Incubation

  • Reading time:6 mins read

Well gee whiz, I sure did have horny dreams last night. And they sure did reflect my last couple years of firmware upgrades. I have had sexual dreams before, and I have increasingly been myself in my dreams. This whole situation was a bit, uh, new though.

So much cock. Gee willickers.

When I said I was doing progesterone mostly for the brain stuff, this isn’t exactly what I meant.

Is is kind of getting ridiculous at this point. If you will pardon me in my own space here, since starting progesterone I basically just want to suck all the cocks all the time. For weeks now it’s never not on my mind. And it’s so present and palpable in the way my senses and my headspace work—every bit of it. Taste, smell, warmth, texture, pressure. It’s so real. And it’s like a gum-chewing habit. It’s always there. Always on the verge. Like I am continuously primed.

There are other places to put a penis, yes, and those are all engrossing as well—but those moments come and go. This specific buzz never seems to dim, whether awake or asleep. In my actual literal dreams now, there they all are. And there I am, as me. And just one offering after the other, almost nonchalantly, almost inevitably, it’s just what I do. Almost like a handshake.

I kind of feel like my brain is melting a little. I’ve never felt a thing like this, and it just never seems to turn off anymore. If I didn’t know myself as well as I do, if I had an ounce of impulsivity, this could be a real problem. It’s like, beyond an urge. More of a mania.

There are worse things to drive a girl insane. This is basically positive I guess. It’s a good feeling. But god is it distracting. It’s just—God, I, uh. Again I guess it’s good that I understand myself fairly well now, and that I am almost a complete shut-in. Like, if I had an impulsive synapse in my brain, and were even a little more confused than I am about what I really wanted, I might be making some bad decisions these days. There is a part of me that is a little permanently insane here, it seems.

I mean, I guess I might as well bask. No shame in being who I am. No good in denying. It’s just, this has become constant and overwhelming. Not entirely sure what to do with all this energy. But I guess it will find its outlet somewhere. There is certainly some creative work I could undertake here.

Of course the feelings behind the urge are nothing new, really. What’s new is them making sense to me, and my choosing not to push them down into the unthinkable zone. As I understand me now, shame does me no favors. I’m just me. I’m wired the way I’m wired.

I remember feeling like this as far back as maybe 13, 14. As soon as I could entertain any detailed thought of sex. I just couldn’t cope with the things my brain dealt me. People were already accusing me of stuff, in confused bits and pieces—of being some funhouse mirror of who it turns out I am. The thoughts gave me a kind of panic, a sense my brain was terrifyingly out of control. I was like, “This is not helping me here. Can we just not, please?”

But, well, Well that’s the thing. Who I am isn’t a thing to be controlled. It’s not possible to do, and trying can only cause damage. So, one leans into the curve.

Like many people I am a girl who loves cock… at least in the abstract. Which makes sense, and is fine and normal and generally positive. And I guess there’s still this novelty in being open with myself and letting my feelings just do what they need to without judgment. But also, I am hormonal as shit here, and a little bit insane from the rush. And it’s kind of—

a lot

—to figure out what to do with.

Neutral and human and healthy as it may be, this thing that my head insists on doing these days, it is not a thing that most people want to hear about. Reasonably enough! When I do bring it up, it’s most often as a punchline, with mind to how inappropriate it is to spring without warning. Because this is my level of humor, somehow.

(Penis.)

I’m not even sure what there is to say that’s constructive beyond a point. Beyond just acknowledging how I’m feeling, affirming that it’s cool, that this is just how I’m built and these things are a part of who I am. Which, yes, I feel does need a degree of ongoing reinforcement. The person I am is amazing, and I love her, but there’s gonna be some friction from the four decades of garbage I was fed.

I just want to assert the pieces of who I am, whenever they present themselves to me, whenever they hand me a challenge. Each one of these segments, it comes in all fragile and vulnerable, and there’s this implied question—I’m gonna accept this, right? I’m gonna embrace it. The more I acknowledge it, the more normal it becomes, letting that wound finally heal over. And I don’t want to hide it.

Inappropriate humor aside, I’m not in this to make people uncomfortable. But sometimes I just gotta stress a thing. When I really feel I shouldn’t be ashamed. When I want to be clear about who I am and what my own boundaries are.

Sexuality is a weird thing for Azure. I still don’t really understand what makes me tick, or why. I have been making a lot of progress, but there are these constant surprises. It’s an alien zone of my humanity, that I’m not used to giving any careful or enthusiastic thought. It’s this big weird void, that is kind of overwhelming me to acknowledge at all—to admit that as a real person I have this dimension, and that its dynamics are both natural and unique to me. And as a part of me, those dynamics are important to develop a functional relationship with, wherever they may carry me. I can’t force them. I can only listen and accept the reality.

So anyway. This is gonna be nuts for a while. It ain’t going away. It’s not going to be a primary topic, if for nothing other than my bafflement at finding words for any of this material, but I need to respect Azure here. And she is uh… well, this appears to be where she needs and happens to be right now.

If you’re here, you love me. You’ll be fine. We’re all learning to adapt.

Just dreamed: the following phrase:

  • Reading time:1 mins read
“Government scientists developed a drug named Rygar” — conspiracy nut, about a supposed anti-errection product in the water supply.

Tarnish

  • Reading time:1 mins read
I had a dream about the N-Gage.

On Metroid: Zero Mission

  • Reading time:2 mins read
> So I was wondering, why did you never review Metroid Zero Mission?

Because I moved to the other side of the continent, and some plans have gotten kind of lost along the way.

It’s a good game. I really like a few things it does, in particular the way it frames itself and what that means; how it justifies existing alongside the original version of that game. There are some little bits of narrative which I find uncommonly clever and illustrative of just how videogames work, as a medium. The game also tries hard to fix some of the problems in Fusion. Much of that is a success. Some of it, not so much.

I just had a dream in which it was common knowledge (and indeed true) that oranges, left unpicked, grew up to huge gourd-like fruits; their rinds hardened into a shell, while their pulp decayed into a juice then dried away. Oranges also grew along the ground, on vines. There was one orange in particular, on the front porch of my mother’s house in Maine, that had a fungal infection on one corner. Sort of a tumor. I knocked it off, only to realize that if it had the one infection, the whole orange was bad. Especially if I left the hole in the shell which I (unintentionally) did. So I tipped the orange over, adding a flood of rancid matured orange juice to the front lawn.

There are a few things about the game which I don’t like as well as I might, of course. Most of those would take a while to explain, though.

Prelude to Las Vegas? (Or: An Insert Credit Dream)

  • Reading time:4 mins read
Some civilization — Babylonian, I think — which lived in a giant onion-shaped island, with sides that curled up and separated everyone living there from the outside world. Although right in the midst of a bunch of other kingdoms, they had no idea of anything outside the island. After a few tries, the key civilization succeeded in surviving until all of the rival parties on the island were disintegrated. Complex and interesting native music played, as the Babylonian king cast a huge hadoken-style fireball and blew holes in the onion-sides of the island, letting light stream in.

It seemed this was some kind of odd game that I was playing in a place which was a cross between the Insert Credit Fortress, as such, and a prep school dorm. There was a dingy cafeteria and there were older adults in charge. I had trouble getting food to cook correctly, and to find anywhere decent to sleep.

Anyway. Once the remaining webwork of the onion-sides collapsed, there was a flyover of all of the surrounding kingdoms — which were all jammed pretty close together. Princesses were leaning out of several towers, waving. Then I saw The Jetsons. And then Fred Flintstone, dressed as Iori Yagami.

I turned and pointed him out to other members of the Insert Credit crew, who were in what was now a sort of ride with me. They weren’t particularly interested. They had something they wanted to get to, once the ride was over.

So, we all got off and proceeded to walk down a long, carpeted stairway (with rubberized edges to each step, bolted down with large aluminum caps). I inadvertently made eye contact with an asian fellow with a microphone and a camera crew. I think it was the hat that I was wearing which caught the guy’s attention. (Not sure what the significance really was of this hat, aside from the fact that it was given to me shortly beforehand.)

He asked me a question, to which I replied in the affirmative. I stopped, as it seemed he wanted some kind of an interview, dealing with the event we were attention. Everyone else in the Insert Credit crew had gone on ahead by this point; they weren’t paying attention to my absence. I figured that I’d be able to catch up with them eventually, if I could remember where they were off to.

The fellow filmed me for about three seconds, before he became distracted. I was a bit disappointed, as I intended to give him a wholly unexpected impression about the kinds of people who were attending this event.

Bored, I began executing complicated martial arts moves, up and down the stairwell, often using the bannister as a tool. The reporter fellow eventually wandered off, leaving me alone there.

At about that time, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. The boss at Insert Credit — ex-Sega of America honcho Peter Moore — was in the midst of a private meeting (in a very public lounge area, through which traffic was continuously flowing) with someone from SNK. A really powerful Star Wars game was being demonstrated, on Neo-Geo hardware.

Thing is, as impressive as it was, at the end of every level there were still stylized character portraits with cheesy Engrish quotes written underneath. A Jedi would be saying something like “That’s the last time you mess with the force, dweebenheimer!”

They didn’t seem to mind me watching (if they noticed me at all), so I hung around. After the Star Wars demo ended, a full-motion animated version of Ulala appeared, to boogie along to the Talking Heads’ song “I Zimbra”. She kept pawing at her private areas.

A bunch of text and a mostly-indecipherable Japanese voiceover elucidated the start of some facts about Ulala, including that she has a last name which was eliminated before the first game went into production. It was in kanji, though, so I couldn’t read it.

I think this was a trailer for either a new Space Channel 5 game, or an animated movie based upon the games. It was difficult to tell — especially since after only a few moments of this, I happened to wake up.

UPDATE: Read it again, for the first time!

Fish = Sunken Treasure

  • Reading time:1 mins read
In a dream just now, I was diagnosed as having an incurable case of Bulgaria. The doctor chose to call this the “Night of the Living Dead” disease.

I think he was able to narrow it down, in part, after he asked me whether I knew anyone from Poland.

I have an orange.

  • Reading time:1 mins read
I got my first issue of Game Developers magazine today. I’ve not really leafed through it in much detail, although I notice an ad for those new Nokia phones that Sega’s planning to support. Actually, there seems to be a pretty big focus on cell phones in this issue. And Lara Croft. Hrm. Tetsuya Mizuguchi appears in a few places with his frosted hair. The cover story is on facial animation and… what appears to be some PC strategy game with which I’m not really familiar.

Also included with this issue was a brochure for the upcoming Game Developers Conference in March. Guh, it’s that soon?

I dreamed in completely non-fluent Japanese, last night. I think I was on a train the whole time.

… I seem to be unusually sensitized right now. Everything feels and sounds and looks about five hundred percent stronger than it should. I hope this calms down, soon. It’s… not very comfortable.

End of report.

Edit: The editor-in-chief of this magazine is female!

Bilbo’s Ring!

  • Reading time:5 mins read
Lately I keep waking up with music in my head. I can’t remember what else I’ve had going this week (just a dream yesterday that involved a rare transformer which turned into an intergalactic movie screen), but this time it was the Heatman theme.

As I idly bounced into consciousness, my thoughts ran to clothing. “I should wear a vest when I go to E3. And bring my umbrella. And find that fedora. And… buy a handkerchief.”

Okay. Aside from the bit where the ring falls onto Frodo’s finger and he slips into the wraith world? (I just realized that this scene reminds me a lot of when John Cusack first slips into John Malkovich’s head. Same kind of critical turning moment, where everything is suddenly, violently reframed — and in a sense the movie really begins.) The other scene which really sticks with me from FotR occurs just after Bilbo leaves, near the beginning.

Gandalf is sitting in the foreground, immersed in thought (and pipe smoke), scowling into the fire. Frodo bolts into Bag End in the background, screeches to a halt, and innocently picks up the ring along the way. He notices Gandalf and continues into the foreground. After being addressed a couple of times, Gandalf slowly, creakily turns to Frodo. His eyes drift downward. “…Bilbo’s Ring!” he chimes; quickly, calculatedly putting on as innocent and comforting (yet nevertheless distinctly odd) a smile as he can conjure.

There’s something about the effortless, logical grace of that scene which does a lot to me. “Bilbo! Bilbo! Oh… a… ring? Huh. Hey, Gandalf. Where’s Bilbo? Gandalf? … Hey. Gandalf.” “Oh. Um. Oops. You… have the ring? (Mustn’t show how terrified this makes me…) Hello!”

Part of it is in the framing. Part of it is in the acting. Part of it’s the script. Really, Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen both do so much acting beyond the comparatively corny dialogue they’re often given. They do far more acting with their faces (particularly Frodo’s eyes) than they do with their voices. Christopher Lee, whose dialogue is by far the hammiest, just seems to revel in it. He’s pretty much expressionless; the only interesting glance I can recall out of him is in response to Gandalf’s “Tell me… friend,” line in Isegard.

All of this is why FotR wins me over so much — powerful character and plot moments like these. TTT is relatively absent of them. Just action. And… Ents. And absolutely, thoroughly unneeded flashbacks.

The moment which I remember best from my single viewing of TTT so far? When… the… elf guide fellow from Lothlorien unexpectedly shows up at Helm’s Deep. His presence there. His expression. The way he reacts when Aragorn tries to hug him.

Other than that, it’s mostly just individual shots which I admired for their grace or general beauty — the long shot near the end, when Gandalf and Eomer’s men are charging down the hill; the shot by the graves in Rohan, with the flower in the foreground for about half a second; the shot where Frodo wigs out and pulls Sting on Sam.

I just didn’t have much of anything to lock onto in this movie. Again, maybe if I see it again now that I know what to expect… But I mostly just felt like I was… observing actions rather than intimately taking part in something increasingly important, along with interesting characters.

It’s the acting, and it’s the beats which sell the experience. There was too little and too few, here.

Water. Yes.

Edit: All of that? That’s partially why I said we need more Eomer. He was a really interesting character, but barely used. He needed another scene somewhere before his reappearance. So did Gandalf. And we needed more Frodo. And more for Merry and Pippin to actually do.

Aragorn and Legolas are frankly boring on their own. Some people complain about his use as comic relief, but Gimli provided some of the only actual personality in the film. And it was greatly needed. I can’t imagine the movie working as well (and it really didn’t work very well!) without Gimli being so… Dwarfy. Sam was kind of interesting, but abrasive. Frodo didn’t do much other than walk into walls in the annoyingly few scenes he was actually in; he did little really interesting or involving acting at all. Gollum was a selfish scene-stealer; I think he needed to be brought down a notch or two, to blend in better.

Really, the only bits of absorbing personality in the film come from Gimli, Eomer, and what little Gandalf we see. Considering that the movie pretty much uses them as decoration while it focuses almost entirely on the boring characters and on special effects — well, you can see how it might fall a little flat.

This is aside, again, from the editing. Gah. Not going to get into that mess again.

Teeth

  • Reading time:1 mins read
For some reason I also find myself losing teeth in my dreams. There’s always this moment of horror when I realize the tooth is loose, and it sort of pops from the gum, with just a little tendril left connected, unwilling to detach, causing more and more pain as it wiggles around and blood begins to seep out…

Reverse Recollection

  • Reading time:1 mins read
I just had a dream where Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin were having a furious battle for headlines and viewership, resulting in all sorts of strange stunts including shaving their moustaches in weird ways.

This all started when a priest and a young boy drove off an embankment and the boy, after holding onto the edge of the freeway for a long while, dropped down onto a floating bit of road and balanced there as he turned into Groucho. The neighbors and police were alerted, and this is where it all began.

The reason the priest drove off the embankment is because he kept seeing “signs from god” telling him the boy was a sinner — these were babies carved out of carrot which the boy had made earlier, and which somehow were floating in the treetops, seen only to him.

Where they were driving away from was my house. I can’t remember the specifics, but people were tearing down buildings for no good reason…

Hm.

I guess that’s it.

Hardware Encoding

  • Reading time:1 mins read
I just had a dream in which there was a tape recorder-like device that would rearrange the magnetic pattern of any object you put into it (invisibly, of course), so you could, say, put a piece of paper in it and have a message recorded on it. Then, of course, only you would know what objects had messages recorded on them.