Writing - Elvish Aging Story

Writing - Elvish Aging Story - by What-even-is-thiss

Wait a minute, if elves take hundred years to grow up that has some weird implications.

So... if we say a human comes of age in fantasy worlds at 16, that means it takes an elf 6.26 years to age one human year. If we say the age of maturity is 18 that's 5.55 years.

So then... okay with people that live a long time have to see their human friends die and probably see them like pets yeah that's been explored to death. But what about a human just seeing their friend not grow up?

Despair - Drown

Despair - Drown

On this empty point out on the edge of the ocean, beneath a starless sky, I have scrawled the words "I have come here to drown" in the sand, and watched the tide wash the letters away.

Thoughts - 10 Years to Today

Thoughts - 10 Years to Today

I won't be sharing a picture of myself from 10 years ago.

Internet - Desert Bus 2019

Internet - Desert Bus 2019

Been almost 12 hours now since the end of Desert Bus. We raised $864 753 this year, an absolutely record-shattering amount. It has been a WILD 6 days.

Desert Bus benefits children around the world in hospitals. A key part of treatment is quality of life. Taking what for many children is a profoundly terrifying experience, and trying to give them a slice of normalcy. Even Canadian hospitals are on the list (Calgary Children's, Vancouver Children's, The Stollery to give a few indications.)

Quotes - Suffering

Quotes - Suffering

Sometimes, people are mad at you because you are not suffering in the way that they expected you to.

West Marches - Ceridwen's Epilogue

West Marches - Ceridwen's Epilogue

Ceridwen sits on the Throne of Black Brambles Eternal, around her, the dead souls of the Tirondian army, the lost, and the wretched. Slowly, over time, she begins to raise her wild demon armies, waging her shadow war against The Prince of Change. In time, she prevails, The Lodge is Restored, and she sits alone staring at the space between stars, singing a strange song that carries on the wind and through the deepest recesses of the earth.

And she dreams... of her glimmering phoenix friend, her ranger friend, and tales of the Whiskey Riders.

West Marches - Price

West Marches - Price

Revenge. Hate. Pain. Vengeance. Rage. Chaos. Destroy.

The words urge her on. Whirling round and round her head.

Kill him.

Kill HIM.

Cacophonous, and constant. But something has hardened in her. Moons before this, the strangeness of the Lodge made even her stalwart heart tremble. The unknown whispers, the songs and stories. The allure of forbidden mysteries had always been there, but it had been tempered by a healthy preservational instinct.

Now, that instinct had turned to something bleaker.

Politics - Conservative Platform Dissected

Politics - Conservative Platform Dissected

As per each election, I like to do a deep dive on the Conservative Platform. The reason I like to do this is because it traditionally is the most obfuscated one, it's the one that for the last 3 elections has been filled with the most circumventive language, might be outright incorrect, and this year, has been released so paralyzingly late that literally all the advanced poll days will be complete before we get a public analysis.

So.

The actual Platform is available here. I should note that I looked at 3 major news outlets and nobody linked to it, I had to go digging through the Conservative website to find it. https://cpc-platform.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/CPC_Platform_8.5x11_FINAL_EN_OCT11_web.pdf

I also downloaded this exact version of it to do my analysis. If anything changes or has any discrepancy between this version and an 'updated' version, I'll be able to changelist and track that data.

Let's dive into it. Forewarning, because it's a pdf, the formatting is gonna be REAL WONKY.

West Marches - Daughter

West Marches - Daughter

“Mistress, we are finished, would you like to observe?” The handmaiden’s sotto voice cut through Ceridwen’s contemplations. She had been far away, daydreaming of...something.

Back to awareness, an image of herself most resplendent greets her through the mirror. The three handmaidens stand around, fidgeting slightly. Her hair has been brushed and decorated like flowing waves, her makeup expertly done in the fashion of the court, and her stormy ocean evening gown accents her form perfectly.

Politics - Student Climate Change Protest

Politics - Student Climate Change Protest

Listen.

That millions of children around the world have taken it upon themselves to leave school for a day and protest the complete failing of adults to defend the environment, should be a source of everlasting societal, social, intellectual, and personal shame.

Period.

West Marches - Losing

West Marches - Losing

It had all gone sideways.

It wasn’t that surprising. Tirondian army tactics were hardly inspired. Form ranks, march forwards, eliminate things that stand in the way. Oh, bring siege weapons if necessary.

Works great when you fight opposing armies. Less so when your enemies are giant horrors of paint, or the corrupted twisted versions of your own soldiers. Fat lot of good a siege tower does against a painted horde.

Now, Sedriks ran through the woods, they’d lost touch with the cavalry a few hours back, horses spooked and the Captain had ordered them rounded up. Sedriks, and his command knew better. Three dozen was all that was left of their outrider wing, what should’ve been close to two hundred light and medium infantry. Harried at every turn, they’d retreated into a guerilla skirmish through the night.

Games - Language

Games - Language

I was asked during a game of Wire Run about how a player might instantly learn a language. There are provisos for it before. In Shadowrun, a player could download a langsoft, that is, a digital encyclopedic knowledge of a language (they are expensive) and in Matrix-esque "I know Kung Fu", simply immediately be aware. Heck, even in basic D&D a sorcerer or wizard can cast Comprehend Languages and simply be done with it.

Life - Frustrations

Life - Frustrations

I am getting increasingly tired of the amount of communicative labour my friends unconsciously demand of me. The pressure to be the one who organizes people, who get them in contact, who finds information, who works at being helpful.

It's gotten to the point where the perception that having been a 'stage manager' means that I somehow like being the one who has to pull teeth to get emails or phone numbers, event starts, locations, maps, or even just check in constantly with people so they will arrive on time to a gathering, is beginning to make me furious.

You're grown adults. Take notes. Text a heads up if you're going to be late. Let someone know where you're at. Google maps the best route. Remember the information I LITERALLY SPELLED OUT. Why am I the one who has to do all this work as though you're still first-year acting students?

Please. Grow. Up.

Condolences - Laura McAlpine

Condolences - Laura McAlpine

Rest in Peace, Laura. I shall never forget our laughs, hugs, your relentless, hilarious, teasing, and such an awesome summer of adventures. Goodnight, sweet friend.

Go, I bid the stars to fall quiet in her name, for surely she was bright to be well counted among them.

Quotes - Iron Weights

Quotes - Iron Weights

"My friend, Magda, tells me every time I say something bad about myself, I am putting iron weights in my pockets. Sooner or later, you’ll drag yourself down and not be able to get up. Be kind to yourself, Mr. Caleb. I don’t want your pockets to get too heavy." -Calianna, to Caleb on Critical Role

Wire Run - An Introduction to Clarion

Wire Run - An Introduction to Clarion

Clarion was always a main event at the Silver Rings. It was impossible not to be. So many were initially won over by her striking looks, her casual confidence, her daring clothing, and her mystery. And if they weren’t won over by that, they were won over after they watched her fight. Brutality was the currency of the Rings, and Clarion had that in spades. “Shadowrunner” They whispered to her ghost, but never to her. She was a kind of impervious down here.

The arena smelled of cheap soy beer, greasy food, and sweat. Stank of a kind of iron that was never cleaned, a musk of those who worked a grind beneath hope.

A swaggering Foreign-born Oni was her opponent tonight. Shipped in from Thailand somewhere, the 300kg musclebound brute was almost her height again taller. But smart, too. Smarter than her other opponents. He stood careful, easy, an appraising look. There was no leering male sneer, and he did not pander to the crowd. This Oni understood, if he was to be paid so much for this fight, there was a reason, and she was it.

Clarion warmed up, bouncing lightly in her boots, eyes laughing at the way jaws dropped open and drool spilled onto concrete. They wanted her, and could never touch her.

“Kāishǐ!” Roars the announcer, and lights dip low.

Life - Falling Out

Life - Falling Out

You asked me once. To not share my writing with you anymore. It was too heavy, it hurt too much. It was too emotional for you.

So I stopped.

I never mentioned my writing to you again.

But I did not cease.

Choice - Silent

Choice - Silent

Do me a favor.

When you see posts of people fighting against racism, calling out discrimination, or even just being brave, forthright and honest...

Don't be silent.

Tell them "I see you. I hear you. Thank you." Even DM them, if you don't feel you can post that publically.

Don't be silent.

We hear that silence.

I'm still hearing that silence, more than a week later.

I've been hearing that silence my entire life.

Life - Culture and Games

Life - Culture and Games

I've been thinking and writing a lot of late about the intersection of culture and games. It has been a lasting series of thoughts upon which I have many ideas.

I've been working on Wire Run, my latest universe on and off for years. This is our second foray into it for the RPG table. This 'campaign', I have been working on for about 6 months. During my time creating it the first time, I spent a lot of time building my own lore. Basically taking what was existing, and doing my best to both remove problematic parts of what I perceive as being at odds with a modern Sci-Fi, and also laying foundation work for a sandbox world to play in.

That first campaign was set in Vancouver, about 60 years into the future. It was easy. From a design perspective, it was a simple crutch. The players were familiar with the locations, if not the history. They understood the geography, the places, the people. They know what it means to live in a slum section on the lower East Side. They know what the travel time is between Downtown and North Van. They have a cultural appreciation for what it means to live in Surrey, vs Kits.

It was so easy.

Wire Run - An Introduction to Starburst

Wire Run - An Introduction to Starburst

Two claps. The Widow raises her hands and the room, boisterous and filled with clatter and laughter falls to stillness. Her voice calls out, “Granddaughter! I have a task for you!”

Eyes dart nervously around, hands drop to waists.

They don’t see her coming.

Starburst takes two quick steps, and she vaults the railing. She falls completely soundlessly. She lands less so. Her heavy boots crash right through the plastic gaming table, drinks fly, tiles clatter across the stone floor. The players wisely keep their expressions to surprise or shock, and not anger. One young ork gangster almost rises, a protest on his lips.

But the fingers of her left hand trail his jawline, almost unconsciously, and his eyes roll back in his head.

She walks the room, unmindful of the staring eyes on her form. Ascends the stairs, and pushes aside the beaded curtain, curious about these strangers. These newcomers.

About what they want.

And who they are.

West Marches - Home

West Marches - Home

Ceridwen pushes open the heavy oaken doors. Were they ever so heavy before? The rust on the hinges squeals, and the mildewed rugs and must of rain and fungus mixes with a strange nostalgic feeling. She can almost see Petyr, he bounces ahead of her, stumbles on a wrinkle in the carpets. But he’s not there.

Behind her, Oadira, Quiz and Veles step in, taking in the grand foyer.

Age has worn this patch of manor. The section of night sky is visible through the broken roof, and beneath their feet, vine and moss have begun to creep their way up. And they have enrobed the bodies of the fallen from that fell night long ago.

Ceridwen steps on the skull of one of the butchers, there is a dry leaf-like crunch. The corpse, long since turned to bone, crumbles beneath the papery weight of its own chainmail armor. She continues to step forward, unmindful.

Poetry - Promises

Poetry - Promises

Before Iron and Coal, the bonds of humans were made in Blood, in Morrow, and Truths. Promises made beneath stars that bore witness.

Now, beneath a soot marred sky, you have forgotten PURPOSE.

Life - Differences in our Lives

Life - Differences in our Lives

"How differently we live our lives." She said to me.

Letters - 15 / 15 Dear People Who Hate Me

Letters - 15 / 15 Dear People Who Hate Me

Dear people who hate me,

Hate all you want, but I will still defend those who need it, and I have no scruples about hitting you over and over when you least expect it.

Watch your back, Honor is reserved for those who have earned the right.

Me

Letters - 14 / 15 Dear Partner

Dear Partner,

This is a letter, sealed from this moment, perhaps this is who I am now, and not who I will be when we meet one day tomorrow. I have no partner at present, I am seemingly walking this strange line again of being a diligent artist, a faithful worker, and a very confused, adrift soul.

Letters - 13 / 15 Dear Ex Best Friend

Letters - 13 / 15 Dear Ex Best Friend

Dear ex-best friend,

I have never explained out loud why we had our falling out. But I know keenly why.

It is because you disavowed our friendship in order to find social position. I remember it exactly. Because there was someone else, a peer, you wished to impress. So you callously threw years of our friendship away. For someone who was white. For someone who was interesting, and advantaged. For someone you admired, instead of someone you already enjoyed the trust of...me.

Letters - 12 / 15 Dear Person I Hate

Letters - 12 / 15 Dear Person I Hate

Dear Person I Hate,

I forgive you.

It doesn’t mean I don’t also hate you.

But I forgive you as well.

Me.

Letters - 11 / 15 Dear Person I Love

Letters - 11 / 15 Dear Person I Love

Dear Person I love,

I love you. It’s hard to say, in fact I rarely say it. I know you say that often to me, and I’m not entirely sure what my hangup is on saying it back. But I do love you. For all the support over the years and how we’ve often had so many conversations about our art, our work, and about the changing world. For so many late nights and meals cooked. For sharing walks through parks together, splitting a sip of wine, early morning phone calls (you are literally the only person I regularly speak to on the phone before noon), late night messages, sweeping stages together.

Letters - 10 / 15 Dear Future Child

Letters - 10 / 15 Dear Future Child

Dear Future Child,

It is a strange thing, to sit here and pen this letter not knowing anything of you. Or truth be told, if you even will be. At least at this moment in time. I will disclose to you, at the moment I am writing this letter, I know nothing of the potential partner that is my other half, nor is there a prospect of one at the moment, so I shall write this with that in mind.

Letters - 9 / 15 Dear Best Friend

Letters - 9 / 15 Dear Best Friend

Dear Best Friend,

We have been friends for more than two decades. We’ve gone through some weird patches in life, but you are my brother. I chose you, and you chose me. It would’ve been a lot easier a lot of times for us to just stop talking. In fact, I think we both have a lot of experience doing that, it can be so easy to just let the days and weeks go longer and longer without messaging. For a long time in our lives, we would play every night. Now our schedules are different, and distances feel weird, but we’re talking more.

Sometimes I’m nostalgic for what we had even 5 years ago, but at the same time, we’ve grown up and things change. We occupy space differently now.

Letters - 8 / 15 Dear Future Me

Letters - 8 / 15 Dear Future Me

Dear Future Me,

I need to know if it turns out okay. And I know, given who we are, that you won’t say anything, because that’s not how we do things. I wish sometimes I even knew about all the tiny things. Did we train hard enough? Did we perfect the things we needed to? Did we find the things asked of us. Did we become what was necessary?

Letters - 7 / 15 Dear First Love

Letters - 7 / 15 Dear First Love

Dear First Love,

…

It was a long time ago. We were kids. Sometimes I see your posts on social media, facebook or instagram. I never like or respond, and I know you don’t do the same for me either. I’m afraid of opening up old wounds. Are there old wounds? I don’t even really know. I know I messaged once, I guess almost ten years ago now. Never heard back. And I didn’t want to push it.

Letters - 6 /15 Dear Past Me

Letters - 6 / 15 Dear Past Me

Dear Past Me,

Find mentors, figure out what makes you happy and don’t let people shame you for it. Learn discipline as soon as you can, because you took a long time getting there and the guilt once you got it...sucked. Go easy on yourself when you find things that other people care about, that you don’t. Don’t force it. You won’t have to. And in the end, it probably won’t matter that much anyway.

Letters - 5 / 15 Dear Crush

Letters - 5 / 15 Dear Crush

Dear Crush,

Letters - 4 / 15 Dear Dad

Letters - 4 / 15 Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

Letters - 3 / 15 Dear Mom

Letters - 3 / 15 Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Poetry - Obedience

Poetry - Obedience

Her lips against my ear, and a hand calm against my forehead.

"Drown" she whispers and pushes slow and painless.

I slip beneath the surface...

And did.

Letters - 2 / 15 Dear Self

Letters - 2 / 15 Dear Self

Dear Self,

Letters - 1 / 15 Dear Ex

Letters - 1 / 15, Dear Ex

Dear Ex,

Hey friend. It has been years. Our lives have taken us to such different places, and though many miles separate us, and many silences, I do still think fondly on you and the time we had. I think we didn’t understand each other then, although we went through the motions easily enough. Hell, I think I barely understood myself, and it was probably unfair to ask to be understood. But sometimes I miss our lazy afternoons, our walks, and just sitting back to back, breathing, and dreaming.

We used to talk about dreams, about our careers, about art and people and...so many things that have fallen ephemeral between our fingers.

I hope you’re well. I hope you’ve found the things you’re looking for.

Yours.
Once

West Marches - Gilded Cage

West Marches - Gilded Cage

There is a sharp rap on the door outside what used to be Quiz's closed Arcane Laboratory. Most of the contents long since transported down to the Forks. Sedriks waits outside, idly toying with a reed flute.

Tragedy - Notre Dame Burns

Tragedy - Notre Dame Burns

"And in the middle of all that grief, there are harmonies. Humans are such magnificent creatures."

https://twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1117881594847612928

Life - Obligation

Life - Obligation

Do not be daunted
by the enormity
of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated
to complete the work,
but neither are you free
to abandon it.

- The Talmud

Life - Helpless Rage

Life - Helpless Rage

I am alone, standing before a heavy bag. Music I don't remember. There is an acrid smell of chalk and sweat, and the lights are half on, cold, and quiet.

Fists up.

West Marches - Friend Hunting

West Marches - Friend Hunting

Sedriks vaults a tree with ease, eyes scanning through the forest languidly. The afternoon sun is broken up into dappled flecks beneath the heavy canopy, and idyllic birdsong breaks through here and there. Looking back, the Bard calls to Maren, "What was tha' plant ye said we were lookin' for? What is it used for?"

Maren picks her way through the thick undergrowth of the woods, leaving no trace as she navigates the greenery. She bends over to inspect a small patch of trailing white flowers, rubbing the leaves between her fingers. "Dead Man's Moss, Mirabel's Seedling should be in season... if you can find any Corpseblossom, or see any Ghostpine trees, I would be very pleased." She tosses her ashy silver hair out of her face as she plucks a few of the flowers and tucks them in her apothecary's satchel.

Poetry - 3am

Poetry - 3AM

Speak no words.
     Offer no dreams.

 Let the play of clouds
             obscuring, stars
                 be your only indication
of

 b
 r
 e
 a
 t
 h.

Life - Altschmerz

Life - Altschmerz

n. weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for years, which leaves them soggy and tasteless and inert, with nothing interesting left to think about, nothing left to do but spit them out and wander off to the backyard, ready to dig up some fresher pain you might have buried long ago.

Life - Notification

Life - Notification

They changed the sound of notifications. I almost didn't even notice. And yet I couldn't not. They changed the sound, and my fingers no longer tense as my heart seizes when I hear it.

It used to have a specific meaning in my brain, it use to evoke a specific, pavlovian response to me.

They changed the sound. The old one is gone.

I could have changed it at any time. I am aware of the process for it, perhaps in a dream I even did once or twice. Imagining different outcomes perhaps.

They changed the sound, and I have returned to that platform.

It's different now.

They took the choice from me. I'm not sure if that makes me happy...or not.

Theatre - Beauty and Sadness

Theatre - Beauty and Sadness

Theatre doesn't last.

Only in people's memories, 

and in their hearts.

That's the beauty and sadness

of it.

But that's life.

Beauty and sadness.

And that is why theatre is

life.

West Marches - Darkwood

West Marches - Darkwood

The chilly woods of the Forks had long become a place of ease to Sedriks. The Bard found an easy rapport wandering the shaded places. Logic said he should’ve brought Azais or Quiz, that there would be better safety in numbers, but everyone seemed to be so busy since the escape from Sou’Brook, plots and plans, making ready for the trip to Wyford and gathering information.

Sedriks however, felt strangely cut off. Or maybe himself cut off, distant and nodding, giving out bags of coin when necessary and being strangely ghost like to the others. Until now, away from the guild,  walking without rhythm over logs and through bush.

No one followed him, and so no one was there to see the slow transition from Sedriks the Bard to Ceridwen the….whatever she was.

Theatre - World Theatre Day 2019

Theatre - World Theatre Day 2019

Today is World Theatre Day

West Marches - Between Friends

West Marches - Between Friends

It is midmorning, the guild hall at the Forks is already coming to life, Riders are attending to supplies, equipment, the smell of Cecil cooking bacon wafts through the halls.

But in the far wing of rooms, Sedriks' door is closed and silent. The bard having been carried there after the magical exertion of opening a gateway between trees. Lute prowls outside the door, occasionally scratching at the wood to no avail.

Film - Green Book

Film - Green Book - Isaac Ike

An essay on Green Book winning. By Isaac Ike

Life - Exhaust

Life - Exhaust

There are moments in my life when the incandescent rage in my chest burns out. It sputters and coughs, dying into weak embers.

And I feel cold... and empty.

It's moments like those, I wonder what's really holding me together, except for this strange
self induced agony.

Quotes - Energy - Stephen King

Quotes - Energy - Stephen King

"The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itself - that slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four, to be replaced by something much duller, something as bogus as a coke high: purpose, maybe, or goals, or whatever rah-rah junior Chamber of Commerce word you wanted to use. It was no big deal; it didn't go all at once, with a bang. And maybe, Richie thought, that's the scary part. How you didn't stop being a  kid all at once, with a big explosive bang, like one of that clown's trick balloon. The kid in you just leaked out, like the air of a tire."

-Stephen King

Life - Quiet New Year

Life - Quiet New Year

It was Lunar New Year earlier this week.

There are a bunch of traditions around New Year. You're not supposed to shower away the good luck on the day, or shave. You're supposed to have already cleaned the night before, so there are many places for luck, prosperity, and happiness to fill.

I didn't really do that.

I worked late on a stressful project.

Picked up a quick to go meal.

Ate alone, listened to music, and went to sleep.

It's the most depressing Lunar New Year I've had in forever. Except for calling my own parents, no other phone calls, no other real well wishes. Just a really empty moment.

It's weird, because I keep looking at the last few weeks of my life, which seem to be filled with work and walking through the dark. I've become like those Salarymen, collecting a paycheque for doing a bunch of managerial work that feels...empty.

Poetry - Bleeding

Poetry - Bleeding

I'm standing on the coastline.

And my knuckles are bleeding,
drip.
   drip.
       drip.

Blue and silver,
Through the tape wrapped over my palms.

Quotes - Fred Rogers - Life Isn't Cheap

Quotes - Fred Rogers - Life Isn't Cheap

"Fame is a four-letter word; and like tape or zoom or face or pain or life or love, what ultimately matters is what we do with it.

I feel that those of us in television are chosen to be servants. It doesn't matter what our particular job, we are chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen--day and night!

The conductor of the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl grew up in a family that had little interest in music, but he often tells people he found his early inspiration from the fine musicians on television.

Last month a thirteen-year-old boy abducted an eight-year-old girl; and when people asked him why, he said he learned about it on TV. 'Something different to try,' he said. 'Life's cheap; what does it matter?'

Well, life isn't cheap. It's the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that ... to show and tell what the good in life is all about.

But how do we make goodness attractive? By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own--by treating our 'neighbor' at least as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.

Who in your life has been such a servant to you ... who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let's just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life--those who have encouraged us to become who we are tonight--just ten seconds of silence.

No matter where they are--either here or in heaven--imagine how pleased those people must be to know that you thought of them right now.

We all have only one life to live on earth. And through television, we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways."

-Fred Rogers

Politics - On Jason Kenney

Politics - On Jason Kenney

On Jason Kenney, and Dignity.

"Why would I never support Jason Kenney?" I was asked today.

I'll explain it as clearly and concisely as I can. I will NEVER support a politician who worked in a movement that advocated for denying gay men the right to visit their own dying spouses.

There is a myriad of other reasons, but that one sticks out the most for me. I don't believe he's changed. I think that is the kind of action that is irredeemable. You do not get a say as an outside party in the practices of another person's systems of grief and mourning, or to deny them their final opportunities with other people. It is reprehensible.

No amount of 'he might be good for the economy' will undo that bloodstain. You cannot equate money, with ethics. As someone who has spent a lot of time studying and writing about ethics, once you begin to allow that compromise, your values will erode.

I will go so far as to say that anyone who supports Kenney, their values are so far removed from mine I have nothing to say to you. Not now. Not ever.

No amount of propaganda from CBC about his 'favourite snack is movie popcorn' will erase the absolute horror in my heart for every person ever affected by his callousness with their personal grief.

Edit:
Citation. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/kzvnea/alberta-ucp-leader-jason-kenneys-anti-gay-speech-surfaces-on-world-aids-day

Poetry - To Live In This World - Mary Oliver

Poetry - To Live In This World - Mary Oliver

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

—Mary Oliver,

Rest in Peace.

West Marches - The Search for Ioleth

West Marches - The Search for Ioleth

The three riders sat at a darkened table in a nearby tavern hardly touching their now warm ales; Azais monitoring the stable hand and his master down yet another round of whiskey.
Sedriks has a notebook out, ostensibly working on new music pieces, but Quiz and Azais could see the bard was scrawling notations between the notes, keeping track of the exact wording the travelers used and charting in rest beats for how long a distance they had traveled.

Politics - On Trump and McDonalds - George Godwyn

Politics - On Trump and McDonalds - George Godwyn

The problem with Trump's McDonald's party isn't that McDonald's is uniquely cheap or unhealthy or unfit for consumption or whatever other classist, pseudo-elitist, crap some of you folks seem to think. The unhealthiness of American fast food is generally overstated by almost everyone, as is its alleged inedibility, and the fact that people on a budget can conveniently access hot, delicious meals for the price of 15 minutes of labor is a miracle of the modern world and there’s no goddamn reason for an American President to be ashamed Americans know how to make some good, cheap hamburgers. Only a people as fat and comfortable and safe as Americans could be confused otherwise. Sorry, Belgium, you may have invented the french fry, McDonald’s made it into crack. Anyway, stop fronting. Y’all just had three cruncheritos and a mexican pizza from the Bell. Shit is good sometimes.

And the problem isn’t that Trump is a billionaire or that this repast took place at the White House on all their high falutin’ china, that fast food is somehow too undignified. America loves that shit. Billionaires eat McDonald’s, too (ask Warren Buffet), and when the fuck did we become the kind of nation that’s offended by our leaders having a goddamn burger on some fancy, company’s coming over, china, anyway? This isn’t Europe, the White House isn’t Versailles, as much as that doofus and our Centaurian first lady would like to pretend it is. McDonald’s is just fine on them high-class plates. (And by the way, the White House isn’t a palace because we don’t have kings and queens, we have employees, and as Trump’s employer, if he wants to snort addie off the Resolute desk and then piss on that big carpet seal while no one’s around, that’s fine with me. He should have the same right to misuse, abuse, and degrade his place of work as any other American worker. If your shirt is so stuffed shit like that is going to bug you, move to the 19th century or a Jane Austen novel or something.)

Quotes - Marie Kondo

Quotes - Marie Kondo

“The process of facing and selecting our possessions can be quite painful. It forces us to confront our imperfections and inadequacies and the foolish choices we made in the past…The things we own are real. They exist here and now as a result of choices made in the past by no one other than ourselves. It is dangerous to ignore them or to discard them indiscriminately as if denying the choices we made…It is only when we face the things we own one by one and experience the emotions they evoke that we can truly appreciate our relationship with them.” - Marie Kondo

West Marches - Leaving the Delve

West Marches - Leaving the Delve

Azais trails Sedriks closely as the small gathering of whiskey riders and dwarves disperses. After the events of the evenings lost souls and twisted magic, people were thankfully distracted by their own thoughts. “Not like you to keep souvenirs” she inclined her head to the small bag of steel-briar seeds. Sedriks had requested. “Planning on walking in Mareen’s footsteps?”

"These?" Sedriks holds up the small leather pouch, "Nay. They are a tree I know well. From my father's estate. Similar to tha' one deep in that dwarven manor. I dinnae expect to e'er see the like again. Ye' think me sentimental?"

“Oh I would never” she teased playfully.

"Hah, aye perish the thought." A rueful, and these days infrequent smile flits the Bard's lips.

Life - Anything

Life - Anything

Sometimes say something.

Sometimes say nothing.

Sometimes, say anything.

        Don't wait forever.

Life - Fault

Life - Fault

Sometimes, no amount of being told "It's not your fault." sticks. In your head and heart, you always just hear;

"It's your fault."

Over. And over.

It's your fault.

It's your fault.

It's your fault.

The words twist around and around. Over and over in your head. These are personal failings. They are raw wounds that ache invisibly.