#a lot goes inside my mind but sometimes its just so.... bleh

[narryffdreaming]

oh god have soooo many opinions and nothing to do with them 🫠

[bluejaytaco]

More DND with Jay

(Because Jay has a problem)

After the “Death” of Ticket Master, his sword popped out a new god; Task Master. He’s basically a really whiny Mr. Poopybutthole and is super jazzed to be promoted into this position. Apparently, it’s the position he wanted.

Because of the situation we were in, he marked us all with a bracelet so he could keep track of all of us. With the exception of Koejin, who was able to move in time to keep the bracelet off her. When Koejin refused to put it on, Hennessy was able to convince him that Koejin would be a loyal follower. Task Master kinda shrugged it off and just stated he would be able to see through her eyes when she lied anyway.

Task Master then opened up two portals back to the mortal world; one from where we left off and the second to where we were heading. Where we were heading was being demolished by a giant worm (General Purple) and Mrs. Red.

But there was still unfinished business in the tunnels. Wreybar’s entire family was down there and so was Art’s sister. We ended up splitting the party.

Hennessy, who went into the tunnels with us, wasn’t happy when he found out (he headed through first)

Hennessy: (angry sputtering)

Art: Hennessy, it’s okay. Just... stay calm. We’ll see them when we get out of here.

Art’s hand: (Forms a mouth and speaks in Ticket Master’s voice) Yes, Hennessy, stay calm.

Art: (Stares at his hand) The fuck?! How?! What?!?!

Ticket Master: Well, I needed a way to communicate with you. So, I accessed your hand as it... what’s that?

Art: What’s what?

Ticket Master: That! On your wrist! Take it off!

Art: (Tries to take off the bracelet only to have it stay right where it was) yeah, no can do, bud.

Ticket Master: No, you have to remove it! Hennessy! Do something! Use magic! Get rid of it!

Hennessy: uhhh...(studies the bracelet for a moment) um...(pulls out a cloth and ties it around Art’s hand, gagging Ticket Master)

Ticket Master: Mmmphh!

Art: (fake innocent look at the hand) Is that better?

Hennessy: I just... don’t have the energy to deal with him right now....

-

(Later, further in the dungeon)

DM: So you guys come to a door that’s slightly ajar.

Me: Okay, I peak my head in all stealthy-like. (Pretty high Stealth roll)

DM: Alright, Art. So you look in and see a large, dim room with a chest in the center. Sitting on top is a goblin who hasn’t noticed you yet. On the far side is a glass room with another opening only big enough for Wreybar.

Me: Is the room bright enough for Hennessy to see?

DM: Yeah, no need for darkvision.

Art: (Relays this info to the rest of the group.)

Everyone: (Walks in and alerts the goblin to their presence.)

Goblin: (Starts shouting at them. Only Hennessy understands him)

Hennessy starts talking to the goblin and finds out his name is Robert Lin. He’s sitting on the chest because something in it tried to bite his hand off. Hector was the reason for him being stuck there. (Hector’s been trying to lead us into situations that would kill us for a while now.)

Art: Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if there was a little mimic inside the chest?

Alabaster: Seems rather redundant.

Art: Just saying it be funny.

Wreybar goes into the room and finds a book of monsters. Hennessy looks inside it and finds some pages are worn, along side a bookmark that says “this is what is in the chest.” We come down to three different creatures. Blue slime, tiny blue dragons, and water.

Chest: (speaking draconic)

Everyone: Yep, dragons. Definitely dragons...

Hector: We could just leave him here and keep going. You know, there’s a really cool statue in the other room with glowing red eyes. We should check it out. Any takers?

Everyone: (Silently glaring at him)

Hector: Guess not.

Hennessy: Maybe you should tell us about why you left our friend here on a chest and we might consider listening to you.

Hector: I don’t need to tell you anything. You don’t have that skeleton with you anymore. (Note: Skelly went with the other team.)

Art, fed up and pissed off now: Alright, look. You have managed to piss off everyone here in one way or another. Now, what you’re going to do is shut your mouth until we speak to you and answer all of our questions, or I’m going to make you wish it was Skelly here!

Hector: (Begins to do a mocking impression of Art)

Art: (Rolls extremely high on intimidation)

DM:  Art, as you’re shouting at Hector, the air around you begins to heat up and crackle. You begin to glow a little and, as Hector looks up at you, he is struck by fear. The black eyed glare, the horns, the heat, it’s all a perfect terrifying picture. He’s so scared, in fact, that he passes out from fear.

Art:....shit. (smacks him a few times in attempt to wake him up. he doesn’t move.) uhhh, whoops.... hm...

(Art then proceeds to move Hector to safe places and make sure he doesn’t die. After that, he agrees to the idea of their new goblin buddy dragging him around with a rope. No one else cares about whether Hector lives or dies. Art’s motives and mind confuse even me sometimes...)

-

(Next room has an old mining type rail with a curtain leading into a long, dark, void-like hallway. The void is described to be something very Ticket Master-y.)

Art: (takes the wrapping off his hand.)

Ticket Master: Bleh! Ugh! Hennessy! What is that, your dirty laundry?! Ugh... Hello...

Art: Hey, uh, just a quick question. Do you know anything about this room?

Ticket Master:..... I’ll need to have a better look. Put your hand out.

Art: (does that)

Ticket Master: ....Okay, now bring me back.

Art: (does that too.)

Ticket Master: Art, do you see any eyes here?! I have no idea what fucking room you’re talking about!

(DM: Ticket Master isn’t at all his cool self. You can hear the frustration in his tone which is completely new to you.

Me: Yeah. Honestly it’s kinda nice.)

Art, sighing: Okay. It’s a room with a mining rail. Ring any bells? Figured you’d know considering you were down here before us.

Ticket Master: Oh you figured as much? Well, I still have no idea....

Art: Ah, okay. It was worth a shot. So on goes the gag again.

Ticket Master: No, wait! (Art reapplies the cloth) Mrrrph!

- 

(We go down the rails and see that it’s a presentation talking about the generals, all of it hosted by Mrs. Red. It fast forwards at certain points, but then stops towards the end to play about Purple.)

Red: And then we have my good friend, Purple. He can turn into literally anything and use its abilities to his full advantage. He’s unstoppable. So, my suggestion to you? Jump into the void. There, you can be brought back to your lives with no memories of this. Simple, easy, quick.

Hennessy: Clearly, this is some pre-recorded message.

Art: Has to be.

Red: Oh, Hennessy, is it so clear? And it ‘has to be,’ Art?

Alabaster: How is this possible? We saw you on the back of the giant worm in Althori!

Hennessy: After being stabbed by Eltbalm.

DM: Hennessy, (After rolling Arcana) you remember reading about this type of magic. It’s a projection of a person’s mind. So, that really is Red in front of you.

Red: Yes, thank you for that. Speaking of which, could you tell me how that’s possible?

Art: We could.

Red:.... (impatiently waiting for an explanation Art won’t deliver. ((Art is soooo dead when she gets her hands on him.)))

Alabaster: ....It was a gift.... for you...

Hennessy: Either way, we must move on, for now. Time to continue on our quest to stop you. (climbs out of the car.)

Art: See you soon, Red. (follows after Hennessy and Alabaster)

Red: One more thing. Tell that tentacle monstrosity you call Ticket Master that I’m coming for him. And I’ll take great pleasure in killing him.

Art: Yeah... good luck with that one... 

(Everyone heads out of the room.)

-

(We all head into a new room with a new puzzle having to do with statues of Mrs. Red. But then, a large projection plays on the wall and shows Koejin looking at us in confusion. On her end, it’s a random floating rock. A homebrew move Alabaster has is Pelor Message. It works like Message but with no distance limit. However, he can only message poeple who are either followers of Pelor or supporters of the belief. Koejin’s a supporter.)

Alabaster: Hello, Koejin! We seem to be able to see you!

Koejin: Wait. Are you guys in the floating rock?! (pokes it)

Art: Hey, do me a favor and yell at her for poking strange magical objects. (for context: Koejin has stopped Art from poking at magical items about three times already. She’s literally kept him alive in most cases.)

Alabaster: Art would like to chasitise you for touching unknown magical artifacts.

Koejin: Psh, it’s fiiiiiine. But, Alabaster! Look who we ran into! (Koejin pulls an elf over into view and points at him. It’s Alabaster’s brother.)

Alabaster: (overjoyed rambling)

Art, leaning over to Hennessy: Not to be racist but.... doesn’t that guy look an awful lot like Alabaster? (Koejin’s player: That’s what I said!!)

Ticket Master: Mrph frph! 

Art: (taking off the cloth again) Yeah, what’s up?

Ticket Master: Ugh, that thing’s disgusting!

Art:...Did you just want to be able to speak?

Ticket Master: Is that such a crime?

Alabaster:... Oh, yes... A new development; Ticket Master is also still around. Art’s hand has formed a mouth.

Koejin: Ugh.... really?

(It was around here that our side ran out of time and we transitioned into what was going on with the giant worm destroying the town. Also had to end early because my connection kept fucking up....)

[chocobutt-trash]

Hiya! You write beautifully and you're probably sick of me saying that by now because I say it all the time and every comment I make on all your fics.. But there's many times when I'm engaging with your writing that I need to pause and just say "wow." So it got me thinking that you've probably read a lot of interesting books and I was wondering if you would share some of your favorite fiction titles. It's almost blasphemy to talk about non fanfiction on tumblr but I am quite curious. Thank u

*waves*Hey there - thanks so much for this ask, it’s something I relish being asked because there’s nothing I like more than talking about my favourite books ;)

First off I’m still super flattered you enjoy my writing so much! I have a long way to go before reaching the calibre of those I look up to, but with more practice, and wider reading, there’s always the chance, haha.

Blasphemy? Never!

So: books and authors I adore.

Right up at the top we have to have Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Mantel’s prose is absolutely exquisite, and she’s one of the most enjoyable authors around. Wolf Hall is the first in a fantastic trilogy covering the rise of Thomas Cromwell to power in Tudor England, but honestly, Mantel could write about de-greasing a kitchen sink and the prose would be so damn delightful I’d read it and weep. Here, we have a hefty tome that is, essentially, a history book, and the most stunning thing is that she’s reconstructed as much as possible of the events and scenery as was at the time of the Tudors. She really got inside Cromwell’s head to write this book, and he’s such an interesting character. We often hear of the Henry VIII story from either Henry’s point of view, or those of his wives (particularly Anne Boleyn). But this, now, this comes from the unexpected track. Born to commonfolk in a small London suburb, Cromwell was never meant to gain entry into the inner circles of the English Court, and yet he ended up influencing the political and religious direction of an entire nation. This is a fantastic character study of a shrewd, down-to-earth, ambitious man, who is at once a man of the people and yet so hard to fathom. Damn, just talking about it makes me want to read it again.

Filth, by Irvine Welsh, is a mainstay of mine. It’s written entirely in Scots dialect, so if you’ve not the background, you may need a translator. But Filth, like all Welsh’s novels, is amazing in its characterisation. It deals with an ordinary policeman in Edinburgh, Bruce Robertson, who, we slowly come to realise over the course of the novel, is completely morally corrupt. And it starts out with little things. Little, ‘oh, he’s probably being a bit of a jerk’ things. Little redeemable things. And since it’s all from his point of view, you’re along with him for the ride. Having a villain as the main character, first-person, and having the rabbit hole be such a subtle slip, does interesting things to your brain, to the point where, as a reader, you almost start waving away some of his actions, and part of it’s due to the sort of language Welsh employs. I love this fact, because you see how easy it is for people who do terrible things to get away with it. To make you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Just in case they can be redeemed. There is also a hefty dose of psychological horror and existentialism, with a side order of magical realism as the tapeworm that lives in Bruce Robertson’s gut starts talking to him. The further he gets down the rabbit hole, the worse his mental health becomes. And, of course, this is Irvine Welsh we’re talking about, and I don’t think there’s even enough tags on AO3 to warn you of all the horrors this book contains within.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, has been one of the biggest influences on my writing style. McCarthy has an incredibly unique style. It’s bare-bones writing - he need not spell out anything for the reader, and this goes to the point where he doesn’t even use speech marks to delineate conversation. The structure of the writing alone is so flawless that you don’t even need it. It’s an exercise in creating a stark, vivid post-apocalyptic world with the bare minimum of ingredients. Word choice, sentence structure, emotion. His style really isn’t for everyone, but it is so clever and utterly delicious. I read the entire thing on the verge of tears, I was so worried for the kid in the story.

Amrita, by Banana Yoshimoto, is actually not Yoshimoto’s best work in terms of style (her short story collections Sleep and Kitchen are better), but it’s such a work of art that it stands as my favourite of hers. It’s about a young woman who wakes up after being in a coma, having lost certain parts of her memory. There’s a sister who died, a younger brother with problems of the parapsychological variety, and a healthy dose of magical realism. It’s all washed over with this serene sense of nostalgia and anticipation, and on every page I felt like I was on the brink of an entirely other world, that I could just look at the world slightly differently, and it would shift.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami, is an experimental masterpiece. I love the fact that I basically read the entire thing and it was so well-written I didn’t even question the fact that nobody in the novel has names. That’s right, nobody’s name is mentioned even once. And there’s at least a dozen characters. This is an outstanding book that influenced anime creator Yoshitoshi ABe (creator of Serial Experiments Lain, and Haibane Renmei), and it’s utterly fantastical and out there and thought-provoking, which is not what one might necessarily think for a novel that opens with a man musing at great length about what sort of sofa is best to sit upon.

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (no, not the comedian, the other one), is also experimental in nature, and is sublime in the way it packages up its stories. Mitchell has an immense amount of talent; there are multiple plotlines that spans centuries and he is somehow able to write convincingly well in each genre style, from nineteenth-century colonial memoirs to ‘70′s crime drama to futuristic post-apocalyptic fiction. I read a lot of ship logs from century-old expeditions, and the segment The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing is absolutely spot-on. There’s real beauty in this book, and please, for the love of god, read the book rather than watch the film, because beautiful as the film is, it does not come close to capturing that sense of wonder that the book does.

Dune, by Frank Herbert, has to be up here because not only is Dune a fantastic example of eco-fiction, but Herbert breaks the cardinal rule of not having more than one point of view in a paragraph and somehow I still love him. Conventionally, I prefer sticking to a single point of view in an entire scene, because otherwise the narrative is messy, and not in a fun way, more in a kind of sticks-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth-like-mashed-potato kind of way. Bleh. However, Herbert routinely switches perspective in the same scene, sometimes during the same paragraph, and occasionally during the same sentence. He’s pretty much the only writer I can stand who does this (barring Stephen King on the odd occasion) and it’s mainly because one of the principal themes in Dune is the use of Bene Gesserit magic, which is a glorified way of saying ‘using psychological warfare on others’. Words are a weapon, and it’s imperative to the plot of the story that the reader sees the effect of these words on the characters’ mental states. So yeah, it’s meant to be a sci-fi eco-warrior novel, but it ends up immensely psychological. And that is a very worthwhile read.

I think I’ve covered the main ones that tend to hover up near the top of my mind. Again, thank you so much for this ask, it was great fun to answer.