#also i just got back from dnd and it was such a good session like i have actual friends there now

[hella1975]

end of march is crazy for writing like i have a 1.5k essay im doing today and tomorrow, a 2k word essay im doing wednesday and a 1k word research proposal im doing friday. and in the remaining week of the month i am WILLINGLY going to finish taob (~10k OPTIMISTICALLY) and make a solid start on tams (~5k-10k depending on how well writing goes). like yes girl write around 20k words worth of MULTIPLE PROJECTS in a handful of days there is no way this can end badly at all

[exopelagic]

i can’t believe i managed to get fucking mono and didn’t even get it by doing anything fun

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not wanting to play DnD with a teenager?

So I (22F) am in college and after classes I like to play DnD with four of my friends, Ricky (21M), Tara (21F) Lola (22F) and Julie (20F)

Well recently Tara's little sister Ashley (15F) has been hanging out at Tara's apartment, where we usually have our game sessions, after school. Like for about two weeks now. Tara says its because her mother got a new job and doesnt get off work until 7pm so Ashley stays at the apartment from 4pm till about 7:30pm when her mother comes to pick her up.

4 pm is when our game sessions start most of the time (depending on if any of us have night classes that day or not) which means we now have a literal child watching us play. And because of that Tara has asked that we tone down the game sessions to be more "appropriate" and we also cant get drunk until Ashley leaves (which is stupid because Julie is under 21 and we can drink around her just fine but whatever) frankly I didnt mind the constant audience since Ashley was far more interested in watching us play than watching TV or playing on Tara's switch.

Well apparently just watching wasnt good enough for the brat because when i got to Tara's apartment for a game, Ashley was sitting at our table, excitedly filling out a character sheet while chattering nonstop with Ricky and Lola (Julie wasn't coming this time she had the stomach flu)

I naturally asked what she was doing because she normally just watched. Ashley gave me a confused look and said that she was joining our game like we had apparently talked about in our groupchat the night prior. Ricky and Lola both backed her up and showed the groupchat.

I had seen the messages but I thought Tara was joking about adding a literal child that doesnt even have a learners permit to our game that we had been continuing for three months now. I naturally went to go confront Tara.

She said that I agreed to let Ashley join in and if I didn't want to play with her I could've just not come.

Is she fucking serious?

What kind of sane person would want to play with a literal child and its edgy as fuck character (like the character was a wolf necromancer dressed in all black with two random scars across its chest. You could smell the hot topic radiating from this cringefest)

Tara refused to listen to reason and instead insisted that Ashley can play just for tonight and if i didnt like it I could leave.

I had no choice to stay and play

It was so fucking miserable.

The brat was constantly making stupid mistakes and dragging the whole party down with her. We constantly had to stop so Ricky (our DM) could explain things that should've been obvious because Ashley was too stupid to actually figure it out. My character was having to bail her's out near constantly. It was getting to the point where I just wanted to legitimately slap Ashley. I didnt because Tara would absolutely murder me but oh the temptation was strong.

And the worst part? I was the only one who seemed to be upset that our game was being completely thrown off course. Ricky, Lola and Tara took all of Ashley's many many fuck ups in stride and actually seemed to be enjoying it.

I have no idea why, that game was a train wreck

After an hour of hell Ricky called it quits for the day.

Which was weird because we usually go well into the night most of the time. Once the game was over Tara grabbed me by the arm and led me to the kitchen.

She asked me what the hell my problem was because it was apparently MY fault the game went so poorly and not the literal child's.

So I let her have it.

I told her it was a stupid idea to let her dumbass sister play with us, that Ashley shouldnt be playing with adults and its stupid to expect us to bow to the whims of a fifteen year old. I told her I never wanted to play with stupid bitch ass of a sister ever again.

I left the apartment after that.

This morning I was removed from the groupchat and all my friends have blocked me

Except for Lola, who has been going off on me in dms all day, calling me a horrible person, transphobic, a bully and a bitch. Every name in the book. None of them are talking to me and Julie, who wasn't even there keeps calling me an asshole and says i should apologize

AITA? I dont think i did anything wrong but everyone else thinks I did

What are these acronyms?

[calicobigamy]

I can't be only one, right...?

I wanted to finish the game and then write this post but I gave up. I put in 100 plus hours and just could not go on once I got into act three. Maybe no one will hear my pitiful cry from the void, but I must scream for the sake of my sanity.

I was completely and utterly disappointed by Baldur's Gate 3. 

It had huge maps like an open world game yet I had no desire to explore the settings despite their beauty. It had hours of dialogue as an RPG would and yet I found myself skipping characters' responses. The game mechanic structure was inspired by DnD, a story-telling game dictated by some rules, lucky rolls and the extent of players' imagination, yet I was strong-armed into fighting impossibly stacked battles. A story-telling game dependent on the players’ attachment to their and their teammates' characters and yet this game lacked any kind of narrative consistency or depth of feeling. 

Larian wanted to make an open world RPG, based off of DND mechanics and somehow did the worst version of all three. The studio touts that Baldur’s Gate 3 has 17,000 possible endings and 2 million words, but to what end? What did this game have to say about what happens when people rise to the challenge and become heroes despite their circumstances or fall into the dark and become the monsters they were supposed to fight? What did it suggest might happen when fate deals you a bad hand but in doing so also helps you find true friends or love with the other? Ultimately, nothing. 

BG3 is so large that it ends up being incoherent. No writing or game structure decisions were made to keep the narrative tight and on theme. It urges players to choose a moral alignment, but most decisions, good or bad, seem to end up having little effect in the end. To play the game at all you have to resort to save scumming and that in turn deflates the possible impact of so many plot points of the narrative overall. 

Forcing players to save scum in order to progress through the game is terrible design in general. Statistically speaking the bosses make impossible critical hits again and again. I was playing in the game’s “casual mode” and found myself struggling to get through confrontations with bosses that were at a lower level than my own. If you are reading and thinking oh well you are probably not using tactics or spells well, etc., let’s do a little experiment…

Take your d20 (https://rolladie.net/roll-a-d20-die if you don’t have one in person). In the third act of BG3 I had an AC of 13 as a sorcerer with 100 plus HP. Roll your d20 ten times or more. How many times out of ten would your character have gotten to hit mine successfully? Unless an enemy is extremely lucky it should be unlikely that an enemy could hit my character every turn they get. And even if they do they would have to roll for damage which is only a single d6, d8, d10 or d12 plus a modifier at lower levels depending on your class. Again an enemy would have to have an extremely lucky roll to hit me every turn AND deal significant damage. During an in person DnD session that is just a bad night for my character. In a video game on casual mode that is significantly suspicious. 

So what you might say. You've made and enjoyed the fanart, memes and etc. You got your $61 worth of playtime. So many other people were fine with the game, what is your problem? 

I love video games. They blend so many artforms and tell stories in ways never done before. It is a medium unique to our current century and when historians look back they will view video games as an insight to our culture. 

It frustrates me to no end that Baldur’s Gate 3 is considered the next gold standard. Too many games have done open world and RPGs in a fantasy setting far better for Larian (Swen Vincke) to have made the design and writing choices they did with BG3. There are so many podcasts and shows that have written better stories through the DnD format. I am embarrassed for the medium as an artist and frustrated as a player. Players and the industry deserve better than to have artists, actors, engineers etc. burn themselves out creating maximalist behemoths like this game. A game that is beautiful but basically unplayable, narratively, nihilistic and incoherent. 

[justaweasel]

Headcanons but I'm a big fat nerd

I've seen a couple times here that Satan totally got hooked on DND (Levi too probably but this isn't about him right now), so I just imagine that his rare gemstones collection is a huge compilation of DND dice that he has and only the brothers know that it's just DND dice.

A few years back Mammon tried to steal Satan's "gemstones" and was mildly disappointed when they were just some dice. But then he realized that they're pretty and his crow instincts leapt in (also nerds on the internet will pay A TONNN for dice, just look on Etsy).

Solomon is suspicious of the true nature of Satan's collection and will always try to get a good look at it. Satan isn't ashamed of his collection but really likes to fuck with Solomon.

Though, his collection isn't a complete lie, he does have dice made from gemstones (that's a real thing just so everyone knows), the dice are just kept somewhere safe as having them in a pile will wear them down much faster. He can also use his metal dice as paper weights.

Satan also uses his sharp edged d4s to prank Lucifer. He'll place them outside Lucifer's door and watch as Lucifer's foot basically gets stabbed with the force equal or even greater than stepping on a Lego. Satan always washes those dice afterward (gotta get old man stink off of them).

Bonus! Levi, Satan, and Solomon all love DND. They're trying to get Diavolo into it too but his schedule is too hectic for sessions to last too long. One time, they got Simeon to be a DM and they were hit with the most heartclenching, blood pumping, juiciest, most well written out storyline ever. They'd love for Simeon to do that again but Luke is getting curious and Simeon wouldn't want him to find out about all the "other" aspects of DND (other = seducing the dragon, and how they could've possibly gotten out of that dungeon alive).

[sevilemar]

I got such an amazing gift from a fellow player in DnD today, I am still glowing with happiness and excitement.

I made the conscious choice at the start of the campaign to play a very young, very naive religious fanatic in a world designed to only contain shades of grey (Shulassakar in Eberron). Suffice it to say, I did not intend for her to live very long.

What I did not know before our first session was that a fellow player decided to play a very liberal, very hedonistic blood cleric Dhampir named Corvin, whose morality is firmly on the darker side of grey. We clashed from the beginning, and I had already attacked him once, but was stopped by other members of the party. I also saw him help and heal others, and we had each other's back in a few fights. For someone like Selise, who was born into an eternal, holy war to keep one of the Overlords from taking over the world, that means a lot.

I was just accepting that maybe, just maybe, 'good' might include other things than I was taught, when we went to the desert to find an old battlefield that became a manifestation zone for war and strife. Because Corvin hadn't fed for several days on the journey, he went into a blood frenzy, killing and feeding on a swarm of blood bugs.

Long story short, after he found himself again, I challenged him and we ended up fighting each other, becoming more and more locked in and angry until it truly was to the death.

As a player, I was hesitant at first. I had never taken such a big swing before, and it felt wrong to attack another player. Thomas and me had talked about it once it was clear our characters may be headed that way, and our GM and the other players had OKed PvP as well, so all was fine on the consent front.

And still I needed the dice to make the final decision, and I was quite shocked when they decided it was time to fight. But now I was commited, and so I went for it with a heavy heart. I love my Selise, and I really did not want to kill another player's character. It was a long fight with lots of dice rolls for me, since the third PC tried to stop us. Well, mostly me.

Halfway through, Corvin asked Selise if he will ever be safe in her presence, and I had to actually think about it. I talked myself through it out loud, and came to the shocking conclusion that no, he would not be. And after that, when we both knew this was to the end, I lost my doubts, and it became so much fun. I still did not want to kill Corvin, but I was OK if Selise died, and I knew it was OK if Corvin did.

In the end, Corvin had one hit point left, Selise had 4, and it was the third player's turn. She decided to use up all her inspiration to get the two NPCs around us to grapple me. I got out of her grasp, I got out of one of the Elf's grasp, but the third one pinned me down in a pool of blood. And then it was Corvin's turn. He casts Toll the Dead, my dice rolls, and it is only a 10. Selise is dead.

And then this motherfucking blood cleric, this awesome player and very kind friend, uses all his inspiration to cast a ritual and make me into a Dhampir like himself.

Fuck me, I did not see that coming.

It is such a beautiful, beautiful gift to a fellow player, a way to take the big swing, see it through to the end, and still keep a beloved character, and give her such an interesting new twist.

And Thomas told me after the game that it was his plan all along if we ever got here, and our GM knew about it, too. That means he thought about this, thought about a way to both let me be true to Selise, and let me keep her as well, and it is such a kind and generous thing to do that I'm still crying about it now.

And now it is my choice where we go from here. There are so many cool possibilities, because as Shulassakar, Selise is basically a mix between Aasimar and Yuan-Ti, descended from the Couatl: god-like beings with wings and a snake's body, and what does that mean for her now?

But that is a thought for another day. Today, I will go to sleep with a stupid smile on my face, firm in my conviction that telling stories together is good for the soul. Good night, gentlefolk, or god day, and may the story gods look upon you favorably always!

[fiovske]

Do you have any recs for other non-DnD game systems? I've only ever played 5e, and I'm a little intimidated to get into other systems, but I also want to branch out and get away from WOTC's bullshit.

Sure thing! I am also including a link to the itch.io pages since that's where i get most of these games!

Blades In The Dark: i'm mentioning this first bc the rules are very easy to grasp and if you're looking for a setting that has a touch of ghosts and steampunk, this game is the perfect gateway to that! it's the best for a heist i have found and the game mechanics and names are so soo sick here's just a slice from their itch.io page:

personally i find the setting and the stress mechanic very cool, because it takes into account the mental toil that an action can have and i find games with inbuilt consequence mechanics very compelling! it introduced the concept of clocks to me and i am obsessed.

a) adjacent to Blades, are all Forged In The Dark Games which are third-party blades games, and the most notable of them is Scum and Villiany which is space-western setting and also my favorite and if you're looking to play a game in the breadth of star-wars like interplanetary politics and everything, i highly recommend this game! b) if you're looking for a Blades game with mechanics to suit something more royalty-adjacent, with court-politics and agendas and masquerade parties and all, like say d20's court of fey and flowers vibe then i recommend Court Of Blades! I havent gotten around to playing this yet but it looks really promising and i soo badly want to play a game in this setting!

2. The Ground Itself : this is a world-building game. focused on one single place over time and how it changes and how it's people change, the events of this game can be spaced out from a week to several millennia depending on the rolls of ur dice or your choices! i have found that this game serves very well as say, a session zero game also, for setting up a place before you play in it, and not only a very fun session of making a place together for your party to play in, but also not leaving all the work to the gm! so it's a win win situation!

tbh, all games by everest pipkin are very good! i wanna get my hands on world ending game as well bc it is a game about giving your campaign, your world-building and your characters the perfect send-off.

3. Wanderhome : if you're looking for something ghibli-esque (this is the closest i can come to defining this game thru popular media) then i highly recommend wanderhome! it's got a very cozy pastoral vibe to it and the art is really beautiful and you get to pick from a range of animal-folk to play as it's very cool!

also honorable mentions,

a) Sleepaway is a game by the same creator in which ur a camp counsellor to a bunch of misfits and horror stories around campfires ensue! b) Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast which is an upcoming game which you can still back and it looks really interesting so i'd recommend checking it out as well!

4. Lancer: this game has mechs it has space-battles and you get to be a pilot in a future set years in the future and a thousand directions to take ur campaign in! he relationship between pilot and mech is smth that can be so personal.....

i wanna play lancer sometime it has very cool mech designs and it has very much piqued my interest, if i find ppl who wanna play lancer w me im 🏃🏃!

5. Heart The City Beneath : honestly, one of my fave settings of all time, it has strong horror components so mind the cws! but the classes and the game mechanics are very intuitive and overall it helps you not only build a character that feels natural and organic, but since this is a horror setting, things do not have happy endings... however it will ensure that your characters have a well-built journey whose ends will be terrifying and magnificent.

I got introduced to the fallout mechanic through this game and oooo how i love it, it's the perfect blend of your actions have consequences + every consequence is interesting and will affect your character deeply and emotionally, which is <33

this list got too long so i will just mention some more here:

the quiet year (very good map-making game, for before the frost shepherds arrive in winter.)

beam saber (forged in the dark game that deserves its on mention! austin ramsey's games i highly recommend!)

thirsty sword lesbians (ecactly what it says on the tin, i wanna check this game out also)

lotr's one ring rpg (this one is the closest substitute to classic d&d bc lets be real. tolkien is where d&d got it's shit from. and i have heard good things abt this game even tho i've never had the chance to play it)

mothership rpg (space horror whose build mechanics are very easy and user-friendly and i've had a LOT of fun with this!)

orbital (one very beautifully written rpg about life in space and it's only 32 pages but well-worth the time, highly recommend)

that's all i can give off the top of my head, i might've missed a few but these are strong standouts, so i hope u find at least one to your liking!

[thewebcomicsreview]

Hate to tell you this, but the HSBC update just got updated.

I get that they wanted to keep the Hell Arc confined to page 666, and it'll make the archival experience pretty cool, but hard refreshing the site didn't let me see the update to the page due to cache bullshit, I had to use a different browser. So let's liveblog now before it breaks again:

Looks like we're back to Tavros. I guess it makes sense that the first path to update would the one where they could reuse the talksprites.

So, as directly stated by Davepeta, Vriska is trapped in a time loop, where Tavros doesn't remember anything that happened the previous day, just like in the movie Groundhog Day. That Davepeta called out the movie explicitly in-universe as the reference makes me wonder if events will follow the rough plot of that movie. It's clearly what Davepeta wants to happen, but...Vriska....

Anyway, Vriska offers to let Tavros decide what to do today, for the first time. It took two whole years for her to try that, but she is the Thief of Light and not letting anyone else decide what to do is literally her cosmic role and stuff, so I guess that tracks. And what Tavros wants to do is....play a game.

Last update I said that Vriska saying she's done some things wrong while shrugging and laughing is the ultimate distillation of Vriska, but her having won everything and being miserable about it is also the ultimate distillation of Vriska. She's a woman of contrasts, that Vriskers.

The use of the phrase "session" here outs this line as having Deeper Meanings. Having SBURB sessions over and over so we can play forever is literally Dirk's plan, and most of the fandom is assuming a Candy session is coming.

So, even though they're talking about playing FLARP (the troll DnD game, which is apparently PvP), this is also an argument over whether or not Homestuck should continue. You can't really "win" if the game keeps going, but that doesn't mean you're stuck doing the same thing over and over.

I know Vriska is Problematique, but I'm still taken aback by her 2000s kid usage of "gay" as a general-purpose insult, and not just because trolls don't have a concept of "straight" or "gay". Apparently she doesn't even know what it means and learned the word from Da-

Oh, it was just to set up this line for people to screenshot. Alright. Fine.

brb, gotta go post this in the hard to use reaction images channel on the discord and have someone complain it's easy to use.

Tavros accuses Vriska of projecting her own fears onto him, and then gets into a tangent about being a "soft" female fairy and Vriska takes him up on playing this new "game for girls" and he panics and changes the subject. There's a...lot....going on there.

Vriska starts to have an actual breakthrough, when suddenly Aradiabot appears. Wait, is this where Aradia and Ult!Dave went?

We fade to black and I thought that was it, but apparently not. This being a visual novel makes it feel like a much bigger update than it is, and also kind of makes you read each line a bit more carefully. It's a good way of having multiple meaty (or, um, candy-y) updates in a short stretch of time, and that's kind of an important part of the "feel" of Homestuck that no one can really replicate.

Oh, I do not care for this talksprite.

The downside of this format is that it's harder to liveblog, I think, but basically Aradia is complaining about the Vriska Cycle of "Do bad thing, self-flagellate to be redeemed, repeat".

Vriska justifies it because she has to take action and set people straight and stuff, and if this conversation/game isn't leading to the return of "(Vriska)", the OG timeline Vriska who died and got a ton of character growth before post-retcon Vriska stole her girlfriend, then what is it building towards?

A lot of these lines make good single-panel memes. Yes, Vriska, you are the problem in nearly every situation, even (especially) when you're also the solution.

Aradia sa- oh for fuck's sake this is unreadable, guys. Anyway she says that getting into a routine leads to stagnation and slow death, which, mood, but also is about Homestuck itself as much as it is about Vriska.

Jesus Christ, how long is this update? This page is a full on Pesterquest game when the other five routes are finished.

Oh, okay. That's it. Vriska levels and we get a bunch of fire-themed pun ranks for her, of which Skinner's Bane is the best

[the-sera]

would unironically love to hear abt ur dnd character!

With pleasure! I created a giant asmondeus tiefling barbarian multiclassed as a bard, a tall butch named Reyna. She fell in love with a warlock who was born possessed by a dark abyss demon spirit. I ended up sacrificing my character to save that other player's character. But due to a curse, dooming my barbarian to hell when she died, her sacrifice gave her soul redemption which allowed her to ascend to "heaven." With no one to take her place in the darkest pit of hell to receive the punishment, the act of sacrifice motivated by love sparked the birth of my current character in the darkest pit of hell. My little Pow. She tricked her way out of it though.

Pow is a barbarian multiclassed as a bard, from her barbarian mother, with an inherited trait from her warlock mother as well which is a gravity shift. A link to hell itself. It weakens her, stats-wise. I have played her with a curse dice for a long time, one of the deadly sins on each side of the dice (minus envy). I rolled it every session to know which sins she must commit by the end of the session. Her weapon of choice is a summoned reaper scythe taller than her, she is like 5"1 or so and her wife is 6ft. Her hair are down to her butt, her skin is red, her horns are now mate gold (since resurrection) and the goddess gave her bright pink irises (but they used to be firey orange.) A selfish, loud, disrespectful, cowardly and greedy little beast, with a lot of love to give and in need of a lot more love to receive. She is also very much a moron, but is convinced she is a genius. Ironically, she calls other people morons often. She is a troublemaker driven by her immediate needs, a horny, hungry, heavy drinker who's general overconfidence is tested daily. She is very strong and a great seducer, but that's about it. She is a devil born from a tiefling curse. Some sort of mutant of both.

There has been no shortage of events, including Pow seducing a Queen to save the party from a guilty verdict for crimes against humanity; the whole party infiltrating a James Bond-esque soiree so she gets to dance with the girl of her dreams; Accidentally setting fire to a church and cursing a village forever and just run away before getting blamed for it; Dying to save the entire party then seducing the goddess of love and being granted a second chance to live as a gift for becoming her lover; Turning a hydra into a raspberry bush that rotted when the party forgot about it, leaving the homebase flooded with raspberries that multiplied up to our waist forever; Winning a dance duel against breakdancing gnomes; Turning a white dragon into an elf lady using a one time item, hooked up before she turned back into a dragon and is now an angry ex with the intention to kill Pow on sight... and yes we almost died because of this, the dragon got half the party down, several horses were killed in the making of this session; just to name a few.

After all those years, she got a bit more stable and smarter (a little, her wife taught her how to read), broke free from her curse (dice), she now has a tiefling wife who is one of the most famous beauties of the realm. They have two kids, one of which briefly died but was brought back to life during a portion of the third campaign, in which Pow became the BBEG on a violent chase to resurrect her child. Everything worked out in the end. She made peace with her warlock mom who is herself now the ruler of a city. Pow and her wife (and kids) now live on a tropical italianesque-spanishesque island type of place. She now owns a small castle, and neither her or her wife get much sleep due to their kids. But they are all very happy and live a good life.

That's about it I think. I miss that chaotic freak.

[aesfocus]

TW: ANIMAL DEATH

A tiny little celebration and recounting of this lil old lady, who passed away yesterday april 22 2024, 6 years to the day her adopted sister left the world.

Read on to learn about her adoption story and some of her fav things!

I made sure she had a comfortable lovely weekend, but she let me know it was time.

So who was Turtle?

In Aug 2010 I went to a local shelter and adopted 2 kitties. One a kitten we named Genki, and another a 1+ year old mystery owner surrender they named Hello Kitty.

She saw us and started yelling and slamming herself on the glass to show us how to pet her. She snugged onto my lap immediately in the little private room to meet her and I was in love instantly.

But back at home she was very scared. She hid under the couch for three days only peaking her head out to eat some food and then she went back in. This would be the last time in her life she would be shy, but I didn't know it so I named her...

Alligator Snapping Turtle; Turtle!

She quickly became my shadow. Clinging to me night and day. She would jump onto the back of my chair, lay on my back and slowly slide down towards my butt. She did this so frequently she managed to break the chair, eventually. After that all my chairs have been bought with more room for her to snug me. For a whole decade.

If someone visited, she would insist they hold her, or she'd sleep on them in their sleep. She once was held through a 3 hour long DnD session by someone she had just met; she loved people. Loved being pet, but above all, she adored me.

She had a specific meow for me, she spent every single night for nearly 14 years in between my legs, and unfortunately, as she got older she got separation anxiety real bad. She would cry and cry for about an hour each time I left. (I rarely do as I no longer work but even a trip to the grocery store did not leave her happy!) I know this because my husband had plenty of videos of her standing at the door hoping I would return.

No matter what I did in the house there she was.

But lets back up a moment, remember that bit about owner surrender? That intake form was interesting. with questions like "What is your pets favorite toy?" came answers like 'small glove'. She spent at least a year in someone with 7 children's garage. They fed her 'cheep food' and knew very little about her past other than they found her about a year prior. No judgements to them, but this girl was a lap cat to end lap cats. You would pick her up and move her to stand and she'd jump right back into your lap. She's dig her claws in if she thought you were trying to leave. She wanted the warmth god damn it!

Here is her on top my husband. Human's were good options.

Heat vent? Also a great option.

She would, when I worked, stay in bed in the covers right where I left her until I came home from work, all nice and cozy.

She loved it when my husband worked from home, gave her ample time to try and fry his laptop during his breaks or lunches.

But her fav place was on top of me. I set up my desk just for her actually! This big living room chair was purchased so she could always be near me.

Because the previous snug situation was not cutting it!

Here she is on the chair I bought for us.

She was never very photogenic, because she saw my hand and wanted pets. If I wasn't petting her she'd cry and show me how to pet her with her paws, or she'd flop around or rub herself on something and look up at me like 'come ooooonnn you know the good spots.'

Or she would do a 'turkey twerky'(where cats twitch their tails and step from foot to foot rapidly in excitement).

Her fav toy it turned out was not a 'small glove' but in fact the simple spring. Yellow was her fav color of the springs, but past that any small bit of plastic she could chase around and yell at was great. She was a very loud little lady!

I sang her a song daily for about ten years;

"Her name is turtle! and she's a turtle! And she's got a lot to say!"

after which she'd generally make a BIG meow and I'd give her tons of attention. Because she was my lil baby girl.

But her all time fav thing, beside me of course, was going outside. She didn't get to much as I believe in, and have, indoor only cats, but on special nice days we'd go outside and she'd gets some nice supervised time with the grass. (She made the other cats jealous because only she was let outside without a harness, but that's because if she wasn't in about a 2 foot radius of me she'd come back and yell at me to follow/I was able to out run her.)

Last year I had her shaved, because she was a fat cat who was struggling with cleaning herself so we were going to get on a rotation of shaving and baths and brushing to make sure she stayed nice and clean...

But unfortunately she began to drop in weight very quickly, the primary sign something was very wrong.

She was adopted on the same day as Genki, and six years to the day she passed on the same day as her sister. Genki lost a very long fight with a fungal pneumonia in 2018 and our hearts shattered and then yesterday they did it again.

If Turtle was my heart, my little shadow, then Genki was my husband's.

Turtle was such an amazing good friend, I have so many memories of her and it doesn't seem real that she's gone. But I wanted to keep this light, and positive, and so I will end it with, adopt.

Don't shop, adopt. You never know who is waiting for you in a shelter, what kind of very full wonderful life you can provide each other! Hello Kitty became Turtle and she knew that name, she'd come running any time I called, she was my very best friend and I miss her so fucking much.

[italiansteebie]

Find The Silver Lining

Also on ao3

Somethings wrong with Steve Harrington.

He’s been looking at Eddie. And not in the snooty “I’m better than you” way, but more of a longing way.

That’s not really an issue, but the fact that Eddie is looking back at him in the same way, is. Look, Gareth knows his best friend is gay, Eddie wasn’t exactly secretive when it comes to people he’s comfortable with, but Steve Harrington? That’s where Gareth takes issue. 

He knows something big happened over spring break, something that landed Eddie in the hospital big. But he doesn’t know how Steve of all people fits into the whole thing. In fact, Gareth was more than shocked to see Steve sitting by Eddie’s hospital bed, rather than Wayne, or even Dustin. Gareth thinks about that day sometimes, thinks about the bags under Steve’s eyes and the blood stained shirt he was wearing. Did he even go home? Gareth doesn’t think so, because other than his appearance, he was flinching at every noise, and pretty insistent that he had to stay with Eddie and make sure he was safe. Safe from what, Gareth doesn’t know. 

If he had to guess, Steve was there when whatever happened, happened, and he didn’t make it out unscathed either, he could see the matching scars peering out from under Harrington’s shirt when it lifted. The guy seemed to be pretty self conscious about them too, because whenever he noticed his shirt riding up, he pulled it down in a flash. 

Gareth, personally, finds this interesting, because he’s heard Steve reassuring Eddie about his own scars, to the point where Eddie practically flaunts them now. He’s beginning to wonder where Steve’s support is in all of this.

He’s been hanging around a lot more recently, even offered up his house for their DnD sessions, and he hovers around the twerps all the time. They don’t even seem to mind, and maybe it’s because they were involved in whatever went down over spring break. Gareth highly doubts that it was just an earthquake. Ash doesn’t just rain from the sky, okay? He knows something bigger is going on, he just doesn’t know what, but it seems that Eddie and Steve and their gaggle of children do. 

Long story short, the longing looks aren’t slowing down anytime soon, and Gareth needs Steve to know that he can’t hurt his best friend, he won’t let it happen. 

So over the course of a few weeks, Gareth really gets to know Steve, what are his motives? Why does he always seem to be there? He knows finding out what really happened is a long shot, he’d overheard Steve and the Buckley girl whispering about NDA’s in the hospital, but he wants to know why Steve seems to be hanging on to Eddie’s every word.  

So they get close, and Gareth finds that, Steve? He’s not such a bad guy, in fact, he’s really cool. He follows the twerps around like he’s their brother, driving them and acting all exasperated and annoyed whenever they ask for a favor, but does it anyways with a smile on his face. And the guy can cook. He’s made them food a few times for their campaigns and, holy shit. That was something he was NOT expecting from Harrington. When he worked up the nerve to ask Steve about it, he got a pitiful sigh and a “Well, parents wouldn’t feed me, so I had to feed myself. I want it to taste good, y’know?” And no, Gareth does not know. In fact, he thinks his mother would have a heart attack if she saw him cooking by himself in the kitchen, but he smiles and nods anyways, giving Steve a gentle pat on the back. 

Him and Steve become established friends and that’s when he realizes that he hasn’t talked to Eddie about any of this. Of course they’ve talked, just. Not about Steve. It’s mostly about the campaign or when they can get back to rehearsing for their gigs at the Hideout. In his efforts to be Steve’s friend, he’d found that Steve really does like Eddie. Pure infatuation, almost, and now Gareth is kind of worried that he needs to talk to Eddie about hurting Steve instead of the other way around. He knows how his friend can be, he’s a flirt, he likes to make people comfortable with flattery. Gareth wants to make sure Eddie isn’t leading Steve on. He loves his friend, but he can be a bit manipulative, kind words, and gentle smiles can go a long way, and well… They needed a new place to host Hell Fire. 

Gareth doesn’t think Eddie’d do that, but. The guy’s a good actor.

So before their next campaign, Gareth talks to Eddie while Steve is up stairs, fussing about in the kitchen. “So… Steve.” Eddie eyes him, “Yeahhhh? What about him?”

“Well, he’s… I dunno. Kinda cute, right?”

Eddie’s eyes widen in a way that’s almost comical, “Oh My God, Gareth Bareth, do you have a crush on Steve? I thought you were straight. Steve is a good first gay crush though, I mean, the hair, his eyes, his smile, the way that one pair of jeans just… Hugs his ass, damn. But anyways. Gary!” And that was all Gareth needed. 

“No, dummy, not for me. I am straight. But for YOU!” 

Eddie blushes, “Nah, man. Steve's straight and even if he wasn’t… He wouldn’t be into me.” Now Gareth knows the dangers of outing people, but it’s his best friend, his GAY best friend, so… He gives a few hints to move the process along. “We’ve actually gotten pretty close, and… Let's just say I wouldn’t count him out.” Now, Gareth doesn’t know if it's shock, or love, or what, but Eddie just kind of… Freezes. And he stays that way until Steve comes down stairs. “Hey guys- Eddie?” Steve turns to Gareth, “What happened?” There’s a worried glint in his eyes. “I don't really know, we were talking, and he just kind of… Froze.” 

Steve begins pacing, “Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Calm down, we’ve done it before we can do it again, it’s okay.” Steve’s practically hyperventilating at this point and if Gareth didn’t know any better, he’d say it was a panic attack. “Steve? Buddy? Why don’t you sit down?” 

Steve’s hands are shaking as he runs them through his hair, Gareth can see tears forming, “Steve?” 

“I- I need, uhm. His favorite song, what’s. Eddie’s-”

And Eddie chooses that moment to snap out of whatever trance he was in, “Stevie?”

Steve’s head whips around, “Eddie! I thought, you- You were just standing there and I got scared and- I- I can’t do it again, I can't. I can't, I can’t, I can’t,” Gareth is worried, if Steve doesn’t take a breath he’s for sure going to pass out.

“Is there anything I can do?” He asks unsurely, Eddie shakes his head, “We’ve just gotta ride it out, oh. Um, help me get him to the couch actually,”

They maneuvered themselves over to the couch, lowering Steve down slowly, Eddie sinking down beside him. “Try to match my breathing, okay, Stevie?” Gareth watches, slightly in awe as Eddie grabs Steve’s hand, placing it over his own chest. “I’m here, right here. I’m not going anywhere, it’s over. Okay? We got out, you saved me, Stevie. I’m not leavin’” And soon enough, Steve’s breathing returns to normal, save for a few sobs and sniffles. “Sorry,” He whispered, voice coming out cracked and raw. Gareth scoffs, “I know you did not just apologize for having a panic attack. C’mon Steve, remember what we talked about? Our feelings are our feelings.” Gareth reassured, Eddie nodding in agreement. 

Steve laughed and wiped his eyes, “Thanks guys, Thank you, Eds.”

“You’re welcome, baby. You’ve done this so many times for me, the least I can do is help you too.” Eddie places a soft kiss on Steve’s lips, and Gareth just about shits his pants. He completely ruins the tender moment between them. “What the fuck?” 

Eddie smiles sheepishly, “Sorry Garebear. We wanted to tell you sooner, we were actually going to tell you tonight after the campaign but I realized you were trying to set us up and just froze and started thinking that we were being too obvious. Neither of us are really ready to come out to everyone, just. You and Robin, really.” Steve nodded, “Wait, that’s why you froze? Eddie. I almost had a heart attack. We’ve talked about this, if you’re going to think, you need to move so I know you’re alive.” 

Now, that doesn’t make ANY sense to Gareth, but the longing looks, and lingering touches really do. And maybe it should’ve clicked sooner, because Eddie never leaves at the same time they do after campaigns always stays to “help clean up.” Oh my god. Gareth is an idiot. “I’m an idiot.”

“What? No you’re not.”

“I should've seen it sooner! Look, to everyone, you guys aren’t obvious but I know you, Eddie.”

Eddie smiles, “It’s alright. You weren’t supposed to catch it Gare, that was the whole point. If you had, we weren't being careful enough.” Gareth ponders this, he’s right, he tends to be, anyways. “Well. Either way, I’m… I’m happy for you guys, I didn’t give you enough credit to get yourselves together, but, it’s better that you did.”

And since the night was going in the direction of secrets, after the campaign, Gareth stayed behind with Eddie, and learned about the events of spring break. He can see why it had brought them all together the way it did, and he can see why Steve had panicked earlier that night. He doesn't know if he likes being in the know or not, he almost liked the mystery more, but, now… Now he has the chance to help. Maybe he can help save one of them too, the way they save each other.  

Despite the tragic happenings, Gareth can’t but be grateful for the outcome, a tight knit family, and a new friend. Maybe that’s what everyone means by finding the silver lining.

[heybiji]

What subclass is Dandelion? I’m guessing Archfey because you mentioned charm magic a while back?

Also, was the amazing Dande always a Warlock in your mind? Or did you ever consider other classes/subclasses for him potentially?

I’m wishing for his swift recovery from his curse!

Yeah, Dande's an Archfey Warlock (patron not yet revealed, but he says he gets his magic from his grandma).

Dande's my first dnd/ttrpg character and I knew immediately that I wanted to play a Warlock because it has a built in dynamic I like to explore (loyalty? sold souls in a way? conditional "love"?). Actually, when my friend who is the DM put out feelers on twitter for who wanted to play, I was immediately like, "I wanna play a drow warlock!!!"

For the subclass I wasn't sure. To be honest I really wanted to go GOO Warlock because I dig eldritch horrors and horror in general, but ultimately I went Archfey since i found a story that clicked better for baby's first dnd game; I wanted an older elf who has adventures a lot already but wanted narratively satisfying reasons for starting at level 1, so I figured a warlock that forgot most of their magic could work well, and also a character with memory problems in general could play well for me, someone completely new to dnd. So: Feywild! Memory loss! And a lighter tone of magic for a game I wasn't certain what the narrative tone would be like, but I figured it'd be lighter than what I tend to make.

And then I got very lucky and have gotten to play him for over a hundred sessions which is a total dream so he's gotten to grow a LOT.

I will one day have to make a GOO Warlock, though. Or maybe just DM for one one day in a long campaign. either way I get to dip into that GOOd shit.

And thank you for the well wishes!!! He needs them 💀

[torque-witch]

Meet the Witch - 2024 Edition

Honestly I have not introduced myself in a LONG time because I've had this account since 2014 ish - so in case there are new people here this can be a good reference point.

So hi, hello - this is me in 2024. You can call me Cara but most people here know me as Torque! My pronouns are They/Them and I am currently 32 and married. I live in Pittsburgh, PA.

Most people know me for my devotion to Hel, Norse goddess of Death and my art of her!

(My hair is a bit longer so I just pull it back - but I barely take pictures anymore. Anyhow -)

What's new?

Still chronically ill and disabled; in 2024 we are still recovering from medical trauma that induced two phobias, POTS-like symptoms and a mystery digestive issue that is probably the severe IBS my meds that caused the trauma were controlling.

I am currently and hopefully to stay fully self-employed after finally getting off my feet from said trauma that left me pretty house-bound for a year. Somewhere in there I got a job with a catering company that truly was terrorizing, never reported me for taxes and therefore fucked up my finance history.

But, in 2024 so far I have done a good amount of shows and toured again briefly with the Oddities & Curiosities Expo group in cities outside of PA and that was incredible! I grew a lot as an artist, and it really helped me to work through some of my phobias and continue to stabilize.

You can find my Etsy here but I am focusing most of my efforts on shows! It would be best to follow my Instagram to keep up with events and new products!

Otherwise I've just been focusing on adulting and trying to fix our finances so that we can actually buy a house someday (hopefully).

A fun fact is that I started listening to ATEEZ in mid-2023 and got to see them in concert in DC this year as a bday gift to myself. It was absolutely the most incredible thing I've ever experienced. They are PERFORMERS.

If you're still on the fence about listening to Kpop, you're missing out! I poo-pooed it for a long time as cringey, but ATEEZ has very progressive lyrics and most of the fan-base in real life are alternative women and enby's in their 20's and 30's. Seriously the most fun I've ever had.

Other than that if I need to state it again, this page is for representation and acceptance of all forms and hate will not be tolerated. It's impossible to write out all the ways that people can be hateful but basically don't be a nazi or phobic in any way.

Not much else happened this year except a bunch of small-town drama associated with said catering company (story time?) and shit with our previous landlord (we moved). I made some really good local friends that I'm so appreciative of, and joined a DnD campaign for the first time!

My character is Ashaf Tendara, an Arcana Cleric archeologist who accidentally found some ruins of Ubtao and now unfortunately because of one of the sessions, their way of spell-casting is just screaming T-rex noises for ten minutes straight (Ubtao is related to dinosaurs somehow). We've finally emerged from the poop dungeons in said campaign, and some of those interactions I've wrote down are truly incredible. My Mage Hand is also a spectral sticky hand. My husband's steel defender's name is Duke Poop'em because of said poop dungeons.

I also read manga, watch anime and still read young adult fantasy at my big age (Adult SciFi is sooooo dense omg but it just takes me longer lol) and watch cozy game and horror playthroughs on YouTube. I listen to podcasts a lot about the paranormal, true crime and reddit readings.

Basically I'm a chronically ill and online shut-in artist with some witchy stuff sprinkled up in there.

I hope that was exciting and super informative. If you have any questions please send them in!

-Torque

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for how i played DnD?

I will try to keep this short but give enough info. At the time of the incident this past year, I was 19. I had made a few friends at uni. Someone brought up Dungeons and Dragons and as a group we decided to try it. There were 5 people playing as characters, including me, and one Dungeon Master (DM). The DM is 24, and the other people ranged 19-22.

Maybe it is just who I played with before, but it had always been stressed to me to do actions my character would do. Follow the actions the character would follow. For example, I played in a campaign with someone who in real life is the sweetest, kindest person, but their character was very mean and vengeful. It was fun! They would want to heal someone, but knew it was out of character so decided to NOT do that, and it was realistic for the campaign.

THAT is how I was taught. That is how I've always played. So it comes time for the first session with the uni group. It was a one-shot to learn how to play for the two people who hadn't played before. It was stated that this was solely to learn mechanics, the characters we were would not be used for the actual campaign. Cool!

Well, in this one-shot I had a character who was very self centered. The type to put themselves over the health of the rest of the group. I had never played that before and wanted to try it. It came to a fight and I was wounded and so was another player. This player hadn't played before and chose to run away and abandon the group. I chose to do the same thing because it was in Character. However, I happened to have the one item that could have stopped the cult from taking over and essentially starting the apocalypse. Thus, because I ran, it doomed everyone else.

It didn't seem anyone minded at the time, it was to learn after all. The DM mentioned then that it is a shitty move to choose to run, and you should fight regardless of if you die. I thought that was a stupid thought, why fight a losing battle, but whatever.

We ran through our first campaign that was over a month long. We all died but had a lot of fun. I then turned 20 and had a flare up (I have a chronic illness), I told them they could do a campaign and I would join in once better. The DM didn't want that because I would be joining partway and ruin the integrity. So they decided to postpone.

I got better, all good. I was sick and hospitalized for a week, then a week after I recovered. So it was 2 weeks. We met weekly, so it was only 2 weeks that we were out. Prior to this time we all met on Mondays, but after this i would have to go to therapy on Mondays so DM decided to switch the days to Thursdays which everyone could also do.

We started a new campaign and me and another player decided our characters would be intertwined. They played a character who had been royal and after the usurpation of their throne, they were on the run. I played the loyal knight who would defend them til my death. We made it VERY evident that I would protect them til my death, with no hesitation, and would defend them from any action that could cause them harm.

A fight broke out in our party and the hothead started coming after the exroyal. In character, I put myself in between the two and verbally told them to stop or else I would make them stop. Hothead character escalated and pushed mine and then threw something at the exroyal. Of course, irl we all were laughing and having fun, except the DM. The DM was trying to get everyone back on course.

Now, I could have decided to ignore this and go towards the obvious direction the DM was trying to steer us. But my character would NEVER have let a slight like that occur. So I didnt. My goal was to simply slash at the hothead, but got a nat 20. The DM CHOSE that I killed the hothead. That isnt what I wanted but I went with it and had the great one line of "take this as a warning for the rest of you".

The person who played the hothead was dying of laughter and didn't seem upset, they had a second character ready. Well, at the end of the session the DM asked me to stay behind. They told me that I was a terrible player and that every session thus far, I played the character instead of doing things that would help the newbies. I was also apparently annoying and "you shouldn't turn against those in your party". I told the DM I'm sorry they felt that way, but in my mind it wasn't intentional to kill the dude I simply wanted to like give him a warning. The DM said I was teaching the others bad morale and cooperation, and brought up me running during the oneshot and how I doomed everyone else and it was shitty. I felt bad apologized and said I would think about what they said and then thanked them (that's the customer service representative in me lol).

Well the next week was the week prior to our break. I asked what time we were meeting and was told we weren't meeting this week by the DM. Okay that works. Well, turns out they DID meet. I found out after exroyal messaged me and asked if I felt better and what they can do for me. Apparently, DM told everyone I was having a flare up, when I wasnt. I am not a confrontational person, but I texted DM saying I didn't appreciate that they lied and DM replied saying that it was my fault for playing DND the way I did.

As a few of them messaged me individually, so I texted all the members individually and told them I was not sick and stated that DM had told me there wasn't a session.

Well, we decided to meet at my place and not tell DM. We didn't play DND but a board game. DM found out and started calling me an asshole and how they've been accommodating for me with my illness and the sessions, which they have. DM says they made one mistake and am punishing them for it. I have a lot of anxiety and do feel bad now... AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[flieslikeamoron]

WIP WEDNESDAY

I went in my WIP folder and dug out a little something for the steddies. I'm not actively working on it right now, but I think it's the one steddie WIP I haven't shared anything from before. It's a Jury Duty AU where Eddie is one of the actors and Steve is the one guy who doesn't know he's on a tv show. I never got much farther than this, but it was gonna be that thing where you have a spark with someone and it could really be something, but they have no idea you're playing a character on a tv show.

--

Eddie Munson never set out to be an actor. He came to L.A. with rock star dreams. He was going to play The Roxy. He was going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. But in L.A. big dreams are a dime a dozen. And they don’t pay the rent. 

He dreams smaller now. He’s not so much shooting for the cover of Rolling Stone as steady session work. A couple regular gigs that don’t pay in beer and “exposure” seem almost as unattainable as The Forum. He makes rent by filling the gap with his part-time bartending gig and whatever else he can scrounge up. That’s where the acting comes in. It’s mostly background work, but he’s pulled a couple lines in a regional car commercial, a couple low budget horror things he’s not sure ever got released, a bad roommate on a sitcom that thankfully got cancelled after five or six episodes, and the prime role of “stoner” in a medium popular Melissa McCarthy movie. 

He has an imdb page. Which is kind of embarrassing. Not just because seeing his pathetic credits listed out like that makes him feel pathetic. But also because even the shitty little parts he gets are parts people with big acting dreams are desperately fighting for. Scrambling for any foothold. And he doesn’t even want them, not really. He’s just taking what he can get to keep his music career on life support. 

He kept putting off getting that SAG card, and yeah, partly it was the fucking $3,000 fee. But he could’ve scraped the money together if he sold some of his gear or took on more shifts at the bar. The real reason he kept putting it off was because sinking that much money into acting would be admitting the music’s never going to take off. That all those dreams have been reduced to a line on the back of his headshot. Special skills: Plays guitar. 

He shouldn’t complain. He’s had plenty of friends who washed out back to the small towns they were running from. Or ended up at the dreaded nine to five, dying inch by inch behind a desk. His life isn’t what he thought, but it beats where he came from. And it’s not boring. He’s met interesting people. He’s done weird shit. 

This new job, though. This has to be the weirdest thing he’s ever done. And he played a killer in a hot dog outfit once, so he knows from weird. He still isn't even totally sure how he got it. The callback was mostly improv. He’s never done improv. He did used to play a ton of DnD back in his misspent youth, so maybe that helped. Apparently whatever he did was good enough because he got it.

The shoot is over a month long. It'll be the most money he’s ever made on a single gig. But it’s- He doesn’t even know how to explain it. They didn’t even explain it to him until he got the job because the whole thing is so top-secret. It’s a reality show, but not really. The most elaborate and expensive prank Eddie’s ever heard of. All to trick one poor rube into thinking he’s doing jury duty. To see how he reacts to a bunch of people he doesn’t know are actors throwing absolutely ridiculous shit at him for weeks at a time.

The rehearsals were kind of fun. Meeting the other actors. Figuring out how they’re going to pull this off. The scope of it still boggles Eddie’s mind. Production has built an entire alternate reality for this guy, whoever he’s going to be. But the thing you don’t really think about when you’re on the Truman Show, and you’re not Truman, is all the actors are going to be living it too. He’s going to have to be on all day, every day like some kind of weird improv endurance challenge. 

When they finally hand out the dossier on the mark (there’s a fucking dossier) Eddie starts to get cold feet. He can’t back out now, not really. He’s contractually obligated to go through with it at this point. But he looks at the picture of the guy. Steve. He’s a good-looking guy. Pretty smile. He’s a real person. And Eddie’s going to have to lie right to this guy’s good-looking face for weeks. 

Eddie’s not even a real actor! How is he going to pull this shit off? He can bullshit with the best of them, but there’s never been an entire production resting on his ability to sell a lie. What if he’s the one that blows it? Ruins this entire thing, all this money and effort. All these jobs down the drain, everything wasted. The whole thing is crazy. He can’t do it. 

But there’s the contract. And there’s the money. Enough to buy his own studio time, work on his own music.

“Is this freaking you out?” Eddie asks Sandra over lunch. They’ve spent the morning walking through the crucial jury selection scene, the first test of whether the guy's gonna figure out something's up right from go. It’s a hybrid of scripted, but flexible to accommodate the fact that Steve’s not scripted. Steve could do anything. And it’s on all of the rest of them to not freeze up. To be natural, but guide him as close to the planned bits as they can. To convince him that nothing weird is going on when something weird is so going on.

“I’m nervous,” she admits. “I don’t want to be the one-”

“That fucks it up,” Eddie finishes.

“Exactly that.” 

[memento-morri-writes]

hello haply sts! is there a character dynamic you've really been thinking about lately? why?

HELLO!!! Thanks for the ask!

I mean, there's dozens of character dynamics I've been thinking about, but mostly for my dnd characters.

However, one that I've been playing with in my mind for a while is the two main characters from divinity wip. The protagonist is a (trans) woman who is slowly being turned into a god against her will, complete with divine powers that are destroying her (mortal) body.

The deuteragonist is her best friend and qpr partner who is hopelessly devoted to her. They basically end up becoming her first paladin, but it begs the question "is there any future for a mortal who loves a god?"

The woman-who-is-becoming-a-god wants to tell her friend to leave, so they don't have to see her losing her humanity, slowly dying in all the ways that matter. But she also is so afraid of being alone that she can't bring herself to ask. And it wouldn't matter anyways, bc her friend would never leave her, not in heaven or hell or anywhere in between. And yes, this is a tragedy, so... we'll see how that ends up for them. :)) (god/paladin, god/martyr tragic (platonic) love story anyone?)

The dynamics that really fuck me up though are my boy Rook and his two mentors never ever fails to fuck me up. Also Carrion and his mentor, and one of his party members.

[putting this under the cut bc as always when I talk about these two it got ridiculously long.]

Rook's first mentor, Zara, was the first person to ever truly be kind to him. She was the captain of the pirate ship he sailed on for 6 years. Because of how important she was to him, both as a figure of authority and as a mentor, and also just as a good influence in his life, Rook ended up kind of idolizing her. And after being trapped aboard the Sea Snake for two years, a lot of mental escapism and maladaptive daydreaming made that idolization even stronger. So at this point she's practically a god in his eyes, and he would forgive her for anything. He gets to see her again in a few sessions for the first time in 3 years, and I'm not kidding when I say that this is going to be the most important session I will ever play as him, I think. He never got to say goodbye to her the first time, and she's been feeling guilty as fuck over him getting captured, but she never came to rescue him. oh it's gonna be so good. I can't imagine that his idolization and his willingness to forgive her for anything and do anything for her will help with the guilt she's feeling...

And then there's Sigmar, Rook's second mentor, who he met during the campaign. He taught Rook some fun combat moves, and promised to help Rook defeat Captain Wolf (the vengeful pirate captain who was kidnapped him twice now). Sigmar told the party bard while Rook was sleeping that if he had been in Zara's position, he would have killed Captain Wolf and burned her ship to the ground to get Rook back, or died trying. He also was helping Rook hide his demon curse from the party. HOWEVER, he turned out to actually be a corpse being controlled and spoken through by the BBEG of the whole campaign, and the party ripped said corpse to pieces in front of Rook's eyes. Oh, and the wizard had known the whole time and just let Rook continue to get closer to this man. (His reasoning was "if he's obsessed with Rook, that means his people can't be hurting us.")

And the most insane part is that he really truly did love Rook, as much as he's capable of that. He ignored his own daughter in favor of Rook, and when Rook searched his house after we killed his controlled body, he found a book where Sigmar had been taking notes on how to be a mentor to him, using a fictional character as a guide. And now someday Rook is going to have to face him again, this time in his real body, and they're going to have to hurt each other, but both of them are going to have a hard time doing it, and it just makes me-- AGH.

The rest of the party didn't like him in or out of character, but to me out of character he was everything I could ever want handed to me on a silver platter even before I knew he was actually a literal war criminal. (I still love him, though. It's kind of a problem, actually.)

My shifter barbarian, Carrion, also has some crazy character dynamics going on. He used to be a paladin, and while he was in the Order, he had a mentor and kinda-sorta father figure named Theodore. However, bc of Carrion's monstrous transformations as the result of coming into contact with Delirium (essentially super radioactive magic crystals), the paladins chained Carrion up and left him behind. The last thing Theodore said to him was "Soon you'll be nothing but Carrion" and that's how he got his name, bc he survived and he plans to kill Theodore and tell him that "I may be Carrion, but I am not nothing."

BUT the sad part is that Theodore was so regretful and sad and fucked up over leaving Carrion behind, over failing him, that he literally lost his divine magic for years. And I'm just in agony waiting for when Carrion sees him again, because Theodore doesn't even know that the boy he knew as Reverence is still alive, let alone that he's planning on killing him.

Also, there's the party's warlock, Valeska, who completely and utterly disarmed Carrion by reacting with nothing but pure and naked curiosity upon finding out about his corruption and transformations. No fear, disgust, not even pity. And at the end of the first session, she asked if he was afraid of his transformations, and he said no, he's more afraid of other people's reactions to his transformations. And she said "I think you're lying. Why else would you call yourself a monster?" and Carrion hesitated and then said "Because no one has ever called me anything different." She didn't respond right away so he panicked and thought he had said to much so he was like "go to sleep" and then Valeska said "Carrion?" and he was like "What do you want, Valeska?" and she said "Nothing. Just saying your name. See? I called you something other than a monster."

WHEN I TELL YOU I SOBBED... The irony is, ofc, the backstory behind his name, but she didn't know it in or out of character, and he wouldn't go by the name if he hadn't found some measure of power in it. But holy SHIT, this whole man's world has been unbalanced. And when he finds out the truth about Theodore... it's going to fall apart completely. And I can't fucking wait.