WIL WHEATON dot NET

I want to write a thing

Posted on 29 May, 2015 By Wil

But I don’t have the motivation to write a thing. So here’s a screencap of a thing that got past my spam filter:

You gotta embiggen this one to see the text, because it’s pretty amazing.

And then, when you’re done giggling, consider: at least one person, somewhere in the world, got this e-mail and thought, “JACKPOT!”

I’ve been answering a lot of things in my Tumblr ask thingy. Is it worth the effort to figure out how I could get those responses to post over here, like in a digest or something once a day?

After a tremendously stressful week — which is strange to say, because I really was having a fantastic time doing the work I was doing — I had a couple of days completely away from everything, with just my wife and our friends, who we don’t see nearly enough.

It totally did not suck, and it’s a reminder that I need to take the occasional Mental Health Days For Wil, slow down a little bit, and actually enjoy the things I get to do because of the work that I get to do. I should remember that, because I tend to forget it, like, all the time.

silently and back to me

Posted on 21 May, 2015 By Wil

Patrick Stewart and I were participating in a charity auction. We both had our TNG uniforms to put on the block, and a room filled with over a thousand people was waiting for us to bring them onto the stage … but I couldn’t find mine. I searched a seemingly infinite number of closets in a hotel room that seemed to change size and configuration, thwarting my increasingly harried efforts to find it.

Then I was on the street in front of a different hotel. I needed to check out, but my suitcase was locked inside my room, and I didn’t have a key. I climbed a precarious fire escape and made my way across a cavernous lobby atrium — looking and feeling like something out of Angel Heart — to finally get inside the room.

When I got into the hotel room, I realized that I had to change out of my clothes. I didn’t know why, but I knew that it was incredibly important that I do it. I began to change my clothes, but when I took off my shirt, it revealed another shirt beneath it. When I took off that shirt, it happened again.

I had to check out of this hotel room, or I was going to miss my flight to Australia, but before I could leave, I had to take a shower. But I couldn’t take a shower until I changed out of my clothes, and the clock was ticking down. I began to panic.

I opened my eyes and saw my bedroom dimly lit by the faintest grey light of dawn through my blinds. My heart was pounding, my body was covered in sweat. Cold terror washed over me as I woke up, and I realized that I was in the middle of a panic attack.

This used to happen to me on an almost nightly basis, but it hasn’t happened for years, until this week. This week, it’s happened every night. I’m starting to dread going to sleep, creating what I think is a self-fulfilling prophecy, an orobouros of anticipation and terror.

I breathed as deeply and calmly as I could, willing my heart to calm down. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real. I repeated, in my head. Just stress dreams. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.

I’m not okay.

By any objective measure, I don’t have a good reason to feel stressed or worried or even mildly upset about anything, but my brain is broken and it does this to me when I least expect it. Like it’s waiting for to me work long and intense days, so I’m tired and weak when I climb into bed, so it can launch a sneak attack when I’m least able to defend against it.

My heart settled down. I realized that I hadn’t had any feeling in my hands, when feeling began to return to them. I sighed heavily, and frowned. This isn’t fair. I should be able to go to sleep without fearing what is waiting for me when I get there. I was frustrated. I was a little angry. I was really, really exhausted, even though I’d been in bed and sleeping for close to eight hours.

I was filled with a mixture of adrenaline and dread, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. Though I didn’t technically need to be up and out of bed for another hour, I angrily kicked off the covers, and got out of bed.

This isn’t fair, I thought. This isn’t fair.

A bunch of stuff about Dread, Titansgrave, Armada, Brewing TV, and TNG

Posted on 19 May, 201520 May, 2015 By Wil

There’s a lot of stuff to share, which all happened in the last 24ish hours for some reason, so I’m just going to put all that stuff here in one post, instead of spreading it out.

We released a video and some information about Hank Green’s Titansgrave character, Aankia. Similar introductions will be released throughout this week.
I filmed a wrap-up thing for Dread, instead of a winner’s wall thing, because a winner’s wall felt inappropriate for that episode. For some reason I’ve forgotten, it didn’t get into the final cut of part 2, so we put it on Geek & Sundry today as a bonus.
I talked to the Mission Log podcast about working on The Next Generation, in a way that I’ve never really talked about working on The Next Generation before. If you enjoy it, and you’d like some additional context, you may want to listen to The Big Goodbye, from my book The Happiest Days of Our Lives: The Extended Edition Or Whatever I Decided To Call It.
I made a video with Brewing TV a couple months ago, where we made an IPA that was inspired by Pliny The Younger. The first part is online, now.

Huh. When I put it in a list like that, it doesn’t seem like that much stuff. In fact, it’s not as impressive as it felt when it all came into my inbox or whatever one at a time over the last couple of days. Maybe I should have split it up.

Anyway, I’m still working on the audiobook for Armada, and I’m about halfway through. It’s a really fun story, and I’m having a great time performing it. In the last two days, though, I’ve learned to have tremendous empathy for people who have a daily commute, and boy am I grateful that I don’t have a daily commute.

Titansgrave: complete concept art image

Posted on 18 May, 2015 By Wil

Here’s the entire image I’ve been sharing bits of for the last week:

You can click to embiggen, and it’s huge. In fact, this image is so large, you could probably use it for your desktop if you were so inclined.

So this brings together everything that we wanted our artists (we have a team of artists from around the world working with us) to know, going into the show. You can see the elements of science fiction and fantasy, all living together. You can see the gleaming towers of a futuristic city in the back, looming over the more modest buildings in the foreground. You can see a few different races, including the Saurian walking with that robot, which I freaking love.

Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana premieres on Geek & Sundry this June.