981 – Going Dancing | Journey Into the Land of Tomorrow 13

Notable Language:

• TMI
• Before the After Time
• Debrief

Notable Culture:

• Waffle House
• Red Dead Redemption
• Skyrim

Notable Talking Points:

• Waffle House Prophecies
• Walking around the countryside in video games
• Are there any more handy halls to check out?

Episode 981 – Going Dancing | Journey Into the Land of Tomorrow 13

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, my patron peeps, it’s time for me to sing.  I couldn’t do it without you, patron peeps.  Really, truly, thank you so much and what do you say we get on with the show?

 

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake, whether it’s thoughts, things you’re thinking about on your mind, thoughts…so, past, present, or future thoughts…thoughts, physical sensations, so anything coming up for your body or feelings, anything emotionally coming up for you.  Whatever it is that’s keeping you awake; it could be changes in schedule.

 

Like, when I’m recording this…not to do TMI but oh boy, am I having one of those weeks.  It’s the week leading up to springing forward.  Hopefully you’ll be hearing this in the summertime or something.  But I do not want to spring ahead because my sprung has already…I say, I don’t know if…my springs do not have any tensile strength anymore.  But I roll with it.  The one thing I learned by making this show is hey, take it…okay, can’t fall asleep, eh?  Okay, what can we do?  Can we stay calm?  That’s always the first question I ask myself.  Can we take a breath here?  Can we rest?  Should we change it up?  Should we get out of bed?  Anyway, enough about me because really, whatever’s keeping you awake is why I’m here right now.  I can relate to what’s keep…I mean, that’s what…my main point about that.

 

But whatever’s keeping you awake, I’d like to take your mind off of that.  What I’m gonna do is try to create a safe place here where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake, whether it’s…oh wait, I already said that.  Then I’ll send…so, what I’ll do is I’ll send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’ll use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, oh so creaky are my dulcet tones.  Just another sign of my imperfection.  You say, how do you know that…how do you judge the fallibility of a sleep podcaster?  You say well, I guess on the great old…the old creaky scale, Scoots is on the…he’s on the creaky side of dulcet.  I think he wrote…that was one of the many books he never wrote multiple times.  That’s how he also got banned from Waffle House.  Really?  He got banned from Waffle House?

 

Yeah, he started ordering his eggs on the creaky side of dulcet.  They said, what?  He said yeah, I’ll take my eggs on the creaky side of dulcet.  It actually caused a backup on everybody’s order because they said I think this young man’s serious.  Then they went back and they had a conference, then they called the corporate office on the big…the Waffle Phone which is only for Waffle House emergencies which in this case is breakfast-related.  They said corporate HQ, what’s going on?  They said we got somebody here with an order we…that’s incomprehensible.  They said, inconceivable?  They said well, not…I guess…we can’t comprehend it, so we don’t know if we can conceive it.  They said well, what kind of waffle did this young person order?

 

They said well, young person was just a polite way he would describe himself in the third person, but he ordered…he didn’t order a waffle.  I say okay, okay.  Really?  Went to a Waffle House; he didn’t order waffles.  I say well, yeah, of course.  Okay, what did he order?  He ordered his eggs with…on a creaky side of dulcet and he just said it, and then he said it again.  We said, that’s how you want your eggs?  He said, yeah.  We didn’t ask him to elaborate because…but he was so confident.  So, we’re just wondering if you have anything in the big WH database, you know, in the history of the WH, any of the old cookbooks or corporate secret vaults?  Anything on a creaky side of dulcet with…as far as an order goes?  Has it been…it’s never happened before.

 

I’ll tell you what; as a matter of fact, I can’t get into the history of the belief systems of the Waffle House, but I can tell you that this was predicted.  One day I was out on a hike and I came across a cabin.  I gotta get to the point, but some…a person in the cabin told me one day you’ll get an order from a restaurant.  One day you’ll be working in Waffle House HQ.  You’ll get a order that makes no sense at all.  You’ll…don’t bother with it; just tell them to order something else.  Okay.  We’ll do that.  Tell him he’s supposed to…he’s not…tell the customer he’s not actually in a Waffle House and he’s not actually ordering breakfast.  He’s supposed to be starting the intro to a sleep podcast.  Is that what the person in the cabin told you?  Yes, it was a wise woman and she told me to tell him to get back to the intro.

 

Okay, sorry everybody.  Drifted off there.  So, oh, whatever’s keeping you awake, I’d like to take your mind off that, send my voice…creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, and superfluous tangents.  I think we just got a dose of that.  So, I’m gonna go off-topic to keep you company while you fall asleep.  But the thing is, a couple things about this show; one is it doesn’t really put you to sleep.  I’m more here to keep you company while you fall asleep.  That’s why the episodes are over an hour, so you have plenty of time to drift off.  Even if you can’t sleep, I’ll be here.  I’ll be here to the very end, so just kinda see how it goes.  So, that’s one thing.  The other thing is, this is a podcast you really don’t listen to.

 

It’s more of a podcast you barely pay attention to, kinda like that whole thing…you may have been listening; you say what is this…is this a thought experiment?  Well, two, is there any belief systems based on Waffle House?  I would say 100% guaranteed.  Everybody deserves a good breakfast, and a good breakfast every day makes everything go pretty good for Waffle House’s way.  If you eat there and…many other things.  So, it’s a podcast you kinda just barely pay attention to…is…so, don’t really listen.  You kinda just…just like, you say what is he babbling about?  You might be new; you might say that and you say, oh.  Then if you become a regular listener you say what’s Scoots babbling about?  Then if you become a superfan you say huh, what’s Scoots babbling about?

 

Waffle House; I might barely listen to this one.  So, those are two things for new listeners you gotta get used to, and that’s totally normal ‘cause I mean, I would be skeptical if I tuned into this podcast and listened to it for the first three or four times, for sure.  Then I would be more skeptical about…you’d say oh yes, you gotta view Scoots with some skepticism but some sort of positive version of that where you say I’m…he’s…I’m skeptical he’ll ever make any sense.  Also, I wonder if the Waffle House really does have a Waffle Phone.  Or at least, they might have one at HQ.  So, those are a couple things to…the other thing if you’re new that can throw you off is the structure of the show.  So, the show starts off…it has a very unique structure because it’s a very unique podcast, but everything kinda serves a purpose.

 

So, the show starts off with a greeting; friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, so you feel welcome and seen.  Then there’s business and…so, there’s listener support, then there’s the sponsors that support the show.  So, there’s some resources for listeners, then there’s how we keep the podcast free.  That’s the next part.  Then there’s an intro.  That’s where it really steers…the intro’s around twelve to twenty minutes long of me explaining the podcast.  At first it could seem ornerous.  You say, what do you mean, I gotta sit through all this?  I say well, no.  It’s kind of a…it serves a purpose.  The show is designed in a way…and it’s definitely not for everybody but that’s why you gotta give it a few tries.

 

The intro is meant to introduce the new listener to the podcast but it has new nonsense every single time so that the regular listener…so you can adjust.  Whatever part of you is keeping you awake can’t get used to it and say well, I know…people say well, I know Scoots is gonna talk about…is he gonna imagine he’s at a Waffle House tonight again?  [00:10:00] That may happen when every…once every 333 episodes or something, but not much often than that.  So, oh, but the intro also serves as a wind-down for most listeners.  Not for every listener; I understand.  But as you get used to the show, the majority of listeners start listening as they’re easing into bedtime, whether that’s getting ready for bed or relaxing or getting in bed and getting comfortable versus this show is just not designed to put you to sleep instantly.

 

For some people it does, but not the majority of listeners.  That’s great if it puts you to sleep instantly.  But so, it’s meant to kinda ease you as a part of your bedtime routine, so you could be doing some other calming stuff.  You could also adjust.  3% of listeners skip the beginning of the show and they start the show at around twenty minutes.  I just heard from a reviewer who said they start the show at thirty minutes and then they set a thirty-minute timer, and that’s a unique way to listen.  If that works for them…you can kinda see what works for you.  If you like to listen all night or you like something…being a patron’s always an option but there’s a lot of ways people adjust the show to that works for them with the free show.  But so, the intro eases you into bedtime.

 

Then it’ll be our…then there’s business, then it’s our episodically modular story, Journey into the Land of Tomorrow, that you can listen to in any order.  This happens to be a recap look-back episode.  So, a great way to start it out or finish it or just fall asleep to it.  Then there’s thank-yous at the end, so that’s the structure of the show.  The reason I make this show is because I’ve been there.  Last night…every other night over the past while, I’ve been there.  Trouble getting to sleep…oh boy, big time, and then trouble staying asleep, big time.  So, I know how it feels.  You could probably hear it in my voice.  I say okay, well, it’s…never…give it another try tonight.  So, I know how it feels out there.  Even today, I say man, I’m more vulnerable I feel like, emotionally or mentally when I don’t get enough sleep.

 

I can’t flourish or even be…you know what I mean.  If I can help you with that…while this show does not work for everybody, I really hope it can help you because you deserve a good night’s sleep and you deserve a rest.  Just like I say it to myself, it’s like okay, it’s not happening right now but we’ll get through it.  We’ll just take it one day at a time and we’ll see…yeah, we’ll try to do our routine again tonight and see if that works.  So, I hope Sleep With Me can be part of your bedtime routine and help you get to sleep.  It really would be my honor.  I work really hard on this show.  I yearn and I strive and I really hope I can help you fall asleep.  Thanks.

 

Alright everybody, this is Scoots here and this is our…normally our look-back episode where we’re looking back at the series we did, Journey into the Land of Tomorrow.  It’s kinda where I unpack stuff and look at it.  I think this is gonna be a two-part episode, so I’m gonna talk for a little while and then I’m actually gonna try to turn it over to the DM and the players so they could look at the game.  I thought about doing it as one but then I said well, they might not want to know that they’re fictional characters in a fictional game playing something fictional in a world that’s fictional, so that might…you know, I gotta think of their goodnight sleeps as well.  So, let’s see, where does it all start?

 

So, Journey into the Land of Tomorrow, for those of you that are…if you’re listening now, I’m here to keep you company and put you to sleep but if you’re saying well, I want to listen a little bit as I drift off but I didn’t listen to any of that series or I didn’t hear it; I listened…I neither listened nor heard, Scoots.  Your voice was present in the same room as me, though.  I say fair enough, that’s my job.  But yeah, let me give you an overview of the concept as it kinda came to me.  The concept then…as it kinda came to me ended up developing in the way I wanted it to.  Not without a lot of unforeseen things, and I think I already talked about this a little bit somewhere but so, right now it’s March 2021 when I’m recording this.  I started recording this series in 2020 at some point.  I have no idea when.

 

Maybe late summer or something, but…or fall.  I don’t know.  But so, the idea was…well, the initial idea or curiosity, it was interconnected…the…all the ideas were…I don’t know which idea came first but at some point I was DMing a game with family members.  I was like huh, could this be an episode, like just one episode or something of people playing DnD?  Then I said no, it doesn’t have the quite…I think I even recorded a little bit of one of our games and I said no, that doesn’t really work.  Doesn’t have enough.  It would be more of a parody and that’s…or…it just didn’t have enough…I don’t know, there to say okay, that’s…it gets green-lit by Scoots.  But I said hey kid, I like your ideas so keep them coming.  They said well, what if it was fictional?  I said well, tell me more.  This part of me pitched me.

 

It said okay, so you have a fictional group of friends playing a board game.  I said, I like…again, I like the idea but I’m not quite…there’s not quite enough layers there for…I can’t see it yet.  Come back to me with more.  I’m not sure which idea came back…the part…this is when I’m on my walks or taking a shower, you know, or sitting around.  When I’m trying to do something else or go to sleep, these ideas come up.  I’m not sure which of these two came up first but it came up with two more ideas.  It said well, what if they’re not playing in our world?  Or I guess maybe more than two ideas.  I said okay, I like that idea.

 

What if they’re playing in a former Walt Disney World after…and it said, the same theme park that the girl from the theme park series is set in, but at a different time; not her…not the same time she’s there because you say, you really liked that series, but it…and I said whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone there.  I like what you’re saying.  So, this would be a DnD game that doesn’t exist in our world at all, any of the layers of fiction, except for the Fifth Edition rules.  That part of me said yeah, so basically they’ll be in a different time.  They’ll be in the same world as the girl…they’ll be in a non-fictional world to them, of…the same non-fictional world the girl in the theme park…the girl who was raised by a theme park or may have raised a theme park series took place.  This was a series we did three or four years ago, maybe?

 

I have no idea.  It never had a title, so it’s kinda hard.  I think the all-night versions are on the $10, $20 patron feed.  I’m not sure.  I’ll try to put some of this in the notes or something.  I’m not my own historian.  My memories are history.  That’s not even meant to be a pun; that’s just a fact.  But that’s also…put it on a pillow.  So, I wonder if your synapses would say yeah, your memories are history because we already passed them on.  Then it took four microseconds…they’re four microseconds old by the time they get to your…your think…your consciousness.  Then they’re another .2 micron seconds old before they get to your…in most peoples’ mouths.  By the time they get out of your mouth, Scoots, it’s…a whole second has elapsed.  I say okay, that’s great to know.  So, anyway, back to this pitch.

 

So, okay, so these players exist in the same universe…real universe as the girl in a theme park.  Yes, but afterwards, after everything that happened.  They exist in her future.  Okay, ‘cause she does something important, probably, in their world.  Yeah, so they actually have a belief system based on her.  Okay.  I like that.  So, does the game take place…so, how do we…how do they play a roleplaying game, though?  Oh, the roleplaying game takes place in the past, in their mythological path…in their mythological past.  Okay, what are you…tell me more.  So, before she became the girl in a theme park, there was the world that was ripe for change, that had already changed.  It had become…it was like our world and then it became like their world.  Okay, so let me back this up a little bit further.

 

So, if this was our timeline, we would be in the before-time.  No.  Like you said in the early episode, you’re in the before-before time.  Then this game takes place in the before-time, so after your time which is after-after our time but before her time which was before their time, which is the after-time.  Okay.  So, could we break that into letters?  So, they’re playing in…so, the time they were playing in, we’ll say it’s [00:20:00] fourteen…has it been thousands of years?  Scoots, that’s probably beyond your understanding.  Okay, but the time they’re playing it would be the CT, current time, right?  So, they were playing in 14 CT, we’ll just say.  Sure, but it’s not 14 ‘cause that would be…okay, I get that, but…so, 14 CT.  Then the girl in the theme park, she existed up until probably 0 CT or something.

 

Scoots, you’re projecting your own belief system onto this belief system.  You’re right.  You’re right; you caught me there.  Maybe the…okay, so basically they’re playing the game in the future of a future of a future.  Yeah.  This is sleepy stuff, Scoots.  It is, and in their past is the girl in the theme park.  Her present is in their past but before it was their…her present, it was the past.  So, there was a time before her, so they’re playing a game set in an abandoned theme park before she arrived.  Right, surrounding mythological events that may have led to her existence or to the events around her existence.  Okay, so that makes sense a little bit.  Normally games are even more…it’d be interesting ‘cause we really don’t…I’m sure there are more…yeah, so that is interesting to me.

 

But I guess if you have a formal…a theme park that’s been abandoned, I mean, that’s ripe for playing a roleplaying game in, especially if it becomes…okay, so, I like that idea.  Let’s make it into a series, then.  Okay.  So, how do you propose narrowing the world?  Should we just brainstorm?  So, this is what happened; we brainstormed and at the same time, my daughter…somewhere around this time…so, this would have been 2020, early, mid-2020 in our time that I’m talking to you, but in your past I guess, and somewhat of my past.  My daughter and I took a Khan Academy course or something about imagineering and I came up with…we were supposed to come up with a new theme park.  I said well, I’d rather redo Tomorrowland in Disney World.

 

That was also an influence to make this series ‘cause you said oh, well, there’s a contained part of Disney World; it’s too big to do this in, just like the Sword Coast is part of the Forgotten Realms.  You say okay, which part…okay, and then narrow it down even more to…so, you said okay, we’ll just set it just in Tomorrowland.  Then it was cool ‘cause we got to try to find some blueprints and reimagine…I mean, of course this is fictional, so it’s not…don’t hold me to it.  Then I was kinda basing some of the DMing I did in real adventures and then researching and reading a lot of adventures to say okay, how did they do that in that adventure?

 

Then I was kinda letting go of some of the rules but also using the rules, and then also using…the nice thing was with this great idea that came to me from somebody, some forgotten part of me was…it offered a lot of layers because…okay, so we had this world-building possibility of the theme park which was part of the adventure module.  Then you have whatever the crisis and challenges are.  You say okay, so it has some mystical element ‘cause we know from the girl with the theme park, and we’ll put some sort of time thing on it.  They have a very clear end objective but they have to reach…they have things…there’s a little Indiana Jones in there with having to get the pieces to complete their objective.  So, that was cool.  So, there was those things and then there was…like okay, who were the characters?

 

Then, so there’s characters and then they’re doing…playing roleplaying.  They’re playing roles.  So, before this series started, I said okay, here’s the characters and…but then I got to place the characters in this constraint where it’s like no, they’re not just the characters; they’re the characters playing the roles of their characters.  Then also just as I was brainstorming, I don’t know how this came up but the idea of kinda starting it…’cause I don’t know, this is one thing I learned from being a DM only briefly and then trying to look at stuff is like, sometimes the start…it was better to start in the action because the beginning of the game, it’s just…there’s a lot of to-dos and information-gathering and interviews.

 

It feels a lot…you say how much of this DnD game…or even Skyrim; I say how many interviews do I gotta…what am I, running an interview podcast here or on an adventure?  Those games…what are those called?  Like, the video roleplaying games.  I end up spending…whether it’s…the three ones I’ve played within the last five years have been the cowboy one, The Cowboy Part 1 and The Cowboy Part 2.  Never finished…I don’t think I finished Part 2 ‘cause I left the Game Pass.  Then Skyrim.  Maybe…oh, one or two others; the space…whatever that recent one was in the last two years that was popular.  Then the outing of the…when the sky…Sky Falling Out.  But I always end up just walking around the countryside ‘cause I say well, I…if I go to a town, I gotta do all these interviews and go open doors.

 

So, I said okay, let’s start it.  I said, that’ll make sense ‘cause as I tried to…one thing I learned the very hard way, way, way back, and I re-tested out the theory, is that you have to have a limited number…it’s not a matter of character voices or characters; it’s stakeholders.  ‘Cause when I did Superdull, that was our largest cast.  Because it was superheros, they all had a equal stake.  They were all stakeholders in each episode that they were all in.  I found that to be too many stakeholders so I said okay, how can we keep this with a limited, manageable amount of stakeholders, characters…or active characters, whatever you want to call it, because if you have too many active characters, it just does…it’s not…doesn’t go…it just becomes too much to handle, especially for a sleep podcast.

 

So, then I said okay, probably four is probably the best number.  I can remember…yeah, I can remember in October I think we were already recording these, or September, being like okay, this works.  Because then I said okay, well, one character could have a sidekick, then maybe the DM has to play one of the characters.  It’s not 100% clear if it’s…’cause then we start to think about the types of characters and the people playing them.  Then it also was like, the mechanism of the game, roleplaying game, is like okay…the cool thing is that if you have the right…we got the right balance of stakeholders to have personal conflict or interpersonal conflict.  When I say that, it sounds like sometimes it could fall on the ears the wrong way.

 

It just means that not everything is in consensus or 100% agreement all the time.  Obviously all of us know consensus-building is not easy.  That’s the kind of…at least for my brief time, it’s like, unless you have a real dominant person in a game, which we didn’t have, the players…it’s more…it’s better if everybody’s a stakeholder and you build consensus when you can.  But at the same time, every round is gonna have a different level of where the people are at when they get to sit down to play the game.  So, I said okay, those offer a lot of opportunities for meanders, for going and…for zooming in and zooming back out, for speeches.  You want to talk about consensus-building is great for a sleep podcast; you gotta say well, I’d like to…yeah, I’d like you to hear my point of view now.  You say, okay.

 

That could always…you can always dial those in and out.  You say well, this one, they’re gonna agree on.  Seems pretty obvious.  This one…I don’t know if they’re…and then you say okay, and then how are the real people playing the game influencing…like, sometimes you’re not gonna want to build consensus ‘cause you’re…or the DM might say well, I’m gonna…you know, we’re human beings, or this idea is…it’s not making it realistic; it’s making it relatable.  So, I don’t know.  Those all offered opportunities.

 

Then it was like, managing the different parts of the adventure which was fun from a world-building perspective, a writing perspective of taking what was there…oh, and I guess I could close out with just imagining…so, I did try to imagine what…how would they redo Tomorrowland in Disney World realistically if they were really gonna [00:30:00] redo it in this current…in the…what do we call this, 2020s or whatever?  ‘Cause you’d say okay, a lot of times their reboots have been all-or-nothing, right?  They said okay, we’re gonna do this vision of the future or this vision of a vision of the future.  So, my idea was this is all…it’s a celebration…it was like a roleplaying world.  I don’t know if this came across ‘cause I didn’t have a total number of…amount of time, but the idea would be that it’s Tomorrowland that’s a roleplaying place.

 

So, the Tomorrowland is people playing a role…let’s see if I can explain it.  The idea is that that area of the park becomes a place to celebrate different visions of tomorrow.  Maybe it’s in the future, too, like wink, wink.  So, there’s Streetmosphere players playing…people playing a role, celebrating.  Or are they?  That part could become more grey.  Like, you say okay, these are the people that love Victorian steampunk future, and they have a pavilion dedicated to it and they were even trying to get you to come or get you to eat their snacks, have the steam-driven corn or whatever.  Then there’s the corporate dystopia, there’s the anti-dystopia, and that it would be like, each attraction…then the Progress Tower was like oh, this is kinda the Disney-esque, ultra-modern version of the future.

 

Space Mountain would be re-themed to Funky Fun Future.  I didn’t get to the other side of the park ‘cause definitely they were making that Tron ride and then the…you’d have to redo those somehow.  But I also thought about it; this one, they would use the characters from…Carousel of Progress would be part of the queue for these different things, and that would have been the new big thing they would build.  It’s a hotel with three attractions built into it, so you’d finally get a hotel in the theme park.  Super expensive probably, but that’s how they build that stuff, anyway.  I thought that would just be interesting also that it’s like oh, they never got this…this was a reboot of the Tomorrowland that the future passed by.  They didn’t even finish re-theming it before times changed and theme parks were no longer a thing.  So yeah, I think that’s it for me.  I’m gonna turn it over to the game players and see what their thoughts are and stuff.  But yeah, I appreciate you listening to the season so far.  Thanks.

 

Alright, hey everybody, come on, let’s sit down ‘cause I have this scheduled…I have our time scheduled a little differently this week…so, to do a debrief.  I just wanted to say upfront I really appreciate everybody’s involvement with this game, your patience with me.  This was my first time DMing.  Your enthusiasm really came through in a way that felt authentic to me but maybe…I want to do a debrief to just talk about how it went for everybody.  Hopefully we could play a…do another campaign one day soon.  But I really enjoyed it.  I really feel like my connection to her is stronger now, and thinking about…I don’t know.  I really have been doing a lot of thinking.  I know interpersonally this game offered us a lot of chances for development, or at least I did because I felt challenged at times.

 

There were times I had to go and talk to some people outside of the game and say hey, what do you think I should do about this?  They said well, isn’t the game supposed to be fun?  Did you forget…you’re supposed to have fun and the players are…and I say oh yeah, you’re right, I forgot about that, and all the prep and stuff.  I just wanted to take a few minutes and then we’ll…we won’t go our separate ways, I hope.  I hope we’re gonna go do something, right?  So, that should be fun.  So, thanks everybody.  Yeah, I don’t know if anybody wants to…go ahead.  Should we stay in roles or how do you feel?  This is…I’m happy to stay as Eleanor.

 

I kind of am processing where we’re…because I think as characters, we could have the interpersonal thing in our…where we go out…where we go out together as a group and this could be the debrief for the game and the play…the characters, maybe.  I am sitting here and I’ve been thinking about Watta and Darmok and…especially with my newfound…I appreciate what you said ‘cause of my newfound connection to the Three Florences, hearing and then starting to study some of…what Grenada of Darmok believed, is…I feel like I have a new level…because the Three Florences are not intimidated by the idea of my belief system expanding.  So, yeah, I mean, I would say that Shaka when the walls fell.  I think about Tanagra now.

 

But so, that’s one thing, is thinking about how well that…how that and then Watta, being in another magical realm and already having a friend at least with the CeeCee and the steam beings.  As a player, I’m comfortable with what happened with the wizards, that they seemed to have been too tempted by the access to a magical realm to another world that they stepped too far, clearly, out of their lane.  I believe that they were up to something and they were gonna try to take the staff from us and use it to try to control the portal which would have failed.

 

I think now with the remaining members of our party, we have to decide…at least even in the interim…I’ve thought about it and I’m happy to discuss it with Zell and Lord von Chill, is where we’re gonna store…I think we should put the gem somewhere and I have a opinion about it — maybe we discussed it last week — and that then we should dedicate ourselves to exploring as adventurers in the idea of keeping the gem safe.  We don’t know if the portal could ever be broken out of the gem, but I think that that’s what I see our role as; exploring, learning to live together or separately ‘cause we really haven’t figured that out.

 

We had these discussions; Lord von Chill really impacted me of saying well, what if we put aside our notions of what relationships should be or even what we feel inside and say well, what does that mean, that expanded idea, especially now that it is the three of us?  What would the three of us look like in a comfortable way in this world?  Just in this world; where would…would we keep moving?  Would we camp?  Would we establish our own homesteads?  I think we should probably each establish our own private area for retreat and rest at times.  But those are my thoughts.  Oh, as far as with those thoughts being…if this adventure was only a pastime, years from now when I look back at this adventure with the perspective of my entire lifetime, I would say this was a very enjoyable adventure that…I was surprised at every turn because this was something I just hadn’t…adventure I hadn’t been on before.

 

It was…we got to go on those happy…Handy Halls.  I lost my link to the Florences.  I never knew that could even…I mean, I knew I could have some distance from them, but I was able to reconnect with the Three Florences and get my connection to their spiritual power back.  I’m interested to see what the rest of this theme park is like, and that my understanding is it’s very large, like the size of a large city as far as land goes.  I guess those are my thoughts.  Lord von Chill, you seem to be looking and thinking, too.  Yes, thank you, Eleanor.  I am still quiet and subdued because I’ve…I am still coming to terms with this is where we’ll be.  I think…and I’ve learned a lot from Zell and Eleanor and even Watta and Grenada of Darmok and the forces that drove this adventure have taught me many things.

 

It is this idea of what I wanted and what…[00:40:00] how I thought as Lord von Chill; my manor, my estate, all the more things I could achieve in my lifetime, my legacy, my family’s legacy.  All those things are now not an option, seemingly.  Will anyone know the…I guess it’s not important to me.  That actually is soothing.  I say will anyone know what we did here?  Probably…maybe not, and maybe that’s okay.  Is this an…I’ve been set out on an…what could be more adventuring than an unexpected adventure?  So, in some sense, I’m thrilled but I’m also not thrilled at the same time.  I need to come to terms with that, losing of course Grenada of Darmok; not a sidekick to me.

 

Much more deeper than that, like I lost part of myself, which I guess…and then I say well, this is…so, this is a new beginning for me in many, many more ways than one.  I’m wondering what it’ll be like.  I feel like a child again.  I say well, maybe I could be grateful for that opportunity and then think about Watta and CeeCee and every…was any of that real?  Also, I have this ominous feeling when we looked out at that tower…technically, I guess that tower is outside not just of this immediate theme park within a theme park complex; it may be out…is that sealed off or not?  I always speculated about it and we’re not sure.  When we look out on the horizon, that maybe there’s even another tower further in the distance.  So, I’d like to adventure there and I’d like to check out the boundaries of our territory.

 

Maybe we could do that first.  Maybe not.  I don’t know, but we could talk about that or maybe have a time of solitude and retreat, as you pointed out, in some sense, Eleanor.  So, those are my immediate thoughts.  I’m proud to be associated with the two of you and our other companions.  Yeah, looking back, I’ve never been on an adventure like this.  Eleanor, you weren’t there for the first part where the adventure already became unexpected.  We went to the town outside of the theme park, the last remnants of…where we could get supplies and gather information.  You weren’t here for that.  Then our journey into the park was another…and those were where we started to lose…we lost some players there, or adventurers.

 

I think part of it was this was a new experience for the person behind-the-scenes, the wizard of…behind-the-scenes with this adventure.  Some people just weren’t willing to let somebody grow.  But I mean, I think it was also maybe…you said well, if you’re not here to have fun, then maybe you shouldn’t be here.  If you’re not here for an adventure, what are you here for?  So, then you joined our party, Eleanor, and I’m very grateful for that.  You know, we haven’t had too many direct challenges but some indirect ones, and I’m still trying to come to an understanding of what it means to be a Florencian nurse and live under the Three Florences.  Some of it sounds very intriguing to me, so I hope to learn more over time.  I guess I look back at our adventure; we say okay, so we started out when Eleanor joined us.

 

The adventure felt small.  We were just checking out that one building.  We talked to that robot thingamajig, the curry bot, and then we had to get rid of those plush gators and then we had to deal with Skippy and the…that other…that big animatronic.  That wasn’t…we really grow…grew our skills.  Then we went into the steam…we got some rest with the Steam Genie.  We saw the steam giant would become…would come back in our adventure.  We never saw the Steam Genie again.  Or did we?  Did we find any parts of the Steam Genie?  I can’t remember.  But that was quite an adventure as well.  Then heading into the…what was it, Buzz Tomorrow and the Emperor and the little green people and going through that.

 

Then that was when we started to have some…it was the part…partway in…were we fully in the adventure because you lost your power.  Zell lost her trust in Watta, understandably, Zell.  Then we got through that one and we went to…but there was some close ones in there, right?  Because you couldn’t even heal us.  We were in the Handy Halls.  Maybe we could…is there…I wonder if there’s more Handy Halls we could check out.  But I don’t want us to get distracted.  But that was cool; we danced with those…we did…we met a lot of great animatronics.  Then we left there and that’s when the steam giant was in a new place, or…I can’t remember.  Then we snuck around, and then we met that family, the Carousel of Tomorrow family.  Some of them worked with us and some of them did not.  We went up Progress Tower.

 

That was another…not a…it wasn’t even our main adventure but we had to deal with that.  That was another wizard up to trouble-making for us.  I wonder if that wizard was associated with the other wizards or not.  Then because Watta…that was the first time in any adventure I had ever been transported…where we all fell asleep and then we got moved.  I said wow, they should do that more often.  I liked…I really liked that ‘cause that was surprising.  It was a little bit different having the DM play a character that was nearly a main character, but I think wow, is Watta fully fleshed-out, mostly.  It was good that Watta was quiet, but I felt…I could feel the looks on Watta’s face a lot of times, especially when Watta was focusing on magic, so, yeah, there’s those things.  Then we got out of Progress Tower.

 

Then we were trying to figure out the steam giant.  Now, this is the one that kinda sticks with me and says this is gonna be quite the adventure, because those beings we dealt with in…the veteran and those other beings, that was a challenge, a pretty big challenge, right?  We had to get through that.  But they were saying they were part of another group and they were supposed to go.  They had those flares that we still have with us somewhere.  So, I have a feeling that resting easy will not be…that we should be aware, but not…this is a large park and I think we have some advantages.  I agree that I guess we should come up with a general plan for rest for now, and a what’s-next, but our current what’s-next is to, yeah, figure out how are we gonna best protect that gem and what shall we do for that.

 

Then, how shall we live…we’ll be discovering every…each day at a time.  But overall, I…and then oh, and we met those…I would like to…I wish I would have seen that attraction with the dancing Goof teaching peace through dance.  I guess I’m ready for a new start.  Like I said, maybe things don’t go the way I want them to or expect them to.  But maybe that’s part of my adventure, is saying well, can you be okay with that?  But I’d also ask that if I’m taking risks, let other people take a risk to say well, let’s just see what’s…let’s find our comfort zone but let’s find the edges of our comfort zone too as we relate to one another.  So, that’s…I guess that’s all I have to…I mean, wow, what a time.  I’m so happy.  [00:50:00] Zell, what do you have to say about things?

 

You’ve been our leader and not a leader by attitude but a leader in…you led by leading.  We probably already said that.  Go ahead, Zell.  Well, thank you.  Yeah, I mean, I think…I can’t say much more.  I have to be honest; maybe I don’t have the space right now for Watta and Grenada because of…I think what you both have pointed out, is what are we going…and I have an idea, so I guess I’ll run my plan by both of you because I think, yeah, separating the staff back into two pieces and then taking the gem should be our primary purpose, but I think we already have the conditions for that.  We have the…whatever it was called, the Space Mountain Dance Off or whatever.  Up on top there are those poles that already had lights for flying things.

 

I was thinking we could put the gem…I’m pretty sure we could put the gem inside of one of those lights up on the top.  I say that for a few reasons.  I think that building is already still…and I think we could probably talk to the guardians of that building that will be there.  We could see if we could get that wizard back because that wizard left, but where did that wizard go?  So, that’s one thing, if the wizard’s sworn to protect magic at all costs and the spectators and the other floaty-floats…and then maybe we’ll have to learn some of Grenada’s skills to reinforce some things.  If we could teach that wizard to use the flares or set some kinda thing up with the flares or something like that, then wherever we are…if something somehow knew…there’s not really a chance of that, but if something knew that the gem was there, then we would know that they’re going there and we could get back.

 

But it would be really hard to get to and really unlikely to say well, let me go on the…I mean, I can see someone saying let’s go on top of that mountain, so we’d have to…but as opposed to hiding it somewhere else, that’s somewhere…hiding it in plain sight but hiding it somewhere where we could most of the time know.  Like, maybe there’s even something we could do that it’s like oh, we noticed something changed up there, even if it’s flags or something flying that someone would probably disturb if they were disturbing things.  We don’t want to call attention to it though, either.  But that’s what I would think, is that if it was up there in a fairly protected building anyway, that we could reinforce and keep people out of…I mean, the steam giant’s still functioning too, so the steam giant could…we can probably repair the steam giant, maybe.

 

Yeah, then that’s kinda part of our mission.  So, that’s one thing.  Then, I agree; I think I guess I agree with Lord von Chill, that…and Eleanor.  Maybe we take some time, we rest…we have separate areas of rest and retreat.  We can work in shifts and together, but we also have a together space inside of Disco Space Mountain or whatever it was called.  As we’re working, we’re also taking time to recover from this quite an intense adventure we were on.  We’re trying to figure out our relationship between the three of us which will take some figuring out.  You know, how do we keep this adventure…will we encounter anyone else that adventures with us?  But I think resting and then exploring the boundaries is probably a good idea because then we kinda know what we’re dealing with.

 

That could take quite some time, so we’ll have to come up…then we could start…we could find as much map material that exists and use that and really do some mapping.  So, I think that would be important.  I mean, the other big question is…and this is why I’m trying to stay open-minded, is okay, we do have that other party.  There may be other, other parties or other wizards here, so we should keep that in mind.  But also, this…the effects of the portal that we’ve already witnessed…how much of that was portal-open specific versus how much of it leaked into the park and became part of the park?  Also, I’m having the experience of the steam spirits, even though we can’t see them.

 

I don’t know if anybody else is having this experience, or maybe I’m the only one feeling it of like, that they are childlike and that maybe the protectiveness of the portal for the two of you is…infantile is the wrong word.  Childlike is…doesn’t quite answer it, either.  Yeah, Zell, this is Eleanor; I’m having the same experience.  I just couldn’t put it to words.  I was feeling it.  Lord von Chill?  I know what you mean.  I guess I was feeling protective like that, like stepping in front of someone and saying whoa, stand behind me because I could be in the way.  So, maybe that’s another part of our adventure or our mission, is…but it’s also something we need to learn more about.  Yeah, I think it’s something we could learn more about.  Maybe we could find a way to communicate.  I don’t know.  Can we or not?

 

I’m asking that out loud in case the steam beings wanted to answer us, or…but they haven’t.  Overall, I’m really impressed because in my opinion, the adventure has allowed us to become us as a party and as individual adventurers.  When I look at the progression of our characters, while we could have progressed more or…but the challenges created challenges within our party which I think is really impressive.  When you think about our all…our individual backstories, I think we’ve all…I mean, Lord von Chill, I mean, holy moly, your entire backstory…but even mine, of…I had goals as a person to take what I had earned adventuring and open…I had these hopes and dreams, too, and more vague ones of just adventuring and bringing justice and equality and dignity and respect to communities.

 

But so, it’s like okay, well, maybe some of those broader values could take place here.  But to have an adventure that…and then Eleanor, I feel like we’re still getting to know you.  Then yeah, Grenada’s influence on all of us and Watta’s influence.  I think it was a good adventure.  Then, yeah, I think I…there was times I didn’t have fun but maybe that was also…or, times I was impatient and thinking…and then yeah, like I said, we’ll have to explore how we’re all gonna get through this.  But I mean, I’m looking forward to our next adventure but also our adventure as a group.  That just doesn’t include a group of three; it includes a group of four friends, whatever the other interpersonal relationships might be.

 

A group of four friends that have gotten to…that have just started out on the journey of friendship together and started to see one another in a way that says hey, wow, you’ve really put a lot of work into this adventure.  Wow, you really gave up a lot and maybe it was part of the story and you didn’t have a choice, but you did have a choice.  So, I don’t know.  I’m happy and I’m happy to be with all of you and happy to hang out.  Now we’re gonna go out dancing.  I can’t believe the DM…so, I’m breaking character, I guess.  But I think I love the idea that we’re gonna go out dancing together.  So, this place plays seventy…it has…each thirty minutes it changes themes, so we will be like dancing Goof, and I can’t wait to…did everybody bring something to change…?  Great.

 

So, we’ll change into stuff and we’ll have peace and depth of our relationships through dance, so I’m really excited.  I’m really appreciative.  Maybe we could all lie down though and just close [01:00:00] our eyes and rest before we go out dancing, and just get comfortable and say okay…and embrace one another in the spirit of friendship and kindness, love, and dignity, and respect, and say Temba and Shaka when the walls fell.  Jalad and everything that I can’t quite remember.  Yeah.  Let’s rest.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

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