#i forget to click the button on procreate but would like to grab these for like when i actually paint stuff

[wizardlocation]

Did some quick editing to make the procreate time lapse (which I forgot I grabbed) presentable ! uh here's a rare progress video cause I always forget to record these.

[shaxori-fiendline-posts]

Blackbox Theater in Gehenna

Ahem.  I haven’t done this in a while so, bear with me.  No, really, Bear, *grabs shirt hem*  I want to wander for a bit.  Take a walk with me down the tangents for a bit.  So, I’ve been working on my book.  My weird way of trying to put myself out there while exercising my mind and imagination again after being stuck in between real life in Malsheem and the inside of my head in Gehenna.  Trying to come up with a way I can dress up real life in order to understand what’s going on in a world where anything can happen.  I’m trying to make heads or tales of the patterns I think I see in the world around me.  Everything starts with a question.  And the question drops like a stone into the Astral Sea, sending out ripples of effect in everything.  But I can’t see all of the angles to understand where each ripple originated by myself.  I try, but when I do I feel like there’s always two sides of my personality warring for control over everything.  So, since you’re not only my singular follower on here besides a bot, you’re also the most science brained individual I know that is still willing to pat me on the head and say, “ok, I’ll suspend my disbelief in anything unexplainable by science and just believe for a little bit.”

So, here’s the question that started this particular tangent.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to use Lilly as an avatar to help me get my thoughts in line.  99.9% of this writing has been me reverse engineering my friends’ personalities into fictional characters that respond as they might have if we were role-playing the characters I created for them.  Jareth is a character, for example, that was once played by my buddy, Jimmy.  His explanation for Old Ones was nearly a direct quote as to how he described it to me when I was trying to get a handle on Lilly’s crazy.  I could have kissed him.  As soon as he explained it, something clicked in my head as I was trying to explain why Lilly is so fucked up.  Well, I thought I could keep that one locked up for a while and try to build up to it more, but I just can’t.  It feels like taking three steps backward in the writing when I do.  But it started raising more questions in my head, and I’ve never been good at juggling.  Questions started dropping out from between my fingers, sending out so many questions, I couldn’t keep up.  It’s gotten to the point as I’m trying to figure out how to tie off loose ends from earlier chapters without cheesing it (because I’ll fucking forget where I buried the leads and get lost in the fucking minefields again) that both Lilly and I are about to say fuck it, I’m going back to working in the toil and we’re going to do everything possible to forget we ever peeked at the last few pages of the book.  We spoiled the ending for ourselves and now we are in a constant state of hurry up and wait.  And we’re tired.  She’s pissed, I’m just defeated.  No, that’s not the right word.  Done.  Yeah.  Thankfully, Lilly is the part of my brain that never stops moving.  She’s constantly wandering down through the halls of the Library, (which looks like an MC Esher nightmare, BTW) pulling down boxes and picking through them to try and find all of the pieces of the puzzle to finally get out of my head.  And you know what happens when I start to hyper-focus of the pieces instead of looking at how they fit together.  Wooo Shiney happens entirely too much.  So, when I say I’m done, it’s not the depression talking, it’s the apathy warring with my reasonability.  When I say I’m done, I’m mean I’m done giving a shit.  I’m done trying to put my life on display in such a way that I can’t tell what tone of voice to read it in.  I can’t figure out who it is that I’m talking to.  I don’t know who is going to read it which is why I pinpointed a person that doesn’t exist in this world. Normally, I would try to motivate myself by saying “maybe.”  But, I’ve always known, just like every kid does, that “maybe” is really “no” in disguise.  Unless you get a solid yes and/or proof of validity, anything else is a “no”.  You get used to hearing all of the variations of “no” to the point where you expect it from everyone and when you do hear “yes” you immediately question the person’s level of trustworthiness.  Are they just fucking with me and, if they are, what are they getting out of it?  “You.  You want to be my friend?  Wait, why?  I’m a horrible individual.  I’m an asshole.  I’m actually proud of the fact that I really could give a shit about the vast majority of the population.  All I care about is me and mine.”  But my problem is I can’t stop adopting strays.  I try to put myself out there to draw in others like me and find the good ones to keep.  That’s why Jareth/Jimmy keeps lecturing me about my accidental families.  And then I look at the nest of weirdos I’ve created and, well, you’re married to one of them, you know what I’m talking about.  Like, I love them all, but they make my brain hurt sometimes.  “Yes, kids, I love you, now go play in the corner, Mommy has a lot of shit do and I’m starting to understand while some species of animals eat their young.”  I’m so thankful nature decided to take my ability to procreate without fertility treatments.  I have enough deviants to keep me amused, I do not need children.  At least with mine, I can hand them a pair of scissors and not have to wor... nevermind, I take that back.  I can feel the bullshit cough from here.  My point is, I’m a tech, I can wrangle the clowns and fix their chainsaws, but I do not have the energy to keep the rest of the circus in order at the same time.  The rest of the show has to fall to someone else.  That’s why I’m using D&D as a set for the stage.  When I try to build the world from scratch on my own, I have to try and make it unique enough to showcase my skills at descriptions, but I get lost in the descriptions and forget that I have to make sure the characters stay on track with the story through their interactions.  Using D&D gives me a static resource set to get a mental image of the world in which Lilly lives.  With the set already built, I can put down the tech belt and go run with the clowns to burn off some excess energy.  But I have to make sure Lilly is rounded out well enough not overwhelm the party.  Unfortunately, since the story is inspired by real life events and thought processes (somewhat, it’s D&D for fuck’s sake) I’ve reached the point where I’m going to have to do META ass shit in order to get past Act One.  After that, in real life, I have to find some source of income that doesn’t involve donating plasma to pay my cell phone.  I want to write.  I want to be creative.  I have a million and one ideas on things I could try, but I also know that I have to get out of Malsheem if I’m ever going to get to the Feywild for real.  And that takes coin because I have yet to figure out portal tech as a practical application.  That’s on the shelf marked “the geometry is wrong” in the “don’t go in there, it’s weird” section of the Library.  I need an adult to go in there.  I just scared myself in two different ways thinking about going in there alone, the first was the atmospheric drop in temperature and the second was the sudden realization that I tend to be smart enough to know better, but too dumb to quit.  I will open some box or book and, yeah.  I’m not allowed in there without supervision.  Ok, that started a ripple of potential hypnotherapy sessions.  Provided I could find someone actually capable of hypnotizing me. Anyway.  That’s right, the point.  Lilly is supposed to be my character, my way of telling my story through the filter of fantasy so I can make sense of it all. And I can’t stay stuck at my desk anymore, hoping and praying that’ll I’ll do something right this time.  So, I’m going to make sure she’s at a playable level and do some pick-up games with her when I can get time to myself to be able to play between working at a *shudders* normal job long enough to clean up my credit and get a place of my own somewhere.  Then, I’ll be able to reassess the situation without the continuous irritation of Dopple-Mom interruptions.  If I have to go back to the call-centers, I might be able to power through it like I did before.  I’m just going to have to watch out for the traps I fell into last time. But I’ll have to put the book on hiatus until I’m in a place of my own and can relax when I get off work enough to be able to think freely.  It won’t really gather any readers or foot-traffic on Royal Road while I’m working, but I’m ok with that.  It takes away the pressure of trying to build an audience while the book is still being written.  Granted, that would make it easier to transfer into an actual novel format once it’s completed and have a market waiting for release so I *can* write for a living.  But, hope in one hand and shit in the other, all you get is pink-eye.  I can’t control who sees my stuff.  I can’t control its reception or the opinions thereof that dictate word of mouth marketing.  When your success in a field is dependent on the reviews of your work by the general public, sometimes it’s better to just stop giving a fuck.  I’m not going to try and build an audience ahead of time anymore.  I’m just going to write and release chapters until I have to hit the hiatus button.  If the story dies because I can’t find the time or the motivation to write, it’ll just be added to the failed attempts pile.  Not the first, not the last.  Smart enough to know better, too dumb to quit, remember?  I’ll try again at some other point to write a story worth sharing.  It just won’t be inspired by real life.  Just straight fantasy so I have a place in my head I can visit that’s nice to hang out in for a change.