So I finally got a look at my copy of To Change a TTRPG that is meant to tell transformation stories. While I feel the current system feels a bit light, I find it a fascinating idea and they even have a set of solo play rules where you're encouraged to journal out your story.
And I was so enamored with the game, I decided to start playing it.
So to start solo play, you create a character by drawing three cards from the major arcana of a tarot deck: face, rising, and falling.
I drew:
- Face - Temperance (can make changes permanent, satisfaction in the present)
- Rising - Magician (often inspired to create)
- Falling - Hermit (wracked by guilt and being blamed)
And then this was my first journal entry:
So let's find out what changes Tabitha is going to start out with due to my Strength draw yesterday. The random tables have you draw two cards to combine, so I'll see what options I have with the two drawn each way and pick between them. One mental and one physical.
First, I drew Judgement (20) and Moon (18) which is either "caricatured dreaming/surreal" or "Synesthesia imagined/delusion" for mental changes. And then I drew Emperor (4) and Hermit (9) which is either "undead superpower" or "mammalian food" for physical changes. OK, even though I've wrote about this a lot already I think I'll go with "mammalian food" and "caricatured dreaming/surreal".
Howdy, Journal!
Today was a Saturday for me even before the bad news so I had planned to sleep in. But nonetheless I woke right up at 4 am when I normally would for work, because my body is a jerk.
Nonetheless, I wasn't feeling too tired as the day went on, and I was finally glad to curl up with my book on the couch with some tunes on my headphones. I had a few books I wanted to read through, some fiction and some non-fiction. I eventually decided on a light novel because well, it would be good to remain light-hearted.
The book was a recommendation of Amanda's, one of her furry transformation books. I don't think I'm one myself, mind you, but I've known a few. Friendly folk. Amanda gets pretty, heh, squirrely about them but I know it's a deep interest and they are pretty good.
She had admitted in a late night conversation over beers that these types of books helped her on her path to transition, because I kind of wondered how that feels like. Not in any sense that I think I'm anything but cis, but it's almost the opposite. I'm so very certain about myself and the idea that anyone could have this... mismatch just feels foreign to my experience.
But I believe her when she says it and I can see it in her eyes. Both the before pictures and the after ones. There's a spark there, now.
Wow, odd that I'm writing this journal that's supposed to be me about her, but well, that's really the big part of this day. I read for a few hours, ate second breakfast (stole that idea from the hobbits), read some more, and then got lunch ready. On weekends, Amanda usually wakes up by the time I am making lunch, so I end up eating together with her. She's pretty regular about it, so I was very surprised she didn't show up.
I figured "it happens", and then ate my food and got back to reading. I was nearing the end of my book and it was great fluff (no pun intended) that was very no-stakes cozy cute love and... it doesn't exactly make me feel gushy, but it's nice to see people happy! As I was nearing the end, Amanda finally came in. Noticing that the sun had set a few hours ago, I was especially shocked.
I asked if she was all right. She mumbled something about staying up all night playing her game. Which was merely uncommon, as she would sometimes let herself really get into a game for a long weekend before settling back into her normal schedule. But what was really, really odd... Well the two things that were odd...
First, when she said this, I explicitly heard her say she "also played all day... or something?". I told her she was probably dreaming about the game, you know, the Tetris Effect. She slumped down on her beanbag chair before adding "Oh, yeah probably.... I think... It felt more real... Anyway, I gotta make a second character now."
She turned on the game and I got back to my reading. It didn't take me much longer to wrap up and then I looked up to see how far Amanda had gotten in creating her character. And to my surprise, I saw... me. That was the second really odd thing.
That is, Amanda was outfitting her character on some inventory screen and her character looked like a cartoon version of me. Short red hair in a messy boyish cut (much messier than actual) on a scrawny female body (much scrawnier than actual) and pale skin. The character's face was pretty simple, but her nose was especially round compared to some of the other characters, which is just like my nose. It was me.
I immediately asked if she made the character look like me, and she said she did not. She said was actually surprised it happened twice, her first character looked a lot like her. But both were randomly generated. She said the game doesn't even allow you to customize, you just ask for a character and handed a random one.
Pretty spooky, right? I joked that sounded like something that would happen in one of these books, and then we had a bit of conversation about the book (she was happy I enjoyed it), but before the conversation got really deep, I began to get really tired.
Maybe that was a third odd thing, because it felt like sleepiness hit me like a brick. Or like a light switch being flipped, or something. I hadn't done anything but lie around and read! It's winter, it was only like 6 pm or so, but I could barely even talk straight.
Amanda had moved on to talking about the game, how it was some sort of MMO where you are running a restaurant in a fantasy realm and you had to work together with other players to attract the most customers, and something about food magic and dungeon crawling for ingredients. I really couldn't follow along, I was too tired.
I tried to ask a question to make sure I was paying attention, and Amanda said she could barely understand me with all the yawning and suggested I get to bed myself... I decided to do so. So here I am!
I feel lucky I got a second burst of wind right before I was going to write this down! Just like that burst of inspiration to start writing this journal in the first place...
Anyway, good night!