The latest episode of The Side B Anthology, the second story in the Sable’s Tales anthology, is now up. Scarlet is a liberal adaptation of the classic fairytale that goes by the name of Little Red Riding Hood or Little Red Cap, and some of the scenes and imagery were inspired by アリス九號.’s songs Scarlet and RUMWOLF.
The night that I recorded the audio, there happened to be a dog howling somewhere in my building, and you can actually hear the howling faintly in the background, which I thought was rather eerie (and fitting).
Such is the danger (fun?) of recording without being in a sound-proofed space.
It is kind of interesting to hear a bit of ambient noise in the background — as long as it’s not overpowering, it gives the recording an immersive feel. Rather than making you feel as though you’re in the story itself (with sound design), you feel as though the person telling you the story is right across from you (and the window is open, and there are people cooking in the apartment below — this strange moment of escapism is somehow happening inside a little bubble of day-to-day normalcy).
I hope it has that effect, anyway… ♡♪
I noticed that the Traces page was badly out of date so I’ve corrected and added new links to it, but I’ve no doubt forgotten a few pieces. On a similar note, there are several illustrations and logos I’ve done recently but my scanner will no longer connect to my computer reliably so I haven’t been able to scan and add them to the site yet. Soon, hopefully. Or else I’ll make do by tidying some photos up as best I can in Gimp. Which has been made so much easier by the fact that I finally got a new mouse after months of just using the track-pad… I know. I’m nuts. It just kept getting pushed further down my to-do list, and now that I finally have a new one (wireless! rechargeable!) I feel like I’ve just taken off weighted training clothes and can work five times faster. Like, an angelic chorus played when the mouse connected to the laptop. Why did I need a new mouse, you might be wondering? Because Scout chewed the wire of my old (trusty) mouse to the point that not even electric tape would fix it. That little mischief-maker… lol.
…at last I thought I had found the right way out of the closing mall as I emerged into the open air, and instead surprised to find a wooden staircase leading down over a hill and into a forested area. Curious, I took the stairs and was astonished to find that they led right to the edge of a body of water.
The sea, in fact.
Though it was obscured, mostly, by low-hanging branches and leaves, crouching down I could see that the water came right up to the forest’s edge, that it bordered me on two sides. And what was more, the water looked velvety soft, almost like a gel — was filled with glittering particles and lit a pale gold in the light of the setting sun. It was utterly mysterious and beautiful. I tried to take a picture with my phone when the seawater brushed against my toes.
I had taken hardly a breath when the water engulfed my ankles.
The tide was coming in, and fast.
I scrambled to get back up the stairs, and could see a few people on the stairs coming toward me startle at the rush of water following at my heels. We abandoned the stairs entirely and dashed to the right — inland. There was a commotion over there, a battle, it seemed, and —
Saga and ALICE NINE. have completed their Act 4 Summer tour and now all that’s left is the big finale in September. It seems pretty definitive that I won’t be able to travel to Japan and attend in person… but I will be with Saga and the band in spirit. It is sad… logistically, I just can’t see a way to do it, barring a miracle. So I’m just going to support and cheer on from afar and look forward to (hopefully) going to attend something that Saga does after the freeze… ♡♪
I’m currently working on interview translations for the deep-dive for Funeral (so much glorious content) and then I’ll move on to the GEMINI suite. It is strange, I admit, but even though I consider the GEMINI suite (and album, of course) to have been such a huge influence in my art, I’ve kind of been skirting around the prospect of translating the lyrics of the suite in full. Oh, I’ve read them many times (listened even more) — it’s just that, I’ve been afraid of making them sound less epic than they are. But that’s silly. The original poetry will shine through no matter what. It helps that a fellow 9kumi asked me if I planned to do deep-dives on those songs, giving me an even more concrete reason to face that imposter syndrome and just do the thing!
So there you have it.
I’m doing it.
And the imagery of the lyrics is exactly as rich, as introspective, and as epic as the music sounds.
It was much later than I’d planned, but I finally recorded the Brothers Grimm fairytale that I rewrote to start the newest series that will be part of The Side B Anthology: Sable’s Tales, or ST for short. It was really fun to adapt The Seven Ravens in my own writing style and so I will slowly add more to the series. It was fun to record the narration too, of course; here’s an outtake of me making fun of one of my voices to Scout (who attended the recording by snoozing underneath the comforter of the bed behind me).
This weekend I intended to sit down at my laptop and write more for Casseltaur, but instead had a sudden flash of inspiration for the next fairytale re-write so I ended up typing away at that instead until I had a first draft. As a kid, one of my favourites was Little Red Riding Hood, but having read a few versions and retellings over the years, I had a very clear idea of how I wanted to shape it in my own words.
This is basically just a fix-it fic lol.
Casseltaur, meanwhile, gets weirder each time I sit down to do the worldbuilding for it.
Which, of course, is a good thing. :p
I’m now on week two at my new job and the amount of change it has brought about in my day-to-day life already is incredible. Scout and I get lots more time together, for one thing. Aside from that, my commute is actually pretty energizing now (what?!), and I have so much more time and energy during the week to clean, run errands, and even write and translate. The new team I’ve joined are great bunch of clever, funny people and I’ve barely scratched the surface so far of what I’m going to need to learn to do this new job correctly, but they’re all very supportive, and this kind of challenge is exactly what I wanted.
Also, this week I started watching episodes of Gundam The Witch From Mercury before work while eating breakfast. It really takes me back to my childhood, watching anime in the morning over a bowl of cereal… キャリバーンがやっとデター！Obviously I want to watch the latest Dragon Ball stuff (lol), but the next thing on my list is とつくにの少女 (The Girl From The Other Side), which I started reading the manga of a year or so ago, but stopped because I couldn’t get the next volume, I think. In any case, I hope watching it will be just as beautiful and mysterious.
In terms of live-action TV, what I recently finished watching was the arctic season (6) of the survival series “Alone” (set in Northwest Territories, Canada). I used to watch quite a number of similar wilderness survival series back in the day because seeing people living off the land and personally finding the pockets of abundance in a given landscape is both impressive and soothing, in a way. CONTEXT and Casseltaur both involve living in an arctic zone at some points in the plot, so my watching was sort of research-ish…? I did learn a number of really cool facts as I watched, anyway.
Also: one of the survival experts was basically an arctic Forrest Gump… if that isn’t a good enough endorsement, I don’t know what is. Haha.
One of the survival experts made an incredibly beautiful, durable shelter and was just so adept at creating handmade things from natural materials. Another was doing fine in terms of shelter and food but decided to leave early because he realized that time with his wife and kids was more valuable than the prize money (or bragging rights) he could win if he spent more time away from them… nothing but respect from me for that mindset.
Last night it was a documentary about the concept of infinity that I watched (A Trip to Infinity) and it was a delightfully strange thought exercise for my mind — it gave me goosebumps in the best possible way. I think it’s safe to consider this research-ish as well. As much time as I’ve spent thinking about the concept of infinity and of how our universe is configured, there were several things I hadn’t considered before — facts that tilted, stretched, and reframed my imagination and thinking on the subject.
It was truly a momentous occasion at ホームBASS last night, as Scout discovered that mixed in with cans of food and a bag of litter were some new toys! But not just any toys. Bath toys. That float.
He hasn’t had another bath yet, but he was absolutely delighted to just be able to admire his new ocean friends before bed.
This morning I drifted back and forth between the offline writing laptop and the web-dev laptop, preparing a new page for Alice9Lives while Scout cooled off, belly-up, on the hardwood floor. He’s a perfectly strange character, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Just after breakfast, he was having fun untying the bow of the ribbon I use to keep some kitchen cupboards shut. He untied it and then carried the ribbon over to me, utterly pleased with himself. I had to figure out another way to tie it to keep my little tactician out of trouble lol
I spent the afternoon chatting with other writers at the monthly pub meet-up and aside from just relaxing and catching eachother up on our writing lives (during which time I heard yet more interesting bits of advice), we also discussed how to keep the monthly meet-ups going because the current Ottawa Writers’ Circle is set to close at the end of the month. We sat around the pub tables and discussed rudimentary plans to keep parts of the group going under a new name. At the very least, we wanted to make sure we’d all know where and when to meet up again the following month.
I volunteered a subdomain for this purpose (until or unless we decide to buy a domain as a group), and others volunteered to take on organizational responsibilities so we could carry over some elements of the original group (it has a huge online user base and had many events, so we just chose to focus on maintaining the core elements for now).
Much like last month, a contingent of introverts stayed behind at the end for a bit of extra conversation (myself included) and then, once more running into another meet-up group that needed our space, we said a quick goodbye and headed our separate ways. My feet carried me to a newer shop downtown: Midori Gifts.
Correction: I intended to go to right to Midori Gifts to peruse the cute stationery imported from East Asia, and was on the right street, but I walked almost four blocks in the wrong direction. Yep. I completely passed the store front. When I finally checked the map and realized my mistake, I felt incredibly embarrassed (also amused) and made a u-turn. The store’s selection was exactly as cute as I’d expected. I may or may not have bought a new eraser and sketching pen to add to my regular lineup…
Oh, I got one other thing out of the afternoon: a mild sunburn. This, despite having slathered on sunscreen beforehand! Ah, well… nothing a bit of deep moisturizing tonight and tomorrow won’t soothe. I was craving a salad of all things on the way home (fun fact: the tastiest salad I’ve had in the city so far is from my fav pizza bar) so I picked up some greens and Scout and I have been settled in at home ever since. In fact, we’re enjoying having the windows open for some fresh air tonight, since there’s no smoke and the temperature has cooled…
Over in Japan, Saga is preparing to go onstage with the other members of アリス九號. in Sapporo… ♡♪
Is it just me, or was the latest season of Black Mirror gorier than usual? Another excellent selection of thought-provoking short stories, though, and superbly acted. I ended up watching the whole season over the weekend, riveted to my seat with horror.
The rest of the week I’ve felt depleted of energy, though. Not exhausted, but depleted. I’m not sure how to explain the difference, but I suppose it’s something like this: exhaustion is sort of pleasant after putting a lot of effort into something, and a good night’s sleep will generally fix it, but depletion is a persistent lack of energy that a good night’s sleep can’t remedy. Normally, I wake up before my alarm, but this week I’ve struggled to get out of bed with enough time to catch the bus. And I keep forgetting to charge my phone.
If I think of it with a bit of emotional distance, as though it were a scene in a book, it’s almost comical, the number of times I groan and hit snooze, completely out of it. Even Scout, who normally will wiggle himself under my pillow to wake me up for breakfast, isn’t trying to get me up every morning. It’s like he can tell I’m not myself this week.
I finished reading Carmilla (a rec from the Queer for Fear documentary) and was pleasantly surprised by how overtly queer-coded it is and by the fact that I found the writing style more or less enjoyable to read. That’s saying something, because I normally find novels from that time period a bit of a slog to get through.
After the first half of the first season of Gundam The Witch from Mercury, every other episode has at least one scene that is like an emotional gut-punch. It’s good, just… emotionally harrowing.
The cover art for the Everyforest is still very much a work in progress, but last night’s sketch feels promising.
Last weekend I finished the first installment of a new anthology which I am tempted to call Sable’s (Tall) Tales. It will simply be a collection of classic fairytales that I’ve re-written in my own style and these, of course, will end up on the podcast eventually. The first story I chose to re-write was The Seven Ravens, because I simply loved the sister protagonist’s bravery in going on a quest alone to free her brothers –and the fact that the originally translated text implied that she had a disability. I made this much more overt — a gutsy, clever heroine who saves her brothers with a support of her trusty walker.
Saga seems to have mostly left Twitter at this point, and so there’s very little reason for me to stay on the site either. Rather than move firmly to Mastodon or some other microblogging platform, it seems more sensible for me to try and get back into the groove of long-form blogging instead.
They released another photo of Saga’s birthday hoodie and there IS a UFO on it. Has the inside of the Nose Mountain been visited by aliens?
Find out on the next episode of The S-files…
🛸✨👃
Ahem.
The design for the T-shirt is even more intricate than I had realized, too, and the symmetry of the two pointing fingers makes the eyes even more compelling somehow. I love the ST logo as well, and the colours… ♪
The silver amethyst pendant is simple, classic, and beautiful, but since I already have an amethyst pendant… ♡
Oh, and I’ve finally finished translating the entire GRACE album; they’re all up in the Cryptography section! They’re beautiful. I’m glad I took the time to fully understand and reflect on all of them.
I went to bed before finishing the writing of this entry, and finally woke up just before my alarm this morning feeling relatively well-rested. Scout was very pleased that I decided to join him at the window begore breakfast to see what little creatures were scurrying about outside.
The writing circle meet-up last weekend was just as interesting as the first one that I went to, but for an entirely different reason this time. I didn’t participate all that much during the meet-up proper — the energy was a little different than the last time, where we were all sort of discussing in small groups and having fantastic conversations that spanned a wide array of subjects. The gathering felt somehow a little sour this time. That is, until people slowly left and there were just two of us at the table, the other person having spoken even less than I had during the gathering.
The thing about introverts is we become more talkative and relaxed the smaller the gathering becomes. So I took a chance and asked her if she’d like to sit a little longer to talk some more… and she was happy to. As it turned out, she writes screenplays which is a format I’ve never attempted before, so I had plenty of questions about it and we both got to talk about our WIPs and the differences between our preferred formats. As obvious a thing to say as this is, it’s truly comforting and fun to talk to fellow writers.
We probably would have stayed to chat even longer had an organizer not come up to us in the restaurant we were in and asked us if we were there for a “language exchange” meet-up that was being set up in the area ours had been in. We said no and excused ourselves, paid for our drinks, and parted ways.
On the way home I perused my local comic book shop to admire their wall of Gundam plastic model kits (I refrained from buying one on the spot), and to take a look at some of the newest comics and graphic novels on display (it’s not new, but I still need to get the latest Saga volume), and then I left to take the long way home because the weather was fantastic (warm, but with a cool breeze).
I hadn’t intended to do any shopping at all during my walk, but when I noticed that Nordstrom was in the last couple days of its store closing sale, I couldn’t resist taking a look (a couple weeks before, I’d nabbed a heavily discounted YSL lipstick I’d had my eye on for years) and ended up finding a very comfy pair of leggings along with a holy grail find of two bras in my (specialty petite!) size in a style that I liked. Talk about lucky.
I didn’t have the energy to make anything complicated for supper when I got home, so I made a comfort meal of そうめん (cold noodles) with side dishes of cold tofu and sliced tomatoes. As always I had to fend Scout off several times, as he wanted to either sniff or stick his paw into the noodles, but after that we just relaxed and ate side by side.
I bought great new PS4 games when I was in Japan, but wouldn’t you know it? Instead of playing those, I’ve been hooked on replaying Dragon Age Inquisition instead. I finally cleared the trebuchet battle (without lowering the difficulty, heheh) so I set about exploring Skyhold and clearing up some minor quests before bed. And then woke up in the middle of the night and played some more until I could fall back to sleep.
Before that, though, I made some more notes for the next story, which I expect will be a novella or at most a short novel. Even now I’m still more or less in the outlining phase, but that Sunday, I did start the writing proper, though with a lot of false starts. It’s been in my mind since 2018, so I have bits of writing from that year and 2019 to incorporate in it (or discard if it no longer aligns) which is rather exciting in and of itself. A bit of spring cleaning for the imagination, you might say.
I even added another old art piece to the home page — void/eden from 2018.
In the week since I’ve put a bit more work into a short story that’s been percolating in my brain for a number of months and I finished translations for a few more アリス九號. lyrics (though they still need a bit of editing before I can post them). Though given that I worked yesterday, I’ll be spending a good deal of time, I expect, giving in to Scout’s requests for naps and pets…
Sounds like a good way to spend an afternoon to me 🙂
p.s. I ate yogurt all throughout childhood without any issues, but when I became a teenager, the smell suddenly started making me gag and ever since then I’d been keeping my distance from the stuff. Well, wouldn’t you know it? I recently figured out a way to trick my brain into eating it again! I take plain greek yogurt, slather it in my favourite salsa, and eat it with chips as a replacement for sour cream! Paired with the salsa, as long as I eat it while its still cold, I really can’t smell the difference between it and sour cream. I wonder if I’d be able to eat it with pierogis and green onion…
I’m not sure why I went so long without writing here again, but the most important thing to mention is that The Everyforest is officially complete — was completed May 22nd 2023. The final chapter, In/Out Ad Infinitum, was difficult both on an emotional level and a technical level, to write. It was so difficult to read that I cried while narrating the final section which probably made the recording difficult to listen to, but it was a genuine reaction, so I decided to use that first take anyway.
Finally… the novella is done.
I wanted to give up on writing it so many times, especially during the last few chapters, but I didn’t, and for that, I’m glad. In the time since, I’ve been working on the digital/print version of the book, editing the earlier chapters especially for cohesion, and I plan to have this self-published by the end of the year because quite frankly, an actual publisher would have to be crazy to take on this experimental thing to try to sell it. And my goal is a lot smaller than that: I literally just want this thing to exist.
Anything beyond it simply existing would be exciting though, I grant you.
Reader, if you’re creating something right now and feel alone, feel overwhelmed, or feel like it doesn’t matter — please don’t give up. The process of making it changes something in you and even just that alone gives it intrinsic value… although I do hope you get to share it with people that resonate with it and enjoy the thing you’ve made.
Anyway, if you’re wondering whether I’m already working on a follow-up to the novella, among other shorts, the answer to that is a very emphatic yes. Though I don’t yet know how I’ll be doing the next story (whether I’ll narrate it chapter by chapter or whether I’ll just be writing it and putting it up as one complete volume). I certainly haven’t forgotten about the Context novel (and in fact, the last few chapters of The Everyforest helped shape more of it in ways I hadn’t initially expected), but its plot definitely needs more thought put into it because what I’ve got so far is missing something in the middle.
In short: the plot needs a plumber.
I’ve actually got one in mind.
Oh, but that’s another story altogether…
Though that character would prefer you refer to her as a “shit facilitator,” I have come to understand.
Ahem.
Aside from that I’ve been steadily adding to the Alice9Lives site, recently put up my own 9kumi Interview, and added a couple more translations on the Cryptography page of this site.
It’s just about time for me to get ready to head out for a writers’ meet-up and it’s a sunny day which means I need extra time to slather on some sunscreen first. My anxiety got out of control yesterday afternoon at work and after some very incoherent journaling, a good meal, a small glass of scotch, a bit of gaming, and a lot of fitful sleep… I am finally feeling relatively clearheaded.
I am more than ready for a cup of coffee and some good conversation with my fellows.
At 7000 words and growing, TE10 simply had to be split in two chapters, regardless of how determined I had been to keep the novella at 10 chapters in order to match アリス九號.’s GRACE album. Instead, the 11 chapters represent the fact that GRACE was released in November, as well as reminding me of the lives I went to that same month, experiencing the whole album (most especially Grace and 界) for myself in person. A truly unforgettable experience that influenced the ending of the novella. I got so much inspiration from seeing and hearing the band rock out live, and most especially from seeing Saga play so soulfully and then relax and have a damn good time during classic, high-energy songs.
I’m so glad I went.
In other words: TE10 has now been released, and TE11’s release will follow in the next week or two!
I added some music into this 10th chapter as well, but I’m no songwriter, so it’s very rudimentary; I was just trying to improvise things during the recording and editing out the bits that sounded too rough afterward. Scout was an immense help during the editing process before bed last night: he provided ambient cuteness and kept my pillow warm while I sat at my dressing table and worked!
This project has really tested the limits of my writing abilities and I wanted to give up several times so I’m glad I saw it through. Regardless of what the reception is, writing this helped me process a lot of things that were in my subconscious — that were stuck there — and for that alone, it’s been worth it.
Though I hope that others who come across the novella will be moved by it too, in their own way.
The new chapter 10, which I chose to name Birth of a Language, makes reference to my 2018 poem Mitosis, expounds on a 2017 short story I wrote under a different penname, and fills in some background for the novel I’m working on. The new chapter 11, retaining its original name In/Out Ad Infinitum, is where everything… ends? begins? returns?
We got news today that Saga had come down with the flu, and though he does have a fever, it sounds like he’s relatively okay for the moment. They were definitely right to postpone some concerts for him to fully recuperate. I hope he starts to feel better in the next few days… I do worry, but of course Saga has family, doctors, and friends around him if he needs help so it’ll be okay.
Though as a musician, I can imagine it’s really frustrating to suddenly get sick that way… every fan and person who loves Saga just wants him to feel well before stepping back on stage.
My heart goes out to him ♡
The result of Arsenal’s latest match probably lifted his spirits a little, though…
I had finished my Sunday vacuuming and was well into researching publishing options for TE when Scout suddenly started pacing the floor in front of the bed, and then jumping up onto my pillow to meow loudly. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. He wasn’t interested in playing fetch with his new toy, he’d already had breakfast, and the Scouthouse was clean (recently bought him a bigger, deeper box and he can no longer kick litter over the sides — total gamechanger for HOMEベース)… he only stopped meowing when I went over to the bed and asked him what he wanted.
He stared at me pointedly, willing me to understand.
Turns out, he wanted me to lie down and keep him company while he dozed and slow-blinked at me.
For 15 minutes. Then he was refreshed and trotted off happily.
Cutie.
In the time it took to sit down and type this entry up, Scout climbed up to the top level of his cat tree and started taking a proper nap. There are still several parameters to consider in order to decide how I’ll distribute TE digitally (aside from on this site), but I’ve read through several options and now they get to percolate in my brain while I do other things. Like finish writing the ending.
And plan for a full reformatting of the manuscript.
That’s going to be an adventure in and of itself.
This is completely beside the point, but whatever it is my neighbours are currently cooking smells so fantastic that it’s distracted me from what I was going to write next. I have put a large slice of the pie I bought last week in the oven to balance the scales.
Before getting distracted with that, however, I got distracted by deciding I would put on some bright eyeshadow for the afternoon (a new weekend ritual) but makeup is really not my forte and so the result was more off-putting than inspiring. It didn’t help that I then tried to distract from the wild eyeshadow by putting on an even louder layer of lipstick lol. Needless to say, I wiped it all off. This weekend is a naked sort of weekend, it seems. But I took a picture of my clean face anyway, because… why not? The makeup remover has such a soft, glossy residue that it kind of has its own sort of allure. And here’s some bright eyeshadow from last weekend for comparison.
There is just something that I love about wearing greyscale clothing and putting a highly-pigmented colour on my eyelids. Not that I’m opposed to wearing extremely colourful clothing… on occasion.
I’m itching to infuse some new pieces into my wardrobe this year.
Ah. The blueberry pie’s ready.
This is frickin’ delicious, in case you were wondering.
I am at roughly 3880 words so far for the completed section of TE’s chapter 10, with another 2000 rough-draft words to deal with (chapter 9 was only 3600 words, for comparison). The rest of it is all in disparate sections that I am steadily joining together and shuffling around… because of course I never write a chapter from start to finish. I edit that way, but I write sections, lines, and passages every which-way, like sticking post-it notes all over the screen (represented by highlighting things in all sorts of colours).
2000 words sounds like a lot to process, but I expect to cut out a good deal of that. Some of those lines and passages have been sitting in the file for a long time and no longer necessarily fit the narrative’s tone.
I’ll figure it out.
Some of those passages are probably at least a year old, if not older, jotted down during work breaks. A part of me is maybe hesitant to remove those sections because it feels like I should be able to make them fit, that they have history. It’s not unlike decluttering a room. What truly belongs in this space? What can I get rid of? What can I donate to another story?
Because of course I collect errant bits of prose like extra buttons, letting them sit in my metaphorical sewing kit just in case they might be suitable to mend a different garment down the line. You never know what offhand note might lead to an unexpected bit of inspiration or be a good fit for another plot.
I will end my Sunday rambling with this:
To be trans is to be human.
Trans people have always existed and they will always exist.
