Mazedude: Hanmuru Moon

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

Early on I became unsure about how I should proceed with what I was writing. Not a good way to be. Still chugged along, but it harmed the overall piece.

Mazedude’s “Hanmuru Moon” is from For Everlasting Peace: 25 Years of Mega Man, a tribute album celebrating 25 years of Mega Man games. The song is an interpretation of Makoto Tomozawa’s (友澤 眞) “Hanmuru Doll Appears!” (ハンムルドール登場!) from Mega Man Legends, aka Rockman Dash – Episode 1: Adventurous Spirit of Steel, which was featured on its soundtrack, Rockman Dash Original Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Percussion shapes and strides in, and soon synths rises forward among beeps and boops. That synth moves in bits and stays in the background for the most part, or at least feels it does, even when it pairs up with other sounds.

A voice and other parts flowing together and sometimes separated by brief silence, and everything fills out and pulls away, and it’s as though everything is moving in some sort of wave or pulse. It all builds and pulls away, and builds and pulls away.

There’s a quiet among this all, among this sort of futurism, and this calm that’s not quite there. There’s prominence again and everything is moving quite precisely. Everything moves as precise angles, starting and stopping as necessary and creating this enclosed space that feels as futuristic as it does the past.

A moment of more quiet, and from it everything starts building again. Everything starts growing into a sterile, bright space with some sort of foreboding, almost. And one sound in particular is more at the front of the others, and it grooves and moves and rises and falls, and it is busy and not at the same time. It is climactic but doesn’t feel climactic, and it falls away when the other sounds stop at the song’s end.

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Yasunori Mitsuda: Memories of Green

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen. Not sure what I was thinking as I wrote this. Sort of hit a wall and followed it rather than move in another direction. Oh well.

Yasunori Mitsuda’s (光田 康典) “Memories of Green” (“みどりの思い出”) is from Chrono Trigger‘s soundtrack, Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Gentle sounds play out, drifting without a care. Without a rush. Woodwind soon comes in, drifting over. The time feels idyllic. It’s almost peaceful. It’s almost innocent, young and fresh.

Strings replace the woodwind and follow the same melody, and the air is cool. The air is refreshing, and clouds drift on by, as do the days. All passes with little care and worry. The days are young and free, and all is perfect. All is idyllic. All is almost a memory.

These moments of peace should last, but only do when fought for. They continue on, drifting in ignorance, then drifting framed by a desire to protect, as not all tat ignorance can be held on to, and what can be is worth protecting.

Drifting on, floating like a cloud, the sounds fade and the song ends.

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Hiroki Kikuta: Delicate Affection

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

Got through the song quickly. Didn’t think too much which was great. Could’ve done a better writing, but overall this is okay.

Hiroki Kikuta’s (菊田 裕樹) “Delicate Affection” is from Seiken Densetsu 3 Original Sound Version, the soundtrack for Seiken Densetsu 3.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Percussion plays gentle, and strings lap underneath. Few sounds flowing through with some sort of uncertain journey, keeping things small. The strings get a little stronger, but all of this keeps fragility intact. The sounds continue on before making a tiny rest.

They get busier, fill out a little, but they talk of comfort and warmth. Within this more dramatic moment of lowering and rising, and moving to something more serious, they talk of innocence and conviction. They talk of the wonder of the world and the journey, and the need to work toward safety, and they look toward tomorrow as they reach the song’s end.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1572: I’m Gonna Wait

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Nearly done for the day, and I’ve done an absolutely terrible job of killing time, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Just gonna try and write whatever now. I can’t do that as well as perhaps I could on another day, but gonna try anyway. It’s always worth trying. You should always try where you can, unless there’s a good reason for you to not try. But that’s not something for me to discern. I’ve other things to think about, anyway, so I’m not gonna try to work that one out. Maybe later, however.

I think I’m a bit fried from today. Had very little work to do today, so you think I’d do more writing. That, however, did not happen. Instead of that I’ve just sat here and killed time to the best of my ability. And it was terrible today. I could’ve killed time better by being productive in ways that are not related to work. I had the time and I had little of my job to do, which, don’t get me wrong, is great. However, it’s not what I wanted. Therefore, tomorrow I’ll have to do a better job of doing more with the time that I have.

I know that my boss would be fine with it, so long as I look like I’m working. Today I did not. Today I twiddled my thumbs and stared at a screen and told myself that I’d do more writing than I did. And I didn’t.

So… what do I do now? There are so many other things that I could be saying in this moment and I’m not saying them, and I don’t know where to go from here. I want the day to be over so I can go home and finish the day off, but that’s not happening for another few minutes, which is why I’m writing so why am I even saying this?

Sometimes there really are just days that go on forever, though they also don’t. They are as compressed as they are stretched, and everything happens and nothing happens and I’m left here wondering what is going on and when I’ll get more sleep, if I do indeed get any sleep at all. I’m sitting here, waiting for the day to come to its conclusion and it is taking time still to get there. I’m trying to get to those last few minutes that really are the last few minutes. I’m trying to get there and they seem to elude me, and I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t speed the time up and it just wants to stretch more and more, and every second is pushing against me, holding me back, rushing and covering my vision and I’m swarmed by the seconds as they fight to keep my day from ending, but there’s nothing left for me to do.

I can’t be bothered fighting against this. It’s too much energy and too much effort, so I’m gonna wait.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:43:35

Fun bit of silliness to end the day on before more writing comes through.

Written at work.

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Masashi Hamauzu: Dust to Dust

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen, and this is sort of a slow song. It feels slow in how it moves and progresses, and I think that works really well for where it is used. Some of that came through in the writing, and I would have preferred more, but I think the result is okay.

Masashi Hamauzu’s (浜渦 正志) “Dust to Dust” (“色のない世界”) is from Final Fantasy XIII‘s soundtrack, Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack.

I think I spend too much time writing about music from The Final Fantasy series.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Something pleasant is here, though it’s heavily underscored by a sadness. A voice comes in, almost haunting, the way it floats. And all is gentle, and all is quiet, and everything expands outward, and in this ruinous space is grief and regret. A sad rage.

The pleasantness falls away to what is lost frozen in time, and what remains serves as a reminder for what will not be. The sounds weave themselves around structure and frame, and a sense of grace comes forward, but there’s nothing pleasing about this. This is what once was and what should still be.

The sounds mostly come to an end, leaving bits to shimmer off as they flow away, minimising and carrying a sense of hopelessness, but lingering long enough to push forward, even as the last sound rings out at the song’s end.

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Hitoshi Sakimoto: BioCorp

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen, and this one was a struggle. I hit a wall within a few words and had to veer away a bit. Still cover the song well enough, but not in the way I’d hoped.

Hitoshi Sakimoto’s (崎元 仁) “BioCorp” (“バイオ公社”) is from Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter‘s soundtrack, Breath Of Fire V – Dragon Quarter: Original Soundtrack. The soundtrack was also released as part of Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box a soundtrack collection of the soundtracks for Breath of Fire I through to V.

I hope you enjoy.

—

A flowing beat meets strings and bass. They play with angles of smoothness, and a crackling comes in when they descend. Soon that is swept away in the halls and forms of technology flow forward. Flows of progression.

There’s something eerie and cold in all of this. Something uncaring stretches through, and discomfort follows nearby. It’s another place to get through, to move past, and to learn from.

As smooth as the sounds are, a harshness follows closely, and everything feels more and more off. Everything feels more and more unpleasant, as though it is all too clean. The crackling of progress feels a facade driven by lack of consideration, and the structure remains something internally imposing, and stays as such as the sounds fade and the song ends.

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Magic Dirt: Babycakes you Always Freeze me up

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen. A bit tough this one, but it also felt like it went by really quickly. I don’t think I captured the song as well as I could have. It’s an intense, unnerving bit of music, but describing it as such undersells it. Oh well.

Magic Dirt’s “Babycakes you Always Freeze me up” is from Young and Full of the Devil.

I hope you enjoy.

—

From silence a sound grows and crackles. It moves and wavers and pulses, and it moves in familiar, yet strange ways. As it continues its motion, other sounds come into play. The sounds move slow. They move eerily. Quiet, lurking almost. Slowly forming, slowly gaining mass.

A frame starts forming in the noise and sounds are attracted to it. They draw closer and closer, and eventually they take the last step and everything is there. Everything is roaring and raging, cutting through, grinding… everything is heavy and full and noisy. A thick, heaving fug engulfs everything. It fills the space and crashes and smothers, and eventually relents a little.

The sounds still drive forward as parts stretch and contort, and interweave in and out, and something spirals out and distorts, and eventually that mass takes over once more.

There’s thrust and pull and howls and screams, and it seems within it all there’s a romance smothered by darkness; by dread and menace and terror, and maybe there’s something that’s familiar and welcoming, too. Maybe something inevitable as the mass seems suspended, holding as it expands and crashes and engulfs everything. The noise, desperate, unrelenting… and eventually it lifts and the percussion seems to slow and the other instruments drag on. The only lyric is uttered: “You always freeze me up”, and then all that remains is that initial sound disappearing into silence, and the song ends.

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Questions for the Morning

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

I’ve five minutes to spare and I get to sit here and wait for my building to open once more. Have an idea for a bit of fiction but I need to wait as it might take a while. Why not start now? Why not just get it underway? I don’t want to be interrupted.

I’m still listening to Talk talk, though that mostly has to do with enjoying the music that they made, and it’s a quiet morning. A loud morning, but a quiet morning. No music being played behind me, and that’s good. I quote like that.

I’ve eaten and I’m waiting, and in a way I’m waiting for this space to come to its end. Can’t force it. Could stop it now, but that’d be less enjoyable for me. That wouldn’t be in the spirit of things.

Light fulls the area and yet this area remains darkened. This area remains caged in shade, and that helps keep it cool. However, I have to wonder as to how warm these seats get on a hot day. These seats are metal. They feel heavy and durable. They feel like the kind of thing that takes in heat and refuses to let go. I feel like I am, in a way, refusing to let go. However, I will. I said I would and, even though I don’t have to, I do want to. I want to let go and move on, and soon that will happen. Soon I will be able to walk away, and I’ll be happy with that, regardless of how hard it will be.

More noise comes in. The area is waking up. The traffic has grown quiet. This is nice. This is enjoyable. I like this. Good times. Great times, even. Quiet, alone times. Left with my thoughts, my coffee and my rubbish. Left with myself. Time for thinking, or something.

And the traffic picks back up and soon I am to get up and go upstairs. Soon I will sit down and write some more and then I’ll get on with the day. I’ll get on with the getting of the on. I will do my work and then I’ll go home and work some more. That’s what I do. And this morning will be a memory I probably won’t remember. It’ll be part of a tapestry that is crowded and has so much more to have woven into it. And that’s beautiful in a way. It’s also meaningless piffle, but it’s beautiful to me, and it doesn’t really matter outside of this bit of writing.

We craft our lives so easily and thread through so many things into a singular experience, and at the end of it all we remember so much and so little. And what do we leave behind? What is our legacy? What does it even matter? So long as we lived a good life and helped others and tried to leave the planet in a better state than it was in when we started, how much does any of the rest of it matter?

I don’t know and I don’t pretend to know. I just hope and think about these things in a rather surface way, and I try to live in a healthier way than I did yesterday. And I hope that, at the end of it all, I’ll leave things a little better than they were when I was born.

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A bit of Wall and Sky

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

I took this photo yesterday afternoon shortly after I got home from work. I wanted to capture part of my place’s wall with the sky in it, but I couldn’t at the angle I wanted as there were too many other things visible if I did. I wanted to go for simple, so I had to go for a more severe angle to get what I wanted, which is the below result.

This photo could be seen as having two walls, depending on what you want to consider a wall. Obviously the wall itself, but there’s also the sky, which (along with being viewable as many other things), can be seen as a wall of sorts.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. Margaret of From Pyrenees to Penines hosts this one, and she has chosen the theme of “Walls”.

This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.

I hope you enjoy.

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C418: Subwoofer Lullaby

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

One listen and another where I was able to throw myself into the writing. There were a few points of struggle, but I think I did alright in representing the song well enough.

C418’s “Subwoofer Lullaby” is from Minecraft – Volume Alpha, an album comprised of songs used in Minecraft.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Relaxing sounds. Reducing stress, embracing calm. Embracing the slow, the calm. Looking at taking it easy and going wherever, letting come what may. Those sounds dance around a space that doesn’t seem threatening. That doesn’t seem hostile, and those sounds suddenly pull away.

A flat plane, a wider space, where everything seems small and simple, and dreams drift and waft away, off to somewhere. Off to nowhere in particular, carried by the winds, spreading out, finding new places to plant and grow.

The keys that kicked it off come back and play more gently than before. A bit of strings draw long and those dreams come back after their journey, and everything continues on relaxed. Everything is easy and drifts, and the skies aren’t clear but they’re peaceful and pleasant, and the sounds draw to a pulsing close at the song’s end.

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