Laughing at a Video Game - Also Good Genderqueer Representation

Danae are playing a game called AI: the Somnium Files together. It's a murder-mystery plot set in modern Japan. It has its funny moments, but tonight was the best one yet.

An 18 year-old girl who's something of a Youtube (except it's not called that!) idol is involved in the goings-on, as are some Yakuza. The Yakuza boss, Moma, has some info that we want, but in order to get it he wants the chance to meet the idol (Iris, or her performing name A-Set). So we bring Iris to see him and the tough mob boss turns into a complete fanboy. We ask for the information because we held up our end, but he pulls us aside where Iris can't hear and says that before he tells us, he wants us to ask Iris if Moma can shake her hand. We say sure, no problem.

The two of us go back to where Iris is and our character, Kaname, says to Iris "Moma was just asking if you could show him your boobs."

Moma explodes "The FUCK dude?! I didn't say that!!"

Kaname then says "Actually, he just wants to shake your hand. Is that ok?"

Danae and I can't decide if Kaname is doing that thing where you ask for something ridiculous first to make your real request seem more reasonable, or if he just wanted to fuck with Moma, but we both had to take a break from the game until we could stop laughing.

On a different note, another thing I love about this game is Mama, a fairly obviously flamboyant genderqueer person (her in-game character file says she's gender neutral and prefers female pronouns) who owns and runs a bar. We end up talking to her semi-regularly and for a while, her gender and/or sexuality are, like, not even a thing to anybody. That's really cool. Here's her page on the game's wiki: https://somniumfiles.fandom.com/wiki/Mama

Piano Keyboard Limitations

I thought it would take longer for my piano practice to encounter limitations imposed by my hardware.

I can nearly get through Prelude in C without lengthy pauses to look at the sheet music, so I decided to start on Eric Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1. The prelude is entirely arpeggiated except for the single five note chord at the end. The gymnopédie heavily uses three-note chords from the beginning though, and my keyboard can't manage too many notes at once. I'm using the sustain pedal, and I can clearly hear sustained notes dropping out as I play notes on top of each other.

As well as the onboard (pretty low-quality) sound synthesis, my keyboard is a MIDI controller. I have Plogue Sforzando installed to use with a really nice Steinway concert grand piano library. I was playing that way in the Netherlands, but I didn't bring my MIDI keyboard with me when I moved. The one I bought here has significantly better key action, but it doesn't pass the sustain pedal state through the MIDI interface, so I basically can't use it for MIDI unless I'm willing to forego pedaling, which I'm not. Sforzando allows something like 128 simultaneous sounds, but this keyboard must be limited to 6 or 8? And beyond that I really miss the Steinway sound: the difference is night and day.

The most affordable solution may be to find a USB foot pedal I can map to the sustain pedal in Sforzando. I do have a USB foot pedal--it's in the states with the rest of my stuff.