Cephalopods, and Other Vital Concerns

Here's a nice thing about English: there's a certain degree of efficiency you won't find anywhere else. Yes, it's more or less the only language in which the rules of spelling and pronunciation are completely negotiable, and while that's usually a subject of mockery, it means we can take a loanword from any language and it'll pretty much sound right. You won't find that anywhere else.

My experience with this phenomenon primarily lies in zoology. I love animals, and learning fascinating new things about them and how they're classified. A recent discovery (of mine, that is; I assume zoologists have known this one for ages) -- falcons, despite their superficial resemblance to hawks and eagles, are more closely related to parrots. Vultures are in the same family as hawks and eagles, while owls are another family in the same general group. So I guess "raptors" aren't really a thing, taxonomically. Or they are, but falcons don't get to sit with them.

Sometimes nuances like that get completely lost in translation. For instance, Brain of Pinky and the Brain often proudly declares that he's not a rat, but a mouse. A distinction which does not exist in many languages. I think I read once (bear with me if I didn't remember this right) that the Japanese dub of the cartoon translated this catchphrase as the claim that he's not a mouse (in Japanese), he's a MOUSE (in English). Somehow that just doesn't come across as a boast that makes any stinkin' sense.

Today, I found myself wondering how a Swedish zoologist would distinguish between the two animals pictured here:

See, Naty and I have been working on composing a song. And in that song, Naty translated "giant squid" as "jättebläckfisk". Why does an upcoming project feature a haunting lamentation, entirely in Swedish, which includes the lyric "a giant squid from outer space"? Never you mind! You'll find out later.

According to Google Translate, "jättebläckfisk" means "giant octopus" and, when asked, Naty admitted there's no word in Swedish to differentiate an octopus from a squid. Finding myself on Swedish Wikipedia, I decided to try to look further into that. The article about jättebläckfiskar was clearly about giant squid, despite what Translate had told me, and the article on bläckfiskar in general (octopuses according to Google Translate and literally "inkfish", which is an awesome term for whatever we're talking about) was about all cephalopods. From there, I thought, surely there's an article about octopuses as opposed to squid? Eventually, I found the link in the cephalopod tree of life regarding åttaarmade bläckfiskar, literally "eight-armed inkfish". There they were. And by all appearances, the giant Pacific octopus pictured above is distinguished in Swedish from every other kind of octopus only by its internationally-recognized scientific name, Enteroctopus dofleini.

On another note, do you have any idea how freakin' awesome it is that I can find a crystal-clear photograph of a giant squid? The picture above was taken by researchers in 2006, a mere two years after the first time ever that such a creature was photographed, by another Japanese research team who had devoted two years to that exact goal. What a time to be alive! I remember the days when a living giant squid was something which had never been seen by human eyes. Clearly, this is no longer the case. That's a big deal.

So, doodly-doo, posting pretty late this week, this squid stuff alone didn't seem to merit it by Monday, but now it's Saturday and I've definitely said enough, posting soon. Been working with Stacy this week on the final character of The Choices who needs to be designed, Jax. While trying to refine her face - making her look like a rat, and yet relatable, and yet not too cartoonish - I eventually said, "We'll have to consult the furries." And that sentence on its own made Stacy collapse in giggles. We found a nice piece of Sabrina Online art, got that face done, and with Jax, that's all the prominent main characters we're redesigning for The Choices:

There they are, at least done with Stage 1, the structure of the physical body, and Stage 2, hair and makeup to complete their nude figure. Stage 3 is wardrobe and equipment, we'll get started on that next week, and it'll include elements like Kinzie's helmet and Maer's glasses that complete the picture. Won't necessarily be showing off the completed model sheets; after designing these model sheets to perfect what they truly look like, promotional poses will convey their personality, whereas these are just... mug shots, basically, so all artists can draw them accurately.

So, working on proceeding past storyboards, which is just incredibly exciting. And overwhelming! It's a lot of freakin' work. I put together a shot list, asset list, audio copy, and some keyframe pose ideas... for a 3-minute teaser, and that was difficult; for a 20-minute episode, well, I'd say I can't imagine, but that's what I'm doing next, so I'd better imagine it.

We're suddenly... going through some stress right now, among the cast and crew. Back-to-school in year two of the pandemic, it's reminding me of the atmosphere of when the pandemic first began, which coincided with my first attempt to cast Keys & Kingdoms. Everyone scared, bummed out, and overworked. I'm certainly not complaining about the effect it has on my projects, that's not the right takeaway there. I've always dealt with the confusing phenomenon of everyone's enthusiasm apparently dampening significantly upon realizing a project is something I intend to actually create rather than a purely hypothetical aspiration, and the engagement I receive from fans and team members has always been eerily minimal given how many people I know are invested... ultimately, I do know I'm getting a lot farther into my artistic endeavors than a lot of aspiring people have.

My own anxieties are... elsewhere. I'm just scared all the time. I can't leave my house, I can't call or talk to anyone, I'm just scared to my core of the slightest chance of judgment or any witness to my incompetence at life.

I went to the doctor today, for a general health check, primary care, mostly needing a note confirming that my anxiety is of such intensity that I need to make my way around Quincy via the Paratransit shuttle service for disabled residents... I should think so, because my anxiety is so intense that actually calling Paratransit to make an appointment, or getting on the shuttle, is too terrifying to consider. Going anywhere, doing anything, where someone might see me... it's scarier to me than death. Given the choice between getting groceries and going hungry, I would take hunger every time, because no matter how I go about getting groceries... someone will know I'm there. Can't deal with that.

I asked the doctor about THC. Purely out of desperation to try something I've never tried before; I didn't think it was a good idea. I hate the idea of being high, of my mind working at less than 100%, and honestly, I'm deathly afraid of being relaxed, of losing my anxiety, because whenever I'm not anxious, I have no common sense, I wander into traffic and I lose my filter and hurt everyone's feelings. I said in the Chit-Chat episode a quote I picked up somewhere: that people assume that if Van Gogh didn't suffer mental illness, he wouldn't have been as good an artist, something many people to this day still believe about artists and artists believe about themselves, when the truth is, if he wasn't mentally ill he would have created so much more and lived so much longer. I stand by that, I want my depression and ADHD heckin' gone so I can live my damn life, but when it comes to anxiety, my concern is that getting rid of it would swiftly result in my accidental death.

My subconscious seems inclined to agree with this assessment; a past therapist suggested that this was the reason why techniques designed to calm the mind, all those I've ever tried at least, all breathing exercises, coping mechanisms, meditations, instead of calming me, trigger a fight-or-flight response, filling me with terror and fury. Something within my limbic system desperately does not want me to let my guard down.

The doctor, perhaps fortunately, wasn't a strong believer in cannabis either, instead preferring since its recreational legalization in Illinois to have his patients, if they insist, get some on their own initiative and leave him out of it. Instead, he prescribed me a very mild antidepressant to take daily, and some anxiety meds to take as needed. I don't have the best history with pharmaceuticals. In my past experience, they've do nothing, or they turned my brain completely off so I was a drooling zombie, or they made the thing they were treating, depression or anxiety or ADHD, ten times worse.

But that's normal. The hard part of finding the right medication is that while you're adapting to it you have responsibilities, school and work and such, to get through while your brain gets knocked around by prescriptions that aren't quite right. Already barely coping, in the past I didn't feel like I could afford to keep experimenting. Right now? Well, now's the time. I wish I'd thought of it sooner; my goal right now is to get my mental health in order before I start attempting to take on more in life. A bit of experimentation should be just fine. In particular, I've been prescribed anxiety meds "as needed" before. You can't drive or work after taking them, so... I never took them. Because I had to drive to work. That's what I was anxious about. Now I can at least find out if I'm functional after taking such a thing.

So... like I said, I fear living without anxiety, but I just can't live like this anymore. Anything is better than this, than being petrified about everything, wishing I was dead on a daily basis, total inability to focus for even a moment on what I want. What I wouldn't give to make more than fifteen minutes of progress through a video game, or more than one page of a book, or anywhere in something I'm writing... you think I wanted to hyperfixate on learning Swedish words for cephalopods? Nope. The only choice I had in that matter was to reason with myself afterward that I genuinely did want the answers, and they're good to know, and I shouldn't hate myself for that sidetrack. And that was hardly a choice at all, just the luck of the draw that the thing I fixated on that day was new information that I actually cared about.

It has to stop and I'm not the person with the power to stop it, my mind is a bundle of screams and carnage so far beyond my ability to control it's ridiculous. I've tried to change my habits for years, but tempering my thoughts for even a moment, it can't be done, something has to be done to me. Taking my shot with that. Heading to the pharmacy soon. Then the grocery store, hopefully.

In short, as I may have mentioned, I'm slowing down. Not allowing myself to get so frustrated and angry at my own limitations. Just being calm and taking things one day at a time. No one is expecting me to be anywhere in particular by any particular time... that's just me, wanting desperately to be stable and creative now and not later. Every day, doing everything I can... trying to set a schedule that actually looks like what I've been able to accomplish in a day for the past seven years. It's difficult, there's always another thing I remember I want to do and I end up with the same overlong to-do list that I can't possibly actually finish that week. I just gotta keep trying to trim it down until it is actually manageable. No more or less has ever gotten done, I just have to somehow put less on the list, have down-to-earth expectations so I don't end every day so disappointed in myself.

And... everyone else is slowing down too right now. You know, that's been the hardest, strangest part of this journey. Now that I'm working with a whole bunch of people, I'm realizing... everyone else isn't a million times more confident, motivated, organized, and energetic than I am. I always thought that surely I must be a uniquely shitty slug of a person. Now I'm thinking I must somehow be uniquely gifted, for actually knowing what I want to create and fucking going for it... to the point of the reality of it intimidating people. That's... a hard thing to wrap my head around. That I'm not the lowest of the low. Well, if everybody else truly does actually know how I feel, hey, best wishes to all of you. It's a tough world out there. I hate it. Thanks for being in it with me, that makes it better.