#I think this thread makes a good point that I should have done long ago

[ekaeb]

My theory so far on what's going on with the Bright Queen re: Essek.

The gist of it: It's canon that Essek isn't being actively pursued by the Dynasty. His name is on a list somewhere and he had to flee his position in Eiselcross 7 years ago, so he is a person of interest, but we don't know what all the Bright Queen knows. She could know everything down to what socks Essek wore during his beacon heist and how long he and Caleb's last make out sesh was, or she could want him arrested on suspicion of telling Ludinus den Thelyss' recipe for frost worm stew. I think it's somewhere in between, possibly with some religiousness sprinkled in. Either way, if he is on her mind, Armageddon isn't really the time or place to arrest someone. Especially not an extremely powerful someone you'd want in the vicinity if the fight came to you.

The longer version:

I think that the Bright Queen, at a minimum, knows where Essek lives and who with. To me, it makes sense that she's had eyes on the Mighty Nein, especially Caleb due to him being an outsider with a non-insignificant knowledge of dunamancy, regardless of their association with Essek. We don't know why exactly Essek had to flee, or what information the Dynasty has on him. He's said that he might be able to get in contact with other Dunamancers if they can look past his past transgressions. That could be referring to him stealing the beacons, working with the assembly, and/or something else we don't know about. What I'm thinking is based on the assumption that at a minimum Essek is suspected to have been working with the assembly. I feel like if they thought/knew he stole the beacons, they would be actively looking for him.

I don't think the Bright Queen has Essek on her mind, at least not right now. She has a whole country to worry about on a day to day basis, and the potential end of Exandria as it is now to focus on. Essek is a loose thread on a large quilt. Essek is very important to the audience because we care about him. We know he's significant to the story. We know he stole the beacons and why. We know he worked directly with Ludinus and Trent. We have information that the Bright Queen most likely doesn't, so it makes it feel like he should be a much bigger blip on her radar than he probably is.

Now, I do think she knows where he is and is aware of his Seth persona. He lives with Caleb and works with Beau, so it wouldn't make sense to me if she wasn't(20 bucks says she has at least one Lens member posing as their neighbor.). There are a lot of possible reasons for why she hasn't had him captured yet. It could be that he just isn't her problem anymore. It's been over 7 years, what's done is done, and he doesn't seem to be actively making things worse for the Dynasty. He's still an Arrest on Sight if he's caught in the Dynasty, but he isn't an issue right now.

Another reason could be that he changed a lot since then. The Mighty Nein seem like genuinely good people who overall want to do good in the world in the most chaotic way possible, and the Bright Queen seems to admire that. Essek started coming out of his shell once they came into the picture, and by the end of the campaign had helped save the world simply because he cares for the people who were doing it to get their friend back. This is another instance of not knowing what the Bright Queen knows, but if she is keeping tabs on things, then she would know to an extent how dramatically Essek's changed from the egotistical, selfish, self centered prodigy that she knew him as. Back when campaign 2 ended and Matt gave more info on the Luxon, a lot of people were talking about how similar Essek's story is to it. Essek refused fundamental aspects of the culture he was born in, which led to a long period of loneliness and searching. He found something he loved (Dunamancy) and dedicated his whole being to it to the point that it eventually tore his life apart, but in doing so he found a new light. He found the Mighty Nein, who helped him put the pieces back together again, but better. Matt said Essek started to question who he was once he started to love the Mighty Nein. He asked himself, "Who am I?" and the Mighty Nein answered back, "Essek, our friend."

This combined with the religious and cultural beliefs of the Dynasty make me hope that the parallels wouldn't be lost on her. Essek is carving his own path, but needed a healthier and more accepting environment to do so. By the law, he should be prosecuted for his crimes. He should be arrested, put on trial, and punished accordingly. From an individual perspective, he's grown so much since he was Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, that I'd hope she'd think it was worth seeing where he goes.

Either way, I don't think expending the resources to capture him right now would be logical. It's all hands on deck, so expending the time, resources, and potentially soldiers to arrest a highly powerful mage and send him back to the Dynasty for legal proceedings isn't really possible with the current situation.

[thryth-gaming]

Playbooks vs Classes

Okay, so a few days ago, I saw this post on Blue Sky from John Rogers, one which I've already responded to but I felt like expanding on here.

For context, he was talking about the potential of WotC bringing D&D into 21st century gaming design and particularly about the ability to pick up and get to playing quickly, so this particular tweet was a little bit of a tangent from the rest of the thread.

As I said, I responded to this already with about four or five responses, but I've been thinking and decided I should expand on my points a bit. So I'm doing that here.

Aren't they the Same thing, really?

This was my thought when I came to the concept of playbooks by taking a look at Monster of the Week. I was skeptical because I had started to come to the idea that games that focused around templates weren't for me. I liked templates, they made games like Fate, Hero System, and other such systems easier. In these systems, character creation is wide, wide open and having templates of example builds is very helpful, but they are not imposed and there's no reason to stick to them.

Until Monster of the Week, my main experience with template-based games was D&D where the templates were very rigid. Hence my initial skepticism. It didn't take me long to realize there was a lot of differences, and I'll get to those in more detail later.

On the surface, playbooks and classes are essentially different words for the same thing. They each represent a type of character and the abilities associated with them. However, it is the design philosophies behind each structure that makes the difference.

Story vs Abilities

This is the main difference in design philosophy between a playbook as found in PbtA or FitD games. In D&D-style classes are built around a concept of what skills and abilities a character has by comparison, playbooks are built around a particular story arc. The amount by which this difference is visible varies from class to class and playbook to playbook, but the basics are there.

For example, Warlock and Paladin each have fairly strong stories associated with them and the Monster of the Week playbooks of the Hard Case and the Spell-slinger are both focused more heavily on specific skill sets than a lot of other playbooks. But still while these four examples lean closer to the gap, they are still on other sides of the gap.

The paladin and warlock classes have strong stories but their class features don't tell that story. The mechanics are very much focused on what the paladins and warlocks can do and this creates a situation where the associated abilities could easily be used to tell a story other than the one implied by a paladin's or warlock's associated narrative. For example, the mechanics of a warlock could be used to represent a slow transformative mutation rather than a person who made a pact with something.

There's no mechanics in either class that really give the flavor of either a person who swore an oath or a person who made a pact. Traditionally, a lot of people imply that powers can be lost when the pact or oath is broken, but that's a GM call and likely to shift from table to table. Jeremy Crawford has even noted that Warlocks are not required to be on good terms and that the power they have is a done deal.

Paladins breaking oaths has far more support for resulting in consequences via the Oathbreaker paladin, but even that is not particularly given hard mechanics.

But again, there's nothing preventing a person from writing a story about how they acquired paladin-like powers by a means other than swearing an oath. Because the mechanics are divorced from the story.

By contrast, the Hard Case and Spell-slinger are among the most "what the character does" focused playbooks I've encountered and yet still they devote a substantial portion of their mechanical shape to supporting the story of a person who is good in a fight or a person who wields magic as a weapon. For example "Not my Fault" helps the Spell-slinger better survive the consequences of their own spellcasting mistakes. And the central Fire mechanic of the Hard Case builds up when they face adversity, giving a mechanic that asks them to make choices about when to release their tempers.

In addition, each of these playbooks has a Luck special like all the other playbooks in the game (specifically Monster of the Week, which is the PbtA I'm most familiar with) where something will happen when they spend their Luck. In the case of the Hard Case, sometime soon after they spend Luck they will encounter a person they once fought in the past, perhaps as an enemy or perhaps seeking help. For the the Spell-slinger, soon after they spend Luck, they'll face interference from the "council of wizards" or whatever equivalent your campaign has (given the Spell-slinger in my last series was a fae, this was the faerie courts).

Ironically, while the paladin and warlock are two of the most story-centric classes in D&D, it is here that the gulf between story and mechanics is mostly easily seen. For example, from the default perspective of D&D lore, the idea of gaining powers from a strange magical accident or event is limited to just being a sorcerer origin story. But there's no reason that the same magical incident might not also give someone paladin or barbarian like abilities. Or warlock style casting instead of sorcerer casting. The existing lore says "no" but there is no mechanical reason supporting the lore.

It becomes glaringly obvious that classes are a bundle of abilities that could be applied to multiple story explanations except for the default assumptions of what exactly is the paladin class. There's also the fact that you can easily play someone with the paladin class without actually having or being a paladin in-game. And you can play someone who has the paladin title in-game but uses a completely different class to represent the powers they gained from their particular oath. The oath is pure roleplay and buy-in with little to no mechanics. Same with the Patron of the Warlock... what's to stop someone from playing a Monk as if their abilities are the result of a deal they made with a devil? Only tradition and assumption. Mechanically there's no reason.

This is predominantly why I felt like D&D classes were restrictive. I've had arguments from 2nd edition onward about reframing one class's features into telling stories more associated with other classes. Partially due to coming from effects-based games like Hero System where mechanics are completely bare and you're expected to add your own story. The D&D community and D&D rulebooks assume and insist that X mechanics have to match Y story and that's that. There will be people that say "okay, just homebrew it" but that tends to be a bit hollow. If I wanted to play with Wizard stats and say their spellcasting comes via an oath they made, it is very unlikely that a GM will treat my wizard spells as divinely granted abilities that can be taken away when I misbehave... because that's not how wizards work.

It's just such a blatant dissonance in my perspective.

On the other hand, we have PbtA and FitD where even the most ability-focused playbook is still teeming with mechanics that enforce a particular story. If I want to play someone who has magical abilities... I can do that with pretty much every playbook. If I want to tell the story of someone struggling with their powers, that's the Spooky. If I want to tell the story of someone holding tight to a lost humanity, that's the Monstrous. If I want to tell the story of someone in over their head who wants to help, that's the Mundane. If I want a tale of revenge, that's the Wronged. If I want to tell the tale of someone tempted by power, that's the Hex. When I play the Chosen, that person could be a front-line fighter, a back-rank support, or a charismatic leader.

I can choose the playbook for the story I want and describe how the abilities I want them to have fit the moves given. For example, if I want to play Edie from Wednesday, I'm not playing her as The Monstrous, because her story is about trying to have a normal teenager life which is interrupted by danger. Her story is not about controlling her werewolf nature. She's The Mundane, very clearly, despite not being human.

As a caveat, there are PbtA games where the design philosophy of the playbooks is a lot closer to the design philosophy of D&D classes. Dungeon World is one such game that tries to use PbtA to function as a sort of streamlined D&D game. However, I've never felt that PbtA serves that goal very well, and playing in that way doesn't really let PbtA sing. Perhaps the most recent edition is better.

Further, a lot of Feats and Class Features are designed to fit a requirement which means some of them are very uninteresting and fit in a narrative gap to match the desired idea of "person who fights" or "person who casts spells". A lot of these requisite style abilities are folded into "if it makes sense you need to do it, then you can do it". Weapon and armor proficiencies largely in this category. A fighter needs to know how to use weapons, and D&D says that proficiency needs to be noted on a character sheet. Where as Monster of the Week just says "a soldier is assumed to know how to use weapons and we don't need mechanics for that."

By comparison, the design philosophy for playbook moves is that they should all be somehow exciting. In some cases, this will be largely mechanical, such as giving a +1 to a main rating, but most of the time it is designed to make the narrative and story more interesting.

Transitory vs Fixed

This is another big difference between playbooks and classes.

In D&D when you choose your class, that is with you until the end of your character's career. It is immutable and unchangeable. You'll always have it. This is very much because classes represent skills and acquired powers that there's little to no way to lose permanently outside GM-fiat. And if you lose your class's features (such as if you're playing with a GM who has decided warlocks need to play nice with their patrons to keep their powers) then you can't go back and change those levels later unless the GM homebrews in some sort of retraining mechanic.

By comparison, a playbook is designed to be eventually left behind. Different versions of PbtA have handled this in different ways. In some cases you basically re-create your character entirely fresh as if they're a new character entirely, maybe with one or two left-over moves from the old playbook. In Monster of the Week, you go down the list of features and such and decide whether or not they are still true.

For example, if The Monstrous werewolf were to change over to being The Expert, unless they went through a whole story of seeking a cure there's no reason they can't stay a werewolf and keep their claws and Shapeshifting move. Likewise, the Professional doesn't necessarily stop being an agent if they become the Wronged. They might still keep their "Deal with the Agency" move and the Agency itself. But now when these characters spend Luck, the story that will get pressed will be one of the Expert investigating mysteries or the Wronged seeking revenge.

For that matter, playbooks are designed to stretch into the flavors of other playbooks with the ability to borrow moves from other playbooks being built into their advancement track. A Mundane might get bitten by a vampire and choose to take up "Mental Domination" as a new move but still stay a Mundane. A Flake might make a deal with Dionysis and gain the "Angel Wings" move. The Divine might start forming friends and connections among mortals and take "The Naked City" move. This lets them add nuance to their central story, the one pressed forward whenever they spend Luck and may even represent foreshadowing a future playbook change.

By contrast, multiclassing has traditionally been one of the more difficult to get right concepts for D&D and similar games. Fourth edition D&D and Pathfinder 2e handle this concept the best of this style of game I've seen, given how they use Feats to do it. But they still don't really do it as well as PbtA does. The balancing of one ability to another doesn't work well and skills are largely static unless you deliberately improve them.

This goes back to the first section of this rant where I focused on how playbooks focus on story while classes focus on ability. Stories change, abilities often don't.

Also, advancement in PbtA is largely horizontal. You can improve your ratings or take moves that improve specific rolls, but mostly you get more options, new story options, or give a more detailed version of a basic move. By comparison, D&D and similar games have largely vertical advancement. Which means you notice it a bit more when your warlock powers are strangely frozen because you haven't taken a new level in a good long while. D&D focuses on making what you can do stronger, while PbtA focuses on adding nuance.

Summary

Are D&D classes an inferior design to playbooks? That's largely going to be a thing that varies from player to player. There's a lot of people that will heavily appreciate the very well defined abilities of classes versus the flexible and narrative skills and abilities of playbooks. Of course, it's clear that the rigidity of D&D classes is something my brain rebels against and makes it harder for me to suspend disbelief.

It's important to remember not every game is going to fit every player. And that's perfectly fine. There's a tendency to assume that when someone likes something you don't then either you're wrong or they are. The truth is that you can both be right and just you enjoy different things.

I consider D&D a messy and far from perfect system, but that doesn't mean people who enjoy it are wrong for doing so. Heck, I enjoy D&D myself. I just enjoy Monster of the Week more.

[candinipumpkin]

Okay so this one has a story. A month ago I saw this guy in a dream and immediately woke up thinking ‘This would have done numbers 10 years ago!!!’ As you can see, I decided to draw him anyway even though I’m a decade too late lol. If nothing else it was really good drawing practice since I’m still adjusting to using the Procreate app since I’m sick of Adobe, like, in general. ANYWAY.

(full thought process under the read more because the text is a bit long on mobile)

Ok so full disclosure I’m terrible at picturing things in my head so I used a poseable figurine sitting on top of a spool of thread for reference. I even referenced the shadows from that thing. Point is during the drawing process I was like ‘ok so it definitely looks like he’s sitting on a spool, should I switch this to a stool instead?’ But if I did that then the shadows wouldn’t make sense anymore. So then I tried to change the spool to look more like a pillar.

THEN I drew the wall behind him and was like wait does the pillar being right there make sense? Quickly followed by you know what I’m not redrawing anything I’m too far in. (Again, I didn’t want to redo the shadows that I already referenced.)

SO THEN I was like ‘Okay you know what? He actually IS sitting on top of a spool. One of those giant spools of wire. He just like, spackled over it and painted it to look like a pillar so that he has a portable pillar he can just carry through the woods with him and set up in a photogenic location.’ Which was quickly followed by ‘Oh wait carrying that stupid thing around all time would be massively inconvenient… maybe he wheels it around in a wagon? No a wagon would be silly. He actually modified the spool by installing wheels on the bottom and a retractable handle on top! Like a suitcase! He just wheels his seat around with him and sets up wherever he wants!’

I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into my creative process.

[graevs666]

I feel like I’ve been this way for so long and no matter how hard I try to do better and escape the thoughts and memories they seem to always be with me.

im just not strong enough to keep dealing with this to be honest. I don’t have the energy to keep trying to fight for a life I gave up on so many years ago. I give up on people, I have done for a long time. I can’t trust people, I can’t love people, I can’t stay alive for them when their lives are just being held down by mine. I don’t think anyone really likes my company. I feel like a hollow shell just hanging on by a thread. I don’t want to die, I just wanted a good life, but the weight of all this trauma, both received and inflicted. I can’t deal with it anymore.

I don’t want to say goodbye forever but I just feel like this life was never meant for someone like me. I never felt good enough, I never felt like my life had any sort of purpose or meaning. I’m just here, a mistake. I don’t like myself, or my life, so I just don’t see the point in going further. I have dreams but they change so quickly nothing feels permanent or fixed and like I’m just holding onto something to romanticise being alive. Or things. Just feel like I’m waiting for the next thing to send me over the edge

I just feel like I’m constantly having negative experiences with people and it makes me question whether I even should live tbh. Like I don’t seem to be getting anywhere, I struggle with functioning and don’t seem to have gotten any help for it. Like yeah, I have trauma, doesn’t seem like there’s really any way to help someone who is too broken from it

I just feel myself so disconnected, apathetic, angry, miserable. I feel myself pulling away further and further away from the people in my life. I don’t have enjoyment because I just don’t feel like I’m actually anything to anyone. Just another thing to fill up space, for someone else to take my place.

I don’t want to cause pain, that’s the last thing I want , but I really do feel like my existence causes more pain. I’ve already fucked up everything. I wasn’t meant to be alive honestly.

I know I should pick the right time, and maybe there will never be a right time to do it. I just am feeling so disconnected from everything around me. My friends, family, myself.

How many more antidepressants and dosages do I need to go through, it all feels so hopeless. I don’t even know who I am. I just feel so broken and fake, too much and not enough

[clatterbane]

Yay, more prophylactic freezer action.

All the dry staples (rice, flour, beans, etc.) from the grocery order earlier are now in frozen quarantine for a few days before they go anywhere near our pantry cupboard. Because I was unfortunately reminded again not long ago that I probably should NOT have slacked off on that, when I found minor evidence of flour moths in my previous bag of cornmeal. 😵

After some careful inspection, it didn't look like any had managed to get much further than that. Everything infestable that was in there got cycled through the freezer to kill off any kind of bugs and/or their eggs anyway, playing it safe. I actually just cleared out the final batch this evening, to make room for the new stuff. Including a fresh bag of the same cornmeal!

The few items left in those four drawers usually dedicated to dry goods are, like, pickled vegetables and some shirataki noodles in vacuum pouches. Not tempting chow for horrible little moth larvae, and it would be obvious if the pouches had lost seal

Now an amazing amount of pantry stuff has been taking up space to one side of our living room for several weeks altogether--and I am leaving that cabinet empty of everything that might host them for a few more days, until those new groceries are ready to leave quarantine. Just to hopefully make sure there's a lower chance of any eggs or anything lingering in there.

Our temporary pantry, y'all. That back of the couch bag just got hastily hoiked there a little while ago.

Thankfully no evidence of any worrying bugs anywhere else in the house so far, with the freezer-cycled food just sitting there in the openwith no good way to keep anything out of it. Can't say I will be sorry to finally get everything back where it belongs!

Anyway, I am indeed aware that this might seem like an overly nutty reaction to finding what looked like evidence of moth webs in a bag of cornmeal. And maybe it really is.

But yeah, I do have actual OCD. Plus I lived with both moths and freaking weevils in my mom's food hoard, which she couldn't just get rid of on any of the several different occasions when bugs did get into it. Hitchhiking in on new items from the store.

She would honest to goodness also go ahead and cook pasta that she knew had weevils lurking in the package, and fish them out of the boiling water with a spoon. 🥴 I think I took significant psychic damage from just several years of those damned moths flapping around the whole house, and their awful maggoty-looking web spinning children dangling on threads. I remember walking straight into one hanging from the living room ceiling fan, of all places. And this shit went on for several years straight.

Those little fuckers will get into things that you wouldn't even imagine them possibly being attracted to. You may think a jar or other firmly closed lidded hard container will keep them out, but if it's not completely airtight they will find a way in.

On the plus side, I did develop extensive experience at identifying signs of weevils and moths in your food stores.

Anyway, I really am extra motivated to avoid dealing with pest bugs in my own pantry, now that I am in charge of my own. Brought home weevils a couple of times back in London, but promptly tossed everything that might be infested and preemptively froze the rest.

So yeah, it might be aggravating, but I think I will indeed go back to making sure everything risky that comes in goes through freezer quarantine before it joins the other food. Needing to systematically go through and do that on all the existing shit has eaten up way more spoons than if I had just done it gradually before a new thing went into the cabinet at all. And luckily we also have more freezer space now, to help make quarantine more practical.

Also, it may be pretty ingrained in me to keep plenty of food on hand. To the point that I do set actual stock limits for myself. But, at least this feels like further evidence that I really do not seem to have developed the same outright hoarding urge--to the point that you literally could not bring yourself to throw a buggy bag of cornmeal or rice in the trash. 😬 I can, and will, toss whatever I need to in order to keep things non-disgusting.

[cloudbattrolls]

The Fall

Jastes Verdan & Guardian Artifice | Present Night

Jastes had found nothing in the system’s head he could identify as malware or a hidden drive for Recent to pop out of. Nothing broadcasting a signal like the Spine had for First to be controlled remotely either. 

He had searched its whole body for good measure, knowing Recent might have hidden such a thing elsewhere to throw him off. But if First was being controlled, it was in no way he could identify. 

He had put the artifice back together tiredly, apologizing after he had the insects restart it. Then he’d eaten and slept, and woken up not long ago.

A few of them still fluttered around it now, as if concerned it would come to further harm. He knew he was projecting - they were only simple biotech - but it was still comforting to imagine something else was on their side, that they weren’t completely alone.

“It is fine.” It assured him now, as they sat across from one another, both next to the garden. “Now we know I am safe. But, we should still be cautious. I think…it’s likely I have been spared to be used.” It said, tail drooping. “I can’t imagine another reason.”

It threaded its bladed fingers together, thinking. “Maybe it wants to turn me against you at the last moment, before you escape. It has a cruel sense of humor.”

“Over my dead body.” Jastes said grimly. 

“Jastes, how can you stop that?” First pointed out. “Perhaps you should leave me behind.” It said, weary but resigned, looking at the rocky ground. 

“No.” He said, fists clenched. “Not if it means abandoning you to this.”

It raised a hand to its mouth, its tail still.

“You would risk yourself for me?” It said, sounding intrigued and emotional alike.

“I want to do something right.” He admitted. “I…how much do you know about what happened, with me and Process?”

It looked away. Perhaps it felt awkward.

“I witnessed your fight. I am…I understand why Pro did that. But, I don’t think it was fair. Especially not to you.”

“Thanks.” He snorted. “Anyway. I don’t want to let down the resistance a second time in a row, I came down here to get something we could use. I can’t offer you a free ride up there - you’ll have to help us out - but it’ll be something.”

It laughed loudly, a strange, hacking sound that turned into a cough, but it laughed. He blinked, then smiled hesitantly himself.

“I want to be useful.” It said, more firmly than it had spoken before. “I wasn’t meant for this.” 

First waved a hand, the light pouring down into the array of flowers gleaming off the gray metal as well. 

It looked at the rocky ceiling.

“Maybe I am not yet ready to guard Civitrecce, but how will I ever be if I stay down here? I can only be finished back home, where I can learn and grow. I want to see the moons again. I want…I want to feel the wind.”

Jastes smiled, sadly at first, then his expression turned to pure determination.

“First. Can you use weapons?”

It looked at its hands. “I am supposed to be a weapon, if necessary. With your power…we could make me into a better one.”

Jastes’s eyes flashed green, their tiny LED lights making a steady glow distinctly different from the crackling and pulses of usual psi.

“You’re going to be an armory when I’m done. Let’s get to work.”

It was technically impossible to tell, but Jastes swore he saw the system smile. 

—

When they left the garden room, extremely wary, First was far better equipped than it had been before, but the yellowblood was still worried. Its cough had started to get more frequent, so he knew they couldn’t rely on stealth. It was probably pointless to try, anyway; he was sure Recent knew where they were at all times.

Yet as they walked down the cavern passages, they weren’t met with any resistance. No traps. No whirring blades.

It was eerily quiet, their footsteps the only noise as they walked along in the hallways’ dim green glow.

Jastes’s eyes narrowed. Recent probably had all its versions protecting the way back into the Spine, if he had to guess. Maybe it would try to force him to take its new body with him instead. 

A few insects flew with First as it shook with a cough. It was little comfort, but at least they’d have some method of fixing it up if something happened - which seemed likely. 

It had said it didn’t know what was causing its ailment, but at least these would be useful for any injuries.

It had explained to him that unfortunately, the newer versions could heal themselves; the one he’d damaged with his laser would be fixed by now, even if it had likely scavenged another body for parts. The insects were a leftover repair service for early ones like itself, when Torvah hadn’t perfected internal self-maintenance yet. 

How long did they have to work on you? Jastes had asked, his fingers inches deep in its arm as he’d carefully turned part of the synthetic flesh and bone into a laser. 

He’d already converted other parts of it into more blades and fixed up its hands to be more dexterous and nimble; First had been so delighted its tail had wagged for minutes as it thanked him.

A few sweeps, First had said. I don’t remember how long it was exactly. At first my mind was much simpler, but I gained awareness as Torvah upgraded me. 

The resistance leader marveled at the strangeness of it, a person’s perception of the world growing and changing in real time. 

He heard a clicking, chittering noise and tensed up. 

First froze as well.

It sounded again, closer.

Closer.

Yet he could see nothi -

“Jastes, above!” First shrieked a moment before it blasted at the bladed construct trying to drop onto the yellowblood from the passage ceiling.

He jumped to the side as it hit the stone with a thud, augments automatically assisting him even as his nervous system struggled to keep up.

He lobbed an electromagnetic pulse at it; he’d need his own laser blasts for later. This time, he also flashed a series of lights to induce a seizure, and felt a grim satisfaction when it slumped, covering its glowing green eyes.

Targeting both aspects of them was the only way to keep them down. 

He kept moving, close to the room where he’d come in now. Just as First’s insects clung to it under its clothes, his own little robot extensions laid camouflaged against his skin, ready to spring into action.

It was coughing more heavily, though. His brows knitted in concern, but they couldn’t stop now.

But his pace did come to a sudden halt as he looked into the entrance of the room he’d come out, bloodpusher sinking in despair.

The floor and walls were completely covered with spikes and prongs, metal and organic alike, the screen itself the only clear space. They looked as if…as if they’d grown there, from the deep, ripped grooves in the floor, rooted in like plants.

“Camouflage.” First wheezed, catching up to him. “But it couldn’t really have the material for all of this, even scavenging the other bodies. This must be - ”

It fell to its knees, retching. 

Jastes thought hard and fast, his biotech thinkpan calculating, inducing, devising possible angles to tackle this from.

“Gordian knot.” He muttered under his breath, forming his little robotic helpers into a hovering cloud. 

“If you can’t untie it…”

They spread out across the room, and readily generated small forcefields, like the one he had used against the body that had injured first.

He arranged them in a row, making a series of steps, as he picked up First one last time in his arms. It was easier now, since he’d had time to further increase his own strength, his bone density, his muscular resilience. 

He took a step up onto the first safe surface, then the second, a flat shimmering plane using the very tips of the spikes themselves as a frame. 

“Cut it.” 

As the cyborg took another cautious stride, the spines began releasing more blades, stabbing at the shields to weaken and break them. He swore he heard a ripple of laughter. 

He ignored it.

Jastes went faster, taking more daring leaps, knowing he had seconds before they all went down and he and First were -

He fell. Mere feet from the screen, he fell, panicking, screaming -

First blasted the spines where they fell down to slag with all the laser force it had left, burning Jastes a bit from the recoil, then slumped in his arms again.

The yellowblood’s boots burned too, from the sizzling metal, the heat in the air robbing him of what little oxygen there already was as he coughed along with the weakened security system. The grooved floor and half-melted bits of metal made for unsteady footing, but far better than getting gored to death.

“So close, and yet, so far.” A fondly derisive voice called.

The screen shone out of reach, active, still behind a few feet of thick, sharp spines. His robotic extensions were out of charge; half had been melted by First’s blast anyway. He only had a few left; barely enough to get there - and how to even climb back up high enough to do so?

The other spikes started to extend their blades at him again, whirring and clicking, and Jastes gathered his robots in close.

“Shield us.” He told First, and the system coughed, but did it, forming a shimmering bubble around them as he jumped in the air, hanging for just a brief second.

Right before the bubble shut, he sent out his own laser blasts in a bright, deadly green fan, leveling all the spines around them with a roar and sound of deforming and melting. They weren’t entirely metal, just as First had said.

The shield protected them as they landed back again, though Jastes was breathing hard. He knew they didn’t have much time before Recent tried something else. His arms and shoulders were tired, his lungs damaged, his skin burned. 

The yellowblood knew what he had to do. What he’d always had to do, ever since he’d come down here, his original hopes dashed almost the instant he had arrived.

He steadied himself, adjusting his friend in his arms, then willed his robotic extensions to turn to shields again, making steps for him to go up. It was slow, but there was only a short ways to climb to touch the screen.

Then the resistance leader switched them to detonation mode, counting down via timer. He smiled grimly, taking one last look at the devastation around him, and then turned to an AI again, converting First as well as he leapt into the Spine.

As he jumped out of it seconds later, leaping through the data stream, he swore he could feel the rumble of the ancient generator exploding behind him, destroyed at last after all these sweeps.

Forever sealing off the terror below.

Seconds after that, he was home.

Jastes breathed hard, flush with victory as he dragged them both out through a computer screen in his room at the safehive, becoming flesh once more. Yellow blood dripped from his wounds, he ached all over, but they’d made it, they’d made it, they were safe, and Recent could never - 

The security system teetered, stumbled, and fell to the floor. 

First coughed hard enough that its whole body shook, its tail flat, arms pressed against its body. “I can’t…I’m sorry…”

Jastes panicked, eyes wide, ears flat against his head. 

“No, not after everything, no, come on.” He said, desperate. “It can’t have been for nothing!”

“Wasn’t…nothing.” First said, gravelly voice cracking. “Destroyed the Spine…stopped the other one…Torvah would be proud of you.”

“I don’t care!” He cried. “You have to live!”

“Bury me somewhere with flowers…like the garden.” First said, lying down on the floor, curling up with its tail around it, coughing once more, its body heaving. “Goodbye, Jastes.” 

It shook a little, then was still.

Its green eyes went out, replaced with the lifeless gray he had seen before when opening it up.

Jastes dropped to his knees. No, there had to be a way, there had to be, it was only part biological - what about the bugs - 

What happened if he revived it, if he even could? It would still be flawed in a way he could not fix. Suffering in a world that wouldn’t be kind to it anyway.

At least…for now.

“I’ll learn more.” He vowed. “I’ll study, and one night, I’ll bring you back. You’ll live a real life. We’ll be friends.”

He carried its body one last time, out through the back door, ignoring the questions and noise of the resistance at his return, deaf to their chatter as a few of them followed him out. None of that mattered right now, not even his own wounds. 

The yellowblood simply kept walking, pushing through his pain, his fatigue.

Jastes found a little spot with a few wilted flowers almost ready to die, but it was the best they had at the outskirts of Civitrecce, in this lonely place.

The resistance leader did not know how long he dug in the soft ground on that warm night, only that time seemed to blur, and he found himself with a shallow grave.

Tiredly, he eased the corpse into it, pushing with his dirtied, calloused hands. Someone helped him; he wasn’t sure who. They carefully helped lift the heavy tail, tucking it around the body.

Then he filled the hole back in, numbly watching the metal face plate cover over with soil.

He sat there, regaining his strength, not wanting to leave just yet, and a troll or two sat with him. Little bugs flew around him, and he had no strength to swat them or ability to care if he got bitten.

In time Jastes forced his stiff body upward, remembering the sun would rise eventually, and went back to the safehive, beckoned by the various voices that called him back and the two by his side.

His people needed him.

—

Hours later, with the sun high in the sky, a bladed hand broke through the dirt.

“Ahhhhh, finally.” Said the voice it belonged to, now wriggling up from below, different from First’s. Smoother. More self-satisfied. 

Black sclera with green slits now shone through the metal faceplate, instead of the solid green there had been before.

A few biotech hybrid insects flew out with the security system to join the natural ones flitting about, their repair work now done. With far more limited numbers, it had taken them hours to undo the flaws that had caused the cough, and to transfer the updates they had carried. Now this body contained the artifice’s most recent version.

You had to admit, Arty thought, the cough had worked perfectly. First had worked perfectly. 

It had never been controlled at all. It had been altered before Jastes ever came, meant to slowly degrade, gain the yellowblood’s sympathy sufficiently for him to take it with, then die. It had never known what was really happening.

Jastes was meant to be suspicious, of course. He would be anyway, so give him something to solve, a puzzle of its motives to stew over. Make it difficult enough that he’d think blowing up the Spine was a victory.

Make it sad enough that he’d bury First like he was supposed to.

“Every good story’s ending is another’s beginning.” Arty whispered, as it fully pulled itself free of the ground and stood up, stretching out in the sunlight for the first time in over four hundred and sixty sweeps, joyously soaking in its warmth. 

“Now, at long, long last, I AM FREE!”

THE END OF

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

[thebigshotman]

(I couldn’t find a space for this in the post (and I know it’s been a couple of days, sorry 😓) but my full support and love goes to @worm-of-theseus as they transition from Spamton to Derecho!! Hopefully he and Spaul can still be friends somehow ❤️❤️)

Hello everyone! First off, before I say anything else, I want to apologize for the abrupt and lengthy absence. Not that such things aren’t commonplace for me at this point, which I also feel I should apologize for. At this point I think I should just stop saying I’m going to be on more consistently, cause my dumb, constantly-shifting-between-fixations brain is clearly not going to allow that. I’m sincerely sorry for all of that, everyone. Rest assured, offline I’ve been doing perfectly well and I’m in good health.

The past couple of weeks have been busy for me, between a busy Memorial Day and my Grandma’s birthday just a few days ago. Not to mention that the summer vacation laziness has kicked in at full force in between these busy events, making it impossible for me to sit the hell up and reply to stuff. I knew I wanted to take a break for a day or two, but I had no idea it was going to go on this long.

When I finally remembered I had stuff to reply to, my brain decided to distract itself even further by reminding me of this JJBA fan part I’ve been working on for ages. Which, of course, put off things more. I got a few chapters done, and still plan to work on it on and off over the summer, but it was frustrating that that was all that my brain wanted to work on when I have people waiting for me.

I’m going to be deleting all of the asks in my inbox-which are mostly from that muse shaming meme-so I can focus my attention on the threads, ancient as they are, that I owe. Hopefully that jolts my brain back into gear and brings me back. Maybe it’ll be tomorrow night, maybe it’ll be Saturday night. But my goal is to reply to what I owe sooner than later, as soon as my offline life stops being busy.

I hope no one is mad that I had to step away for almost two weeks and get my shit together. Part of me feels like everyone else is changing and growing and I’m stuck in a rut, but I’m happy with where my muses and I are and I’m forcing myself to realize that as long as I’m happy, it’s enough. I’m not saying that to make people feel guilty. I’m saying that because my dumb brain thinking stuff like that is also part of why I was gone so long.

I felt like quitting. But I’m not gonna stop. As long as people like my writing and characters, here I’ll stay. So thank you for being patient while I get myself back together. I only ask that you be patient for just a little while longer while I find a block of time to get to everything.

I’ll see you all soon.

Mun Bri ❤️❤️❤️

[dualitysdownfall]

I'm going to ramble here, I don't like to just add onto the thread with my personal stuff like this but I drafted it in the tags and I'm not done, I'll run out of tag slots at this rate.

As a kid I internalized the idea that school was the most important thing for my future. I took it to heart early on and excelled in school. Well, this is my final semester of college and still do not have many useful skills outside of school.

If you tell kids they'll only thrive if they do perfectly in school--and they believe it--they still won't thrive because they'll focus on that over all else, instead of things like socializing and learning basic adult independence.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to value your studies, not all of that information/experience is useless, etc. But my education has been essentially the sole focus of my life for as long as I can remember, and so far it has not paid off like I thought it would when I was a kid. I don't have much to show for myself other than my academic record.

Like... I know so strikingly little about finances and bills and home maintenance, basic things that an independent person would need to know, right? I didn't have time to learn that stuff when I was in 3 AP classes at once! (and of course, i have forgotten most of the content of those classes so how much did i really gain from sinking so much of my time into them?)

A couple months ago (I think), my dad told me we should get me a credit card, and I said I didn't understand credit cards because weren't they like xyz? And he said actually it's like abc and he explained to me how they worked so I understood. Which is good. But while he was talking I just started crying because I'm twenty-two whole ass years old and I didn't know this. No one ever told me. Years into the part of my life where I might be expected to already be using this knowledge.

It's things like these that convince me that I could never be independent, which is why I never have been. Admittedly, part of my problem is that I can't drive for reasons I can't really fix, but that's solely a me thing and not what I'm talking about. Even if I could drive, I still don't know a lot about getting jobs or getting housing or how any kind of insurance works. If the government or bureaucracy is involved, assume I don't understand it. Hell, I'm not even entirely sure how phone plans work.

I guess my point is that this world is unfathomably complicated and doesn't exactly look out for everyone, and they didn't bother to teach us how to live in it.

If you want us to succeed in this world, patiently teach us how to live in it, instead of dumping us in an algebra class where we'll forget everything within a month.

Even now, I've never sought out a little entry-level part time job or whatever, because being a full-time student I don't have the energy or time to expend on anything else. I even have to put off personal projects and things I enjoy to focus on my classes. Now, at this point, you can pin that on me, because I did technically choose to go to college. But I chose it because I felt I had to: the world had me convinced that I wouldn't get anywhere without a degree. And who planted that idea in my mind...?

I've been a student my whole life. A good student, even. Which is what they want, what they told me to be, right? It's not good for a struggling student to tell them the rest of their life depends on them getting it together. But being smart as a kid didn't make it easier for me. I gave it my all and didn't get much in return. Folks out there have gotten opportunities outside of school that led them to success without needing to try as hard in school as I did.

School is not the be-all end-all that everyone makes it out to be.

And all this is not to mention how much time on the things I'm actually passionate about that I sacrificed in favor of my education. If I cared just a bit less about the distinctions on my high school diploma (who cares about that?!), I could have had more electives in things I really love like choir and art. I gave up that opportunity for reasons that in retrospect just don't hold up, and I'll never get that back.

These days I'm studying art, my passion, and I still have to put off personal projects. There's just enough time in the week to be a student and then recharge from being a student, and not a second longer. No job. Just enough free time hobbies to keep from going insane. That's it.

In four months, I will graduate. It will be the first time in my entire memory that I will not be a student. I don't know who or what I am without school. And it will probably be difficult to find out. Because once I've taken enough time to recover my energy after finals, and to celebrate my graduation, and to work on personal things that have waited months or years for me to have the time for them... after all of that...

I will still have to learn how to be an adult before I get to actually be one.

I think that when we tell teenagers that their lives will be over if they don't have the most perfect possible trajectory through the education system, that this is, perhaps, if I may be bold, not good for them,

[sheliesshattered]

Sewing Update

I've fallen off a bit in posting about my sewing projects, partially because the last few have been a bit difficult to photograph -- fabric that doesn't show up well on camera and finished projects that need a full-length shot while being worn, and I just haven't taken the time to set up the camera yet -- and partially because I've just been buzzing along trying to get through my autumn/winter sewing list as quickly as possible.

I finished the first of my viscose crepe knit dresses, in black, about a week ago, and I've been wearing it almost daily since then. I have fabric for navy blue and burgundy red versions of this too, both in this delicious viscose crepe knit, and I desperately want them (and maybe a nice dark green at some point too). But now that this dress is done I've stepped away from the knit fabrics so that I can get into gear with sewing the projects that absolutely need to be done by this time next month: the Very Fancy Santa Hat(s) and the Velvet Yule Dress.

The dress will be a much bigger project, with more complex seams, than the Santa hats. That, along with the timing -- I would really like to be able to wear the dress to an event on December 21st, whereas I think Jack will start wearing his Very Fancy Santa Hat just as soon as I can hand it off to him -- made it an easy decision to start on the hats now and save the velvet dress for next. The timeline for finishing the dress is a bit tighter than I'd like, but hopefully that'll just keep me motivated and working.

The idea behind the Very Fancy Santa Hat is really mostly right there in the name. For the last few years, Jack has wanted a Santa hat that doesn't look like it came off a shelf at CVS, something classy and classic that he can wear for years to come. He's mentioned it a few times in the past, and it got my wheels turning about making something truly heirloom quality. When I found some gorgeous burgundy red silk-rayon velvet at a really good price this last summer, I pitched my ideas to Jack and he was immediately all-in on the Very Fancy Santa Hat.

And now it's finally time to actually take all my ideas and assembled materials and start in on this hat for Jack (and a matching one for me!). After being thoroughly confused about whether or not this silk velvet actually has a visible nap at all, I just bit the bullet and cut out the two cone-shaped pieces I needed for the two hats. The velvet still does not seem to have a visible nap, but for the hats it doesn't really matter since each hat is cut as one piece. (For the dress I'll cut the pieces as though the fabric does have a visible nap, just in case.)

I drafted the pattern for the hats back in September, just using Jack's head measurement and a vague idea of how long the hat should be by estimating where the pompom should fall and measuring from Jack's forehead to that point. I treated that estimated length measurement as the radius of a circle, and drafted a little wedge shape, maybe roughly 1/6th of a circle, with the length of the curved lower edge based on Jack's head measurement, plus seam allowance.

I sewed a wearable mockup using the burgundy cotton flannel that will be a lining for the hats -- but found that while it fit me just fine, it was a little small on Jack. So I cut a second flannel cone hat, adding 1.25" to the radius length (and thus more width to the curved lower edge too) and that one fit Jack great without changing the look of it very much. That meant I could get straight to cutting out the velvet without worrying about fitting. The velvet exteriors match the flannel interiors, and that's kinda the point.

Like all velvets, this one likes to wiggle and creep when it goes through the sewing machine, so I pinned the hell out of each of my seams, using my good silk pins, reduced my sewing machine foot pressure to 0, and then sewed over my pins rather than removing them, and it worked out great. The cotton thread I bought for the red-black shot silk I used for my Rhaenyra dress last year is coincidentally a perfect match for this fabric too, so yay for using something from my stash for this project.

With the velvet pieces sewn into hat-shaped cones, I matched them up with their flannel equivalents, wrong side to wrong side (so all the raw edges are contained) and pushed the pointy end of the flannel as deep as possible into the pointy end of the velvet. The flannel lining will be warm and cozy, protect the raw edges from fraying or showing (heirloom quality is what we're aiming for!), and it gives the drapey velvet a bit more fullness and body. Once the velvet and the flannel were pinned together at the hat opening, I top stitched the two layers together. This bit will be covered by the fur trim, so I didn't need to worry too much about the raw edges being enclosed.

The fur I'm working with is very soft, but also rather floppy and lacking in any real structure of its own, and I'm going to need to piece it together a bit to go all the way around the rim of each hat. I decided that the easiest way to address both of these issues is to create an internal structure for the fur to attach to.

Like all of my sewing projects recently, I'm really trying not to use anything but biodegradable materials, so interfacing was off the table. I'm also trying to use bits from my stash whenever possible, so I landed on the idea of making something like the collar stand I made for Jack's Batuu jacket back near the beginning of the year. I don't have any duck cloth canvas on hand this time around, but I do have a little bit of osnaburg cotton fabric left over from the shade tent I made for Wasteland Weekend back in 2018. It has some body to it, but not as much as duck cloth, so this time I folded it over to be four layers thick rather than three layers, like I did for the collar stand. After playing around with a mockup, Jack and I decided that 3" tall is the right ratio of fur-to-velvet for these hats.

I did the same S-shaped quilting top stitching as I did with the collar stand, focusing on reinforcing the vertical 3" height rather than the head-circumference width. It's a bit tedious since the fabric has to be turned so often, but it's dead simple, and works well. Once that quilting was all done, I top stitched a straight line ~1cm from the top edge, which will be a guide for attaching the fur later on.

I estimated how long I would need for each hat and cut a bit extra, then pinned the quilted hat band onto the hat body to get the exact length needed to match the wide end of the velvet, then sewed the long band into a circle. With all that quilting through four layers of osnaburg, the new hat bands are rigid enough to stand up on their own, but still flexible enough to lay flat on its side.

With the hat band pinned onto the hat body, I could also get a basic idea of how the hat will look once the trim is on. I think the ratio of velvet to fur is right where I want it to be, and since the osnaburg is off-white, suddenly this velvet cone actually looks like a Santa hat.

And with that, I think the machine sewing on this project might be done? Next up, I'm going to handsew the fur to the osnaburg hat band, wrapping around from the outside to the inside. Once that's on, I'll handsew the band onto the hat body, sandwiching the raw edge of the velvet+flannel between the layers of fur. I'm going to make fur pompoms for the ends of the hats, of course, and that'll all be handsewing too. As a last step I think I want to embroider each of our initials and the year on the inside of each hat, since (again) we're going for heirloom quality here, so I might as well let whoever eventually inherits these know what year they were made.

I have no idea how long it'll take me to attach the fur to the hatbands -- and I am definitely procrastinating starting on it by writing this post lol -- but I'm hopeful that I can at least get Jack's hat done by December 1st, and mine around then too, so I can start in on my Yule dress with the rest of the burgundy velvet.

We're not travelling for Thanksgiving, but I will end up taking some time off of sewing for the cooking I want to do next week. We're planning on doing our Three Pie Thanksgiving again, and Jack pointed out that I don't have to do any more cooking than I want to, but I want those pies (turkey pot pie, pumpkin pie, apple-bourbon pie, all from recipes I've tweaked over the years). So the more sewing I can get done before this time next week, when I'll want to start on making pie dough and such, the better. But after the Thanksgiving meal, we'll almost certainly have on some movie marathon or another on, and it'll be nice to either have handsewing to occupy me, or to be able to start cutting out the pieces for the Yule dress.

Hokay, enough procrastinating, I'm gonna make myself go tackle the first step of the fur. Twelve days until the end of the month, so let's see how quickly I can get these done, while keeping my eye on the 'heirloom quality' goal.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

UGH! I have been frantically trying to finish Mom’s Christmas present because it has got to be mailed Monday, and now I realize I forgot to get a box to pack it in.

BTW …It’s been nightmare. For some reason I got the idea to make a doll/figure. The last time I made a jointed doll it was early 2015.

Back then I had fresh sculpey, a table to work at and store things, Mom was here so I didn’t have to do everything else, enough money that if I needed something I could get it, fresh practice as I’d been making them for months, and simply I had the ability to focus.

Naturally, knowing things could, and usually do, go wrong, I decided to make two. Yes, I made two disasters at once!

I started doing it with sculpey bought almost that long ago, in horrible shape to the point I spent more time trying to get it usable than anything else. AWFUL stuff. I had no table but my lap, so nowhere to store any of it but in the toaster oven the porch. I was wedging in the work time amid every chore. My brain was constantly distracted by a dozen worries. And honestly, I had forgotten every trick I had figured out.

So I sculpted with sculpey that wouldn’t stick to itself**. I baked in a toaster oven that had decided to vary in temperature on it’s own. I forgot how to shape joints. I couldn’t find some of the tools I used back then.

Some parts broke when I tried to thread them and had to be glued because I couldn’t afford to waste the sculpey. The cord wouldn’t go through one part and I had to drill it. Limbs got mismatched and things out of proportion, but they had to be used as they were rather than just trying again.

Worried of losing parts I strung them as soon as I could, which was a mistake. I forgot to paint them before stringing. I also cut the cord before realizing I needed to get it tighter, leaving it too short to redo and I can’t afford to waste it and cut another piece.

Parts got distorted and didn’t fit right after baking. Many parts were lopsided. Badly. The bodies looked like Frankenstein’s monster versions of what I was going for.

Some of the paint had dried out (after a decade of use). The brushes had gotten bushed out. Painting with any delicacy wasn’t working at all.

And then there are the tails. I thought I’d be clever and use a bootlace that conveniently broke just as I was trying to figure how make the tails. It cleaned up nice, BUT it proved impossible to paint. So, deciding to use it’s natural color, I cut it and…it instantly started to unravel and wouldn’t fit into the holes I made for it…..

Tonight I worked like crazy, not fixing supper and letting my tea become iced on it’s own****. I had to get these two done!

They are done. I guess. Nothing ever feels done, but I am sick of trying and doubt all my fiddling will make a difference at this point.

Two hideous little dolls.

I have to pick one as the good one. I have to take pics, possibly the only record that will ever exist of the one I send.**** And I guess I need to break into the piggy bank for enough change to get a box at Dollar General. *****

I was planning to write to Mom, explaining why I made it, how it connects to her/my Texas Tiger*******. It was going to be sweet…

Should it instead be an apology?

“Sorry, Mom. I love you very much, and you deserve better. I hope you can feel that love, despite what it looks like. I tried, but I suck.”

***sigh***

**I could have used the pink stuff I had, rather than this final box of the good stuff, BUT despite being the same vintage that pink stuff is too mushy for joint making.

*** It’s 56F in here, so it isn’t REALLY iced. But a warm drink would be a lot more welcome!

****It could be lost or damaged in the mail. Even if it gets there safely Mom won’t get to see it long. They pack away the stuff I give her, and I think they end up in a shed. Considering my brother once vowed to torch my stuff when I die, I doubt they matter at all to anyone but Mom.

***** I’m broke and 10 miles from any other store and tomorrow will have heavy rain. DG will have to do.

*******Long story. A stuffed toy she had and gave to me, but that I now know via her teenage diary the true significance of.

[if-confessions]

This feels like it's a hot take but it shouldn't be... IF tools all have positives and negatives and there isn't one perfect one... It's great to discuss the pros and cons but it feels like a lot of people are more interested in saying the one they like is the best. It's tiring 😩

Agree 100% with you there, Anon! (even as a SugarCube die hard girlie :P)

I've gone through threads (probably out of morbid curiosity) where people where debating in circle about some system. It can go on for pages because no one will realise that all have been said, or someone has to add their point (which is the same as 10 posts ago), or someone just want to fight everybody, etc... It's very entertaining, even if a bit of a waste of time/energy... Imagine what could happen if that energy was spent of helping fix said program....

People will always promote their favourite/the one they are most comfortable with - I don't think I've seen someone promote a system they hated.

In any case...

Did you know the IFWiki accounts for over 80 different authoring system (which does not account for formats within said system, because Twine has over a dozen) ? and this list is probably not even exhaustive !

There is a lot of choice out there, and you are correct, none of them are perfect. No system can ever be... One will be easier to code with/learn how to code but have barely customisation, another have the reverse (long/steep learning curve); one will be really fun to play with but have a terrible documentation, while another can have very thorough/organised documentation but coding is a pain...

What is important is finding the best one for you! Anyway, SugarCube is the best, fight me... /jk

[Old tags in comments: I like to dunk on Harlowe a lot; but honestly it's not a bad format at all! Most Twine projects happening in SugarCube could be made in Harlowe not problem; and look as fantastic! Hell even transitioning to Chapbook could make it easier for a lot of creators! Chapbook has a syntax highlight like Harlowe and a sleek UI and a pretty good documentation One Chapbook game was in the top 20 of the IFComp last year! And a Harlowe Game was 2nd! And I'm here trying Adventuron this month…. /]

some rambling below about a perfect system

I do wonder what a perfect program would be, considering how large IF is:

there should be both options for parser/command input options and hypertext/clickable choice

but also make it possible to cross all genres of gameplay (puzzle-y, escape room, RPG, Combat, drink-mixing, etc...)

the output/final product should be accessible (screen reader/page customisation/keybrinding/mobile support...)

there should be a pleasant enough base UI, but also the easy possibility of changing it easily, including text formatting: maybe even some built-in UI for a more parser feel, or VN one, etc...

you should be able to include assets (music/image/etc...)

it should be possible to have your code hard to access in the final product (this is the case for most parser program, not so much choice-based; but this can affect the accessibility points)

the program should also be free of access, open source, and commercial licence free

the coding should be relatively easy but can also be as complex as you might want

it should be possible to include add-ons/plug-ins/custom code (and maybe even other language libraries)

the documentation should be clear, include a multitude of examples, easily accessible and searchable

But no program could check all those boxes. A lot is contradictory, and I would suspect someone managing to make all this happen and more would want to have their work compensated. Especially since most of the time, this is done by one person, and one only, on their free time, and for no expected return!

Hell, even programs with paid-licences can be shit.

[gravitywonagain]

idk if your wip ask game thing is still open, but if it is Dreaming in Red [wangxian]? mayhaps a hong luo meng reference 👀👀 also i love your blacklist au it's so good

it's always open!! (maybe i should pin that? i don't know how to use pinned posts...) thank you for the question!! and sorry for the late response. it's been a busy weekend :)

dreaming in red is not at all a hong luo meng reference, but now i have another thing to add to my reading list, so thank you for that as well! it's actually based on this post about wx dream sharing during sunshot from forever ago and hasn't had much expansion in my wips for a good long while. here's an excerpt of that:

Lan Wangji never used to have nightmares. He rarely even had dreams. 

There were times, after his mother died, when he would dream of snow. Of the cold that crept into his bones from where the ice melted under his shins. Of a never ending curtain. Of a white shroud over blue gentians and laughter like a butterfly's wings. 

Then, after his home burned, he stopped dreaming of snow and began dreaming of flames. Red thread embroidered into white sleeves that flickered to life and tore through dark wood and waxed paper with horrible ease. 

But even those dreams were few and far between, rising only when his mind was clouded and sleep was little more than discipline overtaking his body. 

Then Lan Wangji went to war. 

War had little time for sleep, let alone time for dreams. When unconsciousness found him, it was always restless but black -- agitated and violent but dreamless. Or, if there were dreams, they were too slippery for his waking mind to hold onto. 

That was better, he thinks. Better than what came next. 

After the fighting was done, the war won, his exhaustion tapered away until finally he was able to dream again. But those dreams were never good. Never soothing. 

Dreams of loss became nightmares of volition. He was awake inside them somehow, moving and fighting -- always fighting. But even the dreams of cultivators choking on their blood at the end of Bichen were nothing compared to the horrifying visions of Wei Ying wreathed in black smoke, of Wei Ying dangling by his throat in Wen Ruohan's grasp, of Wei Ying falling unconscious, his heartbeat uneven and distant beneath Lan Wangji's palm.

Lan Wangji never really used to dream; he has nightmares every night, now.

This night is different but not so unusual. Wei Ying is lying on a table surrounded by Wens. Lan Wangji thinks he recognizes them but their faces are -- they're not clouded so much as blurry and not blurry so much as his mind slides off them as if spelled, as if drugged. As if they’re not important, not the point of the dream. The point of this dream, of course, is pain.

and for the blacklist au -- i have now actually watched some blacklist! this au is not that. it's a bit different. kind of a mix between the blacklist and white collar, i think? i want to make each chapter like an episode of a procedural and make the pov jump around in ways i've never messed with before, but idk. there's more now, though... so... here, have a completely unfinished snippet of that, too! idk yet if this will stay in or not, but i hope you enjoy!

Wei Wuxian rubs at the zip tie dent around the outside of his wrists. He plays it up a little, wincing and groaning just enough to be heard. 

Still, Lan Wangji doesn’t look at him. 

It’s fine. 

He follows the CBC Director and field agents out of the interrogation room and down a long, boring hallway. Lan Qiren and the other cultivator break off through one of the nondescript doors -- room 129-9, Wei Wuxian notes out of habit -- and then it’s just Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian following Lan Wangji. Down a long, boring hallway. 

It feels like old times. Especially as Wei Wuxian finds his eyes… wandering. 

The Bureau slacks look unfairly good on Lan Wangji, blue wool hugging tight to the curves of his legs and ass in a way no law enforcement uniform should ever be allowed to do. It’s rude. He must get them tailored. 

Lan Wangji leads him through another nondescript door -- room 157-3 -- which opens up into a large bullpen. Heads swivel in their direction, eyes snagging on Wei Wuxian and his casual state of dress. Everybody else in here is wearing uniforms in one state of undress or another, while Wei Wuxian is wearing ripped black jeans and a heather red v-neck. Hopefully he’ll get his jacket back soon. He spent a good amount of time stitching talismans into it; he’d like not to have wasted the time. 

Eyes un-snag; heads swivel back. Wei Wuxian remembers the strength of Lan Wangji’s glare and he imagines it’s only become more powerful with age and seniority. He can practically feel the shiver up his own spine. Or maybe that is a shiver up his spine.

thank you so much for the ask <3

[expired-beancan]

pardon the absolutely ass quality and weird layout. there is not a single clean work surface in my house right now. Also pardon how grimy this thing looks. Cleaning her would require me to pick apart damn near every seam, and for my current lack of a functional sewing machine, I don’t really want to deal with that. 

So i set out to make a dress for this beloved childhood toy, but there was some notable damage on her that i had to mend/patch before that, though- and now, two hours later, i can finally make the damn dress. More grimy doll photos and lore below the cut!

First and most notable damage was the large gash of mysterious origin on her front. I also noticed that one of her arms was ever so slightly overstuffed (whether this was manufacturer error or something i did on one of those occasions when her arms fell off and i had to tack them on again is unclear). The offending excess stuffing is pictured here alongside the rest of the damage.

That’s a little more than “ever so slight”, I guess, but believe me, that was exactly how much stuffing I had to remove. You’ll notice she’s also wearing socks. I made these long enough ago that I wasn’t confident enough in my sewing to not douse the seams in fabric glue.

After I patched the front, I considered the position of the remaining arm (it was kind of just awkwardly low-set) and discovered, and this is only un-alarming because her arms have fallen off multiple times, that there was considerable damage to the point it was anchored to.

Pardon the bad lighting.

In any case, it would probably be a bad idea to try to stitch an arm to dead air, so i decided to patch both of the arm anchor points in a similar manner to the front. It’s not a particularly elegant solution, but i don’t care too much, given how this thing already looked. That is in fact black acrylic paint, and it was kind of a drag to have to punch the needle through.

You may notice, if you look very, very closely, that the stitching on the neck is very bad. The thread was so thick, it was almost pulling the fabric apart instead of holding it together. whoever first did this did such a bad job I thought it was something I had done when I was around 9 years old. So I picked it apart, and then spent a very good long while trying to sew her head back on.

It dawned on me, as i was toiling over my work, that I had been repairing this beast for at very least ten years. When her arms fell off the first time, I only knew JUST enough about sewing to shoddily staple them back on. I’ve owned this thing for so long I don’t remember what I even did to get her to look like this. She used to be Normal Beige. I only know this because I remember bringing her with me on vacation when she wasn’t doused with paint and permanent marker and what looks like pencil marks. I wrote my school lunch password on her ear. I forgot that was even a thing!!

And there’s still a lot I feel like i SHOULD do- the seams on her face are a little bit strained- but for now I think I’ll just do the thing I set out to do in the fist place and make a dress for her, lol.

[incaensio]

peeta is fantastic with words, and though it has been so long the mention of this shouldn't be a matter of discord between the two of them, she finds herself flinching, wounded at the accusation. "that only worked 'cuz it was me and him." the specifics of why, she can not tell. maybe because they are both survivors who have clung to the worst, while desperate for saving themselves? peeta had been too much of an optimistic, while going in the arena eager for self-sacrificing, and hazelle is sure of her own demise, and chandler… has he ever known despair? she can not tell what's in his head, and she doesn't want to. if they get something out of this, they need to relay to the tributes tonight, in these few hours until sunrise. she doesn't share that, though. most people may see her as the righteous victor, but as a mentor, she could not stick out more if she wanted to. best to let them plan as they wish.

the mockingjay watch. katniss' discouragement springs loose into attention at effie's mention, bringing back the memory, and she looks at all of them with no discernment as she is scrutinized, until her gaze lands on the one questioning her. "no. victory tour," had she not told haymitch of this? peeta had not seen it on the occasion too, but she recalls telling effie a few days ago, hoping she could do exactly what she has done: shake some gamemakers by poking at their sympathy for effie's capitolite-ness, and katniss' charisma, or whatever these people had decided she had to charm them. "he asked me to dance, and showed me the watch, with the mockingjay. said he had some meeting at midnight, so he should get going." she frowns as she relays the memory, finding it just as confusing as on the day, though she had never spent too long on it because it didn't seem important then. she had been too concerned with getting snow's approval after the engagement plot twist to care about what seneca's follow up had to tell her. maybe she should have known better.

"we'll call them." she gives a tentative look at peeta. she's still clinging to the anger from earlier in the evening, but there are layers to their relationship, and the partnership to work for something better remains intact; they could be at each other's throats, but still would work something out for the ones they cared about would remain unharmed. and if there's a capitolite katniss still cares to talk with tonight, that would be cinna, and portia, who is just as agreeable as her colleague, even if they had not shared as much time together. katniss finds her tender cheek and grazes her teeth with familiarity at the rememberance of the affection felt towards the star-crossed lovers. affection is not the right word, she thinks. idealism, perhaps? from her point of view, whatever she did was not very entertaining, just plain survival, lots of jumping around until the big encounter with the careers and her alliance with rue. then, things had turned different. none of it had been planned, so she has no way of knowing if chandler or even hazelle has something on their sleeve to make them stand out. she can already tell what claudius will speak whenever hazelle is on screen, though, the same they've done during every tv broadcast thus far — hazelle hawthorne, katniss everdeen's aunt.

katniss swallows. "we gotta hype ‘em up, for the screens. keep mentionin' likable things, i guess. the whole brood of kids 'bout to get orphaned for good. chandler and peeta being pals. that kinda crap." again, she feels like a by-stander. this is not her forte, at all; she’s just parroting what they had already come up with for the tributes’ angle, on day one. the thought of being in front of the cameras again, forcing tears out so they can get sponsors makes her skin crawl. "put effie on the spotlight along with peeta. you'se can talk about how twelve's been better when we won." partly a lie. no one’s dying of starvation anymore, instead getting all mangled up from overwork and thread’s whip. "how it can be even better with another winner or somethin'."

@mxllitiam

attention turns to katniss after effie discusses the watch and plutarch heavensbee. ballsy of the capitolite to do so, but haymitch knows how closely the rebellion is below the surface. the interruption tonight was like a ticking timer ; the tinkering is growing louder as it gets to zero ! brow lifts as he takes in katniss, who subjectively looks the least insane here physically that is. " was that tonight too ? " haymitch asks. he hopes it was at least. that's quite the information to be sitting on, especially after the hint their escort got. ( pot calling kettle again, abernathy ; what else is new ? )

" they might still be up. stylists complain about the night before the arena all the time and being up late, " he briefly turns to effie, " no offense ... i know you're pals with some of 'em. " his attention is back on the team as haymitch continues. " portia and cinna though they're good folk. they're as much a part of the team as any of us. they want to see their tributes become victors. if we can relay it to 'em, they'll be good for it. " the two stylists play well together too. you don't find many, actually another other, teams dressed cohesively. it was a spectacle of itself, and sponsors have been eating it up. he swears its gotten more attention than their tributes at times. but if it brings in more parachutes, who gives a damn ?

huff leaves him at peeta's final question. it's hard to navigate in multiple parts. one, he has broad enough answers but even haymitch still navigates the rebels with a light off. two, outside of the three being unaware of that effie is on the outside of the puppeteering president snow has gone on. the water he's treading is murky with mud here. " they want some sort of show, " the oldest victor lands on with a nod at his own idea. " it's a quarter quell so it can't be borin'. if they're being truthful to us and being keen, then others might have it too. you two ... " he points back and forth between peeta and katniss, " the country loved you, and maybe they're hoping for something endearin' about chandler and haze. i don't know. "

@incaensio

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

TW: Medical Abuse, Medical Misogyny, Graphic descriptions of surgical procedures.

“This past week, Redditor u/Ancient-Abs asked the question, "Why are many gynecological procedures done without pain medicine?" before discussing the discrimination women face in medical treatment and sharing their own experience having an IUD inserted.

1. "I started bleeding when pregnant with my first and went to see my OBGYN at the hospital. She looked and said there were polyps on my cervix. She then told me to just hold the nurse's hand and pick a spot on the ceiling, and she’ll cut them out real quick."

"I honestly never thought to ask for any kind of pain meds for any procedure like this before. WTF is wrong with me and other women? We’ve been so brainwashed to believe that 'it’s just a pinch' and now drive home and go make dinner.

I’m a medical professional and had to read a thread on Reddit to realize I need to advocate for myself, and I don’t need to be in pain during gyno procedures." —u/CanadaOD

2. "I had a cervical biopsy when I was 18, and the doctor was like, 'You’ll feel just a pinch.' Then I felt, well, a chunk of my cervix cut out and screamed. He was like, 'Shhh.' So I cried quietly, and he looked up at me and said, 'Why are you crying? There are no nerve endings on the cervix. I know you aren’t actually feeling pain.'"

"That was literal decades ago. I had hoped things had changed for women since then. Good to hear that old asshole doctor is still the norm. Cool. Real cool." —u/notthefakehigh5r

3. "I got a LEEP procedure, and that was more painful than drug-free childbirth. I can feel my cervix descend before my period and I can feel the penis on my cervix during sex. Still, the doctor told me I shouldn’t feel anything. I had no sexual desire for months after the LEEP, and I talked to a lot of women who had the same procedure and some said they’re like that after years, or they feel pain or bleed during sex."

"Why are they so set on 'the cervix has no pain receptors?'" —u/MarinaA19

4. "When I was 18, my gynecologist's office apparently forgot to tell me to take extra strength ibuprofen before my cervical biopsy — that's the recommendation they use. I got the same 'just a pinch' spiel, and they decided it was worth it to just go ahead and do it anyway. (Surely, they had some ibuprofen they could've given me.) The sample the doc took got stuck, and he was yanking on it while it was still attached. The nurse who was with him had to grab and hold my leg because she saw I was about to kick him in the head."

"I had done eight years of Tae Kwon Do at that point. I would have made an ass of myself. If doctors really think it doesn't hurt, perhaps they should just shut up and deal with however we choose to express our clearly fake pain." —u/asylum013

5. "When I had my first baby, I was very tiny, and the kiddo was a big, bouncing boy. I got snapped at by the first nurse for making a sound. This was long before maternity pain relief was really a thing. We got gas and pethidine/demerol. Fast forward, my then-husband had his vasectomy done eight weeks after my fourth baby. During 15 hours of labor, I had gas. For the excruciating pain after, I got OTC pain killers. For the raw, cracked bleeding nipples, I was told, 'You know how it goes, they’ll toughen up in a couple of weeks (of breastfeeding).' He was given Valium to take the night before, another one for that morning, and then pain relief for the duration of the five-minute procedure. He was given another script for afterward and told to go easy for a few days."

"Are women seen as tough or subhuman?" —u/MamaBear4485

6. "My hysteroscopy hurt so badly that they had to call extra people to hold me down on the table. I was screaming for help and ended up kicking my doctor in the face and breaking his nose — on accident of course, but honestly, he deserved it. He was literally torturing me and all he cared about was completing the procedure at any cost. I bled and was sore for nearly a month."

"Something was very, very wrong with what he did, but I could never tell you what. I cannot believe they do that procedure without sedation." —u/[deleted]

7. "I had no idea to expect pain for my colonoscopy. I thought that because they weren't numbing anything, it must not be bad. I started crying and screaming, and I couldn't keep my legs open. They ended up only doing a partial biopsy because I went hypotensive (blood pressure dropped). It angers me to this day."

"I have also had three IUDs, and my blood pressure tanks from the pain every time. I have to be monitored." —u/galumphingbanter

8. "I got put under to have wisdom teeth removed, but nothing when I got my IUD put in. I literally screamed when they inserted it."

"I've broken bones and have been in less pain." —u/MissAnthrope94

9. "I argued with a doctor who told me that there would be no pain management for my colposcopy — after I showed up for it. His reasoning was that 'it was only a five- to 10-minute procedure,' and I could have some ibuprofen(!) afterwards. When I told him that vasectomies were a five- to 10-minute procedure, too, but that I bet if he were having one, he'd want some anesthetic for his balls, he straight-up walked out on me."

—u/la_bel_iconnu

10. "I had a procedure done a few months ago where they had to tear through my cervix to fill my uterus with fluid — something to do with fertility issues. The pain was unbearable, and I felt violated. I cried so hard and was furious they would let me go through that without any anesthesia or pain reliever."

"How is this so normal?" —u/Skorpionfrau

11. "I had both an HSG and a saline ultrasound. I have high pain tolerance, and I was sweating profusely and extremely nauseous. I have never needed a few minutes before getting up, but I did that time — and that was with 800 mg taken beforehand that I learned I should take from the internet, not my doctor, who never said a word about needing pain medication."

"I am absolutely blown away that a doctor can do that procedure hundreds of times a year — see hundreds of women crying, sweating, writhing in pain, and passing out from pain — yet no form of anesthesia is ever offered.

It’s fucking cruelty. They literally push a tube through your cervix. Why would they ever think this would be ok to do without pain control?" —u/birdieponderinglife

12. "I had a LEEP procedure fully awake. I remember I started shaking, and the doctor got on to me. It was a horrible experience. It frustrates me. We can get pain medicine for removals of moles, but fuck your cervix."

"That was just one of the many things they should have not have done." —u/Khalano

13. "The last time I had an endometrial biopsy attempted on me – my third one, my first two were done successfully but painfully — I could not handle it and asked to doctor to stop. I had to ask her again to stop because she ignored my first try. She became visibly agitated and started slamming things around the room, ripping her gloves off and mumbling that this was a waste of her time."

"This was nearly 10 years ago, and I have not been to a gynecologist since. Not only did she hurt me, but she also shamed me for being intolerant to the pain." —u/Psychological_Sail80

14. "So, I used to get ingrown toenails. I went to a doctor who numbed them, removed the edges, and then shoved a Q-tip of silver nitrate into my nail bed to kill the toenail to prevent it from growing back in there. I was numbed for it. But after having my son and a second-degree tear, I wasn't healing properly. My gyno told me there was a section where that wouldn't seal even after many stitches. He said, 'Don't worry, I'll take care of it.' Before I know it, I'm laying back, and he's prepping. He calmly asks if I'd ever heard of silver nitrate and explains that it'll seal the spot. It was the same as with my toenail — a Q-tip covered in the stuff. I was in so much pain, and I'd just pushed a giant baby out of there for 31+ hours! I was crying, and wanted to cuss him out and kick him in the head! The nurse then pipes up, 'Oh, I think we've got a numbing spray around here somewhere we could have used.'"

"You knew what that'd do and feel like, and you're just now mentioning anything for the pain?! The stuff literally kills fingernails! I think it's used in photography! And y'all are just slathering it on an open wound on my most tender area to cauterize it with ZERO pain meds and minimal warning!?! Burn the whole system down!" —u/roxannearcia

15. "Just the other week, I had a vulvar biopsy on the very delicate, sensitive tissue on the inner part of my vulva. My gynecologist assured me that I wouldn’t feel a thing after she injected some local anesthetic. Well, that clown fucked up the anesthetic, because I felt EVERYTHING. It was horrible. I literally had tears pouring out of my squeezed-shut eyes as I threw my hand over my mouth and stifled a scream. She said, 'Oh, you felt that? You weren’t supposed to feel that!' Then, she kept going — gouging into my delicate bits with her medieval tool — and I kept crying and shaking. She then commented to the nurse, 'Oh, she must be nervous.' It took me a few hours to stop shaking due to the intense pain put my body in such a panic mode."

"I had a few panic attacks for the next three days, kept obsessively thinking about the procedure, and would just randomly start crying. Don't Google what a vulvar biopsy is if you're squeamish." —u/Moal

16. "I had a cystoscopy with no pain meds, and it was so fucking traumatizing. There I am, sitting and acting like everything’s okay and like it wasn’t the worst pain in the world. After, I go home and have to pee. I went into the shower to relax my body, and I couldn't fucking pee. The pain was insane. I sobbed for hours. They ended up prescribing something extra to help, but in the end, that single event of trying to pee left me so traumatized. It hurt to pee for a week. The initial shock, sitting there awake while they do it, and the, 'You may feel slight discomfort after' — after shoving a metal rod thicker than a pencil in my urethra — and I was trying to figure out why my bladder is so sensitive."

"I hate doctors so much." —u/sammmythegr8

17. "I recently had an endometrial (uterine) biopsy. The doctor told me it would hurt, but it would be over in ten seconds. I started counting out loud, 'One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three...' then I started screaming. After, I was crying and hyperventilating. The doctor told me my reaction was normal."

"It was so painful that I can't really tell you how it was painful. My brain just won't go there. Years ago, I had, had cold cauterization done on my cervix — twice. Again, no pain meds. That was bad. The endometrial biopsy was worse." —u/trekbette

18. "I hadn't had any other form of birth control and got an IUD placed. I had asked my doctor before the appointment if it was okay to drive myself home, and if there were any pain meds I could get. She told me all I would need was over-the-counter stuff. I nearly passed out during the insert from the pain. Once my head stopped spinning, I very carefully got myself to my car and started to drive home. It was incredibly painful. Our roads are shit here, and every single bump I hit had me screaming in pain while trying to keep focus. I made it home and basically couldn't leave my bed for two days."

"Moral of the story, no, it's NOT okay to be told you can drive yourself home after your first IUD placement.

It's also completely ridiculous that we are given no numbing or pain meds for a procedure that puts a foreign object in the most sensitive part of our bodies. Our bodies literally fight back against it being there." —u/Valkyry

19. "I had a polyp removed from my cervix. They told me I'd have some cramping and that I'd be ok. I walked out of there straight to the bathroom and almost fainted. My mom looked for me for 15 minutes until she started knocking on the door. I was able to get up and walk out. Everyone was super concerned, but no pain medicine or post-care. Nothing."

"I could have busted my head on the sink locked in the bathroom." —u/KnightBustonowhere

20. "I had an HSG done — they basically insert a tube into the vagina/cervix/uterus, inject dye, and see if your fallopian tubes are blocked and the shape of the uterus. It was the fucking worst. I was literally in agony and opted for exploratory surgery after they injected the dye for the third or fourth time. After uterine surgery, I had a balloon catheter in my uterus for two weeks. My body started having literal contractions to try to force it out. The doctor said I didn't need to be out of work."

"It was fucking hell. They told me to use ibuprofen and Tylenol at the max dose. It's insane how horrible pain care for women is." —u/PansyAttack

21. "After having my third kid via C-section, they refused to give me any pain meds except two regular strength Tylenol every few hours. My baby was in the NICU for a few nights, too. So when I wanted to see or hold him, I had to grind my teeth and get there through sheer willpower. However, my husband got put on morphine for kidney stones at this same hospital."

"For the record, I wasn't breastfeeding. It was in my chart. So it's not like they were trying to get around accidentally dosing the baby. I'm also not saying my husband's pain wasn't great but that there is a glaringly obvious bias. I filed a complaint, but nothing happened." —u/1thruZero

22. "I had a cervical biopsy done. I am a candidate for endometrial ablation, and my insurance company required the biopsy. I didn’t know it was going to happen until 30 seconds after my ultrasound. My OBGYN requested that I take my mask off (COVID) to 'help with breathing' because it was going to hurt so much. I put my hands behind my head since I didn’t know what to do with them. I have what I consider to be a very high pain tolerance. During the procedure — I didn’t even realize I was doing it — I used my own nails to cut into the top of my other hand. The nurse actually had to bandage my hand before I left."

"I now have four U-shaped scars on the top of my hand. That was six months ago, and I haven’t scheduled my ablation because that situation fucked me up in the head." —u/Victim_Kin_Seek_Suit

23. "Five years ago, I had my first IUD inserted. I lucked out with a physician who insisted on the local anesthetic for insertion and made me lay on the exam table for 30 minutes afterward for monitoring. They've moved on to another state so I had to find a new physician for my replacement IUD. When I scheduled the replacement, I specifically asked for the anesthetic, and they stated they would make sure it was prepped for me. When I got there for the appointment, they told me that the anesthetic was not prepared and it would 'take longer to prep and numb you than to just insert the new device.' Already strained, I buckled and allowed them to do removal and replacement without the anesthetic. It was agonizing. I complained with the office manager and asked to have my physician changed, but I was bullied out of that, too."

"I had first asked after tubal ligation instead of an IUD and — though my physician was a woman, and I'm 37 with a 17-year-old child and no interest in more children — I got so bullied by her that I settled for another IUD. I'm autistic, so it's incredibly hard for me to initiate care in the first place, and it's harder to stand up for myself. It sucks.

When I went for the ultrasound follow-up two weeks after the replacement, the tech laughed and said, 'They placed the IUD too low.' When I asked what that meant, she said I'd have to talk to the doctor. Sobbing and horrified that I might have to go through this shit a second time, I demanded a doctor look at the images there-and-then. A much younger doctor examined my images and gave me the OK after advising that while the placement was lower than was common, my particular IUD doesn't come with as long of an insertion rod. She explained that so long as the device was not in the cervix, and I was not bleeding or cramping or the device was expelled, I was protected. I hope to fuck she's right, but as soon as I get past the trauma of the whole affair, I'm finding a new GYN and getting a second opinion.

Women are discriminated against to a revolting degree; disabled women are abused outright. It's easy for people who are not me to say things like, 'You should have said no,' but I'm inherently conflict-averse and anxious to the point of nausea at pushing back against authority figures, especially doctors. It's really hard to self-advocate when you're on the spectrum, and most people are confused about what that means." —u/PansyAttack”

[chihirolovebot]

red velvet and oolong.

feat. tsumugi shirogane/reader

synopsis. your first date with tsumugi shirogane, the girl in your class you've been crushing on for months.

content. pure fluff, zero angst look at me go, gender neutral reader, pseudo-confessions, non killing game au, college au, first date, food/eating mention, cats, dubious genshin lore.

words. 2019

notes. for nex!! u absolute gem. i really hope u like this :*

commission me or leave a tip!

You’re going to be late.

The train to central street notoriously waits for nobody—you’re going to have to run to the station, at this point. You wanted to be gone seven and a half minutes ago, but you’re still here, in your room, panicking over which pair of shoes to wear.

The flats would be comfier, but the sneakers go better with your jeans…

Cursing, you fling both aside and drag out a safe alternative, a worn pair of combats, snatch up your coat and head for the door. As you hurry down the road to the station, you pull out your phone and check your missed notifications.

There—at the top—is one that makes your heart lurch. 

Shirogane <3

>> hello !!! just checking we’re still on for today (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

>> im getting there for around 1:30… that’s alright, isn’t it?

Quickly, you fire off a reply confirming both your appearance and the time. You almost can’t believe it—you’re actually going on a date with Shirogane. Today. Now, if whatever gods are watching allow it. The girl in your textiles design course you’ve been crushing on for the better part of a year, the one who takes a seat diligently at the back of class but is always the first to raise her hand when the topic interests her. The one who unabashedly uses the practical time to craft the most intricate cosplays you’ve ever seen, and should someone inquire about them, will engage them in conversations often topping half an hour. You sit on the other side of the class, watching the light sparkle off her glasses, the pretty flush on the apples of her cheeks, her curtain of ink-dark hair sway as she rambles about some manga you’ve never heard of. 

Once, you’d passed her as she was carefully applying a row of train-track stitches with white thread down the side of some sort of cream-coloured waistcoat, shaded with midnight blue and gold accents. You’d only questioned the method, watching her pale, polished fingers work so steadfastly, and you’d somehow gotten roped into help sew the other side for practice whilst she told you all about the character.

“So you see,” Shirogane babbled as she sewed, “because he doesn’t like to show his face in public so much, many people get the idea that he’s a little boring or even just some kind of figurehead. But, if you really look into the lore, you’ll know that he shouldn’t be underestimated—after all, it was him that managed to stabilise the Yashiro Commission and Kamisato Clan, and he couldn’t have done that without a certain degree of cunning, you know?”

You hadn’t believed in love at first sight until that day, really. 

The things you love about Shirogane are the things a majority of the student body seems to find strange or off-putting. Her exuberance, her passion, the way she can talk for hours about something you’ve never heard of without making it seem boring. Sometimes, when you feel lazy, you leave your own coursework untouched and occupy yourself twirling little braids in her long, shiny hair as she rambles to you. 

It’s good. It’s nice.

You were sort of content to keep it as a weirdly touchy friendship—Shirogane is passionate in everything, and it was almost impossible to discern whether her feelings towards you were platonic or not. But the other week, when you’d been sharing lunch under one of the apple blossom trees on the college grounds, she’d been delicately picking at a sandwich. She was doing that thing where she tore chunks off the bread and popped them in her mouth instead of taking bites. One swallow left her with a smear of sauce on the corner of her mouth, and without thinking you’d reached out to wipe it away. Your thumb made the faintest graze over her lower lip as you did, and you watched, frozen, as Shirogane’s whole face darkened with a spectacular blush. 

For once, she stopped talking. You missed the song of her voice immediately, but it seemed she did, indeed, have an off-switch. Your hand on her face.

You asked her out the next day. She agreed. And now here you are, trying to will yourself not to sweat as you hurry off your train into the central city. It’s not too busy, thankfully, and you manage to clamber off and out of the city station with around fifteen minutes to spare. You take a moment to readjust your clothes, press a hand to your cheek and nervously pop another mint before setting off in your intended direction. 

You’re nervous. Man, it’s been a while since you got nervous like this. Shirogane is just so… well, you haven’t wanted something to go right this badly for a while, to put it lightly. Maybe it’s just ‘cause you’re in the same class, and a disaster of a date would make it extremely awkward.

Then again. Maybe it’s the delighted gleam in her dark eyes when she realises you’re listening to her. Maybe it’s the liquid lightning that zips directly to your brain when your fingers brush, hers cool and soft and smelling like the cinnamon-scented moisturiser she uses. Maybe it’s the little squeak she lets out when you greet her with a hug from behind, the way she buries her face in your neck in embarrassment. 

Maybe it’s just her.

She’s waiting at the fountain in the middle of the city square, fiddling with her phone. It’s a bulky thing, its sky-blue case studded with keyrings and stickers and gems, cutesy between her nails. They’re painted, you realise with a throb of affection. Candy-pink. You’ve seen her bite them in school a lot, so there isn’t much to paint, but you think it’s so sweet that she tried. As you approach, she spots you suddenly, flusters, and makes a show of clambering to her feet, tucking her hair behind her ear awkwardly.

She looks so pretty that it almost stops your heart in your chest. You’ve always thought she was cute, no matter how she protested or insisted on how plain-looking she was, but here in the soft noon light, she’s almost unreal. A soft blue sweater adorned with white clouds drapes itself over her shoulders, falls over a white skirt that hangs to her ankles. Her hair is pinned back from her face for once with white hairclips. The coordination floors you, although really it shouldn’t. What else would you expect from someone who puts as much love and care into their clothes as Shirogane?

“Hey,” you greet her breathlessly as you finally get close enough to be within earshot. She jumps.

“Hello!” she squeaks. “Hi! Um, you look lovely.”

“Ah, thanks.” You pick at your outfit consciously. Are your ears burning? “You, erm… you haven’t been waiting long, have you?”

Shirogane gives an airy laugh. “Well, no, not really. Um. To tell you the truth, I’ve been here since around twelve. I really didn’t want to be late. It’s fine!” she hastens to add, seeing your stricken expression. “I had time to wander around some bookstores, see?” She holds up a plastic bag bulging with volumes. “So it’s—it’s really no trouble.”

“If you’re sure…” You bite your lip. “So—are you hungry?”

Shirogane beams; it lights up her whole face. “Oh, starving!” 

Relief breaks over you as Shirogane loops her arm through yours, as the two of you begin to walk. Why did you think this would be any different from school? It’s Shirogane. She’s Shirogane there and Shirogane here. She still pushes her glasses up when she talks. She still smells like cinnamon and plastic. She still smiles at you all the same. 

When you arrive at your destination, you carefully watch as her eyes glaze over in amazement. She looks from the place, to you for confirmation, and then back again, head shaking wildly. “Oh,” she says, hushed, awed. “Oh, is this…”

You squeeze her arm. “I thought you might like it.”

She turns wide, dark eyes to you, glimmering with the delight of a thousand stars. “A cat cafe?!”

You laugh and lead her inside. She steps over the floorboards like it’s holy ground, eyes round as coins and reverent as she peers around, awestruck. The host checks your name and leads you to a booth by the window; the seats are cushy, candy-pink, and just to your left is a scratching pole occupied by a fat ginger kitten. 

Shirogane sinks into her chair, hands clasped. She can’t stop looking around. 

“Is it okay?” you dare to ask, hesitant to break the spell but starting to get a little unnerved by the silence. Abruptly, Shirogane turns her stunned gaze to you, face breaking out in a sunlit smile. 

She reaches across the varnished-wood table and clasps your hands. “It’s wonderful. It’s just wonderful. I’ve always wanted to come somewhere like this, but I plain forget to make bookings…” She looks at you, touched. “Thank you. It’s… lovely. It’s so lovely.”

You can feel your face beginning to burn; her fingers feel so hot against yours. You’re thankful as a waiter brings over complimentary glasses of water, gulping your share down quickly. The glasses are frosted with cute little cat faces picked out. 

The whole place is almost overwhelmingly cute, actually. Lace doilies act as placemats, and the menus are studded with stylistic kittens with eyes round as coins and pink button noses. Plastic vines and strawberry-shaped fairylights string the ceiling and dangle over you. And—

A soft black cat at your feet stretches and leaps nimbly, landing heavily in Shirogane’s lap. She looks like she’s about to cry.

The waiter laughs as she wanders back over to take your orders. “That’s Jiji,” she tells the dark-haired girl, who is stretching out a shaky hand to stroke over the cat’s soft back. It twitches, curls up against her stomach and appears to go to sleep. “She’s very friendly, but really sleepy, too. Can I get you guys something to drink to start?”

With one last fond look at Shirogane and Blair, you order a red velvet latte; waveringly, Shirogane orders oolong tea. When the waiter leaves again, Shirogane looks up at you slowly.

“This is,” she begins, hushed. “This is the best day ever.”

Something warm and full bubbles in your chest, like a flower giving bloom in spring. “It’s barely even started yet, Shirogane.”

“I don’t care,” she insists, legs kicking at the booth chair as though in example of her obstinacy. “Oh, I plain don’t care. Nothing could ruin it. I—I mean, this place, and Jiji, and you…” She trails off, going pink, but bravely doesn’t break eye contact. You feel like you’re melting. “It’s just perfect. It’s—it’s everything I ever wanted. I thought you’d be plain sick of me, by now…”

Her free hand—the one that isn’t occupied stroking Jiji—drums anxiously on the table. You don’t think, really, because if you think about it for too long you’ll get cold feet. You just move; your fingers thread themselves through hers, conscious of how much rougher they seem. Shirogane stares down at your interlocked hands, mouth agape, eyes perfect circles.

You clear your throat, face burning. “I don’t,” you start, then swallow. “I wouldn’t want to be here with anyone but you. I’m… God, I don’t think I could ever get sick of you, Shirogane.”

Her lip wobbles. “Oh,” she cheeps out, a little bit like a baby bird. “Oh, I… I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of you either.”

And that—that feels like a confession, of sorts. Shirogane is blushing like it was one, and your face is certainly on fire, and your hand is still holding hers, after all. When the waiter comes back with your drinks, you see that the foam on yours has been powdered with a decorative cinnamon heart. Shirogane only goes redder when she sees it, quickly bringing her steaming tea to her mouth and taking a generous gulp.

You can’t help but wonder, in some far-flung part of your mind, if she’d taste like oolong if you kissed her.