#Symbol: Tools

[empyreanmirror]

A thing about the intersection of veiling and being spiritually a part of the environment around you as literally as your own flesh and blood

[autumndragon]

it's the same move

[utilitycaster]

I've been a pretty harsh critic of Dr. Friedman and Polygon's general Critical Role coverage in the past, and while I think her latest article for them critiquing Campaign 3 is a fairly good one, it does in many ways cast an even harsher light on her kid-gloves handling of D20 and WBN. However, I want to talk about these two excerpts, because I think she hits on something I've increasingly noticed in Actual Play:

"This is where Critical Role’s strength — that Exandria often feels like a real, complex world — collided with the needs of a D&D campaign (a clear adversary, clear plans of action, forward momentum)."

and

"But the confused way D&D handles religion and divinity — polytheism as imagined by midwestern American Protestants — turned the question of how to handle this particular cosmic horror into a glue trap, paralyzing the players for dozens of hours of circular existential debates. Gods once mechanized (or digestible) become just another power bloc, and for players used to a system where in the end you are “basically gods,” the line gets blurrier still. And as D&D’s messy cosmology added friction to much of the campaign, D&D’s mechanics also don’t have the necessary friction for the interpersonal beats that make Critical Role compelling."

I agree with both these statements, as someone who, to be clear, enjoys D&D 5e. D&D supports a range of narratives, but all are ultimately a story of gaining power and fighting off or through a series of adversaries; if your characters are not doing that, it raises the question of why you picked a system that gives you few other options. (This is also, I should note, an increasingly loud question when it comes to Worlds Beyond Number; I fell behind for personal reasons after the Coven arc, but Brennan's initial statements about D&D as scaffolding were perhaps too true; almost every interesting mechanic, in a game with minimal combat that has thus far felt primarily focused on how the three protagonists have fundamentally different adversaries, has been homebrewed, to the point where the cosmology and baggage of D&D has felt like a liability rather than an asset).

D&D also has, in part due to such programs as D20, developed a reputation for being world-agnostic, and that ultimately isn't true. D&D does struggle to make the lines between "real divinity", an archfey or similarly powerful entity, and a L20 character feel sharply defined on a mechanical level; once you give a god a stat block, it can be killed (and on a metanarrative level, revealing the gods' statblocks in Downfall serves to make them both immense, yet also more fragile. The hit points are many, but still finite.) There are a number of questions most D&D worlds simply fail to address - and to be clear, this is not a flaw provided you have buy in. A level 2 warlock in D&D is, in most societies, an one-person lethal force unless the entire town swarms them at once, knowing that many of them will lose their lives in the effort; a level 2 warlock PC, however, is almost never, in-world, treated this way, and indeed is framed as an underdog in a harsh world despite usually having the ability to destroy the entire tavern.

D&D has also developed a (not undeserved) reputation as being The Dominant TTRPG put out by a massive corporation, and has developed a (not deserved) reputation as being itself uniquely problematic as a power fantasy, particularly by people who conveniently forget where Pathfinder came from. I've previously covered that, for all people demand non-D&D actual play, the viewership drops precipitously whenever a big AP show that made its name with D&D dares to branch out, and, related to that, I've seen an uptick in people who are excited for D&D to subvert itself. They wanted Campaign 3 to subvert these norms of divinity and heroic fantasy, cheered for it...and ultimately it was unable to do so. I don't think it's accurate to say that D&D's lack of interpersonal mechanics was the problem here, given that Campaigns 1 and 2 (and again, D20) have no such issue; but rather that since D&D's lack of interpersonal/RP mechanics require more effort from the players to initiate, the debates on the nature of divinity in a world and system that could not sustain them sapped any energy for the late-night watch conversations D&D can support when you're not fighting against it.

I think one of the many lessons we can learn from Critical Role Campaign 3 is that if you go up against D&D with an attempt to destroy it from within, your story will instead find itself conforming to the shape of its container, often to its detriment.

[writersbloxx]

Symbolism- Color

Part 2 with cool colors:

Blue:

 Calm or Serenity

Depression/Sadness 

Loyalty or Honesty

Immortality

Wisdom or Spirituality

Intuition or Depth

Purple: 

 Luxury or Royalty

Wisdom or Mystery

Nobility

Spirituality

Mourning

Childishness 

Green: 

Nature or Growth

Luck or Wealth

Rebirth/Fertility

Calm

Envy 

Death or Evil 

[thyinum]

Day 6: Air & Water parallels

[superstarcadet]

"It's dark and lonely. Where did I go wrong?" Day Two of @byler-week! Now it's Mike's turn for the standard, but not-so-standard (but just equally as devastating) angst. Will it get better tomorrow? Stay tuned to find out!

Today's Prompts were: Light, Paranormal, Communicating, Green/Purple Color Scheme

Part One

[klaufir]

Y

[violetmoondaughter]

The origins of the witch's hat as it is shown today are controversial.

In antiquity, the pointed hat may have been a symbol of power and wisdom. The conical figure points towards the sky, connecting the mind to the higher realm and conferring the ability to focus and concentrate energies.

According to some theories, the witch's hat originated from the Phrygian cap, associated with Mithraism, a Greek and later Roman mystery cult. Bronze Age priests wore tall conical hats made of gold and decorated with emblems of the stars and moon to show off their astronomical prowess.

This symbol of wisdom later became a sign of disgrace. Those who disobeyed the law, committed heresy or advocated religious ideas and practices at odds with the dominant theology of the time were required to wear a conical hat throughout the Middle Ages.

One theory is that the negative connotation arose from anti-Semitism: in the Middle Ages, an edict obliged all Jews to wear a pointed cap, called a Judenhut, to identify them and all heretics associated with black magic and Satan worship.

A similar theory holds that the image of the archetypal witch's hat arose from anti-quaker prejudice.

Another hypothesis proposes that witch hats originated as alewife hats, distinctive headgear worn by women who brewed beer at home for sale. Combined with the general suspicion that women with herbal knowledge worked in an occult sphere, the alewife hat may have been associated with witchcraft.

In modern times, the hat has become the main feature of the identity and power of witches and has recently been re-evaluated as an act of re-appropriation of female knowledge.

[spearxwind]

And here's a piece I did for a friend of ha zaku and his tabletop oc Urraca B)

[mosstrades]

been rewatching a pretty good series

[counting-stars-gayly]

They’re not going to rebuild Castle Byers because Will can’t rebuild his childhood, which is the reason he destroyed Castle Byers in the first place. He’d been trying to hold on to a level of carefree ignorance that no longer existed for him. The problems Castle Byers saved him from have been replaced by new problems that are bigger and stronger than a child’s fort. He needs to face them differently. Thank you and goodnight

[luniviravosshipper]

Something I think about all the time is how some of Aaravos’s first words to Viren were “how may I serve you?” and one of his absolute last direct remarks made on his thoughts on Viren (for now) is “I tried so hard to help your father”.

[statictwoo]

I’ve been thinking a lot about earlier versus later seasons of M*A*S*H and I wanted to see if I could figure out how to keep Frank through the tone shift without sacrificing the quality of the story or the character.  Just a fun hypothetical :] Click “read more” for this because it’s going to be a long one.

First I want to look at Charles.  Between Frank and Charles, I don’t think there’s a better or worse character.  Frank is a better tool to further the anti-military, anti-war message, but Charles is a more dimensional character, and it would be impossible for them to switch places without changing the characters.  I mean, imagine Frank in GFA…ridiculous, but I am going to put him there.  Bear with me.

I prefer the earlier seasons for their satire, but I appreciate the later ones for the realism in characters like Charles and Margaret, so it would be nice to keep those strong core values while also delving into more dramatic territory.  Let’s look at what makes Frank work.  Mostly, it’s the fact that he’s a military fanatic.  His adherence to the rules gives Hawkeye and Trapper (also BJ, for a bit) something immediate to push back against.  Frank is a satirization of the unyielding conservative mindset and also a stand-in for the military itself.  Obviously Hawkeye can’t punch the US Army but he can punch Frank.  But being such a useful tool means that when Frank shows a little humanity, the writers have to pass over it pretty quickly.

What makes Charles work?  Simply put, he’s human.  He’s a terrible snob, he’s racist, he’s classist, but he’s fun.  He DOES actually care for people, he likes playing pranks, and he likes Hawkeye and BJ.  But he doesn’t have strong feelings about the military, and that means that when Hawkeye and BJ argue with him, it only serves to illustrate their personal relationship.  Charles doesn’t stand in for anything larger besides economic class, which isn’t really an integral topic of M*A*S*H since it’s something that matters a lot more back home than at war.

I think the only possible way to keep Frank would be to give him a little of Charles and a little of Margaret—that is, redeem him, just a bit.  Whereas Charles was never really painted as an antagonist and Margaret’s character development came slowly (and was also more personal than ideological), I want to give Frank a very sudden and violent awakening.  Let him lose Margaret and let him have that mental breakdown, but treat it with a little more dignity.  Institutionalize him for a bit and then send him back to the 4077th where he’s still the butt of the jokes, and now Margaret, his only support system, is pulled out from under him.  Let him realize that after doing everything right and licking every boot he was supposed to, he still failed.  He didn’t get the girl, and worse, he ended up in the looney bin.  That’s not supposed to happen to Good American Men.  At this point, I’d hope that his need for companionship would override his worship of the military. Every mention of Frank's past shows that he has always been lonely, and I would use this opportunity to really bring that out.

I’d like Frank to make an honest effort to befriend Hawkeye and BJ and put his actions where his mouth is, maybe by ignoring one out of every ten broken rules.  Keep him racist, keep him republican, keep the baffling fact that he doesn’t seem to realize they’ve left America, but make him enough of ��one of the guys” that when these things come out it’s disappointing rather than just classic Frank.  His role would have to change from a caricature of the rigid conservative mind to an example of how the ideology you’re trying to fight is often present even in your own friends.  It might even help to highlight his hypocrisy!  Turn a blind eye to Hawkeye’s antics because they’re friends, but write up someone else for the same thing simply because he doesn’t know them.  

Would I want Frank to turn completely against the military?  No, it wouldn’t serve his character.  But I’d like to see him nudged just a little bit and forced to actually confront his own beliefs through Hawkeye's conscious and consistent effort.  It would be nice to get him to the point of thinking before blindly assuming that whatever the army wants is what’s right.  Granted, the guy is brainwashed and 9 times out of 10 he would definitely side with the army, but that 1 time would be fun.  I think it would be a decent way of showing some tangible results of Hawkeye’s resistance.  His actions were never going to stop the war or destroy the military or overthrow the government, but what if he could chip away at the armor starting with one person?  I would have liked the show to say more clearly that Hawkeye’s actions were worth something, and that’s just one way it could have been done.  I know Margaret is also an example but as I said before her growth is largely personal, so I think Frank would be a clearer target here.

So we’ve reached the end, we’re at “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.”  What are we going to do with Frank?  I think there’s only one option.  Have him quit medicine.  He doesn’t have a genuine passion for it and he isn’t a good doctor, so I think this is the most obvious first step in the right direction that he can make.  We won’t get to see where he goes from here, but hopefully it’s somewhere much better.

I’m not saying this scenario would be any better than just sending him home and being done with it, but It’s fun to think about a world in which we get more Frank.  I’m biased by the fact that I just thoroughly enjoy him.  Maybe this is a universe where the original script for “George” airs!

[mischiefstirred]

[tarochimochi]

Losercake, everyday, daily

Day 74

[show-tunes]

Who hung the moon?