#but I’m having SO MUCH FUN with this game

[transgender-mothman]

Maybe your biggest concern should just be playing with people who vibe with your style and not worrying about how or why other people do it the way they do if it’s not effecting you in any way?

If someone is being a jerk about it, sure, go off! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with deep discussions about rules, or following them to the letter, or even having (good natured) arguments about a play choice. But just like playing house rules in Monopoly, or doing your own version of hopscotch, there’s nothing wrong with taking what you like and turning the volume down on the rest.

Unless you are playing in a professional or otherwise regulated setting like at your LGS, and everyone is in agreement, it’s fine to do your own thing. I am not here for people being jerks in any game spaces, so by all means, stop someone if they’re being a Problem™. I feel very strongly that you should play at a table that suits what you want out of the game. And that you should, as a DM, discuss this stuff with your players and see what everyone wants to get out of the campaign.

There is still a lot to gain from playing any ttrpg while still being lenient with rules (be it for rule of cool, or home brew, or just omitting things you don’t like). There are set skills, set things you can do, methods to resolve conflict, and additional impetus to advance the story beyond just roleplay. Not everyone is comfortable doing everything off the dome, and a game like d&d, used even with some leniency and wiggle room, offers some structure and building blocks that can make jumping into roleplaying a lot less intimidating. There is a book to read and reference. You can get an idea how the system works, how games flow, and build based off the knowledge you have and tweak as you and your table see fit. And that’s to say nothing of how having a rubric can help (not entirely prevent, but help!) avoid people who just want to continuously one up and have More Powers Than You At All Times. And you have the fun of randomized results due to stats and dice rolls, so things go in different directions than they would just writing or role playing without a ttrpg structure.

For clarification, I’ve been running 5e for the better part of a decade now (plus forays into other systems), and my campaigns are very story and character heavy… and I am lenient about rules, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Depending on the campaign, the players, and the length/frequency of play, sometimes myself and my players feel it’s best to sand down some edges and play a little softball for the sake of time, flow, and fun. And sometimes people come up with super creative and cool ways to use skills or spells or mechanics that are unconventional, and for the sake of everyone having a good time, it’s a fun to bend the rules a bit just to get the pop from the group and make the gang happy.

There’s no ignoring the rules en masse in my case, I’m still running D&D. Sometimes it’s just allowing things to ride for the drama/cool of it in a scene, or just deciding campaign x doesn’t require mechanic y. It’s all in fun, and so long as my players have a good time and we tell a good story, that’s what matters at my table. I do require people to read the PHB, but not everything applies to every campaign, so I provide abridged reading or clarify what I want people to absorb and what to leave.

Am I gonna be running any professional games? Nah. Am I the best DM? Nope. Do I feel my way to play is superior? No! But I don’t think it’s inferior either because the value is in how much everyone enjoys playing together. Just play with whoever suits your style and vibe and have fun. It’s a game, it’s not that serious.

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[afterglowkatie]

the bolter | m.p./i.e.

mapi león x ingrid engen x putellas!reader | 0.8k | ‘I know you’re supposed to keep a close eye on me, but this is a little extreme,’

ˏˋ°•*⁀ this is part of the pollito universe. pollito is nine in this fic!

❆♡────୨ holiday season blurb event ৎ────♡❆

‘María,’ Alexia exhaled slowly, ‘What do you mean you lost Pollito?’ If Alexia wasn’t just down the other end of the phone, Mapi would’ve already started running. She wasn’t even facing your Mami in person and she felt like she had to run away from Alexia’s wrath. 

You liked to run and hide away from Mapi, you thought it was funny when you’d watch from afar, seeing her all frantic. Even better when your mami got involved, you’d end up teasing Mapi for getting in trouble. Safe to say you were never going to change, you took too much joy in it all. 

‘Did I say lost?’ Mapi spoke out slowly, trying to think of a way to diffuse whatever this was turning into while she was frantically still trying to find you, ‘Well yes, I meant Pollito lost the..the game we were playing,’ A small curse flew was muttered under her breath and Alexia definitely wasn’t about to believe anything she was saying. 

‘Alright,’ Your Mami sounded too calm, ‘Put Pollito on the phone, por favor,’ Mapi’s eyes grew wide and she stumbled over saying a goodbye and how you were having too much fun to talk. Even at nine years old, you still liked talking to your mami whenever you could and would run to whoever was looking after you at the time if you heard your mami’s voice.

Mapi hung the phone up but not before hearing Alexia mutter a ‘I’m never leaving Pollito with you again,’ Which was always an empty threat, considering the next time your mami left you with Mapi wasn’t long after that. Mostly since you begged your mami to let you have a sleepover with Bagheera and you knew how to wear your mami down so she’d agree to almost anything.

‘You better not lose Pollito again,’ Alexia raised her eyebrow, there wasn’t a hint of a smile on her face when she was talking with Mapi before giving you over. Mapi and Ingrid had come to pick you up, planning to take you out for the day as well. You’d overheard your mami’s conversation with Mapi and knew Ingrid was the only reason she’d agreed so soon after the last incident. 

You saw the way your mami was looking at Mapi and very smugly copied her, you liked Mapi being in trouble with your mami. Your mami can be scary, so as long as it wasn’t at you, you loved seeing it, ‘Oh trust me, I’ll keep a very close eye on her,’ Your smug expression turned into a glare when you noticed the mischievous glint in Mapi’s eyes when she turned to look at you.

‘I wish I could,’ Your mami muttered mostly under her breath before shaking her head at the two of you and disappearing back into the house, still needing to look after your younger brother and your new baby sister. Officially letting Ingrid be the one to deal with the two of you for now.

Your glare towards Mapi left for about a millisecond before it came back once she tried, and unfortunately was successful, in wrangling you into one of those backpack leashes. Those ones for children, which you were but you were definitely too old for it considering how it was sitting on you. Your deadpan stare was almost identical to your mami, and almost chilling enough for Mapi to briefly forget that you were the child and that she got to make the decisions, not you. She almost let you out of it immediately.

‘I know you’re supposed to keep a close eye on me, but this is a little extreme,’ You wriggled around trying to get it off of you, all your attempts were pointless. You weren’t getting away any time soon.

‘Just keeping you safe, little Pollito,’ To add fuel to the fire, Mapi patted your head, talking down to you a little, making you seem smaller than you are.

‘María,’ Ingrid’s voice had a warning tone towards her girlfriend, not wanting to spend the entire day listening to the two of you bicker. She especially didn’t want to have to deal with Mapi bickering with a nine year old all day long. 

‘Or keeping you safe from Mami,’ Mapi didn’t have to look at you to hear the smirk through your voice. You may only be nine but you picked up on things most wouldn’t expect you to at this age. 

‘Dios mio,’ Mapi muttered, wanting to say more but the look from Ingrid stopped her. You tried to run off, hoping the end Mapi was holding would slip from her hand. But she wasn’t as distracted as you’d hoped when you were tugged back instantly.

Sighing dramatically, you let your body go limp and flopped to the ground, ‘Just take me to see my Bagheera,’ 

[javierduffy]

sketchbook sillies

[madridfangirl]

Cricket with the Bellinghams

(Jude & Jobe Bellingham blurb)

'Should we ask her to play as well?’

Jobe asked Jude while nodding in Ananya’s direction. Jude finished setting up the wickets, then turned around to look at his girlfriend who was currently pacing around the living room while on a serious work call. On a Sunday afternoon.

‘She might go all can’t you see I’m dying out here and what makes you think I have time to spare for playing?’

Jobe nodded in support of his brother.

‘Yeah she shooed me away 10 mins ago for breathing too loudly around her.’

‘Exactly. On the other hand, she might go all feminist if we don’t ask her and be like so you assumed I can’t / won’t play just coz I’m a girl?’

Jobe nodded again.

‘Yup, can see that too. What do we do then?’

‘You ask her. She’s sweeter to you.’

‘Oh bollocks. You scared of your girlfriend bro?’

‘Talking about me?’

Both brothers jumped to find her standing right behind them. How did they not hear her come in to the yard at all?

Jude was a little tongue-tied wondering how much she had heard so Jobe decided to take the reins.

‘Just wanted to ask if you’d like to play cricket with us. If your work is done I mean.’

‘Oh it’s not done. It’s never going to be done till I burn that place down. Might as well play a bit.’

Jude scanned her closely - it didn’t look like she had heard much at all. He smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

‘Wanna bat first?’

‘Sure. Gonna beat your sorry ass with it.’

Jude’s arm dropped from around her, as did his smile, while Jobe giggled behind the stumps. He could already tell this was going to go places.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me.’

‘You know Jobe and I used to play cricket in school right?’

‘And I’ve grown up watching it. What’s your point?’

While Jude was always fiercely competitive, he knew she was a demonic warrior when she wanted to be. This clearly seemed like that day. He still ranked himself far higher in skill, so he knew it would end the way he wanted it to.

‘Game on then.’

‘Yup.’

‘Not gonna go easy on you dove.’

‘Didn’t ask you to.’

Jobe looked between the two of them, wondering how a light fun-filled afternoon had completely turned on its head. What he didn’t know was that the couple had been arguing over small small things all weekend. The kind of fights where you won’t even know half way in what it really was about or where it started from. So what was happening right now didn’t just originate out of nowhere.

Jude counted the steps of his lineup and got in position. Though he had said no mercy, he still decided to bowl slow, just short of out and out underarm. Even with that he was sure he’d beat her. But at least it would look like a contest then.

He bowled the first delivery. She had all the time in the world to step out of her crease, catch the ball mid -air and hit it into the outfield.

It took Jude two seconds to process what he just saw, after which he chased the ball. By then she had taken two runs. Jobe hooted from behind the stumps, patting her on the back.

All mercy went out of the window then. Jude took a proper run and swung his arm fully for the next delivery. The pace of the ball and short length of this make-shift pitch made the ball go over her head for a bouncer.

She gaped and looked at him in horror.

‘That could have hit me.’

‘Please, that would have gone over Jobe as well.’

‘Tryna show off? Or intimidate me?’

‘Just taking the game seriously.’

He shrugged nonchalantly, which annoyed her even more.

‘Good to know there are a few things you still take seriously.’

‘Wait what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Just go back and bowl.’

‘Don’t mind if I do.’

Jobe wondered if he should leave them alone and let them sort out whatever the hell was going on here. But both would have given him dirty looks if he even mentioned that. So he stayed shut.

The next ball whipped past her shoulder. Jude just looked her up and down, before walking back for his run-up. The unabashed cockiness pissing her off. He had done that consistently last few days - just setting her off with this air about him.

Next ball came. Straight on her legs. She swung the bat with all her might but couldn’t connect it properly and the ball grazed her front leg.

‘OUT. That’s an LBW.’

‘Nope. That was a no ball.’

‘No it wasn’t. I was way behind my line.’

‘Rubbish. I could see from here it was a no ball.’

‘Jobe?’

Jobe looked between the piercing eyes of both.

‘Yeah I’m not touching that with a barge pole.’

‘Coward.’

They said together, then looked at each other to acknowledge their telepathic connection, corners of their lips threatening to twitch with a smile. But the game was still on and neither was ready to give in.

However, Jobe decided to call it quits and said his goodbye after making some lame excuse. He would rather vegetate in bed than be the go between for this sparring hot headed pair.

‘One final ball. If I get you out I win. If you score even 1 run you win. Else it’s a draw. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

Jude weighed his options. Anything above her torso would be risky, she wasn’t good with ducking or swaying in time. But blocking she was quite adept at, from what he had seen just now, so a clean bowled or LBW targeting the stumps would be the way to go.

He stood on his mark. Before starting his run-up, he gave her a final look, almost giving her the window to back out. But she was a woman on a mission today. To humble his sorry ass. No matter what it took.

He bowled the final delivery. It was on target. Right on her front leg. She tried to block well, just like he had predicted. But it was a straight LBW. Clear as day.

However, celebrating was the last thing on Jude’s mind because in her rapid attempt to block, the ball deflected off the edge and hit her on her index finger.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t make any sound. But the bat dropped from her hand immediately and she turned around, holding her finger tightly.

Jude ran to her and was in front of her in a few seconds.

‘Show me.’

It wasn’t a request. He didn’t leave any room for her to be a sore loser & act out. Instead, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her other hand away to take a good look at the finger.

Then, he moved it a little bit and on one particular angle she cried out in pain.

‘Sorry, had to check for a fracture. But it’s just a sprain. Wait here.’

Again, it wasn’t a request. Jude came back in record time with a first aid kit and a pack of ice. He applied a quick ointment to soothe the nerves, then covered her finger with an ice pack, keeping it there for 2 mins sharp.

‘Try moving it now.’

She did. And just like that the pain was gone.

She looked up at his concerned face with a half-smile.

‘All good.’

Jude stood there motionless for two seconds. She wondered if he had even heard her.

But then he grabbed her arms and pulled her in for a crushing hug, kissing her head and face all over.

‘I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry baby.’

‘It’s fine it was just a sprain and it’s not your fault.’

‘Ofcourse it’s my fault. I hurt you.’

‘Jude, it was an accident.’

‘You got hurt because of me.’

‘Jude, it’s fin…’

He grabbed her face, tilted it up and kissed her like his life depended on it. Her hands came up to his biceps for support.

‘Are you mad at me? And I’m not talking about just now.’

‘No. I mean, I don’t know.’

‘I don’t like us snapping at each other like this. It sucks.’

‘I know baby. It’s just…I don’t know….maybe it’s work…it’s just been super crazy and…..’

‘And sometimes I can be a lot to deal with yeah?’

He looked at her so earnestly that she couldn’t keep herself from giving him a genuine smile.

‘Sometimes. But I know I can be difficult too and it’s just……’

‘Shhhhh it’s ok, it’s fine.’

He pulled her close again, peppering kisses over the top of her head.

‘I know just the thing to let out some frustration.’

‘If you’re talking about sex you can stop talking. I’m still irritated.’

‘Actually that’s an even better idea. But what I had in mind was more like a punching bag. Have one in the gym.'

'That....is a surprisingly brilliant idea.'

He shrugged cockily, and she rolled her eyes at him.

'Wanna give it a go, then? Can show you some punches.'

'Yes pls. Maybe we can make it a thing. I sure might.'

'So long as you don't imagine my face while punching the bag it's cool.'

'We gotta do what we gotta do.'

With that, she turned around and walked back into the house. While Jude stood there a bit, staring after her. She was full of surprises, never a dull moment with her. And Jude loved it all.

...............................................................

Was missing my babies so literally wrote this in 30 mins. Hope you like it :)

[yanderelovebites]

More to this, not much, but imagine Jason after he comes back can also see them and just learned not fuck around and find out. Have it mildly annoy Damian, Tim and Dick. Bruce doesn’t think much of it since Jason visits instead of living there so doesn’t take into account that he’s the only one who isn’t really messed with.

Just imagine him stay for a sum of days and Damian irritated that first he gave batsis ice cream and then Damian suddenly gets flour fallen on his head, not hiding him just painting him white. Martha just giggles from the shelf.

Dick comes over and doesn’t see Jason despite the fact he knew he was staying over for a few days. Later comes back with Batsis from a Halloween fest and ask where they’ve been and Jason just bluntly replies “The amusement park you told (name) you’d take her to last week… and never showed up for yesterday.” Then thomas trips dick with a loose floorboard.

Tim gets annoyed Jason and her are playing a PVP game in the living room and the ghostly grandparents hide his phone and controllers in the bathroom. Jason just laughs the mischief.

The three question why nothing bad ever happens to him. Man is like: “maybe because I’m not a complete dick to the only non-vigilante member in this household? Or give false promises repeatedly?”

Imagine Jason is how they learn Martha and Thomas are haunting them like some time after learning he sees ghosts. Maybe Tim thinks Batsis is going crazy because she caught her talking to someone and Jason is like “No she’s just talking to Granny Martha.” And they’re like “TALKING TO WHO?!”

Jason literally knows better because Martha probably spoke to him once she realized he could see her. He was so embarrassed he tried so hard to appease them and batsis he didn’t realize how long he had been fucking with the other four until maybe the first few instances. But as soon as it comes out he’s like “We had our fun, but yeah yall have Bruce’s parents haunting your asses. They hella protective and of (name). I mean look at a picture of Martha and her next to each other man.”

Imagine they forget to tell Bruce because time and dick are shocked and Damian figured he must know by now right?

Been seeing a lot of neglected batsis fics but may I say?

Imagine if Thomas and Martha Wayne’s ghosts are also looking out for neglected reader not just Alfred. It’s even better if batsis can see them. Just imagine the impact one day if batsis started wearing makeup in a way Martha did, maybe styles her hair like hers too because ghost Martha teaches them how to be a lady.

Bonus points if batsis is another biological kid to Bruce. The shame the couple feel when Bruce neglects her.

They get annoyed with Damian the most because that’s his sister, what the hell was he thinking? Imagining Martha ghost blows the card Bruce set to the side on Father’s Day right in his face XD

I could make a list of scenarios of ghost grandparents being good grandparents for batsis. Imagine one time Batsis asked to do something with Tim and Tim rejects her rudely so Thomas makes his computer short-circuit.

Martha would cut his phone off. Weirdly it works JUST FINE when off the property.

Thomas hides Damian’s katana because he used it on batsis. They can’t find it for weeks until Alfred goes up to the attic and there it is in a box labeled ‘Disappointment’. They freeze dick next time he visits for not keeping a promise… the list could go on.

Meanwhile batsis is taking a business course because Thomas insisted, completely unbothered.

Imagine they forget her birthday and they for the next week ruin any cake that comes in the house.

And when they do their turn around imagine they lock the door of whoever locked batsis’s room last until next meal time. Nothing works to let them out. NOTHING. Oh they told her she couldn’t have friends? Oh look your window is wide open and they just made them all go to sleep.

Just some thoughts :3

[paigesbasketball]

Shadow the Hedgehog Headcannons

Shadow the hedgehog x reader Warnings: None Notes: just shadow if he were being a tease to his significant other (a little sum cause the movie was dropped)

Sarcastic Remarks: Shadow loves to make sarcastic comments, often poking fun at your habits or quirks. He'll tell you things like, "Guess I’ll have to show you how it's done, again," whenever you try to do something he thinks you can’t handle.

Mocking Your Speed: Since he’s known for being incredibly fast, Shadow might tease you about not being able to keep up. "Hurry up, unless you're planning on slowing me down," he’ll smirk, knowing full well you’ll catch up in your own way.

Feigning Ignorance: Shadow loves pretending he doesn’t know something when he clearly does, just to get a rise out of you. If you ask him for help with something, he might say, “I’m not your tutor,” then end up showing you anyway.

The ‘Unexpected Compliment’: He’ll drop a compliment in the most unexpected way, making it seem like he’s trying to be rude at first. "You actually look halfway decent today. Guess it’s the lighting," he'll say with a smirk, knowing you’ll blush or respond defensively.

Teasing Physical Touch: He may deliberately brush up against you or playfully nudge you when you're not expecting it. Sometimes, it’s just to mess with you, and other times, it’s to see how you'll react to the sudden closeness.

Over-the-Top Drama: Shadow might act overly dramatic when you do something he finds amusing. "Oh, sure, that’s how you’re going to solve it? Classic,” he’ll say with exaggerated disbelief, even if it’s a simple solution. It’s all in good fun to see your reaction.

Competitive Tease: In friendly competitions or games, Shadow will never let you forget who’s winning. “Not bad, but I am the ultimate,” he’ll taunt, grinning whenever you get even a tiny bit close to beating him.

Mocking Your ‘Flustered’ Moments: If you get flustered or embarrassed, Shadow loves to notice and point it out with a sly grin. “Did I say something that made you blush? How cute,” he’ll tease, not letting you live it down for a while.

"I’m Not Interested" (But He Totally Is): Shadow will act uninterested when you flirt or compliment him, saying things like, “Stop wasting your time,” but his small smirk or subtle eye contact will tell you otherwise, making you wonder if he’s just playing hard to get.

Unbothered Smirks: Whenever you try to challenge him or show off, he’ll give you that signature smirk and say, “Is that all you’ve got?” His teasing tone makes it sound like a challenge, even if he knows he’s got it all under control.

Tease and Walk Away: Shadow is notorious for saying something teasing and then walking away before you can respond. He loves leaving you with no time to react, knowing you’ll be caught up thinking about what he said.

Messing with Your Routine: If he sees you’re in the middle of something important, Shadow might deliberately distract you with a harmless comment or playful taunt, just to see how easily you can lose focus.

"You Could Use Some Help": If you’re struggling with something, Shadow will occasionally offer his help in a teasing way. “You could use a lot of help,” he’ll say, just to make you roll your eyes before he steps in to assist.

Becoming More Touchy: After spending more time together and getting to know you, Shadow begins to show more affection in a subtle, touchy way. He may rest a hand on your shoulder or casually wrap an arm around your waist when you're close. It's his way of expressing how much he's grown to care for you, but in typical Shadow fashion, he’s still a little reserved about it. These moments are rare, but they show his soft side emerging as he grows more comfortable with you.

So... i fear after watching the movie I have fallen a little for shadow, like i have been with the fandom for along time since i have played that games as a child but wheeeewwww movie shadow did sum to me or maybe it was the final push...

-Caty writes

[actuallyjustabiscuit]

Jax’s behavior is legit pretty fascinating

Yes it’s time I ramble about the purple twink.

Fast Food Masquerade did something crazy in that it actually got me to start empathizing with the asshole because Jax’s visible frustration throughout this adventure was too real.

And in fact, it’s why I think Jax was acting so “different” towards the latter half of the episode.

This adventure was Too. Damn. Real.

Now, Jax’s character is actually really simple. He even sums up his whole schtick in the pilot.

“I’m fine with doing whatever, as long as I get to see funny things happen to people.”

Then in a hilarious bit of instant karma, promptly gets hit in the face with a gloink

The “-who aren’t me” part of that self description pretty much goes without saying.

Immediately after this happens, Jax’s little laidback exterior gets so rattled that he suddenly feels the need to take control and starts assigning tasks to everyone. And his casual attitude only returns once he feels like he’s not in any position for ridicule, by redirecting the potential for ridicule onto others. This is his defense mechanism.

Jax needs to feel in control, so he deliberately controls whatever situation he’s in to get the results he wants.

Something that I’ve always appreciated about Jax from a meta perspective is that he’s a character who actively moves the story forward, usually because he wants to satisfy his urge to create chaos.

And that’s the main thing about Jax, he’s really destructive.

Like…almost pointlessly destructive.

But, y’know what? It makes sense. Because he’s in a video game.

Where else can you be as needlessly and excessively chaotic than in a game where you can do pretty much anything because nothing is real?

Jax can hurt whoever and wreck whatever because if he’s living by video game logic, then there are no lasting consequences to his actions.

Jax even goes so far as to refer to Pomni, and by extension the other trapped humans, as a “character” in the pilot. Which goes to show how little he wants to consider them as people.

You can’t really hurt a character. And if used correctly, a character can be entertaining.

And that’s all Jax really wants out of his new life in the Circus, entertainment. Because the worst thing you can be while stuck in a game is be bored.

But of course, even in games, your actions have certain consequences that are just unavoidable.

And Episode 4 really beat Jax’s yellow teeth in with that not-so-fun little reminder. Because this bit right here

Pretty much was the precedent for how bad Jax was gonna get it this time.

And it all starts with Gangle absolutely refusing to let his usual bullshit slide by personally making sure that there will be consequences.

This is the first crack in Jax’s mask, he’s visibly concerned and annoyed that he no longer is allowed to be himself lest he risks getting punished. And even more baffling is that for the first time, Gangle asserts her power over him. She actually does something about his behavior, ripping the wind right out of his sails. Not only that but she continually enforces her authority, making it harder on him to get the upper hand again.

Now his interaction with Zooble is really interesting, because it’s the first time we see him at his most normal.

I don’t think he’s trying to tease them here, I feel like he’s genuinely curious about Zooble’s way of “playing” the game, because remember, it’s been a long time since they’ve been on an adventure together, if at all. Zooble’s excuse of wanting to avoid punishment makes sense because they witnessed first hand that Caine’s unstable personality is capable of some legitimate danger.

Of course, Jax believes that there isn’t any real risk involved. The only immediate menace to him and his current desire to just get through the day, is Gangle and her new mask.

At this point he’s not trying to be destructive or disruptive. He’s fully apathetic, because being forced to act like a minimum wage salary employee is not fun in the slightest. He can’t make things fun for himself, so he refuses to participate entirely.

As the clock mocks him with every slow tick, his mask chips more and more.

Jax isn’t saying this to be calculatingly rude or hurtful, he’s not doing this to upset Gangle. He’s being sincere, which is why he’s not smiling.

Because Gangle is much easier to push around and go along with whatever he wants her to do when she’s in Tragedy mode. She’s more “fun” that way.

In other words, he really hates this new dynamic they’ve got going on.

But this little comment, just makes things even worse for him because now Gangle goes from enforcing her authority to straight up abusing it by letting herself abuse him for a change.

It’s crazy how Jax’s main concern here is making sure this torture scene is just between them. He really hates being humiliated, more so than getting physically hurt.

The man has some serious issues, but c’mon we already knew that.

So Jax is finally getting a taste of his own medicine and it completely emasculates him. To the point where he just defaults to doing whatever Gangle tells him to do just to avoid feeling like that again. Now the mask is fully stripped off, he’s openly exasperated and powerless. On top of that he has no real impulse to ridicule or ruffle anyone’s feathers anymore, because for the first time in probably a long while, he’s even more miserable than everyone else.

And what does misery love?

Company

As someone who’s worked in retail for a while, nothing helps keep you sane more than having a little of bit of camaraderie when struggling to survive in corporate hell.

Something that really stood out to me in this episode is the limited use in background music, especially when in Spudsy’s, where you either get muzak to sell the ambiance of a public eatery or silence with the occasional machinery noise.

And yeah, that’d be enough to make shit as immersive as possible. It’s not a coincidence that the restaurant looks like a McDonald’s when Gooseworx even said it was directly modeled after it. It’s uncanny, how real this setup feels.

Uncomfortably uncanny.Jax seething at the clock is a relatable struggle.

The mask immediately comes back on once Jax no longer has any obligation to stick around.

But Jax can’t even enjoy his freedom. His day is officially over, but the sting of the experience still lingers. The adventure wasn’t just boring or frustrating, it was humbling, in every terrible way. This wasn’t a game, it was real life.

And I think the last kick in the teeth was this license plate waiting for him in the parking lot (Why did Caine make them drive “home”? That’s just extra)

One is the loneliest number

Jax doesn’t hide the fact that he’s an asshole, he’s almost proud of it. He practically relishes getting a rise out of everyone. He is well aware that nobody likes him, but I think this where he starts realizing that it actually bothers him.

Everyone has talked about that very brief moment where Jax’s expression changed towards the end of Candy Carrier Chaos, when Ragatha was talking about Kaufmo’s funeral and we get to see him actually get sad for a change, before immediately shaking it off and stomping away in irritation.

Jax showed no concern over Kaufmo’s abstraction in the pilot, so why would he feel sad about it in that moment? Does he secretly care about his fellow humans and just doesn’t want to admit it?

Maybe. But personally, I think the others choosing to morn those who’ve abstracted like they’re dead makes him seriously uncomfortable. Because it serves as a reminder that even in this world, there are still major consequences when some things aren’t taken seriously.

Jax doesn’t want to consider real life consequences. None of them even look like real people, so why should he bother treating everyone like real people?

So when he sees everyone else getting closer and being good to each other, it’s annoying and weird. The idea that they need to look out for one another feels pathetic. Treating abstraction seriously means it’s a real danger, and that would mean that he’s also susceptible to experiencing it one day.

And when you’ve built up a reputation over making everyone miserable, who’s gonna wanna remember you?

In a show that’s clearly all about building relationships, Jax’s destructive behavior is really gonna cost him.

[qwertyprophecy]

Mortholme Post-Mortem

The Dark Queen of Mortholme has been out for two weeks, and I've just been given an excellent excuse to write some more about its creation by a lenghty anonymous ask.

Under the cut, hindsight on the year spent making Mortholme and answers to questions about game dev, grouped under the following topics:

Time spent on development Programming Obstacles Godot Animation Pixel art Environment assets Writing Completion Release

Regarding time spent on development

Nope, I’ve got no idea anymore how long I spent on Mortholme. It took a year but during that time I worked on like two other games and whatever else. And although I started with the art, I worked on all parts simultaneously to avoid getting bored. This is what I can say:

Art took a ridiculous amount of time, but that was by choice (or compulsion, one might say). I get very excitable and particular about it. At most I was making about one or two Hero animations in a day (for a total of 8 + upgraded versions), but anything involving the Queen took multiple times longer. When I made the excecutive decision that her final form was going to have a bazillion tentacles I gave up on scheduling altogether.

Coding went quickly at the start when I was knocking out a feature after another, until it became the ultimate slow-burn hurdle at the end. Testing, bugfixing, and playing Jenga with increasingly unwieldy code kept oozing from one week to the next. For months, probably? My memory’s shot but I have a mark on my calendar on the 18th of August that says “Mortholme done”. Must’ve been some optimistic deadline before the ooze.

Writing happened in extremely productive week-long bursts followed by nothing but nitpicky editing while I focused on other stuff. Winner in the “changed most often” category, for sure.

Sound was straightforward, after finishing a new set of animations I spent a day or two to record and edit SFX for them. Music I originally scheduled two weeks for, but hubris and desire for more variants bumped it to like a month.

Regarding programming

The Hero AI is certainly the part that I spent most of my coding time on. The basic way the guaranteed dodging works is that all the Queen’s attacks send a signal to the Hero, who calculates a “danger zone” based on the type of attack and the Queen’s location. Then, if the Hero is able to dodge that particular attack (a probability based on how much it's been used & story progression), they run a function to dodge it.

Each attack has its own algorithm that produces the best safe target position to go to based on the Hero’s current position (and other necessary actions like jumping). Those algorithms needed a whole lot of testing to code counters for all the scenarios that might trip the Hero up.

The easiest or at least most fun parts for me to code are the extra bells and whistles that aren’t critical but add flair. Like in the Hero’s case, the little touches that make them seem more human: a reaction speed delay that increases over time, random motions and overcompensation that decrease as they gain focus, late-game Hero taking prioritising aggressive positiniong, a “wait for last second” function that lets the Hero calculate how long it’ll take them to move to safety and use the information to squeeze an extra attack in…

The hardest attack was the magic circle, as it introduced a problem in my code so far. The second flare can overlap with other attacks, meaning the Hero had to keep track of two danger zones at once. For a brief time I wanted to create a whole new system that would constantly update a map of all current danger zones—that would allow for any number of overlapping attacks, which would be really cool! Unfortunately it didn’t gel with my existing code, and I couldn’t figure out its multitudes of problems since, well…

Regarding obstacles

Thing is, I’m hot garbage as a programmer. My game dev’s all self-taught nonsense. So after a week of failing to get this cool system to work, I scrapped it and instead made a spaghetti code monstrosity that made magic circle run on a separate danger zone, and decided I’d make no more overlapping attacks. That’s easy; I just had to buffer the timing of the animation locks so that the Hero would always have time to move away. (I still wanted to keep the magic circle, since it’s fun for the player to try and trick the Hero with it.)

There’s my least pretty yet practical solo dev advice: if you get stuck because you can’t do something, you can certainly try to learn how to do it, but occasionally the only way to finish a project within a decade to work around those parts and let them be a bit crap.

I’m happy to use design trickery, writing and art to cover for my coding skills. Like, despite the anonymous asker’s description, the Hero’s dodging is actually far from perfect. I knew there was no way it was ever going to be, which is why I wrote special dialogue to account for a player finding an exploit that breaks the intended gameplay. (And indeed, when the game was launched, someone immediately found it!)

Regarding Godot

It’s lovely! I switched from Unity years ago and it’s so much simpler and more considerate of 2D games. The way its node system emphasises modularity has improved my coding a lot.

New users should be aware that a lot of tutorials and advice you find online may be for Godot 3. If something doesn’t work, search for what the Godot 4 equivalent is.

Regarding animation

I’m a professional animator, so my list of tips and techniques is a tad long… I’ll just give a few resource recommendations: read up on the classic 12 principles of animation (or the The Illusion of Life, if you’d like the whole book) and test each out for yourself. Not every animation needs all of these principles, but basically every time you’ll be looking at an animation and wondering how to make it better, the answer will be in paying attention to one or more of them.

Game animation is its own beast, and different genres have their own needs. I’d recommend studying animations that do what you’d like to do, frame by frame. If you’re unsure of how exactly to analyse animation for its techniques, youtube channel New Frame Plus shows an excellent example.

Oh, and film yourself some references! The Queen demanded so much pretend mace swinging that it broke my hoover.

Regarding pixel art

The pixel art style was picked for two reasons: 1. to evoke a retro game feel to emphasise the meta nature of the narrative, and 2. because it’s faster and more forgiving to animate in than any of my other options.

At the very start I was into the idea of doing a painterly style—Hollow Knight was my first soulslike—but quickly realised that I’d either have to spend hundreds of hours animating the characters, or design them in a simplistic way that I deemed too cutesy for this particular game. (Hollow Knight style, one day I’d love to emulate you…)

I don’t use a dedicated program, just Photoshop for everything like a chump. Pixel art doesn’t need anything fancy, although I’m sure specialist programs will keep it nice and simple.

Pixel art’s funny; its limitations make it dependent on symbolism, shortcuts and viewer interpretation. You could search for some tutorials on basic principles (like avoiding “jaggies” or the importance of contrast), but ultimately you’ll simply want to get a start in it to find your own confidence in it. I began dabbling years ago by asking for character requests on Tumblr and doodling them in pixels in whatever way I could think of.

Regarding environment assets

The Queen’s throne room consists of two main sprites—one background and one separate bit of the door for the Hero disappear behind—and then about fifty more for the lighting setup. There’s six different candle animations, there’s lines on the floor that need to go on top of character reflections, all the candle circles and lit objects are separated so that the candles can be extinguished asynchronously; and then there’s purple phase 2 versions of all of the above.

This is all rather dumb. There’s simpler ways in Godot to do 2D lighting with shaders and a built-in system (I use those too), but I wanted control over the exact colours so I just drew everything in Photoshop the way I wanted it. Still, it highlights how mostly you only need a single background asset and separated foreground objects; except if you need animated objects or stuff that needs to change while the game’s running, you’ll get a whole bunch more.

I wholeheartedly applaud having a go at making your own game art, even if you don’t have any art background! The potential for cohesion in all aspects of design—art, game, narrative, sound—is at the heart of why video games are such an exciting medium!

Regarding writing

Finding the voices of the Queen and the Hero was the quick part of the process. They figured that out they are almost as soon as writing started. I’d been mulling this game over in my mind for so long, I had already a specific idea in mind of what the two of them stood for, conceptually and thematically. When they started bantering, I felt like all I really had to do was to guide it along the storyline, and then polish.

What ended up taking so long was that there was too much for them to say for how short the game needed to be to not feel overstretched. Since I’d decided to go with two dialogue options on my linear story, it at least gave me twice the amount of dialogue that I got to write, but it wasn’t enough!

The first large-scale rewrite was me going over the first draft and squeezing in more interesting things for the Queen and the Hero to discuss, more branching paths and booleans. There was this whole thing where the player’s their dialogue choices over multiple conversations would lead them to about four alternate interpretations of why the Queen is the way she is. This was around the time I happened to finally play Disco Elysium, so of course I also decided to also add a ton of microreactivity (ie. small changes in dialogue that acknowledge earlier player choices) to cram in even more alternate dialogue. I spent ages tinkering with the exact nuances till I was real proud of it.

Right until the playtesters of this convoluted contraption found the story to be unclear and confusing. For some reason. So for my final rewrite, I picked out my favourite bits and cut everything else. With the extra branching gone, there was more room to improve the pacing so the core of the story could breathe. The microreactivity got to stay, at least!

A sample of old dialogue from the overcomplicated version:

Regarding completion

The question was “what kept me going to actually finish the game, since that is a point many games never even get to meet?” and it’s a great one because I forgot that’s a thing. Difficulties finishing projects, that is—I used to think it was hard, but not for many years. Maybe I’ve completed so many small-scale games already that it hardly seems that unreasonable of an expectation? (Game jams. You should do game jams.)

I honestly never had any doubt I was going to finish Mortholme. When I started in late autumn last year, I was honestly expecting the concept to be too clunky to properly function; but I wished to indulge in silliness and make it exist anyways. That vision would’ve been easy to finish, a month or two of low stakes messing around, no biggie. (Like a game jam!)

Those months ran out quickly as I had too much fun making the art to stop. It must’ve been around the time I made this recording that it occurred to me that even if the game was going to be clunky, it could still genuinely work on the back of good enough storytelling technique—not just writing, but also the animation and the Hero’s evolving behaviour during the gameplay segments which I’d been worried about. The reaction to my early blogging was also heartening. Other people could also imagine how this narrative could be interesting!

A few weeks after that I started planning out the narrative beats I wanted the dialogue to reach, and came to the conclusion that I really, really wanted it to work. Other people had to see this shit, I thought. There’s got to be freaks out there who’d love to experience this tragedy, and I’m eager to deliver.

That’s why I was fine with the project’s timeline stretching out. If attention to detail and artistry was going to make this weird little story actually come to life, then great, because that’s exactly the part of development I love doing most. Projects taking longer than expected can be frustrating, but accepting that as a common part of game dev is what allows confidence in eventual their completion regardless.

Regarding release

Dear anonymous’s questions didn’t involve post-release concerns, but it seems fitting to wrap up the post-mortem by talking about the two things about Mortholme's launch that were firsts for me, and thus I was unprepared for.

1. This was the first action game I've coded. Well, sort of—I consider Mortholme to be a story first and foremost, with gameplay so purposefully obnoxious it benefits from not being thought of as a “normal” game. Still, the action elements are there. For someone who usually sticks to making puzzle games since they’re easier to code, this was my most mechanically fragile game yet. So despite all my attempts at playtesting and failsafes, it had a whole bunch of bugs on release.

Game-breaking bugs, really obvious bugs, weird and confusing bugs. It took me over a week to fix all that was reported (and I’m only hoping they indeed are fully fixed). That feels slow; I should’ve expected it was going to break so I could’ve been faster to respond. Ah well, next time I know what I’ll be booking my post-release week for.

2. This was my first game that I let players give me money for. Sure, it’s pay-what-you-want, but for someone as allergic to business decisions as I am, it was a big step. I guess I was worried of being shown that nobody would consider my art worth financial compensation. Well, uh, that fear has gone out of the window now. I’m blown away by how kind and generous the players of Mortholme have been with their donations.

I can’t imagine it's likely to earn a living wage from pouring hundreds of hours into pay-what-you-want passion projects, but the support has me heartened to seek out a future where I could make these weird stories and a living both.

Those were the unexpected parts. The part I must admit I was expecting—but still infinitely grateful for—was that Mortholme did in fact reach them freaks who’d find it interesting. The responses, comments, analyses, fan works (there’s fic and art!! the dream!!), inspiration, and questions (like the ones prompting me to write this post-mortem) people have shared with me thanks to Mortholme… They’ve all truly been what I was hoping for back when I first gave myself emotions thinking about a mean megalomaniac and stubborn dipshit.

Thank you for reading, thank you for playing, and thank you for being around.

[bcacstuff]

Sunrise somewhere near the east coast of Brazil.

I’m not sure what time it is, or really where I am. Somewhere near the coast of Brazil, I know that; sometime during my birthday - I know that, too. I've flown past the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Pamirs, Caucasus, and Atlas Mountains, and will soon cross the Andes. I'm headed to Chile to meet my family after a long time away. A blessing, to be sure, and made even more sweet coming as it is on the heels of an incredible adventure in Nepal.

I’ve spent much of the 12 hours since Istanbul sorting through photos, visual portals into experience far away yet close at hand, pixel-born reminders of a trip, a trail, impact and experience and immersion.

I’m never quite sure how to share tales of any adventure, less so one with such meaning (to me at least) as this past one. The standard travelogue seems too mundane, too pedantic, to capture it all. Some deep and philosophical tome equally missing the mark.

So, perhaps neither, maybe some of both, a hope of struck balance, or at minimum translation of time and place and experience and people. And not all at once: Like any expedition, these things must be savored, a bit at a time, building and percolating and settling and expanding yet again. So, first, the beginning…

Me on the Kongma La back in 1993, wondering about remote valleys less-trodden than Khumbu.

I guess it was about 31 years ago - December 1993 - that Stuart Sloat and I bashed our way across the lower Khumbu Glacier from Lobuche and, laden with heavy packs, made our way to the Kongma La. We had no map, just a vague point from locals and the knowledge that there was a lake up there somewhere. We found only a puddle and a frigid night, but awoke to a splendid sunrise and the Star Wars zaps of sun-warmed ice cracking, alerting us to the real lake on the east side of the pass (as opposed to our mud wallow on the west). Glorious views, backlit Lhotse and Nuptse and countless more unknowns behind, peak on peak and valley on valley leading who knows where. I knew someday, maybe, I’d get into those valleys, wander the paths away from it all.

Thirty years later, I sat in a teahouse in Chheskam, the northern triumvirate of Mahakulung, with Jhanak Karki and Harka Kulung Rai, talking about opportunity over a steaming mug of tongba. We had just trekked parts of the Mundum Trail from Phedi over Silicho to Mahakulung visiting dZi Foundation work and communities; and then we went up above, following the Hunku Khola just enough to get a taste, an idea of what may lay above. The townspeople and government were excited as we were, having had the same idea for years: create a trail up the Hunku, connecting Chheskam to Kongme Dingma and the quite-popular Mera Peak trek.

It was all possible, all doable, but like the proverbial tree falling silently in the woods, this new trail would be all for naught if no word got out about it. But, I had an idea, and it seemed possible.

Two months before, I shared coffee in a small cafe in Glasgow with Sam Heughan. We’d “met” months earlier on Zoom calls for an ill-fated film project, and then I stalked him down in Scotland; he was, as is his manner, kind enough to indulge me rather than call the cops. I mentioned this idea, going to Everest Basecamp, but doing it the back way, the hard way, the way no one would know or understand or really care about, but the way that would be far deeper, more profound, more meaningful and purposeful and fun. He was game, but I needed to see some of it, understand it more, before committing to guiding anyone up there.

Tongba steaming and heads spinning, Jhanak, Harka, and I knew now it was doable. A route possible, something that promised to bring meaningful tourism and tourist dollars to this long-forgotten part of Nepal, so close to Khumbu and yet utterly left out of the economic boon of the Everest economy. Now I just had to convince Sam.

Trekking to Basecamp is not for the faint of heart, even doing it the standard way from Lukla up the Khumbu Valley. There’s long days, cold nights, high altitudes and dry air and new foods and more. It kicks people’s butts with glee. But this route? It promised much more: camping rather than lodges; an unknown trail through unknown country (How steep would it be? How long each day? Would we find water where we needed it, flat ground?); a 19,000-foot, semi-technical pass to cross into Khumbu; and more.

As I thought and hoped, though, Sam took little convincing. An adventurous soul with a heart of gold, he was excited immediately about it all and was on board. And, to be honest, my little coffeeshop meeting was both to suss out his interest and let him meet me (and judge me) in person, but also, more importantly, to feel him out. Guiding for me is not simply an economic thing, transactional, but about time and people and experience. I’ve done too many “off-the-shelf” trips in the past to have zero tolerance for sharing the mountains with people whose goals and values are misaligned with mine. It took but minutes with Sam to know our worlds, while vastly different, were built upon similar ideas and ideals and approaches.

And so, on December 3, we met in Kathmandu, a year’s planning finally coming together.

Unfortunately for Sam, I don’t really believe in the sugar-coated version of Nepal; fancy hotels and windowed views of life are little more than television with smell. I want people to see the real Nepal, wander the back streets, immerse in the smoky incense of dawn on cobbled streets, bells chiming and dogs barking, ambling through the visceral reality that is Pashupatinath, taking in the respite of Bodhanath, embracing the comforting chaos of alleys and backways of Lalitpur.

Sam rose to it all, never flustered or bothered, always interested and engaged and inquisitive. We had but 24 hours in the Valley, but Sam saw and did and digested a lot.

And then we were off, an Altitude Air B-3 piloted expertly by Moreno whipping us up and out of Kathmandu, through the clenching smog of the city to sprawling views of the Himalaya: the Ganesh and Langtang ranges, on to Dorje Lhakpa and Gauri Shankar as we fluttered high over Kavre Palanchok. Then the jumbled jags of Rolwaling and behind, finally, the Everest range, giants piercing the morning sky, Cho Oyu, Nuptse, Lhotse, Everest. Makalu behind, hiding a bit, masked by multitudes, a distant Kangchenjunga almost a mirage eastward.

Before long, some 40 minutes, the show was over, the reality about to begin. We dropped down, our mark Chheskam, a small village clutching the flat ground hundreds of meters above the Hunku Khola, a river raging and carving down from above. Moreno, Swiss to the core, politely but abruptly ushered us out with our duffels and, counting fuel minutes, was off in a jiffy.

We were here, and town was ready.

Going into this trip, I knew Chheskam was excited. A new trail represents economic possibility for the village, the chance to not just be small pawns in the bigger Khumbu trekking economy, but rather to capture some of that themselves, to control it, to reap the benefits and build it out in a way that fits and flourishes.

I guess, though, I didn’t know how excited: We were met at the chopper by many, locals and officials, all adorning us with kathas and warm welcomes. We then walked around the village, Sam getting to see firsthand the impact of dZi Foundation’s work here, projects like one house-one tap, one house-one toilet, kitchen gardens, and more resulting in a very self-sufficient, healthy, clean, place with relative prosperity. Thanks to Jhanak’s connections, we met the oldest man in town as he demonstrated traditional weaving of nettle fabric, sipped raksi in our friend Prashanta’s house, and briefly sat with wedding guests tipsy from revelry. And then we were summoned to the local school for a bigger gathering.

Our team ready to leave Chheskam for the Hunku Khola valley and the new Muddhi-Kongme Dingma trail.

It was huge, much of the town was gathered, hundred of school children, the local government officials, and more, all in the school grounds. We were run through the welcome gauntlet of ceremonial recognition, our necks strung with dozens of kathas and marigold garlands before being treated to local cultural dances and speeches of excitement and gratitude and welcome. Gratitude and ceremony are big in Nepal, and it was strong enough in Chheskam to feel a bit awkward: after all, Sam and I and our team were here just to walk up the valley. We had no guarantees of success - for us or for the future trail. But, the point I think was far bigger than either of us, any of us; the celebration on that day was one of excitement for the future, of possibility, of potential signified by the two of us being willing, caring enough, to come and do this and see where it leads, literally and figuratively.

Thirty-one years before I stared off into these valleys, selfishly hoping that one day I’d wander them, filling my personal cup with some adventure. It took a long time, and was beyond gratifying to finally be here, but doing so with great people, a great team, and a goal beyond anything personal.

[madaqueue]

"genshin lover!" we all point and laugh 😂😂🫵🫵🫵🫵

IM JK

TELL ME EVERYTHING? WHEN DID YOU START WHERE ARE YOU AT WHO DO YOU LIKE SO FAR?? i don't think you'd like childe at all so i'd skip the entirety of liyue btw hes so annoying you'd hate him 😁

ALSO I LOVE YOU .

CKSKCKDKKCDK CLOCKED ALEXIS IM CACKLING PLEEEEEEEAAAAAASSSEEEEEEEEE

childe watching me skip every quest and show up at level 3 and covered in dirt to find him HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

BUT OMG SO FAR I JUST FINISHED THE FIRST MONDSTADT STUFF TEEHEE i’m taking my silly wind glider license test rn (i am bad at it) AND THEN IM OFF TO SEE MY BOY >:)))

I REALLY LIKE KAEYA HES SO SILLY HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA AND ALSO LISA ….. why is she calling me a good girl …. why do i want her HAHAHAHAHAHA

I LOVE YOU I WILL TELL YOU EVERY SINGLE THING I DO WAAAAAAAHHH

[circus-clangen]

Hi I’m a new circusclan enjoyer and I am SO confused on what’s happening. Can I get a rundown of the current lore we know? Or like links for me to understand because like who is marquee?? I read the moon updates how do I not know them. Also monkeypaw was only mentioned once I believe? What’s their deal??

You got it! I'm not planning on posting here until I finish the next moon--which most likely wont be until the new year, so it'll be nice to have this sitting at the top of my blog for a while! Here's the official Circusclan Lore rundown, including what happened in the moons, the lost moons, the puzzles, and the 10th ring of HELL that is the discord server: First, the starter cats: Ringstar--previously Ringtail of Heronclan, and brother of @echoes-in-echoclan 's Kestrelstar--and his two kits, Clownpaw and Tigerkit.

The pre-moon events: Ring left his clan and his brother to join the circus and be with a cat he met, named Goldmask. Suffient to say for now, Goldmask's treatment of Ring was less that ideal, but he loved her all the more. They had a son together, Clown. The birth was INCREDIBLY taxing on Goldmask, and almost killed her (detailed here https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/768067551594987520/wait-if-goldmask-wasis-paralyzed-how-did-she?source=share). A little while later, Goldmask became pregnant again. Ring was there when one of the kits was born, and knew it was not his. Goldmask knew she would die in this kitting--she'd barely survived having one kit, and this time, she'd had two. Only, Ring never knew the second one existed, because it's father had stolen it away before Ring could arrive. Goldmask didn't make it, and Ring was left alone in the circus, with Clown and Tiger.

The lost moons: I wasn't intending for Circusclan to become a comic. This, coupled with some technical issues, means moons 1-5 were lost. The technical issues were caused because, around moon 3-4, Tigerkit was taken by an eagle and killed. I wasn't ready for her to die, so I went into the code and brought her back... only, something strange happened. Before her in-game death, she was definitively Ring's favorite child. So much so, that I made jokes about it to my friends. He LOVED her. But after she died--after I brought her back--he hated her. He hated her so *viscerally*. A non-secret about the clangen save behind this comic is that both Ring and Clown's hate stats for Tiger are COMPLETELY maxxed. I knew I had to do something with this lore-wise, which I've detailed here (https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/769542088687747072/anything-youre-dying-to-share-3?source=share). Monkeypaw: In a tale I've yet to reveal, Monkeypaw left Heronclan with Ring, but not long after, became the Starclan guide for my clan. The reason you don't see much of him is some lore I've added. There's a lot to it, but the basics of it is that Monkeypaw is only remembered by Ringstar--none of the ever living cats have met him, and so he can't directly interact with him. Unfortunately, Ringstar's connection with Starclan right now is akin to an Internet Explorer browser windows connection to the internet. So, Monkeypaw is a somewhat abstract figure for now. Marquee: Marquee is the father of Tigertoe and the mystery Tigersibling. He's Goldmask's other mate--one Ringstar didn't know existed until Tiger's birth. A staple of Circusclan is the cats affinity for human culture, and their imitation of it. Unknown to them, Marquee was "there first". He's from an almost cultlike group of cats that have been trying to not only imitate, but steal, humanity, for many many years. It's unclear as of now which of his actions are on behalf of this unnamed group, and which are on behalf of his deceased mate Goldmask. Moons 6-14: These moons were drawn when Circusclan was a fun meme project for me to share with my friends. I had no intention of posting it on Tumblr, much less giving it this level of lore. You CAN glean some lore from these wretched posts, but most notable in this era, is the infamous "hide and seek game", in which the player's failure to correctly solve a puzzle (https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/746608261062639616/you-have-successfully-determined-that-ringstar?source=share) left Ringstar trapped in a burning caravan--the blaze implied to be set by Marquee. The players decided to let him burn, and he lost five lives. Moons 13-18: By this point, Tigertoe got the patrol event where a secret, outside-clan mate joins the clan: Trapezetangle. Also by this point, an outside-clan apprentice named Whippaw joins. Moon 19: I forgor Moon 20: The Experimental Era of video moons that were SUPER fun to make but took my entire life so I'm not going to be doing them every moon. Some people expressed they weren't comfortable watching a scary video, so the rundown of moon 20 is this: Ringstar died again, and Tigertoe found out she was pregnant. (For a rundown of that whole mess of a puzzle, look here: https://www.tumblr.com/circus-clangen/761426559722782720/i-try-my-best-to-never-explain-my-puzzles-even-if?source=share) Moon 21: Present day! Horrible things are going to happen very soon <3 Present, currently-alive (or dead) characters that we're AWARE of, even if I haven't properly revealed them: Monkeypaw, Ringstar, Tigertoe, Tigersibling, Clownwish, Goldmask, Marquee, Trapezetangle, Whippaw Nicknames you should be aware of for clarity: Dave is Marquee. The discord server will only call him Dave. His name is Marquee. Please help. Hope this helps at least some!

[ferrarifinnick]

WHO WANTS TO BE A DADDY | THE HUNGER GAMES HEADCANON

i absolutely loved exploring this with thg boys. we only ever really see katniss’ opinion on parenthood in the books, and it was so much fun exploring these perspectives. also i know everyone hates gale but honestly he’s so fun to write for. moody and stoic. just how i like ‘em!

set post-rebellion. if they want kids + how many/genders that suits them best.

includes: gale, finnick, peeta

warnings: none

gale would absolutely want to be a father, but just not for some time after the rebellion is won and over. i can see him moving back to the new district 12, building a new house for you both to live in, far away from the ruins he watched go up in flames. i think this would be his project for a while. it would be his way to grieve the loss of his old life, while focussing on building a new one. with you. i can see this being therapeutic for him, and i can see his younger siblings helping him with painting the walls and his mother cooking a meal for you to eat together once the project is complete. and as gale is eating in your new home with his family, i think he would realise that he no longer has to provide for them like he has since his dad died. they will be alright without him now, and he can finally live a life of his own. after his family goes back to their new home, i think he would finally tell you that he’s ready and wants to start this new chapter right away. but most importantly, he wants to start it with you.

i think gale would shine best with two boys, partly because he can fill the void his father’s death left in him, and to turn them into better men than he was growing up.

i’m going to defy canon and say that finnick doesn’t really have a preference. i think his attitude would be that if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, that’s fine too. it would be something he’d like fate to decide, i think. after all, finnick is much more interested in all things you than about what you can or can’t give him. but that’s not to say he wouldn’t be completely overcome with excitement if you did happen to fall pregnant. i think he would occasionally wonder what your baby would look like, if it would have your eyes or his smile, and he’d spend a lot of his free time thinking of names that incorporate your favourite flowers and colours, just in case. but if you didn’t ever fall pregnant, i can see him being equally content in taking the number one spot on the list of people that you love.

finnick is definitely great with kids. i think he’d shine best as a girl dad or as the fun uncle katniss and peeta’s kids see occasionally for holidays.

peeta has three priorities in life: propose to you, marry you, and then have beautiful babies with you. plural, because peeta has so much love for you that it couldn’t possibly be contained to just you. no, he needs extensions of you, so that he can share his love with them, too. i think peeta would take his role as a husband and father incredibly seriously, and that would include cooking every meal for your family, organising family game nights every week, etc. but he would even do little things like filling up a vase with fresh flowers every week for you, crafting his own stories to read to your kids every night (and he’d definitely make a picture book to go along with it), and really taking the time to meet the emotional needs of your family. most of all, he wants to make the kind of loving family that he wished for but never had.

he would do best as a father to at least one girl and one boy, if not more. he would definitely make saturday mornings a baking day, with you and the kids helping to bake some treats for game night later that day.

lmk what other headcanons you’d like to explore. like, comment, reblog. love <3

[untitledrockstar-if]

I have always wanted to see a storyline explored with an RO that you start the game already in a relationship with. I feel like it hasn’t been done in this way before, where they’re not forced to breakup. It’s always some situation where the partner ends up dying or you’re forced to breakup/divorce right at the start lmao. I like ex ROs too but there’s just something so cool about being dropped into a relationship that’s already actively alive with its own strengths/weaknesses and high highs and low lows and you get to pick their relationship apart as an outsider. I’m so so curious to see your ideas!

I’m also excited to see the other RO storylines! So I will have to play the breakup paths too unfortunately :( but at least if MC and R break up for a little while, the makeup and reunion is going to hit insanely hard lolol like a relapse

I personally am a huge fan of established relationships and exploring what happens beyond the pining/first kiss etc. back when I used to write fics and original stories outside of IFs it's a dynamic I gravitated towards most!

as you said, exploring the highs and lows of that dynamic and seeing how it works is always interesting. I like going right into the issues most of the time and it's so much more fun to me personally.

breaking up/making up will go crazy with them both considering the fallout of them breaking up 😭

[milonogiannis]

Since late August of 2022, Barry Topping and I have been working on a shoot ‘em up game called BIRDCAGE.

Now 2024 is wrapping up and – surprisingly – so is the production phase of BIRDCAGE. There’s still plenty of work to be done, but the game itself is all there, playable and asset complete.

Now we’re left with an ever-growing lernaean hydra list of other tasks to handle – emails, wider testing, stability, updating store presences, promotional stuff and in general, just trying to maximize the reach and polish of what we’ve made.

The final stretch of production (roughly the last 5 months?) was really fun. The game had matured enough that we just instinctively knew what would work and what wouldn’t.

We’d become comfortable enough with the tools we built and our process where we’d just be constantly in hyper mode. The game really came together in this final leg of development.

POLYGON BIRD, our studio name, and EXCEL Framework, the name given to the "shmup tools" we made for the game.

I was expecting ending full-on production on BC to be frustrating and depressing, but some switch flipped in my head and now all I want to do is email people about the game, optimize our Steam tags and figure out how to get this in people’s hands – and I’m finding that fun, at least for now. The game isn’t this ideal brainchild piece of art to me, suddenly. We did the work to make the thing, now it’s time the thing worked for us.

It surprises me how often I find myself thinking ridiculous things like “we need to activate our discord members” – but I’ll take this over the usual pit of despair I fall into after finishing a big project.

I guess this is what motivated me to write down these thoughts in the first place – I was bracing to be fully depressed and lost right about now, resenting the game and the time we spent on it. Maybe this will serve as a reminder that finishing a thing doesn’t have to feel so bad?

So now we’re kind of going back into uncharted waters – promoting, releasing, dealing with feedback, hotfixes and support. There’s going to be a lot of “learning on the job”, I guess, but I’m excited to see that aspect of game dev.

I���m really glad we were able to hit our goal of wrapping up this phase of BIRDCAGE as the year comes to a close – it makes it easy to look back on the past 2 years as a whole and see how much we’ve learned. I can’t wait for us to make another game, knowing what we know now.

There is still nothing to announce regarding the release of the game, but it still felt important to make note of this milestone.

For now, just know we’ve made a game and are working on getting it out there! We should have a lot more to say soon.

In the meantime, you can help us out by adding BIRDCAGE to your Steam wishlist.

Thanks for sticking around all these years.

Happy holidays!

-G

[puckpocketed]

Trying to absorb everything there is to know about ice hockey within the shortest amount of time possible really does strange things to a person. You come up against questions such as what do defensemen even do aside from skate backwards and do tummy time to protect their goalie? (Broadcasts aren’t the most informative) What the hell makes defensemen effective? What do the casters mean when they say “gap”? What are defensive details?

I love watching games back, I love trying to understand the game. I love hockey <3 But sometimes it’s nice to have help, and sometimes my favourite writers/podcasters collaborate!!

Here is part 1/3 of a podcast mini-series about defending, putting it here so I can have a copy of it in case it ever gets taken down + wanted to share with everyone some of my findings! (All episodes are available if anyone just wants to listen to them!) Transcript + edits done by me, all mistakes are mine.

Published 6th November 2024, Hockey IQ Podcast: Modern Defensemen (with Will Scouch) Ep #1 - by Hockey's Arsenal, hosted by Greg Revak (apple / spotify / youtube / bonus substack link)

part 2

[START Transcript]

Greg Revak: On the Hockey IQ Podcast today, we open up a new segment: we’re bringing back our favourite Will Scouch. If you’re on the Hockey IQ Newsletter you know his work by now.

Will, good morning. Earlier than most of us probably normally get up, but it’s a good day.

Will Scouch: Yeah, Greg, thanks for having me, it’s a lot of fun. Me and Greg go way back. We’re boys from years ago and I’m excited to hop on the show. I’m a keen listener, keen reader. 

[They exchange pleasantries]

GR: Beautiful. Well, today we’re gonna talk about three concepts. We’re gonna break it into three spots though, so everyone’s gotta come back next week and the week after that.

We’re gonna talk about defensemen, because everyone knows they’re important but how do we actually play the position well?

WS: Yeah, I mean, it’s a position that’s still, to me, being explored; both by, I’d say youth and junior coaches and pro coaches alike. There’s a lot of different ways that you can do it.

I mean, I watch a lot of hockey from around the world, all kinds of different levels. I’ve watched guys develop from 15 to 24 at this point, and just seeing how their games evolve and everything, and how effective various versions of this position is. And I think it’s a very interesting area that’s still being explored in a lot of really interesting ways, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think back to David Savard; he comes out of the [QMJHL] as this high-flying offensive defenseman, and if we just forgot about the rest of his career and you just saw him today as this great shutdown, defense-first player, you’d be absolutely shocked.

I mean, you think about Rasmus Dahlin — kid didn’t even play full time defenseman until his actual draft year, he was still playing forward a ton. There’s so much to be explored here.

I feel like [to get a lot of] — for you NHL fans — to get a lot of value in the later rounds out of your defensemen, take those offensive players first, and we can find a lot of hidden gems later.

WS: Well, yeah. I mean, actually, I’ve said this a few times but your listeners probably don’t know, but I did a presentation during the pandemic at the Ottawa Hockey Analytics Conference about this topic exactly; how, when you look at the numbers and the defensive value of players in the NHL, I found that there were just as many in the top 50 defensive value of players in the NHL, there were just as many undrafted players as there were second round picks, second and third round picks combined.

So the draft isn’t really a great historical gauge on defensive ability. Offense is a different story from defensive players, which we could probably get into a little bit.

But I find, personally, that evaluating defensemen and projecting defense to the NHL is still really spotty and questionable. And I don’t know, in my line of work, watching a lot of defensemen, a lot of the ones who I think are some of the better defenders kind of go a little unheralded, because a lot of the time you don’t need to be particularly noticeable to be a good defenseman, but scouts are always looking for the noticeable guys.

So it’s a very interesting world and it’s a very interesting thing to pick through, but there’s definitely a lot of case studies you could dig into, and a lot of players you could look at as cases of, “Oh yeah, nobody was really paying a whole lot of attention to them!” or maybe people were thinking about them the wrong way. But if you think about things a little bit outside the box, you might be able to see something really interesting there.

GR: Yeah, so let's dive into why that may be. Classic example would be Lane Hutson, so maybe we'll pick on him a little bit, but I definitely want to talk about Rasmus Ristolainen, because he is an interesting case study that we wrote about on the newsletter.

So where I want to start with this is just modern day defending. How are defensemen defending today versus old times? A lot of times it was the big hit, separate the head from body. The puck’s somewhere, but let's separate the head from the body, and we’ll worry about the puck later — that is going bye-bye.

Every coach I talk to now, they prefer having the puck rather than having a head on a stake. So for me, it comes back to this old saying of, “position before possession.” We're gaining body positioning, we're not so much separating head from body, but puck from player.

All right, so we've got position before possession. It's super valuable in gaining the space that you need to have first whack in a puck or put the puck where you want it, or just push it to a teammate. Just having the idea of owning space and there's no better league at this and no league that values it more than the NHL. If you don't do this well in the NHL, sooner or later, you're going to find yourself out of a job making a heck of a lot less money in a league that probably no one really cares that much about. You want to be in the show, the big lights: you have to value this more than anything.

And this is actually the one thing that I noticed about Hunter McDonald. He's in the Flyers’ system now — he was an overager, but I was like, “This guy is unbelievable!” He’s a huge frame, you can’t miss him out there. He would just get the positioning before possession, and I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting, let me watch him further.”

And I feel like he’s going to be one of those bottom of the lineup guys who, unlikely, made it out of being an overager in the [United States Hockey League], going to college for a few years, but has those little details of a defenseman that you see in modern day play, which is positioning overall, which is an NHL trait to the nth degree.

WS: No, I know. I think I would definitely agree. Those are the players that are always really, really fascinating to me because you look at a guy like Hunter McDonald and the production just isn't amazing. But it doesn't — to me, when you look at defensemen, it almost doesn't really matter. That's kind of a very secondary-slash-bonus style of thing that comes with a player.

I see a lot of defenders every year and it seems like a thing where a lot of them, maybe at the lower levels, there is a little bit more of that “separate the head from the body”-type of player. And I think there are NHL scouts who still gravitate towards those guys but, at the end of the day when it all comes out in the wash, it's a lot of the time the guys that are kind of, I hate to say ”boring”, but just very effective, and just they're always in a good position.

The guy I always reference as a young defenseman who, I think, is just a really, really high-end defensive guy is Kaiden Guhle in Montreal. We're going to talk a little bit about Lane Hutson in a second, but Kaiden Guhle is a guy who, when he was in the junior level, just played such a great, balanced style of defense.

He was a good skater, but he had really good length. He was a guy who didn't just lay the body every single time, but he certainly could if he needed to. It was about his lateral mobility, it was about tracking rushes, keeping inside the dot lines, and preventing chances from inside and leading with his stick, but then finishing with the body if he had the opportunity or the need to do so. And he seemed to have a really good read of just how to do his job really, really well.

And so that's been a lesson for me for sure. He was a really interesting case study a few years ago, and he's become a pretty solid NHL defenseman. I mean, on a team this year that’s kind of struggling defensively I think he’s been one of the brighter spots on that defense group there, [he’s] doing a pretty good job at least suppressing chances against.

GR: I don’t watch as much as you do, prospects, but Guhle I did catch. For me, the play style wasn’t very good. He had elements of it, you could see the flashes, but he was just really brash. His decision making and his reads were quite poor. But the tools were there, and it was like, “Can he adjust?” Which I think he’s done a phenomenal job [of], and I think Montreal is probably the perfect place for him to develop a lot of that.

So I think you're spot on like, “Okay, how does he actually apply?“ Having assets is one thing, having the tools is one thing, but how do we properly apply those assets, those tools that you have in a good way? So I think another piece, for me, is if you do have the speed, is just making sure that you're controlling speed and then you're also keeping small gaps.

And just knowing with my high school team that no one knows what a gap is, let's define that real quick, which is: the difference in space between the forwards and the defensemen. So the space in between, “How much space are you [allowing]?” in hockey term slang. It's underneath you versus on the other side, which is above you or behind you. So, “How much space, what's that gap between D and O?”

(Editor’s note: He says O instead of F here, I assume because the person attacking isn’t always a forward. As in, “How much space between the defenseman and offenceman?”)

So you got the speed, shrink that gap as much as possible. Don't give them the space to operate or work in, or, I even call it the space to think, which [it often becomes] for forwards, especially unsophisticated ones.

WS: Yeah, I mean, that's really the bread and butter of a lot of the position. It's so much of this, like you said, gap control. I actually just did a bit of video work for a really high end player, [an] NHL draft pick playing in Sweden this year, who is producing really well.

But in terms of the defending side of the game, he's not the most incredible skater you've ever seen, he's not the biggest guy in the world. And a big thing that I noticed, that even at the professional level that was kind of a bit of a work in progress, was that gap management. Especially because the footwork wasn't amazing, [he was] keeping his feet a little too stationary, gliding backwards and sort of allowing that gap.

And when you watch the NHL that's the point of the whole exercise, watching the NHL and how they play. Forwards are fast and they're smart, largely. The guys who can score are the guys who know how to get through soft defensive pressure, the guys who know how to find lanes and cross up defensemen, and if you don't have the footwork or the mobility or the reach or all of it — all of the above — to track all that and manage it, then it's going to be a lot tougher to do your job.

But the interesting thing, though, is that there's a lot of different ways that you can get defensive jobs done. That's always been very interesting to me; seeing how different players approach the position in different ways and seeing the efficacy of that come out in the wash, and how their offense balances with their defensive ability. It's a very interesting world to dig into, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think you've got a rabbit hole there. You just kind of opened up around defensive skating. What do clean feet look like? What does defensive posture look like, that actually allows you to have that kind of mobility?

So we'll leave that for another day. If anyone wants to go check it out on the Hockey IQ Newsletter, they can do so. Just look up defenseman skating development. We've got two good pieces there talking about building and maintaining defensive posture and keeping clean feet, which — actually massive base for anyone.

It allows you to have the proper gap that allows you to kill plays early, and ultimately, it's a lot about just controlling speed. You don't want McDavid building up to full speed. You don't want MacKinnon building up to full speed. You don't want anyone coming up to you at full speed. It's very hard to maintain that kind of speed going backwards [that we] even generate in the first place. 

How do you kill it early? How do you get a hand on someone? Or, my favorite example is just proper pivoting. A guy dumps a puck on you, how are you going back? What does that pivot look like?

I'll let you open that up because at the NHL it's almost too good, where you can't see what a bad example looks like, but you can see it's everywhere.

WS: Yeah, I mean, it's a make or break skill in the NHL. It's where a lot of defensemen die. I mean, it's a cliche at this point to talk about pucks in deep, to talk about [getting] pucks deep in the offensive zone, get below the goal line, dump and chase. People make fun of dump-and-chase kind of stuff. But if your team is built to do it, you can do it.

You can take advantage of defensemen in the NHL who just don't have the speed or the agility or the skating ability that some of your forwards might have. It is a lot easier to skate forwards than it is to skate backwards. That's just, you know, anecdotal, but also pretty factual — you're naturally going forwards.

I think an interesting trend that you're seeing a little bit more of [is] what they would call ‘scooting’. You're the coach; I don't know if that's exactly what the terminology would be, but [it’s getting] your defensemen in the neutral zone, kind of pinching a little bit more and having them skate forwards, tracking play towards the boards.

So it's not necessarily that they're doing their backwards crossovers, it's not necessarily that they're entirely skating backwards, but you see guys who are really talented skaters or do have a lot of quickness driving play to the boards in a more aggressive way than having the play in front of them. It's about them sort of tracking that play laterally, which is an interesting thing I think you're seeing more of now.

I think there are definitely coaches and systems that love to play their defensemen more that way, and the weak side defense can sort of fill between the dot lines for them and sort of leave the weaker side of the ice a little bit more open. That's kind of what I mean. There's a lot of different ways to achieve these kinds of goals, and I think you're seeing a lot of different things popping up to adapt to this. 

In situations where you have a dump and chase or something like that, or just getting pucks in deep or whatever you say, when you have a defenseman who has trouble with their footwork and turning around… Trust me, I'm a defenseman, when I play hockey, I strap on the skates — I play defense myself and that's where I fall apart, when I do fall apart. Which is often. But definitely, when play turns around and I’ve got to change directions or change my area of flow, it can be tricky. And in the NHL, I can only imagine how tricky it can be there. 

GR: Yeah. I mean, a good pivot you're looking at three steps total, like boom-boom-bam and you're there. You watch an amateur game and it could be like five, six, seven, eight chops before [they] finally get going and [it’s] looking like a proper forward stride again. [Or just] getting into a good defensive posture and positioning. It's total scramble mode.

A big one for me, too, is just the direction that you pivot. Do you wait for that offensive player to commit to their lane? It's just a great defensive habit in general, letting the offenceman make the first move. If you're making the first move, you're the one showing your cards. It's kind of like showing your cards first in Poker.

Let them make the decision and then you can pivot into them. Now you can get that position before possession, or at least get a chip on them, slow them down. You can either make it easier for yourself or your partner. So one, there's the clean footwork on the pivot, and two is making sure that we're controlling the speed and we're pivoting properly in the direction that we want to pivot.

There's a ton of times where I see, especially the lower levels, players coming up, they're in a bad spot, they're skating forward, defenseman skating backwards and they just chip it off the boards. And the defenseman is like a dog just following the puck and it ends up in the middle of the ice where the forward actually went. Again, the NHL is the best at this so it's really hard to see bad examples of pivoting into and controlling the space of the opponent.

WS: Yeah. I do a lot of work outside the NHL, and the biggest thing I notice is not necessarily the number of chops it takes, but the amount of time. You can see guys taking two seconds, maybe more, to get themselves turned around, tracking pucks below the goal line.

To me hockey is a game of milliseconds a lot of the time, right? I was working with someone years ago who really shared the idea with me that, in the NHL, generally goals are not scored if you have the puck on your stick for more than either half a second or a second.

I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's so fast in terms of; when you score goals in the NHL, it's when you touch the puck for a very short amount of time in the offensive zone and get a puck on net. And so, if you have guys who take too long — and “too long” might not be very long… If the difference is relatively short at the time you're making those pivots or those changes, but the [opponent has] got a lot more speed than you and you're [taking more] time to then start generating that speed to match the opponent, you're in trouble.

And in my opinion, I think that you want your defensemen to be more assertive. I always fall back on the strategy of; make them make a decision, make them commit. That might imply that you do the committing first, but that's where the importance of footwork and tactics come into question. 

You have to have strong support, whether it's from backchecking forwards or your partner. You want to be able to adapt to quick players who might fake one way, go another, and be able to use your stick or use your feet or both to be a factor regardless of what happens. 

It's very interesting to watch defensemen play. I find it really, really interesting to see the different approaches of different players and especially how they evolve and get into the NHL.

But yeah, I mean, [it’s so pivotal], the skating ability; defensemen who can skate, it unlocks so many doors for their career. If you're an elite level skating defenseman, it just unlocks so many doors that interest me. If you're not, and if that's not a strength of your game, then it can be a big struggle, especially against faster opponents. Even if you're big and physical and pretty good throwing the body or whatever, there's a lot more of the game in the NHL these days. Very, very interesting stuff. 

GR: I think that's actually the perfect segue into someone who, early in his career, threw the body too much and sold out too much on plays that he probably shouldn't: Rasmus Ristolainen.

Great case study, great case study from when [John Tortorella] started working with him to where he is now. Will, I'll send in the link here from the Hockey IQ newsletter so we can track a little bit better with each other. 

I found him to be a fascinating player. High draft pick, 8th overall in 2013. Really pretty, smooth skating, big body — has all of the tools that you would traditionally say, “Yep, that checks [out].” And then you looked at his stat profile and it was just abysmal. His micro stats were terrible. I think the only thing he was good at was D-Zone Retrievals, which, being able to take contact, it was kind of an easy thing for him.

WS: Yeah. I remember watching Ristolainen when he was in junior hockey, because that was the earliest years of me being kind of curious about that side of the game, and I did not really recall that being a premier area of his game.

I remember him being big, but pretty mobile, and has some skill to play around with. He did have a bit of a physical edge to him, but it feels like it was that tail end of an era in the NHL where those big, mean, physical guys were kind of in vogue, and people were kind of curious and needing guys like that. And I guess that's what Buffalo drafted him to be.

I remember being very surprised that he was in the NHL the year he was drafted. It just did not look like it was really working out there. And Buffalo just seems to have been not a great fit for him, they kind of turned him into something that he wasn't, but I do think that he's turned into some sort of serviceable defenseman.

But he, to me, is a great example of one that I always look back on and go, “Man, what if?” Like, what if things went a little bit differently for him? Because there was good stuff there, it's just I feel like the development was focused in the wrong areas.

To me, 65% of the work [is] scouting, and developing — the easy part is drafting good players, the hard part is developing them and bringing them along into being good NHL players.

So to me, if you can find the most amount of things that get in the way of that process being easy, then you're doing a really good job. And with Ristolainen, I feel like in his case they inserted more things to make that journey more difficult and sort of turned him into something that he wasn't, which is always a scary thing for me to think about doing to a player.

But it's not over for him, obviously. He figured it out. Obviously, Tortorella found something for him to do, and he has shown a little bit better. But yeah, he's always been a what-if guy for me.

GR: I always liked how Tortorella, after the 2022-2023 season, was doing his media stuff and he was like “Yeah, he's our most improved player.” You're a guy who's getting paid big bucks — I think he was making five million plus that year, still is, probably — and even him, he was like, “I was just bad the first half. And then around Christmas break, I started getting going. The second half was much better.”

Basically, the first half, they were just trying to rebuild his defensive game, and this is true for anything. Zach Benson's another good example of this. If you can't play defense in the NHL, you're going to be out quick. Benson can play defense despite being — I think they list them at five foot 10, but there's no way.

WS: Yeah, no, no. I know. He's a little guy, but he's another great example of a player where I, in my work, I do not care how big you are. I just care about how you play. Even in the NHL. And I feel like Benson's a really, really good example of that; a guy who, just forechecking alone is a really… The easiest way to defend is if he can cause turnovers in the opposing team's offensive zone, a guy like Zach Benson does that extremely well.

And if he needs to track guys through the neutral zone and backcheck, he'll do it, and he does it really well, and he does it at a speed that I found to be projectable to the NHL. And again, that's another one where I was a little surprised to see him in the NHL so fast, but he didn't really look out of place there.

He's had a bit of a slow start this season, but just a really, really talented player, and one where you kind of do look at and go, “Yeah, these smaller guys can definitely defend.” They just — the expectations are a little bit higher, and maybe for good reason, but he checks all the boxes for sure.

GR: Yeah. So for Rasmus (Ristolainen), there's two big things that, when I dug into this, that Torts was working at. At this point, I was so intrigued [that] I was tracking every single time Torts spoke and Rasmus spoke to the media. So I was like, “I wonder what they're actually doing?” Which, Torts can be tight-lipped, but he gives it away if you follow long enough.

The big one was just inside, like too much, he was finding himself, Rasmus was finding himself on the outside. So whether that be outside the dots, outside on bad ice, for whatever reason, or just finding yourself outside, like losing defensive side positioning to the offensive player.

If you finish contact, but now you're on the wall and your player's got to step to the net, that's trouble. There's a great, great clip the other night featuring, I think it was (Aliaksei) Protas [who] ended up scoring the goal and K’Andre Miller of the New York Islanders. So Caps — Rangers, not Islanders — Rangers… Where [Miller] went in soft, didn't really take positioning, got beat back to net, and Protas just put out a stick and just tapped it in, Igor Shesterkin never had a chance.

A similar idea of; okay, good, maybe you got some contact, you tried to make the stop, but you still need to maintain defensive side positioning. You still need to finish on the inside. So if you're doing contact, you can't overreach.

You just can't do that. You have to stay in good positioning.

And the second piece was just, finishing with contact to get stops, like stopping movement. Offensive play is a lot about movement, and defensive play is about stopping movement, AKA getting stops. So he would maybe make a play, or get a poke check, but the puck was still moving and could be easily on the other team's stick. 

So how do you make sure you're always staying in good positioning? Staying on the inside, as Torts put it. Or the other piece, which is getting stops, or finishing with contact — but smartly, not chasing the contact for contact’s sake? Being tactful in your play.

I feel like Risto really just learned how to play defense smartly. He was actually thinking and being intentional about what he was doing, rather than like, “I see a puck and a player, I'm going to go end that!” And then, boom, in the big scheme of things, it’s a net negative. Even though at the moment, it may have, especially to him — otherwise he wouldn't make the play — seemed like a positive, really it was a negative for the team.

WS: Well, that's the interesting thing too, going back to talking about junior players and the context in the draft and how defensive players might go a little bit underreported or undervalued in a sense.

I see this all the time, especially with North American defensemen, especially with Canadian ones, but there are definitely players who everybody talks about how good they are defensively, everybody talks about how solid they are. They're big, they're physical, they're mean, blah, blah, blah. But then when you watch things in detail, it's this sort of Ristolainen-style thing. You're talking about K’Andre Miller where it's like, they're along the boards, they're doing the thing along the boards, but they're losing.

They're allowing guys to get low on them, get through them, and even in the junior level, right? What good is it if you're trying to pin a guy against the boards and they give you a little shove, crouch down a little bit, chip the puck three feet out from you, you don't adapt to that, they get three feet of space on you, throw it out in front of the net, and boom, you got yourself a scoring chance, right? I see that all the time.

It's the focus on the body and not focus on the turnover, turning that possession back over, that really seems to be a tough lesson for a lot of defensemen to get over. I find that a lot of defensemen from the age of 18 to 23, in the grand scheme of things, their style of play doesn't drastically shift all that often.

And so, when I see things like that happening, I'm going, okay, I gotta either hope that this guy puts in the time in the gym and becomes, just, a strength nut, and pins that guy to the boards so they can't do anything, or they figure out a way to get into those situations, take a step back, chip at the puck. Really battle for the puck rather than focus on the guy.

Because I've seen it so many times with guys who are bigger and more physical, they apply it in a way where I feel like coaches will go, “Wow, look at you go, you're playing hard, you're playing the thing!” But then they escape, this opponent might escape, and create a little bit of space for themselves. And again, this is a game of inches, it's a game of a couple of feet, and every inch matters.

So in some cases, yeah, you get those situations where guys like Ristolainen, yeah, you're doing the thing, people clip the hits, people clip the physical play, but then five seconds later, someone's got some space on you and they generate a scoring chance. And so what do you really value, right? Personally, fewer scoring chances would be ideal.

GR: I love it. Last piece to wrap this up, because I think it'll go well into our next piece, which is point play. Shorting the zone.

I was able to find some phenomenal clips and do some photos of this for the newsletter. But the concept of; if you're watching a game in the NHL, if you can see all five of the people trying to break the puck out, low in the zone… A lot of it, you think about the NHL today, is like a swarm. We're going to do close support. I'm going to try to crowd the puck out.

A good way to respond to that is to short the zone, which basically means your defensemen, instead of hanging out at the blue line, are going to go into the offensive zone. And they're going to start with small gaps, they're going to be [at the] top of the circles, if not a little bit lower.

Tortorella is another big fan of this, so you can see it with the Flyers a lot, too. I would say [Sheldon] Keefe is another example of a coach who does this a ton. So you saw a lot in Toronto, now you'll see a lot more in New Jersey, which is  the perfect d-core to make all of this work. So I think Devils are going to be good for — that's going to be a great fit.

But just the idea of crowding in the space, setting small gaps, so when you do start defending, you can either cut a play off early — it's an easy pinch there if you don't have to go very far — you can cut it off. Or, 2; create a turnover in a much better spot than what is in your own zone. Why not make it in the o-zone? So from a positioning standpoint, phenomenal place to start, good way to kill plays early.

Before they can get going, before the team can build speed, and just being able to put yourself in a good spot to take advantage both from a defensive standpoint, but offensive standpoint.

WS: Yeah, I love when I see this being deployed. I think, again, I'm a geek, like I'm a math guy, and even just thinking about the numbers here, it makes such a difference if you think about it.

The offensive zone from blue line to goal line is 64 feet. So you're looking at the difference between a guy standing at the blue line being maybe 75 feet from the net or at the top of the face-off circle where you might be 20 feet closer, maybe 20, 25 feet closer. So you're cutting down the time at which you give the defense to adapt, the goaltender to adapt. You're cutting that time down by a third-ish, a quarter to a third. I'm ballparking here, but that automatically is just based on where you are on the ice.

If you can compress the offensive zone on your opponent, you're laughing. The second thing I wanted to mention here is this is, again, why skating ability and quickness and speed are so important to me. Because it is objectively a better position to be in when you're in that position — closer to the top of the face-off circles for your defensemen.

But if you do have a situation where the opponent has possession of the puck you have to get set up, you have to cover that gap, you have to cover for yourself, or you have to have some sort of system in place where a winger can cover for you if you're caught in the offensive zone. Ideally, you have your defensemen who can wheel up, get some speed going, get positioned well to counter that attack, and have a system that can swarm whoever has that puck in the offensive zone.

I think it's a really interesting trend for sure. It's a simple little thing, it's a concept that you see definitely a lot more now than you used to, but I'm all about it. It just makes sense mathematically, and it plays into exactly the styles of player that I always look for: guys who do pinch a little bit more aggressively, but have the mobility and the skating ability to cover for themselves.

I would rather have a player who tries something creative, or tries some sort of play that could lead to a high scoring chance, but may relinquish some space on the ice, but has the ability to cover for themselves.

And I can at least as a coach, rely on them — not that I'm a coach — but rely on them to cover for themselves. To go, okay, I can rely on them to try these things, because I know that if it doesn't maybe go their way, which happens in hockey all the time, I'm not going to be upset at this player, but I know that I want them to backcheck, cover for it, because I know they're capable of it.

I think that that's sort of the trade off that you have to live with, but I'm totally cool with it.

GR: All right, so we're going to call this end of the day on some modern day defending, and we'll pick up on point play in episode two.

[END Transcript.]

part 2 <- convenient link at the bottom <3

[dilf-luvr-4evr]

Marry-Me-Salmon | Joel Miller x F!Reader

The amount of game Joel fics aren’t enough‼️ Taking matters into my own hands. Though I think they somewhat behave the same! I saw these recipes of “marry me salmon” going around and got inspired lol. Just tooth rotting fluff and a bit predictable but I just wanna see this man happy :(🩷

(Set in Jackson and Joel lives forever in MY blog ☝🏼)

Joel had bought a ring.

It was like his body moved on its own. When he laid his eyes on the thing, he thought there could possibly be no ring that could be more you.

That was a week ago. Why he bought it, he still doesn’t know. Well.. He knows exactly why. Just didn’t want to do it. Scared to do it. And this is coming from a man who isn’t scared of much.

You were arguably the best thing to ever walk into his life. Why you chose his hard-ass, he’ll never understand. After three years of you shutting him up and convincing him that you love him (you’d make him repeat it too), by default he’d say that yes, you do love him. But deep down, he still has a hard time believing it. He just knows that he’s very scared of losing you. And that he’s a goddamn lucky bastard.

So he decided, he doesn’t want to scare you off until he’s perfectly sure you wanted to be with him (yes, three whole years and he still isn’t sure). The ugly insecure monster within him thinks the day will never arrive. But in the comfortable silence that you two occasionally shared tangled with each other, he somehow had a feeling. Though fleeting, he did feel from the way you squeezed his hand, that you wanted this forever thing just as much as he did. So maybe — just maybe — your words did pierce through him. And he keeps the ring in his back pocket all the time just in case.

A week ago, you had overheard some ladies in the Square telling a story about how her husband of thirty-six years decided to propose to her because she cooked him the marry-me-salmon. You scoffed at the idea. There was no way it was that simple. Right?

Fast forward to present day, a salmon fillet was laid in front of you. You didn’t know how, you didn’t know why, but you managed to pull the strings. Although.. you know exactly why. Just didn’t wanna admit it. Shy to say it. Hence the salmon. You just wanted to cook Joel something nice. A lie you tell yourself.

The problem is, you don’t really cook. You learned to, yes, and occasionally do because of the situation of the world. But the marry-me-salmon intimidated you, the scribbled recipe mocking you from the counter. Were you too desperate? No use crying over spilled milk. Or in this case, killed salmon.

“What’s this I’m smelling?” You can hear the faint sound of Joel’s teasing as he made his way downstairs. You rolled your eyes, knowing he’d make fun of you attempting to cook. Before you know it, he was already behind you, trying to take a peek at what you’re making.

“Go away, it’s a surprise,” you quickly say, rushing to cover the recipe title. You would rather die than have him see that. He chuckled at your panicked reaction and raised his hands up in defeat.

“Alright, darlin’,” he grinned ear to ear, leaving a kiss on the top of your head before retreating to the dining table. “Just don’t burn down the kitchen,” he teased again. You clicked your tongue in annoyance though you can’t help but smile.

You messed up the recipe a bit. And it didn’t help that Joel kept looking up from the book that Ellie lent him to see what you’re cooking. You shouldn’t have said it was a surprise because you’ve got him awfully curious. At least it’s finally finished. You tried to plate it nicely, earning a few chuckles from Joel from how endearing you looked. It was lost on him why you had to be doing all this.

“And what did I do to deserve this?” He asked, cocking a brow at you when you put down the dish in front of him. He immediately closed his book, taking a whiff of the salmon.

“Just.. Cause I love you,” you smiled, taking a seat across him and propping your cheek on your palm. He chuckled again, warmth spreading in his chest. There was no way you cooked for him without any ulterior motive. If Joel learned anything from those three years with you, it is that you hate cooking unless you really have to.

But when you’re this beautiful, speaking to him so softly with that angelic smile? All for him? Joel chooses to believe you. He was a goddamn lucky bastard indeed.

“Well I love you too darlin’, thank you,” he says genuinely in that baritone voice of his. The sweetness of the moment didn’t last very long as he starts cutting the fish and you anxiously waited for his reaction. You just hope that the little mistake you made wasn’t very crucial to the dish. He eventually puts it in his mouth and started chewing.

“Well?” You ask, not even giving him a second. He hummed, taking a moment to process the taste. It was quite alright. He thought it could use more salt.

“S’good,” he nodded with a little smile. You knew damn well he was lying. And you knew that he would finish the whole thing anyway just because you made it. You wondered if the mistake you made had been that bad or if the lady at the square was full of shit.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” You pouted, pulling the plate and taking a fork to taste it yourself.

“Darlin’, I said it was good,” he insisted, his brows knitted together. He’d tease you til his death but he’s so sweet when he needed to be. It made you feel really bad. You finally tried it yourself and none of you were exactly right. It was just.. Average. Okay. Edible. Just needed more salt. You felt silly for not giving it a taste test before serving it.

“I’ll fix it,” you say, abruptly standing up to look for the salt above the counter. It wasn’t there. You hurriedly searched the kitchen like a cop scanning for drugs.

“Darlin’,” Joel chuckled, standing with you. “Would you just sit down?” You didn’t listen, suddenly remembering that you ate breakfast in front of the TV and brought the salt with you. You were already running to the couch before Joel could stop you.

As he shakes his head with a loving smile, he sees it. The scribbled recipe on the counter. The marry-me-salmon.

He felt like the wind got knocked out of his lungs. This was it. You wanted to marry him. He quickly reached into his back pocket as if he was trained to do so upon hearing the information. His mind was screaming at him, now! Now! Now! Hell, did he even prepare a question?

You got back to the kitchen to find Joel on one knee. A ring between his thumb and his pointer finger. Funny enough, you thought it really was because of the salmon. In a way, it is kind of true. Are all salmons hexed with a marriage spell no matter how bad they taste? Doesn’t matter. Joel Miller, the love of your life, was finally proposing to you. You shakily exhaled as if you’ve been holding your breath for a while.

“Darlin’..” Joel began, his voice shaking. Though he didn’t really know what to say except for the desperation that he felt. The urgency to just be with you. “Please marry me?”

As tears formed in your eyes, still not believing what’s happening, you can’t help but ask him, “Is it because of the salmon?”

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thank you for reading!! 🫶🏼