#Tangential Thursday

[meamiiikiii]

isat color palette challenge WOO!! these are always fun :D

[thehuntyhunties]

oh wait so like. so what it is in the ant arc is that Gon becomes so overwhelmed by his fear of losing someone he cares about that the entire fundamental concept of the archetypal Shounen Battle Friendship breaks down, i.e. he stops implicitly trusting that Killua's strength and abilities will always overcome any obstacle and he stops assuming that Killua/the two of them will always win.

Because like. It is Not that he doesn't believe that Killua is strong and skilled and capable of all sorts of incredible things. It's that Plot Armor isn't actually carrying them anymore, it never truly was, and now the situation they're in has finally outpaced their abilities and they've Lost in a profound and terrible way that they have never Lost before, and now he knows that no matter how strong you are nothing is truly safe

like i,, i feel like all of this is, obvious, to be clear,,, but, it is. it's. the complete erosion of the genre tropes to underscore the terrible reality of the situation. it is, hitting me,

[nat1nonsense]

Gnawing at my walls………. I should be at The Greek…………

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

Adopted Dadmas using the prompt from the poll: Damas vs Teen Driver

Damas Ariidas Maridius had many regrets in his life.

He regretted ever trusting Aldrik Praxis.

He regretted putting his faith in Onin when she told him it would be safe to bring Mar with him into Haven.

He regretted not learning to cook sooner.

He certainly regretted wearing a kilt the first time he learned to ride a Leaper.

And currently, he very much regretted ever letting Jak get behind the wheel of the Slam Dozer.

"Jak, the cliff- the cliff-!"

Feet pressed into the floorboards, back braced against the seat, Damas wedged himself in place in the passenger's side with wide eyes.

"Yeah, I know." Jak was entirely too calm. "Gotta wait til we get to the edge to get the right turbo boost."

"Turbo boost?!" Damas yelped in a most un-kingly fashion, "There was a perfectly good ramp down!"

Jak gunned the engine, sending the Slam Dozer flying off the edge of another islet and back onto the mainland. He glanced over at Damas and burst out laughing. Even the icy glare sent his way couldn't dampen his mood.

"Oh come on!" he snorted, "I do this all the time!"

Damas gripped the safety harness tighter.

"With my Slam Dozer?!"

"No, with the Dune Hopper."

Damas turned his head slowly and stared at his adopted son in flabbergasted horror.

"That's worse! You took us off those islets expecting the same spring suspension as the Hopper?!"

Looking mildly insulted, Jak shifted gears and headed inland. "No?? I'm not that dumb, Pa! I tested this thing out on the bridges in Tributary first!"

The bridges in Tributary.

The shattered bridges in the burned out ruins of what used to be one of Spargus's towns? Jak was taking his favored vehicle and driving off of broken bridges-

On purpose?!

"Why?!"

Damas clasped a hand to his head.

"I know recklessness is all in a day's work for the young, but- Just-! Why?!"

Jak shrugged. "Trial and error! That's how I learned to drive!"

This child was going to give him a heart attack, Damas just knew it.

"Trial and error," he repeated flatly. Then he inhaled slowly and silently counted to four before asking, "You learned to drive through trial and error?!"

Daxter unwound himself from his death grip on the machine gun for just a moment to point at Jak. "You see what I live with?! I'm amazed I don't have gray fur by now!"

Jak rolled his eyes and Damas sent the ottsel a skeptical frown.

"And yet you're the first one demanding an encore during dark eco battles. You are not, I suspect, as adverse to danger as you pretend."

The buggy swerved to stay in a silvery patch of moonlight -- for no other reason than its driver's whim. Jak took them on a bizarre, zigzag path through the dunes, in no particular hurry. They weren't to the canyons yet, and the tires weren't kicking up dust. He wanted to enjoy breathing unfiltered air while he could.

"I assume there is a purpose to this pattern of movement?" Damas remarked -- although he suspected there wasn't. His son looked too relaxed to be racing or shaking off pursuit.

"The purpose is "driver makes the decisions"," Jak retorted with a smirk.

"Maybe I should drive, then, so we can actually make it home before sunrise."

"Loosen up, Pa! When was the last time you took a night drive, huh?"

Damas resisted the growing urge to drop his face into his palm.

"Well, son, I was being shot at by Marauders at the time, so you'll have to excuse me if I wasn't focused on enjoying the scenery."

He leaned back to slap the side of the machine gun, snapping Daxter to attention.

"Keep that thing ready. We're too close to Egil's territory for there not to be Marauders about."

"With this much space?" Jak lifted a hand from the wheel and gestured around as the dunes gave way to dusty scrub grass and cactus. "I can see them coming a mile away! Way more room to outmaneuver enemies here than in Haven, that's for sure."

"Don't tell me you drive like that around buildings?" Damas sighed. "This is why my predecessor only allowed Leapers past the gates, isn't it."

Now Jak's mood began to slip a little. "Well what was I supposed to do, stand still and let the KG take me back to the labs?" he huffed, "It's not like they gave prisoners a driving course."

A little knot formed in Damas’s gut. The boy had a point. No one had taught him to drive, he'd learned on his own, under fire. Was it any wonder he was so reckless? And here was Damas, complaining and criticizing instead of offering correction. As a father: not his finest hour. He swallowed down his still thrumming adrenaline and forced himself to loosen some of his muscles.

"You're right. I'm sorry."

The Slam Dozer jerked to a halt, throwing them all against the safety restraints. Jak blinked owlishly at Damas. He clearly hadn't expected an apology. Damas cleared his throat and folded his arms awkwardly.

"That was more critical than I meant it to be. I could have simply asked you not to take that kind of risk again and left it at that." Damas again cleared his throat and tightened his arms to avoid the temptation to fidget. "I do not mean to belittle your driving skill. I just...worry."

It was difficult to admit that, especially in front of his son. But as impressive as Jak’s driving was -- even more so now that Damas knew it was self-taught -- that adrenaline-chasing behavior was going to end in a crash sooner or later. Damas just wanted to ensure that it was a crash Jak could walk away from.

A quick glance at Jak revealed an expression that was more confused than anything else.

"You know I can take care of myself," he protested, "Why are you worrying about me?"

Damas reached over to drop a hand over Jak's scalp, pushing his head back and forth with a wry playfulness.

"I'm your father. That's my job."

If anything, Jak looked even more baffled.

"I don't get it." He made a half-hearted attempt at shoving Damas’s hand off his head, then gave up. "What does being a parent have to do with worrying?"

The sentiment was as tragic as it was comic. Damas let his hand slip down to rest on Jak’s shoulder and tugged until the boy had turned to face him.

"Do you and Daxter worry about each other?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes!" Daxter interjected instantly, as Jak reluctantly admitted, "I mean, yeah."

"Because you care deeply for each other, yes?" Damas squeezed Jak's shoulder affectionately, then released him. "Well, there's your answer. Good parents worry because they love their children."

He watched the gears turn behind Jak's eyes for a moment before the teenager abruptly yanked his scarf up over his face in a futile attempt to hide the blush sweeping over his cheeks.

"Papá!" he groaned, "You can't just say things like that without warning me!"

"Yes I can," Damas snorted, "I have a license."

"What license?"

A smug grin tugged at Damas's face.

"The record of your adoption in the city Archives."

Jak covered his face grumbling about embarrassing adults, and Daxter laughed so hard he almost fell off of the machine gun perch entirely.

[tangential-hooligan]

It’s Thursday!! So I’m throwing this here and I’m running away!!!

He can be a lil cutie and wear a crop top, as a treat 💖✨⭐️

[nvzblartdump]

I will block any TERF that touches my stuff. Get out.

[tacit-semantics]

Oh my lord it’s thirsty Thursday that’s another mystery solved by. Me.

[chloroform-e]

Mad sounds in your ears

One thing I love about author Alicia Thompson's newsletter is the way she writes about music : without jargon, nothing but feelings. She can write an entire paragraph about a single line in a song, and why it moves her so. I love reading words that try and capture this elusive feeling : getting so emotional about a few seconds of music, about a couple words and the way they're sung, about a few notes that turn a song into something spectacular.

In honor of that, here are the bits of songs I've been obsessed with lately, the parts that I want to shout out loud when they come on.

It's a dead end, don't overextend / hail the darkness you can befriend (Waxahatchee, crimes of the heart)

Please, don't look at me with those eyes / Va, don't look at me with those eyes (Hinds, coffee)

Is it true / Do the good guys win (Bill Ryder-Jones, nothing to be done)

Don't you tell my mum / Don't play that game (Declan McKenna, elevator hum)

Bet I could fix up my face between 8th and 9th / And I could be what you want (Nation of Language, sightseer)

[ccrv-7]

its 2 am im getting up at 6 tomorrow and am gonna have to stay in town for a looong long time cause we have a concert at 6pm. fuck. shit. fuck

[m3-mianbo]

If the article linked (above) is true, those of you who have free access to a Disney+ account should not be required to boycott it*.

[bluelockhalloweek]

Your Blue Lock Halloweek 2024 prompts are here!

👻 Reblog with your favorites prompts & share with your Blue Lock crew!

👻 Find the event on Twitter @/BllkHalloweek

👻 See below for more info, typed-out prompts, & prompt examples if you need clarification or inspiration

👻 If you would like to volunteer to translate prompts so more people can join the Halloween Party, go here!

👻 Original fanart by Qoffee51 (twt | insta) and graphic design by @suosage (​​twt)!

👻 Feel free to mix and match, and take prompts as literally or as tangentially as you want!

👻 Work doesn’t have to be specifically Fall / Halloween themed as long as it fits a prompt. (If you’re writing a Wild West fic for “Cowboy,” don’t feel like you have to stick a 🎃 in a corner unless you want to.)

👻 Work can be as lighthearted, scary, or spicy as you want as long as you follow the guidelines!

👻 Find the 2024 event Archive of Our Own Collection here!

👻 The event is hosted on Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3, so share your contribution on all three!

👻 Thank you to everyone who submitted prompts! Credit to @/unhingednagi who suggested "Dance with the Devil" (😈) & the several anons who suggested an undead/resurrection 🧟‍♂️ theme. A lot of other suggestions were already on the longer list or were very similar, or might be better saved for another year. If your favorite isn’t on the list, it's perfect for “Free Prompt”!

👻 Did you like last year's prompts? Use as many as you want on Day Five for Free Prompt!

-

Blue Lock Halloweek 2024 Prompts (Oct. 28 - Nov. 3, 2024)

Monday Oct. 28: Pumpkin Spice + Dance with the Devil  

Tuesday Oct. 29: Myth + Resurrection  

Wednesday Oct. 30: Whisper + Scream

Thursday Oct. 31: Sugar Rush + Haunted

Friday Oct. Nov. 1: Incantation + Free Prompt!

Saturday Nov. 2: Festival + Instinct

Sunday Nov. 3: Space + Cowboy

-

-

Prompt Examples + Explanations 

I’ve had people ask for prompt examples in past events I’ve hosted and this event is open to any language, so here you go! These are the quick brainstorming notes I took while narrowing down the list, now expanded with links & definitions. These are only some of maaaany interpretations—go wild!

Your host is a fic-writer with ADHD, so…you’ve been warned.

🎃 Day 1: 

Pumpkin Spice: Cozy Autumn vibes. Putting up Halloween decorations, carving Jack-o-lanterns, coffee / tea shop, pumpkin patch, scented candles, baking, fall sangria, sweaters and beanies and flannels, momijigari (Autumn Hanami ���, basically) / admiring gorgeous fall foliage, fresh hot apple cider in an orchard. Itoshi Bros and their love of turtle/mock-neck sweaters. Pumpkin Farmer Aiku and Karasu scarecrow!

Dance with the Devil: Defined. To dance with the devil is to engage in risky, reckless, or potentially immoral behavior. Or going out dancing; Demon and priest, hell, listening to the angel or the devil on your shoulder (making a questionable decision because it’s tempting), devilish fun or spells, sin, temptation, a deal with the devil. Ohhh, Sae and Shidou, your night has come! 😈 (Suggested by unhingednagi) 

🎃 Day 2:

Myth: Myths or legends from any culture or time period. Greek, Roman, Japanese, Egyptian, etc.!! Gods and mythical creatures and beasts. Dionysus or Eros or Apollo Shidou; Persephone and Hades, so many! Hercules Kunigami!

Resurrection: reincarnation, zombies (Lorenzo!), waking up a vampire or werewolf after being bitten; …having a little too much fun on Halloween and having to pull oneself together the next day (sugar hangover, ...hangover-hangover). (Suggested by several anons!)

🎃 Day 3:

Whisper: soft voices, trying not to be caught/found/discovered, whispering a secret, whispering something spicy, hearing voices. 

Scream: screaming in fear or excitement or…; calling out for someone. Scary movies, pranks. Awkward meet-cute. Bachira’s monster. 

🎃 Day 4, Halloween: 

Sugar Rush: the “rush”/“high” or energy you get from eating a bunch of sugar! Trick-or-Treating, candy corn, so much candy, caramel corn; being sweet, a different sort of rush; ..."give me some sugar"

Haunted: Ghosts, spirit entities like yokai, strange noises in the night. GhostBusters, Ghost Adventures. Gagamaru as a friendly Yokai! Shaman. Possession, possessed or cursed objects. JJK. Ouija board game! Monk Igaguri. Real or funhouse haunted house, ghost stories; being haunted by the past; being possessed or haunted. The twisty, creepy aura thing Rin gets.

🎃 Day 5: 

Incantation: a set of words that could be a sort of incantation / magic words, any type of magic, witches, wizards, curses, Ness the Magician, Harry Potter, Quiditch, Lord of the Rings, crystal ball, tarot. Wands, spells, magical objects, magical creatures, etc.. Making a wish. Non-literal magic words in relationships (saying / hearing just the right thing). 

Free Prompt: Whatever Halloween stuff you want that doesn’t quite fit a prompt. The day to use any of last year’s prompts! 

Just listing some of the things I would draw (if I could) or write (if I had time): Video game au for Hiori! Little French imp Charles as the Joker or a jester. Pokemon! Barou as the “Cowardly” Lion in the Wizard of Oz. And finally, artists, if you’re reading this, please, please consider Noel Noa (of the 🇫🇷 French National 🥖 Team!!) dressed as Bonjour Man from Life Lessons with Uramichi Onii-san (clip, manga cap). This is my second year making this wish. This image has literally been haunting me since starting this event and the manga/anime (even the dub!) is soooo funny. And technically, Bonjour Man is a cursed spirit sooo 👻

🎃 Day 6: 

Festival: String lights illuminating festival stalls, costumes, traditional attire (Aryu looking stylish!), food and drink, games, Isagi devouring fried fair food. Fall Music festival. Mid-Autumn Festival (with all the pretty lanterns and mooncakes 🥮), Harvest / Fall Fests in general. Bobbing for apples, caramel / candy apples, carnival rides and games, Ferris wheel, corn maze. Oktoberfest; Kaiser and/or any Bastard München player in Lederhosen—please, I’m begging!! Fun house / haunted house. Day of the Dead festivities. 

Instinct: fight or flight, fear, instinct to hunt like vampires, instinct to save someone, instinctively drawn to someone, instinct to grab someone’s hand or hide behind them; that gut feeling that it’s time to leave a place. Hairs on arms raising, chills going down one's spine, one's whole body trying to tell one something.

🎃 Day 7: 

Space: All things celestial. Nightfall. Stars and moon, werewolves, moonlight, Tsukimi / moon viewing + Tsukimi dango 🎑, celestial myths and gods. Stars, moon, aliens, Star Wars, astronauts, and planetary hotline Isagi and Kurona! Kurona and Isagi planetary hotline. Astrology. Wishing on a star. Fun fact: The Orionid Meteor Shower peaks just before this event starts, the night of Oct. 21-22, and continues until Nov. 7th! Cowboy Bebop.

Cowboy: Not much is wilder than Blue Lock—except maybe The Wild, Wild West. Outlaws, Gunslinger Isagi (see recent manga chapters), sheriffs Aikuuu and Nio, horses, rodeos, Ego and his little football bolo tie in cowboy getup pleaseee, the works, Nagi and his lil Choki cactus. Ego as a gangly cowboy, ⚽️ bolo tie and all.

Okay, that’s it. Hope y'all have fun. Please reblog and spread the word 🧡🖤

PS: ...If y'all want ✨spicy 🔞 prompt inspiration, I could always make a separate post (that would be tagged #spicy; please remember to block that if you're a minor or uninterested in mature themes). Let me know!

[howlingmod]

Are you bored yet?

summary ; human/actors au again ... reader is a local clay worker that Wally may or may not like just a teeny bit. meetcute coric ..

notes ; they/them used for reader , not proof read and just a teeeny tiny bit rushed (i am sleepy) . glass breaks but there is no violence or anything ..

wc - 2k

He really should’ve been more careful, looking back on it now.

Yes, it’d been a while since he’d gotten that vase and set it down, but, really, for walking past it every single day, he should’ve realized how precariously it sat on the table. He should’ve realized that sooner or later, he was going to be too tired to remember to give it some space when he walked back into his apartment. Unfortunately, however, he did not in fact realize that in time. And so, he is tragically faced with the terrible fate of going and buying a new vase. Perhaps this time, he will not place it so precariously. Perhaps this time he will buy a thicker one that has less chances of shattering into one-thousand tiny pieces in the dark at around 10pm on a Thursday. He had much to think about in his journey of replacement.

Luckily, for as long as he’d had the vase, he could still vaguely recall where he’d gotten it from. It was some pottery store he’d randomly passed by once just outside of the city, curiousity (and fatigue, if he remembers right, it’d been an eventful day and he was still too jittery to lay down quite yet) getting the better of him when he’d noticed it. The owners were nice enough, an older couple who he could recall telling him long-winded stories about anything tangentially related to what he’d been looking at. Plates with flowers painted on them prompted a story about some unidentified, gorgeous plants one of them had seen around a river long ago. A cup with an oceanic color-scheme had prompted a tale of a seagull one of their previous coworkers would feed bits and pieces of bread to on their break. So on, so forth. Long winded for anyone passing through, but pleasant for someone just tired enough to want white noise and easy, one-sided conversation.

Getting into his car, he wondered if they’d have any stories to tell him this time. He would likely be better conversation this time, now that he was less exhausted from being around other people for a long, exciting period of time and more tired from waking up at some time before 11am on a rare free day. He found himself gathering excitment somewhere in his chest, bubbling up in fondness at the idea of this little trip. Sure, it was just a silly little thing to be excited over, but it was nice to have a break from monotony, wasn’t it?

It was a nice day out, too. The breeze forgiving and the sun sociable in the sky, bright rays easily negotiated to peace with sunglasses. It’d been a while since he’d ventured out of the city. Sure, it’s not as though he lived in the heart of it, but it was still different to see the buildings like miniatures from afar. It was a nice break from the towering skyscrapers and heavy traffic. Especially the traffic, actually. He’d never been good with handling bad drivers.

There wasn’t anyone else in the parking lot, only one or two other cars there, likely the owner’s or someone in a closeby building’s. There were a few other businesses dotted around in the area, some strip mall closeby and a park on the way there. He was likely just early, there probably aren’t many people stopping to buy pottery at 9am.

The inside of the store was quiet enough, music playing softly enough you had to pay attention to the murmurs to pick up on it. The lights shone on everything, not blindingly as much as it was in gentle awareness of everything. As his eyes refocused, he could’ve sworn he seen a vague shape duck into a doorway near the back of the store. Before he could properly investigate his suspicions, his attention was drawn away.

“Well, I was wondering when the resident celebrity was coming back!”

He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit, turning to face his company. “I hope I’m not intruding, it seems I’m rather early this time.”

The older woman he recognized from his previous visit smiled and shook her head, “Much earlier, I’m glad to see the cold night didn’t drag you in this time.”

He returned the smile, pushing his hands into his pants pockets as he replied, “Oh no, I was actually coming to look and see if you had any new vases in.”

She’d lit up at his words, straightening up with intent to lead him off, “Of course! We’ve got plenty of new ones in since last time, I’m sure we can find one to your liking.”

-

“-turns out, that hammering I thought I’d heard from the neighbors had just been a big woodpecker all along!”

He’d smiled fondly, “Ah! You don’t see many of those around here, do you?” He was careful to keep a good grip on the vase in his hands, decorated in an intricate scene of a forest dotted with various birds. From the minute details on every pine needle and carved indents on certain elements, he could only imagine how long it’d taken to make.

“No, no you don’t,” she’d laughed, shaking her head as she looked back to the shelf filled to the brim with other, equally eye-catching vases. He’d studied the one in his hands a moment longer, carefully tracing over the carving of texture in a tree before perking up at a new sound.

A soft ‘clink’ had snapped him out of his thoughts. Initially, he’d figured the old woman had picked up a new piece to show him, but found she was still studying the selection herself. He’d turned around quickly, curious to see if anyone else had stopped in, but the store was empty. That was when his eyes caught that doorway again, vaguely making out the shape of shelving in the darkened hall. On that shelving sat one vase, darkness obscuring the pattern of it.

“Why put that one piece there?”

The woman had snapped out of her own thoughts, looking back at him momentarily before following his gaze to the pot patiently sitting in the shade. Upon noticing the object of his attention, she’d smiled once more and turned back to him, “Our resident potter puts their finished work there so we can price it and set it out.”

That had caught his attention. “Resident?”

“Oh yes! While we do get a fair amount from other sources, just as fair an amount is homemade,” she hummed, “Would you like to meet them?”

He’d readjusted his hold on the vase again, not wanting to risk another work in his excitement, “If that wouldn’t be a bother.”

She shook her head, “I’m sure it’ll be quite alright, chances are they would appreciate the conversation, artist-to-artist.”

Before he could offer any sort of further fret, she’d started off towards the hall, leaving him to stand awkwardly with the glassware on his lonesome. He’d glanced at the large cardinal on the surface of the piece one final time before hurriedly (and carefully) placing it back on the shelf, jumping to catch up.

-

It was far darker back here than it had been in the main area of the store. Combined with the noticable increase in temperature, however, it was more comfortable than you would’ve imagined. Through the shade he could pick out calenders, notes and other miscellanious papers littered along walls and desks. Half-dirtied rags were scattered on shelves, various bottles standing not far from them nor the different tools lying about. Before he could even try and dissect what their uses would be by simple observing and guessing, the woman spoke up again.

“I hope you don’t mind some company, (Name),” she chimed, speaking just a tad louder to properly catch attention in all the visual noise.

With that, he’d finally noticed the figure standing in front of a tall table near the middle of the room, turning their head to look towards her. Their eyes flicked to him momentarily in what he could only assume was surprise. They’d straightened up from their hunched over position, wiping their hands off on a dirtied apron as they walked around the table and towards the pair.

Oh no.

They’d opened their mouth to start talking to her, but he couldn’t pick up on any of it. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was focusing on, he just knew that he was particularly distracted by the person in front of him and it wasn’t exactly getting any better the more and more he zoned out. He couldn’t make out every detail perfectly in the low-lighting, but it was enough that he could very, very easily tell this person was very, very attractive.

“-so you’re that one guy on tv?”

“Yes!” He flinched as he snapped out of his thoughts, “Wally Darling, but just Wally is more than fine.”

You’d smiled and for a brief moment he had to hope and pray his wasn’t too dopey and the low light hid the heat in his face as you stuck your hand out. There was a brief moment your smile faltered, as though suddenly realizing something, but it wasn’t a fast enough reaction as he’d snatched up your hand. Your hands were, similarly to the rest of the room, noticably warmer. They were also noticably sticky with clay, some already drying out on your skin as the rest, inevitably, would likely dry to his.

“And could I have the pleasure of knowing your name?” You looked like you were stuck between apologizing for getting the blood of your work on him and introducing yourself, glancing between him and your hands for a few moments. He vaguely realized this was probably a bit long for a handshake. Eventually, you managed a weak smile, righting your grip on his hand, “(Name).”

“That’s a very lovely name,” he stated plainly, hoping you could pick up on the sincerity in his flatter tone, “How long have you been working with ceramics, if you don’t mind my asking?”

You’d perked up at that, seemingly completely forgetting about the handshake (that was still yet to properly break apart, this was definitely not a proper one, anymore) with the topic of your work. “Well, that’s a bit of a difficult question. I’ve been working with clay for a long, long time, but I really only picked it up career wise a year or two ago.”

“Ah! That figures, your work is all very professional looking, it’s very impressive,” he complimented. Sure, he might’ve been laying it on a little thick, but it seemed as though he’d suddenly lost the ability to control his words, them tumbling out before he could even really think about it.

Luckily, you didn’t seem to mind, instead reaching up a hand to rub at the back of your neck. “Well, I don’t think my work is that stellar, but I really appreciate it. It uh- it definitely takes some time, it’s nice to see it goes to good use.”

“It’s nothing, really. If you don’t mind, could I watch for a bit? It’s completely fine if not, I really am just curious to see how you go about it.” Yes, he was definitely pushing his luck a little bit. In his defense, however, he was genuinely curious about how you managed to get all your vases so smooth and pack so many details onto such a small, unconventional canvas. It was just an added bonus that he’d possibly get to find out more about you, that was all! He can’t help the mysterious potter he hadn’t even known existed was not only nice on the eyes but, so far, was nothing short of pleasant.

You’d thought on it a moment, moving the hand at the back of your neck to hang at your jaw absentmindedly, “I suppose that would be fine by me, I can’t promise it’ll be too entertaining though.”

He smiled and shook his head, “Not a problem at all! I’m sure I can find enough entertainment for the both of us, I am an entertainer myself, after all.”

You returned his smile, finally letting go of his hand and breaking off your entirely-professional handshake to turn and head back to your workstation, “Well, make yourself comfortable, then.”

"Oh, trust me, that won't be any problem at all."

[cashandprizes]

Thwip Thursday

Oh yeah baby. It's happening. Enjoy an excerpt of my final paper for CBT where I treat our fun CBT dear professor Lasko. This is the funniest thing I've ever posted on my blog because yes, I am writing about redacted for a graduate school final paper for a grade. I will put it in the tag because I think it's funny.

(No read more necessary! Can you believe it! Just a warning though I did fill out his backstory and he did get hit with the transgenderification beam. sorry not sorry)

This case conceptualization addresses the hypothetical course of treatment for Lasko Moore, a character in a modern-fantasy audio narrative. Lasko Moore presented to treatment as a 30-year-old pansexual and transgender Indo-Caribbean man working as an administrator and adjunct professor at Dahlia Academy for Magical Novices for persistent anxiety symptoms. Upon intake, Lasko reported experiencing near constant racing thoughts that he was unable to “turn off”, panic attacks, and increased anxiety about social interactions at his work. He described spending a significant amount of mental energy preparing for and reviewing social interactions with colleagues such that he often avoids his colleagues in an effort to minimize his anxiety. Lasko reported that the anticipation around coworker interactions (meetings, socials, etc.) becomes quickly overwhelming as he becomes preoccupied with what he will say and do in an effort to try and minimize his tendency to become hyperverbal and overshare information as well as stuttering. He described this process as starting with embarrassment over previous interactions which leads to critical thoughts like “I shouldn’t be so anxious” which leads to rehearsal of potential outcomes of interactions. However, in the moment of social interactions he becomes so anxious as there “aren’t any objectives [or] any specific roles” to the conversations that he “word vomits” and becomes tangential and overshares until he runs out of breath and stops himself from talking due to his own critical thoughts and begins to isolate himself. Lasko was initially diagnosed with Panic Disorder (F41.0) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (F41.1) to capture his persistent anxious state with occasional intense bouts of extreme anxiety and panic. An initial long-term goal was collaboratively set as improving his coping strategies and tolerance of anxious affect to better network and create relationships. As this was Lasko’s first time utilizing mental health services, treatment began with inhibitory learning in combination with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in order to facilitate willingness to experience interoceptive cues and extinguish avoidance due to fear of negative consequences. This was able to reduce his panic attacks as he felt more able to tolerate overwhelming anxious affect. Despite his clear engagement with treatment through attendance, homework, and skills practice, Lasko continued to struggle with critical thoughts and avoidance of coworkers which he identified as a major barrier to his continued professional development and potential non-academic relationships. Through collaborative exploration, a persistent early maladaptive schema relating to his critical thoughts emerged and treatment shifted to a goal of starting dialogue between schema modes to facilitate the use of coping strategies to build interpersonal effectiveness.

[ultraflavour]

Tackling the Toxic Culture of Play around "Epic" length campaigns in Fantasy TTRPGs

Definitely watch this video, but I'm also going to be touching on 4 major topics:

How I fucked myself big-time by over-committing to running a long-term game of Fabula Ultima;

Why the expectation of "Epic" length campaigns causes unnecessary stress on GMs;

How Lancer solves this problem by imposing structure and enforcing strict end-points;

How classic D&D and the "West Marches" concept applies these principles through a shared set of assumptions, and how we could apply those same assumptions to our own games.

Fabula Ultim-Oh No

A little while ago, I shared my experience running Fabula Ultima, specifically the Shared World-building portion of the game.

At the end of the article, I listed one of my 4 mistakes as being "Over-committing." That part was only tangentially related to the problem of Shared World-building, but it was related.

The group I was running for wanted to create a massive world. I gave them 3 maps to choose one of that's we'd fill out. They chose two, each representing a separate hemisphere.

I didn't know enough to say no, so I agreed. What was the worst thing that could happen? Our shared world would be too awesome?? Well.

What ended up happening was that all of the elements that the players had created during the world-building session were so far spread apart that in order to incorporate even a fraction of what we had created, this game had to be long.

So in order to live up to the expectation that I had believed to be there, I made an insane commitment that I should never have done: I promised the group that the game would go for at least 4 months, then I'd try to wrap things up in another two months, for a total of 6 months. Then, I'd leave the decision about whether to keep playing to the group: If they wanted to continue their adventures in our shared Fabula Ultima universe, we could do that.

Fast Forward Two Months

Two months into the game, and I am not vibing with the game. At all.

Fabula Ultima is a game that requires a lot more input from the players than other games do. Because at any time, a player can introduce a story element, that basically means that the GM can't really prep much of anything. The game expects the game to emerge as a constant conversation between the players and the GM.

But for whatever reason, the conversation just isn't really happening. I'm constantly feeling the pressure to provide the story to the players. And when they try to introduce story elements, I inadvertently have to shut them down because they interfere with something that I've prepped.

Suffice to say, I'm not having a good time. And because I'm not having a good time, I think my players are also not having a good time. It becomes a spiral. I start calling sessions earlier than I need to. I cancel. I don't do any extra prep, because I'm wrapped up in knots before the session.

Flame-Out Ultima

It's now the 3 month mark and I know I'm not going to make it. I'm throwing a lot of energy into my job, for reasons I won't go into here, and I don't have the energy leftover to commit to the game in the evenings. It's a Thursday evening game, and Thursdays are one of my mandatory in-office days at work, so I've fucked myself harder than I possibly could have.

So I inform the group that it's time to wrap up the game. I feel terrible. I promised them that I'd try to run the game longer, and now I'm a liar.

This guilt turns to anxiety. It begins to interfere with my work and my sleep. I'm now frustrated with myself even more, because I'm allowing this stupid tabletop game, which was just supposed to be a silly fun time (I literally nicknamed the campaign "Vibes Ultima") has gone wrong in possibly the worst way it could have.

I know that the reality is that I truly have nothing to feel guilty about. I put more effort into making that game work than anyone had any right to expect of me, and part of the reason why it failed was that the energy just wasn't there. But I'll let Rona tell you what reality means to people with social anxiety:

WHY, THOUGH?

I began to wrestle with the question of why: Why did I feel so compelled to make that stupid promise of running the game for 4 months to half a year? What was the reason for that arbitrary length of time?

I narrowed it down to three reasons:

The group had just come off of a very long-term 5E campaign, all set in a homebrew setting. The GM of that game was a player in my game, so I wanted to reciprocate the gesture of the long campaign by at least attempting something long-term.

My previous attempt at running a TTRPG campaign was Lancer, and I had made it about 6 months in that game, so I figured that was my time limit. This will be important later.

The group was excited about Fabula Ultima, but our previous attempt at running it flamed out early as the GM was unable to commit to the game due to their parenting duties. This GM had previously run epic-length campaigns for our group in the past, so I feel a sense of obligation to this player as well to try to give them a nice long character arc.

All of these factors led to the decision to set the minimum length of the campaign to 4 months, as if that arbitrary length of time was some magic number that meant literally anything.

And truly, what was the downside of only promising a short-term game? One of the players remarked during the character building session that they "weren't interested in going to the trouble of creating a character just for a short-term game." This... frustrated me deeply, but I didn't say anything at the time.

This decision ended up being not good for anyone. I had set the parameters of the adventure at the start of the game as the party needing to retrieve an object from a thief. It was a flimsy premise that should have only taken 4-6 weeks, not months, to complete. But I wasn't sure what to do after that initial adventure, so I stretched the game out over a long segment of travel (which I also felt compelled to do so that the players could experience the world they had had a hand in creating).

Truthfully, what would have been the downside of running an introductory adventure, completing something, and then calling it quits? Well, Fabula Ultima is a little bit of the problem here. Fabula doesn't really have the concept of an adventure, it's very much a "just show up, have some laughs, and get some XP at the end of the session" kind of game. You're supposed to get the feeling of having accomplished something every session, because the players are always able to stimulate the story with Fabula Points.

And I was even in the perfect situation to hand off the game to someone else, because the world was 100% shared. Everyone in the game had an equal stake in creating the game world, so any one of them could have picked up my slack. And if nobody wanted to? Then I was right to think that the group was not engaged at the same level as I was, and I was totally justified to cut things off early.

So what was the way that I should have gone about things? Well, as with many things, the answer lies with Lancer.

Lancer Loves You and Wants You to be Happy

You bet your ass I'm gonna find an excuse to talk about Lancer in every article I write.

I had previously had the most success of my entire TTRPG career running Lancer. I managed to make it to the 6 month mark, running a totally homebrew setting, and I was able to cap it off in a satisfying way that tied together all of the setting elements I'd established prior to the final mission. I set up a big bad, and the campaign ended with the players sending it straight to hell.

It's to date the only TTRPG campaign I've ever run that I've felt proud of. I didn't really know what it was about Lancer that made it actually work as well as it did for me. It wasn't a perfect game by any stretch, but I actually felt good enough about it that I felt like I could run another game of it later on down the road, and it would be even better.

In retrospect, I now understand a big part of why I was able to make it work, and that was the Mission Structure. It goes a little something like this:

Planning: The players and the GM collaborate to choose a mission to undertake, either in or out of character.

Preparation: The group collects information from the base, or puts boots on the ground in the mission area, to increase their odds in the coming mission.

The Mission: Play proceeds as the players and their Mechs enter the combat area. Importantly, the mission assumes that there will be 3-4 fights before requiring the players to take a Full Repair (Lancer's equivalent of a "Long Rest"). Also importantly, the mission ends prematurely if the players take a Full Repair.

Downtime: After the mission parameters have been achieved, or the party can no longer continue in their mechs, the team returns to their base, gains a level, and engages in downtime activities (Get a drink, gather information, etc.)

That's basically it. The loop repeats 12 times, and that's a campaign. Though it might seem needlessly restrictive, this imposition of structure prevents a lot of problem behaviours from both players and GM alike.

For the GM:

By forcing collaboration with the players during the Planning step, the GM can never plot too far ahead, because they can't make any assumptions about which direction the players are going to choose to go;

The 3-4 fight guideline prevents the mission from stretching out overly long. The mechs are usually falling apart after 3 fights, and the party can't artificially prolong the mission by taking a premature Full Repair (ie. they can't "take a Long Rest in the dungeon");

The mandated Downtime means that the GM can't put a ticking clock over the party's heads, preventing maladaptive signposting behaviours.

For the Players:

The planning phase allows players a chance to impact the narrative by providing guidance to the GM about what they want to do and where they want to go;

Being able to predict how many fights there are in the mission means the players can plan how aggressively they are able to play, as well as how many resources they can spend per fight;

Downtime gives the players time to roleplay and further their personal agendas without being under the gun of a ticking mission timer.

All of these bullet points were problems that I'd encountered in other games. Most recently in a game of 5E, I tried to suggest that the group adopt the "No Long Rests in the Dungeon" policy, or at least try to do the "Adventuring Day" thing of getting 4-6 combats under our belt before resting. My character was a martial character who was increasingly irrelevant to the game as the spellcasters in the party were always easily able to recharge their spell slots through long rests.

If, by contrast, we were operating under the assumption that we would not be able to take a long rest mid-adventure, we would have had to be much more judicious about our spell slots. But because we never really felt that pressure on our resources (because the GM was too unwilling to say no to us), the spellcasters were basically always topped up, so there was no real need for a martial who wasn't as affected by attrition.

GM Fanfic Syndrome: It Could Happen to You

But much more importantly, forcing those "end points" every 4 fights and requiring player collaboration meant that I couldn't engage in the extremely destructive behaviour of over-planning a plot. Once the adventure was set, then I could prep to my heart's content. I could even create adventure sites beforehand, but as long as I didn't attach any time-sensitive story beats to them, the players could tackle them in any order they pleased.

I can't stress enough just how much trouble is caused when the GM feels like they have to make all of the important decisions about the plot. It leads to what I have taken to calling GM Fanfic Syndrome (I got this name from someone else on Tumblr but I can't find the post any more). You write a long, epic story, but never ever finish it because the conclusion of the story is always too far out for the players to directly tackle.

The symptoms are caused when the GM thinks way too far ahead about how their game is going to play out, but fails to think about all of the steps required to get there, and how many ways that those steps might fail to come to fruition.

People who spend a lot of time in their own heads tend to play out these scenarios like little movies in their head. By the time they get to the table, they've thought it out a hundred different ways in every direction, and yet somehow it still doesn't end up playing out how it did in their heads.

So by creating these little inflection points where the players get to choose which missions they want to undertake, the GM never gets the chance to write too far ahead. For GMs with ADHD, depression, or anxiety, this can actually be somewhat helpful. The rules act as guardrails, to prevent you from over-preparing on things that don't actually help you run the game better. And it forces the game to be run in units of time that never exceed a few sessions, so there is always a hard limit on how long the campaign can go for.

Marching to the West

The assumption that there should be a hard limit on adventure length, and that players should take part in the process of adventure planning, is not new. Lancer did not invent these ideas, it merely codified them in its own rules.

You can trace these ideas back a long ways, all the way back to the beginning of the hobby. The original game of D&D was billed as being "for 4-50 players." Obviously that sounds crazy on the face of it, but when you realize why, it starts to make sense.

Early games of D&D were designed to be run as part of a "Gaming Club" of up to 50 people. The idea was that the GM would run games for different groups of people at different times. Those players would schedule a time to attack a dungeon, so the GM would know what they needed to prep and when it needed to be done by.

There are two more really interesting mechanics buried in those old rules:

Adventures needed to be completed in a single session. Regardless of whether or not the dungeon was complete, the player is sent back to town at the end of the 3-6 hours allotted to play, possibly with a negative consequence applied to them;

Time moves forward in real time in the game world between sessions. If it's been 6 days since the player last played, it's also been 6 days since their character has done anything as well.

The reason for these rules is that other groups are also undertaking adventures elsewhere in the game world, and those adventures might even interfere with the adventures of other players. For example, some other players might schedule an attempt to complete a particularly juicy dungeon before another group, so the second group arrives to the dungeon to find it's already been looted.

While some of this might not sound overly fun, there are a couple of other assumptions that this style of game makes that I think are really helpful:

The game world is a small portion of the total world with a town at the center of it.

The town is never used as an adventure site. It's always assumed that if the players can undertake adventures in the town, they will choose to, because the town is a place of safety.

The adventure is always close enough to the town that the players can get there in a day.

The player is never assumed to have only one character, rather they have an entire stable of characters so that they aren't playing the same class over and over again every adventure.

These assumptions rhyme closely with another very influential culture of play called a "West Marches" campaign.

The basic idea of a West Marches campaign is thus: A DM assembles a group of players, up to 50, and perhaps nominates some co-DMs as well. The players are responsible for scheduling and deciding on an adventure to tackle. They come to the DM and say "We would like to go here and do this on this date" and the DM says "You got it."

This still has the "Everything has to be done in one session" requirement, because you can't guarantee that this exact group of people is going to have the same availability at any time after this. So it's not necessarily the best idea for a smaller group, which doesn't have the same problem of scheduling.

Solving the "4 Month" problem with a new Play Culture

But what you can see here is that there are ideas here that actually help us in the scenario I laid out above. Remember, here are my problems:

I'm not getting the input from the players that I need, so instead of finishing the adventure and starting a new one, I stretch the current one out;

Because I don't have a finish for the adventure planned until weeks out, I can't give up the GM chair until the adventure is through;

I've set too long of an arbitrary time limit compared to the amount I was able to commit to.

So how would I solve these problems, knowing what I know now?

Well, I would implement a set of rules, directly inspired by that classic culture of play that didn't even assume that a GM would be running the same adventure for longer than one session. Let alone 4-6 months! So what do we do to make the game more sustainable?

Keep the action of the campaign centralized to one area. The party should always have the opportunity to take downtime, pursue projects, etc. and it's much harder to do that when they're on some long journey to the other side of the world.

Keep every adventure to about 4-6 sessions total. Don't let the players take long rests mid-session. If they can't complete the adventure without taking a long rest, then they can't complete the adventure at all. Letting players take a long rest resets their attrition and allows them to unnecessarily prolong an adventure.

Don't place the adventure sites too far away that the party might take more than a session to get there. The party should not be able to take a long rest in the wild, so don't bog them down with pointless random encounters before they arrive at the adventure site.

After the adventure, work with the players to set clear goals for them to pursue over the course of the next adventure. You can come up with a consequence for failure if it happens, but at the very least, the players should have an unambiguous goal to tackle. Or, allow another player to jump into the GM chair, so I can play.

This set of assumptions accomplishes two really important things:

It alleviates the requirement on the GM to plot out a long campaign with narrative arcs that require the players to essentially follow a script;

It creates inflection points in the narrative where anyone could swap out, including you, the GM. Because nothing is planned out too far in advance, anyone can swap out between adventures, no problem. The continuity of the world is retained in the town and the players' characters.

That last part is really important because it directly alleviates a major source of GM burnout, which is that sense of obligation to keep the game running. The task of keeping the game alive now falls on the entire group, so the players have an equal stake in the game. If they don't want the game to flame out, they always have an opportunity to pick up the slack.

In a long-term game with an intricate plot line, it's incumbent on the GM to see things through to the end. If they set up a plot line, they now have a responsibility to execute on it. They can't hand a game off to another GM mid-adventure, and they can't expect another GM to execute on a plot that they introduced.

So a better way of doing things would be to simply not make up a long overarching plot at all. Keep things simple so that you could theoretically hand off to someone else if you had to. Or you could even switch systems! Let the smaller adventures and the downtime sessions in town handle the heavy lifting of the storytelling. Allow a story to emerge naturally from the players' behaviour, rather than imposing it through a rigidly defined plot.

These are rules that I'm likely going to be implementing going forward for the sake of my own sanity. If you ever find yourself feeling over-committed to the role of GMing, and it's causing burnout, then maybe these ideas that I've linked to might help you alleviate some of that pain.

In Summary

I caused myself to burn out by over-committing to a game because I let my anxiety about letting down my group override my better judgment;

I examined the reasons why I felt pressured to run "Epic-length" campaigns, and how it negatively affected my ability to run games;

I remembered a time when I ran Lancer and it actually worked because of the imposition of structure that prevented me from over-preparing;

I adopted a new set of rules for my future campaigns that allows more flexibility and less stress about having committed to a long "Epic" campaign.

[quinloki]

Quin were you on gaiaonline back in the day

Got back into my account after years and it’s very nostalgic

Gonna go see if I can find some of my old RPs xD

Oh my goodness. Gaia Online.

Man. Throw back Thursday indeed.

Very tangentially Gaia just about saved my life.

I met some friends there, who I don’t talk to anymore - such is the way of life - but they gave me enough support that I went to Planned Parenthood for an issue (constant bleeding, not a pregnancy concern) when I didn’t have health insurance and no one else would even see me.

PP found a tumor, and I got surgery, and I only went because my friends on that website convinced me to go.

I had a massive tumor removal surgery - so big my organs were starting to shut down from the pressure.

So, I mean, when I say online friends are real friends, I’ve believed that for decades. (This was 2005/2006 somewhere in there).

[friendshapedplant]

Underhero Stream Thursday (9/21) 7PM EST!

Given I'm not in insurmountable pain from mouth surgery, I should be up for finishing world 3 of Underhero! Though I may try to avoid talkin as much or laughing, too much mouth movey does get achy. But I'll do my best!

Once again for those not aware, I'll be putting details of the situation below the cut. In summary, the characters of World 3, the Pica Pica tribe members, have traits of anti-indigenous stereotyping, and anti-indigenous language is used in reference to them. My mutual Ascel, who is a fan of the game, reached out to the developers of the team to receive comment on this. (Link to the Devs' comment)

twitch.tv/friendShapedPlant

Summarizing the devs' comment, the Pica Pica tribe is based off a tribe native to their country, the Yanomami of Venezuela. They are one of many references within the game to Venezuelan culture, and were intended to be viewed as any other "minions" to the bosses. The devs claim to have not known the issues of representation at the time, not having the perspective on indigenous stereotyping we do in the US, but they apologize and promise to do better with future projects.

I try my absolute best to be critical about my media and understand the ways and reasons characters and themes are portrayed, and this is no different. In acknowledging this distasteful aspect of the game and doing some tangential research around this issue, I hope that shows I am not taking this lightly and will do my best to be respectful about it.

Maybe this all seems a bit too serious, but I want to make sure that people know this isn't something I want to brush off or excuse, as I might struggle to articulate this within streams. No media is free of issue, but I believe as long as you acknowledge and do not perpetuate issues within fan content or discussion, it can be enjoyed. (I have exceptions but they're determined on a case by case basis, is the best way I can put it.)

This is a silly fun game, so far I very much enjoy it, and I will definitely be as silly and fun as I always am, but I will be mindful of my tone and words regarding this aspect. If anything I say is off color please do let me know, and I encourage you to look into the Yanomami and Venezuelan culture.