#and more interested in projecting whatever their personal RP is onto the game

[dmbakura]

OK so I want to stress that this is NOT a slight against OP of this post or how they feel about the way the game presents certain options, but I've seen sentiments like this before and I feel like people still aren't quite grasping WHY the game doesn't allow the option to do a "slow burn romance where you can show him you truly care about him beyond sex" if you ascend him. So I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about Astarion's route and objectification, and the very intentional limitations of player choice regarding the ascension path.

Objectification is the act of degrading someone to the status of a mere object. It often involves a sexual component, but not necessarily. It's reducing someone to being a tool or toy, as if they have no feelings/opinions/autonomy of their own. In Astarion's case, his objectification is very much tied to his sexuality, but also his own views on power and control, and how that reflects on both him and his romantic partner.

I think people get too fixated on Welch's quote "it's reducing your relationship with him back to being a kink/form of gratification... it's very much admitting you failed to think of him beyond a sex object" and take this as commentary or judgment on the players choices, when it isn't actually that. It's quite literally the story that is baked into the route and Astarion's character as a whole. There are obviously reasons to ascend him that have nothing to do with how you personally feel about him as a character, ie you want stats, you think it's just more fun, or interesting, or you like the tragedy, etc but in regards to the story itself? It's actually more commentary on how Astarion views himself more than anything else. He is an intentional subversion of the seductive vampire trope. You cannot engage with his story without interacting with this aspect of his character.

Even if you had a dialogue option to try and initiate a romance with him without that first night of sex, Astarion wouldn't take it. If you had a dialogue option to "show him you cared and want to protect him" he would either scoff at it or get angry, as he does if you try and express similar sentiments about protecting him from Cazador. He doesn't want to be coddled. He doesn't trust mindless heroism or altruism. He initiates sex because he uses it as a tool for manipulation and insurance of his own safety. You can either play into that manipulation or don't (and he seems to respect you more if you don't, which says a lot about his self worth). You can't initiate a slow burn romance because Astarion is so distrustful of EVERYONE and has no ability to conceptualize genuine care at this point in the game due to his mistreatment as a vampire spawn. This is an incredibly important aspect to his character and to change the foundation of this is to rewrite his character entirely.

(There is ONE exception to this: Karlach. Karlach is the only character that can initiate more of a slowburn with Astarion and won't sleep with him the first night because she quite literally, physically can't. And Astarion doesn't immediately accept this either. He belittles Karlach, to the point of calling her frigid and basically defective, wondering if he's wasting his time, before she chews him out for being an asshole. Again, he has no idea how to approach a relationship without using sex as a transaction and it shows. He only goes along with it because he quite literally cannot do his normal routine. This is the only reason he won't start a relationship with Karlach using sex.)

So anyways, that choice at the start? The way Astarion's romance initiates on the first night? It intentionally parallels the way ascended!Astarion will offer you an ultimatum: become his spawn or leave him. At the start of the game, Astarion intentionally plays into the sexy vampire trope to get what he wants, is highly paranoid, afraid and distrustful of everyone. At the end of the game in the ascended route... he's intentionally playing into the sexy vampire trope, is highly paranoid, afraid and distrustful of everyone, only this time he has power to back him up. Nothing about his views has been fundamentally challenged if you ascend him; he's completely validated in his beliefs about power and control and entirely in the mindset that he has no value without becoming the ascendant.

It's not about whether you personally find him sexy or not. It's not about having sex at this point. It's not about you or your character. Astarion objectifies himself, fully playing the only hand he knows (as he himself puts it) because that is all he knows how to do. In the ascended path, he has been shown no other option. Your character, good intentions or not, has not given him the tools to see himself as anything else. There is no way too make himself see himself as anything else, except by not ascending him! Either you let this man degrade you as he degrades himself, or don't. That is the option provided, and anything otherwise wouldn't make sense without rewriting his character completely.

Do you value what he actually wants (freedom) or do you value what he says he wants (power, because he views it as the only way to get that freedom)? To me the game makes it obvious (ESPECIALLY with the newly added epilogue) that walking in the sun again or gaining the power of the vampire ascendant aren't the keys to Astarion's happiness. Stuff like that, while nice, doesn't magically grant him peace and it's not a substitute for character growth and self reflection. It honestly just feels like people want the personality and development of spawn Astarion but in the ascended Astarion path, which doesn't make any sense with the way the story unfolds.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that objectification can be more than just seeing someone as a sex object, and doesn't necessarily have to do with sex itself. It can tie into views about power and degradation and a lack of self respect. Furthermore, it's not the game telling you you're a bad person or some sex addled freak if you ascend him, it's asking you to engage with what Astarion's personal story can say about sexuality, cycles of abuse, trauma and recovery - for better or worse.

#astarion #ascended astarion #again i feel like people are less interested about what it can say as a story #and more interested in projecting whatever their personal RP is onto the game #which i should clarify i think is fine in transformative work #but if it's to the point where you feel the game is calling you out specifically maybe interrogate why you feel that way?

[barbiegirldream]

genuine question are you baiting or are you like. actually incapable of seeing exile arc was depicting abuse

of course if you’ve only watched tommy’s yt vids of it (which were purposefully cut to be entertaining to a wider audience who would be more interested in lighthearted, quick stuff than the actual full rp) instead of his full vods (where you see everything that Actually went down) then i guess it makes sense you don’t understand

or maybe you just cant look past the media being a silly block game and thats why you refuse to see the story for what it is? if so, fair, but then dont shame other people who are interested in actually properly analysing the story and characters, neither of which are made up the ccs themselves have literally talked about it. you just come off as one of those douchebags who make fun of people for being cringe or whatever

tldr i think its a dick move to call people freaks because theyre simply interested in a story that you personally do not understand!

i've seen the full vods multiple times as i enjoy tommy and dream's content the most out of anyone on the dsmp. and as i am not a dull middle schooler who is failing english and projects obvious personal problems with my parents onto a roleplay between friends i can consume content like a normal human being and not be a complete freak with no idea of how to interact with other human beings. thanks for asking!

[lovenotesandneonstars]

And That’s Enough.

Wanna hear a secret?

Every writer I've ever known has, at some point, faced a soul-crushing anxiety over whether or not they're really a writer.

"But Topher," you might say, "That's not a secret!"

If I were being clever, I might give you a wink and the slight twitch of my nose that all the wise old men do. But I'm not very clever, I'm not necessarily wise, and I'm not old. So instead, I figured I might tell you about how I learned to solve that crisis for myself. But in order to get there, we have to start at the beginning.

I was a fairly lonely kid, never really had a steady friends' group, and when I was in second grade I started deliberately getting lunch detention so that I could spend my lunch period reading without being harassed by my classmates. I thought it was a genius plan. Well, that, and my second grade teacher (who was also my third grade teacher, yay for small towns!) and I had a personality clash. I would finish my work too fast and start reading from my pocket dictionary (yeah, I was THAT nerd), and would correct him in class. He, in return, would try to find any way possible to punish or humiliate me. It was fun! I loved reading no matter what trouble it got me in, and getting in trouble just gave me more time to read.

Ask any writer you know and they'll tell you that in order to write, you have to enjoy reading. And I was always excited to read (which hasn't changed much as I've grown, I just find less time to be able to read these days. #Adulting, right?) at any chance I got. When I was in 5th grade, I stayed in the truck with no AC and just the window rolled down for 3 hours while my mom went grocery shopping to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (which took me a whopping 5 hours to finish!). When sixth grade rolled around, I started wanting to try my hand at creating something instead of just consuming it. For a lonely, depressed kid, the world of fiction was the best friend I had.

The first thing I remember writing was House MD fanfiction. It was my favorite show and I started out as any respectable fanfiction writer does: with a Mary Sue self-insert! Eventually, I had a small cult following on the school bus, and found my way to the big leagues of fanfiction.net about a year later. I moved onto another overdone trope: songfics. From there, I kept writing fanfic, even after my mom found it and banned me from it. I just enjoyed writing so much. House MD turned into Harry Potter which turned into Glee. I should also mention the other kind of writing I found as an eleven year old, right after I started writing fanfic: role playing. I stumbled upon a Harry Potter RP one day while trying to find video games for my favorite franchise and, with the help of a kindly more experienced role player, was taught how to RP. I was hooked. Soon, all my free time turned to writing. I was neglecting my video games in favor of blasting my favorite album at any point and writing more and more. And when I wasn't writing, I was reading. Harry Potter, The Princess Diaries, Percy Jackson, whatever I could get my hands on. Middle school was consumed by writing and reading, whether it was the actual series I was into or fanfiction for it.

Then came high school, and my RP site shut down, and my book pile ran out, and I fell into a deeper depression than I had before. I had always loved music, but I got more into it as I couldn't find much to read that I was interested in. But on the bright side, I was making real friends! I wasn't spending my lunch times alone anymore, and I had people to talk to about the fandoms I loved. Writing and reading fell to the wayside as I explored more music and l got back into video games. I was also a theatre kid, and was getting ready to audition for my first high school play. 

Everything changed when my mom passed away on December 5th, 2011, 4 days after her 52nd birthday. My dad made me stay home for a week, and when I came back, all my "friends" refused to talk to me or spend time with me. My depression hit heavier than ever, and I was even lonelier after having had a taste of regular friendship. I spent all my time playing video games and listening to dark, angry music, until June 2012, when I watched a movie called It's Kind of a Funny Story, based on the book by Ned Vizzini while I was sick. It instantly felt like I needed the book in my life, and my dad, thrilled to see me wanting to read again, let me order the book. I fell in love, and to this day, over 8 years later, it's still my favorite book. Soon after, my love of writing came back and hit me and I got back into role playing. I had a role model to look up to who wrote something so relatable to me that it hurt so good, and the video games took a back burner. I was inventing people left and right to see what kind of trouble I could get them into.

My world came screeching to another halt when my newfound role model took his own life on December 19th, 2013. This time, though, instead of backing off from the role playing, I dove deeper into it. I found new friends on the internet and kept making new people. Not long after that, I came out as transgender, and used writing to cope with my dysphoria and strained relationship with my family. Every waking minute I was either role playing or thinking about role playing. I snuck on my phone in class to write replies when the teacher wasn't looking. I wrote replies in my notebook to type up when I got home. I went from short, 3-sentence replies to hundreds of words at a time.

Then, in May 2015, I graduated high school, and I was off to college as a psych major! In the time between, I had graduated to running RP sites as well, and I was constantly writing. My summer was filled with writing, and once I made it to college, I got back into fanfiction, this time on Archive of Our Own. AO3 seemed far more professionally laid out, and it had more freedom of what could be posted. I started writing band fanfiction. I made friends through my fanfiction, now, in addition to RP. It was where I would retreat when homework was too boring or my classes were too much. In November 2015, I participated in my first National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I instantly found the community I was meant to be in and made many friends that I would come to consider family. Ny first NaNo I came in just shy of 13,000 words on a band fic. I couldn't believe I had managed all that in one month with being a college freshman, starting a new job, and continuing to work on my role playing! Things were great! For the next year, my life was nothing short of amazing. I got a summer job on campus, went to my first Pride, and made more friends. 

Once again, my life came to a screeching halt on November 2, 2016. Remember how I mentioned I'd always struggled with mental health issues? Well, I ended up in the hospital for just over 21 hours for suicidal intent. This was pretty much the darkest moment and a turning point in my life. It was also kind of ironic, because my favorite book had to do with much the same thing. After getting out, I dove back into NaNoWriMo for the second time, still working on band fic, and this time, ended up just short of 20,000 words. I was doing more, and using it to take away the anxiety I was feeling in my classes. I was hating my major, and the RPs I was in were falling through, but I had a project to work on. For the first time, I kept working on the project after NaNo was over. Things were good again, and over the summer, I made the decision to change my major from Psychology to Creative Writing, but ultimately had to wait one more term because I was already signed up for classes.

I completed my third NaNoWriMo in 2017 with fewer words than the previous year. But I was committed. I had helped start a Discord for my home region for NaNo and was now spending almost full-time hours volunteering for my region. I finished my last semester as a Psych major and then I made my way home for the holidays, where I continued to write, diving back into fanfic for TV shows and now adding Youtubers to the mix. When I returned to school at the beginning of 2018, I started my new life in all my English classes, including my first writers' workshop, and I fell in love. I was still writing fanfiction, though, while others were writing original fiction, and all that I could think was that I HAD to be a fraud. How could I be a real writer if I was just writing fanfiction for my classes? It was frustrating to think that I was stuck writing something that most people saw as mindless drivel, or even ripoffs of the works and lives of others. After my first term of creative writing, I took some time off from my fiction class, and used that to take a break from anything that wasn't RP.

Fall 2018 brought with it many challenges. For one, my college converted to the semester system, and having to confront a new length of term was difficult. It also brought around an intermediate fiction course for me, as well as a creative nonfiction course. Here, I found something I enjoyed: I was able to write about my own life, instead of the lives of band members. After a while, I got to know the band members, which completely killed my desire to write band fic. Life seemed a lot easier without that urge, and I started writing original fiction. In November 2018, for the first time, I wrote original fiction for my 4th NaNoWriMo, and my word count grew, once more, to just under 22,500 words. It was progress, and I felt great. I finally knew how to work on something original on my own.

Spring 2019 was even harder than I had faced before: I had received the news that I was not getting financial aid, and would not be able to return to school the next year. I was devastated, and determined not to have to return to my dad's house for the following year, back to the small town where I had no prospects. I scrambled to find a job, but nothing worked out, and for the next seven months, I jumped from living situation to living situation, relying on my friends to keep me alive and ending up in a tightly packed studio apartment with 2 friends and their 3 cats.

One of these 7 months was my 5th NaNoWriMo and my second attempt at original fiction, this time trying to use a character I had been RPing with for some 6 years at the time. I started using new writing tools, like 4TheWords, and threw myself into NaNo, using it to deal with the frustrations of everyday life. This was the first time I came so far: 28,611 words! And still... My project stalled out. As a major pantser, I had gone into the project with one developed character, one who only had a name and profession, and the plotline "They fall in love". It was freeing, to have something new to work on that I had no idea where I was headed and that I had someone brand new to create. All this was helping me adjust to the new job I found in September, a job I found myself absolutely loving. It was the best time in the world, all I could ask for. I found a new RP site and made more friends. Come December 31st, I found a new place to live, and was finally living on my own.

Then, my writing on that novel stalled out. I couldn't figure out where to go, or what to do with my characters, and so I dove back into role playing. It was all I could do, really, to keep myself occupied when I wasn't working. Things were looking up: I found out I was returning to school in fall; I loved my job; my roommate and I got along well. And then, things fell apart again, to the point where I had to stay somewhere else for over a month while there were construction issues on my apartment. I was depressed, but RP and writing kept me going. Finally, things settled down, and life seemed well again.

That is, until halfway through March, when COVID-19 ended up basically destroying the world I lived in. I lost my job (live performances during a pandemic are a no-no) and had to move back in with my dad, and, well, here we are. 4 months post job loss, I'm trying to get ready for all online classes, and trying to cope with moving back to the town that I couch surfed to avoid. It's been hard, and writing hasn't come easily. I haven't been able to really focus on anything other than role playing until now, and I still find myself questioning whether I'm REALLY a writer every time I realize that this essay or my RP is the only writing I've done in months. After all, how can I claim to be really dedicated to NaNoWriMo or even my writing in general if I can never finish a project? It's been almost impossible for me to do so in the past. All I've been able to do is come up with yet another idea that I've yet to attempt to actually write, and that has no real plot, and that I'll (probably) never finish, either?

Then I think of why I started to write this. I needed to have some writing to show some people I want to impress, and I started angsting over whether or not I'm actually a writer, and if I'm really cut out for this. And the fact that there are over 2500 words more on the page than there were when I started means that, in spite of all my anxieties, I am a writer. All these words I've put out into the world the last several years would never have come into the world the way I've decided to use them if I wasn't a writer. Even now, as I sit here writing this post, for something that I truly love, I'm reminded that I'm not a writer because I follow XYZ formula, or because I plan things meticulously, or because I have some famous novel out there. I'm a writer because I write. And that's enough.

#essay #2020 #writing #am i really a writer #nanowrimo #life #creative nonfiction

[tisfan]

So you can ignore this (obviously) but I've been following you and 27dragons for a while now, and I was just curious how you guys met/started writing together? Like are you just old friends who both like to write or is that how you met? I imagine you enjoy working together, did that just gel or did it take a while? PS I love your work separately & together!!

Long story time!

Back in 1991, I’m a freshman in college, I’m an extrovert who doesn’t know it yet because I grew up around people that I didn’t have anything in common with -- my “best friend” in high school was into wrestling and mudding. (Which isn’t to say there’s anything WRONG with that, but I... yeah, i read books.) I don’t fit in with the girls in my dorm because I’ve had multiple boyfriends (and was bisexual) on a hall full of girls who’d never been on a date before. So, I’m an outcast in my college dorm because I’ve “had sex, ew.”

And I pretty much have like 2 friends at this point...

And I’m so freaking BORED and tired of spending meals by myself. So I come into the campus breakfast area one morning and I see this girl that I knew from one of my classes, sitting by herself. READING A BOOK. (for that matter, a book I’ve read before!)

Now, keep in mind that she sits in front of me in class, so while I knew who she was, she had never seen me before. And I just sit down and start talking -- about the book, about the class we have together. 

She was... annoyed with me but trying to polite it out for... eh, I’d guess about 10 minutes...

and then we walked to our next class together, talking a mile a minute. She invited me to her gaming group, and I invited her to my study group.

We’ve had our bumps in the friendship -- mostly because both of us have screwed up royally in our treatment of each other -- and some misunderstandings. We didn’t really see each other much for a few years around 1996 - 1999 or so because of one really bad thing. But in the end, I’ve always missed her MORE than whatever the problem was. And we’ve both worked really hard to maintain the friendship now that we’ve got it back. 

As far as writing together goes: well, we were both writers on our own before we even met, each of us with at least one or two (I can’t remember) finished novel-length stories done. We started exchanging stuff to read and doing crits on each other’s work (her stuff was initially much better than mine, which I think says more about HOW BAD I was at this for a long time)

I’m going to take a moment here to talk about our campus gaming group - The Meade Hall.

It was the brainchild of one of my ex-boyfriends, but we had a “chat channel” back in the day that was hosted on our college’s BBS system. Text only. Anyway, the Meade Hall wasn’t a gaming group so much as it was a place for our adventurers to “hang out” AFTER they were done with their adventure. Combat wasn’t allowed; everyone had to agree that spells did or did not affect their characters. 

Essentially like the RP groups I see on Tumblr these days -- but bigger. and they were all original characters. I think in its heydey, there were upward of 30 people who played.

And eventually, as characters who aren’t beating up orcs tend to do; there were romances... Kyth and Sealgair, Diya and Kevil and Loria, Bastian and Cat, etc.

And when things would get steamy, or personal, we’d move it to another channel... I still have some of those transcripts, and Dragons and I eventually made the Kevil/Diya/Loria transcript into like... 2 and a half novels. (also, I still have them somewhere)

Can we go back to Alanis, n’shava? Where everything makes sense?

Bastian and Cat’s romance got a thorough overhaul and became a 2 novel set Marked Man and Wanted Woman, which I published several years back. (the first one of these is still available as an ebook-- the second of them never got a reprint, but if you’re interested, hit me up, I have copies that will go straight onto your kindle or e-reader and I’m happy to sell them to you like $3 for both of them)

Around... 2008 or so, we both started writing short and long m/m stories and getting them published. And then... we had some publisher issues (we were with TQ for a long time, and you’re welcome to look that up, several other authors have complained about it profusely, and I have no interest in rehashing it again) and stopped writing for pay... which was around 2014/2015. 

And Dragons was writing fic, and slowly brought me into it.

We wrote separately for a while and then... started working together.

Winter is Coming was our first joint project as fic writers. The rest... well, you’ve seen it ;D

#ask me anything #anon query #fic stuff #me and dragons #Anonymous

[nekojitachan]

Okay, I just felt like writing something Halloween-inspired. This is the start of something new (I KNOW, FINISH SOME OTHER STUFF).  I’m getting back to RP, I promise, but I wanted to post something since I haven’t lately, so here’s this.

Warnings for Mary (so yes, abusive relationship), and mentions of child abuse, mentions of the abusive pasts of our boys.

The Ghost in You

*******

Andrew gave what passed as a glare from him at Wymack as he stalked into the man’s office. “How the hell am I supposed to help Peter Minkin if I can’t understand him, hmm?” he asked in a deceptively mild tone of voice as he slapped his latest case file onto his boss’ desk and narrowly missed sending a pile of paperwork toppling over as a result.

Used to him by that point, Wymack didn’t even flinch or pause in drinking his coffee, merely gave Andrew the finger as if gesturing for ‘one minute’ while he finished his needed influx of caffeine before speaking. “Because that’s why I hired a damn translator last month? Which a shitty little maggot like you would know if you’d attended the supposedly mandatory staff meetings.” Wymack glowered as he folded his tattooed arms on top of his messy desk.

Andrew waved aside the usual gripe as he snatched up the abandoned file, partially mollified that he’d have a way to communicate with the kid. “That’s what Kevin’s ten page summary emails are for,” and ignored – he relied upon Renee to fill him in on any necessary details, but she was currently on sabbatical, off helping out some old Peace Corps friends with a project for a couple of months. Hmm, he had to wonder if the new translator had anything to do with the ‘hot piece of ass’ Nicky had been going on about lately, which was even more reason for Andrew to ignore his cousin. “I’m scheduled for a preliminary meeting with Peter in half an hour, the translator better be there,” Andrew said as he turned to leave the cluttered office.

“It’s already on Josten’s schedule,” Wymack called out. “You’d know that, too, if you read your damn emails!”

That was another familiar complaint which was waved aside as Andrew left, intent on having some more caffeine himself while he checked for any important updates to Peter’s files before the appointment; on the way to the kitchen and then to his own office (a lot less cluttered and disorganized than Wymack’s), he ran into Nicky and Robin, yet managed to fend them off by waving the thick folder in the air. Nicky grimaced, clearly in the mood to talk and unhappy to be denied, while Robin, finally cleared to work on cases of her own after shadowing Andrew for the past few months, smiled and wished him a good day.

It was such a hopeful thought, but highly unrealistic; the children brought to Palmetto Services (nicknamed the Foxhole because of all the stuffed foxes scattered around the place and the playful versions painted on the walls in an effort to soothe and cheer up the kids) were abused and/or traumatized, were the ones who’d been fucked over by the ‘official’ child services system in one way or another and so it had been decided that they needed more specialized attention (that they’d be someone else’s problem).

It meant that Andrew was working with kids who often suffered through the same thing he’d gone through as a child, the same pain and abuse and neglect… and he got to end the horror for them. He got to make it better, but it took a lot of work, a lot of patience and digging and effort, and he knew firsthand the nightmares would still continue even though the monsters had been vanquished at last (at least those monsters).

At least, he did everything he could to help the children assigned to him, so the new translator – Neil Josten – better not fuck things up with Peter Minkin. From what the files said about the boy, he’d been taken into custody from a violent father up on various charges with no sign of the mother, and could barely speak any English. The boy was malnourished and bore repeated signs of abuse (Aaron had done a thorough physical on Peter, and Andrew could tell from the sloppiness of the handwritten notes attached to the copies of x-rays and bloodwork that his brother was furious about the results).

He skimmed the newly added details from his brother and what Seth had been able to unearth about the boy’s father, everything committed to memory, then went to the one prepared play room where Peter would be brought for their first session. It only took a minute for Andrew to reach it since it was right down the hall, and he was surprised to find someone there already.

The person was a young man around his age, perhaps a little younger, and had a couple of inches on Andrew’s five feet. The dark grey sweater he wore hung on his lean frame, the sleeves falling past his hands, and dark brown hair fell onto a handsome face bearing a faded scar down the right side, obscuring what seemed to be brown eyes. “Andrew Minyard?” the young man asked, his voice a quiet tenor and accent bland, lacking in any regional indicators.

“Neil Josten,” Andrew said by way of an answer, and noticed that Josten didn’t offer a handshake nor seem offended when Andrew didn’t do the same. “How’s your Russian?”

“Good,” Josten said then fell silent as he took a step back to lean against one of the bookshelves containing a multitude of stuffed animals.

Not a talker, which seemed odd for a translator, but that was fine with Andrew, who wasn’t much of a talker himself. He checked his phone to see that Abby was bringing Peter, along with a surreptitious glance at his associate; despite the shaggy haircut and baggy clothes, Nicky wasn’t too far off about Josten.

It was just a casual observation while he waited for the kid.

“And here we are,” Abby said as she arrived with Peter Minkin, a bright smile on her face and ash-blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Even though she was the head nurse practitioner for Palmetto Services and helped run the medical offices where Aaron and Katelyn interned, she often escorted the new or more skittish children around (her or Renee) since she projected ‘safe’ so well with her friendly smile, the colorful scrubs she wore and her genuine kindness.

As for Peter, he appeared small for his seven years (probably the malnutrition), his dark brown eyes huge in his face and his light brown hair cropped close to his skull. He was dressed in a Winnie the Pooh t-shirt and jeans that were a little too long for him, and was obviously reluctant to come near two strange men.

Before Andrew could do anything, Josten moved away from the bookshelf with a stuffed Pooh in his hands and knelt a safe distance from the boy while he spoke softly in Russian. After a couple of seconds, Peter’s face broke into a smile and he gave a shy smile as he reached for the bear; Andrew noticed that Josten was mindful to hand it over slowly and without touching the child.

Josten spoke for about another minute, and then Peter joined in as well. That went on for another minute or two while Andrew’s annoyance grew, until he heard his name be brought up. Peter’s eyes flickered toward Andrew and whatever it was that Josten said seemed to put the boy at ease, to the point that he gave Andrew a slight wave with his right hand.

Soon after that, Josten nodded once and slowly stood up as if mindful not to startle Peter. “All right, I told him that you’re going to talk to him for a while, perhaps ask him some questions but that you’re here to help him and it’s going to be all right, that you won’t touch him.” Something made Josten’s jaw clench for a moment before he went back to the one bookshelf. “No one here will.”

Interesting, that Josten said ‘not touch’ and ‘not hurt’, not that either would happen while Andrew was around. “He’s right,” Andrew told Peter even though the boy might not understand him. “As he said, I’m Andrew, now shall we play a couple of games?” He motioned toward the one table that was already set up with the various coloring books and simple games he used to help him know the children assigned to him better as well as work toward gaining their trust while Josten translated.

The session went by quickly despite Andrew’s inability to talk directly Peter, with Josten only speaking to translate and staying quiet otherwise. Peter seemed to enjoy being able to play with crayons and to draw what were probably meant to be animal shapes, but drew into himself whenever Andrew brought up his father or the one coloring book had images of a man and a woman with a child or children in it.

Probably not a good idea to have Wymack attend any sessions with the boy in the near future.

The session ended with Andrew certain about Peter’s abuse and forming a plan on how to move forward with his treatment, but aware that it would take numerous more sessions. He remained seated when Abby returned for Peter, intent on retaining the slight bit of trust he’d earned with the boy so far.

It was difficult to tell with the overlarge sweater, but when Josten left the room first, Andrew thought Nicky might be on to something about the man’s ass. Also, he’d have to talk to Wymack about having the door looked into since something was wrong with its hinges – the damn thing would have slammed shut in his face if he hadn’t stopped it in time. He also felt a blast of cold, so the air conditioning was acting up.

He stopped by Bee’s office to share his initial observations with her about the boy and go over his reactions to the new case, as well as his workload in general. After about half an hour, they moved on to more ‘safe’ topics (the latest books they were reading, a new bakery), and he brought up Josten. “What’s his story?”

“Neil?” Bee handed over a fresh mug of hot chocolate before she returned to her desk. “David felt that we needed an official translator on site rather than request one on demand all the time. We can’t keep limping along with the various languages everyone on the staff knows, so he brought in a heavy-hitter,” she said with a smile.

Andrew thought about that for a moment, about Josten’s quiet voice and professional behavior. “What does he know besides Russian?”

“That I know about? Chinese, Spanish, French, German and Arabic.” Her smile strengthened when Andrew’s brows drew together. “Yes, I know, impressive.”

“Why’s he working here, then?” One didn’t go into a social service related job for the money, and it seemed to Andrew that someone with Josten’s skills could be working for the government or some big corporation.

Bee was quiet while she sipped her own hot chocolate as if debating what to say. “I’ve only met him a couple of times and David’s been quiet about how he found Neil… but I’m willing to bet that Neil works here for much the same reason that most of us do,” she admitted. “It’s personal for him.”

Andrew thought about that after he left to continue with the rest of his current cases (Isabel and Ryan and Cory), while he worked with Laila on the upcoming court trial for Cory’s prick of a father and spent some time with Robin on one of her own cases. He had just enough time to meet with Aaron for lunch and was satisfied to have an excuse to turn down meeting up with Kevin later that evening to watch some stupid game in a bar, even if it had been too long since he’d gone out drinking or had any ‘fun’.

Josten showed up each day to translate for Peter, a quiet, unobtrusive presence who stood off to the side and relayed what Andrew and Peter spoke as Andrew worked hard to earn the boy’s trust, to slowly try to pry the truth out of him about what his father had done to him and his missing mother. Each day Josten would show up in thick sweaters despite the fall weather still being warm for that time of year, covered from lower neck to hands and feet, his hair barely combed and falling onto his rarely expressive face. He would translate and then leave, and Andrew wouldn’t see him in the break room or the small cafeteria or anywhere else around the Foxhole.

It wasn’t that huge of a building.

“What do you think of him?” Nicky asked during lunch one day, about two weeks after Peter had arrived at the Foxhole. “You’re so lucky you get to work with him – all of my kids speak English or Spanish,” he said with a slight grimace, as if he didn’t adore his cases; he worked with kids facing difficulties due to them coming out or transitioning, often because of their home life or the situations at school.

“He translates, which is good,” Andrew said as he broke apart his cheese sandwich.

“Oh come on.” Nicky rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner as he leaned back in his chair. “I’ll admit that Neil needs a major wardrobe overhaul and makeover, but he’s still hot. How can you stand being in a room with him every day and not notice that hotness?”

Andrew greatly regretted his cousin finding out about him and Roland, even if it was just a casual thing. “Because I’m working and we’ve said like five things to each other?”

Nicky frowned at that. “Yeah, he’s not very outgoing, is he? Matt’s tried a few times to invite him out to some of our group events but always gets interrupted by something. “ He grinned as he leaned forward with his elbows on his table. “I wish I had my phone out the one time the coffee maker just started shooting water out all over him! It was the weirdest thing but funny as hell! Another time he leaned against the fridge wrong and somehow hit the ice button and the cubes started just falling out onto the floor! I think Neil’s terrified of being around him because of what’ll happen next, the poor guy.”

Well, Boyd was a bit of an eager puppy when he decided to go after something, though not as bad as Knox – there was a reason the men helped Kevin with the sports therapy programs. “Nothing’s going to happen,” Andrew told his cousin. “Drop it.”

“But-“

“No.” Andrew grabbed the rest of his sandwich with the intent of finishing it in his office and ignored his cousin’s crestfallen expression with ease as he walked away.

Still, something about the conversation stuck with him, as did Bee’s. It made him study Josten even more, made him pay close attention to the way the younger man was so patient with Peter, would soften his voice or offer up a new stuffed animal at just the right time (when Andrew had to ask more details about the bastard of a sperm donor). How there seemed to be a darkness in Josten’s eyes when Peter began to give up halting details, when he drew angry red marks on the child images (and the mom images as well).

“Who is he?” Andrew asked Wymack when they met the day before Cory’s trial would begin. “Where did he come from?”

“That’s confidential information,” Wymack said with a stubborn set to his jaw. “Just know that he had great recommendations and leave it at that.”

No, not quite, but the old bastard had installed a better lock on the personnel file drawers after he’d realized that Andrew had gone through them to check up on the last few hires, so Andrew would have to bide his time to read Josten’s file (that or get enough dirt on Seth to have him hack the online version, which might be easier).

His part in Cory’s trial lasted two days, two days of mental exhaustion and barely constrained anger while he was questioned and cross-examined and had to push down the urge to get up out of a damn uncomfortable wooden seat and bash in the brains of some fucking prick who’d dared to harm a defenseless child. Two nights of the memories rushing back to the fore worse than usual, of the demons riding him harder than usual… but it was worth it for Cory to be free, for the prick to receive a guilty verdict, according to the text he received from Laila as he worked on his daily tasks once back in the office.

Perhaps it was that text, or perhaps it was the way that Peter smiled at him when the boy saw him, the sense of progress during their session, but after Peter was gone and Josten went to leave as usual, Andrew spoke up. “Soon I’ll start working in new elements, have him sit in with Bee and try some sessions with Kevin as well. He’s going to need to learn English and get back in classes once he’s stable.”

Josten paused by the door to look back at him. “Yes, I’ve been asked to do a language evaluation of him in the next week or so, and to sit in with Dr. Dobson.”

Still so distant and polite, as always. Andrew shoved aside a thought on if he was like that with other things. “No other cases you’re assisting with right now?”

“A couple.” Josten cocked his head to the side. “It’s fine, I can manage.”

“Is that what keeps you so busy? I don’t see you around here at all.”

Josten tugged the cuffs of his light grey sweater (he always wore grey or light blue, wore such boring colors and clothes) even farther over his hands; Andrew thought he caught sight of faded scars on the long, slim fingers before they disappeared. “I have things to do.”

That wasn’t much of an answer, was it? “What do you think of Peter’s progress so far? Perhaps we can discuss it over a cup of coffee?” Andrew didn’t usually do the whole ‘social’ thing, but there was something interesting about the translator, something that drew his attention the more that Josten tried to hide away.

For a moment he thought that the man was going to say ‘yes’, and then Josten drew in a quick breath as he wrapped his arms around his middle. “No, I have paperwork I need to do. I’ll send you an email with my thoughts,” he said in a rush before he spun around and almost ran from the room.

Surprised by the reaction which seemed almost fearful, Andrew stepped forward to follow Josten and find out what had provoked that response. He shivered as he encountered a spot underneath the air conditioning vent (hadn’t Wymack fixed that yet?) and cursed when the door slammed into him with unexpected force, enough to knock him aside and leave his left arm throbbing with pain; it would have been his head if he hadn’t thrown his arm up in time.

Apparently Wymack hadn’t fixed that, either.

Josten forgotten for the moment, Andrew cradled his sore arm against his chest as he stalked down the hallway to go have a ‘nice’ chat with his boss.

*******

Neil frowned when he noticed that the grapefruit weren’t on sale anymore, but perked up when the green apples and pomegranates were instead, both of which he stocked up on until he felt a harsh tug on his hair. He grabbed some radishes and yams since they were cheap enough to pass without complaint (and the few vegetables he didn’t mind), then left the produce section with some regret.

Chicken thighs were on sale as well, so he grabbed a couple of packages with a whispered ‘I’ll freeze some’, then checked to see what cheese was marked down and got some decent cheddar. He managed not to sigh over the ramen packages he added to the cart, and at least would have the chicken, radishes and yams to make a proper meal out of it, and got a loaf of not quite the cheapest white bread along with a jar of peanut butter.

He grabbed some more shampoo, laundry soap and toilet paper, then saved the first aid aisle for last where he stocked up on bandages and antibacterial ointment. At least he didn’t need hair dye for a few more weeks, he thought to himself as he headed to pay for everything, mindful to pick a different cashier than last time.

The young woman smiled at him while she rang up his purchases, talking all the while about how she loved ramen, too, and wanted to try making an apple pie that weekend. He busied himself bagging up the items as they came down the conveyer belt, uncertain as to why she had to talk so much and not just focus on doing her job, and shook his head when she asked him questions along the lines of if he baked (he didn’t like sweets) or if he liked Japanese food (he did enjoy sushi, but it was rare when he allowed himself the treat).

She kept smiling at him despite the lack of answers, and brushed his fingers with her own when she handed him the receipt after he used his debit card to pay for everything. Aware of Mary’s cold presence behind him, he was quick to grab the bags so he could leave, and didn’t flinch when he heard what sounded to be a drawer slamming shut and the woman cry out in pain.

He didn’t know why people couldn’t leave him alone, couldn’t ignore him like he wanted. Why did they have to smile and talk to him? He wasn’t worth their attention, their attempts at friendship… or worse.

Mary tugged on his hair several times during the drive back to the apartment, hard enough to make his scalp burn but not enough to distract him from the road ahead. She waited to ‘speak’ until they were inside with the door locked and deadbolted for the night.

/Did you have to encourage that slut?/ Mary accused as she yanked on his hair again, that time hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“How did I do that?” Neil asked as he forced himself to carry the bags into the kitchen, the British accent slipping back into his voice since they were alone. “I didn’t even talk to her and I barely looked at her. Next time I’ll avoid her register,” he promised.

There was another tug to his hair, but that time it was almost gentle. /Good. What have I told you about her kind?/

His head hurting and arms aching from the scratches from earlier which still throbbed, Neil set the bags on the counter and took a deep breath before he recited the words he knew by heart. “That relationships are evil and will only harm me. That people who try to trick me into one aren’t ever to be trusted, that they only want to hurt and use me.”

/Yes./ That time Mary when stroked frigid fingers through his hair, he shivered from both the chill and the gentleness of the touch, from the rare show of affection. /You need me to watch after you, to keep you from falling for their tricks, Abram./

“I know, Mum. You’re always looking after me.” He gave her partially see-through form as grateful a smile as he could summon before he started on the groceries. “How about some tea?”

/Yes./

Once the chicken was put away (most of it in the freezer, as he’d promised), he filled the kettle with fresh water and started it heating up on the stove, then decided that he wasn’t in the mood to cook that night and settled on a peanut butter sandwich with an apple for dinner. He’d just finished making the sandwich, the kitchen orderly once again with the groceries tucked into their places (it wasn’t hard to keep neat considering how little food he bought) when the kettle whistled, so he rinsed out the two mugs to warm them up before he dropped teabags in them.

Mary hovered over the steeping mug set out for her, a pleased expression on her incorporeal face, her long hair drifting about much like the tendrils of steam rising from the mug. Neil allowed his to steep a little longer while he ate the sandwich, the large apple saved for ‘dessert’.

His mother was quiet for about an hour or so, during which he cleaned up after his dinner and took to reading a book in Chinese in the living room’s only chair. /How much longer are we going to stay here?/ she asked as she floated around the bare room, her expression one of displeasure.

Neil marked his place in the book then hugged his knees up to his chest. “I told you, this is a good place for us and there’s no need to run anymore. The money’s enough for all my bills, no one’s questioning my past and I like what I do.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly when she drifted closer. “He’s dead, Mum. No one’s looking for us anymore.” No matter how many times he tried to convince her of that, it never ‘took’ for long; he didn’t know if it was because of all those horrible years of living with a monster, of the harsh time on the run or her terrible death, but she couldn’t move on from the past.

But wasn’t that what made a ghost a ghost?

(And who was he to throw stones at glass houses, when he lived with said ghost?)

There was a blast of freezing air, Mary’s displeasure made evident as she whirled around the chair and tugged on his hair once more as a furious, sparkling silver blur. /Nowhere’s good, Abram. Everywhere is full of liars and betrayers and murderers, did he teach you nothing? How many times did we think we were safe, only to run away in pain? How many?/

“Everywhere and always,” he gritted out as he forced himself to not lift his arms to protect his head, to try to shove her away (as if that would work). “But he’s dead, Uncle Stuart killed him years ago. That doesn’t make anywhere safe, but… but that’s why I have you, yes?”

The whirling blast of cold eased up and the tugging stopped, right before Mary coalesced in front of him, her head downcast and wisps of hair floating in front of her face. /Yes, that’s why I’m here, Abram. I have to watch after you, have to protect you./

“I know, Mum,” he told her with a trembling smile. “You’ve always looked after me.” She taught him French and encouraged him to keep learning new languages when they were trapped in that nightmare of a home back in Baltimore as a means of distraction, to keep him busy and out of his father’s sight (as much as possible). When the abuse had finally gotten to be too much, she’d stolen money and run away with him, had managed to keep them out of his father’s reach until that awful night in Seattle.

Even after Nathan had nearly caught them, had left them bloody and beaten, Mary fatally so, she hadn’t given up. Her spirit had lingered on after Neil (Nathaniel) had burned her body, had kept him going long enough to reach out to the Hatfords for help (at last).

Neil thought that Stuart suspected that Mary hadn’t entirely ‘moved on’ after her death, that he’d picked up on her presence around him. After all, Neil had to get the whole ‘I see dead people’ from somewhere, not that many other ghosts came around him with Mary constantly there, for which he was grateful. There had to be something special about the Hatford bloodline which allowed Mary to be so powerful as a ghost.

Or maybe it was just more of their lives (and afterlives) being fucked up and cursed.

The debate about him leaving his new life behind settled for the time being, Neil made some more tea and read a little longer, then went to take a shower before bed. He sighed at the sight of the long, red scratches along his arms and even a couple of across his chest, but none of them were deep enough to require any bandages.

That time.

He took care not to scrub them too hard while washing clean, and only looked into the mirror to check his roots (they would be fine for a few more days) before he removed the contacts and brushed his teeth for the night.

Once he was tucked beneath the heavy blankets, Mary took up position by the bed, a familiar sentinel which never tired, never wavered in her duty to watch over him. He missed how she used to sleep in the same bed as him, her back pressed to his, but knew that when he’d wake up from the nightmares that she’d be there to brush cold fingers along his sweaty brow to calm him down, to reassure him that she was there and all was safe.

He was Neil Josten (now), he had a home to call his own, one with a deadbolt and a comfortable bed (even with the gun under the pillow), with no ghosts of people cruelly murdered by his father (save Mary), no monsters in human flesh eager to hurt him lurking about to cause harm. He had a job where he got to help children, something that paid the bills (even if Uncle Stuart had set up an account for him) and allowed him to do something he enjoyed.

He had Mary to watch over him, ever and ever.

It was enough.

*******

okay, pretend i know what i’m writing about here (in general).

#tw: abuse #mary's not letting go in this one #andreil #or will be #andrew minyard #neil josten #mary hatford #supernatural theme #wait until renee shows up #she has andrew's back #he's gonna need it #neil just doesn't want to be alone #nekojitachanfics #ghost in you fic #aftg fic #tfc fic

[theharellan]

❅ : Advice to non-role play blogs that want to get started?

i wrote advice literally years ago that i can’t be bothered to find now, so i guess now is as good a time as ever to re-write it.

i’ll put the first bullet above the cut b/c i feel like some stuff is important for everyone to know, and some stuff is just relevant to rp blogs.

brush up on the lingo! the tumblr rp community has developed a language of its own. you’ll learn a lot through context or just asking questions (and if you don’t know what something means, don’t be afraid to ask!). i honestly think this language divide is a reason some ppl have problems with personal blogs reblogging their posts. i’m not sure everyone outside the rpc realises what personal blogs are. here are a couple of important terms:- personal blog: a non-rp blog, it doesn’t matter if you use your blog for posts about your personal life or it’s a fandom blog for graphics, it’s still a personal blog by most ppl’s standards.- muse / mun: i tend to prefer the word “mod” / “writer” to “mun” excepting the munday pun, but mun just means the person who runs the blog. muse is the character (or characters) written on a blog.- mutuals / non-mutuals: if you follow someone and they follow you back, you’re mutuals with them. otherwise, you’re a non-mutual.- private / selective / semi-selective: people who are picky about who they rp with, whether that means mutuals only, or only muses from a certain rp. these terms can be somewhat flexible, i consider myself semi-selective b/c i will rp with non-mutuals, but will turn down rps if i’m overwhelmed with replies or feel we’re incompatible as rpers.- meme: a term used to describe prompts that can take many forms, from symbols like this meme to memes where you have to add some input of your own, like a “five times __’d” meme you’d have to add whatever word you like in the blank.- banter / para / multipara / novella: again, these terms can kinda vary person to person. banter is typically about 100 words, para can be anywhere from 100 words to maybe 200. multipara i put at about 300-400. novella is just… go wild. i’ve written 2000 word replies on occasion.- tw/cw: trigger warning and content warning. these are used by tumblr a lot in general, but given rp (for an adult game series like dragon age especially) will inevitably deal with triggering or sensitive topics, i think it’s important to define.these are just a few examples, and if you’re ever confused, please ask someone. it’s better than not and annoying someone by sending an ask for a meme listed mutuals only.

make sure you get a rules / about / verses page before you start. if you’re established in a community people may rp with you without one, but if you’re new it’s important to establish yourself. here are some things i think are important to have in particular. it’s a little dragon age-rp/bioware-rp specific, but this is a dragon age blog. other things that i didn’t mention b/c it wasn’t necessarily relevant to interacting: have a name/nickname, age, and pronouns on your rules AND your character’s about page. even if it’s just “18+” or “minor” if you’re not comfortable giving your exact age.some people will refuse to write with minors for their own comfort, and having this information will limit miscommunication and misgendering.

lots of people use icons, and they’re a lot of fun to use! but you also don’t have to use them. some people may not rp with you for it, but that’s their loss. i will say it’s becoming more accepted since when i first made solas. it wasn’t so much of a thing when i first started tumblr rp, then it became a thing, then it backed off again. i personally use them when i can b/c i find they add a little extra something, but don’t have icons for every verse.

make sure your page is legible. aesthetic is nice, but people here have vision problems and super tiny font or dark font on dark backgrounds can strain people’s eyes. remember rping is mostly about writing, so if you have a page that doesn’t show off your writing, you’re doing yourself a disservice!

i’d recommend making a separate blog rather than making a sideblog, or if you do make a sideblog, then having a hub blog/main rp blog you follow from. often i don’t look at personal blogs that follow me at all (i have a hard time keep track of new followers in general), so if ppl have a personal they follow from and an rp sideblog i may miss this entirely.

make sure you turn on your asks and anonymous questions if you’re comfortable with them. i forget this sometimes still lmao.

know that it’s ok to make mistakes! i’ve had ppl tell me they’d love to get into darp but don’t know dragon age lore all that well. there’s nothing wrong with that. i have learned so much about the lore since making solas, and there’s still stuff i don’t know! if you feel unsure still, i’d suggest figuring out what your character would/wouldn’t know about and familiarising yourself with that via the dragon age wiki for example if you’re making a dwarven oc (please, i need so many more in my life) who is from orzammar but is now a surface dwarf, i’d recommend reading the pages about orzammar and surface dwarves, and from there you can find related pages. your character will never know everything about the universe, so it’s ok if you don’t, either. i play one of the more knowledgeable characters in the series, and even he doesn’t know everything.

don’t godmod / metagame / forceship etc. this probably could’ve been up with the definitions, but i felt was important enough to warrant its own section.- godmodding is when you force the other writer’s character to do something. like, in a fight, you say one character kicked another character in the face. you’re not the one who decides that, they are, all you can say is your character tried to kick them in the fact. conversely, making your character dodge every move would also be a jerk move. i’d recommend fight scenes be discussed ooc tbh. mild godmodding is sometimes accepted. say our characters are drinking and yours hands mine a drink, most people will accept you writing that my character takes the drink. there would be a line, however. like if you then stated my character loves the drink and has never had anything like it, that’d be godmodding. mild godmodding often helps move threads along, though if you’re unsure about something, feel free to ask! most people will appreciate it.- metagaming is when your character has knowledge they couldn’t or shouldn’t. i have in my rules that you can’t know solas’s true identity w/o asking me first and establishing it ooc before you do so ic. in canon solas is careful with what he reveals about himself, and the only person who really suspects him for any length of time is vivienne.- forceshipping is when you force a relationship onto another character. typically this refers to romantic shipping, but i think it can apply to any relationship. for example, if an inquisitor lavellan were to call my solas “vhenan” it would be forceshipping, as i am singleship. but also, if someone were to project a friendly or even negative relationship onto my a character, it’s also a form of forceshipping imo. remember you can only control how your character feels about someone, and not the other way around. in your head blackwall may be the dad your character has never had, and your character can treat him so, but don’t expect a blackwall rper to fill that role if they don’t want to!

there’s a lot more, but in the interest of doing other things with my day i’ll end it here. if people have questions i’m happy to answer them, either through Tumblr IM or asks.

#( ooc ) #( munday meme ) #incorruptibleseeker #( asks ) #( mod notes ) #[ aso if ppl have advice of their own feel free to add in replies? ] #[ or reblogs idc if u reblog this ]

[deflare]

What follows under the cut is a very long analysis of New World Magischola, including the feelings I had and what I can do about them. Read if you like or if you’re interested. If you’re curious about something and want some extra context, let me know.

New World Magischola Run 7 was a rough game for me. I was optimistic going in, based on my good experience at Event Horizon--a game where I was always busy, always writing, and always feeling engaged with the event as a whole. I didn't pursue dramatic personal story arcs or deep emotional play, but that was fine; I enjoyed helping everyone else's stories. But I was looking forward to pursuing those things at NWM.

I failed.

An accounting of topics and frustrations, and the lessons I'm trying to draw from them:

1) CHARACTER SURVEY

When I was signing up for NWM, the character I had in mind was basically a spy/criminal type, someone who was as much mundane as magical. There were a few directions I could have taken with this idea, and to an extent, I trusted the sorting system to smooth everything out. I listed myself as a 1st year mixed-heritage Artificer, because it seemed like the most obvious route for the story I wanted to tell--someone with some real-world experience coming back into magical 'civilian' life for the first time in a while.

I could have been all right as a first year, but it did bring some problems with it. First years generally seem to be written with the assumption that they're bright-eyed late teenagers/early adults with little real-world experience; I didn't realize that going in. Further, a first year's experience is somewhat constrained compared to their upper classmen. They have less connections, less reputation, less hooks to create before game; and in-game, they're shepherded somewhat, and are occupied with school procedural matters (mostly the sorting process) rather than personal storylines or magical projects. So while not a major problem by itself, I think being a first year did contribute to subsequent problems.

Artificery is a frustrating matter. I like the idea of magical objects and gear, I liked scribing things with runes, I liked the tension within the path between form and function, tradition versus technology. The basic problem is that when it comes to playing an Artificer, it's basically the path of arts and crafts, and I'm terrible at that part. So I could talk the talk of artificery and what the items and tools meant. But I struggled to actually build anything, which is a problem in a game where a lot of the core fun is about jamming out to your kind of magic.

If I were following my own inclinations, I would have played a Cursebreaker because that was the path most inclined toward my own interests (puzzles and runes). I wanted to play against type, but I needed IRL skills to apply to my path, not just character skills. If I were to do it again, my 'magical spy' concept would've been a Marshal. If I were to play Julian again, I would say that he shifted to Astromancy, with a focus on arithmancy--it fits well with his goals and what little development he had in the school.

2) THE CHARACTER

The sheet I got was for J. Shaughnessy, who as far as I know, was a new character created for this run. Unfortunately, there wasn't very much meat on the sheet given to me. There was a little fluff about how my parents met, then two main character traits: A love of mundane technology (which worked well with my interests), and a hatred of vampires due to his dead brother (which I was much more uneasy about).

I think the habit for most NWM players is to lean into the sapient rights and anti-elitism aspects of the setting; that was certainly what I was driven to do right away. So being assigned a character who had an irrational distaste for one group was... uncomfortable. But it wasn't specifically new ground for me; I played a vampire who hated vampires for a while, and had developed a decent, objective-sounding philisophic grounding for vampire-hate. Unfortunately, that grounding was based on a specific setting's idea of vampires as predators and junkies, which clashed somewhat with the more mellow assumptions of NWM. Further--and I had no way to know this going in--there was basically no vampire plot for me to engage with. An uncomfortable visit during Ethics class, a side plot I was too distraught to follow. If there were vampire PCs, I didn't know nor did I have a way to know. I feel like I should have explicitly dropped the vampire-hate, or just quietly ignored its presence on my sheet, to focus on other things.

During the game, I hissed and cursed about finding Shaughnessy boring. I've mellowed on that opinion. The original sheet was flavorless, but I do genuinely like the other things I planned to bring to the character--the anger, the revolutionary spirit, the Mundane-savviness, the bitterness and pain and lingering guilt of his brother's death. It was all dramatic goal. The more accurate sentiment I expressed is that I would have really enjoyed writing Shaughnessy as a character in a novel, where I would have the time and narrative separation to explore his issues. But playing him in the moment, I struggled to make any of the juice I'd created relevant to the game.

A thought: My last few major RP characters have been a bitter anti-vampire vampire, a medieval barber with low-class mannerisms, a sarcastic and opinionated journalist, a sweary octopus, and now a bitter revolutionary tech-bro. It might be time to play a more positive character, one with more charm and decorum. Yule might be a great opportunity for that.

3) IN GAME MYSTERIES

There is a tension between how I relate to the game and how the game is "supposed" to work, one that started in Event Horizon and hasn't gone away. Basically, when presented with an in-game mystery, I don't know how much I'm supposed to make up off the top of my head, and how much has a premade answer that I should get confirmed by staff or other players. This was particularly a problem when I heard things about cursed items or artifacts for players to poke at. At one point, I got an item from a gremlin--a metal bracer with an attached ring. What did this object do? I had no fucking idea, and I didn't know how much I was allowed to, or supposed to, make up about it. Beyond some IC speculation, I left the bracer alone. Mysterious artifacts were obviously meant to be plot hooks for Artificery students, but I never felt comfortable grabbing them. The situation may grow even worse with an item/curse/potion made by another PC, who might not want to see their hard work completely ignored out of ignorance. I have a similar unease about cursebreaking and potion-making. I really and truly need to sit down with someone to figure that part out, and recommend that workshops go over this.

4) IMPROVISATION

The above goes on to a more general problem I suffered from in the game. I don't know if it was the time zones, just a bad weekend, or a general personal trait, but I had a lot of trouble thinking on my feet for the weekend. For making up spells, this was somewhat justified IC--my character is kind of crap at using his wand, hence his preference for magical items and runeworking. I just struggled to think of interesting new things to do and interesting storylines to follow. Ideas occurred to me, but always just a little too late. "That would've made a great announcement on Friday." "The fae plots could have really engaged with the pain in Julian's past." "There was a ritual to visit the lands of the dead? That would've been perfect for me! Sucks that I wasn't there." I had lots of ideas for things to do, but never at the moment they were opportune--only when it was too late and the event was done. Which ties into...

5) STEPPING BACK, MISSING PLOT

This is the part of the game that made me feel the worst, because it most directly relates to things that I hate about myself. Like I said, I wanted to play a proactive character who got entangled in his own messes. I tried to stir some things up before game, but no one bit--no one engaged when I requested vampire plot, no one engaged when I suggested illegal money changing. So I walked into game hoping that I would be able to hitch onto whatever plot was interesting.

I never hitched. I kept stepping away. I kept making decisions with my gut, and my gut is a cowardly asshole that keeps saying, "walk away, this isn't your mess". To some extent, this was a result of unfortunate coincidence--the fae are one of the least interesting of supernatural creatures, in my view, so the fact that this run was so focused on the fae plotlines hurt my ability to engage. The way to deal with the fae is obvious--"avoid them"--and so I did, to the point where I felt uneasy and hunted when they tried to engage with me. My aversion to conflict spiked hard, and that led to a lot of avoidance of not just NPC, but other PCs I thought I would get into arguments with.

It was always easy to think, "I don't want to do that plot." There's always a reason to avoid something. "It's dangerous. There are bugs. It's boring. I don't really know or care about the background here." The few things I did want to engage with, I either had the bad luck to show up late, or they seemed to be happening at midnight in the woods, and I was unwilling to soak myself in bug spray and go running around outside. Topics related to Julian's vampire thing landed right on my plate, and I turned them down. This left me stuck inside, with no obvious hooks to grab me, having declined or missed the few that were around. As for stepping forward and making a new plot of my own? I can't even propose playing Civ with my friends. Saying "I'm going to initiate my own storyline right here in the middle of game with no idea if anyone else will care"? Far beyond the pale.

I felt like a coward. I felt incompetent. I felt like the only idiot who wasn't having fun. And the feeling only grew as others' plotlines grew more intense and hit their crescendos. By the end of Friday night, it felt like it was too late for me--that all of the major plots had their players, that anything I joined after classes Saturday would be finishing up. I wasted so much time on Friday and Saturday that I never got to do anything. Julian never had a story. He was just there. That made the aftermath of the game particularly hard for me, as I foresaw every other player yammering excitedly about their great plots, while I could only sit there and say, "That's nice"; I'm still going to have to deal with that in the upcoming weeks of Facebook conversations and Google Hangouts. It's not envy, I don't think. It's just a feeling that, "If all these people can do it, what the fuck is wrong with me?"

6) THE HOUSE THING

The few things I said yes to were also mistakes. Thursday night, I went to Lakay Laveau, because I thought it seemed interesting, the upperclassmen were cool, and because my IC best friend was very interested. I found the vibe uncomfortable. There was booze everywhere, there was unpleasant club music, there were upperclassmen with fake smiles trying to flatter and seduce me into their house. I walked out profoundly uncomfortable; Du Bois' common room was a helpful, relaxing departure.

Friday morning, I put in my ballot. My first choice was Du Bois, and I stand by that; that was the right choice, based on Thursday and on the character. For my second choice, I put Lakay Laveau, and that was not the right choice. Dan Obeah caught my interest before the game, but I thought the IC situation there was falling apart. Calasayla was uninteresting. Croatan was obviously undesirable. I hadn't realized that Dan Obeah would have an actual house culture that I preferred, and I hadn't realized that Lakay Laveau would have a culture of creepy cultish secrecy. My stomach started to sink during Ethics, when we talked to the house ghosts and Dan Obeah's ghost talked about things that got right to what Julian cared about. I rationalized it away ("the people in the house matter, not their ghost or the NPC ideals"); DuBois was a good fit anyway, and I thought I'd get my first choice. Then I was in Laveau, and I was getting initiated, and we were sharing horrific secrets (with no way to make them actionable IC), then we were chanting "the secrets of the house stay within the house", and I was saying yes to thing after thing that I was uncomfortable with (including something I never do, saying 'yes' when someone does the "just say yes" thing), and everything felt very, very bad.

Ultimately, I don't know how much my choice of house actually mattered. In the heat of emotion, it was easy to think, "I would've been hooked into more interesting plots if I was in Dan Obeah from the start, and I wouldn't feel so bad," but would I have been any less a coward? It's hard to say so. I still feel some guilt and awkwardness that Nancy, Alex, Brody, and Jean-Baptiste's player went through the trouble of helping me through the middle of Saturday and getting my house changed, when that was ultimately barely even relevant. I still feel like I threw a burden on them, and on the other people in the Laveau house meeting, that should've been mine to bear. If nothing else, if I had greeted the situation with more calm and courage, I could've turned it into an interesting plot. I was asked several times, "would you like to make this a storyline?" and I said "no". Instead, I just wasted more time.

7) LESSONS WALKING AWAY

I feel like I learned a lot about my preferences and desires after talking with Alex and Brody. I keep trying characters who drive plot and failing, feeling terrible. It may be time--at least for a while--to focus on characters who help support others' plots. I loved playing Hadrick because he helped keep the game on the same page and supported the remote players. He was reactive, which I thought of as a flaw. It may just be a role for me to lean into, though, at least until I feel more comfortable punching out. I'm not proactive in my own life. I thought I could be proactive in the safe space of the LARP; my failure in that regard stung. I may have been rushing too fast. Take it slow, build experience.

I failed to take advantage of a lot of the resources open to me. I had a few ideas for scene requests, but never put them through. I had a few ideas for announcements, but I never put them through. I had a few ideas for arguments or discussions to have with other players, but I never followed through. There were literally roving NPCs hooking people into events and stories, and I avoided them. I could have talked to the chancellor IC, or the counselors OOC, or the house presidents, or literally anyone, and I didn't. There were so many wasted opportunities, and that still stings and risks making me fall back into a pit or self-flagellation and shame. With a more supportive role, I at least could have felt like I contributed to others' fun, but I don't feel like I even did that. In the future, I hope I'm more willing to speak up. For now, I just feel like an idiot.

I still feel a tension about future roles. I seek novelty, and feel like I should be constantly trying new things, new characters, new situations. But I need to balance that against characters who do things that I find fun out of character. Being a cursebreaker might have felt too much like my usual MO, but I should've understood that it's okay to play to type sometimes. It may be worth considering more 'fighty' characters in the future. I'm averse to conflict in general, but there's a certain clarity in hitting something with a stick. I have an instinctive avoidance of combat characters from WoD LARPs, where being fighty is a mistake in a world of minmaxers and decade-old characters. But in a Nordic LARP? It's just another kind of roleplay.

8) CONCRETE ACTIONS FOR THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE

I should maybe talk to someone about potential anxiety issues, or at least just talk to a therapist in general. Self-diagnosed personal issues are hard. But finding a therapist is complicated. Blegh.

Yule: I have a firm idea in my head of a kind of character to play--one that should be adaptable to whatever character sheet they hand to me. Going against some in-game stereotypes by playing a Mundane-born Croatan fulfills my innovation urge while still letting me just be a nice guy. Healing also seems like one of the more supporty ways to RP in NWM. It should be a helpful palate cleanser.

Event Horizon 2: I'm really uneasy about this one now. The character I had in mind--the manager of a traveling band--was meant to be another shady proactive character, and that might be a terrible idea. More preplanning with interested parties should help, but I may also talk to the group about shifting away from a 'leader' role. I do not feel comfortable seeking out new deals and plans for the band. I am more comfortable right now with the idea of being the band's second-in-command, helping to keep the group in line and as sane as possible while supporting someone more willing to call the shots.

NWM 9+: I think I'll have to see how Yule goes before I make committments. At this moment, I'm tempted to try for two runs--one joining Kylene as Dan Obeah presidents, and one playing as a faculty member (which also seems like a very supportive role). The main problem I see with this plan is that there's no guarantee I'll get those coveted leadership spots. What do I do if I end up as another 'normal' character, as inherently unconnected as Julian? That's a nerve-wracking prospect. But I also have a lot of time to think about it, and new friends I can arrange things with before hand.

At some point, I'm tempted to try my hand at NPCing. It helps other players, it helps the game, it frees me from fussing about my own storyline stuff. The main problem is that NPCs, by their nature, tend to be inherently about confrontation. Sometimes quite intense confrontation. Could I stand to play Celestine's dad, or one of the Undertow fae seeking pacts, or a gremlin running around grabbing snipes? I genuinely don't know. I may need to see if I can seek out a 'test run' as an NPC somewhere, in a smaller, less intense game. Nordic LARPs generally seem to be "go big or go home", though. I should talk to Books and Peter about this.

I should also find an excuse to write more in LARPs. Should've volunteered to help with the school newspaper project. More writing! Moar!

And to add an optimistic final note: As rough as that 16 hours in the middle of game was, and the dread between game off and when I was able to settle into the post-game party, I feel like I came out of the game stronger for it. I got some issues out in the open. I learned about myself. I met a lot of people I genuinely like. And that's why there's a draw to keep going and keep playing, rather than just retreating into my apartment with my cat and never leaving again.

#new world magischola #larp #mopey horseshit #deflare's writing #deflare's personal stuff

[aparoxysm]

3,5,7,8,9,12,15,18,19,20

✿  Does anyone in real life know about your RPing hobby and what, if anything, have they said about it?

My parents know, because for as long as I’ve been on the internet, they’ve known that I like to write and write with friends overseas. My dad still calls it fanfiction somtimes to other people, like he’s proud of me or something, and that’s enough to make me want to never talk to him again out of embarrassment, ha, but I deal with it. Because I truly do love writing more than anything. Other than that, my boyfriend knows, but he doesn’t care about it / ask questions and I don’t really like to tell him about it either. I’m not as embarrassed about RP as I used to be, but I still feel like it’s just something for me that other people wouldn’t really understand the mechanics of. The only times my boyfriend and I do acknowledge it is when I start talking about an RP friend he hasn’t heard about before like a real life friend, so he’s like who dat and im like oh, new rp friend from > insert country

That being said, he actually did surprise me the other week and I have been holding onto it for fear life. We were complaining about a friend who literally just sleeps and watches Netflix all day when she’s not working, and he’s like “I don’t get how you can do that” and im like “Well I have friends online who claim to do that a lot. Me, personally, I’d get too bored.” and hes like “I just don’t get how people can do nothing all the time? Like at least with you and your online stuff, that’s still doing something. I just feel like that’s actually a hobby.” and I kind of didn’t hear whatever else it is he said because he actually ??? referred to my RP addiction as something valid and worthy??? and all this time i’ve assumed he didn’t get it and thought it was dumb??? IDK, it made me feel good.

✿  Have you considered writing professionally or do you have plans to?

Always. But I never will, I don’t think.

✿  How do you handle the toxicity sometimes found in the roleplaying community, particularly in fandoms?How has roleplaying, specifically, impacted your life?

I use tumblr savior to blacklist a lot, because it really gets too much for me to be exposed to it a lot, and it makes me feel shitty and not want to rp with certain people because of how they behave, or makes me feel guilty for how I behave… I usually drift away from things that give me major negative vibes, otherwise I become in great, exponential danger of saying something i’ll regret. I’ve hated Tumblr RP a lot in this last year. It’s nowhere near as relaxed as it used to be, and I know there’s a lot of political debate on the topic of equality but I am not comfortable in a space where I have to edit everything I do and say or just not do or say it at all. When it gets like that level, a good dose of the unfollow button and keeping my mouth shut is what I find the most helpful.

✿  How has writing improved your life and do you see yourself sticking with it?

When I graduated high school, I went to college for art and animation, and it basically ruined my creative life. Before RP, I used to be an avid drawer, I sketched every day, I improved my skills and motivation so much, everyone knew me as the girl who drew in class instead of did her work, the girl who was going to grow up and be a famous artist, and when I went to college, it killed that for me. My ego took a big blow because the tech side of the course absolutely annihilated me, i couldn’t do it. so after that (and that was 2 years ago now) i haven’t really drawn since. but the silver lining was that I took on RP more dedicatedly after that, and found that I truly adored writing. Try as I might, I’ve never really comitted to a personal writing project, and it’s only in the recent times that I’ve taken the pressure off for me to do it, but. RP makes me happy, it makes me feel like I’m doing something good when I reply to people or make new friendships, it makes me feel like I’m wanted and needed, that my characters and plots are valid and that other people would care if I’m here or not. It was a big boost for my self confidence, and it’s also made me so much more privy to the creative world, which i needed after that. so yeah, i see myself sticking with writing.

✿  Is there a quote from a piece of literature that holds great value to you? What is it and why is it important to you?

She stood in front of her closet mirror in her T-shirt and twisted this way and that. What’s wrong with me? She wondered. There was nothing the matter that she could see. She was tall and leggy, like her mother, with full breasts, small waist, and slim hips that curved enough to show she was female. Her skin was gently golden; it was always golden, sun or not, and her tawny hair was thick and long and wild. So why was it that groups of girls stopped talking when she approached them at school and answered her openings with tense words that killed the conversations she tried to start? Was she too good-looking? Was that possible? Was that the threat they saw? 

Legitimately, this was the first and pretty much only female protagonist I had ever read about who fully and whole-heartedly loved herself where it mattered. Sure, she still had her shortcomings and moments of weakness, but god damn, Vivian was so proud of herself and what she stood for, and that was so refreshing to see during that period of young adult fiction. It’s why she became my first favourite character from a book. And has pretty much inspired me to write feirce, aggressive, self-assured female characters ever since. I was just so inspired by her way of thinking as a young girl, it appealed to me so much and so that moment in the book plus a whole lot of others, really stuck with me.

✿  What do you typically look for in a roleplay partner?

Cliche, but chemistry. And not always in the writing kind but a lot in the OOC kind. I like people who I can talk to super easily, who write in the same tumblr language I do, who reference memes and are not afraid to hit me up with IMs and head canons, etc. I just love it because it makes me feel comfortable with a person, and like I’m not being a bother. The better I get to know a player, the better I get to know their character away from IC interactions. Likewise, I adore it when players get to know me so well that they read the patterns in my characters easily, and I don’t feel like I have to explain them all the time? It’s like they just know, and they know what path I want to put them on. I also look for honesty, people who are down to tell me what they’re feeling about a situation or whether something bothers them, or is able to voice if I’m doing something wrong. Most importantly though, I look for decisive people. Not overly decisive but it’s just so important for me to have someone who is like “yes that sounds good, i can start a thing for you if you want” or “i dont think that really fits, how about this plot idea instead?” I really cannot stand sending IMs to people about plots and characters and them just agreeing off the bat the whole time, but never really deciding on anything either, and so it makes me feel like i’m just paddling in a circle until i make all the decisions for us. To me, that’s not what RP is about. It involves teamwork, and effort, and to me, that’s not putting in effort. It gets me really frustrated.

✿  What made you want to join the roleplaying community?

I kept seeing bios in celebrity tags, and so when i sussed out what group rp was on tumblr, i was like holy shit there is a name for the thing i have been doing with friends over email for so many years???? and you can use PICTURES? i gotta get on this.

so somehow, i found a group rp that allowed mythical creatures, i wanted to be a peter pan mermaid, and the rest is history~~

✿  What one piece of literature has been most inspirational/life changing for you? Why?

(( Blood & Chocolate, by Anette Curtis Klause — because of the main character, as per mentioned. She’s inspired me to write full-on, aggressive, assertive, don’t-tell-me-what-i-can-and-cant-do female characters without apology. ))

The Truth About Forever  by Sarah Dessen — it’s hard to explain exactly why, and it doesnt even just involve ONE of her books either, but they’ve kind of shaped my whole general character story directions?? her books always follow a pattern and i really admire that pattern, even if it is repetitive, and i am secretly a hopeless romantic so i really like how her love stories evolve. it’s always slow burning, the boy is usually a direct surprising love interest, and the girl always gains new friends and family out of it, and the stories always involve a nice little reoccurring theme. In the Truth About Forever, it’s a game that she and a boy plays throughout the entire book, which eventually leads to a shift from friendship to something more. THAT PLOT HAS APPEALED TO ME EVERY SINCE. the example of a teeny, tiny, otherwise-completely-average moment greatly impacting the rest of a characters life with someone else… i am weAK for this concept ok. her females are always usally feircely independent too and that gets me ♥

✿  Who are your top three favorite fictional characters and why?

Vivian Gandillon (Blood & Chocolate) — i swear i could go on repeat forever haha, but i’ve basically already mentioned why.

Jace Herondale (Shadowhunter Series) — back when the first like, two books had only been published, i super fell hard for this series and it was straight up because of the commentary done by Jace and his ability to senselessly bicker with everybody in his path. his comments to me, were always absolutely hysterical. i was so in love with his wry and witty comments, especially the way he kept at ease and casual through super distressing situations, and i really wish id kept reading the rest of the series as it was published, but i seriously fell behind. then the movie came out. then the netflix series. now i’ve grown too far out of it and having to see the cast on my dash every second of every day makes me want to burn the books.

Shane Collins (Morganville Vampire Series) — this is an oooold old series that i used to read religiously, and it was more in the style of anita blake and buffy vampires~ rather than twilight and true blood -esque content. it got really weird and complicated though so i gave up on it, but for a time, i adored it. and i loved shane because he was hilariously human, he hated everybody except his housemates (though sometimes that could be questioned) and nobody held a grudge better than him. he had a knack for getting in trouble, usually on his own accord, was feircely protective and spent most of his time just being a genuine nuisance and temper tantrum thrower. i saw a lot of me in him, and idk. i just like people with tempers, i think it makes them super fun to read. 

#me af #psa; ooc #psa; my library #shehasnoears

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Artist Collective Postcommodity on Recovering Knowledge and Making Border Metaphors

Postcommodity’s “Repellent Fence” (2015), as seen in Sam Wainwright Douglas’s Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film (2017) (photo by Michael Lundgren, courtesy of Postcommodity)

From their base in the American Southwest, Postcommodity members Raven Chacon (in Albuquerque), Crístobal Martínez (in Phoenix), and Kade L. Twist (in Santa Fe) are well positioned to view the realities and projections of life along the US–Mexico border. In 2015, the collective installed 26 oversized scare-eye balloons, decorated with colors and motifs important to indigenous medicine, along a two-mile stretch of land between Douglas, Arizona, from Agua Prieta, Mexico, bisecting the wooden fence that separates the towns. Like many cities that line the border, Douglas and Aguas Prietas were once one, and Postcommodity saw its ephemeral installation, “Repellent Fence / Valla Repelente,” as a recuperative gesture meant to bring both sides of a land cut in two together again.

Two of the group’s projects currently on view in New York further plumb the complexities of this division. “A Very Long Line” (2016) at the Whitney Biennial is an immersive, four-channel video installation that surrounds viewers with a disorienting pan of the fence that divides Douglas and Aquas Prieta, shot from the window of a moving car. Coyotaje, an exhibition at Art in General, examines the entanglements between US Border Patrol and migrants in the same region through the use of sonic and sculptural decoys. Meanwhile, Postcommodity’s contribution to Documenta 14 considers people crossing national boundaries in other regions of the world, and also draws on the other side of the art collective’s practice — as a band that produces its own musical instruments. In Athens, the group has repurposed a sonic broadcasting system to tell the stories of those forced into migration for different reasons.

I spoke to Chacon, Martínez, and Twist about these three current projects, their refusal to make moral judgments or find solutions to the political dilemmas their work explores, the importance of noise to their practice, and more.

*   *   *

Postcommodity, still from “A Very Long Line” (2016), four-channel digital video, color, sound, looped (courtesy the artists)

Risa Puleo: “A Very Long Line” is a video installation composed of a panning shot of the 30 miles of fence that divide the United States and Mexico between Douglas and Agua Prieta. Shot from the perspective of the US, the video gives a sense of the “other side.” How does this work relate to “Repellent Fence”?

Raven Chacon: “Repellent Fence” was about the people split by the fence and the people in between. I think the piece at the Whitney is more specifically about Americans. Something became evident as we were in the borderlands, the differences in culture between just a few miles: we may be afraid to see beyond this fence we’ve built for ourselves. For myself, “A Very Long Line” is very introspective, about being an American and having this point of view that is thrown outward and through this grid of steel.

Crístobal Martínez: We are trying to understand transborder systems. You can see indigeneity and mestizaje play out in the complexity of these systems, but these ideas aren’t the central objective of our work. Our work is about local community self-determination in this transborder context — how that pushes, pulls, tears, and sustains people’s lives. In a lot of art happening at the border, people draw color lines and choose sides. We’ve taken up a different set of strategies.

Kade Twist: We’re not trying to discover truth. I think it is so important, when thinking about our work, to distance oneself from ethical and moral dilemmas that are part of everyone’s rhetoric. We are neither pro or against. Those positions oversimplify the reality. Our experience and desire is to see how metaphors play out in the borderlands. Our projects won’t necessarily clarify or propose a resolution. Something Crístobal said years ago has stuck with me: we are “recovering knowledge.” People that are engaging with these three works can bring whatever they want to the table, but our intentions are not about nation-states and moralizing human endeavors. We recover knowledge through all types of activities as human beings. In this day and age, that’s more and more difficult to do.

CM: We are really fascinated as a collective by the irrational nature of market systems, human relationships, speed, emergent media, fast capitalism, warfare. The irrationality of these human behaviors has presented us with fodder for our creativity, which also reflects back the same level of irrational discourse. When we recover knowledge, it points to all directions. It’s these perspectives on the things that we are witnessing, translating it through the mediums that we work in and then releasing it right back into the public. What we aspire to do is mediate complexity and think outside of our tendency to form oversimplified models of what’s going on in the world. Personally, I feel a certain aversion to us as humans. We think like primates; we make very simple models to rationalize very complicated realities. We do this as a means of convenience and survival. I feel an aversion to that instinct, especially since we have created such a complicated world that we are having difficulty being accountable for. Art is an excellent place to play out our aversions to our vexed human nature.

Postcommodity, “Coyotaje” (2017), on view in Coyotaje, curated by Kristen Chappa at Art in General (photo by Charles Benton, courtesy the artists and Art in General)

RP: In your exhibition Coyotaje the chupacabra of folklore and legend becomes the point of convergence for a series of interactions between border control agents and migrants crossing the border. Can you tell me how you came to use the chupacabra as a metaphor?

RC:  We gained the material for Coyotaje by interviewing Mexican-American border agents [about] the way they use the mythologies of the Southwest [and project them] back onto other people. We are interested in the games that are being played along the border: the decoys, the deception that crosses this geographic, hypothetical line, whether it’s playful or endangering people on either side.

CM: When you go to the border line at Douglas–Agua Prieta, you immediately start to look over your shoulder: Who is watching me? Is that border patrol vehicle following me? Are those cameras on that turret trained on me? What’s that drone flying overhead? It’s a destabilizing feeling. You feel in the wrong for just being there. The chupacabra is a way indigenous people of the western hemisphere have come to rationalize military and paramilitary activity, science and technology. The chupacabra becomes an allegory for the paranoia manifested in things like border patrol, for example, who roam the desert with night vision goggles. When migrants encounter these border patrol agents, they see green, glowing eyes in the desert. Border patrol agents told us about an instance of when migrants encountered these green, glowing eyes and thought they were seeing chupacabras. That story was funny to the agents we interviewed. But even more than humor, the story is about a moment when worldviews collided. That collision is a portal or rupture that reveals something incredibly complex about diverse ways of being and knowing in the world.

RP: How did you engage the border control agents?

KT: We facilitated this conversation as community liaisons around the construct of a decoy. What does a decoy mean to you? What does a decoy mean as it exists in the borderlands? How is this decoy strengthened or subverted by myth? How do we reindigenize the borderlands without remythologizing the borderlands? If we don’t bring myth back to the table, we won’t be recovering knowledge. Myth is what creates expectation. Myth is like a decoy in many ways. Using mythology helped us to understand how decoys actually function and then to realize that decoys on the borderlands have been dematerialized in certain ways. The human voice has become the most important decoy, from the border patrol’s perspective.

Postcommodity, “Es más alcanzable de lo que se imaginaban” (2017), on view in Coyotaje, curated by Kristen Chappa at Art in General (photo by Charles Benton, courtesy the artists and Art in General)

CM: Border patrol will make captured migrants call out to others to lure them into captivity. They might call out to migrants by saying things like, “Oye, aqui estoy en la arroyo. Ventepaca, andale, aqui viene la migra” (“Hey, I’m over here in the creek. Come over here, hurry, here comes the migra [immigration officials]”). Border patrol is using indigenous knowledge systems against the people themselves. If border patrol is aware that people are rationalizing these encounters as chupacabras, then that becomes a weapon by using people’s stories, voices, and linguistic expressions against them.

Border patrol agents with Hispanic surnames don’t see themselves as Mexican or Mexican American. Many times they describe themselves as simply American, and many of these agents have alluded that they see the local, folkloric indigenous knowledge that you find in brown communities throughout the Southwest as Mexican beliefs, Mexican ideas, which they often do not see as not their own. They have divested themselves from that heritage in a lot of ways, and it seems to me that that’s how they might survive their job. They seem to have to reimagine their identities in order to enforce a border against their very own brethren. We have also heard the story from border patrol agents that they save lives, which is true. That’s what we have noted in our interview with the agents for Coyotaje. Going back to decoys, these calls for capturing migrants become the soundtrack for the immersive installation at Art in General. We wanted, in a sense, to create a sculpture and immersive experience that reported the story back out. At the border, deception becomes so dense that it starts to bend identities, perceptions, and reality in strange and interesting ways.

RC: Again, we’re not interested in a moralizing position or even one of empathy, where we feel like we can put ourselves in the migrant’s shoes. We want to acknowledge the noise that’s involved in this dialogue between the Mexican-American border agents and who they imagine they are interacting with.

RP: Freed from assigning an ethical position to the border patrol agents, how do you characterize this divide of the same group of people by the conceptual line where two nation-states meet?

CM: Borders cause peoples to unwittingly embody national chauvinisms. You end up having indigenous people who have tribal roots, life, and backgrounds, but they aren’t connected to one another and don’t acknowledge one another because of borders. This disconnect is also generated by linguistic differentiations between the colonial languages of English and Spanish. Most impactful is that people push themselves away from each other because of national pride and the stark socioeconomic differences largely demarcated by the border.

RP: I’m struck by your use of the word “noise” in this conversation. Can you speak to the role of music in your artwork, Postcommodity’s relationship as a band in addition to an art collective, and how noise music crosses over into sound installations?

RC: Something we all have an interest in, from before we got together, is making instruments. The first sounds a handmade instrument makes are noise. When we play these instruments, we become a performing ensemble that is still Postcommodity. Sound is an important part of all these works that we make. It appears as another way to reinforce and play with the duration of experiences. Sometimes sound defines, exaggerates, or contracts the experience that spectators have with our work. For “A Very Long Line,” it provides a soundtrack. Other times it functions as metaphor for the system we are critiquing or are complicit with in a market, like the idea of a feedback loop. Other times, like at Documenta, it might carry the narrative. The installations at the Whitney, Art in General, and Documenta all utilize music as the way to start and end your time in space.

Postcommodity, “The Ears Between Worlds Are Always Speaking” (2017), two-channel sound installation installed in Aristotle’s Lyceum in Athens as part of Documenta 14 (photo courtesy of Postcommodity and Bockley Gallery)

CM: We see noise as music. We also see noise as brujeria [witchcraft, but also the traditional medicine of Mexico, parts of Texas, and the Southwest], as a sonic medicine or witchcraft. Brujeria brings a knowledge and philosophy about the world, such as the way we connect aesthetics to metaphor or see discourses in systems. Brujeria provides a philosophical framework for mediating complexity. That’s what noise is: sound that becomes so complex, it is difficult for the brain to discern repetition or patterns. The idea of performing noise becomes a spiritual, intellectual, and emotional reimagining of ceremony. Our effort in our art is not about disentangling these things but making things more tangled. Maybe, in creating a greater sense of confusion, we might uncover clarity.

KT: Aside from its destabilizing effects, the process of making noise is really about building a sonic relationship that requires listening. It’s a negotiation beyond the framework of improvisation. It subverts structures that privilege top-down hierarchies from composer to performer. The synchronicity that happens in this form of music becomes really poetic. Sonic explorations happening in different directions lock in around a theme and hit clarity just long enough to be distinguished, before it goes back to “noise.” There is no great epiphany in those moments. You can view them from a theoretical framework as the singularities forming.

CM: The fissures are the ruptures — we talk a lot about portals, the portals in time where something ruptures or opens up and you’re able to see the world or be in the world in a way that is outside of the norm. When you’re in that space, in that rupture, we can bring things back from it that help processes of transformation.

RP: What role do sound and acoustics play in your installation “The Ears between Worlds Are Always Speaking” (2017) at Documenta?

RC: We made a two-channel audio opera using LRADs, also known as “sound cannons.” LRAD stands for “long-range acoustic device.” These are hyperdirectional speakers that can be used as a sonic broadcasting system, but they can also be used as a weapon. The military and police have used them to disperse crowds at the G8 Summit, Standing Rock, and Black Lives Matters protests. If you turn them up loud enough and admit a siren tone through them, they can deafen people. They’ve been used as torture devices to wear down the enemy. It has been rumored that the US military has used these speakers in Afghanistan to blast heavy metal music toward villages on prayer days.

We are aiming two of these units at Aristotle’s Lyceum, which is situated in a triangle near the Odeon Conservatory, the Parliament building, the war museum, and the Hellenic Armed Forces Hall.

Postcommodity, “The Ears Between Worlds Are Always Speaking” (2017), two-channel sound installation installed in Aristotle’s Lyceum in Athens as part of Documenta 14 (photo courtesy of Postcommodity and Bockley Gallery)

CM: It’s a really beautiful context. One reason we chose Aristotle’s Lyceum is because Aristotle’s notion of “pedagogy” was rooted in his idea that learning connects to walking — “peda” referring “to the foot.” Aristotle would go on walks with his students as part of the processes of learning. Our hyperdirectional opera is a series of stories told from the perspective of people walking because of migration forced by economic disparities and war. We start at the Cherokee Trail of Tears [and move] to the current immigration crises happening across the world. We wanted to flip the script on these LRADs that are used to silence discourse and use them instead as devices to broadcast stories that come from among the tens of thousands of professors and learners that have walked long distances from all over the world as part of today’s mass migrations.

KT: This piece is critiquing Aristotle’s concept of empiricism, or empirical thought and scientific inquiry. These ideas introduced a competitiveness to worldview and political positioning, what I call “geopolitical intercourse,” that are the roots of market systems. We are living in a world where 65 million people are deemed refugees by the UN. That’s a stable number; that’s the new normal. However, it’s not just about critiquing Aristotle: we are also honoring him because he contributed so much positive infrastructure to the world. The critique is derived from a deep respect. That’s why we are trying to focus on that word “pedagogy.” We are recovering knowledge from 65 million refugees while they are in motion. They are reflecting on what they learned while moving through the terrain.

CM: These stories that are being offered by migrants are offered to all of us as audiences, but also to all of us as learners. If Aristotle’s theories of peripatetic learning are correct, then all the walkers are professors; they all have something to teach, and we all have something to learn from them. This work is really about visibility, dignity, and respect.

Postcommodity: Coyotaje continues at Art in General (145 Plymouth Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn) through June 3. Their installation “A Very Long Line” remains on view in the 2017 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum (99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan) through June 11. Their installation “The Ears between Worlds Are Always Speaking” remains on view at Documenta 14 in Athens through July 16.

The post Artist Collective Postcommodity on Recovering Knowledge and Making Border Metaphors appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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