Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp, page 11
August 23, 2018
Do you know what's the best feeling in the world?
It's when you're walking home while thinking, and all of a sudden you get this brainwave of inspiration - like a strike of lightning revitalizing your brain. Raw written text runs through your mind and you know exactly what to write and how and for how long, and you break into a run as you can't wait to get back home and open up the computer and pop up a new word file and get right into it.
And then you just write, and write, and write, and write. A floodgate has opened in my mind. Three thousand words and counting: the only reason I will stop is that I'm too tired to continue, and I will surely pick it up again tomorrow.
This one's about barbarian tribes, prophecies and storms, and an undrawable bow. I feel like I can write another few short stories and put them all up into a collection, provided I get a few more lightning strikes such as this one I just did.
Oh, yeah, weren't I supposed to write cyberpunk?
...Nah.
And then you just write, and write, and write, and write. A floodgate has opened in my mind. Three thousand words and counting: the only reason I will stop is that I'm too tired to continue, and I will surely pick it up again tomorrow.
This one's about barbarian tribes, prophecies and storms, and an undrawable bow. I feel like I can write another few short stories and put them all up into a collection, provided I get a few more lightning strikes such as this one I just did.
Oh, yeah, weren't I supposed to write cyberpunk?
...Nah.
August 22, 2018
My dream home has many floors
I live in a small single-floor flat. It's functional but dreary, dull. You know where I'd love to live?
I don't know how much this choice is influenced by my childhood, but I've always found this sort of buildings ridiculously comfy.
Cosy, squeezed close together, but reaching high up into the sky. It's as if the building itself was hugging you for warmth and comfort.
Just enough space for the important furniture and to walk around them. As much of the space put to effective use as possible. No echo. Everywhere you go, you can touch something.
Climb high up for a great view all around you. Open the window to feel the wind. Wave at your friends outside, or feed the birds.
Put a fire in the hearth to warm up the entire home with ease.
That feeling you get when you wrap yourself in a thick warm blanket with a cup of something warm in your hands, possibly with a person or two - the sort you feel really safe around - leaning against you? Living in a house like this is feeling just that, all the time.
Of course, the reality of things would be rather less adventurous. It would be pretty impractical in most cases. We want space if we can have it, to move around a little, and not stack our things so high up, and not trip and fall down the stairs all the bloody time. If we can spread out around us at all, there's no reason to build up: rather make a nice farm and a field. Well, unless you're a wizard trying to compensate for something.
In order for such a comfy home to come to be, there would simply have to be no room to spread around. It'd be a large metropolis, most likely, packed with people, cramped close together, and so forced to squeeze tight and to reach higher up instead. Or mountainous wilderness, where flat space is hard to find, and you'll have to put your house on a tiny plateau and then make the best of the space you can.
Or perhaps, somehow, both.
I wonder why the moomins saw the need to build up, what with all that lovely green field all around their home. At least the end result's still comfy and probably greatly influenced my own preferences.
The pirate story will have a building such as this. It will serve as a safe haven after the ordeals of two extremes, the hells of other people and no people at all: here we have a lovely middleground, a small patch of comfortable paradise to sit down in and rest.
Of course, it cannot last.
I don't know how much this choice is influenced by my childhood, but I've always found this sort of buildings ridiculously comfy.
Cosy, squeezed close together, but reaching high up into the sky. It's as if the building itself was hugging you for warmth and comfort.
Just enough space for the important furniture and to walk around them. As much of the space put to effective use as possible. No echo. Everywhere you go, you can touch something.
Climb high up for a great view all around you. Open the window to feel the wind. Wave at your friends outside, or feed the birds.
Put a fire in the hearth to warm up the entire home with ease.
That feeling you get when you wrap yourself in a thick warm blanket with a cup of something warm in your hands, possibly with a person or two - the sort you feel really safe around - leaning against you? Living in a house like this is feeling just that, all the time.
Of course, the reality of things would be rather less adventurous. It would be pretty impractical in most cases. We want space if we can have it, to move around a little, and not stack our things so high up, and not trip and fall down the stairs all the bloody time. If we can spread out around us at all, there's no reason to build up: rather make a nice farm and a field. Well, unless you're a wizard trying to compensate for something.
In order for such a comfy home to come to be, there would simply have to be no room to spread around. It'd be a large metropolis, most likely, packed with people, cramped close together, and so forced to squeeze tight and to reach higher up instead. Or mountainous wilderness, where flat space is hard to find, and you'll have to put your house on a tiny plateau and then make the best of the space you can.
Or perhaps, somehow, both.
I wonder why the moomins saw the need to build up, what with all that lovely green field all around their home. At least the end result's still comfy and probably greatly influenced my own preferences.
The pirate story will have a building such as this. It will serve as a safe haven after the ordeals of two extremes, the hells of other people and no people at all: here we have a lovely middleground, a small patch of comfortable paradise to sit down in and rest.
Of course, it cannot last.
Anabasis, except instead of a tired and determined soldier, it's told and narrated by Hunter S. Thompson
Can it be done?
I'm going to try. Right after the cyberpunk and pirates.
I'm going to try. Right after the cyberpunk and pirates.
August 20, 2018
I keep tripping on print copies
Really, just say a word and I'll send one over.
Walls
Once upon a time there was a city of moderate size and prosperity. It often came under attack by barbarians, rival nations, conquering overlords, and wild beasts. Its people, forced to spend much their time and effort in city defense, were grim and hardy.
Then a wise king decided to build a wall. It was a hard job, took years,
So the people got to relax for a while. They put down their spears and bows and cheered up. They got to focus on arts and entertainment, create something beautiful rather than ugly, and enjoy themselves. The later kings and queens put up libraries and schools and galleries. The old barbaric foes could just walk through the gates to buy stuff and get washed up. Trade prospered. Good times for everyone, everything is great, and nothing hurts.
I'm not sure where to go from here, though. So far it's nothing new to anyone - build walls to defend yourself, whoop whoop-
-but where does it go from here? Is the wall going to be brought down at last, forcing everyone to realize their own complacency and watching as a great and beautiful city burns? Or maybe the barbarians decide they don't want to pillage it after all because they're all friends now and it really is quite pretty? Or maybe it's never threatened at all and the whole thing stands as more of a metaphor? Like you've got these people inside its walls who suffer with their own personal issues, until they build metaphorical walls inside themselves to be strong and then be happy?
I don't know. It was just one of those thoughts I had when I read Bone, about something that's sort of just brushed away off-handedly in there, but that could make a whole story of its own. I'll probably never write it.
Bone really is a great comic, though.
August 19, 2018
Disenchantment's pretty good
Not nearly as good as Futurama and Simpsons at their best, but still way better than their worst. At least judging by the first episode.
That's all.
That's all.
Why Starcraft is better than Command & Conquer
I was about seven or eight years old when I got the demo disc for Command & Conquer. Up until that point I'd only ever played games like Commander Keen and Super Mario Bros. and such, which were fun but not particularly noteworthy. I had no idea what to expect from the opening demo and that guy (my first FMV experience) talking to me... until the music kicked in, accentuated by the explosions, the cannons, the gunfire, and the screams of the dying, and promptly blew my mind.
I played that game as much as I was allowed for the next couple days, until the disc was taken away. I never figured out how to set up the construction yard and make buildings and new units, and instead charged with my mammoth tanks and others in a suicide mission against the NOD walls and the laser obelisk, over and over again, like banging my head to a wall. In retrospect it's probably a good thing that I never got over that: I later learned that the next demo mission involved a commando, and that guy probably would've blown my mind all over again in some unhealthy way, with his badass one-liners and awesome insta-kill sniper rifle.
Christmas 1999 I got Tiberian Sun, and I still remember it as one of my most beloved presents. Even today I think that game has the overall best soundtrack in the series - sure, it doesn't have any Hell March in it, but neither does it have a single C&C Thang - and a pretty great visual style that's influenced my scifi writing a fair bit.
In any game of the series, I always loved engineers. I preferred capturing all enemy buildings rather than destroying them, because it felt wasteful. But there's a thing there: what's up with the way reverse-engineering works in these games?
Okay, I've acquired the NOD stealth tank designs, can I use these in the next mission? No? Why the hell not? Why do I need to do this again every time? Shouldn't once be enough, and now everyone in GDI everywhere should be able to design these things? This makes no sense!
I didn't get to play Warcraft II or Starcraft until years after Tiberian Sun, but as soon as I did they resonated with me. They didn't have this reverse-engineering nonsense. Warcraft's armies were equal: obviously the orcs had long since stolen the sword designs from humans, for instance. And yeah, they still had dragons, but the Alliance has a bunch of gryphon riders that can shoot lightning, so it evens out.
(I used to experiment with their stats in level editors, giving humans better penetration and armor due to sharper weapons and better steel, while orcs got higher damage and hit points because they were stronger and tougher themselves. It never really went anywhere.)
And in Starcraft, of course, the three different factions are entirely different - but also of entirely different races. I can't imagine humans figuring out how to use Zerg tech. So that's also pretty great.
That's why I like them better than Command & Conquer. They're so realistic.
I played that game as much as I was allowed for the next couple days, until the disc was taken away. I never figured out how to set up the construction yard and make buildings and new units, and instead charged with my mammoth tanks and others in a suicide mission against the NOD walls and the laser obelisk, over and over again, like banging my head to a wall. In retrospect it's probably a good thing that I never got over that: I later learned that the next demo mission involved a commando, and that guy probably would've blown my mind all over again in some unhealthy way, with his badass one-liners and awesome insta-kill sniper rifle.
Christmas 1999 I got Tiberian Sun, and I still remember it as one of my most beloved presents. Even today I think that game has the overall best soundtrack in the series - sure, it doesn't have any Hell March in it, but neither does it have a single C&C Thang - and a pretty great visual style that's influenced my scifi writing a fair bit.
In any game of the series, I always loved engineers. I preferred capturing all enemy buildings rather than destroying them, because it felt wasteful. But there's a thing there: what's up with the way reverse-engineering works in these games?
Okay, I've acquired the NOD stealth tank designs, can I use these in the next mission? No? Why the hell not? Why do I need to do this again every time? Shouldn't once be enough, and now everyone in GDI everywhere should be able to design these things? This makes no sense!
I didn't get to play Warcraft II or Starcraft until years after Tiberian Sun, but as soon as I did they resonated with me. They didn't have this reverse-engineering nonsense. Warcraft's armies were equal: obviously the orcs had long since stolen the sword designs from humans, for instance. And yeah, they still had dragons, but the Alliance has a bunch of gryphon riders that can shoot lightning, so it evens out.
(I used to experiment with their stats in level editors, giving humans better penetration and armor due to sharper weapons and better steel, while orcs got higher damage and hit points because they were stronger and tougher themselves. It never really went anywhere.)
And in Starcraft, of course, the three different factions are entirely different - but also of entirely different races. I can't imagine humans figuring out how to use Zerg tech. So that's also pretty great.
That's why I like them better than Command & Conquer. They're so realistic.
Things to be wary of on a deserted island.
In the last blog post, you got washed ashore to a mysterious tropical island, unexplored and full of peril.
You are all alone, but you are not safe. Here are some of the things you might encounter here:
Trees
Monkeys
Snakes
Giant apes
Tigers
Mysterious ancient temples where neither apes nor tigers go, but that may also contain traps and angry skeletons
Cursed treasure that makes your teeth fall off
Cannibals and their drums
Cultists and their knives
Pygmies and their spears
Amazon warriors seeking for a new king (and after what you've been through, you might even qualify)
Erupting volcanoes
Dinosaurs
Giant birds
Giant bugs
A swarm of mosquito-sized snakes
Cat-sized worms that eat all your food
A bigass frog
Slugs
Brain slugs
Eels
Electric flying eels
Crabs. With wings.
Jellyfish disguised as trees
Exploding crabs that were actually dead zombie crabs controlled by fungi
Octopi that crawl on dry land
Bloodthirsty penguin swarms
Sea urchins that roll around the beach surface and bury themselves into the sand to wait for prey
Ancient and eldritch divinities, possibly in the shape of an iron giant
Shapeshifting smoke monsters
Locked hatches leading to the depths of the island
Shipwrecks
Ghost pirates
Imperial patrols
Carolean conquistadors
Fishmen
Explorer remnants, cause of death unknown
Bizarre and annoying infections
Bananas. But turns out they're poisonous.
The voices in your head
And Hagley's started up his blasted jig again, even though he can't sing or play the fiddle any more than he ever could... and even though you saw him blown apart by the hull splinters and sink into the ocean in pieces...
The dead haunt you, even in your dreams
You hear the Lords of Chaos laugh at your plight
You've gone a week without so much as a shut-eye, and here come the mists again... the kingdom of the lost is rising
You've run out of Huntvapour, yet you're addicted and crave for more
As you look out to the sea, the trees crawl closer to you behind you - they don't think you know, but you know
On the other hand, if we're sticking with the theme of loneliness and isolation, many of these will probably not work too well. Although the amazons could still work if you've got a bad case of anxiety.
You are all alone, but you are not safe. Here are some of the things you might encounter here:
Trees
Monkeys
Snakes
Giant apes
Tigers
Mysterious ancient temples where neither apes nor tigers go, but that may also contain traps and angry skeletons
Cursed treasure that makes your teeth fall off
Cannibals and their drums
Cultists and their knives
Pygmies and their spears
Amazon warriors seeking for a new king (and after what you've been through, you might even qualify)
Erupting volcanoes
Dinosaurs
Giant birds
Giant bugs
A swarm of mosquito-sized snakes
Cat-sized worms that eat all your food
A bigass frog
Slugs
Brain slugs
Eels
Electric flying eels
Crabs. With wings.
Jellyfish disguised as trees
Exploding crabs that were actually dead zombie crabs controlled by fungi
Octopi that crawl on dry land
Bloodthirsty penguin swarms
Sea urchins that roll around the beach surface and bury themselves into the sand to wait for prey
Ancient and eldritch divinities, possibly in the shape of an iron giant
Shapeshifting smoke monsters
Locked hatches leading to the depths of the island
Shipwrecks
Ghost pirates
Imperial patrols
Carolean conquistadors
Fishmen
Explorer remnants, cause of death unknown
Bizarre and annoying infections
Bananas. But turns out they're poisonous.
The voices in your head
And Hagley's started up his blasted jig again, even though he can't sing or play the fiddle any more than he ever could... and even though you saw him blown apart by the hull splinters and sink into the ocean in pieces...
The dead haunt you, even in your dreams
You hear the Lords of Chaos laugh at your plight
You've gone a week without so much as a shut-eye, and here come the mists again... the kingdom of the lost is rising
You've run out of Huntvapour, yet you're addicted and crave for more
As you look out to the sea, the trees crawl closer to you behind you - they don't think you know, but you know
On the other hand, if we're sticking with the theme of loneliness and isolation, many of these will probably not work too well. Although the amazons could still work if you've got a bad case of anxiety.
August 18, 2018
Being a Pirate is not all right to be
Yesterday I mentioned wanting to write about pirates. Unfortunately, the idea stuck.
Despite modern romanticization, it wasn't much fun being a pirate. You'd spend weeks at a time in a small ship, rotting and rocking and creaking, and filled up to the brim with these brutes and morons that you would hate within a week, if not right away. The food was terrible and there wasn't enough fruit, nobody really knew how to sing but they wouldn't shut up either, the smell was awful but you couldn't afford to waste the drinking water to baths, personal time was right out, and the scenery was the same bloody ocean day after day, maybe a dolphin as a high point. The all too occasional moments of levity consisted of ship battle and raids, storms, cannibal islands, sea serpents or giant octopi, and mutiny - any of them all too viable of getting you killed.
Shore leaves were rare and lasted all too little time before someone upset the locals and you had to flee. Not like you could stay with a bounty on your head. Worse still, your favourite place got annexed by the Empire sometime since you last showed up, and this local voodoo witch was calling all ships to war. What were you supposed to do, ignore this attack on your way of life? Even if you hated every second of it?
If you were lucky, you might have won a few bouts and earned a chest full of silver for your trouble. If you were really lucky, your captain might even have let you spend it all on supplies, alcohol, and women, instead of burying it to some deserted island for some gods'-forsaken reason. If you were unlucky, you would get to hear an Imperial messenger bird cheerfully announce that a torpedo was on its way...
Then, whether because your ship was blown apart and you marooned there, or because you disobeyed your captain about that treasure nonsense, you'd end up all alone in one of those deserted islands. No one to talk to save for some birds and this bowling ball with a face. No more of the songs you once hated; no more being made to perform something stupid in front of a big crowd. Your friends either blew apart and drowned, or betrayed you and abandoned you here: either way it's now just you and your thoughts - and those strange noises of the jungle, unnerving you and keeping you awake at night. No one to keep watch for you here either, reassure you that it was nothing and that it would all turn up well.
Your life used to be as bad as you thought it could get: you thought hell was other people. But now, as the night falls and the mists roll in, you would almost go back to those old days you once hated.
Hell is other people. But hell is being alone, as well. In this chapter of your life, there is precious little middleground to be found. Your attempts at compromise only end with everything going worse for you and everyone around you. All your friends have died. Even love is fleeting and often ends in heartbreak.
There's a theme I can use here. Something to underline all the merry swashbuckling action.
Despite modern romanticization, it wasn't much fun being a pirate. You'd spend weeks at a time in a small ship, rotting and rocking and creaking, and filled up to the brim with these brutes and morons that you would hate within a week, if not right away. The food was terrible and there wasn't enough fruit, nobody really knew how to sing but they wouldn't shut up either, the smell was awful but you couldn't afford to waste the drinking water to baths, personal time was right out, and the scenery was the same bloody ocean day after day, maybe a dolphin as a high point. The all too occasional moments of levity consisted of ship battle and raids, storms, cannibal islands, sea serpents or giant octopi, and mutiny - any of them all too viable of getting you killed.
Shore leaves were rare and lasted all too little time before someone upset the locals and you had to flee. Not like you could stay with a bounty on your head. Worse still, your favourite place got annexed by the Empire sometime since you last showed up, and this local voodoo witch was calling all ships to war. What were you supposed to do, ignore this attack on your way of life? Even if you hated every second of it?
If you were lucky, you might have won a few bouts and earned a chest full of silver for your trouble. If you were really lucky, your captain might even have let you spend it all on supplies, alcohol, and women, instead of burying it to some deserted island for some gods'-forsaken reason. If you were unlucky, you would get to hear an Imperial messenger bird cheerfully announce that a torpedo was on its way...
Then, whether because your ship was blown apart and you marooned there, or because you disobeyed your captain about that treasure nonsense, you'd end up all alone in one of those deserted islands. No one to talk to save for some birds and this bowling ball with a face. No more of the songs you once hated; no more being made to perform something stupid in front of a big crowd. Your friends either blew apart and drowned, or betrayed you and abandoned you here: either way it's now just you and your thoughts - and those strange noises of the jungle, unnerving you and keeping you awake at night. No one to keep watch for you here either, reassure you that it was nothing and that it would all turn up well.
Your life used to be as bad as you thought it could get: you thought hell was other people. But now, as the night falls and the mists roll in, you would almost go back to those old days you once hated.
Hell is other people. But hell is being alone, as well. In this chapter of your life, there is precious little middleground to be found. Your attempts at compromise only end with everything going worse for you and everyone around you. All your friends have died. Even love is fleeting and often ends in heartbreak.
There's a theme I can use here. Something to underline all the merry swashbuckling action.
August 17, 2018
On writing of the future that may be, and the past that wasn't
It's hard to write cyberpunk.
Or any science fiction at all, for that matter, but cyberpunk's what I'm currently writing so it's the most relevant bit for this. It doesn't flow out of me as fantasy does: I keep having longer breaks, I constantly second-guess what I'm putting down to paper, my mind drifts to other things, and in the end I get out only somewhere around two thousand words a day at most. Really hard to obsess over, and feels a lot more like work.
A big part of it, I think, is the relative lack of works - books, comics, video games, films - to find inspiration out of. There's just so much more fantasy stuff available than scifi: I have to go actively looking for the latter, where I just keep stumbling at the former by accident - and then I read them and end up getting a couple ideas for some really great fantasy novels that I can't wait to get to writing. My head ends up bursting with all the wrong sort of thoughts. My focus is where it shouldn't be.
I feel like it's a sort of a vicious cycle. There's more fantasy than scifi - and so people get more excited by fantasy, and inspired to write more fantasy, and make the whole problem worse. A dark and nigh-inescapable mire of magic and dragons and wonder, spitting out more of the same, growing bigger and stickier with each new work of fantasy. The scifi equivalent is more like a puddle that you have to actually go looking for, and if you leave you will get lost and have a difficult time coming back... and the whole time you risk being swallowed by the great big fantasy swamp. You have to work a lot harder for that. Or, maybe it's just me and I'm overthinking the whole thing.
Right now I want to write about pirates.
Or any science fiction at all, for that matter, but cyberpunk's what I'm currently writing so it's the most relevant bit for this. It doesn't flow out of me as fantasy does: I keep having longer breaks, I constantly second-guess what I'm putting down to paper, my mind drifts to other things, and in the end I get out only somewhere around two thousand words a day at most. Really hard to obsess over, and feels a lot more like work.
A big part of it, I think, is the relative lack of works - books, comics, video games, films - to find inspiration out of. There's just so much more fantasy stuff available than scifi: I have to go actively looking for the latter, where I just keep stumbling at the former by accident - and then I read them and end up getting a couple ideas for some really great fantasy novels that I can't wait to get to writing. My head ends up bursting with all the wrong sort of thoughts. My focus is where it shouldn't be.
I feel like it's a sort of a vicious cycle. There's more fantasy than scifi - and so people get more excited by fantasy, and inspired to write more fantasy, and make the whole problem worse. A dark and nigh-inescapable mire of magic and dragons and wonder, spitting out more of the same, growing bigger and stickier with each new work of fantasy. The scifi equivalent is more like a puddle that you have to actually go looking for, and if you leave you will get lost and have a difficult time coming back... and the whole time you risk being swallowed by the great big fantasy swamp. You have to work a lot harder for that. Or, maybe it's just me and I'm overthinking the whole thing.
Right now I want to write about pirates.
Pankarp
Pages fallen out of Straggler's journal, and others.
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