Month: April 2026

Posted on

Episode Eight: “The Dev’s Are Uniting!”

Stardate: 20260424

Intro:

This month: I’m helping out a friend, and we examine the rule that silenced awkward family visits with that one relative eberybody’s got and no one likes to talk about:

Just because I am this way, does not invalidate you being that way. Your truth is as valid and beautiful as mine. I’ve no more right to yours than you have to mine.

Lets get to it!

News:

Like I said in the title, the two Dev’s are uniting!

A while back, I did some voice work and some writing for a fiction podcast called Forward Momentum Productions, run by another ‘Dev’, Devin Cox.

FMP shut down during the pandemic, but now, after several years Dev is trying to bring it back, and finish the last two series FMP was working on, “Bubblegum Crisis” and “Sea of Stars: Odyssey.” He’s even tapped me to do more work as Quincy Rosenkroitz in Bubblegum (IYKYK).

But even as FMP was set to rise phoenix-like from the ashes, they hit a big snag. They needed a new place to host their episodes.

So, FMP is coming to the Galaxy! All of their back catalog will be uploaded soon, and the new episodes when they’re ready to release (that’s on Dev C., so yell at him for being vague). The idea is to release them on a new free tier, because we both agree that these should not be behind any kind of paywall. You can check out FMP’s website for more details about what they do, even hear some of the back catalog now. But be warned, their host is somewhat temperamental about bandwidth, hence the shifting of the big audio files to the Galaxy.

The podcast will technically launch May the 4th, with the re-release of FMP’s original work, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Outcasts! (sheesh what a title!) That’s right, we’re doing a proper Star Wars Day!

More on this as things develop, wish us luck.

In The Library:

I’m just going to plug FMP again. Their stuff is definitely worth a listen, and yes full disclosure, I did voice work for them since the original Sea of Stars days, and the April Chunk on the Galaxy is set in that universe. So I guess I’m plugging my work work again, kinda?
But still, worth a listen.

The Good

So, what do I mean by this:

Just because I am this way, does not invalidate you being that way. Your truth is as valid and beautiful as mine. We’ve no right to take each other’s by force.

I mean that you do not have to think and believe as I do. Not must I align with your way of life for either of us to exist. Our mutual existences do not require either of us to agree. We have the right to differ, to express our differences with respect, and even to try and change each other’s mind if all parties are open to that discussion.

The Fugly

I’m swapping the order because this month’s Bad builds on the Fugly instead of the other way around.

All families have that one relative. The person who clings to their viewpoint and is so convinced of their own correctness that they become angry when challenged. Among my kin, my Uncle Mike (not their real name but I don’t want to out em) and I were famous for our arguments.

Mike was always right, because that one youtube video agreed with their stance. Didn’t trust any media that didn’t come from their church, and would disqualify any evidence against their viewpoint as coming from ‘them’.

I on the other hand, don’t trust anything that comes from Network News sans corroboration, try not to cite things I don’t have a source for (I don’t always succeed with this, but I try), and am generally skeptical of anybody who is selling something- particularly when it’s not apparent what they’re selling (it’s probably you).

Uncle Mike would always try to save my soul, and I’d respond with (hopefully) polite counterpoint. But eventually we’d get to the point where we talking at each other – not to, and our rhetoric was escalating. To Mike’s credit, if someone tried to change the subject, he’d go along with it, for a few minutes, then try to sum up his previous argument and kick it all off again. To be fair, I did the same thing a time or two as well.

Really. Freaking. Ugly.

The Bad

It got to the point that Uncle Mike and I didn’t really talk for a year or so. Worse, since Mike is my maternal uncle, my Mom felt stuck between fire and flood.

It was then that Mike said something in a family chat. Something along the lines of just wanting his opinion respected. Now, we’ll talk about opinions in a later episode, but his brought me up short. I’ve long held that the right to think and feel as you want is a fundamental right of sentience. But at what point does that stop? If I think and feel that I have the right to own another person- that’s wrong… but that’s an easy one. Where is the line?

Mike was feeling hurt because I wasn’t respecting his right to disagree, and I was feeling hurt for the same reason. What was the solution?

Then it hit me. Mike and I both have the right to be wrong (from each other’s point of view). I dislike using the word ‘wrong’ here. I don’t want to use something that sounds judgmental, but I also don’t want to keep repeating a long sentence when one word sums it up. Our viewpoints weren’t physically harming one another, just the disagreement was. So why keep trying to settle what could not be?

We still disagree, and we still argue. But now, we know where the line is, and we do a much better job of not crossing it.

Well, that’s it for this episode. Next time, we end the KU Experiment, and I’ll have all sorts of FMP new to discuss, as well as the goofiest rule of the bunch:

If you kill the joe, make some mo.

  • The same is also true for the last tray of ice cubes.
  • If you don’t know what the joe is, look it up. Don’t make others do for you.

See you in June!
-Dev J.

Posted on

Episode Seven! Something Clever. I need Something Clever…

Stardate: 20260403

Intro:

This month, we’re putting my fourth rule for life under the microscope. Fun Fact, I learned this one from BATMAN.

The rule:

When someone does a job you don’t want to do, thank them for it. They not only did the job, they helped you out.

But first, the News and such!

News:

So, the further I get from the Flame & Claw publication date, the more mistakes I think I made with its launch. I didn’t do a lot to build buzz, and the more I try to hype the books now, the more it feels like bailing out a boat with a teaspoon.

Of course, there are hundreds of people online who will tell you ‘this worked for me!’ but they all boil down to one thing… buying something from somebody. Whether it’s ad space from Lex Luthor, or a self-help marketing class/book/package, or the questionable services of a professional assistant.

If I could have afforded that, I’d have done it already. On the other hand, that’s why I run this blog. To show you all the pitfalls I blindly stumbled into, in hopes you can void them in the future.

In The Library:

A friend of mine is reviving his audio drama group to finally complete a couple of their unfinished projects. We’ll talk more about that in a later issue, but for now, I want to talk about audio drama itself as a genre.

Sometimes, a specific media bursts onto the scene, has a moment, and then gets overshadowed by the next big thing, and we as a society forget about the previous iteration. That’s a one-sentence summation of what happened to the radio dramas of yesteryear. A full cast, performing a script live with some bits of music and live sound effects is a brand of chaos and magic all it’s own. Some few of these have survived in one form or another until today, but they’re all written for a different era, and a lot of modern folks bounce off them because of it.

But the artform itself is still a valid media for expression, and with modern technology, all you need is some friends, a laptop, some free software and a lot of patience and you can make one of these shows yourself.

Nowadays, audio drama, podcast fiction, serialized audio… it goes by a ton of names but there are dozens and dozens of them out there for your listening pleasure. I recommend starting at the Audio Drama Directory.

Just grab a pair of headphones (over speakers is an option, but the immediacy can get lost) and immerse yourself in great storytelling.

Okay! Let’s take a deep dive into this episode’s rule:

When someone does a job you don’t want to do, thank them for it. They not only did the job, they helped you out.

The Good

Obviously, the good comes from creating a cycle of gratitude. Ever do a small task for someone, and feel good about it? Now imagine if everyone did that a few times a day. How much warm feeling, how much happiness could be spawned from just a small act of kindness? How could such a chain change the world for the better?

The Bad

Honestly, I don’t see how this is bad, so I’m going to look at what happens when this rule is ignored.
Ever do a small thing for someone, and have them not express gratitude, but rather act as though they were entitled to your action? How did it make you feel?
Yeah, that’s the bad.

Sometimes, we’re just in a rush. Sometimes we just don’t think about it. But gratitude is contagious, and is important. Let’s all practice it.

The Fugly

So I’ve been thinking like crazy, what can possibly be fugly about a lack of gratitude, as opposed to merely bad?

Well, I think I have it. A lack of outward gratitude can have just as much negative impact on you as it does those you’re denying it to. Think about it for a sec, if you’re constantly taking no notice of your actions, or how they’re hurting those around you, even by mere indifference, then eventually you shut yourself off from common fellowship and humanity.

I think it’s a big part of how the word ‘Woke’ has become so politically charged lately. The word implies being awake, being aware of your world and what is happening around you. Of course, this means the status quo can no longer hold, and a lot of unfortunately powerful people have a vested interest in keeping the status quo in place.

The result has been people arguing about a word that if you step back from the rhetoric and examine the arguments, is utterly ridiculous. Let me boil this down:
Person A: I’m woke to the problems of the homeless.
Person B: Woke is dumb. You’re a bad person for because of it.

How we got here is less important I think, than how we move forward.

Maybe we start with gratitude and awareness, yeah?

So! Next month, we’ll wrap up the KU experiment, and discuss what might be the most important rule of the whole bunch.

And now, the obligatory passing of the hat…
– Hey! Did you know you can get this post in your email, instead? Sign up for my mailing list on devlinjames.com and you’ll also get a download link for the first chapter of Peacebreaker FREE.
– Also, by becoming a Citizen of the Galaxy (https://www.patreon.com/devlinjames) you can see the stories I’m working on BEFORE THEY’RE PUBLISHED. Get a monthly peek under the hood for way less than a cup of coffee.

See you in April!
-Dev

Page design, text, and images
© Copyright 2022 , Devlin James.