A while back – I don’t remember how long – I realized that I really wanted to properly learn to play music. Not only because it’s generally a cool thing to do, but I realized that my life is often centered around music in many ways. Also, given that I know for a fact that I’m personally at risk of dementia and other mind-degrading conditions, learning to play music now would help me in the distant future when my mind begins to slip – it would give me a solid foothold on reality to help reinforce a weakening grasp.
So I look around and decide that “hey, the violin is a popular choice, let’s figure that out.”
I’m talking to my friend about this and they tell me that they bought a violin a while back, but never got around to playing it, and they offer to loan it to me on the condition that I keep up with learning and practicing.
For some reason, I didn’t realize how loud a violin is.
I couldn’t practice while working, because, well. I was working. I couldn’t practice in the evening after working because I needed to be engaging with my kids. I couldn’t practice after the kids were in bed because that’s just about the only daily time I have to spend with Amanda. And because of how loud it is, I also can’t seriously practice after everyone else has gone to bed…because it would wake them up.
Also it turns out that violins are out of tune a lot of the time, and until you’re more experienced, tuning it is like a 10-minute process. This amount of time is more than enough to turn me off from wanting to practice the few times that I could.
In addition, I didn’t realize that violins did not have frets. At first my reaction to this was a simple “huh. Didn’t know that before.” But eventually I realized that without a lot of experience, it was pretty hard to properly place my fingers to get the right note. This was absolutely devastating to my ability to keep a practice/learning session smoothly working.
So, because “on the weekends” is not nearly enough time to practice (especially when first starting out), I quickly realized that this was not a great choice of instrument.
BUT NOW, armed with some knowledge of what sort of instrument I should try to learn, I hyperfixated on this question and looked for an instrument that ticks all the boxes:
– Cheap-ish
– Can be played quietly
– Can start practicing without much prep
– Did not have to rely on my own skill for affecting the tone (i.e. “has frets” or something)
And I came to the conclusion that the answer is a harp.
Harps are cool, and there’s a handful of different kinds. I researched this for a while and found that the cheaper ones were called “lever harps” or “celtic harps” and sometimes “lap harps” – but all of them are the same, and the traditional name of them is “cláirseach”, which is an old Gaelic word. This type of instrument very nearly a different class of instrument than what you see as part of an orchestra.
A lever harp is based on a triangular frame, usually 3-4 feet tall. The smallest are sometimes about 2 feet tall, and the largest ones end up being 5 feet tall or more. The smaller ones are designed to be worn with a strap around your back, or resting on your lap, and have between 20 and 30 strings. The larger ones (often called ‘floor harps’) are much less mobile, but can have up to 40 strings.
Since a harp (of any type or size) has exactly one string for each note, I didn’t need to rely on learning where to press on a string or whatever in order to get the right tone. Because of the levers, there’s a bit of flexibility in which key you’re tuned to, and you generally won’t be flipping the levers much while playing a song. This means that I won’t have to rely on my own skill for making the right tone – I simply have to select the right string.
Lever harps are also nearly always ready to be played at the drop of a hat – they are pretty easy to carry around your house, and are constantly ready to be played. They do like to get out of tune pretty easily, but being out of tune a small amount is fine for casual playing, and tuning it is a matter of maybe 2-3 minutes if you’re playing with others or in public. This means that I can pick it up and put it down very easily, so I can practice while on break at work or any other time I’ve got 5 minutes.
Harps in general are not loud – You can play a harp very quietly if you want to. It’s a recurring joke that conductors will ask for ‘more volume from the harp’ in practice, but there simply isn’t any more volume to be had out of the thing. So this would solve the problem of “can’t play it while people are sleeping.”
And one of the hardest limiting factors: price. Pedal harps (the big orchestral ones) can very easily run up to the $20,000 range and far beyond. Until the mid-2000s, lever harps (being much less complicated) were still very easily priced as high as $2000 at the low end, and ones that were very poorly designed/constructed *might* come down to $1000. But one luthier – William Rees – decided that there should be a budget-friendly harp on the market, and so made the “Harpsicle” line of harps. It’s a basic harp with zero bells and whistles (not even levers), but it’s affordable for a normal budget of “person looking to buy an instrument” at $580 (as of this writing). When it first hit mass production, the lightweight nature and cheap price made it suddenly *very* popular with people doing music therapy for elderly people and children. They began selling faster than they could make them.
There’s a few more expensive harps in the Harpsicle line, and I was excited that I found what should work for me. If you go up only a single step to the “Sharpsicle”, then you had all the structure you needed to upgrade it to the fully-levered “Fullsicle”.
After looking around online for sales or deals or anything like that, I decided to contact a local shop owner that not only repaired and maintained pianos and harps, she also gave lessons!
The first time that I sat down at a harp and strummed the strings in her shop, I was instantly hooked. It didn’t matter how much it cost, I was going to have a harp, I was going to learn to play it, and I was going to play it. The sound of the strings ringing to my touch reached in through my ears and grabbed me by my brainstem – *this was the answer*. I didn’t even know what question it was an answer *to* – I just knew that harps were the thing that fit into a place in me, and it’s going to be something I do for quite a long time.
I started by renting a harp from my teacher, and later on she (being a dealer) found a great deal on a special edition Fullsicle. I call this harp “Striped Jenny.” I love this harp and I’m planning on making a travel case for her in the future.
Author: Apprentice
Patreon.
Here’s a link: patreon.com/StumbleStorySeth
I realized that if I was going to start doing things and making it a way I’m living my life, I’m going to need to start getting paid for it.
Currently, the only thing that Patreon is there for is to let people give me money. I don’t particularly enjoy the idea of gatekeeping the stuff I make behind a paywall, but I know the things I’m (eventually) going to do and make will be things that people will want to pay for, so I’ll figure out how I think about that later.
Anyways.
If you want to support my creative endeavors, go subscribe to my Patreon. Eventually you’ll get something special for being willing to support me in this way.
Holy Crap
I recently had my 9th anniversary of being married to Amanda and we were observing that ‘growing up’ and having kids has slowed down our lives quite a bit.
And it’s not like “nothing happens” – it’s that all the things that do happen are a lot more in our laps than they are out in the world. Raising kids, working ‘real’ jobs, paying loans, and so forth are all happening right in our face. Before we had kids and all this other life stuff, we would need to go out to the world to progress our lives. Now it feels like some 95% of the progression of our lives happens “in-house”.
The reason that I say this is because I last posted here in October, saying that I’d like to be posting more often. that’s what, 4 months ago? Yeesh.
The entire household has been sick since Christmas, which is just the worst. We got some weird bug right before Christmas, and by the time it had run it’s course, we had another awful cold or something. I don’t think I’ve spent a day not coughing since then. The accumulating sleep debt (beyond having an infant) and general exhaustion adds yet another dimension on to the whole “all of life taking more energy.”
Ok, well my kids are almost 1 and almost 5 – both birthdays in March. I’m going to be getting my yearly raise here in a few weeks. I’m going to be getting some intense training from my job a bit after that. I’m going to be trying for a new position at my company as well.
Amanda is also so experienced with knitting that she can practically do it in her sleep. She certainly does these awesome small expanding grocery-bag things (which is apparently quite a complex stitch) while we are watching movies or TV. She’s actually planning on doing them once per day and then selling them at farmer’s markets. It helps her with nervous energy while sitting, as well as (hopefully) bringing in some extra cash – and as a bonus it’s also helping Amanda with her anti-plastic goals.
For me, I am learning game design and programming, and trying to figure out how to implement an idea that I’ve had. I’m going to be using Godot, because it’s free (like – ‘MIT open license’ free, which is crazy free), seems to be pretty intuitive, and has a ton of community around it.
My game is going to need a lot more learning to even begin implementing it, but I’m grinding through the tutorials, and I really need to get a github going. I’m planning on asking my 5-year old what she wants in a game and just directly using her idea as a self-tutorial challenge thing. Right now the main thing I know about her game is that it will have a unicorn.
I suppose that’s it. I just wanted to be in the habit of writing something. Hopefully the next thing will be sooner than 3 months from now.
Getting back to it.
The last post that I had was just over one year ago.
Hmm…
That’s no way to run a website.
In that year, I’ve accomplished a lot.
I’ve become extremely comfortable at my job, and I’m even looking down the barrel of another skills test to justify another raise in January.
I’ve managed to get to the point where I actually have savings.
I’ve been a Best Man for my friend.
Oh yeah, I also have begun including in my household a new tyrant. Her name is Willow and she’s 7 months old at the time of writing this. She is developing crazy fast and she’s a friggin giant. She’s been pulling herself up on to her feet for about a month but has yet to figure out walking. She sleeps in a crib but also knows that if it’s dark and she starts yelling, then daddy comes down the hall and holds her.
There’s also been a variety of drama in my life, even before she was born.
So yeah, there’s a good set of reasons that I haven’t been updating, sleep deprivation being a big one the last seven months.
But I’m going to try to start updating again.
Currently I have a few things going on – as I mentioned my job is going well and I have 2 kids. Sometime soon I’ll be able to trade in my falling-apart-at-the-seams car for a better car, and by about christmas I should be able to start seriously looking for a house to buy (meaning Nerd Fort #3 will have a place to exist). I’m also learning how to code in Godot so that I can make a video game that’s been stewing in the back of my mind for a little while.
Ropes of Lightning
NOTE: This post is inspired by This Reddit Post and as such, the idea is entirely credited to u/LeastCoordinatedJedi and his kid.
Captain’s Log of the Vessel Wayward Cloud. Date unknown.
Note about time and date: Date is unknown due to total lack of celestial objects. I do not know if the stars or sun and moon are even present, as candles don’t even shed light here – they are only a dim point in the shape of a flame – though the air itself seems to be giving off some unnatural light. It confuses me when I try to think about it, and gives me a headache. It has probably been about 3 weeks since our vessel was lifted off the waves.
Note about our ship: I would call our ship a Galleon, so we thought ourselves quite safe in these waters (what with a full compliment of crew to fight pirates or monsters). but we lost a mast, multiple spars, and many sails, so we are rigged almost like a schooner at this point. I do believe now that we will not be returning to port for repairs.
Enough about the ship. It’s no longer in the waves. This story is being entered in the ships logs and my personal diary in hopes that my logs will find their way back to civilized lands where monsters do not roam about uncontested. I hope that either a college of sorcery will be made aware that one of their member are attacking ships off the coast, or that the powers of the empire will be alerted and focused on those that have so treacherously preyed upon ships in the region.
We begin with the child that we found on flotsam – the partial wreckage of at least 2 ships. He had quite the story to tell, and I didn’t believe him, until I saw it for myself.
We found young J-dai (he insisted with the enthusiasm that only 5-year olds can generate that his name was spelled exactly this way) clinging to flotsam of a merchant ship that was obviously attacked by pirates. Pretty ballsy of the pirates – this was an important shipping corridor, so the imperial patrol and even privateers like us were often found in these waters, and no-one takes kindly to black flags. We found him among the wreckage of 2 other ships, and he claimed that a third had been lifted to the sky. At first, we thought that J-dai was only mistaken as not nearly enough wreckage was available to be from 3 different ships, but then we found separate main masts still connected to badly bent straps and bolts that could only have been ripped apart from below the deck of 3 different ships.
The crew felt that we should have left with haste, but I disregarded their protests as silly superstition and thought that staying would be a good way to increase the reputation of professional privateers on these waters. I decided to look for further survivors to return to their loved ones and perhaps cargo that I might return to their rightful companies (and of course, claim for myself if no company brand was found). To my great shame, I led my poor crew and my beloved ship to cursed clouds of demon light and no lands, and I fell in to this trap while selfishly trying to improve the lot of privateer captains. If only we could have sunken under the waves with the first blast.
We found scattered foodstuffs and a few bales of cotton (details in the clerks log). All the other cargo seems to have been sunk or taken by the attackers. We found no other survivors, and we found no dead bodies. It was almost as if someone had scoured the sea for men, living and dead, and plucked them up with no regard for the other valuables in the salt. This was odd, as almost anyone attacking a ship will take whatever food they can find to bolster their own stores, and we found many barrels of brandy, apples, wheat, and other food.
The boy told me a quick version of his story while recovering with some hot food and a little wine in the captain’s cabin, and told a long version of his story later to some sympathetic sailors before we were attacked. I was not present for the long version, but here is my best recollection of his short version:
First off, I can tell is that he has no idea why they were on a ship. I did my best not to allow him to think that I thought his story was preposterous – young minds are very imaginative, but they often have the seed of truth to their stories. I realized quickly that I would not know where he embellished his imagination, but it turns out to be far less than I initially thought.
In his abbreviated version, he tells me that his father was a merchant company’s ship captain and there being 2 other ships with him was quite notable – the little boy was very proud of his father for the promotion (his story kept changing the particular rank – captain, admiral, mate, etc.). It seems they had outrun a storm for nearly 2 days in the straights at the nearby islands and the crew was totally exhausted, so they dropped anchor to let the entire crew rest and eat well for a morning.
J-Dai says that when the sailors were getting ready to be under way, the cries went up that the storm had caught up to them again and the whole crew began desperately trying to get farther away from the rocky shore – the boy was very insistent that earlier there had been an argument between senior staff that they were too close to some rocks and “150 paces is too close after that storm” – and there was great confusion about which way to go. The boy said that a great wind came up as a dark cloud overtook them, and “a huge red frog fell out of the sky – a frog sailor with black pants, standing on two legs.” When the frog-sailor fell on his ship, it cracked the planks near the main mast. He watched as this invader then tied “a piece of lightning” to the mast, which was suddenly met by the sky as well – with a “big giant noise” – lightning came down from the newly formed clouds to join the piece tied to the mast, and while he was watching this from the captain’s cabin, he heard more noises and saw the other ships suffer a similar fate.
After this, his story gets even more confused, as the melee was joined in full – with apparently more monsters coming down the lightning to join the red frog sailor. He doesn’t know when the masts were torn from their bolts, but his father threw him on a mast as it fell over, apparently to simply get his child off the doomed ship. The boy hid, terrified, under the sail on a spar and he heard a lot of things happening in the water, and then the sound like a waterfall – he peeked out at that point and saw the noise was from water falling off the hull of the last remaining ship being lifted by “ropes of lightning twisted into a braid” into a “great purple hole in the clouds” – and he saw a stone castle through the hole as well, swearing that a witch was watching the whole encounter while standing on the water. The witch apparently walked up in to the cloud as it was disappearing. He waited more than a day on the now-calm seas before we showed up.
Once his story was over, I let the senior crew know that we may have a pirate on our hands, and they may have a renegade sorcerer with them. I feel that I took warnings from young J-dai’s story, but while correct, they were insufficient. Looking back, I was very prideful in thinking that our ship was impervious to a sorcerer-pirate. Even with a battle-tested crew, I should have taken the warning an weighed anchor immediately.
The boy ate voraciously – I did not doubt the time frames that he told us. After a few more hours of scouring the wreckage for salvage (it helped that the sea was very calm – more like a fishing-pond) I began to get uneasy after finding the third ship’s mast – an experienced sailor could tell in only a few moments how many ships the discarded sails were from.
And then it happened. A shadow came over the waters, further out to sea than ourselves. Cast by a great purple cloud, it was boiling and moving and glowing with an energy that is foreign to my eyes. This witch-cloud was growing and moving quickly from the sea towards shore, but it never got to the shore – it found my ship and stayed over it, blocking the sun from our search – making it almost like twilight, it was so wide. Cast by a great roiling purple cloud, I began to give the boy’s story more credence – this must be the work of some powerful magic-user, as it could not be a typical storm. I immediately gave the order go regather the men from the boats in the water – we either needed them for the fight, or we needed the boats to flee upon.
As the first men got up from the sea to the main deck, I heard a sound that was loud like a clap of nearby cannon fire, but distant and rolling like thunder. The men were armed with saber, hook, and crossbow, and to their credit not a single one turned to give me shame for staying in those haunted waters – they each took up their battle positions and got the last of the men from the boats. We all stood ready, weapons in hand, for a few very long minutes.
Almost I ordered the anchor weighed or perhaps even the ship abandoned – but before the orders were given, the sound of some kind of foreign drum rolled over us. At the same moment, and the whole crew and I were enraptured as we saw a hole begin to open – a great circle whose edge was naught but roiling storm cloud and small splinters of lightning. The noise happened again and again, and I realized that the portal was opening ever-wider with each strike of the distant drumhead. And as we watched the spectacle, the true horror of what we were seeing came upon us. In the distance through that portal, we saw a great palace upon a hill of rock and boulders.
There was something not right about the way that we were looking at it. Almost like we were above it, but also like the front gates, all the pillars around the outside, and the roof were connected by a single acute angle instead of many obtuse ones. Perhaps it is best to describe it like we were within a trick mirror that was pointed at the fortress? Bah! I consider myself a man of letters but cannot fathom the words that should successfully describe how the hill and fortress were oriented to us.
The building glowed with sickly inner light and my mate held a spyglass and yelled that there were great crystals on all the ramparts, attended by some kind of monster, and that the sounds were made by these crystals.
As he watched, he reported with shock that creatures were climbing these magical devices by the dozen, and these stood waiting, looking to our ship, and then with a terrified scream he said that they were being launched off of the crystals toward us. I told the mate to keep his gaze upon the first ones that went in this way, and tell us when they would land on us. In a quick whisper he related “Only a few moments! At least a dozen in the first volley!” was his report, and then dropping the spyglass he roared “BLADES READY!”
Just as he said this, there were the sounds that no sailor ever wants to hear – the cracking and splintering of the planks of the deck. As the splinters settled, we were able to see it clearly – a monster that was in the general shape of a giant man – all the sailors were too stunned to rush initially, so it stood up from it’s landing crouch while we took in what we were seeing.
It’s stance was like that of a great bear on two legs, but even less clear delineation between the skull and the muscles of the broad back, and no fur. It stood taller than any man I have ever seen – with sloped shoulders and great long arms. It stood on two legs and wore black pants. It’s head was low to it’s shoulders and wide, with eyes more on top than in front, and a great mouth that almost seemed to reach to the back to it’s shoulders. It was colored a deep crimson, mottled with large brick-red spots on it’s head and back. It was indeed exactly the beast from J-dai’s story – somewhat frog-shaped in the face and wearing black pants. The invader was even holding a short length of chain that glowed bright like a blue sun. As we watched, it held one end of the chain in it’s fist up to the mast; the way you might knock on a door while holding a tool in the same hand.
As he did this, the rest of the monsters were landing, also cracking boards with the force of impact. The noise shook us out of our astonishment and some men charged. The frog-men (who were made in various colors) had already rushed to defensive postures around this one, apparently so that he could finish his work.
I stayed back for a moment longer, in order to perhaps find an opportunity to get past the monster’s companions and engage with it more fully. The chain which initially appeared very short suddenly wrapped itself around the mast and the crimson beast let go, just as a great bolt of lightning streaked out of the sky with a huge thunder clap and joined the chain. All the men disengaged and took a few steps back. Unlike lightning, this thing maintained its presence – as soon as it hit it fell slack like a great rope made of vibrant blue-white light.
As I stood back, the other sailors and I realized that we were bested physically – the monsters didn’t seem interested in a fight and kept simply catching our arms as we swung blades and maces, and pushing us back as their companions continued their work with the chains and lightning – some of the other monsters that landed also had the glowing chains. We got a few good hits, but none that were mortal.
It was in that moment of tense, industrious calm that I realized the true horror of what was happening. The ropes of lightning were losing their slack – whatever great wheel that had these devices mounted to it is turning and tightening the ropes. We were being lifted to that infernal castle. The weight was being put on the masts and anything that looked like it could bear the load. There were at least a dozen points the ropes of lightning were connected.
Some of the points began to buckle – some were attached to rails, to spars, and some just to planks. The first of these to buckle shocked us out of our horror and I cried “Kill the invaders! Your life is in your hands!” and to my great pride, every single sailor rushed as one and we slew several of the frog-men in the initial rush. The invaders then began to take us seriously and truly fought back.
The larger invaders would cleave off a limb with a single swipe of their falchions, but we could not kill them without the concerted effort of a dozen of us. We could overwhelm a few more, but they only fought us until we could feel the ship -the entire ship- lifted from the water. We all felt it begin to spin, and the invaders immediately ran to the points where the ropes of lightning were attached, and they began to scramble up the blue lines. We got a few more of them, but our doom was sealed.
One by one, my sailors – my friends – turned from the spectacle above us to look to me for direction. When I realized they expected an order, I gave it. “Abandon ship. She’s been captured, but we need not be captured as well.” Several men went to the life-boats, but then one man just dove off the side. He fell up into the purple hole in the clouds. His confused yell turning to terrified screaming will haunt the rest of my short days. We watched him float up through the purple air, and fell past the hill that the palace is on, and then we heard it – a great cackling.
There was laughter coming from the sea.
There was a woman. A woman standing on the sea, apparently still casting a spell in a circle of torches that floated about her.
She was in thick, black robes. Her auburn hair was flat around her shoulders – no wind seemed to touch her. She was standing in a circle of torches that were arranged on the water below us. I do not know what magic she used to stand there, but considering the sight above us, it did not seem unfeasible. She did not seem young or beautiful, but she also did not seem old or ugly. But as we caught sight of her, we felt the power of her.
As we breached the purple cloud, she seemed to be finished, and ascended past us by walking on the air. A few of my men fired crossbows at her, and one even hit. She did not seem to notice that a bolt was pinning her robe to her ribs. We lost all spirit of violence at that.
We suffered from extreme horror then. We were being pulled from our native waters to be prisoners in a world where frogs command high magic and even geometry did not seem to make sense. We thought initially that we would be pulled to the rocks and dashed before the palace. But his was not so. We were merely tethered. The men waited in silent anticipation for hours.
And the terror passed.
Terror turned to boredom.
Initially, I kept the crew busy doing normal maintenance of the ship, and rigging her up as if we expected to be plopped back in the water any minute. There are a dozen or so other ships that we have been able to signal with flags and with oil lamps, but we cannot get close enough for real exchange of information. The crew is doing their best to stay entertained, but music doesn’t seem to sound right, and both dice and cards seem silly when you will likely never see the use of money again.
So now we are waiting for the end. Some of my crewmates have hastened that for themselves – jumping off always seems to have them fall forever past the palace and the rocks. We do not know if they ever find a sea or land. Others tried to climb the ropes of lightning – but it feels to the touch like a greased pole of hot brass. The only distance you can go is determined by your initial jump, and you can’t hold on for long, anyways.
We are beginning to come to the end of our food stores.
Some crew have suggested a feast of the last of the rations, since there is no hope of rescue. Force the sea witch to deal with us or let us die.
In the end, I do think something will happen. As I write this, I see that one of our fellow tethered ships is throwing all it’s cargo over the side, and I can see the palace responding – the frog-men are launching again to them. Whether to deal with them properly as prisoners and feed them, or simply to slaughter them for wasting wealth I do not know, but it would certainly be better than this incessant waiting in the purple air.
HELLO REDDIT
I mentioned on reddit that I have a personal website and I love it because it feels a little like “the old internet” (link to my comment here) and everybody started asking me for it.
I’m writing this post in anticipation of people actually coming here. Thanks for the interest.
Click around. I’ve got a weird gallery. I’ve got some episodes from a podcast that I decided to do based on r/HFY. (now defunct. I got 6 episodes in and realized I needed to stop.) I’ve got a bunch of weird shit here.
If you want to comment, please do! But please also be patient, I have it set to where I have to approve each person before they can post.
I also have a cool post upcoming about a D&D situation described by another redditor’s 5-year old. I’m pretty proud of it so far and it should be up by Monday.
Let Me Tell You A Story – HFY Episode 5 The Unthinkable
This time the story is in three parts!
Written by u/necrontyr525, The Unthinkable is about a war journalist coming to grips with one of humanity’s greatest evils – unleashing nuclear weapons upon each other.
Just a quick warning – there is a part in the second section that doesn’t translate well to audio. I should have caught it earlier and asked for license to make a paragraph that explains why there is a ‘jump’ in the narrative. It’s when the son is explaining what happened on Mars (twice). In the text there is an ellipsis to indicate that he continues on with the story, just that the reader doesn’t get to hear it. It makes the audio pretty rough, but it’s not too bad if you’re ready for it.
Here is a link to part one of the story.
Here is a link to the direct download from libsyn.
Here is a link to the author page.
Thank you to everyone for all of your support. Thanks for putting up with me, thanks for giving me feedback, and most of all, thanks for listening.
If you have suggestions about the format, authors I should be begging for permission, or just that you generally hate me and what I’m doing, feel free to say so in the comments on the reddit post. Seriously, I appreciate feedback and I want to change this podcast to fit what you would listen to.
Let Me Tell You A Story – HFY Episode 4 Last Minutes Of Station 41267
Life is still going crazy, but HEY – I still made me release schedule!
Written by u/JackFragg, Last Minutes of Station 41267 is about how we humans can find something to celebrate no matter where we go – even simply having someone to enjoy a fiery end with.
Here is a Link to the original text of the story.
Here is a link to direct download from libsyn
Here is The Patreon for u/JackFragg
And here is the author page
Thank you to everyone for all of your support. Thanks for putting up with me, thanks for giving me feedback, and most of all, thanks for listening.
If you have suggestions about the format, authors I should be begging for permission, or just that you generally hate me and what I’m doing, feel free to say so in the comments on the reddit post. Seriously, I appreciate feedback and I want to change this podcast to fit what you would listen to.
Let Me Tell You A Story. HFY Episode 3 The Hollow One
Written by u/regallegaleagle , an author of many stories at r/HFY, The Hollow One is a story that captures the spirit of humanity with inspiration coming from a human spirit speaking to a downtrodden alien prisoner-of-war.
Here is a Link to the original text of the story.
Here is a link to direct download from libsyn
Here is The Patreon for u/RegalLegaleagle is here
Thank you to everyone for all of your support, even though there were huge flaws with how it came out (that have been corrected). Thanks for putting up with me, thanks for giving me feedback, and most of all, thanks for listening.
If you have suggestions about the format, authors I should be begging for permission, or just that you generally hate me and what I’m doing, feel free to say so in the comments on the reddit post. Seriously, I appreciate feedback and I want to change this podcast to fit what you would listen to.
Let Me Tell You A Story. HFY Episode 2 Stolen By the Stars
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EDIT: CORRECTED. I accidentally muted the introduction track when I was exporting this as an Mp3. It now contains the correct file. Also I’ve updated this post to include the original text of the relevant story.
So…Just today was the first time I looked at the previous post from a “not signed in” perspective, and apparently I have a broken widget, causing some raw HTML to exist on the same line as the first line of the post. I’ve added a period and an empty line here in this one so that, if it happens again, it will be a little more readable. I’ll fix it later this week.
The reason that this episode is a little late (and I’m not fixing the posts now) is that I have a hugely important test that has been occupying as much of my brain as possible. This test, if I fail it, will get me fired. Not immediately – I have one more chance. But if I fail it twice, I won’t have a job. So I’m especially glad that I’ve taken the time to record everything beforehand, because I definitely would have just abandoned this wholesale if I needed to record and edit these last few weeks. And honestly, I like my new job. I want to keep it. I would be very sad and very stressed if I lost it.
Here is the text: Stolen By The Stars, by SquiggleStoryStudios A.K.A. Michelle K. Hodgson
So I’m throwing this up here real quick and I’m promising another post about other things either tomorrow after I pass the test or this weekend after I pass the test.