Part Three of The Judging Wood is now available, with a lush cameo prowling over from the other Daughters project, "The Tithe." We are the luckiest fans of this setting, I think.

I have a hard time with my role here sometimes. Part of the problem is that what I think that role should be moves, but all my interpersonal mechanisms are based on the old spec. Plus, in the manner of an RPG, there are certain "targets" that require different approaches. I'll tell you what I mean.

Making anything is hard. Well, except enemies. I have a lot of points invested in Make Enemies. But committing yourself to draw form from the fucking void can make you very fragile at first. Your energy is elsewhere. So, I need to assess where you are at when you ask me to listen to your band. Or play your tabletop game, which is probably more appropriate to the weekend I just had. When you decant yourself like this it can make you thin, like a Christmas bulb. Some people need to know that there is a part of the universe that is not bent toward their annihilation.

I can provide this service.

Now. What you realize eventually is that, once this process is underway, it's like siphoning gas with your mouth. Eventually you redirect that flow, you don't just sit there drinking gasoline. I can sense when a person has gotten to this part. What I have determined in the last couple years is that I can have a different conversation with that organism, and what's more, I think it might be my responsibility to do so. I talked about how hard it is for me to "harm" imaginary characters, and I find giving people functional criticism hard in the same way. But I have seen and experienced hundreds and hundreds of systems at this point, released ones and primordial ones, good ones and bad ones, and I actually do have something to say to someone whose intention is to contribute to that body. The fear of turning them away from it altogether, of kicking a dreamer awake, can't be more real to me than offering material assistance if I can. I played good stuff this weekend, some of it could be better, and this time around I chose to offer a Dark Menu of relative brutality. I'm honored to have been asked, and I pray that any bleeding stopped shortly after the incision.

(CW)TB