The great Vocaloid road trip continues. Rin, Gumi, Abhi, and Teto are in Chicago. They have an appointment in Los Angeles. And along the way, they have a stop to make in Flagstaff, Arizona. There's only one way for a self-respecting road trip crew to get there.

The Vocaloid Variations: "Get Your Kicks"

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

And thus does this wild and fantastic (figurative and, in narrative literal!) ride continue!

The Vocaloid Variations are great; partly because the Vocaloids themselves, and the Eyrie interpretations of them are excellent, but also because they're just...chill and fun. Like you explained in (I think) the release thread or possibly the annotations for the original TVV story, these stories aren't designed to have "bad guys" or really any kind of antagonists or such. There's stakes, and some involved issues certainly, but it's overall just good fun. Nice to also see more of the immediate Post-Contact and Post-Fog Earth through the eyes of various people living there.

Also, the variety in the Vulcans in UF is most agreeable; another good addition to the cast there in T'Jo.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-22-22 AT 05:43 PM (EST)
 
Well, that answers the question I was coming to this thread to ask, which was 'is this storyline ever going to have any peril or an antagonist'.

Game on, I suppose.

Not sure how I missed this, but...

>Well, that answers the question I was coming to this thread to ask,
>which was 'is this storyline ever going to have any peril or an
>antagonist'.
>
>Game on, I suppose.

... were you hoping it would?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Honestly yeah maybe

>Honestly yeah maybe

Hm.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

It just feels strange to have a story with no... maybe antagonism isn't the word but more conflict? Someone I know insists every story he writes has to have some degree of conflict and if he can't find one he just won't write.

It's a road trip. Those are usually more about the journey, what happens along the way.

>It just feels strange to have a story with no... maybe antagonism
>isn't the word but more conflict? Someone I know insists every story
>he writes has to have some degree of conflict and if he can't find one
>he just won't write.

In my opinion, the main conflict is Abhi vs. reality. On some things, reality's winning, on others Abhi looks to be winning as she works to change the world just enough for Teto's happiness. It helps that she has Rin and Gumi as guides.

Peter Eng
--
Look up "literary conflict" in your favorite web search. Conflict isn't always about busting heads or bringing out the shooty things.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-24-22 AT 01:23 AM (EST)
 
I'm perfectly aware of how different kinds of literary conflict exist and I'll thank you not to belittle me over it.

Just because I am expressing a preference for some potentially harder conflict in this story doesn't make me some thirteen year old you can talk down to.

Honestly I expected better of people on this forum.

-Tsukaistarburst did not spend four years getting a degree to be lectured on the definition of conflict in literature.

>I'm perfectly aware of how different kinds of literary conflict exist
>and I'll thank you not to belittle me over it.
>

Sorry. I just get tired of people insisting that conflict has to be violent, and I got a bit short with you. That was rude of me, and I'll try not to do it again.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

Apology accepted. I'm sorry for being snappy.

LAST EDITED ON Jul-06-22 AT 02:34 PM (EDT)
 
>Like you explained in (I
>think) the release thread or possibly the annotations for the original
>TVV story, these stories aren't designed to have "bad guys" or really
>any kind of antagonists or such.

I feel like I ought to qualify this a little. That was absolutely true of the original Vocaloid Variations; it may or may not be true of every VV story. That's still the general idea--much like The Federation Lives Forever, these are slice-of-life stories that aren't built around a central conflict, like Our Witches at War or most of the main-line stories--but I don't want to say it'll never happen at any point in the series. I don't know that, I haven't gotten to every point in the series yet. :)

As an aside, when I named the original story, I didn't take into account the probability that it would spawn a subseries with the same name as its supertitle. I probably should have given the first story a subtitle to head off the inevitable confusion. May yet go back and do that at some point.

>Also, the variety in the Vulcans in UF is most agreeable; another good
>addition to the cast there in T'Jo.

Joe was kind of a thought experiment. Since I set up Rin and Gumi's situation in The Mother of Invention, the idea of their mechanic has been in the back of my head, a shadowy figure who fixed up the Chrysler for them years ago and maintains it when they stop by. By the end of that story, when the road trip was a set plan, I knew said mechanic was going to be in Flagstaff.* Who or what he, she, or it was wasn't immediately clear, but the arid environment and the out-in-the-sticks-ness of the place suggested a few things.

Once I'd decided she was going to be a Vulcan, I had to think about what sort of Vulcan she was going to be, and it occurred to me: We've seen Vulcans who cleave to the Way of Surak, who struggle with it, who abandoned it, and who never received it, but to the best of my recollection, we haven't seen one who has a mellower take on it. Sort of a Reform Surakian, if you will. Spock and Saavik come close, but they have the wild-card factor that they're both half-breeds with (at this point mostly resolved, but formative) outsider complexes.

Joe is different; she grew up steeped in the Way and believes in it wholeheartedly, but her take on it isn't quite mainstream. She believes that Surak's injunction to control emotion isn't meant to be taken as a literal order to jettison them. To her, that is in itself illogical. They're there for a reason; to reject them outright is to assert that evolution erred in selecting for them, which is a priori preposterous. What ego it reveals in the Master's later apostles that they presume to gainsay 10 million years of biology!

Instead, she takes a different path. She's calm, collected, and logical-minded, but not so crushingly literal-minded as the most vexing of her countrymen can be. She's undemonstrative, yes, but that has as much to do with her personally insular nature as with anything to do with Surak's teachings. Most importantly, she doesn't constantly torture herself over her inability to completely, robotically suppress all trace of emotion. Instead, she simply... abides. She is what she must be; she does the best she can with what she has. To expect more of oneself is illogical. Selah.

It probably goes without saying that Ambassador Soval doesn't get this perspective at all and thinks she's just another apostate nut, like those Charismatic wackos.

(Her husband doesn't really get it either, but he is at least open-minded enough that he hasn't divorced her. :)

--G.
* This is because, when my father and I drove 66 out to California in 1996, we stopped off in Flagstaff to get the oil changed in the car.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-17-22 AT 06:51 PM (EDT)
 
> Joe is different; she grew up steeped in the Way and believes in it
> wholeheartedly, but her take on it isn't quite mainstream.

Your in good company with a lot of other writers, and even SCREEN writers, G.

The true 'Vulcan Way', as I've assimilated from many sources, was never the complete elimination of emotion; but using logic to control them! That was what I personally think was Surak's teachings... that yes, we feel. And we feel strongly! But if we control these feelings instead of letting them control us?

And, if you look back, even as far back as TOS, where Sarak and Amanda are aboard the Original Enterprise... Even though its not blatantly stated, its Sarak makes it clear that he very much loves Amanda, even though he is supposed to not let even love dictate his actions unless supported by logic. Although, at one point he does observe: "My logic fails me when it comes to my Wife"!

> The two shared a private little smile, and then Gumi applied herself to
> turning the car back onto Route 66 while Rin lounged in her seat, slipping
> on her sunglasses.
>
> "You'll find out," said the blonde with a grin.

I know its not the official end credits, but for some reason my brain started channeling 'Who are You?'

I finally got around to reading this, and it's a fun ride (literally :)). I really like your take on a laid back Vulcan - it makes perfect sense to me, similar to someone who reads the Bible (their religion's version/equivalent of it, anyway) and actually pays attention to what it says and means rather than trying to interpret it in the most strict ways. They may consider themselves a follower of the religion, but think that most of the followers need to just chill out and not be quite so absolutist about things. Rather a refreshing take, and yes, I can see how the traditionalist ambassador would Just Not Get It...

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

Lovely as usual.

The last verse of "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" reminded me of Steve Savitzky's "Someplace in the Net", particularly the chorus:

Time and Space are just a dream we dream when we're apart;
Home is a welcome feeling deep inside the heart;
"Stranger"'s just a name for some old friend we haven't met,
When we're together Someplace in the Net.

Wait, you actually wrote "Alfred M. Yankovic"...

L.

>Wait, you actually wrote "Alfred M. Yankovic"...

Well, yeah. He's a classical composer, you have to show respect.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Well, yeah. He's a classical composer, you have to show respect.

Amen, sir.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SJb09nnKgU

I saw this and thought of this.

Ditto:

"First thing you do when you play a new Forza is put anime skins on your cars."

https://t10pgalleryv2.azureedge.net/galleryv2images/0c8a68f8-943d-4c08-a6ce-600aba33ef26/dc93167c-8acf-4248-b53c-b18422944ed7/2?.jpg?x

https://t10pgalleryv2.azureedge.net/galleryv2images/0c8a68f8-943d-4c08-a6ce-600aba33ef26/c011a32d-4b62-40ae-afec-9587da2c61f3/2?.jpg?x