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The deeds of the storyteller, taking a chance to use this part of the platform to share my passion for Heroscape's storytelling, the narratives I create from it, and what I envision in the worlds attached to the Heroscape franchise.

I am also sharing some personal discoveries while embracing the journey through this community's existence and the series!

Created 8/5/2022
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Gesta Fabulatoris: Renovatio

Posted August 5th, 2022 at 02:12 PM by Majora's Incarnation
Renovatio

Hello fellow Heroscapers!

For those who may not have been acquainted with me back when I was an active forum poster 11 years ago, my handle is Majora's Incarnation, and I've been playing Heroscape since it first came out in 2004

To note, the initial inspiration for starting up an HS.com blog again was my attendance at ScapeCon II, as I wanted to find a place to frame my perspective on such a magnificent collaborative effort.

Then August 3rd rolled around with the announcement of the new Age of Annihilation, and in many instances, such a coincidence would often give off the sentiment of fate or destiny. I find it incredibly fitting to take the time and revisit my old haunts and try to get back to the work of promoting this fantastic game once more.

So for starters, let's revisit my timeline and see what's happened since:

A development of self-awareness

I find it surreal that my last documented work here was on 2016, and seeing that timestamp is helpful for me in understanding how things changed so much.

To get right into it, as of last year and thanks to the pandemic, I've had the opportunity to self-investigate heavily in regards to mental health situations. And based on a hefty amount of information provided by experts and diagnosed individuals, it appears I may exhibit a form of ADHD, or at least for the time being, until I can receive a proper diagnosis, I consider myself neurodivergent.

The journey of discovery behind these symptoms has been, for the most part, relieving. Because before this, and of course, this includes this site and my activities here, I thought I couldn't stick with something because I was lazy or unmotivated to do work. It turns out I don't have control of when something drops from my immediate attention, and I'll tell you, that helps me with my self-esteem so much. Knowing it's not my fault that I stepped away from the community due to life pressures and this symptom helps combat the guilt I feel.

I wish I stuck around, though. So much has changed since I last stomped around here with my lore needs. However, my singular fascination is how thriving and vibrant this community has remained in the block of time that I found myself not attending this site as frequently as I once did.

Helping @TalesOfValhallaOfficial with the lore behind his Youtube series was my anchor to the franchise. But, I shuffled all my other Heroscape-related projects and responsibilities (wiki admin) to the side without realizing it.

Previously, on MI's life journey...

My last post here is timed right around a horrible break-up I had, which forced my brain into that dark space I have a history with and also led to a move across state lines for the first time in my life as I tried a full reset, location and all, to get me out of that mental ditch.

Unfortunately, choosing to reupholster the entire location of my grounding so suddenly made me a stranger in a strange land. All the people I played Heroscape with and talked about it were miles away. And I knew nobody to try and be able to bring it back to the forefront of my perception. Work took precedent, and before I knew it, I was doing the grind that took a whole three years in a blink in an attempt to make ends meet and restore my bank account to safer waters.

In between that blur of work, @TalesOfValhallaOfficial did stop by and have me record a voice line. Please look forward to that in a future episode! I'm voicing a Heroscape character!

That was all I managed to do, including a few edits here and there on the Wiki. It isn't easy to fathom how much time has passed since I was last here due to work taking hold of my main focus. But I kept all my Heroscape. There were times I'd look fondly at how much it meant to me, hoping I could find a way to remember its influence on my creative work.

2020's slap in the face

As we all know well, on March 19th, the United States declared a pandemic as the SARS coronavirus devastated the population. I lost my job as the place shut down and reopened immediately without any guidance or direction on how to manage such a dangerous situation. I was left unemployed and terrified of becoming homeless due to the lack of income.

I decided to take to the pen, and I created a Patreon and Fiverr to sell my written work as a way to make ends meet. When I discovered I could stream my writing process on Twitch, I dived and earned my Affiliate status a month later. I met an entire community on WorldAnvil dedicated to the concept of worldbuilding (a word I didn't even know till years later, but this was what I was doing with Heroscape back in 2010). My creative drive that had sputtered to barely a whisper during those three years of constant work at the restaurant came back with a vengeance.

During the same year, I started talking about working on the way to introduce the worldbuilding and lore of Heroscape through a TTRPG experience, as writing custom campaigns and scenarios has recently become much more popular for D&D through DMsGuild. However, my lack of knowledge about my symptoms and the panic-induced situations I found myself in frequently during the first year of the pandemic made this impossible. I drafted a few things, and that was about it.

I did get to talk about Heroscape frequently on Twitch once my career there started to grow a bit. Being able to show off the pieces, my notorious Wizards of the Coast response letter, and talk about the lore was excellent.

I never did get to play a game after having had a chance to market the experience through Geekfest 2014, and that was a bit defeating.

I kept everything, though! I don't know if I ever thought I'd get a chance to play again, but I knew the lore was foundational to all my creative experiences. If anything, I cared for my acquisitions as a way to honor the inspiration they provided.

An unexpected invitation

Depression (a symptom I learned that could count as comorbidity or co-symptom with situations related to ADHD) had me in a tight grip at the start of 2022 due to the rising prices, which included my rent. Suddenly, the casual pace at which I ran my content creation had to make numbers I was nowhere achieving. I felt lost and stressed, and it felt as if 2020 had repeated the amount of sleep I lost on my financial status.

There was nothing I wanted to do that I didn't need to make money back to me. As it counted as self-employment, I made sure to file everything I did but wasn't making the returns I needed to meet ends. So in March, I returned to restaurant service, as it was the fastest job I could get to prevent myself from becoming homeless.

During this time, @TalesOfValhallaOfficial reached out to me about attending ScapeCon II, and I had no basis and, sadly, no energy to get excited before the event. To me, it was a chance to get out of the grind for just a little bit, but I had no expectations.

July showed up, and I didn't even have a chance to unpack my Heroscape from storage. He offered to lend me his pieces, which he had enough for multiple players (thank you again for that), and we both headed to Indiana for that week.

The list is long, but for what it's worth, I want to make sure my immense gratitude gets expressed to each event coordinator for preparing such an experience. Heroscape was still alive! After all this time, after all the pressure and life stress I had to go through, this foundational game that gave me rich creative experiences since childhood was still inspiring incredible adventures in the present day.

I met 'Scapers I had known by their handles a decade ago in person for the first time. And ALL OF YOU ARE SO NICE. I want to highlight how kind everyone was to me at the event. As someone who hadn't touched a single game since 2014, people who offered advice on how to play better, the chance to play at all, and so frequently, all of this gave me such a renovation of the mind I was eager to get home and get back into my creative career with renewed vigor.

I won the SpeedScape tournament that Saturday morning despite having no plans or expectations of winning anything. I got to see people talk about the lore, and one 'Scaper had even printed out the Webisode script I had scanned by hand and got help to upload to the forums! They also had the webisode I had uploaded to Youtube back in 2010 on their playlist, and knowing that I had such an impact on one 'Scapers experience of the narrative was profound.

I discovered that people were playing characters I had written for from the C3V, which shook me to the core. I may haven't had the chance to play for so long (8 years until ScapeCon II) but knowing the work I did with the singular drive of passion for the series was being used to this day gave me hope. I received hope that my work didn't have to fade over time. I got hope that whatever I do, with whatever time I have left, has meaning and strength to remain for years after the fact.

Onward to a new age

Considering I had to clock into a pick-up shift the same day I returned from my trip, I can tell you my current job is not the greatest in providing me time to do what I want. But now I have the income I need, and I'm a bit more financially stable than I was at the start of this year.

So a chance to renew my site support and begin to draft a blog about my ScapeCon II experiences got delayed to constant shifts. Before I realized it, I had to prepare for one of the most significant events on my live stream, LunarCon in Final Fantasy XIV, the MMO that has occupied me since 2015 as an additional passion due to the beautiful lore and worldbuilding it contains.

Once I could finish my panel and present at that convention, I went back to work, and the first day off I got after that, and my return to Twitch this week, Avalon Hill's GenCon announcement dropped.

Once again, is this fate? Destiny? I'm not particularly eager to generalize, but this is a mighty coincidence.

So to sign off this post, here's my start of a blog series to document my passion for Heroscape and the storytelling it provides me, the Gesta Fabulatoris! I can't wait to talk about the possibilities and what I have in store on my channel for this series, so please look forward to it!

It's good to be back.

- Majora's Incarnation
Total Comments 2

Comments

Old
TGRF's Avatar
I remember you from the old days, MI, although my experience is limited only to the fan fiction forum. But those of us there would love to have you back, if ever you feel the desire to practice writing in a casual atmosphere, or just flex your writing muscles in the competition.

~TGRF.
Posted August 5th, 2022 at 03:17 PM by TGRF TGRF is offline
Old
Majora's Incarnation's Avatar
Quote:
I remember you from the old days, MI, although my experience is limited only to the fan fiction forum. But those of us there would love to have you back if ever you feel the desire to practice writing in a casual atmosphere or just flex your writing muscles in the competition.
It's good to hear from you, @The Grim Reaper's Friend ! It has been quite some time since I've visited there, but you can bet I talked about my experiences a ton!

I definitely will have to find a point in time to visit. Thank you for the warm invitation!
Posted August 8th, 2022 at 10:27 AM by Majora's Incarnation Majora's Incarnation is offline
 
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