Kittens

Kittens kittens kittens kittens. Kittwitter. Kittenday drawings. Kittendoodles. Kittenrants. KittenGames channel. KittenGraphics shop. Kittenstories. Kittennemesis. Other Kittens. Buy me a kitten.

[kuteragenesis]

@puzzleworm is a fun streamer.

Where Colin wants to live https://clips.twitch.tv/ChillyUnusualEmuCoolCat-IeuaB6GzHRgN3Dlp

This is good. https://clips.twitch.tv/EmpathicGoldenParrotTF2John-7qtwp0zmlVTxoDQM

Who are you??? https://clips.twitch.tv/DifficultTangentialWolfSoonerLater-UXTVZi6va2QSu1dQ

Colin is free https://clips.twitch.tv/ModernCreativeClintmullinsOhMyDog-5l4DAvut4CUt_VBl

Colin cannot be stopped https://clips.twitch.tv/ThankfulAverageNostrilSwiftRage-hgIVw4nPBRsDc3An

"I guess they're all going to the same place, in the end..." https://clips.twitch.tv/FriendlyTemperedKumquatDeIlluminati-kYvV2bMGrm41XQ1y

"This is harder than Dark Souls was." https://clips.twitch.tv/ModernGentleMomHeyGuys-4SAX_j1aEDoZdhq9

Predation is occurring! https://clips.twitch.tv/WittyObeseGiraffeBatChest-qhcDk6s7kGo-2t-p

Zarina is vibing. https://clips.twitch.tv/YawningHomelyElephantCopyThis-FdaMhwZq7bMXV6aE

Tunes https://clips.twitch.tv/GentleAmazingClipsmomThisIsSparta-24A_Fx05Qr11ufjl

Things that wolves like https://clips.twitch.tv/AnimatedAntsyOkapiStinkyCheese-x8hLh6LOWpmpuvK9

[kuteragenesis]

Awakening

My dream bubble exploded with an audible "pop!", spattering me with make-believe fluid and waking me from the hallucination it held within.

[kuteragenesis]

No one:

Jasmine:

[snakestack]

Happy birthday @kuteragenesis !!!

[kuteragenesis]

This is so pure and good. Thank you so much.

[kuteragenesis]

We now have a Freya.

[kuteragenesis]

Hey can someone help me? I’m trying to find the original post or whatever source of an image that looks like the one I drew here.

I’m pretty sure it was a child’s drawing, and I believe there was something about it being an “image of god”.

[kuteragenesis]

“Runs in the Family” by Amanda Palmer, 2003 or 2007

Kagey Song Thoughts 20:

Regulars will recognize Amanda Palmer, of course. She’s great. Yes. This song sort of completes the theming of the last few songs. A family.

Though, of course, the song doesn’t really present family as a positive thing, as far as I can tell. It sounds like a song in which she is pointing out problems in her family and her own life, blaming it on either genetics or a more nebulous idea of “family”.

Reading the lyrics, I feel like I basically got the right idea without fully understanding them. She mentions health problems with her friends as well as herself, pointing out how they are inherited. There are also lyrics that seem to allude to a concern for passing on her problems (that is, family), and hence is averse to getting pregnant.

The singing has a sort of raving aspect to it, a lot like one of Amanda Palmer’s songs in the Dresden Dolls (which is probably not a coincidence, since she apparently wrote this song for the Dresden Dolls at first). It’s very passionate, even angry, and I feel like I can understand why. A big reason--maybe the biggest one--that life is so frustrating is that we don’t get to choose our starting conditions. We can’t decide what family we live with, where our homes are located, how wealthy we are, our race, our sex, or of course our genetic predispositions. And despite what some people might say, those starting conditions really matter. It’s why the phrase “life isn’t fair” is basically a true statement.

[kuteragenesis]

“Not Your Regular Angel” by Jeff Claassen, 2005

Kagey Art Thoughts 48:

If you’re on my blog and click on the appropriate tag, you’ll see that I’ve written about Claassen before--he’s modern, makes weird art, etc.

This piece of art is weird in a few ways, the first of which is the title itself. “Not Your Regular Angel” implies that an “angel” that is not literally an angel is depicted or implied. My initial thought was that the “angel” was some unseen entity doing something to remove the energy or soul of the character, thus acting in a way you would not assume an angel might. However, upon looking at some of Claassen’s other works, I’m inclined to think the character herself is the angel. In that event, perhaps she is atypical for an angel because of how unhappy she and her environment look. But I have a different idea.

Have you ever watched Donnie Darko? Or, if not, have you seen/read the Midnight Crew segment of Homestuck? In both of them (the latter inspired by the former), certain characters can see a kind of ethereal “trail” that represents where someone is fated to go in the future. The blue wispiness coming out of the angel reminds me of those trails, but there’s something different in this case! The angel’s trail splits into two different trails, which, to me, implies that she might do one thing or might do another. Who knows?

Well, according to many sects of Abrahamic religions, their monotheistic god knows, because angels do not have free will (though this differs depending on which religion or sect we’re talking about). So, in my made-up lore for this piece of art, the angel has the option between two different actions because she has free will, which would indeed make her an irregular angel.

Anyway, I’m not entirely certain why I like this art, but I did come to a realization somewhat recently, which is that I tend to like sad things. Not in real life, mind you, but in fiction books and artwork. And of course there’s more nuance to it than that, but the point is just that this artwork clearly evokes a feeling of sadness. The angel is frowning and out-of-place seeming, the colors are all dull, and the background is a strange upward-dripping depression zone. Why do I like this? I don’t know, but I do!

[kuteragenesis]

Alexocution: A Study in Invisible

Last night I had a dream, don’t fully remember, etc.

I was in the Harry Potter universe, I guess as Harry Potter but this isn’t readily apparent. Further complicating things, my wife Jasmine was in it, but I think she was also Hermione.

Hagrid needed help for some reason, I think he was injured? Jasmine looked at her phone and did mysterious calculations, quickly determining where Hagrid’s assailant might be. We went out to some public area and I saw Barty Crouch Jr. standing next to a wall, his head tilted up with closed eyes as if enjoying nonexistent rain.

As in many dreams I remember, I had out-of-universe foreknowledge of things, and thus I knew that Barty Crouch Jr. was the villain and was about to get away by going through an illusory wall, but for some reason I couldn’t say this outright. So instead, I pointed him out and said that he looked suspicious and we should watch him. The three of us then slowly walked by, surreptitiously keeping an eye on him as he walked into the wall. Somehow, this act was proof enough of his guilt, and Hagrid went back and grabbed him, able to overpower him despite failing to do so before.

After I woke up and wrote some cursory notes about the dream, I thought to myself how interesting it would be for there to be a mystery show set in the Harry Potter universe, wherein a Sherlockian auror or something investigates magical crimes.

[kuteragenesis]

Jasmine and I have been friends for 14 years, in a romantic relationship for 12 years, living together for 7 years, and married for 3 years.

Early next year, we will move into a new home for the first time since we moved here 7 years ago. This place will be bigger, and we might finally get a pet or two.

It’s exciting, even amidst all the moving and cleaning worries and reading this 57-page document that we have to sign.

[kuteragenesis]

The Phantom Link

For the majority of my relationship with Jasmine, I’ve taken to just sending her links to things that I liked or otherwise wanted her to see for some reason. She affectionately called this “junk”, as in “oh, you’re junking me again”, and consequently our private Slack channel wherein I send her links is called #junk. Anyway, it was only relatively recently that I figured I could do the same to a slightly wider audience, so here you go.

“Witzelsucht” - “. . . a set of pure and rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make puns, or tell inappropriate jokes or pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations.”

“Uchchaihshravas” - Hindu mythology is probably my favorite mythology, and only part of it is the fact that it includes things like seven-headed flying horses.

“Medjed” - Egyptian mythology is also good, though I feel like Medjed manages to fail to represent the goodness of the Egyptian gods while nevertheless being good in a very different way.

https://twitter.com/meetissai/status/1092340791232552961 by meetissai - Please look at this person’s works.

“Uncleftish Beholding” by Poul Anderson - An essay written in a hypothetical version of English called “Anglish”.

“Men Writing Women” via Reddit - The way an unfortunate number of men write female characters is sad, funny, and infuriating all at once--especially, I’m sure, if you’re a woman. This Reddit (is... is that how you refer to specific partitions of the website? (ah, Jasmine explained to me it is called a subreddit)) has several examples of this fact, as well as opposing examples of how to write women well. As a male writer, I fully intend to not be so ridiculous (and I think I’m doing all right so far).

“New York City Bus Simulator” played by Vinesauce - A classic.

“I Built an Unethical Zoo Where Nobody Is Safe” by Let's Game It Out - This video is by a guy who plays video games (generally of the sandbox variety), wherein he causes as much chaos as possible. Jasmine discovered this YouTuber kinda randomly, and we’ve been steadily going through his videos, laughing all the way. The video I linked is among my favorites (of the ones we’ve seen so far), but I definitely recommend giving the rest of his stuff a look if you like this sort of thing.

“Is Forces of Destiny Good?” by Jenny Nicholson - If you follow my Twitter, you may have seen me mention this video already. Jenny Nicholson makes insightful and hilarious videos on YouTube that Jasmine and I both watch, often but not exclusively about Star Wars. This particular video, I feel, is an excellent example of how she can talk about something I know basically nothing about and still make it interesting and funny.

[kuteragenesis]

We have a new friend.

[kuteragenesis]

“DO and MJ: Bloom”

It’s Trevor’s birthday today.

[kuteragenesis]

Alexocution: Space Dreams

Last night I had a dream. As in every dream I remember, I don't remember all of it. In fact, I only ever seem to remember a tiny fragment of the dream as a whole. It's a little infuriating how dreams are so easy to forget.

Anyway, the scene I remember with the most vividness is Venus. In the sky. Now I don't mean the morning star or the evening star, though it was twilight, I mean Venus, the planet, was right there, hanging somewhere between the zenith and horizon, over ten times the apparent size of the moon. If this scenario were in real life, I imagine it would be a massive extinction event because of the gravitational effects of planets being in such close proximity. Another anomalous attribute of Venus was the fact that it was spinning very fast, like a basketball spun on a finger, and in the dream the spinning made a sound that I no longer remember. Now, of course, sound does not travel through space, and also of course Venus is a planet that actually spins very slowly, but that's how the dream was. I remember being very scared of this too-close and too-spinny Venus.

After that, we're in an Ant-Man movie. I'm not sure if I'm Ant-Man or just observing him, but we're also with some faceless friend of Ant-Man. I should also point out that it isn't clear that Ant-Man is in fact Ant-Man, since he is not wearing the suit, but I'll stick with the moniker because that's what the dream dictated. We were in a space station, as far as I know unrelated to the previous scenario since I don't remember seeing Venus from there. Ant-Man gets some magnetic boots and tests them, then we're running from an undefined villain who's also in the space station. We go outside, into space, and climb alongside the structure using handholds. At this point, I'm the last one out (either as Ant-Man or as an observer, it doesn't seem to matter anymore), and the villain climbs out after us. Before he can reach one of the handholds, I knock his hand away, and he floats away into space.

For some reason, we decide that we have to go down to Earth now, and we can't go back in the space station. So I prepare myself and launch myself out toward Earth. I'm pretty sure I can survive the fall, because I can do magic suddenly--specifically, I know how to use the "arresto momentum" spell from the Harry Potter universe. But I'm still worried about burning up in the atmosphere.

That’s all I remember.

[kuteragenesis]

“The Mother We Share” by CHVRCHES, 2013

Kagey Song Thoughts 19:

I was going with a theme, I guess. We had a boy, a girl, and then kids, now we have the mother they share.

I’m not sure how obscure or not CHVRCHES is, since I’ve seen this song around every now and then, but a bit after hearing this song I became a fan of a fair amount of their music. I want to type “this song is CHVRCHES at their CHVRCHES-iest”, but that’s not a thing I could honestly claim since I definitely have not listened to enough of their music to judge such a thing.

My initial thoughts about the music are that it’s about a metaphorical “mother” that all people share, which I imagine to mean “Mother Earth”--id est the planet. I couldn’t quite catch all the lyrics just from listening though, so I don’t have any further initial thoughts as is. The way the music plays feels bittersweet to me, which leads me to believe that there are melancholic thoughts being articulated in it. I figure it involves respecting your fellow humans despite your differences, since everyone has the same “mother”.

Now... reading the lyrics, I have to admit I don’t know what the song is about at all. I’m not saying it’s as abstract as Cake Bake Betty songs tend to be, but I’m also saying there are Cake Bake Betty songs where it’s more clear to me that there is a story being told by the lyrics. I get the vague idea that the singer is singing to someone important to her, but she is also keeping an emotional distance from this person? I can’t decide whether or not there is love in this relationship, and I’m not certain there is an answer either.

Whatever the case, I definitely feel like there is emotion poured into the song, and I like it.

[kuteragenesis]

Yesterday Jasmine and I went to the Legion of Honor art museum with a couple of her friends.

There were a few interesting art pieces, but it was fairly small for a museum. But that’s not what this post is about. When we first got there, we got these stickers that you’re supposed to put on your person so the staff know you’re allowed to walk around.

That GA square on my shirt is the sticker, which I assume stands for “General Admission”? The numbers underneath got a little garbled, I’m not sure what that was about. Anyway, as you can see, I happened to be wearing a pride shirt, and at some point I thought of something.

When you see the sticker...

Don’t you want to...

Just...

[kuteragenesis]

Earlier today Jasmine found this website: http://bestiary.ca/index.html

At first, it’s a particularly unimpressive website. Just look and see. Yeah. But it’s got these really interesting illustrations from another era. Thank you David Badke for putting all this together.

Let’s look at a few.

The text claims that this is an illustration of "a man defend[ing] himself from a scorpion and a dragon-like viper (adder)". The man and dragon-like viper are, well, okay. But look at that scorpion. Just. Look at it.

"A centaur prepares to shoot a grotesque, a man-beast-snake hybrid creature.“

I like that the creature doesn’t even have a name. I’m somewhat familiar with many folkloric and mythological creatures, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what the creature is supposed to be.

Here we have a couple of manticores.

If you’re not familiar, a manticore is supposed to be a terrifying sphinx-like creature that looks like a lion with the tail of a scorpion (or otherwise covered in venomous quills) and the face of a human, but with three rows of teeth with which it eats people. When I first learned about it as a kid (from a monster book I had), I always imagined it as a particularly scary monster. And, well, these are scary, but... not in the way I imagined.

Finally, we have "A griffin, with wings appearing to grow from its front claws, snacks on a man's head."

I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

The man, though, really didn’t.