Long Awaited Arrivals, a chapter 1 review, Stand Up Comedy, and Old World Blues.

Its been awhile since I made one these! I've been kicking around for a while doing my own thing. Chapter 4.4 went well, and my team and I have been working really hard on the New chapter. If you looked at the newest entry, you probably realized that this is not actually the chapter 4 finale, to which I obligatorily say "You're no fun anymore." I'm kicking myself for not labeling the chapter "And Now for Something Completely Different!" As a Fallout fan, it wouldn't be a proper crossover without some terrible derivative nonsense based on Monty Python.

Anyway, the new chapter is just about ready and I am working on it to try to get things read for publishing. Its a big chapter, and the reunion of the whole gang. We are just about to move into the end of this long winded arch, but I assure it will be a ton of ridiculous fun.

Also, check this out RuinQueenofOblivion did a review of Chapter 1 of Joker's Wild. It was really nice to see the story given some attention, so go give it a read.

So, what have I been up to? Well, for one thing, I started attending comedy clubs. I did stand up comedy for the first time in my life and it was really fun. My meds make me a wreck on stage, but I teach kids for a living so doing ridiculous antics while telling silly stories is my proffessional craft. I even had my uncle see me perform as he was passing through Hong Kong. Apparently the bar that I do stand up comedy in has been his favorite dive in Hong Kong for the ten years he has been coming and going on business trips. What are the odds right?

Still, it was super fun, and it took away from my writing, but it gave me something to practice against. You see a lot of people who tell jokes that could be really funny, but because they just speak it and don't act it out or inflect on it to really give an experience, they fall flat. Now, I like to tell narrative jokes, which has gotten me in trouble because they are like "You take too much time". It took them 3 weeks for them to tell me that there was a 5 minute limit. It explained why everybody did little one liner jokes, but that still makes me sad. One liners have to be really good and be told to the right people at the right time in the right way to be funny.

You see... humor is about perception. There is nothing that is funny inherently. Humor lies in the connections we make between things, we care about the meaning, even if it is stupid and simple. You need to be aware of what somebody's current view of the world is, what rules they seem to have established about things, what they know about, and all that, so that you can figure out how to get the most out of the dissonance between what they understand about the world and how you tell them the world is, or the difference between what is expected and what is given. In narrative humor, its not a problem if people aren't laughing at every moment, because you are setting up a frame of mind. You are giving them the foundation to find something funny. In one liner jokes, you don't have any of that, so it makes it really tough.

Also, I recently decided to go buy New Vegas for my computer so I can actually play through the DLC this time. Playing on computer feels worlds different from on a console. Its smooth and it is a little bit more immersive. Over all its been a wonderful experience that makes me understand the people who sing the praises of New Vegas more. Not to say I didn't understand at all before, anything is better than the bethesda entries, but it fixes some of the major problems I had with the game. Now, I got through Dead Money, and that was a fun little jaunt of thematic storytelling, with fixations on greed and the inability to let go of things. This is kinda of a major theme in a lot of Fallout/Fallout Equestria stuff, but it was still very well done. It wasn't my favorite experience, but hey... it was really strong and I can see why it as such an influence on some writers.

...then I got to Old World Blues.

Oh, this wonderful, insane dlc. People told me that this was the best dlc, especially for comedy, but somehow I had thought that it was just because of the comedy. The comedy was insane and wonderfully done, but I was surprised at how cohesive the theme of the OWB was presented. Big Mountain is a place with no mountain, just a big crater. A place of science lobotomized of its own logic... it is certainly missing something. Is it its brain... or perhaps its conscience? Between the suits that fight despite their wearers death, the hoards of lobomized freaks running around, the caged chinese ghouls who have been stuck inside so long they will run for the gates despite the bomb collars on their neck, scientists who's brains are deteriorating and fading over time, and even your own missing brain that takes on a life of its own, the mindlessness that catches me the most is the insanity of the prewar. Fallout 2 touched on this alot, so it was really interesting to see this as the ultimate incarnation of that world. Even so, the way that this DLC puts consciousnesses in places they should not be is really interesting, from you running around without your head, to the light switches and doom toasters all about the dlc, it is a place where you come in empty, but feel like you leave whole. I'd love to really dissect the ideas presented in the dlc at length at somepoint, and this really makes me want to write a Old World Blues inspired story that goes off in its own directions for FOE, although I might have to just compile notes and leave it as a side project. I still need to work on "FOE: Rose Tinted Cybernetics" The farcical FOE Romcom parody featuring Red Eye as being hopelessly in love with little pip.

Anyway, that is all for now. I am going to try to get the chapter up tonight, so keep an eye out for it.

OH! And a big shout out to the newest editor on the team, High Spirits. You da man, Spirits. You da man. Edits have been so much easier with you on the team, and I owe it to you and Nasty that Joker's Wild can keep being a thing.