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polar534 · 3 years

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Jersey Stealing Pt. 4

Titan, this was a lot longer then I had ever planned on it being. I started writing Jersey Stealing I want to say MONTHS ago. You guys have only recently seen the parts that have been sitting done for ages. I guess it's just a side effect of this being my secondary, recovery project. Something fun I can write up while I'm at work.

Anyways, I'll stop babbling now and let y'all get to the well deserved end to this arc. This one is long. It's got a lot of loose threads tied up and it's also got my first instance of me ever typing out 'I love you' in any sort of writing... so that's a thing. Hopefully I did it alright.

(If you like this/want to read the other parts/want to figure out what the heck this Hockey AU is in the first place, consider checking out the MasterPost.)

***

Amity tapped her fingers, the sharp sound echoing loudly throughout the empty house. Sighing, she pushed her chair out and set aside the homework she was working on. The quiet nature of the house was almost physically bothering her as she walked to the window.Opening up to the sounds of the street below and woods behind, Amity took a deep breath and let the sounds comfort the growing restlessness creeping into her bones. Normally on the days she didn't have practice, both her and Luz would spend the evening in the Boiling Isles, visiting Lilith and Eda at the palace. There was always something to do, and Eda in particular was always looking for some excuse to sneak away from her duties even for just a little bit. It was something they both looked forward to. A time in which everyone could catch up, Gus and Willow included, outside of school or Willow and Amity's games.

However, today was different. Luz had a lot less shine in her eyes as Amity said goodbye to her at the portal, something that rarely happened. It only furthered Amity's resolve in her decision to stay behind and find some sort of resolution to the incident that now had been plaguing her girlfriend for almost a week.

The itching in her bones began to crawl into her skin as Amity felt her restlessness increase. Moving to the bed she grabbed some shoes and slid them on, making sure to grab her stick and jersey on the way out the door. Even if it was late, she knew Luz wouldn't be home anytime soon, and there was no telling when Camilla would be off of work. Equipment in hand, she moved down the street quickly, the daylight slowly fading behind her.

***

Crack!

The slam of the puck against the stick offered little resistance to Amity's swing as she continued the course she had designed for herself. Lapping the rink she crashed into the football training dummy she and the team had borrowed (stolen) from the local highschool. Feeling the weighted dummy barely move against the slick ice had her hitting the next lap even faster then the first.

Crack!

This time the swing was straight through the puck, almost as if Amity was merely cutting through the air with her motions. The puck flew through the air and pushed the netting of the goal to it's limit as the witch ducked her head down and lapped the rink a second time, building up speed to once again charge the dummy. Her chest heaved as her feet slowed in their steps, the ice now almost like water under her skates. There was no more traction to be gained and she instead allowed her body to continue it's momentum as she practically soared towards her goal. Her mind emptied as she plowed into the object in front of her, shoulder out, intending to cause as much damage as possible. This time, the metal sled holding the dummy up slid effortlessly through the ice as it flew backwards. The force of her impact wasn't clean though. Losing her balance and with too much speed to stop, Amity careened around the edge of where the dummy had stopped and she hit the ice hard. The green-haired girl barely registered the pain as her stick flew from her hand and she was left spinning out on the ice.

The witch panted heavily as she lay on the frozen rink, completely dazed, her heartbeat thudding so loudly in her ears that she could barely think.

As the pain of her fall caught up with her, so did the emotions she had tried to outrun for the past week. She wasn't aware of the first tear that slipped down the side of her cheek, but the many following after had her face almost bitterly cold in chilly temperature of the arena. A question repeated in her mind over and over.

Why?

The tears didn't bother her. Neither did the reason she was shedding them.

Why?

What bothered her most was Luz. Why was this the thing, this hope, this person, the one thing to break Luz like Amity had never seen? Why did this emotion, this defeat, seem to haunt Luz like a ghost that was all too familiar? Amity's heart broke for Luz, and maybe she was finally allowing herself to feel the pain, the burden she had tried carrying since she had seen it. Her mind raced to fill in the gaps and answer the questions as the adrenaline from her training began to crash and her body melted further into the ice.

She thought about all she knew and had learned about Luz's history in her own world. This world that Amity now had become a part of. It seemed like every day was a struggle for Luz, her wild and dangerous ideas being so obviously unappealing to others. Forcibly being isolated, even when you are trying to reach out was a lot different from how Amity grew up. She was always welcome, but never felt like she belonged… never wanted to.

'I think that’s why Luz held on to the hope that one day they could be friends'

It was Luz's connection to Amity that severed the last chance of her bonding to her past. It was the step over the line for Sasha, the person Luz had hung her last hopes on before she met Willow, before she met Gus, before she met Amity.

The adrenaline was gone. Her body aching, Amity crawled her way to her feet feeling more hollow then ever before. Slowly, she slid the training dummy off the ice, and grabbed her stick. Her eyes glanced to the puck that was still in the empty space of the goal as she packed the last of her equipment away. Glancing at her phone she saw that there were missed messages.

-I'm home now.

Missed Call from Luz

-Amity?

-Where are you?

-I hope you're ok.

Amity took one last look at the ice behind her before she tapped out a quick response, slinging her jersey off and over her shoulder as she walked out of the building.

-Sorry. I was practicing.

-I'll be home soon.

***

Amity crept up the stairs and to the bedroom. Peeking open the door slowly she saw that Luz was curled up on the bed, wrapped up snugly in a blanket and using a small lamp to read by. As soon as the door opened her eyes shot up and the ghost of a smile lit up her face in the relative darkness.

"Ahhh, there she is!"

Amity smiled back as she wormed her way further into the room and set her equipment down. Kicking off her shoes she sat down on the edge of the bed as Luz set her book down and clung onto her back, her head resting comfortably in the crook of the witch's neck.

"I'm sorry I was late." Amity mumbled quietly as she leaned her face into Luz's, enjoying her girlfriend's warmth as it chased away the bite of cold that still lingered from the rink.

"I am too." Luz rumbled back into her ear as she squeezed her arms tightly around the witch's torso and pulled her fully down onto the bed.

"Oh? Miss me much Noceda?" Amity teased as they both wrapped the blanket around them and settled in, Luz in Amity's arms.

Luz merely responded with a low growl as she snuggled further into the other's girls embrace, making sure her face was buried into Amity's chest. After a moment of enjoying being close and together again, Luz finally lifted her face. Her eyes were tired, but they held the shine of curiosity that Amity was used to. Deep in those wide brown eyes there was a flicker of the Luz she knew and loved.

Then that flicker faded.

"So… you were out pretty late."

Amity nodded. It wasn't an accusation, just a comment. It didn't stop the guilt from rushing in however.

"I know. I'm sorry. I was caught up in practicing and didn't realize the time."

"Lokte's brother stopped by earlier." Luz said calmly.

Amity's blood froze. It wasn't as if she wanted to hide what she had been up to for the last few days, but rather didn't want to worry Luz any more then she already was. It was too late now though.

"He wanted to apologize. For what happened at the game. He looked pretty spooked. Guess Lokte didn't go easy on him."

"I wouldn't either." Amity growled stiffly. It may have been a genuine mistake, but that didn't mean the threat didn't bother her. What was worse was that Luz still seemed completely calm. Amity didn't know what to expect. Would she be mad? Or just disappointed?

Silence fell between the pair.

"You talked with them today… didn't you?"

There was another moment of silence before Amity nodded. Luz continued to face away from her, but the witch knew that her girlfriend knew the answer before she had asked. After a few more agonizing seconds, Luz finally faced her. The smallest sliver of a smile crept it's way on her face, and the light in her eyes seemed to come back ever so slightly.

"Sooo… just how obnoxious is Bryce?" Luz asked, gently teasing. Her light voice instantly broke through the stiff air between them.

Amity let out a sigh of relief as she laughed a bit to herself.

"I have no idea how you put up with him at all. He's got to be one of the dullest people I have ever met. I told him multiple times I was your girlfriend and he still couldn't take the hint! He kept trying to ask me out." The witch growled lowly, unconsciously squeezing Luz tighter.

"Oh. Huh..." Luz hummed thoughtfully.

"Luz there was no way I was going to say yes. You know that right?"

Luz sat up and waved her hand as if dismissing Amity's thought.

"Yeah of course I know that." She assured the witch almost like an after thought, now looking curiously out the window. "It's just weird. Bryce isn't the type to ask girls out. He just hasn't ever been interested in dating before."

"Could've fooled me." Amity grumbled unhappily, Byrce's aggressive way of flirting still very much prevalent in her mind.

Luz turned back to her with another smile, this one supportive and warm.

"Oh Ami. He's still very much a trashbag." Luz said slowly, her distaste for Bryce very barely hidden. "You didn't have to go talk to them for me you know." She added after a pause, her voice growing quiet.

"Well. Let's see, they threatened you, called you a liar and then tried to go on with their life as if everything was ok. As if there wasn't any consequences." Amity listed as she stared at the ceiling and counted on her fingers. After thinking for awhile she stared hard at Luz. "Yeah. I wasn't about to let that happen."

Luz's smile grew a little more genuine as both girls looked at each other. She leaned back up against Amity as they settled back down into the bed. There wasn't anything more to say.

"So practicing huh? Did you use the football dummy?" Luz asked suddenly and excitedly.

Amity couldn't help but smile, it had been Luz's idea to use it (steal it) in the first place.

"It was a little weird to use, but honestly on the second try I sent it flying."

"Awesome." Luz breathed. "I demand you take me along next time."

Amity laughed. "You've been spending too much time with King." She teased gently as she sat up to lean against the bed frame. Luz promptly flopped across her lap and uncovered her book from earlier to flip open.

"Nonsense." The human girl dismissed as her eyes began to scan the pages again.

"What are you reading anyways?" Amity asked after a pause told her the conversation might be over.

"Shhhhhhh." Luz reached over and lazily flopped a hand against Amity's face in an attempt to gently shush her. "I'm almost done with this scene."

Raising an eyebrow, Amity patiently waited, unaware that she and Luz would soon spend the next 2 hours getting into the first book of a brand new series. After thoroughly researching to find out that yes, the rest of the series was available at the library, the two girls settled in for the night. As they were drifting off, Luz holding Amity tightly to her chest, the witch had almost completely forgotten about the trials they had both been through. The weight of their trauma seemed so far away, lost in the warmth of the blankets and her girlfriend's arms.

No matter what happened, if every day ended with Luz right beside her, Amity knew they could and they would survive anything that life threw at them.

Above her, Luz buried her face into her hair, breathing in deeply as sleep overtook her.

"…mity…" She mumbled sleepily.

Amity couldn't help but giggle a bit. Luz hated falling asleep, always clinging to her consciousness despite how exhausted she was. Always finding some excuse to stay up just a little longer.

"Yes?"

"… thanks."

Amity's ears twitched before a small smile appeared on her face. She snuggled into Luz further.

"Anytime." The witch reassured her as she heard her girlfriend sigh happily above her. The room grew quiet once again and Amity was almost fully asleep by the time Luz spoke next.

"I love you."

The heat rushed to Amity's cheeks, as it always did when she heard those 3 little words. Her heart skipped a bit as it beat faster in it's desperate attempt to return the affection.

"I love you too Luz."

***

Luz didn't return to normal right away, though the night clearly had an effect on her. However, it never took long for the unbreakable spirit of Luz Noceda to rear it's head again and soon enough, The Otter's hockey practice was once again filled with the sounds of rambunctious applause and cheering. The entire team seemed to be effected by the return of their number 1 fan as they all began to work harder, feeling the hope return. After all, they were 4-1 and were still riding high on their winning streak.

Amity and Lokte especially felt the effects of Luz's return to form, not only on a personal level, but also with the renewed gusto of their team.

Which is why, on the last practice before their big game, everything came to an almost halt as the door of the rink opened and a stranger appeared looking very lost.

It wasn't as if the majority of the team knew this new person, but they recognized the bad news this person brought as their star player completely froze. Amity recognized the figure immediately. She was already furiously skating off the ice as they started to approach Luz, Lokte quickly calling for a 5 minute break behind her. Up in the stands, Luz looked up, surprised to see a face beside her in the usually barren stands. She was even more surprised by just how familiar the face was.

Beside her, Sasha was clenching tightly to her arm, looking absolutely everywhere but at Luz herself. She looked like she was trying to form a sentence as the commotion on the ice finally caught up to them. Both girls turned to see Amity, desperately pulling off her skates in the players box, her face furious.

"Wait! Wait! I can explain!" Sasha called out as they watched Lokte skate up next to Amity who growled out a quick response. Now both players seemed set on heading up to the stands, completely uncaring about the former bullies cry.

Luz didn't know what to do. Her mind had frozen when she saw Sasha and not knowing what to think, she didn’t know what to say. Her eyes were locked on Lokte and Amity as they started climbing the stairs to where she was, feeling almost grateful that she would have some sort of backup in just a few moments.

It wasn't that she was scared, but her chest seemed to ache the same way it had the last couple of days and she was acutely aware that she seemed to shrink in Sasha's presence. Luz knew that she hadn't been herself in the days following her encounter with Sasha and Bryce before. It had taken a lot out of her, and although she always wanted to look for the best in people, she wasn't keen to repeat that experience.

Especially with how worried Amity had been.

"Ok. Well since it definitely seems like I'm about to be chased from this place," Sasha spoke up, interrupting Luz's fleeting thoughts and quickly turning to her with wide eyes. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. Really. I'm not looking for any sort of forgiveness. I don't… I don't deserve that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I just… I was hoping we could talk."

Luz merely blinked, her mind swirling. She was still very much aware of her girlfriend closing in on them, and Sasha's already flighty behavior. She knew she needed to make a move to stop something from happening but she couldn't think past the girl's words.

'I'm sorry'

"You… wanted to talk?" Luz finally choked out, finding some sort of sticking point to allow herself to speak again.

Sasha almost looked a little sheepish, her fearful eyes darting back and forth between the hockey players quickly coming up the stairs and the girl she had hurt.

"Yeah. For all the years I've known you… I realized I know absolutely nothing about you." The blonde haired girl laughed.

The laugh was so genuine that Luz couldn't help but laugh with her. After all, everything she said was true. They had known each other for a long time, but they were still practically complete strangers. It was Luz who had always wanted that to change, but Sasha had never made an attempt to fix anything between them before. Time was running out however as Sasha turned to leave, clearly afraid of the players coming up the steps.

She was quickly stopped by Luz's hand on her arm.

"Hey! I thought I told you not to go near her again!" Amity snarled, now being close enough to yell.

Luz could feel the shiver of fear that shot through Sasha as Amity bared her fangs. Again, she couldn't help but smile, after all, Amity was pretty terrifying when she wanted to be. Looking absolutely ready to bolt, Sasha turned to Luz with wide eyes, clearly praying that this wasn't some big trap. Luz only winked as a response.

Letting her arm go, Luz stood up and put herself between Amity and Sasha, holding her arms out to the side to fully block the girl behind her.

Amity froze as Lokte stopped on the steps below her, their arms crossing in frustration.

"Luz?" The witch asked tentatively. Her voice was full of concern and worry, all traces of anger almost completely fading as she stared at her girlfriend in confusion.

Luz took a deep breath.

"It's okay Ami. She just wants to talk."

Amity bristled in anger, but she did her best to remain calm. "Are you ok?"

Luz glanced behind her and took note of Sasha's wide, shocked eyes. Her face was blank as she turned back around to face her girlfriend.

"Give me a stick and I'll make sure she doesn't get too out of line." Luz smirked after a short pause.

A startled gasp from behind her had Lokte and Luz both laughing while Amity merely rolled her eyes. Taking a step forward she planted a kiss on her girlfriend's cheek.

"Let me know the moment she starts bothering you, ok?" Amity whispered. Luz caught her hand as she backed up again and held it tight as she flashed a confident smile.

"Of course." Luz grinned at her as she swung the witch's hand and let it go. "You just get back to practicing. No need to stop on my behalf."

"I could name several reasons." Lokte interjected, still looking rather distrustful of the girl tentatively peeking out from behind Luz.

Despite their reluctance, Amity nodded at Luz and dragged her friend back down to the rink. Luz watched them leave for just a bit before turning to Sasha with a grin.

"Alright. Crisis adverted." She laughed playfully. "Just be grateful she didn't jump at ya from the ceiling. I've seen it happen. It's not pretty."

Sasha laughed nervously. "So… does this mean we can talk?"

Luz laughed again as she fearlessly grabbed Sasha and forced her to sit next to her on the bleacher.

"Do you know how long I've been waiting to hear you ask me that?"

…

Amity slid into the seat next to Luz as she watched her teammates wrap up on the ice. Sasha had left only a little while ago and the witch could see a noticeable slouch to her girlfriends shoulders. Despite that, Luz barely moved as Amity gently reached for her hand.

"How are you doing?" She asked quietly, weaving her fingers through Luz's own.

After a short pause, Luz squeezed her fingers back and looked up at her with watery brown eyes. Amity immediately tensed. She didn’t trust that look and if Sasha had hurt her again…

Well the girl hadn't left that long ago, if she hurried, there was still a definite chance that the witch could catch her. She was preparing to grab her stick and hurry out the door as Luz finally spoke.

"We aren't friends yet…" Luz stated slowly, the light in her eyes vibrantly bright as she spoke.

"But it's a start."

#toh #toh au #hockey au #the owl house #lumity #the owl house au #these girls are fluffy #finally finished this monster #i've got like 2 other short shots I'll post eventually #then it's on to probably Clothing Incident #Or Hockey Injury #ok I'll shut up now

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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December Goals Update

Time to round up the stuff I got done! This one is a big update, despite both accomplishments and this january’s goals being quite straightforward this time. ^-^)/

I already know - I ended up focusing on one very specific goal, and made significant progress JUST in that. And... if I do what I am PLANNING for January... then hopefully I’ll make more progress. But lol, we’ll see. We know how much I suck at sticking to my plans >o>

Things accomplished:

Chinese novel chapters read in December: 20 (Tian Ya Ke - 19, aka read about 24% of the novel this past month! This was the big goal I ended up focusing on - I want to finish reading through my first full novel this year! I did a majority of those chapters in the last 2 weeks, so if I get motivated again, I might really reach this goal. We’ll see. I REALLY do want to break the milestone of getting through one complete novel soon, and it being a priest one would be icing on the cake. Reading method - intensively, using Pleco Reader, looking up all unknown words. I picked up a significant amount of words so far, but it’s still a big challenge lol).

Chapters I studied with Listening-Reading Method: 8 (Most of these were Tian Ya Ke, and dmbj 2. I ended up getting really into reading though, and skipping this step later on as it slowed down my reading time. This January, I would like to do l-r method MORE, because I’ve finally got Guardian all prepped to do that novel with it. I’d love to do l-r method all the way through the novel guardian... I hope I manage it... avenuex did a beautiful audiobook for it, and I’d love to work through it. The only demotivating factor? l-r method takes a big time dedication - 5-10 minutes to read a chapter in english, 20 minutes to listen to the chapter while looking at the english text, 20 minutes to listen to the chapter while looking at the chinese text... so around 50 minutes to do a single chapter. And guardian has 106+ chapters ToT. That said, imagine how improved my listening skills would be after roughly 88* hours of listening to chinese I can mostly comprehend? Considering just a handful hours of l-r method has already bumped my listening skills up noticeably to me. In addition to Guardian, I would very much like to do l-r method with Silent Reading as an excuse to re-read the novel and listen to the audiobook - which is around 66 free chapters available at least. I figure l-r method with priest novels, in combo with reading priest novels like Tian Ya Ke, will help with picking up vocabulary in reading and listening a bit. Plus, I plan to do l-r method in the order: listen to english, then listen to chinese, which tends to help me pick up more reading comprehension better than the reverse order.)

Chinese audio listened to: 14 (a surprisingly large number? I don’t remember doing this much lol? I think some of this is me listening to dmbj audios, and some was other chinese things, and a tiny bit was restarting the spoonful chinese audio. Again, I think listening more has been helping out a lot)

shows watched in only chinese: roughly 2 (I watched a bit of a few eps of border town prodigal, some tlt3 raws, some short vids, half of anti fraud league ep 1, half of some spy show, basically i was not in a focused mood lol)

Personal goals met:

finally got my stomach to stop hurting! i guess it wanted less carbs. also debloated 10 lbs so i guess its happier lol. still not sure what else it wants from me.

started writing a personal story, period piece with pirates and bisexual messes and i’m quite excited tbh. So now this story, and Nanase, are active original wips

handled doctor stuff wooh!

read more of my cpstd book and made more comprehensive plans on what to do when i get emotional flashbacks - and i think the prep work has been really helpful so far, i’m hopeful my lowered stress now is a part of that lol

formatted 2 books! WOOH! in process of formatting 2 more, and learning how the fuck to do a parallel text - anyone know how??? I’m having a nightmare, I’d love to do left page english right page chinese, but all I’m finding are how to use columns to do dual texts beside each other on the same page. Which is much more cramped to read... but I suppose I can live with it if it’s the only option I have.

Goals for January will be pretty straightforward to be honest. I am in a very reading-focused mood. (I mean we’ll see how long that lasts, ToT since my attention jumps randomly, but I’ve got everything Prepped to lean heavy into reading for my studying for the foreseeable future). I plan to focus on reading as my main study method, to cover listening and reading and picking up vocabulary/hanzi. Optionally, I might listen to chinese audio in the background to further help with listening/vocabulary (like Chinese Spoonfed Audio, or audiobooks), or I might watch a show in chinese (whether I do this completely depends on if I feel like it).

Later on in the year, if reading is getting easier - then long term, I think I’ll want to go back to Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Characters book and read through it for a solid foundation to fill in gaps, read my chinese grammar books for same reason, use my pronunciation app... and then dive into both language exchange apps and tutors more firmly for actual writing and speaking and interacting with others. Basically, long term, I’d like to work on filling in my gaps and correcting any mistakes I haven’t figured out, then work on production more which will be significantly weaker skills by then. But in the immediate, I want to just focus on what I enjoy - reading - and use it to pick up as many words as possible.

Goals for January:

Continue reading Tian Ya Ke. Work on reading through my first complete novel in chinese. Continue counting chapters read, as I might look at a few novels - but sincerely, I WANT to focus on one book so Tian Ya Ke is the GOAL. I will be quite happy if I can get the book to 50% read by the end of this month, but we’ll see... and quite honestly I’ll be floored if I get to 100% within the month - but if it gets easier as I pick up more words, anything’s possible. Ideally, I would like to l-r method a few chapters. I do think it speeds up my reading speed because it makes me keep up with the narration, and it also helps me cement new words into my memory better. I remember words better when I hear them. However like - chapters tend to take me 40 minutes to read, and l-r method takes usually 15-20 minutes because of how dense priest’s chapters are. So... l-r method chapters take 1 hour a piece... if I get into a reading mood, I’ll ultimately probably just primarily focus on the reading.

Secondary goal, not as important, I will start this if desired but it might wait until February+. Listen-Read Method Guardian, until I’ve gotten through the entire novel. I finally have all the translations gathered up, I’ve got my chinese copy of the novel, and avenuex’s audiobook. I have everything ready to simply start. However, as mentioned, this is a time heavy activity. I do think it will be very helpful for improving my listening skills, and to a degree also - helping retain my reading skills, push my reading speed up a little, and maybe help me pick up some new words. I think it will be a very compatible activity with goal 1, or a nice follow up activity to goal 1. Also it is the DREAM, as that novel is what pushed me to start learning chinese initially... so I am very excited to read through it. Ideally, I start this activity AFTER Tian Ya Ke, and I do a full readthrough of the chapters like: read in english, audio with english, audio with chinese, read intensively in chinese. Basically, I would love to include a full intensive read through of Zhen Hun at the same time I’m l-r method’ing it. However that will be Even more time sapping, so that’s not necessarily gonna happen unless my reading speed for priest novels is a little better after Tian Ya Ke. I need to get through the chapters read in chinese in closer to 20 minutes instead of the current 40 minutes it takes me.

Optional. Listen to chinese when I can - in the background like Chinese Spoonfed, audio books, audio dramas, and by watching shows in only chinese. If I have time, and I feel like doing these, I will. It’s easy to add doing this to my day, so when I remember to do them, they’re helpful.

Main Goal for January - continue reading Tian Ya Ke. <3

Once that’s completed, next main goal - Listen-Read Method with Guardian.

See? Really extremely straightforward goal for January. Simply keep reading! I think the more I read, the easier it will get, the faster it will get, and the quicker I’ll be able to get through a LOT of the novels I want to check out. So... I have to start doing it, if I intend to get better.

Unrelated notes:

I’ve gotten really into Drakengard 3 lately. Which by extension, means really into Nier Automata again, Nier (Nier Replicant remaster is releasing and I am getting the version with the scriptbooks and am intensely excited), and Drakengard. Yoko Taro’s wild concepts and fascinating characterizations and way of telling stories has sucked me in again. And I am reminded how very much eventually learning to read Japanese IS still a long term goal of mine. I’m back to playing like 3 games right now I could so easily be practicing my japanese with... if I remembered any japanese ToT. It’s like at the edges of my brain... I remember the hiragana and katakana after a minute or two... the kanji I’ve completely forgotten, but since I know a lot of the meanings from chinese now, I can often parse out the meaning of sentences in manga I’ve got... I can’t remember the particles off the top of my head or when I listen, but when I read their meaning clicks again fast... I know that when I go back, its just a matter of a crash course and then diving in again. And wow am I eager. But I know myself, and japanese is gonna take a WHILE. And chinese is currently taking a LOT of dedication, I don’t even really have time to work on my french reading lol. So I would really prefer to get at least another year in chinese before even trying to start studying japanese again. (And realistically 2-3 more years of chinese, because I genuinely think a solid basis in speaking skills/basic listening skills, and generally Competent webnovel reading skills I want before I stop actively studying chinese... because by that time I’ll want to keep reading/listening to chinese for pleasure, chatting when needed, and if I stop studying before that point I know I personally will just end up needing to relearn some big chunks. I also think if I try to go back to japanese before that point, I will have major issues confusing the two when reading. My japanese was upper-beginner when I quit, and when I started chinese I sped past that point in chinese to the point pretty quickly chinese blocked out what japanese i knew and it made japanese reading easier but only to a point. My chinese I’d put at ‘beginner’ still?? But compared to my japanese its significantly farther - in chinese I can currently read manhua without a dictionary and get enough to translate most of it myself, and read simpler novels and get most of it, and read more complex novels and get the gist main idea even if its a slog.

With japanese? Ahahahahahah! I was able to read the very simplest of manga and only get the very bare main idea gist, could NOT even comprehend any novel, and could play a video game on MEMORY of what i knew the context was, only picking out quite basic words. However, even though my chinese has gotten a fair bit further... I want it even further before I stop actively studying it so much. I want it to the point its where my french reading level was at about 2.5 years into french (or honestly, a bit Better than my french was tbh). I want my chinese to be to the point, where I recognize enough hanzi that I can guess the meaning of some new words, that I can look up most new words with with pinyin because i at Least know the pinyin for most hanzi i see, and where in most not-too-difficult webnovels i read, I know enough of the words, that i can comfortably follow the gist of the main plot without too much strain even if i miss details. so at that point, I’ll still likely want to build up my vocabulary more - so that i can learn to translate, and so that i can pick up details easier, and read faster. But I’ll at least be at a point where i can easily maintain the skills i have and improve them a bit naturally by just continuing to read. I mean... realistically even, I should try to keep studying chinese a lot at that point... I really, really want to be able to read chinese novels. But that’s probably the minimum at which I’d feel quite comfortable focusing on another language intensively.

With japanese, I already have a study plan too! A study plan I know works for me! It’ll be so simple! Parts 1-4 would be structured study, parts marked + would be options to move onto, and parts marked * would be activities that could be done concurrently.

The japanese study plan, whatever year I finally can get to it:

Listen to Japanese Audio Lessons (japaneseaudiolessons.com). I did this before, and it helped my listening comprehension/vocabulary pick up so much.

Read Learn to Read in Japanese Vol I, II, III (by the same people). I loved these books back when I started them, the best mnemonics that I’d found for myself to pick up the kanji - easiest way for me to pick them up without brute forcing it.

(concurrently with above) go through Nukemarines LLJ memrise decks. Literally, just CRAM through those. I did that at the 2+ year mark for japanese, and that was REALLY when I was finally able to start reading and trying video games, so it clearly was what worked for me.

Read my book Read Japanese. Haven’t tried this yet, but it looks like a good place to progress, This would be done after step 1+2, either concurrently with Nukemarine or after Nukemarine depending on how much is done. Just cram Through this book since it’s got a lot of basics in the beginning. Its in the same structure as my DeFrancis Chinese Readers and very well suited to my learning style.

Read my Tuttle Read Japanese book. More difficult, goes into like 2000 kanji, a ton of vocab, and most people who read this said afterward reading regular japanese material was quite doable.

+If my Nukemarine deck is completed - move onto one of my japanese decks with more words, or Clozemaster Japanese sentences.

+If my japanese audio lessons are completed - move onto one of my other japanese audio collections like the japanese pimsleur that was condensed, or that website with a ton of condensed audio of episodes (https://www.paliss.com/). Or youtube channels like Game Gengo (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT12i1gB38HG1olutL08nID8gaGWHZS4v).

+at the point Nukemarine’s deck is done, Listening-Reading method with japanese novels is an option.

+at the point I’m done with all Read Japanese books, may read through some other japanese textbooks I have, starting with: Japanese Particles and Common Sentence Structures, Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Guide.

*Find a japanese reader equivalent to Pleco (check subreddit r/learnjapanese, r/refold, r/massimmersionapproach). Start reading whatever japanese novels I want. Which knowing me, will probably be light novels, maybe some visual novels, and video game related materials. *Ideally this step would be done last, but knowing me, it’ll be done whenever i feel like starting - could be attempted as early as midway through the Nukemarine decks.

*Listen to japanese - so many options here, realistically it would be me playing video games in japanese, watching jdramas, watching/listening to spinoff material of stories I like like the YorHa stage plays etc. Can be attempted as early as midway through Nukemarine decks.

*reading manga could be anywhere in this list, although I don’t do it much anymore. But I was just getting to being able to try this last time I was studying japanese, so I could start up again whenever. Only negative, I would say, is I think my improvement suffered back then because I was too scared to try reading actual novels. So novels are prioritized as reading material. It would be nice to help translate some mangas though - so there’s an option.

*maybe try translating some japanese things i have interest in, at a late point.

I think maybe, the biggest thing studying chinese has taught me about how i learn languages, is that I improve faster when challenged. I learn better when challenged. I tried to read Chinese novels from the first few months (not well, but i tried lol), I watched chinese dramas from day one, and I tried to watch chinese shows only in chinese from month 5 onward. From month 5 onward I started trying to talk/write with people (knowing maybe 400 words at first, quickly bumping up to 1000 words in a month cause of just needing it, so it definitely helped me). And when I started listening to audio more, my listening skill noticeably improved within a few months. As a result, my chinese in a little over a year is taking much less time to improve then I projected it was going to (I figured the progress I’ve made so far, was going to take 3-4 years). Whereas with japanese, I didn’t try to start reading or playing video games or listening a lot until 2 years into studying... and I also didn’t make any noticeable improvement until then. So going into any language study moving forward, I’ll do more to challenge myself earlier. Since clearly its helpful to me.

#december progress #december goals #japanese #japanese study plan #study plan #u can really tell japanese has been on my mind lately lol #chinese study plan #to be honest though i feel really happy with my chinese right now #i have been working for a YEAR to get to this point in chinese #to where i can primarily make my studying be reading. and i'm definitely here.#i can just keep reading and listening for a few months for chinese. i dont really need to work on varying it anymore #since my vocab foundation is decent now.#in a while like i said - long term - i'd like to do a readthrough of my textbooks #to catch onto errors i make and to iron out any points i still am not clear on #and really HAMMER in knowledge of basics #and then i want to focus a lot of my study on producing the language/communicating #i am hoping by that point my reading skills will be fast enough i'll be able to just read for pleasure #in some down time. and listen to audio dramas in downtime. to retain #what gains i've made there.#but production i'm happy to put off for a while so this plan seems good to me.

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forasecondtherewedwon · 5 years

Note

Hi for the smutty prompts can you do number 12 please. I love you're writing by the way 💕

Thank you, trio of anons!! I didn’t do a Halloween party as all my Halloween writing energy went into my 31 Days of Spideychelle. What these prompts did make me think of was Fight Club… so it’s a Fight Club AU!

Queens Club

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle)Rating: E/NSFW - warning: consensual violenceWord count: 3002

12. “Are you going to eye-fuck me all night or are you going to do something about it?”

43. “The things I want to do to you, baby.”

Warped is how it feels to live in a progressive city within a conservative country. MJ marches and rallies and volunteers her time with organizations whose goals she believes in. She looks around at these events and sees a youthful, diverse crowd hungry for equal pay, thirsty for renewable energy initiatives. She smiles, handing donated school supplies to underprivileged kids, donated canned goods to Queens’s homeless, donated fuck-yous from the disgustingly, ceaselessly rich to the people their hoarded wealth keeps poor. MJ wants to do more, so she does it, and things don’t change. Things. Don’t. Change.

She wants to pick a fight.

It’s comin’ on winter―an even bleaker time than the manic-depressive Christmas Joni Mitchell alluded to―and the impact of the latest article MJ’s submitted to an online zine that always takes her pieces feels like it’ll last about as long as the first ashy snowfall. Where’s the passion, she wanted them to ask. Maybe they could grab her by her shoulders and shake until her neck snaps while they’re at it. Disillusionment wasn’t supposed to come this soon for the kid who wore Jeanne d’Arc Ts in high school. The ‘Girl Most Likely’ of teen revolution.

The city’s greyer this year, she’d swear to it. Wishy-washy shadows and sidewalks for sleepwalkers. Getting from work to home? Nightmarish, but in, like, a boring way. The tiny, chilly apartment MJ shares with some woman who seems to keep opposite hours isn’t enough to revive her. At least the drama of scratching ‘DO NOT RESUSCITATE’ into her bedroom door is something to contemplate on the walk. Tomato soup for dinner, just to see the colour orange.

Not everyone she knows falls into the two categories of ‘sparky do-gooder’ and ‘veritable stranger’ like she’d thought. Someone is interesting. Someone has felt her clenched jaw and understood her cravings. MJ flips over the card she found shoved beneath the apartment’s front door, but the back is blank. She peruses the front again, eyes down while she lifts her dinner and gulps the last of the soup directly from the bowl. It sloshes over her upper lip, so she licks it off, feeling… Feeling. That’s enough.

The card says, ‘Fight Club.’ It provides a date and time, a familiar street address.

She’s neutral about slipping inside Midtown Tech after midnight. Whoever did the breaking in left the rear custodial door open―the one that exits into a closet-room of buckets and rolls of rough brown paper towel. There’s no sign, not that MJ had been expecting one. It isn’t parent teacher night or the heavily-postered orientation day she attended when she started college. The lights aren’t on in the hall and when she sniffs hard (adjusting to the dry air), the sound is somehow too close. She has to get out of her own body.

What she’d pictured after the anonymous invite was a gathering in someplace a little grittier than the gym. Newly refloored, by the looks of it. She could rave about the skewed divide of school funds that favours athletics, the physical over the mental, even in a specialized tech school, but she isn’t here to champion the arts.

The things MJ might need tonight could be anything; she’s filled a decrepit duffle with a water bottle, towel, and two-thirds-empty box of band-aids. It sags pathetically and she chucks it against the wall to join the dozen people―mostly men―clumped together near the fold-away bleachers.

“’Sup.” She nods to the closest person.

How long have they been doing this? Is she the only new recruit tonight? When did it begin? Why use the gym at Midtown Tech? Who found her and how? The only thing she doesn’t wonder is what the point is. He doesn’t answer any of the questions in MJ’s head and normally she doesn’t like that―curiouser and skepticaler by nature―but the conviction in his powerful-looking shoulders and grounded posture is something she’s never seen before. The phrase is bullshit, except the air does change when he moves through the circle they’ve become without her noticing. Suddenly, MJ cares about presenting herself like she’s supposed to be here.

There are rules, blah, blah, blah, and his name is Spider-Man.

The spectacle engages her adrenaline; she has to remind herself that neither of the men swinging furious amateur punches is going to come for her. It’s the first match of the night and watching is part of what Figh―is what this is about. The noise of a nose breaking is something MJ knows now. The smear of freshly-escaped blood across both men’s knuckles is surprisingly orange. Briefly, remembering her soup, she feels a nauseated surge in her stomach.

This “Spider-Man” dude is physical. He hasn’t fought yet, but he pushes the fighters, grabs their arms and shoves them together, slaps them on the back and shrieks praise in their ears. He yanks his shirt off and when the fighters collide with him, they leave streaks from superficial wounds on his chest. Never his back, because he’s always facing them. His eyes are passionate. It’s a lot, when they land on MJ.

Two more fights and he looks at her every time he turns his head. He still hasn’t fought, but he’s jostled the crowd and the fighters enough to put a shine on his skin. When he pushes his curly brown hair off his forehead, it clings for a moment before flopping back exactly where it was. She smells him when he brushes by in front of her.

The fighters are not ‘gladiators’ because they fight for themselves, not for the approval of any authority. MJ can’t see how they can ignore the clear authority of the Club’s founder. She doesn’t bring it up.

Number four’s starting up and the guy beside her has an eye swelling shut when the shock of the evening finally numbs in her mind and she begins to get angry. All those tiny godfuckingdamn backpacks for kids who are statistically less likely to reach post-secondary because of their socioeconomic backgrounds. MJ could swear she’s handed out a thousand. And the politicians? And the rich? And the rich? Spider-Man slides by at her back, knocking into her and she whips her head around to stare while he stares right on back, moving away around the ring of Last Resorters.

Across from her―a trio beating the shit out of each other in between (it isn’t exactly the fish tank meet-cute of Romeo + Juliet)―Spider-Man stares, gaze so forceful it’s like he thinks he can yank her over there, make her step into danger like walking into traffic or off the edge of a cliff. He grins.

She shoulders through the others, circling. The action is deliberate and no one gets pissed, no one scoffs or swears or flips her off. The last person standing there between her and her objective MJ bodily propels into the fight. And she’s looking a little lower than level to lock eyes with Spider-Man. He crosses his arms, she grinds her teeth.

“Are you going to eye-fuck me all night,” MJ demands, “or are you going to do something about it?”

When he starts to laugh, voices roaring up around them after a wretched pop that could’ve been a shoulder, a finger, or a cheekbone (she’s still learning the chords for the music of injury), she slaps him hard across the face. He does react, head swinging sideways on her follow-through, but he smiles at her again.

“Never the flat of the hand,” Spider-Man instructs, leaning towards her. “But we’ll train you out of that. See, what you want… what you want is a nice closed fist.”

He makes one around her ponytail, arm shooting out before she has a chance to stop him―if she had any idea how to do that―and drags her by it, sideways into the combat space.

“MOVE YOUR ASSES,” he orders, kicking a guy in the knee who then has to limp to the observers. “You picked the match,” he says to her, winding MJ’s hair around his fist to heighten the tug on her scalp, “so fight me.”

Abruptly, he frees her hair and she hurls her shoulder into his chest.

“You fucking started it, bitch.”

MJ never says that word, not as an endearment for friends (like she has a lot of those) or to reclaim control of a term used to harass women. Holding it in her mouth has always made her sick. Guess she just figuratively barfed on Spider-Man.

He staggers, then pushes her back. MJ’s feet are completely wrong and she falls on her ass.

“Up,” he says, raising his fists in front of his chin, arms flexing.

Her sneaker squeaks―she hopes it leaves a scuff―and somebody’s damp palm is pressing between her shoulder blades to steady her to her feet.

He doesn’t direct her with his words anymore after that, although MJ falls again and again. Looks like she’ll be finding out tomorrow if you can bruise your ass. Instead, he’ll tap her shoulder to make her lower it, grip her elbow to tuck it closer to her ribs. She knows this muscular guy isn’t hitting her full-strength, but it doesn’t offend her. A trip to the hospital isn’t in her plans for the near-future and he probably doesn’t want to whittle down his group. If anything, it’s likely spreading. Hence her invitation.

Blood has run from her lip to her chin by the time they unspokenly end their fight, and her stomach hurts from the multiple times Spider-Man caught MJ straight-on before she figured out she should turn to the side to present a smaller target. For now, he stands next to her and performs fifth-rate doctoring: he wipes the blood away with his thumb.

Watching other fights, MJ hadn’t understood how two people who’d just been attacking each other could then stand together like pals, comparing bruises as they bloomed. But her anger has curled up to rest and Spider-Man’s presence, his strength, makes her press her arm into his. She looks him up and down and though he studies the current fight, she’s sure he’s aware of her gaze. His stance is good considering she kneed him in the nuts.

“Did you get it all out?” he asks without turning to look at her.

MJ rolls her shoulders.

“For now. You?”

Spider-Man snorts a laugh.

“The things that I want to do to you, baby.”

It sort of comes across like a threat of violence, considering all they have just done to each other, but she happens to drop her gaze and see the front of his jeans is looking as swollen as that other poor bastard’s eye. The jeans are slouching on his hips as it is. MJ can see herself taking them off. She can see herself punching his cheek instead of slapping it this time. She can see herself doing several things now that she’s discovered her self is a self that can challenge a man to a fistfight and do damage. It feels suddenly female, drippingly female, to have stared down this shirtless madman with the anarchic, archaic hobby and introduced his groin to her knee. The partial nudity, the sweating, the concentrated eye contact―obviously, the boner. What’s not erotic about this?

“Come and fucking get it then,” she tells him, striding through the circle and nudging a winded woman aside, headed for the girls’ locker room off the gym.

Spider-Man isn’t following her. MJ is leading him.

She bangs the swinging door open and it doesn’t have time to shut before he slips inside behind her. Turning her head quickly, she wonders about kissing and decides against it. She doesn’t want this man in her face―just in her cunt.

His jeans seem to have dropped even lower; she can see the taut white band of his underwear and a couple inches of cotton below the elastic.

“I’m asking,” Spider-Man says with an earnest yet heated gaze. “I don’t out there, but here… I’m asking.”

Only he doesn’t ask anything, not a hint of uptick. Just comes up behind her―with MJ still watching over her shoulder―and scans down the length of her back with his eyes, keeping a foot of air between them. He won’t touch her without permission, is what he’s saying.

“It’s MJ, by the way,” she tells him, gripping his forearm and pulling it towards her to make his hand caress up her hip. “I’ll be coming to more of these things, so you might as well know.”

“Good.”

And they both go for the fastenings of their respective bottoms. She thinks she’ll beat him, only needing to yank the tie on her sweatpants, but Spider-Man’s a quick draw on the button and zipper of his jeans. It can’t be more than a second before they’re staggering to a wall of lockers, with her shoving her underwear down and him reaching into his and stroking his dick gratuitously before jerking down the front of his boxers.

MJ glances back at how he’s taken himself in hand and begins to rub her clit, drawing wetness forward from where their fight a few minutes ago got her going. Her hips jump. Her other hand backhands congealing blood off her lip, then goes to the locker door; she jerks her head to encourage him. She doesn’t quit circling and massaging herself as Spider-Man adjusts her hips for angle. There’s the prod of his dick as he feels out his destination―like somebody ringing a doorbell. But this guy isn’t shy. When he enters her, it’s not rough, but it’s all the way. One stroke. MJ inhales fast.

She settles into him over the first half-dozen thrusts (the paint on the pale blue metal of the locker is chipping, MJ notices through hazy eyes), sticking her ass out for a shallower angle that brings his cock closer to her g-spot. Her breaths are huffed when he finds it and his hands land suddenly and heavily on her waist, sliding down to knead her hips. She works herself faster, dragging her clit side to side under slippery fingertips. Spider-Man must be able to see her arm moving or, if not that, then definitely feel her clutching at him from the inside. He picks up the pace and she can feel how wet she is, how wet they are together.

MJ moans and shivers, frantically manipulating her clit. It’s like her noise gives him another permission―to make sounds of his own. These are gravelly grunts. Not wasteful: one on each of the thrusts he slams into her g-spot. Her arm buckles at the elbow, which is the beginning of the end.

She closes her eyes and rocks her hips backward fiercely, receiving him, receiving him, receiving him. Filling herself up. She will be unbearably full. She will be a nation unto herself. She will be… hitting a pharmacy on the way home to buy Plan B. That’s fine because everything is tingling. Her thighs are quaking and it’s possible that his hands on her hips are what’s keeping distance between her and the speckled floor. She can hear the shuffle of his jeans (around his ankles) against her sweatpants (around hers). MJ pictures her fingers rubbing at light speed. Her teeth clench until a gasp forces them and her eyes open and she’s pounding her hips down onto Spider-Man’s. These are deep, brutal movements, but she and he are fighters.

He climaxes while she still is, so she finds out she can either have orgasms that last for ages or can get off twice if someone’s drilling into her g-spot like he should be living in her nightstand and running on batteries she had to buy separately. Whatever he’s triggered, it’s fantastic and MJ grinds through it for as long as the sensation lasts.

It’s a mess and a loss when he pulls out. In the move that surprises her more than everything else she’s seen tonight put together, MJ feels him touch his forehead between her shoulder blades. Doesn’t stay for more than a few seconds, but she feels weirdly consecrated. When he backs up to hoist his clothes into place, she gives her face a smack. Shit―immediate regret and a wince as the pain in her lip pulses. She gets herself redressed and strides to one of the stalls at the far end of the locker room.

Does she buzz by him because she’s embarrassed? Nope. She stands tall, it’s just that she can only continue to do so for a limited time, until everything he just shot inside her is coating her inner thighs. No thanks.

She pees, grabbing her stomach because those muscles don’t like her tensing to urinate after Spider-Man’s punches. As she’s folding toilet paper in her hand (it’s nicer than the stuff she has at her apartment and she adds that to Midtown’s offenses, beneath the gym floor), she hears quiet speech. It’s him, talking to himself nearby. Memory aid? Post-sex pep talk? MJ is no man’s ego-stroker, but if this guy, who comes across as otherwise supremely confident, needs a little reassurance about his prowess, she can honestly praise him on the experience of tonight’s fuck.

Preparing to be complimentary but not effusive, MJ flushes and begins to swing the stall door open when she spots Spider-Man with his hands braced on one of the sinks, leaning his face close to the mirror. The red mark on his cheek could’ve been a bruise if she knew how to throw a harder punch. He’s continuing to speak softly and she stares at the bunched muscles of his back, his tight upper arms. Would she do it again (with a condom)? Yes.

“Peter, be patient,” he’s coaching himself, loud enough for her to hear now. “There’s a plan. The Club will scale so fucking beautifully once everything’s ready.”

“So your real name’s Peter,” MJ’s about to confirm, when the man, eyes still locked on his reflection, says five more words.

“Ok, Spider-Man. I trust you.”

Fuck.

more smut prompts

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escherenigmart · 5 years

Text

Inktober 2019 Retrospective

This is mostly for my own benefit. Fair warning, I slipped into “self assessment at work” mode, so the language is a bit odd. A reminder, I have no formal art training, but do have formal engineering training.

So read on if you want my thoughts on my own work. Or, y’know look away.

Summary

My goal was to “finish” Inktober, posting 31 fully inked drawings over the course of the month. A secondary goal was to use and practice with the shiny new Copic markers my dearly beloved, @godsdamnednamethieves, gifted me back in September.

I achieved both these objectives, and while there were some rough patches, and many nights where I stayed up far later then I should have, I’d say it went fairly well. It was helped that I took a week-long “staycation” in the middle of the month.

That said, there is clearly room for improvement in my art, time-management, and process. It is my next objective, moving forward, to incorporate what I have learned, about my self-discipline, art, and tools, into a stable plan that promotes growth.

Onto specific issues.

Tools

For Inktober 2019, I used three sketchbooks, Pilot’s “color eno” mechanical colored pencils, gummy erasers (I’ve had them so long I don’t know the brand), my Copic Multiliners, and my Copic Sketch markers.

Sketchbooks:

Adhesive pinding, flip-on-short edge. This was the book I started on, and has been my primary sketchbook this year. The pages were already tearing out infrequently, but once I got started in Inktober this accelerated and many pages tore out. Would not recommend.

Slightly yellow paper, bound with thread in smaller numbers. For Inktober I just used this to keep sketch ideas and play with layouts, and did not put any “final” illustrations in it. It lays flat on the scanner, and no pages have torn out. I’ve been very happy with this style of book, and plan to continue with this style for my future sketchbooks.

Hard-bound thick paper, thread-bound and glued to the hardback. About a week into October I ordered a new sketchbook, and ordered this one. Thick paper, holds the colored ink well, looks nice. Does not easily lay flat for scanning or drawing, though this was mitigated by leaving more margins.

The colored pencils worked well enough, though I quickly discovered that colored pencils and Copic markers do not play well together. This led to me refining my technique and relying less on detailed pencil sketches before I began inking. Need to order more light blue lead, as that is the color I go through fastest by far.

Multiliners are still a hit-and-miss. My 0.3 multi-liner from the B-2 pack had the nib fall out, and from what I can tell that style of marker/pen/whatever can not have the nib replaced. My 0.3 Multiliner SP wound up being my work horse pen, though I also used my 0.1 Multiliner for fine detail, and my 0.8 and 1.0 for borders and some lettering. Oddly, before my 0.3 multliner failed me for the last time, it was reliably giving narrower lines from the 0.3 multiliner SP. I don’t know if this was just a lead-up to the nib-failure, or if there’s a bigger difference between the SP and the pens from teh B-2 pack. But even beyond that, the SP feels nicer in my hand, and was more reliable. When I need new pens, I’ll probably bite the bullet and get more of the SP variety.

Copic Sketch markers. This was mostly a learning experience, figuring out what works, what doesn’t, how to use them, and so-on. Overall I’m very happy, but I’m still very bad at choosing colors. I repeatedly went to my husband to make color choices for me, often to great effect. So if you like my color choices, give him the credit. If you think my color choices are awful, give me the blame. A few things that bothered me were that I noticed some of my drawing picking up little splotches or dots far away from where I was working. This is particularly notable on the “Warrior of the Beach” picture. My theory is that either I’m getting ink on my hand, then transferring it to the page when I rest it, or that when I’m putting caps on/pulling caps off, I’m sending little droplets of ink flying.

A few of my markers gave me a little trouble, but I’m not sure if it’s just because I don’t know what I’m doing or because I really did use W1 and C1 that much. I need to get a small scale so I can see if they’re actually low on ink or if I’m just a noob.

Process

The days where I was most happy with my work was when I had an idea, toyed with layout in my sketchbook, and then redrew the whole thing. When I was least happy was often when I floundered about with no ideas, and then tried to draw something, anything, around 9 pm.

What this means (to me) is that I’m still relying too much on “inspiration” rather then discipline, which is a long-term problem.

Beyond that,taking the time/luxury of a full sketch (in a different book) to plan layout, workshopping text with the hubby, and splitting up inking from coloring (by hours or days) improved the quality of my work. Even still, some of the pieces I’m very happy with had little to no planning.

For example, “Ripe” was done with basically no planning. After deciding to do a dude doing pull-ups, I started on the text on the bottom with a ruler. About half-way through drawing the dude I decided to make it Dave. At some point I hit the “clever” idea of making it an immovable rod instead of a mundane pull-up bar. And then I cursed myself, because I came up with a better text layout, “Immovable Rod, Ripe Bod”, but it was too late to use it.

The Art Itself

The big part.

Some days I was very happy. Some days I floundered (can you guess which category my “pattern” piece falls into?). Overall though, I think I showed improvement, both in line-work and color-work, over the month. That said, “Mindless” and “Bait” still make me very happy.

I also realized that I strangely enjoy text. Whether it was using little banners, comic-style speech and narration boxes, borders and fancy fonts, it was a lot of fun and helped contextualize the pieces. Incorporating text is definitely something I want to continue to do.

Playing around with layouts, borders, framing was also unexpectedly fun. The later pieces where I restricted my “work area” with borders I think turned out much better for the limitation, with the framing devices often helping tell the story. In comparison, pieces like “Overgrown” or the early “freeze” and “build”, don’t have a firm ending, and felt lacking to me.

Flaws: hands, feet, and legs in general. And as much as I enjoyed playing with layouts and borders, I can’t use that as an excuse to not draw feet and more complicated leg positions. I clearly need to spend more time doing simple figure sketches, both whole-body and specific body parts.

Conclusion

Inktober was great, if time permits, I’ll probably do it again next year. But probably not the “full marathon”, dropping down to “half marathon” so I don’t stay up quite so late.

Also, I need to do a nicer illustration of Xanadeux. She’s only got that one panel. She needs more love.

#Retrospective

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souslejaune · 5 years

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Soon after Auntie Dee Dee’s burial... (Folio 1: Part 3)

Soon after Auntie Dee Dee’s burial, in sleep and wakefulness, a new buzz hovered over my existence, a filmy sub-ocular glaze of super sensitivity. I didn’t tell anyone what was happening, but my father saw me taking pictures of a dead lizard with my bright yellow battery-less camera from China.

“Ebo, what are you doing?”

“I want to compare it with the picture in the Encyclopaedia,” I lied.

Since I spent my entire youth flipping through volumes of the 1979 World Book Encyclopaedia, it was a safe lie.

“Oh, I see. Come to me if you need help, OK?”

“OK.”

In the next few weeks I took pictures of an endless collection of dead creatures: shy geckos, almost transparent with hunger; rats, still in the rigour of greed; flea-bitten dogs, dust-beaten cats, startled rainbow dragonflies, and a face-making toad. I had no sympathy for dead animals generally – especially not rats and lizards. They were always encroaching on strictly human territories, like kitchens. One of my older cousins even told me that some of the boys in boarding school had the soles of their feet gnawed by rats sometimes.

I felt sorry for the toad though. It was the victim of one of our random playground challenges. Spotted while we were in the land by the local garbage dump playing a football game called four corners, it immediately became the fifth target. Four corners was played by four persons with each one defending a small target. You got two touches of the ball: one to defend your goal, and one to shoot at someone else’s. I was playing with Yaw a.k.a. Table-head, a short, wide-shouldered boy with a flat head and tooth-packed grin; Ato, who we called Tom Brown because his hair always faded to brown as soon as it grew beyond half-an-inch; and Kofi. Kofi used to be called Silas Marner because he always seemed to have more money than us and never wanted to share, but the name Silas Marner ebbed out of use after Ato named him Fagan and it stuck. We actually called him Kofi Fagan; it sounded nicer. Most of us were named after characters from the English books we were made to read at school. I was sometimes called Pip because I loved Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations so much.

Soon after the toad was spotted, all our shots started to head in Yaw’s direction as he was closest to the toad.

Ruffled by the unfair attention, he exclaimed, “I won’t play anymore!”

“OK Table, let’s stone the toad,” suggested Kofi Fagan grabbing a handful of pebbles. “First person to hit it wins the game.”

It was a ploy by Kofi Fagan to turn the game in his favour. He was lethal at throwing stones. He could rescue a ripe mango from its tree with a single shot.

Tom Brown grimaced.

“OK.” Table flung a smooth brown pebble towards the toad as he spoke.

He caught the toad as it was reaching its pink tongue out to catch a fly. The pebble flew across a suspended haze of dust, sneaked into the toad’s mouth and choked it; with its long tongue still out, decorated with a live fly. I ran home to get my camera. In secondary school I would show this picture to Mrs Ogbogu – my Nigerian biology teacher – when she remarked how rare it was to see a toad with its tongue out.

In addition to pictures, I had a single mounted creature. A giant spider. I had an illogical fear of spiders. Size was irrelevant. Once a creeper made the transition from six legs to eight, insect to arachnid, it had me shitting in my shorts. I accomplished many remarkable physical feats when confronted by spiders. Tom Brown, Table and Kofi Fagan often testified to that. I hurdled fences, jumped down trees, and outran cars. This spider, I caught because of the dreams that followed Auntie Dee Dee’s funeral. To confront my fear. I even wrote instructions for it.

Locate your fear

Find a suitable glass

Trap your fear under the glass

Lifting the glass slightly, spray perfume into it

Watch from a distance until your fear dies

I mounted it on a round piece of yellow card and labelled its body parts in a scrawl with sharper edges than my usual handwriting. Testament to the fact that I had perhaps not fully conquered my fear. I had learned more about it, but it lay beneath the surface ready to stump me if I didn't remain vigilant.

In the dreams, black and red spiders swarmed the food that was served to me by dancing cadavers. I had to swipe them away to eat, but they kept multiplying and making a webbed playground of my body. My body became a living interpretation of Miss Havisham’s wedding room in Great Expectations.

After I mounted my fear, and learned to distinguish the cephalothorax from the abdomen, the spiders disappeared with a single swipe into the dark subworld of the tables around me. I was often the only guest at a cadaver cabaret with four faceless waiters to attend to my needs. On a green stage of knitted vapour, cooking and singing, was Auntie Dee Dee, her face still stuffed with the cotton wool the embalmers used to fill her cheeks.

“Dad, when you die, do you stop breathing first or does your heart stop beating?”

If I weren’t so curious nobody would have guessed that my interest in death was growing at the speed of sickness. I had done everything as I used to except for the pictures, which I had a good excuse for, and reading Great Expectations over and over again; wondering why, if there were so many cobwebs in Miss Havisham’s house, no spiders were ever mentioned. I later found that all the books we had read at school were obscure abridged versions produced locally. The full version – the one produced based on the serialised tale Charles Dickens published in his weekly journal All The Year Round – had “speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies.”

My father raised his eyes from his shop’s inventory list, crinkling his forehead in the process. He studied me with unwavering eyes – a spider contemplating a daring fly.

“It depends son. I guess if you die from a heart attack your heart stops beating first. If you drown you stop breathing first. The only way to know for sure in to ask a doctor…”

“…Or a dead person,” he added laughing.

“They don’t talk about it.”

“What?”

The fly was webbed. The room was suddenly too small. I felt like all the photos on our living room wall were watching me: My sister holidaying in Trafalgar Square with pigeons pecking her feet out of view; Grandma fanning flames under last year’s family feast, the entire Oppong-Ribeiro clan – my family – squinting and smiling at the Odwira festival… What year was that? Why wasn’t I in the picture? A photo of my father with his right arm lawfully draped over his Datsun iterated his silent authority. It was too late to change what I had said.

"What did you say?" My father persisted, his voice softer.

“They don't talk about it; I asked them.”

The creases in my father’s forehead deepened. “Who?”

“The dead people.”

“You’ve been talking to ghosts?”

“No, dead bodies.”

“Dead bodies?”

It sounded really silly once I had said it. I tried to make it sound better.

“In my dreams.”

He inclined his head slightly to the right.

“I don’t speak to anyone I don’t know. Just Auntie Dee Dee…”

“… and sometimes the waiters.”

“No, no, no.” My father sensed my fear of punishment. He had large rough palms that he rarely used on us, but, when he did, we felt the ridges of his rage on our buttocks for days.

“I’m not angry. Tell me about the dreams. Can you tell me?”

I told him about the cabarets and the food; platefuls of steaming jollof with the rice enlivened with colourful vegetables and geometric invasions of meat; endless bowls of oil-speckled groundnut soup; delicious fried plantain streaked red, orange and black by a ridged saucepan, accompanied by a bean sauce that climbed all over your senses in tracks of spiced palm oil, mouthfuls of tiger nuts – crunchy and juicy; yam and cocoyam graffitied with strips of chicken and kontomire; silver spoonfuls of strawberry ice cream; trays full of groundnut and coconut brittle; palmwine, “I didn’t drink it, Daddy”; and mangoes, mangoes, mangoes… Then I told him about the spiders and why I had to mount one.

“I had to eat. It was Auntie Dee Dee’s cooking.”

My father listened. Then he cried. Silver rivulets of sorrow that made him look old. He reached for me. Watching my father cry pulled a cord inside me and I began to sob.

“I’m sorry son.”

He shook. His dark skin felt like a minor earthquake beneath my hands.

“I’m sorry son.” He wiped his face and looked at me through glistening lashes. “Death is difficult for everyone.”

I never made sense of the dreams, nor did I understand why my father apologised, but the dreams stopped. They came back once. This time the food was devoured by the spiders before the plates got to me. The only evidence of the food’s existence was the intricate brown tracks left by the spiders, like dust patterns. I woke up with an acute hunger. It was early 1983.

In the same year there was a terrible food shortage in Ghana. Everything was rationed. The queues of people waiting to buy their provisions lasted for hours and criss-crossed the city. Brown patterns as intricate as a dust-stained spider web. Still, we were invisible. The West was reluctant to help a Ghanaian government that was sending its students to Castro’s Cuba to study. People begged. You can’t afford pride when you have children. The head of state called us comrades. He was thin too. We learnt to make a single meal last an entire day. A stillness enveloped the entire nation. School suddenly seemed difficult. We lacked the energy for endless football games and I soon forgot the spider dreams in the vortex of hunger.

—–

continued >> here <<… | start from beginning? | current projects: The City Will Love You and a collection of poems, The Geez

#novel #series #fiction #niiayikweiparkes

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zipgrowth · 6 years

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‘Prohibition Will Get You Nowhere’: Writer and Activist Cory Doctorow’s Message to Schools and Educators

It’s not unheard of for an instructor to tee up a YouTube video for a lesson, only to have the content blocked by the school or district’s censorware. And while administrators might have good intentions when they decide to use censorware, censorship is often only effective for those who play by the rules.

It’s one reason why writer and activist Cory Doctorow thinks schools and educators should rethink their approach to surveillance and censorship. In science fiction novels like “Little Brother,” he has explored the implications of mass surveillance, and on the popular blog Boing Boing, he has written on topics such as net neutrality, open access and user privacy.

EdSurge recently sat down with Doctorow in San Jose, Calif. at Worldcon, a science fiction convention, to get his take on everything from surveillance in K-12 schools to open access publishing in higher education.

To listen, you can subscribe to the EdSurge On Air podcast on your favorite podcast app (like iTunes or Stitcher). Or, you can read highlights from the conversation below, which have been edited and condensed for clarity.

EdSurge: Schools today expose students to technology in a variety of ways, be it through Minecraft or an iPad. Do you think that the way schools are exposing kids to tech is helping them be creative, or are those ways too stifling?

Doctorow: The promise of technology is its ability to provide individualized interactions for the people who use it, and education is clearly not a one-size-fits-all activity. One of the crises of education, especially tech education, is that we try to walk this line between the things that we are afraid of kids doing, and the things that we hope they’ll do. And it requires, or it results, at least, in a high degree of control.

So, I don't know that I have any great answers about creativity. When I think about electronic media and pedagogy, though, the thing that I worry about is how our systems of protecting kids from the real dangers of the internet revolve around surveillance. And [schools] normalize surveillance, so [students] are necessarily incompatible with any kind of self-help measures to understand surveillance and to eliminate or moderate the amount of surveillance [they’re] under.

So, if you are a student whose school is completely reliant on surveillance tools to stop you from seeing genitals or whatever it is they're worried about, then anything you do to learn about how that system works and how to stop it ends running against the school's own core defense mechanism.

We really do need kids to understand and be literate about surveillance. We're in this great global conversation about social media and what Shoshana Zuboff calls "surveillance capitalism," and kids are perfectly capable of understanding that stuff. If there's anyone who understands what it means to be manipulated by people who think they have your best interest at heart, it's kids. And I think we need to re-think the whole program because it can't be grounded in surveillance if we are also going to produce good citizens who understand and resist surveillance.

There's an argument being made these days that there's a need for more surveillance in schools. Where do you stand on that issue? How much surveillance do you think is appropriate?

The reason the debate is hard is because we are talking about short-term instrumental goals and long-term strategic goals. So, obviously, a school's purpose is to produce well-rounded, self-actualizing, self-starting, full-fledged citizens who are capable of participating in a democracy, and being in the workplace, and having good interpersonal relations.

If you took another domain like interpersonal relations, you could say, "Well, bullying is a problem." Bullying is a problem. The problem of bullying could be prevented by just not letting kids talk to each other. That would be a short-term instrumental goal that would absolutely take a real bite out of bullying, but we can understand immediately why it's not a good one.

And so, normalizing surveillance for kids on the one hand ill-equips them to be literate about surveillance in the world. But on the other hand, it means that a lot of the things that we hope that they'll learn to moderate on their own instead gets moderated by extrinsic motivations. Instead of having good interrelations with other people because good interrelations are fulfilling and produce good outcomes, your good interrelations exist as a formal exercise that you engage in for fear of reprisals.

Whenever we talk about education, we struggle with intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. We want intrinsically motivated students, but extrinsic motivation is powerful. It's quick, and it achieves instrumental goals.

So, at a certain point, we say, "Well, we don't care if the reason you're not bullying the kid next to you is because you've realized that bullying is wrong, or you're afraid of being punished for bullying; what we care about is that the kid next to you isn't bullied.” And that is a totally legitimate argument, but it also produces someone who, as soon as the fear of reprisal goes away, may return to bullying.

If we are going to use surveillance of kids to achieve some instrumental goal, it has to be as a wedge to open a space in which we can teach kids to achieve the same goal without that extrinsic threat of retaliation.

You’ve written a lot on the issue of net neutrality, which was recently reversed. How do you think that reversal is going to affect higher education institutions?

It affects higher education institutions as a subset of the way it affects all of our lives because, of course, the internet is like the nervous system that binds together everything we do in the 21st century. Everything we do now involves it and everything we'll do shortly from now will require it.

Allowing cable operators and phone companies to act as gatekeepers means that all the things that we rely on pluralism or competition to promote, are endangered. It's not like they'll be killed, but they'll be harmed, and there's a kind of spiral where the rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer. The people with a lot of eyeballs will get more eyeballs, and the people with fewer eyeballs will have a harder time getting a foothold on an eyeball. I guess that's kind of a weird metaphor.

I think [reversing net neutrality] is catastrophic for all human endeavor. But I also think it's a mistake to think of net neutrality as being won or lost.

Do you think that higher-ed institutions will be at the forefront of that struggle?

Well, they have been. You have things like WiscNet in Wisconsin, where there are statewide fiber networks—really, really good next generation networking—being done through a combination of an academic project and a kind of self-help measure because Wisconsin is very rural. You have these state institutions that are really spread out. I think that there are lots of educational institutions that are de facto [internet service providers].

I wanted to ask you about OERs. It seems like open educational resources are something that people always think are about to take off, but they never really do take off. Why do you think that is? Why do you think they haven't had their lasting moment?

Well, I think that they have [taken off] in the sense that the fight is over about Wikipedia. Any educator who says, "Don't use Wikipedia," instead of teaching their students how to use Wikipedia is an idiot. You're just doing it wrong at that point because even if you hate Wikipedia, your attitude should be harm reduction—because prohibition will get you nowhere.

In terms of open access [journals] like [Public Library of Science]… they're leading edge. Nobody anymore says, "Oh, a PLOS isn't a real journal." They may say, "Well, in my discipline, I am much more likely to get tenure if I'm publishing in a, you know, Springer Journal." But nobody is like, "I'm going to look down at you because you're in PLOS ONE." Being in PLOS ONE is a big deal.

I think the short-run of open access has been less successful than its most enthusiastic boosters would have hoped. But its long-term trajectory is really obvious because we have such a broadly-indexed set of [articles at the pre-publication stages].

What else should our audience know about the work you’re doing?

I always meet students. When I go and do young adult tours, and I go to secondary schools, I meet students who've read Little Brother, and they're like, "How do I hack my school's censorware?"

I always say, ‘Don't do that,’ because if you do that, you could get expelled. Or you could even be charged criminally under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It's really risky…. What you need to do is do ethnography. Go and ask your fellow students and teachers about over-blocking and under-blocking. And then, ask them about their circumvention methods because the other thing we know is that these tools don't work. They only block people who are playing by the rules, but it's not hard to defect from playing by the rules. So, document the ways in which these are inadequate to the purpose that they're set for.

Then, learn how to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out how much your school board has paid for this censorware. Then, learn how to use stock market filings to figure out who is behind your censorware because they're the dirtiest companies in the world—their primary customers are not corporate America, and they're not schools; their primary customers are repressive regimes in the Middle East, and Asia and sometimes in autocratic African states. And they repackage stuff that's used by dictators to spy on their population to help corporate America and educational institutions spy on their stakeholders, their users. So, find out who the war criminals are who get to see all of your data, who get to offshore every click you make.

And then present it. Present it at the PTA. Present it at the board meeting. Call up local journalists and say, 'Do you know how much my school district paid out of your tax dollars to buy inadequate software from war criminals that everyone knows how to get around, and interferes actively with our education, while letting us see eye-watering pornography that none of us want to see?’

And that, I think, is an exercise that teaches real media literacy and also has a chance of affecting change. Even if it never affects any change, those kids will leave the school understanding how to think in the round, holistically about the economic, technical, social and market forces that surround the technologies they use.

‘Prohibition Will Get You Nowhere’: Writer and Activist Cory Doctorow’s Message to Schools and Educators published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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kayawagner · 6 years

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Safety as Risk Management

A few months ago, I posted an article on why I use Safety Tools. It was met with some mixed criticism and there were a number of respectful objectors with whom I engaged in a back and forth dialog about their perceptions of how safety tools are used at the table. What I learned was that there was a misconception — that some people believed that using safety tools was to dilute the content of your game; taking away elements that your average player enjoyed (e.g. violence), while others thought that there was no need for tools if you can just “talk it out”. So today, I am going to follow up my article to address some of those misconceptions as well as to try to explain safety by drawing in some other areas of my life.

The Goal is to Play Harder AND Safer

I have played a lot of games in the decades I have been in this hobby, and I have murdered my share of orcs and goblins, robbed crime lords, attacked space pirates, etc. I have had most of the standard RPG experiences that we all think about when we think about this hobby — most of those occurring before the hobby even began to explore the idea of safety.

But I also like another kind of RPGs, ones that have deep emotional connections, ones where my pregnant widowed French Revolutionary is executed outside of Paris while trying to escape a siege, where my character gets into a heated argument with their partner about what kinds of sex are intimate and not, and where my teenage vampire’s sexuality is challenged. I like games with charged emotional content, and often with content that I am unsure how I am going to feel about during play.

And the thing is, I don’t want to have to use the safety tools I have put out, and I don’t want to water my games down or remove charged content. Quite the opposite, I want MORE of that.

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And the thing is, I don’t want to have to use the safety tools I have put out, and I don’t want to water my games down or remove charged content. Quite the opposite, I want MORE of that. The safety tools are like a Safe Word, in Kink terms (a future Safety article). I want my more intense play to take me up to the edge, to where I am uncomfortable but still safe. The tool is there so that in case any of us miss the mark and we go too far, we can signal that to everyone else.

So when I sit at the table, sometimes I am there to loot a dungeon and have some fun and sometimes I am there to push my emotions and challenge my beliefs. While both are RPGs, they are not the same kinds of experiences. That will be important in a few minutes, but first, we have to nerd up about Project Management.

Risk Management

In my day job, I am a Project Manager. One of the activities as a Project Manager is to perform risk management of the projects I am planning. That activity has me looking at a project and imagining what could possibly go wrong: a component may be on backorder, the solution proposed won’t work when implemented, or this code may not scale as planned. Identifying potential problems is only part of the process, otherwise, it would just be worrying. Once we have identified risks we then look at them in three ways.

Likelihood & Impact

The first thing we do when we identify a risk is ask, “How likely will this happen in the project?” We have different ways of ranking them but the simplest is: none, not likely, possible, most likely. We also ask, “If this does happen, how bad is it for the project?” Here we look at the impact as: none, minor, significant, major. That creates a spectrum of risk across which individual risks fall into.

Mitigation

We then want to figure out what we can do, proactively, to reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring. So for our example component that may be on backorder, we can mitigate that by contacting our supplier ahead of time to make sure things are in stock before we commit to using that component in our design.

Contingency

The second thing we do is to address what to do if the risk actually happens, because no matter how much planning and mitigation we do, sometimes things still go wrong (keep that in mind). In this case, we come up with a plan that we can enact when the problem occurs so that we can keep the project moving. So with our component, we may identify a second supplier, who is more expensive but has the component in stock. If our primary vendor is out, we will spend a bit more and order from the secondary one.

The Risk in RPGs

So coming back to RPGs. How does risk management fit into a discussion about safety tools and gaming?

When we play games there is a risk that some content of the game is going to emerge that will upset, hurt, or make someone at the table feel unsafe.

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When we play games there is a risk that some content of the game is going to emerge that will upset, hurt, or make someone at the table feel unsafe. That sounds fairly simple, but it’s quite complex. There are two things at play: the actual content and the players’ reaction to the content.

When it comes to content we have all sorts of things that can come up in the game that have the potential to be problematic. Most of these center around violence, but can also include things like trust, greed, and addiction.

We then have players (including the GM) who react to that content. How we react is very complex, and draws on our past experiences, the culture we were raised in, the life we lead, etc. Because of that, it’s possible that a piece of content that is distasteful for someone can cause someone else to hurt greatly. For instance, the characters witness the King slap his teenage son across the face after he spoke back. For some of us, we may look at that and wrinkle our nose, and casually cast disdain on the King. For someone who was abused as a child, it could create a visceral reaction and make them upset or angry. The really tricky part of this is that both of those things can happen at the table at the same time in two different people.

Risk Management and Safety Tools

So now that we know we have a risk, we can do some risk management, using the material discussed above.

Likelihood & Impact

When thinking about how to address safety in your game, you can start by looking at the content of the game you are running. What is the likelihood based on what you are playing and what you prepped that you have content that could make someone feel unsafe? In your standard high fantasy game, the likelihood will be much lower than playing a psychological thriller of a group hunting a sadistic serial killer.

As for impact, most of us are not trained to be able to guess the impact content will have on individuals. But if you are playing with people you have known a while, you may be able to take some guesses. For instance: I know that Paul is a recovering alcoholic, therefore having an NPC who is an out of control alcoholic may make him feel unsafe. For things like that, which are obvious, you can easily just change the content, in prep or at the table, to avoid any problems.

Mitigation

With our risk of making people feel unsafe, we can take actions to mitigate that risk. That is, we can use safety tools that are designed to lessen the likelihood of making someone feel unsafe. Some of those tools are:

Trigger Warnings – we can give people a heads up about problematic content right at the start of the game/campaign, like letting someone know that this Cthulhuian adventure has content about child abandonment and body horror. Then people can make the decision if they want to play this game or not.

Lines & Veils – with lines and veils we ask people what content they do not want to come up in the game (lines) and what content we can have but should not be overly detailed about (veils). This helps us reduce the likelihood we are going to hit problematic content.

Open Door – allowing someone to get up and take a breath during or after an intense scene can sometimes be all a person needs to center themselves and return to the game. Having an Open Door allows people to de-escalate the intensity and stay in the game.

Contingency

As we said before, no matter how much mitigation we do, something can still go wrong and someone may suddenly feel unsafe during the game. For that, we need a plan, which is nearly always to stop play and/or remove the problematic content from the game. Some of those tools are:

X-Card/Consent Flower – Both of these tools are used to indicate to the table that someone is not ok and that it needs to be addressed in some manner. By tapping the X or touching the red spot, you are indicating that you need to pause the game and deal with what is going on.

Script Change – Allows someone to either rewind to address something problematic, fast forward past something uncomfortable, or to pause a scene to let the intensity lower.

Open Door – Sometimes there is no other solution but to get up and go. Having the Open Door policy means that you are telling people it’s ok if you need to go, removing the societal pressure and anxiety of getting up in the middle of something which can sometimes make people sit through things they are uncomfortable with.

Risk Analysis For Your Games

So using the risk management tools above, we can look at what we are playing and decide what tools we think we need based on what game we are running, what material we are playing, and who we are playing with. We can group the games into three simple buckets: Low, Medium, and High. There is no None category, because you can never be 100% sure what content will emerge through play.

Low-Risk Games

These are games where the content of the game is not charged and you know the people you are playing with.

Example: You are going to play a Superhero game with your normal gaming group.

Tools: X-Card.

For me, this is my Tales from the Loop home game. I just put down the X-Card and we get playing. It’s there if something goes wrong, but it hardly, if ever, gets used.

Medium Risk

These are game where the content may be a bit more charged and/or you don’t know the people you are playing with.

Example: You are going to run a really intense horror game for your home group, or you are going to run something gritty for a group of strangers at a convention.

Tools: Trigger Warning, Open Door, X-Card (or other Contingency tools).

For me, this is when I run Hydro Hackers at a convention. I let people know the game has some themes of poverty and authoritarianism, and if anything comes up to use the X-Card or get up from the table, and if all goes well, it does not come up.

High Risk

These are games where you are sure that the content is problematic for your players or you may not know the players.

Example: You are going to play a deeply emotional story that centers around abuse and drug use with your home group that has an abuse survivor.

Tools: Trigger Warning, Lines & Veils, Open Door, Consent Flower or Script Change (or X-card)

For me this is a game like Bluebeard’s Bride or the game I am developing, Turning Point, where I know the content is going to be challenging and I want to make sure that I have mitigated as much as I can, and that I have more granular contingency tools to allow us to navigate the content, as the group feels is ok.

The idea is that you can tailor your safety tools based on the risk of the games you are playing. For many people who are playing their published D&D adventures with their home groups, the risk is low that safety is going to break. This is why many people don’t see the need for safety tools because their games are generally low risk. Though I still advocate for something like the X-card because there is no such thing as no risk.

For some of us, who go looking for charged content, that risk increases, and with it we can employ more safety tools to make sure that we can keep the game in a place this is enjoyable.

Plan For Your Risks

Our goal in any RPG is to give people an enjoyable experience. But there is always a risk that the game will cause someone to feel unsafe. By thinking about what we are playing and who we are playing with, we can select the safety tools that fit the game we are running. We can mitigate the risk and we can have a contingency in case something goes wrong.

How do you think about the safety tools you use in your game? Is it a one-size-fits-all, or do you tailor your tools to the type of game you are running?

Note, if you do not believe in safety tools, I am willing to have a respectful dialog about this topic in the comments, it’s doubtful you will sway me, but I am curious to hear your points.

Safety as Risk Management published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

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swipestream · 6 years

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Safety as Risk Management

The Goal is to Play Harder AND Safer

And the thing is, I don’t want to have to use the safety tools I have put out, and I don’t want to water my games down or remove charged content. Quite the opposite, I want MORE of that.

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Risk Management

Likelihood & Impact

Mitigation

Contingency

The Risk in RPGs

So coming back to RPGs. How does risk management fit into a discussion about safety tools and gaming?

When we play games there is a risk that some content of the game is going to emerge that will upset, hurt, or make someone at the table feel unsafe.

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Risk Management and Safety Tools

So now that we know we have a risk, we can do some risk management, using the material discussed above.

Likelihood & Impact

Mitigation

Contingency

Script Change – Allows someone to either rewind to address something problematic, fast forward past something uncomfortable, or to pause a scene to let the intensity lower.

Risk Analysis For Your Games

Low-Risk Games

These are games where the content of the game is not charged and you know the people you are playing with.

Example: You are going to play a Superhero game with your normal gaming group.

Tools: X-Card.

For me, this is my Tales from the Loop home game. I just put down the X-Card and we get playing. It’s there if something goes wrong, but it hardly, if ever, gets used.

Medium Risk

These are game where the content may be a bit more charged and/or you don’t know the people you are playing with.

Example: You are going to run a really intense horror game for your home group, or you are going to run something gritty for a group of strangers at a convention.

Tools: Trigger Warning, Open Door, X-Card (or other Contingency tools).

High Risk

These are games where you are sure that the content is problematic for your players or you may not know the players.

Example: You are going to play a deeply emotional story that centers around abuse and drug use with your home group that has an abuse survivor.

Tools: Trigger Warning, Lines & Veils, Open Door, Consent Flower or Script Change (or X-card)

For some of us, who go looking for charged content, that risk increases, and with it we can employ more safety tools to make sure that we can keep the game in a place this is enjoyable.

Plan For Your Risks

How do you think about the safety tools you use in your game? Is it a one-size-fits-all, or do you tailor your tools to the type of game you are running?

Note, if you do not believe in safety tools, I am willing to have a respectful dialog about this topic in the comments, it’s doubtful you will sway me, but I am curious to hear your points.

Safety as Risk Management published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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