Alternator is an RPG inspired by the parts of Altered Carbon that are about economic inequality and queerness (that is, the last three episodes of the Netflix series).
Oversimulated Toddler Says Its First Words, but Can’t Really Talk Yet
I’ve been working on building music synthesizers lately. The first, The Brigand, is now fully functional, and you’ll be able to hear it sometime in the third week of May on WRIR, in Richmond, VA!
The second, Oversimulated Toddler, is still throwing tantrums and being incoherent. I can’t even understand what it wants.
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The IDisc, the Shock in Alternator
The IDisc is a prosthetic vertebra that grows along with the body to which it’s attached. While it does that, it intercepts all of the experiences — internal and external — of its host, digitizing the entire experience as memories. Or perhaps as identity. Maybe your soul.
Brigand — the first Shrieky Little Machine
Science fiction works in any art form. You look at what exists, then compare it to what’s possible-and-explorable, and experiment with it! That’s why Shock: includes music in its mediography section.
So I’ve been messing with synthesizers a lot lately. I’ve been making some really interestingly shrieky sounds and wanted to share with you the Brigand, a granular synthesizer I built a few weeks ago.
I’m putting an EP together that will be available to my patrons, but I really want to show off the machine, itself and what it sounds like!
How to Make a Star Wars Guy
This post took a lot of writing and drawing! Help me make more good stuff by backing xenoglyph on Patreon!
I’m a big fan of science fiction. I’m also a big Star Wars fan. I think, though am not sure, that my first movie was Star Wars, which came out four days after my fourth birthday. I’d guess that 2001 was my second.
Even as a kid, I could tell that these were not the same thing. They each had their own aesthetic principles that, if I was to play with the ideas in them, I would have to derive and distill, but not mistake for one another.
The Midnight Storm, Ashadd Nash’s Ship (How to Make a Star Wars Guy 5)
Some ships are faster. (Not a lot, though.)
Some ships are prettier. (Maybe most.)
But none has so faithfully served Ashadd Nash in her quest to reunite her clan.
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How to Make a Star Wars Guy 4: Ashadd Nash’s Derringer
The day Ashadd Nash found herself alone without clan, without money, and with a price on her head, she became a scoundrel, and a scoundrel needs a scoundrel’s weapon.
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Ashadd Nash’s Blaster Rifle (How to Make a Star Wars Guy 3)
Ashadd Nash is a scoundrel, living between the cracks of the Empire and the now-disintegrating old order of the Republic. And like any scoundrel, she travels armed.
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Ashadd Nash, as She is Seen by Few (How to Make a Star Wars Guy 2)
Ashadd Nash, like Boussh, Boba Fett, Maz Kanata, and many other scoundrels, rarely allows her face to be seen. Among those she trusts, though, they see the face of a 20-year-old who bears the responsibility of her entire, scattered clan.
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Introducing Ashadd Nash, my Star Wars Guy (How to Make a Star Wars Guy 1)
I’ve been working on an illustrated essay called How to Make a Star Wars Guy. It’s about the scope of things that Star Wars can talk about, and why it often rings false.
My example in the essay is Ashadd Nash. You’ll learn what she’s about in the next few posts!
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