Month: June 2024

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Album cover of Precious' Whatever Sinks Your Ship album.

It’s not often I am transported back to High School on a good memory. But with this album, I am. On some weekends with my two best friends, we’d pile up in the car and go see a show. It was typically down to Orlando, about an hour’s drive from our rural tiny towns. Until we got there we’d just talk, or play games to pass the time… like combining swear words to come up with the best (worst) one (and "Grasshopper" won that game in two seconds, with "cuntshit"). Eventually I’d see quite a few shows, wearing platform boots at the front of the stage if we weren’t at the merch tables or braving the mosh pit.

But there’s one show I remember the best.

It was Precious, a band my BFF followed and enjoyed when they lived closer to Orlando’s music scene. They have been telling me all about them, and I was excited to see them in person. And they came onto that stage and rocked. It had the hallmarks of a great live show: passion, stage presence, talent, and a responsive crowd that loved them.

In addition to their Rarities EP, I bought their second album titled "Whatever Sinks Your Ship." My favorite track, if I had to pick just one? "Youth and the Drug Explosion," for how it ends: the wail of the electric guitar, carrying on until it was the only instrument left. Steve just stood there looking cool. But overall, I love the lyrics.

Some lines I still carry around.

One of my greatest fears
Is I’d hit a motorcycler
And I think I see one coming up
Way too fast in my lane “Youth and the Drug Explosion”

There’s the beautiful.

Maybe you can be
Everything I need
The latitude and longitude
Of where I’m supposed to be “All Saints”

Some are more… blunt.

Work harder / and then you fucking die “Work”

And some I think are relatable.

I don’t need a chorus
I need somebody to hold my hand
Tell me everything is all right
What I really need right now
Is another somebody to hold me down
Tell me “Steve, you got it dead wrong” “I Wanna Die”

I saw them play at one other show, where someone had driven four hours to hopefully hear them cover "Bare Necessities."

We’ve kept in touch via AIM. The details of how we exchanged screennames escape me, but everyone was giving our their screennames willy-nilly back then. We’d chat for upwards an hour about current events, broad-strokes life things, and music. I tried not to bug him too often– he was an artist and a busy man. We kept in loose touch after I began college, until the messages tapered off completely.

I feared the worst– he was open about his kidney issues– but I’m happy to report that he’s still around. I’d been keeping a casual tab on what he’s been up to. He has been fundraising for a kidney, and after a long hiatus makes music under the name The Guarantees. But, every once in a while, I still yell Where is Steve Garron?! into the void. Out of habit.

And here’s a call to action for you: go to your local shows. There’s really nothing like them.

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My Contribution to the Juneteenth pool party playlist:

  • Scoop by Lil Nas X
  • Kiss Me More by Doja Cat
  • 212 by Azealia Banks
  • Ima Read by Zebra Katz (if we gon fight)
  • Sing About Me by Angel Haze
  • Cubicle by Sammus
  • Power-Ups by Sammus
  • Childhood by Sammus
  • Mackerel Sky by Mega Ran
  • (re: Sammus, any of those three would be good)
  • Water by Tyla
  • ….you know we gotta play WAP right
  • Drownt by clipping.
  • the entire Age of Pleasure album (or just Lipstick Lover by Janelle Monae)
  • can we get some Drexciya up in there too!?
  • Blick by Scar Lip

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Do you ever just, hate stuff?

You hate it.

And then you grew up.

probably FFX-2 (but most definitely Unlimited SaGa)

Because it didn’t need all the hate I gave it. I will still argue that playing X-2 right after X can give you mood whiplash, but that didn’t deserve me writing paragraphs about how much it sucked. i’d do anything to find the bullshit i wrote so i can tear it to shreds It did carry the same score as Xenosaga, at one point, so I eventually did give it another go.

It’s fun! But don’t play it without a guide. Ask me how I know.

Unlimited SaGa was gorgeous and it’s one of my favorite games now. Other than presentation, I can’t quite remember why I dogged on it so much. That was probably the only reason. And that’s a damn shame. Its soundtrack did end up being one of my absolute I’ll-take-it-with-me-on-a-deserted-island albums.

Mary Sues

This is one of those things where I look back on and criiiiinge. You could say it was all about the sanctity of writing all you want, but if you look at the demographic of people that wrote self-inserts with sparkly eyes constantly stealing the limelight, something becomes apparent.

It was thinly-veiled an excuse to shit on creative teenage girls. (In my defense, I was also a teenage girl. At least I wasn’t a man in my 20s or 30s hatin’ on them. That’s fucking weird.) It’s still used today, but much less prevalent– and, if you ask the Old Heads, completely incorrectly. Mary Sues had, more or less, this sort of (highly subjective) criteria:

  • an OC (Original Character) author-insert
  • impossibly perfect (in looks and/or ability, or both)
  • accompanined by purple prose (“bad writing”)
  • terrible characterization (“more bad writing”)
  • an OOC (out-of-character) magnet for the canon cast
  • love interest to a canon character(s)
  • hasn’t done anything to earn in-story praise, credibility, attention, love…

And nowadays there are a few nuanced takes, such as this one on the PPC Wiki (or, "that thing where you spork stuff I guess"; please, i don’t want to further go into this where are you taking me):

Mary Sue is shallow: she cares only about herself and achieving her own goals. She is uninteresting, because she has no real conflict. Neither is she well-crafted, but characterized almost exclusively by how she looks, or how much her past sucks, or how good she is with her skill of choice. Worst of all, she warps or shoves aside everything we love about the canon and its people in order to put herself forward. Mary Sue has no respect for the work into which she intrudes. “Mary Sue” at PPC Wiki

Now I’ve noticed it’s been thrown around as code for "this female character is too cool, and I’m jealous actually." Straight up misogyny (and when it applies, misogynoir). The most recent example of this particular type of "Canon Sue" is Rey from the Star Wars franchise. Which, as Lily Orchard pointed out, was ironic considering Rey’s characterization suffered and became a "Mary Sue" in order to appeal to the very same people complaining about her (source). Star Wars fans really hate themselves.

There was a website called "Mary Sue Dolls" where someone did those little pixelized representations of, well, people’s Mary Sue characters. I loved flipping through them and seeing how elaborate they could get. I haven’t been able to find an archive, but I faintly remember the last years of that domain. It was still up, but with an apology on the only page.

But yeah. Let fanfic writers have fun. Let girls have fun, ffs.

If you hate bad writing and characterization, just fucking say that.

If you still don’t know WTF I’m talking about, or just want to know more, Izzzyzzz‘s video is pretty succinct.

Kelly, of “Shoes” fame

In college I was like "ew what is this vapid garageband bullshit." Fortunately, that pretentious shit only lasted a couple of months, if not days. Especially when I noticed Kelly’s songs were helping my then-girlfriend get through a tough time. If people love and take strength from something, could it really be that bad? Honestly, if you can create art with any tools at your disposal, it’s still freakin’ art.

Also, I was sold once I heard "Txt Msg Brkup." That was a banger.

Final Fantasy VII Remake (and so on)

I’m a little ashamed to admit this: when an actual Remake for Final Fantasy VII became reality– not a hoax or tech demo!– I was annoyed. Maybe even… livid. I took the announcement as a personal affront and cynical cash grab. You name it, I said it. I wasn’t happy that they were messing with my baby.

…Yes, it’s actually their baby, but I didn’t have to be happy about it, damn it!

And yet, I followed it’s development up to launch from the corner of my eye. I was still intrigued and curious. The more I read, the more I softened up the the reality of the thing, and eventually I made my peace with it. I wished I could have been more charitable from the start, regardless of what it’d become. The original will still be there for me to enjoy, after all.

Also, it brought us this:

Things I Used to Hate 1
CHERITH!!! Mod by Crandifff.

How about some engagement?

So– what stuff did you hate, but ended up loving– or at the very least, tolerating? Leave a comment and I’ll eventually drag it out of the comment filters! :3

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I’m now alone here

House empty and beige

Windows wide open

And the tiredness

Finally seeping in

A failed lynchpin

Staring out to the trees

Understanding, at last,

The cause for the distance

And realizing

That I can’t carry any more

Day 21 Week 21

I won’t talk about the during-move blues, other than note that it was one of the most stressful times I have had in a long time. I blew past my breaking point and burned out twice over. I wanted to cry, a lot, and I wanted to not deal with that shit anymore.

And then, it was done.

How am I doing now?

First off, I am relieved. I am also grateful for all the help we managed to get. I’m not even happy that the hard part is over.

I am sad. Still in mourning for the house-that-was in my apartment-that-is. My favorite ideal future of a giant house with our individual spaces, of all of our hobbies intertwining, and metas and friends visiting often will never happen. Relationships have transitioned and bonds sustained damage. There is, as I noted above, a distance I can never cross.

I did enjoy organizing and decorating with my remaining nesting partner. We made the place ours, and the vacuum left behind gradually filled. And it has been satisfactory as we settled into our slightly modified routines (the shortened commute certainly helped). Coming home feels, well, like coming home.

I am not happy, yet. There’s recovering from the physical, mental, and monetary stress. I may need another month.

But I have a bittersweet contentment.

That’ll do for awhile.

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I grew up in the 90s, so computers were an up-and-coming thing before they became a staple in all of our lives.

We had an Apple with Oregon Trail in our portable 5th Grade classroom, but I couldn’t really do anything on it. You put in the floppy disk and called it a day. There were other computers, yeah, but you couldn’t leave the fenced-in areas of educational games. 7th grade was when I finally felt like I could get my hands dirty on how things not only worked, but how things could be created. We covered different office programs and their files, databases, and light networking.

The recreational vibe of Computer Club, however, was where I was most comfortable. While I applied what I learned to fun middle-schooling projects (I really enjoyed making PowerPoint presentations), I surfed the Internet. A lot. I spent those weekly Wednesday afternoons putting search queries in Yahooligans! and coming across forums, shrines, and personal sites.

It all clicked in High School. The class programmed in QBASIC before lesson plans for FrontPage became available, and as a self-proclaimed Internet Denzien I pivoted to that. I was familiar with Web pages, but it wasn’t until here that I realized I could build. I fell in love with HTMLing and building Web sites of my own.

I also got into blogging around this time, too– teens love self-expression, and back in the day we were used FreeNetDiary, Xanga, and the highly-coveted Livejournal (way back when, you needed an invite from an existing user). I settled on BlogDrive for my first blog, the URL referencing Cloud Strife.

I also had someone’s fan page of Chibi Usa always bookmarked, and I was able to see it evolve over the years (until I lost the link). I thought to myself, “I want to put information out there, and I want to do it with style.” It has since morphed into an emphasis on accessibility and readability.

I still love blogging, and I still love manipulating content with color theory and best practices to display different media types, for everyone.

And what now? I am nostalgic from when The Internet seemed more fun, less cookie-cutter and corporate.

Backwards into The Old Internet, I go.