#Based on a true thing that happened on discord

[ask-honey]

Ya eat one crayon and suddenly you're the crayon gobbler

Society!!!

[yourlocalsmutwriter]

Bookish girlfriend you're my yum yum - Mark Webber x reader

Summary : After going viral on book social media, you give the fans a completely new side of you. It catches the eye of an author (who happens to be a 9 GP winner)

FC: Mima by Cami

inkscentedglamour: Squeezing in some last girly romance books before I film a new video for you 👀

username: Our queen is finally trying romantasy, I can feel it.

username: I need another object x human romance. I know it was an April Fools thing, but I need her to read Double Stuffed

username: DARK ROMANCE. DARK ROMANCE. DARK ROMANCE.

username : I know the sports romance PR is talking to her like the Green Goblin Mask

> username : Especially the new book with the MMC inspired by Danny Ricciardo

> username: need to rewatch her F1 romance streams on patreon.

username: Do you think this is after Two Girls One Formula podcast backlash?

> username: The girls brought her on to talk about books, specifically romances. I don't understand why the fans were attacking her for not talking much about the current grid and things like that and focusing on the fiction.

> username: Especially when she has said many times that she's easing into the fandom. How would you feel if people bullied you for starting with edits/ fanfics and books, like she's doing?

inkscentedglamour: Writing my script for the upcoming video and staring at what got me here

username: Throttled slander era, you will forever be famous

> username: The way she started off so hesitant to give it a bad review or DNF it. This was her first 1 star. People died.

> username: Asking people to still try it for themselves and to not just judge it based on her review. Cemented her as my favorite BookTuber, I fear.

username: The fact that she still followed through and read the entire series. And rearranged her entire Goodreads ratings after that? Iconic

> username: I miss her giving 5 stars. But the quote "if I can be cruel enough to give 1 star, then I don't think I should be generous to give 5 stars to any book, but one" will forever live on.

inkscentedglamour: New video, out now

username: MARK WEBBER????? OVER EMILY HENRY????

> username: over Christina Lauren?????? Ali Hazelwood? Katee Robert

username: you're telling me an Australian driver who retired like 10 years ago is her favorite author??? And was the driving force for her to get her to watch a GP?

username: she's the queen of Booktok, has talked about every book boyfriend, and now she's into cars that go fast?

aussiegrit: Talked about Porsche, F1, Mentoring Oscar, and my book, somehow. Why is Aussie Grit trending?

username: Oh no, our little Booktuber girl bossed too close to the sun (she has a million subscribers and multiple brand deals)

> username: she got it to 5 stars on Goodreads and onto the trending page on Amazon.

username: Mark, wear the My fake boyfriend drives for F1 mech, and my life is yours

username: @inkscentedglamour, look who sorta knows you exist.

inkscentedglamour: Oh oh

inkscentedglamour: Reading the book 😄🤩🥺 vs. having to describe its impact on you, your career, and the future 🙃😑☠️. If you see me verbally abusing a Google doc at the airport, no you didn't

username: Mark Webber in the likes?????????

> username: I guess he found out why Aussie Grit was trending

username: reading video hiatus is over, society is healing

> username: we haven't gotten a part two of her trip to a random destination yet

> username: true, she just packed and left us on a cliffhanger. Surely we're getting that first

> username: her caption says it all. For book lovers, some of you have no reading comprehension.

inkscentedglamour: I finished reading my book, so it only makes sense to hit the thrift, right? Reading vlog will be up when I'm back home (I was strictly told to relax)

username: the two glasses (which could mean nothing)

> username : this is the girl that relies on our discord pins to drink water, what is going on in the house of commons

username : Mark Webber, here again????????? Before me?????????????

> username: she sped through her book cause she has his new book on pre-order

> username: I just know she'll get it on Kindle too, no way is she waiting til it ships to her house

username: Mark's pr team was sleeping because wdym they didn't reach out to her

> username: And apparently, he's got a launch party coming up with "surprise BookTube influencer" attending

inkscentedglamour : Photographic proof that my favorite author knows I exist. Thank you, @aussiegrit, for the invite. And thanks for getting a decent picture before I cried at the blurb and dedication

aussiegrit: Figured you'd wanna skip the queue at Waterstones. Can't wait for your review of this one (also please re-read the new prologue before posting)

username: Mark has been secretly divorced for a year and was writing this whole book as a therapy exercise??????

> username: he couldn't tell anybody and felt like he was slowly fading into obscurity, which affected his mental health

> username: he was not thinking of releasing this until the OG Aussie Grit review

> username: Mark saying that the YouTube video changed his life, just as much as it did hers

inkscentedglamour: Night and day

Comments on this post have been disabled

14.02.2025,approximately 3 months after the book launch

inkscentedglamour: Valentine's Day, Book Buying Day, and Merch Drop Day. Shop the My Real Boyfriend Drove for F1 tee. And yes, he signed off on this specific hard launch

inkscentedglamour: time to be sappy real quick after the merch plug. Mark has been inspiring me, guiding me and showering me with praise ever since his second book launch. I'm so happy he's in my life and I intend to keep him there for as long as I can. He beats all the bookish boyfriend one can have (yes, even Zafir)

aussiegrit: I'm so glad to have you in my life. You see me and be with me, sharp tongue,flaws and all. I wanna build you bookshelves and watch you put my books on them last. Now stop being a YouTuber for a second and get back to being my girlfriend.

[directdogman]

Hi, I hope you're having a decent day! I'm sorry if this is an invasive set of questions - feel free not to answer - but do you still actively like DSaF as your own creation, or is it more of a "it was fun while it lasted but i outgrew it and it's for the best to leave it behind" kind of project? Do you ever regret making the games? If you knew they would get so popular, is there anything you would have changed about them? Is there anywhere I could read more of your writing.

It fluctuates a bit. These last couple of years, I've really just been sorta nostalgic for it. I've seen a lot of people discuss those games being a source of comfort during bad times in their lives, people talking about how much the characters mean to them and it's hard not to smile when you see that.

It's a funny thing for close friends of yours to see people WITH fanmade DSaF merch out in the wild, or to watch a random youtube video and being hit with a DSaF reference outta nowhere. It happens from time to time, even today. On a few occasions, I've even had a person reference my work to me in real life and not realize who they were talking to, believe it or not. It's really fun to play dumb and get someone to explain your work to you like you don't know what it is.

I certainly didn't think any of that would happen when I first made the series, or even during development. I think the normal assumption would be to look at DSaF as it exists now and assume its release was a peak for it, but believe it or not, the official discord only had 30 people in it shortly before 3 dropped! The archive listing of the series (reposted to a single page after the series ended) is now sitting at over 1.1 MILLION downloads.

People kinda assume the true heyday of something is when it's new, when it's fresh and novel. For instance, some people look back at when FNaF itself was new and see that time as its peak because it had a lot of internet cultural relevance as big new indie thing on the block. But, raw numbers don't lie. The series has been continually growing since its conception and that growth has similarly bled over to its fan projects. This explains why DSaF, despite not having a new series release in almost 6 years, seems to be inexplicably growing.

Just recently, I saw someone post footage of a scene from DSaF 2 on Twitter, which got over 16k likes. People praised its writing and largely celebrated the scene. The ironic thing about that particular scene is that I remembered being unsure if it was good or not, so I showed it off in one of the FNaF community hubs. The response was broadly lukewarm to negative. Now, it's held up as one of the best scenes in those games. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make, my thoughts on the series have certainly changed with everyone's else with years of hindsight.

Heh. I'm not sure if I've talked about this in a long time, but y'know, the very first scene I implemented in-game was actually the very first Phone Guy scene in DSaF 1, more or less exactly how it appears in-game today. This was before I'd even written the bulk of the game. I was pretty unfamiliar with visual novels as a whole, pretty unsure if something like this would be palatable to a fandom that was really just used to sit 'n' survive stuff that were far more gameplay than text. I mean, there wasn't any FNaF fangames really LIKE DSaF before that point. Closest was FNaFb, a jokey turn based RPG made in the same engine.

The engine I made the game in is also not exactly fit for VNs out of the box either, and I wasn't 100% sure the idea would actually work. But, the very first time I added the image of the prize corner, Phone Guy, the audio of that iconic cheesy stock track and booted up a test screen, I had a little moment where I said "Oh. I think I'm onto something interesting here." I kinda remembering instantly realizing in that single moment how much potential the idea had. Over 8 years later, I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.

I think lately, that's the sort of stuff I think of when I see people coming to me and asking about the series. Yes, it's really rough around the edges, yes, there's jokes that've aged poorly. But, it is a source of comfort for people and entertains tens of thousands of people each month. And that's gotta count for something, right?

[transmascpetewentz]

One of my least favorite things about the modern day left is how

Many leftists have unpacked their racial antisemitism while not looking into their religious antisemitism and assume that just because they don't have anything against secular and assimilated Jews, they must be totally not-antisemitic, but then

When they're called out for antisemitism, they say "calling out [antisemitic conspiracy theory that isn't happening] isn't an attack on your religion" as if antisemitism is just religion-based.

It's hypocrisy. Antisemitic leftists think of antisemitism as racism when they want to excuse themselves from unpacking their biases against Jewish culture & religion & people who are visibly & unapologetically Jewish, but use antisemitism-as-a-religion-based-bigotry when it is convenient for them to deflect against people calling out their hostility to Jewish sovereignty or Jews defending themselves.

Yesterday, on a Jewish discord server, I proposed this idea: the true test for a leftist's non-hostility to Jews isn't how many Jewish friends they have, but whether they have any frum Jewish friends. But don't take this out of context: I'm not trying to say that everyone must necessarily have frum Jewish friends, what I am trying to say is that non-Jewish leftists who get into discussions about Judaism and/or Zionism should be held to a standard of having personal experience with these topics. If a non-Jewish leftist is vocal about Judaism, them having zero frum Jewish friends shows that one or more of three possibilities is true. Either

They have not made sufficient effort to engage with the Jewish community,

They have biases against frum Jews preventing them from becoming friends, or

Frum Jews are uncomfortable around them (I wonder why!)

This isn't a hard and fast rule of course, but it is definitely something to think about.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Finally got an anti-Zionist definition of Zionism

An Israeli was brave enough to pop into the Dropout Discord’s Palestine channel today (May 5th, 2024) and ask what definition of Zionism they were using. While most people all had the same base of “Jews having their own state in their homeland” every single one of them goes off the rails with their own respective definition and conspiracy.

The first person said this:

Fig. 1. First person responding to the Israeli gives their definition of Zionism.

Notice that they say Zionism is the idea that Israel is uniquely and solely the rightful homeland of the Jews. This implies that there’s a malicious intent in Zionism towards non-Jews within Israel. This person has likely never heard of Kahanism, but in their mind Zionism and Kahanism are likely the same.

Here’s the second person to respond:

Fig. 2. Second response uses refers to anti-Zionist. Jews and their supposed definition.

Now, I know a bunch of anti-Zionist Jewish groups and people and I have never heard this particular definition. I’ve only heard this from extreme antisemites who hide behind the guise of being anti-Zionist progressives and actual terrorist groups trying to create a false antisemitic conspiracy narrative. However, this is my own personal experience and this could be the case, as the user says this is what is said in their circles. And if it’s true then it’s a conspiracy driven alt reality version of things as it denies all evidence to the contrary. There are whole levels to this that ignore the non-Jewish Israelis, the rights that they have in Israel, their representation in the government, and so on.

and the third person to respond is someone I’ve talked about before. This is the Jew who claims they were indoctrinated and all their elders are brainwashed and just need to “open their eyes to the truth.”

Fig. 3. Third response from a user who expands on Fig. 1. User’s definition and adds their own conspiracy.

I want to point out that this token Jew who believes others are indoctrinated actively believes the Israeli is making it so only Jews can be citizens. This is not any policy I can find, nor is it something I’ve seen even talked about outside of the most extremist elements. I think they’re referencing the 2018 stuff about Jews having the right to self determination, setting Hebrew as the National language, and government endorsement of settlers. But that’s far from the Israeli government and Zionism stating that Israel is for Jews and only Jews, and active programs to remove non-Jews. It’s something that, once again, would only come from antisemitic groups who want to generate strife through a particular narrative.

These are the definitions that they’re working with and/or believe. It’s no wonder you can’t actually talk to these activists because these definitions are laced with rhetoric from terrorist groups and antisemites. There’s traces of Jewish supremacy, world control, and other tropes throughout, and what’s sad is that a self confessed Jewish person believes it. Not only do they believe it, they’ve been extremely vocal in the server about it. They have so much to unpack that I can’t imagine what brought them to this level of conspiratorial thinking regarding Jews and Zionism.

It takes a lot of work to get people to see their conspiracy theories for what they are and that they’ve been misled. It’s easier to fall into them than to crawl out of that hole and realize you’ve been radicalized. That takes time, self reflection, and often a big “oh shit” moment, which may or may never happen.

At this point I’m just documenting how radicalized the people in the Dropout TV Discord are and how many of them believe in antisemitic conspiracies and downright falsities. Maybe they’ll do something about it one day, but I doubt it.

[shatteredearth-if]

SHATTERED EARTH INTRO POST

DEMO | DISCORD

Shattered Earth is an Interactive Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction about retreading old ground and working for your good ending. less formally, this is meant to go on my portfolio

Five years ago, you watched the world split open, bore witness to what you could only refer to as "dragons" made manifest in scale, flesh and skin. You saw cities razed to the ground, asphalt streets shattered like ice. Fleets of dragons and foreign—almost alien—aircrafts alike seared across the skies, while towers of dirt and metal tore free from the landscape. The world has inexplicably, incomprehensibly changed, but you know this to be true: Earth never really stood a chance.

With your world now overrun by dragons and dangers alike, you've lived alone, hiding from the world you once called home, scrounging for scraps and surviving by the skin of your teeth. But when a chance encounter with a mercenary ship leaves you reeling with the realization that you're not the average-joe of a human that you thought you once were, you're forced into an ultimatum: enlist with the Seekers, or live out the rest of your life in a Human compound on Therius. But your horrors extend far beyond the threat of the dragons; your monsters are at home in your head, but they might just be the key to stopping all of this madness… if they don't take you out first.

The gears turn, the worlds spin inwards like ever-onwards like painted tops. You will undergo a journey of self-discovery, of potential romances and of incredible loss. And somehow, you can't shake the sensation that this has all happened before…

A customizable protagonist: Customize your gender, your body type, your pronouns, and personality.

Five ROs to romantically pursue—some in the most conventional sense, others in… a not so conventional sense.

Engage in brief flings, one of which is... an RO's estranged divorced mother. (Your crewmates will disapprove.)

Train your body or your mind to perfection. Are you a frontline fighter, or do you prefer the aethereal arts?

Cute cat dog wolfboy…?

The female version of a himbo

There's no good way to put this: you remember things you shouldn't. The end of your story is not the end; something awaits you at the place where your endings converge. What is it? What are you?

There's an egotistical mind entity in your head, and the flags aren't just red; they're blood-crimson. Romanceable, but at a steep cost to your sanity. Or maybe…

Skippable, customizable NSFW content. My friends have advised me not to continue.

Avett Ironsturm

Role: RO

Gender: Male (he/him)

Race: Kattish

Age: 20

Specialization: Arms specialist

Appearance: Avett is a Kattish man of average height. His complexion is fair. Perched upon his head are two swivelling cat-like ears, and at the base of his spine is a prehensile tail that is about the length of his arm—both are adorned with soft, black fur. His hair is black, hangs just below the shoulders, and he keeps most of it in a messy ponytail. Most of his frontal hair frames his boyish, youthful face. His irises are copper colored, his pupils slitted.

Personality: Avett is bristly, prickly, and very easy to anger if he's not trying to get into your pants. He's a flirt through and through, and knows how and when to be charming, just… not with his coworkers. Or you. Though if you can get him to let his guard around you, you might just find him a lot more bearable.

Your impression: Once upon a time, you saw his old ID, stuffed in a cabinet along with his boxers and body spray, and you realized he was smiling in his photo. Not outwardly—they don't want you smiling on those cards, but behind those eyes was a laugh ready to bust out at any moment. That was four years ago. Now? All he does now is sulk and yell at people. Something happened in those four, long years, and those years have only been getting longer since.

Sexuality: Bisexual (woman-leaning)

Yuda Hellsbridge

Role: RO

Gender: Female (she/her)

Race: Half Gallian, Half Kattish

Age: Secret?

Specialization: Restrainer

Appearance: Yuda is a half-Gallian, half-Kattish woman of above average height. Her complexion is a pale, seafoam green—common for most Gallians. Her hair is white with blue undertones in the right lighting, and is short and choppy. If you look too closely into her metallic gray eyes, you will notice a swirling, foggy substance within her irises, as is common for all Gallians who are at least a bit adept in magic… which is to say, almost all of them. Yuda is extremely fit and exercises often, and as a result her build is stocky and muscular—very uncommon for a Gallian, though she claims that she's half Kattish.

Personality: Yuda is outwardly cheerful, loud, and brash—tact is not her forte. But behind every sunny smile is a shadow, and Yuda keeps her shadows well away from the spotlight.

Your impression: It's not trauma. It's not a blip in her personality. There is something genuinely terrifying hiding behind Yuda's eyes, and that's not including the fact that you don't know how old she is. Oh, she's nice, and she's got no ulterior motives, you'll give her that. But it's like she's wearing her own body like a shadow.

Sexuality: doesn't care for labels, but for clarity's sake she is pansexual.

Ysh'vanna O'Raal

Role: RO

Gender: Female (she/her)

Race: Draconian

Age: 26

Specialization: Captain/Pilot

Appearance: Ysh'vanna is a short girl with wispy, white hair that topples down to her waist—if she doesn't brush it out of her face, it has a tendency to smother her slight frame like an oversized scarf. Her irises are orange, with a ring of emerald green around her pupils. Trailing from her ears are two, small, green webs that resemble translucent dragon wings.

Personality: Everyone onboard the Seeker is a wreck, yes, but Ysh'vanna is always at least two crises away from a mental breakdown everyday. Sorting through admin, funds, Avett's shenanigans and the odd dragon attack has left her riddled with anxieties. She has difficulty forming bonds outside of work because of this, so her relationship with Avett isn't great. After any particularly grueling mission, she will often be found comatose in front of the navigation panels, staring off into the skyline. Otherwise, Ysh'vanna tries to be cheerful. Most of the time. Some of the time.

Your impression: She's probably by far the most average person on this ship. Every morning she takes her coffee with three sugars and a cupful of milk; every night she takes a nail-sized tablet along with a full glass of water. "For the anxiety," she says. She's incredibly open about most things... until it comes to her family. What's the deal?

Sexuality: bisexual (woman-leaning)

Auren Draksparrow

Role: Platonic Option

Gender: Male (he/him)

Race: Gallian

Age: According to Avett, "Like, a hundred or something." He looks about forty in Human years to you.

Specialization: Warder

Appearance: Auren is a Gallian man of above average height. His frame is gaunt, almost frail; his hair is platinum blond, and is secured in a low ponytail that reaches down to his waist. His complexion is seafoam green, and his eyes are a faint violet. Swimming in his irises is a fog, a trait most Gallians share. His facial features are long and soft, but his cheekbones sit high upon his face.

Personality: Auren is cold, aloof, and it can be difficult to discern what he's thinking from speech and body language alone. He is clear in mind, even during high-pressure situations, until his abilities as a caster fail him.

Your impression: Here's the deal about living past one hundred and one; you're going to mess up. You're going to mess up a lot more than the average person, and your book of guilt's going to be pushing a trilogy if you don't start forgiving yourself for some of those mess-ups. You know for a fact that Auren has never forgiven himself, not even once, because he's yet to save the Seekers. Because he's yet to, in his eyes, make himself useful. But you're his lucky break: he's the only one on the ship who can see that thing in your head for what it is, and he knows it's a threat.

Sexuality: he's not looking for a relationship right now, if ever. He's married to his tomes and the study of aether.

Liam Salazar

Role: RO

Gender: Male (he/him)

Race: Human

Age: 24

Specialization: Researcher

Appearance: Liam is tall with an athletic frame and broad shoulders. He usually keeps his dark brown hair in a nest of curls atop his head. His skin is a deep umber, and his eyes are an even deeper shade of brown. He often wears a white lab coat over a simple sweater and dress shirt.

Personality: Quiet, but goofy; aloof, but sensitive. You sense that this boy would rather bury his head in a good book or some other complicated research than look you in the eye. That's not to say he's meek, though—come any threat, and he'll lash out swinging. You had to be a special kind of tough to have survived the Migration as a Human, and Liam is no exception.

Your impression: You didn't expect to make friends at the IRC training facility—most Humans there wanted your head on a stick for the cardinal sin of having a deal with a merc ship already. The Migration wore everyone's patience thin, but not Liam's. For a hot moment at that facility, you were two renegades against the hateful world. Until your training period finished up.

Sexuality: Panromantic demisexual, though initially he believes that he's straight.

The Entity

Role: RO

Gender: Customizable/it

Race: Something intangible. A voice in your head.

Age: It laughs when you ask this. "How old is a concept? The fear of death, the love of life? How old? Are you counting? Think about that."

Appearance: A dark wisp of smoke that occasionally shifts to form parts of a person.

Personality: Loves you, like an overbearing parent. Punishes you, like a torturer gleaning for answers. It maims you and calls it affection.

Your impression: When you're not talking to it, it's rummaging through your memories. Why? For fun. It knows about that time you did this and that in the locker room and almost got caught for it. It knows about that time you stopped someone from leaving after class just so you could hit on them, unsuccessfully, for ten minutes before they had to beg you to leave. It knows everything about you, all the bad, all the good—and it loves you anyway. That's the purest kind of love, isn't it?

Sexuality: Wouldn't you like to know.

With that all said, thank you for checking out this post, and DOUBLE thank you if you decide to try out Shattered Earth. 🙇🙇

[redfoxwritesstuff]

For Eternity, Chapter 12 of 13 (Alastor x angel!Wife!OC)

Alastor x Angel!Wife Oc (Isabel) Rated: Adult Chapter Warnings: Alastor's a bit unstable. If you're not interested in smut, you can call this the end, chapter 13 is smut heavy and wraps things up a little neater though.

Join us at VoxTek for a Vox themed Hazbin Discord. And my friend runs a Hazbin Fic Community

Masterlist AO3 KoFi

“You too, Isabel.” Sera smile was small and sadistic in a way Isabel couldn’t explain as she held her arm out. 

“Maybe we could use some explanation?” Husk seemed to be the voice of reason, “So that the Princess can repeat this success.”

“Yeah, how the fuck did I get redeemed suddenly?” Angel Dust made a show of taking a long drink out of a bottle he snagged from Husk. 

Sera rubbed the space between her two eyebrows as she collected herself. After a few deep breaths, she set off on the story of redemption. 

“You were tested of your character, Isabel of her faith and you have been deemed pure.” 

“Ain’t nothing pure about me,” Angel Dust countered, only to be ignored. 

“You were offered a chance to violate one of the most divine beings in the universe. Resisting gained you nothing and yet, you worked to free her, putting your own life at risk.” 

“I’m going to tell you something, right now,” Angel Dust finished his drink, “If that’s what you’re basing this on- Ol Tall Dark and Murdery over there would have never let me have a moment without more pain than I can imagine if I didn’t. He scares the piss outta me more than Val any day of the week. Self preservation, baby.” 

Isabel knew the lie of that. Angel Dust was horrified from the moment they had met with the task he had been given. That was true before he had known who her husband was. 

“It matters not how you wish to deflect it. Your heart has been judged pure.” 

“Isabel- they decided that you can come home too!” Emily’s eagerness died as emotions warred across Isabel’s face. “Adam’s gone, so he won’t be bothering you anymore. You know what happened to your late husband-” 

“Current.” Alastor’s voice cut through the space. 

“You’re not married,” Sera challenged. “You haven’t been since the day she died. A marriage is until death.”

“Our vows were rather unique,” Alastor’s grip on her waist was growing painful but she welcomed it, letting it ground her as her mind seemed to spin out of control. 

“You don’t have to stay in a realm of violence and death,” Sera ignored Alastor, instead speaking directly to Isabel again. “You do not have to remain with a bloodthirsty murderer.” 

She was tense in his arms. He could feel the way her body trembled under his hands. He could lose her. Because of what he had done, his little hobby, he could lose her again. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. They had vowed for eternity. 

“We modified our vows,” Alastor insisted, “We changed ‘till death do us part’ to instead be a promise for all eternity. I have remained faithful, as has she. We are still wed.” 

“You are not.” Sera's smile reminded Isabel of the way Vox smiled at her when he realized he had her caught.

“Why?” Isabel felt like she was spinning, as if the floor was falling out from under her. She didn’t know if she was asking why her marriage was considered void or why she was being called to return to heaven’s gates.

“While you vows may be been spoken for and intended to be for eternity, though you’ve remained faithful- since death you’ve not lain together as man and wife nor have you spoken your vows again. You will return to Heaven today and you will move on.” 

“Wait, now-” Angel Dust was the first to speak up but was quickly cut off by Emily.

“Sera, that’s not exactly-”

“And if those conditions are met?” Alastor’s voice was thick with the filter. Static felt like it was crawling over Isabel’s skin. Shadows danced in a way that reminded her too much of the night prior, when Alastor had let blood fly through the air of the studio hidden in shadows. 

“If she were to accept laying with a man such as you, a man who takes pleasure in the ending of human lives, she would damn her soul.” Emily was quick to speak, wanting to be factual before Sera could do whatever she had planned. “It doesn’t have to be right-” 

“But she hasn’t. She will return with us. They both will. We will be leaving momentarily.”

“And if I don’t want to go?” Angel Dust asked, downing another drink. “And if I want to say fuck you to your offer, come get me next time I die, maybe?” 

“For you, that would be agreeable.” Emily again spoke quickly, feeling the situation spiraling out of her control. “We simply wanted to offer you passage now. You don’t have to risk losing redemption while waiting to die.” 

“Or, I can earn redemption through this stupid ass hotel the way Charlie intends and not from being a pawn in some fucked up God’s game.” Angel Dust slammed down his bottle. 

“You’d be free of Valentino if you left now,” Husk pointed out. 

“Fuck it, I can take Val. I’m not done here.” 

“He can choose to stay but I cannot?” Isabel asked, wrapping her fingers around the strong forearm that had creeped up her front as Alastor gripped her shoulder tightly. 

“Regrettably,” Sera didn’t sound like she regretted it at all, “let’s go.” 

“Is Heaven not merciful enough to allow a hus-” Alastor’s smile twitched as he cut off his title in order to humor the seraphim whom he’d rather be ripping the wings off of, “a man a moment with the woman he loves to say goodbye?”

“Alastor!” Charlie’s outrage was clear on her face, “Wait, we can discuss this, find a solution. Maybe you can be redeemed too?!”

“There will be no discussion.” 

Alastor’s smile simply twitched as the shadows violently came to life, dancing with his power rather than simply deepening as they had been. Inky shadows came off the floor, spilling and plashing up on their feet as Alastor’s shadow itself pulled free from the wall. 

Fright filled Isabel’s eyes as her head whipped around. The seraphim were likewise uncomfortable with the display over power, pulling on their own wells of power to push back shadows that strayed too close. 

Cold black arms wrapped around both Isabel and Alastor. An icy chin rested on her shoulder as it curled in over its master and its love. Fingers as dark as the void hooked her chin and pulled her to look at its face. 

The face of the other Alastor looked back at her. The face of darkness and unhidden emotion that somehow spoke more than Alastor’s schooled face ever did frowned for a moment, sharp mouth pulled down at the corners before it began to smile again. Fingers that shouldn’t have been real caressed her skin as the floor became soft under her feet. A black shadow heart flew up above the black head of the shadow man as its shadows swallowed them.

“Where is he taking her?” Sera demanded, her voice lost to the roaring static in Isabel’s ears.

The shadows pushed them up from again. He held her as she regained her balance, her heels clicking against the cracked tile floors. The room was dark, lit only by the dim red daylight that spilled over the landscape from some unseen or light source. 

Though the windows were large, overlooking the vast city below them. In the far distance, she could see the gleaming tech district that had been her prison for a few days. 

Alastor’s arms fell from around her as she stepped forward, taking in the broadcasting room decorated with deer skulls, rich wood and puddles of the bayou. It smelled like home in every way she couldn’t have been able to explain. It smelled like his workspace and their home mixed together. 

In a way, she guessed that’s exactly what he intended. 

“Where are we?” She turned to face the man she had always considered herself married to, shadows still dancing around him. His shadow twin still loomed, as agitated as the rest of the shadows. 

“The hotel still,” Alastor stalked up to her, looking very much like a predator. Was that how his victims had seen him in their final moments? “My broadcasting tower. I fear those meddlesome angels will not give us much time.” 

“Alastor, I-”

“I have honored your memory. I have honored your love, never once thinking I’d get to hold you again. Yet now you’re here, with me and you know- HA! You know everything now! But they dare come here and disrespect our marriage based on what?” His fingers dug into her arms as he bent down to be at eye level with her. “You must decide now, ma chérie. I need you like I’ve needed nothing in life or death. Do you accept me? Do you want me? Will you have me?” 

“I’ve always loved you,” 

That wasn’t the answer he needed to hear. Love wasn’t enough for those damned demons in angel’s wings. They cared not for their love. They spat on the face of their sacred vows. 

“It’s not enough.” Her lower back hit the hard edge of his workstation as he drove her back. “They don’t care that you love me. They don’t care. As long as they see you as unwed and pure, they’ll take you from me. Is that what you want? Do you want them to take you back? Do you regret finding me?” 

Alastor’s hand wrapped around her neck, grip soft as she looked timidly at the madness behind his eyes. She was sacred. No, that didn’t give enough weight to what she was feeling at that moment. She was terrified, but she didn’t want to run from him. 

“I said our vows again and again over these years,” she whispered. “Alastor? I don’t- I’m scared. You’re scaring me, but I don’t want to go with them.”

His lips crashed against hers, greedy to taste her lips again. They had decades to make up for, but unless he claimed her, they wouldn’t have the chance to make up for so much missed time. Tilting her head with the hand around her throat, he enjoyed the feeling of her gasp race down her trachea under his palm when he bit down on her lip.

Sweet blood filled his mouth as he drank her up. Not a lot, no- he never wanted to cause her any serious harm, but he needed to taste her. A lifetime of wondering what her blood tasted like. He finally had his answer. 

It was the sweetest wine. 

His lips left hers, tongue dragging along her jaw as he clutched her, thumb caressing her waist as he continued to taste her skin. He nipped and sucked at the exposed skin as he reached behind her, undoing one button above her wing. 

“I want to stay with you, Al.” Tears gathered in her eyes as she ran her hands along his shoulders. It took all the focus she had to unbutton his coat and send it off his shoulders. “Please, I don’t want to go.” 

“You’ll let me defile you?” He whispered as his hand left her neck so he could toss his coat absently toward his coatrack. 

It fell in a heap, unnoticed, while his large hands gripped her waist. He pushed her to sit up on the control panel as if it was nothing, setting her between dials and not sparing a thought to what buttons she could be pressing.

“You’ll let me dirty you? Let me rub the very sins of my soul off on you? Stain your soul dark with the darkness in mine?” His words were coming hot and heavy as he gripped her knees, just under the hem of the front of her dress, and pulled them apart while he ran his hand up her legs. 

“Yes,” she whimpered, craving the feeling of him. 

His firm chest under her hands left her wanting more. She pulled at the collar of his shirt, battling with his bow tie. 

“Please, Alastor-” 

He looked up at her as his fingers traced the line of her underwear, another garment he had materialized out of nothing by his raw power for her. Another demonstration of the world he could give her. 

“There will be no going back. No changing your mind. No turning your back on me. No divorce. No leaving me. There will be no heaven. There will only be eternity, with me.”

“Without you, it was never Heaven.”

Tag list in comments

[redpillbiker]

Back in 2020 this photo made me ask myself which political side really aligned with my life outlook and which didn't, who were 'my people' and who weren't.

I got my first MAGA hat that year and at least started to see things differently. It took a long time coming, but I came to more objectively consider what I really believed, questioning if social justice activists really were creating the fairer world they advocated.

Real maturity of thought awakened me, not woke agitation for a redistributive levelling of society that recommits injustices anew based on fetishizing skin pigment, telling men that they're toxic and Whites that they're privileged.

All lives do matter, and identity politics of resentment that institutionalizes victimhood is a recipe for social disaster, not fairness and justice.

Weaving each act of police misconduct into a systemic racism narrative that requires radical redress of reparations only fosters civil discord, not the true racial harmony activists claim as a goal.

There are acts of corruption and misconduct in all occupations, but plenty more good deeds go on and go well, which is why our world isn't in constant chaos.

To taint all law enforcement as endemically racist is just as racist as regarding all people of a non-White race as inherently prone to criminality.

Individuals are responsible for their individual acts, right and wrong, and lumping lots of people together to concoct a larger storyline is often disingenuous, particularly when based on physical attributes.

The justice system will take care of wrongdoers and exonerate those falsely accused. No amount of street protests will alter what happens in any courtroom.

Intentions may be good on the part of some activists, but if they want true solidarity of spirit with kindred minds, it's better to embrace mutual hobbies like being in the riding club in this photo rather than being a constantly angry public protester whose agitation won't change any hearts and minds--least of all those denigrated by protesters as being responsible for all social ills based on a supposedly inherited legacy of past injustices no one has any control over today.

[talenlee]

Decemberween 2024 — My Players

You know who you are, if you’re reading this.

I am a big fan and advocate for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, for the simple and objectively true reason that it is the best version of Dungeons & Dragons that exists. It is the version of this iconic game that enables new players, tactical play, and a consistent, even player power level that still lets players do cool things they want to do. Based on this, it is the game I think that you should always start with if you want to introduce a new player to the most generic platform for tabletop games.

Anyway, I haven’t run 4th edition D&D in about a year. My play group hasn’t been happening.

I have instead been running Blades in the Dark now for about four months for a group that includes at least one player who’s never played TTRPGs before.

If you’re not familiar with Blades in the Dark, oh there’s my link to my review of I’ve written about it, oh and things that are built off it that I also like and even contributed to, oh and here’s me comparing another game to it as a failure, never mind. I think it’s reasonably clear that this is one of my favourite TTRPG systems, for entirely personal reasons. I mean one of the things I love about this game is that the book is nice to hold in the hand, which I could use as the underpinnings of a 2,000 word academic article about interface design or I could just be as honest and say it satisfies me to hold it.

Blades in the Dark struck me as the place to start because it meant that I could hande the pdf to my players and know that they had 100% of the information they needed to play the game and we were all working off the same, public information. This occurred to me as a nice way to ease the experience since I knew I was dealing with more than one neurodivergent player. Blades in the Dark is also very flexible; when players engage with the game, I can reassure them that there’s a lot of power in their hands, that they get to make choices and demands and my job is to adjudicate and illuminate around the, not to present their choices to them.

Blades in the Dark also parcels up player time in really handy chunks; there are scores, there are downtimes, and because the game splits things up like this, a player can drop in or drop out of it easily. That meant that if I set up a game using this system, players could drop in or drop out very easily, and the game would handle the presence or absence of characters, without needing excuses or reasons for why a character wouldn’t be present in the narrative.

Also, Fox, who is playing in the game, she made us a Virtual Tabletop. Now, when I read this to her she’s going to point out that hey, hey, she didn’t make it from scratch, there was already a thing that she built it from or she ‘just’ updated something to make it viable for us, which I appreciate but it’s also silly as hell because just because you bought the table from Ikea doesn’t mean you’re not the person who made it in our living room.

I used Discord for this. I made a Discord, set it to a community discord, and that gave me access to the forum tools. Then, I could set up the forums, where one set of forums were for the players. Each player could make a forum thread for their character, to keep notes, ask questions, put lore, images, that kind of thing. On my side of things I set up a forum of world stuff, where I could put districts, gangs, that kind of thing.

Okay, but this is just describing things around the Decemberween Thing. Right? Like this is a Decemberween article, I’m meant to be using this as an opportunity to tell you about stuff you can watch or listen to, right? Is this promoting an Actual Play or something?

Kinda.

Or rather, I’m trying to promote you, personally, starting your own TTRPG group, with any TTRPG you like, on discord, or whatever, and play with your friends, because that social experience rules. It is the highlight of my week, to show up with my friends, using a Google Spreadsheet to manage my locations and factions and all that, a dice roller program, and the joy of listening to and sharing with my friends. We even have our own strategy examples for doing great at this game, which is, you just roll sixes.

This is what I recommend. I think you should start this kind of thing up. I think you should, if you like TTRPGs, start a group. Ask some friends. You know how many friends you need to try out TTRPGs? One. You can just pick one friend, pick any of the free games, even the GMless ones, and see how you like telling stories together.

And…

I have world information.

I have world building for the setting I made to put this game in. I have this space which is a sort of alt-history, Victorian whalepunk, island country, modelled on Australia, the Phillippines and New Zealand. It has gangs and factions and it has a system for police districts. It has a world deepened by the players’ creations and their contacts and friends and it’s so cool and at least, right now, at least right here, I’m not writing about it, or sharing it with you. Not to be rude to you, not because I don’t trust you or don’t want to brag about how cool my players are!

But because not everything I make becomes part of this blog.

It’s a balancing act: On the one hand, I want to make sure you know that what I do is demystified. Nothing I do is hard, nothing I do is done because I am special and better and able to do things you can’t. On the other hand, these players aren’t here to be Media that I Produce for an Audience. Maybe we’ll all decide sometime in the future to make this as shareable content, maybe letters or missives from the world. Maybe I’ll put together a dossier about the world, its gangs and the lore, so you can use it to run a game yourself, if you like.

Here, though? Decemberween?

I want to highlight that my players are incredible.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[milligramspoison]

Let’s connect the dots, we’re gonna theorize real quick 😵‍💫

Obviously back in August, Frank posted a fortune cookie, which seemingly hinted (or confirmed, however you wanna take Frank’s story as) that something was coming at some point in the future.

Obviously, the last time Frank posted a fortune cookie, which was in February 2022, we got Foundations three months later in May 2022.

The miracle we witnessed was them dropping Foundations a few months after this was posted.

And of course, this isn’t the first time he’s done this either- he hinted at the mini MCR reunion in May 2017 with a fortune cookie, MCR’s first time spotted together since the breakup in 2013.

Now let’s go back to Frank’s August 2023 fortune cookie- what are we waiting for exactly?

Well, there’s a few things, actually- MCR5, LOTMS2 announcement, another tour announcement, Eagles as the next single, etc.

Starting Tuesday night, I and some other MCR blogs got the same exact ask at the same exact time.

We all received this ask asking us if we’re seeing MCR at WWWY in 2024. Of course, as of writing this, the 2024 WWWY lineup has yet to be announced.

We all had received more similar asks asking us pretty much the same thing but worded differently and also gave us some info- I’ll show the ones I got personally that gave us info.

No one had heard anything at this point in time as far as I’m aware! So we were all pretty convinced that we were getting trolled.

Earlier today, a mutual of mine on tiktok came across this screenshot below on twitter.

This seems to be the origins of those asks we received on Tuesday night.

Of course, we knew MCR was gonna tour again, Gerard’s expressed a shit ton of interest for it at various of shows throughout the tour.

And based on the fact Frank remained in LA from late August to early September after the Dunes tour ended and also posted the fortune cookie while he was there, we can assume that they were more than likely in the studio together.

But let’s connect this discord message to Frank’s August 2023 fortune cookie.

“Let’s finish this up now, someone is waiting for you on that.”

That’s what Frank’s fortune cookie said. And like I stated earlier, we’re waiting for MCR5, LOTMS2 announcement, another tour announcement, Eagles as the next single, etc.

The discord message is stating an announcement from MCR could come within the next 2-3 weeks.

While that would dismiss the Friday the 13th theory, as that’s 7 days away as I’m writing this, it makes the Halloween theory more possible.

Halloween is a little over 3 weeks away and is one of the theorized dates of MCR doing something, whether it’s an announcement of some sort or them dropping a single.

Frank, like he’s done in the past with fortune cookies, was telling us something. And if this announcement does happen in the next 2-3 weeks, whether it’s a tour announcement, an announcement of a surprise single like Foundations was, etc, that’s what Frank was possibly telling us through his fortune cookie.

Of course, this is a theory, so this could all be wrong. And we don’t know how true the discord message and the anonymous asks some of us received are, so of course, take this all with a grain of salt.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Do you lean more towards the view that John was irrevocably in love with Paul but this wasn’t reciprocated in the same way because Paul is straight? Hence the bitterness of John and the bewilderment of Paul during the break up and the following decade? I struggle between this view and view there was a mutual love between them. I go back and forth, my head saying the first is probably more likely but my heart finding it too heartbreaking and depressingly tragic. Then finding further ambiguous stories that swing my view back around and so on and so on. I actually find the view that it was purely platonic on both sides more comforting (for lack of a better word) than the one sided love take on things. I also struggle with the *it was all John and his many mental issues fault* discord, maybe because I find it again, too heartbreaking. But also too black and white, Paul was the saint, John was the broken one. Ah I just don’t know! It drives me insane sometimes. I just wondered if you related at all? What’s your opinions? I just love reading nuanced Mclennon takes and I very much respect yours :)

Hi anon! thanks for this ask, I really enjoy talking about this too.

I actually think you bringing up what stories we find the most comforting is too often overlooked. The distinction between what is true and what one wants to be true is important.

Personally, I think the two-sided platonic take is the least tragic – not that friendship breakups aren't incredibly sad, but in this particular case it wouldn't carry as much extra baggage. TBH, regarding the one-sided scenario, I actually find it heartbreaking from Paul's perspective specifically, because it's something I feel he would both want to know and which would be about the most upsetting thing he could possibly find out now, when it is far too late to do anything about it.

But on the other hand, I also disagree that one-sided attraction from John's side is more heartbreaking than something two-sided (assuming it was deep, not just situational mutual lusting), because I find the idea that Paul has been hiding something that huge his entire life almost disturbingly sad. I know he's a private person, but if John was some lost Great Love of his, I can't imagine it not weighing on him that he's felt the need to tiptoe around that for half a century (given he does enjoy speaking about Linda in that way). As I've said, the idea of it being one-sided is very sad to me, but there's also sort of a "well, nothing to be done about that" to it, which takes some sting out of that scenario to me. If there was a mutual attraction there, then it does to me feel viscerally upsetting if they never got to actually give that a fair shot (seeing as most people don't think John and Paul were in a committed longterm relationship, even if they think they had a multi-year sexual thing going on).

Okay, now onto what I think the truth is. Firstly, I want to reiterate: I don't know the truth, there's a lot of unknown variables at play. There's a sort of "default" most likely scenario in my head, but I try to keep as many possibilities as I can in mind.

As I've said, I have not found there to be a very compelling case that Paul is anything but straight (but I am open to the idea that he might not be). There is a very compelling case that John was not. From there, it doesn't seem like a leap to me, based on quotes, that John at some point had at least a crush on Paul. What gets murkier is assessing how relevant that was to the breakup and their relationship at large. I agree with you that saying "the breakup happened because he couldn't stand not being with Paul" is a gross simplification, as is "John was Mentally Ill™, thus breakup". But dismissing either of those things as at least co-factors in the breakup seems unwise to me.

I feel like understanding John's journey with internalized homophobia would be relevant here. Even if by the time the band broke up he was no longer "down bad" for Paul, I can't help but feel like, if John was generally feeling negative about his attraction to men, that he would project that onto a former male love interest of his, especially if he was already mad at Paul for other reasons (business and music-related). I talked about how primal therapy specifically might have exacerbated this here (though bear in mind: I no longer would use the term 'conversion therapy' to describe primal, just because people tend to misunderstand the details and sensationalize this chapter in John's life).

Looking at John's breakup behaviour, I'm also somewhat reminded of this guy from my high school who went from very obviously crushing on me to very openly and repeatedly voicing his disgust with me. Is that to ensure nobody gets "the wrong idea"? Is it needing to convince yourself your feelings weren't real or that moving on is the right answer? I'm not sure.

Furthermore, Yoko did basically tell Norman that she thought John was partially extremely angry at Paul post-breakup because he felt sexually rejected by him. Like. That's a thing John's widow, who was there at the time, said lol, though I'm not actually opposed to the idea that maybe Yoko is kind of an overly enthusiastic shipper herself and has maybe even read more into it than was there. But I also can't just dismiss her when she is basically the single most knowledgable source on John.

Lastly, even though I think it's quite possible that John had an unrequited sexual and romantic attraction towards Paul, I don't think I'd claim Paul loved John less. I think Paul was kind of obsessed with John,* and still is in some sense (though the reasons for that are far more complicated and related to 1) the senseless tragedy of John's death and 2) Paul basically having to act as a sounding board for everyone on earth's grief for John).

Not that this fact would necessarily have been all that comforting to John at the time, but I kind of reject the premise that it's completely tragic because their relationship was built on a mutual love, even if it wasn't always compatible in that way.

*I also kind of think Paul probably enjoyed the attention John gave him, even if (or perhaps because) he didn't realize what John's intentions were.

Does that all make sense?

[penultimatefan02]

A Penultimate Pen Theory.

Recently, @pentition posted a very insightful and thoughtful analysis regarding Pen’s potential future as a core romance candidate in an upcoming game. This gave me food for thought about Pen's future direction and how his past relationship with the Sandrock builder could come into play, or whether he should find love with a playable character in an upcoming game.

When I think about Pen’s future, I’m limited by the few crumbs Pathea has offered us to theorize about his history and motivations. It’s not much but there are tidbits that I’ve clung to that put me in the camp of “team Pen.” There are also a few Discord posts by zede05 that I’ve added to the tiny pile of details.

Some history to note is that players who participated in the MTAS early access may have a different opinion of Pen than late-comers due to Pen’s romance being a Kickstarter goal and not originally developed. Also, his character art was greatly improved after he was introduced (I’m basing this on Discord comments as I did not participate or see prior iterations of Pen). These details may put EA players in the “Pen’s romance and physical characteristics were an afterthought” camp, which is valid.

Regardless of the romance aspect, it was Pen’s story that was greatly developed. He was such a BIG character for 2/3 of MTAS. No one makes a character that big with that many parallels, hints, and ambiguities unless they plan to utilize them in the future. Pen may become a big deal, and his arc may likely have a strong emotional impact on the player.

The one thing we know is that Pathea can and may change their mind about storylines and character development based on player response. Many discussions regarding Pen’s future romance potential are read and possibly considered in how they will approach his story arc and resolution. The more we talk about it on Reddit and Discord, the more chance we have of helping to shape Pen’s outcome. Based on zede05’s comments, nothing is set in stone.

Now, with that said, I think the original direction they may have decided on, and why Pen was not a marriage candidate is because he’s going to take the true role of the anti-hero, and his ending will be his end. Please forgive me for typing it out, it’s not meant as a jinx, and I truly don’t want it to happen. However, I do think there is a strong possibility that the writers may decide or have already decided that this resolution needs to happen to counterbalance his actions in MTAS (and in future game(s) if he continues the villain path a while longer).

I’ve been wrong many times before, but I see Pen as being the main hero of the series at a great cost to himself. Aadit gets to go home, but Pen doesn’t. Pen may even be the one to save Aadit so he can return home to Portia’s builder.

Pathea doesn’t think players will be disappointed by “how” Pen ends up, not “where” Pen ends up. Granted, there are translations involved and they didn’t know whether Aadit would be the Rogue Knight or not by Portia’s end, so it’s all speculation. However, if Pen sacrifices himself for the greater good near the series end, zede05 would be right that we wouldn’t be disappointed. If anything, we would all be greatly moved by it and the emotional impact and payoff would be huge. Pen ends his story as a true hero.

I’m not sure how many games they plan for the series, but I’ll play the odds that Pen will be recurring until the end. I believe someone at Pathea mentioned using Marvel’s film series as a guideline for its continuing characters (in reference to Aadit and Pen).

To bring the discussion back to romance, I think Sandrock’s builder was the first time Pen ever felt something akin to affection or love. At the end of the Paradise Lost quest, we know he’s quite familiar with sex, but then sex doesn’t require emotions. He was unsure of what friendship was, and he didn’t understand the feelings he was left with after his dates with the builder. Pen only knew he liked it and wanted to spend more time with them. He comes off as very emotionally stunted, which aligns with his more narcissistic traits.

One comment that stood out to me was in response to a question about Pen becoming romanceable again in the future, zede05 replied, “But Pen only loves himself and his form of justice. Haha.” So, if anything, Pen must grow and learn to have concern for others not just himself. I think the builder’s relationship with him in Sandrock set that into motion, but we won’t know the impact until he’s reintroduced later on. While I wouldn’t be surprised if Sandrock’s builder has a role in his future, I believe at the very least they helped build the foundation for his potential redemption arc.

I don’t think Pathea will let him be romanced again until something happens to counterbalance his past crimes. So, if he does do the big thing to save the day and lives, then maybe the next game could see him become a marriage candidate. Although, I really like @pentition's idea of Pen heading off to find the builder or having them ride off into the sunset, preferably on Merle’s back. I’m a big fan of full-circle storylines, so Pen dating a new character comes off to me as slicing the pie in half and chucking it in the bin.

Regardless of what is to happen in the My Time series, we know that Pen will probably play a big role in it. I do hope that whatever road Pathea has laid out for him will ultimately lead to his redemption and that we are all left feeling proud of him and satisfied with his story.

Gosh, this was hard to write. @pentition, thank you for sharing your thoughts, which in turn gave me a bit of courage to share mine. I hope I'm not a total Debbie Downer on this topic.

[amethystsoda]

What is time princess about? I've been seeing it on the Play store but I have no idea if to download it

hello anon! I'd be glad to give you an overview and some tips for starting out! :D

Time Princess is what happens when all your childhood dreams of getting transported into a book come true.

At heart, the game is a set of continual isekai stories, transporting you to different "books" with the help of a magic desk and giving you "create your own adventure" options to see how the story plays out.

Your fairy companion Isabelle helps you learn the ropes, and you have to go through one mandatory book (a Marie Antoinette themed story) to get access to your room and the larger bookstore

(I'll put the rest under a read more bc it'll get long)

For each chapter you complete, you earn 1-3 tickets. With these tickets, you can unlock new books! The more you play, the more you earn towards new stories.

The game currency works on a coins and diamonds system--you don't NEED to purchase anything to play (though it may make the game a bit easier in some areas)

You get free stamina to access books and crafting materials every 11 hours and the Time Princess discord server has codes pretty frequently for diamonds, tickets, etc.

I personally splurge for the Fashion Booster every 2 months because I know it helps support the game and the artists! I try not to use real money on the random outfits unless I REALLY want one bc it can get addictive.

One of my favorite parts of the game is that, as you play, you unlock "album" art (full color illustrations that tie into the story!!)

One other thing I love is that the game is very targeted towards Bisexuals, as there are TONS of queer wlw story lines (though because of the games' popularity overseas and censorship, often gets called "best friends" etc)

Another fun part is the variety of stories!!!! There's art history!! There's stuff based on old fairy tales like Swan Lake. There's fantasy stories like The Apothecary. There's a Pirate story!!! There's Chinese, Japanese, and Korean stories. There's a western cowboy story! There's futuristic scifi!!! There's a victorian flavored horror story!!!

Most, if not all, of the stories are with adult characters and have adult storylines!! (the books will also give you a content warning before downloading)

On top of the stories, there's plenty of other fun aspects--mini games, fashion challenges, checking in with your companions every day to earn crafting materials, joining a society, playing events, and just playing dress up with your outfits and taking pics for fun.

The discord community is great too, and there's often interview nights with some of the book authors and giveaways of materials and prizes (I actually ended up winning a plushie Lafayette one time!)

The discord server also has game guides and walkthroughs for everything!

Everyone who plays the game gets really into the stories and characters, so even though the tumblr presence of fans may be smaller, you have an immediate bond with the other players!!!

They've also done some really cool collabs with museums like The Louvre and the Flamenco museum. You get to earn clothes from famous paintings or historical ones during that event period!

Finally, don't forget to save your big clothing crafting for Saturdays! You get double the materials!!

[tenalach10]

i hate saying this and i hate that i have to say it at all. one of my closest friends, kipper, is being labeled as a groomer and manipulator. this has been happening since 2022. i won’t have it.

the google doc supposedly proving kipper was horrible, published by ashesofangst, has many leaps of logic and hearsay in it. even if i didn’t know kipper, i think it would be easy to tell how fallible of a document it is. a good chunk of ash’s evidence is just their own words which is untrustworthy at best. other evidence does not prove their arguments, such as saying kipper groomed someone when they were 17 and turned 18. the supposed victim was fifteen when kipper, who was seventeen, dated them. just because someone turns eighteen during a relationship doesn’t mean it’s pedophilic.

in fact, i was friends with ash at the same time kipper was. ash admits that they are putting up an act when they talked with kipper in order to gather information on their accusations. was ash lying to me too? did they actually like me, or were they using me for information? it doesn’t inspire a lot of faith and trust between ash and i.

the reblog from burner506 blows ash’s already untrustworthy accusations out of proportion. if you actually knew and interacted with kipper, you would know they rarely do discord calls with friends. they especially did not do them back then, whenever this “allegation” occurred. it’s even more unlikely that they would ask for explicit pictures.

jumping to conclusions and blowing small things out of proportion are dangerous lines of thinking to fall into. no one is perfect. kipper has messed up in the past, but it is nowhere near the level that ash is saying it is. they did not “fake” dissociative identity disorder. they are not a groomer. they are not a manipulator. if they were, i would not be friends with them. i’m not stupid. i’m not brainwashed.

i know that this could all be read as conjecture and hearsay, but it is true. my testimony is based on close personal experience — a friendship with kipper that has lasted since 2019 — and critical thinking. if kipper was a truly bad person, i would have left them years ago.

talk to me if you have questions. i’ll answer to the best of my ability.

[ikemenlibrary]

Now announcing.... 'My Ikémen Valentine' Gift Exchange!

A sweet and spicy holiday to celebrate with your true love

The fifth installment in the Ikémen Gift Exchanges hosted by @ikemenlibrary. This one’s a bit different, as it’s not for a specific fandom, but instead, a romantic holiday! 

This is open to all of the current Ikémen games released in English servers!

Main Info:

Event: Gift Exchange

Fandom(s): Ikemen Vampire, Ikemen Sengoku, Ikemen Prince, Ikemen Revolution

Creation time: January 19 - February 16 Gift sharing: February 17-18

You can sign up for the exchange here

The deadline to submit your submission to join the exchange will be due on January 12.

You will have a month to create a Valentine’s gift for your recipient and an Ikémen character that they have given to you out of their list. 

If you're interested in joining, please make sure to get your answers completed and sent in before January 12. You can edit your sign up form after it’s been submitted, but please make sure to let me (the host)  know if you’ve done that, as I do not get notified when that happens and I want to make sure everyone’s happy with up to date information. Once the deadline passes, I will turn off the link to edit or submit so if you have any problems after then, please contact me directly.

Once I get everyone’s information organized and sorted, I will be reaching out to everyone individually on January 19 to let you know who you’ve been assigned to create for, as well as any extra information to share at that point in time.

When your application has been accepted for the gift exchange, I will reach out with a link to join the Discord server (if you aren’t already in it from previous exchanges).**

Please let me know if you have any questions! I can be reached via Tumblr DM or if you have my Discord from previous exchanges, you may find me there as well <3

Disclaimer: **Please note before signing up that I do have a Discord server that I encourage everyone to join. We’d love for all the participants (myself included!) to get to know one another, work together, and potentially help each other out within the event. We also have some fun bots to play with!

If using Discord is something you are absolutely not comfortable with, please message me before you send in an application so I am aware that you will not be joining and can mark it down on my end for organization purposes. (If I’ve spoken to you about this before, just specify in the sign up sheet, there’s no reason to need to reach out again!)

Below the cut, there is a new update to the rules I’ve previously had in place. This is also reflected in the sign up sheet. Please let me know if you have any questions!**

Can’t wait to see you all soon!

**I just wanted to give a quick update on the rules, as I have changed a few things slightly this time around.

The minimum word requirement for fanfiction updated from 800 to 850 words

The fan art requirement has been updated from being lined with a colored drawing, to also require a background as well (this can be a solid color, or scenery, or whatever you decide. The background just cannot be white (of course, special cases may occur and I will leave it up to the artists stylistic choice))

This time around, you cannot select specific characters from a list who you aren’t interested in creating for. That would be too messy with 4 fandoms. Instead, you will get more options of characters to create based on your choices you fill out on the sign up form

You must be ready to share progress during the halfway check in point via Google Drive/Docs if you are a fanfiction creator. If you do not have access to using one of these, please send me whatever you have during the check in, and I will copy it into my Google Drive. This is so if there becomes a time where you lose your progress on something other than Google, there will still be a copy existing, even if it doesn’t completely reflect your current progress. 

This will all be reiterated in the information key you will be given at the time assignments go out, so don’t worry about remembering this for the time being

[chrisairgames]

Outer Rim Marches, #0.1

In January, I started a westmarches campaign for Mothership RPG. This is the first post in a series of play reports and mini-reviews I intend to share of the campaign-in-progress.

Let's call this post "Zero Session #1," in a series of Zero Session posts, where I'll get into the how/why of organizing and running this campaign.

Why? Well, I own a ton of Mothership modules. I've been playing and writing for Mothership RPG for over two years, yet most of my sessions became playtests and that "work-only" connection to the game was burning me out.

So, I decided to build a sandbox campaign around the physical MoSh games I have in hand, and to find folk to play at an open table.

For now, ok, sure, it's more of an open table sandbox for interconnected one-shots than a "true" westmarches game, especially since the game has only one GM (me, but I'm hoping to open that up soon). But Outer Rim Marches sounds cool, eh?

Initial Forward Operating Base (F.O.B.)

The PCs arrived at Sater's Redemption. They work for The Company, who hired them to represent their new presence amid a mess of other factions, and leases a ship, The Orpheus, to the Crew.

(We decided the official corporation name of The Company that owns their ship will be revealed in play. That hasn't happened yet, eight sessions later. I love hanging this important piece of worldbuilding in the balance for when it can have a bigger narrative impact. Not knowing wtf is going to happen is one of my favorite parts of running ttrpgs.)

The Crew's job: explore the Outer Rim to establish footholds in new trading hubs (F.O.B.s), discover novel exploitable resources (artifacts), capture profitable exobiological lifeforms, and spread the influence of The Company.

The above graphic might be familiar to folk who follow my substack, the 5 Million Worlds Rokaner Report. Each month, I release a free sci-fi adventure setting, and this station was the featured world in the April edition. A taste of things to come.

Game Organization

When I set out to recruit players, the first important bit was setting a firm, regular playtime. When people reached out, I sent them the Consent in Gaming fillable PDF to get an idea of collective Lines/Veils. Once I got that back, I sent a google survey to gauge interest in modules and game commitment to split folks into ping-able groups.

The playtime is working out well. We had one three week break, I was out sick one time, and only once did we have not have enough folk to play. Ten sessions out of a possible fifteen since January!

I kinda fucked up the module-interest part of the survey though. I listed module names, and without content tags this was pretty useless for the players (outside the BIG names, like Hull Breach). I intend to redo this survey soon, and I'll share a copy here when I do!

The player commitment bit was super helpful, at least. Since I run games on Discord, I split players into three groups: the Command crew who vote on which job to take, the mainline players are the Crew I ping each week to advertise the game (I make an "Event" in Discord), and and a final Cryo group to call on when games don't fill up right away.

This has worked super well for me, even when I drop the ball on giving the players the Event ping in advance.

The Sector Map

I built this hexmap using Sectors Without Number, which is a sector generator for Stars Without Number. I opted for this against the recommendations of Mothership's Warden's Operation Manual because in a westmarches campaign, from what I've understood, the world is meant to be established once the game begins. I think this is especially important should other GMs and player groups begin playing in this world.

To be blunt, I found using this is kind of annoying. There's a lot of irrelevant SWN info to delete, TONS of systems to hide individually, and it's pretty intensive to integrate module info into the systems.

In short, listen to Sean McCoy's advice in the Warden's Operation Manual if you're starting your own Mothership game and don't fucking do this, haha.

And to be honest, I'm not sold on this even being useful as a sandbox tool intended to be shared with other GMs, even. The verdict is still out. To be continued in another Zero Session post down the line.

ANYWAY! This map looks empty, but that's because it's the player-facing starcharts the Company gave them. PCs need to buy hyperspace route maps at various hubs to explore beyond these bounds. So the star and hyperlane layers hold loads of hidden info.

Feel free to poke around the current state of the sector.

And I do like the shift from a web to hexmap. Little swirls of points get me all crossed up. The Jump-drive distances in Mothership are amenable to using hexes, and tracking distance (i.e. time passed) is straightforward.

ORM Campaign Sneak Peek

Mothership space travel takes a long-ass time, in case you didn't know. To date, we've played nine adventures over ten sessions, and over two years have passed in the campaign world.

The players skipped over a lot of systems to go to Hardlight, which they've recently learned is on the edge of the Public Sector (from Hull Breach). Gonna be some interesting sessions coming up.

The next Outer Rim Marches post will be the official ORM#1, in which the players board the lauded Year of the Rat.