26/05/24.
- Bored at work again. Just saw a person in the coolest shirt. It was white, semitransparent, with a design of vibrant green leaves, super clean and fresh. They also wore a black crop, highwaisted black cargo pants with a truly excellent belt, and these white flower-patterned boots. Heart earrings, heart glasses, gold rims and jewelry. Asked them where the shirt was from - apparently they got it second-hand, and cut out the shoulderpads. Time to go op-shopping.
- WAIT. Another cool outfit spotted! Person wearing an oversized hoody with spikes around the hood, short black denim skirt, sheer stockings, massive fuck-off spiked boots, and these sharp square sunglasses. Goth as hell.
- Damn, kind of wanna see the new Mad Max movie. Maybe people would come with me if I said I was going? Just as happy to go solo though, just in case it's shit. I really don't want it to be shit.
- Some customers just pointed out that one of the shelves was leaning. They were polite about it, but it clearly made them nervous. I assured them not to worry, that it had been like that since the store opened. Like buddy, hate to tell you: they're all busted. But they haven't fallen down yet.
- (Okay, now this is the part where one of them falls off the wall before the end of this shift lol)
- Sigh. It's not super masculine of me, but I want long hair. The temptation to cut it short is strong, though! Like, I can either have long hair, or I can have people see me as I want to be seen. Sigh.
- Eh, they'll see me a certain way no matter what. Might as well do what I want.
- This is a quiet shift, so I'm going through all my usual 'shoulds'. I should get a tattoo, I should dye my hair, I should get a helix peircing...
- WAIT I cracked a cool thing! So, Snowman story concept- hold. EVERYTHING. A guy just walked past with a black puppy the size of two burgers tucked under his arm. I guess he's socializing it? Oh my GOD that thing is so cute.
- Right! Anyway, story concept! A big part of the Snowman thing is how, when it changes, it morphs and warps into a terrible monster. Because Simulacrae cannot learn, I interpret this as 'it only knows the shape it was made with' and that any deviation from its original means it has to try and 'make it up', which its not very good at doing. Like how when 3D models glitch, they don't turn into different models, you know? They turn into a spiky mess of polygons. Same for a magically constructed thing! It has enough sentience to look like something, but it won't be human, and it will be clumsy. Like Odo, Deep Space 9, how he looks made of wax. Fuckin' love Odo. Hard to explain? But that's where the cool story fix comes in! I have a way to deliver this particular thing! The prologue where he's a kid (you know, the shared core memory between original and Snowman), he makes this mini-snow construct to be his friend, right? But when the mage-hunters come to take him away, the construct fights on his behalf. Well! What if we spin this into a full horror sequence? The construct - which I am GM-ruling as a mini-homunculous/Simulacrum experimental combo, even though that's not an actual spell - deviates in the same way the Snowman will later, and displays the same effects. At core, the rule goes that 'the more defined the limits of the original are, the greater the monstrosity if it deviates'. So for the mini-snow, the limits aren't harshly defined at all, they're just general rules. But the effect is still pretty extreme. Which serves as a cool little chase scene culminating in a heartwrenching emotional moment where the mini-snow promises to protect the boy forever, and then gets killed by the mage-hunters.
- Essentially: horror sequence, introduce later plot points, introduce characters. Not much more than that except making it hard to stop reading. I think that's it!
- I think the mage-hunters should be part of an army rather than a school. Closer to a temple, even. Something where it's more like 'indentured servitude' with education for the little baby mages. This is because, from a narrative standpoint, we can easily handwave the day-to-day of the Snowman's grown-up existence. 'They do work, it's boring and exhausting, we don't need to explore it'. It's also very... light on the mind? The kind of background plot that you can relax into, and just turn your brain off.
- That frees our main processing power for crunching on the Simulacrum stuff. It makes sense to me, it's just a matter of nailing it down in a way that makes sense to other people too. Easier motherfuckin' said than done.
17/05/24.
- You know, I'm beginning to think these general feelings of anxiety might have a deeper cause! Probably I should be doing more exercise. Drinking less coffee.
- Felt bad about how salty I got, so deleted a ramble from the previous blog entry. It made me feel better at the time, but it really doesn't need to stay there.
14/05/24.
- Oh boy. It's been a week, let me say that. Yes it's Tuesday, get off my dick.
- To self: you are enough! You are ball as hell! You're like if french earl grey tea was a person! You deserve love! Feeling a bit blue right now, nbd. Just, WOOF. Last time I went to D&D, there was this Guy, lol, and since I'm going back again tomorrow I'm... ugh, self-conscious.
- [Ramble deleted lol]
- The point of this isn't like, to talk shit about some stranger, but just... man, he really made me feel like shit! I'm sorry I know this better than you do? Like, chill tf out?? Sigh! It's fine.
- Petty moment over. Feeling less blue now though! lol.
- Oh my god I know why I'm such a sad bastard! I had a lot of intense experiences lately and I'm crashing! Blugh, I wish I had tomorrow off, but I really want to see a buddy who's also going to D&D, who I haven't seen in like weeks. Well, it'll be nice to catchup, hopefully it's just a fun chill time. Bluh!