Thinking of finding a new way to motivate myself to write · 5:17pm Feb 24th, 2020
Any of you guys familiar with Hades?
Yes, I'm almost positive that you're aware of the ancient Greek mythological deity. But I'm also referring to a game called Hades, made by the guys who made Bastion and Transistor among other things.
The titular dude. I'm as confused as you are about the beard, but who am I to criticize the fashion choices of the gods?
To summarize: It's a roguelite hack-and-slash dungeon crawler in which your character Zagreus, child of the titular Hades, tries to battle his way out of Tartarus to seek someone important and spoiler-y on the surface. The game is loaded with dialogue and character interactions/development, the art style's great and it's got a lot of replay value - particularly given that it's one of those "perpetually early access titles" that's solid enough to be a finished game while also having new content added to it all the time. Oh, and because it's a roguelike, a lot of replayability comes from constantly starting over again, because it's one of those games where you die a lot.
This mythology gag is absolutely brilliant, for the record. And "That Chap" is also a minor spoiler.
I didn't make this blog post just to talk about a video game, for the record. Instead, I'm going to use my current fondness for the game to try and do something productive - and by "productive," i mean in the writing way.
So here's my plan: I'm going to try to stream myself when I play this game from now on. Anyone who watches the stream and suggests a prompt may be the recipient of 500 words of horse writing courtesy of yours truly. Prompts could be as simple as one word or as complex as a couple of sentences; in any case, I'll pick whatever prompt seems the most interesting at the time, and probably defer to suggestions made earlier rather than later.
One suggestion per person, please! I might do more than 500 words, and if it turns out to be long enough then I might end up turning it into a full-blown fic and dedicating it to the person who made the suggestion. In any case, I'll try to get the writing done as quickly as possible and won't start up the game again until horsewords are granted where horsewords are due. Also, these don't have to be suggestions for new stories - if you want me to simply add work onto something I've started but haven't finished, then feel free to say that as well! Who knows? It might inspire me to show some artistic discipline for a change.
I've got no set schedule as of yet - i don't think I'm going to turn into a career streamer, so this is largely going to be "when I feel like streaming it during hours in which I feel like people will be around to watch and suggest prompts." And, for the record, you don't have to suggest anything - if you want to just chatter about whatever while you watch or just watch in silence, that's also totally fine. I don't mind playing the game, and this is mostly just me trying to turn my unproductive impulses into mildly productive ones.
I've started the game before and played through it a fair deal - how else would i be able to figure out just how much i love the game? - but I'll be starting fresh when I play with you guys, so that you don't have to feel like you missed out on a bunch of stuff. I'm calling it a "Fauxst run:" A fake setup designed to seem like i'm doing everything for the first time. Granted, playing the game means that I'll be making progress during and after the first session, so missing out on that might mean missing out on some content, but hopefully people won't feel totally lost that way.
This being a stream, by the way, I'm perfectly willing to be chatty as well - in response to the game, the chat or whatever might be on my mind in particular. That means some of you might hear my voice for the first time, and apologies in advance about that. 
The link to my Twitch account is here: https://www.twitch.tv/petrichordyne
Questions? Comments? What time(s) would work well for you guys if you were interested in watching?
Oh, and one last bit of good news: You can, in fact, pet the gigantic three-headed doggo. And I'll do it whenever you ask, because he's just that good of a good boye.
I was toying with the idea of doing livestream readings myself. Not sure yet. Either that or just on Youtube. Anyway, good luck with it, Petri.