Index - chronological order, oldest at the bottom.
26/02/24.
- Check out this artist. They don't take commissions, but a very inspiring style nontheless.
- A favourite. They had a website at one point, but the link is on their twitter and I can't be bothered to login.
- A possible personality disorder for a character?
- Come Wayward Souls from Over the Garden Wall. The Beast was sick as hell.
- Saw a suggestion for beating writers block - somewhere online, I wish I could remember where. It said to listen to the entire Gone Girl soundtrack, and if at any point you aren't writing, you have to eat sour candy. I'm not a masochist, but it's a good soundtrack, so I'm noting the tip here anyway.
- So, I saw this video... I haven't watched it yet, because frankly I doubt it will have any new information for me. Noting it here in case it's useful as a 'normie benchmark' though, to mark my writing against to see how much of it will be accessible to the average joe. Ugh, I can't place why, but this sort of thing really turns me off. Nothing worse than seeing stuff you really enjoy and are passionate about dumbed down for people who have no interest at all. I suppose it's good to give people the chance to understand it... I guess. I'm really not the audience though.
- Whatever, check out this cool song I guess. Carpenter Brut vibes.
24/02/24.
- Go to the shops and get some butter, some ham and cheese buns, and a cooked chicken from the deli section. When you get home, dismantle the chicken, and chop it up. Butter the ham and cheese buns and put in the oven for just a little bit, enough to melt the butter and add some crunch. (Can also microwave if you want, it melts the butter fine. 15 seconds.) Put some more cheese on if you feel like it needs it - not that plastic wrap cheese though, that shit sucks and will ruin your beautiful sandwich. Put the chicken on the buns - should still be hot from the store, but if not, put chicken on before putting the buns in the oven. Add salt. Add kewpie mayonnaise. Add lettuce if you want to feel fresh and healthy (it does not need it). Eat and enjoy.
23/02/24.
- Been reading Case Closed recently. Fuck, I love the interplay of motives in bite-sized solve-ems. An inter-personal dynamic situation so intense that anybody in this friend group could have killed the guy.
- Note for posterity: there was too much author ramble on that one specific story idea, so I split it off onto its own page.
- Books to read/look up: System Collapse (Martha Wells), City of Bones (Martha Wells), Dead Astronauts (Jeff Vandermeer), The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut), The Window and the Mirror (Henry Thomas), The Snow Ghost and Other Tales. All looked interesting while browsing the local bookstore.
- Putting a pin in this artist: I like their style and they have commissions open a lot. Also going to note this person's bandcamp, and this person on youtube: they both make really cool music.
- 'X' Lands is a neat name. Haunted. Corrupted. Dead. Adverb insert here.
22/02/24.
- Tumblr seems to be always on the verge of shutting down. In the event it does, I should probably have a backup social media site... I've seen bluesky as an option.
- I want to write a story called 'The Snowman'. Ideally it's going to be about a simulacrum, because in 5e DND they're essentially a lifelike copy of a person made of living snow. Note for posterity: this was the original story idea, but there was too much author ramble here, so I gave it its own page.
- Been thinking about LARP recently. I went pretty hard at it before my surgery, but having a forced break has cooled the steam. I'm hesitant getting back into it. I have a tendency to get over-invested and lost in the weeds on small details. I should probably re-examine what I want out of it before I start up again. Maybe go to a session - not to fight, but just to get a sense of things. Crap, but I really would only be going to fight people! The roleplay feels a bit... impractical, if I'm honest. Needless fakery. Plus the accents are unplacable and everybody's an agent of Khaos. Ah, but it's really fun leatherworking, and making chain mail... I guess that can be enough to get out of it. It's just that work has these umbrella swords right now, and the instinct to buy one is strong.
- It's only acceptable if we accept it. At work, I had some rowdy guys come into the store, right? And they made some homophobic comments, I won't go into details. Just jokey stuff, if you know what I mean. And so I was like 'hey guys, it's 2024'. Made some gentle suggestions that this was the wrong place to be acting that way. And lead guy, he's like 'it (gay stuff) just feels weird'. And I'm like, I know buddy, but c'mon. For the record I don't look as queer as I am, so I can get away with this sort of thing. And a little while afterwards, I was cleaning, and I realised after I'd called them out on it they'd really backed down, and hadn't been as wild. So it had worked. But it worked because I played on the idea of this wider expectation, that they should have 'known better' or something. And like, I could have said nothing. But by speaking out, I made it unacceptable for them to behave like that. So I don't know. It matters, I guess. Saying something. I forget that more than I should.
- Is there anyone out there who likes giants? It's all very well to be like, half a metre taller than human maximum. That's popular. I'm talking like, transformers level 22 foot tall giants giants. As a concept, I always seem to brush it off as uninteresting. Theoretically it has appeal, right? Give them a giant culture, give them factions and hierachy - foolproof. You'd think. I guess it pales in comparison to dragons. But tiny people, oh, different story. That's massively popular. So why not giants? If you like giants, shoot me an email, let me know why! Otherwise it will remain one of the great mysteries.
- Tridents, hammers, and axes are all wonderfully distinct weapons. Statements, you know?
- I like the phrase 'you've got guts, kid' coming from a grizzled older guy. Makes my stomach do a flip. How about a character called guts? It would be pretty ironic if they were disembowelled, haha.
- Laboratory tabernacle is such a wonderful phrase. Inspired by that one tumblr post about 'the box that god lived in'. I'm using it for something.
- Good general board games: Splendor, Catan, Wingspan, Sheriff of Nottingham, Exploding Kittens, Monikers, Muffin Time, Bang!, Carcassonne, Telestrations, Ticket to Ride, Scotland Yard, Hues and Cues, Herd Mentality, Bananagrams, Hive. Also The Mind, Scout, Root, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Scythe, and Hero Quest.
21/02/24.
- Yes, it's a pseudonym. I like the alliteration.
- Yes, I love robots.
- I think a mandrill would be a unique and striking furry.
- Some good board games for if you're stuck in hospital are as follows: 3 Things (you can spend time daydreaming about how you'd use them to get out of that situation), Story Dice (same thing: make up stories in your head related to the picture you roll on the dice), basically any kind of pub trivia (educational, but bite sized and fun), and basically any of the IQ / Smart Games, but particularly Rush Hour and Match Madness.