H. Wren D'Arcy @hexwren@cybre.space

#introduction (last?)

The last of the bullet points in my profile is one of the hardest to outline. Ludomantic Witchcraft is a theory I have been slowly assembling, the work of which I hope to share here as it develops. Simply put, I love games, almost as much as I love music. From the incredibly simple to the obnoxiously complex, simple acts with cards, dice, boards, pawns, et al. allow us to interact with what one might call fate or fortune. Rule sets are rituals. I have experiments and ideas to share.

#introduction (more)

I also make mixtapes! It's been a minute since I've done so, but I hope to start up again in the near future.

Here's a link: https://www.mixcloud.com/hexwren/

All that's currently posted are what I call Community Mixtapes, done for the queer gaming discord I often hang out on. Everyone who signs up submits 3 tunes, and I pick 1 out of every set and string a tape together from them. I'll be going back to these soon, and am looking to see how Community Tapemaking works on the fediverse.

#introduction (more)

I am a terrible music nerd. I will often speak in obscure references, suggest records you may never have heard of, and generally go nuts for good tunes. I consider myself an amateur pop music historienne.

However, if there's one thing I've learned in learning all I have about music, it's that there is always more to learn and to listen to. I absolutely want to hear what you're into and what is missing from my rotation. I love nostalgic sounds, but I don't want to be defined by them.

#introduction (more)

I do many things, and this account is here to share them with you! I also hope to get more social with the fine folx of this instance, but as I work nights and sleep days, it's going to be a work in progress.

One of the things I do is write! I work mainly in prose, which is occasionally smutty, because I am occasionally a crass person. Any 18+ work will be labeled as such.

I have also begun writing my first computer game! As of "now," I am maybe 10% of the way to a finished product.

#introduction

Hi! I'm Hex, or Wren, whichever you feel is best, it's all me. I like birds and bird puns, hence the name.

This is an account where I will be mostly posting the end result of Work. There will be personal elements, of course, but this isn't a personal/vent/AD/etc account. I'll have more (pinnable) introductory posts to describe what those are coming up soon, but in the meantime, I'm going to post something we can interact with while I go to my mundane job on the other side of the city.

...has something gone wrong with federation, has the vast majority of everyone blocked me and not said anything, or have there really only been like twelve posts in my timeline over the last six hours?

(I forgot to mark that that was written in 2006; I'll attempt to note when each of these was originally written. I will have to do some touch-up, as there are some inconsistencies across pieces and a couple things I would just prefer to change outright.)

Vivaldi nodded. "I have another associate of mine inside the Bloc at the moment, and he'll be coordinating the breakout..."

Provided he doesn't stop to fight the whole RKKA singlehandedly, he thought.

"...and if you accept the job, you'll be meeting them along the E30 coming out of Moscow."

Kerrigan actively glared at Vivaldi. "You want me to drive two westerners at high speed, breaking every checkpoint on the only major highway from Moscow to the Iron Curtain? Are you insane?"

Escobar reached into his jacket and pulled out two envelopes. The first he opened to reveal a sheaf of papers, all embossed with varied Soviet insignia. The sort of papers border patrols ask for. "No, just well-connected." He opened the second envelope, but pulled nothing out, merely tossing it towards her. She caught it and pulled out a bound stack of American $100 bills. "And very wealthy."

She grinned. "Now we're speaking my language."

1984: Stockholm.

The man, stocky, Mediterranean-looking, stood in his immaculate white suit with a small bouquet of flowers, which he handed to the woman who stood with him, dressed in a Dio t-shirt (Holy Di-vah!) and slashed jeans.

"Ms. Kerrigan," he said, bowing.

"I take it you're Vivaldi?" she said. Retaining her mildly-out-of-place businesslike demeanor, she sniffed the flowers.

"I am. Escobar Vivaldi, at your service." He sat down in front of her. "I will be brief, Ms. Kerrigan, for I understand that your time here is short. I'm looking for a driver."

"I'm listening."

"A friend of mine, an associate from the American FBI is...retiring. A Mr. Tibbs, let's call him. The only issue is that he cannot retire unless he's not where he is at the moment."

"Let me guess..."

"Smolensk." They finished the thought simultaneously.

I'm wondering what the threshold is to events being traumatic.

like, we all know that big things cause trauma.

but what about little things? how little of a thing can end up causing a trauma?

similarly, how large must a change in behavior or thought pattern be before it can be considered a reaction to trauma?

my point is, I'm wondering on what level are we dealing with microtraumas on a regular basis - things where very small events cause small avoidances or changes in behavior

do these operate on the same or similar mechanics to larger cases of mental effects of trauma or other post-trauma syndromes?

I for one would be interested to know.

the problem with a lot of my posts is that they read "I'll post this thing or post about this topic later" because I'm at work at the time and I never remember to follow up on it when I get home

the nanowrimo was one of the 90s stories and was tentatively titled something like "Rolling Bones in the Casino of Death: The New Adventures of the Kung-Fu Kid" and it opened with Vivaldi going to a remote mountaintop temple in China to pull the KFK out of self-imposed retirement/exile after the very "we have all the time in the world" ending to the last (entirely unwritten) 80s story.

it's also an attempt to write long-take visual gags in text, which probably doesn't carry well

the seventies story ideas went from hardy boys/nancy drew/scooby-doo teen mysteries to kung-fu/blaxploitation-style action stories

the stuff set in the 80s was/would have been cold war spy adventure

the 90s stuff was mystical/supernatural adventure, but with a sort of undercurrent of our heroes dealing with adulthood and approaching middle age

and the stuff in the 00s was written around the aforementioned betrayal and its fallout

thinking about this fictional universe I wrote about back in the early-mid-00s where I just jammed together basically every genre that interested me at the time, written in the most over-the-top, b-movie style I could summon up while working the counter at various restaurants

i never got further than a few short scenes from random places in the timeline and a nanowrimo that got about two chapters done before I collapsed exhausted but it was enough that I'm regarding it fondly years down the road.

I might repost some notes or the really good dialogue bits or even a vignette or two, I might not.

it circled around "Escobar" Vivaldi (swordfighting bon vivant of mysterious European royalty) and The Kung-Fu Kid (whose real name was Elvis something), and their adventures over the decades, along with KFK's street racing sister Lin, a mysterious CIA fixer whose name escapes me at the moment, and two bounty hunters of the fae queen's court, one of whom eventually betrays them all and kills Vivaldi in a rooftop duel

i had a really good post lined up before I had to tell the sandwich guy my order, but now it's completely slipped my mind

things I discovered today:
a) Apparently my PC already had bluetooth capabilities built-in (presumably as part of the motherboard)
b) bluetooth is recognizing the controller I want to connect as being connected, even though it's still not working in any software
c) I hate bluetooth, I don't understand it, it never works, and I want to either cry or die
d) I wasted twenty bucks buying a bluetooth dongle, whee

n e w a m p d a y

oh right, I don't get emotional support on the internet because I'm a shitty gender failure who clocks male

this is a placeholder for a post I'll probably make later about some bad vampire erotica I read recently that gives me bad feelings on like three different levels, up to and including the trans co-protagonist

this has been almost a month of jury-rigging, testing fixes, partial functionality, etc. while the heater itself spiraled towards complete non-functionality, which it hit friday night

we finally have a new water heater

now to just wait for it to heat the water and get my first hot shower since friday

I have no idea how people are wired that they enjoy cold showers

like, I start hyperventilating when I got doused with cold like that

awake and waiting for maintenance to get here for the final chapter in the "why the fuck is the water heater fucking up" saga, that being "they're going to replace the fucking water heater"

the only problem is that this is like the exact midpoint of my normal day's sleep so I am a fucking mess

I barely did anything today, why do my feet hurt

ugh

like all my joints hurt

idk why

What's the timeline between the bounty hunter tournaments and the regular season stuff? were those preseason fights? postseason but carefully edited for no spoilers? it's not clear.