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Tal's Central Singularity

Tal K'Pazhawrl

Tal K'Pazhawrl

de Jaedaxia
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Secrets of Foresight

Tal's Central Singularity​

Singularity Image.jpeg​

Former A/GM Singularity​

Thread Load: 15/15​

Post Length: Generally URL='https://telath.com/index.php?threads/arkd%C3%BCn-tear-water-tea-tal.4349/post-52416']500[/URL]–700 words per post Usually 3 to 4 actions.
  • If your posts are longer than that, it will take more time to create. The more 'actions' that I need to moderate, the longer the next post will be in length and in time to create.
  • I will begin to cut down responses to focus on three to four actions, to keep my posting fast. If you do more than that, I will put several actions on hold until previous actions are resolved.
Posting Habits: Generally 72 hours once or twice each week, though it may take longer (ADHD and life)
  • If it takes longer, it may be I need more time to get a good response, or I just cannot give the concentration that is needed.

Peer-Moderating Style: I like to connect character background, past threads and moments, as threads should not take place in a vacuum, but are part of a bigger world. I am also okay with the character doing unexpected actions. I am fairly flexible and adaptable, though items outside of my current knowledge needing more time to prepare for, ask about, and similar.


Peer-Moderated Threads:

Unlike others, I do not possess the near-infinite powers of posting. So, I need to say 'not right now' to threads. And, I will place them here, so I don't forget them, and so my brain doesn't keep them on my mind.
  1. Vireylda moderates for Tal trying to get a Great Panther
  2. Straylor Leonard goes to meet his feudal lord, and the future of the Trade Republic
  3. Lysandra Roth goes on an adventure, and learns the secrets of leather-working [Put on hold for now]
  4. Maybe moderating Kyathis for Vireylda and Straylor's visit to the city (as guest former GM of the city)
  5. Tal and Keldon combing Mercy with Justice for the common man
  6. Darl'Kath and Glindorf have some time to rest, heal, and connect. (When Glindorf is ready)
  7. Darl'Kath becomes an Elementalist, and is totally trusted with the powers of FIRE.
 
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Hey team,

I have really been enjoying my time back here on Telath! I’m so glad to see so many wonderful players I remember from my stint from ‘09-‘12! It has been fun focusing more on fun instead of trying to figure how to outsmart the other players. Between my two accounts I have nearly written 800 posts in the nine months of my return. I'm pretty sure that is more posts than I wrote in the three years of activity before.

As a heads up, in the next couple of weeks I will be taking over as the GM for my TTRPG group. I am running a pre-made campaign, but have chosen to adapt it to another setting. A chunk of my creative energy will be used to craft, write, and adapt this campaign until the summer months. (In summer, one of our players who is going back to school runs their home-made campaign.)

What this means:

With some of my free time dedicated to this, posting will probably be slowed. Mistakes may also be made, with references made to plots or a world that is not Telath.
 

Musings on post length​


When I first started out back here on Telath, I was writing 500 to 700 word posts. Slowly, those became bigger and bigger. One of my latest posts was about 1,150 words. That post had about 10 different decision points that needed to be handled. Now, when I was starting out, that seemed fine. I had a bit of time on my hands, and it was near the end of the school year. I also had only a handful of threads to work on. So my free time that was used for writing could be used on some in-depth writing on a few things.

Now, however, I have gathered a few more threads. Lengthy posts aren't as easy to do right now. I am nowhere in the same state I was when I could write 10,000 words in about 5 hours. I have been given some new work obligations, and have become a Reliable Adult. Plus, I am taking on some personal projects, such as running a version of D&D 5E which is a little more complicated, and requires a little more prep.

So it is a balance between lengthy posts that aren't as frequent, or shorter posts that are made more often.

I am operating under the assumption that most of those I write with are the most active players, and would prefer a post over getting a perfectly long post. And those I write with who aren't fast posters, a post that isn't overwhelmingly long won't intimidate them from responding after a break.

Longer posts​


One of the benefits for longer posts is the pleasure from reading one, especially in response to something I posted. There is a lot going on, and it is a nice dose of dopamine for my brain. Works best if you have only a few threads, or a lot of threads with infrequent postings. At least, that is my experience.

There are a few options I have seen for those who prefer the long post. But, there seem to be two major ones.

A: The Play-by-Play​

This is where you go down the post, and quote or respond to each action, each point of the conversation, etc.. Some threads become play-by-play as the other player takes a moment from the previous posts that their character would respond to, which you in turn respond to, and so on.

Not bad, and it is a way to make sure that you can react to everything that your character would react to, and allow the plot as a whole move forward while simultaneously playing out a non-consequential conversation.

Seems most often used in a collab style storytelling.

​

B: Continue the scene​

This is what I call "Crimson Posting" where each post is a 'round' or a new scene. Not necessarily play-by-play, but an overall moving of the whole scene forward. Individual actions are accounted for in multiple-PC threads. In individual PC threads, this is basically going from monologue on the PC to a monologue or dialogue with the NPCs.

Sometimes, as well, the scene just jumps to the next scene, with little said about the previous scene. You can see the consequences of choices you made, or that others made, but it is undeniably a different scene.

Seems good for keeping pace, allowing moderation for multiple PCs, and not needing to respond to each item play-by-play.

​

​

Shorter Posts​

​

These get so fast! I can crank out a shorter post in the middle of my work day without using too much brain power.

Shorter doesn't mean less content overall. It just means less to deal with.

One of the detriments I have seen is it is harder to take a single post without reading the whole thread.

​

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Actions vs. Length​

​

One way I have begun to look at posts isn't so much about the length, but about the number of actions that need to be moderated, or need to be responded to. The more actions, the more that needs to be written. The more actions, the more that is done. The more actions, the more working memory or review of the thread is necessary to keep the story consistent and coherent.

In the post I mentioned above, I had 10 actions to moderate or to respond to moderation. That took me some time to write it. Meanwhile, some of my threads with shorter posts, I can crank one out in only a few minutes, because I only need to focus on one or two actions.

​

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Personal Next Steps​

It seems my personal sweet spot is around four that I need to moderate, or that I need to respond to.

As such, some things that I need to start doing:
  • Cutting down actionsto around four. In collab threads, two for me to moderate, two for me to write as the character.
    • Use Spoilers or OOC to keep track of the other actions the character has done, or wants to do, so I can bring them back up when other actions are resolved.
  • More communication, either with OOC or Messages, to make sure that the other player knows what is going on. Especially when things get too long for me to respond to regularly.
  • Using the 'Continue by the scene' style if/when I do any sort of group adventures to keep things all moving at the same rate.
 
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Turns out I have recovered from burnout at the perfect time… to start looking for a new job.

My contract is not being renewed for the next year, and so now I find myself being on the job market again. Yay. (I am going to seek out more reasons for the decision, because my immediate response is “of course, because I am a terrible person and terrible at my job,” which is not the appropriate attitude to have when seeking a new job.)

So, in short, posts will be delayed, except for ones when I have time, have completed my job search tasks for the day, and probably require little brain power.
 
Sorry to hear that bud! Don't internalize it especially if you were doing well. The current global economic situation is causing a lot of companies to re-evaluate the controllable. From a business standpoint contracts are one of the labour aspects that companies can easily control and manage. If management is skeptical about a LOT of different factors out of your control they might just be deciding not to renew contracts across a range of the business and likely has little to nothing to do with you at all.

I just spent sometime re-doing my resume and LinkedIn profile which has been seriously lacking. It still isn't where I WANT it to be (Because I beat myself up and tell myself its shit and always needs to be better) but if you need help or some examples let me know! Job hunting fucking sucks and I hate it.
 
Met with my evaluator, who made the decision for me not getting renewed. At least I have some closure. There are the official reasons, and then the unofficial reasons, or the ones where I am reading between the lines.

In short, students were complaining about me, and the admin's 'we talked to you about this' was a single email from the evaluator where they listed 'concerns' about certain things. I immediately changed and addressed those concerns, and showed them my work to alleviate those problems.

I'm still a little bitter about this. But, I'm glad to know it wasn't a glaring 'you are a really bad person and you just never knew it,' and more of a 'we just aren't sure you fit,' sort of situation.

Welp, still job searching. And soul searching. But at least I am back in a mental place where I'm excited to write again... Just after I update my resume again.
 
I should really be focusing on posting to my backlog of threads. Or doing job search stuff. But sometimes you gotta take a break.

Besides, if I don't do this while it is on my mind, I will forget.

On the 31st, it will have been one year since I returned to Telath. Between Tal and @Darl'Kath, if I did the math right, I have about 1006 posts!

I have few memories, and virtually no records, of my accounts on the old boards. But, I don't think I had that many posts in the three years I was active there.

My Telath Origins​


A friend invited me to join.

A coworker was talking excitedly about this play-by-post website he had joined called Aelyria. As I enjoyed writing, and did some play-by-post writing already, I let him talk my ear off about it. I was excited to join! Except, Aelyria is a bit hard to spell. I ended up on some text-based adventure website? Which was fun, but also confusing.

I talked to him about it again, and he gave me the correct website. Yay!

Darl'Kath's Origins​


I don't recall how much thinking was put into Darl'Kath originally. I'm pretty sure the thinking went something like:
  1. Hey, look, a race of anthro wolf people!
  2. They are an extreme patriarchy? A female character it is!
  3. Oh, they have a trial-by-combat for adulthood? It would be fun to play a character who failed it.
  4. Actually, no, she just didn't fail it, she maybe murdered her pack leader. (For most of her playtime, whether she did or did not kill her pack leader was left blank.)
  5. Oh, I need a name? Something rough. Kath. No, that isn't cool enough. Darl'Kath.
  6. There we go!
I think I spent a lot more time trying to figure out where to start for the wolf lady. I know I settled on High Peak, probably because GM Minerva seemed cool, and the place seemed noob friendly.

I remember posting my first post right before bed, and then being unable to sleep because my brain going "Do you think they responded yet? Do you think they responded?"

I recall Darl'Kath joining the guard in High Peak, and then getting whisked away on some adventure and mystery.

And then... I stopped posting.

I found her a little boring. When I returned a few months later, I gave her some voices in her head, especially the voice of her dead Leader. That was a little more fun. But, I didn't really do much with Aslan worshipping Darl'Kath.

Tal's Origins​

Tal had a lot more thought put behind him.

In my original plans, he was supposed to be like Daredevil, some accountant by day and a crime-fighting alicat animal shaman by night. He began to morph, though, into a criminal masquerading as a heroic vigilante.

Then I stumbled onto the lore about the Omnicats once ruling Kyathis, and decided to cut out the shaman middle-man and make the criminal into a katta. And he was going to be the most Omnikatta of all Omnikatta. Vain. Narcissistic. Egomaniacal.

I realize Tal was also born out of a desire I had to manipulate people. Basically, I have the knowledge of how to do it, and I have the ability, I didn't have the temperament or desire. AKA, I had a conscience. But Tal, Tal didn't. He was a way for me to flex my intellectual superiority in a fun, creative way.

I decided to have him start in Jaedaxia. I was taking French, so that made sense. And the GM there, a certain @Crimson, seemed like a cool person. I have learned and verified that Crimson does not just seem like a cool person, Crimson is truly a cool person.

Except, Tal began to become too convoluted, and I sometimes conflated Tal's success with my own. I wanted Tal's story to go exactly how I wanted, with no deviations. It wasn't good for my brain some days.

The Cat Came Back​


I left when I went somewhere where the Internet was not going to be reliable. But, I had already burned myself out before then. Too much "I have the perfect plan," and not enough "let's create a fun story together."

About five years ago, I had been working a job where I was up all night, with very little to do. Actually, a lot to do, and I was able to get it all done in half the time. I wanted to check what was going on back in Aelyria, and low and behold, it was still running! Then I realized that anything I wrote at 3 am was going to be gibberish, so I nixed the idea.
During that time, I was driving home and had the sudden realization that if I ate the green peppers, I could kill the demons. I had green peppers with every meal for a week before I realized how utterly crazy that statement had been.
Click to expand...
I'm not really sure what brought me back a year ago. Nostalgia. Seeing names I remembered, and new names I didn't. A distinct lack of Juan-ness. A desire for me to write more.

But, I brought back Tal. I was able to dust him off, and entered into a fun few first threads. I was playing with a new player, and it was fun to get back into things, and showing Four-One-Seven the site. I also did what was supposed to be a simple alchemy thread with @Barthelme, that turned into a four thread extravaganza.

During that time I was debating whether to turn Tal good, and worship Aedaan, or have him return to Meephos. Aedaan seemed have had little play time, and a redemption of Tal would be good. However, it would be so fun to play an evil, manipulative character again, especially when I am mature enough to talk to other PCs about doing it to other PCs respectfully.

I have been going with the idea that most major decisions for my character should be decided IC. For example, I had a thread where Tal had to confront the decision between Aedaan and Meephos head on, which was really fun to work out.

But, I still wanted to play an evil character, too. I learned Darl'kath's SOF had been saved, and jokingly included her as an NPC in a thread where Barthelme was recruiting Twisted. My brain went "She's not right in the head, but she's an Aslanite, through and through." Yet, to my surprise, with just a few posts, Barthelme had her willing to do whatever the Twisted wanted.

So I brought her back as a Twisted of Risthal, and I also got my desire to play a good character with Tal.

In conclusion​


Despite my life craziness and other circumstances, the fact that I have been posting more or less steadily for one year now while supposedly being a Responsible Adult in real life seems to be a good sign.

Anyway, you are all wonderful, and I will be getting through my post waitlist soon enough!
 
So, the Tal side of my brain (the part that controls forward thinking, considers consequences, has empathy) is being worked overtime because of real life.

The Darl'Kath part (the part that is a complete and utter psycho, that doesn't care about consequences) apparently needs to be exorcised, and so the demons are being released.

So, Darl'Kath posts are going to be arriving fairly rapidly, and have been. Tal is... well... he's in limbo for now.

I will try to get some posts to everyone before June.

June I will most likely not be here, or will only be able to focus on rapid group threads (AKA Crimson Adventures that I already have a character in.)
 

I got a new job!!​

adaw-awwwae.gif


And with that, a sudden amount of mental weight has been dropped.

I still have a lot of paperwork to go through. And other life situations to handle. Because, while the vacation was fun, there were... complications.

breaking-bad-walter-white.gif


Uh... part of the vacation was buying a new-to-me car.

So, on my checklist of Real Adult Experiences, I have now checked off:
  • Get laid-off (or equivalent)
  • Buy a car
I'm not sure how much more I want to be a Real Adult anymore.

In other news:​

I have the mental capacity to start posting more. I hope.

So, apologies for the delays.
 
The fabled Winter Break is almost upon us!

And this year that means a vacation, where it is unlikely for me to be posting.

Then after the vacation, the spouse and I have agreed to one week without screens. Kind of hard to post online without a screen.

What this means:​

I have maybe five posts that I owe. I should be able to get through those before vacation.

Any new threads will be delayed in starting for about two weeks.

After that, I hope I will be rested and energized enough to post more.
 
I am under the impression that getting older is really getting more in touch with who you are, and understanding who that person is.

The last few weeks have been me assembling the research for an independent research paper, and filling out applications. I enjoy my current job, but I am still wearing down, and want to do something else. Thus, applications to graduate school. Almost ten years after having graduated college. And in a field different than what my degree or work experience is in. Thus, the need to make a NEW writing sample.

Still, all that work has paid off, I think, as I was accepted into my number one school! Yay!

Now the brain is occupied with all the logistics of going back to school with a family.

Now, Telath is a hobby. We have fun. I want to have fun. Plus, the more new things I learn, the more I want to apply them in stories. My first round of college, I once was in two creative writing classes and running a TTRPG group concurrently. So, hopefully as the pieces for schooling logistics fall into place, the part of me craving fun will return more fully.
 
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