#I love spreadsheets so much

[dare-to-dm]

For those who are interested in using Spreadsheets for their character sheets, but don't know how to build them, you can usually find some for free just by googling "[insert system here] excel character sheet". Especially for the popular systems, you're almost certain to find an excellent tool that's already been made.

And if you are interesting in learning how to build your own, I still recommend you do this just so you can see how someone else did it and learn from an experienced example.

You don't need to own Excel - spreadsheets also work in LibreOffice, which is free. If you use Google Drive, you can also load and make spreadsheets using Google Sheets.

Some of the already created tools out there are a lifesaver. For example, ship building in Starfinder is kind of a hassle. So I looked up to see if someone had made a ship building spreadsheet and found the excellent Nickela's Starfinder Ship Calculator. You input how many buildpoints you have and then can select different upgrades for your ship. It keeps track of how many points you've spent and how many you have left, and also generates a finished character sheet with your choices. It works very well and looks sleek as hell. Saves me a ton of time, too.

[scribefindegil]

The Conspiracy is so beautiful. Like.

Frodo is acting restless and his friends are afraid he's going to run off with no warning like Bilbo had done. Do they talk to him about their concerns? NO! CONSPIRACY TIME!!

Merry going up to Sam, the gardener who none of them have really spoken to much before, to be like "Hey do you want to help me spy on your boss? It's because of friendship."

THIS WORKS.

Sam gets super caught and has the fear of Gandalf put in him but he just bats his beautiful eyes and goes "Oh, I listened because I couldn't help myself!" and plays up the simple salt-of-the-earth thing to keep from giving away that no he was absolutely spying on purpose.

this ALSO works

But he won't tell the other Conspirators what he found out, which must drive Pippin *insane*.

Frodo spends the next six months thinking he's being very secretive but also wistfully sighing "Shall I ever look down into that valley again, I wonder?" every time he goes for a walk

Honestly it is AMAZING that Pippin didn't crack

At some point Merry and Pippin get together to filk the Misty Mountain song because having topical music is of course a vital part of any escape plan.

[foreverfearlessred]

oohhhh when I tell you I’m about to do something that puts me on the international news. James Vowles shut the fuck up challenge when. I hope your shitty excel spreadsheet gets corrupted x

[vaguely-concerned]

I'm fairly sure I'm less than half way through act 1, and already so much of my mental health hinges on getting to have lucanis' soft weirdly low-key voice in my ears saying absolutely insane shit and delightedly whispering 'buddy baby what'

(he genuinely does see deicide as just another part of his 9 to 5 and while not humourless in general does not understand why anyone might find this idea odd or humorous, is the best way I think I can describe his vibe. have you ever seen a man so beautiful and so autistic and also he murders people mostly politely and then goes back home and makes everyone a nutritious family dinner afterwards. add in some acute sleep deprivation and that's it that's the whole guy)

[walkingstackofbooks]

Kira and Julian in Life Support

Feelings 1:

Bareil, as far as I can see, has never called her Major on screen, called her Kira a few times before they got together and then called her Nerys very consistently, notably in The Collaborator. But in this episode, he doesn't call her by name once. But when he wakes up from the brain surgery, this happens:

"Bareil?" "Yes, Major?"

AND I AM SO DEVASTATED FOR HER.

Feelings 2:

Just Kira and Julian's whole interactions with each other:

(For context: Julian usually calls her Major; "Kira!" has been used once when rescuing her, and "Nerys" once when he was flirting. Kira usually calls him "Doctor"; "Julian" has been used on three occasions, once under duress when he was flirting, twice when she was protesting his orders to take a break.)

Julian breaks the news that Bareil has died

"Thank you Doctor. I'm on duty in Ops. Excuse me." "Kira. I think they can get along without you in Ops today."

Kira slides into her usual formality, since she's using work to distract from grief. Julian drops his usual formality and gently calls her by a friendly, but not intimate name.

When he is debating the first brain surgery with Kira and Winn

"I think she's right, Julian. I think Bareil would want the positronic implants." "Kira, if I go through with this, the man who wakes up may not be the man you used to know." "I realise that, but I know how important this is to him, and I know he wouldn't want to just be put into stasis indefinitely, waiting for some medical solution that may never come. Do the surgery, Julian. Let him finish what he started."

Kira begins to his name as she tries to persuade him. Julian continues to call her Kira; almost unthinkingly, he's more concerned about saving Bareil than about Kira's feelings here.

When Bareil is dying.

"It's the other half of his brain, isn't it? But you can still help him can't you? You can replace the other half of his brain with a positronic matrix." "I'm sorry, Nerys, but this is where it ends."  .... "Julian, you can't give up now." "Nerys, if I remove the rest of his brain and replace it with a machine, he may look like Bareil, he may even talk like Bareil, but he won't be Bareil. The spark of life will be gone. He'll be dead. And I'll be the one who killed him."

Kira continues to use his name to cajole him into saving Bareil - You're Julian, you're my friend, why won't you help me, Julian?

But there is no way for Julian to offer Kira comfort here, and he knows it. So he does the only thing he can, dropping every formality and identifying himself as her close friend by using her given name - even as he tells her he has to let the man she loves die.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. VILLAINS by V. E. Schwab.

Time for a NaNo Prep Reread! I love Victor and this vicious little family with my whole chest. This'll be my second time rereading VICIOUS, but only my first time rereading VENGEFUL.

[isfjmel-phleg]

This is a personal post.

I really really really need to eat dinner but consider: I could keep working on this really fun (unironic!) spreadsheet indefinitely instead

[itwoodbeprefect]

one thing i have to hand to people online who leave reviews on obviously low budget westerns is that at least they don't complain that it's an obviously low budget western. it seems that i can't say this for some of the people leaving reviews on obviously low budget queer movies

[clanborn]

sorry I have Pokémon autism and anytime one of my favorite bloggers says something related to it it’s like the recipe for crack in my brain . Warriors and Pokémon is like my Oppenheimer.

that’s so real pokemon is a special interest of mine almost on par with wc. i enjoyed your pokemon/warriors crossover musings regarding leadership/the clans and stuff. i think you would enjoy the #warriordex tag on my blog i made a crossover with sprites one time

[thekidsarentalright]

keeping a spreadsheet for tourdust stuff is so fun bc it gives me a chance to fully look over everything at once and go. there is something wrong w these men there are insane things happening here

[holmesillustrations]

hello! first of all, i love the concept of an illustration tournament! all of the illustrations add a more in depth feeling to doyle's stories, and there's something about those crisp lines. it's wonderful good to see there's someone engaging with them and taking the time for this poll! i myself have been looking for different illustrations of hutchinson's and paget's but i haven't found any good scans like the ones you post on your page. i was wondering if they were your scans or perhaps you had found them somewhere? i would love to know where to find them! cheers!

hi! thank you so much!! i really do think the illustrations are such an important element of the stories and it has been so cool to see how much fun people are having with the tournament <3

i definitely dont have any original scans unfortunately (i do have a 1912 strand annual at home but alas, no holmes stories that year 😔) but i have a few sources i got illustrations for the bracket from, plus just editing/cleaning up what i could of the ones that i couldnt find in better quality. i'v said a bit of this before but i havent actually gone through with links/explanations so:

Sources for Holmes Illustrations

Wikisource-UK Strand Holmes Portal - missing most of the Return collection for some reason, but a great source for Adventures, Memoirs, and Casebook, plus HOUN. generally good quality resolution but a bunch are edited to have transparent backgrounds which can be annoying depending on how you're trying to use it. (probably your best bet if you love those crisp-lined paget ones from Memoirs, which are also a lot of my favourites dskfdk)

And then more generally you can find a lot of stuff just clicking around the individual stories' pages on wikisource and wikimedia commons, im not gonna link to all those for the sake of brevity but theyre easy to find

ACD Encyclopedia - im linking directly to STUD so you can see the page format but at the bottom of each story's page is a more or less full list of known illustrations, these are not always great quality but its a good place for reference and there are a few where this was the only source i could find at all (the Steele piece for DYIN comes to mind)

Archive.org: Strand // Collier's // Hearst's Intl etc . The strand scans are pretty comprehensive but vary wildly in quality from some of the best ive found to ones so covered in moiree artifacts that they were not even salvagable. But especially for the later stories with Wiles and Elcock, it was often the only reliable source. Collier's is missing a lot of issues but you can sometimes find things and at least the covers are usually good. Hearst's i can only find for 1923 but its a rly good scan so if anyone can find the 21, 22, and 24 from the same source im 👀.

and I have had no luck at all locating online resources for the other magazines but i love seeing the pages in their original context so im kind of passively looking all the time lmao

I thinkk that covers where i got everything, obviously its been a while since i was doing all this so i might have missed something and there may be other places i never found, but these were the major sources i used at the time. Im not sure if this will help with Hutchinson since i was focusing on first publications only and im pretty sure he was only on book collections iirc? But i think his are on wikimedia at least.

[serendipnpipity]

I don't know who has the time or patience for this but it would be really interesting to do data analysis on most frequently used dnpbeats songs in their videos 🤔

[halvedslab]

I would LOVE to hear about the vampire hunter au if you have thoughts about it, story wise ... I love the vibes so far and both Etho and Bdubs look so so so so cool !!!!!! I also love vampires sooo :> perfect au for me!! xD ❤️

OH I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THEM......... Essentially church-raised monster-hunter Etho is sent to kill what turns out to be high vampire Bdubs, fails, and then ends up agreeing to let Bdubs drink from him if he agreed not to drink from anyone else

It is like. the world's worst "exclusive situationship" ever. Friends with benefits except instead of friends, its "A thinks of B as an enemy while B thinks of A as a lover," and instead of your classic definition of benefits, it's meeting up monthly for homoerotic blood drinking. Etho is "gathering intel" on how to kill Bdubs while Bdubs is trying to woo him

Alternatively:

(Despite everything it is actually a very silly AU which started because I wanted to cover Etho Ethoslab in blood, is still mostly about that (and now putting Ethubs in silly little outfits), but there's some stuff deeper in about monstrousness and un/belonging which I'd like to explore more soon......................)

[tommygotwrittenoff]

buck and eddie would be the most insane PTA moms ever, actually. because eddie loves his son and being a bitch and buck loves bossing people around with a clipboard and being involved.

[flamestar126]

Sitting + Chocolates

[jennyfromthebes]

Isa is joining the tour again starting tomorrow and I am STOKED omg she's such a fantastic part of the touring band <3