june!

Gothic horror is at its root about domesticity as horror. What if your home but haunted. What if your husband but monstrous. What if your family (or in-laws) but twisted and grotesque. What if wealth and comfort but tarnished and controlling. What if love but broken.

It’s a very intimate kind of horror, because houses and families and love are very intimate things. But because it’s about how those intimate things can be made horrifying, it also will of necessity deal with intimate taboos and violations, because those are the things that make intimacy and domesticity horrifying. Of course incest appears in the genre. Of course there’s violence, sexual assault, mental illness. Of course there’s expressions of love, sexuality, and sensuality that are messy in ways that feel dangerous. It’s a genre about safe spaces when they’re not actually safe. It’s about the subjective emotional experience of domesticity gone wrong.

I love the genre in part because it acknowledges this brokenness in ways that are still taboo in broader culture. I love it because often the main characters find a measure of peace after experiencing the emotional tumult of the story. I like that this peace is often highly conditional or strange. Yes, you’ve escaped but you won’t forget it. Yes, you’ve escaped but you’re fundamentally different. Yes, you’re changed, but you escaped. Yes, you’ve changed, but that’s ok. Yes, you’ve changed, and now you’re powerful in a way you finally understand.

It’s fine if you don’t like, well shit, any genre really. But especially a horror genre. My mother couldn’t stand anything scary, and as someone who’d been abused as a child, gothic horror was particularly difficult for her to handle. I get it.

It’s that time of year again where you are all out there planting gardens and being anxious about how none of your seeds have come up, or they’re “leggy” or there’s too many weeds or you didn’t water them enough.

And I’m here to say screw all that. You’ve been sold what a “garden should look like” by pesticide and herbicide companies. To be perfectly honest you’ve been sold that about your lawn too, but that’s for another post. It's time to take back gardening and grow some delicious, nutritious food!

So let’s talk about some things that can make you grow a happy, healthy, gnarly-butt garden that’s gonna grow a lot of food and take very little actual effort.

First: Weeds

There’s no such thing. Weeds are a myth. There are plants in your garden that weren’t the ones you planted? Great. Plants like to grow in your dirt. That should make you happy. It means the ones you want to grow will probably also like your dirt and want to grow their fruit/bodies there.

You’ve probably been told non-planted plants take nutrients from the plants you want there. They don’t. Seriously. For one thing, plants need different things, and clover isn’t going to want the same nutrients as your tomatoes, and it’s also probably not going to out-compete your tomatoes for sun. In fact, “weeds” also contribute good things and generally work together with your other plants.

Good plants to see growing in your garden:

Clover: A nitrogen fixer, meaning it will help your garden self-fertilize year to year. You want as much of this as possible in your lawn, too. It’s killed by a lot of major herbicides though, so to justify it’s use, you’ve probably gotten told you want a monoculture of bladelike leaves for the “perfect lawn”. A perfect lawn like that is both really hard to keep alive if not the exact correct type for your yard, and also generally needs added nitrogen fertilizer… because you removed the clover with your herbicide… sigh.

Dandelions: These are great because they have a really deep taproot that breaks up ground and brings water and nutrients to the surface for your other plants to enjoy. This means less watering, less fertilizing, and less need to till the soil before planting! Plus, young dandelion greens, while bitter, make a great topping for a salty sandwich or pasta dish. Their early-season buds can be pickled for capers, and if you’re vegan, cheap, or just want some variety, you can make dandelion “honey” by using dandelion flowers to flavor a sugar syrup.

Henbit: not going to hurt anything, gives good root mats that can help keep water in the soil around your plants, and is also edible, if bitter.

Grass: Similar to henbit, it creates a root mat that aerates soil, keeps in moisture, and prevents erosion.

Plantain: There’s not as much I can say about this one, but it’s not going to hurt anything. And you can make tea out of it if you like.

The only plants I would really take out are the spiky ones (that might make it hard for you to access your food come time for harvest, and are easier to remove when small) and really tall ones with large leaves, which genuinely may shade out smaller plants, especially at the beginning of growing season. If you have a bed near a tree that produces a lot of seedlings, you may also want to be selective about which ones you keep, if any.

Second: Choosing Seeds

You can go the cheap/free way (link), and make yourself a nice dumpster garden out of discarded food scraps. If you’re particularly daring or broke I recommend going to an actual dumpster, since a lot of the discarded produce will be overripe and most plant-able. If you’re gonna invest in seeds, though- make them ones that are native to your area. As my dad found out after several failed years of 2-fruit harvests- growing lemons in Ohio is expensive and futile. Something like sweet potatoes or squash though will be a much better use of your energy.

You can easily recoup your investment in good seeds if you get heirloom and save the seeds for next year, limiting the number of times you’ll have to buy them in a lifetime. A lot of time it’s as easy as letting a few plants/fruits “go to seed” or overripen, then remove and dry the seeds. This is especially easy for brassicas, lettuces, and greens, but can also be done for tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, and others with a little research and strategic planting to ensure minimal inopportune cross pollination.

Third: Planting and Care of Your Plants

Historically, nature has been pretty dang successful in growing things. Even things humans have decided we like to eat. The biggest thing you can do for yourself here is think “what would nature do?”.

Nature doesn’t till. Generally you can help root veg (carrots, beets, potatoes, etc…) get a little bigger/more uniform by roughing up the soil, but you don’t have to do it for anything else. Not tilling actually helps plants grow longer and more complex root systems, which decreases the need for watering and fertilizing, and they’re more likely to survive high winds.

Nature doesn’t plant things in rows ¼ inch deep. She dumps a ton of seeds in one area, half of them get eaten by birds, the other half sprout and beat each other up trying to get sunlight. A few nice, hardy, delicious plants remain. You can take some advice from this, but also help nature in this regard. I recommend dumping a ton of seeds in a section, then scrabbling your hand through them and the dirt over the area you’d like them to grow. There. Planted. Some will grow too close to each other and may stunt each other’s growth. You can thin to an appropriate distance, and generally eat the sprouts whole in a salad. You’re just gonna have to assume that some of the seeds will be eaten by birds/squirrels and be okay with that. Seeds are cheap and a renewable resource- especially if you got them from a dumpster.  

Nature doesn’t start seeds indoors. Just plant when it says on the packet outside.

Nature doesn’t water things regularly. If the soil is super dry when you plant, you may want to dampen it with some tap water. Other than that, water only when it’s been dry for a week or so, or the ground is exceptionally dry despite your clover and grass cover.

Nature doesn’t use petroleum-based fertilizers. She uses composted organic material (vegetable food scraps, yard waste if you’re on a 1-year compost cycle, plus pet waste, meat and dairy scraps if you’re on a 3-5 year cycle), and urine. Yes your urine. It’s great. High in nitrogen. Very free. Add it to your compost or use it directly by mixing it with about 3 parts water. You can either apply it in the rain or just try not to get too much of it on the leaves- pee plus sun will burn leaves.  

Finally, nature doesn’t neatly harvest on a particular schedule. Leave a tomato plant out and watch a deer go to town on it. We actually had all of our tomato plants last year eaten down to nubs early in the season, and they came back and gave us one of the best harvests ever! I don’t recommend this as a strategy, per se, but if you’re picking something like greens or basil, harvest by just grabbing handfuls and ripping it off the plant. Our basil and other greens LOVE this and grow massively when we do this.

Fourth: Miscellaneous Tips

Move your plants around year to year. Crop rotation isn’t just a big farm thing. Tomatoes are going to take what they need from the soil but leave the rest and add something back with their own decomposition, which might be something your squash wants next year, etc.. You don’t have to be perfect about it, just try to put things in different places from the year before.

Speaking of which, once you’ve gotten what you can out of them, just chop the plants up and cover them with a little topsoil or mulch at the end of the season. Saves you time and returns everything you can back to the soil. You may get volunteers next season, but really the more the merrier!

Also- some plants you can eat a lot more of than others. For example, the only thing edible on a tomato plant is the tomatoes. But radishes? You can eat the root, the greens, the flowers, and the seed pods, and they are all great! Look into other things you have growing and you might end up with more food than you thought!

One god, don’t play with any others.

Everything is God

One big god or small group of gods made everything but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other smaller ones that work for the big one(s)

There’s one god but all of these hundreds of gods are aspects of that one god and the aspects of the one god can absolutely marry each other and have marital squabbles

Individuality is an illusion and the universe is a series of vibes experiencing itself

The world used to be an egg but then that egg became a god and then that god made some other gods and then those gods became bored and made the universe and then they got to screwing each other to make even more gods and now there’s hundreds of them and exactly what gods are worshiped changes on who you ask in a particular region

Everything has a soul. Act like it.

Someone or something spoke the world into existence and we’ve been stealing other people’s stories ever since we’ll take whatever gods you have

A bunch of regional gods got smushed together and now there’s a state mandated religion that’s trying to make this smaller pantheon more popular than local folk religion

The difference between a god, a nature spirit, and a legendary person is extremely unclear even to worshipers but there’s shrines to all of them

A god chose these people to be their special guys and their special guys are gonna have a tough time. That god may be the only god or it may be one of many those people believe exist

Humans were kinda stupid until this one spirit or person showed up and taught them how to do stuff so now we do stuff to thank the person or thing that taught us how to do stuff

The world will keep on ending and being rebuilt it just does that sometimes nobody knows when it started or if it ever did

You can learn a lot from talking animals.

People were made to do work the god(s) don’t wanna do

People were made because the god(s) were lonely/bored/drunk

This river in particular is the most important thing in the whole universe

https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polytheism-part-i-knowledge/

https://acoup.blog/2019/11/01/collections-practical-polytheism-part-ii-practice/

https://acoup.blog/2019/11/08/collections-practical-polytheism-part-iii-polling-the-gods/

https://acoup.blog/2019/11/15/collections-practical-polytheism-part-iv-little-gods-and-big-people/

'How Not To Fantasy Religion' https://acoup.blog/2019/06/04/new-acquisitions-how-it-wasnt-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-ii/

Actually his whole page of resources for nerdy worldbuilders is kind of awesome

українською ↓

Splash out on the more expensive fake blood that doesn't stain clothing.

Layering and scarves are your friend when kitting up on a budget.

There will be tons of people at games willing to lend you weapons a props. Just ask!

In general, 'Just Ask!' is a great tule to have.

Prioritise comfort and warmth/lack of warmth when designing kit.

If part of your character isn't fun, just change it. Don't suffer through for the sake of 'the character'.

Don't feel like you immediately have to throw yourself into combat. Taking it slow and doing some training before wading in will make you a better fighter than 50% of the people at a game.

Life is too short for boring meetings. If it sucks, hit the bricks.

Let yourself have the damn wish fulfilment.

Try your hardest not to be intimidated by people who have been larping longer than you. We're all nerds dressed up in a field.

Crewing can be a good way to try out lots of things and figure out what you like without having to pay a lot for it.

Make sure you read the safety document and complaints procedure for every game you go to.

Robotgirls in an abandoned factory

I have almost certainly forgotten something.

We shared a bunch of concept art on Twitter today. Sharing it here, too, where you can find it all in one post. Post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution (or just play the game already if you haven't 😉)

Going to start with the first piece of concept art Abby drew for the game.

In the earliest stages of development, we toyed around with the concept of there being multiple "end game" forms of the Princess.

The initial outline, rather than being tied together by an overarching metanarrative, structured a full playthrough as a 5-6 chapter long, self-contained journey down a single route, determined by your decisions in chapter 1. Here's an alternative late-game form:

The idea of deviating end-game forms didn't lost for very long, though. As we explored the game's themes more deeply, it made the most sense for there to be a singular "true" form.

If your reality is shaped by subjectivity and perception, then the "truth" has to be what's left when that subjectivity is swept away. the Shifting Mound's final design feels like that initial truth for the Princess, though there's also another truth if you push back against her and press on into the final cabin.

We really liked this "void" design, and I played around with the idea of it being an intermediary to the final form. The "void" Princess would be what you saw upon encountering the final Princess without understanding your own truth, but once you had that understanding, you would see her as the Shifting Mound, as depicted in the game.

That gave way to the intermediary design of the SM being a sea of disembodied limbs, and we also took parts of both designs and incorporated them into the protagonist (particularly the wings.) You can see the eyes and feathers for this void form in the ending card of the original trailer below:

You can see extremely early concept art for the spectre (top), nightmare (top-right), stranger (left), beast (bottom) and ??? (right) as well!

The eyes became a motif in the Nightmare route (Paranoid's manifestation of the fear of being watched), but I also like to think of them as a part of The Long Quiet's truth. You are space and emptiness, but you're also that which observes those things, and it's your perceptions that give the Shifting Mound shape.

Anyways, on the note of the original original concepts for the game, the Princess was initially going to remain human for several loops before taking on more monstrous forms. Some concepts of that are below. Had to get Abby to tone down some of the more horrifically cartoonish designs because they creeped me out and I didn't want to romance them in a video game.

We had to hold our cards close to our chest in the non-metanarrative early drafts, which is part of why, even in the first demo, the cabin doesn't really change much in chapter 2. More room to subtly play with the concept of transformation over time.

There were a lot of reasons we moved in a different direction for the full release. The branching was unmanageably large to write, and the game felt like a slog to write.

Using an overarching narrative as a framing mechanism in the final version gave us a lot more freedom to explore wildly divergent ideas within routes while still driving the player towards the originally planned finale.

Anyways, now we've got some concept art for individual princesses. There's a lot more than this lying around somewhere, but it's all in sketchbooks, and we'll probably wait until we make an art book to show it off.

First is the tower, who really didn't change much at all. (She got a little thicker, I guess. All of the Princesses did)

Not a lot to say about her, other than the fact that we knew we wanted a set piece where she gets so big that the trees and cabin orbit around her.

The stranger went through many many redesigns over the course of development. Here, she was a "princess skin" filled with a hive of sentient bugs. The script wasn't working for me, though, so instead she became a peak behind the curtains without the necessary context to know her.

A lot of people ask how these earlier drafts of the Stranger route would have played out, and the answer is I can't tell you, because I couldn't figure out something worth writing.

The writing process for individual routes didn't really start with outlines or plot beats. Rather, the routes started from a theme and a relationship dynamic, and I organically found their outcomes by exploring actions within those themes, and then seeing if those passed Abby's editor brain.

Neither of us found actions we wanted to explore with those versions of the Stranger, at least actions that weren't a beat-by-beat retelling of chapter 1, which contained way too much variation to put on a single chapter 2 route.

If each princess examines a relationship formed by perception and first impressions, the Stranger examines one that's fundamentally unknowable. One where you've seen too much, too quickly.

An insect hive-mind pretending to be a person seemed like a good starting point, but it was too difficult to write any interactions that didn't immediately feel knowable, if still strange. So the final version of the Stranger was designed in such a way where her unknowability makes interacting with her on a human level fundamentally impossible, and you don't get to have a real conversation with her unless you satisfy extremely specific criteria.

Anyways next up is the razor's final form. We decided she needed more swords.

Hearts became an accidental motif very quickly in the development process, too. (The fact that it is only strikes to the heart that fell her in the demo was accidental, but it felt poetic so we extended it to the rest of the game.)

So on top of adding more swords, we made her heart visible. This is something we did with the fury as well, as a way of showing their emotional (and physical) vulnerability.

Here's an early version of the Adversary and what would eventually become the Eye of the Needle, back when she was still called the Fury. Originally her hair was going to be fire (as seen on the right), but it didn't feel right in its execution.

She's hit the gym since this concept art. Good for her :)

And we're going to end with the Beast, who at this point was called the Adversary. I think this was before the Witch was added? The Beast was originally designed to be a Questing Beast who lurked in the shadows, where you'd only see glimpses of her, and where each glimpse would make her appear to be a different animal. This was too difficult to execute, though we gave her a more chimera-like appearance in the final game.

This design was from when we still has the Voice of the Obsessed, and the route was going to be a more feral mirror of what eventually became the Adversary, but it felt too thematically similar while being less interesting, so we moved in the direction of making the Beast about consumption as a form of love.

Mix up out of character and in character names.

Forget their stats.

Forget the rules.

Forget their own character name.

Mispronounce fictional names.

Forget key character costume and props.

Have to go to bed early due to fatigue.

Trip over themselves when making a big speech.

Get out of character worried when doing an antagonistic action.

Forget to eat.

Oversleep.

Get overstimulated.

Get character bleed.

Literally fall over during combat.

If you're into roleplaying, you've probably heard about bleed. But do you know what memetic bleed is, or emancipatory bleed? There is a whole network of concepts out there about what spills over between characters and players. And if you've ever wondered why not everyone experiences bleed the same way, you'll love to read about bleed thresholds.

rateyourmusic's genre tree - super in-depth, each genre has a detailed description, covers niche genres and historical genres

120 genres of edm - good youtube video showing examples of a ton of electronic genres

https://everynoise.com - this is what spotify used for years until the developer got laid off

I WILL !!! I WILL DO THAT

some of my favourite indigenous artists, in no particular order:

Inuit artists:

the jerry cans (esp their album Inuusiq)

beatrice deer

twin flames

Māori artists:

jordyn with a why

Indigenous australian artists:

tilly tjala thomas (i particularly love ngai yurlku nhiina)

kardajala kirridarra (srlsly check out ngajabu (Grandmother's Song))

And one of her own:

Oh and of course there's also the HU and Bloodywood for people who like more rock and metal mixed in:

Analog mechs are the far, far cheaper of the two. Much less specialized, and infinitely more common, able to be found not just in military use, but in Agricultural and Industrial use as well.

To pilot one, all you need it four limbs (Including prosthetics) and good senses, and to score well in the Simulators to get your license.

Analog is a bit of a misnomer, a holdover word from yesteryear, simply meaning "Less sophisticated."

Analog Mechs work by scanning the Brain Activity of the pilot, comparing it to the physical input of the controls, and deciding what to do from there. They're considered old fashioned and less reliable than Linked Mechs, but they're reliable enough for the work they do. They are more easily replaced and retrofitted for different tasks.

They have simpler AI, and to exit one, you simply take the helmet off and open the hatch.

Linked Mechs are a whole other can of worms.

Each and every Linked Mech is custom built and fitted to their pilot, from the heaviest weapon, to the smallest nut, no one is the same as the other.

Linked Mech are Physically plugged into their pilot's nervous system, and they act as one. It can take hours of Decompression and Disconnection to remove a Linked Pilot.

Linked Mechs are truly nothing without their pilots.

Linked Pilots are the most terrifying people you may ever meet.

Their skin is mottled from the Oxygenator-Coolant that runs in their veins, the plugs and ports too deeply entwined in their flesh and body to be removed without serious disruption to their faculties, hairless and sterile from their conditioning and actions when inside their vessel, and that's only the physical differences.

Depending on how long they've been a Linked Pilot, their mental capabilities are affected in different ways.

'Young' pilots are simply too wary - able to pick up on the most minute details, in all five senses.

Their Mechs are still machine.

'Moderate' pilots have some neurological and mental degradation in addition to what they had before. often confused or forgetful outside of their mech, but still very aware of their surroundings, if not their place in time.

Their Mechs act protective of them, like a dog to it's beloved owner.

'Old' Pilots have all the earlier issues, compounded and worsened, and sometimes confusing themself for their mech, even going so far as to entering refill and Refueling areas of the hangars.

Their Mechs act the same, often trying to reach their pilot's quarters and the Cafeteria.

They may refuse to separate at time, feeling more comfortable together than apart.

and then there are the 'Fused' the oldest and rarest caste of Linked Pilot and Mech.

The Pilot and The Mech fused absolutely, inseparable for Neurological, Psychological, and physical reasons.

They are the same. They are one. A perfect fusion of the Biological and Mechanical, Electrochemical Intelligence and the Fissile-Logic Personality, Mirroring each other with every breath and ventilation protocol.

And they are still people.

The Fused still need social interaction and entertainment. They still need variety and novelty, comfort. All the things anyone else would.

Fused are the least common, but are the least likely to die. Too perfectly combined, Too well accompanied.

The Three times a 'Fused' has been separated, The pilot Died, the Mech 'Bricked' itself, like a Jail-broke phone, no matter how it was done.

Fused are the most loyal, true, and caring of all pilots.

Few ever meet the 'Pilot,' the meat within the metal, but the few that do are those most trusted by the Fused person, as the Fused is showing you their beating heart.

If you earn one's trust, and are given this deep, grand honor, I only have one piece of advice.

mechs are expensive so maybe the only way she can possibly get regular access to one is to put herself in debt to a mercenary corps, running disposable missions until she can pay her junk-tier mech off.

sleeping in her mech to spend as little time out of it until she starts dreaming of static. wearing long sleeves to try and stop herself from picking at the squishy human flesh on her arms. it doesnt work.