#Marketing this book has been an absolute nightmare

[tiecladartist]

I've promo'd my book's tumblr account on like 4 different social medias (including tumblr itself through this account).

I've followed topic-related blogs big and small, and interacted with/reblogged their content.

I've used all manner of applicable tags both proper and conversational (ie talking through tags to make it less rigid and because it's the norm on here)

I've liked, reblogged, posted, changed the profile pic, the whole shebang.

Only thing I haven't done is directly message/ask folks requesting follows because that just doesn't feel right. And yet the book blog is completely dead in the water. I know that content-wise Tumblr users would be the most likely to enjoy the series, so obviously I'm sad about this, but I genuinely don't know what I'm doing wrong at this point 😓

If you like fantasy books; stories about angels, demons, and cool magic; casts with lgbt characters (the main characters are Aro/Ace and Pan, and many other characters are lgbt too); or even just wanna follow out of pity/sympathy, the blog is @divinetrialsseries

Don't know what else I could do to get it off the ground now, so all I can do is get down on my knees and beg. Pride is a price I'll pay to get this story the attention I dearly hope it deserves.

[socialfilter]

personal headcanons about sadie and abigail because I can (and because I can’t stop thinking about it):

• sadie’s security company eventually extends to a coffee company. she sends abigail coffee on a monthly basis.

• I like to believe sadie’s personality is a mixture of Ellen from The Quick and The Dead (1995) and Idgie from Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) - AKA that girl is stubborn as sin.

• abigail is not a morning person (unless coffee is wafted under her nose)

• sadie 100% visited abigail when she had her little girl (i have a wip about this that i shall not abandon)

• abigail writes to sadie every few months or so but feels they’re very boring because her life doesn’t change much. sadie loves them (and doesn’t correct any spelling mistakes)

• abigail, like her son, becomes an avid reader - but she loves the pictures of a herbology book.

• sadie, despite what some people might think, is quite the woman of culture. she can speak a few phrases of most of the languages found in the saint denis market and regularly converses in conversation down there.

• abigail, surprisingly, knows some louisiana french (I have this fun little hc she’s from like, the Deep South before her parents died - and her language faded as she grew up)

• abigail names her baby girl ‘elizabeth’. john wanted to add a middle name but abigail didn’t want her to grow up with a fancy name so people didn’t get ‘fancy’ ideas. still, her middle name is informally like her mother’s. elizabeth roberts marston.

•abigail braids sadie’s hair in the mornings. when it comes to the blood on sadie’s clothes, that’s sadie’s job.

• for her birthday, sadie buys abigail a set of clothes like her own. abigail loves them.

• abigail is the only one that knows sadie has nightmares about the night at adler’s ranch. she comforts her every time.

• sadie and abigail visit the ruins of the ranch once. when sadie discovers that jake has no grave, abigail gifts sadie a flower in a locket - something she can keep with her forever.

• on the ride to copperhead landing, sadie has to ask abigail to stop crying because she can’t bear the sound of it. it breaks her heart. still, she remembers their early time in colter and comforts her the best she can.

• if john had died on that train, sadie would’ve looked after abigail and jack and gone with them anywhere - no questions asked.

• I absolutely love to think that abigail and sadie have this inevitably doomed kind of love. sadie knows she can’t have abigail but loves her anyway. she’d do anything for her, even when she knows it’ll break her heart. abigail knows she loves sadie but knows her heart belongs to john - still, forcing her to decide upsets her greatly. this is always going to be ‘one of those things’ and they’ll have to leave it in the past or in another life, where it belongs.

• sadie returns to the ranch after john’s death. it’s been years and abigail is mostly bedridden with illness and grief, but sadie stays until she passes. when jack buries her, she never returns.

• abigail convinced sadie to play the harmonica while she plays the piano. it happens only once in their time together.

• sadie teaches abigail how to ride horses like a true cowboy (and takes her to relay races)

• abigail is secretly a smoker. sadie is not so secret.

• I like to think sadie and charles keep in touch.

• abigail and sadie don’t often talk about their past in the gang. the memories they recall the most are ones of the night in colter and of their dear friend, arthur.

• when john returns to copperhead landing, sadie only cries when she learns of arthur’s death.

• abigail only keeps in touch with sadie and mary-beth from the old gang. she occasionally hears from tilly but nowhere near as often.

• sadie once spends an entire book tour as mary-beth’s appointed bodyguard.

• sadie eventually, after hanging up her gun as a bounty hunter, becomes a dealer in horses and transport goods.

• abigail is ridiculously good at making daisy chains. tilly and mary-beth taught her.

• the clothes that sadie wears at abigail’s wedding are abigail’s (surely this one is just canon).

• when sadie returns from hanging dog ranch, abigail is the first to see her and helps her wash the blood off in the nearby stream. sadie refuses to talk about it. abigail already knows.

• sadie and abigail have that kind of relationship where they can just say a million things with just their eyes.

• “I will protect her” sadie vs “touch her and I’ll kill you” abigail

• “I will protect her” abigail vs “touch her and I’ll kill you” sadie

• sadie isn’t a big fan of poetry - however she will list off things she’s read for abigail’s sake. abigail loves it.

• john is extremely aware of his wife’s affection for sadie. he doesn’t blame her and he’s smart enough to know not to stand in her way. still, sadie respects his boundaries.

• let me remind you this is what you wanted! sadie vs you were all I wanted! abigail

• sadie is not a natural mother. like john, her relationship with jack is a little awkward, but the feeling is there. it’s more of a tentative friendship rather than a guiding one.

• in more intimate moments, abigail draws illustrations she remembers on sadie’s skin. plants, animals, herbs. anything she can think of. she loves counting sadie’s freckles.

• sadie has a poncho made by abigail. it’s blue.

• ‘young and beautiful’ is from abigail to sadie like,,,,heavenly.

• ‘poison and wine’ = angsty but heartbreaking goodbye sadigail

this is all I can think of…for a part one? I don’t know. discuss.

(I need to make them a playlist)

[diudiudiu]

do u have any wenclair fic recommendations?

it's times like this when I wish I was more organised with note keeping or have the memory of something better than a hamster

I haven't been reading (for them and just generally) nearly as much as before I started writing for them. Not bcos I think it disrupts any writing process (can't disrupt no process 😌) but just bcos I don't seem to have as much time

But here's my attempt at a varied-ish list in no particular order:

[M] The Sisyphean Nightmare (16ch) by HonestToBlogJuno Adult Wednesday is contractually obligated to participate in the marketing of her book, to her dismay. Luckily she is married to a werewolf with a communications degree and side-hustle in social media.

[Unrated] you could be the one that i keep (1ch) by overnights - Genie AU And Enid, who’s wished on every star and comet and birthday candle she’s ever seen, looks at Wednesday now and comes up impossibly short of an answer. One wish left, anything in the world at her fingertips, and all she really wants is more time to spend with this enchanted, enchanting mystery of a girl.

[Unrated] backseat (3ch) by reputationstation - Celeb AU Wednesday Addams is a failed fencing prodigy with a once promising career and a troubled past (and if everything goes according to plan, a troubled future as well) who has no intentions of becoming friends with the overly excitable, bubbly girl who calls herself a 'social media influencer', whatever that means. However, like most things in her life, her plans are inevitably thrown off the course.

[Unrated] gifts from a cat (1ch) by Rennajade the one where wednesday is basically just a cat in human form

[T] Dia de los Muertos [now with chapter breaks] (11ch) by WishaDream Wednesday invites Enid over to her house for Dia de los Muertos. It promises to be a horribly fantastic day.

[T] Shot Glasses, Tacky Jewelry (i know you mean more to me than that) (8ch) by RainbowJeff - Holiday/Mall AU Wednesday has somehow been dragged into the mall employees' yearly Secret Santa. What's worse, she's pulled Enid Sinclair as her giftee.

[G] a day like a day in summer (4ch) by poetroe Wednesday has strange ways of showing affection; Enid becomes intimately familiar with them.

[G] yours, eurydice (14ch) by hanjisgirlfriend - Celeb AU Best-selling horror author Wednesday Addams hasn't written in years. Everything changes when Enid Sinclair moves in across the hall.

[M] once bitten (try again?) (1ch) by nd_mindoir Enid learns how to touch Wednesday and why Wednesday is so much softer with her in return

There's also Our Lady of Wild Beasts by Pelgraine which is no longer on AO3 because she's publishing it into an original fiction novel. Sad for us, but extremely good for her. Huge congrats!!

Explicit recs

(I guess it warrants its own section? 😇)

[E] Hysteria (1ch) by IndieBones918 Wednesday emotionally dumps on her girlfriend's best friend after her and Enid's first time and Yoko's having the absolute time of her life.

[E] Gift (1ch) by Mikkie_Mouse (Mikbates) - ABO/Omegaverse AU Wednesday's inability to understand the commitments of a relationship leaves Enid frustrated... and taking matters into her own hands.

[E] A raven's dream of wolf (2ch) by tokyocorgi - ABO/Omegaverse AU the one where Wednesday literally had a hot and steamy sex dream with a lot of feelings.

[E] I'm Just Here To Love You (2ch) by SaturnHaze Wednesday never moans during sex so Enid comes up with a plan to finally draw them out of her. Well, she and Yoko.

[E] First Time For Everything (1ch) by geekomancer, Onhirel Wednesday and Enid having been dating for what feels like ages now, but their relationship hasn't taken that final step... until now. A make out session simply doesn't stop, confronting Wednesday of the simple fact that she doesn't actually know what to do. Thankfully, Enid is there to help her figure it all out.

There you go, happy reading (or not, whatever, you do what you want) with whatever floats your boat 🛥️

[gdbatbitch]

Surgery happened on Tuesday! So my thyroid is now gone, along with some suspicious looking lymph nodes. The surgeon, Dr Lawrence Shirley at Baptist Health, was wonderful and has genuine concern for my progress. He told me that what was removed will be examined/tested by a pathologist to see if there may be any other issues, but hopefully this will be all I need to start healing. Hopefully. I'm not saying anything for certain.

The surgery itself was pretty easy on me. The only other time I've had major surgery like this was almost 24 years ago, when my twin daughters were born. That was a much different experience, but I have strong memories of the hospital staff at University of Kentucky hospital, and most of those memories are not positive. I'll just leave it at that. Baptist has been great so far. Everyone I've interacted with has been kind and made me feel like I was being genuinely cared for. Especially the nurse I was assigned Wednesday morning, Cody. He and I had a few conversations about the economy and comic books and movies, and that really helped me stay positive even though I was in pain.

I am still in a lot of pain. Swallowing hurts, as well as turning my head, leaning, bending over, or sitting up in bed. I tried a couple of times this morning before just rolling myself over to the side so I had more leverage to stand. I also apparently talked way too much yesterday because by the end of the day, my voice was all hoarse and that was causing pain as well. So I think today is going to be a quieter day.

I'm also going to be able to take off the bandage on my incision today and see how that goes. I'm kind of dreading that, even though I am curious to see what it looks like. I'm not afraid of having a scar, I have several as it is. It's just I have this weird fear of the incision opening up on its own. That comes from when I was recovering from the C-section and a staple that was holding the incision closed popped. It didn't really cause any problems, but I had nightmares that my guts could just fall out at any moment. Logically I know that's not going to happen, but the gremlins that control my anxiety levels are having a blast making me paranoid.

At this point, I'm at just around a third of the way toward my goal. I've already had to use what I've raised so far to keep the bills paid and pay for part of the surgery. The hospital has put me on an installment plan that will have me paying about $300 a month for 18 months. That is so far outside my budget, so I'm going to be pushing this fundraiser more, and I'd really love it if those of you that have already donated to share this page and encourage your friends to do the same. The more eyes we get on this, the better.

Right now my bank account is looking sad and since I'm missing time from work, my next paycheck is going to be just a little over half of what I usually bring home. It's only the 19th now, but I'm already nervous about being able to make November's rent. And I know things are tight for everyone, so even the smallest donations can make a big difference to me. A $5 donation is just as good as a $500 donation, and I'm grateful for all of them.

I'm grateful for all of you, for all you've done for me, whether it's a donation or words of support or a phone call, all of it. I usually feel like I'm taking on the world all by my lonesome, but I do feel very much supported and cared for thanks to all of you.

Please enjoy my post-op selfie and the grippy socks I absolutely took home with me. I'm wearing them now and I love them. I'm going to be doing nothing but resting today, since I overdid a little yesterday. Later taters.

[mariacallous]

Matt Gallagher’s new novel Daybreak, set amid the churning horror of Russia’s war against Ukraine, has been marketed as a love story. Yet it is ultimately a book less about romance than about the love of stories—and in particular, the stories we tell ourselves, and others, so that we can survive. Daybreak is a work of art, a gleaming, fanged nightmare of a book by a major American author who himself is an Army veteran.

Its hero, a U.S. veteran of the global war on terrorism named Luke “Pax” Paxton, ostensibly travels to Ukraine shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 to search for an ex-girlfriend named Svitlana. Pax appears to also be searching for absolution. His time as an Army infantryman has disassembled him, and he is unable to adjust to civilian life. His internal monologue is full of self-recrimination. He struggles to simply act normal in the company of civilians, let alone hold down a regular job. Clumsy in his speech and his emotions, fumbling, eager, and frequently angry, Pax has one North Star, which is his desire to be useful.

Many veterans have struggled to adjust to the civilian world in recent years, and a number of them have turned to Ukraine in order to feel useful once again. At least 50 Americans have so far been killed in Ukraine, and the overwhelming majority of them were veterans. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, U.S. veterans have volunteered to train Ukrainians, while others have organized donation drives and supply runs.

Some emerged as wasteful, scandalous figures���the inevitable consequence of the largest European conflict since World War II attracting its share of lowlifes—but the majority have put their lives on the line for a noble ideal, the chance to repel an obvious and perilous evil.

This evil is nothing new, of course. Ukraine has suffered from barbaric wars before, and those wars each created their own ghosts, leaving dark marks on the beautiful landscape. Even people who don’t believe in apparitions can recognize Ukraine as a profoundly haunted place, where the uncanny nature of armed conflict has seeped into the bones of the land, its history, and its society. Gallagher’s writing captures how rich and strange my native country is while layering the monstrousness of the new war on top.

“What … could be up there?” Pax wonders of the sky as an air raid siren blares, suddenly aware of the fact that while Americans controlled the sky in Afghanistan, the situation is vastly different in Ukraine. That sense of vulnerability, the sense of being skittering prey to missiles and killer drones and mortar shells, is unfamiliar to Americans, even many of those who served, but a reality for many people elsewhere.

In a macabre but satisfying way, I found Daybreak to closely match the night terrors I have suffered from since Russia invaded Ukraine, the result of long nights of staying on the phone with friends and relatives as the sky exploded above them. There is a loss of control there, the feeling of being trapped in a screaming vortex, even as you try, like Pax, to be useful.

A pivotal scene in Daybreak occurs at a gathering of Lviv society, comprising not the gangsters and oligarchs whom Americans too often associate with Ukraine but cultured people shocked by the arrival of full-scale war. Pax gets to tell an inspiring war story to the assembled, a story that is also a lie. But, as the narrator points out, “It was the kind of war story people wanted. Tenderness in devastation. It was the kind of war story people expected. Fellowship amidst ruin.”

The idea of merciful lies runs throughout the book. In light of how aid to Ukraine is hotly contested by slippery demagogues in the halls of U.S. power—not to mention how disastrously the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was executed—the political ramifications of these lies are almost unbearable to analyze.

Gallagher’s handling of Svitlana, the ex-girlfriend whom Pax seeks to protect, is particularly noteworthy. Far from the pliant sex kittens many American men hope to encounter in Ukraine, she is a strong-willed and prickly woman. Gallagher could’ve turned her strengths into another caricature—think a Ukrainian Valkyrie, a popular theme for memes and pageant costumes. But Svitlana’s inner world is also tumultuous and has to do with more than just the war. She has vulnerabilities and regrets. If she has a sword, it’s in her words, which can shatter or save a person.

Works by Western writers (including Russian Americans) on Ukraine are bound to come under heavy scrutiny at a time of upheaval, and Gallagher’s narrative is not going to be for everyone. Yet it is not a tourist’s narrative, nor is it exploitative. If you’ve ever tried to care for someone who has lost part of themselves to war, you might recognize those feelings, even if that war wasn’t Ukraine’s. That sense that someone has been scooped out by conflict, that they’re searching for something to replace a loss, is familiar to veterans and people who care about them across the world.

Russia’s war is senseless and genocidal, but in the shadow of horned death, people continue to tell stories—as Pax does, as Svitlana does. A lot of what is written in the ashes is lost, and Ukrainians’ stories should always come first. There is a privilege Americans have when it comes to narrating a foreign conflict, a privilege that isn’t always earned. Gallagher, however, has approached the topic of Americans in the context of Ukraine with humility and humanity. I can only hope Western politicians will be willing to do the same.

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: Rouge

Author: Mona Awad

Genre/s: horror, mystery, thriller, literary fiction

Content/Trigger Warning/s: suicide (off-page), emotional abuse, murder, death of a parent, mental illness

Summary (from the author's page): For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate��when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa her mother to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, ROUGE explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, ROUGE holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/rouge-mona-awad/19834841

Spoiler-Free Review: This book pulled out an unexpected gut punch and got me REALLY teary-eyed at the end but that’s what makes it GOOD.

So there’s layers to this. The first, obvious one is that a huge portion of this book is an enormous send-up of the beauty industry and beauty influencers. There’s already plenty of commentary out there, both in fiction and nonfiction, about the ways the beauty industry harms people, but the way Awad uses Snow White and Beauty and the Beast is what adds a little extra punch. So many people, especially women, grow up believing that physical beauty is vitally important, that it makes one a “good” and/or “worthwhile” person, because from childhood we are fed this belief via fairytales and - mostly notably here - Disney movies. Awad takes this belief and turns it into a chilling nightmare as the protagonist (who is named Belle, incidentally - another nod to Disney’s take on Beauty and the Beast) attempts to become “beautiful” by following the advice of an online beauty influencer whom she follows with almost cult-like (another reference to the way the term “cult” has been adopted by both influencers and the beauty industry) devotion. Later on this obsession with becoming “beautiful” leads Belle down a very dark road that forms the novel’s main plot.

Awad also absolutely does not shy away from portraying the terrible effect all of this has on the protagonist’s mental health, most clearly shown in how the plot plays out. Nor does she shy away from showing how racist the beauty industry is, with its emphasis on how beauty products whiten skin - excuse me, call it “brightening”, because that’s how it’s marketed nowadays to avoid racist implications, and which is ANOTHER thing Awad points out in the novel. This racism is also shown in how the protagonist (who is mixed race, half-French Canadian and half-Egyptian) compares herself constantly to her white French mother and finds herself ugly in comparison. But at the same time, Awad points out the mother’s fear of growing old: another fear the beauty industry preys upon by offering products and procedures that offer to maintain, or even restore, youth.

But while all of that is interesting and pretty damn creepy in the way Awad’s incorporated all of it in the plot, the emotional core of this novel lies in the way it looks at grief, and the complex relationship between Belle and her mother. Once again Awad nods to fairytales in portraying their relationship: specifically Snow White, with Belle meant to stand in for Snow White and her mother standing in for the Queen - there’s even a mirror in this story that plays a rather significant role, and a prince too. But Awad laser-focuses on the connection between Belle and her mother, on the complexities and nuances of their relationship, wrapping it all up in a climactic scene that basically had me crying when I got to it. My relationship with my mother might not have been exactly like Belle’s, but in the general shape of it - especially the inability to be honest about my thoughts and feelings - well… It didn’t hit me right away, as the story was progressing, but when the climax of the novel happened it hit me all at once and had me crying, which is something I haven’t done since my mom passed.

Overall, this was a creepy, and towards the end, heart-wrenching read. Awad’s prose evokes obsession in a way that feels very visceral, while also evoking the sharp, tender emotions of a complicated mother-daughter relationship. Might not be the fastest, easiest read, but it’s certainly very rewarding.

Rating: five roses

[ultraflavour]

D&D Youtube is going to get real weird in 2024

I saw a kind of interesting video from the YouTube channel Treantmonk's Temple a little while back. I want to talk about it a little bit.

Without getting too much into it, the premise of the video is thus: It doesn't make sense to boycott D&D in retaliation for the layoffs, because if people stop buying Wizards products, it will lead to more layoffs.

I've already gone into why I think this is flawed reasoning in my previous post on this topic. But what's more interesting to me here is that this highlights a conundrum that every D&D YouTuber must be dealing with right now: that a weakening D&D brand is bad news if your own brand is tied to that game.

That anxiety was spelled out almost perfectly by the "Indestructible Boy Who Cried AI." His account on Twitter is private right now thanks to his little oopsie, but a very helpful Twitter user screenshotted this take:

Indestructible Boy here is railing at Wizards to delay the release of the Revised Core Rulebooks because he's anxious that a half-baked release in 2024 might cause "another 4E situation." And thus we arrive at the heart of the issue.

There is a certain breed of Brand Loyalist who sees the possibility of D&D becoming uncool again, and will do anything to stop it. Why, they might even go so far as to accuse Wizards of cutting corners on the book by using AI art!

Wouldn't these accusations hurt D&D's brand though? Maybe, but what would hurt D&D's brand even more would be a not-so-well-received Core Rulebook refresh in 2024 giving people yet another reason to abandon the game for newer, more exciting products.

Of course, the possibility of D&D losing all of its cultural cachet from one poor release is laughably small. It's an absolute powerhouse, and likely will continue to be.

However. What Indestructible Boy actually said was another 4E situation. A situation where, despite industry insiders agreeing that 4th Edition sold more books, it was Pathfinder that is widely agreed to have "won" that generation.

The Horror Scenario for D&D YouTubers

The thing I advocated for before was that the D&D community should redirect their spending toward rival products. This would spur competition in the TTRPG industry, create jobs for recently laid-off Wizards employees to fall back on, and give people more of an excuse to see what they've been missing in the broader TTRPG landscape. Plus, it incentivizes Hasbro to increase their investment in the D&D print team to repair their market position.

But if you're a D&D YouTuber, that scenario is an absolute nightmare. D&D might never slip to #2 in the polls, but it's also extremely possible that it loses its status as the "Majority game" if its rivals manage to grab a significant chunk of its player-base.

If the Revised Core Rulebooks turn out to be underwhelming, as the Indestructible Boy seems to fear it might, then D&D risks once again becoming uncool. And that is the apocalypse scenario that the D&D Brand Warriors would rather avoid.

The YouTuber's Dilemma

So now, if you're an online personality who has primarily covered D&D 5th Edition up until this point, you have to make a choice. Do you:

Continue to be a primarily D&D-based channel and hope that your commitment to the brand pays off in the long run?

Pivot to producing more genre-agnostic content, before you know where the chips are going to fall?

Use your platform to subtly bury D&D's burgeoning competition?

I don't actually know what the answer is here, honestly. Using your platform to promote games that your channel is not traditionally known for might be risky. But at the same time, if it turns out that the era of the "D&D Hegemony" is coming to a close, then handcuffing yourself to the railing might backfire if the ship starts going down.

And speaking of #3...

They Protec, But they also Attac

This is another video that I find utterly fascinating because it also presupposes the idea that if Daggerheart can't outsell D&D, then it's doomed to fail.

There's a term for this: Fantasy or D&D Heartbreaker. It's the idea that if your RPG doesn't have a shot at being #1, it shouldn't even bother trying. It assumes that the fans will always choose the market leader when it comes time to decide where to spend their gaming dollars and their time. The "losers," aka the "Heartbreakers" just end up collecting dust on the "unloved games shelf" at the local hobby store.

But the idea that your game is a failure if it can't "beat" D&D also reinforces the "One Game to Rule Them All" paradigm that many D&D YouTubers benefit greatly from. And this is where we see that there is a massive conflict of interest.

Here's another video from the Roll For Combat channel featuring Baron de Ropp where he spells it out much more plainly:

At about the 1:45 mark in the video, Baron says this: "In order to prevent the hobby itself from imploding, there has to be that one central pillar that everybody kind of gravitates to. Because otherwise, if you don't have that, the only thing that sticks around are the hardcores."

I don't want to seem like I'm dunking on Baron specifically, but he definitely seems to care a lot about that "Central Pillar" existing.

I have taken to calling this the "Election model" of TTRPGs, where even if there are more than a couple of candidates for the role of "President," only one of them can win. Whichever RPG is the "President" is the one that will receive the vast majority of coverage, and also the "Default" choice whenever the question of "What game are we playing next" comes up.

The "4E Situation" but Worse

I don't think the real fear is that D&D suddenly loses all of its brand awareness because of a couple of scandals. It's that D&D goes back to being "Just another game" like it was during the 90s. It used to be just as likely that your table was running something like Shadowrun, or Rifts, or Vampire: The Masquerade, or any number of other games.

In that "Fractured Landscape" scenario, it becomes very difficult for a YouTuber to make videos that appeal to the majority of the TTRPG audience, if you can't make assumptions about their playing habits. The safest bet continues to be D&D, since it will always have a thumb on the scale thanks to its cultural awareness.

But if the "4E situation" happens, it also means that D&D is no longer the default game that everyone is assumed to be playing. Your content is increasingly targeted towards beginners and casual fans, while the "Hardcores" have split off and are playing other games. The D&D-playing audience is divided, and that's the audience that these YouTubers depend on.

"Reasoned Criticism"

I don't know what the solution is here. What I do believe is that there will increasingly be a conflict of interest between Youtubers covering new upcoming games, and their need to protect the D&D brand which their own online presence depends on.

What I absolutely do not want to see are videos like the one I posted above, where people with primarily D&D-oriented content take a little sidebar to bury the competition. If you have a channel whose bread and butter is videos like "The Top 5 Multiclass options for Lizardfolk Druids," I don't want to see a video called "Why Fabula Ultima is mid, actually!" with a stock photo of some generically attractive person giving a big shrug.

Even if you're not paid directly by Hasbro to promote D&D, you benefit from doing it just the same, thanks to SEO and Algorithm placement on Youtube. So you don't have to disclose that you're being paid (because you're not) but you absolutely are making money off of the D&D brand, and that makes any talk about other RPGs, especially negative talk, a conflict of interest.

Well, anyways

The question of whether to stay committed to D&D as a brand, or diversify, is a legitimately difficult question that I don't think anyone has a real solid answer to.

A lot depends on how well the Revised Core Rulebooks are received in 2024. There are going to be big questions to answer with regards to what system to choose going forward: Stay on 5E? Switch to 5.5? And what about Tales of the Valiant? Then there's upcoming public playtests from both Daggerheart and the MCDM RPG.

How players choose to spend their money will significantly affect the D&D YouTube landscape. Those personalities will have to choose whether to dig their heels in on D&D, or diversify. Neither option seems safe at this point.

However, what we should absolutely not tolerate is any attempt by D&D personalities to "nudge" the TTRPG industry back into the loving arms of their chosen brand, away from its upcoming competitors.

If you are a person who's handcuffed your brand to the ship called "Dungeons & Dragons," you cannot be trusted to be objective about the TTRPG industry as a whole. Not until you have made the effort to talk about games outside of the D20 Fantasy sphere without the intention of dismissing them outright.

[trialbymagicks]

A Spooktacular Witch’s Brew: The Real Magic of Scary Godmother

It's that spooktacular time of year where the magic and the mundane merge once again for a night of tricks and treats! Just what is it about the Scary Godmother movies that makes them such an enduring cult classic?

The Part Where We Act Like This Is The Inspirational Personal Essay On A Recipe Blog

As someone who has always loved the spooky season and held a fond place in my heart for Halloween, I was drawn to stories – particularly movies – that suited the occasion. To name just a few: the Halloweentown movies, Hocus Pocus, The Little Vampire, Twitches and its sequel, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and of course Scary Godmother were all top of the very long list.

Perhaps not-so-surprisingly, as I revisit these tales from my childhood I’ve noticed that they seem to share common themes. Families or found families of outcasts celebrating their individuality in an environment that seems hand-crafted for them, often using Halloween as a time to openly hide in plain sight during a merging of two different worlds (the magical and the mundane) and ultimately fighting for their right to coexist when a closed-minded force threatens to destroy them. As I engaged with these stories growing up, I often found myself feeling like I was coming home just as the protagonists did when they embarked on their journeys of self-discovery and acceptance.

My own personal journey with the season has been a bit of a bumpy one. For the majority of my childhood, I adored the idea of getting to dress up as whatever I wanted to be and live out a magical fantasy. Once I reached my teenage years and struggled to understand who or what I was through the extremely confusing “socially-acceptable” lens of my peers, Halloween suddenly became the one day I felt like I could wear a costume and be as weird as I wanted to be because no one could judge me for it. Then depression soon hit me like a sack of bricks and that spark of joy the season had brought me began to wither away, the only saving grace being that I could still watch the movies I’d grown up with and feel at least a little like I was home again in my own skin, though I longed to be a part of those worlds instead. Now, a decent way into my adulthood, I have started to return to my roots and discover an even deeper appreciation for the occasion.

The Recipe For A Halloween Cult Classic

Scary Godmother started out as a hybrid comic-novel book series created by Jill Thompson for her niece as a way of spreading the Halloween joy to readers of all ages in a market that she felt was lacking the material. Two of her original stories were adapted to the screen in 2003 and 2005, both of which received her supervision and guidance during the creative process.

Step 1: For a unique and easily identifiable look, toss two art styles in a blender and pulse until satisfied. Be careful not to over-blend!

Mom says it’s Hannah’s turn with the eyes!

First things first, we have to address the elephant in the room: The mix of CGI models on 2.5D backgrounds is wild to look at and the internet has been abuzz with reviewers, reaction channels, and casual viewers alike commenting on how hauntingly unsettling it is. They point out the soullessness of the eyes on many of the human characters. There have been frantic questions about why the movies weren’t animated in 2D like Jill Thompson’s beautiful storybook illustrations. Was it only because CGI animation is quicker and cheaper to produce?

Luckily for our curious minds, the answers to these questions are simple. This was Jill Thompson’s vision!

The movie designs are accurate adaptations of her original illustrations and in fact the CGI was her decision. When discussing how to approach the style of the movie, she specified that she did not want live-action and she absolutely did not want 2D “because I’m doing 2D. Nobody else should be doing 2D, just me.” (Yes, she really did say in a Comics Bulletin interview that that was her reason. No, I’m not sure I understand it either.)

Perhaps a 2D animated movie would have looked less jarring, but I’ll say it – these movies are extremely charming in a storybook way largely in part due to that animation. The 3D characters perform highly energetic visual gags that often make them look as though they are leaping off the 2D pages of their world. Much like turning the pages of a pop-up book, it looks unreal and quite a bit magical, and may have been what first drew the attention of channel-surfing kids every year.

Step 2: Sprinkle in a Found Family of “weirdo” character types that you enjoy coming back to every year. Go ahead, really make it feel like a home away from home~

I always looked forward to catching this movie on TV every year because there’s something so sweet about Hannah’s found family journey with the inhabitants of The Fright Side. I mean, what Halloween-loving kid wouldn’t be drawn to a whimsical spooktakular adventure into a world of feel-good Halloween vibes? They welcome her into their home and encourage her to be her authentic self the way they live their own lives openly among friends who understand and appreciate them.

The three “broommates” in charge of the monster house are Scary Godmother, Bug-a-boo, and Skully. Their quirky trio truly is the backbone of the group.

Oh my god, they were broommates.

As the monster under the bed, Bug-a-boo is the quintessential misunderstood “looks intimidating on the outside but is a huge softie inside” character. If Boo immediately getting attached to Sully in Monsters Inc. got you right in the heart as a kid, then you’ll understand what makes Hannah’s friendship with Bug-a-boo hit home. She spends the first movie steadily realizing that they share interests and favorite foods, which makes him far less scary and allows her to appreciate his fun-loving nature. When he easily breaks down all the stereotypes Hannah had been taught to believe, it becomes clear that he’s looking out for her more than the guardian she had been told to depend on. To kids who were considered “weird” enough to like monsters, this dynamic feels personal.

Scary Godmother is like the cool aunt who always has her pockets filled with candy for the niblings. She takes a no-nonsense approach to her broommates’ shenanigans, making sure they don’t frighten Hannah too much before she gets the chance to adjust to the new setting, and you just know that if you ever had trouble at home she would be there in a heartbeat to take you in. There’s something about the good witch who can be a little bit bad when the situation calls for it that strikes a personal chord with a lot of misfits.

In the human world, Skully Pettibone is a skeleton in the closet, but in The Fright Side no one is pushing him to stay in any closets! He is out and proud and extremely loud about it. In fact, the first time we see him he’s flamboyantly busting out of the closet with the dramatic flair of a stand-up comedian ready for his grand debut. Somehow, he is both too much and not enough at the same time, so you’re already expecting it by the time he spontaneously breaks out into show tunes.

Oh, and they have the most adorable ghost cat named Boozle who occasionally hacks up scareballs. I love him.

Of course they also have an assortment of friends who have been invited to the party.

The most controversial is undoubtedly Harry the werewolf, a theater kid if you ever saw one. He is like the weird uncle who always shows up intoxicated to family gatherings (or he will be soon after he gets there), believes pajamas count as casual clothes, and has a serious case of the munchies. His fourth wall breaking humor flies over the heads of most everyone in the room and, though these facets of his personality consequently makes him the butt of every joke, he’ll read comics with you, howl at the moon, and make you laugh as he dramatically recites dialogue from your favorite scenes alongside the characters during movie night… even when he overstays his welcome.

Naturally, every band of monster misfits has to include a vampire or three! Orson and his parents are the old-fashioned goth family that gives HOAs nightmares.

Max is the socially awkward Nosferatu out of time with a morbid sense of humor, reminiscing about the olden days of vampire royalty and struggling to adopt already outdated slang in order to fit in with the younger generations. Ruby is the better-adjusted Queen of the Night who finds herself caught between supporting her husband’s preference for tradition and encouraging their son’s individuality. It’s a tough job trying to get them to meet somewhere in the middle, but she has learned to go with the flow. As for Orson, he is the stand-in for every kid whose parents unintentionally embarrass them in front of their friends with cheesy jokes and an awkward amount of affectionate doting.

Step 3: To build the plot, mix 3 parts sugar for your Pure-hearted Hero with 2 parts spice for your Unrelenting Bully and voila! If the Bully gets comeuppance and Good prevails, you’ve done it right! Don’t hold back; make it cheesy!

Did anyone else notice his ears got hairy? His parents let him throw out all but two pairs of clothes they never wash and his friends think he stinks… Just how unkempt IS he?

The premise for the first movie is pretty simple: Jimmy and his friends don’t want to babysit Jimmy’s little cousin while they Trick-or-Treat, so they decide to pull a mean prank to scare her by locking her in the Spook House after filling her head with tales of child-eating monsters. In response to Hannah’s tears, Scary Godmother shows up to whisk her away to The Fright Side and show her that monsters are people too!

While Hannah has the most spooktacular Halloween of her life, the older kids realize that their determination to ruin Hannah’s night caused them to miss out on all the Halloween fun they had hoped to have without her as they spend hours worrying over why they can’t hear her screams of terror from the Spook House.

The comedy lies in the eyeballs!

In the end, Hannah’s new friends help her scare her bullies in return and paint her as the brave hero of their little act, thereby winning over Jimmy’s friends for the sequel and leaving Jimmy with a full year of unresolved psychological trauma that he winds up channeling into a desire to destroy Halloween forever.

Hannah is clearly the glue that holds the entire human world together. Like many young protagonists, her wide-eyed enthusiasm for the holiday and willingness to think of everyone she meets as her friend the instant they’re nice to her is a large part of her charm. It is easy to put yourself in her shoes as she meets the denizens of The Fright Side for the first time or imagine yourself similarly solving the world’s Halloween-related problems with unquenchable optimism. She thinks outside the box and appreciates the charm in the homemade aspect of the holiday that has been overshadowed by the commercialism of the season for too long.

Someone smashed all the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch, jeopardizing that farmer’s livelihood? That’s just the mouth for their jack-o-lanterns!

Someone vandalized all the Halloween costumes and tampered with the candy in the store with no concern whatsoever for the employees whose paychecks might be at risk due to product loss? Just recycle last year’s costumes and make your own treats! Who needs candy anyway?

Someone TP’d the Spook House, littering and making it someone else’s problem to clean up later? That’s not toilet paper, that’s ghost decorations! How thoughtful!

Meanwhile, Jimmy was so traumatized by the experience from the first movie that he became a paranoid Home Alone style shut-in with a vendetta against an entire holiday… and no one was concerned about this. It’s honestly amazing how these human kids overreact to everything and yet their friend having a trauma-induced breakdown wasn’t even a blip on their radar.

He’s hallucinating monsters in his spaghetti, kids. I don’t know what else to tell you. This boy needs therapy.

Jimmy’s gradual descent from casual trespassing and bullying in the first movie to full on vandalism and destruction in the sequel is a character arc with real stakes for more than just the humans. No longer content to simply pick on his cousin, he nearly destroys The Fright Side in his attempt to rid the world of monsters and ruin his friends’ fun. But of course all it takes is an invitation to join the party he tried to crash and a chance to meet the source of his nightmares in a less scary setting to heal his mental and emotional scarring, thereby officially welcoming him back into the friend group and ending the story on a happy note.

Step 4: Bind it all together with an “anything goes” magic system and you’re done!

As the resident witch, Scary Godmother is the primary magic user of the movies and she can do whatever the plot calls for – or whatever looks the coolest to impress the children watching. The way she uses her magic can be boiled down to a few basics: flight, teleportation, levitation, telekinesis, materialization and dematerialization, and some classic illusions.

Her preferred methods of travel appear to be flying on her broomstick for long distances, teleportation for snappy appearances, and using her wings to fly around the house when walking just won’t do. She often uses telekinesis to move objects and get the house ready for Halloween or to levitate a particularly lazy werewolf out of bed.

She will materialize a spider web handkerchief to dry Hannah’s tears and one of her favorite tricks is materializing decorations on a whim for the house parties, but she summons all manner of items when needed and dispels them just as quickly once they have served their purpose. Only once or twice does she ever chant a spell while doing so, most likely for dramatic effect, so it’s safe to presume her magic doesn’t require it.

Perhaps she is at her most terrifying when she summons ethereal skeletal arms that shoot out from her hands to do her bidding against pests or when she uses her illusion magic to appear to melt her whole body into a puddle a la the Wicked Witch of the West. But most of her illusions are beautiful spectacles like releasing colorful trails of magic from her hands or hat to light up the darkness.

The Fright Side itself is a highly magical place with a mostly whimsical take on the concept of a magic system. According to Scary Godmother, it is responsible for such tasks as changing the color of the leaves each season, painting the clouds into the sky, and knitting spider webs. And you don’t need a magic broom to travel there either, since there is a magic key that creates a portal to The Fright Side when used on any door. But the most interesting detail is the thread that holds it all together.

You may be familiar with the concept of certain monsters or nonhuman entities that only exist if enough people believe in them. Or how about the idea that these entities’ power is determined by how many people believe in them? The Fright Side seems to work in a similar way. As seen in The Revenge of Jimmy, its magic is directly linked to how much Halloween spirit exists in the human world – particularly this one town where the main characters live, for plot reasons – because if the holiday was ever retired, not only would Scary Godmother lose her magic and the monsters become their human world counterparts… the magical world around them would disappear into the void altogether.

Final Food For Thought

So, with all that in mind, I really do have to wonder…

The magic calendar showed us that, if humans stopped celebrating Halloween or believing in it, October 31st would cease to exist at all and The Fright Side would disappear. But if the hard work of Scary Godmother and The Fright Side are responsible for such basic things as clouds in the sky and the changing seasons, how would that even work? Would what humans call science suddenly take over again to fill the gap in the universe? Or maybe what humans call science is the same thing as the magic used by The Fright Side to perform those tasks and nothing would change at all.

That’s not even addressing the fact that the complete erasure of October 31st would somehow transition the human world to a 364-day calendar. When it comes to the universe, there is usually a give and take, so would February 29th become a permanent day in the calendar to replace it and February 30th be declared a new Leap Year day to even things out?

These and many more are not questions we are meant to ask as casual viewers of the movies, but it sure is fun to think about!

Note: This article was originally posted on WordPress on October 31, 2022.

[thedarling]

This Ain't It.

8:56 p.m. Still processing It Ends with Us and wanting to understand its meteoric rise... I don't review books but, goddamn.

First off, I never intended to read this book given that my friend told me to steer clear of Colleen Hoover's work earlier this year. In her words, "You will hate it" and she was right.

But then, a month ago or so, NPR featured Hoover's work on one of their broadcasts and I was shook by her dedicated readers. They played a clip of this one TikToker sitting in her car and crying – CRYING – over the ending, touting that it damn near changed her life. Naturally, I was intrigued. Thousands of five-star reviews couldn't be wrong, no? Some of the greatest literary works of our time don't even touch those numbers–

Wrong. Wrong. I was so wrong.

Kindly, whoever is in charge of Hoover's marketing has greatly outdone themselves, because somehow they managed to convince the publisher (and readers) that this novel [about explicit domestic abuse and violence] is "a love story".

As someone who has experienced events akin to what Hoover describes in her book, uniquely, I need to understand her research process because, though the book strives for realism, the rationale she credits the abuser with is absurd. She acts like he's 100% sane and logical and only flies off the handle when triggered. Abusers are abusers all of the time. Not some of the time, not most of the time, ALL of the time. There's no switch. This isn't Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dahmer didn't stop being Dahmer when he went to work, no different from John Wayne Gacy or Joseph James DeAngelo. They are monsters, through and through, indefinite psychos and classical narcissists who only look out for themselves, AND when their victims try to leave them they do not let them go.

In my experience, there was no 'reasoning' with my abuser. I had to disappear and pray to god that he found another victim before he found me. Even now, it's been a decade and that fucker still haunts my nightmares. Unlike Hoover's protagonist though, it only took one time for my abuser to hit me and I wanted nothing to do with him - but that didn't stop him from trying. I had to change my number despite the no-contact order, I had to move twice after he slashed my tires, left bullets in my mailbox (at the time my room was visible from the street and the idea of him pointing a gun at me still scares at me). Later he broke into my car while I was at work, that after he lied to the cops and told them he didn't have my key fob. When they asked, he had absolutely no idea who would key the shit out of my car or leave a massive gash in the hood and both headlights... This guy cost me a fortune and my livelihood for years. There was no rationale. I had no agency. He thought I was his.

I still remember the last text he sent me before I changed my number,

"It's a nice night to be on the beach with the one you love."

My best friend was right beside me when she said it, "Well... he and Satan can have a great time on the beach."

So much of Hoover's book is pure fantasy and I'm a fool for sticking it out to the end, but, you know what, I really wanted to experience whatever it was that made that girl cry. I thought it would get better but it didn't. Ironically, I was gaslit into finishing, believing that it would get better, and then when I did finish, the book gave me the stalest, most unrealistic ending it could afford me. I wish my abuser let me go the way that the protagonist's abuser had. Like all a victim has to do is say, "enough", and then just leave. My god, I wish, I wish - it was that simple. Again, pure fantasy.

Painfully, this book is so naïve and hurtful. I will say, the best part about it is that it did provide resources and contacts at the end for people who have experienced or are experiencing abuse, but honestly, for anyone who is or has, they probably never made it to the end. I should have dropped this book two to three chapters in but I had hope. I really, really did. I just can't get over her naming her child after Dory from 'Finding Nemo'. Seriously, what the fuck was this book and who was it written for??

8:57 p.m. About to hop on a call and explain the story's synopsis to a friend and vent. Then John Langan's horror after that. Yeah. Full night.

[top23console]

Forspoken - Best ARPG developed by Luminous Production

Forspoken has been considered one of those gaming titles exactly where I was cautious right from the start. The concept was intriguing as it would be my sort of genre. However, the tiniest bit of gameplay that was shown caused me to pump the brakes somewhat. After an extremely disappointing trial, I used to be prepared for disappointment. This didn't take time, but when I finally got into the overall game, I came to discover that I was completely incorrect.

Story

Following the narrative, the video game follows Frey Holland, who is transported from New York to the land of Athia after trying to take an amusing Cuff. She then finds herself in the middle of a war that has been tearing the kingdom apart through an unimaginable force often known as "The Corruption," twisting the animals, people, and terrain of the entire kingdom into nightmare-like, broken versions of their own.

Combat

The fight is extremely enjoyable and enjoyable, with Tanta's battles with bosses being the absolute highlights, but I would have preferred more movement. Flow's use is determined by your stamina meter, as exemplified by the diamonds just above the wellness pub. You need to keep watch over the meter in the battle to ensure people don't get caught with no ability to escape, but it's also noteworthy to keep track of it while traveling across the globe. The moment you initiate Flow, it will cost you one gem for each time you press the switch and use up another after a short time (when Frey dashes somewhat again). You can readjust this timer by interacting with the surroundings, just like when auto-jumping over a small obstacle. There is a lot of energy from the launch and even fewer steps to reestablish it, so when anyone's running out, you'll have to run to recover. Our website is the best place to buy cheap New PS4 games.

Graphics

Visually, Forspoken is a treat. You'll find three graphics game modes you could use, or six if you're playing with the latest TV or monitor. Performance mode is the "worst," while high-quality mode has by far the most detail while dropping the frames per second in certain instances. Hurry up, cheap PS4 racing games are on the market. In between these two modes is the ray tracing system mode, which provides the most efficient lighting while still preserving the features of the quality mode. If you are hooked up to a monitor that can handle 120 refresh rates, you can toggle this off or on for each illustration mode likewise. I had this turned on during my own time playing Forspoken, and turning off the feature was a very jarring wisdom as the frames per second slowed to an absolute halt. In any case, whatever game mode you play in, it's hard to notice the difference in precision when you play the recreation because things are so fast you're barely able to figure out if there's additional aliasing happening with some of the vegetation that is visible in the distance.

Sound design and music

The sound and music raise the book's overall adventure just as much. From softer, more catchy beats to explosive orchestral arrangements mingled with singing choirs, the soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment to the snarling of the creatures and humans.

Bottom Line

Forspoken is an impressive new IP. It has its fair share of challenges, but the more time you spend in Athia Forspoken, the more its world entices you with its fascinating combat system and, additionally, the pure pleasure of honestly crossing vast environments that are enthralling. Luminous Productions is undoubtedly onto something with that one, but it needs much more focus and sophistication. At the very least, Forspoken attests to its worth in its own right and reflects its potential to one day be a part of Square Enix's main franchises.

[a-method-in-it]

One really interesting thing about the current discourse around pain management is that it obviously is inextricable from the opioid epidemic, which was essentially created by one company, and specifically one family: Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family.

And so I every time this topic comes up, I feel like we as a society need to get a primer on this company and what they did starting in the late 90s. (Most of this info is coming from the excellent book Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe. Highly recommend.)

A short summary of relevant points:

In the late 1990s, Purdue Pharma created a new drug called Oxycodone and marketed it primarily under the brand name OxyContin.

They did a HUGE marketing blitz around it, including ad campaigns aimed at doctors about how important pain management is and how medical professionals should prioritize eliminating pain for patients.

They also straight up lied to doctors about the drug in very important ways, including lying about the duration of the effects and also saying it was 100% non-addictive and could not be abused because of its time release capabilities.

Turns out that

a) the "12 hour" pills did not last 12 hours and most patients started having breakthrough pain in as little as 8 hours, causing them to take their next pill before 12 hours, run out of pills by the end of the month, and turn to the black market to get more drugs; Purdue dismissed these people as addicts who were using the drug incorrectly when they tried to sue

b) it is addictive because obviously; it's an opioid, those are definitely addictive. And

c) you can very easily defeat the time release by crushing the pills.

Anyway, this created the opioid epidemic.

I am not exaggerating, this one company run by this one family essentially created the opioid epidemic almost single-handedly. No, they are not in prison, but that's another rant.

The point is that so much of our discussion around pain and pain medication has been warped by the opioid epidemic and doctors over-correcting after years of not taking the risk of addiction seriously enough.

The idea that patients should not be in pain is absolutely true, and also has been unfairly tainted by Purdue's marketing that used this same argument to harm patients for profit.

The idea that doctors should not be interrogating people about their use of painkillers and assuming they are "misusing" the drug (whatever that is supposed to mean), is running up against doctors' guilt that they bought Purdue's lies and were not properly monitoring patients for signs of addiction and getting them help.

The idea that keeping pills from addicts is not going to solve the problem and should not be our main priority is emotionally hard to accept when everyone wishes so desperately that medical providers had not been so willing to hand out pills before.

This is a hard and tricky area to begin with. How do you balance the need for pain relief against the risk of addiction (which is itself also a serious conditions that can cause physical and mental damage)? There's no easy line to draw.

And then you throw the decades of malfeasance by Purdue into the mix and everything becomes a mess.

Because ultimately, OP is right. People who don't want to be in pain should, in a society where we have invented very effective pain killers, not have to live in pain. They should be informed of the risks, including the risks of addiction and how to mitigate it as much as possible, and then they should get to make that decision for themselves.

But in order to convince anyone of that, you have to figure out how to talk people through the layers and layers of nightmares that Purdue Pharma wrought upon all of us.

It is actually way better for 100 addicts to get their fix on pain pills than a single person in pain go without. I call this the "Torture is bad" principle. You should be able to get the good stuff forever after a single doctor's visit. If you're worried about addicts fund rehab centers and needle exchanges instead of torturing people.

[awkwarddystopianwarlord]

Far Encounters of the Third Space

Where do you go when your shift has ended and the school bell is rung, but your house is a disaster getting renovated, your visiting extended family is a nightmare, your dog isn’t trained where to poop yet and leaves his mark all over the floor? When the places you have to be like school and work suck and the home you go to at the end of the day isn’t suitable, what do you do in the between time, the weekends, the days off? Where do you and your mates gossip and get your sillies out? 

Third spaces have been disappearing. The spaces where interaction with friends, other humans, self, and the world are fading away and it’s a problem. We need community and exposure to life outside our homes, schools, and workplaces. We need to be able to cross paths with strangers that can become friends. We need an escape from our obligations and responsibilities. We need somewhere to go to fully be ourselves and run into others who are like us. But we don’t really have anywhere to go. For multiple reasons too. 

A lot of us are working because we live in a capitalist hellscape and need fifteen jobs to buy a single bell pepper. We don’t have time to go anywhere else even if there were places. By the time work has finished, we’re absolutely bushed. There are only so many hours in a day and things are only open so late so it’s a losing situation for a lot of us.

As for everyone else who does have the time, they be left with few options. Especially if you lack a lot of spare funds. Our museum here used to be by donation, it’s not anymore. The aquarium on the mainland is like fifty dollars. Malls are desolate in some places. And if you go to any joint with food just to chat, you’re loitering. Libraries are great except you have to be quiet. Arcades, bowling alleys, skating rinks are solid options but how many people have those? How easy is it to get to them? Parks are perfect if the weather favors you. But, like, remember Blockbuster?

Having Blockbuster enter my brain really pushed me to write this because it was such a good encapsulation of a third space. You could just peruse and chat and chill and it was basically a library but the volume was dialed up a bit. Movie rental places were wonderful. There was one where I used to live and the woman who owned it was a gem. There was human connection there. She recommended movies to her customers who she knew well enough to believe they would enjoy them. I’ve no idea how many movies and shows she said my family should try, but I am almost certain, most of them were hits. Bookstores are also great for this, but I think because it’s books, we assume library laws apply and it’s to be quiet. It’s places like those though, where people can run into other people and find out common tastes in a completely organic way. We don’t have enough of that. Board Game cafes come close I think, but from what I’ve seen, most people go in from the beginning with their own mates and a lot of games can only have so many players. When I go with friends, we only go when we know there’s a decent number of us for ultimate game play convenience. If we were to meet others, it would already be incredibly crowded. Grand place though to go specifically with your friend group as an activity, I will say. Just not as great for solo folk or wee crews. 

We just need more “hangout like” spots in our civilizations that don’t cost an arm and a leg or don’t throw you out for not purchasing anything. I live in such a touristy city and there are so many potential places I could go except for the fact that I’m poor. We have a bug zoo here! An indoor zoo of just bugs! And it’s great, but I don’t have thirty dollars to spend each time I want to go. If we had more chill cafe-esque things like the board game cafe, that would be a start. There could be a book cafe that isn’t whispery. There could be more cat or bunny cafes. Maybe some indoor public markets that are fun to wander around and window shop. And I’ve thought recently about indoor public parks and gardens for when the weather gets shit. And can we PLEASE bring back movie rental stores because streaming services are becoming no better than cable and raising their prices and are downright sinful at this point. Also seating in food establishments! The mall where I work has horrible seating in the food court, but I’ve also seen that places like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Tim Horton’s have been revamping their interiors to have very little seating. I know that where I live specifically, we have a lot of sketchy douchebags and gangs of youths that hang around and make a mess of everything so making it less appealing to stay in there isn’t unreasonable. Though putting a stop to the douchebaggery and tomfoolery seems to be the more sturdy solution but that’s another conversation. 

We live in a weird age right now where technology seems to be consuming us and few seem to be happy about it but no one has any escape plan. We need our brick and mortar shops more than ever. We need our malls to flourish again. We need physical gathering places that don’t require anything other than you just being in the location. We were already losing touch with one another and the pandemic only exacerbated that and we need to go backwards a bit. We need to rekindle our humanity and we need to rebuild the safe places in which that can be done.

[wondereads]

Weekly Reading Update (12/04/23)

Thoughts and reviews under the cut (also, have you ever seen a weirder combination of books lol)

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire (10/10)

I absolutely loved this book, but I will be billing Seanan McGuire for my therapy. She does an amazing job of writing these stories that you already know the ending to, and it doesn't make it any more gut-wrenching when the children are rejected or expelled. I see a lot of myself in Lundy, which only made it hit harder, and I loved the world of the Goblin Market. I really enjoyed seeing what would be referred to as a High Logic world with hard and fast rules and seeing how the characters worked within them (or around them). The side characters were, as usual, amazing, and they really helped bring the story together.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett (10/10)

I was not expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did! This was a really good, fast-paced adult fantasy; it was a bit refreshing since adult high fantasy tends to be much slower. Despite being more action-oriented, it still had strong characters and the beginnings of a good message. I suspect it'll be elaborated upon more in the later books. The magic system was so detailed and unique, exactly what I want from worldbuilding, and I'm really interested to see if we'll get more of the world outside Tevanne in the rest of the series.

Cinder Ella by S. T. Lynn (5/10)

This is part of a little project I'm doing, and I unfortunately didn't enjoy it very much. I think a fairy tale retelling would do quite well in a shorter format, but this one just falls short. It adds in a bit too much and as a result reads as rushed with not enough time dedicated to any of the scenes or relationships. Also, fairy tales tend to go by the "that's the way it is" rule of worldbuilding, which this book tries to do, but it raises too many questions to get away with not answering any of them. For example, the increased role of the fairy godmother brings up a lot of worldbuilding implications that the book just doesn't have the space to address.

Redfang Royal by Lola Rock (7/10)

Ok, I've never talked about these books before because they are the guiltiest of my guilty pleasures, but I'm trying to get over that. I'm a huge fan of Lola Rock's Pack Darling duology, so I've been looking forward to this book for a while. I finished it in a day, and I definitely enjoyed it. I did find the plot a little convoluted, and I wish it had been split into two parts like Pack Darling. The ending in particular feels a little rushed; I feel like there's a lot of stuff in Sol's backstory that was never explained to her pack. Still, I really liked the romance dynamic, and the love interests were quite different from the other series, which I appreciated.

Forget Me Knot by Marie McKay (CR, 48%)

Another of my guilty pleasures, this one is much darker than Lola Rock's books. All the characters have trauma upon trauma, but I can definitely see how things are going to resolve. Also, McKay's take on the omegaverse (yes, these are omegaverse novels if you haven't figured it out) is pretty unique with some interesting worldbuilding that adds a bit more to the story. I wonder if that worldbuilding has anything to do with why most of the main characters are named after objects (i.e. Arsenal, Riot, Ice). So far, I like Onyx, the main character; she's pretty different from what I've seen in this genre before, and she's a breath of fresh air.

Rising Storm by Erin Hunter (CR, 15%)

The Warriors reread continues, and I've remembered what takes place in this book. Unfortunately, I think that other than Fire and Ice, this is my least favorite of the first series. Still, the nostalgia does a lot of the heavy lifting for these books, especially since cat politics would probably intrigue me on its own today.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson (3%)

My first Brandon Sanderson novel! I was initially going to start with Mistborn, but this is required reading from my book club. (Literally. There's a group of us that choose a separate book each month that we have to read.) So far, I really like the narration style. It reminds me of Diana Wynne Jones and other classic fantasy authors, which happens to be my favorite kind of writing.

[bmpmp3]

I’m kinda obsessed with how, like, okay so yknow all those otome-game-based isekai stories that focus on “villainesses”? I remember when I first saw them I was SO confused ‘cause like, Big Bad lady antagonists are not really much of a thing in otome games,, LIKE we’ve got a a few love rival-y minor antagonist girls out there, mostly in older stat-raisey full-out-dating-sim otome games that were never translated sdfjadldkjsfs but most of the high stakes Main Villain type roles tend to go to some sexy anime boy or weird little creature or unknowable force or whatever else, if anything I see the trope a lot of these isekai stories are playing off of far more often in like, shoujo manga from the 80s lol WAIT IM getting sidetracked WHAT i was going to say is im obsessed with how like, that one otome isekai story, the big famous one, is getting an actual otome game adaptation, i think that absolutely rules, i love it, its like art imitates art imitates art. the two paths have converged. the circle is complete

[marbleheavy]

here are some of my Nico headcanons that nobody asked for!!

He collects things. Not just Mythomagic stuff like he did as a kid, but cool shells, and rocks, and weird glass figurines that everyone else thinks are terrifying, and books. He’s got them in jars or lined up on shelves and he just has so many things (Because for so long he had so few things that actually belonged to him that didn’t have to serve a very clear purpose, so now he just wants to keep whatever he’d like)

He reads SO much as an adult. A lot of it is nonfiction because he’s trying to catch up on what happened in the world while he was pulled out of it, but a lot of fiction too (not really fantasy though, that’s too close to home) and a lot of poetry. He can recite poems from memory and will just randomly quote them sometimes and it should be pretentious but it isn’t and his friends think it’s amazing (cue dramatically saying "till love and fame to nothingness do sink" anytime he's told he has to wait) (Also, he will rant about why Ted Hughes sucks at any point in time)

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again!! He is a Dungeon Master! He’s got a binder for all the notes for his current campaign and a notebook for ideas and special highlighters and pens that he only uses for D&D. Also, dice are definitely one of the things he collects and he keeps them in those clear, plastic bead containers with dividers and they’re sorted by number of faces and also ~vibes~ (for example, do a backflip D20 and life or death D20)

leather jacket Nico di Angelo? seen, respected, and appreciated. CARDIGAN Nico di Angelo? underrated! He has a couple oversized cardigans with buttons and big pockets that he adores. The first one he ever had he definitely stole from Will but now, whenever he comes across another similar one, he buys it. The pockets are filled with rocks and worn, mass-market paperbacks and pens. (Basically, I’m leaning hard into English Major Nico with his annotated books and glasses and cardigans) (Also, cardigan Nico and flannel Will but sometimes they swap)

He definitely cuts his own hair in the bathroom and he's gotten very good at it. He's had a range of haircuts, from long hair to a mullet to the shaved sides and fluffy top, but he always ends up back with a shaggy mop that Hazel likes to put little braids in (or sometimes pull the very back of it into two little pigtails) and with bangs that always end up in his eyes.

Sorry to reiterate the same point that's been made forever, but his wardrobe is pretty dark-toned. Obviously black, but he does like a good jewel tone, perhaps a maroon or an emerald. Anything really bright was either a gift or belongs to Will someone else. Also, gendered clothing means nothing to him. He wears what he wants to wear and he thinks it's cool as hell when he's wearing a skirt while sparring and it flares out dramatically as he twirls.

He's kind of picked up modern slang but he also uses a lot of slang from pretty much every decade he missed. It's also a 50/50 chance he's using it incorrectly. (examples include: 1) Leo says something that is definitely supposed to be funny and Nico stares at him, utterly emotionless, and says "Gag me with a spoon" in an alarmingly monotone voice, and 2) Anytime he says something snarky to Jason or Percy he starts it with "hey bestie..." and honestly, they're both just touched Nico called them "bestie" at all)

He adores Studio Ghibli movies and can be found humming the Ponyo theme song anytime he goes swimming (Will standing on the shore, looking around for Nico and he eventually spots him in the water. He wades out to Nico, all sunglasses that shouldn't look so cool and golden hair and chest, and just greets him with "Hey there, Neeks, how's my fishie in the sea?" and Nico can't decide if he wants to drown himself or kiss Will on his stupid mouth)

Speaking of movies, shortly after the Giant War, all of his friends (the Seven, Reyna, Will, probably Lou Ellen and Cecil, too) showed up at his cabin with blankets and snacks. They each brought their favorite movie or movies they think he needs to see to catch him up on the modern age. At first, he acts disgruntled that they're all there but he very quickly settles into the blanket fort Annabeth constructs and is quietly very grateful and excited that they cared enough to do this for him. They're all holed up in his cabin for a full day until they've finished every movie. (Percy brought Finding Nemo, Annabeth brought Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Piper brought Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Jason brought Captain America: The First Avenger (and Nico definitely says "that's gay" when Steve and Bucky say there "Until the end of the line" shit and everybody absolutely loses their minds), Hazel also is behind on movies but she brought either a very scary movie or Moana, Frank brought A New Hope (though he considered Brother Bear), Will brought Spirited Away, Cecil brought Back to the Future, and Lou Ellen brought The Princess Bride)

He can play the piano! He gets a piano for the Hades cabin and on nights where he can't sleep and the nightmares are really bad, he plays piano.

He will cry if he hears I Will by Mitski or Wasteland, Baby by Hozier, for different reasons but also kind of not (he wants to be loved)

Also, Nico and Dionysus being buddies! Nico jokingly says he'll host a bacchanal if Dionysus excuses him from certain camp activities and that's how Nico and friends end up wearing togas around a campfire, all very hesitantly holding cups of wine they aren't actually going to drink. It is definitely not a bacchanal, it's just a bad toga party (barely) but Dionysus accepts it and decides Nico is a Good One.

(Yes I did very badly make this stupid meme that somebody has definitely made a variation of before)

This is definitely not a complete list of headcanons but it's what I've got so far!

[hogwartsfirebolt]

A ticket to ruin (or Do Not, under Any Circumstance, agree to pretend you're dating your boss, oh my god)

It’s becoming increasingly clear that I’ve made a mistake, though it would be inaccurate to say I didn’t see it coming. As remarkably skilled as I am at self-deception, this particular lie is outrageous even for me.

And maybe I chose this, but what was the alternative? There was nothing else to be done.

That’s also a lie. I did not have to. I agreed freely, of my own volition, and was not coerced, even if Harry’s pleading eyes and lovely smile made it feel inevitable. He’s my boss, but it was me who said yes.

It feels as though the newspaper burns through my fingertips when I pick it up at the corner shop after breakfast. The lady selling it squints at me, possibly recognizing me from that godawful photograph that’s been everywhere today, the one that looks like every single one of my dreams and is, consequently, my worst nightmare.

“Potter’s new beau?” The headline reads. It could be worse. It is worse, online. When I checked this morning, Twitter was saying “Potter caught snogging a member of his crew,” which is at least true, and it was also saying, “Potter in love?” which is without the shadow of a doubt the worst thing I have ever read in my life.

If life has taught me anything, it’s that everyone buys their own ticket to ruin.

With the newspaper tucked underneath my arm, I make my way into the office, taking time to school my features into something that doesn’t feel like I’m wearing my heart all over my face, but it’s useless, when the whole world knows.

And, oh god, I don’t want to, but I take a peek at that photo again and grit my teeth so I don’t let out the shriek crawling up my throat. Shame and I, we go way back, made acquaintances when I was very young, but somehow this feels like every humiliating experience in my life thrown into a jar, shaken, and let out to swarm my chest.

The Photograph. “Potter’s new beau?” the headline screams. Harry, with his distinct hair, the leather jacket, the self-assured stance. And me by his side, shockingly pale, gazing up at him in what can only be described as motherfucking adoration. I look elated at having his attention on me, I look smitten.

If he’s seen this, Harry must be thinking I’m the actor of the goddamn century. He’s lucky he doesn’t have to live with the knowledge of what I was feeling in the moment depicted in The Photograph. Lucky he doesn’t know that, when he said, “I can see a pap, come here, let me kiss you,” my heart leapt, somersaulted, cartwheeled, backflipped, did a handstand with swinging feet.

The second picture shows the actual kiss, but thank god for small mercies, because my back is to the camera. I don’t know what I looked like at that moment, and I definitely never want to find out.

I fold the newspaper again when I step out of the elevator and into the open floor of the Harry Potter Management Offices. As soon as the Juniors spot me, the entire floor goes dead silent. I can practically read the he’s fucking our star as a collective speech bubble above their heads, and wish fervently for death as I make my way to the very back of the office, into Harry’s favorite meeting room.

He’s there, of course, and looks up with a smile so blinding I have to stop myself from stepping back from it.

“Morning, D, have you seen this?” He points at the different newspapers and magazines he’s laid out on the table, sounding supremely amused. “It worked, huh? This one’s my favorite.” He picks up an article with The Photo covering the entire front page, and a headline that says Potter, the heartbreaker, back in the game.

I clear my throat to avoid screaming.

“Yes, it worked.”

“This should get the label off my back for a bit, at least until the deal is settled and I’m back at the studio to record No Dwelling.” He stops, locks eyes with me, and I’m taken back to that moment one week ago, when he asked for the favor, and then, upon getting an I’m only your assistant for an answer, said I was one of the people he trusted the most in the world. “Do you think we can go out again today? Maybe for drinks in Soho? Paps always hang around that new bar, Fuel.”

I swallow. “I’m not sure I’m free.”

“Well, are you?”

Of course I am free for him, all my time is for him. I still take out my cell phone and make a show of checking my calendar before nodding. “We can go after your photo shoot for the Hermès fragrance. That’s at four.”

“Ah crap, I’d forgotten about that.” He makes a face, pursing the lips I know the feel of against mine and runs a hand through the hair I know the texture of against my fingers.

It’s been four days. I’ve made the worst mistake of my life.

“Let’s cancel,” he whispers, leaning close to conspire. I want to pull away; I want to lean so much closer that I disappear into him.

“We’ve canceled twice,” I murmur somehow, though I have no conscious idea of where I’ve left my voice, and if I’m answering it’s only out of three years of practice at having this heart attack of a man next to me every waking moment. His eyes shine, as they do every time he’s playing instigator with me.

“Come on, Draco, let’s go to the market. We can buy sandwiches, get our picture taken while we hold hands or something.”

I’ve been given a deadline to correct my public image, Harry said that fateful day, I promised the label that I could prove that the girl who claims she’s having my baby is a scam, but I don’t know how to.

He said, I think if we pretend we’ve been dating for a long time, that could distract them and give me an alibi. Will you do it? Please say you’ll do it.

He is the most convincing man I know, a force of nature made up of ridiculous good looks and charm that should be punishable by law. I didn’t even think to say no, even though the self-preservation alarms were going off in my head, saying, you absolute fucking idiot, you can’t do this, you’re in love with him.

But here I am, doing it, and he wants to play hooky as if we were in school.

He must see something in my face because his splits into the earth-shattering grin that throws entire stadiums into a frenzy when he flashes it in the middle of a show. “Awesome, text the representative, and let’s go.”

Still, I try. “What makes you think I’ll do that?”

“I want you to?” It’s not even a question, with that smug cock of his eyebrow. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

I’ve always known I’m buying my own ticket to ruin. With Harry, it almost doesn’t matter the outcome. Every second spent near him makes me burn bright with a light-soaked joy that seems pulled right out of a poetry book.

It’s worth it, the ruin. Even if I get one kiss, even if it’s for the cameras, even if I’m only ever his assistant, even if it never happens again. It’s him, and it’s worth it.

I text the representative.

This is my gift to @peachpety for the Wheel of Drarry Exhange. My dear peach 🍑💖, I had so much fun creating this for you, I really hope you enjoy it!!! Infinite thanks to @fw00shy for the beta and the convo about celebs ✨