#although i did find one & save it & minimal genres of photo i always use in edits because they're my taste & aesthetic but anyway.

[crossbackpoke-check]

Substance, Shadow, and Spirit [remixed, abridged] by Tao Yuanming

[bookcoversalt]

Have you noticed the latest edition of Charlie Bowater can only draw one (1) face? She did The Princess Will Save You and Cast In Firelight both YA Fantasy set to be released this year. And they are how you say... the same fucking cover

Ah yes so you saw the same tweet I did

I know I literally just posted that we cannot outlaw book covers from looking like each other, but ! Oof!

The only thing that softens the blow here is that Charlie has improved at representing nonwhite features such that characters look like POC rather than tan white people, although,, that bar was low. Anybody remember the ACOTAR coloring book.

(Would you have guessed that 2/3 of these people are nonwhite? Or even that they’re supposed to be three different men? I guess all the men in Prythian have the same haircut?)

But that minor victory is mostly lost in the quagmires of the fact that Charlie’s style is to give everyone instagram face:

I wouldn’t even call this “Sameface” necessarily: that implies limitation, that an artist is only capable of drawing a single facial structure competently. Bowater is incredibly technically talented, she just chooses to give everyone catlike fae eyes and the cheekbones of a starving nymph. (My previous post on this here.)

But I don’t really blame her for that, or for these hilariously identical, nearly devoid of personality covers. Artists are allowed to do whatever they want. Artists who make art for covers are being art directed by designers and marketing teams who bear responsibility for how the finished pieces turn out.

No, this is our fault, as a community and an industry and..... society, kind of, for valuing character portraits that are “pretty” (“pretty” being an extremely loaded, culturally subjective concept) over art that actually Says Something About The Story. Bowater’s style happens to dovetail perfectly with what we currently collectively find pretty, and so we’ve put her art on a pedestal at the cost of everything else art can or should do for our stories.

And this is understandable: in contemporary western culture, pretty is a value unto itself. Seeing our characters portrayed as pretty denotes them as special, as smart, as powerful. It’s almost impossible to de-program ourselves from that reaction. There are approximately five kajillion studies on how beautiful people are at personal and professional advantages; how they’re perceived to be happier, healthier, more successful, and how those perceptions can translate into realities. (Nevermind how thinness and whiteness enter that equation, see above note about “pretty”.) I would love to see more “average” or weird- looking characters abound (and be accurately visually represented) in the YA/ Genre lit sphere, but for now... everyone is pretty.

Which sometimes means everyone is pretty boring.

But that’s just the specific, "What’s the deal with Bowater’s success in book circles and her style and all the sameiness” part of this equation. What if we backed up and asked: why character art at all? Beyond a question of “pretty”-ness (and general obvious Artistic Quality), why do we gravitate towards it, what's the purpose of it, how does it fall flat in a general sense, and how can it be utilized more effectively?

This is something I think about all the time. I follow writers on social media (because..... I am a writer on social media, regrettably), and we have an enormous collective boner for character art. “Getting fanart [of the characters]” is one of the achievement pinnacles constantly cited when people get or want to get published. Commissioning character art is something we reward ourselves with, or save up for (WHICH IS GOOD AND CORRECT. FREE ART IS GREAT BUT DO NOT SOLICIT IT. PAY YOUR ARTISTS). And like???? Same????? We love our stories because we’re invested in our characters. Most humans, even prose writers, are visual creatures to some extent, and no matter how happy we are with our text-based art, it’s exciting to see our creations exist in that form. So we turn that art into promo material and we advocate for it on our covers-- because it’s so meaningful to us! It goes with the story perfectly!! Look at my dumb beautiful children!!!!!

But on an emotional level, it’s hard to grasp that it only means something to us. Particularly when you take into account the aforementioned vast landscape of beautiful visual blandness of many characters (in the YA/ genre lit sphere, that’s pretty much all I’m ever talking about), character art can be like baby photos. If you know the baby, if that baby is your new niece or your friend’s kid, if you’ve held them and their parent texts you updates when they do cute shit, you’re probably excited to see that baby photo. But unless it’s exceptionally cute, a random stranger’s baby photo isn’t likely to invoke an emotional reaction other than “this is why I don’t get on facebook.”

Seeing art of characters they don’t know might intrigue a reader, but especially if the characters or art are unremarkable-looking, it’s doing a hell of a lot more for the people who already have an emotional attachment to that character than anybody else. And that’s fine. Art for a small, invested audience is incredibly rewarding. But like the parent who cannot see why you don’t think their baby is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY IN THE WORLD???? I think we have trouble divesting our emotional reaction to character art from its actual marketing value, which.... is often pretty minimal. This is my hill to die on #143:

Character portraits, even beautiful ones, are meaningless as a marketing tool without additional context or imagery. 

I love character art! I’m not saying it should not exist or that it’s worthless! Even art that appeals to only the one single person who made it has value and the right to exist. And part of this conversation is how important for POC to see themselves on covers, whether illustrations or stock imagery, particularly in YA/kidlit. I’m not saying character portrait covers are “bad”. 

I am saying that I have seen dozens and dozens of sets of character art for characters who look interchangeable, and it has never driven me to preorder a book. (Also one character portrait for a high-profile 2019 debut that was clearly just a painting of Amanda Seyfriend. You know the one. There’s nothing wrong with faceclaims but lmfao, girl,,,,)

I’m sure that’s not true for everyone! I am incredibly picky about art. It’s my job. There’s nothing wrong with your card deck of cell-shaded boys of ambiguous age and ethnicity who all have the same button nose and smirk if it Sparks Joy for you.

But if your goal is not only to delight yourself, but to sell books, it’s in your best interest to remember that art, like writing, is a form of communication. The publishing industry runs on pitches: querys, blurbs, proposals, self-promo tweets. What if we applied that logic to our visuals? How can we utilize our character design and art to communicate as much about our stories as possible, in the most enticing way?

Social media has already driven the embrace of this concept in a very general sense. Authors are now supposed to have ~ aesthetics. “Picspams” or graphics, modular collages that function as mini moodboards, are commonplace. But the labor intensity and relative scarcity of character art visible in bookish circles, even on covers, means that application of marketing sensibility to it is less intuitive than throwing together a pinterest board.

Since we were talking about it earlier, WICKED SAINTS, as a case study of a recent “successful” fantasy YA debut, arguably owed a lot of its early social media momentum to fanart.

(Early fanart by @warickaart)

The most frequently drawn character, Malachiasz, has long hair, claws, and distinctive face tattoos. WS has a strong aesthetic in general, but those features clearly marked his fanart as him in a way even someone unfamiliar with the book could clearly track across different styles. Different interpretations of his tattoos from different artists even became a point of interest.

(Art by Jaria Rambaran, also super early days of WS Being A Thing)

Aside from distinctiveness, it's a clear visual representation of his history as a cult member, his monstrous powers, and the story’s dark, medieval tone. The above image is also a great example of character interaction, something missing from straightforward portraits, that communicates a dynamic. Character dynamics draw people into stories: enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, childhood rivals, platonic life partners, love triangles, devoted siblings, exes who still carry the flame-- there’s a reason we codify these into tropes, and integrate that language and shared knowledge into our marketing. For another example in that vein, I really love this art by @MabyMin, commissioned by Gina Chen:

The wrist grip! The fancy outfits! These are two nobles who hate each other and want to bone and I am sold. 

In terms of true portraits, the best recent example I can think of is the set @NicoleDeal did for Roshani Chokshi’s GILDED WOLVES (I believe as a preorder incentive of some kind?): 

They showcase settings, props, and poses that all communicate the characters’ interests, skills, and personality, as well as the glamorous, elaborate aesthetic of the overall story. Even elements in the gold borders change, alluding to other plot points and symbology.

For painterly accuracy in character portraits on covers, I love SPIN THE DAWN. The heroine looks like a beautiful badass, yes, but the thoughtful, detailed rendering of every element, soft textures, and dynamic, fluid composition form a really cohesive, stunning illustration that presents an intriguing collection of story elements.

The devil isn’t always in the details, though: stark, moody, highly stylized or graphic art with an emphasis on textural contrast and bold color and shape rather than representational accuracy can communicate a lot (emotionally and tonally) while pretty much foregoing realism.

The new Lunar Chronicles covers are actually the best examples I found of this (Trying to stay within the realm of existing bookish art rather than branch into All Art Of Human Figures Forever):

Taking cues from styles more typical of the comics and video game industries.  (Games and comics, as visual mediums, are sources of incredible character art and I highly recommend following artists in those industries if you want to See More Cool Art On Your Timeline.)

TL;DR: Character art and design, as a marketing tool (even an incidental one) should be as unique to your story and your characters as possible, and tell us about the story in ways that make us want to read it. I tried to give examples because there are so many ways to do this, and so many different kinds of art, and I could give many more! But I’m bored now. So to circle all the way back:

These are not just bad because they look like each other, although that is embarrassing and illuminating. These are bad covers (although,,,,, PRINCESS is the far worse offender, at least FIRELIGHT suggests a thoughtful cultural analogue) because a desire for Pretty Character Art overrode the basic cover function to tell us about the story. We get no sense of who these people are, what their relationships are, what these books are about beyond the most general genre, or why we might care. The expressions are vague, the characters generic-looking, the compositions uninteresting and the colors failing to be indicative of anything in particular. 

They’re somebody else’s baby pictures.

(And yes, that’s the CRUEL PRINCE font on PRINCESS. I better not have to do a roundup post but it’s on thin fucking ice.)

[paradisobound]

Starstruck

Summary: Phil attends all of Dan Howell’s concerts. In fact, he makes it a rule to even record every one he goes to. You could say he was in love with Dan Howell and in fact, that wouldn’t be a lie because he’s actually Dan’s fiancé. Too bad Dan’s fans see him as the creepy guy at Dan’s concerts. 

Warnings: A brief mention of sex but not explicit. 

Word Count: 3.6k 

Genre: Famous singer!Dan and present!phil 

A/N: I thought of this fic after finding out Sophie Turner attends a lot of the Jonas Brother’s Concerts because of Joe and I thought it would be cute to write a fic with a slightly different side! Happy reading :) 

**Read on Ao3**

“Dan Howell we love you!” 

“Dan! Dan! Dan!” 

Phil groaned as looked through the screen of his phone at the video recording of his fiancé up on stage. That was one thing Dan did make Phil promise to do if Phil was going to be attending every concert on his tour: record each show. 

So, Phil, being the best fiancé he could be, made a bunch of storage onto an old iPhone he found laying around their flat and proceeded to record and attend each show on Dan’s United States Tour. Tonight, they were in some place called Buffalo and Phil couldn’t really make out what was even going on here besides the fact that Canada and Niagara Falls was literally on the other side of the city. 

It was night 13 and although Phil knew Dan would never admit it, Dan was tired. Phil could tell on the screen as his body lagged a bit more than it did in rehearsals and his singing was a bit off key. Not like any of the screaming girls and boys could tell the difference but Phil had been to enough rehearsals and shows to tell with Dan was struggling a bit with his energy. 

But, it was the last song before the encore. Phil’s phone battery was struggling to hold on and his arm was getting a bit tired holding it as steady as he could for Dan’s big ‘project’ that he wants the footage for. 

“Remember that the footage has to be usable, Phil. That means I don’t want your shaky arm trying to focus on me.” 

Phil laughed in his head as he replayed Dan’s words to him the night Phil told him he was attending each show and Dan told him about his master plans—which were also a secret…to Phil anyway. Phil hadn’t pushed the matter when Dan had made it clear he didn’t want to tell anyone his plan so Phil had just went along with it. Although he does in a way wish he could know why he’s getting an arm ache every night. 

The music to Dan’s final song cuts out and everyone starts cheering. Dan’s smiling, Phil’s smiling back, knowing Dan can’t see him but he can feel it, and everything has gone perfectly once again for another night. 

Dan walks off the stage and the band continues to play and Phil sees a few people begin to trickle out from the corner of his eye but he just shrugs it off as people wanting to leave early or wanting to beat the crowd. He tries not to feel a little bit hurt when he sees some people leave the show early even though an irrational part of his brain wants people to stay and see what his fiancé is doing on the stage. 

Its radio silent in the stadium. Phil is still shocked that Dan managed to sell out a nearly 40,000 person stadium but he has. Just as people look defeated and ready to leave, Dan comes back out in an entirely new outfit and the whistles and cheers begin again. 

Dan’s final two songs are Phil’s favorite. But that’s honestly because they’re about him. If people didn’t know the meaning of Dan’s songs, they would think they were about a childhood love or even a teenage love that blossomed into more. They wouldn’t know that they, quite literally, told the world about his and Phil’s long-term relationship. 

As Dan belted out the lyrics about blue eyes and raven hair, Phil felt the hair on his arm prickle up a bit and goosebumps form. He always gets chills. He remembers when Dan first wrote the pieces and read the lyrics to Phil. Phil had cried so hard and just held Dan close as Dan just giggled and kissed his cheek. 

“Why are you crying?” 

“Because they’re beautiful, Dan.” 

“Yeah, well, you’re just as beautiful too.” 

It was cheesy. Of course it was. But in the words of another Dan lyric, “it was meant to be cheesy”. 

Just as Phil’s phone gives the final battery warning, Dan’s set finally ends and a shower of sparks sprays up as confetti falls all over the floor. Phil reached out and caught a few pieces himself and pocketed them in his jean jacket. He was saving those for his own special surprise. 

Dan left the stage and the lights slowly turned on and Phil waited for the mass crowd of girls around him to dissipate before he snuck around to the stage entrance and visited Dan in the dressing room. 

Dan’s security guards knew him by face so he didn’t have to say anything when he walked behind the stage and ended up by a door that he opened to a long hallway. When he got the dressing room and saw Dan’s name on the door, he knocked once and pressed it open. 

“Hey!” 

Phil shut the door behind him as he walked in to Dan sprawled out on the couch, his arms flopped down by his side. “You did amazing tonight.”

Dan turned his head and smiled at him, his face red and a bit sweaty, his make up a bit melted. “You’d say that even if I fucked up every song.” 

Phil walked over and sat down on the other end of the couch. Dan immediately sat up and scooted towards Phil before flopping into his chest and relaxing. Phil wrapped his arm around Dan’s upper body and pulled him close, bending down and kissing the top of his head. 

Just as Dan’s body relaxed a bit further and Phil felt the rest of his muscles tense, the door opened and Dan’s manager walked in, her phone in head. “We’re going to have to leave within the hour to get on the road towards Pittsburgh.” 

Dan just nodded and smiled at her as he pulled away from Phil and stretched. He was still fully in his costume—well, it was an outfit but it was pretty costume-like too in Phil’s opinion but the sparkles and glitter sequins on the black leather covering Dan’s arms. 

“You should get dressed,” Phil says turning to Dan. “Tonight is going to be a tour bus night and I don’t feel like having you complain the entire time that your jeans are too constricting.”

Dan scoffed and reached out, slapping his arm. “That was once and you had no problem helping me get the jeans off so I don’t want to hear you complain, you twat.” 

Phil just giggled and leaned over, capturing Dan’s lips in a quick kiss. He still gets butterflies in his chest when he kisses Dan and he loves that. He loves that Dan still has the same affect on him as he did when they were teenagers, meeting for the first time in a bar in Manchester. Dan was singing for a cover band and Phil was just a lonely college student looking to have a few drinks. 

It was really like fate that they actually took each other to bed that same night but then both simultaneously decided that being together only once wasn’t going to cut it and nearly ten years and one proposal later, here they were. Phil supporting Dan on tour as Phil works from his laptop for the BBC. 

“Maybe if you’re good we can celebrate in the hotel room tomorrow night,” Dan whispers before pressing another kiss to Phil’s lips. Phil just smiles into it and kisses back one more time for good measure. 

“Hm…maybe.” 

Dan shoves Phil back with a laugh as he finally stands up and makes his way over to his suitcase in the corner that was filled with all of his stuff. Phil watched as he took off his outfit and hung it on a hanger for the crew to grab later and then put on a pair of sweatpants and Phil’s baggy York University sweatshirt. 

Phil gave that to Dan when they first started dating so when Dan went back home at night, he would still have Phil with him. Now, Phil would love to have that hoodie back but Dan quite literally growls when Phil even makes that suggestion so he lets Dan have it now. 

They grab the rest of Dan’s stuff and then make their way out the back to their tour bus and get inside with minimal people around…thankfully. They take a seat on one of the couches on the side and Dan curls up onto Phil just as Phil wraps his arms around him once more. 

They’ll go to the bedroom soon where they’ll sleep but for right now, they were just going to sit and relax for the ride. 

***

Something surprising happens when Phil wakes up the next morning, a bit disoriented as he realizes he’s on the moving bus. He checks his phone and goes on Twitter and sees that ‘Daniel Howell Live’ is still trending on Twitter. He curiously checks the hashtag because hey, if he can find some good video and good photos for PR, he’ll have Dan’s manager ask the people for permission to use them. So he scrolls a bit and he scrolls a bit more and suddenly there is a photo of him, stood at his seat, recording the show. 

Has anyone else noticed this guy is at every show??? What does a middle aged man go to all of Dan’s shows?? That’s creepy. 

After that tweet, there was a thread and apparently there was a photo of him taken at every show and he legit didn’t know about it. He, in fact, had zero idea anyone was taking his photo and he genuinely was a bit freaked out by it. 

He read a few more tweets. 

He’s been at every show I’ve gone to! I’ve noticed him! Maybe he’s a stalker of Dan…how gross. Dan’s not gay. 

Phil had to scoff at that, loud enough that Dan turned over in his sleep and settled his weight into Phil’s chest, knocking his phone slightly out of the way so his head could rest there. “What are you laughing at?” Dan asked, his sleepy voice so slurred Phil could hardly understand what he was talking about. 

“Just some tweet I read saying you weren’t gay.” 

Dan snorted and reached up, making grabby hands for Phil’s phone so Phil handed it over and Dan sat up a bit and looked at the tweets. “These are actually kind of laughable.” 

“I know.” 

“They think you’re my stalker.” Dan laughed. “Who even pays attention to whether or not someone is at a show every night?” 

Phil shrugged because he genuinely didn’t know either. 

Phil knew that fans speculated about Dan’s sexuality though. Really, it’s been a source of talk ever since Dan’s first big break a few years back when he opened up for Taylor Swift on her European Tour. But Phil also knows that Dan has made it completely clear that he wants to keep his sexuality and his relationship with Phil only for private. And Phil completely gets that. 

They’ve been out since they started dating to close friends and family. Phil’s been out to everyone he’s known since university. But Dan has always had a bit more trouble accepting his sexuality and for that, Phil understands Dan’s hesitation when he says he’s not ready to share that side of his life yet. 

But Phil loves Dan more than anything else. He loves his smile, his dimples, his laugh, and the way he insults him when they’re being silly. But he also loves the side of Dan no one sees. The side where sex and love and intimacy is involved. He even let a selfish part of himself think about that while they were in bed together the other night. A part of him that when he fucked into Dan, he thought about how no one else knew this side of Dan: this was the side that only Phil got to see. 

“Hm…” Dan says, breaking Phil’s thoughts. “It’s quite amusing to me that so many fans are so adamant to say I’m straight. Like, I think it’s actually quite obvious that I’m gay in the same way that I know it’s obvious I like dick but…” 

Phil squeaked and pushed a hand over Dan’s mouth to get him to stop that thought right there and Dan just opened his lips and licked a fat stripe over Phil’s palm that had Phil cringing and pulling his hand away. 

“You’re easy to break, ya know.” Dan says, laying his head on Phil’s chest so he can look up him. His big brown doe eyes were like pools that Phil could get lost in. 

“It’s because I love you too much.” 

Dan kisses Phil’s chest. “Mm…love you too.” 

They get off from the bus not long after to check into their hotel and put their suitcases in their room. Afterwards, it was straight to the venue to prepare and do the soundcheck and Phil was going to walk around and explore Pittsburgh a bit more, seeing as he’s never been before. 

That night, he ends up in the same floor pit that he was in the night before, like he always is, with his phone fully charged and ready to go. He sends Dan a quick ‘good luck, i love you so much’ message before he puts his phone away and takes out the one to record. 

The show goes smoothly and everyone is happy and the night ends the same way with Phil retreating back and visiting Dan just as Dan is getting out of his costume. He leaves with Dan to go to the hotel and when they get back into the room, he goes on Twitter again and happens to see the same thread but with new photos of him. 

The man was at Pittsburgh too!! Does @danielhowell know he has a stalker?? Should we contact the police? 

Phil rolled his eyes and showed Dan the tweets to which Dan replied with an eye roll and a “for fucks sake!” before he flopped onto the bed and rolled towards Phil to snuggle. 

“Gonna have to get security after me apparently,” Phil playfully jokes. 

Dan swings his leg over Phil’s hip and sits flush on his hips as he leans down and kisses Phil soundly on the mouth. “Maybe so.” He whispers with a smirk, placing his hand on Phil’s jaw. “Maybe I’ll have to tell security that a hot guy has been chasing after me since my uni days and he follows me to all of my concerts and he also happens to be my fiancé who is fucking great in bed and…yeah, I’d really like to continue the great in bed part right about now.” 

So after a quick round of sex that left them both breathless, Phil fell asleep with the thoughts in his mind about what they were supposed to do. Dan had a two day break before his show in Albany so he hopes by then maybe everyone will forget about him. 

But somehow, he fears they won’t. 

***

Dan flubs up on accident in Albany. 

Phil doesn’t realize what he’s done until the young girl sitting next to him on the floor is pointing out the silver band on Dan’s ring finger. 

It’s his engagement ring and as soon as Phil sees it, his heart stops a bit in his chest because he knows Dan is gonna have to answer for this. He’s going to have to answer for why he suddenly is wearing a ring on that finger when he never did before…well, in the public eye anyway. 

Phil proposed to Dan over three years prior but they both agreed on not planning any of their wedding until Dan’s done with his United States tour. Phil was completely fine with that but Dan wore his ring all of the time when it was just them or he was going out with friends. 

He normally keeps it safe on the bus or in the safe in the hotel room but he must have forgotten to take it off. 

And fuck other people are pointing now and he hopes to God Dan cannot notice what is happening. 

At the end of the show, Phil practically runs to Dan’s dressing room where Dan is crying softly on the couch, his face scrunched up as he struggles to hold in the tears of guilt and frustration that he can read so clearly on Dan’s face. He runs over to him and gathers him tight as Dan lets them go and apologizes to Phil for wearing it. 

“I forgot I had it on.” Dan said through strangled tears. 

“It’s okay.” 

“But it’s not!” Dan cried. “Oh my God I’ve fucked up so bad.” 

And while that turned out to not be entirely true, Phil did reassure him as much as possible that everything was going to be okay. 

***

The tabloids talk about it first. 

Dan Howell Spotted With Mystery Ring on Left Hand in Albany Show. 

That seemed to be the headline written everywhere like a slap across the face. 

All of the fangirls were crying. What women is he secretly married to? What is that ring? When did this all happen? How could this all happen? 

Phil felt like he had whiplash reading all of the comments. 

“We’re going to have to address this,” Phil says softly. 

“I know.” 

They’re sat in a hotel in Boston now, waiting for the show to begin in a few hours. They had snuck away for a private talk and everyone had let them go. They needed to discuss this, no matter how hard it could be. 

“I know you don’t want to out us…” 

“No,” Dan says, biting his lip. “I…I think I have to.” 

“You don’t have to,” Phil says. “You could always say you want to be private and…” 

“How long is that privacy really going to last, Phil?” Dan asked, his voice defeated. “Is it going to last for a year or only for an hour? People are already commenting about you and you’ve done nothing…maybe we should just come out.” 

“If that’s what you want.” 

Dan bites his lip and bit harder and then looks Phil in the eyes as he nods. “It’s what I want.” 

“Okay,” Phil says, leaning in for a kiss. “It’s what I want too.” 

Phil wanted whatever was best for Dan and if this was best, then he wanted to go along with it. 

They made their way back to the stadium and Phil opted for standing off the side of the stage instead of in the audience, just in case. He’d seen some of Dan’s earlier shows this way but never once has he seen him play such a sold out show from the sidelines. 

They concert begins as normal and Phil notices that Dan is wearing his ring again, not taking it off and he feels his heart flutter a bit. Dan does his normal songs and routines and then before they know it, the encore is starting. 

But right before it does, Dan asks if the audience can get quiet for a moment. 

“As many of you all know,” he begins into his microphone. “The next few songs I have written are about someone very special in my life. I’ve been hiding them from you for a very long time now and I really just…don’t want to anymore. They’re such a massive part of who I am today and who I will be in the future and I don’t want to continue hiding them anymore. And it’s not fair to you guys either. 

Suddenly Dan turns to where Phil is standing and Phil feels his heart give out a bit. Dan motions for Phil to walk out and Phil looks down at his black Vibes shirt and ripped jeans and feels like he’s not properly addressed for this but he starts walking out anyway and there are suddenly cheers and yells and Phil doesn’t know what’s happening. 

“Everyone, meet my fiancé Phil.” Dan says, taking Phil’s hand and standing close to him. “You all have been talking about him quite a bit online so here is my apparent stalker who is actually just my fiancé and partner for the last 1o years.” 

Dan leans over and kisses Phil on the cheek and Phil feels a bit flush at all of this. Like he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore but he also doesn’t entirely mind it. 

“Okay, now get off the stage you dork. You’re stealing my show.” 

Dan turns to Phil and wraps a hug around him and Phil hugs him back, holding him close as he kisses Dan’s neck once and lets him go, lingering their hands touching for a bit too long as he disembarks down the stage with Dan’s security guard and stands in the audience once again, looking up at Dan with all of the love in the world. 

Social media went crazy that night, but really Phil didn’t mind. He went to the rest of the shows as promised and recorded all of them too. At the end of the tour, he finally asked Dan what the footage was for and Dan finally told him. 

“It’s for our wedding.” He says, not adding anything more. 

Phil just holds him tight and kisses his cheek some more. 

Life is going to be a bit hectic for a while, but at least he won’t be seen as the stalker fan anymore, and now he’ll be treated as Dan’s fiancé: a title he is more than proud to have. 

[moonscribe]

Dungeon Blogging #2: Reputation of the Bard

For this one I asked my friends for a topic to cover and one of them had the wildly broad suggestion of the bard. Luckily there was a particular thing about this class that I’d been thinking about recently.

This post is going to be a little bit different from the last one. It won’t have build suggestions or character concepts, instead these are just my thoughts on the reputation of the bard and how that has changed.

While bards have always had a reputation, the idea of what a bard is has changed pretty dramatically in the past decade or two. When players think of bards in 2019 many of them conjure a mental image of a swashbuckling, silver-tongued agent of chaos who will seduce any NPC that the DM throws their way (for some reason this goes double for dragons). The strange thing is that not so long ago bards were the butt of the joke instead of the one telling it.

Consider this early page from the webcomic The Order of the Stick.

OotS is a pretty old webcomic and in its earlier arcs it carries a snapshot of how Dungeons and Dragons players viewed the game at the time. For a reference point, the first page of OotS is a gag about switching over from 3rd Edition to 3.5. In the comic Elan, the bard, is the comic relief character but unlike modern bards many of the early jokes focus on Elan being useless to the party at best and an active burden at worst. As the comic progresses, Elan’s comedy transitions into being largely focused on his genre savviness. He uses his bardic knowledge to manipulate narrative tropes to his advantage. There is a lot of fourth wall breaking in this comic, such as the bard ordering a dying NPC tell him their name. When they do they find themselves elevated named character status, providing themselves with some degree of plot armor and saving their life.

The bard on the right of the header is from a 2008 movie called “The Gamers: Dorkness Rising”, in it there is a scene in which the bard keeps dying and each time he dies his player produces one of his fifty backup characters, all of which are bards. These characters serve as canon fodder and enough of them pile up that the players take cover behind the massive pile of dead bards.

You can see a montage here.

Admittedly these both came out at a point in my life where I had yet to start playing Dungeons and Dragons (before I had many friends or the money to buy books, dice, etc.) but even then I would see jokes and memes everywhere online laughing at the bard’s expense.

While there were likely several factors that caused of this reputation, I suspect the power level of the class was a big one. As the designated “jack of all trades, master of none” the bard was weighed down by the baggage of being a 5th member class.

Although bards had a pretty expansive skill list, they didn’t get as many skill points as rogues, the fact that Intelligence was the bard’s 3rd or 4th most important stat meant that they often didn’t have much of a bonus (for those who haven’t played pre-skill proficiency, prior to 4th Edition you would have a number of skill points that you gained each level based on your class and Intelligence modifier). On top of that those skill points were stretched extra thin since their core mechanic demanded they allocate a very large amount of those points to the Perform skill. The result was a fairly lackluster option as the party’s skill monkey. As the primary caster they were also lacking. Bards didn’t have the full spellcasting progression of Clerics and Wizards, capping off with level 6 spells and very few spell slots at low levels.

So what changed?

While I wouldn’t go as far as to say 5th Edition was the only source of the bardic renaissance there are a few major differences that I think definitely helped the class. One of them was the promotion to being a full caster. The 5e bard can fully replace the cleric or druid as the primary support caster/healer. They can also replace the wizard as a utility/damage caster, while still maintaining a pretty good sense of identity as a class. This was huge since it meant that bards were now a good choice for a party of less than 5. Beyond that, many of the bard subclasses (College of Valor, College of Swords, College of Whispers) let them slip into the fighter and rogue slots as well. 5th Edition bards are kinda nuts, a jack of all trades, master of whatever they want to specialize in.

Compare the earlier depictions with JoCat’s video on the 5e bard.

Beyond the deliberate buffs that bards got in 5e, they also benefited from shifts in the way the ability scores were balanced. Dexterity and Charisma are the first and second best stats in the game but that’s not how it always was. Charisma in particular was often seen as the dumpstat. With the Finesse Weapon becoming a weapon property rather than a feat, building a Dex based melee character now takes minimal effort. That means your Dex factors into your melee attacks, melee damage, ranged attacks, ranged damage, AC, Initiative, and 3 skills including the always important Stealth. That’s on top of having one of the best, if not the best, saving throws in the game. Meanwhile Charisma is associated with 4 different skills that collectively make up about 80% of social encounters. Charisma is also the most common spellcasting ability with three full casters and one half caster running off of it. This makes it easier to multiclass to or from bard without splitting your focus in ability scores, further complimenting their “jack of all trades” branding.

Possibly the most profound change that redeemed the bard wasn’t even mechanical. As time has gone on what players value in Dungeons and Dragons has floated more towards role playing and social interactions. D&D evolved out of war games and in decades past that really showed. Dungeon crawls were once the focus of gameplay. In 4th Edition, D&D’s wargaming roots were in full swing with the battlemap being emphasized (your speed was measured in squares rather than feet) and the class features heavily focussing on combat. To say that 4e was controversial is to put it lightly and among its many criticisms was the belief that D&D had become too “video gamey” in an attempt to appeal to the MMO demographic. Reeling from player backlash, 5e made an attempt to be a more story driven game, something that was clearly a desire among players. The default rules of 5e even go so far as to assume theater of the mind-style campaigns. With the massive success of 5th Edition came the rise of a new genre of entertainment: actual play podcasts and D&D livestreams, the former of which was only possible due to the shift towards theater of the mind. If you’re reading this now I’m willing to bet that you’ve at least heard of The Adventure Zone or Critical Role. Shows like those did much to both bring Dungeons and Dragons to broader audiences and to demystify the game, which at the point most knew of while at the same time knowing almost nothing about. People realized for the first time that role playing games were a unique medium of narrative fiction! One that does storytelling in a wildly different way from books, film, or anything else. People cosplayed, drew fan art, and wrote fanfiction about this new breed of celebrity D&D characters. It was in this new environment that the bard thrived even without all of the mechanical buffs. People love this game for the stories that it can tell and those same people have grown to love the smooth talking storyteller that is the bard.

The response to my first Dungeon Blogging post was much more than I expected! Thank you.

If you have a question or idea for a future Dungeon Blogging post be sure to send me an ask! ^^

Art: Wayne Reynolds, (Photo of Scott C. Brown from the movie “The Gamers: Dorkness Rising”), Rich Burlew.