#Edit: ID LIKE TO ADD I MEAN NOBODY I KNOW IN PERSON IS HAPPY AND MARRIED. AS IN FAMILY

[porekawa]

[ahnsael]

I usually make a post like this earlier in the runup to the election, but I’ve been kinda distracted by a pandemic and frequent anxiety/panic attacks. But I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t make my quadrennial “please vote, and I’ll help you find the information you need if you don’t know where to look” post. 

If you haven't voted yet, be prepared for long lines at the polls. But also check your state's and/or county's website (if you need help finding the site, I'll be happy to help -- just understand that I work graveyard so we may not be on the same schedule, but election day is still two days away; if you get me the question by tomorrow [Monday] morning at, let's say 8am, there's time). [Edited to add I mean that in Pacific time -- I will probably be up a little later than that tomorrow, but I'd rather err on the side of caution in case it's a rough night at work and I come home exhausted] If you are dropping off a mail-in ballot in person, or are unable to stand in a long line, you may have a separate entrance where you can avoid the line.

Don't wear your Trump or Biden T-shirt or button or sticker to the polls. It may be against the law in your area to be within a certain distance of a polling place, even if you're not inside, and promote or disparage a candidate or ballot measure.

Nobody has the right to preclude a person from casting their ballot for anything other than legitimate cause (for example, if someone doesn't bring their ID in a state that requires it, but even if your name doesn't appear on the voter roll, you can request a provisional ballot which would be counted if you are then found to be properly registered).

Please vote, if you haven't already.

Also, unless you specifically know that it's legal in your state, do NOT post a photo of your completed ballot. In many states this is illegal (the reason being that if someone paid someone to vote a certain way, which would be a crime, they may require the person to post a photo to prove how they voted). If you're not sure, don't post it. Feel free, however, to post a pic of your "I Voted" sticker. You're free to tell people how you voted if you so choose (but it IS a secret ballot and you are under no obligation to answer anyone who asks), just don't post photographic evidence.

I think that about covers it, in case any of you are newer voters who may not have heard some of this before. If you've got any questions, bring 'em on. I'll find the specific info for your state/county if need be, and my answers will be nonpartisan.

[my-wayward-son]

2 months on T-------------------> 7 months on T

I’m late with this post.  Again.  Because I’m doing really shitty.  Again.

First, let me address the obvious: yes, I’ve lost weight. (Well, if you wanna get technical, I weigh the exact same thing as when I started, which I probably shouldn’t).  But beyond that, I don’t want to talk about it.  That change is probably 25% due to testosterone and the tendency it has to aid in the development of lean muscle, and 75% due to other factors.

All the previous changes I’ve noted in these posts are still happening/happening more, such as still more body hair growing/thickening.  There’s really nothing new to report, except that I pass better when I have on glasses and teenage boy clothes (as opposed to professional clothes), but still get a lot of gender neutral and she/her designations mixed in with the he/hims.  

I had a dream last night about correcting my dad (his typical naming convention for me is Laura, I mean, Laur, she, I mean, Laur...) . So he’s trying when he’s in front of me, but it’s obvious he isn’t trying when he’s talking to my mom without me present.  I’m torn between being upset about it and letting it go.  My dad was diagnosed with Aspergers as an adult and he struggles with shifting his perspective.  This is something else I don’t want to talk about, but just know that my far-from-NT-yet-decidedly-allistic ass has a hard time reconciling it.

But anyhow, the transition is going great, and I have no reason to be upset about anything, but I’m upset about everything, and the rest is going under the cut because it’s going to be full of triggers (suicide and ED stuff).

For my whole life I never understood why anyone would want one of those dolls that you can customize to look exactly like you.  My thought was always, ‘what’s so special about me?  I kind of suck.’  I thought so little of myself and my live, even as a little kid, that I would rather pick the princess or the American Girl or whatever with the most interesting story and change myself to match.  Like I’d beg my mom for an outfit the same color as the character’s, or wear sunglasses with the lenses popped out, or only style my hair the same way as the character in order to adapt into that character.  

Of course all those phases were just that, phases.  They were highly tied to the media I consumed, and as I aged, that media changed.  So I was always editing myself to match my current obsession.  I never gave thought to what I was actually like, deep inside.  Like it didn’t matter what my actual personality was.  I hardly even thought about it until the end of high school, and then a series of traumas knocked me down a few pegs, and that sense of self didn’t come back to the surface until mid 2017.

In mid 2017, I went to a 2-week dance convention.  At that time I was living as female, had basically given up on the idea of transitioning, and was just trying to push through as a painfully shy 24-year-old who worked full time and danced part time with a local ballet company.  At the convention, I studied various styles of dance, realized I was extremely untrained in every field but ballet, and spent the entire thing on the verge of tears because I was with students over 10 years my junior in most of the classes.  It was an “all ages” program, but literally all the other adults were in professional level classes for all styles.  I was only in the professional level class for ballet.  I couldn’t wait for the convention to end.  I hated every second of it.  I had a chronic foot injury that made dancing painful (but not dangerous), but I’d always pushed through it because I loved it.  Now I could barely stand to go to class, even back with my regular company.  So I made arrangements to retire. 

I retired from professional dance in May 2018 and had foot surgery in June 2018.  I could dance again, if I wanted to, but I’m not ready yet.  Eventually I might go back as a recreational adult dancer, just taking class from time to time.  But I don’t know.  

I still love ballet, but as of a year ago, ballet was the one thing hanging over me that I hated.  I hated the obligation; I hated the way it tore up my body; I hated the way it made me exhausted and ate up all my spare time. However, I was damn productive.  I wrote so many fics and drew so many pictures, and I went to therapy at least every other week, and sometimes to PT.  I was at the studio approximately 20 hours a week, on top of working 40 hours a week.  But I guess I was so busy and tied to my obligations that I quite literally couldn’t fall apart.  

My uncle died (suicide, marking the 4th attempt and 2nd success in my family) and my granddad died (heart condition), so I had good reason to fall apart.  I was freaked out and sad for a while, but I was also fine.  I was a robot.  When I look back, I realize that the last time I was happy was prior to the 4th of July 2017.  I call that the “Wonder Woman Moment.”  I did a photo shoot for a ballet personal training/nutrition service that dressed me up in WW-esque dancewear.  We blasted Patty Smythe and had a ball.  Even though it was a really feminine thing, it was so much fun, and I had no worries.  It was July 1st 2017.  Before my uncle died, and before my granddad died and before I went to the dance convention.  That’s my last happy memory.

After unpacking some acute issues with grief and anxiety, my therapist started talking to me about my issues with gender ID.  By November 2017 I was thinking about transitioning (I had thought about it before, but never felt it was feasible).  By December, I’d decided it felt right.  I sought out a doctor in January 2018 and had my first appointment in February.  I told my mom on Superbowl Sunday.  Then a month later at my Oscar party, she basically washed her hands of me.

I love film crit and the Academy Awards almost as much as I love fanfiction and ballet and coffee and all the other good things.  I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for the 2019 noms to drop.  I know a few of them just from the grapevine, but I haven’t looked them up yet.  I’m still working from my early prediction spreadsheet, even though the actual noms are just a few clicks away.  I’m scared of the feelings that’s going to bring up.

One year ago, all I could think about was getting through the next 6 months and reaching a series of milestones: my company’s production of Alice in Wonderland.  Moving to a new apartment.  My company’s production of Water for Chocolate (an original contemporary ballet choreographed on me and 14 other dancers).  Starting testosterone.  Retiring from ballet.  Foot surgery.  I thought my life would be so much better.

And in a way, it is.  I have the confidence to do random shit, like walk into Autozone and talk to the workers about what is wrong with my car, then help them fix it.  A year ago, I would have panic attacks over things like that.  But a year ago, my mom loved me.  A year ago, I thought I’d have my current job forever.  A year ago, I thought once I got on T, my eating disorder behaviors would go away.

I’ve gained personal confidence, but lost so much else.  Lost my family.  Gained a new one, but still, I lost my relationship with my biological mother and father.  Lost my job satisfaction, which makes me worry that at some point I will have to interview for a new job and integrate with a new company, which is frightening in the extreme.  T has changed my body shape in the way I like, but it’s not magic.  I’m still afraid of eating, and stress doesn’t help.  I’ve also had health complications that add pressure and make me feel run down.  Some is my own damn fault (Hi, I’m Laur and I abuse OTC medications like a rebellious teenager, which is apparently not advisable when also on several prescriptions).  Some is a fluke.  But feeling like shit while also mentally feeling like shit has destroyed me.  I hate my life.  I hate everything.  I don’t see the value in anything.   

I know there’s a Spider-Man: Far from Home trailer out there.  I haven’t seen it.  I don’t know what to expect.  I want to see it.  But I also don’t want time to move forward.  I like the MCU as it is (I like it pre-Infinity War, actually, but nobody asked me, so I won’t belabor you with my opinion).

And that’s a good metaphor for my life right now.  It’s a mess.  I can’t picture anything far in the future, so the light from my proverbial headlights is dim and dull.  I’m afraid of moving forward, so my tires are spinning in place, kicking up mud and dust.   I’m incapable of shifting side to side, so when I do roll ahead a few inches, I hit every obstacle in the path.  If I just changed the lightbulbs, twiddled the steering wheel, took a breath and let myself move, I’d probably be fine.  But somehow that seems like the most impossible choice.  

I could slam the car into one of the cave walls, triggering a rockslide and killing myself.  If I did that, I know it would hurt a lot of people in my life, but it would also fulfill all of my hopes and dreams.   Peace.  Calmness.  Stillness.  Not having to deal with a world that insists on moving forward with the passage of time.  

The most compelling reason is that I can’t find a reason not to.  I wish I was an undergraduate student again, because I want to get a degree in philosophy.  I don’t know why living is so highly valued.  I can’t figure out what makes this “will to live” the correct way of thinking and the desire to die the wrong way of thinking.  Right and wrong are subjective.  They don’t exist, really.  There is not value behind things and thoughts and actions.  They just are.  What’s to say that a lack of serotonin or whatever in a depressed brain is really not normal?  The non-depressed brain may have an excess.  Normal is relative.  Averages don’t mean correct.  Just because most people in the class chose answer B doesn’t mean that it is the right answer to the question.  Just because most Americans are a little overweight doesn’t mean that that’s the healthiest body type.  

Sometimes I really want to try to get well and forge ahead and get my life together.  Sometimes I want to say fuck it and take all the pills in the house and lay down and drift away.  I can’t decide which is better because neither is better, they both are just choices.  I can’t use other people’s reasoning to back up either one, for they are slanted for reasons I cannot understand.  They have a bias toward life.  I have to choose what I really want most, and I just don’t know.  I truly don’t.  My wants and desires-the deep ones in the core of my being- have been so long ignored, given up for what a character would do, or what my mom would do, that as an adult, I hardly know how to access the decision-making skills that most children have already mastered.  I’m a fucking goldfish; when I’m upset, I’m only upset, and I’ve always been upset.  When I’m happy, I’m only happy and I’ve always been happy.  I don’t know how to take a step back and see both at the same time.  I can’t hold contradictory truths at once.  I’m not wise.  I’m set up to fail because there are cracks in my foundation.

As long as I continue to not decide, I don’t take action.  I’m stuck in a holding pattern of “I don’t know,” and “what’s going to get me through the next 5 minutes,” and “just fuck it all, it doesn’t matter.”  

I’ve never, ever, in my life imagined myself as an elderly person.  I’ve thought of myself as a middle-aged adult, but never past 40 or so.  Sometimes I see myself as a woman, sometimes as a man, sometimes an NB person.  But that’s not what matters.  I don’t see myself living to old age.  Mortality is comfort.  The fact that this life doesn’t go on forever is one thing that honestly makes it seem ok to keep living.  But by definition, it also makes it seem like a good choice to die when things go wrong.  Because I will in the end.  

I see my life as a project, and I’ve always had this dilemma with projects: if I make a mistake, what point is too ruined to salvage?  What factors make it more worthwhile to backtrack and fix the mistakes vs. just throwing it away.  Fixing the mistakes shoes dedication and perseverance, but it’s frustrating.  Hot.  Angry.  Uncomfortable.  Embarrassing to show youthful ineptitude to the world.  Throwing it away is quick.  Easy.  Zen.  Brings immediate cool relief with grace and style.  But it’s selfish.  So fucking selfish.  

If you’ve read this far, please proceed to pour water into your ears and shake vigorously.  This was not meant to be imprinted on your brain.  This is for me to sort out my thoughts, which are, and shall always be, unable to be ordered.

[winter-and-little-brunettes]

85 Questions Tag

I was tagged by @vldrocketeer! Thanks, sweetie, sorry Im getting to doing this so late!!!

— What was your last…

1. Drink: Coca-Cola! And, Im about to go grab another can...

2. Phone call: My mom! I sent her some cute bird videos, and called her to hear her reactions to them.

3. Text message: A good friend I made in first year! His name is Colin, and he lived across the hall from me in residence first year. We’re both the same major (English Lit), and we both have similar interests in video games, so we got along great. I won’t post what I said, since we’re catching up and it was a long ass text message, but it was basically me explaining why I haven’t seen him around lately (since I’m usually holed up at work when I’m on campus)

4. Song you listened to: “Turning Page” by Sleeping At Last. It’s a favourite of mine!

5. Time you cried: Oh jeez... Uh, last month? March has been pretty stressful, and April will make me want to rip my hair out...

6. Dated someone twice: I almost did! But no, never actually dated the same guy twice.

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Its hard enough to get me to kiss someone, let alone do it and regret it.

8. Been cheated on: I have. He was my first and only heartbreak (so far)

9. Lost someone special: Hmm... I think my best answer here is “yes”.

10. Been depressed: I mean, Im usually a pretty happy person, but everyone has their ups and downs. I cant say Ive been clinically depressed, but I have had a very dark part in my life, and I feel like another one is coming.

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: HAHAHA uh... no... I mean, that totally wasn’t me...

— Fave colours

12. purple!!

13. blue, like, a royal blue, yknow?

14. pink

— in the last year have you…

15. Made new friends: I have, fortunately!!

16. Fallen out of love: “I need to be in love for that to happen” god Erin, same

17. Laughed until you cried: Those are some of the best moments. I’m a loud laugher, and it happens like, once a week probably.

18. Found out someone was talking about you: I don’t do anything special enough to be talked about

19. Met someone who changed you: I feel like every person I’ve ever met has influenced me in some way or the other, so yes.

20. Found out who your friends are: Oh man, I certainly have. Fortunately, I have that cliche best friend story where I’ve literally known her since SK, went to the same elementary school, high school, and university together... And she lived around the corner from me when I still lived in my hometown.

21. Kissed someone on your facebook friends list: Well, considering my one ex is my friend there, I have to say yes.

— General

22. How many of your facebook friends do you know irl: Every single one. Although I’m never on facebook so don’t ever add me; itll take a month to hear back from me.

23. Do you have any pets: I have two cats! Well, one lives with me, and the other is at my parent’s place. But Perriwinkle is with me, my precious kitty, and shes all I need!

24. Do you want to change your name: Hmm... I do quite like my birth name, and I adore my last name, but my middle name... Im not super fond of “Marie”.

25. What did you do for your last birthday: hahahaha uh, well, Id been working at my new job for about a week at that time, so I was working on my 19th birthday.

26. What time did you wake up today: 11:35am

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: I was working on The Power of Faiths upcoming update! ;)

28. What is something you can’t wait for: to be done university... As much as it’s a cool experience and all, all the stress it brings is gonna kill me prematurely.

30. What are you listening to right now: “I Get To Love You” by Ruelle

31. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I work with a guy named Tom. He’s a music major, he plays piano and is overall a super cool dude

32. Something that’s getting on your nerves: when people I call for my job pick up the phone on a Sunday and bitch at me that I’m calling on “the day of rest”. Like?? Bitch, you did not have to pick up the phone. You saw the caller ID, just, let it go to voicemail?????????

33. Most visited website: It’s a toss-up between tumblr and ao3

34. Hair colour: brown, like, chocolate brown I guess

35. Long or short hair: It’s long for some people’s standards (it comes to between my shoulder blades) but still pretty short for me. I’m used to my hair reaching the small of my back.

36. Do you have a crush on someone: Oh hell no, aint nobody got time for that

37. What do you like about yourself: Uh... You guys wouldn’t like my answer.

38. Want any piercings: I seriously thought about a tongue piercing, but idk.

39. Blood type: You’d think, from the amount of blood Ive had taken for allergy tests and the like that I’d know. But nope, I have no idea.

40. Nicknames: Sam, Sammy, Samserban, Pretties, Samuel.

41. Relationship status: Single

42. Sign: Gemini!

43. Pronouns: she/her

44. Fave tv show: Voltron

45. Tattoos: I’m looking into tattoo parlors to get my first tattoo over the summer. I’m gonna get a bunch of flowers on my back, over my heart, for my grandma <3

46. Right or left handed: Right

47: Ever had surgery: Nope! Worst I’ve had are x-rays

48. Piercings: I do have my ears pierced, just once.

49. Sport: Hahahaaaa not anymore, I’m lazy af. But I used to figure skate competitively, row competitively, and ride horses.

50. Vacation: I hardly ever travel. Ive been down to Florida twice, and been to England and Scotland around this time two years ago with my two best friends.

51. Trainers: ...no? Again, I’m lazy af.

— More general

52. Eating: I dont eat as often as I should.

53. Drinking: Coca-Cola. Or coffee. Not sure which I’m gonna get yet.

54. I’m about to watch: I mean, I should be working on papers or something... Or even writing... But I just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood the other day and I loved it!!!

55. Waiting for: my English prof to give me my marks back for a paper I wrote.

56. Want: a lot of money so I don’t have to work as much as I do to live in my bachelor’s apartment with my cat.

57. Get married: Maybe..... It depends on if I ever find the right person. But if I dont, I am more than happy to be alone.

58. Career: I really reeeaaally want to get into a writing/editing career. I want to one day work for a firm to work one on one with authors to help them edit and publish novels!

— Which is better

59. Hugs or kisses: Hugs!

60. Lips or eyes: Oooh, eyes man!

61. Shorter or taller: Taller...

62. Older or younger: Older

63. Nice arms or stomach: Ooooh... arms...

64. Hookup or relationships: Definitely relationships, but I’m terrible at keeping them,,

65. Troublemaker or hesitant: Oh gosh, I mean, Im definitely more of a trouble maker... But like, a cautious one.

— Have you ever

66. Kissed a stranger: Oh hell no

67. Drank hard liquor: Im Canadian... Yes

68.Turned someone down: Haha, I sure have! I got asked out by two different guys on the same day before.

69. Sex on first date: Oh god no

70: Broken someone’s heart: Probably.....

71. Had your heart broken: I most certainly have!

72. Been arrested: Fortunately, not.

73. Cried when someone died: Yes. But, only once.

74. Fallen for a friend: I have no idea what this means???

— Do you believe in

75. Yourself: hahaha uh... No???????

76. Miracles: Id like to??

77. Love at first sight: I do, but not for myself.

78. Santa Claus: Nope

79. Angels: Oh god no

— Misc

80. Eye colour:  like, a warm brown colour?

81. Best friends name: Kaylee!

82. Favourite movie: I love too many movies... But the ones that come to mind are Spirit: Stallion of the Cimerran, Stardust, The Swan Princess, and Toy Story!!!

83. Favourite actor: There are days I can barely remember my coworkers names, and I see them for like, 15 hours a week. Let alone someone I’ve never met???

84. Favourite cartoon: It’s Voltron ;)

85. Favourite teacher’s name: I dont really consider myself to have “favourite” profs. But I am fond of a few that I’ve had!

I’m gonna tag @forsakenangel88, @mardimari, @dumb-birdd, and any of my followers who want to do this! Just tag me, I’d love to see your answers <3

[tak4hir0]

Some of you may have been wondering what has happened to Mike and even Chris, why such a long hiatus? There is no single reason or easy explanation other than life. Let’s just say various life challenges converged. As part of tackling life’s challenges, I’ve been looking at ways to be more productive with my daily work routine. One tool which I use daily, and I do mean daily is VSCode. VSCode is Microsoft’s free open-source integrated development environment (IDE). What makes the tool so addictive and useful is the community around extensions. Extensions are nifty ways for the developer to add and customise the VSCode experience with things like themes, icons to new services opening up limitless customisation possibilities for the developer and Salesforce for that matter! Salesforce a few years back announced they would no longer be supporting Eclipse and the force.com IDE, and started the migration to VSCode. Steadily this shift has evolved and matured. Hence the title of this blog post! Here we go – starting with the most obvious extension of the pack 1.) Salesforce Extensions for Visual Studio Code What does it do? – It makes interacting with our beloved Salesforce Platform a breeze. It allows you to work with all the programmatic metadata types like Apex Class, Apex Triggers, Aura and Lightning Web Components. Diving into the Developer Console to run tests was and a pain in the you know what. Salesforce Extensions allows you to quickly run all test and debug from right within VSCode! How cool is that? Lastly, it’s always and still is difficult to get at all of your metadata which is where “Org Browser” comes in handy for interacting with all the different types of metadata. 2.) Salesforce Documenter Hey, nothing speaks productivity more than elegant code comments reminding your peers and you what the hell this class was designed to do… This extension adds a layer of consistency which only a computer can provide – this will inject perfect comments for you into Class and methods, leaving you only to fill in WHAT! 3.) Apex PMD What’s worse than no comments in code? Trying to debug code which is overly complex and fall of anti-patterns. Apex PMD is like your own personal Code Guru, analysing your code as you type. Important to note though it cannot write the code for you nor a substitute for learning, it can indicate when you start to veer off the happy path towards spaghetti hell. 32K Salesforce developers think this extension can help, nobody can argue with that. 4.) Apex Code Coverage Visualiser Sometimes when you spend a lot of time coding, nothing jumps out more than some bright visuals confirming something as dry as Apex Code Coverage. 5.) Salesforce Toolkit This is the last Salesforce centric extension before we head into non-Salesforce extensions. Rounding out our Salesforce productivity-boosting extensions, this one is a recent addition to my VSCode setup. When I start a new project, after setting my password and logging in, the next thing I do is authenticate that org with the Salesforce cli. I do this so I can leverage sfdx cli open org command which opens that Org in the currently focused Chrome Window. Nothing is more frustrating than fumbling about trying to remember your user name and password. The extension really shines with it’s Org Info panel when you open an authenticate Org you get a wealth of information about the connected Org. We promised 10, so the next 5 extensions are general VSCode Extensions. 6.) Markdown All in One Other than your programme language of choice, the most other popular language (syntax) in the developer world is markdown. All code can benefit from a well written README – this extension smooths out the process of creating and maintaining markdown! 7.) Live Server Spinning up a local Web Server can be difficult, this gives you an instant local Web Server with a single click. If you have an HTML page or similar in focus within VSCode – hit Go Live and it will pop open a browser session for you. Salesforce TIP – Live Server can help you easily test and build external Embedded Chat Widget solutions 8.) Edit CSV Like it says on the tin “Edit CSV”, these days it’s easy to interact with Salesforce data using a suite of cli commands, perform queries and dumping the results out to CSV. For all the those quick data edits, now it’s easy to edit directly within VSCode! 9.) Bash Beautify One of the significant benefits of VSCode is it has Terminal baked right into the IDE, it’s easy to pop open Terminal and execute commands. Once you move past novice level with the cli, you start thinking along these lines… I keep running these same commands how can I run these all at once – Hello BASH scripting, yep more code, but opens the door to some serious automation and huge productivity gains for developer. Now what If VSCode just took you script bashing and made it look beautiful – of course it still may not work, but it sure would look pretty! 10.) Peacock Rounding out the post; and sticking with our consistent theme here – which is all about being productivity while looking good!!! And Peacock is no exception to that, bringing a warm rainbow of colours to your different VSCode workspaces. Peacock adds just about the right amount of colour to the common beloved dark theme and making these dark times for all of us, seem well a lot less dark! Hopefully this post brights up your day and boosts your VSCode productivity – have a great week!

[derkastellan]

Review & Playtest: Creep, Skrag, Creep! (DCC)

I have a comparatively long history with the Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) RPG, and when I wanted to ease my GM-ing burden recently, I convinced my group to dedicate half our sessions to playing premade modules for this game. The reasons were simple - hardly any publisher I know makes so many good, fun modules consistently as Goodman Games does, the system is also simple, and one of my players owned the core book without ever having played it.

I personally tend to believe that fantasy is best seen from a horror angle. I mean, look at the content of a typical monster manual! And the flavor text is probably the only thing worse than the pictures, usually adding gruesome details awaiting those tricked or bested by those critters. So I was happy when M. found me a funnel made by Goodman Games that I not only already owned, but that was designated as part of their new horror line.

I emphasize found, because navigating the online store I had relied on tags and not come over this one. Better clean that one up, Dark Lord... But the search did do its job. Another oddity is that Creep is apparently #5 in the new DCC Horror line, but the only other adventure I saw was Sinister of the Sempstress which supposedly #2. It seems the Halloween line has been rebranded, but I guess this rebranding will be only complete when the other modules in it will be reprinted. 

If this gives them a reason to release more of them than just once per year I’m all for it. Sadly, Creep is an ambitious module with many flaws, not living up to its potential... 

Lists for lists’ sake

What does this adventure have aplenty? Tables to roll on. Kinda pointless tables. Features that lead nowhere. Ill-designed tables.

Example #1: Rumor table. There are 12 rumors, so of course you roll a d12... per player character. This is a funnel! If you have, as intended, 12-16 PCs you get a good chance that most rumors are known. Just drop the exposition already - or is there value in not knowing this? A good share of the foreshadowing and telegraphing of upcoming down in this module is lost if nobody gets the ill or good omens from the rumor table...

Example #2: Quirky Personality Traits table. 14 entries, roll a d14... these vary between “annoying” (refuses to cooperate with a given other PC, being a smartass), game-impairing (fear of heights, fire, the dark, open water??), or actually seemingly useful (except not really). If you have 3-4 PCs, try keeping track of these. Funnels aren’t great role-playing opportunities - it’s hard enough to get players to name all of their PCs at times. Now you have suddenly 3 people in the group afraid of something rather common... the only positive impact on the game this typically has is probably that it sorts out “who does what” - a typical cause of delay in funnels since players have to chose who takes part in any action or who goes where. PCs afraid of heights probably don’t go into the crow’s nest. But most likely of all, this adds nothing to a good share of games.

Example #3: Ship’s Ledger. Lists crew manifest. Unfortunately unsuitable as a handout because it contains info the players don’t have, but is indicated to the judge to refer to when the PCs read the ledger in-game. (And not all NPCs have names. Great list.)

Example #4: Sailor Tattoos. You need to make a Luck check to determine whether you successfully render the tattoo in such quality that it conveys a positive effect in the adventure. No tattoo has an effect that has in-game use! No mechanics, zilch.This is the reward for wasting a turn in a game where every three turns a monster attack of increasing difficulty happens! Plus one tattoo makes no sense at all: “Black Dragon: Symbolizes that the sailor has sailed to the Black Sea of the Aghartan Underworld.” This sounds cool, but if you look at the “Journey to the Center of Aereth” adventures this is not only nigh-impossible to do, but also even harder to return from. A DCC-ism: It sounds metal badass, but signifies nothing.

Example #5: The Tacuinum Sanitates. This one takes the cake. It gives you a list of unspecific effects some ingredients have, assigns some of these effects spell equivalents, then leaves it to the Judge to decide what to actually do with it. No mechanics - except for the two (actually identical) applications of direct use in the adventure. A rather typical one for this adventure - a decent idea, poor execution. Decent because it adds some mildly magical treasure without making the PCs OP (as they likely will have to burn Luck to cast anything at all), but mostly just confusing, and if there are spell effects, the spells have no bearing on the adventure.

By the time I had read the adventure in full, I had gotten pretty annoyed with the misleading nature of all these lists crammed into the adventure.

Interesting story mechanic, partially broken

Creep, Skrag, Creep! is basically turning the story of the movie Alien into something suitable for a fantasy RPG. You have a creature you cannot truly beat or trap (which makes it less fair than the setup of Alien 3, thinking of it...). The creature will come at you every half hour of in-game time, try to take out two PCs, make off with their livers if it can, and come back again.

The time-tracking element works. But it conflicts with another element. Each room in the game has a description whether the beast will attack there. Some say it will not attack in that place. Some say it always will. It seemed intriguing enough when reading it, but fell apart in play.

My players went down first. None of the bottom half of the ship has a monster attack in it. Nor has the main deck or the crow’s nest. This limits the beasts’ attacks to the forecastle, poop deck, and 4 out 5 rooms accessible from main - and a timed attack in the rigging. My players basically had no chance encountering the creature as their given course through the decks took them a long time until finally somebody went into the crow’s nest.

Best part? The description of how the creature attacks the person in the rigging kind of violates DCC’s basic movement rules: "[T]he Creature will emerge from underwater, scale the hull, and then drag itself over the bulwark into the forecastle (area F-1). From there, the Creature will nimbly climb across the ropes to attack the PC clinging to the rigging.” Try adding all of that together and the creature travels a couple hundred feet - in what time? It moves 30′ and climbs 20′. Unless this was meant to be fair to the PC as it gives time to escape, it would be hard to run without violating the rules of movement.

So, many times no attack happens. Or it contradicts some other part. The creature is not terribly hard to fight - unless you insist on blocking players from taking part because there are not enough 5′ squares. But with minimal losses they dispatched it multiple times. It was more annoyance than horror. A few lucky rolls from the demonic pigs killed more PCs than the creature almost. So, in order to make it challenging putting the whole thing on the map with minis is probably your best bet. (Except the map accompanying the game is not suitable to be player-facing or to be a direct reference for drawing many areas of the ship. DCC maps look awesome but usually aren’t the most usable.)

The thing never got to harvest a liver through regular combat. It didn’t live long enough to do two PCs in and escape. But in one other (”scripted”) occasion it actually is enormously strong and hard to beat without burning Luck - it has a +6 Strength bonus in a comparative roll leading directly to death on failure. Essentially an undeclared trap. So, this was the time it was most threatening - basically a scripted thing, not combat. The story would have benefited (as a horror story) from crafting more such moments. Alas, there are none.

Instead the creature usually seemed not-so-threatening, a real problem for a horror story. Besides, the players vanquished it several times without truly making the connection it was the same creature after all. Also, some “creature ambush” notes are useless because they assume all PCs enter a place together. Some of these places do not have enough squares for all PCs to fit in there even if you ignore all the furniture in the flavor text. I know PCs consume less space outside of combat, but still this makes little sense. Seldom was the whole party in one location, half of it was on the main deck usually - rendering the ambush setups half-moot.

Ignoring the red flag

“This removes any doubt as to whether the players should attempt to flag down the pirates—a frequent source of playtester debate often ending in TPKs.“

My players, like apparently some playtesters, chose to get away from the pirates which would make the adventure unwinnable but good sense. Luckily for me (and them) they cast “dispel magic” on the creature and burnt enough luck to banish it (one of the described effects), ending the adventure in an unexpected, almost anti-climactic way. But hey, this was indeed a DCC thing to do. Burn through your luck and live by a crazy feat of daring.

If the adventure designer plans the solution to depend on a really desperate move he better foreshadow it accordingly. But every scrap the players read or hear in rumor makes them want to avoid the pirates. Why is it up to the GM running this one to make up for this problematic adventure design?

Conclusion

This is hardly the only thing that should have been cleaned up before publishing this one. Many things were poorly described which made me wonder if this was run by the author mostly - surely someone who knew how things are supposed to work and might have missed on spelling it all out. This leaves a lot of things for the person running the adventure to work out. Something I do not want in a published adventure. This should have been fixed in editing and playtesting, so I’m surprised that this never got caught.

What am I left with is the impression of an ambitious idea for a tightly run funnel poorly executed. Not devastatingly bad, but not up to what I expect of the series or its authors. Compare “Sour Spring Hollow”, a nasty little horror romp by Michael Curtis who resulted in my first funnel TPK. I’ve run it twice and played it once before that, and it always was a real meatgrinder that kept players urgently scrambling for a solution to their predicament. Both funnels share that they are confined to a tight location with the purpose of survival, with periodic events. 

Creep tried to give the feel of being stalked like in Alien but its written mechanics fail to do achieve that. It is probably much more exciting when experienced run directly by the author - or any judge who ignores how it is written and just goes with whatever feels right in a given situation. It goes without saying that no written mechanic can replace the intuition of a good GM, but it should run well enough as written to deliver a decent result, and if it can’t do that should give the GM guidelines how to run the monster in a convincing way instead. You don’t run Strahd in Ravenloft by mechanics, you get into how he rolls and the location. If the game had been written around ambushes and splitting the party, that would have probably worked a lot better, too.

As it stand this was my weakest funnel. I’ve run The Portal Under The Stars, Sour Spring Hollow, Sailors on the Starless Sea (adapted as funnel), Nebin Pendlebrook's Perilous Pantry, and Hole in the Sky, and this one seemed to be a letdown in comparison. I had higher expectations and wouldn’t recommend running it in its current form.

[survivoremathia]

Ep. 5 "Operation 5 to Stay Alive" - Ali

http://survivoremathia.tumblr.com/post/158125930181/swap-announcement

ALI

New tribes, new me! So, this tribe is interesting. Its 3 Odysseus people (me, JD and Sam), 3 Olympus people (Logan, Rob and Eddie) and 2 Othrys people (Matthew and Duncan). Trevor warned us about the Olympus clique, so I think it'd be good if us three Odysseus people ally with Duncan and Matthew, and hopefully can gain control. I'm nervous though!

TREVOR

https://youtu.be/9Cp2bQsoSio

Also I just found out that newbie Ryan is irl friends with Logan so he will be first voted out- know that. 

MATTHEW

rain drop

drop top

here are my thoughts on the tribe swap so I really haven't made any confessionals yet in this game and I'm sorry, but the OG Othrys tribe was kinda boring because we slayed so much. I was in an alliance with Ryan, Owen and David, but I really only full trusted Ryan and he's the only one I told about door #9 in the Labyrinth so we'll see if that info stays quiet for a while. However, now that we've swapped, this game has gotten really interesting. At first I was really terrified because I got separated from all of my allies, but now that I've taken the time to talk to everyone and get a sense of the tribe dynamics, I think I'm in a really good position. According to Sam, the only person I really knew at all from this tribe before this game, the Olympus 3 are a really tight alliance and have been friends from a previous game which is always super intimidating. Since those three are voting together, it kinda forces the three Odysseus member to stick together, and that puts Duncan and I in the middle. Duncan is the person I had the worst connection with on my original tribe, so being stuck with him again is both scary and rewarding because it sort of forces us together. Obviously, I trust Sam a ton and I'm really getting along well with Ali, and I think that leaving such a strong alliance in the game isn't the smartest idea in case we just go on an insane losing streak which is VERY possible given how stacked the other tribe is. However, Duncan thinks that trying to work with Eddie/Logan/Rob would be in our best interest because leaving those three in would make them the bigger targets and keep the two of us under the radar, which I agree with to an extent, but I don't get the feeling that the other three would be quick to turn on us if we sided with them. Maybe it's just because I have strong bonds with Sam and Ali, but I really don't want to vote against them. Duncan said he's close with Eddie, so that puts us in a really interesting position. If Duncan and I can't agree with what we want to do, it would tie, and rocks could eventually come into play. AND, we have no idea what the Labyrinth has let loose in this game! There's a lot of interesting factors that have come into play and I'm both super excited and super terrified.

ROB

Swap and I'm with my Olympus peeps? Amazing. I really like the newbies and I hope we can do something with them. I want Sam out, but I do think I'll be screwed. He knows the newbies longer than me. It's going to be a battle.

http://survivoremathia.tumblr.com/post/158127394321/immunity-5

http://survivoremathia.tumblr.com/post/158215267946/immunity-results

MATTHEW

"i think i was trying to make help" - Samuel Rutan, in defense of his inebriated plan to put a target on Rob's back.

so this challenge is uh...interesting. I've admittedly not had the best attitude about our ability to win challenges because the other tribe is so stacked with people who can dominate, especially at a challenge like this where a lot of them have experience editing videos and stuff and we certainly do not. I think our tribe really lacks a certain cohesion necessary for this, and everyone feels like we don't really have a shot so people are moreso focused on surviving tribal even though we haven't even lost yet. Nobody is really stepping up to the plate. People are saying no ideas without offering anything to replace them, and not explaining why they don't like the ideas in the first place. Our music video really has no direction at the moment and we're just focused on getting it done so we don't look like fools who couldn't even turn in the challenge. The more I talk to people, the more I definitely see myself as a major swing vote this round. I just had a two and a half hour call with Eddie, Logan and Duncan and I really felt like we all bonded a bit. It's nice to just sit back and talk about life shit and boys and not worry about strategy for a while, but you always have to think about how you can use these personal bonds to your advantage. The person I want gone most at this point is Rob, but if that's not going to want to be possible, I need to be proactive in keeping Sam and Ali safe by suggesting JD as an alternate. I think I have a lot of power this round, and I'm going to capitalize on it. I don't care if it puts a target on my back; I've played this game MANY times, and I've learned that you should never miss out on an opportunity to put yourself in the best position possible. It's gonna take some Cirie Fields level misting to get Eddie and Logan on board to go after Rob, but if I can pull it off, I keep everyone on the tribe happy and I still maintain my power next round while getting rid of somebody I have no connections with. It may be ambitious, but ambitious is my middle name. Not really but...it's better than "Fucking".

LOGAN

Literally every confessional has had me saying I want to die or I'm dying in it? i dont understand? ANYWAY. My liver isnt working but we'll get there ig. I'm hoping I can team up with more experienced players and clocc some newbies but i think they are gonna want Rob. I DONT WANT THEM TO WANT ROB. ROB AND LOGAN ARE NED AND SARAH. DO NOT.

EDDIE

Me on call with Rob: what do you think we should do for this first vote Rob: I think we should target duncan. Me: Okay let’s try this again… What do you think we should do for this first vote I’m just going to ask him over and over again until he tells me what I wanna hear which is that we rope in Duncan and take out that snake Sam. Me when I finally get Sam’s blood all over my face, body, and hands: https://secure.static.tumblr.com/9a788ea893dbd408a839201df9d00f17/zytcgar/FT3noeef9/tumblr_static_tumblr_static__640.gif Also Matt and I are bonding on call right now and I’m just thinking about how I want him voted out after Sam https://38.media.tumblr.com/37eccabcb3a37667abaf56a3ae3ac081/tumblr_nh9mgbqDaM1sm1gf4o1_400.gif But like omg I just want sam OUT OF HERE. LIKE GET OUT OF HERE SNAKE. When Duncan wants me to vote out logan or rob if we go to tribal. Duncan: I mean Id tag along but maybe one of them can go first to make people less afraid of you all. Me: https://38.media.tumblr.com/cafd74179121e455c36ecd78471a2010/tumblr_nkpzoyDeZL1uokvyoo1_500.gif I got a lot of tea from my call with duncan last night though. We're snatching Sam and then we're snatching Matt. It's just happening. Matt is in a majority alliance with Ryan and this other guy on whatever tribe they're from I'm sure I look at the name I'll remember who it is so he's on the snatching list. Also Matt will run right to Lydia who I wanted to work with but I no longer think she will work with me. So this is all about lining up all my cannons to take a shot at her at merge. So first we snatch Sam who is probably cool with trevor who is cool with lydia and is super dangerous. And then we snatch matt who will run right to ryan and lydia once merge comes. Duncan also told me he has some cursed idol thingy which is super helpful for the future.

TREVOR

I don't have time for a video confessional this round so here we go. We won immunity which kind of sucks. I was prepared for tribal. I'm blood hungry. My goal was to vote out Other Ryan and hope Scott self votes and gets removed.  Other Ryan has not replied to me the last two times I tried to talk to him. Literally 0 social game.  And he didn't even SHOW UP for the challenge. No participation. No excuse. Nothing. So hopefully we lose the next one so we can cut these people. And then maybe cut Jay O too if we have the time- to spilt up him and Duncan. Looking at the other tribe - as long as Ali, JD, or Sam don't go home it will be good for my game. I really don't care who it is out of the others but preferably one of the Olympus folks. Hopefully my little newbie friends heed my warning about them. I have two alliances going at this point. One with owen and Lydia and another one with those two and RTP. I know I said in my last confessional that RTP can GO but I think I might work with him for a while. I am also making sure I stay tight with David and Jay.  And Isaac is becoming expendable. 

ALI

LITERALLY 2 MINS AFTER DISCUSSING THAT TONIGHT'S VOTE IS SPLIT 4-4. I WON AN EXTRA VOTE IN THE LABYRINTH. WHAT IS GOING ON!!!! DJKSHXDKSJXSNODDHIDBCODNSAKCOAMDPD (removed about 17 lines of this)

ROB

I think I might be screwed, I just have to talk to these people to get out Sam

JD

The swap. I  was okay with it. As far as the four seasons goes, it couldn't have been better. We got slip down the middle and paired up with the one that were most comfortable with. 

I like Eddie and Matt, I was chatting with them but didn't think of it till later that its the same as our memory challenge. And might I add, they both kicked my ass. 

I'm scared of Eddie. I mean he's great and we have great conversations. but like, I looked at another season and he's a huge threat. If I had followed the season before he probably would have been one of my fav players. I think that's what sucks that most about lying to him right now. I have my group and I'm not leaving them but if we had started out on the same tribe I would have loved to have worked with him, should have mutinied. 

ALI!!!! My god like that extra vote couldn't have come at a better time XD 

I hate lying, like really I do, you wouldn't know it though. I put lying and stealing on the same place in the bad space. But here I am, lying, all in the name of a game. I think it's a huge reason why I feel like shit going into this tribal. But I've got a gut feeling that they are trying to put all the votes on Rob and then have him use the idol. Which is a good way to do it but i don't know. It's hard to read people over text. But I think me and Ali are voting for Eddie :/

ROB

I'm in trouble

I love myself

EDDIE

So I just got off call with duncan and basically flipped him back onto playing the idol on a rob and idoling out Sam. How beautifully iconic? I really need to save my gentle bean rob because people keep coming for him and he is smol and needs to be protected. Not only that but Sam is a rat. So it's a win win either way. Matt keeps saying it's about power and that he would want it to be more even on the tribe and I'm just like boiiiii fuck out my face. You're getting snatched next. Like why are you telling me this is about you wanting power on this tribe like WHY. Idk if he trusts me to tell me this but he shouldn't because I used it to go to duncan and say "hey you want rob out but if we vote rob out matt with have all the power. Next round he will be the swing between us and the newbies and that's everything you don't want. So if we can idol out sam then that will take all the power away from matt." And that basically had him shooketh and he immediately was like "ok ok i dont want that ill play the idol on rob". So here we are the idol is being played on rob, Sam is getting slain, and I'm probably going to be in a very good position on this tribe. What else can a boy ask for? A new car that's what. But I don't have the money for that yet so I'll just be happy with me being in a good position on this tribe. Anyway I gotta go back to werk bye.

JD

Okay~~~ So what a cluster. We ended up with like three possibilities. But we all thing that Rob's going to use an idol, so there is no way we're voting him yet. But we want to target the old Olympians. That leaves Eddie and Logan, we really could care less with ones goes but personally Eddie scares me. In the game he scares me, he seems like a sweetheart and all but in game... honey-badger man. 

So, we're all voting for Eddie and in theory (if Duncan is really with them) then it's a 4-4 split. But with Ali's extra vote, we should win 5-4.  Here's hoping because I don't wanna be on the bottom.  

MATTHEW

LOL so this is a #mess. This round started out like I thought. The Odysseus Three set their sights on the least active person, Rob, while the Olympus Three decided to target their old tribemate Sam because they're not sure they could trust him, putting myself and Duncan in the middle. However, things got a bit tricky when Duncan and I had different ideas about what to do. Duncan wanted to stick with the Olympus folks because of his close bond with Eddie, while I thought it made more sense strategically to side with Sam and the newbies. It kinda put us in a weird power struggle where we both knew that letting the other person get their way was giving them all the power. I don't trust Duncan enough to be sure that he wouldn't just ditch me for Eddie if it came down to it, and I'm sure he had the same reservations. Things started to get sketchy for me when I started campaigning against Rob to Duncan because Eddie and Rob immediately messaged me at the same time. Like...way to be subtle, guys. It really made me question where I stood in their eyes, and I wasn't about to put myself at the bottom of a 5 person alliance. I kept trying to convince Duncan that voting out Rob would put us in a powerful position but he didn't seem to want to go for it, and immediately I started playing the defensive. At that point, everyone on their side was acting so sketchy by trying to "play dumb" and downplay their closeness that I knew I needed to stick with Sam, JD and Ali. If it went to rocks...it went to rocks!! However, Ali received a godsend from the Labyrinth in the form of an extra vote, so our foursome is now able to pull off the numbers. Logan, Eddie and Duncan then all said they'd be willing to vote out Rob, but it all seemed a little too easy, especially after how sketchy they've been acting all day. JD and Ali then spearheaded a movement to actually vote for EDDIE in case they decide to play an idol on Rob. It's a huge move, and these newbies are here to play which I love to see, but it definitely scares me how everyone is gonna react next round. Even though Duncan and Logan will probably hate us, it's the best move to ensure our safety and that we can maintain a solid majority for the next few rounds.

ALI

Ugh, I loved our video so much, but Olympus' was amazing too... I mean Trevor waving a knife seductively? Iconic. Anywho, this vote is super complex. I've dubbed it, 'Operation 5 to Stay Alive', but to form this 5 is hard, our tribe dynamics are super complex. I mean, I'm kind of an outsider, and beggars can't be choosers when it comes to these things. Here is my breakdown of tribe dynamics atm: The Olympus 3: Logan and Rob are close, with Eddie with them, but potentially the 3rd? Then, I get the sense that Duncan is close with Logan and Eddie, which is problematic, as I think we should get rid of one of the Olympus people.... Hmmmmmnnnnn. Otherwise, I'm closest with JD and Matt. I'm scared for Sam, in that I'm concerned the Olympus three are gonna target him. I really hope Duncan is up for voting off an Olympus person, it just seems to make the most sense...

SAM

hey i love being on the road and making confessionals! so i lost another music video challenge--i've never outright won one of those before, so i didn't have good vibes coming in. no surprises. duncan and i talked a lot after the challenge about voting out rob and he was very cool about it, stating that he's more closer to eddie and logan. fine. i'm okay. i go to bed. this morning i did that™ on my thermo exam (woot!) and then went to the labyrinth. using my torch i found a bust that looked LIKE IT WAS ONCE WEARING A NECKLACE. damn you, father time. i almost found an idol for the first time in a year. i then found out that the former olympus members want to target me--not a surprise because i dumped their asses, but i really wish i had gotten that idol. what upset me more is that duncan is campaigning for me to leave. he was being suspicious by complimenting my new style of gameplay and such but it did hurt a little after he had said he wanted to work with me this go around. then LATER IN THE DAY ALI TELLS ME HE GOT AN EXTRA VOTE IN THE LABYRINTH so then myself, ali, jd, and matt began scheming for a positive. these newbies are willing to go to war for me , which I LOVE. we need more ferocious players. i'm so impressed. so, we're thinking eddie for tribal because he's the most adept of the bangladesh 3 to do damage, but we might have some more tricks up our sleeves come tribal tonight. ;)

SAM

hi these newbies are willing to go to rocks for me and i've never felt so giddy

JD

OMG! also I just realized that, an hour before tribal, that we planned a blindside! A little slow but yes! Also, Duncan saying that me and Eddie were at work, I don't think I told him that, so there tots working together 

ALI

To clarify how our plan (me, Sam, Matt and JD) for this vote came about. Basically, the tribe was originally seemingly split 4-4 (Logan, Duncan, Eddie and Rob vs the 4 people above). I by some miracle, got an extra vote, saving us from a tie, and thus, we have 5 votes between us. Duncan may've flipped, we don't know, so we've made a majority amongst ourselves, to try and make his vote just seem additional. We are also nervous, as Logan said their casting their 'votes' plural, which could remake it into a tie eeek! :) Who knows, this could be my final tribal! If so, in the words of the legendary Sandra Diaz Twine, 'the queen stays queen, adios!'.

DUNCAN

This vote? A mess?

This idol? A mess?

My future in this game? Probably a mess. Matt summers and I are swing votes and it's ugly because I need to use this idol tonight because I don't want to keep getting disadvantages in challenges. Ummm I'm so sorry Samuel. I'm willing to take a chance on the unknown as oppposed to having a shitty ally again. This could very well be my last confessional. Also I want to shout out my sister Ariel and Mitch! Love ya! *MWAH*

http://survivoremathia.tumblr.com/post/158247749721/tribal-council-4-othrys