Tad's Blog

Things Left Unsaid

5/24/2025

Tad and Saini met up today to debrief on their weeks a bit.

I think it's quite possible Tad will eventually open up to Saini about everything. So far, she's not taken anything he's said as a reason to avoid him. She is also trusting him with more and more information that, in a city like Los Santos, she probably shouldn't.

They talk about EJ and her upcoming nuptials to Edgar and how Saini feels about all of that. They talk about Saini's relationship troubles. And yes, they talk about the danger Tad appears to be in and how he tried to navigate yesterday's conversation with Sneaky and Twinkles. They get a bit touching at the end. Talking about vulnerability, sentimentality, real connections vs. surface connections. The video will be up later today.

I've gone back to listen to a youtube mix I made when I was waiting for my application to be approved for NoPixel. Tad's lore and character was many months in the making, but most of it came between submitting that final application and getting the approval for WL. I've been listening to the mix again for the past week. He is definitely a character who is heavily influenced by the songs I was listening to that month. It's a little trippy now that I've been playing him for nearly two months.

I made it public if anyone wants to listen. I don't believe you'll just guess anything about his character from the songs, but you should be able to recognize some traits and lore that have already shown up.

4 Comments

Fin

5/25/2025 11:51:14 am

I'm not sure I'm going to roleplay today. I didn't sleep well last night. Unlike Tad, that just means I'm tired today. RP takes energy I just might not have.If I do roleplay, it'll be much later in the second storm.

Now that this post isn't at the top, I'll post a little Easter Egg for y'all and talk about the first few songs on the playlist:

Thank God I'm a Country Boy - This song always reminded me of a horror movie. I could always imagine it being sort of distorted and slowed down over video of cornfields and celebrations on the porch. I'm not sure if everyone who grew up around corn fields and Iowa Nice felt like this, but the mixture of having places surrounding you that are super easy to hide things in and everyone around you putting on that friendly and selfless facade became especially threatening whenever Something Went Wrong. This song is only about 3 minutes, but it feels like it will never end to me. Like trauma.

5/25/2025 12:01:38 pm

Altered Beast - I especially like this live version of this song. The imperfections of live performance are tasty. Emotional. Tad was raised to never give into his inherited animal instincts. Lock those away, boy. That part of his life is over now. The animal has emerged. He is trying to start again and learn about himself. He's trying to make friends with the neglected animal within, but he's going to get mangled, potentially a few times, before he figures out how to make amends with himself.

5/25/2025 12:10:02 pm

Runaway - Aurora wrote this song when she was a child. Tad, in a lot of ways, is still that six year old child struggling with self-control. Most of what he says is what he's been taught by people who had a profound misunderstanding about what he actually needed. Aurora is making imagined connections in the song. The face in the sand crumbling when she picks it up. The painting not being the actual person. Also, something about home is wrong, but it's also where she belongs.

FIN

5/25/2025 12:39:39 pm

Last one.

Common Sentiments - This was my favorite song in 2020 when I was holed up in my apartment all alone due to COVID shutdowns. I'm fine. Well, I was as fine as any of us were.

I strongly associate this song to my own transness. Everything took a very long time. It doesn't quite work like that with Tad though. He's trans, too, but that was never an issue for him.

Tad is aware that there is something about him that is dangerous and has been aware of it all of his life. I'm talking beyond his currently acknowledged mental illness potential for danger. He is feeling it now that he does not have anyone to distract him from himself. He's desperate to find someone who knows the feeling who might be able to help him understand it within himself. It's coincidence that he imprinted on someone who could do just that, but probably won't.

There was potential that he could have imprinted on someone who actually had time and energy for him. The danger could have never come out at all. He is, in fact, trying to be good even though he knows he's broken.

Easter Egg within the Easter Egg: There is a way that Tessa could have stopped the full break into Dream Tad that day when he went INTO her tree house for the first time. All she would have had to do is call 911 and send them to the gulch. 15 seconds to get him some help. Instead, he stayed there in the storm while I ate a salad and watched an episode of Game Changer, keeping my eye on the game in case someone appeared. He didn't ask for her to come help him. He didn't even ask for her to visit him. He just wanted to make sure the Tessa who fell was only a hallucination and the real Tessa wasn't still incapacitated at the bottom of the gulch.

Any choice Tessa made that night would have been fine with me. Though I would have been shocked if she had shown up at the ICU to visit Tad. I briefly panicked that she might. I didn't know how Tad would react. Would have been a roll, I'm sure.

Thaddeus Donkersloot, Jr.

Things Left Unsaid

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