ADVENTURE! – or – Where the Crap Have I NOT Been? · 7:29am May 16th, 2017
As the title may suggest, my life has been kinda wild of late. Details after the break.
A lot of details.
Okay.
You may have noticed a distinct lack of Desert Spice chapter in your feed. By way of apology, here's what I've been doing instead:
Late February - halfway through April: Epic Migraine II: The Migraine Strikes Back.
Basically the same crap I had to deal with last fall, and with a similarly catastrophic effect on my grades. 
In other words, light was agony and thinking hard was slow and literally painful. Mind just filled with caustic, pea-soup fog. Would not recommend the experience, and definitely not conducive to wanting to write. I somehow managed to extrude a fic for FoME's Imposing Sovereigns contest, though, so I guess I am capable of writing while in intense, mind-flattening pain? Woo? I guess I just really didn't want to miss a chance to get in on a FoME contest. Really glad that I got to participate there.
That fic was Ember, Hoardsmelter, which utterly baffled me by becoming my highest-rated and second-most-highly viewed fic ever. 
And FoME liked it well enough to give it an honorable mention in the final judgment. 
And Seraphem liked it well enough to say on his review blog that he held it to be tied with Aragon's fic, Evil is Easy, Governing is Harder (i.e. the actual contest winner) for best fic of them all. 
All of that should be enough to give one a greatly swollen head. I'm pleasantly bewildered at my fic's reception.
All of that for something that I kludged together with half my brain tied behind my back. With metaphorical razor wire. Life sure is funny sometimes, isn't it?
Regarding my grades, I thank God, my parents' nagging/encouragement, and my own sheer bloody-mindedness for finding a solution that didn't move me from academic warning to academic probation. Namely, I found out about an utterly unpublished tool that most students at BYUi have no freaking clue exists: The Incomplete Grade Contract. I found out about it while talking to admissions or somesuch and telling them that last time I followed the advice they'd given me, I'd gotten royally screwed-over. (But, y'know, I said it more politely than that.)
What an incomplete grade contract amounts to is you form an agreement with each applicable professor that extenuating circumstances have prevented you from finishing a class, and that you get to spend the next semester tying up those loose ends. Instead of whatever grade you were about to earn, you get a temporary 'I' on your transcript that will be replaced by whatever grade you eventually earn. My professors were all for this, and I was pretty enthusiastic about it too. This (and deferring my next semester to Fall) took a lot of stress off of my mind, and now I'm getting back to work on this school stuff.
Early April: Takin' a Break: In Which I Move Back in with my Parents for Awhile
Winter semester ended, and I went back home to California from Idaho. I really miss the cold, but it is nice having people nearby who care about you and want you to succeed. 
So I'm giving Spring and Summer the miss and going straight into Autumn. That is, that's when I'll be heading back to Idaho for school. Missing spring isn't so bad, as they hardly offer any courses I need for my applied math major during the spring, and they only have entry-level gen-ed stuff during the summer. (I'm going to be trying to change my track from Spring-Fall to Fall-Winter, too.)
In other news, turns out I'm one of those weirdos who actually enjoys cold weather. Winter in Rexburg was regularly 20-ish degrees Fahrenheit (and -18F, at one point), and I freaking loved it! 
That, and my bizarre gait seems oddly well-suited for walking on ice. Didn't fall down once.
Er, back to being back home from Cool Leg for a while.
Walnut Creek, CA is a pretty warm place.
Part of why I'm here is so I can get healthier in hopes of not having to deal with semester-ending migraines again when I go back. To that end, (at my parents' behest,) I'm trying out that weird APO E Gene diet. Apparently, the blood test said I should avoid eating anything that came from a mammal, but that seafood is fine. I generally hate fish, so it looks like there will be a lot of shrimp in my future. Also, Thai food is both amazing and surprisingly diet-compliant. It helps that I enjoy cooking when I find the time for it, and that my cooking tends to impress everyone who tastes it. 
Easter: Grandma Died, but Here's this Rad Book!
Specifically, my step-grandmother. She died not long after my migraine finally quit. I wasn't terribly close to her, so I didn't feel the loss too badly. Between living in an old-folks home and my optimistic views on the Afterlife, I guess I've gotten rather jaded on the concept of death. I really hope that doesn't make me sound cold or harsh. Mostly just deflecting unwarranted sympathy there.
It did hit my stepmother pretty hard, though, so I was there for her. We all went to her funeral in Washington a week later, and it was a good experience for everyone. About two-hundred people showed up, in all, and a little less than half of those were her descendants.
An odd thing about Mormon[1] funerals: They aren't sad affairs. Sure there's a bit of crying, but you don't really see depressed people or wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's more like a family reunion[2], with everyone sharing stories about the guest of honor who, unfortunately, has been kept from participating in the event by a prior engagement. Also, funeral potatoes are a Mormon tradition. They're an easy-to-prep meal that involves lots of cheese and potatoes, similar to au gratin but not quite the same thing.
All in all, I got to learn a lot about my deceased grandma, and I'm confident that she's in a better place. Can't really ask for a better time than Easter to pass on, I suppose.
As for the book part of this section, an advance PDF copy of a book that I'd been looking forward to for around a year arrived not long after Grandma died. I'd just started writing Desert Spice again when this book showed up in my inbox and drove all thoughts of writing horse words from my mind for the next month.
This book was the Planet Mercenary tabletop RPG core book, and I immediately set to work putting together a one-shot for my friends.
Late April to Last Saturday: Planet Mercenary
Planet Mercenary, for those not in-the-know, is a space-opera-themed tabletop RPG set in the same universe as Howard Taylor's delightful webcomic Schlock Mercenary. I'd backed the kickstarter a good while ago, and it just recently payed off. My buddies had been looking for a good way to have a game set in the distant future, and I touted this RPG as the thing to supply that. They agreed to try it out, so I set to brewing up a one-shot.
You can find the one-shot's outline here. I won't call it a masterwork, but it worked well enough and the players all claimed to have a good time. Also, one of the players rolled up a pegasus engineer using these stats I homebrewed for Equestrian ponies. I haven't gotten around to doing batponies, gryphons, and the like, but I did manage to put something together for each of the main three tribes of ponies.
Fun fact: The print-ready version of the core book PDF was released a few hours after our session concluded. Life is often funny like that.
Anyhow, here's more-or-less how the one-shot went:
The company is at a UNS military base on Europa, looking for work. Rear Admiral George McGillis (a rilla) hires them to discreetly reacquire some stolen ships for the UNS Navy. The players track down the first ship on the list, the UNS Walpole, and open fire. While the enemy is distracted, they teraport aboard the UNS Walpole and "sneak" their way to the bridge, using social skills to convince the insufficiently motivated guards to let them pass. Thems were some fun times. 
Eventually, they made their way to the sealed bridge bulkhead and started planting shaped charges on it while repelling waves of guards with deadly (or decidedly nonlethal, in the doctor's case) force.
I don't feel like giving away too many twists right here, but suffice it to say the players were amused, and they got a big payout for their trouble. Y'know, in case they ever want to pick up that mercenary company again for another one-shot.
To get all that prepped was about a month's worth of writing, researching, and general cat-herding to get people familiar with a so-new-the-book-doesn't-even-have-an-index-yet system properly-built and geared-out characters. It was a good month.
We're at "Now" Now:
That one-shot happened last Saturday night. I don't plan on putting together another one myself in the near future (at least another month before I start planning anything, and a friend of mine is likely to be the GC next time instead), but it's nice that I've managed to teach people a new system and add it to their roster of games they'd like to play in the future. NOTE: This game works surprisingly well with higher numbers of people. In DnD, I'm usually comfortable with a party of four. Here we had a party of five with no real crowding, and it was going to be a party of six if one player's connection hadn't taken a terminal turn for the worse.
Aside aside, I'm back to writing horse words in between working on assignments. Life is great, my stepmother loved the food I prepared for Mother's Day dinner last night, and I've managed to find a little cash flow in the form of teaching a retired guy how to use his macbook. I've never claimed my life to be boring, and I don't plan to start claiming such anytime soon.
Anyhow, I'm back to writing the next chapter of Desert Spice, and I'm happy with what I've figured out that I want to do with Rize and Sweep there. I won't tell you when to expect the next chapter, because I honestly have little idea. I'll probably let y'all know when it clears certain checkpoints, though, so it won't happen without warning. 
Also, new season of Ponies has been great so far. Those few episodes I haven't enjoyed have been entirely for personal reasons [3]. I'm not sure if episode 2 or 3 has been my favorite of the season so far. Trixie was just so incredibly Trixie in 2, but I found Maud incredibly relatable. I am 98% sure she's autistic[4], especially given the things she did and said in "Rock-Solid Friendship".
G'night, y'all. I'm probably gonna log in and out of Warframe to collect my login reward, turn off my monitor, and hit the hay. Have a nice night/day!
TL;DR: Life has been interesting and busy of late, but now I'm getting back to writing Desert Spice again.
[1]: For anyone who'd figured out my religion before this without my telling you directly, have yourself a metaphorical cookie.
[2]: Except without the party games.
[3]: In essence, I cannot bear to watch people embarrass themselves or damage their relationships. 
Can't fault the episodes on quality, though!
[4]: If anybody'd figured out my diagnosis before this point, have another metaphorical cookie. You'd be surprised how many of us are around this site[5].
[5]: Then again, you might not be.
???
It's empty!
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I should be done populating it with words properly within the hour, though, so check back then?
It is at the moment, because I accidentally hit the "import Gdoc" button and it decided that meant I wanted to post an empty blogpost.
I can't argue with the unintended statement made by the title and its current (lack of) contents, though.
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An hour and twenty minutes, turns out.
Whatever the case, it's up now!
Glad to hear things are going generally well on your end. That campaign does sound quite fun. Looking forward to more of Desert Spice whenever it's ready. Best of luck with the migraines and the coming semester.
And I really did want to rate Ember, Hoardsmelter higher, but that was an insanely strong field. I figured the honorable mention was the least I could do.
I'm pretty sure the comparisons that first come to mind aren't fit to be posted publicly, so I'll just say, "Yay!
"
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Here's a copy/paste of Bugsydor trying to reassure me about how my story would do in the contest after I'd noted (read: counted) that it hadn't received as much feedback as any contestant at that point:
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Campaign was, indeed, fun. I had multiple paths planned out, but had managed to drop enough hints so that they picked out the optimal one.
Glad to hear you're still looking forward to more DS. I know I am.
And thanks for the luck! *Pockets it*
Absolutely no hard feelings on how well my fic did in the judging, man. Bewildered feelings like unto a gradeschooler accidentally entering an apple pie into a chef contest instead of his school bake sale (and doing well), yes, but no hard ones Aragon's entry deserved that win. It was one of those fall-out-of-your-chair-laughing experiences. It was a great contest with great contestants, and I was just happy to be there.
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You are never going to let me live that statement down.
I still maintain that I'm a relatively obscure hanger-on of an author who writes weird niche stuff.
Ooh, sorry about the migraines, Bugsydor.
Glad things seem to be working out better for you now, though. :)
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Thank you.