The GardenDespatches from The Satyrs’ Forest

One hundred questions

Alright, why not? These questions are adapted from Cidoku and ergo Burypink. I have told the truth everywhere except where i have lied.

1. Time and date you started this?

2024, July the sixteenth. Twenty-two hours, seven minutes, two seconds.

2. ASL?

Early twenties/It’s complicated/It’s complicated.

3. Opinions on musicals?

Never been a theatre person, but Little Shop of Horrors is a favourite film of mine. 🎵 Son, be a dentist! People will pay you to be inhumane… 🎵

4. Favorite snack?

Squashies.

5. Have you ever been in love?

Not yet.

6. Favourite Pokémon?

Eevee — my favourite evolution of which is Sylveon, obviously.

7. Mario Kart main?

Donkey Kong. Monke always wins.

8. Team Fortress 2 main?

Don’t play it.

9. Do you laugh at Youtube Poops?

Well, obviously. That shit’s hilarious.

10. Are you listening to music right now?

Almost always — currently “Starlings”, the opening from Elbow’s The Seldom Seen Kid. I’ll always have a soft spot for them; they’re my mum’s favourite band, so they’re tied in with a lot of emotional moments growing up.

11. Favourite shape?

A trefoil knot:

A knot with three points

12. Do you believe in astrology?

I find the pop-culture “OMG, that’s such a Gemini thing to do” thing lacking as much in novelty as it is in substance, but i do, at the very least, think there are auspicious and inauspicious days. No further comment, since it’s not a particular focus of mine.

13. Do you believe in the occult?

Are you aware of what website this is? ;-)

14. Opinions on vocaloid?

Not my thing, but i can respect the art of forcing computers to make human noises.

15. Would you ever want to be a rock star?

It seems at once liberating and terrifying — a great big audience for your work and to provoke as you wish, but also…

16. Do you easily get stressed?

Welcome to Fluoxetine: The Blog.

17. What is/was your favorite class in high school?

Further Maths, baby! I’ve gussied this place up but in my heart of hearts i am the biggest stemlord in history. Mathematics, i think, is the highest beauty among the sciences; none of the tangled messes of diagrams of biology or headaches of physics, just three axioms and the truth.

18. What pokemon type would you be? Dual types are allowed, LOL

Water/Fairy.

19. Rei or Asuka?

Who are you and how did you get into my house?

20. Favorite HTML tag?

<details>.

21. Are you religious?

Pagan, albeit not very good at it.

22. Opinions on nightcore?

I instinctively want to be dismissive, but i’m not going to pretend that i don’t regularly load up songs into Audacity and slow them down for the vibe…

23. Did you go through any major phase? (emo, goth, weeaboo, &c.)

Not really — i had a very cheugy adolescence.

24. Are you good at drawing?

No, but i like to think i’m better than i was a month ago.

25. Do you crack your joints?

No.

26. Do you read visual novels?

No.

27. Can you sew?

No, but now you mention it, that is something to add to the “maybe some time” pile…

28. Can you cook?

I make a mean honey and pork stir fry.

29. Most expensive thing you’ve bought?

My new computer tots up to just over a thousand pounds in total and it’s been worth every penny.

30. Opinions on cosplay?

Seems fun, although not my thing.

31. What's your most hated band/musician?

I don’t have it in me to ha…… Maroon 5.

32. Are you a dramatic person?

Cripes, who has the energy for that?

33. What emoticon do you use most?

A winky ;-) face in ascii, a thinky 🤔️ face in emoji.

34. Can a miracle certainly occur?

I don’t understand the question.

35. Would you let a vampire suck your blood?

Nah. The vampire life sounds like it sucks. Now, would i let a werewolf bite me, on the other hand…

36. Do you have a celebrity crush?

Dev Patel, full name Sexiest Man Alive Dev Patel, is the sexiest man alive (Dev Patel).

37. Do you like snow?

Yes, rare as it comes these days… every year winter turns more and more into all the drawbacks without the benefits.

38. Were you really into Greek mythology as a kid?

You get three guesses.

39. What are some things you could competently deliver a speech on?

Esperanto. My mildly schizophrenic interpretation of Synecdoche, New York. The finer places on the internet.

40. Are you good at spelling?

I like to think so! English orthography is one of the tongue’s great beauties; every word hides its origins within itself.

41. which touhou wud u fuk?

It’s time to log off.

42. Do you think there's going to be a robot takeover?

Nah. The singularity is overhyped, in my view — just because robots think faster than us doesn’t mean they’re smarter.

43. Has science gone too far??!?!??!?!

Not far enough. Nowhere near far enough.

44. Would you be an angel or devil?

Devil, because then you get cute little hooves and horns. (I am eternally about two bad bonks on the head from unironically calling myself satyrkin.)

45. Sine, cosine, or tangent?

Tangent.

46. Do you like licorice?

It freaks my English friends out, but absolutely!

47. What’s thing you cant stand that everyone else loves?

Star Wars, also known as The Adventures of Luke Cardboardeater and His Annoying Friends, is complete and utter tripe and i will never understand the obsession. Every character is either boring or awful, every film is just ninety minutes of Harrison Ford running around rickety sets, the score is caterwauling overemotive tripe, and the whole franchise is so utterly uninterested in the star part of the name that it makes me wonder why they even bothered setting it in space.

48. What books did you like as a kid?

A deep cut here, but there’s this series of Dutch kids’ books called Dolfje Weerwolfje about a little kid who gets turned into a werewolf, and i suspect it may have turned me into a furry.

49. Can you play any instruments?

Alas, not yet.

50. What song would you want to play at your wedding?

“One Day Like This”, by Elbow, although that choice may just be because it’s playing right now as i write.

51. Do you believe in reincarnation?

It’s the only option that makes sense. An eternity in heaven is stupefying, and blinking out of existence terrifying; the only thing i can be certain of in life is that there is something experiencing the state of being me, and that something will keep experiencing being me after i’m gone — probably being shunted into the body of the next birth in the queue.

52. Finish the sentence: I’m just a guy who ______

poasts on the internet

53. Have you been to another continent?

No, but it’s arguable! I went to the Anatolian side of Turkey, which most would think of Asia, but i personally include most of the country (as well as the Caucasus) in Europe.

54. What’s your worst habit?

Well i’m not going to tell you, am i‽

55. Favourite vegetable?

Carrots.

56. What’s something stupid that scared the shit outta you as a kid?

When i was five i accidentally locked myself in the toilet at the Holle Bolle Boom. This is Deep Xanthe Lore.

57. What’s one of your guilty pleasures?

Middling immature pop punk. Every part of me knows it’s not good, but come on…

58. Would you rather be a ghost or a vampire?

A vampire, since in that case i can at least interact with the world twelve hours a day instead of zero.

59. What do you fear most?

Dementia. Generally, my policy is that i would like to live as long as possible, but if i ever succumb to that, my family has my full permission to shoot me there and then. I refuse to go through it, losing my sense of self bit by agonising, confusing, terrifying bit.

60. Do you sleep with any plushies?

I don’t sleep with them, but i do keep two plush otters as companions.

61. What hobby do you just not understand?

There’s a subreddit for enthusiasts of electric torches and i just… guys… it’s a torch. They’re all torches. They all do the exact same thing. What are we doing here?

62. Do you like the taste of alcohol?

It’s an acquired taste1, but i find the fruitier, the better. I love a good liqueur or framboise.

63. Are you a hopeless romantic?

In the artistic sense, at least, i think romanticism was where the fine arts peaked. We had finally shed the awkward masses of flesh of the baroque times, but not yet gone down the slippery slope of abstraction that the modern era would lead us to.

64. Which deadly sin best fits you?

Gluttony.

65. Which of your physical features do you like the most?

I have lovely long blonde hair that refracts into golds and browns in the sunlight.

66. Are your ears pierced?

Not yet.

67. Have you ever been in a physical fight?

Thankfully not!

68. Where do you buy your clothes?

Are you an ad tracking script or something?

69. Where would you live if you could live anywhere?

Hold on, let me get the quote out…

A large, secluded home, out in the countryside, but not so far out that it becomes a pain to visit the big city. Probably England, rather than the Netherlands, if only for the sheer diversity of scenery.

70. Do you believe in magic? Or is it all a trick?

Magick is real, and without the somewhat provocative terminology for what is, ultimately, prayer with attitude, i think this statement would be uncontroversial among most religious people.

71. Have you read Umineko When They Cry? You should!

No, and you can’t make me, because you’re a line of text in a blog post.

72. What is the worst chore to do?

It’s nowhere near the hardest or even most inconvenient, but there’s something distinctly humiliating about the ritual of walking your dishes down to their automatic dish-washing throne. We’ve automated the washing part away, but here i still am, taking time out of my life to stick a dirty plate in between other dirty plates, trying not to get any residue on me.

73. What did your parents almost name you?

I’ve thankfully been told alternate choices for both sexes, so this isn’t going to get me to reveal what’s in my pants — i could have ended up a Fred or an Amélie.

74. What would you want your name to be if you were not your current gender?

Xanthe Tynehorne, seeing as it’s not my real name.2

75. What were your first words?

“Lion”. Or “jaja”, i guess. It all evens out.

76. What do you want your last words to be?

Ideally i wouldn’t have any, but if i am going to die, then i can hardly go out on anything other than “Do not go gentle into that good night”.

77. When did you first regularly start going online?

I literally don’t remember! The internet has ruined my soul.

78. What year do you miss the most?

2012 was the peak of human civilisation. Maybe it’s just because i was a dumb kid, but man — they had smartphones, but they hadn’t yet completely taken over; social media still seemed like a fun place to be rather than an endless bath of vitriol, and, of course, “Call Me Maybe” came out.

79. Are you psychic?

I predict the answer is “no”.

80. Would you fuck a clone of yourself? You’re not allowed to kill yourself.

Yes, obviously! I’m bisexual, so it’s not like i have any reason not to. I am a bit worried about what happens to the clone afterwards, though… do they just go off into the woods, never to be seen again?

81. What do you use to listen to music?

Back when i used Windows i was a big fan of MusicBee… now, much as it pains me to say, i stick to streaming and sometimes BBC Sounds. I’ve had a hand-coded music player on the back-burner for a while now, but there’s so many fiddly ruddy edge cases to deal with, and nothing ever imports formatted as nicely as i want it to!

82. Whats the biggest city you’ve been to?

London.

83. Favourite animal?

Otters!!!!!!

Three otters resting on a log

84. What web browser do you use?

Firefox — i’ve found it Just Works™.

85. Are you allergic to kitty cats???????????

No. My family used to foster them, actually!

86. Do you like energy drinks?

No.

87. Would you ever spend money on TF2 unusuals/CS:GO skins/gacha pulls/&c.

No, because i may be a shmuck, but i’m not a complete shmuck.

88. When do you usually go to bed?

Too late for comfort.

89. How often do you wash your hair?

Once a day, in the shower.

90. Would you download a car?

Me? Download a car? I would never… [looks nervously at my computer’s three-hundred-gigabyte film folder]

91. What was your favorite show as a kid?

I cannot stress enough how much Phineas and Ferb was the absolute shit.

92. What’s the silliest hat you own?

I… my word, i don’t know.

93. What album/song do you listen to when you’re feeling angsty?

“Me”, by The 1975. “Oh, i was thinking ’bout killing myself; don’t you mind…”

94. Do you make OCs?

Do fursonæ count?

95. What’s the goofiest thing you do when completely alone?

Make random mouth noises to myself.

96. Do you like fireworks?

When i was six i slept through the new years’ fireworks and got so sad/angry i demanded my mama and papa call everyone in Hoorn and make them do it again.

97. Favourite painter?

Maxfield Parrish has such a command of light and colour. I’m always blown away when i see his work.

98. Favourite numbers?

One-hundred-and-thirty-seven. I think one, three, and seven are all particularly special — one is, well, one; three has been associated with so much for so long that it’s a waste to sum it up, and seven is particularly interesting to me because six is the highest number of things we can instinctively see without counting. It’s the first number we have to properly think about to understand — the first number that leaps out of the domain of nature and into that of humans! So the fact that, when you put them next to each other, they wind up the inexplicable reciprocal of a fundamental physical constant is incredible.

99. What genre of vidya gaems are you really good at? (FPS, fightan, danmaku, racing, whatever)

I don’t know if i can give an answer, because if there’s a pattern in my favourite games, it’s that they’re ones where you don’t have to be good at them. I just love a good wide open sandbox to muck about in.

100. time and date you finished this?

2024, July the sixteenth. Twenty-three hours, fifteen minutes, fifty seconds.

2 comments

  1. hejsandra says…

    Just wanted to say I've been reading your blog for a little bit now and I'm really glad i found it, you have a way of writing that's so fun and engaging genuienly !! When you say you could completely deliver a speech on the finer places of the internet, have you written anyhting about that on this blog? I feel like I'm currently in the midst of trying to find those places, I'm still stuck in The Bad Places (twitter)

  2. Xanthe says…
    2w8373gz

    [...]have you written anything about that on this blog?

    Not to my recollection. I dislike posting about the internet on the internet too much because it feels overly masturbatory, and it’s been done to death — blogs and personal sites (that are actually about something other than their own existence) good, social media bad, et cetera, and so on.

Please be nice. Comments may be edited for proper spelling and capitalisation, because i’m a pedant. Basic formatting: *bold*, /italics/, [//satyrs.eu links]→ More