Boss makes a dollar, I steal his dimes

that's why I bang on company time

[braden-ffxiv]

we had my dad’s funeral last week. it’s been surreal not hearing him when i call mom. i’ve had a lot of nightmares about this and as many problems as we had it’s just painful to think about. i’ve been unable to work for a few weeks, the first time i’ve gone without writing at least something in.... i dunno, years upon years. it’s really painful. dunno where it goes from here.

[braden-ffxiv]

hi.

I haven’t posted on here in a long while. i needed to take a very long break from online to focus on myself and on my career progress. it’s had its ups and downs, but generally successes have outweighed failures. at least, until recently. 

my dad passed away the other day. i had a complex and often very difficult relationship with him, but regardless of our disagreements and issues i loved him very, very dearly. he introduced me to a lot of things that have really helped define my life; my passion for film, my musicianship; my love of old cars and electronics. i wouldn’t have had the drive to make it on my own as a creative soul without his example, and i wouldn’t have valued critical thinking nearly as much as i do without him teaching me never to blindly accept anything.

i’m very worried for my mother. almost her entire adult life is defined by her love for him and their life together, and she’s essentially alone now, after having been at his side for 3 decades. she spent 3 weeks in the hospital with him, hopeful he would recover and crying endlessly when she was told he wouldn’t. my dad has been in and out of hospitals for emergencies for almost 5 years; while i was terrified for each procedure, he always bounced back, and when my mother talked to me about his situation i figured his would be another bump in the road. it wasn’t. i stood and watched his vitals dip and his breaths stop and it hurt more than anything i think i’ve ever lived through.

i usually delete these blogs after i stop using them; i’m not sure why i didn’t for this one. i guess i had hopes of returning in better circumstances to this character and community, once i had spare time the way i used to. maybe i really clung on to all the writing i’ve posted in a way i never did for the others; i loved a lot of the creativity i saw blossom when i indulged in this character’s personality. maybe i just stopped thinking about it; i would occasionally check the blog on a whim, or to search for old writing; phrases or expressions i remembered enjoying and wanted to cannibalize for new projects.

i don’t really know where i’m going from here. it feels strange to think i’ll never see my father again. i guess it still hasn’t completely settled in. i’ve vaguely paid attention to FFXIV stuff, hoping to come back one day; some friends showed me stuff about the expansion that seemed vaguely interesting, and i had an idea for progressing braden’s character a few steps forward emotionally, but i don’t really know how to feel right now. i guess that’s probably normal.

i hope everyone else who’s followed me over the years is doing well. i’ve missed you all. i can’t guarantee i’m really back in any sense, at least not right now. maybe soon. 

[braden-ffxiv]

Miqo’te men have lots of heart,

In ladies’ chests, thumps, do they start

The men do mean well,

You’ll find them quite swell,

until your hand feels that taut barb

[braden-ffxiv]

I don’t really wanna be negative about the midterm because it actually went well. I know some popular candidates lost, but they pushed very competitive races in places where races are generally not competitive.

Women, minorities, LGBT people and other marginalized folks came out in record numbers not just to vote, but to run for office. This congress will be the most diverse in history. Threatened groups came out and proudly announced they would not be cowed by the Trump administration and its bullshit rhetoric. Record turnout ensures that people are aware there’s a battle to be fought and they aren’t giving up.

Democrats won the house and a sweeping number of governorships. The senate is still a shitshow, but given the seats up for election this isn’t terribly surprising.

It’s strong momentum going into 2020. It’s okay to be optimistic. Shit’s gonna get fixed and we’re gonna be the ones to do it.

[braden-ffxiv]

Belligerence about your choice not to vote, or your insistence that ‘voting doesn’t matter’ because of some set of imaginary moral principles you’ve constructed in your head, is the absolute peak embodiment of straight white guy privilege.

(Somehow, not surprisingly, it’s only ever 20-30s white guys who seem to take this sort of pride in not participating in the civic process. Go figure.)

Voting might not ‘matter’ to you. I’m sure you think ‘nothing will change’. But women, people of color, immigrants, religious minorities, LGBT people and other underprivileged groups are literally fighting for their lives every time they go to vote.

“But it doesn’t matter! Nothing will change unless I pretend to fight the system by not taking part in the system!”

Antisemitic and racial incidents of hate and violence are reaching all-time highs, and the federal government has decided to shout ‘nahnah nahnah, I can’t hear you!’ by killing grants for organizations that research and combat far-right extremism and violence. Years past conservative outrage over FBI investigations into domestic right-wing terrorism (including white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement) ensured that we have to rely on critically underfunded and neglected private and nonprofit entities to do the research on far-right extremist violence. Meanwhile the president of the United States emboldens bigots with a constant stream of inflammatory hate speech and promotion of tired conspiracy theories, many of which play on the same classic antisemitism of old.

Climate change presents an increasingly dangerous threat to the very existence of the human race (and yes, that includes you, protest-voting white guy), but half of the party in power blatantly denies it exists, while the other half downplays its effects so they can continue to secure lucrative campaign support from oil companies and other industries that stand to lose a lot of money if we start to pass legislation to control climate change.

The federal government has made numerous attempts to strip transgender people of rights and protections, including attempts to ban transgender people serving in the military, and strip hate crime and protected minority status from transgender people.

The party in power has made no mystery of the fact that for over 30 years they’ve fought an endless war against women’s rights in the workplace and in reproductive care and choice. Combine this with derogatory rhetoric straight from the bully pulpit itself regarding women and promotion of abuse against them, and the nomination of abusers and rapists like Roy Moore and Brett Kavanaugh, and you have women fighting for their right to control their own bodies and dignity with every vote cast.

The federal government continues to put barriers in place for immigrants and the children of immigrants, from the president musing about revoking jus soli birthright citizenship, to continued racialized rhetoric against people from other countries, to an ongoing battle to expel immigrants who came here as children and have literally spent their entire lives living and working in America. 

It doesn’t matter to you, does it? how do you think they feel?

Most importantly, though, who do you think not voting, or throwing away your vote, actually benefits? 

It doesn’t benefit you. You literally threw away your chance to effect change in the system. If it gives you some kind of ‘feel good’ sensation in thinking you just stuck it to the man and that your protest vote will REALLY help Jill Stein or who-the-fuck-ever win in 2020, consider this - all you’re actually doing is literally playing in to the hands of the people in charge. Because if we don’t exert pressure on public figures by threatening to throw them out of office, guess what? Nothing changes. Congratulations - you’ve accomplished exactly what you think you’re fighting against. By giving the people in power a pass, you’ve guaranteed they’ll keep doing exactly what they’re doing. 

Because you know who does vote? The people you claim to hate. The powerful people. The wealthy people, the people maintaining the status quo. The baby boomers and the regressives. They’ll be happily casting their vote for their same-old same-old candidates while you pretend you’re a paragon of transgressive thought by writing ‘dank memez’ into the write-in box or something.

So the next time you’re out with your friends or hopping onto tumblr and decide to brag about how you voted for Mickey Mouse or the Libertarian Party, considering that all of your friends probably think you’re an idiot. Not just an idiot, but a reckless, selfish, dangerous idiot, who’s helping to perpetuate the oppression of underprivileged groups by doing exactly what the people in power that you claim to hate want you to do.

[braden-ffxiv]

What are these neon dancing cartoon ladies I see people posting I’m confused

[braden-ffxiv]

Current shame level: absolute zero

[braden-ffxiv]

So while release date is still some time off and there are a lot of other odds and ends to get squared away I’ve asked my publisher about receiving free copies to distribute personally to friends and family (and book bloggers and any other nerds I can get to read and give my book some pub). It’s sth they usually do I guess so when everything gets ironed out over the next few months and I get my copies I would love to send them to some of my lovely trusted tumblr friends and maybe also u could give them to ur friends and family and all that jazz. If ur interested lemme know. I will also repost this closer to actual release time for ppl who miss/forget about it

[braden-ffxiv]

to go off the post i made last night.

if you want to get published, write a book. if you want to write a book, write.

you probably do it often without even thinking about it. how many words a day do you scribble down for RP, or to outline your tasks for the day, or maybe for memos or whatever for your job? if you counted it up, you might be surprised.

but that’s the basis of being a writer. writing.

train yourself to write. every single day.

some people have busy lives. some people have tiring jobs. some people grapple with emotional issues. some people struggle with finding ‘inspiration’. we all have our ups and downs and all-arounds in life.

but you need to forget all of that horseshit and just write.

train yourself. when i first started taking my writing seriously, i wrote every single day for an entire year. including weekends, holidays, family get-togethers, vacations; even just shitty days. i wrote every day. sometimes it was just 1000 words. sometimes it was over 10,000. but i made sure every single fucking day i was staring at a word document and putting fingers to keys (or pen to paper; i used to really enjoy going out to comfortable places and doing it the old-fashioned way. plus paper has a really nice way about it that lets you brainstorm, scribble margin notes, draw character webs.... it’s nice. you should really try it.)

it wasn’t until after that first year i started taking breaks or having ‘off’ days. because you need to build yourself up to that.

write however much you can; however much feels like an accomplishment to you. 1000 words is maybe a half hour of work to you. maybe it’s not. i know folks who take an entire day writing, polishing, and re-polishing that single 1000 words. but you know what?

even just 1000 words is 2% of the way to finishing an entire 50k novel.

now imagine you worked yourself up to 2000 a day. or, if you’re comfortable and have a few hours and you’re feeling it, 5000 a day.

that’s a 50k novel every 10 days.

doesn’t seem so daunting when you look at it like that huh?

yep. you’ve got to plan it. you’ve got to edit it, you’ve got to polish. sometimes, for clarity or consistency or maybe if only to get feedback or indulge with your friend who loves reading your shit, sometimes you need to give a copy to a beta, and wait for them to read it. if you’re going the self-publishing route you’ve also got to worry about job security and the endless hustle. there are lots of odds and ends involved in the process.

but the most important is finishing a fucking book. and if you get yourself to write even 1000 words of prose a day, you’re making monumental progress towards that. 

don’t ‘wait’ for inspiration. resist the urge to flop down after a hard day and veg out. even if your mind is buzzing with a million things, get some of them to paper. you don’t even have to make progress on a single narrative with your writing for the day. maybe you just want to write a political article, or a prosaic description of your lunch or something. it’s okay if you don’t meet your word goal every single day. 

what matters is you write something.

[braden-ffxiv]

I’ve had a lot of friends asking me about this.

If you want to get a book published. WRITE A BOOK.

shit. don’t write one book. write 5 books. write 20 books. write 100 BOOKS.

i think, between novellas, short novels and 50k+ novels, i’ve written at least 100 books. that’s not counting my giant library of short stories (which I stopped writing because they don’t make money anymore). 

This of course isn’t counting the literal TWO DECADES of writing experience I have - from cheesy sixth-grader RPing on AOL instant messenger, to professionally-polished papers written for graduate school. that’s a lot.

but most of us have that. Not all of us have been RPing for as long as I have, but a lot of people have. and a lot of people have been writing silly stories and little shit all their lives. 

to paraphrase something Henry Rollins said.

success isn’t about talent, it’s about tenacity.

you need to WRITE.

more.

books.

it’s not about whether your book is the greatest book ever.

it’s about writing.

finish a fucking book. <3

[braden-ffxiv]

my tumblr at least once a week ft. @fair-fae

[braden-ffxiv]

YO

just in case yall wanna get one of the best CRPGs of ALL TIME, VTM the masquerade is on sale on GOG.com for the next few hours for 5 FUCKIN BUCKS. GET IT.

[braden-ffxiv]

aaaaaaaaaaAAAAA

[braden-ffxiv]

Also my new character has an awesome tattoo I rly like and might use on another, it’s a serpent rising out of hell on the left arm, with its body breaking through the ground and hellish imagery, then the snake curls around the bicep and crosses his back across his shoulder blades and continues onto his right arm, curling around his bicep down to his forearm where the serpent is striking at a paladin in gleaming armor with his sword poised to fight back. I rly like it.

[braden-ffxiv]

the main reason i hate people who have a fit over folks like me who enjoy minmaxing character builds in D&D, because they insist ‘well it makes no sense and is bad for RP!’ : i am a better writer than you are.

a friend is starting a 3.5e D&D campaign and i had wanted to play a gishy character (’gish’ is D&D-speak for a character that combines melee damage-dealing and spellcasting; like a fighter-mage or sth.) after doing some research i came up with a build i really liked that, class- and flavor-wise, seemed weird and almost impossible to do ICly - a character who plays off the positive charisma synergy of paladin and sorcerer, a ‘sorcadin’. you take a few levels of paladin, then of sorcerer, then you mix the two with some useful gish prestige classes.

‘b-but what sense does that make?? it’s bad for RP!!’

so i take a look at this build. i hate playing LG, so instead i decide to start as a paladin of freedom, the CG paladin variant. so, what kinda character would start as a chaotic good paladin, and then take up arcane magic?

so i came with an entire, involved story arc for him. he starts as a paladin. cool. so let’s say he was a member of a LG paladin order, but got washed out because he’s a rebel who bristles at authority and has contempt for the rules. maybe the paladin order is chaste and he ain’t down with that. he likes to party, and it can even get out of hand with him. but even after the order boots him, he still feels the holy calling - he still feels like he has to do good in the world. bam. CG paladin.

but, because he doesn’t fit in with any established paladin orders, he has to find something else. he meets a merry bard who worships the goddess of freedom and the slayer of tyrants. the bard tells my character that there’s ways to do good that don’t need to involve the paladins. so my character keeps his talent for smiting evil, but he starts to train with arcane magic. he likes it. he learns slow at first, because it’s a big life change, and he’s still wrestling with his old demons.

but he learns later to flawlessly merge the two fighting styles. using the bard’s advice and training and his own desire to destroy evil, he becomes a divine instrument for good and for freedom, though not exactly the one you might expect. from a rocky start as a failure, he learns a whole new set of skills and merges his lifetime of martial training with a sorcerous heritage he didn’t even know he had, to become a true weapon of good. now i’m writing a whole intro story and planning a whole arc with the DM because we’re both excited to play all this out.

his character sheet says paladin 2/sorcerer 4/spellsword 1/abjurant champion 5/sacred exorcist 8. to the supposed ‘roleplayer’, that’s a terrible thing. ‘it’s just a mish-mash of meaningless classes! you don’t care about roleplay!’ he decries.

but i don’t let the fucking class names define what my character does, or what his life is. i use my imagination for that. because that’s what roleplaying is about. i don’t need class titles on a character sheet to tell me what my character is. 

i’ve been RPing since i was 10 years old. at a D&D table; on AIM chatrooms, in MMOs. i know what i’m doing. i’m far from the only one, either. it’s possible to be good at making an effective character, and also at roleplaying. try it sometime.

[braden-ffxiv]

i guess it’s time for My Favorite Discourse of them all

people don’t infantilize lalafel because they’re ‘small’. they infantilize them because the developers infantilize them.

they’re very short, yes. i have a cousin irl who’s very short. nobody infantilizes her for it because she looks like an adult. the same could be said for ‘short’ races in games that don’t set out to make their short races childlike. like dwarves in basically every game ever, or goblins in WoW. goblin men have physiques and adult facial features. my gobby lady has curves and adult facial features. she doesn’t have giant rosy cheeks or giant cutesy eyes, nor is she completely lacking in secondary sexual characteristics. she doesn’t waddle around like a child. 

and yes, we all know that lalafel don’t look/aren’t considered ‘childlike’ in-universe. but, being a human being, with feelings and boundaries, that doesn’t mean i’m just gonna ignore those. 

this shouldn’t mean you don’t want to play a lalafel. but it does mean you shouldn’t come at playing a lalafel expecting people to react to your lalafel in a certain way ‘because in-universe that’s how it works!’ and then being angry when they don’t.

[braden-ffxiv]

Secret confessions, I have no idea what ‘owo’ is supposed to represent