#i am sorta burnt out in terms of writing so this has like

[our-blood-is-our-ink]

—✧ Day One: Villains ✧—

Wanda finds herself in Westview after her magic saved her from being crushed by Mount Wundagore

She wakes up to discover Agnes has been tending to her for a few days while she had been out cold

For a few weeks, she allows this to continue

But Agatha's voice has been steadily growing louder in her mind

So she releases the Agnes spell, after casting runes to prevent Agatha from immediately attacking her

I won't say I'm sorry, but I can promise to make it up to you, if you swear your allegiance to me.

Only if you swear the same to me, buttercup

They essentially married each other and neither of them have realized it

Agatha still has a lot of FeelingsTM and EmotionsTM about Wanda's treatment of her

She needs an outlet

Wanda, in a stroke of brilliance, points her in the direction of Dr. Strange

Your goals and my goals aren't mutually exclusive. I want my boys, you want to make up for your past mistakes. And he'll try to stop both of us.

Wanda doesn't think she's ever seen anything as hot as Agatha in midsts of magical battle

She actively decides then and there I want to make her worse

World domination, people. She plots world domination.

And for Agatha's part, there's just something oddly appealing about Wanda with a spark of cruelty and deviousness behind her eyes.

She wants to kiss her so bad

They're an unstoppable force, with Wanda's sheer magical power, and Agatha's hundreds of years of magical knowledge

The first time they fuck it's on a battlefield, they've just successfully decimated another country's entire military.

Agatha initiated, but she quickly finds herself on her knees

She had idolized the Scarlet Witch when she was younger, and now that she's older, she knows that she had been right to

Wanda is a proper goddess born of Earth and of humanity, but has ascended and become something more, something beyond. Something ethereal and eldritch, and Agatha craves her in a way she never has craved anything else

The destruction and chaos she wields... Is it any wonder Agatha has found herself as willing a plaything as she could be?

Wanda's expression always softens, just a bit, whenever Agatha submits to her

She knows that to control the dark being on her knees before her is a single found rarity that only she has been gifted with

They get off on being violent, and egg each other on to commit some the worst acts of inhumanity anyone has ever bore witness to

Their fingers stain darker and darker, until it's crept up past their elbows, until they live and breathe darkness

Unhinged dark wives fr fr

The Scarlet Witch's destiny is either to destroy or rule

Why not both? Agatha whispers in her ear. Why can't we have it all, after everything that has been taken and stolen from us?

Agatha's destiny is to stand side by side the most powerful being the universe has ever seen

They're hella possessive of each other too

Constantly marking the other up, constantly wearing hickies and love bites as badges of honor, of pride, of she chose me over everyone else

Their love for one another is twisted and warped, but it's stronger than anything the world or universe has seen

[realityhelixcreates]

Beta, Theta, and Me Chapter 7: The Invisible Cage

Chapters: 7/?

Fandom: Thor (Movies), Avengers (Movies) Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: PG

Warnings: Relationships: Loki x Reader (But not right now),

Characters: Loki(Marvel) Additional Tags:  A/B/O, Sorta, More Of An Exploration Of Life And Self Expression Within An A/B/O Framework, Loki Does What He Wants, But Loki Does Not Actually Do What He Wants, Antagonistic Bosses, Loki Has A Throne Now, But It’s Not What He Wanted

Summary:  Loki and his servant discuss the nature of freedom.

You found yourself hiding in your apartment for several hours that day. Loki had gotten a call-the first you could remember-and had instantly bid you leave his presence. In fact, he said he would have preferred you leave the building altogether, but it was suddenly pouring outside, so you'd opted to hide out in your room instead.

You didn't know what would cause him to act that way, but you'd tried to use the time to take a nice relaxing nap. But the sound of rushing wind had rattled the tower, and someone had entered Loki's apartment without bothering to be quiet about it.

Shortly after that, the shouting had begun.

So much for napping.

You opened your door just a crack, and peered out into the round living space down the hall.

Thor was there.

THE Thor, the God of Thunder himself, the only man you'd ever thought might make a good case for monarchy.

He was pacing back and forth in front of Loki, gesticulating broadly, both of them speaking in raised voices. You didn't understand the language at all, it was round and bouncy, with long rolled R's, and rock hard consonants. They didn't seem to be fighting; this was not a shouting match with each other. This looked like shared anger, a common indignance over some other subject.

They discussed loudly with one another, Thor standing across from Loki, around the little table where you shared meals. He was drawing something in a note book, tapping the paper for emphasis, while Loki took up the pen and drew something else. Eventually, the loudness died down, both men becoming absorbed in whatever plan or problem they were going over, and you hid back away in your rooms, satisfied that there wasn't going to be a fight.

They were more than a little frightening when they shouted. There was power in those ancient voices, and it jellied your insides. What must it have been like for people, hundreds of years ago, to hear these beings speak? It wasn't surprising that bygone societies had been built around them.

Thor left eventually, with grim laughter, but seemingly on good terms. When you slunk back out into the hallway, Loki remained at the table, writing in his notebook. He seemed tense, but not angry.

“So...” You started. Loki blew out a long breath.

“I desire some kind of sweet confection.” He said. “If you do not already know how, please learn to make some kind of cake or cookie, and then do so.”

“And then...”

“And then eat some with me.”

Dismissal then. So be it. He'd tell you, or he wouldn't, what business was it of yours?

It was time to level up. It was time to learn how to make cookies.

                                                                         ******

You knew that if this were a movie, or TV show, smoke would billow out once you opened that oven, and your cookies would all be burnt. But that's not what this was, and your cookies were actually fine. A little flat and crispy around the edges, but perfectly tasty. Loki seemed to take extra pleasure in their crunchiness, a detail you filed away for later. He was still agitated, but it was like a swift current at the bottom of a calm stream. You found yourself a bit afraid to step in.

“What do you think freedom is?” He asked abruptly. He'd been back into his extra-long-titled philosophy books again. You'd been trying to convince him to move on from Keirkegaard, but the existentialism spoke to him.

He'd had you sit with him next to his huge fireplace, and sing a few times now, and he even translated excerpts from his books for you in order to discuss them with you. He liked your somewhat cynical, layman's view on these lofty subjects, even seemed to find validity in your sometimes frustrated “I don't know, why should it matter?” answers. This time you thought about it for a while.

“I think it doesn't actually exist. It's an unobtainable idea.” You said.

“Care to expand?”

“Well, okay. So what is freedom? That's a really tough question, right? Like, for some people, its 'not being discriminated against because of skin color' or something like that. For others, it as simple as financial stability. But both of those have something in common with what I think is the average definition, which is 'not being beholden to capricious authority figures'. But is that even possible? I mean, say you're a king.

Not literally!” You exclaimed, as Loki opened his mouth. “But as a king, there's supposedly no higher power than you in all the land, right? But...you also have responsibilities. Burdens. You have to rule, and you have to do it well, or you won't be king for long. You still, in some part, owe your time and effort to the people you rule. You aren't free. You can't just do whatever you want, whenever you want. The people won't put up with it. Eventually, they'll rise up an overthrow you, maybe even kill you. It happened a lot.

But if you go with the Divine Right idea, even though you're telling the peasants that they have to do whatever you say because it's God's will, it's still admitting that you answer to a higher power. Therefore, you are not free, because you are under the authority of a deity and supposedly have to abide by their rules and doctrines. If you don't, your Divine right to rule may be revoked and again, if you have ruled poorly, you'll be overthrown and killed.

You can't even reach freedom by removing yourself from the chains of society. Take yourself off to some deserted place with no other people around, and you can do whatever you want, right? Except you still have to eat. You still need shelter. You still have to spend a lot of time dealing with those things. You are still trapped by the laws of nature. Try to defy them, and you will be killed.

Even in death...either there's no afterlife, and you just stop existing at all, and therefore can't engage in concepts such as freedom, or there is an afterlife, but it follows the rules of the god who created it, and you have to follow those rules while you're there. There's no such thing as true freedom. It can't be achieved.”

“How does that make you feel?” Loki asked softly.

You shrugged. “Not as frustrated as I should, I guess. I don't feel strongly about it. What am I supposed to do about it, rebel?”

“Isn't that what your parents did?”

“Yeah, and they're both dead!” You exclaimed. Loki fell quiet.

“I'm sorry.” You said. “It's just that everyone who finds out about them expects me to be like them, but I'm just not. I'm not their opposite, but I'm not...them.”

“What happened to them?” He inquired. “I don't actually know about them, save for what you have alluded to.”

“You have a phone, right? Look up the 'Joyful Liberation Compound'. I'll clean up these cookies.”

You washed the dishes and cleaned up all the flour and crumbs. When you joined him at the table again, he was staring at his phone, expression grim.

“Yeah.” You said.

“You are the only survivor.” He stated.

“Yeah, because I ran away when I turned seventeen. Had to smuggle myself out in the back of a supply truck. They didn't let us back outside once we came in. Only very carefully vetted individuals, high in the pecking order were allowed back into the outside world, and then only to recruit or bring back supplies that we couldn't create at the compound. 'Liberation' was right in the name, but we were very Not Free.”

“Brave little thing.” Loki said. “It must have been very difficult to make that choice.”

“We joined when I was fifteen.” You said. “I was only there for two years. Not like the other kids, who were raised there, or spent most of their lives there. They didn't know anything else. Now they never will.”

“Your government baffles me sometimes.” Loki said. “Billionaire slavers are elevated rather than criminalized, yet they're perfectly prepared to raze an entire compound to the ground? With everyone inside? Even the children?”

“They were an accelerationist cult.” You pointed out. “They thought the end of American civilization was coming, and that they were supposed to help bring it about.”

“And your government is full of dominionists and fascists.” Loki pointed back. “This seems nothing more than one civil deconstructionist cult destroying the competition while it is still small.”

“Yeah, it sucks all around.” You agreed heatedly. “That's what happens when you have one set of laws for a favored class of people, and another for everyone else. The scum rises to the top and then chokes out everyone else...Sorry.”

Loki regarded you sourly. “You speak very freely, brave thing.”

“Is it different where you come from?” You asked.

“Yes, actually. We have an unbroken line of succession that oversees a thriving and prosperous culture, kept that way by firm, yet judicious leaders.”

“You tried to take over a whole planet by force!”

“I intended to fix your crumbling infrastructure and even out your unbelievable inequality issues.” Loki insisted.

“By enslaving us all? Making us all equally subservient to you?”

“There is a difference between bravery and foolishness.” He warned. “I meant to rule as a benevolent god. You do not wish to see me vengeful!”

You snapped your mouth shut. His Alpha scent intensified when he exerted his personality, but it was the power in his voice that shivered through you.

You hated that. You hated it. The scent made you so uncomfortable, dredged up so many tainted memories. And the vocal power of an Old God squelched your spirit. You sat, still and quiet, practically radiating resentment.

After a few moments of extremely uncomfortable silence, Loki sighed.

“It would not have worked.” He admitted. “My intentions were not pure. I would certainly have tried, yes, I would have given my best effort, but there were...other...factors.”

“What other factors?” You asked. Hadn't your real boss, the one that paid you, the Tony Stark one, asked you to find out things about this exact subject?

Also, you were curious. What was the secret? What had brought the great god Loki low?

His mouth opened and then closed. No sound came out. As you watched in growing confusion, his face began to twitch, twisting into a grimace, his eyes filling with frustration. Breath hissed through bared teeth, his fists clenching over the armrests of his wheelchair. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Loki? Loki! Stop!” You exclaimed. “Stop, you don't have to! Stop!”

Loki let out a groan of pain, then shoved you away when you grabbed his hand. You fell right on your rear.

“Get out of here!” Loki roared. “Get out of my sight, and do not show your face again today!”

You scrambled to your feet and rushed to your apartment, slamming the door behind you. Your organs felt like water, as you slid down the back of your door, flinching at the sounds of destruction coming from outside.

What was that? What had just happened? Did it hurt him to try to speak of what happened to him? It had seemed like some painful, physical battle. You fumbled for your phone and called your real boss.

[hopoo]

DEADBOLT Q&A

I tried to answer every question as honestly as I could, so I hope this is a good read. If your question isn’t there, it’s either identical to another one asked or joined together with another question. Cheers!

Q: In total, how much time does the campaign of Deadbolt span? It’s hard to tell, what with it being infinite nighttime and all.

A: I would imagine a month-ish. It is implied that the Candles are doing some sort of investigative work between missions, which would surely take some time. Q: Did you have any major inspirations for the visual design of DEADBOLT? A: John Wick is obviously the biggest one! Q: What would hopoo do if someone made a game completely based and inspired from Deadbolt and its… Concept? (with permission and not) A: There’s no way DEADBOLT is that unique in settings or thematics – ultimately, you know what’s right and what’s wrong when you’re inspired by a work, and so will everyone else! If you feel obligated to ask for permission, maybe you’re not exploring enough original ideas? Q: When will we get modding? if so could we get a simplified modding kit? Any plans for updating dedbort, even just the map editor? Feature for adding custom sprites, rotation tool, copypasta tool, just to name a few… A: So the thing with that is that the map editor is only half the equation – while the map editor may be writing stuff to files, it also has to be interpreted on the end by the DEADBOLT game itself. Therefore, adding features that aren’t supported in engine simply won’t work – it won’t know what youre talking about. While rotation is supported in the engine, it doesn’t know how to read that from the files, etc. I also am trying to avoid any legacy issues where old maps are required for old versions of DEADBOLT, or vice versa. Q: When is deadbolt 2 coming with werewolves and mummies A: Werewolves aren’t undead you dingus. But mummies could be cool.

Q: Will the stuff that came with the release of Deadbolt on Play Station, will be added on PC? A: Nope, that was sorta our deal-sweetener for getting on the Sony consoles. Q: Will we ever see expansion levels for Deadbolt or would we get Deadbolt 2 instead? A: DEADBOLT 2 maybe sometime

Q: Does Ibzan is gay? A: I haven’t really thought of the sexual orientation of any of the characters, and I definitely don’t want to pull a JK Rowling and retroactively assign them. So in terms of canon, that just hasn’t been explored.

Q: Would you prefer deadbolt 2 to be in 3d and 2d? Would you do a sequel? A: DEADBOLT is probably the narrowest design space I’ve worked with – there’s no dodging, insta death, insta travel attacks. By the end I felt very stretched out in terms of enemy design, and for that alone I’d think 3D. But hey, I may also just hate 3D by the end of RoR2 so who knows :^). I’d love to do a sequel one day, most likely from the perspective of Ibzan. But who knows! Q: Did Ibzan want to kill the Fire, or just try to reconcile with it? A: He just wanted to talk – but who knows what would’ve happened after the Fireplace rejected him? Q: Would you be interested in going back to the world of deadbolt sometime in the future? I remember hearing somewhere a 3D concept would be interesting to work on. A: I wish I was talented or driven enough to write comics for it – I think DEADBOLT is more about the stories of individuals, compared to RoR who is a story of the universe. I wrote the Cassette Tapes to reflect that. Q: Looking back, is there anything you’d change about Deadbolt? A: Hmmm… I just wish I somehow could expand more on the lore and gangs, and what their goals were. Gameplay-wise, it was a tad too short. I liked doing a few standard stages, and then a mix-up stage (sniper, trap, boss, etc) – maybe we could’ve fit in a few more rotations. Q: What’s your favourite loadout? A: Death/Taxes and Flashbang, like a scrub. Q: Would you ever be interested in restarting the asset suggestion thread A: I consider DEADBOLT to be done – as a 2 (now 3!) man team, we financially can’t do the games-as-a-service thing like most big companies can for smaller games like DEADBOLT. I also intended DEADBOLT to be a one-and-done thing as a contrast for Risk of Rain, which we updated for years after release.

=CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT= I personally also think that EVERY game getting a bunch of DLCS and updates and patches for a long time is, in a way, exhausting as a player. I think it makes it hard to feel satisfied when you finished a game and it’s over and you feel completed in the journey, knowing it’s not ~technically~ over until the devs stop patching. I think it’s great for some games (mostly multiplayer-based ones), but some games you just gotta let… finish, on a good note. Semi-open ended endings are always unsatisfying, in my opinion, and so recently it just feels like you don’t ever complete a game. …On the flip side, we are planning on doing lots of post-launch support for RoR2 because it’s actually inline with our design goals, so don’t fret! Q: Will bugs like Scythe not having a cover sprite or some enemies not having a falling sprite (which causes the game to crash) be fixed? A: Which enemies have been missing a falling sprite? They should be resorting to idle, not crashing. Bosses? Q: Just wanted to say, you guys are my favorite games studio, hands down. Now for the question: Now that the Reaper has completed his task and is allowed to rest, what’s next? Is the Fireplace going to keep him resting for a while? Does our MC have another task to accomplish? A: The Fireplace has never let a reaper “rest” before - the reason he is allowed to rest is because Ibzan never got to, and the Fireplace is trying something different with you. This is unexplored territory for the both of them – presumably he just pets his cat and gets bored before getting back to work. Q: What happens to everyone else in the afterlife? A: People who aren’t in the Place? Who knows, and who cares about boring happy afterlife 😊 Q: I had a question about the lore. There’s mentions of places outside the city, across the river Styx. What are they and what are they like? A: The Styx connects the other realms together, including (presumably) wherever the demons came from. This is explored lightly in one of the demon cassette tapes. Q: Will you ever expand more on the world of deadbolt or are you 100% done with it at this point? A: Nope definitely not done, really wanna explore more one day Q: What’s your office address? For post and stuff, maybe I want to send you a box full of A4 sheets of paper with a thousand hoopters on each. A: Maybe this is the paranoia in me but I’m not comfortable posting my address online – you can just tweet it at me a thousand times instead Q: Did Ibzan think the flames would give warmth to the Dredged or was he just lying to them and using them for his own gain? A: He was lying to himself, but he did truly believe that this was going to work, because this (at the time, anyways) seemed like the only way out. Metaphor woawoawo Q: Could you add some sorta DEADBOLT reference into RoR2?  Will the Reaper be playable in Risk of Rain 2 as a bonus? A: Definitely references happening in some form, but playable might be stretchin’ it a bit, especially since it’d be taking up the slot of some more in-universe secret character. Q: How excited are for RoR2? A: Honestly very nervous for the reception, with very big shoes to fill as a sequel for RoR. I just hope people like it, and that we don’t get burnt on 3D because there’s so many possibilities in the future for our games in 3D. Q: How are the Demons born? We know they’re made in birthing chambers, but then is it just like humans or is there anything specific needed for a demon to be born f.e. skeletons>suicide, zombies>overdose, etc. A: Demons aren’t undead and don’t naturally exist in the Place, which is why they have to be smuggled over – they exist in whatever version of hell is in the DEADBOLT universe, and are natural denizens of the underworld. Q: was izban hot before he died? A: The hottest Q: do all the nightclubs canonically have chris c. as the dj A: Yes Q: I love Deadbolt very dearly and i’ve listened to its soundtrack (particularly “Now I Am Become Death”) more times than i can remember. What’s your favourite tune from Deadbolt ? A: Defunktorum or The Proverbial Dust Biters Q: In the Hardmode Cassette Tape it talked about a Reaper that wasn`t the current Reaper that we play as in the Game. Was this Reaper Izban? Since in the tape, he talked about the fireplace as his friend and that could be why he wanted to go back to the fireplace through the portal at the end of the game, to revisit his friend. A: Yes yes and yes. This was most heavily implied in Ibzan’s “home”, which parallel yours. Q: Will RoR2 still have opportunities to create silly messy builds like covering the screen in missiles or releasing an endless stream of Thqwibs? If so, how are you working to mitigate the performance impact of those crazy builds? A: Yep! Currently we have a system that detects the average particle count in a scene and slowly adds a chance non-important effects (like hitsparks or impacts) don’t ever spawn. This will at some point also involve turning off expensive effects and reducing particle LODs. Q: I really love the attention to detail to the characters, environment, aesthetics and gameplay mechanics. Its themes on the criminal underworld and the supernatural give a unique identity in a high-octane/stealth pixel action game I have not seen before. Additionally what prompted or inspired you to make DEADBOLT in the first place? A: DEADBOLT in its entirety was supposed to be not-Risk of Rain. It’s a gorey, violent, moody singleplayer puzzle-stealth game. We were just burnt out from the Risk of Rain experience, and we also wanted to flex our design muscles a bit and show that hey, we’re not just a one-trick pony of gamedevelopment :^) Q: I just played through this game on PS4/Vita over the weekend. Huge fan of Risk of Rain. Even bought it through Limited Run Games. So I had to pick up Deadbolt (Didn’t previously know you had made it either.) and I love it. Its a super solid experience. I’m not sure I have any questions about it. I guess I was curious if co-op multiplayer was ever considered in development? Keep up the great work. Can’t wait to see what you guys make next. A: Nope, because of the reasons above – we wanted a single player game, since RoR was a multiplayer one. Q: First of all, congratulations!! I really loved the game since came out, I bought it for my birthday, since risk of rain made me fell in love with all the pixel art in it, deadbolt didn’t disappointed me!! Everything in it I love it! Thanks for the game!! Now the question You already answered about how the skeletons or vampires came to be in that Place, how the vampires are killed by their lovers, but, how a reaper, becomes to be a reaper? I mean a candle said “I’ve never been so close to one” A: Originally, the reapers were actually supposed to be from suicides – if I remember right, the reaper when going down the stairs to the docks still has the hole in the back of his head in his sprite. Currently, it’s not explored how a reaper is made – I think a bit of mystery is always needed in making a believable universe J Q: Lorewise how many reapers are there total? Why are they incredibly fragile compared to the undead? What makes the reapers not undead? A: IIRC there were 4 fireplaces in the final stage, which was supposed to represent the way the fireplace was communicating to all reapers in the field. Q: Do you like turtles? How about corgis? A: Yes, and yes (although there’s way too many in Seattle now). Q: Did you have any idea Chris would break out a whole band’s worth of musicians for the soundtrack? His work was superb and the OST remains my absolute favorite to this day. A: DEADBOLT OST was actually done with many people – it must be in the credits somewhere! If I remember right, there is at least a drummer and a musician.

Thanks for all the questions, and happy hunting :)

hopoo

[40countdown]

This is it! The Final Episode! The Last Installment! The Swan Song of the Blog! I’m 40 as hell already! (01-14-18)

Original Goals 

Looking back at the goals I laid out in the first post for this blog… I didn’t do bad.

Body Goals:

My weight is where is should be.. Weigh in 158.5  

The 2 inches off the waist didn’t happen. Ha! The waist is as trashy as it was but probably no worse.. since I never measured with tape I have to judge based on which pants I can or can not button and how uncomfortable it is to put a sock on.. which still tends to fluctuate after a few good or bad weeks.. but I’d say I’m right about where I started.

(this is from today at the gym when I registered for a thing... :D) 

The elbow miraculously healed.. the pain is gone but last week I noticed it was radiating heat like a nuclear reactor so.. I might wanna get it checked out.. or maybe I just have a hot laser in my elbow from the spider bite. #superpowers

We all know that I pissed away any chance of being “11 months smoke free” a long time ago, but I recommitted to ruining that goal this past week during vacation/birthday celebrations when I torched 2 full packs of Marlboro Reds. I really do think the 2 Tough Mudders I’ve signed up for will help keep me from reaching for the reds in my weaker moments.

Blood pressure has not been checked but I’d be surprised if it’s great after the birthday week vacation I’ve had of all night bars and all day food closing out with a delicious “brisket burnt ends” sandwich from The Joint.

Career Goals:

Documentary is not finished, but it is much closer and I’m more fired up about it than ever! This one is gonna hit like a Bruce Lee kick, y’all. I aim to complete and submit to festivals by the end of March and that is still absolutely manageable with my much lighter spring semester schedule.

Longer term job offer.. I got that since I got the full time job offer this past August which I’ve accepted. I also did get accepted to an MFA Screenwriting program, but I declined to go in favor of the job and the chance to actually finish the film.

Feature film script.. I know exactly what I want to write next but.. that goal seems insanely over ambitious looking back.. I definitely assumed everything would go much faster with the doc than it did, but.. I’ll say now that by this time next year I fully expect to have achieved that goal. Can’t wait to write again!

Heart/Mind Goals:

I aimed at 7000 minutes and 20mins/day average.. The phone won’t tell me how many minutes unless I sit and add up each day.. but it does say 21 mins/day avg for the year, which is crazy! I touched on what I feel like I get out of meditation a few times earlier so I won’t yammer on rewording the same thoughts, but it feels good to know I’ve been able to take a small step in the direction I think is good for me. I want to do much longer sits this year.

Elliptical/Sauna.. 

I’m sure I also averaged 20/mins in the sauna for the year but the elliptical I walked away from in favor of shorter runs on the treadmill so.. I sorta traded that and my phone doesn’t track the treadmill so.. you’ll have to take my word that I feel I probably did also get that average. I was in the gym a LOT this year. Ha!

Fed My Head:

I aimed at 12 audiobooks and I did 17. I would love to do even more but editing requires the focus of all the faculties I possess.

I certainly however did not “read more than 10 books.” I read chunks of a lot of books mostly relating to preparing film syllabi and keeping my head in the film problem solving space. But I just finished of Year of Magical Thinking, given to me by my dad after my friend Palma died. It’s a tough read b/c of what the author went through, and not at all what I expected from the title, but I would recommend it for anyone who cares about people :)  

A Very Special THANK YOU to Scott McCarthy 

Owner of Balance Strength and Fitness Center www.balancefitnesstraining.com

Scott voluntarily gave me a 4 day workout routine. He tailored it to my situation, a slowly healing elbow and someone who can’t spend 3 hours in the gym everyday.. and while my food and beer habits probably prevented me from losing the belly flab, I definitely gained noticeable muscle in my arms, chest and legs. So, I’m certainly stronger than I’ve ever been and in a pretty well rounded way. Without Scott’s workout plan I’m sure that I would’ve waffled from one thing to the next w/o seeing any results, but with it, I had just the right amount of workout 4 days a week and I was able to push myself each time I walked into the gym. And it was great to know that I had a map from someone who looks like the Incredible Hulk and has been training people for 20 years. He just moved into a new place and upgraded the gym that he owns. He also knows a ton about nutrition and will happily call bullshit on a lot of fads that come through, but he’ll tell you exactly why it’s bullshit. Much Respect! Scott! I owe you some video work, brother! Let’s coordinate and we’ll put some cool spots together for the gym. If you (dear reader) are in the Delaware area and want to get real about training stop reading this and drive directly to his gym… unless it’s really late. Then just go FIRST THING TOMORROW!

Final Thoughts..

I want to thank every single person who read this thing even once and especially those of you who shot me a little word of encouragement or a book suggestion along the way privately or publicly. I truly do believe as an experiment it was successful even if all the goals weren’t met b/c I did have the idea of being held accountable for my actions in mind probably more than you’d imagine. And while it didn’t keep every cheeseburger or cigarette out of my face, it did get me to meditate on weeks where I might not have at all. And the fact that I mediated a few times or ate healthier a few times to be able to report that I had done so doesn’t make me feel like I’m somehow a fake. I was as honest as I could be about everything I did and in the case of food, exercise and mediation in service of the audience.. I still get the benefit of each thing even if it isn’t coming from some pure unpolluted source of willpower. I think there’s a bit of horseshit in most ideas that swirl around purity anyway, so.. I’m good with using the blog in the way that I did.

I’m also glad to be done. Ha! I’m happy that I stuck with it for the full year, but.. I’m looking forward to returning to keeping my shameful failures quiet like everyone else online. When I get time I will probably go back and read through the entire year and there’s a chance I might gain some personal insights from that, so I look forward to doing that. And after a borderline belligerent 10 days in New Orleans to celebrate the fact that I’m still standing at 40, I’m also looking forward to getting back to regular exercise (which I did none of in Nola even tho I brought the running shoes :D) as well as returning to eating more like an athlete in training than an idiot with a death wish. I did yoga Thursday and got back in the gym for the first full workout of the new year today - one week after getting back from vacation.

Goals for 2019:

Heart/Mind

Some kind of dinner with people once or twice a month Keep a daily food and exercise journal Mediate 30mins/day Listen to 20 Books Read 5 Books

Career

Get the film sold at a festival Finish a feature screenplay and get lead cast attached  

Body

Zero Cigarettes Lose most of the belly flab - I just signed up for an 8 week fitness challenge at my gym :) Maintain Gym routine (4-6 days/week weights, 2-3 mile runs 1-2 days/week) Keep doing yoga once a week Keep an eye on Blood Pressure

Food

Take probiotic stomach supplements for a year.  Beef no more than once a week (taper down to once a month by end of year) Quit fast food. AKA - quit being gross, AKA quit using my organs as an industrial sludge filter    

Eat more good for your gut stuff in general (straight copying my cousin on his cabbage soup/quinoa moves)  

Booze

Alcohol limited to dinner with friends and 1 glass of wine with dinner (I did this wine w/ dinner thing for a stretch of time in the past. It worked and I like it). Not drinking makes it a lot easier to quit smoking as well - I once quit both for 9 months.. I did the one glass of wine/night all last week. It worked. And I’m cutting beer completely for the next 8 weeks so as to get fucking shredded to maximum and win $750 from this god damn fitness challenge.

I think a big part of why some people find it hard to finish writing books.. or anything is b/c they don’t feel like the end is good enough.. and maybe this end is lacking. I put off writing it for a couple weeks b/c I wanted to make it special in some way.. I wanted it to feel like an amazing ending.. but done is better than perfect and I am now done. I love y’all! I really do! Thanks for all the support!

And remember.. “when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up.. then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.” - (fictional character) Josey Wales  

Get Mean in 2019 ;)

[terriblevalveartandocs]

About Valve OCs and the blog

This has been on my mind for a while.

This blog never got a satisfying end in my books, and I’m sure for other readers as well. Even though closure is a myth perpetuated by mainstream media, I will make this post to try to rectify past mistakes and general truancy of this blog. I have my own suspicions that most of my readers are dead (considering all of the porn bots are now starting to follow me), so I write this post in the darkness of the night into the void that is Tumblr. Read my cry if you care.

Firstly, this blog will never update again. There are multiple factors that have led to this blog’s extinction and I think they’re important to address

Motivation

This blog took up a large chunk of my life back when it was active. Don’t get me wrong, bad art still gets me to cringe and I find myself on occasion still pining over weird ocs and art styles on Deviantart. However, maintaining it as a blog with daily updates became a chore for me along with promising critiques of ocs and such. I’ve come to discover that I can’t do what I love as “””work”””. While bad art still remains a passion for me, I don’t see myself continuing this in blog format.

OCs have changed

The OC market has changed. Base art has definitely taken a downturn in the past few years and you’re more likely to see people hand-drawing their ocs or writing them out. Thanks with the culture of memeing about bootleg fandom ocs (This is my own original character blonic, donut steels) , it seems that people are more drawn towards creating their own worlds and characters rather than shoving their mary sue into their current fan favorite content. These are good changes in terms of originality for artists and writers in my opinion.

However, a lot of the formats for OCs have changed as well. There tends to be an emphasis on their sexuality and race in OC culture now. I don’t consider that a bad thing but I’d rather not poke that hornet’s nest of gender identity and race of fictional characters. What used to be the standard straight, bi, gay has expanded into other territories that I am unfamiliar with and now we have more ocs outside of the standard white chick but with Japanese last name because the creator really likes naruto. Again, this just seems to be the trend and I think my last few revival posts kinda show them.

Valve as a games publisher

LOL when’s half life 3???

Valve has definitely moved from being a game developer to a digital distributor.  Steam definitely seems to be their focus outside of Hat/Weapon Skin collecting and online gambling (and also their weird consoles/controllers???). Not that I would continue this blog if they released more content (They published another update to the TF2 comic, can’t wait for that to get updated in a year).

Along with this slump of their own original content, this has led to a slump in original characters for their franchises. There are not as many fan ocs and art isn’t being produced for their franchises (except maybe with comic updates for TF2 and nostalgia for old games).

This blog was created at the optimal time imo with L4D2 still being fresh, TF2 still having an active userbase, and Portal 2 giving some great content in terms of creative material.

Also I’m not interested in reviewing Dota 2 art and I don’t think there are enough Counterstrike ocs.

Negativity

I don’t know if this blog was a source of positive or negative energy. On one hand, I was ridiculing people’s art without much hesitation and not acknowledging how much time and effort that might have been put in by the artist. But on the other hand, it provided laughs for people during its duration and gave me a creative outlet in terms of humor, arguments, and writing. I think I did my best to avoid any harassment for these artists by removing any watermarks that might lead any rude reader to them, but I’ll never know if they suffered any bullying. Obviously I’m not going to put this on my resume as work experience but I like to think that this blog help think critically about their content, regardless of what role you played on the blog be it me, a submitter, an observer, or the subject. Maybe if some supreme being questions why I started this blog in the afterlife, I can tell them I did it for the lolz.

In the end, I think I did more harm than any general good for the world and nobody will really understand that weird pain if I try to repent for it publicly. I don’t know of any key examples of this (or really remember because I haven’t done this shit in years), but I do apologize if I ruined anyone’s ambitions for writing/drawing.

I’m glad there is a stronger hugbox mentality for artists who aren’t very good and I embrace that style of encouragement. I guess my only concern is veering too far into that and just embracing everything as perfect and awesome and never improving. Criticism has its place in society.

Perhaps the real lesson is that who the hell gives a shit about what you post on the internet. Why should you give a stranger any control over how much your art is worth? However, this also gives the argument into determining if any of your art is worth anything based on your preconceived notions on your art’s merits since you are only a stranger to me. Why should you tell me that your art is valid and equal to anything else produced when it looks like you drew it with your tablet pen stuck up your ass?

Maybe we all just need to learn to stop giving invisible voices the power to ruin our emotional states and work on our self satisfaction.

Growing up????

I wrote most of this blog like a million years ago. It was a stronger part of my identity and a part of a community in a way of similar blogs in the same style. But I don’t really relate to the content as much I used to. Valve games are still near and dear to me, but they’re more nostalgic than my current flame and muse. I feel the same happened to other blogs in the same vein as mine. Perhaps also age and the changes of time led to our own focuses in our own lives than looking at the scribbles of some stranger on the internet. While it’s still one of my internet past times, it is not my main focus in life to critique bad art (unless it starts paying serious dosh). I just don’t relate to the words and passions anymore. In a way, this is my own cringe that artists produce when they’re young on Deviantart. It’s kind of funny in a weird way.

This blog will continue to remain up but I’ll probably move into another blog of some sort (I accidentally made this my primary blog and I can’t delete it). It sort of became my main lurking blog and I guess its time that I make a less weird not ghost blog (I’m probably confusing a lot of the people that I follow with my constant hearts and comments).

I guess I wanna say thanks for all of the people who followed this blog and its contents. I probably wouldn’t have continued for very long without followers so you’re all to blame for this negative impact I’ve made on the world (jkjk). I like to think we’re connected with our mutual spirit in improving how we create things and wanting to see improvement in others. I think this blog helped me see the dumbest of things and not be afraid to say it was dumb and I hope it did for you as well. I also hope it brought you laughs in the content that was displayed or the humor I attempted to convey. It did genuinely warm my heart whenever I got a heart, reply, reblog, or messages to keep up the work. It kind of makes me sad to think that I left rather abruptly, but better blogs have died quicker and quieter. Simple fact of life really. Thank god my ego keeps me in check to constantly remind people of my existence.

To any artists out there, bad art is a fact of life. You do not come out of the womb knowing how to do two point perspective and 3d shapes. You mess up doing 3d shapes each any every time until you get it and then move on to the next thing you’re not good at. There’s a common TIL leddit post about how Michaelangelo burnt all of his old works so nobody would know how bad he was when he was starting out. I don’t know how true that is, but that’s not a great mentality to have for your art. Seeing that bridge between your former self and current self is important for seeing self growth in your skills. Plus you won’t have those juicy likes and comments on instagram when you do the art redraw and show how far you come like how can you skimp on that you dingus.

All of the great content creators right now love showing off the shitty art they did as kids because it gives them a sense of progress in their work and their accomplishments and continues to drive them in their own works. (unless you’re rebecca sugar and drew ed edd and eddy shipping porn lol). Heck, some of them even take the stuff that was once cliche characters and expanded on them in their own Original Universe Donut Steel. And thanks to their own Original Universe Donut Steel, now tens of thousands of impressionable young artists can look at it and say “that’s awesome, but it would be way better if there was my own character...”.

OCs are weirdly one of the ultimate ways of fan expression where you enjoy the content so much you wish you were part of it. Even though it’s very disjointed and out of place, it’s usually done in a place of love for the franchise or the characters. So for those of you that are doing that still, keep at it I guess.

Fan art is sorta in the same way where you enjoy something so much that you want to replicate the style/themes/characters in your own or the content’s style. While not as extreme, it’s still in the same place of love and people generally like that more than original shit anyways so continue to make it so I can buy your posters at anime conventions without supporting the original creator lol. 

If you want to harass me further for my sins against budding artists, I guess I’ll link my personal blog if anyone actually asks me. I also wrote this at 3 am so it is extremely unedited and awful but it’s the most “pure” for my usual diatribe. Consider it my first OC for the blog.

Good night, good life, and farewell.