#and I think you fundamentally misunderstand it

[valkyrien]

'Super old fics... like 2+ years'

But yes, absolutely, any comments on anything from any era are still comments and the desire to know what someone thought of one's work does not diminish simply because the work has existed for longer than a year or so. The idea that it would or should is a little absurd in the broader context of how fandom spaces work and evolve organically.

For one thing, just because a work has existed for longer than a year or so does not mean that this reader commenting now had any idea it existed prior to their finding and reading it now, and for another, had I as a writer wanted older works to vanish or become unknowable or un-commentable-upon, I would have removed them, stated outright within them that I didn't want comments, or locked access to them etc..

The very fact that my older works remain available to peruse and comment upon should tell readers that comments are still welcome, and I have not yet met a writer or artist who does not agree with this.

If we hadn't wanted our work to be approachable, we would have made it unapproachable. If we hadn't wanted to know what people who are viewing it for the first time now because they've only just found it feel about it, or if we wanted to limit the ability of repeat viewers of the work to eventually let us know their thoughts, we would have removed the option to comment or simply removed the work itself so that it could no longer be viewed much less commented upon. If we wanted to disavow or delete our older works, it would be gone. You only have to look at how many deleted bookmarks or orphaned works are on AO3 to know that.

This idea that commenting on 'older' work - often operating within a very, even ludicrously, slim margin for what constitutes 'older' at all - is somehow awkward or unwanted by the creator or seems 'weird' in some way is a fairly new conceit driven by the rise in younger consumers of fanart and fan spaces who very much do view their interactions with those works and spaces as a kind of consumerist behaviour on par with modern algorithm-driven social media interactions, and it's an immature approach to those interactions which reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what fanworks and fan spaces are for and what they do and how the framework surrounding them functions.

Liking someone's work that isn't from this year is not the same as 'deep-liking' a picture on someone's Instagram or whatever that reveals that you've been scrolling back really far in their timeline or archive in a way that can be socially construed as 'awkward'. There is no workable comparison and yet this idea that it's more or less the same has very much permeated particularly younger fans' view of fandom interactions and led to a very offputting rise in, again, particularly younger people anxiously wondering and asking whether it's somehow wrong or unwanted or 'cringey' for them to interact with 'older' work, and the question itself is nonsensical within the wider structure of fandom.

If you pick up a book written seventy years ago, or look at a painting painted three hundred years ago, or watch a film made thirty years ago, and you enjoy it, and you tell someone about it, that's not weird.

If the creators are still alive and they see that you've reviewed or shared or praised their work in some public way they're not going to think 'Wow, what a cringefest, that thing came out/got made/was published so long ago, what a freak for having found it and enjoyed it now and talking about it, ew'. They're going to be pleased someone is still enjoying and discovering their early work and is making them aware of that enjoyment.

It's no different with fanworks just because they're often more directly accessible and the creators often are, too.

In fact, fandom creators are likelier to have more control over the accessibility of their works than other types of creators who license or publish their work, meaning fandom creators can at any time simply remove the work or limit access to it or reduce or restrict direct feedback opportunity on the work if they don't want to see or hear direct-to-creator comments directly aimed at their creations.

So if that fanwork is still up, and the comment option hasn't been restricted?

Chances are that creator is still absolutely open to receiving comments and would love to hear how you loved their work, whether it was made available seven minutes or seven decades ago. Sometimes you only vibe with a creator's early work, sometimes you only like that one Yu-Gi-Oh! phase they had back in '04, and sometimes you can't get enough of their massive Single-Pairing Covid-Era Hurt-Comfort series that began last year featuring two obscure characters from a sci-fi novel published before you were born. It's all okay. If you liked it, and you have the option, tell the creator you liked it. They're just going to love that you liked it. If they didn't want to know, you wouldn't have the option of telling them.

people who write fics. how do you feel about comments on super old ones you wrote like 2+ years ago

[utilitycaster]

I’m curious why you think the last 10 minutes were especially bad. Maybe I’m misunderstanding but I thought Vax wasn’t released from his duty, he can just do it on Exandria, now, so he doesn’t have to serve his god by abandoning his family.

I find the framing of "Vax abandoned his family" to be fundamentally a gross misunderstanding of the narrative at best and utterly moronic at worst and always have since first finishing Campaign 1 in mid-2018.

If I had to sum up maybe the biggest problem in a LOT of Tumblr discourse, fandom and political, it is not understanding this: people make choices. Sometimes those choices have consequences that affect others; sometimes those choices affect others in a negative way. Sometimes that is the intent of that choice; sometimes it is simply a side-effect. Your feelings about being affected are always valid, and you can make your own choices based in those feelings, but your assumptions re: intent may not be. I find that Campaign 3, and its fans, and by extension the above conception of Vax, invariably extended nothing but bad faith at anything that made their blorbos feel a little bad for even a second and took it as personal attack rather than side effect, and I do not respect the opinions nor analysis of a single one of the people who did that.

[bright-side20]

And Urd guides all-she's the weaver of fate, of destiny." Bryce added after a moment, "I think she's the reason I'm here." "Urd," Nesta murmured. "The Fae say the Cauldron holds our fates. Maybe it became this Urd."

I think this is actually very important for the development of acotar and it’s not talked about enough because it shows the fundamental misunderstanding of fate among the Fae of Prythian. Urd isn’t the Cauldron ,Urd is the Mother.

The idea that the Cauldron is the source of fate for the Fae is a huge misconception. The truth is, the Cauldron is just a tool,and it’s a corrupted one . The Daglan twisted its purpose, and instead of being a natural, life giving force, it became a means to control and manipulate and destroy. People believe they’re following “destiny,” when really, it’s a rigged system that benefits the Daglan’s legacy of power. The Cauldron mimics the Mother’s power but with limitations, that’s why some mating bonds feel wrong. It’s not natural destiny, it’s the Cauldron’s corrupted eddies, forcing connections that were never meant to exist to control people under the guise of “fate.”

The Mother represents true destiny, fluid, chaotic, and rooted in choice. Fate isn’t supposed to be a locked chain around your neck, it’s a thread you can cut, tie, or weave however you want. That’s the heart of what I think SJM will explore in Elain’s arc: the radical idea that fate isn’t something you’re bound to it’s something you create.

Elain can either obey Fae beliefs, accept that Lucien was chosen as her mate for a reason, give him a chance, and live unhappily, or she can follow her heart, reject the bond, and choose to be with Azriel because she loves him. And by making that choice, she may discover that he was always her true mate ,that this is the Mother’s fate, because they found each other through their own path, by choosing to fight for their love of their own free will.

Elain already proved this. During the war, Nesta and Cassian’s destiny was to die. The Cauldron refused to bargain with Feyre, waiting for Nesta to die so it could restore its power. But Elain? She chose to change that fate. She made the decision to fight, to save them, and in doing so, she changed the course of the entire war.

That is the Cauldron’s fate vs the Mother’s fate.

[oddrocks]

It’s baffles me that there are people out there who are genuinely mad that Batman has a no killing rule. Like imagine being mad at someone for not wanting to murder people. Imagine being mad at a hero for believing in the inherent worth of life and striving for fair justice.

[an-ruraiocht]

anyone else have people continuously make wildly incorrect assumptions about you because of your interests? for me as a queer medievalist, irish speaker, and folk musician, it's a) that people expect me to be interested in ttrpgs and i really really am not, and b) that they often think i'll be interested in more mystical/magical/superstitious things and i'm also really not that, i'm a deeply unmystical cynic who is at best vaguely agnostic towards a "cosmic force" kind of godconcept and doesn't vibe with personified god(s) of any variety

i do my best to be polite about both misinterpretations but boy sometimes people project their expectations onto you hard and by the time you've realised that they've fundamentally misunderstood your personality it can be pretty awkward to be like "i'm sorry but you have mistaken me for an entirely different genre of person"

[muirmarie]

Me: I joke about writing the same McCoy centric story over and over again in different ways

Me: and like. I love doing it and imma keep doing it because it makes me happy.

Me: but also. I do sometimes wonder if it's like. A little Much.

Me: like maybe I should branch out or something

Me: [reads another fundamental and extremely insulting misread of McCoy's character by someone who is clearly making a Choice to cast McCoy as the villain, because they have to get him out of the way of spirk, because they're too???? idk immature??? to realize that even when you're in a relationship with one person, other ppl can and SHOULD still be important to you]

Me: lmao I hope I AM too much actually!!!! I hope it is 100% obnoxious how much I love that doctor!!!!! Time to write more versions of the same story of McCoy being forced to realize that he is loved and cared for!!!!!!

Me: I KNOW MY NICHE AND IMMA DIE IN THAT NICHE, THANKS

[formereldestdaughter]

ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

[funnyscienceman]

so far it feels like all of the praise, or at least hype, for arcane is about playing around with the facts of the champions and not the actual meaning to their stories

im pretty sure this applies to other champs too but like theone foremost in my mind rn is everything to do with Orianna. people are going like oh, viktor will make her a machine! or singed won't be able to bring her back. Orianna's just dead or asleep in stasis and this is not at all the clockwork girl who tried to befriend an amusement park automaton because she was so lonely

it feels like this with warwick, with viktor, jayce even ekko and kinda jinx — season 2 has been nothing but. playground toys. make-believe in the sandbox. action figures are being mashed together but nothing of what made these characters Themselves is actually. Here.

idk it's 2 in the morning. this endless stream of praise is just bewildering. how haven't anyone else's brains been turned to mush by the rapidfire bullshit going on in each episode? shit just happens and there's no emotional weight to any of it. there's no time. off to mark the next thing on the checklist

ugh

[bitchywillgraham]

Just watched the recent Daniel Hart interview and I can't lie, I'm rather disheartened. Saying that "Come to Me Again" was an insight into Lestat is confusing because Dreamstat is Louis, he's an insight into Louis not Lestat. Lestat wasn't even there.

But, I'm most disheartened hearing Daniel say that Rolin was grilling him over the story behind "Long Face" and the reasoning behind each lyric only because Sam would ask what the story/reasoning behind it is. Shouldn't the showrunner want to know these things for himself since he's the showrunner?? He only asked Daniel because Sam, an actor, would want to understand it?? Shouldn't the showrunner want to understand it too???

I'm genuinely confused because Rolin has said that he signed up to adapt the books for AMC, because he wanted to adapt TVL. The reason Rolin signed up for all this was to adapt TVL, so why is it that the only person seemingly looking out for this character is Sam? An actor who is not the showrunner and has barely any power (if any) in the writer's room.

Idk. I'm disappointed and disheartened and apprehensive, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised after everything the writers have done and things that have been said.

I'm still incredibly excited for S3, but yes, I am very nervous. At least I feel comforted in knowing that Sam will be amazing and he will do everything he can to do right by this character regardless of what the writers try to do.

[centaurianthropology]

Why Spenser Starke is a Fantastic Horror GM (and the Core Fantasy in Candela Obscura)

So, I have seen some rancid takes about Spenser Starke online. Less so on this webbed site, largely because people around here are not in a pissing contest to prove who’s the most cynical, superior, and dickish. But there have still been some mind-blowing ones, from “he says UM too much” (guess who else does that? Brennan, but I don’t see these people criticizing him), or “he describes scenes like shots in a movie and that’s BAD WRONG” (while you might not stylistically enjoy it, I for one adore seeing a new interpretation of how to narrate while GMing, and think he’s doing great).

But the two that rub me the wrong way most are that he “controls the narrative too tightly” and doesn’t allow the characters to meander too long before throwing them back into the narrative, and that he’s “too harsh” in that even mixed successes tend to net characters damage of some sort. I saw accusations of “GM vs Player” mentality, but everyone was clearly enjoying themselves and the experience.

And that, I think, highlights the fundamental disconnect between these complainers and what’s actually happening on the screen: they don’t understand the core experience.

They have likely never played horror TTRPGs. They may have never played TTRPGs period, and instead are armchair DMs based purely on how Matt and Brennan DM, not really understanding that there are a thousand other ways to DM. But if they have played TTRPGs, I would guess that they’ve exclusively played D&D or its ilk. And I say that because there’s a very clear belief here that empowerment and ‘winning the game’, as well as wandering about freely to create your own narrative at your own pace are all fundamental parts of the TTRPG experience as a whole. But they aren’t. They’re fundamental to D&D, yes, but this is not what players come to a game like Candela Obscura for.

Each TTRPG has a central fantasy playing out. In D&D it’s heroic empowerment. D&D is mechanically built around getting more and more power and eventually defeating the big bad. A good GM in D&D, like Matt Mercer, focuses on giving out challenges, but always helping their players strive to overcome and grow and become better. This self-actualization is at the heart of the experience.

Horror games are not about that at all. The closest to that fantasy is something like ‘Vampire the Masqerade’ or other World of Darkness games, which do feature power growth, but the core fantasy is actually about learning that you are a monster. And embracing power will lead to even greater monstrousness. The horror in games like this is both political and personal, and the system is mechanically built to accommodate that horror.

And if you watch LA by Night or NY by Night, you’ll actually see that Jason Carl employs a fairly similar narrative tightness to his storytelling as that of Spenser Starke. Because a huge part of horror is about establishing and maintaining a mood. To do that, a DM has to keep a tighter rein on pacing, cutting from scene to scene and moment to moment in a way that is more directed than in D&D, because that helps establish and maintain the vibe being created.

Candela Obscura plays, thematically, a lot like one of my favorite games to run: ‘Call of Cthulhu’. CoC is a game all about disempowerment. The power differential between the players and the monsters is vast. Combat is vicious, short, and deadly, and direct combat almost always ends badly for an investigator. There is an entire chapter devoted to running away for a reason.

Both CoC and Candela are built on danger, vulnerability, and a constant sense of tension. And Spenser is fantastic at all of these. He keeps his narrative laser focused, moving between moments rapid-fire to keep up that tension, and to introduce new dangers. He is a ‘vicious’ DM only in so much as even mixed successes hurt. But this also keeps the tension up by keeping the characters and players on the edges of their seats. They are almost never safe. They are almost never well. They are constantly juggling dwindling resources. They are underpowered, vulnerable, and afraid.

And that’s the core fantasy here: exploring fear in a safe way. Being stressed out in a way you can leave behind as soon as the scene is done. Constantly living on the edge, fighting the odds, and knowing that you likely won’t succeed or will only do so at great cost. And he is masterfully keeping that intensity running through each session.

He gives characters time to talk about themselves, time for scenes to play out, until he feels the tension begin to flag, and then he pushes on. He never lets the air go entirely out of the narrative sails. He has a great sense of when a character needs a moment (his use of the red PTSD lighting exemplifies how closely he’s paying attention to his players and adjusting the setting to fit their moods). He sometimes pushes on, gets pushback from a player who wants another beat, and is always happy to give that to them. He keeps the pace up, but is always very careful to make sure his players have what they need to still enjoy this particular experience.

All this is to say that Spenser is absolutely killing it at being an exemplary horror GM. His sense of pacing and tension, his ability to direct action while still always embracing player autonomy, and using the mechanics of the system to never allow them to feel entirely safe are all great tools in a horror GM’s toolkit.

Horror games are not for everyone. Certainly there are plenty of people who only ever want the hero fantasy of D&D, but I think it’s important to recognize what the goal of a game is, and what constitutes success within those parameters, rather than parameters that only exist in an audience member’s mind, because they don’t really get how horror games work.

[swiftfootedachilles]

im just gonna be honest gang obviously its gonna be easy for you to say youre in love with a character and theyre an angel when anytime they do something you don't like you brush it off as out of character

[noxexistant]

i swear once i’m finished with the fashion history essay i’m going to write an equally long analysis solely about jatherine and javid because so many of you are so loud and so wrong about both. and the core of this is that you are wrong about jack

[slusheeduck]

"I think I will go back to the Summerset plotline because I want to see Sotha Sil again" "...I am remembering why it has taken me this long to do the Summerset plotline."

[lilacerull0]

i haven't even seen the episode yet, but learning about the fact that they didn't include such an essential aspect of the story is making me feel so irrationally sad

[priafey]

things the US needs to address:

the collective psychosis that leads people to make posts like these

[isablooo]

every time i blink theyre doing another terrible adaptation of a gothic novel will i ever be free