ergodic-mentality

[ergodic-mentality]

Entry 6 - The Fatal Wound - Worldbuilding

Howdy! It's been a while! Sorry about that, things have a way of getting busy and out of hand from time to time, you know how it is. Anyhow, today's subject on the Fatal Wound, something I'm not sure that I've gone into yet:

THE ECONOMY

Terrifying, I know.

So, how does a world running on blood and madness purchase goods and services? Do they purchase anything? Surely shared trauma and a hungering mass of flesh that warps reality just beyond most cities borders would bring people together, no?

Yeah, no, unfortunately not. In fact, things have arguably gotten worse.

In a world driven by practicality, where it is difficult to procure your own goods and caravans are required to haul various goods and services between settlements, Trade is big, even if standard beliefs of currency have changed. We skimmed over it a bit in...I want to say either Entry 1 or 2...but to bring light to the details, just as the blood of men is one of the only sources of fuel and method by which to fight the nightmares, so too has it become the primary currency.

Yes, it is just as grim as you are imagining that to be.

Blood typing remains the same as it does in the modern day: Universal Donors to Universal Recipients and all the good and bad that comes alongside that, just that once outside the body blood becomes metallic. Arguably, the new poisonous properties of blood have actually aggravated the usual typing charts, and resulted in rather...strange, twisted, and terrible social strata.

Universal Donors are seen as a rare sign of privilege, status and wealth. Their blood is good to be spent anywhere and anyone can receive it. It lacks most of the poisonous property, and has as such created a stigmatism of those with high self worth, and perhaps even actual material worth. Their blood is usually a brighter red and polished as though a ruby.

Universal Recipients, however, are seen as wild, savage, cast off to the fringes of society in terms of social standing, but seen as nonetheless necessary for the continued function of said society. Their blood is especially potent to monsters and is thus prized by all those who wish to brave the maelstrom. It generally has less spending power on its own, due to most being unable to directly funnel it into their body and thus require glass vials to store it. Their blood is usually a darker color, almost like that of a garnet, and due to having to keep most of their "money" in glass vials, they often become prime targets for loan sharks and predatory businessmen, who want nothing more than to use their unique anatomy to hook them up as an ATM for the rest of their lives.

An interesting thing should be of note though, that often times these perceived social roles are tossed on their heads when it comes to the caravans themselves. It is often times seen as a sign of good luck to have a universal donor on board, a more efficient fuel source for their engines and a good backup should anyone become injured, but its seen as doubly lucky to have a universal recipient as well, an ordained angel as it were guiding them to safety amongst the sea of vile threats. It is said that some caravans will even pay handsomely for the services of such individuals, enough so that there exists a market of fakers and impersonators, and just as many dead caravans to match.

To have both on board however, is auspicious indeed.

[ergodic-mentality]

Concept: cursed blade rehabilitation center. Destroying a sentient weapon is expensive and highly unethical, so adventurers bring them to the center where highly trained staff can care for them and eventually find them forever homes. It turns out most cursed weapons are products of trauma and are not strictly evil themselves. Some blades turn out to be fiercely protective companions. Others don't even want to be weapons at all, finding joy in simple work like blacksmithing or farming. Most blades just need to be loved.

[ergodic-mentality]

Dragongirl kidnaps a maid instead of a princess by mistake; comes back to her lair after a hunt to find the coins and gems in her hoard have been organized into neat piles sorted by type, value, and kingdom of origin.

[ergodic-mentality]

Shared this to my friends (outside my dnd table) and they asked for explanation on the names, so here goes:

The Final Breath - Current Campaign - Player Character, An Elderly Crystal Dragonborn - Planescape module

So I have a lot of fun as the dm just throwing bullshit at them. One of the things I threw out early was the teeth of Dahlver-Nar, funny artifact, doesn't see a lot of use. One of the teeth you can pull from it is a red dragon tooth, which the elderly dragonborn did manage to pull and implant into his mouth. Gave him a super strong fire breath attack at the cost of 2 exhaustion levels (DC 24 Dex save, 26d6 fire damage). Proceeded to use it 3 times in a row in a confined building to vaporize a whole horde of demons, and resulting in his own timely death (6 exhaustion levels is instant death). A caveat in this campaign is the players each play 3 characters that cycle when one dies, so he does still eventually come back. Very funny to constantly bring up.

Stormcaller - Same campaign - Different Player Character, Male Witch with a touch curse

Due to Various Happenings, the party found themselves in a tavern concert in Glorium on the Edge of Valhalla for a Girl Failure Pop Idol. While near the crowd, due to some failed-forward/succeeded rolls, the witch gets hauled up by the mosh pit to crowd surf and get tossed on stage (much to his own protest). This results in many people touching him, and many people getting cursed. SOMEHOW most of them lucked out and didn't get any obvious curses EXCEPT FOR THE FINAL GUY who not only botched his save and got cursed, but then rolled "INSTANTLY GETS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING". So yeah, instant lightning strike into the middle of a mosh pit, massive boom, people go flying (but somehow survive), lands on the stage holding a piece of paper out to the idol in front of everyone embarrassed.

The Immortal Herald of Heaven and Hell - One-Shot, My character, Wild Magic sorcerer.

Ended up in a room full of enemies. Several spells were up. Get knocked unconscious. Due to trigger on DMs side to call for wild magic roll, instantly calls for a wild magic roll as my conciousness begins to slip. Roll a 1 on a d100. DM rules the "Roll on this table at the start of each of your turns for the next minute" all go off at once. Several things instantly happen:

A modron (pentadrone) is summoned

2. Maximize the damage of the next damaging spell you cast

3. Maximized Fireball goes off centered on myself, vaporizing everything in the room (and nearly instantly killing me)

4. Illusory butterflies and flower petals flutter in the air within 10 feet of you for the next minute.

5. A unicorn is summoned

6. I gain a regeneration effect, saving me from death and bringing me back up into consciousness

He wakes up to a room full of dead enemies, flower petals and butterflies flying around, a unicorn suddenly prancing, a dead interdimensional cop-bot, and everything on fire

Mage titles like "Lord of Lightning" or "Child of Darkness" are no different from army nicknames: They're usually based on inside jokes. You didn't realize this until you got one.

[ergodic-mentality]

Entry 5 - Housekeeping

Howdy Howdy.

Ok. So.

As someone with LONGTIME diagnosed ADHD (If I didn't self admit this, trust me, it would become apparent with time) I cannot stress enough how much having a digital recreation of a physical map for story writing helps with executive dysfunction. Highly recommend.

Context:

As a longtime Dork, a fan of Weird Fiction, and an Oldhead by internet terms, it should surprise no one that Remedy is one of my favorite game developers, and I am DEEPLY attached to Alan Wake as a franchise purely off of its deep analysis of the craft of writing and psychological analysis.

When playing Alan Wake 2 (Minor Spoilers for game mechanics I guess?) as the titular title character Alan Wake, you are stuck in a nightmare dreamscape shaped by your own art. As such, you constantly return to his Writers Room where, partially because its a real tactic, and partially because its a video game, you rearrange story elements on a massive chalkboard to effect the game world itself.

Image attached for all my visual learners out there:

Now, I've struggled a lot sometimes with my drafts and organizing my thoughts. I've loved writing for a long time. The closest I ever got to seeing something like this in media before was, admittedly, being shown the Always Sunny clip of the Pepe Silvia rant. While funny, being shown someone's mental shattering it turns out, not the most effective way to teach a writer a valuable tool.

Turning it into a puzzle mechanic utilized by an actual writer however? Very Cool.

Where am I going with this?

As it turns out, there are several programs out there that allow you to basically replicate this kind of visual story mapping out there if you just know where to look. One of the better ones, admittedly, I actually did not find out about until after college, where in my corporate job someone pulled it out (A business major friend of mine) as a part of a team building exercise.

Behold, my Miro board:

(This is not a paid advertisement)

What it is, I hope, a call to those who did not know about it that it is THERE. What it does is give you a nice big infinite void, and allow you to not only draw lines and flow tables and make nice little titles on things, but as you can see, toss digital physical sticky notes around and map things out VISUALLY.

I cannot stress how much this has helped.

Everything to the left of the center line was initial plot building for future drafts of Project Clown Crown. Side characters, plots, building up little color coded stacks of each note so that I know what corresponds to what.

Everything to the right? That's two days of manic work baby. As it turns out, much to my friend recently pointing out, Image and Dark Horse accept open pitches so long as you have an artist team, an elevator pitch for the work, and a solid 5 pages of sequential story telling that summarizes what you plan to do in the first arc.

This normally probably would have taken me a month of staring at a blank google/word doc until I came up with some kind of nigh-incomprehensible bulleted list spanning for pages. Instead, I can pump these ideas down visually now in a couple of hours, rearrange them, note them in shorthand and physically place them in space on timelines for my story.

I haven't felt this kind of power as a writer in ages. Admittedly, part of it is probably a friend actually thinking I have something worth pitching. Part of it is an own sense of self accomplishment and actually being able to visually SEE progress, rather than it just be abstracted word counts on a page.

Am I saying Miro is the only solution? No, I'm sure there are other tools or even better tools out there. All I'm saying is that this worked for me, and I will probably take a lot of my other drafts that I've been struggling with and do something similar with them. If you're like me, and you're struggling with writing or you've hit a wall and haven't tried visually mapping things out, give it a go. Can't hurt to try.

Anyway, I suppose I broke the surprise from Entry 4.1 early here, but yeah, looks like I might be trying to turn Project Clown Crown into an actual piece of media. About damn time I try to publish something. Can't call myself an Author without some body of work.

'til next time.

[ergodic-mentality]

Shits sick as fuck. I AM taking notes.

Doing traditional art with my sticker printer now hehe

[ergodic-mentality]

Entry 4.1 - Update on Project Clown Crown

First off, Thank you to the person who saw the draft and followed from it. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoy my mix of genuine world-building posts, drafts, and reblogging shitposts. Now to the reason for this post: Might be moving forward with this into...Something More™️. If anything comes of it, I will update in other major posts.

Will try and get another world building thing for Fatal Wound or one of my many writing projects soon.

[ergodic-mentality]

i love poison omelette

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I'm stealing this. Not as a book concept. But my DnD table will never recover.

Names that quickly come to mind: - The Final Breath - Stormcaller - The Immortal Herald of Heaven and Hell

Mage titles like "Lord of Lightning" or "Child of Darkness" are no different from army nicknames: They're usually based on inside jokes. You didn't realize this until you got one.

[ergodic-mentality]

Entry 4 - Project Clown Crown

Hey a fresh post!

Howdy howdy, apologies for going radio silent there for a while. Things got busy and, as per usual for me, forgot to make time for myself and my own passions. Not much progress in running the game, waiting for players to find the right headspace and inspiration. C'est la vie.

Today's just gonna be a change of pace, not the usual blood-fueled apocalyptic sci-fi. I find myself often times working on multiple writing projects at once, maybe the thought in my head of "If I can maybe finish a couple at once, rather than just invest all my time in the one for it to come crashing down, one of the hooks on my line will catch something". Oh well, who knows.

Anyway, if this ends up on someone's dash out there in the void, apologies. I should probably just make an Ao3 at this point to upload some of my personal work-in-progress works on, but until then lets test the character limits on a single post.

This is a ROUGH draft script outline on the first chapter of a comic I'm working on. I'm no good at drawing atm myself, and I've been stuck on rewrites for this chapter for ages, but it'll make no progress at this point just collecting dust in my drives.

If you like it, let me know. Like I said, if it gets traction I might just make an Ao3 to act as a repository for the work. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Thoughts told through narration,]

Scene, shots of magical girls doing magical girl things, fitting the descriptions

When I was young, I always dreamed of being a magical girl. Saving the innocent, protecting the weak, how together they had the courage to fight for each other and what was right.

[End on close up of one of the magical girls smiling to her friends]That was my dream so…

[close up of Amaya’s face in her toku suit stained in blood and her gritting her teeth, mirroring the facial pose of the previous panel]

…How did it all end up like this?

Title splash, scene is of Amaya in toku armor fighting tooth and nail with kaijin and the hero riders, blood and explosions and debris, the general chaos of battle.

[Transition, page behind paneling goes to black for flashback. We are going back to her time before, at her office job.]

1 WEEK BEFORE

[Amaya Hinode (First, Last) is in the office with her boss, arms crossed in front of her modestly. Dressed formally in a suit and skirt, she is a salarywoman for an Insurance company.]

BOSS: “Look, Hinode, it’s simple. You should feel happy! Your talents and time here at this company are finally being recognized! You’re moving up in the world!”

[Amaya smiles through it all, putting on a smile but clearly not super excited]

Amaya: “Well...yes sir, but I was hired as part of claims processing and fulfillment, and I really feel like making someone’s day a little better is just-”

BOSS: “And you’ll still be doing that! I’ve seen you work Hinode, and you’re a real people person. Got that certain spark, that gumption, that- that-” He snaps, “Jenny-say-caw!”

Amaya: “I believe it's pronounced ‘je ne sais quoi’ sir…”

[Boss turns around, beaming at her]

BOSS: “See? Ain’t afraid to tell it like it is, but always remembering your manners. People like ya Hinode! You can make a lot of people’s days better! Mine, the Shareholder’s…hell, even yourself with that nice bonus they’ll toss ya on commissions!”

[As if to punctuate a point, beams of light soar past the window, beautiful and multicolored. The boss turns to look, shielding his eyes.]

BOSS: “Ah, speaking of job security.”

[The boss walks over to the window, gesturing to Amaya to look out and follow, as she approaches and looks out, she can clearly see several magical girls flying by outside the window, smiling and laughing. In the distance is the shadow of a massive monster. Over the next few panels things cut back and forth between the conversation happening in the office, and the fight raging outside its windows.]

BOSS: “You know, we used to be lucky. Only about one massive monster attack a year, maybe every few. It’d make some news, people would rally to support, a triumph of human will over a catastrophe! Now…well it seems old hat, doesn’t it? Nearly every other week. Girls show up to fight it, some things get smashed, people hurt, but that’s life eh? That’s where we come in. Peace of mind! We’ll protect your things when the girls can’t quite make it in time, eh?” [The boss shrugs] “Of course we have to make a little profit, but that’s just how businesses have to operate, eh? The circle of life!”

BOSS: “Y’know, before these monsters, this company almost went bankrupt. But we were the first to jump and offer coverage for the monsters when they showed up. Now, whether or not your house is destroyed when they showed up due to our little miracles out there, or a random ‘act of god’ during the battle…well, can’t cover them all huh.” [He laughs.] “Life happens. So does death. But that’s where we chose ta make our business. eh?”

[Amaya doesn’t look fully convinced, but also is just starry eyed taking in the sight of the girls fighting with a quiet determination. The boss notices this and sighs, walking over to his desk to retrieve a brochure about moving to the sales department. He hands it to her, snapping her out of her daydream fighting alongside the girls.] 

BOSS: “Look, Hinode, that out there? That’s a young girl’s game. Big Dreams. Idealism. You’re an adult now. It’s time you start lookin out for yourself, Figurin out where you stand ta profit. Your clients satisfaction rating is the highest of all our agents, but they also seem ta have the highest rate of return on their claims, and the shareholders…well…perhaps it’s best ya use that charm of yours to better use than field work.”

[He moves to his desk, sitting on the corner and opening a box of cigarettes to offer her one. A sly look is on his face.]

BOSS: “Personally, I’d hate ta lose ya, but I think it’s your callin. Think about it all right? Hate for ya to lose your job over somethin silly as not takin a promotion.”

[Transition to bar with text “I hope you consider it.”, pamphlet sitting on the countertop, glass slamming down from a drunk Amaya shortly after showing it in panel]

[Zoom out from the pamphlet, we see Amaya collapsed over a bar, surrounded by glasses, one still in her hand. Bartender (Jeanne) stands nearby cleaning glasses. It’s clearly late, and all other patrons have already left.]

Jeanne: “Come on Amaya, it’s already four in the morning.”

Amaya: “I don’t wanna be in sales…what’s wrong with me Jeanne? Did I miss my chance to be a magical girl? Did I do something wrong?”

[Jeanne puts the glass down] “Maybe it’s karma for you not paying your tab.”

Amaya: “I’m serious Jeanne!”

Jeanne: “So am I. Pay up.”

[Amaya sighs, slamming down money before collapsing back on the bar]

Jeanne: “Normally, there’s also a fee when you’re this late-”

[Amaya crushes the cigarette she got from work on top of it. This seems to satisfy Jeanne as she places it in a breast pocket and goes about counting the money.]

[A moment passes, Jeanne cleans a few more glasses in silence.] 

Jeanne: “Would going through the lost and found cheer you up?”

Amaya: “Those are other people’s things Jeanne.”

Jeanne: [She pulls out the box anyway] “Not after two weeks. It’s free grabs or pawned off.”

[She slides the “2-week” box over] “Go on, take a look. Anything you don’t take gets tossed in the morning.”

[Amaya takes a moment, at first avoiding looking, then glancing, then beginning to poke around, shoulder’s deep in the box]

Amaya: “Hey Jeanne, what’s this?”

[Amaya emerges holding the driver]

Jeanne: “Oh shit I forgot about that thing. You know, I actually have no idea. Some drunkard tried to pay with it or something? I don’t know. I think it’s like a speaker or something? There’s a disk around here somewhere it came with…”

[Jeanne searches for the disk as Amaya looks over the driver, something about it pulling her toward it. After a moment, Jeanne produces a disk, handing it to Amaya]

Jeanne: “Here we are.”

Amaya: “I think it’s…a belt? Either that or a music player. Maybe both?”

Jeanne: “I thought it was a weird game system. PFP-like or something. What makes you say that?”

Amaya: “I don’t know…just a feeling.”

Jeanne: [Waves her off] “Whatever it is, take it with you upstairs. It’s almost 4 am, I gotta close up before someone else wanders in.”

[Amaya grabs her things, taking it all upstairs and tossing it on a side table. Eventually she comes back over in an oversized T-Shirt, sitting down, the driver and disk sitting across from the pamphlet. There’s a gleam on it, something pulling her close. She fiddles with it a bit, but it doesn’t seem to budge or open. After a while, her drunken exhaustion takes over, tossing the belt to the side and out of frame before passing out.]

[The scene fades back in on the next day, Amaya is standing in front of a smashed building with a dead kaiju on top of it. She sighs, seemingly taking notes on the situation on a clipboard. An old woman approaches, Amya noticing with a start and giving the woman a bow, producing a small gift from her bag to hand to the woman.]

AMAYA: “I am deeply sorry for your loss in the recent attack ma’am. I hope you know I’ll be doing everything I can to help you get your full claim on the house.”

[The old woman smiles at her, placing a hand over Amaya’s as she takes the gift.]

OW: “Thank you dear. I’m glad to know I’ll be in such capable hands.”

[the old woman sighs, moving towards the house and looking things over, picking through the debris and refuse past the caution tape. Digging through what’s left, she manages to fish out a photo frame.]

AMAYA: “It said on the claim that you’ve lived here for forty years. This must be quite the loss.”

OW: “Oh it’s alright. Something you learn when you’re as old as me is that things come and go. It’s our lives and our memories that are important. If it wasn’t one of those monster’s it would have been something else.”

[Amaya is standing by the front watching the old woman as she turns to smile at Amaya]

OW: “You seem to be a good girl. Strong heart, Head on straight, but your mind is elsewhere. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me dear, what’s really bothering you?”

[Amaya looks shocked and embarrassed] 

AMAYA: “What? No, nothing! I promise, my whole concern is setting you right!”

OW: [She gives a slight chuckle] “I have daughters of my own, it takes a lot to hide things from me honey.”

AMAYA: [Amaya sighs, looking over at the monster’s body before looking up at the old woman.] “I’m just…not sure this is enough. I’ve tried to help so many people in this job, but it never feels enough. I want to do more, always dreamed of it, but perhaps it’s time I gave up on that and accepted my place-” 

[The old woman grabs Amaya’s hands, looking sternly into her eyes]

OW: “Don’t you dare. There’s a whole world of people out there who only exist to keep us down, keep us from rising to their station, above them. Because they know that if we were to stand up for ourselves, we could do anything. So whatever they might say to you, don’t you dare ever stop believing in yourself, okay?”

[Amaya smiles through tears at the woman]

AMAYA: “Thank you…I think I needed that.”

OW: “Of course honey. You have to believe in yourself, and no matter what happens…”

[Rustling in the body of the kaijin lying in the debris of the woman’s house. Amaya’s eyes go wide in the split seconds as the old woman, lost in her motivational speech doesn’t notice. The Kaijin’s stomach bursts open, and a feral freshly born monster launches out, bearing teeth down upon the two of them.]

OW: “...everything happens for a reason.”

[The kaijin is behind the old woman, an aura of hunger and murder emanating from its charging form. Amaya grimaces in panic, pulling the old woman down on top of her as she falls, but it’s not quite fast enough as the beast takes off the old woman’s arm. The old woman screams. Amaya grabs and begins carrying the old woman, cursing, scrambling to get up and away as screams fill the air from other people around. Her grip tightens, scrambling to grab her stuff and get to her feet, taking off down the street with the blooddrunk kaijin at their feet. Amaya curses the entire way, skidding to try and juke it as she takes off down a side street, reassuring the old woman that it’s a shortcut to the hospital and to just hang on. She trips, tumbling to the ground but rolling to keep the impact to her rather than the woman. She curses again, her outfit is dirtied and torn, and the beast is quickly prowling towards them, too close now to run from. Fear fills Amaya’s eyes. The beast leaps and as she shuts her eyes and clutches the old woman tight. There is the sound of meat and bone crunching, but nothing reaches Amaya. Instead, she sees Reiko in Mentor Rider form, fist/weapon smoking as the Kaijin is now knocked across the ground. Amaya stares in awe, her eyes passing across the figure, taking special note of the Rider Belt before her eyes go up to reach the mask of Reiko. Reiko nods silently, and as Amaya grabs the woman and takes off running, Reiko takes up a battle position.]

[Following Amaya, the following panels go by without text. She bursts into the hospital, helping quickly with getting the woman onto a stretcher before being shooed to the side, the doctors questioning. The old woman gives a weak smile and wave to Amaya to which she returns.]

[Shortly, Amaya shows up to the office, still a mess, clearly not enough time to change. There’s laughter a bit over and she makes her way over to the section, the sales group all standing up around their cubicles with coffee mugs and the like.] (Salespeople abbreviated to SP, can be the same or different ones)

SP: “Woah, look at that! She lives! You alright Hinode? ”

[Hinode begins bowing]

AMAYA: “Yes, yes, sorry I’m late. I went to check up on a client and there was this monster and it attacked us and the lady got hurt but I managed to-”

SP: “HAHA! Talk about lucky! Did you manage to get her to sign the life policy? Hell of a time to nail that bonus!”

AMAYA: “...What?”

SP: “Yeah! First rule of sales: ‘Every disaster is an opportunity’! We sell insurance Amaya, what’s the point if not using someones…eh…misfortune to get em to buy a little protection for the future? 20% off the top ain't bad, and if you can get them to purchase a premium package, it’s out for drinks at 5!”

[The room erupts into laughter, Amaya’s face contorts. She’s on the verge of tears]

AMAYA: “How…how can you just sit there and laugh about that?! An old woman was injured, and- and you’re talking about pulling MORE money out of her for yourselves?!”

SP: “Well shit, you didn’t say she was old. Even more reason to, chances are low the old bag can even make the claim then. Better we get it than let it go to waste.”

[More laughter. Amaya slaps the Salesperson who made the statement, fuming. She storms out, past her boss trying to stop her.]

[She winds up back in her room, slamming the door behind herself. She tosses her stuff to the side and collapses in a chair, head in her arms. Raising it up she discovers the belt and note sitting neatly on her table. Walking over, she picks up the note: “Pretty sure you didn’t mean to lose this. Keep a better eye on it. You’ll need it.”]

[Amaya looks around, going in to search and finding all her doors and windows locked, tearing apart the couch cushions. And finding nothing, eventually returning to the belt. The image of the woman in the suit who saved her fills her mind, remembering the similar device around her waist. Quickly she takes off her torn clothes and comes back once more in the long shirt and pajamas. She fiddles with it. Suddenly, the driver lights up, making a noise. Amaya fiddles with it more, struggling trying to figure out how to turn it off.]

JEANNE: [Yelling from down the stairs.] “Where’s that annoying ass alarm coming from Amaya!? Turn it off!”

AMAYA: “I’m trying!”

[In fiddling with it, she hits a button, popping open the receptacle with a different tune and jingle. She sighs as the alarm stops and leans back into the couch. Shortly though, curiosity takes over, and she leans back forward picking up the disk. She looks back and forth between the disk and the driver, and in a few moments, slots it in. The driver lets out a new jingle. She finds herself lowering it to her waist as if to mirror the woman in the suit from earlier, and as it gets there, the belt part shoots out and around her. It latches on and she panics. In doing so, trying to get it off, she accidentally activates it, The jingle finalizing and the armor forming around her. A mechanical suit forms around her after an elaborate transformation, a Tokusatsu suit now around her form.]

Amaya: “Eh? What? What is this?”

Suit: “Alert. Kaijin force detected nearby. Taking Synchroknight (possible Rider title?) to battle location.”

Amaya: “Huh?”

[Suit moves against Amaya’s will, smashing through a wall to take her to the location of the fight screaming. Jeanne runs upstairs, hair in a mess and seeing the massive hole in the wall. A moment of pause.]

Jeanne: “WHAT THE F-”

[Shots from inside the suit ironman style/of the suit bounding rooftops at night]

Amaya: “UH…ABORT! EJECT! RETURN! ESCAPE! ALT F4! CONTROL C?”

Suit: “Arriving at combat zone shortly. Brace for arrival.”

[The suit lands with an explosion of some sort, first monster of the week standing across from her.]

Monster: “AHHHH, HOW NICE OF YOU TO DROP IN!”

AMAYA: “wait…what the hell?”

Amaya narration: That's how my new life began, in a quarry with a lost security deposit.

[ergodic-mentality]

I would still use my turn signals in the Mad Max Wasteland. They'd call me "Signal" because I'd hit my blinker before ramming the enemy hot rods into the side of a desert ravine. I'd use my turn signal every time. They would respect me for this.

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how it feels to have no social media presence as an artist

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My guilty pleasure right now is watching luxury hotel reviews and I found this british guy who keeps accidentally clipping into the backrooms.

He's unintentionally making the best liminal horror content on youtube

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Have you seen them speed launch those bales into the chute while drifting tractors? That shit's insane.

For those also new to this, there is a wonderful video on the topic of the esports league by People Make Games.

just learned about farming simulator

I mean, I already knew about it, but I just learned about it

Did you know that the target audience for Farming Simulator is actual real-world farmers? Because I didn’t. I just assumed that farmers probably don’t want to go home from a day of farming to do some (presumably highly inaccurate) virtual farming?

Like, imagine if the target audience for Power Washing Simulator was actual professional power washers.

Farming Sim gets sponsored by companies and shit to put ads in their games. But since the game is for farmers, all of the ads target farmers. Advertising products that, realistically, only farmers would be interested in. Aka John Deere tractors and shit.

There’s a fucking farming sim esports league. Where do they play? Agriculture conventions. not gaming conventions. agriculture conventions.

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original by @play-now-my-lord

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original by @play-now-my-lord