website using old fashioned coding techiques that is free of the social media aspect. I'm not interested in followers, and getting comments for the things that I'm working on - I just want to create a small site to hold the stuff I'm working/researching, but I keep finding free hosts that rely on premade templates and AI content generation. Does anyone have any suggestions?

sabotabby

I remain once again mostly behind on podcasts, but maybe have a listen to It Could Happen Here's "Governing Fertility: How Pronatalist Policies Kill." (Trigger warning: It contains fairly graphic descriptions of what happened in Romania under Ceaușescu, which legit gave me nightmares as a kid.

One of the particular hallmarks of both Trump 2.0, his ex-BFF Elon (who is responsible for approximately 30,000 child deaths in his short tenure as Grima Wormtongue), and far-right populist/techbro movements around the world, is an obsession with forced pregnancy, insemination, and reproduction. Obviously this is viscerally upsetting to everyone who's read or seen Handmaid's Tale, and given that the actual supposed problems with a declining birth date are mostly solved by immigration, which they want to decrease, bears some further examination. They don't just want to ban abortion, but pursue incentives for large families headed by heterosexual married couples, punish the childless, and create eugenics programs. The one thing that they don't want to do is care for whatever children are born, or create social conditions where families can live in financial and physical stability, because then the money would be sad.

The gang looks at a number of movements, including Spain and Japan, but Romania is actually the closest parallel to Trump's plans, and it's important to confront that horror straight in the face so they you know exactly what they want for American families and children. Although, you know, eventually the Ceaușescus got shot in a basement and dragged through the streets so at least there's that to look forward to.

sabotabby

Just finished: real ones, Katherena Vermette. This one ruled. I don't have a lot to add to what I said last week except that I really enjoyed it. If you want a good pairing (or you're not super familiar with the context of the Canadian arts scene), Jesse Wente's Unreconciled provides a great non-fiction one. But yeah, I loved the characters, I loved the poetic, Impressionist writing style, it was emotionally affecting without high stakes or pacing, which is something that genre writers could learn a lot from (more on that later). Vermette seems to be putting out great books with impressive frequency but this is the one I've enjoyed most so far.

The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed. This one was imperfect and ambitious, but I'll take that over boring any day. It's a master class in how to do some interesting worldbuilding; there's a lot going on in the background, and you get it only as a sketch. Oh yeah, there are lizard guns. Why are the guns lizards? Eh, don't worry about it, keep up. It's pretty New Weird in the tradition of Miéville and Tchaikovsky (positive) so I liked that quite a bit.

I have two big critiques, one big and one small. First, the small. This is critically acclaimed, nominated for a bunch of awards, and put out by a real press. And yet. And yet. Alefret, the main character, has one leg. This is clearly established in the opening line. His leg is slowly growing back thanks to an experimental serum that's delivered via wasp sting (again, cool) but it's slow and he's on crutches for the entire book, something that is done very well and really gives a good sense of the character's physicality. And then there is a scene where he is having dinner with two elderly sisters who have a cat. Under the table, the cat brushes up against his ankles and he holds his legs very still. WTF? Which editor let that through?

My bigger complaint is that I don't think she quite lands the ending. As I've said, it's ambitious, a story about whether pacifism can survive a horrific war.
( spoilers )

Cottagers and Indians by Drew Hayden Taylor. This is a one-act play based on the true story of Anishinaabe people trying to re-seed lakes with wild rice, over the objection of white cottagers. And it's amazing, obviously. Everything he writes is great and this is particularly affecting. It's a dance between two difficult, complicated characters, and while the white cottager character could easily be a hideous caricature, Hayden Taylor is too much of a humanist to take the easy road out. There's also a great afterword by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, because of course there is.

Currently reading: Dakwäkãda Warriors by Cole Pauls. This is a bilingual (!!!) Indigenous futurist comic about two defenders of the earth, beautifully illustrated in a Formline style. If you want to learn Tahltan, I can't think of a cuter way. There's a lot of pew pew pew and it's very fun.

Withered by A.G.A. Wilmot. JFC not another cozy horror, fuck me. This one starts out very promising, with a teenage girl, haunted by the ghost of her recently dead brother, trying to burn down the family house before it kills the rest of her family. 25 years later, Robyn, who grew up in the tiny town of Black Stone, has fallen on financial hard times after the death of her husband, so she moves herself and her teenage child, Ellis, back home into the very same house. Ellis meets a number of residents, mostly young people, who insist that the house is haunted, and that there's a strange power that it exerts by displacing death into the surrounding towns, while keeping the people in Black Stone alive for a very long time. This is a good set up for horror. I'm here for it.

However, it turns out that the haunted house is nice, actually??? and everyone in the town is very nice??? Ellis is recovering from a life-threatening eating disorder that they in part attribute to "anti-queer cultural norms" and yet they do not encounter anyone who doesn't want to be their friend and/or date them, they immediately get a job at the cool coffee shop without a resume, and everyone in their life is accepting and friendly. Once again, a queernormative setting wants to have its anti-oppression cake and eat it too. I guess maybe the house is somehow making everyone in this small town cool and rad and multicultural, but I dunno, I lived in a pretty small town and it wasn't great.

Also all the kids are goth or alternative in some way and listen to the kind of music that I like. I can buy that there are tons of teenage Black girls in the year of our lord 2025 who listen to Bjork and Sigur Ros. What I cannot buy is that in a tiny town, one of them would just happen to meet and fall for a kid who listens to Frightened Rabbit and the Mountain Goats.

Anyway, I am suspecting that the girl who spent 25 years in a mental institution (what) is going to end up being the villain of the piece, because this is what reading cozy things has led me to suspect. But let's see.

toothpastepancake posting in

smallweb

I just made a fansite dedicated to a specific topic and I was wondering if anyone had any favorite fandom-specific personal websites, or complex shrines you've seen on the indie/small web?

Here are some cool ones I found while looking!

It's Not Stupid (Invader Zim) NOTE: There is a fast moving gif on this page
Channel 27 (Weird Al)
Dan & Phil games NOTE: way too many flashing gifs on this page, but still very cool

EDIT: I wrote this at 5AM and forgot the indie web movement is new. I’m looking for fansites of any age!

marta_bee

My grandmother died over the weekend. It still feels very ureal. I'm not particularly upset, just feeling a bit disjointed and out of sync with normal time somehow. But basically okay.

I did write a ficlet today, about a last meeting between Rory Brandybuck and old Bilbo at the long-expected party. You know, growing old vs. not, saying goodbye vs. not, all that kind of thing. I can't quite decide if it's just therapy by another name or if it's something I want to turn into a properly edited and published story. There's no rush on that. Mostly it feels good to have written again. I do wish I still was able to do that under normal circumstances.

That's the news from around here. I hope you all have a good week.

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