Party Of One Is One Of The Best Actual Play Podcasts Out There, Reblog If You Agree

Party of One is one of the best actual play podcasts out there, reblog if you agree

This season is about depression. But WHY is The Big Guy depressed?

Let's take a look at the clues Mr. Brennan "Anti-Capitalist" Mulligan has laid out for us 🔍

The Big Guy aka Elias Hodge, works for a "retro-futurist conglomerate" as a "mento-technological" researcher

There's a Prohibition on oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin -- citizens are only allowed cortisol & adrenaline (hormones that're released when someone is under a lot of stress)

This Prohibition will (allegedly) be lifted once Elias receives recognition from his bosses

All Elias's pleasures and non-work related urges have been driven underground to the red light district -- so he's not allowing himself to focus on anything that isn't work

The Fix is basically a hitman working for the District Attorney, Mark Bition (Ambition) to eliminate any urge that has the potential to distract Elias from his work

More on the above point: District Attorneys are prosecuters, ie, are the ones responsible for punishing those who go against the state. So this further emphasizes that Elias is very strictly policing himself in order to succeed at work

Conrad Schintz (Conscience) is a tiny kid who has trouble making himself heard and doesn't have a lot of power

Speaking of kids -- all of Elias's childhood interests have also been driven underground, this time being kept under the care of Ms. Loathing. This, plus the line about "not deserving pleasure", hints that Elias is potentially struggling with self-loathing as well (also Loathing's line about "focusing on me is not going to do anything but make me stronger")

CONCLUSION:

All this paints a picture of someone who is driven by logic and ambition, to the detriment of his emotional well-being. Elias seems to feel that his only value comes from what he is able to produce for his superiors, and this causes him to suppress any part of himself that doesn't make him a more productive worker. This has led to him becoming extremely isolated and lonely as a result

We can also guess that the work Elias is doing doesn't align with his values, and that he needs to keep his conscience as quiet as possible in order to do it. Even worse, we now see that he's thinking about killing his conscience outright

This season is about the psychological toll being a cog in the machine takes on a person, and I cannot WAIT to see where we go next

All of my mutuals are normal men. All of my mutuals are innocent men.

Well. My dash is starting to get empty because I’ve unfollowed so many people recently, so I guess I’m doing one of these?

(Also mutuals please reblog this so people see it? Thank you ily)

Reblog this if you post about:

Writing (esp. writing fantasy, memes, etc. I follow a few writing tips type blogs but would love to get some writing mutuals!)

Fantasy books in general, especially adult fantasy

The Underland Chronicles (please)

Mistborn (okay so I’m not done reading it yet but I’m WORKING ON IT and I’m chewing on these books, you might’ve noticed from My Entire Blog)

The Adventure Zone: Balance

TTRPGs

Original art! Especially fantasy OCs!

Crochet

Worldbuilding (This mostly ties into writing and TTRPGs I think, but wanted to add it anyway)

Please DON’T reblog this if you post about:

Harry Potter

MCYT

Any sort of hate speech (reclaimed slurs are fine!)

A lot of politics (occasional posts are fine, but I’m not on Tumblr to be reminded how many people want me dead, y’know?)

Shipping/fandom discourse (I’m too old for this)

Untagged gore

There is a good chance I will not follow everyone who reblogs this, as I am very picky about curating my dashboard. It’s nothing personal if I don’t follow you!

Why have none of my friends who are good at magic the gathering played Inscryption. I need them to peer review my draft strategy and help me get my engines and my endgames and other things they understand and I don't all lined up

Maybe with a bigger sample of Autumn Wray Benjamin’s handwriting, Callum would be able to decipher it, but with only this one scribble to go on, his best guesses were ’high element’ or ‘knife divert’, and they weren’t confident guesses.

I'm definitely going to kick myself later when I have to pay this off. But that's the fun of serial fiction! Right? I don't know yet, it's my first time trying it!

Catch up on part 1:

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Cold doorstep, closed door • Buttondown

All right, luvvies? It's summer and I'm enjoying the long, bright days but not so much the heat. When this reaches you I'll actually have es

Get part 2 in your inbox tomorrow:

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Foggy Outline • Buttondown

Follow me. The fog is thinner than it seems. I’m Matt Boothman. I’m the compère of the Merely Roleplayers podcast, where theatrical people p