rhinestonecowboy

not review , not done yet , not even half . find some shred of familiarity in certain descriptions , but also just wish could reach through pages and offer kindnesses . find so hard to come up with any coherent commentary about this book , even in private notes . rawness , heaviness , shreds of familiarity between and within - can not read too much at once or will cry .

crosspost from tumblr .
one subject that feel as though not see much about is members who have fully animalistic forms .

discussions happen about subjectivity of little appearances and ages , of course . sometimes kid within collective will have skills and knowledge on par or even better than adults , while others may need intense help . some might have mature behaviours , others might only put on maturity as mask of survival , while others still happily act young . interests might break conventions for both societal expectations of age , and collective nostalgia . sometimes slide up and down within these scales , sometimes remain , sometimes in process of learn to change .

animalistic forms can also vary in similar ways . some might not be able to front , as something of " wildlife NPC " - but others will . those who can front might still act on approximation of(*) animalistic cognition , have cognition on par with humanoids , or be fluid between . if skill barriers exist , then might have difficulty in adjust to humanoid front , even if cognitively grasp - but also , might take interest in things that could only be possible with humanoid form . some might want to develop personal humanoid form , while others reject . any of this can be true whether internal split , external walk-in , or elsewise .

(*) - specify approximation as , no matter reality of one's own animalistic form , different brain structures [ with regards to front and body operation ] may not be able to allow full room - humanoid instincts and biases may still fill gaps .

backdated crosspost from tumblr .
sometimes , small collectives ask how any large collectives could even handle life - to track or accomodate anything over 100 absolutely bewilder . in answer , some collectives with population around or above this mark , but still usually not more than 1000 , say that management is still easy because only small number really want to take part in life , to be known and on records , and such .

so would like to give little shout for fellow collectives for who this is not true . around this court , switches frequent due to limitations of tiredness and irritability - spend too long despite this , and will destabilise into state of angry overload . number of different courtiers who switch in per month easily float around 100 , and even this is not consistent group . some courtiers might show up once every few months , others every few days . anyone can ebb and flow between these groups - might have sudden burst of interest to front when usually infrequent , or lose interest despite / because of frequency .

still have small enough number ( small is relative - minimum bound is 500 ) to track necessary information and keep up with arrivals easily , but certainly can not reassure anyone that front is easy for outsider to predict or follow along with . many collectives at larger sizes than this will very often only keep simplified information in many cases . priority of deep record often must go to those who want and embrace active presence in life , not because no one else is important , but because of sheer difficulty , even if successfully keep up with arrivals and formations .

by all means , sometimes ease can be true , as this is all situational . but really do not want anyone to have impression that this is always true , and every large collective is just small one with some extra noise .

although this court have phase of suppression , will admit that still look different from what others experience . others speak of this as host in denial shut others out , but here was always more like try to compete and win this " forever-seat " . natural switches still happen , but refuse to acknowledge anyone prior . never keep in mind personal limits or needs , either , so even those who get time in front could not enjoy - especially because life at this point was also horrendous .

not everyone who was around in court at this time get caught up in suppression . some actively do best to avoid and just stay within courtlands , or just mind business and play as quietly as possible today to slink out by tomorrow . handful of courtiers stay stubborn in face of this and refuse to ignore , which put end to phase once life start to semi-stabilise again , but even then would end up with some pretty shitty friends time and again who abuse in different ways . that definitely complicate progress on recover and unravel , where even now still feel some of those effects .

despite everything , still find enough juice to finish update and polish up ! please enjoy remaster of faerie thorns, faerie roses - journal game all about faerie's perspective of romance with human :)

this version do not include original roll tables , but not sure how much those end up in use anyways . if there is any demand , would prefer at this point to make bigger and better roll tables anyway ! as well ultimately nix joker mechanic , and vastly simplify bond indicators . many prompts also get rewrites , some minor and some drastic . 

this game is definitely most precious baby of works , so very happy to bring into better light !

... from perspective of game projects that want to do :P

first , really want to finish version 2.0 of faerie thorns faerie roses . genuinely only like 5 prompts left , but for some reason get stuck at last hurdle , so take some time away to hopefully refresh . did want to retain as much original text as possible , but some of these prompts might need scrap after all .

once that is done , would like to start on game for wretched & alone system . this would be tale of human who try to escape from fae , although reverse could also be fun to toy with . likewise , hack of one page left could go either way . have no problem with make multiple games that share themes , but to make similar games so close to one another might feel odd .

likely , wretched & alone game would be human escape fae , while one page left game would be fae escape from humans ! both games suit really well towards horrific ends with rare good endings , but one page left allow some more leniency in character's fate . think that fit nature of mortal vs magical well : human will almost certainly succumb to fae , while fae might be able to survive human ills at cost .

would also be nice to participate further in 525252 jam , fun exercise in really tiny design . have lots of other SRDs and hackable games in collection , but this is where bulk of ideas actually run right now ! alone among the stars could be fun to hack , and commonly hacked for good reason ( simple to design but fun to play ) , but not sure yet whether to theme around exploration of fae lands or human ones . probably human ones ? would love to make people think about quirks of human world in more positive , curious light !

yeah , this is why always have too many projects .

dreams naturally ebb and flow . area that start as store aisles might morph into run-down restaurant , simply just need to look away and then back . some dream areas can be more solid than others , where this is not enough to make things change - based on general observations , think smaller spaces may fare better than bigger ones as general rule , and simpler ones better than detailed ones .

natural change still tend to happen through dream anyway , even if not as quick as these . for example , might walk down street of shops , then start to find random alien spacecraft or sand dune where next shops should be . characters and objects of dreams can also be fluid in this way - sometimes need to refer by archetypes or purposes more than names .

on note of characters , many characters have only one purpose . attempts to speak to characters outside of these purposes yield empty results - often ignore all other input irrelevant to purpose , and may repeat dialogue or just go blank . companion characters do not have as many limits , but also tend to be more subject to random changes and even disappearance . 

something that guarantee some kind of change is to go through doorways or gates . sometimes that change is like physical world where doors simply lead to another place , even if that place would not be logical : for example , doctor's office door lead through series of torii gates which then go into smack middle of random mall . other times , this can trigger any change at all . companion character can take another form , or object that was missing return to hand , or suddenly introduce new element to interrupt plans .

lucidity is fun . will semi-frequently become aware of dream nature , but will not always harness this to do anything - sometimes dream is just fun enough as is . used to really struggle with lucid changes also , but then realise approach completely wrong - do not need to do anything bombastic , just need to take advantage of nature of dreamthreads , where most powerful tool is simple change of perception . walk through doors , look away and back , simply decide that something is different .

sometimes dreams also have another courtier who weave : this courtier is lucid and control dreamthreads from outside . sometimes even have dreams where multiple courtiers all asleep and share with different perspectives , but only one that survive in general recall is whichever one come from fronter .

technology never , ever work like expect . one common theme of tech-based dreams is deal with virus , not because especially worry about computer viruses , but because that is only way to rationalise how badly tech will fuck up in dreams . as such , this is also fairly common trigger of lucidity . 

things can be very overengineered and nonsensical . lock to cat carrier might be strange 5 step process , even though have experience with simplicity of real cat carriers . very often one of steps in these processes will not work for some reason , and will have to work around or fix this in some way . ( however , due to fluidity of dreams , sometimes will just completely forget about this problem and move onto something else ! )

to cover eyes or otherwise darken vision in any way will usually cause dream to end not long after . one of earliest lucid dreams end this way , as reflexively blink and suddenly feel as if eyes glue shut and dream gradually unravel . even when open again , did soon awaken . sunglasses and hats also count to this , even if just short accident .

sometimes when lucid , will think that this dream would be great fun to write down , but so many things happen that worry about forget . so , fronter will start to recite details of dream . this is trap that lead to destruction of recall - any detail that mention will actually fall away from memory entirely , as if in-dream recall give permission for mind to flush . note to each other , do not fall for this trap ! this will erase , not help record !