収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

Turns out it’s not just me having racism and misogyny problems in Overwatch competitive. I saw Wil Wheaton reblog this article from mic.com about it, as well as this thread on the Reddit Overwatch forum, and yeah – it did get a lot worse in Season III.

And so far, nobody official seems to be doing much about it. And people doing it won’t stop until it hurts them, so I’m definitely going with my announcement and plan as a de rigueur thing before all competitive matches in Series IV.

Meanwhile, back in quickplay, I’ve started singing what I call the Tracer Tank song again, because Tracer is a tank in the right circumstances and the right levels. NO, SHE IS, REALLY. I have golded so many times for objective time as Tracer that it’s hilarious.

Tracer tank / Tracer tank
movin’ the payload
’cause somebody has to

where the fuck is Reinhardt?
where the fuck is D.va?
i could be that Reinhardt
if i really wanted

let’s all move the payload
i said everybody
okay fine I’ll do it
objective gold again

I mean, think about it. If you’re on offence in a payload level, and you’re good at her dodging motion/blinking/rewind, it works out to an effective hitpoint/armour total of easily 350 points, assuming only one rewind – much more if you’re lucky and good. I have beaten back one-on-three facedowns across the payload, more than once.

How does that work? Base health/armour of 150. Near-double that to 290 from your own health, doubled, with use of rewind. You get 10 points per second back from being on the payload; survive five seconds – not hard if you are good with her movement – and that’s another 100 points (with the single rewind), which gets you up to 390. Survive 10 seconds, that’s 490. Survive 15, 590.

Survive, oh, 2:09 like I did in one game last night as Tracer Tank? That’s 2580+300 hit/armour points (tho’ that assumes more rewinds, as it would), for a total of 2880.

Bulletproof. Reinhardt? Roadhog? Paper people.

And that’s not even getting into how the payload is functionally a motion-restricted shield with infinite hit points and infinite duration.

Tracer is a tank.

(Really, of course, Tracer shouldn’t be your group’s tank. For one thing, this whole shtick falls apart if they have a Sombra who knows what she’s doing. Even without that, it’s not Tracer’s best mode, and usually if I’m doing it, the team I’m on isn’t very good. But we all know the number of people that just won’t get on the goddamn payload, right? I was on one of those a couple of days ago where I literally solo-escorted the payload from Objective A to (just short of) the Eichenwald castle gate entirely by myself. It was hilarious.)

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The most amazing thing about 2016-2017 is that I managed to write, record, and release as a single an actual song about Republican politics and pee obsessions…

…and it’s not about this.

They managed to come up with a completely different pee obsession scandal.

Wow.

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It’s Cyber Monday, apparently, which means LET’S PUT EVERYTHING ON SALE. I’m doing my part – I’ve put out four singles this year, so I’m putting all of them on pay-what-you-like.

It’s funny, but the most recent one – We’re Not Friends (The Future Has a Place) – has really changed on me since the election. Particularly with Mr. Pence involved, it’s stopped being a celebration, and has turned into a declaration of defiance.

Fortunately, I’m real good at defiance.

Here’s the 2016 tracks. I think they’re real good. Pay what you like – and thanks.

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PAX, DragonCon, Burning Man, Bumbershoot, Fan Expo, Faerieworlds, I don’t even know what else. And, of course, a bunch of people stayed home. Where were you?

I, of course, was at PAX, riding a dragon.

I also released a single. It’s one that’s super-personal for a lot of reasons, and I wrote a big post about it here which you should read because I think it’s the kind of thing that will mean a lot to a bunch of other people as well.

And, of course, you can go right on and play it right here, which you should do. It’s on Bandcamp and also on Soundcloud.

But PAX – wow, yeah. I didn’t intend to do all four days, but I did, and I’m glad I didn’t sell the extra passes. Totally worth it.

First, in a lot of ways, I figured out why it’s felt different the last few years, but still good. PAX got too big to be the “instantiate the internet” event it started out being years go, and, having now spread out over several blocks (all the way to the Westin!), it’s become a gaming-oriented theme park overlay for the city.

That’s a very different experience. But the thing is? I like theme parks. I had a great time. For example – I don’t give two figs about Magic: The Gathering but I loved tooling around the insanely-decorated Paramount. I liked that there was a VR-events hotel. I liked the teeming hoards of geeks up all night downtown, the sidewalks like party wing hotel corridors only not so cramped. I liked finding said afterparties, as well. It was epic.

And, the old parts are still there. I spent a fair amount of time in the handheld lounge and having people want to know where the hell this weird-ass handheld I was playing came from and how they could get one. POCKETCHIP YOU OWE ME. (I was mostly playing Celeste on it, which is kinda brutal. I’m 1km in so far. Hard game is hard.)

From a coming-games standpoint, VIVE did what Oculus Rift did not do, which is convince me that goggle VR has a place in computer gaming in the very near term. It’s kind of like – okay, things like the Virtual Boy and predecessors (which existed!) weren’t quite yet up to Pong. Kinect was maybe Advanced Pong. Oculus Rift made a big jump forward, and is kind of an, oh, maybe an Atari 2600 experience – fun to play with, but not fun to play.

Vive, though – yeah. Vive reaches the level of being actual fun. Look, here I am shootin’ a bazooka and throwing grenades at Nazis! Because fuck Nazis. Really, I wish they’d been doing the greenscreen for another game called Raw Data, because that was the most fun, because it was 100% I AM TRACER ONLY FOR REAL WITHIN VR. That was great.

And sure, it’s probably about the Commodore 64 / Atari 800 level of VR device, particularly since there are still controllers with buttons – even if they’re a lot less intrusive than, say a gamepad. But as we all know from history, Commodore 64 is Good Enough. Game ON.

Oh, what else. The Overwatch cosplay was thick, I shot every Overwatch cosplayer I could grab (which was not all I saw) and put a bunch of photos on Flickr.

I entered a lot of hardware raffles (like usual) but did not win (like usual). I played a hilariously stupid game called Gang Beasts which is technically a fighting game, but all of the characters are floppy plushies. I won one round by deciding I’d just go jogging around the outskirts of the arena instead of fighting and the other players all accidentally threw themselves off the edge of the world. VICTORY THROUGH JOGGING! And I scouted out a lot of hardware, like y’do, for when there’s money again and I can think about building a VR gaming PC.

Like y’want to, at least. 😀

Where were you, and was it fun? Play the new song while you’re telling me about it. It’s the kind of thing I think a lot of us are going to need heading into the rest of this year, and for now, hopefully, we’re all coming off a good long weekend. Time to get back to work.

we’re not friends, we’re not lovers, we’re not people you know
different clans, different colours, and a whole different flow
but i know that when i see you that it’s true even so
that the future has a place for me
and the future has a place for you
and the future has a place for both of us now

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Tomorrow’s the day the new song comes out. I’ll talk about the song itself then, and how and why I think it answers SJ Tucker’s rallying call. But I wanted to throw out some thanks and acknowledgements here today.

First, thanks to Kathryn Tewson for the guest vocals. She hasn’t worked close-mic before, or much really with this kind of music but I think she sounds good, and she said she thinks she’s “never sounded that cool ever in my whole life” and that’s good enough for me.

Second, thanks to Alexander James Adams, for both chorus vocals and surprise fiddle! He surprised me with a recording when I was only asking for vox, and that fiddle track is all over the song now. That post I made a couple of days ago, “This seems unlikely,” with a picture of my Surprise Fiddle Part? The line above mine is labelled “AJA fiddle,” and that would be Alec. Lots goin’ on there.

Third, thanks to Klopfenpop, for listening to roughmixes and being the only person who caught me being out of tune in one of the harmonies for a bit under 40ms underneath hard consonants which were keeping my attention distracted. Goddamn, Klop, you have good ears.

And fourth, Anna, for joining that big thick chorus we have for this thing. This song needed a big group, and she helped it get there.

Tomorrow. Or tonight, midnight Pacific time, if you want to stay up. Watch Bandcamp, ’cause the blog post will be later in the morning. But Bandcamp – that’ll be midnight. We’ve got a torch, and we’re gonna light it up.

Midnight, on Bandcamp

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this seems unlikely and yet it appears to be happening

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Up late last night in the Lair’s main studio, recording Kathryn Tewson on backing vocals for “We’re Not Friends.” She’s been singing since she was 14, and you may have heard her on things like Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, or the live performance of Lord of the Rings this year, she’s done some work for television, and she’s a member of both the Seattle Symphony Chorale and Opus 7. So while it’s rare for a supervillain to admit it, I am feeling seriously outclassed here. XD

She’s put a post up about the session on Facebook. I was really surprised that with all the work she’s done, she’s never worked with a close microphone before! But as someone from an overwhelmingly classical background (and enthusiastically of that school), it’s just not something they do. Her “bloom point” is something like 12 feet away? Which sounds like a beam origination point for some sort of superweapon but is actually where has various harmonics come together in a classical environment.

bloom point

I don’t see the difference, really.

By the way, close-mic being a new thing for her? You can’t tell from the recordings. I mean damn. And, for the record, she’s a joy to work with, so if you need somebody, go hire her.

Two more people left to record, both this week. SCHEDULE, MINIONS, SCHEDULE!

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Several weeks ago – probably two months, now – I saw a post by SJ Tucker where she was urging everybody to get their most positive song out there, just because the mood is so very, very terrible.

I don’t know if anybody else really took that up, but I’ve been working on one I wrote earlier this year and that I’ve only performed a few times, called “We’re Not Friends.” It’ll probably end up with some alternative title for release because negation titles don’t twig people and all that. It’s about the kind of fan reaction that you saw to Korrasami, or, as has been in the news the last few days, how Leslie Jones saw Whoopi Goldberg who, in turn, saw Nichelle Nichols, and in all of our cases, we’re seeing someone that isn’t allowed to exist just show up in front of you.

So of course with perfect timing I’ve been fighting weeks of system issues (thanks, Ubuntu), but despite that, I have been making headway on an early single release of this track. It was going to be on Din of Thieves – and still will be, all said and done – but I’m still trying to answer Sooj’s call.

And it’s being a real pain in the ass to mix. It doesn’t want a bassline, I’ve tried. It seems to want its entire low end in the drums. But while the drums it wants are simple, they’re difficult to get to come together sonically in a way that makes them sound like they’re all pieces of the same set.

And the chorus – hoo boy, I’ve reached out to people, but everybody’s busy with Other Stuff, because this is not the time of the year to try to work together some new tracks, apparently. Still workin’ on that. I have very specific ideas about what I want and I’m not getting them.

Still, I’m doin’ my damnedest to pull it together. September’s the goal. Labour day. Labour day if I can, aheh, get it all to work.

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kawaiilluminatii on Tumblr demanded, and I quote, “YMCA but instead of young man they say comrade and YMCA is USSR,” and liquidcoma threw in a first line. And, of course, I followed up…

…and then I couldn’t stop myself. I tried, I swear, but I kept adding more chunks in a series of reblogs.

The Biggest, Hottest Communist Disco Club of 1978
2016 Crime and the Forces of Evil, I guess?

Comrade! Steel production is down,
I said comrade! Pick yourself off the ground
I said comrade! Seize the factory in town
There’s no need to be a wage slave

Comrade! Marx’s principles show
clearly (Comrade!) There’s no meaning to dough –
it’s all shackles! You must cast them aside
if you want to gain class freedom

(in the video in my head, the five horn hits going into the chorus are red flags popping up –
FLAG FLAG FLAG FLAG FLAG)

The workers rule in the U S S R
The workers rule in the U S S R
We have thrown down our chains, we have taken the reigns,
In the name of the working class!

The workers rule in the U S S R
The workers rule in the U S S R
We have seized control from the capitalists
Private property won’t exist

Comrade! Have the peasants been armed? I ask
Comrade! Have collectives been formed? I ask
Comrade! Are the bourgeois informed?
That their ruling days are over

No one, does it all by themselves
I said no one! or you’ll end up in cells
So come join us! In the U S S R
Be the in-ter-na-tion-al-ist!

(FLAG) (FLAG) (FLAG) (FLAG) (FLAG)

The workers rule in the U S S R
The workers rule in the U S S R
We have thrown down our chains, we have taken the reigns,
In the name of the working class!

The workers rule in the U S S R
The workers rule in the U S S R
We have seized control from the capitalists
Private property won’t exist

Comrade! I was once in your shoes
I said Comrade! Down and out with the blues
I felt no one! cared if I would survive
The whole system was just jive and

That’s when someone, came right up to me
And said comrade, there’s solutions you see
There’s a system, in the U S S R
That can start you back on your way

(FLAG) (FLAG) (FLAG) (FLAG) (FLAG)

The workers rule in the U S S R
The workers rule in the U S S R
We have seized control from the capitalists
Private property won’t exist

U S S R! The workers rule in the U S S R
U S S R! The workers rule in the U S S R
Comrade, Comrade, there’s no need to feel down
Comrade, Comrade, pick yourself off the ground

U S S R! The workers rule in the U S S R!
Comrade, Comrade, I was once in your shoes
Comrade, Comrade, down and out with the blues

…aaaaand so on. NOPE AS I WAS WRITING THIS POST I DECIDED I HAD TO GO ADD TWO MORE VERSES AND ARRANGE IT SO IT MAPPED TO THE ORIGINAL SINGLE RELEASED IN 1978.

I’m actually kind of pleased with myself both over making “internationalist” scan, and for extensively paraphrasing Lenin’s letter to the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in a disco song.

But come on, brain, what? XD

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Laying down timing tracks for the new album, finally. I did four and a half tracks yesterday – this is a quick process. None of these recordings will make it onto the final, but it’s a helpful step.

For the moment, the new microphone is living as a display piece in the corner of the room, on the shelf with all the other microphones. Every time I see it, I consider more places I might actually use it on this album. XD

This whole thing got started by looking up how to fake bullhorn vocals, like I needed for the new single, Pee Police (on Bandcamp, YouTube, and Soundcloud). Universally, people said the best way to do it was use a real bullhorn. I mean yes, I’d wanted to build a carbon microphone for a long time. But in terms of actually doing it, this was the prompt.

If you want a specific sound made by a specific thing, the best way to do it is have that thing. $19 in parts later, I have it!

“Starship on Fire” is so far the most likely track to get some carbon mic vocals in the mix. Since it’s told – sung? – from two different viewpoints at once (past character, present character implied), one of those viewpoints having this kind of effect makes storytelling sense. I will at very least try it, and see how it sounds.

I’m going to use the Korra On the Air icon for all the LJ and Dreamwidth crossposts that mention this microphone forever, aren’t I? Yes. Yes, I am.

It’s a long weekend for a lot of people reading this, so – yay! Go have some fun.

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