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dmsden · 4 years

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A History Lesson - Looking back at D&D’s history

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Well, this is the 5th Monday in March, and that means I get to write about anything I want! It’s also my birth month, which means it’s my anniversary of getting into D&D (42 years!), and that has me feeling nostalgic. Coupled with a discussion I had recently with some friends, I thought it would be fun to look back at the various editions of D&D and give you all a bit of history. I’m not going to get into Gygax vs Arneson or any of that. I’m only talking about the published game itself, not its creators or its storied origins.

The original D&D (or OD&D as it’s sometimes called) came in a small box. It had three booklets inside - Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures - along with reference sheets and dice. Each was softcover and roughly the same dimensions as a DVD/BluRay case. The game was pretty rudimentary - for one thing, it assumed you already had a copy of Chainmail, D&D’s direct wargame predecessor. It also recommended you have a game called Outdoor Survival for purposes of traveling through the wilderness. It had only three classes - fighting man, magic-user, and cleric - and nothing about playing other races. It did have the insane charts that 1st edition would ultimately known for, and it was possible to play a pretty fun game of D&D with it, as its popularity would come to show.

The game expanded through similar chapbooks - Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, Gods Demigods & Heroes, Swords & Spells. With the exception of the last one, each brought new facets to the game - new classes like Thief and Monk, new spells, new threats. It was clear the game was going to need an overhaul, and it got one.

I consider this overhaul to yield the real “1st Edition”, as so much of the game didn’t exist in those original games. The game split into a “Basic” game, just called Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

The basic game was a boxed set that included a rulebook, a full adventure module, and dice...or, well, it was supposed to contain dice. The game was so popular and new in those days that demand for dice outstripped production. My copy of D&D came with a coupon for dice when they became available and a sheet of “chits” - laminated numbers meant to be put into cups (we used Dixie Cups with the name of the die written on it), shaken, and a random number pulled out without looking. It was meant to introduce new players to the game, so it was a trimmed down version. Races were human, elf, dwarf, and halfling, and classes were fighter, cleric, magic-user, and thief. The box only included rules for going up to 3rd level, with the intention that players would then graduate into AD&D. This is where I joined, with the old blue cover box set and In Search of the Unknown, before Keep on the Borderlands even existed.

AD&D was the game in its full glory. Along with the races I mention above, we got half-elves, half-orcs, and gnomes. The four basic classes also had sub-classes, like paladin and ranger for the fighter, druid for the cleric, illusionist for the wizard, and assassin for the thief. There were rules for multi-classing, as well as “Dual-classing”, a sort of multi-class variation for humans only, which, when done in the correct combination, could yield the infamous bard...which didn’t actually yield any bard abilities until around level 13 or so.

This edition had 5 different saving throws for things like “Death Magic”, “Petrification & Polymorph”, “Spells”, and so on. It had the infamous Armor Class system that started at 10 and went down, so that having a -3 AC was very good! It also had specific attack matricies for each class; you would literally look on a table to determine the number you needed to roll on a D20 based on your class, your level, and your opponent’s armor class. It was fun, but it was very complicated.

It also had some, frankly, shitty rules. There was gender disparity in terms of attributes, which my group totally ignored. Because the game designers wanted humans to be a competitive the game, and because non-humans had so many abilities and could multiclass, non-humans were severely limited in the levels they could achieve in most classes. In fact, some classes, such as monk and paladin, were restricted only to humans.

As the years went on, things got a bit muddled. It probably didn’t help that the rules in Basic D&D and AD&D didn’t perfectly line up. In D&D, the worst armor class was a 9. In AD&D, the worst armor class was a 10. All of this led to an overhaul, but not one considered a separate edition. AD&D mostly got new covers and new books, like the Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeon Survival Guide, Monster Manual 2, and the Manual of the Planes. It got a number of new settings, too. In addition to the default Greyhawk setting, we got the Forgotten Realms setting for the first time, details of which had been appearing in Dragon Magazine for years, thanks to the prolific Ed Greenwood. We also, eventually, got the whole Dragonlance saga, which yielded the setting of Krynn.

In this new version, Basic D&D broke off into its own game system to some degree. Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling started being treated like classes rather than races, with specific abilities at different levels. Higher level characters could be created using progressive boxes - Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal, each with its own boxed set and supported by Mystara, a completely different setting that got its own updates over the years. It was odd, because D&D essentially was competing for players with AD&D, and I remember arguments with friends over which version was better (I was firmly in the AD&D camp.)

In 1989, when I was in college, they finally brought forth 2nd edition D&D. This streamlined things a little. Armor Class still went down, but now attack rolls boiled into a single number called To Hit Armor Class 0, or THAC0. It made the whole process of figuring out what you needed to roll a bit less cumbersome, but it was still a bit awkward. The classes got a lot of overhaul, including making Bard its own core class. But what I remember best about 2nd edition was the boom in settings. This was the age of settings, and many beloved ones got started, including Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer.

It was also the age of the “Complete Handbooks”. They brought out splatbooks about every class and race in the game, as well as books expanding several concepts for the DM, such as the Arms & Equipment Guide, the Castle Guide, and the Complete Book of Villains. There were also splatbooks about running D&D in historic periods, such as Ancient Rome, among the ancient Celts, or during the time of the Musketeers. The game got new covers for the rule books again, and a bunch of books about options started coming out. It was a boom time for books, but many people complained there was too much.

Without going too deep, TSR ended up in severe financial troubles. They declared bankruptcy, and there was real fear of the game going away. And then Wizards of the Coast (WotC) stepped in. They helped TSR get back onto its feet, and they helped produce some modules specifically engineered to help DM’s bring an end to their campaign...possibly even their whole campaign world...because something big was coming.

That something big was, of course, 3rd edition D&D. The game got majorly streamlined, and many sacred cows ended up as hamburger. AC finally started going up instead of down. Everything was refined to the “D20″ system we’ve been playing ever since. Races could be any class. There were no level or stat limits for anyone. After years of the game being forced into tight little boxes, it really felt like we could breathe. I had stopped playing D&D, but 3rd edition brought me back into the fold. I often say that 3E was made for the players who’d felt constricted and wanted more flexibility.

The trouble with 3E, and its successor 3.5, is that it was still a dense and difficult game for newcomers to get into. It’s been acknowledged that D&D essentially created many of the systems we see and know in other games - experience points, leveling up, hit points, etc. But trying to break into the experience for the first time was difficult. The look of 3E was gorgeous, but I understood that it must seem awfully daunting to someone who’d never played.

4E and its follow-up, Essentials, was an attempt to course correct that. They tried to make this edition incredibly friendly to new DMs, and, frankly, they succeeded. By creating player classes and monsters and magic-items that were all very plug and play, they did a great job of creating a game that someone who had never DMed before could dive into with no experience or mentor and start a game pretty easily. Encounter design was given a lot of ease, and there were promises of a robust online tool system that would help out with many of the more tedious aspects of playing.

There was also a lot of shake up in terms of choices. Suddenly, new classes and races were proliferating like crazy. We got the dragonborn, the tiefling, and the eladrin right in the core book, but we said good-bye to the gnome and half-orc at first. Suddenly the warlock was the new class everyone wanted to try. We got paragon paths and epic destinies that would really shape a character as time went on. The game went very tactical, as well, which some of us loved. The concept of rituals came into the game. Later books like the Player’s Handbook 2 and 3 gave us back gnomes and half-orcs, and also gave us minotaurs, wilden, shardminds, and githzerai. We got new psionic classes, brand new class concepts like the Runeknight and the Seeker...

But there was a tremendous backlash. People felt that, in making the game so very plug and play, they’d taken a ton of choice away from the players. Without the tools (which were never that robust, frankly), it was almost impossible to navigate the massive panoply of options. And, worse, it was harder and harder to develop encounters without those tools. People complained that the game had gone more tactical in order to sell miniatures and battlemats. Given that I have never played the game without miniatures and battlemats (since I started in the days when D&D was still half-wargame), I found this odd, but I also understand my style of play isn’t everyone’s.

The one argument I will never understand is that it didn’t “feel” like D&D, or it was somehow ONLY a tactical game and not a role-playing game any more. Again, given that the original game didn’t even call itself a role-playing game, this felt odd. Personally, I roleplay no matter what game I’m playing. If I’m playing Monopoly, I’m roleplaying, doing voices, and pretending to be something I’m not. I honestly enjoyed 4E, and I know a lot of folks who did, too. A lot of it may simply come down to style of play. But I also enjoyed all the games that came before, including Pathfinder. To paraphrase the YouTube content creator The Dungeon Bastard, “Does your game have dungeons? Does it have dragons? Great. I wanna play.”

As a sidenote, in the months leading up to 4E’s release, a lot of internet videos were released by WotC emphasizing the nature of change and talking about differences in the rules. They also released some preview books showing the direction they were heading. WotC must have anticipated that people were going to find this edition very different indeed. They also cleverly brought in some very funny folks - Scott Kurtz from PVPOnline and Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade - and got them to play D&D for podcasting purposes. Looking back, this must’ve brought in a lot of listeners who might never have played D&D and given them a reason to try it out.

After its release, WotC clearly noted that missteps had been made, as this edition of the game was losing them players. They began work on what they referred to as D&D Next, and, this time, they did massive amounts of playtesting, some of which I participated in.

I don’t feel like I have to describe 5E to any of you, Dear Readers, as you could go to virtually any store and pick it up. I am a big fan of 5E’s simplicity and elegance, and I suspect this is the edition of D&D we’re going to have for some time to come, especially given its popularity. Given the effect of podcasts like Critical Role (and I might save an article on Critical Role’s importance to D&D until my next Freestyle article), D&D is likely more popular now than it’s ever been, with a much wider and more diverse audience than ever before.

I know I’m painting with broad strokes here, but I hope this was, at least, entertaining, and maybe you learned something, Gentle Readers. Until we next meet, may all your 20s be natural.

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stupidsexyseguin · 7 years

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AND THE NOMINEES ARE...

okay guys! this is going to be a really long post, so here are the links for voting, and a full list of authors and works will be under the read more with links to go and read the nominated works or peruse all works of nominated authors.

this poll will be open all of the rest of january, with voting closing at 11pm AEST on the 31st, with the results going up as soon as i can put them together after that. congrats to everyone nominated! thanks everyone who sent in nominations!

Best Hockey RPF Author 2017

Best Hockey RPF Work/Series (Sid/Geno)

Best Hockey RPF Work/Series (Nicky/Ovi)

Best Hockey RPF Work/Series (Mitch/Auston)

Best Hockey RPF Work/Series (Other)

Author Nominees:

angularmomentum

sevenfists

theundiagnosable

LottieAnna

pukeandcry

crispierchip

itsacoup

stevenstamkos

Work Nominations:

(Further sorted into pairings) (if a work has no attached link i have not been given permission by the author to link it directly, but it can likely be found using the ao3 search function) (if you can’t find a work that you nominated in this list it is likely because it didn’t meet nomination guidelines)

PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF INDIVIDUAL WORK WARNINGS AND TAGS AND USE YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT WHEN DECIDING TO READ THEM.

Sid/Geno

Shelter by 71tenseventeen

Sidney was five the first time he met Troy. Well, that he remembers, anyhow.

Thalassophile by Anonymous

Thalassophile- (n.) a lover of the sea, someone who loves the sea, ocean

Adventures with Vanya (series) by bumblybee

“I’d like to introduce our guest for today, Evgeni Malkin, author of Hockey with Vanya.” Sidney nails the pronunciation, and Malkin even glances up at him with a little smile. “Mr. Malkin is going to read us his book, and then you’ll all have the opportunity to talk to him. How does that sound?”

Sonatina by CoffeeStars

It had started at a promotional event for the Pens at a sporting goods store. A little boy with bright eyes had handed his new skates over to be autographed and said, very politely, “Will you please sign it? It’ll be super lucky if you do, and I can skate really fast and score a bunch of goals like you.”

Of Two Seas by itsacoup

“You are lucky, little sailor,” the man says once Evgeni has looked his fill, and his voice is melodious, with a high edge to it but also an odd, gravelly way of speaking. “Lucky and strong. Strong enough to be my champion.” He drops his arm as he speaks the last word, turning towards Evgeni with a half-smile.

Telemachy by itsacoup

Sidney steps back to survey his work; his eyes glisten as he looks at Zhenya, and from the moisture springs forth revelation: cold-hands blurring-vision gasping-for-air-that-isn’t-there. “Return to us an Oracle, or leave your life upon the mountain,” Sidney declares. His voice trembles, and it’s more a plea than a command. He grabs the back of Zhenya’s neck, tugging until he can reach Zhenya’s face and push an insistent kiss against Zhenya’s brow. Sidney pulls back to stare at Zhenya for a long moment, the soft hazel of his eyes gone dark with indescribable worry. Zhenya’s heart thumps as his entire body roils with sensation, burning cold and freezing heat and fear and exhilaration and confusion, and he cannot break Sidney’s gaze.

Catch a Glimpse of Gold Through His Skin by reginalds

The poster reads, from the top:

Times When it is Okay to Interrupt Mr. Malkin:

1.) Hitler invades Russia

2.) Fire

3.) German U-boat spotted in the Allegheny

4.) Sidney Crosby walks in the room

Motherland by sevenfists

The first Zhenya heard about it was an email from Sidney in the middle of August.

The Best-Looking Boys by sevenfists

He was just a kid, just like Sidney, and far away from home. When Sidney didn’t look away, Evgeni mimed swinging a baseball bat, and Gonch was right; it was clear he had no idea what he was doing.

That was the first time Sidney thought they could maybe be friends.

The Real Thing by sevenfists

Sitting at the table was Sid: Sid as Zhenya had first known him, almost a decade before: dorky, long-haired Sid, his cheeks round with baby fat. He couldn’t have been older than twenty, and even that was generous.

“Wow,” baby Sid said. “Are you Evgeni Malkin?”

All the Way Through by sevenfists

“I hope you’re going to tell me that you’re in a loving, committed, long-term relationship,” Jen said.

“Well. No,” Sidney said. “We’re—it’s a casual thing.”

“Not anymore,” Jen said. “Congratulations, you’re in love.”

The Biblical Sense by sevenfists

“Sid, I’m so—I’m sorry,” Geno said. “My stupid—I’m ruin everything, I—”

“Shut up, Geno,” Sidney said, already intensely weary of listening to Geno’s self-recrimination. “You’ve barely even done anything.”

Geno’s voice dropped what sounded like an entire octave. “But I want to.”

My Fingers Laced to Crown by Squidbittles

It’s been ten years since Canada’s Crown Prince Sidney Crosby married Prince Evgeni Malkin, and they’ve found a love they never expected. Despite their best efforts, however, they remain heirless.

Amid mounting frustration and pressure from the public, they escape to the north for a much-needed delayed honeymoon in the hopes of finding a solution to the problem of succession.

Nicky/Ovi

love on a deposit of frozen pleistocene carbon by angularmomentum

Sasha is the only person to have lasted more than a year at Wrest Island Arctic Research Station, except, of course, for Dr. Bäckström.

Or: Sasha’s head over heels, in a slightly more than figurative sense.

running from the weather by angularmomentum

Alex starts playing for Dynamo at sixteen.

kith by angularmomentum

Sasha makes prefect in his second to last year. It’s earlier than anyone but him expected, but right on track for his two year plan, which is: be head boy, get a contract to play Quidditch professionally, and beat Bäckström off in the baths.

Goldenrod by Ferritin4

“You’ve gotta be crazy to fly one of those things,” Dima says, looking up at the icy arcing contrails of the Swedish jets as they rocket overhead. You have to be crazy to fly, Sasha thinks, and you have to be good.

A More Fascinating Name by pukeandcry

Although Sasha had never made the younger Mr. Backstrom’s acquaintance, he was at least familiar enough with his reputation to know that chief amongst his qualities was the quite publicly known fact that Mr. Backstrom was as notoriously uninterested in achieving an advantageous marriage as Sasha himself.

Something, then, must have upset the order of things. What that was he could not say, but Lord Backstrom was now, it would seem, in active search of a husband for his son.

the washington royals by screamlet

Sasha doesn’t remember the very first time he met Nicky, but Michael Nylander is kind enough to remind them when he arrives to meet the team, carrying an honest to fuck laminated newspaper clipping of the first time Prince Alexander visited Sweden to meet his future husband, Prince Nicklas.

Wolfborn by waspabi

A wolfborn on an airplane was either unbearably reckless or a hockey player. Most of the time, both.

Mitch/Auston

the dreams i’ll dream instead by afterthefair

“So, when do you want to bond?” Marner asks without any preamble as soon as they’re within three feet of each other.

Auston hears Chucky’s whispered, “What the fuck?”

Strome cracks up. “Jesus, Marns, can you say hi before you ask someone to fuck you?“

Marner laughs. “Sorry. Hi, Auston. I’m Mitch. We’re gonna play together forever.”

as long as it’s about me by Anonymous

It takes about the length of their first practice for Toronto media to decide that him and Mitch are best friends. And, like, Auston’s been warned about the press in the city a million times, so he gets it. They want a story. He’d be fine with it, honestly, except for the small issue that Mitch Marner is the most annoying person on the entire planet.

They used to shout my name, now they whisper it by CheapLemonIceLolly

Being a star athlete changes you.

think we’re overthinking it by LottieAnna

The first time Mitch picks up a guy, Auston’s convinced he’s hallucinating.

(Or: Auston and Mitch eventually talk about their feelings, even if they keep putting it off. Whatever.)

turn the world gold by LottieAnna

Mitch: hey ill be in az 2morrow, what r u doing?

we belong to you and me by LottieAnna and theundiagnosable

“You’re not allowed to take the high ground while proposing we defraud your government, Marns.”

“Not with that attitude,” Mitch says. “Look, I’m not proposing we defraud anyone, I’m just-”

“Proposing?” Auston finishes, wry.

Three Loves by MycroftexMachina

Mitch Marner: secret genius.

torch this place we know by theundiagnosable

Sportsnet @sportsnet

BREAKING: LEAFS’ MITCH MARNER TRADED TO PITTSBURGH PENGUINS sportsnt.ca/news/2kT45f9Q …

bring it to the top by theundiagnosable

“What’s going on, Matts?”

“Maybe I just want to do something fun, I don’t know.” Auston says, defensive. “Maybe I’m being nice.”

“Okay,” Mitch says. He doesn’t sound convinced. “And…”

“And,” Auston winces, already regretting every decision he’s ever made, “I sort of need you to pretend to date me so I can win a bet with my sister.”

Other Pairings

take a sip of my secret potion by bluejayys (gallagher/galchenyuk)

Brendan’s gonna get to know Alex– maybe even work up the courage to ask him out on a date.

put it in the rearview mirror by thedeadparrot (gallagher/galchenyuk)

At the end of the season, the Gallys go on a road trip from Montreal to Florida. There are a lot of feelings involved.

and i’ve just let these little things slip out of my mouth by crispierchip (skjei/vesey)

Jimmy comes out to Brady in November.

Underneath the Charging Sky by pukeandcry (d. strome/latta)

Dylan hadn’t expected to be in Tucson this year. He hadn’t expected to still be so fucked up about Connor. He hadn’t expected a lot of shit, and Latts was definitely on that list.

we let our battles choose us by electrumqueen (gen-ish)

Auston straddles a lot of lines. He’s the sunbelt kid, you know? The trailblazer.

beginner’s guide to sex (and love) by viennajones (mcdavid/draisaitl)

“Uh, so when you said you could help me, did you mean…” Connor thinks that he understood Leon alright, but making sure is probably a good idea.

Leon looks a little sheepish. “Not to sound super cocky or whatever, but I’ve been told I’m pretty good in bed. I could show you a thing or two. If you want.”

I Lie Only For You by leyley09 (wilson/latta)

“So, instead of telling his mom the truth, Tom wants you to pretend to be his boyfriend. And you said yes to pretending, even though you want to be boyfriends for real.”

“When you say it out loud, it sounds stupid.”

“It is stupid.”

if this is the stars by theundiagnosable (marner/w nylander/matthews)

“Babe,” Mitch says, collapsing onto the couch. “Matts, I just got hit on by the hottest barista I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Nice.” Auston high fives him.

through the woods we ran by stevenstamkos (hischier/patrick)

“Tell me about your faeries.”

Nico does not want to talk about faeries, not in the comfort of his bed with Nolan stretched out next to him, but he knows that Nolan is only trying to learn as much as he can about Nico. Nolan has asked him about everything, his likes and dislikes, his home in Naters and his family, his history. And now his faeries.

let’s just see what tomorrow brings by capebretons (hischier/patrick)

The first time Nolan sees Nico, it snows.

It’s the first snow of the winter, late November, cold enough to make Nolan’s cheeks pink, and his ears, and the tip of his nose. It’s the cold, that’s all. It’s got nothing to do with Hischier.

and dreams paled by antoineroussel (rinne/saros)

A young man sits up, facing away from Pekka, and rubs his eyes furiously. His skin is golden, left shoulder scarred lightly, and he wraps one of the red furs around his waist, apparently not wearing much else. Pekka, startled, makes a choked noise, and the man turns around. He gets to his feet with a boyish smile, and sits himself down on the chair opposite to Pekka.

triple the fun by allfleshisgrass (benn/seguin)

Tyler finds a three-headed dog, adopts it and tries to be the best doggy daddy in Dallas.

A Different Kind (series) by Nuanta (benn/seguin)

Set in a world where scents hold powerful magic, omegas are marginalized and despised, and are treated as slaves. Born into the noble Seguin family, Tyler was sold off to a life of captivity once he presented. Now, the defiant omega finds himself under the supervision of a soft-spoken Knight-Captain, alpha Jamie Benn, who doesn’t let any of his junior knights take advantage of omegas. Not only that, but Jamie seems to care about Tyler’s opinions, wants to change the world…if the system would only let him. When the world turns on its head, though, Tyler will do whatever it takes to prove he deserves his life and his freedom, and maybe a little more.

place your hand in mine, i’ll leave when i wanna (series) by jolt (benn/seguin, mcdavid/d strome, marner/matthews)

Tyler knows he looks like the kind of douchebag who listens to rap or, like, ska bands from the early 2000s, but he actually has a secret affinity for happy pop songs and, unabashedly, Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy and stuff. The music a lot of people pretend to have grown out of or be too cool for.

Tyler thinks Jamie looks like the kind of guy who loves songs about trucks, but mainly because he thinks he’s built like one.

Home at Last by crispierchip (barrie/landeskog)

This would be Tyson’s luck.

Have sex with the guy you’ve been hopelessly drooling over for the past year only to wake up bonded to him. Perfect.

(stronger than a) Bourbon Street Hand Grenade by dexsnursey (barrie/landeskog)

Nate grins and ducks his head, and Tyson is considering giving him a hug and maybe a big smooch too, when Gabe speaks up, because of course he does. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Oh no,” Nate groans, and really, that should have been his warning.

Instead, Tyson finds himself raising his eyebrows, puffing up his chest and declaring, “Oh it’s on like Donkey Kong, Gabriel.”

Nate sighs, this loud, chest deep thing, and Tyson really needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut.

10,000 Weight in Gold by oflights (barrie/landeskog)

“What’re some of your biggest pet peeves? Wanna know what mine is?”

“Uh, what’s yours?”

“When people say Tyson, and they’re talking to you instead of me.”

tell me if you love me or not by underwaternow (barrie/landeskog)

It starts in Sweden.

Stop Making Sense by Vidriana (w nylander/kapanen)

“Well, here’s how I see it,” Kappy starts. “You have two options.” He holds up a finger. “One: You just tell them the truth.” He shrugs.

“What’s option two?” Willy asks.

Kappy raises a second finger. “Option two: You get a fake boyfriend,” he says, with much more gravitas than this ridiculous statement could possibly warrant.

should have said (say it) by theundiagnosable (w nylander/hyman)

“Okay,” Zach says, slow. “You said- no food, isn’t the wedding in-”

“Five days,” Auston finishes, “yeah.” He sounds even more calm than usual, a little monotone, actually, which is how Zach knows he’s internally losing his shit.

#hockey rpf #hockey rpf poll #best hockey rpf of 2017 #bennguin #nicky/ovi #sidgeno #marnsthews #marnsthew #vote!#rec list #hockey rpf fic recs #fic recs

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ulyssessklein · 6 years

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Fender Custom Shop Debuts All-New Collections at Winter NAMM 2019

Press Release

Source: Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC)

Fender Musical Instruments Corporation today announced the introduction of its Annual and Prestige collections, as well as the addition of the long-time Artist Signature series Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Stratocaster and Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Stratocaster to the Fender Custom Shop lineup – all debuting at Winter NAMM in Anaheim, Calif.

Each year, an Annual Collection of models are conceived and created in the Fender Custom Shop to showcase the latest innovations and developments—everything from pickup design, wiring and finish processes, to wood combinations and more.

“The Annual Collections give our Master Builders and Fender Custom Shop Teambuilt craftspeople a chance to experiment with new ideas,” said Mike Lewis, VP of Product Development at Fender Custom Shop. “There’s a reason everyone in the guitar world calls Fender Custom Shop ‘The Dream Factory.’ We create guitars players never thought were possible, and continue to step up our game, surprising them with something new each year.”

Annual Teambuilt collections making their debut at Winter NAMM are the Limited Edition, Time Machine, Postmodern and Vintage Custom; in its second year, the Vintage Custom Series celebrates beloved Fender classics and unearths truly unique rarities, such as the flat-lam slab maple cap fingerboard on the Vintage Custom `62 Strat®. Joining the Teambuilt collections is Masterbuilt Custom, which features Masterbuilt designs – all made-to-order for dealers.

In addition to the annual collections, the Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Stratocaster and Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Stratocaster both make their way into the Fender Custom Shop Artist Signature series lineup after a long run in Fender’s production line. Beginning 2019, both models will be available at Authorized Custom Shop Dealers. See below for full descriptions.

Also debuting at Winter NAMM 2019 is the 2019 Prestige Collection, featuring one-of-a-kind Masterbuilt guitars and basses from the Custom Shop’s most-esteemed Master Builders. “Our Fender Custom Shop Master Builders continue to amaze players with the unique talent and creativity they pour into the annual Prestige Collection,” Lewis said. “In the last year, we’ve added two new Master Builders at the Shop – Ron Thorn and Kyle McMillin, who have added new twists and flavors to our lineup.”

Fender Custom Shop’s 11 innovative Prestige Collection models – with one conjured up by each Master Builder – include:

Paul Waller: Brickcaster

Paul Waller’s Brickcaster guitar is made of toy building bricks. Paul Waller has toyed with the idea of making a guitar like since his buzz-worthy Cardboard Strat was released in 2015. “I love working with different materials to create guitars that are extremely unique,” Waller said. “LEGO® was a huge part of my youth, and undoubtedly had a huge impact on my career path.” Features include handmade hardware that emulates traditional brick pieces, only made of materials suitable for guitar construction. The vibrant traditional colors of toy building bricks work so well in blending the two mediums. “This guitar will appeal to the young at heart,” he said. “Most guitar players feel a connection to their youth, cranking out sounds of past experiences. For me, music is emotion in the form of a sound wave that carries us through a feeling. The fact that you can ride the emotion on a toy, provides a fun aspect to the emotion, bringing a smile to face of everyone who plays it.” Two guitars will be made with two matching amps masterbuilt by Jim Dolmage – dubbed the Building Block Deluxe™ Amp. This is a one-of-a-kind showpiece built on the framework of a ’57 Custom Deluxe amplifier. Thousands of toy bricks were painstakingly arranged to approximate the look of Fender’s iconic tweed-covered amplifiers. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this project or product. Guitars and amps are not for sale.

Jason Smith: Luna Y Sol – $14,000

Jason Smith’s Luna Y Sol is a custom Precision Bass® inspired by his meeting with artist Madeline Hanlon at last year’s Winter NAMM show. Hanlon is known for her artistic style of wood burning, which was integrated into the Mexican folk art sun and moon design. Smith’s favorite aspect of the bass is its overall aesthetic appeal – from the detailed wood-burned image and thematic red coral inlays to the rich, warm wood tones, smooth blend of colors and the feel of the satin lacquer topcoat. “This bass feels amazingly comfortable, has a nice medium weight, and the sound of the Josefina Campos overwound pickups just gives the player a sonic experience like a P-Bass® on steroids,” Smith said. “This bass just seems to have it all, style, class, and tone!”

Dennis Galuszka: Hawaiian Fish Hook Telecaster® – $18,750

Dennis Galuszka’s Hawaiian Fish Hook Telecaster was inspired by Galuszka’s love of Hawaiian culture, where his in-laws are from. The Telecaster features a vintage pickup and rope binding on the hook – the first of its kind on a guitar. “I wanted to build something masculine and tough-looking, but still simple,” Galuszka said. “This instrument is for players that feel in charge when they walk on stage with a minimalist guitar.”

Dale Wilson: Spalted Maple Telecaster – $7,600

Dale Wilson’s Spalted Maple Telecaster was inspired by a singular piece of wood and unique acoustic vibe of Fender Custom Shop Founding Master Builder Fred Stuart’s Founders Design Herringbone Telecaster. The guitar features a Violin Burst that highlights the beauty of the spalted maple top, herringbone binding and P90 pickups in conjunction with a handwound Josephina Broadcaster pickup. Ideal for any player or collector who appreciates exotic wood guitars with a wide range of tones, the Spalted Maple Telecaster makes its debut at Winter NAMM 2019.

Todd Krause: Goldfish Stratocaster – $16,500

Todd Krause’s Goldfish Stratocaster was inspired by two guitars he previously built for NAMM, a Trout guitar and Weiner Dog Stratocaster, with the two ideas colliding into one. The guitar features inlay work from Principal Master Builder Ron Thorn and detailed goldfish-inspired artwork by Sarah Gallenberger.

Greg Fessler: Battle of Missionary Ridge Tele® – $12,000

Greg Fessler’s Battle of Missionary Ridge Tele was inspired by the famous Civil War battle fought November 25, 1863 near Chatanooga, Tennessee. The wood tells a unique story and was sourced from Capital Park, which is located alongside the California State Capitol building in Sacramento, Calif. In 1897, The Daughters of the Army of the Grand Republic donated several saplings that were gathered from major battlefields of the Civil War and carefully transplanted into the rich California soil as a lasting memorial to those who lost their lives in the war. Those trees reside in an area of Capitol Park called “Memorial Grove.” This guitar is made from wood derived from tree No. 125, which was removed due to heart rot and instability of limbs. The tree and its memory live on in this exemplary Telecaster guitar.

John Cruz: Exotic Thinline Stratocaster – $14,500

John Cruz’s Exotic Thinline Stratocaster uses beautiful exotic hardwoods with character as well as a custom inlay design. The orientation of the Claro walnut combined with the Inlay scheme help glorify the natural beauty of this wood. Ideal for players and collectors that appreciate breathtaking hardwoods, this guitar combines ultimate playability, a classic body shape and the feel of a Fender Stratocaster.

Yuriy Shishkov: Silence – $59,000

Yuriy Shishkov’s Silence Stratocaster is an abstract art guitar piece with watercolor painting, silver cloisonné, rubies, diamonds and sapphires. It can be viewed from 360 degrees, and Shishkov encourages those witnessing it to create their own “meaning” as an observer.

Ron Thorn: Coronado Antigua Burst – $20,000

Ron Thorn’s Coronado is his fresh take on the classic Coronado model using a laminated/pressed arch top and back with an alder rim and center block. Custom-made pickups were designed specifically for this guitar, while the RSD J-Bridge and tailpiece round out the hardware. A unique dove-tail bolt-on neck joint, tilt-back headstock, and a variety of other refinements make this a finely crafted instrument worthy of the “Custom Shop’s Finest” designation.

Kyle McMillin: The Exotic Hybrid – $8,300

Kyle McMillin’s The Exotic Hybrid was inspired by a design he made in his garage nine years ago. “I made some minor changes that I wish I had done back then, and also redesigned the guitar to incorporate Fender’s traditional body shape and headstock,” McMillin said. The guitar features a Stratocaster body and Telecaster headstock; a directly mounted TB4 humbucking pickup; and a custom control configuration designed so the switch is out of the way when strumming. “In the past, I would accidentally hit the selector switch on a Stratocaster while playing,” he said. “In this design, the switch is still within the swing of your arm’s reach, but just a little further from your standard strumming region, so you can’t accidentally bump the switch.” The Exotic Hybrid is ideal for players who love an exotic look and variation on Fender’s traditional designs.

Scott Buehl: Prestige Frosted Duco Tele® – $11,000 There are many compelling features about this Tele starting with the Red frosted duco lacquer finish. Duco finishes were first made popular in the 1930s. As the duco paint dries, it crystalizes and creates a stunning look. The guitar hosts an alder body, mahogany neck, original Blackguard Tele (bridge) and a TV Jones Classic Filtertron® (neck) pickups. There is an RSD Tele bridge and Schaller® M6 mini tuning machines for ultimate stability and intonation. Buehl added a custom clear pickguard to allow the duco finish to shine through. All these features together create a classic Tele with a host of never-before-seen features.

Fender will also debut three unique amplifiers and respective sets!

One of A Kind Walnut Double Champ Amplifier 120V – $12,000

Masterbuilt by Shawn Greene, this amp is one-of-a-kind featuring all-solid walnut construction, hand-rubbed oil finish. It also acts as musical furniture or an end table for use in the living room or studio. The amp also includes a ’57 Champ circuit; hand-wired with Fender “yellow” tone caps; two custom Celestion G8 speakers for “double champ” performance; and a slotted walnut grille. It’s backed by “sound suede” grill cloth and has a tasteful black ebony feather inlay on top corner.

`64 Deluxe Tiki – $15,000

Light those patio torches and grab that Strat, because the Fender Amp Custom Shop has combined the exotic spirit of the South Sea islands with a sonic slice of Fender history in the gorgeous form of the ’64 Deluxe Tiki amplifier. Elegantly designed and crafted by Amp Custom Shop Master Builders Shawn Greene and Jim Dolmage, the amp’s rustic select-pine cabinet is beautifully laser-etched with stylized Polynesian Tiki imagery inspired by the work of Fender designer Mike Whelan.

The amp also features “torched” wood-burnt cabinet edges, hand-wired `64 Deluxe Reverb circuitry, a single 12” Celestion® Cream speaker and a Custom Shop logo on the back. This unusually distinctive one-of-a-kind amp is paired with a matching Tiki Stratocaster guitar that will have you soloing over “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua” in no time (if you can after all that rum punch).

`64 Deluxe Kraken – $15,000

From the bottomless creative depths of the Fender Amp Custom Shop comes a most unusual one-of-a-kind piece combining perhaps the most fearsome of all fabulous sea beasts with a classic sonic slice of Fender history—the ’64 Deluxe Kraken amplifier. Elegantly designed and crafted by Amp Custom Shop Master Builders Shawn Greene and Jim Dolmage, the amp’s rustic select-pine cabinet features exquisitely laser-etched imagery (inspired by the work of Fender designer Mike Whelan) depicting a deep-sea diver of old in truly dire straits—entangled in the formidable tentacles of the enormous Norwegian sea monster that once struck stark terror into the hearts of seafarers everywhere: The Kraken. The amp also features “torched” wood-burnt cabinet edges, hand-wired ’64 Deluxe Reverb circuitry, a single 12” Celestion® cream speaker and a Fender Custom Shop logo on the back. This unusually distinctive one-off amp is paired with a matching Kraken Telecaster guitar with which you can explore untold musical depths.

Fender Custom Shop models will be available at local dealers and on www.fendercustomshop.com throughout 2019 and beyond.

For technical specs, additional information on new Fender products and to find a retail partner near you, visit www.fender.com. Join the conversation on social media by following @Fender.

2019 Annual Collections Include:

Vintage Custom:

Vintage Custom ’57 Strat®

Vintage Custom ’62 Stratocaster®

Vintage Custom ’58 Telecaster

Vintage Custom 1958 Jazzmaster

Postmodern:

2019 Postmodern Strat® Maple – Journeyman Relic®

2019 Postmodern Strat® Rosewood – Journeyman Relic®

2019 Postmodern Tele® – Journeyman Relic®

2019 Postmodern Bass – Journeyman Relic®

Time Machine:

1959 Heavy Relic® Stratocaster®

1965 Journeyman Relic® Stratocaster®

1967 Stratocaster® Rosewood Relic®

1952 Telecaster® Relic®

1956 Telecaster® Journeyman Relic®

1965 Custom Telecaster® Relic®

1959 Jazzmaster® Rosewood Journeyman

1964 Jaguar® Lush Closet Classic

1960 Precision Bass® Heavy Relic®

1961 Jazz Bass® Heavy Relic®

Limited Edition:

Limited Edition Roasted Pine Double Esquire® Relic®

Limited Edition Big Head Strat® Rosewood Journeyman Relic®

Limited Edition Roasted Tomatillo Strat® Relic®

Limited Edition Roasted Tomatillo Strat® Rosewood Relic®

Limited Edition Thinline Loaded Nocaster Relic®

Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Stratocaster – $4,600.00 (Available January 2019)

If there were a Mount Rushmore of Stratocaster Masters, Stevie Ray Vaughan would be one of the greats enshrined there. Almost single-handedly responsible for the electric blues revival of the 80s and 90s, he used his beloved Strat® to blaze his way to the top of the charts. Only the artisans at the Custom Shop could craft this guitar that Vaughan co-designed with us before his untimely passing. It’s one of the most revered guitars in the world, and we’re proud to make it a permanent addition to the Custom Artist Collection. SRV heavily modified his Strat to match his energetic, yet controlled, playing style.

We included a trio of hot, high-output Custom Shop Hand-Wound Texas Special™ pickups for fiery, authentically Fender tone that’s as big as the Lone Star state. As an homage to his personal hero, Jimi Hendrix (who’s also been known to pick up a Strat) SRV used a left-handed vintage-style synchronized tremolo bridge on his guitar, allowing him to work the tremolo arm with his elbow—a modification we cheerfully recreated.

The two-piece body is crafted from alder selected for its weight and grain, and its NOS lacquer finish will age and wear in a distinctly personal way, just like the original. The tinted riftsawn maple neck has an “Oval C” profile that’s slightly thinner on the treble side, making it easier to bend those strings into the stratosphere—a precise recreation of his favorite guitar’s neck profile.

Other features include 5-way pickup switching, vintage-style wiring, 3-ply Black “SRV” pickguard, vintage-style tuning machines, bone nut and round string tree. Includes deluxe hardshell case, strap and Certificate of Authenticity.

Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Stratocaster® – $5,500.00 (Available January 2019)

Nobody brings the fury to the fingerboard like Yngwie J Malmsteen, the legendary guitarist who single-handedly invented the neo-classical shred genre on his modified Vintage White Stratocaster. As only the artisans at the Custom Shop can do, we co-designed this guitar with Malmsteen, constantly refining the design until he loved it, right down to the special pickups and the distinctively scalloped fingerboard.

Originally released in 1988, the Yngwie Malmsteeen Stratocaster was one of the first official Fender signature instruments, and we’re proud to add this Custom Shop model as a permanent part of the Custom Artist Collection. Balancing dynamic response and articulation, the custom Seymour Duncan® YJM Fury single-coil pickups are voiced for their positions, reinforcing each other to create a high-performance, responsive set of pickups. The two-piece select alder body wears a NOS lacquer finish with WLS undercoat while the tinted maple neck sports a “Custom C”-shaped profile that’s designed for fleet-fingered playing.

Not just for shredders, the 9.5”-radius fingerboard is scalloped, just like Malmsteen’s original, which provides more control along with enhancing your ability to bend and manipulate notes. Combining the vintage-inspired style of a “big” headstock, vintage bridge and “F”-stamped tuning machines with player-oriented enhancements like 21 super-jumbo frets, brass nut and special strap locks drilled into the guitar for extra security, this instrument will bring new life and ideas to any player’s music.

Other features include 5-way pickup switch, vintage-style wiring, 3-ply Eggshell pickguard, vintage-style synchronized tremolo bridge and wing string tree with metal spacer. Includes Yngwie Malmsteen Signature .008-.046 light gauge electric guitar strings, deluxe hardshell case, strap and Certificate of Authenticity.

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When Children With Autism Grow Up

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/when-children-with-autism-grow-up/

When Children With Autism Grow Up

I was 23 and needed a summer job; he was 21 and needed full-time support. He’s one of an estimated half million people diagnosed with autism who are soon becoming adults — and who society is entirely unprepared for.

The heat that afternoon was intense. Weather maps across Iowa were deep red, and warnings flashed across the screen. A high school football player on the other side of the state had died from heat exhaustion the week before. Cornfields wilted and shrank into hills of despondent brown.

I was running late as I parked and shuffled to a dilapidated satellite classroom building. I introduced myself to a teacher sitting at a desk and told him that I was there to meet a 21-year-old man named “Scooter” — a childhood nickname, I’d later learn, that had stuck. (I’ve changed all names and some details to protect him and to comply with privacy laws.) I needed a summer job after my first year of grad school, and he needed staff.

My experience with autism had been limited to movies and anecdotes from friends who worked in “the field” — care industry shorthand for post-institutional residential and community-living nonprofits supporting people with developmental disabilities. (“We’re always looking,” the agency had said, and hired me without any sort of drug screening and a cursory, astonishingly fast background check. The drug screening was my only concern while filling out applications.)

The teacher looked like he was close to retirement age and wore a hearing aid. He asked about my experience working with people diagnosed with autism. “None,” I said, and his face dropped.

“Don’t stand directly in front of him,” the teacher said, “and avoid making eye contact. He might perceive that as a threat. He’s very keyed in on body language. Introduce yourself, but let me take the lead.”

I was led to a corner of the room I hadn’t before seen. It was darker than the rest of the space and a few decibels quieter. In the nook, I saw Scooter. He had a stringy mustache and hair with great curling wings. One of his eyes wandered slightly. He sat behind a crescent-shaped table padlocked to the wall at both ends of the curved top. Scattered in front of him were piles of flashcards, jars of beads, toy cars, unfinished puzzles, crumbs from lunch, and a laminated piece of tagboard with a strip of Velcro down the center. As soon as he saw me, his face tightened into a sort of grimace, baring his teeth, but the rest of his face, his eyes, posture, and hands were unexpressive as he blankly leaned out into the dim classroom.

“Well, hi there,” I said, waving. I began to clam up in all of the pits of my body.

“Well, hi there,” Scooter said, and he let out a deep laugh.

The person I was going to meet that day had been a child in my mind. In front of me was a man. A man only two years younger than me.

The three of us sat at the table while Scooter and his teacher went through flash cards, and Scooter looked at me a few times with a penetrating glare. His expression settled into a sort of skeptical normalcy. I felt like I was being sized up, and I now realize that I was. Scooter has had dozens of staff come and go in his lifetime. He was right to wonder whether I would be sticking around.

As medical phenomena go, autism is a recently identified one, although perhaps not as recent as the current vaccination panic suggests. The term was coined in 1912, and the first person ever diagnosed with autism is now 81 years old. And yet the contemporary situation is an unprecedented one: Though the data we have is under constant scrutiny for its accuracy, methodology, and usefulness, the Centers for Disease Control reports that the current rate of autism diagnosis in the United States is 1 in 68. This is a continuation of a trend identified by the Environmental Protection Agency that started between 1988 and 1992, when the worldwide diagnosis of autism spiked from 6 in 10,000 kids to 24 in 10,000. Scooter, born in 1989, is part of a coming “tsunami” of autistic adults. Signed in August of last year, the Autism CARES Act has devoted $1.3 billion in federal spending to research, which is a drop in the bucket autism currently costs the United States annually. That number only stands to go up. Simply put, we have no plan for any of this.

People diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities used to be stuffed into institutions, and the horrors that took place within them are well-known. I’ve read about Achilles tendons being cut to prevent people from running away, teeth being pulled to prevent biting, cattle prods used to electrocute, endless streams of sedatives. While most of that has stopped, with the glaring exception of overmedication, the current system of care is hyperaware of this history.

Ideally, those who work with this part of the population now strive to empower them, to remove labels and barriers and work toward independence. And yet this is the ugly fact, a vestige of the institution era: The chief witnesses to Scooter’s life are not friends and family but scores of paid providers. People like me. We accommodate, teach, and encourage. We support. We never punish. And yet our interests are split between doing genuine good for another human being and getting a paycheck. So we’re also probably looking around for something that pays better than $10 an hour and doesn’t involve regular emotional, and sometimes physical, beatdowns. And that, in turn, affects people like Scooter.

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Mac had long hair, had studied English in college, and was a competent thinker and dedicated stoner. When I showed up to work on the first day, he stood by the Smoke Shack, a repurposed bus stop shelter, and was halfway through an American Spirit. His belly and hips were pressed forward. He said, as if informing me, “You’re Bob.”

I grinned and lit a cigarette.

“Smoke that fast. You have to work.”

Mac had known Scooter for five years. Scooter had been living in group homes since he was 11. For the last decade, Scooter would see his family about once a year, if that. He has no friends. Mac explained that my job was to help him transition into the agency’s day program, a place for people to socialize, do activities, and complete sub-minimum-wage work.

We entered what Mac called the Autism Room, or A Room. One man, in his forties, overweight and wearing a Ron Paul T-shirt, was vacuuming while doing a spot-on impression of the vacuum. Another, in his late thirties, was eating a box of raisins and singing his name. A third, approaching 60 and wearing overalls, took off his shoe, jumped out of his rocking chair, bit his shoe, began to cry, and then sat back down. The people supported, like Scooter and the rest of the men, were referred to as “individuals.”

Opposite each was a member of the “staff”: a reformed redneck with trendy sunglasses and a Metallica T-shirt, an aging Gen X’er with a pink poodle haircut and psycho-’50s-housewife-chic miniskirt, and a hipster who talked at length about shoegaze-y post-punk and horrorcore-trance hip-hop. Everyone had a clipboard and documented, ad nauseam, their daily assigned individual, from lunch choices to the size and consistency of their bowel movements.

Scooter was the youngest in the A Room by almost 10 years. He and Mac and I sat in a corner, Scooter in a plush recliner and Mac and I in stiff plastic chairs. Mac tossed the clipboard under his chair and said we would fill most of it out at the end of the shift.

“Hey, man. Um, dude. What’s up with you today, Scooter? Remember, we met at your school?” I asked.

Scooter looked at Mac.

“Don’t ask open-ended questions,” Mac said. “You have to use phrases that he knows and yes-or-no questions. Yo, Scooter. You want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail today?”

“Yuh,” Scooter said.

I couldn’t tell if he had said “yeah,” “huh,” or “no.”

“Key-Wash?” I asked. “So are these phrases, like, written down somewhere?”

“No, just pay attention. That’s a ‘yeah.’ Everyone assumes he’s saying ‘no,’ or ‘huh.’ Scooter, do you want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail? Yes or no.”

“Yes.” Scooter said.

“Scooter, do you want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail? No or yes.”

“No,” Scooter looked puzzled.

“So which one is it?”

“Do you want to go for a walk on the Key-Wash trail?” Scooter said.

“He talks in the second person,” Mac said. “So ‘you’ sometimes means ‘I.’ Also, questions are sometimes questions, but other times they’re statements. It’s part of his echolalia. Give him two choices and he usually picks the first one. Are you getting all of this?”

“Yeah, um, yes,” I said. I wrote “echolalia” on my palm and googled it when I got home.

Mac slathered Scooter with sunscreen and then documented that he had administered the medication “SPF 30 sport sunscreen.”

We piled into a junky minivan and Mac showed me how to fill out the mileage tracking and use the company card for gas. He prompted Scooter to buckle up and told me that we couldn’t take the thing out of park until everyone had their seatbelt on.

After Scooter clicked his buckle, Mac said, “You’re all telphered in and…”

“Telphered in and goin’!” Scooter rocked forward and back in his seat excitedly.

“I have no idea what that means,” Mac said. “Someone taught it to him a long time ago and now it’s just a thing that he says. He’ll say it pretty much every time if you prompt him. Some people go overboard and get him to say off-the-wall shit, but it’s not like he doesn’t have a sense of humor. Scooter,” Mac said. He changed his voice to mimic an announcer: “Nothin’ runs like a…”

“Nothin’ runs like a Deere.”

“Um, wrong one, dude. He does love John Deere, though. Scooter,” he gave a sneaky nod in the rearview mirror. “Try again. Nothin’ runs like a…”

“Stripper,” he said and smiled.

Mac made it a point to tell me that the whole “intellectual age” thing, that Scooter is like a 5-year-old trapped in a 21-year-old’s body, is bullshit. “He understands everything we’re talking about right now,” he said, “so don’t be shitty to him. Treat him like a person.”

Scooter sat in the backseat, watching the slumped cornfields as we whipped past them. We drove over a dam, past a large irrigation reservoir, and arrived at a trailhead. A sign read “Woodpecker.”

“I thought we were going to the Key-Wash trail,” I said.

“I don’t know where the Key-Wash trail is or if it even exists. All trails are the Key-Wash trail.” Mac logged the van’s mileage. “He won’t be upset as long as you guys go for a nice long walk. Where we at, Scooter?”

“The Key-Wash trail,” he said.

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Illustration by Eric Petersen for BuzzFeed News

I was off on my own a few days later. I parked the van in front of Scooter’s house and waited for him to come out the front door. I had a vicious hangover. When he appeared, he was wearing a new pair of shorts and clean white shoes, had shaved his mustache, and sported a fresh crew cut.

“What’s up, Scooter?” I said when he opened the door of the van.

“Where’s Mac?” he asked.

“Just you and me today, dude.” Scooter climbed into the backseat. “You’re looking sharp, man. Nice threads. Where ya headed?”

“To the A Room.” He looked out toward the front door of the house, disconnected from our conversation, and slowly buckled his belt.

“Are ya all telphered in and…”

“Huh?” he said, suddenly engaged.

“Are ya all telphered in and goin’?” I said in my best Scooter impersonation.

“Are ya goin’? You don’t want to go to the A Room today?” he said.

“Which one is it? Going or not going?” I asked.

“Are you goin’ to the A Room?”

“Groovy,” I said. My guts began to angrily rumble.

When we arrived and I parked, Scooter did not get out of the van.

“You don’t want to go to the A Room today,” he said.

I tried being nice, being firm, everything I could imagine. And finally I said, “I can wait all day, dude,” took a few steps from the van, and lit a cigarette. But that was a lie. Twenty minutes later, I said: “Scooter, please. I have to go to the bathroom really bad.”

Scooter sat in the backseat with the door open and said nothing. The sun pulsed down in oppressive waves, cooking whatever foul thing was roiling in my intestines and heating the van to what I hoped was intolerable for Scooter. And then Mac happened to come outside for a smoke.

“How’s it going, fellas?”

“We’re stuck,” I said, “And I’m about to fill my shorts.”

Mac laughed. He poked his head into the van. “Sup, dude.” He pointed at me and then at the building, so I ran in. When I came back out, Scooter’s binder in hand, negotiations were still heated.

“Check it out, dude,” he said, showing Scooter. “We’re going to get out of the van, go rock, go to the bathroom, go for a ride in the van, then go home.”

“You want to stay in the van?” Scooter said.

“Can you move to this seat so we can talk better?” Mac pointed to a seat closer to the door. Scooter did. Over the next half hour, Mac continued to prompt Scooter to complete the next step of getting out of the van. Move to this seat, move to that seat, put your feet near the edge of the door, put one foot on the ground, put your other foot on the ground, grab this handle, and finally out.

The victory, if one could call it that, felt so small that I wanted to stay home the next day and the rest of the summer. It would have been easy for me to leave. But it was a job.

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Scooter and I soon spent six hours a day, five days a week together. I eventually didn’t need Mac’s help as often, which I think he respected. We would shred confidential documents from nearby businesses so Scooter could make money, and then head down to the Dairy Queen on payday. I would ask Scooter what he wanted, already knowing that the answer would be a medium chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. I would get a small root beer float. “How about this weather?” I would say, or, “They sure make one hell of a cup of ice cream here” or, “These are the days to remember.” He would just say, “Yuh,” and eat too fast.

“Slow down or you’ll get brain freeze,” I would say.

“Your brain freeze,” he would reply between bites and laugh.

We walked many miles of trails and worked through sorting and matching tasks. A lot of time was spent sitting in silence. When he was unable to regulate the information coming into his brain, I would perform a process called the Wilbarger Protocol. It was intimate. I would move a soft brush on Scooter’s arms, legs, neck, and back. Then he would put his hand in mine and I would grab his fingers one at a time, compressing the joints in toward his palm. Firm but gentle, confident but caring. I would watch his face, look for some tension to drop from it and then linger there, count to 10 in my head, and then move on to the next one. We were an impossible duo, a temp and one of the hardest guys in the agency.

But things got rough by the end of the summer. He started to refuse activities, and then he got aggressive, reaching for other staff members’ faces, toward their groins, pulling people’s hair. He never tried to hurt me. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe he wanted me to stay.

Before long it was my last day and I was checked out. He refused to leave the A Room at all, which just meant less work for me. I was happy to sit in a chair and play with my phone. But then it was time for Scooter to go home.

The dude in the Ron Paul T-shirt vacuumed, and his staff orbited. I called Scooter’s house, and the staff who answered said he’d be there soon but that Scooter’s roommate was going berserk and kicking holes in the walls.

“Are you done?” I said in a low, firm voice.

“Are you done?” he replied, laughing.

“Whatever, dude. I can sit here all day. They’ll give me overtime.”

Scooter said, “Whooossshhh,” and laughed again. The vacuum shrieked.

“Seriously, dude, I just fucking want to go home,” I said in a half whisper and stood up. “Out of the chair, let’s go.”

“Get out of the chair.” He said in a rough voice.

“So what, are we just hanging out here? Just chillin’ one last day? You haven’t had enough of me yet?”

“Oh, I’m just hangin’ out.” He said with a high-pitched, mocking tone. Repeated it for another hour. Whooshed every time I spoke to him.

When we parted, neither of us said good-bye.

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Illustration by Eric Petersen for BuzzFeed News

It was about a month before I caught myself sitting alone at the DQ, slurping down a root beer float, or hiking Woodpecker with the hopes that Scooter and I might run into each other. Mac and I had become friends, and he gave me updates on how Scooter was doing while we played disc golf or went out drinking.

Mac showed up one day, pale, wearing a hat.

“Bad haircut?” I jabbed, and then he took the hat off. His scalp had bald patches and open abrasions. Scooter had had an episode and was hospitalized, Mac said. He put his hat back on. We ate Indian food and didn’t talk about it much more.

Scooter has never been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but he almost certainly has it. He has alleged that his father sexually abused him, but the claims were unfounded because it was Scooter’s word against his dad’s, which is common. By one estimate, people with intellectual disabilities are four times more likely to be sexually abused than people without.

Scooter’s allegations of abuse come in huge outbursts, and he echoes things that must have been said to him while it was happening. “You are a fucking retard, aren’t you?” and “Does that dick feel good in your ass?” and more that I can’t bring myself to repeat. During post-traumatic episodes, almost all of his frustration eventually manifests as physical violence.

Over the Indian food, my nostalgia turned into guilt, which, in the weeks that followed, turned into outright pain, a longing to be there for him. To help Mac and the other staff and ultimately Scooter. He would listen to me, I was certain. I could help him somehow. That thinking was rooted in the relationship Scooter and I had built together, but also, I now realize, in a sort of compassionate hubris. I can take care of him because he can’t take care of himself, I thought, and got a job part-time at his house.

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“It is Bob!” Scooter exclaimed, rushing to me. He looked tired, ragged, the stringy mustache coming back in, the wings starting to curl behind his ears.

“What’s up, Scooter-duder?”

“What’s up, Scooter-duder? Oh, I’m just hangin’ out,” he said and laughed.

“We’re still on that, huh?”

“Yuh.” Scooter said and then reached out for my face with both hands. I ducked out of the way reflexively. Mac appeared out of the bathroom and tapped Scooter on the shoulder.

“We don’t need to be doing that,” he said, and looking at me: “You ready for an adventure?”

Mac and I had to take Scooter to a pre-appointment; he was getting his wisdom teeth removed. Long overdue. Dental work causes so much anxiety for Scooter that in order to do it safely, he needs to be fully anesthetized, and they need to see him before they will put him under.

“Scooter,” Mac said as he drove, “what should we have for lunch after we’re done at the dentist?”

“Do you want to go to McDonald’s?” Scooter said. McDonald’s was more than lunch. It was the ace up our sleeve.

“Sounds like a plan, dude,” Mac said.

Scooter tried to pull the receptionist’s hair when we went to get his paperwork. He tried to pull a little kid’s hair on our way back to the far corner of the waiting room. Nobody looked at him. Everyone stared into their devices. White lab coats occasionally floated through the space.

“Bob,” Mac said, and nodded toward Scooter. He grimaced. Scooter has been in and out of inpatient psychiatric units his whole life, and the lab coats reminded him of that. He moaned and bent over, nearly touching his chest to his knees, and then threw himself into the back of the chair hard. He started reaching over my shoulder toward the person sitting closest to us, a young mother, trying to get at her hair or face.

“Let’s keep our hands to ourselves,” I said in a low, calm voice. Mac was in a vaguely athletic stance, ready to react.

Scooter looked at me, continued to make pained faces and reach.

“Scooter, stop,” I said.

Scooter suddenly stood and fixed his gaze on the woman. His arm was out and he started walking toward her, his face unrecognizably vacant.

I felt my own energy rising and stood right in front of him, puffed myself up to look big and imposing, and I said, “Sit down, now.”

Getting hit in the face doesn’t hurt. Not at first. At first you aren’t sure what happened, but it’s vivid and embodied in retrospect. Scooter slapped me three times and, after a few attempts, boxed my ears, which sent me into a dizzy high. Overcome with a vibration, a warble in my gut of an instinctual magnitude spread to all of my limbs like an electric charge. Fight or flight or keep your fucking cool. Always try to do the lattermost. Finally, he grabbed my beard. Pulled slow, hard. That hurt right away, like a thousand pinpricks. Mac was there, holding Scooter’s hands against my face, trying to keep him from ripping out hair, asking him to let go.

“Scooter,” a nurse said, and he was off, Mac and I flanking him on either side. I glanced back over my shoulder as we walked to the exam room. Everyone in the place stared at us, wan and terrified.

We got through the rest of the appointment, received pre-op instructions, and kept Scooter from tearing out the nurse’s hair. The whole ordeal felt, at once, bizarre and pointless. Of the vast, innumerable infrastructures of society — dentists’ offices, hospitals, mental health counselors, DMVs, voting stations, restaurants, bars, public parks — I have never been to one that was adequately prepared for someone like Scooter. And if that isn’t enough, the general public responds to him with fear and feels better when he’s out of sight.

An exit sign glowed like a beacon near the exam room. Then we ate McDonald’s; it was terrible.

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Illustration by Eric Petersen for BuzzFeed News

A few months later, I was working close to 30 hours a week. Every shift was Scooter and me. That was on top of full-time school, teaching, and writing my graduate thesis — an experimental, heavily fictionalized, and nonsensical book-length essay about working with Scooter. It was unreadable. In all, I spent about 50 hours a week with him or writing about him. And I dreamed about him almost nightly. Most of the time, he didn’t have autism, and we would talk, at length, about my work. Everyone who I’ve told this to in the field has said they’ve had such a dream about someone they support. All this and I was his “preferred staff,” not a friend.

One day, an administrator, I’ll call her Ann, was in the house with Mac when I showed up for my shift. She was, and I suspect still is, the only consistent female presence in Scooter’s life and another paid provider, and she was holding a pair of medical safety scissors.

“We have a job for you,” she said with faux gravitas. “Scooter has really bad dingleberries.” Mac let out wicked, high-pitched laughter.

“Got it,” I said. I had no limits. They didn’t have to ask. I gloved up and took the scissors, went into Scooter’s bedroom, and sat down on the floor while he sat in his rocking chair.

“Dude,” I said, “you and I need to do something.”

“Yuh.”

“It is going to be uncomfortable at first but will make you feel better when we’re done.”

“Yuh.”

“I don’t know how to explain this, so here it goes.” I looked up at him and made prolonged, serious eye contact. “Sometimes, our turds get caught in our butt hair. Guys like you and I, we have a lot of butt hair, so the turds make something called dingleberries. And dingleberries make us feel uncomfortable. So I’m going to take these scissors and cut out the dingleberries. Is that clear? Can you tell me what we’re going to do?”

“Bob’s going to cut your dingleberries.” Scooter spoke these words with an air of knowing.

Scooter got into the shower and I turned it to the temperature I knew he preferred. Ann and Mac hovered outside the door. I rolled up my sleeves and asked him to “bend over,” aware of his history of abuse but unable to think of more neutral phraseology, and he did.

The dingleberries were in a dense clump. Some were the size of walnuts. All of them were dry, hard, and matted in. I started by asking Scooter to wash with a soapy cloth, and then grabbed each one, careful not to pull, and clipped it out. I dropped them into the tub and they made audible thuds. As I continued to trim, I thought about how it must have been to live that way for months if not years, unable to tell anyone he needed help.

Scooter is of the generation that is bringing autism out of the shadow of Rain Man and into the cultural consciousness as a real thing. That damage has been done, however. I once told a woman I was attempting to court that I worked with a guy with autism — that it was hard work, but rewarding. “What’s his gift?” she asked. Savantism is a phenomenon experienced by 1 in 10 people on the spectrum. People like Scooter have to work hard to learn basic skills, and Scooter’s family didn’t have the resources — money, time, education — to teach him.

Intensive early intervention strategies like applied behavior analysis can help teach communication skills and “socially appropriate” behavior. iPads and apps are the new frontier of autism communication systems. After listening to people like Carly Fleischmann and Ido Kedar, we know that people who are unable to speak are still able to think and feel. They can tell us what it is like for them to have autism, but we must be careful not to generalize too much. The spectrum is so immense it is almost useless. As Hans Asperger said, “The autist is only himself.” Or the new adage, “If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism.” And that person is a whole, complete person, inseparable from their “disorder.”

“You’re doing a good job,” I said, but Scooter didn’t show any discomfort. Mac and Ann giggled. It occurred to me, as I trimmed this man’s pubic hair, that there is no substitute for self-care. Nearly a dozen staff had started and quit in the two years I worked with Scooter. One guy took his first lunch break and never came back.

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And I would leave too. A year later I had finished grad school and was set to move out of state. I put in my two weeks with relief. We all worried that Scooter would get agitated and aggressive, that the disruption of his routine would be too much for him to handle. So after talking it over with the other house staff, but not Mac, I decided I wouldn’t say good-bye.

Scooter sat in his rocking chair and I stood in the doorway to his room. It was the beginning of another hot summer. The light coming in through his blinds, brilliant white bands on darkened floorboards.

“Scooter, I’m proud of you,” I said.

“Bob will be back tomorrow?” he asked.

“Not tomorrow,” I said.

“Bob will be back in two weeks?”

Two weeks was an amoebic time frame for Scooter. It meant he would see me later in the vaguest sense — after a vacation or in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen.

I still work in the field, albeit many states away; it’s now my fifth year. I’m in it until I burn out completely. It feels good to have a mission and to dedicate my time to the advancement of others’ well-being. I continue to unlock new chambers of empathy on my very best days and leave work feeling ecstatic clarity. Scooter did that for me first. That’s the selfish edge of altruism. And there’s my paycheck, which helps get me through the door on the bad days. I spend a lot of time thinking about the power dynamic that existed between me and Scooter, how much of an outsider he is. That he lives in a sort of alternate reality, and I’m just a tourist in it. There’s a lot of truth in his status as “other,” but that kind of thinking keeps him on the outside. The reality is that everyone with autism lives in the same ambiguous, fraught, difficult-to-navigate world as the rest of us.

I’ve since been promoted a few times and spend most of my day at a desk, distanced from the hands-on work. Clearing and constantly running into bureaucratic hurdles is exhausting, occasionally infuriating, almost always tedious. My problems are all abstractions. I don’t get hit anymore. I don’t feel all that fear and adrenaline. And I miss it. I miss Scooter and other people I’ve supported. Now I often feel like just another murmur in a strange and hidden system of tax-dollar expenditure.

Scooter is going to live in a group home for the rest of his life. His needs, his desires, his day-to-day life will always be contingent on the presence of staff. Does he need this level of support? Certainly. But how did he end up here, so far away from the availability of solid, meaningful relationships? Because it’s not Scooter’s disability that isolates him; society does. As a newer, much larger, and more visible generation of kids is growing up in the same system, an important question arises: Can this be changed?

During my drive out of state, I would break down into heaving sobs. I had to pull over and confront, for the first time, the fact that I loved Scooter and all of the people I was leaving behind. It can look strange, it can encompass all of our frustration and warmth and indifference in equal measure, because being a person is complicated, but treating everyone with unconditional and irrational kindness is the only thing that makes sense.

In his room, Scooter’s eyebrows were scrunched low. He looked down at his hands folded in his lap. He rocked for a bit, and we remained in silence.

“Bob will be back in two weeks?” he asked again.

“In two weeks. Good-bye.”

“Bob will be back in two weeks?” he asked, and I walked out the door.

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