#I like watching it in increments :D

[olderthannetfic]

Being a trans man and not being an anti is also isolating, which is part of why I think trans guys gravitate towards either being an anti or reposting anti posts. If you're not an anti, you get booted from discord servers, blocked on social media at best or sent misgendering rape threats, death threats and suicide bait by other trans men at worst, and now that I'm in college I've found IRL that not being an anti makes a lot of people in queer spaces available to the average college student incredibly uncomfortable. So you have to either be entirely alone - which is very difficult when you're young, queer, and just coming into your own identity - or you have to be around it a lot without saying a word. Agreeing with it at first wouldn't even be necessary. You just have to not say anything against it, and then you'll be able to be around other people.

It doesn't help that most trans men who get sucked into anti circles are teens at the time. There's 501 proposed anti-LGBT laws right now, not counting everything that has passed, the majority of it anti-trans. If you're a teenage boy seeing all this transphobia on the rise, you're going to feel powerless. Bullying people like antis do makes you feel power over at least a few people. Being told you can consume your way into being a good person via media intake makes you feel like you have power and control over at least that.

I was sucked in incrementally because I wasn't exposed to the more violent antis who fantasized about murder and hurting people for writing fiction, I met my only friend - who was an anti - after my dad had beaten me for coming out as trans, and I was sixteen. I got out when I was eighteen because once I went to live with my mom, a psychologist, she gently corrected me when I would say things that aren't based in fact. She pointed out how upset these people were making me. She taught me how to fact-check claims and look into the veracity of claims.

And when I tried to convey to my friends that no, what they were saying wasn't supported, they turned on me. Including the only person who had been there for me when I was hatecrimed, who had reached out to me specifically because she met me what day. I lost every friend I had in roughly 30 hours.

If I hadn't had a really great mom, a very intelligent rabbi who's well-versed in psychology and is a former lawyer who saw the "fiction made me do it" excuse used to defend heinous crimes and doesn't buy it, and an older half-sister who lived through people calling her a psycho lesbian because she's a lesbian who played D&D, listened to metal and dressed Goth in small-town Montana in the 80's/90's, I would have probably killed myself. Having those three people who accepted me and did not accept this extremist rhetoric kept me sane and repaired my self-esteem enough to keep me going.

But a lot of people don't have three adults who are intelligent, supportive, and know better than to fall for this faux-psychology. A lot of people don't even have one. Often, they have unsupportive people who also believe firmly in the faux-psychology of "if you watch a thing you'll do that thing IRL". So there's not only no one hauling them out of this, it's getting reinforced.

Being a non-anti who is a trans man gets me a lot of shit from a lot of people online and offline. (As other anons have mentioned during the ace discourse, online talking points come up on college campuses and in real life, because the internet is not an alternate dimension, it is something being used by the people around you who exist in the same physical space as you.)

A reality that I don't think people want to discuss is that trans men, just like all other people of all other genders, suffer a lot of psychological distress if they're put in a position where they have no support. I sure as fuck wasn't happy being in a position where I went from having tons of online friends, discord servers I could hang out in and fandoms I associated with good vibes to none of that, plus harassment, plus massive misgendering.

It's a lot less awful of an existence to be a trans man and an anti when you're young and need community and support than it is to not be an anti and be isolated. And humans gravitate towards the least awful option 99% of the time.

--

Yuuup.

Having some kind of real support network, usually offline but at the very least not randos you met a day ago on discord, is vital and is the difference between not only whether you rot in a pit of antidom forever but in stemming the massive flood of trans teen suicides. The overall queer rates aren't great, but the specifically trans rates... they're bad. They're so, so bad.

[mamawasatesttube]

#25 for the gentle prompts, maybe? :D

25. "You can sit on my lap."

By the fifth time Tim shifts his weight, leans on his staff, and heaves a sigh more explosive than Mount St. Helens, Kon has just about had it. The stubborn set to Tim's jaw means he doesn't want Kon to point out that he's clearly tired, but also, uh, the idiot is clearly tired, and it's getting a little ridiculous.

"Rob."

Tim holds up an imperious finger. "Don't say anything. I'm fine."

Kon rolls his eyes. "We're probably gonna be stuck up here for stakeout purposes for, like, at least another hour or two. You might as well make it easier on both of us."

Tim gives him a mildly dirty look. It's probably supposed to be worse than mildly dirty, but despite himself, Tim hasn't been able to stop looking at Kon with, like, heart eyes, ever since his resurrection and return. Even when they're bickering like they did as kids. It... it gets Kon, sometimes. He tries not to think about it too hard.

"I'm fine," Tim repeats stubbornly. He folds his arms over his chest and stares down at the warehouse they're watching. "I'm fully capable of finishing the stakeout."

Oh, for the love of—

Kon leans over and bonks him on top of his cowled head. "Yeah, I wasn't disputing that, dumbass."

Tim stiffens for a second. Then he heaves another huge sigh, his shoulders slumping. "...Sorry," he mutters, scuffing one boot against the wet rooftop; a pebble goes skittering off towards the edge. "I, uh... sometimes get all defensive and kinda grouchy when I'm tired."

Both amused and endeared, Kon snorts. "Yeah, trust me, I've noticed." He lightly tugs at Tim's cape. "You've been on your feet for hours. Why not sit for a bit at least?"

Tim glances down at the wet rooftop and makes a face. It's been raining on and off since afternoon faded into evening, and Kon has to concede the point; stakeout or not, that's not the coziest place to chill. Sitting in a puddle might mean Tim's poor ass gets hypothermic—literally, his ass. Yikes.

Well, easy solution. Kon hops up onto an invisible recliner and leans back comfortably, then holds out his arms. "C'mere. You can sit in my lap."

For the second time in as many minutes, Tim freezes for half a heartbeat. Kon can hear his heart rate kick up a notch, can hear the breath catch in his throat, can hear his eyelashes brush the insides of the lenses in his cowl as he blinks rapidly.

Even behind the cowl, the look on his face is still as fond as ever. It does things to Kon's heart, too, if he's being honest.

"...Yeah, okay," Tim says. It's several seconds too late to be casual, but both of them politely don't acknowledge that.

Kon tugs him into his lap, winds his arms around his waist, and wraps his TTK around him for extra security. Tim sighs again, softer this time. He's stiff for a moment, but when Kon doesn't start screaming about cooties or whatever, he relaxes incrementally, muscle by muscle. Finally, after several heartbeats, his head comes to rest against Kon's.

Oh, Kon thinks. Oh.

This is nice.

Oh, no.

"Um. Thanks," Tim mutters. His heart is definitely beating faster. His fingers curl into Kon's jacket. Fuck, Kon likes that—he likes that a lot. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

"Anytime, Rob," he answers, way more casually than Tim managed, if he does say so himself. "Make yourself comfy. You barely weigh anything to me anyways."

"Mn." Tim goes quiet, but after a moment, he does slip his arm around Kon's shoulders, and... that's really nice, too.

"I guess we should keep watching for our guy to come out of there, huh." Kon forces his attention away from Tim and back down to the warehouse. They're on a mission here. He can't just get distracted by... by... canoodling.

"Yeah," Tim agrees, and—is Kon imagining it, or is there a note of reluctance somewhere deep down in his voice? "I guess we should."

[frostbitebakery]

Hi :D 👀👀 I'm very much intrigued by Surrender, Please!!! <3

The evil!Codywan AU that takes over my brain whenever I’m feeling especially volatile! They travel dimensions and of course got caught up in good!Codywan’s universe.

.

“You love me,” Cody grits out, roughly squeezing Obi-Wan’s body to his own. “You promised.”

“But—“

“No.”

Obi-Wan is shaking like a leaf in his arms, the pieces of him clattering apart, and Cody won’t have it.

“It’s calling me,” Obi-Wan rasps out.

“Don’t go where I can’t follow,” he begs, tightens his grip and presses his nose into the grey-tinted neck, the red veins. “You have me. You know you can’t lose me.”

“It would destroy me,” Obi-Wan agrees softly and a part in Cody’s chest relaxes in an increment. “I can’t lose you.”

And Cody can’t lose him. Not any more than he already has, like he lost himself.

“Help me turn around, please,” Obi-Wan orders softly after a while. Tremors still flit across his limbs but it’s getting better, slowly.

Together they take care not to aggravate Obi-Wan’s knee, Cody offering his body as a brace as always. Golden eyes flick up to his face before they vanish under grey eyelashes.

Sometimes he wonders when Obi-Wan lost all his colors except gold and red. Maybe it started when Cody caught him staring at the Open Circle Fleet insignia more and more often, lost in thought and grief.

“You’re not letting me go, are you?” The question is hidden in the robes and blanket, careful in its presentation as if there’s more than one answer.

Cody rubs his nose against grey hair, his lips against a grey forehead. “I’m not strong enough to do that.”

“You aren’t,” Obi-Wan says, echoes of mischief in his voice. He curls into himself, into Cody. “They want to see monsters.”

Cody glances at the mirrored transparisteel window along one wall. Their counterparts, the good versions, he thinks with a sneer, are probably watching. Watching and waiting.

“They’re wondering what made us this way,” Obi-Wan continues, voice raspy and rough ever since the gold broke his eyes. “They’re wondering where our roots are in their heads.“

[ladyhoneydarlinglove]

Lawlu/lulaw and gambling?? Or a fancy restaurant date

(askbox is still open for One Piece prompts!)

~~~~~

Rating: G Notes: Takes place in an ambiguously modern AU.

In retrospect, Luffy should have known better than to try going out for a fancy dinner any place that wasn't the Baratie on a night that Sanji worked.

But Sanji was gone for the month, staging at some place out in West Blue, and since Zeff had expressly forbidden Luffy from coming by the Baratie whenever Sanji wasn't working, that option was out. And while normally Luffy would have just suggested takeout tacos and watching reruns of Gol D. Roger: Pirate King for one of his rare date nights with Law (schedules between a trauma surgeon and a firefighter weren't exactly easy to coordinate), well…

Luffy liked Law. He liked him a lot. And sure, Law said that he liked Luffy—but lately Luffy had been having this… weird feeling, about Law. Something strange that bubbled up from the bottom of his stomach and lodged itself like a knot around his heart whenever Luffy thought about things like ‘the future’ or ‘their relationship’ or ‘the future of their relationship’. And no matter how hard he tried, Luffy couldn’t seem to shake the lingering thought that what if, one day, Law woke up and decided he… didn’t like Luffy anymore?

He’d asked Nami about it (after Zoro, who had just shrugged, told Luffy he was being stupid since Law was clearly charmed by his bullshit, and then asked if maybe Luffy had black mold in his apartment again that was messing with his head); she seemed to think it was a perfectly normal part of a budding relationship and said that if Luffy was really worried about it, he could try being a little bit more romantic towards Law. Dress a little nicer, she’d suggested. Bathe more frequently. Ask Sanji about borrowing some cologne. Treat him to a dinner that doesn’t come in a takeout container.

So when they finally got a date night to line up, Luffy had asked Robin for a favor and she got them a table at Baroque Works, a very exclusive fine dining establishment inside the Rain Dinners Casino; she’d even offered to foot the bill, touched at the effort he was showing. Ace had hooked him up with a nice suit, Usopp had produced a bouquet of suitable fancy flowers, and Franky had even offered to play chauffeur so Luffy could wine-and-dine Law to his heart’s content. And now here they were, tucked in a cozy little corner, working their way through a special five-course canard à la presse menu complete with wine pairings while soft jazz music serenaded them in the background. 

It was nice. It was romantic. It was—

"Straw Hat."

Luffy looked up at Law from where he’d been poking miserably at his empty plate, which had not had nearly enough duck confit with preserved cherry bread pudding to satisfy his frankly ravenous appetite. 

"Huh?"

Law smirked. "You hate this, don't you?"

Luffy blinked. "What?"

"You look like you're about two seconds away from trying to eat your own hand," Law explained, and Luffy grimaced. 

"Torao, I'm fine! Really!" he insisted, which was the exact moment his stomach chose to let out an impossibly loud gurgle. It sounded kind of like a whale dying.

Law raised an eyebrow, and Luffy slumped over the table, porcelain ware rattling ominously as his forehead hit the hardwood.

"Okay," he mumbled into the wood grain. "Maybe I'm a little hungrier than I thought I'd be."

Law chuckled. "Why'd you pick this place anyway?" he asked, poking Luffy's shin with his foot under the table. "I didn't think you even knew any fine dining establishments besides the one Black Leg-ya works at."

"I don't; Robin picked it out for me." Luffy sighed and lifted his head, letting the full force of his starved misery settle onto his face now that the the jig was up. "I was just… I don’t know. Trying to be romantic, I guess."

Law's raised eyebrow inched incrementally higher. "What for?"

A thoroughly uncharacteristic blush began to spread across Luffy’s cheeks, and he coughed nervously. “I, uh. I don’t… really know,” he said honestly, face scrunching up as he tried to think. “I think I was maybe… Trying to impress you?”

Law stared at him. “Impress me,” he repeated incredulously, before his expression suddenly turned very serious and he continued, "Straw Hat, the first time I met you was because I was treating you for second degree chemical burns after you rushed into an burning meth lab to save the dumbass punk kids that had gotten trapped inside. You don't need to butter me up with shit like a fancy dinner date. I don't think I could be more impressed with you if I tried."

He smiled—a very Trafalgar Law smile, which was to say he looked halfway between plotting a bank heist and wholesale murder, but with an undercurrent of softness that was so thoroughly Torao that Luffy couldn’t help but laugh.

"So... if I said we should ditch this place for tacos and reruns of Gol D. Roger: Pirate King…" he said with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle, and Law snorted.

"Only if you promise not to get them from the truck down the street from your apartment. You've gotten food poisoning from there three times already."

Luffy pouted. "But their barbacoa is so good!"

"Luffy,” Law said sharply, voice filled with equal parts exasperation and fondness.

Luffy snickered as he stood up and began hollering for the check, the knot around his chest already easing.

Zoro was right; Law was charmed by his bullshit. Luffy didn't have to worry about a thing.

[perplexingluciddreams]

I had a very good day today.

My support worker came to the house for the first time! It is my first time meeting her in person. Her name is Emily and she is lovely. (She also has very cool hair).

She was here from about 11am - 5pm. I got to take my time and take breaks to swing and rest and be alone. Emily, Mum and I had a chat in my room before lunch. I used my AAC and Mum helped me tell Emily things about myself. Communication is much easier with Mum there - I was a bit worried about getting stuck or having a shutdown and not able to cope with a Person there at all. But I did well, I think!

Then I had lunch and a break for swing and Grey's Anatomy. I was quite anxious in my body - tense, sweaty, a bit shaky. Even if I logically know that everything is fine, my body has an instinctive reaction as if I am in danger and not safe, every time there is a Person there in the house (usually this doesn't include parents or sister, because I am used to them living in the same house. But on some days it is absolutely everyone, no matter who). New People are especially hard.

It is also rather hot weather today (18°C!) so that threw me off sensory-wise. I had to take more time to regulate.

In the afternoon I decided to be very brave and play a card game with Mum and Emily. We did three rounds of blackjack. It was a lot of fun! We each won one game. I was still a bit tense, but I was also very proud that I did so well.

I really like my new support worker and I am happy and proud and relieved that today went so well. I finished off the positive streak with listening to Martin Fröst (legendary Swedish clarinettist) play Brahms and Mozart while in my swing.

Wednesday will be my day with Emily from now on. I am really hopeful that this can help me learn to be less scared and anxious around people. Or at least widen the group of people who my brain recognises as "safe". And it is just lovely to spend time with someone and laugh and smile. And get to tell someone new about my interests!

I also have been texting with my best friend in the past week. That is very nice. They are also friends with my sister and quite often pop round our house to hang out, although not with me (because, y'know, Very Disabled - I am sure I don't need to give the full explanation here!). I hope to work towards being able to be physically in the same room with them and hang out, eventually.

It is different with someone I already know, who knows me for years back. There is different mental blocks and barriers and obstacles for both New People and People Who Know Me. It will be a slow process, with lots of teeny tiny baby steps. But I have to start somewhere! So, next time they come round, if my bedroom door is already open, they will pop their head in and wave. That's it. Just wave.

I hope to write more in detail about my "brain barriers" (just what I call it because I don't have any other words) in general, especially relating to Other People. It is a tough topic, and very hard to find words. I have been trying hard for over a year to write anything about this, but the progress is incredibly incremental.

Anyway, now I will need a lot of rest, I am knackered! My body is still in a heightened state of anxiety from a new situation and New Person and how much stimming I had to do to regulate. Usually in the evening I can finally calm down my body - things get quieter and darker and colder and it is all much better. It takes more time to calm down physically than mentally sometimes.

But it is all so very worth it. And Mum is happy too :D

Time to relax, rest my body, and turn my brain off! AKA: Time to watch even more Grey's Anatomy!

[psychagoguedigitalmusical]

BIG PROGRESS UPDATE (1/2): 1 Month of DAW, Warrior of the Mind Basic Analysis, More Psychagogue Info & Characters, Reading List + What's next on my agenda

(This is part 1. Read part 2 here! https://www.tumblr.com/psychagoguedigitalmusical/778869348098015232/psychagogue-musical-preview?source=share)

Hello! It's been a while since my last big update. Work has been a bit heavy lately and I'm getting some stuff sorted out with my current medication, so it's been a bit harder to spend as much time and energy on this project as I'd like. That being said, I'm still thinking about it all the time, making notes for myself, and making incremental progress. The creative process is an ebb and flow; with my recently-diagnosed ADHD, even moreso I have to learn to ride with the waves. And with amounts of discipline I lacked in my younger years, I am able to consistently keep moving forward. So I'm excited to share some of the progress I've made!

1. Warrior of the Mind Basic Analysis

Here is the ✨S✨P✨R✨E✨A✨D✨S✨H✨E✨E✨T✨ we've come to know and love, feel free to give it a look for more details.

I'm going to keep my supplementary thoughts on this one brief today, since it's actually been a couple weeks between when I filled this out and now. Good song (honestly, I think like 39/40 of the songs are straight bangers, in addition to much of the cut content). The biggest thing I noticed when analyzing this song that I started to notice when listening everywhere else is really just how similar Athena and Odysseus are, which I especially took note of in the Wisdom Saga, like in God Games. Very well done. I also noticed other small things, such as Athena saying "enlighten me", calling forward to Zeus's line in Thunder Bringer, she talks like her dad alright. Very excited for a future analysis series where I note the all the setups-callbacks I notice like these.

Central Conflict:

Athena is concerned that Odysseus's consideration of Polites' Open Arms philosophy is leading him astray from being the greatest warrior she had been mentoring him for, a warrior of the mind.

Resolution:

Athena reminds Odysseus why she decided to mentor him, and reminds him to stay on track. She warns him not to disappoint her.

Thesis Quote (Fundamental question or philosophy):

I still intend to make sure you don't fall behind Don't forget that you're a warrior of a very special kind You are a warrior of the mind Don't disappoint me

What factual information do we explicitly learn about the unfolding plot situation?

Athena appears to Odysseus to chastise him for forgetting the lesson she taught him, which was to turn off his heart in order to be the greatest warrior.

Athena begins to recount the story of how she and Odysseus met.

Athena had set up a challenge to find someone skilled enough to kill a magic boar.

A boy took the challenge for fun.

Athena considers to herself this boy's potential.

She thinks she can mentor him to help make a better future.

Odysseus tricks Athena into revealing herself.

Athena is impressed by Odysseus, and they each try to get the other to introduce themselves first.

Athena offers to mentor Odysseus as a fellow "warrior of the mind". Odysseus agrees.

Athena warns Odysseus not to disappoint her.

Athena's lessons to Odysseus have involved "turning off his heart"

What factual information do we implicitly learn about the situation?

Athena's story of Odysseus and the boar (therefore, most of this song) takes place in a flashback.

Odysseus was the boy who took on Athena's magic boar challenge, and he won.

Athena used magic to make herself invisible to watch Odysseus take on this challenge.

Athena has been mentoring Odysseus continually since they first met.

What factual information do we explicitly learn about a character?

Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom

What factual information do we implicitly learn about a character?

Odysseus is an intelligent warrior.

Odysseus was a thrillseeker in his youth.

Gods are fallible and can be flawed.

How does a character explicitly view a character?

Athena views herself as a master of war

Athena and Odysseus view themselves and each other as "Warriors of the Mind"

Athena views Odysseus as clever, intelligent, and a great warrior.

Athena thinks Odysseus is straying from the path of mentorship she has taught him.

Odysseus views Athena as badass, witty, and a great strategist.

How does a character implicitly view a character?

Others also consider Athena a master of war

Athena views herself as clever.

Odysseus considers himself clever.

Athena views Odysseus as someone who could be the greatest warrior and change the world.

What information do we explicitly learn about a character's relationships, perspectives, or philosophies?

Athena is primarily motivated by creating the greatest warrior.

Athena is secondarily motivated by wanting to make a better world.

Athena considers herself Odysseus' mentor moreso than a friend.

Odysseus considers himself Athena's friend.

Athena does not want to be disappointed.

Odysseus employs trickery and deceit in his interactions with others.

What information do we implicitly learn about a character's relationships, perspectives, or philosophies?

Athena believes that the greatest warrior is a warrior of the mind.

Athena believe the purpose of the greatest warrior, a warrior of the mind is to make the world a better place.

Athena and Odysseus share similar values

Odysseus and Athena both shrewdly avoid telling others their name.

Athena is disappointed in Odysseus because she views his consideration of Polites' "Open Arms" philosophy as antithetical to being a great warrior of the mind.

Odysseus admires Athena.

As I've said, much more detail and explanation of the implicit points, and inclusions of the textual evidence in the spreadsheet, so check it out!

2. Psychagogue Info Dump

I think I've been fairly vague about what Psychagogue: A Digital Musical has been about up through now. If that's true, it hasn't been intentional. I have a very strong idea of what it is in my own mind and personal notes, but that hasn't always translated here to this blog. Excited to share at a high level what I've been cooking up. Be aware, everything here is subject to change throughout the process. Also, since we're looking at my creative process here, there will be spoilers.

What is Psychagogue?

Psychagogue is a story about loss. Psychagogue is a story about obsession. Psychagogue is a story about growing up as a young man in a society that doesn't care who you are on the inside. Psychagogue is a story about perception, perspective, and power. Psychagogue is a story about what it means to be a hero on the personal scale. Psychagogue is a story about monsters, parasites, predators, and thieves. Psychagogue is a story about memory. Psychagogue is a story about finding your voice.

Psychagogue is a love story. Psychagogue is a ghost story.

--

Our protagonist is an adolescent boy named Morvic. Feeling like an outcast from his family and peers in the town, the greatest solace in his life is a girl named Manor, his childhood friend although he's always yearned for more. One day when playing in the woods outside town, the tall tree that Manor is climbing is suddenly struck by lightning, and she falls to the ground. Morvic tries his best to save her, but is unsuccessful

Morvic does not take this well.

Later on, while brooding, Morvic is approached by a mysterious man who promises him the power to bring Manor back and get everything he wants. This man leads him to his lair deep in a cave in the mountains and introduces himself as the Psychagogue. In order to bring Manor back, Morvic is to enter the mysterious "Realm of Shades" and follow his instructions. Along Morvic's journey, he learns that not everything is as it seems, and maybe what he wanted wasn't what he needed. He learns to find his voice and grows from an insecure boy on the precipice of a dark path into a man to be proud of.

--

What is the Realm of Shades?

The simplest way to explain is that the Realm of Shades is a sort of Underworld. A mysterious and magical world parallel to our own, expect instead of being a land of the dead, it is a land of shadows, memories, and perception. In the Realm of Shades, perception is literally power.

People, places, and things project something called a Shade, which is a kind of physical illusion based on how they are perceived. For example, let's say that you got bit by a dog once as a young child and have carried a fear of dogs with you throughout your life. If you encounter a dog in the Realm of Shades, you might perceive it as a snarling, vicious, ferocious beast, even if in reality it is a small harmless puppy. Another example, you revisit the hometown you moved out of as a young child. In the real world, you might notice that the park you played in is a lot smaller than you remember. But in the Realm of Shades, it's scaled up to match your memory. A stranger on the street who resembles an old friend literally looks like them to you until the illusion is disbelieved. You trick an assailant into believing you have a weapon, and in the Realm of Shades, you physically do. I hope that all makes sense.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of ghosts. Do I believe they exist? Yes and no. On the one hand, as much as I want to sometimes, I cannot force myself to believe in the supernatural. So no I, Adam D. the author, do not literally believe in the existence of the spirits of the dead coming back to haunt you. On the other hand, yes absolutely 100%. Ghosts are real. But they aren't a supernatural oOoOoOoOo physical phenomenon. Ghosts are a phenomenon of memory. A ghost isn't a Victorian child in an abandoned hotel yelling into Zak Bagans's EVP recorder. A ghost is the empty spot in your bed where your dog used to curl up on a Sunday morning. A ghost is the scent of your ex's perfume on the air in the grocery store. A ghost is your mother's voice in your ear calling you a failure when you close the door just a little too loudly. Ghosts must exist because otherwise we wouldn't be haunted.

In my mind, the genres of fantasy and horror are two sides of the same coin, both founded on the core idea of taking an intangible part of the human experience and turning it into something physical that can be interacted with (The dragon is a wealth-hoarding tyrant who exists to be slain, the Babadook is grief, etc.) . This is the type of Underworld that the Realm of Shades is.

Who are the characters of Psychagogue?

Not a comprehensive list, everything subject to change, etc. etc.

Morvic

Our protagonist

Adolescent, approximately late teens in age

Awkward, insecure, low self-esteem, cynical, stubborn, naïve. But at the same time earnest, kindhearted, passionate, intelligent, determined.

Appears to other certain other characters as sad but well-inentioned, a lost soul in need of guidance, a vulnerable target with more money than sense, a dangerously obsessive powder keg, a genuinely kind young man, and more

Stricken by grief after Manor's tragic death, he undergoes a journey into the Realm of Shades in order to bring her back from the dead.

Musical identity, I'm thinking something like a harp, and longer more yearning songs. Tbd for sure.

Manor

Morvic's childhood friend

Adolescent, approximately late teens in age (deceased)

In Morvic's eyes, she is perfection incarnate. No other could ever compare to her beauty, her kindness, her everything. Morvic dreams about one day telling her how he feels and growing old in love together.

Closer to reality, it is true that Manor is a beautiful young lady. Combined with being sporty, confident, and kindhearted, she is a popular and well-loved member of the community.

She has the self-awareness to be aware of how others perceive her and feels a constant pressure to be the perfect girl everyone sees her as. Internally, she's a bit more tired, a bit more crass, and her secret desire is to become a priestess in the community.

She is one of the few people in the village willing to give Morvic the time of day. She has picked up on his feelings, but doesn't know how to handle the situation and genuinely doesn't want to hurt him.

Dies early on in our story.

Musical identity my current thoughts are something like angelic choirs for her shade, and pop-style music. TBD.

The Psychagogue

As we eventually come to learn, the antagonist of our story.

A mysterious magical man who appears to Morvic claiming to be able to grant him what he wants most.

He appears to Morvic in the form of an old wise philosopher/alchemist/wizard/scholar type, but in truth he is more than that.

"Psychagogue" is merely a title. A shared mantle by certain figures of the Realm of Shades who share similar abilities and a common goal.

Because perception is power in the Realm of Shades, the Psychagogue's ultimate goal is to find and take advantage of vulnerable people like Morvic for his own gain.

Leads a cult. If one Psychagogue were to disappear, another similar patriarch would quickly fill in his space. The specific man doesn't matter.

Along those lines, in our story, we see 4 different "aspects" of the Psychagogue. Despite technically being different characters, they are all the Psychagogue.

We will see aspects including "The Scholar", "The Predator", "The Salesman", and "The False Friend". You can imagine these are based on some of the real grifters we see in society.

Musical identify, I'm thinking something electric or ethereal. Think "dark barbershop quartet"

Raphael

Young man Morvic meets during his journey in the Realm of Shades.

Adolescent, but slightly older than Morvic. So late teens to early-mid 20s.

Noble, determined, kind, confident, wise, mature.

Originally descended into the Realm of Shades in order to save his younger brother. Haunted by his failure at this task. Has a bit of a savior complex.

Musical identity is regal, knightly, medieval, bold, heroic. Strings and brass.

The Huntress

A girl who lives in a hidden village in a forest in the Realm of Shades.

Adolescent, slightly younger than Morvic. So mid-teens

The forest around her village is plagued by a vicious prowling shadow beast known only as the Predator.

Due to her responsibilities, she must frequently travel through the dangerous forests. As a result, she has grown keenly adept at avoiding notice, staying safe, and survival.

Due to the environmental pressures of growing up under constant danger of the lurking Predator, she is responsible and fiercely loyal, but also very distrustful of outsiders and quick to strike first if it will ensure her survival.

Musical identity is primal, deadly, percussive.

Raphael's brother

A cultist in dedication to the Psychagogue.

Slightly younger than Morvic.

Musical identity will be some twisted combination of the Psychagogue, Raphael, and Morvic (think kind of like how Telemachus' themes are heavily derived from Odysseus' and Athena's)

The Goddess of True Life

A mysterious goddess who oversees the exist from the Realm of Shades.

In opposition to the Psychagogue.

More characters to come. I have some thoughts in mind for character relationships and arcs, but I want to flesh those out more before those are ready to share.

What will the story of Psychagogue look like?

On a structural level, I am currently planning to do something similar to Epic, where we've got an approximately 40-song story divided up into 2 acts. Within each act, there will be "Sagas" (though not necessarily by that name), each of which will focus on one section of the story, with 3-5 songs in each as a unit of action. It it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Still a lot tbd, but initial thoughts are something that vaguely shaped like this:

Descent Saga

Song 1: Morvic and Manor playing in the forest when tragedy strikes

Song 2: Morvic attempting to drag Manor into the village for help.

Song 3: Arrival at the village. They are not happy and berate Morvic for how he handled the situation.

Song 4: Morvic broods at Manor's grave.

Song 5: The Psychagogue introduces himself to Morvic and sends him into the Realm of Shades.

Shadow Saga

Song 1: Morvic enters the Realm of Shades and learns about its strange rules.

Song 2: Morvic meets some friendly denizens who want to help him out.

Song 3: Those guys turn out to be cultists and want to induct Morvic. His final initiation trial is a baptism of sorts.

Song 4: The pristine baptism pool turns out to be a vile and murky swamp. Once Morvic realizes this, the cultists leave him to drown.

Song 5: Morvic is saved from drowning by Raphael.

Some stuff happens, more stuff happens. Other thoughts that are not quite as well-formed yet are

The Predator Saga

Morvic for whatever reason needs to meet with the Huntress girl and get something from her. He's terrified of the Predator in the woods himself. As he looks for the girl, he either intentionally or unintentionally scares her and his own shade appears to her as the Predator. He is initially offended by this since he knows he isn't the Predator, but they talk it through and he learns from the experience. They come to an understanding and work together to take down the Predator aspect of the Psychagogue, who has been manipulating the situation in the forest for his own gain.

The Ghost Saga

Morvic enters a memory ghost town shade version of his own village. At first, it's perfect, everything he had ever wanted. The villagers and his family are all nice to him and he gets to live with shade!Manor in happiness and peace. But when the illusion shatters, Morvic learns to confront his past, face his fears, and determine on his own that what he wants isn't what he needs. I'm imagining that the musical identity of this sage will be cool, weird, and experimental. Things like glitchy/vaporwave/etheral, and all sorts of stuff like that that I just think is so cool. Seriously cannot wait until I get to this one even if that's a long time away from now.

Some other miscellaneous thoughts as well, like Morvic carries around a heart-shaped locket that was orginally around Manor's neck. He secretly knows that his picture isn't inside, but is in denial. This is his focus object that he manifests his shade of Manor from. Raphael sees Morvic as a lost boy like his younger brother. In one moment, Morvic makes a bad choice that drives Raphael away, and his primary motivation for act 2 is to find Raphael to apologize and reconcile. Honestly, I'm getting a little choked up thinking about this scenario and I haven't even written it yet!

Bonus Reading List!

I bought some books. Have not gone nearly through these yet, but look at this photograph every time I do it makes me laugh

In addition to this list, I also read through the self-help book "No More Mr. Nice Guy" (if you haven't picked up on it by now, Morvic is a Nice Guy TM, and a major theme of this story is him growing to be a better man).

I am currently working my way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces. With this project, I want to create a unique and original story (as much as those exist) and to evoke feelings of a classical epic.

In addition to all these, I have been accumulating a number of resources on writing, songwriting, and music theory from Youtube in my personal notes.

In the screenshot, books pictured are:

The Hero with A Thousand Faces (Campbell)

The Power of Myth (Campbell)

Modern Man in Search of a Soul (Jung)

Man and His Symbols (Jung)

The Seven Basic Plots (Booker)

Pathways to Bliss (Campbell)

Understanding Masculine Psychology (Johnson)

Goddesses (Campbell)

The Writer's Journey (Vogler)

The Aeneid (Vergil)

The Will to Change (Hooks)

Frankenstein (Shelley)

In addition, by pure coincidence, this past weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing the world premiere of this brand new play called Push/Pull by Harry Davis, which was really good and covers some similar themes of a young man's struggles.

As Abraham Lincoln said:

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

And as one of my friends with an actual education in writing has told me:

"You can't research your way into a book."

So as part of my creative process, I am learning to balance research with actually creating in order to keep making forward progress.

3. Snippets of Musical Progress

About 1 month ago, I downloaded the free trial version of Ableton Live. I had practically no experience using a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), and my knowledge of music theory was limited to the bare minimum needed in order to perform in an ensemble. Learning theory seemed like such an insurmountable task. In some ways it still does, but I'm not frozen in fear like I was when I began.

My free trial of Ableton has now expired, and I intend to purchase. I've had a bad habit before of spending money on tools for a project that I was excited about for a short time before putting it down permanently. This is too important, too personal for me to let my dream rot like that, so I decided I needed to be better about how I approach this one. I challenged myself to see what I could get done in Ableton before the free trial expired so I could justify the purchase to myself.

I took a few scattered approaches, including attempting reproduce music from Epic, cataloguing musical motifs from Epic for future analyses, writing lyrics, composing parts of songs, and in one case something approximating a first rough draft. I'm happy to share what I've got.

Be aware: All of this music I am about to share is unfinished and does not necessarily represent the final result. I share these in their unfinished states in the interest of honesty and transparency into the creative process.

Epic Motifs

Okay full disclosure I was originally going upload a half-finished MIDI recreation of Infant and the Horse, but appranetly the way the Ableton Free Trial works is that you can still use it; you just can't export stuff from it, so pretend I did that here and I may post Epic recreations in a future update. Luckily, I did get a chance to export may more things.

For recurring motifs in Epic, I will be cataloguing them (probably) in the future. I'll have a spreadsheet and all that stuff, but for now I recreated some of the motifs. All of this is from a work session in a single afternoon where my primary goal was to get some stuff exported before my trial expired, so bear with the jank please and thank you. I also came up with my own names for these and tried to abstract the motifs to their barest core forms. An exercise more than anything, but I'd still like to share.

Danger

uhhh, the mp3 export for this one doesn't seem to work, so we'll skip this for now

He will chase you

Used by Zeus in Infant and the Horse and by the Siren in Suffering

Just a Man

Used all over the place

Penelope

Penelope

Six Hundred Men

Used all over the place. Motif of Odysseus' crew.

Survive

Used all over the place, including Zeus in the Infant and the Horse, Survive in the Cyclops saga, and by Eurylochus in Mutiny

(When does a Man become a) Monster

Used in the titular song, and is the foundation for the Monster motif

There are a bunch more, but that will be for a future day.

Psychagogue Works in Progress

Okay so I wanted to post the audio files of some works in progress of Psychagogue music but apparently the hellsite only allows 10 audio uploads per day??? This feels completely arbitrary. I actually even had 1 more Epic motif in the earlier list that I tried deleting to make room. Nope. I saved my most developed WIPs for last, so I'd feel bad if I were to post my draft as it was and only show the bad stuff first with the better stuff hidden away in a separate post. Ah well, I have errands to run anyway.

Part 2 coming tomorrow (with the fresh juicy stuff in it), I already have it mostly written in a draft. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy what I've had to say so far. I'm glad to be able to share another progress update since it's been a while. As always, please be nice and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

(Read Part 2! https://www.tumblr.com/psychagoguedigitalmusical/778869348098015232/psychagogue-musical-preview?source=share)

[crazycurly-77]

Bob (22/24)

This is written in the style of the 24 series.

Events occur in real time.

Hour 22 of 24: 07:00 p.m. - 08:00 p.m.

07:01:02 p.m.

Party room on the yacht:

“Gentlemen!” the first officer called out loudly and clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

Suddenly the room became quiet.

He looked around at those present and when he was sure that everyone was listening to him, he said:

“Let's go to the conference room so the auction can begin. Please follow me.”

With that, he left the room.

Gibbs also began to pull away from you. You would have liked to hold him so that you didn't have to face the other women alone, but that wasn't possible, you knew that. You had to get through it somehow.

Attentive as he is, he noticed your discomfort. He took your hand, squeezed it briefly to cheer you up and gently kissed your temple. Then he murmured quietly: “You can do it. I know that.”

You looked at him doubtfully, but he just gave you a friendly smile and went to the other men.

But you had little time to think about the situation and how you should make small talk, because several women immediately came up to you and asked you:

“Tell me, darling, your boyfriend is veeeery sexy. Where did you pick him up? Does he have any brothers?”

Your eyes got bigger and bigger. The topic of the expected small talk wasn't clothes and hairstyles (which was bad enough), but that Gibbs was sexy and looked stunning.

"Nobody prepared me for THIS..." you thought frustrated.

07:04:56 p.m.

Conference room on the yacht:

Bob generally preferred to blend in with the crowd without being recognized. This was also the case this evening and especially during the auction. He didn't want anyone to know he was among them.

That's why it was his assistant who was now standing at the front and directing the process:

"Welcome to today's auction of the heavily armed helicopter with secret stealth mode that you saw on the aft deck. Bids are to be made in increments of 1,000 as a minimum and the amount is to be paid immediately by the buyer after the auction has ended," he explained and then paused.

"Does anyone have any questions?" he turned to the company again.

Everyone shook their heads, whereupon he nodded in satisfaction.

"Good. Then let's begin."

Gibbs discreetly looked at his watch and remembered the conversation with the director that afternoon.

You three absolutely had to be off the ship by 10:00 p.m., because that was when the FBI would launch an airstrike with the aim of destroying the helicopter.

Its destruction was the top priority and if he, Tony and you were killed in the process, then that would simply be collateral damage.

“The FBI gentlemen have to get involved in everything. They just can’t stop annoying me,” he thought grumpily.

07:15:45 p.m.

Interior of the yacht:

As planned, Tony left the party room with the other men. But instead of going to the conference room with them, he crept in the other direction to start searching the boat.

Obviously the mastermind of the robbery was on board and owned the yacht. So there had to be clues about his plans and his identity somewhere.

The first rooms he looked at were unremarkable. Then he passed the stairs to the boat's engine and thought to himself: "Since I'm already here, I'll check there too."

So he climbed down and was about to go back to the upper deck when he saw something suspicious in the far corner. He went closer and paused in shock. He quietly informed Gibbs over the radio: "Boss...there's a bottle of sarin gas hanging on the air conditioning. They're not planning anything good, but I haven't found any clues about the mastermind yet."

Gibbs had certainly heard him through the small receiver in his ear, but in his current surroundings he couldn't answer. So DiNozzo continued to follow the plan and kept searching.

After a few minutes he found an office. It had to be the owner's room and luckily he wasn't exactly tidy or thought he was completely safe because there were papers scattered on the desk.

He carefully searched through them, skimmed through their contents and finally found what he was looking for. The owner of the yacht and mastermind of the robbery was none other than the arms dealer Bob, who was wanted by Interpol.

Bob was just an alias, but who was behind it? Good question. And he got the answer when he discovered a photo in a drawer. It was unbelievable.

“Boss,” Tony whispered into his communicator.

“The mastermind is Bob and behind Bob is…”

He didn’t get any further.

07:59:58 p.m.… the clock was ticking….

---------------------------------------

Here you will find the other chapters of this story.

Masterlist stories - Part 1 (finished ones)

Masterlist stories - Part 2 (finished/ongoing)

---------------------------------------

Tags: @ilovemark1951, @hobby27

---------------------------------------

[finitevoid]

a&d is fun to write because this shit is tight. I just got done writing a 300k< fic in the span of about 4 months, and it was a contemplative, slow character study that had to frequently slow down to just kind of sit with its characters and have them grow in increments but a&d is like. Breakneck comparatively. I’m handing you a pressure cooker and it’s about to explode. Watching it explode is going to take like, max 70k

[blackjackkent]

@thedarkstrategist replied to your post “Ooh, got a dialogue I haven't gotten before with...”:

:o I've never seen this dialogue either and I feel like I always have her approval fairly high by act 2. Interesting. Maybe I just missed it

Actually gonna copy my reply to you into its own post here in case anyone else is also interested. :D

I actually remember watching a video a bit back that discussed the exact mechanics behind this. It's not really approval dependent, but instead she has a secret counter under the hood that is incremented by making certain specific dialogue decisions with her. It was kinda interesting actually!

Here's the vid if you're interested:

[utilitycaster]

This has been a long time percolating but I want to push back on the frequent criticism (that I am almost certainly guilty of myself) that people who don't get something have never played D&D (or the game in question) or have never been a DM/GM.

I definitely think that experience playing or running TTRPGs helps with an understanding of actual play as a medium; but it takes a certain level of awareness anyway, and I think it's very possible for someone who understands the give and take of a game but hasn't played it to have a strong grasp of how it works. Similarly, I think it's entirely possible for someone who has played to not realize the intricacies of their house rules vs. how other people play the same game, or to just not be familiar with every single detail.

But I think a bigger reason why, at minimum, we should be careful about this criticism, is that a lot of the time the things people don't understand or appreciate are ultimately about narrative and storytelling in general, rather than about D&D/TTRPGs specifically. For example: I find a lot of people do not handle the fact that NPCs are generally given less agency within the story. This is something of a function of TTRPGs...but it's not uncommon for people watching scripted media to similarly fixate on relatively minor characters and fail to understand why they remain minor, and why the protagonists get all the action. Similarly, not understanding an ensemble cast and the idea that focus will not be doled out in precisely equivalent increments but is rather character-dependent is not exclusive to actual play, nor is treating things as too contrived. I think, actually, a little knowledge of TTRPGs but no strong grasp on narrative/media criticism actually exacerbates this problem: TTRPGs have a random element, so people sometimes expect randomness even in places it normally would not exist. I will say that this is a case where GM-ing experience might innoculate you, but someone who is neither a GM nor a player but has a strong understanding of how to tell stories will also probably take no issue.

I also think that understanding the rules of actual play are not the same as understanding the rules of TTRPGs - it's much more high level, especially when it comes to (for example) combat in games like D&D and Pathfinder. You do not need to understand action economy in depth, for example - it can add something, definitely, but it's not a requirement for the story on the whole - but you do need to understand that combat is an important part of this story. All of this is pretty easy for someone paying attention, even if they aren't familiar with the game. They just need to understand that the medium has specific rules, and then grasp what they are.

I actually think the above - understanding that there are rules for the medium - is something where getting too into the weeds is a detriment. This is in fact why I think a lot of discussion of scripted adaptations of things based in actual play or TTRPGs (TLOVM, the D&D movie) misses the point. It focuses too much on specific mechanics when the goal is the storytelling. This can also be true within actual play itself. Rule of Cool is very subjective, but there are fairly widespread house rules: many people ignore the fact that small races can't have heavy weapons, because this is frankly stupid in a world where the magic armor shrinks to fit you and few people bother with the details of encumbrance or size for any other strength-based checks anyway. Don't get me wrong - I love mechanics and think there's a place to debate them and talk about what one might have done differently - but that place exists outside the larger story and isn't really relevant anywhere but those niche side conversations about mechanics. I'm not really a pure "as long as we're all having fun :)" kind of person, but I also do think it's absolutely vital to understand that rules and structure exist to facilitate something, and not for their own sake; people who forget that and only focus on the rules tend to lose sight of the actual goal (which for TTRPGs as used in Actual Play is telling a story).

I think the place this gets even more fraught than all the above is when we get into broader and more nebulous and subjective TTRPG philosophies or the limits of what stories can be told (the infamous Player Agency debates and by extension railroading; understanding what kinds of scenes a given game can support) because they are both unique to the medium but not governed by clear rules. But even then I think what's ultimately more important is picking up the type of story from a baseline, rather than relying on one's own personal positions. For example: D&D as a system has in my opinion some pretty profound limitations when it comes to heists - it's possible, but it's not designed for that to be the main story. There is absolutely a scenario in which you, as a D&D player in your home game, can run a wonderful heist. But the question is really "does this actual play tell this story well? Does the TTRPG system support and add to it, or is it merely accommodated" and answering the first question requires no D&D knowledge whatsoever, and answering the second requires a degree of compartmentalization that not all D&D players have.

So in the end - there are scenarios in which knowledge of the system an actual play is using, or being a GM, are uniquely helpful, but that's mostly in the area of mechanics. Most of the rest will be better addressed by having a strong sense of narrative structure, characterization, and how to tell a story; and focusing on tiny mechanical details can even be a detriment to understanding if one becomes fixated on perfect rules as written over, well, having fun.

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Survival Genre

Surviving the Game as a Barbarian is a good series so far. The character has bumped up against both the limits of his knowledge in terms of, "I know a bunch of stuff about the isekai I've been dropped into but it's still a random-seed style game so I'm not some God of Destiny" and also in terms of "I know how things work when it's a game but it turns out drinking healing potions is intensely painful."

Having watched the first episode of Black Summoner yesterday, I feel a strong appreciation for how Surviving the Game as a Barbarian maintains stakes.

And...maybe that's an unfair comparison.

Back when 3rd Edition D&D was dying down, I got the Dungeon Master's Guide 2, which contained some of the most broadly useful gamemastering advice in a game manual. That was where they broke down the players into types, with ideas for how to make them happy:

The Supercooler plays to be awesome. Play up his hits, maybe even play up his misses as mighty swings the opponent just barely slides under.

The Tactician plays to see their plans come to fruition. Give them points in the story where they have advance warning of events and ways to capitalize on that.

The Troublemaker plays to act out in a safe environment. Give them an aside now and then where they can Fuck Around and Find Out.

The Explorer plays to imagine a grand journey. Describe your vistas and the wonders of where they're going.

The Lurker plays to spend time with friends and isn't comfortable getting into the game. Make their turns as uncomplicated as possible, and give them ways their in-game actions can make the other players happy.

There are three or four more, but you get the idea. When it came out I thought the DMG2 was the worst game book I'd ever read; It had almost nothing as far as new classes and monsters and...but at this point I'm thinking it was one of the best. It was teaching lessons about All Gamemastering.

Anyway imagine a similar list of gamer types for videogames. Now you can see that stories like Surviving the Game as a Barbarian are stories that play on the kind of gamer who wants to optimize. They want the main character to face impossible odds and win, which is not the same as someone telling us "That's a Tier-8 Angel" and then having the protagonist scoff and say, "Then I'll cast a Tier-9 Banishment!" and immediately win. "Facing impossible odds" is based on relative level.

But as I've said elsewhere, there's an entire subgenre of isekai these days that is based around people who escape into games in order to relax. In the isekai this escape is more explicit, but the desire is clearly the same. They want to do everything in the game the easy way. They start off with ridiculous power, and while the writer may include a token effort to show difficulty it doesn't last because it's not the point.

Anyway if you like to see your protagonist challenged, Surviving the Game as a Barbarian is quite good. It's had some hard stuff but thus far (in my opinion; Your mileage may vary) manages to skirt the line and not quite fall into Misery Porn territory. At the present point in the story, things are tough but manageable. So in spite of its minor visual similarities to Fear and Hunger (I really wonder whether any concepts were inspired by that cruel game) this isn't a particularly cruel narrative so far. And while I could be wrong I don't get the impression that the author's planning to murder all the lovable background characters. I think this will be a proper adventure, with the hero pulling and scraping to make gains and become more powerful, and then face off against incrementally more powerful foes. Which is a good vibe, if you're a certain kind of reader.

[ghosttownwherenoonegoes]

I HAD A DREAM ABOUT THE HAWKINS CREW, CORRODED COFFIN, HELLFIRE, JOYCE AND HOPPER

ohmyGOD okay so all of us were playing some kind of campaign where we had to sleep in sections of twenty minutes and Eddie had written out a very long very precise set of instructions for everyone to follow. He didn't print out copies, he handwrote ALL OF THE ABOVE CHARACTERS their OWN copy of the instructions and personalised them with his own doodles. And we had to follow them to the letter, all of us, or the campaign wasn't gonna work.

So anyway, everyone sort of split up into their own groups and naturally, I went up to Eddie and I asked him if maybe he'd want to partner up with me? Eddie's response wasn't verbal, he just wrapped his arms around me, waited until I did the same to him, and then started humming Master of Puppets under his breath and it was so sweet and gentle😭 I swear, I could FEEL his arms around me.💔

All of us follow the instructions as best as we can, everyone is paired off nicely, and then Joyce and Hopper come looking for their kids. Will shows Joyce the instructions and she's confused but supportive (same impeccable energy as when she told Will she needs to buy him new crayons because it looks like his character is shooting cabbages🤣) but Hopper is like "this doesn't make sense". And he and Eddie go head to head in a very... They're challenging each other in a friendly way and having fun with it. Eventually, Hopper concedes and so does Joyce and they sit down to watch all of us play D&D, and we get a third of the way through the page before Eddie notices that the younger kids are all starting to find it hard to follow the incremental twenty minutes of sleep because they just want actual uninterrupted sleep, and he calls the session off so that they can get some rest.

Everyone kind of... Disappeared after that, I guess my imagination ran out of juice but it was me and Eddie in the end and I asked him if he was tired and he nodded and we laid down together surrounded by all the campaign props, character and instruction sheets, chalices filled with Mountain Dew, and then I asked him if... If maybe he would want to date me. We have chemistry, right, so how about it?

JUST AS EDDIE LEANED IN TO GIVE ME AN ANSWER, I WOKE UP.😭😭😭😭

I'll take that as a very graceful no 😂💔

[romegaketh]

M, Q, and D for in the pocket!

Lots of text so I am putting this under a cut!

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

I had to kill a Randy/Cody subsection of Seth Rollins Has A Bad Time In Omegaverse and I probably won't follow through on it ever because Randy is too gross for me to want to spend like... lots of time in his head. But I really like the internalized homophobia Potential (wow, florals for spring, tumblr user romegaketh is interested in internalized homophobia) of Randy being like ... very angry that he desperately wants Cody to top him and frustrated that he can't stop feeling like that ever and willing to take out that confusion and frustration on Seth and Cody, probably. I just think Randy's particular combination of gay for pay and homophobic lends itself to him having spent a lot of time baiting Cody into topping him and then being furious about it later.

(Also weird for Cody, obviously, but he can just go to Japan and be insane there xx.)

Randy and Seth had history. Randy had history with everyone; Seth had history with everyone. Cody and Randy were so complicated that when Cody thought about trying to explain it the words leapt into his mouth and tried to strangle him. There was no denying that everything Cody was today bore the print of Randy’s fingers. He had been betrayed - brutally - and just as brutally fought for.  And still there was nobody who misunderstood him so deeply as did Randy; who if asked would probably say that Cody, in turn, misunderstood Randy himself. 

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

I love to keep a little scrap file for every wip because it helps me to feel less like I am killing my precious babies. I was very unsure about how to fit pocket into current timeline and this was the option I was running with initially but have now discarded, thank you for coming back, Roman.

Seth came into the hotel room wearing basketball shorts and an old Shield t-shirt. This was textbook appeasement and it would have worked if Roman had not watched the show from the hotel bed, getting steadily angrier and angrier, until there was something banked and roiling burning in his chest.  “Two weeks,” Roman said. He got up and shut the door behind Seth. “To fight Damian Priest. For the title.” “Some of us like doing our jobs,” Seth said. This was 2012, do you miss football, did your dad teach you that move; Seth with the single blond patch, in the trunks. Roman caught him by the chin. The blond hair fell around his face; he was tan from all the time next to Roman’s pool, in Roman’s yard. The roots were showing already. “I have been with you for ten weeks,” Roman said. “Try that again.” “I’m gonna say his name, so you need to settle down.”  Roman gritted his teeth. Fuck you. Seth shook himself free, pulled himself up to his full height. He was wearing the fucking brace, at least he retained an increment of sensibility. “Hunter and I talked. We went through preliminary testing, I’ve wrestled some under supervision. It’s going much better than anyone expected.” “Under supervision-” He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. “Jesus,” Seth said, and he caught Roman’s shoulder, guided him to the bedroom, to the bed, where he knelt on the mattress with only a singular wince, pressed his forehead to Roman’s, stroked his other hand along Roman’s side. “Hey. It’s me. I’m here.” The chair.  “I only didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to stop me. But now you know, now everyone knows. You’re here. It’s fine.” “Seth.”  “I'm sorry,” Seth murmured. He kissed Roman's forehead, pressed that whole long line of himself against Roman as if Roman were not one wrong breath from violence against him. “But you would have stopped me, big brother. You would never have let me get on the plane.” “I love you,” Roman said, furious, exhausted, terrified. “Is it still you? Would you tell me if it wasn't?”  Seth cupped his cheek with painstaking tenderness. “I don't know. But I'm me, I think. I do love you.” He said that, too. He felt his hands around Seth's neck. The Royal Rumble. I never want to hurt you, he'd told Seth in Ohio.   “This isn't the hotel room I booked.” “You're returning. You were entitled to a penthouse on your own terms.”  “Did you do this to other people?” Seth asked. “Other partners?” Roman shrugged. “Nice things? Yeah.” Other partners, he thought. Seth in the same universe as a girlfriend, Seth in the same universe as Roman’s ex-wife - “It's not nice,” Seth said. “It's about control.”  “It's nice, though.” He waved a hand: bedroom, living room, enormous bathroom, balcony. “He should have done this for you.” “I'm not fucking him. If that's what you're implying.” Not this time. His heart hammered. “You've held every title in this company. He ought to respect that.” “Do you?”

D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [right in the pocket]?

Well. I did not expect pocket to be a billion words long so it is titled from this song and it's a bop. Whatever, we'll all live.

[clowngames]

i’m a game dev student at an art school and i’ve been really struggling with finding my niche…. i LOVE being a environment/modeler/texture artist, and i want to have more skills in the design/tech side… but i’ve been struggling really hard with learning unreal engine 5 for my classes. do you have any experience in unreal5 blueprinting or just anything more on the tech side? i would appreciate some advice to get through these tough college quarters :’D

Whenever someone entering gamedev on the programmer side is struggling to figure it out, there are generally two reasons for this.

The first is that they're struggling to get into the programmer mindset. Blueprints try to bridge the gap, but code doesn't work like english. It doesn't even work like the human brain. When we think or talk we take shortcuts to formulate or convey ideas because we can trust that when it comes time to interpret those ideas another person (or ourselves in the future) will fill in those gaps. This is so intuitive to us that we don't even notice that there are gaps. Programming forces you to become aware of how many gaps there are and fill them, and quite frankly it's a humbling experience.

I'm probably not saying anything you don't already know, but I want to emphasize that the way coding works is unintuitive to most people and we need to retrain our way of thinking to get good at it. This is unfortunately not a fast process. It's very common especially for new programmers (though I'm not immune even now) to go "I'm a fucking idiot, I'm a fucking idiot, I'm a fucking--I'M A GENIUS" because of the cycle of shit not working for stupid reasons and then finally working.

The second problem is that they're unfamiliar with (and overwhelmed by) the library they're working with.

A "library" in a programming context is typically collection of functions and objects you can import into a project, but each game engine has its own built in libraries which the engines are built around. These are the verbs and nouns that aren't built into, for example, C++, but have been added by Unreal Engine to make it easier to make games.

The better the game engine, the larger the library. Unfortunately, the larger the library the more overwhelming it is because that's a lot of shit to learn.

In your case anon the "library" would refer to the different kinds of nodes you can add to the blueprint. When you're new to it, even an expert Unity dev will struggle in Unreal because they don't know what their options are to accomplish things.

Now the reason I break down the new-programmer hurdles into two distinct problems is because they often seem like one problem, which can make it hard to solve. Both get better with experience so sometimes slamming your head against a wall is a viable way to get through them, but it's not the best.

If you think your main issue is the first problem, you can work on it through "exercise." This can be in the form of taking programming courses on codecademy (I'd recommend C++ since you're using Unreal, though C# isn't a bad choice) or by playing a game by Zachtronics like Infinifactory or Opus Magnum. These games are "programming puzzle games" and I can personally attest to having gotten better at Infinifactory as I got better at programming.

If you think it's the second problem, the biggest solvent is curiosity. When I get into a new engine, I spend a bit of time learning how it works and then immediately try and figure out how to do dumb shit in it. I made an incremental game in RPG Maker just to see if I could. It wasn't good, but it was a fun educational experience. Sometimes I'll come across a function I don't understand, and I'll open the engine's manual and read about the function and use that as a jumping off point to dive into similar functions.

It doesn't feel good for my advice to be "read the manual" but genuinely there's a point where you realize that you're reading the manual instead of watching youtube videos and it's like, holy shit I'm a real programmer. It's a sign that you're getting comfortable enough in the role that you're learning what questions to ask to figure out what you need to know (youtube is still a great resource of course).

All of that said though, if your aim is to be an environment artist I think it's okay to be bad at programming. Survive college, of course, but if you're in a team with a dedicated programmer (which you will be if you are not the programmer) then all you need is to be able to understand how to communicate with the programmer. It's really beneficial to know enough about the fundamentals of what you're working in to know what info the programmer needs from you and what info you need from them, but you don't have to be good at it to do that!

[volivolition]

what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

what’s some good advice you want to share?

fave song at the moment?

youtuber you’ve been obsessed with and why?

-Drama

hi hi hello Drama!! :D <3 my responses are long-winded as usual <3

1) what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are? - growing up second oldest in a big family (you still carry a lot of responsibility for all the younger ones but whoops you're still not your perfect older sister!! oh well im a boy now so i never will be lmao!! speaking of which:) - transing my gender B) - MOST IMPORTANTLY, reading homestuck (truly fundamentally changed me as a person, artist, and storyteller, i cannot tell you how much of my current self can be all traced back to that fucking webcomic hkjhg)

12) what’s some good advice you want to share? - carry a pen, napkins, bandaids, plastic cutlery, hard candy, and something with whimsy (this can be a tiny bubble wand, stickers, a fake tealight, a fidget toy, etc. for me i have a tiny bag of ttrpg dice) with you if you're going to socialize somewhere. the hard candy is fun to share with friends (and is. also important if, like me, you have low blood sugar...) the whimsy item is just a good conversation point or boredom reliever - if executive dysfunction is fucking you up, break the task into tiny parts, with the first step being one you literally cannot fuck up, count to 20 and start the first step on 20. (if you dont start on 20, forgive yourself and count again). - hold onto whatever tiny joys you can, any reason to stay alive is a good one, progress can feel incremental but i promise it will get better eventually as long as you keep living.

38) fave song at the moment? other than "Too Sweet" by Hozier playing on repeat in my brain, "On Your Mind" by Noah Floersch has been really vibing with me lately :3 <3

39) youtuber you’ve been obsessed with and why? truly my youtube is a mess, i rarely watch youtubers consistently hgkjh <3 um, my best answer is probably Drawfee, but even then, i haven't been watching them as often these days <3 i put them on in the background because since they're drawing, they encourage me to draw too hkjhg <3

[phcenixforce]

chapter three - april

The New Year and spring came fast. Wayne got his cast taken off another month after the conversation with Terrence about what his plan would be. They settled on Wayne getting a Greyhound ticket to Boston, since Brockton is about 30 minutes away. Terrence even promised Wayne to give him a 200$ Visa gift card so he could get food, clothes and pay the taxi fare to get to Brockton. He told him he was a good kid and just needed to be set on a good path. Their therapy sessions often were sitting in silence or meaningless small talk. Stuff about Wayne’s dad, or his brother before he left. His mom. Del. He gave Torrence a very abridged version of what happened that summer. To Torrence, it was progress. To Wayne, it was wasting time.

With his cast off, Wayne tried to be careful. He still did ‘weight training’ which was more about him getting to balance out his strength than the actual weight training. Initially, he dropped everything he picked up. It was frustrating and annoying. The keyword was tried – within that few weeks of the cast being off, he caused fights every couple of days. It drove the staff and officers crazy, that this one boy could cause riots. But the strangest thing happened after a while of all the fights, bruises, bleeds - weeks, weeks of prying people away from one another, and no one being able to piss without being babysat - everything was suddenly peaceful. Despite Wayne being the harbinger of violence, it was like everyone sang a song of harmony.

It was so out of place. Even new boys to cell block D behaved. It wasn’t like they all clamored around Wayne, but no one picked on each other anymore. The adults were bewildered. As each month passed, a plan bigger than all the juvenile hall’s staff could imagine. They were planning on a jailbreak. Things had gone missing over the course of time - July / August to now April. Pillow cases, socks, cutlery. But not missing in large increments. Nothing to trigger alarm bells. Wayne wasn’t necessarily the facilitator but he was a participant. He paid attention to times and shifts of rotations for the officers. His hearing went well - Torrence speaking highly of Wayne. But still, the severity of what he did, he was supposed to stay in until July. That did not work for Wayne. Being here this long already was Hell. Not a day went by where he didn’t think about Del Luccetti.

The plan was April 15th, it would be jailbreak day. Boys who preferred juvie over going back out to the real world would be the ones to incite one big riot. Someone would steal a set of keys from their counselor, and paperclips to make lock picks for the fire alarms. All hands would be on deck, and left a skeleton crew to watch the rest of the boys. Wayne had pillowcases to help him climb over the fence, and not get cut up by the barbed wire while he scaled it in his jumpsuit. He wasn’t going to get the 200$ Visa card to help him through, or the bus ticket to Boston. But nothing was going to stop him. He was just looking for a final sign to go forth in jumping in the jail break.

⛓𓌹*♰*𓌺⛓

The day before. April 14th. His routine. Up. Bed. Breakfast. Up to therapy with Torrence.

“No fights, collaboration with your peers…you’re doing fantastic, Wayne.” Terrence looks over his notes. Wayne is busy otherwise, looking for things to take. Truthfully, he would feel guilty stealing from him. This man had been nothing but patient. He said such nice things at the review hearing. He fiddles with the small envelope in his hand. He wrote it during individual time - a thank you. Thank you for saying such nice things about me, for me. He was looking for a reason, some final flag to tell him to stay or go.

“Thank you.”

“So do your peers. We’re all really impressed with how everyone is doing and getting along.”

“Yeah.”

“Really, Wayne. You’ve really turned things around. I’m proud of you. Even though we don’t always talk fully during these visits, I am fond of them. That being said…I recommended to the court that you’re done early. Later this year is too long for us to keep you.”

Wayne’s eyes darted from a picture on the wall to Terrence. “What?”

“I recommend you to be released by the end of May at the most.”

The end of May. Still too late to not see Del.

“Really?”

“Yes. I figured our sessions coming up could be us doing maintenance and preparing for transition. You have so much potential, and this won’t be the be all, end all for you, Mr. McCullough.” He felt bad. All of this work. He still needed a sign. “You have a strong sense of justice. You have it within you to do what’s right. And that’s very admirable, Wayne.”

Wayne picks his head up. “What’d ya mean?”

Terrence gave him a warm smile. “You have a very justice forward personality. You protect people who need your help. When you leave here Wayne, do what’s right. I know you will.”

That was it. That was his sign. Wayne juts his hand out with the letter.

“Here.”

“What’s this?” His counselor tilts his head and takes the envelope. It’s addressed to Mr. Brown. “Thank you Wayne.”

“Wait uh. To read it.”

“Why?”

“It’s important.” The best thing was that Terrence respected his clients and their wishes.

“How long would you like me to wait - rather, what day should I read it?” He tilts his head.

“I dunno. Friday. Not today.” Then, Wayne would be gone. He would understand. He told Wayne to do what was right.

“Till Friday, then.” He leans back in his chair, and places it so it leans against a framed wedding photo. “It’s your hour. What would you like to do?”

“Listen to music.”

So, that’s what they did. Terrence and Wayne sat in silence as they blasted Wayne’s preferred music artist out of the shitty desk speakers on his desk. One worked on stuff at his desk, typing up notes and filing papers while the other bobbed his head almost violently to the tracks. Tomorrow was the day he would get out, and get straight to Del.

⛓𓌹*♰*𓌺⛓

The morning of April 15th was the same as the day before, and every other morning. The first half of the day was the same, but group activity. Group activity is when the fun started. Through breakfast and lunch, everyone exchanged knowing glances and acknowledgement of commitment to the plan. Ten minutes after lunch ended, 6 of the 20 boys in cell block D started a fight. Although inflicting physical pain on one another, they promise their concentrated blows on their torsos and backs. It was more painful for the officers to manhandle them in trying to get them to stop. Another 3 pulled 3 different fire alarms with one of the keys they stole, and bent up paper clips that they made work for lock picks.

The alarms blaring, combined with the kicking, screaming and yelling was Hell on Earth for everyone’s ears. For the remaining 13 boys - they bum rushed whatever skeleton crew was left to manage them. They wrapped their arms in sheets and pillowcases, tucking fabric around their necks and faces to scale the barbed wire fence with ease. As Wayne sprinted his way out, approaching it, a gut pang hit him the minute his fingers wrapped around the metal links. He was scared somehow he would break his arm again. In awe of his own feats, he pulled himself up the barrier and climbed over, the worry of his arm still being weak subsiding. The other boys - Christian and Jesus included - hooted and hollered as they ran as fast as they could. Wayne attempted to follow, but had more of a plan than the others did.

Every time he was outside, he looked for hiding spots. Bushes, leafy trees. Of course officers would look under cars, or catch them jay running across the street for their freedom. Sirens rang as people were discharged. Ocala police sped up and down the street, and a loud sound like a tornado siren came from the juvenile hall, signaling lockdown. Some of his peers didn’t get very far - tackled on the hot Florida asphalt in the middle of traffic. Wayne hauled ass behind buildings and alleyways for about five blocks, nonstop. It stung when he rapidly inhaled and exhaled to bring oxygen to his lungs. The closest, ambiguous hiding spot was flinging himself behind a shitty wedding chapel. He jumps inside of the green dumpster, and the top closes as he collapses on top of some stained wedding dresses. Panting, he tries to catch his breath and closes his eyes.

Adrenaline coursed through his veins, pumping his blood through his body what felt like twice as fast. He felt lightheaded as he collapses back against the metal behind him. It smelled sickeningly sweet inside of this dumpster. Like someone poured champagne and cake in the garbage - rotting icing and sour booze. He scrunched his nose. He looks down at the shredded pillowcases stained with droplets of blood. They were in tatters. He touched around his face, thin cuts with little blood. He sighs. His lungs hurt, and he runs a hand through his hair - his scalp moist with sweat. He doesn’t really know how long he had fallen asleep for - when he wakes up again, he’s sweaty and scrambles to push open the plastic swinging top. It was still light out, but he wanted to kick himself. Walking out of the alleyway, he looked for the time. He looks all around for something to signify what time it was - anything. He passes by an antique store, and looks through the window. A large display of clocks, all in sync.

4:15 P.M. On 4/15. Next to it was a bus stop - with little shelter and a small metal stool. He looks at the route map that’s contained behind a large piece of plexiglass. He scours it for the bus stop, or a Greyhound stop. Identifying it and streets, he begins to walk. Eyes frantically analyzing each sign - he walks, and walks, and walks. The adrenaline high has crashed, and he can’t feel his feet. He rotates between walking and running, but it doesn’t feel like he’s making progress. The sun says goodbye, and the moon rises. The air is cooler. He unbuttons the top of the jumpsuit and ties it around his waist. Underneath was a white t-shirt now soaked with sweat. The bus station came into view. It was well lit, and busy with departing and arriving buses. He snuck his way in, and shuffled to a security desk.

“Where’s lost and found?”

The barely conscious security guard sits up - inhaling mid-snore, answering on command, as if he already had the answer loaded in. “Behind here, lad.” His overwhelming Irish accent catches Wayne off guard. He moves around the desk and the man, and gets on his knees to dig through the cubbies.

“What’re ya lookin for?” The man asks, not bothering to look behind him.

“Uh, stuff. M-My stuff.” Wayne blurts. Godamn beacon of truth. Wayne sifts through the lost belongings for a pair of worn Vans that looked like they were supposed to be beige, a pair of torn jeans his size if not a size bigger, and a t-shirt with some forest on it and a grey hoodie. He wonders where his clothes will go back at the juvie. He missed his green overcoat. He listens to the man behind him drift into sleep again. Wayne’s eyes darted around for the time again. It was already 7. He groaned, and dug towards the bottom of the cubbies for wallets. No one carries cash anymore. He found about 50$, which was fine. He slinks away from the desk and to the bathroom.

He discarded the awful, suffocating jumpsuit. He stuffs it into the garbage bin, and takes soap and paper towels and soaks it with water. He washes up under his arms and around his neck. He looks at himself in the mirror. The scar on his nose. The scabs from the most recent cuts. He looked down at his feet - since he didn’t put the shoes on yet. He lifted his legs, and let the water run over his feet in the sink basin. Some men walked in and out of the bathroom, looking at him for a minute but didn’t pay any mind. He pulled on the socks, and the shoes. He shuffles out, and looks for the desk to buy a bus ticket.

He approaches the desk.

“How can I help you, young man?”

He taps his fingers nervously, setting the money on the counter.

“I need a ticket to Boston.”

The woman looks down, and she looks displeased.

“Baby, you need 250$ dollars to get to Boston.”

Wayne’s face went pale.

“What?”

“It’s 250$ dollars.”

Wayne grimaces. “Why’s it cost so much?”

Her earrings jingled as she looked at her computer. “They’re FlixBuses.”

“I don’t know what that is?”

“They play movies while you drive.”

“I don’t want no movies. I wanna get to Boston.”

“I don’t have any other buses until next Tuesday, honey.”

Her demeanor was kind, but almost pitiful. Wayne looked like a sad dog left in the rain. He looks down at the cash. “I’m sorry, baby. I’d make a miracle if I could.” She looks and scans through her computer. There really weren’t any cheaper rates. Wayne sniffles, and takes the cash back. She looks around and leans over the counter. Her hair was streaked with grey, and her tight ringlets frame her face, and her little glasses holders swing as she looks at him.

“There ain’t no other way?” He rests his fists against the counter.

“At 9 o’clock, Jedidiah will be drivin’ out to Boston.” She looks back at her computer. “He close to retirin’.” Her voice has a southern drawl to it. He wonders where she’s from. “He don’t care who get on that bus. He’ll be in row.. 9, spot 3. Get on that bus and go, okay baby boy?”

He looks around, like it’s a joke.

“I mean it. For real.” She holds a hand out and rests it on Wayne’s fist, gently squeezing it. “Get to where you need to be. You look like you on a mission to go somewhere.”

“Thank you.” He mumbles, and she lets him go and waves him off.

“Next!”

He sits down on a wooden bench, surrounded by all kinds of people. People in suits and nice clothes, or lounge clothes. Homeless people, clutching their jackets tight as they watched the red LED clock. It was 8:30 now. He had another half hour before he could leave. How long did a bus to Boston even take? Were they gonna stop places? He hugs his knees, and waits.

When 9 rolls around, he jumps as fast as he can to get into the parking lot. He snatches a used bus ticket out of the trash to at least look believable. He runs out to the parking lot, and runs up the steps of the bus identified by the nice woman he spoke to earlier. The man looked tired, annoyed. He looked close to retirement. He groans in welcoming everyone on board, and doesn’t bother checking their tickets. He holds onto the one he had anyway.

Boston to Ocala. What a coincidence.

He sits down, and jumps - pin stuck in his leg. He lifts his left leg and pulls out the sharp object, and a rubber backing. It was a green four leaf clover pin. He cradles it in his hand, and looks out the dark window - the lights of the city trying to sleep shone through. He looks around the bus. Everyone was so vastly different, going to Boston - or maybe would get off on those stops along the way. A man in a suit sits down next to Wayne.

“D’you know how long this bus ride is?”

The man with his combed over blonde hair looks at Wayne, then to his own ticket.

“Doesn’t it say?” He nods to the paper in Wayne’s hands. Wayne covers up the reversed departure and arrival locations.

48 hours. Two days.

“I believe we have 3 stops along the way, if I’m not mistaken.” The man holds up his own ticket. “Yeah, a few cities. They’ll be brief. It must be your first time.”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be fine. Get up and stretch during those stops. Sitting here for hours is bad for your legs.”

“Thanks.” Wayne nods, and rests his head against the window. The man nods, and goes back to reading some papers he settled in with a briefcase. The bus groaned as the man pulled the gear into drive and exited the Greyhound parking lot. Goodbye Ocala, Florida. Behind Wayne was the pain of saying goodbye to a mom who he knew now was better without him, and the last thing his dad could leave him. Behind him was the life before, and now things would be different. Things would be different when he got to Boston and reuinited with Del.