#but that’s such a can of worms in its self

[mantis-lizbian]

minor point, but i think i'd say the point isn't necessarily to "play a different game" but rather to be more honest with yourself about what a game's mechanics and themes are and aren't. you can defy those expectations still, but you're going to really struggle if you do so blindly, without taking into account how the game resists it.

to take it outside of the realm of D&D specifically, and use other games as a point of comparison, i recently ran a game in Masks: A New Generation set in the universe of Worm, a web novel by Wildbow.

Masks is a game about teenage superheroics and figueing out what kind of person you want to be. it has numerous mechanics and decision choices that work to highlight the tumultuous experience of being a teenager trying to find a sense of self and figure out how to deal with all the expectations and drives both within and without. around this central core, the mechanics regarding the superheroics are fairly "four-colour", that is. they're roughly on the level of your average late '90s to 2000s superhero cartoon like Teen Titans, Static Shock, the '90s Spider-Man TV series, or X-Men: Evolution. while these shows still have beating up bad guys and the occasional dark plotline, they don't really even come close to how dark the average shonen anime can get. vombat in Masks focuses more on emotional states than physical damage, and losing combat tends to mean letting the villain escape or fleeing yourself rather than even necessarily getting knocked out, let alone dying.

so using Masks to model the grim, often hyper-violent world of Worm is... tricky. when, in complete lieu of hit points, represents taking lumps in a fight by your character getting angry or hopeless, it takes a lot of work to model fights with characters who fight so viciously as to do things like... suffocate someone with a swarm of bugs, plant bombs inside people's necks, or just... being a giant nazi wolf made out of chains and blades. and that's not even mentioning the Slaughterhouse Nine which, uh... yeah, the people above? they're the average, everyday, street-level villains, so i'll just let you imagine what a gang of internationally recognized serial killers are like in this universe.

so yeah, very much a conflict between the rules system and the kind of game i wanted to run (and Worm very much isn't Worm without the extreme violence - i'd argue as a crucial part of its counterintuitively positive and optimistic thesis). but i saw a way in which Worm explored themes of identity and becoming that very much fit in with how Mask focuses on them, and so i chose to make it work anyway.

and it took a lot of effort, but i did manage to make it work without even rewriting or homebrewing any rules. the point is that you absolutely can tell a story that conflicts with the themes and mechanics of a game, but just like breaking rules of writing, you have to know and understand what you're doing with it and why in order to avoid simply highlighting that dissonance, or worse it actively disrupting things.

So there is a pretty clear shift in playstyle between TSR D&D and WotC D&D: for better and for worse, D&D 3e introduced the idea of encounter balance, de-emphasized mechanics that had previously encouraged the GM to think of the monsters as real living creatures (reaction rolls, morale, etc.), and it had the effect of making D&D a much more combat-focused game. D&D has always been a game that's opinionated about combat, it's basically the most expressive and detailed form of play regardless of edition, but combat in the TSR editions was not exactly zoomed in and tactical. The WotC editions purposefully made combat zoomed in, granular, and tactical.

And this has had an effect on playstyle: since combat is now the main form of player expression what players actually want is for their characters to get into combat. Because combat is the most fun part of the game. But the game has also changed from the largely amoral dungeon-crawling game into a game of fantasy heroics (even though a lot of the trappings of the amoral dungeon-crawling still remain, which contributes to the dissonance), so you can't just have the player characters going into combat for the sake of it. That would frame the player characters as kind of Fucked Up, and we can't have that in our supposedly heroic fantasy.

What you end up with is a variety of contrivances like "they're bandits," "they're cultists," or, my all-time favorite, "they attacked first" to make the action seem morally justifiable, even though gameplay is still motivated by a desire to fight. The monsters fight to the death and, importantly, can often not be reasoned and negotiated with, partly because combat is supposed to be the fun, engaging part everyone is here to do, but also because if they actually acted like reasonable people it could cause dissonance with the whole "the player characters are the goodest heroes."

As my friend @tenleaguesbeneath once called it: what is actually going on is that the player characters are hunting people and monsters who have been programmed to fight to the death and never negotiate for sport, while justifying it as self-defence.

It's a simple power fantasy, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Sometimes you want to play a morally uncomplicated game about killing guys with cool magic swords. But I think it's also fun to think about what the specific types of monsters players end up fighting reveals about Society the invisible, unexamined ideology lying under the surface that the designers of even modern D&D have failed to examine. And to me it often reads like a frontier justice fantasy. None of that is to detract from anyone's joy of the game, and for me it's just fun to think about and post about this stuff while Still Enjoying the Game, but if someone expressing that opinion makes you feel uncomfortable, why? That's pretty silly imo.

[coffin-hopping]

hey! I got to thinking and actually turned this post of mine into a small drabble

(give me your thoughts on this subject btw!)

this one may be a bit for me to unpack but bare with me lol

so I’ve actually gone on a bit of a spiel about Arthur, his brownness and how that relates to external love, self love, and largely self hatred (I’ll find the post later) the thing is, I really only talked about how all of that relates to his relationship with John, and since the Saltzmans are a bigger can of worms to unpack they definitely deserve their own post

the most prominent relationships he has are with Daniel (father-in-law) and Bella (late wife)

here, I’m gonna focus on the implications of the Saltzmans being brown family

Kayne remarks that Arthur fell “in-like” with Bella, and while that can be interpreted in many ways (Arthur is gay, Arthur is arospec, etc etc) I think in this specific case it can be interpreted as Arthur choosing a “safe” option, let me elaborate— I believe Arthur and Bella really were good friends before they got into a relationship, and in some way loved each other, but the marriage wasn’t as magical or fantastical as either were made to believe marriage would be. not because they didn’t love each other, but because they married out of fear, the fear of never being able to find someone like them again, or someone willing to marry someone like them, someone who looks like they do

the relation of their brownness could also be a factor in Daniel��s anger at Arthur for allowing Bella to leave her pursuit of education to marry him, being that its the 1930s and it would obviously be LOT harder to go to college and pursue higher academics as a woman of color

now, let’s shift the focus to Daniel

we know now from information given in one of the recent episodes that Arthur didn’t have a good relationship with his father, that he was a drunk and payed little attention to him (not sure how I feel about that because ehh it’s a little stereotypical, something I’ve personally gone through though) (yay! projection!) . when Arthur reunites with Daniel, the two are able to talk things through (as best as they can before yk everything with Collins happens) and Arthur begins to consider Daniel as a father-figure, even calling him Dad. this aspect, in my perspective as a brown man, is very sweet! Arthur after a lifetime of grief is able to reconcile with Daniel and both are able to get back something they lost (Arthur has a father again, Daniel gets to be a father again)

there’s also something to say about a brown man who never really had a father finding solace in another brown man who offers that sort of relationship, idk!!!

I just. really like observing the possible racial dynamics between the characters in this series

[trashcreatyre]

Y’all ever get so emotional about a headcanon that you forget its not actually canon and its something you literally made up

[zephyrartz-owo]

Mental Health Tip! Don't skip meals lest you be fighting demons

[prettyflyshyguy]

Rejoice! Los Illuminados is bestowing upon you its most sacred body.

@cannibal-wings has been providing me excerpts and info about his RE4 remake AU.

It's good.

[gncrezan]

some old @chrysanthemumgames hermes-seph sketches!!! some of it is established-relationship daydreaming but also a peek at my dark and twisted mind (sprawling intricate spidey au)

[arcane-shadow]

She protecc

[arundolyn]

its really interesting to me how the resident vampires in general of gg and bb have such completely different ideologies. mostly in reference to slayer and rachel but i think this somewhat extends to clavis also bc iirc he wasnt an observer but still kinda played by the same rules. theres at least a plot reason for rachel not to stick her nose into anything plotwise but she still kinda does anyway and i think even if she didnt have the bystander restrictions she wouldnt deign to interact with anyone all that often. i like the dichotomy of the alucards' general attitudes towards humans being at least moderately scornful and superior to some extent even if not actively despite still ultimately wanting to help out (mostly rachel tbh but theres still elements of the typical fiction vampire superiority complex type shit just in general vibes wise for all three of them, esp in relation to like. fuzzy) and slayer's attitude that humanity is a beautiful thing and wanting to help the people he comes across despite having no particular incentive to do so aside from personal fascination and goodwill. rachel already built in having some level of scorn for humans as lesser and also having ample incentive to never interfere with the main storyline as it carries out but doing it anyway because despite these things she still cares despite the active threat to her Literal Existence vs slayer having no skin in the game either way if he does or doesnt help anyone out but still deciding to try to help others find their way regardless just because if nothing else its the most interesting thing to do from his perspective. he has no external motivation TO or NOT TO interfere with anything, its just essentially long term people watching and hed rather do good than do nothing

[missazura]

Let's say someone's in love with an evil guy, right. How much does "I love you just the way you are" can be applied when it's about them and their criminal activities that makes it okay to uh. Accept.

Do I refrain, back off? Or do I just go all the way?

[s0lemnhypn0s]

not to be a gatekeeper unironically but i genuinely feel a very, very small percentage of people actually understand crocodile. and if you think you're in that small percentage you're probably the exact kind of person I am talking about. Not to be mean but to be mean.

this is mainly directed at genderbenders and dofuwani shippers. neither of y'all understand crocodile and do not deserve access to him

[konfizry]

Renans and their names

So. This “formative background” bit makes it sound like Renan names give information on the person’s.... skills? But that doesn’t seem to be the case, if you look at the little info they give you in the materials guide. 

Renan full names are more or less confirmed to be Helganquil code put in place for classification purposes. The meanings of Shionne, Dohalim and Vholran’s names are given in their respective character sheets. Below is a tentative breakdown of the names with their translation. 

[[Transcript of the above image:

シオン・ヴィメル・アイメリス・ダイモ 

Shion Vimeru Aimerisu Daimo (localized Shionne Vymer Imeris Daymore)

meaning Shionne, 33rd gen, Imer lineage, Dayn ethnicity. 

テュオハリム・メルケル・イルルケリス・ナアモ

Tyuoharimu Merukeru Irurukerisu Naamo (localized Dohalim Melqal il Qaras Na'amo by @IdyllicTales on twitter)

meaning Dohalim, 32nd gen, il Qu clan, Naha ethnicity.

ヴォルラーン・ライ・アングサリ・ライモ

Voruraan Rai Angusari Raimo  (localized Vholran Lai Igniseri Laimore (i had to improvise the Lai and Laimore part myself don’t hit me))

meaning Vholran, gen N/A, special adjustment index, ethnicity: N/A

End of transcript]]

thus, Renan naming structure seems to go as follows: Given name, generation number, family line, ethnicity. 

(typically, in-game and in the guide, the translation is given in reverse order, commencing with the general (ethnicity) going towards the specific (given name)

e.g. “Ethnicity: N/A, Unique Adjustment Index, Generation: N/A, Given Name Alphen”)

Following this pattern, Alphen would be Alphen Lai Igniseri Laimore in Helganquil code. (if you remember, in the Forbidden Zone computer room, he’s given the same “Ethnicity: N/A, Unique Adjustment Index, Generation: N/A” treatment as Vholran, given that they’re both Dahnans, so they didn’t get engineerd, scrutinized and classified the way Renans were. So basically every Dahnan’s name is <Given Name> Lai Igniseri Laimore as far as the Helganquil are concerned)

Now. About this Nth Generation business...

Like, Dohalim is from the 32nd generation since... when exactly? The establishment of Lenegis as a place of living for Renans? Meaning that that first batch of kidnapped Dahnans with astral artes affinity that became the first Renans would have been 1st generation? That seems to make some amount of sense. If a generation is something like about 25 years give or take, that would mean the First Renans were established on Lenegis something like 800 years ago. Thus, when Alphen was brought to Lenegis, people had been living there for a good 500 years. I dunno about y’all but I’m willing to believe it. 

If that’s the case, we can theorize Naori’s full name to have been Naori <Helganquil for≈20> Imeris Daymore. Isn’t this Fun!

[daydreamycrustacean]

The Origin and 0079 show slightly different versions of this but it always makes me a bit crazy how it´s kept vague whether it's true the Zabis caused the death of Zeon Deikun or not. We never actually see them admit to or talk about this and honestly? I was never under the impression that Dewin Zabi actually did it, he took the chance to become the ruler of Side 3 sure, but well its never made clear if he actually poisoned Zeon Deikun to take his throne like this is a Shakespeare play or something.

So thinking about the fact that maybe Zeon died of natural causes and not poisoned (or maybe just not by the Zabis) in relation to Char is crazy because...this is everything right?

It doesn't exactly make his "revenge" empty and useless bc yeah the Zabis were still a fascist monarchy that was twisting his father´s ideals and they had to be taken down but...Getting revenge on his father´s supposed death at their hands was not only his entire motivation, it's the reason he killed the only person that ever considered him his friend. The reason he separated himself from his sister, the last member of his family, and became something she could no longer recognize. The reason he stopped being Casval and became Char in the first place, an identity that even though he tried to kill in order to become a better person he could never truly escape.

This is getting embarrassingly long and emotional for a "isn't it fucked up that char may have done all of this based on nothing" post but!! I haven't even gotten into what growing up seeing himself as this conduit for revenge, having this One Purpose to accomplish because it was His Duty as his father´s son has done to him because it's everything!! It´s why he is this way!! Why he does what he does in cca after apparently getting better in zeta!! just...*gesture vaguely at all of his issues*

And yeah maybe it doesn't matter whether the Zabis killed his father or not bc what matters is that this is what Char believes, this is what Casval was told as a child. but. I don't know. fucked up if true. Maybe none of this had to happen.

[canarydarity]

Hard to tell how indicative the bones on the floor are of anything about the catacombs themselves being how, every few minutes, Pix kills another skeleton adding to the collection. He swipes his sword through the one before him, and it collapses so readily into a pile of bone—like it was made to, like it was just waiting on his sword—that he has to wonder, not for the first time, what was holding it together to begin with. The bones rattle and clatter against those already littered around, and Pix sighs at the further disturbance to the scene as it was when he had entered; accounting for the damage likely done by mobs was going to make this hell to study. 

He grabs another torch and sets it inside one of the empty sconces that still adorn the walls, readjusts his grip on his sword—he can hear more lingering around the next corner; the low hiss that means a spider is near, the groan or two of a zombie. 

Pix picks up a chunk of cobble from the ground and tosses it down the hall, waits. Sure enough, out scuttles a spider. He disposes of it quickly enough, but it seems he’ll have to venture down the dark hall to goad the zombies. He glances at the clock he placed in his hotbar before embarking on this mission (it’s hard to tell how much time passes underground—something he learned quickly in his line of work). There’s still a good amount of daylight left, and he wants the catacombs cleared; he has other projects he has to move on to, things he needs to finish; he’ll just get through a few more halls—it won’t be an issue, surely. 

But the new corner he rounds remains dark even as he places a torch behind him to mark the way back. The groans can still be heard, but a zombie is yet to lumber his way, and so he has to wonder what's beyond his admittedly limited sight. Pix shuffles another foot or so forward, a torch in his non-dominant hand now as well, hoping for light, for vision. The research part of him—the logical academic—knows that it shouldn't still be this dark with the torches placed behind him nor the one in his hand, and that part is so much louder and more important than the one that knows this means something is wrong, the part that says turn around. 

The torch is lit, he can feel the heat of the flame as he observes it flicker in and out but cast no shadow on the wall behind—a wall Pix can’t even see but knows is there all the same. The circle of light provided extends no further than an inch or two out from the flame itself—comparable more to that of a birthday candle than a lit hand torch. If he hadn’t been staring directly at it, he would’ve assumed the fire snuffed out. 

He feels his eye twitch and his brows furrow. Academia liked concrete answers, things that could be explained and reasoned away—unequivocal proof. But Pix had always had a soft spot for the inexplicable, the ineffable. It was nice when he studied something and found an answer, it was riveting when he didn’t. How much more exciting to study it again and again, a riddle that begged not to be solved. (How much sweeter the prize if he were the one to figure it out in the end). 

His interest was piqued. He could feel it, the way his attention focused and his surroundings blurred and left him; his body on standby, his sword hand lowered almost subconsciously.  

In other words, it was entirely his own fault when the zombie grabbed him. Panic is never a good thing to welcome into a fight, but it likes to show up uninvited anyway. Pix's entire career revolves around studying human behavior, about how human nature cannot be fought against though it oft leads us to our own downfall and ruin. He finds it uncanny when he's reminded that this is a phenomenon from which he is not exempt. 

In haste, he elbows the zombie behind him and turns, back now to the darkness—the one not even his torch could dent. It’s an ugly bugger, eyes soft and misshapen from decay and skin so leathery it’s as if it's been treated and is ready for use as a saddle or armor. Logic replaced by horror, before he can run it through it advances, arms out, and Pix drops his sword to reach back, holding it at arm's length itself; their arms interlocked, pose not unlike meeting an old friend again for the first time in a while. His hands grip the woven fabric of what's left of its shirt, too old and worn to be from any time close to recent, and, despite the very real danger, his mind takes the time to process the period-accurate fabric, the hand-stitched design. He blanches again as he looks into its horrible milky eyes—this zombie was from the capital. 

Not sentient enough to know why it’s not actually getting any closer to Pixlriffs, the zombie makes a noise that sounds frighteningly human in its frustration and steps forward, and in his distraction, Pix lets it. The push seems to make his brain function yet again, and he shoves the zombie backward a good few paces away, but the momentum sends him stepping back himself, and his foot finds not purchase but, instead, the disturbing lack of solid ground, and with nothing left to do, he falls. 

He hits the ground with a thump and a crack and a lot of other sounds he would rather not describe as he feels they were likely very undignified. Winded but, it appears, still in one piece, he grabs another torch and strikes it against the wall, holding it up above him when it lights and shines this time as torches normally do. He buries the part of himself that is disappointed at this—the part that wants to panic and complain finally louder, now, than the part that says hmm. 

He didn’t fall too far, it seems. Now that the torch is lit he can see the gap he’d fallen through, just under a dozen feet or so above where he lays. It's obvious even looking from below how the stone floor had crumbled away, taking maybe one or two hits too many over time from overcrowded mobs or shifts in terrain or pressure aboveground. He tilts his head back but sees only another dead end behind him, and ahead looks like a further, deeper hall of the tomb he hadn’t uncovered yet, though the path is obstructed by debris from above; a net of spiderweb blankets the pile of stone and dirt, but no spider seems to be left guarding the web. 

His friend above seems to have lost interest now that he’s fallen out of sight, and its moans and groans get further away by the second. 

No immediate threat, Pix lets his head fall back onto the ground and takes a breath. He knew the crypt would be full of mobs, he knew it’d be hard, but still…

No, it’s worth it. It will be worth it. He has a job to do.

At least he isn’t defenseless—it’s more than he can say for the dungeons. Not a weapon to his name, fists wrapped in tape so red you’d never believe it’d been white to begin with; knuckles so raw and scraped and beaten by the time he’d made it out that they’d scarred that way—permanent marks of the fighter he was, of the fighter he’d proved to be. 

There was a fear there, too, at that very real and physical understanding of permanence. His studies proved expert in providing examples of what was permanent and what wasn’t, and where people weren’t, things were. He’d spent enough time studying what could be learned about a person by the things they left behind to begin to wonder if anyone at all would’ve remembered him if he’d died in those dungeons—not a singular weapon or item for him to leave behind and tell his story.

Pix stops wallowing. He sits up and reaches over his shoulder for his pick; he isn’t shocked to find that the shaft had snapped in two from the fall, it having been strapped to his back. He sighs, tossing it aside as useless. He’ll make another. 

He takes the time to remind himself again that he knew it was going to be difficult, and that difficulty was no reason to not continue. But it didn’t just feel difficult it felt…inhibiting. Dissuading, deterring, impeding. It felt deliberate. It felt like, stay out; like, we don’t want you here; like, leave us to our rest. 

(it wasn’t, it was something far more sinister. An idea he’d never thought to consider; like a torch was giving off too-little light in the hallway of a dark, long-forgotten crypt, he couldn’t see any farther than what was right in front of his own face. How cliche it’d be, in the end, when it came to pass—the academic too invested in their own research, too dismissive of the present danger posed until it consumed them. He’d have a moment to laugh about it later, when the dread had settled in and all options—or lack thereof—exhausted. While on the topic of permanence…

It was not go away that the tomb was saying, not a driving force out that was being enacted upon the archeologist, but a more frightening call of stay. A threatening but desperate find…become…join…

No, if it were trying to keep him out, why would it keep pushing him deeper? Add this to the list of things he’d realize too late.)

He stands and dusts himself off. The wall is thick and overgrown with glow lichen, and he grabs the nearest vines and tugs one, twice, three times before deciding it won't give and hoisting up. It takes a few minutes and a fair amount of huffing and puffing to get himself to the top and over the edge but he does it, collapsing on higher ground once again and taking a minute to slow his pulse. When he left the dungeons, he dove back into the studies he’d been missing and decided he’d had enough fighting to last a lifetime—this was not without consequence, he’s not nearly as in shape as he used to be. 

His sword is still on the ground where he’d dropped it, so he reequips and readies himself to push his way back out; he’d have to make time to come back and clear the rest another day. He would be back, and he hoped he would be welcomed. 

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” he says into the quiet blackness of the catacombs. He doesn't dare speak above a whisper, for there were still mobs around and his voice carried enough as it was, bouncing along the empty stone and quiet graves. “I'd like to tell your story.” 

There's nothing to hear but for the scuttling of various creatures far off in the dark, the shrill whistle of stray wind through small openings and holes. He raises his voice only slightly, a bit bolder. “Don’t you want me to do that? Will—would you allow me to do that?” 

Silence, and then—the rattle and clatter of a skeleton. It sounds like only one; he lit everything up pretty well on his way in, getting out should be easier. Striking another torch against the wall, Pix prepares to go. For a second, the light is brighter than it should be, its circle of light illuminating the hall completely, the hole he’d fallen into, the distance to the other side. He leans back to avoid the heat of the flame, and he sees it. 

The other side of the cave-in leads not to another tunnel but to an alcove, and empty it is not. His torch, though many feet away, sheds light on the scene; the heavily wax-encrusted stone above a pile of used candles and burnt wicks, the coin and other offerings of gold overflowing from bowls and chalices and any other orifice they could be piled upon, and her. 

He recognizes her immediately. The tapestry covers the majority of the wall, and though it's faded for certain, the lack of direct sunlight has done wonders at preserving what it could. The colors are familiar to his research, the subtle and light greens under warm oranges and yellows. He’s too far, he cannot see any detail; the background, what she's holding, her face—but he knows her. She’s their patron. 

The skeleton wanders closer, its bones clicking and clacking down the hall. Pix swallows. 

“I’ll return for you, I will.” It’s a promise. She’s holding a secret, he knows she is—he’s going to figure out what. Pix turns just in time to face the skeleton as it rounds the corner, and soon its bones join those on the floor, new and old alike. 

His words still echo off the caverns and crevices of the catacombs after he's left and gone, and though not possible to have been heard by human ears, the crypt whispers back good. 

~-~-~-~

Far below even the hole the archeologist had fallen in, leagues underneath the surface of the earth, buried perhaps the furthest underground of anything left behind from the ancient capital—so deeply you’d have to wonder if maybe it was done on purpose—the crown sits in a chest, waiting patiently to be discovered. It’s not a matter of if, but a nice decisive and quiet when. Eventually, the echo of the archeologists' words falls upon it where it sits, and slowly it begins to emit a soft glow. It says stay, it says find, it says become, it says join.

It says soon.

[bcnes-archived]

one thing about writing bones is im always gonna overthink the way he'd refer to himself. just in his internal monologue or whatever. like everybody calls him mccoy but i doubt he's thinking of himself via his surname for a multitude of reasons, and there's bones but it's such a jim-exclusive thing, and leonard feels the most correct but it's a little weird at the same time because nobody ever calls him that in tos and even in aos it's just spock, like, twice. and then he might have gone by other nicknames in the past but he's not thinking of them in relation to himself anymore. who is this guy

[bd-wlf]

Who was going to tell me that having a crush was so...crushing pun intended, it could just be the music I'm listening or the books I'm reading but jesus fuck

I feel like I'm going to explode because she hasn't texted me today,

[chai-dye]

So so normal about what a character's music tastes says about them