📚 Tale Teller Club Press (TTCP)

  The Joy of Freedom as We Age Welcome to Elderescence Academy — reflections on growing older with curiosity, creativity, and calm. One of the quietest but most profound psychological changes that often accompanies age is the gradual disappearance of a particular pressure: the need to impress other people. It is so deeply embedded in early life that we rarely recognise how much of our behaviour is organised around it. From childhood onwards, approval becomes a guiding force. At school we learn very quickly which behaviours bring praise, which attract ridicule, and which allow us to belong. Later this instinct expands into a complex system of social signals — career success, appearance, education, lifestyle, taste, social circles. All of these operate partly as ways of signalling competence or desirability to others. Much of early adulthood therefore becomes a form of continuous presentation. We curate versions of ourselves. We measure our progress against peers. We worry about how ...

Strata 12: Shabra and the Basement People (Emotions) The Book of Immersion, Volume 1 In a dystopian future where androids imitate humanity and tribes fight for survival, Shabra leads a small group on a perilous journey through the chaotic underworld of Strata 12. Here, survival depends on knowing the right people, staying hidden, and moving fast. Shabra, confident and streetwise, guides Renyke, a conflicted android struggling with the discomfort of newfound emotions, through a labyrinth of gang territories, black-market dealings, and existential threats. At the heart of this chapter lies an exploration of human emotions and their role in decision-making, relationships, and survival. Renyke, built with mimicked empathy, is increasingly aware of his dissonance with the raw emotions that surround him. Meanwhile, Shabra’s instinct-driven survival tactics clash with the cold logic of Renyke’s POS (Programmed Operating System), leaving him caught between trust and fear. The group's journ...