strangelittlestories

[strangelittlestories]

My teammates tell me I’m gonna to croak on the job.

They don’t mean soon. They’re not, y’know, assholes about it. They don’t mean I’mma get myself ended because I’m not good enough. They don’t even mean I’ll bite off more than I can chew. I can chew a lot, metaphorically speaking.

(And, like, sure I’ve snuffed it once or twice in the course of a mission - but it never *sticks*. And, sure, my team would probs suggest I add ‘so far’ to that sentence. But ‘hell never sticks … so far’ is grammatically weird, I think, so I reckon I’m morally in the right.)

What they mean is: I’ll never let myself leave the job, so of course I’ll lose myself to it.

Which. Y’know. Fair.

A lot of folks in the profession have this issue, of course. When you’re in the world-saving game, it can be tough to justify quitting and letting someone else take a turn.

I call it the Heroic Paradox. The ‘Heradox’, if you will.

Paradox part 1: an apocalypse demands a ‘hero’ or ‘heroes’. If it does not find one, a hero must be created. This is rough for the hero, ‘cos they’re a normie with a normal life and the process of going hero mode will take that life away from them.

(I’m actually not a huge fan of the term ‘hero’, but ‘designated end-of-days preventer’ is lengthy.)

Paradox part 2: if an apocalypse begins and the hero(es) already exists, then job’s a good’un, just crack on with business and de-apoc the lypse.

Paradox part 3: if the hero(es) are a few apocalypses deep and now pondering retirement on a nice little island/farm/wizard tower/public office, you hit that awkward moment where a hero is called for, but not yet present. Best case scenario: some poor schmuck gets their life ruined by ‘destiny’.

Worst case? The hero refuses the call or gets snuffed out early or *there just isn’t anyone appropriate* and that situation really puts the ‘scat’ in ‘eschatology’.

So … yeah, I don’t see myself retiring.

But if I’m honest - if I peer really intensely at the squirming pile of neuroses that lurk beneath the justifications - I was this way *before* the stakes got this high. I’ve always been a ‘crisis mode’ kinda jerk.

Lurching from mission to disaster to disastrous mission has always been where I feel most *myself*.

Now you (or my team) might say: that’s no way to live. Everyone needs downtime. Rest. Enrichment.

It’s been the downfall of many a hero that they hit crisis mode so hard, they don’t bother going to *therapy*.

My answer to this is simple: if you treat self-care and self-maintenance as being *really fricking urgent*, you can roll that work into your *existing* crisis pattern.

This is actually pretty sustainable. Because first: that stuff *is* urgent and you’re a bilge-organist if you don’t realise it. And second: the best kind of therapy is always the one you’ll *actually do*.

So yeah: I’ll pass away on the job. Because even the soft fuzzy nonsense I do … it’s all for the job.

And you know what? If it means I’ll exit this world knowing who I am? I’m okay with that.

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[strangelittlestories]

Sometimes you will also get people picking up on subtleties that you absolutely *did not* consciously intend.

Which is a wild feeling for me, because it's equal parts:

1) oh gods im a fraud, they can never know

2) I am a gods damned genius, I write subtext in my fudging sleep

Like, do I have literary skills so ingrained from practice I don't notice them any more? Or am I the luckiest happy-go-lucky keyboard mashing hack in the world?

Truly, I have Schrödinger's Talent

It's such an amazing feeling when someone picks up on something in your writing that you 100% intended but didn't think people would notice. Like, YES!! My writing properly conveyed the thing it was supposed to!!! You are so awesome for noticing that!!! I am so awesome for writing that!!! I feel so good about my story now!!!!

[strangelittlestories]

I'm being completely serious when I say Granny Weatherwax's "What about the fire?" speech from Lords and Ladies has done more to help me recontextualize and manage my anxiety than like 5 years of therapy did

[strangelittlestories]

There’s a larp (live action roleplaying) game that I play, where there exists a creature we have dubbed a ‘Chronovore’.

This planet-sized sci-fi beastie eats time via a cool-ass external digestive system that ranges out from its main corpus (what are effectively its digestive enzymes look like glowing blue-winged angels, which are creepy as sin).

My character in this game fell victim to said chronovoric digestion and was aged 30 years by the experience. They lost what they expected to be the most valuable years of their life - the time when they expected to most make a difference to the universe.

I have a lot of emotions about this. Especially because when I look at my life aged 39 and consider the shape I am trying to hammer it into, one thought keeps recurring: I wish I had started this work sooner.

And then I consider my ADHD (a condition I am really certain I have, but am still seeking diagnosis for) and damn if I do not feel like it straight up ate decades of my life.

That’s how it feels, gang. There’s this bubbling resentful rage and grief for years spent with an invisible wall between me and what I wanted. For the nights where I spent (and still spend) revenge procrastinating and wrecking my days. For all the hours chasing short-term dopamine that was often destructive for me.

Hours. Days. Years. Eaten by a part of me that often feels like a monster squatting in my brain, hiding in my bones.

It reminds me, too, of that scene from a Hammer Horror movie where a monster expert is talking about vampires and says something like “Oh, you still think vamps are just things with big teeth that gotta bite your neck and drink your blood? Sweet baby, there’s all kinds of these creatures; some of them just fully suck your life straight out of your soul.”

This is why I don’t think I’ll ever think of my ADHD as a superpower. Or, at least, if it is: it’s from one of those gritty think piece superhero stories where your power is also a hecking curse.

I am preoccupied by what my own brain has taken from me.

And the thing is: it’s not really true. At least, not all the way true.

Those years I think of as lost were filled with good times. I made meaningful connections. I wrote poems and stories that I love. I performed art that meant something to me in front of people who enjoyed it. I consumed a lot of good media. I learned and dreamed and tried really hard to be a person I could be happy being.

But I also let a lot of the things fall into the background. I started a lot, but didn’t finish a lot. I missed the chance to work on skills that are now harder to learn because I’m older.

So I find myself cursing the Chronovore.

I nearly wrote this as a piece of fiction. If I had, I would probably have ended with the protagonist finding a way to subvert or redeem or work with the Chronovore.

Maybe the satisfying ending just this: none of us get as much time as we want. We all give time away - whether it be taxed by things we resent or gifted to what is important.

The Chronovore is not special.

And if it is not special, then it is mutable.

Maybe that is enough.

[strangelittlestories]

#bat #a hecking classic #sure I can see how I got gothy night-dweller who will absolutely headbutt a building on accident

You show up for your first day at Copyright-Free Magic School. As you're going through orientation, you're informed that all new students get a school-assigned familiar that they are responsible for housing and maintaining. The staff member assures you that your assigned familiar is appropriately chosen and reflects you in some way.

Spin this to find out yours. (Remember, you are responsible for maintaining this familiar in your dorm room.)

[strangelittlestories]

200 Word RPGs 2024

Each November, some people try to write a novel. Others would prefer to do as little writing as possible. For those who wish to challenge their ability to not write, we offer this alternative: producing a complete, playable roleplaying game in two hundred words or fewer.

This is the submission thread for the 2024 event, running from November 1st, 2024 through November 30th, 2024. Submission guidelines can be found in this blog's pinned post, here.

[strangelittlestories]

Slate and Satin sprinted down another alleyway. The winding streets curled around them, as if the city was closing its fist to conceal the two thieves from view. They turned, put on another burst of speed, and stopped in the shadow of a dumpster, gasping.

“Is she still following us?” asked Shale between gulps of foetid air.

Satin looked behind them. No furious lawkeeper emerged. He cocked his head and listened. No pounding footsteps, just their own heavy breathing and the chitter of echo bugs as they picked over the nearby trash for residual magic.

“I think we lost her.”

“Shame,” replied Slate with a tired smile on her face, “she was cute.”

Satin shook his head.

“You’re a professional thief. How did you get a *thing* about paladins?”

“People are hotter when they’re chasing you. Especially if they can chase you wearing platemail. I don’t make the rules.”

“You want me to set you up? I could turn you in and keep your share.” Satin elbowed Slate in the ribs gently. “I hear interrogation chambers are a great place to get to know each other.”

Slate chuckled. She looked up at the walls around them, clocked a fire escape, checked the alleyway exits, then flashed a smirk back at Satin.

“Nah. It’s no good if she has help to catch me. If it’s meant to be, she’ll find her way to me on her own.”

“Or she’ll get a divine revelation from The Arbiter that drops a pin on the Law we stole.”

“Sounds like fate to me.”

The smile on Satin’s face faded, chased away by a stray thought.

“Hey … what do you think they want with this thing anyway?” Satin hefted the tablet, a corner of faded clay poking out from beneath the hessian wrapping. “What do they have to gain by pinching one of the First Laws?”

“The less we know, the better, buddy. Anyone asks what the game is, I want to be able to tell them true: I’ve got no idea.”

“I don’t get how you can’t even be curious.”

“Oh, I’m curious, but let me put it this way: I like my alibis like I like my partners.” Slate winked. “Steelclad.”

---

Ko-Fi supporters! Please submit your prompts/requests for November and any months you've missed :)

https://forms.gle/PKgyrFxfYEQosVdn8

[strangelittlestories]

hope is a skill

[strangelittlestories]

Serenity. Accept the things You cannot change.

Be like water Remember the form you had Before ripples broke you; A dream about exploded atoms, The universe breathing out Breathing in Then starting again. Though they may part you Always you come rushing back To stillness.

No.

Not today.

Today “accept” is a synonym For “deal with it”. Today “what I cannot change” Sounds like “get rekt”. So instead: I get good.

Be not the fathom-deep mystery The gentle piano keys of rain on sea Be the rustle of kindling The crackle of firewood The ash that sticks in the eye.

I am thinking, today, of how I want to explore the fire in me To expand To consume To burn up whatever fuel Is left to me That will keep the embers glowing.

I am thinking that “the things we cannot change” Is a shorter list Than any of us expect. You just have to start small enough; Find the bit of the fence You can break off And bite into it with your cinder teeth. Run your hands round The edges of the rockface Until you smell cordite on your fingers.

I think I said once That you should fight with love Not anger For it lingers long after rage has faded. Today I am not so sure That they are different things at all.

They both burn.

[strangelittlestories]

I think it's important to remember, as a rule of thumb, if you take advantage of a social service, it actually makes it easier for other people who need that service to access it. Most of the time, when these services get cut, it's because politicians will look at usage and say "see, no one is really using this thing, we can afford to trim the budget for food stamps by at least half". Whereas if you decide to step up and use these programs, even if you feel like you "don't really need it", at bare minimum it's another data point advocates can use to say "hey, look, people are using this thing, this is an important service we are providing, do not cut our funding".

[strangelittlestories]

If you are to undertake this journey into the Fitful Lands, where the Dream encroaches onto this world, then beware the Subego Tree.

It is a pernicious creature, for it has not distinct shape or bark or pattern of leaf. It mimics whatever forest or glade it grows in. You can tell it from the others for it will offer the greatest shade, hold the most raindrops from your back, promise you the sweetest shelter.

You must learn to read these signs if you will travel close to the realm of Hypnos. That which has crawled from those territories will feel as real as anything Waking, for a party of your mind will always recognise it as familiar. As *known*.

This is the trick, you must learn to loosen your perceptions and listen when dreamlings whisper too loud that they are true.

You might also know the Tree by the dreams you have when you rest beneath it. But, of course, by then it will be too late. When you sleep under its boughs, your subconscious will spin stories that are ... not quite prophecies. They are paths you can walk. Journeys you could take. The shadow you could cast if only you grew into your best self.

You will wake feeling full of potential and possibility.

This is a tragic lie, for this is exactly what the Subego steals from you.

It plants its seeds like burrs in your mind. And as they begin to spread their psychic roots, they will reach out through probability for the direction with the most energy.

It is not just a cognito-hazard. It is a farivore. A devourer of destiny.

Left to its own devices, it will spread through the whole landscape of your psyche, replacing your strand in the web of fate with a bright green shoot.

You will find yourself thinking hubristic thoughts. You will make choices that sow narrative. You will be twisted into a lesson.

Somehow, your story will end with you walking alone into a quiet natural place. And whether it is a punishment, an escape or an ascension, you will become a tree.

And then, someday, another poor traveller will sleep beneath your branches.

If you catch this infection in time, however, there is a cure. Though it barely deserves the name.

You see, the seed is too aggressive and too tenacious. Wound all around the core of you, and the core of the you-that-will-be, if you tear it out then it will extend its thorns and rip your mind to shreds.

So the treatment is this: surgical psychic removal of the entire ego.

Luckily, the mind is complex and the mind is malleable. The sense of inner self the Tree has planted its seed in is an illusion. A composite of soul and needs and memory; a hodgepodge of living burning data stored in electricity, spirit and meat-chemistry.

But the seed believes this illusion. It relies on it.

So when you remove it, the seed will not even notice it has lost its prey.

Then all that's left is the harrowing work of rebuilding your identity, feeling like a stranger in the jagged cavern of body and soul that remains. Wondering if your destiny even still belongs to you.

Oh, and of course, you should probably also kill whatever grows out of the seed that is eating your old ego.

[strangelittlestories]

New D&D magic item: The Magic (Two Way) Mirror

This cursed item was created by a wizard who loved gossip.

It's a lovely handheld mirror with a soft lighting effect. Your reflection always looks great.

You can use it to communicate with a named target, but you'll only see your reflection in the mirror, talking back to you in your own voice but your target's words.

The curse: every time you use it, there's a 10% chance that the mirror will ignore your named target and actually connect you to the single funniest person to hear your message.

Not the worst, but the *funniest*.

Also, every time you use the mirror you must make a Charisma save vs DC 17. If you fail, you will notice halfway through the conversation that you have parsley in your teeth.

[strangelittlestories]

I ran an encounter once that was a mashup of frogger and mario kart and general chase scene cliches, where the party were chasing someone across a busy street.

I figured, this is a short scene, it probably only needs a d10 random table.

Turns out, 4 characters rolling once for each lane of traffic (and more if they don't make it across first try) gets repeats *pretty quick*.

The multiple banana skins, implausible vehicles and carts of live chickens weren't so bad...

...but that one leafleter who just wanted to give the party a flyer for a political meeting? That vibe got real weird on the 3rd or 4th time.

Of course, by that point it was also *extremely* funny that they were being haunted by what can only be described as the Activist Traffic Cryptic.

So, yeah, small random tables don't always do the job they're intended to, but they can be great emergent bit generators.

For me there's no disappointment quite like cracking open a new indie tabletop RPG that claims to have lots of random lookup tables, and discovering that each individual table only has like six entries. Like, that's great if we're doing a one-time one-shot and only ever need to roll on any given table once, but where's the replay value?

[strangelittlestories]

The part of you that wants you to do well That reaches to be better today Than you could be yesterday The bit of you that believes in your own excellence That grasps always hungrily for what’s beyond the horizon of common sense

It does not have to be your enemy

Though, I admit, for me it has trained to be Strains always indubitably To grasp reasons I am failing Making a weapon out of learning Sharpening its points on should’s and ought’s Always falling short of an ever farthening destination Eyes set on where I’m not Rather than on what I’m becoming

There are two wolves inside me And they’re both shouting “I can’t believe you only have two wolves inside you You’re nearly forty You should be full of wolves by now. Look at all this space This sad, wolf-less space And there’s good eating here For metaphorical wolves. All this self-loathing hopping around Just going to waste. But do you ever think of the metaphorical wolves? No. You only think of the Roman Empire For some inexplicable reason. Typical.”

But it need not be so

Your own sharp edges will not always make you bleed; They can be taught to sculpt gently. The hunter will heed instruction. And with graft and luck someday The bit of you that knows the way to tomorrow Will learn how to stop the test short of destruction And say:

“I hold us to a high standard. And it’s okay that we don’t always meet it But I’m the part of you who Holds the memory of heaven’s buckshot At the start of everything. I recall the shape of every fuck we gave away When we didn’t yet clock their value.

I am the reckoning of us; The maths between the messes we’ve made And the blessings we would not have grabbed If we hadn’t stretched.

Yes, left unchecked I’ll bludgeon you with criticisms But untwist me and see What we can achieve.

After all, you may only have two wolves inside you But it only took one To start the Roman empire.”

[strangelittlestories]

we were strange girls with boys names and one day you said you wanted to eat my skin and i would have given you a piece, honest i would. trading your mother's imported cigarettes, sharing headphones, we swung our legs, grazed knees, talking about kissing.

i knew i liked kissing girls you didn't even know if you liked kissing i wish i would have showed you, only friendship forcing my hand - to steal that first from the undeserving boy that did.

we've grown up now and i'm afraid they put you in skirts. you told me you dreamed of me once, before the school bell rang. i laughed it off, walked to class.

i'm not laughing now. i hope you dream of me still

(a.v.p)

[strangelittlestories]

[strangelittlestories]

For those not tapped into Australian politics, King Charles is in Australia to conduct his "historic first tour to the commonwealth realm" i.e visting countries that King Charles is supposedly a monarch to.

Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe had requested an audience with King Charles for weeks prior to this visit, she wrote countless letters to speak to him. Unlike other commonwealth nations and other former Brisitish colonies, a treaty with Indigenous peoples in Australia was never formed. Their land was never ceded to the British Crown. After being denied and ignored, Lidia Thorpe, draped in a traditional possum skin cloak, stormed in the Great Hall during the reception for Charles at Parliament House in the capital shouting the following:

I literally can't even look at these photos without getting goosebumps.