The Ward Storyboard

Hello,

One of my first assignments was to create a storyboard for a story that follows a typical story structure. Unsure of what to do, I ended up basing it on a psychological game idea I’ve been workshopping for the last few years.

The story is an allegorical take on Carl Jung’s Individuation process, & is based on my own experiences in dealing with negativity & “finding my true self”. It also includes some ideas by Foucault as the story is about imprisonment.

This is a story about a Ward, who awakes encased in heavy plate armour.

They don’t remember who they are, only that they are a prisoner of this vast desolate, yet eerily familiar, structure called the Panopticon. They know the Warden sentenced them here for a good reason, but they don’t remember why. Thus the Ward sets out to find the Warden at their central tower to learn about the nature of their sentence.

On the way to the tower, the Ward is hunted by a mass of shadows. They are too slow to escape & become engulfed by the shadows.

Screaming in darkness, the Ward begins to learn. They see visions of a world before the Panopticon. They see the Warden, & the tyranny they wrought. As they learn, pieces of the Ward’s armour begin to shatter. When the shadows dissipate, the Ward is left unharmed with only their mask remaining.

They continue their journey until they finally reach the tower.

Inside, the Ward stands before a lone mirror inscribed “The Warden”. They gaze upon their own reflection & realize who they were.

The Ward condemns them self, saying they deserve to be imprisoned; yet the Ward lifts their hands & removes their mask. The Mask further condemns the Ward as they are being discarded.

The story ends with the Ward walking away to heal the world.

February Life Update – New Adventures

Hello, this month has been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. More than once I’ve just had to stop because I wanted to cry, but there have also been some unusually fun times. I guess you’d call it cathartic.

Also, side note, why has an old post of mine been getting views from a lot of random people this weekend? Not complaining, I just find it kinda weird that people are suddenly interested in a post from late 2014 (wow, this blog has been going for that long?).

Anyway, the main things this month:

• I’ve been getting myself setup as a freelance IT Sole-Trader, & thinking about how to make it viable has left me feeling a bit overwhelmed.

• I went on an impromptu road trip with some friends to Twizel overnight. It was nice to see central Canterbury & help a friend move some stuff back home.

• Been looking at the writing/lore aspect of my storytelling game prototype Sojourn.

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If you’re wondering what a Sole-Trader is, it’s essentially a one person business. If you’re wondering what I’m offering here’s my draft business card:

Yes, I’m intending on this being my business card (I wish I could say this was an original idea). I tried to do this in C# but I could see several problems with this approach.

Fortunately there isn’t much I need to legally do before I can begin work (I think I’ve got everything setup with my accountant now), but I’ve found myself having to wait regardless.

Suddenly LDing Again

Hello, it’s been a while since I’ve done any posts about dreams. This is because I’ve been forgetting virtually all of them for the past while, until recently. Not only is my recall suddenly much better, I’ve been able to become lucid much sooner than I typically do. So this post is about the two most recent LDs I’ve had (the first set in a school, the second in a ‘physics test level’) & how I realized/remembered how life-like dreams can be (this is long read).

February Lucid Dreams + the Last Dream of Six

Okay, I’m going to dump several dreams onto your lap.

About a fortnight ago I had lucid dreamed twice in the same morning for the first time; I had the idea to write I post about it but never got around to it till recently. On Sunday, I decided to start this post because I’d just woken up feeling like I had six dreams that one morning. Lastly, yesterday morning I LD’d again & felt like writing about that one as well. Dreams seem to be going quite well for me right now.

So that’s what this post is going to be about. I’m going to summarize the two lucid dreams I had in the same morning + the LD I had yesterday morning, & then tell you about the last dream of the six I had on Sunday morning. Why this last non-lucid dream – well, I quite like this dream. There’s a couple of interesting things that happen, including an encounter with a dream character I feel I’ve met before.

First Lucid Dream of 2015 – Yeays!

I’ve lucid dreamed again a few nights ago, & this one was markedly different for several reasons:

• Unlike my previous lucid dreams, I didn’t feel a sudden rush of excitement. I was able to stay calm in my awareness & I stayed in my dream for an extra few minutes.
• I tried to teleport to a different setting (Dive To The Heart from Kingdom Hearts, I really want to experience my own version of that) but failed.
• I realized I’ve been in the city I dreamt of before. Not in real life (although I do see elements of Dunedin in it) but I feel I’ve dreamed of the city on many separate nights.
• I tried to stop myself from waking up by spinning (in the dream I recalled it as a way to stabilize dreams. It isn’t until now that I realize it can also be used to teleport I think; damn!). However, it was more like I observed myself spinning, rather than experienced the spinning for myself, so it didn’t work.

Anyway, I felt the need to write it out in story form. I’ve added it to my dreams section, but you can simply go here to read it.

First Lucid Dream

Finally got on to finishing my first written story in like six years. Yay! I had most of this story done for the past few weeks but it was only until recently that I bothered to finish it off. I’ve added the story as a new page within a new section called Dreams.