#he never says things like that when the gm or me are present but we still get info. he just can't be confronted by the gm like that

[mayspicer]

Ok, the boss is no more! There were some super stressful moments but surprisingly we all survived o:

My animal companion got hit with disintegrate, but we had hero points to make him avoid it. I would cry actually, because disintegrate means no resurrection x_x

The war is prevented! At least this one, because Cayden's party is right at the center of a much bigger one just starting. Today we saved the country. Cayden is trying to not even save the whole world, just maybe slow the whole thing down and save as much people as possible...

[white-weasel]

Ideal Hypothetical Saw Film Reroll episode(s)

(This is something I’ve been thinking about as I’ve watched through the movies and @afoxnamedmulder also formally asked about it so I took that as full permission from him to just start spewing my every thought about these two things together. This post is hyper niche and for literally like 3 people but idec lets gooooo)

So the first thought is if the Film Reroll crew were to ever reroll Saw it would obviously be the first one. It’s the most culturally relevant one and the one that most fits with what I can see the show doing. In the case of rerolling Saw I, ideally the players would not have seen the movie. Like I said, since this is the most culturally significant one this might be hard but I’m gonna go off of both vibes and play style for this one and just hope that it works

For the GM it’s gonna be Paulo. I just feel he could do the cramped space of the bathroom justice and bring in new “challenges”/obstacles to keep things moving.

Playing Lawrence Gordon, and this is gonna sound crazy please bear with me, I think we get Carolyn Faye Kramer. My reasoning for this is that the Lawrence of Saw I is someone who, despite his task being to kill Adam and cut off his foot, does not actually have the ability to do it until the very end when his family is threatened. If we put Jon or Scott here, Gordon is shooting Adam within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Carolyn I feel can play someone very conflicted about the choice and also won’t immediately jump to trusting whatever Jigsaw is saying on the tape. She’s willing to cooperate with her fellow player and only if she’s pushed to take things into her own hands will she start trying to make moves, which I feel is fitting. (Also she’s the only cast member I feel like we can say 100% has never seen these movies lmao lest we forget the infamous Friday the 13th “I know who the killer is” fiasco” happening because she doesn’t like scary movies)

My first choice playing Adam Faulkner-Stanheight would be none other than Joz Vammer themself! I think they could really get the tone of the character down full stop. The mixture of outbursts and jokes, but then also throwing things at the wall to see what sticks in getting them out of there. I feel like Joz also would not accept the zero sum game presented by Jigsaw and would work to find a way for both Adam and Lawrence to get out together, which is really what you need for this movie. In my heart I feel like Joz has seen the movie, but for this scenario I would hope not because…

The twist in this reroll would be there has been a 3rd PC the whole time: Zep Hindle. I would LOVE for Tim to play Zep. He could 100% play this quiet, envious guy given instructions to carry out his part of the game. My imagining for this would be he and Paulo had a session before the main game that was all about how Zep handled the set up stuff with Alison and Diana.

And then I’m envisioning the bathroom game sessions are happening on a Zoom call or the like, and Tim is sitting with Paulo in his apartment, letting him know what Zep is doing if/when phone calls to the outside world are happening and stuff. Also Paulo could totally call for “breaks” in recording where he’s actually conferring and rolling with Tim on what Zep is doing. The knowledge Zep gets is basically the equivalent of him getting to know stuff because of the camera set up in the movie. This would probably be a logistical nightmare to actually record, but I like to think that the payoff would be awesome. Like it gets revealed there was a secret third player in the episode, Joz and Carolyn are shocked, and then the edit goes back in time to show key tidbits of Tim’s turns and such. They could even release the full audio of it then on Patreon lol

The reveal at Zep being a PC rather than an NPC also kinda parallels/coincides with him not actually being Jigsaw from the original movie too. He’s not the one actually making things happen, he’s all a pawn in the game as well

HOWEVER I also had the thought - if the crew does Saw they don’t HAVE to do the first one. They didn’t do the first Friday the 13th and hell, their first episode is literally Back to the Future 2, not the first movie. If the crew just wanted to do a Saw episode to focus on the trap aspect when they’re playing, I think they could play as the Fatal 5 from Saw V (blatant Saw V bias showing here, don’t look at me, but also I genuinely think this is the group game most conducive to being rerolled). It’s also very likely that none of them have seen Saw V, so the “twist” with the traps being all survivable wouldn’t be known to them

It was between Saw V and Saw II because those are the two group games where all of the participants are free to work together and it’s not reliant on one person. I like Saw V better because I feel it can be self contained more than II. With II you have to deal with the fact Amanda is in on all of it and idk I feel like that just doesn’t work as well for a ttrpg setting. Casting for this one is a lot more vibes based and I have less concrete answers, so I’m open to suggestions

GM - Paulo once again. King of making this all work

Ashley Kazon - Carolyn (don’t know too much about Ashley but I want Carolyn in this movie and feel she could work this)

Charles Salomon - Scott (he could do it. He could bring the smarmy vibes and even though he wouldn’t know the line “I’m an Investigative Journalist for 👆The Herald👆” he would know it in spirit)

Luba Gibbs - Jon (first of all, we don’t get Jon to play women enough on this show. I love him playing Annabelle in Jumanji. Secondly, I think he can play Luba’s cut throat nature well. However I also wouldn’t mind Lisa in this role. I think she could play it well also)

Mallick Scott - Andy (he might be a bit too sedate for this, but also he’s the one I trust the most to play into the inevitable guilt complex that would be put on his sheet so)

Brit Stevenson - Kara (she could 100% do corporate woman who cares only for her own survival until she realizes that she doesn’t HAVE to care only for her own survival. I believe in her)

No twist in how the gameplay happens here, the only fun thing would be to see if the cast would be able to figure out Jigsaw’s message in that they can all actually work together to get through the traps.

FINALLY the most self indulgent thing and the thing they would never actually do because it technically wouldn’t be the movie itself is they would give us an apprentice campaign with the mainline apprentices working together before the start of Saw III/Saw IV, each of them with their own specific, secret objectives they’re hoping to achieve:

GM/John Kramer would be Paulo

Amanda would be Joz (Fairly self explanatory I feel. They have the range to play her. They would GET her)

Lawrence would be Andy (I feel Andy could pull off apprentice Lawrence. Lawrence strikes me as someone in the shadows during his apprentice work, biding his time, and I can see Andy bringing that sort of thing to Lawrence. At the same time there’s some room to develop apprentice Lawrence’s motivations and character so I would be interested in seeing what he’d do for him)

Hoffman would be Scott (Hoffman was the hardest for me to pin down in this line up but I think I like Scott as my pick for now. Open to more thoughts about this one though.)

In every scenario there would be will rolls up the wazoo. I feel like will stats in this would be fairly normal, it would just be the penalties that would make the rolls hard. So I like to imagine that cutting your own foot off is probably a -5 penalty or something, but if you’re in immediate, imminent danger or you have credible reason to think your family is in danger you’d get some bonuses back to make it a less tricky roll. Also numerous fright checks would also be on the table I’m sure, as well as senses of duty or different traits people will have to resist. I think building the character sheets for this would be fun, though it would be interesting to see how it would get balanced out by Paulo when actually playing

[remidyal]

D20 Seasons, Ranked

Well someone else did this so now I have to do this, ranking (almost) all the seasons of D20. I have not watched Pirates of Leviathan still, I will get to it sometime.

Fantasy High Sophomore Year

In part this is a time and place thing, and as you'll see on this list sequal seasons tend to do a lot for me. Adaine and Aelwyn alone would get this into the top three, and it's not alone; to me, Fearful Symmetry might be the single best episode D20's done still. Even with all the production issues of a live show, this is firmly at the top for me.

The Unsleeping City Part 2

Solidly in second place, The Unsleeping City part 2. I love to hate Cody, I find Iga's family plotline great, and there are great villains throughout this season. Kalina's still my single favorite D20 villain, but Tony and Null might be second and third. I need to rewatch this season, but it's unlikely to drop too far on this list.

A Starstruck Odyssey

The next two flip back and forth in my mind constantly; today, this one gets the edge for third. There's not really a weakness here (though Gunnie is my least favorite Lou character, he's still pretty good), and I think it's easily the FUNNIEST intrepid heroes season; I just find the emotional hits stronger in the two seasons above.

A Court of Fae and Flowers

This is an absolute force of a season, highlighted in particular for me by Lou and Emily playing their most absolutely chaotic and hilarious characters as well as incredible performances from Surena as Binx and Omar as Andhera. More roleplay, less combat suits my own interests for certain as well. Aabria should get at least one ten episode season to GM a year as far as I'm concerned.

Fantasy High

There's a lot of learning curve here in their first season for certain - I'm not sure they get concentration right once in the entire season, the timeline at points is an absolute trainwreck, and all of them are kind of feeling their way into the level of roleplaying they eventually settle into - but the season is great and has some absolutely incredible moments, especially as they do settle into it.

The Seven

A completely wild season, and easily and by far the horniest season of D20 even though there are at least two seasons where that is explicitly a part of the theme (ACoFaF and Shriek Week.) Almost every cast is great; this one is top notch. I don't really have anything bad to say about it.

Mentopolis

The newest season, this one might move up or down still quite a lot on a rewatch and with time to settle in my own personal library of memories. The characters are by design slightly one-note but it's done in a way that's incredible. Maybe the single season with the smallest gap between my favorite character and my least favorite; I'd be hard pressed to even settle on one for either end.

Never After

I wanted to love this season even more than I did, and I do like it quite a bit, but it has some missing potential. I don't need a horror season from D20 to be crazy hardcore or anything, but this one wound up being more of a weird metastory season than horror; I would argue that FHSY and TUC2 both are more of horror seasons in the end than Never After ended up as. I think this one needed a single villain to land a bit more, or maybe another ten episodes for some of the concepts to breath a little; there were just so many elements packed in and then at the end we hadn't even met large chunks of those present at the final fight. That said, it's this high because I more or less love all the things it's hitting on and there are some GREAT moments.

The Unsleeping City

To me this is the season that suffers the most from the early season RP episode - combat episode pacing, even more than Fantasy High. It's got some really nice highs, like the Titania fight or the moment when Ricky swims across to Staten Island, but it also has some real lows: The wall street fight may be the single most miserable to watch drag of a fight in the entire series, with the villain behind a globe of invulnerability, every minion in the fight having THREE legendary resistances, and a pretty dull set, and this is the penultimate encounter! Great characters, of course, but (somewhat uniquely) I enjoy watching Cody more than Kugrash and find the dynamics in TUC2 much more fun.

A Crown of Candy

This starts breaking the mold on the RP/Combat episode thing but still mostly sticks to it. The front half is GREAT, and would be much higher on this list. My complaint with the back half is not Saccharina related, but simply that I find the last three encounter designs pretty bland and unchallenging, a complete romp for the players. Some people actually do blame that on Saccharina, but I think it's mostly just a product of being higher level and Brennan not particularly balancing the fights around level - that made the early fights incredibly hard, but by the time people are level nine it's a different world than a fight where they are 1-3.

Also how do you go from giving your next to last fight 15 legendary resistances in TUC to 0 here? C'mon.

Mice and Murder

Maybe the most unique season of the show, I need to rewatch this one but remember really enjoying it, if for nothing else then just for Sam and Grant pelting Brennan with heckling from over the zoom call throughout the season.

Escape from the Bloodkeep

The first side quest, I'm NOT a big Lord of the Rings fan but this is a thoroughly fun season anyway. There's still some early installment weirdness, but I think there's a lot to love here; Trapp and Ify give performances I find particularly fun.

Ravening War

This one's a little controversial, and for the record we're still in seasons I like well enough. I think this was my favorite bit of Matt Mercer GMing I've ever seen; I also still do not particularly care for his style as a GM (though I quite enjoyed him as a player in Bloodkeep.) I wish this hadn't veered off into the underground at the end; something more tied directly within the events of the Ravening War would have fulfilled the promise more to me. I DID quite like the concept of characters going through a longer period of time between episodes, with this covering something like eight or ten years, and I hope that's a thing they revisit in the future.

Honestly, just watching how delighted Brennan is to get to play in a world of his creation is what led me to bump it up over Coffin Run.

Coffin Run

Honestly this one was fine but I do like the longer seasons and the larger tables; Jasmine did a solid job as a DM and all four players were good, but I do kind of wish they'd ended up going with WoD instead of 5E for this one. I don't dislike anything here that much, it just isn't a standout for me.

Shriek Week

This more or less plotless season does basically what it says; the cast is great and I like Gabe as a GM, but it's four episodes and four players and honestly my aroaceness might be showing here but it's largely a very small appetizer when I'm looking for a main course in a D20 season.

Dungeons and Drag Queens

This one's gonna be really controversial, but this is a season I would (and will) rewatch and it might move up. I think I wasn't really the target audience, and I'm glad it seems to have found people who were.

A worthwhile season just for how great the players and Brennan looked alone, though.

Misfits and Magic

So. This is the first season I won't ever rewatch again, and it's not really the fault of anyone who was involved. At this point, I just can't give even the slightest bit of cultural power to the property that this season is parodying. I'm glad that, at this point, everyone involved has been in other seasons because they all do incredible jobs, and I respect people who make different choices about engaging with it, but I just can't anymore. I think the season is good - probably good enough to go several slots above this - but here it is for me. Consider this kind of an N/A.

Tiny Heist

Oh boy. The only season I actively recommend against to people who ask my opinion, there'd be a country mile between this and Dungeons and Drag Queens (which I still liked) and it's entirely from the cast. I really hope we get Jess Ross in another season; Lily too even though she's quite good in Shriek Week. As for the elephants in the room, the oldest brother and the dad seem fine and fun, but the middle and youngest made this a miserable watch for me. For people who like them, I'm sure this is near the top of their lists; for me, it's an F-.

[randomnameless]

I've been wondering this for a while seeing a lot of your anti-Edelgard posts: what do you think of the events in the CF chapter Lady of Deceit? Edelgard continuing to lie to her friends about the Slitherers is the point of no return for me personally, after the chapter I had to nearly force myself to finish the route (well, from a story perspective. Field of Revenge and To the End of a Dream are great in terms of gameplay, and I admit I find the "stop fighting/no you" dialogue exchange between El and Dimitri so ridiculous it loops around to being good).

Are those posts really anti posts?

Anyways, I liked it, because it's fairly coherent with the character we've been presented.

IIRC in her version of Chapter 12 - when we attack GM - as soon as Emile pops up, Billy is shocked and she promises she'll tell them later on why Emile is on our side now...

But she never reveals a thing to Billy.

It's actually Hubert who does, in his paralogue, explaining why they had to side with Uncle and his pals, etc etc.

The Jpop song of the game explains it in better words, but Supreme Leader during her academy days was hiding with a mask and lying about her feelings, and even in Tru Piss, when we're not in Academy Days anymore, Supreme Leader is still hiding her feelings with lies. As you pointed it out, is it because she knows her "allies" didn't chose to side with her, but followed Billy? Or because she doesn't deem necessary to reveal the "truth" about her fight to her BESF comrades?

I ultimately think she knows her alliance with Uncle'n'pals sucks, just like Baldo and Waldi who are never ever mentionned in the War phase of the game, and most likely believes her "friends" of the BESF would ditch her the second they learn about it.

(and as we discover in the other routes, they actually don't! Ferdie doesn't mind fighting side by side with a "war asset" when he protects the bridge!)

Still, I must say the Jeritza thing irked me more when I played this route, because it was before the update where you could play with him! So it was just "hey it's that random we fought against who joins us as a green unit for this map", and then he is never re-used lol.

I loved Field of Revenge - it has the perfect amount of absurd double standard (see how the kingdom knights's transformation is portrayed and compare it to, again, Ferdie not minding fighting side by side with a "war asset"), Hubert dissing Dimitri for not fighting "fairly" and not saying them "hello" before the fight, the beheading scene, Dimitri and Dedue having a scene as they fight side by side when Dedue dies first, as opposed to any other vassal/lord relationship - and the plothax "Rhea and her forces were late because her sandals aren't water-proof and apparently rain prevents her from transforming in a dragon".

But yeah, even if some quotes are, uh, well, there lol, I really liked this map!

[rinkrats]

🥺 that mike lange story. But also those tags #sid loooves christmas #he loves giving presents #looks good in red #piles on the pounds fast #post hockey career as santa 😂😂👌🏽👌🏽

he loves his mementos and presents and is COMMITTED to them. scrapbooking. matching jackets. little pills with hidden motivational messages~*~ his love language is gifts and neck smooches and stalking geno. relevant right now are some anecdotes i sent a friend earlier this year for dorky sid gifts fic fodder:

1. Crosby's constant thoughtfulness would be impressive from anyone, much less someone of his stature.

"Sid always texts me happy birthday, he's always asking me like, how's Russia?" Evgeni Malkin said. "We talk and message all summer. He asks me how my skates are. He knows, like, everything. He follows my Instagram, I think (laughs)."

In addition to having a handle on those little details, Crosby is constantly providing those around him with memories and mementos. If the team is on the road and goes, say, sightseeing or to a sporting event and takes a group photo, Crosby will later send a framed copy to everyone.

When Ron Hextall and Brian Burke watched their first Penguins game in person, Crosby is the one who approached head equipment manager Dana Heinze and asked for two used game pucks to give to the new GM and president of hockey ops. 

After the Penguins won in 2009, Crosby had jackets made for the three players on the team who had scored a Cup-clinching goal in Game 7: Talbot (Pittsburgh), Ruslan Fedotenko (Tampa Bay) and Mike Rupp (New Jersey).

"They were blue jackets with gold buttons, and each one had a patch on it that said 'GWG Game 7,'" Talbot said. "At one of our first team meals the next season, he presented us with the jackets and did a big ceremony with the music and stuff. We had a private room in the restaurant. I still have the jacket."

-The Consummate Teammate, Captain and Ambassador, Feb 2021

2. Merz: My first interaction with Sid was when we were on the bench, guys were talking about a teammate, and the first thing this 15-year-old says is, “Hey, guys. Let’s keep everything positive. Don’t talk about your teammates that way.”

Salcido: When we were getting ready for nationals, he found these little pills that you could put a hidden message inside. They unscrewed, and inside was a tiny scroll. He gave one to every teammate. … He had everyone fill one out. He didn’t tell anyone what to write, but he made it known that we all knew what the goal was: winning nationals. So we wrote on our scrolls, rolled them up and put them in the pill thing. We kept them with us everywhere we went.

-‘Is this real?’: Stories of Sidney Crosby’s year at a Minnesota prep school, May 2020

3. On “Butterfly Boy” Jonathan Pitre:

Though the Senators are his team, Sidney Crosby has always been Jonny’s favourite player. After the TSN documentary airs, Tina gets a call from the Penguins. Sid needs Jonny’s measurements. He wants to have a suit made for him by his personal tailor, Domenico Vacca.

“It’s the kindest, sweetest gesture,” Tina says. “Sid heard that Jonny went to a lot of games, so he wants him to look like he’s one of the guys.”

“I want him to feel like a pro,” Crosby says. “Here’s a guy who is going through something so painful, and his first thought is always, ‘How can I help others?’ When I was young, I’d watch on TV the players coming to the rink in their suits. That was a cool part of being an NHL player. I want him to feel that, to make it as real as possible for him.”

Tina tries to discreetly measure Jonny while she’s changing his dressings. But he’s way too smart for that.

“Um, Mom, why are you measuring me? Am I going for surgery again?” he asks.

“No, no!” Tina replies, trying to reassure him and come up with a good lie, all in the same breath. “The doctor needs them just to make sure they have proper dressings next time you are in.”

A few weeks later, the sharp navy blue suit shows up at their front door, along with a couple of ties, an autographed stick and a handwritten letter from Sid. 

“His eyes just light up,” Tina says. “Jonny always liked to be well-dressed, and he just loves having his own suit. It fits perfectly. He looks so good in it.”

-Beauties by James Duthie (2020)

4. Pascal Dupuis inspired his Pittsburgh Penguins teammates on their run to the Stanley Cup, and Sidney Crosby found a special way of driving that message home.

Dupuis retired in December with lingering health concerns because of blood clots. Despite his NHL playing days coming to an end, the veteran forward remained an integral part of the Penguins and was in uniform to hoist the Cup after Pittsburgh's six-game win against the San Jose Sharks in the Stanley Cup Final.

On Sunday, Dupuis brought the Cup home one last time as a player to share a special day with his family, friends and hometown fans.

"Yes, it does feel bittersweet a little bit," Dupuis said. "You get the Cup, you want to celebrate. But at the same time I got a gift by the mail [Saturday]. Basically, it's a book of all the pictures of all the good stuff we went through. It came from Nova Scotia, so you guys can figure out who it came from (Crosby), but he couldn't give it to me during the season, he saw me skating a little bit.

"And he sent it [Saturday], before my day with the Cup, so he knew what he was doing to get me right here," Dupuis said, putting his fist over his heart.

-Pascal Dupuis shares Stanley Cup with family, friends, Aug 2016

5. In 2011, Crosby was out of the lineup with a concussion, and the Penguins made their annual visit to Children’s Hospital.

Crosby got along so well with one boy there and was so touched that he later asked Bullano to go back... just the two of them, no cameras, no attention.

When Bullano and Crosby met for the follow-up visit, Crosby appeared clutching a pair of Toys “R” Us bags, filled with a Transformer toy the two had discussed.

“He literally bought every type of this toy they make,” Bullano said. “[Crosby] had never seen it before and thought it was so cool.

“There are no pictures of this. There’s no video. He was laying in the bed with the kid. They were just playing. We were there for over two hours. I got to know the mom really well because we were just sitting there.

“The kid had no idea. Didn’t expect it. They had no idea he was coming. We got there and he said, ‘Hey buddy. hope you don’t mind that I came back.’ The kid couldn’t believe it.

“[Crosby’s] crazy cool about stuff like that.”

What’s crazy is trying to recount the many times stuff like this has happened with Crosby:

• The Little Penguins Learn to Play program has been around for nine seasons, outfitting now 1,200 kids with free head-to-toe hockey equipment. Not only does Crosby serve as the face of the program — which the NHL has now adopted — but he helps fund it, too.

“There’s an awareness of what a person in his position can bring,” Penguins vice president of communications Tom McMillan said. “I think he activates that as much as anybody I’ve seen during his playing career.”

• After a recent practice, Crosby noticed a local family in the Penguins dressing room, approached them, introduced himself, learned their story and wound up giving them a signed stick.

Nobody asked Crosby to do that, and he wanted zero credit when discussing it a couple days later.

“For people who have the opportunity to come in here, people dealing with certain things, if you can brighten their day a bit or spend some time with them, it’s something that’s special for all of us,” Crosby said.

• A few years ago, through a team charity event, Crosby befriended a 4-year-old Amish boy with cancer. Crosby remarked to Bullano how much he loved talking to the boy because of how engaging the boy was and how he wasn’t consumed with technology. Crosby even tried to visit the boy but learned he had passed away.

• He learns the first and last names of the kids who attend his hockey school in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.

“Two kids came from Japan its first year,” Bullano recalled. “He was so blown away by that. He couldn’t wait to meet them.”

• Earlier this season, the Penguins welcomed Grant Chupinka, 24-year-old cancer patient, into the dressing room. Crosby chatted up Grant and his parents, Steve and Kim.

He spent his usual time — about two or three times the requirement. Gave the tour. Then found out the Chupinkas didn’t have tickets for that night’s game and decided he would pay for them to go.

“I’m sure he could just give them an autographed puck or something, but he takes his time to go out and see them and talk to them and get to know them,” Brian Dumoulin said. “It speaks volumes for him and who he is as a person.”

Spend any length of time with Crosby during his visits with those less fortunate, and a few things become obvious.

One, Crosby is really good at these. Smooth but not in a slimy way. Sweet. You know how when you’re around someone talking and they go out of their way to make eye contact with everyone around? That’s Crosby.

He’s also humble, always introducing himself like those he’s meeting don’t already know. Holding a hand is no issue. And Crosby is the rare 20-something pro athlete without kids who acts every bit like he does.

“It is not an easy situation to talk to someone with terminal cancer,” McMillan said. “A lot of people couldn’t do that. He has an amazing ability to do that and make that person feel good.”

Crosby has welcomed several Make-a-Wish kids and tries, if at all possible, to schedule such events for practice days — to maximize the time he’s able to spend.

He’s developed a special friendship with Patrick McIlvain, a soldier who nearly died when he took a bullet to the head in Afghanistan. McIlvain actually does physical therapy with one of Crosby’s sticks.

A former club hockey player at Cal U, McIlvain comes by every year, and the Penguins don’t even bother to tell Crosby. Either he already knows or immediately stops what he’s doing to come say hello.

“He’s not doing it to leave a legacy,” said Terry Kalna, Penguins vice president of sales and broadcasting. “His numbers leave the legacy. He’s just a down-to-Earth, good guy.”

Before a visit, Crosby has Bullano email him what is essentially a scouting report on who he’s going to meet. He likes to learn about them, their situation and what they’ve been through. As much information as he can ingest. Crosby never just swoops in, shake a hand and leave.

“As much as anyone has ever seen, he accepts the responsibilities of being not just a professional athlete but a star professional athlete,” McMillan said. “He views it as part of the job. Like coming to the morning skate. That’s just what you do.”

Put another way, “he owns those moments,” says Kalna.

Said Bullano, “He’s just a good human being.”

-When it comes to giving, Sidney Crosby does as much as he can, Feb 2017

6. When Crosby received a generous signing bonus on his Reebok deal, he wanted to share it with everyone.

“He gave everyone on the bus gifts,”  says Oceanic radio commentator Michel Germain. “Him sharing his bonus with all the people he’d been travelling with for two years, that impresses me greatly. I think the most important thing about Sidney Crosby is his personality and the kind of human being he is. What he exuded. The inner richness he’d already developed.” 

-Superstitious and generous, Dec 2006

7. also this simply because it makes me ;w;

Even in defeat — no, especially in defeat — Sidney Crosby proved why he wears the "C" for the Penguins.

After the game, with his heart sinking and his season over, the Penguins’ captain bent over, sank to the ice to pick up the puck, took it to linesman Tony Sericolo and then skated to his team’s handshake line.

I immediately thought of a View from Ice Level I’d written on Crosby making sure a retiring official was sent away from PPG Paints Arena properly. I knew picking up the puck wasn’t for the same reason that was, but I also knew, in some way, it was connected to Crosby’s awareness and respect of the game.

“It was for the Islanders,” Crosby told me after the game, his eyes swollen from a first round exit – by way of a sweep to make it worse. He told me how the winning team always wanted the puck, and it was his way of providing it for the Islanders.

Crosby looked me right in the eye as he told me this, just as he did with every other member of the media to come to him after the loss.

I could tell from those swollen eyes and the way he sat at his stall, by himself with his hands folded as he stared blankly, that Sidney Crosby is much more used to being on the receiving end of a puck when a series ends than he is at retrieving it for the winning team.

That scene. His swollen eyes. Staying in the locker room until most had left – talking to anyone who needed him. Most of all, though, picking up the puck that prompted my question in the first place and making sure the right people got their piece of their own history.

It all adds up to one thing: In victory and in defeat, Crosby respects the game above all else – just as he’s always done.

-Even in defeat, Crosby shines, April 2019

[nordleuchten]

so, I was reading some letters between Lafayette and Washington in the founders archive, and when I came to tumblr, I saw one or two posts of yours and now I'm curious, what are your favorite quotes from letter between the two of them??

Ty for answearing and gm/gn wherever u are!! <3

Hello there :-)

I have actually answered two similar questions but I never did that explicitly for the letters between George Washington and La Fayette. I find these questions always quite hard because there are just so many interesting letters that we know of - and even more letters that we may never knew about. In general, I like those letters the best, that show historical figures as persons, a real living breathing human beings with all their interests and feelings and flaws.

February 23, 1778: La Fayette commented on the failed invasion of Canada - he makes it sounds like he just discovered a great secret, but the suspicions expressed in the letter were more or less common knowledge.

“I fancy (betwen us) that the actual scheme is to have me out of this part of the continent, and general connway in chief under the immediate direction of general gates (…)”

January 11, 1779: La Fayette wrote Washington a last farewell before returning to France for the first time during the War.

“Farewell, my dear General, I hope your french friend will ever be dear to you, I hope I Schall Soon See you again, And tell you myself with what emotion I now leave the Coast you inhabit, and with what affection, and Respect I’ll for ever be, my dear General Your Respectfull and Sincere friend”

September 30, 1779: Washington being very playful with La Fayette and Adrienne.

“But at present must pray your patience a while longer, till I can make a tender of my most respectful compliments to the Marchioness. Tell her (if you have not made a mistake, & offered your own love instead of hers to me) that I have a heart susceptable of the tenderest passion, & that it is already so strongly impressed with the most favourable ideas of her, that she must be cautious of putting loves torch to it; as you must be in fanning the flame. But here again methinks I hear you say, I am not apprehensive of danger—My wife is young—you are growing old & the atlantic is between you—All this is true, but know my good friend that no distance can keep anxious lovers long asunder, and that the Wonders of former ages may be revived in this—But alas! will you not remark that amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young Woman from real inclination has prefered an old Man—This is so much against me that I shall not be able I fear to contest the prize with you—yet, under the encouragement you have given me I shall enter the list for so inestimable a jewell.”

December 8, 1784: Washington wrote this letter just after he parted ways with La Fayette who was visiting the United States right after the conclusion of the war.

“In the moment of our separation upon the road as I travelled, & every hour since—I felt all that love, respect & attachment for you, with which length of years, close connexion & your merits, have inspired me. I often asked myself, as our Carriages distended, whether that was the last sight, I ever should have of you? And tho’ I wished to say no—my fears answered yes. I called to mind the days of my youth, & found they had long since fled to return no more; that I was now descending the hill, I had been 52 years climbing—& that tho’ I was blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short lived family—and might soon expect to be entombed in the dreary mansions of my father’s—These things darkened the shades & gave a gloom to the picture, consequently to my prospects of seeing you again: but I will not repine—I have had my day.”

December 21, 1784: La Fayette’s reply to Washington’s letter from December 8, 1784.

I Have Received Your Affectionate letter Of the 8th inst., and from the known Sentiments of My Heart to You, You will Easely guess what My feelings Have Been in perusing the tender Expressions of Your friendship—No, my Beloved General, our late parting was Not By Any Means a last interview—My whole Soul Revolts at the idea—and Could I Harbour it an instant, indeed, my dear General, it would make me Miserable—I well see You Never will go to franee—the Unexpressible pleasure of Embracing You in My own House, of wellcoming You in a family where Your name is adored, I do not much Expect to Experience—But to You, I shall Return, and within the walls of Mount vernon we shall Yet often Speack of old times—my firm plan is to visit now and then My friends on this Side of the Atlantick, and the Most Beloved of all friends I Ever Had, or ever will Have Any where, is too Strong an inducement for me to Return to Him, nor to think that, when Ever it is possible, I will Renew my So pleasing visits to Mount vernon.

March 17, 1790: The letter that accompanied the Key of the Bastille that La Fayette send Washington as a gift and that is still displayed in the front pallor of Mount Vernon.

“Give me leave, My dear General, to present you With a picture of the Bastille just as it looked a few days after I Had ordered its demolition, with the Main Kea of that fortress of despotism—it is a tribute Which I owe as A Son to My Adoptive father, as an aid de Camp to My General, as a Missionary of liberty to its patriarch.”

August 23, 1790: La Fayette had received news that Washington had just recovered from a very serious illness.

“What Would Have Been My feelings, Had the News of Your illness Reached me Before I knew My Beloved General, My Adoptive father was out of danger! I was Struck with Horror at the idea of the Situation You Have Been in, while I, Uninformed, and to distant from You, Was Anticipating the long waited for pleasure to Hear from You, and the Still More Endearing prospect to Visit You, and present You with the tribute of a Revolution one of Your fine Offsprings—for God’s Sake, my dear General, take Care of Your Health, don’t devote Yourself So much to the Cabinet, while Your Habit of life Has from Your Young Years, Accostumed You to a constant Exercise. (…)You may Easily Guess what I am Exposed to Suffer, what would Have Been my Situation Had I known Your illness Before the News of Your Recovery Had Conforted a Heart So Affectionately devoted to You.”

October 6, 1797: La Fayette’s first letter to Washington after the long years of his imprisonment.

“(…) in Vain Would I Attempt, My Beloved General, to Express to You the feelings of My filial Heart, when, at the Moment of this Unexpected Restoration to Liberty and Life, I find Myself Blessed With the opportunity to let you Hear from me. This Heart Has for twenty Years Been known to you—Words, that, Whatever they be, fall So Short of My Sentiments Would Not do justice to What I feel—But You Will Be Sensible of the Affectionate and delightful Emotions With Which I am Now Writing—to You, and I know also it is Not Without Some Emotion that after five Years of a death like Silence from me, You Will Read the first Lines I am at Last Enabled to write —With What Eagerness and pleasure I Would Hasten to fly to Mount Vernon, there to pour out all the Sentiments of Affection, Respect, and Gratitude Which Ever Bound me, and More than ever Bind me to You (…)”

December 25, 1799: The last letter Washington wrote to La Fayette

May 9, 1799: The last letter Washington received from La Fayette

… and I can guarantee you, as soon as I hit “post” I will realize that I have forgotten at least one other quote. Anyway - what are you favourites, if I may ask?

I hope you have/had a beautiful day!

[penguinkinggames]

“Cerebos: The Crystal City” Actual Play Part II: Reconstruction

This is the second in a series of posts recounting a session of actual play from Cerebos: the Crystal City, currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. The first part can be found here:

https://tumblr.penguinking.com/post/646498084013195264

This session was conducted on March 20th, 2021, with Matthew Dorbin as GM, and Amelia Gorman, Ashley Flanagan, Will Mendoza, and Kevin Snow playing. The events of play were recorded by Zach Welhouse.

When last we left our travelers, they’d just reached their first Stop, a city lost to the desert. Its only inhabitants are skeletons with manes and beards made of precious metals. Researchers from Inferno Heavy Industries have a great interest in these conductive skeletons, nevermind the living passengers.

The unresolved Danger from the Events on the train has made this Stop more perilous. The train Danger is reduced to 0, and the Events resolve in a way that makes sense for the story, but their impact increases the Stop Danger.

Stop Actions: Inferno Heavy Industries Outpost #7G

A Stop consists of a single round of Stop actions; each traveler will act once before the train moves on.

The Lady in Blue saunters over to the Inferno Heavy Industries scientists and learns they’re looking into a new phenomenon! When no one’s looking she Seizes an Opportunity to start nicking bone silver and supplying it to the ants. Although this raises tensions between the scientists and the ants, fewer skeletons threaten the passengers.   Initially the Lady in Blue rolls a setback, but she uses the Nick of Time trait attached to her gun to reroll one die. With a partial success, she pulls off the heist of the evening. The Stop Danger lowers to 4, but the lure of her criminal past intensifies. She gains one Momentum on her gun.  

The Lonely Seafarer approaches the danger from a more diplomatic position, badgering the lead ant with Morse questions: “Do they have a qualified Death Ray Engineer? Where did they receive their certification? I’ve never heard of the issuing institute? Try me.”   It’s a partial success. Several ants, unused to the heavy question, drop their cargo and flee. She reduces the Danger to 3, but gains one Momentum on her hat. It turns out she’s a person who is used to ordering people around. Or she’s a person with a very important hat. Either way, she’d better hold on to that hat and the authority it represents!  

Tinderling is a woman of action! While everyone else is resorting to thievery or tricks of rhetoric, she lays into a mob of electric dead with her fists and her bird bone sewing needle.   It’s another partial success. She reduces the Danger to 2, but decides to take Damage as her consequence. The skeletons don’t go down without a fight.  

The Unqualified Robot has never been in a situation like this -- at least as far as it knows! While everyone else is stealing, speaking, or swashbuckling, it rifles through its collection of face plates for an appropriate emotion. Finally, it decides on a bug-eyed expression of alarm. It waves its arms, attempting to communicate the danger posed by the skeletons to the scientists, who are now more concerned with studying the sentient ants.   Failure. The scientists ignore the robot, one of them knocking it to the ground like it’s an inconveniently placed chair. While it’s down, ants seize the opportunity to pilfer some more components. The Unqualified Robot takes its second Damage. It scrambles to recover the most important bits, but reattaches them in an inhuman configuration. Somehow this feels right, like whatever it’s becoming is more correct than what it was.

Despite the Unqualified Robot’s poor efforts, the travelers lowered the Stop’s danger enough for the night to pass uneventfully. The ants wander off with whatever they can carry while the scientists handle the remaining skeletons.

They travelers leave without consequences; however, it wasn’t a relaxing stay and they don’t get a keepsake. If they wanted to leave the worksite with a souvenir, they could have risked spending more Traits to reroll their partial successes or addressed the events plaguing the train before it stopped. Some Stops are naturally more dangerous than others, so luck (and certain Conductor abilities) also impact the outcome.

Some time later, possibly another day, the travelers enjoy lunch in the dining car, paying with Inferno Heavy Industries scrip.

Fourth Round of Train Actions

The Unqualified Robot shares a flashback with Tinderling while Tinderling eats. Tinderling had been admiring its face plates, and it was certain it had seen her rail spike before.   Back in the City by the Sea, the Unqualified Robot was unable to sell the gadgets it had been created to sell. To earn oil money it started scabbing at a factory while Tinderling marched the picket lines outside.   One day Tinderling confronts the Unqualified Robot while it’s pushing a wheelless wheelbarrow full of trash past the picket: “There has to be a better place for people like you. Or robots like you. You have better things to do than sell your soul to this company. If you have a soul? Or sell your labour!”    At this point, the Unqualified Robot only owns smiley face slides. So it smiles. Tinderling hands it a rail spike: “Throw it! Show it who’s boss!” The robot weighs the spike in its hand and uses it to scratch angry eyebrows onto its faceplate. Then it throws the spike through the factory window. In the ensuing riot, the Uncanny Robot is badly injured.   As a result of the shared flashback, Tinderling’s rail spike gains the Rabble Rouser trait. The Unqualified Robot’s expression slides gain Angry Eyebrows.

The travelers are shocked back to the present by a cheerful announcement from the conductor: “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about this. We’re just coming up on the Rail Labyrinth. Seems it’s time for my annual performance review. Worst case, I’m fired and we’re stuck in here forever and die.” The mess of competing tracks from before was nothing compared to the snarl of dead-ends, different gauges, and switchbacks the train enters.The Rail Labyrinth is a Danger 3 Event. The conductor could probably handle it on her own, but it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

The Lonesome Seafarer looks pensively through her broken spyglass to Engage the Event and sketches a few suggestions on a napkin. When it comes down to it, land navigation is like sea navigation, only easier. It’s an Inspired Success, which reduces the Danger to 1. She rushes her chart to the conductor, who’s going at her charts with specialized tools. “What is this?” the conductor asks. “It’s the way out of here!” responds the Seafarer. “Take a right, take a left!  

Tinderling is unconcerned by the Rail Labyrinth. She’s been keeping an eye on the Unqualified Robot, who’s been taking a beating. In a way, she got it into this mess, so she does what she can to repair the damage.   It’s been collecting bits of scrap to enhance its body. She offers her rail spike. It wielded the spike with conviction once; maybe now it can serve a different purpose. The bond of camaraderie is strong like steel.   Tinderling rolls an Ugly Break to give away her touchstone. She gains one Contemplation, but also gains one Momentum to her burnt match. She has to hold on to the fire and anger that set her on this path, or else all her sacrifices will have been for nothing. If she gives that away, someone will probably take it as a symbol of hope, peace, or something altogether too soft. The Unqualified Robot gains a new femur, which means it’s more human, right?  

The Lady in Blue observes the Lonesome Seafarer’s burst of action and authority. She’s like a different person when she’s giving commands! Did the spyglass help her focus? The two travelers catch eyes and the steel labyrinth flashback into one of wind and waves.   The Lonesome Seafarer is adrift without the guidance of Second Mate Scurvy. No one else in the crew will stand up to her in the helpful-but-confrontational way that Scurvy did so well. She grows harsher in her methods, challenging the crew to fight back. None do.   One awful night, she thinks she sees the ghost of Scurvy mouthing guidance. What’s that he’s saying? It’s either “Don’t mind me,” or “Come find me!” “Scurvy, that’s unhelpful!” the Lonesome Seafarer says, worrying she’s talking to a delusion. “Sorry! I’m a ghoo~oost,” Scurvy responds. The Lonesome Seafarer’s spyglass gains the Tunnel Vision trait.

Fifth Round of Train Actions

The Rail Labyrinth isn’t so bad, once everyone gets used to the sudden stops and jerks. Progress slows, so they turn to idle conversation.

Tinderling strikes up a conversation with the Lady in Blue. Something about her shabby finery suggests she may be an ally in the coming revolution. Take that burned handbag, for instance.   The Lady in Blue flashes back to when her bag was burned. She’s sitting in a car outside a bank. Alarms are going off inside and the building is on fire. Isabelle (not her real name) rushes out and tosses a handbag full of money into the car.   “Was fire part of the plan?” the Lady in Blue asks. Fire was not part of the plan. This was supposed to be a simple heist, but she escalated to arson. One of these days she’s going to get somebody killed. The next morning, Isabelle and the cash are gone. Two people died in the heist, turns out!   The empty bag gains the Score to Settle trait.

Two more flashbacks means it’s time for a new Event. Inferno Heavy Industries keeps on piling on the training exercises. The conductor alerts everyone to the newest sights: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We’re entering an area of particular geological interest. If you look out on either side, you will see the site of the second part of my performance review. We are now entering Cactortle Canyon.”

Cactortles are large, friendly beasts. Trains are a novelty and a chance to scratch their itchy backs, making Cactortle Canyon a Danger 3 event. The Rail Labyrinth is still hanging in there with Danger 1, setting the total Danger at 4.

The Unqualified Robot starts throwing junk from its bag at the cactortles. Only by divesting itself of the signs of its former life can it find new purpose. Even better, it means throwing things at wildlife that are threatening to ram the train. The Robot’s Engage an Event roll is abysmal (1 + 3), so it takes a swig from its flask and uses its Drowning Sorrows trait to upgrade to a partial success (4 +3).   This is a moment of triumph, but also one of somber self-reflection: “I’m most successful when throwing things.” The Robot gains a point of Momentum on its sack of gadgets.  

The Lady in Blue values a clean plan with no complications. She ties a rope around her body and climbs onto the train’s roof. From the raised vantage point, she’s able to see the way out of the Rail Labyrinth. She rolls a success, lowering the Rail Labyrinth’s Danger to 0.   Since the Lonesome Seafarer and the Lady in Blue both contributed to lowering the Rail Labyrinth’s Danger, one of them will receive a keepsake of the event. The GM rolls a die and the Seafarer reflects on her newfound respect for infrastructure engineers. They can be right jerks! The keepsake also provides one rank to her Navigator trait.  

The Lonesome Seafarer and the Lady in Blue are a good team. They guided the train through the Rail Labyrinth with flying colors. It’s almost like being back at sea. Something about their teamwork is familiar.   The pair share a flashback where they decide to set out for Cerebos together. The Lady in Blue may have seen someone who matched Scurvy’s description, while the Lonesome Seafarer has heard tales of the Lady in Red. It’s not so bad, traveling together.   The Lady in Blue’s hat gains the Tying up Loose Ends trait, while the Seafarer’s coat gains Old Friends Not Forgotten.

The Lady in Blue and the Lonesome Seafarer have both experienced three flashbacks. The players talk among themselves to determine which of the two stories they want to see take center stage. After some back and forth, they decide the Lady in Blue’s tale of revenge is the most compelling, so she becomes the story’s Seeker.

The other travelers weigh in on the Lady in Blue’s dilemma. Do they want to be Saints, encouraging her of the righteousness of her quest to bring an end to her sister, or are they Demons, forces of caprice and change?

The Lonesome Seafarer is a Demon: she’s not one to support the killing of a long-lost family member, as she’s been looking for one of those herself, in a manner of speaking. The Unqualified Robot is a Saint. It’s been radicalized by its journey, and violence has been more effective than words in producing optimal results. Tinderling is likewise a Saint. Sometimes people need to make hard decisions to clear ground for a worthwhile future.

From here, the journey embarks upon its final leg: the Lady in Blue has been identified as the story’s protagonist, and the others will act in their capacity as Saints and Demons to shape how her story ends. In the third and final post in this series, we’ll see what end that is!

[scribble-blog]

Black Cats and Robinettes part 2!!

First

BACK AGAIN WITH THE ROLE REVERSAL EVERYBODY!! As some side notes, despite trying super hard to keep Damian and Marinette’s core personalities intact despite them having very different origin stories, I’ve definitely made Marinette- a bit tougher I guess? This Marinette isn’t going to curb her words, especially not for people she doesn’t know at all (who are hanging off a liar hurting her friends). Likewise, Damian is definitely a bit softer around the edges. It comes from the years of having loving and present parents without a super hero life to keep his edge. That being said, I hope you enjoy!!!

“Lila!” He watched as Marinette approached their class, the bulk of them looking over towards her distrustfully. So, Lila has already been spinning bullshit about the girl, despite the fact that she was the Wayne heiress Lila claimed to be practically a sister to. “I don’t know why you didn’t tell me you were in town. I would’ve made sure to clear up my schedule to spend time with you!”

“Just watch this, Damian. She’s vicious.” Adrien told him, leaning over.

“I’m sorry? I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Rossi simpered.

“No?” Marinette tilted her head slightly. “I mean, I know it’s been a while, but surely you remember me. Marinette Wayne?”

Rossi’s eyes went wide.

“I thought you said her name was Maria?” Kanté questioned.

And then, before Damian’s eyes, Rossi did the stupidest thing he’d ever seen her do.

She doubled down.

“A childhood nickname,” she explained away, eyes narrowing slightly at the girl who’d come to cast her from her throne. “I’m so sorry, Maria, it’s just been so long! I didn’t recognize you.”

“But- like you said, it’s only been four months since your mother brought you to Gotham.” Marinette’s eyes had blown wide open, innocence dripping from her every word. “I haven’t changed that much, have I? I haven’t even gotten a haircut...”

Lila tried to laugh it off, but Damian saw several of the class giving her confused looks.

“Remind me how we met, Lila.” Marinette said suddenly. Her tone was still sweet, but something in her face had shifted.

“It was- at a Wayne Gala,” Césaire volunteered. “When you were both five. Your parents let you play together.”

“An incredible feat, given that my usual bedtime was right when the gala started until I was twelve, and I wasn’t even allowed to attend the gala until age ten.” Marinette’s voice was still honeyed, but she spoke like a cracking whip. The class was silent. “And about the “work” you’ve done with my family? Those green initiatives you helped us plan in coordination with Prince Ali of Achu?”

“The- the green initiatives?” Lavillant trembled. “The ones to plant trees in deserts and man made wastes to combat the destruction of ecosystems?”

“Oh, poor girl,” Chloé crooned lowly. Damian snorted.

“They don’t exist. The Wayne Enterprises website can direct you to a full list of every charity act committed by my family’s company. It lists every fundraiser and nonprofit organization that is founded, funded, owned or supported by us. You will not find those initiatives there.” Marinette was lethal. Whatever inner sunshine she carried within her seemed to have frozen over.

“Every word about knowing me or being my friend. Every word insinuating that she either is dating or is being courted by my brothers. Every implication that she has any sort of sway in this building or any connection in the slightest to my father- all lies. Despite what Lila has been telling you, I’ve never met her before she started lying about me and my family in front of my face today.

“I don’t care what else Lila has told you. I don’t care what she has promised to do for you. I don’t even care that you believed her. But if I ever hear another word about my family slip from your venomous mouth, snake,” Marinette spat contemptuously, “you will be served with several lawsuits for defamation from my family alone, ignoring what I’m sure I could rustle up from the plethora of names that you tried to claim a connection to in this building in my range of hearing.” She finished with the air of someone who knew she hadn’t landed the final blow, but was waiting for one last misstep to give her a reason to deliver it.

“How do we know that you’re actually Marinette Wayne?” Alya called out angrily. “You could just be someone who’s jealous after hearing about Lila and all of the things she’s done and the people she knows!”

There it was. He watched the unrestrained glee in Marinette’s eyes as she dismissively delivered her last shot.

“I don’t know. Try googling me.”

And then, without another word, she turned and walked very neatly back to their table, ignoring the attention she had garnered from the rest of the dining room. “So guys, do you have any free time during your trip? I feel like we should do dinner? We should do dinner.”

“That was incredible,” Damian breathed.

And then to his complete surprise, she flushed bright red. “Oh my god. I shouldn’t have-“

“You absolutely should have,” Chloé cut her off. “Rossi’s been lying about you for days now. It’s a miracle this is the first actual consequence.”

“Are you sure I wasn’t too harsh on everyone else though?” She asked. Her eyes were still on him.

Damian shrugged in response. “We’ve tried to tell them before. They chose her. This is their reward.”

“Think about it this way, Mari,” Adrien consoled her. “At least with your put down they have the chance to start being better people. If you had been nicer Lila could have turned it around somehow, like she always does.”

A sudden eruption of shouting came from across the room, and Damian looked over just in time to see Césaire throw a strong punch straight across Rossi’s cheek.

“Oooh, that’s gotta hurt,” Adrien said sympathetically. “Skulls are hard. Alya’s fingers could’ve broken.”

“I think she’s fine,” Chloé said dismissively as Césaire wound up for another, to be held back by Lahiffe.

“Dick’s gonna kill me,” Marinette groaned.

“I’m gonna do what, Sunshine?” Their other tour guide’s voice said brightly. “Congratulations, I sent a video to the family chat and now everyone is losing their minds.”

“Ghhhhhhh,” she moaned further, head sinking into her hands. “Tell my sisters I love them. Cass gets everything. Every brother is disowned.”

“Heartbreaking,” he said dryly, reaching out and snagging a french fry from her tray. Her hand stopped him with a quickness that startled Damian.

“Don’t touch.”

“Sheesh, Mari, alright.” He turned away, to face them. “Adrien, Chloé, good to see you again. Who’s this?”

“Damian Dupain-Cheng,” He introduced himself. “It’s easier to just say I’m their friend than it is to explain everything.”

“You are our friend, idiot,” Chloé threw a fry at him. “Honestly.”

“Hmm.” Richard- Dick? Marinette’s brother’s eyes lingered on Damian. He could feel himself being judged.

“Tell you what. I’m sure Alfred wouldn’t mind a few extra plates at dinner tomorrow, and honestly, I think any time spent away from that group is probably better-“ he sent a look over towards the class, now being barely restrained by Mme. Bustier, stepping between everyone. Her quick, quiet plaintive words were followed by an even louder, “You KNEW?” from Alya - “so how about I okay it with your teacher and you all come visit with Mari at the manor for the evening after your tours tomorrow?”

“You’ll okay it by Bruce too?” Marinette gave him a grin.

“It’s usually Dad,” Adrien said. “Why the name switch?”

“She’s upset with him for something, and since she’s the only one of us who actually calls him that, this is her best weapon,” Dick said with a grimace. “Yeah, yeah, Sunshine, I’ll get the okay for it.”

“Thank you!” She gave him a hug that looked bruising but Dick seemed to give what he got. A few joints cracked.

“Siblings,” Adrien sighed longingly.

“No thank you,” Chloé said disparagingly.

“Do I get a say in this at all?” Damian wondered to himself.

And he was resoundingly answered but four very emphatic No’s.

TAGLIST:

@thestressmademedoit @noirdots @ash-amg @ranger-gothamite @persephonebutkore @zalladane @athena452 @mewwitch @vixen-uchiha @redscarlet95 @mochegato @justafanwarrior @catcusxx @indecisive-mess-named-me @resignedcatservant @marinettepotterandplagg @myazael @mochinek0 @shizukiryuu @loveswifi @gm-nasai @peachedpocky @whatthefox22 @jardimazul @ladybug-182 @schrodingers25 @athena452 @dramatic-squirrel

[tronrpg]

what are Sirens?

what are Sirens? we just don't know.

but i'm getting ahead of myself.

To my knowledge, there has never been an officially-released Tron pen-and-paper RPG. There certainly would have been a market for it around the original film's release, had it done better at the box office. And assuredly there have been dozens of homebrew splats and rulesets shared between fans and friends over the years. The Fract, in an ideal world, would eventually be a complete RPG system, enough to fill up a corebook and run a game. But in thinking about worldbuilding, I've run into a storytelling problem that, if not unique to the world of Tron, is certainly still a sore-thumb kind of issue.

Tron--that is to say the OG 1982 Grid, the New Grid, and whatever metatextual setting that the Fract takes place in--is neither science fiction nor science fantasy. For those who aren't clear on the delineation between the two, the plainest I can describe it is to say that "Star Trek" is (generally) science fiction, and "Star Wars" is (generally) science fantasy. Science fiction is nominally supposed to adhere to scientific rules or at least bend them to a reasonable degree in order to tell a story. Science Fantasy bends and breaks those rules, sometimes with impunity, because space wizards waving laser swords around speaks for itself.

The setting of Tron, taking place as it does outside the Grid, is a simulacra of a modern-day "real world" as we know it, with science and computers behaving the way we know they normally do. Except for in the Grid itself. We have to assume that both the Old and New Grids were special in some way, or at the very least that Grid-like systems with sentient programs are few and far between; because computer systems and programs as we know them do not behave like they do on either Grid. If they did, why would Flynn have bothered to create a new one if there are Grids within every computer in the world?

And that's where the science fiction of Tron falls down. Stephen Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird were not computer experts, and they wrote the original screenplay during a time when computers were widely known but not widely understood, particularly by the common person. They can be forgiven for leaning hard on the fantasy and spirituality elements that make Tron a work of more consequence than oh, say, Computer Warriors. But by the time Legacy was released, the world was a very different place, and the ubiquity of computers and technology meant that the average person had a basic knowledge of how a computer works and what it can do; and the OG Grid does not fall into those parameters. So it's hard to say that Tron is strictly science fiction, where rules have meanings, or science fantasy where rules are up for grabs, because each of us carry around a real-world analogue to the Grid in our pockets all day and by now we are all pretty sure that Google Chrome does not, in a metaphorical or spiritual sense, fight for us.

(This, incidentally, is where I feel Legacy did the right thing by having Flynn starting from almost-scratch with the New Grid instead of attempting to apply real-world IT logic to the Grid like Tron 2.0. Divorcing the fiction from things like emails and spreadsheets allowed Legacy to retain some of the spirituality and potential of 1982; and inasmuch as Tron 2.0 is a great game that I intend to revisit soon, I find the "real computer" stuff to be kinda cringey.)

And here's where we come around to Sirens, finally. What the hell are they? Aside from being conventionally-attractive female-coded Programs in white vinyl outfits who appear to have largely representational or ritualistic roles in the New Grid, it's not entirely clear what they do or what separates them from a garden-variety Program. We see Gem and the three other Sirens in Legacy, there are a handful of Sirens in Uprising, including Lux, who appears to have been a...battle Siren? Maybe?

When it comes to putting together an RPG, you have to lean on rules. You have to nail things down and say, outside of GM fiat, a dice roll does that and a stat means this and an attack is performed thusly. So in thinking about squishing the world of Tron into an RPG format, which unlike most video games does not contain a single linear storyline; you have to think about making the world digestible and processable by squaring the edges and making definitions. You want the players and the GM to be able to exercise the vastness of their imaginations, but you want to set the parameters of the playing field, or else why have a themed RPG at all?

That's where I started thinking about how Tron's mish-mash of science fiction/fantasy elements make it a unique challenge to format as an RPG setting. Would it be better to emphasize the fantasy theming, or would players prefer a more grounded approach with real-world computer elements? Is it possible to have a balanced approach? How do you color in the missing information about how the Grid and Programs work, the stuff that the original works never really explained? Just what the HELL are Sirens anyway? Is there some sort of unspoken caste system in the Grid? Are there male-presenting Sirens? Can they suit up and play in the Games? Can they all do that synchronized-walking-backwards thing? Do Sirens just show up when Programs are about to compete at something? Why so much eyeshadow? Why does it rain in the Grid? Why did Flynn serve Sam and Quorra a roast suckling pig? Why does Clu 2.0 look more like Lord Farquahd than Jeff Bridges? WHAT HAPPENED TO RAM? IS HE PART OF THE JUNKY RECOGNIZER NOW OR DID HE TURN INTO THE BIT OR WHAT? KEVIN FLYNN, WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

...okay, got that out of my system, thanks for bearing with me. The point is that there are a lot of fill-in-the-blanks when it comes to worldbuilding lore in the Tron universe, and that may be by design. I love Star Wars, but the industry that has been built up over the last 40+ years to make sure every puppet, alien and CGI blob with a nanosecond of screen time has a full backstory and Wookieepedia entry, I find, largely detracts from the magic of the original movies. Not having everything explained adds to Tron's lasting allure. On the other hand, it makes a project like the Fract a product of guesswork and blue-skying.

So let's say I was creating a Tron RPG, like you do. And I wanted to make Sirens a playable class (which I intend to). Based on the information given to us by the canon, which isn't much; I'd say that Sirens are, first and foremost, specialists. They have specific skills that they hone and adhere to and do not deviate from to take on other roles, which makes them in-demand as bodyguards or enforcers but their specialization limits a players' build choices. They are also largely recognized in the Grid as having ritualistic or shamanistic public roles, perhaps representing the link between Programs and Users. (Maybe Dumont was a Siren 1.0. He could have had on a white vinyl singlet under that getup, who knows?) Maybe they're like priestesses or shrine maidens, maybe they take vows like nuns. This might make them like Monks in D&D.

You see how narrowing the possibilities of what Sirens are in order to fit them into an RPG character class box also reduces their potential in canon--but of course canon's not being contradicted here; this is a fan work and is not intended to overwrite the creative work of others. I just hope that if it ever gets completed, it plays enough like the work that inspired it, so that other fans can get the same rush of imagining what it's like to be on the Grid.

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

RANDOM REVIEW #2: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)

“This game has got to be about more than winning. You’re part of something.”  Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and featuring Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, LL Cool J, James Woods, and Matthew Modine, is my favourite sports movie of all time. Of all time.

I’m not betraying my favourite sport by saying this. The Mighty Ducks is a kid’s movie. It’s okay, but it’s not a timeless classic. I don’t like the Slap Shot series, Sudden Death is fun but silly, and the Goon movies were a missed opportunity. The only truly good scene in Goon is the diner scene where Liev Schreiber tells Seann William Scott: “Don’t go trying to be a hockey player. You’ll get your heart ripped out.”

  Such is the sad circumstance of the hockey enforcer. They all want to play, not just fight. Here’s a link to a video in which the most feared fighter in the history of the NHL, Bob Probert, explains that he wanted to be “an offensive threat...like Bobby Orr,” not a fighter: https://youtu.be/4sbxejbMH4g?t=118 Heartbreaking. But not unusual.

Donald Brashear, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson, Frazer McLaren: they all had hockey skills. But they were told they had to fight to remain on the roster, so they fought. As Schreiber says in the film: “You know they just want you to bleed, right?”  If the players don’t bleed, they don’t get to stay on the team. So they fight, and they pay dearly for it later. Many former fighters have CTE or other head injuries that make day-to-day life difficult. The makers of Goon should have taken that scene and run with it. I was so disappointed they didn’t, especially given what happened right around the time the film came out, with the tragic suicides of Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, and Rick Rypien, all enforcers, all dead in a single summer. So Hollywood hasn’t even made a good hockey movie, let alone a great one. Baseball has a shitload of good films, probably because the slower pace of play makes it easier to film. Moneyball has a terrific home run scene, Rookie of the Year does too. Angels in the Outfield was a big favourite of mine when I was a kid, plus all the Major League films, and Bull Durham. 

Football has two good movies: The Program (1993) and Rudy (1993).    

And football has one masterpiece. The one I am writing about today.

A young Oliver Stone trying not to die in Vietnam. ^ Now, I know Stone is laughed at these days, given his nutty conspiracy theories and shitty behaviour and the marked decline in the quality of his films (although 2012’s Savages was underrated). I know Stone is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but do you want a football movie to be subtle? Baseball, sure. It’s a game of fine distinctions, but football? Football is war. And war is about steamrolling the enemy, distinctions be damned, which is why Any Given Sunday is such an amazing sports film. I love the way it shows the dark side of football. In fact, the film is so dark that the NFL withdrew their support and cooperation, forcing Stone to create a fictitious league and team to portray what he wanted to portray.

This is not to say the movie is fresh or original. Quite the opposite. Any Given Sunday has every single sports film cliché you can think of. But precisely because it tries to stuff every single cliché into its runtime, the finished product is not a cliched mess so much as a rich tapestry, a dense cinema verite depiction of the dizzying highs and depressing lows of a professional sports team as it wins, loses, parties, and staggers its way through a difficult season.  Cliché #1: The aging quarterback playing his final year, trying to win one last championship. (Dennis Quaid) 

Sample dialog: Dennis Quaid (lying in a hospital bed severely injured): Don’t give up on me coach. Al Pacino: You’re like a son to me. I’ll never give up on you. ^ I know this sounds awful. But it’s actually fuckin’ great. Cliché #2: The arrogant upstart new player who likes hip hop and won’t respect the old regime. (Jamie Foxx) 

Cliché #3: The walking wounded veteran who could die if he gets hit one more time. Coincidentally, he needs just one more tackle to make his million-dollar bonus for the season. (Lawrence Taylor) 

Cliché #4: The female executive in a man’s world who must assert herself aggressively in order to win the grudging respect of her knuckle-dragging male colleagues (Cameron Diaz). Diaz is fantastic in the role, though she should have had more screen time, given that the main conflict in the film is very much about the new generation, as represented by her and Jamie Foxx, trying to replace the old generation, represented by Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. Some people think Diaz’s character is too calculating, but here’s the thing: she’s right. Too many sports GMs shell out millions for the player an individual used to be, not the player he presently is. “I am not resigning a 39-year old QB, no matter how good he was,” she tells Pacino’s coach character, and you know what? She’s right. The Leafs’ David Clarkson signing is proof positive of the perils of signing a player based on past performance, not current capability. Diaz’s character is the living embodiment of the question: do you want to win, or do you want to be loyal? Cuz sometimes you can’t do both.

Cliché #5: The team doctor who won’t sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (Matthew Modine).

Cliché #6: The team doctor who will sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (James Woods) 

Cliché #7: The grizzled, thrice-divorced coach who has sacrificed everything for his football team, to the detriment of his social and familial life, who must give a stirring speech at some point in the film (Al Pacino…who goes out there and gives the all-time greatest sports movie “we must win this game” speech) 

Cliché #8: The assistant or associate coach who takes a parental interest in his players, playing the good cop to the head coach’s bad cop (former NFL star Jim Brown). 

Best quote: “Who wants to be thinking about blitzes and crossblocks when you’re holding your grandkids in your arms? That’s why I wanna coach high school. Kids don’t know nothing. They just wanna play.” 

Cliché #9: The player who can’t stop doing drugs (L.L. Cool J).

Okay, so the first thing that needs to be talked about is Al Pacino’s legendary locker room speech.  Now, it’s the coach’s job to rile up and inspire the players. But eloquence alone won’t do it. If you use certain big words, you lose them (remember Brian Burke being endlessly mocked by the Toronto media for using the word “truculent?”). The coach must deliver the message in a language the players understand, while still making victory sound lofty and aspirational. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. One of my favourite inspirational lines was spoken by “Iron” Mike Keenan to the New York Rangers before Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. “Win tonight, and we’ll walk together forever.” Oooh that’s gorgeous. But Pacino’s speech is right up there with it. 

“You know, when you get old in life…things get taken from you. That’s parta life. But you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff. You find out…life’s this game of inches. So’s football. In either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it…one half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin difference between winnin’ and losin’! Between livin’ and dyin’!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY  Somehow, against all odds, Any Given Sunday succeeds. It is the Cinderella run of sports movies. You root for the film as you watch it. The dressing room scenes are incredible…the Black players listen to the newest hip hop while a trio of lunkhead white dudes headbang and scream “Hetfield is God.” There is a shower scene where a linebacker, tired of being teased about the size of his penis, tosses his pet alligator into the showers where it terrorizes his tormentors. There is a scene where a halfback has horrible diarrhea, but he’s hooked up to an IV so the doctor (Matthew Modine) has to follow him into the toilet cubicle, crinkling his nose as the player evacuates his bowels. There is a scene where someone loses an eye (the only scene in the film where Stone’s over-the-top approach misses the mark). There are scenes that discuss concussions (which is why the NFL refused to cooperate for the film), where Lawrence Taylor has to sign a waiver absolving the team of responsibility if he is hurt or paralyzed or killed. I wonder how purists and old school football fans reacted to the news that Oliver Stone was making a football film. If they even knew who he was (not totally unlikely…Stone made a string of jingoistic war movies in the 1980s) they probably thought the heavy hands of Oliver would ruin the film, take the poetry out of every play. But the actual football is filmed perfectly. The camera gets nice and low for the tackles. It flies the arcs of perfect spiral passes. It shows the chaos of a defensive line barreling down the field. When Al Pacino asked quarterback Dan Marino (fresh off his own Hollywood experience acting in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) what it was like to be an NFL QB, Marino said: “Imagine standing on a highway with traffic roaring at you while trying to read Hamlet.” A great explanation. Shoulda made the movie. So the football itself is fabulously done. Much better than what Cameron Crowe did in the few football scenes in Jerry Maguire. The Program had some great football, as did Rudy, but neither come close to the heights of Any Given Sunday. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jamie Foxx insists that his white coaches have routinely placed him in situations where he was doomed to fail or prone to injury, and we believe him because white coaches have been doing that to Black players for decades. Quarterback Doug Williams, who led his Washington Redskins team to a Superbowl victory in 1987, was frequently referred to by even liberal media outlets as a “Black quarterback,” instead of just “quarterback,” as if his skin colour necessitated a qualification. Even now, in 2021, the majority of quarterbacks are white, although the gap is gradually closing. The 2020 season saw the highest number of starting Black quarterbacks, with 10 out of a possible 32.  Quarterback is the most cerebral position on the field, and for a long time there was a racist belief that Black men couldn’t do the job. Foxx’s character is a composite of many of the different Black quarterbacks who came of age in the 1990s, fighting for playing time against white QBs beloved by their fan base, fawned over in hagiographic Sports Illustrated profiles, and protected by the good ol’ boys club of team executives and coaching staff. Foxx’s character isn’t demoted because he can’t play the game. He wins several crucial games for his team en route to the playoffs. He’s demoted because he listens to hip hop in the dressing room, because he recorded a rap song and shot a video for it, and because he’s cocky. Yes, the scene where he asks out Cameron Diaz is sexist, as if her power only comes from her sexuality, not her intelligence and business acumen, but it’s meant to show how overly confident Foxx is, not that he’s a sexist prick. Any Given Sunday isn’t a single issue film. It’s basically an omni-protest piece. It gleefully shows football’s dark side, and there is no director better than Oliver Stone for muck-raking. He’s in full-on investigative journalist mode in Any Given Sunday, showing how and why players play through serious brain injuries. How because they are given opiates, often leading to debilitating addictions (this happens in all contact sports...Colorado Avalanche player Marek Svatos overdosed on heroin a few years after retiring from injuries). As to why, Stone gives two reasons. One, team doctors are paid by the team, not the players, therefore their decisions will benefit the team, not the players. And two, the players themselves are encouraged to underreport injuries and play through them because stats are incentivized. James Woods unethical doctor argues with Modine’s idealistic one because an MRI the latter called for a player to have costs the team $20k. But the player in question, Lawrence Taylor, plays anyway because his contract is stat incentivized and if he makes on more tackle he gets a million dollars. Incentivizing stats leads to players playing hurt. And although I loathe this term, a lazy go-to for film critics, Stone really does give an unflinching account of how this shit happens and why. When Williams is inevitably hurt and lying prone on the field, he woozily warns the paramedics who are placing him on a stretcher to “be careful…I’m worth a million dollars.” It’s tragic, yet you’re happy for him. The film really makes you care about these guys.  Thanks to the smartly written script, the viewer knows that Williams has four kids, and you’re pleased he made his bonus because, in all likelihood, after he retires, his injuries will prevent him from any kind of gainful employment (naturally, they give the TV analyst jobs to retired white players, unless Williams can somehow land the coveted token Black guy gig). Stone is not above fan service, a populist at heart, and he stuffs the film with former and then-current NFL players, a miraculous stunt given the fact that the NFL revoked their cooperation. Personally, I think this was a good thing because it meant Stone didn’t have to compromise (the league wanted editorial say on all issues pertaining to the league…meaning they would have cut the best storyline, which is the playing hurt one). It also meant that they had to rename the team and the league. While I’m sure this took away from the realism for some fans, I’m cool with it. It also allowed the moviemakers to name the team the Sharks, a perfect name for this roving band of predatory capitalist sports executives. In another example of fan service, the call-girl Pacino’s quintessential lonely workaholic character rents a girlfriend experience from is none other than Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, who had been unfairly blacklisted after the titular Verhoven/Esterhaz venture, a movie my wife showed me one day while I was dopesick, which I became so transfixed and mesmerized by that I forgot I was. As mentioned above, the only misstep in the film is one of the offshoots of the Playing Hurt arc, where a player loses an eye on the field. Not because he gets poked, but because he gets hit so hard his eye simply falls out. A medic runs onto the field and puts the white globe on ice. Stone cast a player with a glass eye in order to achieve this effect. No CGI! Still, the scene is unconvincing, a tad too over-the-top. But this is Oliver Stone. At least Any Given Sunday’s sole over-the-top moment is a throwaway scene lasting all of thirty seconds. It easily could have been a secondary plot-line in which government officials try to sneak a Cuban football prodigy out of Castro’s communist stronghold but the player is brutally murdered the morning the officials arrive at his apartment to escort him to the private plane. Or else the team GM is revealed to be a massive international cocaine dealer. Or the tight end is one half of a serial killer couple. The film follows its own advice, focusing more on the players growth, particularly Beamon’s (Foxx). The anonymity of the title, Any Given Sunday, elevates the game, not the players. Thank God, the movie doesn’t force Beamon to assimilate into Pacino’s mold. He buys into the team-first philosophy without renouncing his idiosyncratic POV or his fierce individuality. This is a triumph. One of my biggest problems with sports is the flattening effect it can have on creative individuals. Players take media training in order to sound as alike as possible during media interviews, a long row of stoic giants spouting cliches. It’s boring. Which is why media latch onto a loudmouth, even while they scold him for it. All sports are dying for an intelligent mouthpiece who can explain his motivations in a succinct, sound-bite-friendly, manner. Sports are entertainment. As much as I love Sidney Crosby, in my heart I have to go with Alexander Ovechkin because Ovechkin is far more thrilling, both on and off the ice. Unlike almost every other NHL star before him, all of whom were forced to kneel and kiss Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em ring, Ovechkin defiantly told the media he simply did not care about Cherry or Cherry’s disgusting parental reaction to one of Ovie’s more creative goal celebrations (called a “celly” in the biz). On the play in question, Ovechkin scored the goal, then dropped his stick and mimed warming his hands over it, as if his stick were on fire. As cheesy as the celebration appeared to the naked eye, it’s both a funny and accurate notion. Ovechkin was the hottest scorer in the league for many years and his stick was on fire, metaphorically speaking. The only celly I can think of that matches up in terms of creativity and entertainment value came from Teemu Selanne in 1993, who scored a beauty of a goal, threw one of his gloves straight up into the air, then pumped his stick like a shotgun while “shooting” his glove. Of course, Cherry took exception to it. Cherry’s favourite goal celebration features Bobby Orr putting his head down and refraining from raising his hands over his head. Cherry’s idea of an appropriate goal celly is no celly at all. This from a man who claims “we’ve got to sell our game.” But when an arrogant player shows up and he’s not white, he’s in for a shitload of bad press. Foxx’s Beamon illustrates this beautifully when he yells at Pacino after Pacino cuts him for an older QB who has lost four games this season. “Don’t play that racism card with me,” Pacino warns. “Okay…okay…” Foxx nods, “Maybe it’s not racism. Maybe it’s ‘placism’…as in…a brother got to know his place.”

Here is the original theatrical trailer, featuring Garbage’s classic “Push It.”

Above Lawrence Taylor begs Matthew Modine for Cortazone.  There’s also a great scene where Pacino is trying to figure out where he has gone wrong and Diaz just looks at him. “You got old,” she says simply. No enterprise is more cruel to an aging human being than sports. And this movie makes football a big giant corporate machine that chews players up and spits them out, injured and drug addicted, after four or five years. Those who play for a decade are lucky. This is still how the NFL works. And the NHL is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. Experience matters less and less.

When I started watching hockey in the 90s, players regularly competed into their late 30s. Not so anymore. Players peak at 23-24 now, and are often out of the league by age 35. Thornton and Chelois are exceptions, not the rule. After more than two hours, Any Given Sunday finally lurches across the finish line, bravely refusing to give its viewers a traditional happy ending, in the great tradition of underdog sports films like Rocky and Rudy. The bombshell dropped by Pacino’s character at the end feels less surprising than inevitable, but by now the movie has explored so much of professional sports' seedy underbelly that you're glad it's over. The film is great but exhausting. Stone seems to be advancing the notion that the sport itself is pure, but the people in it are corrupt. If money weren’t involved, the game would be played for its own sake.

I agree with this. People playing pond hockey are engaging in wholesome fun, not necessarily practicing to make a professional league. Commerce corrupts the purity of the game, and the extent to which it corrupts is directly proportional to how badly the individual in question needs the commerce. Of course, the sport is highly racialized, with people in positions of authority white, and those being told what to do with their bodies Black.

Any Given Sunday is an important film, but it never sacrifices entertainment for the sake of moralizing. That it pulls off such a strong moralistic stance is a testament to the actors, who are all incredible, and the material, which is among the strongest of Stone’s career.

He never really made a great movie after this one. So check it out sometime.

[seamingleecomplex]

So uh update from the job thing. I quit. The fuckin gm when i told him did nothing aside from defending my manager for telling personal medical information. So i walked out. Okay well my father in law told me he could get me a job being a mover for him and i could start same day, then i walked out.

Its like grunt work but like its only dudes. Im definitely kinda confusing them with my like gender and looks. I started on Thursday of last week and on Friday i already had the nickname of leroy jenkens and qt least half of them immediately shouted it when it was decided. Like no drama. Like i have nothing to really tell Hero when i get home. We do our job, joke about a couple of things. Like the deepest convo me and any of the guys had was like what super powers i would choose.

Oh so like a passed for at least the first 4 days. They only just started using fem pronouns today. Mainly because it got too hot to wear my hoodie and I cant bind since im doing heavy labor so tits. But like they also see that i have a mustache and a little beard growing in so like they also have used They/Them here and there and they have noticed that i have rainbow stuff in my car since ive had to drive some of them to the job. So i think they see im not cis but they dont know what way im going and it seems like they don't wanna call it out and make me uncomphy.

Though i will say im not going to fight them like clocking that im not a cis dude because like yesterday i couldn't wear my hoodie either and like im strong but not "ive been a mover for months and can pick up a safe and carry it down stairs by myself" strong and ill be real i was kinda strugglingto keep up. So they instead let me log everything. I still moved and like did heavy lifting but like i can tell they let me get the easier part. Necessary and tedious and they don't really wanna do it, but still the less labor part of it.

Im still sad because fuck i loved working with dogs all day and i was getting really good at my job. I had like a major *unalive myself* episode over the weekend on my birthday. Hero like signed me up for better help. Like i know its had a history of not being great, but we cant afford a really good therapist and the one that i have been using that was free because broke is on leave for a month and my sessions with them usually were 1 every other month or every 3 months on average. And i was like in a state over the weekend where hero was like "nah you need someone you can like set somthing up with or just text/call when you're like this or before youre like this" so that was like my birthday present.

I think this is gonna be good.i hope it is. Its grunt work but like ill get paid at least 3 bucks more than the old place and I've honestly never been on this side of nepotism so i guess take advantage of knowing that if anything happens or if someone is transphobic to me their boss is my dad (father in law) and im protected in a way.

[fimflamfilosophy]

“Is DnD Still Popular?”

To some of you giant nerds, the question, “Is DnD still popular,” is probably one of the stranger things you’ll read today, but within a specific context it makes a lot of sense. Speaking of, the show “Stranger Things” presented a popular, physical look at what DnD beasties might feel like, even if it didn’t present an honest view of what DnD games really play like. Along with more online media referencing the game and sites like Roll20 making it easier to join a group, it makes sense. Is this a temporary boom or has the roleplaying community seen a lot of permanent additions to its nerdy hobby?

I wouldn’t have numbers to say, myself, but for what it’s worth, roleplaying is always a very personal experience. And for a few of us, the question isn’t, “Are people still playing DnD?” Of course they are - it’s all anyone plays! The question is, “Can you get anyone to play anything else?”

What Is DnD?

For some people, Dungeons & Dragons has become so intertwined with the concept of roleplaying that people think DnD and roleplaying are synonymous. If you roleplay, you play DnD. Originally, this had a kernel of truth. There are articles about the history of the system, and during its inception the game had a hard time taking off. Fundamentally it was asking people to play make-believe, but with a system of mathematical rules and designs. We know now that this type of thing is like catnip to massive dork-faced neckbeards, but at the time it wasn’t expected to have much appeal.

Eventually it did get off the ground, and it became the standard for the entire concept of a roleplaying game. And as with all “firsts to the market”, there have been many competitors and copycats, but it’s difficult to pry the audience away when you need everyone to use the same system. In economics they call this “network utility value” - that is, a fax machine is useless if only one person owns one. You can only send faxes to other people with fax machines, so if another company tries to invent their own offshoot of the fax machine, they’ll never get anyone to adopt it because everyone is already using the existing fax machine network. Everybody knows DnD, which means that if you go to a convention or look for games online, you know you’re going to find more players for that system than any other.

Why Does DnD Continue to Work?

In early editions of DnD, there were a lot more rules, and as a result more freedom to design your characters. When I first started roleplaying, it was during the 3rd edition of the system, where you could still allocate skill points to become better or worse at specific skills like lying, climbing, forgery, or crafting. This meant that with good planning, you could play a sub-optimal wizard and make up for it somewhat by investing a lot in your “persuasion” skills to rely on talk more than magic.

But being the system that everyone has to learn isn’t enough to stay on top forever. Other systems like GURPS have taken hold by now, and some types of popular nerd media have introduced their own completely unique systems designed to simulate their specific media universes. The owners of DnD had two choices: either make the game more open and try to eat the lunch of other companies, or make all of DnD easier to play in general to capture a broader audience.

So they released 4th edition! We don’t talk about 4th edition. And then they quickly released 5th edition (and a few mumbled apologies), which streamlined a lot of things about the game to the extent I’m not sure why they even let you control your character stats at all now. Skills became baked in with your level, and most of the game is about choosing abilities when you level up. It’s become very similar to playing an MMO, and I believe that’s the point.

One of the big things you always see in a complicated roleplaying system is players spending hours putting together a character. For your experienced player, this is a labor of love. You really care about the small details and want to make sure you get it right, or you’re a Win-At-All-Costs type who wants to make sure you’re rolling the biggest numbers. Either way you’re familiar and know what you’re doing, but it presents a hurdle to new players, and that hurdle has been largely done away with in 5th edition.

No matter how old you are, how experienced you are, how creative you are (or aren’t), or how much you know about any aspect of the game, you can play 5e DnD. I think you could play as young as seven years old and have minimal problems, because all you have to do is choose a job and virtually everything else is filled in for you, as if by a program, as if a video game. An experienced player can help a new one whip up a character within fifteen minutes, and that new guy will be rolling dice at the dragon about as well as everyone else.

DnD is the Worst System

But DnD’s accessibility is also its greatest downfall. Because everything is sort of programmed out, you find a lot of players eventually growing bored with the same-old, and they try to find ways to inject new life into the system. They invent new races, new classes, new abilities, and so on - they call this “homebrew”. yet many people are bad at creating balance and fairness for something they personally intend to play, and DnD recognizes this problem. It has a lot of supplemental books telling you all you need to know about other races and classes you might want to play, and in theory they are as fair and powerful as anything in the base system.

Yet no amount of homebrew or supplementary material will solve DnD’s core problem: it’s rigid. If you want to play, you need a battle mat, because every spell, every action, can travel or act within a certain number of squares and you always need to know exactly where you’re standing. Players are expected to be able to take a certain number of actions per turn based on their level, and do an expected amount of damage. Monster encounters are built loosely around the concept of “Challenge Rating”, which is meant to imply a group of four players will find a CR of 5 suitably challenging if they are all level five. Basically it plays like “X-Com”.

And as you lock people in these mechanical, video game-styled designs, you find people champing at the bit. Not everyone wants to choose their abilities at level up or have their skill proficiencies dictated by what level they are. Some people want to express truly outlandish concepts, or play something that isn’t specifically designed around the idea of walking room to room blasting monsters. You’ll see people in roleplaying communities often asking, “Does anyone have any good ideas to homebrew [this idea] and make it work?”

Fans of DnD argue the homebrew approach works. Yes, it’s complicated and frustrating to invent entirely new classes and races for a single game where you don’t know how long you’ll play or what level you’ll reach, but DnD’s strict rules and design philosophy is a perk to those people, not a drawback.

Yet a fact of note is that a quote from a game I run got into a popular “Out of Context DnD” blog. The quote was, “ Mecha-Jesus unleashes a barrage of flames from his palms, but the train-snake martially dodges out of the way!”

It received 337 notes, and I was a little surprised by that. The game is a post-apocalyptic Road Warrior setting where the team boss decided to kill God as revenge for one of the gang members dying. Also featured in that day’s session was a battle between two men operating bucket cranes in a duel to the death above a giant grain silo, among eight other equally implausible events based loosely on Dante’s Inferno. For me, Mecha-Jesus is not a 300 notes event - it’s literally every other Friday.

What Do You Want to Play?

In my view, DnD often poses the question, “Are you even roleplaying?” I mean really. A lot of players feel like they are because they do an accent and come up with a backstory, but if you set yourself next to another player who has the same character stats and you’re playing together in the same game, has the system really given you the tools to solve problems all that differently? And the answer is is broadly, no.

I understand the counter-argument. Every player is unique. But in their way each Paladin in “World of Warcraft” is unique too. They have different gear, different competencies of player, and may take different abilities, but fundamentally they’re expected to crash dungeons and use what they’re given to kill monsters. The only advantage DnD has is that the GM can allow his players to interact with scenery items or talk to things, and you’ll see debate on exactly how much leniency a GM should give his players to act outside DnD’s base mechanics.

That’s a mentality. Some people like the safety of the system. They like to know what all the monsters are, what the risks are, what the rewards are, and have it all neatly lined up where you can see it. They want to join an Adventuring Guild that will bureaucratically assign a dungeon for them to attack so they always have something to do and a sure reward for doing it. The GM went through the trouble of drawing that dungeon out, after all. DnD is extremely safe.

And then there’s the alternative. I actually learned to roleplay among theater nerds who were already big into the concept of improv and narrative. One of them used to joke, “If you think DnD is the best system for the game, you know it’s not character-driven,” because any time you’re fine with trying to build an actual human around a set of level-up choices, you’re probably not designing the strongest possible personality.

Going back to media making DnD more popular, the first televised introduction to DnD I can personally recall is an episode of “Dexter’s Lab” where they address exactly this conflict. In it, Dexter runs a game where he forces his friends to play by his rules, where he wins. When Dexter rolls poorly, he turns the dice over to a better number and declares his evil wizard “fried” the team of adventurers. Then his sister, Dee Dee, takes over, and with no knowledge of the game’s rules at all, embarks on an improvised session of pure roleplaying where the guys tell her what they do and she tells them what happens. The sheets are just guidelines for them, and if they say they can do something Dee Dee accepts it.

Dee Dee’s roleplaying is open. It’s a void, and for some people, when you look into the void it looks back. How do you control everyone when they can do anything? It requires a certain level of trust that some players have a difficult time not abusing, yet weirdly everyone I’ve ever known who would lie and cheat during a roleplaying game actually preferred DnD, and I think I know why.

Rules Can Be Broken, but the Suspension of Disbelief is Immutable

The grognards that break the rules in DnD do so because the rules are so strict that they ironically can be easily broken. If the system says people take a certain amount of damage when they fall, and you find a way to throw to them that elevation consistently, by gum they’ll damn well take that damage. It’s in the rules! A friend I know combats this by saying if his players exploit the rules, then the monsters will start exploiting them too, to discourage arms races of bullshit.

What I’m describing is often called “rules lawyering”. So named because it involves finding a rules passage, interpreting the rule so the wording sounds like it favors an exploit, and then leveraging that into a powerful ability players were not meant to have. Because DnD requires you to know absolutely everything about your relative locations and words like “Attack” can have important diverging meanings depending on context, it’s a system extremely vulnerable to lawyering.

But with a more open system based on narrative and characters, it becomes harder to lawyer something you shouldn’t. In an open system, you build what the game calls for without consulting a bunch of charts and level guides. If you’re super heroes, you build super heroes. Cyborgs are cyborgs, Orcs are orcs - it’s whatever, and if you try to do anything outside the believability of the game, the GM tells you no. He has more authority in a more narrative game because the GM leads the narrative.

I’m personally fond of the Hero System, which ascribes massive ranges to all forms of weapons (a gun or eye laser can reach you down a long hallway) so the only general questions that need to be asked are, “Are you close enough to punch a guy?” and “Are you bunched up close enough to all be hit by this grenade?” You don’t need battle mats and the games play a lot more intuitively. There are two books of rules in Hero and they can be specific, but most of the rules revolve around character design rather than how to play, and fiddly things like physics or bursting through walls are meant to be decided depending on the type of game, at the GM’s discretion. There are guidelines, but they’re only that.

So if someone tells you they can punch through a wall in your noir investigator game, you tell them no, because the rules are just guidelines and in this game you can’t just drive your fist through a concrete brick even if you can find figures in the book that say maybe you can, because the book also says maybe you can’t - you’re expected to play the narrative, not the game. You can punch through walls in the super hero game where that’s typical, but not in this one.

From DnD to Anything Else

Of course, the open systems also present an opportunity for players to be very different in skill sets and abilities. You could imagine DnD is like “Power Rangers”, where everyone’s a different color and has different weapons but they’re basically all pretty much on the same level. An open system will wind up more like “Avatar the Last Airbender”, where one player is going to be Toph and someone else is going to be playing Sokka. 

It’s important in DnD that everyone be the same, because a lot of the game is spent in a 20ft x 20ft room full of skeletons (or Putties) - Toph would single-handedly dominate every challenge. Whereas in a narrative-driven game the ability to crush everything with a rock doesn’t actually solve half your problems and whoever’s playing Sokka probably winds up more active than the person playing Toph.

At the end of it all, that’s why the question for me is whether you can take the players out of DnD and take DnD out of the players. Everyone plays DnD, but can you get people to play Sokka and have a good time if Toph is in the party? Personally I think it helps to start people on systems other than DnD, and then they can go into DnD if they like being in small rooms full of skeletons.

Of course, trying to start people on anything but DnD is usually defeated by the network utility! Everyone knows DnD! It’s THE system synonymous with the hobby! A few too many times I’ve seen people play a DnD game and say roleplaying just isn’t for them because it’s boring. All you do is wait for your turn and then roll dice at goblins.

But all I can say to that is, you never roleplayed, man. You joined a pen-and-paper video game. I agree, throwing dice at goblins sucks. I used to have a friend who would compulsively roll dice when he got bored waiting for turns in games like that, and when asked what he was rolling for, he’d joke, “I’m killing the dragon! I’m killing the dragon!” Him, enjoying the experience of DnD combat in between other people’s turns.

In many groups that’s all DnD is, silly accents and go-nowhere backstories aside. Acting is hard. But if you’re very lucky, and you know just the right people, it’s possible to land in a game that is pure story and character, and those things are a rare treasure and a real blast.

[dougmeet]

SMC Clusterf***: Richmond Inn & Suites, Baton Rouge, La. Only Good Ol' Boy Hotel Group in Shreveport -- Hotels for Walmart Corp. -- Could Have Anti-White GM, Trudi Veals, F***-up The 'One-car Funeral' Which Was My 10-month Stay ...UNTIL BLACK JANITOR & COP EVICTED ME CHRISTMAS 2020!

(via Who Kicks Out Hotel Guest During Pandemic? Wyndham Hotels Richmond Inn & Suites GM Trudi Veals Baton Rouge LA, Owner SMC Hotels Group, President Delton Smith, Trademark Collection : mrjyn : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive)

Richmond Inn & Suites, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 225-924-6500 Front Desk, 24 Hours, Trudi Veals, GM

In retaliation with protection of owners, SMC Hotels Group, Wyndham Hotels Resorts, Trademark Collection, a concerted campaign of Constructive, Self-Help Eviction and Violation of Federal , CDC Eviction Moratorium, 12.27.2020, this commemorates Trudi Veals first extortive influence of former Front Desk Clerk, Faith, her first principal conspirator.

Faith tried what the Janitor did succeed, in temporarily impressing a sullen -- from censure -- Trudi Veals had her  momentum halted by superior,  Senior Vice President of Hotel Holding company, SMC Hotels Group, John Holmstrom, who upon hearing from an ex-employee through me what had been happening, had ordered Veals to fire her Assistant, Faith, but because of Faith's faithful efforts in helping her boss, Trudi’s illegal force-out of long-term tenant (me), Veals refused, with a tbsp of lies, and with that, crossed the line of no-return, forcing, on the morning after, a pall   throughout the employees faces.  And they all blamed me, courtesy of the rumor-mongering Trudi Veals.

Dispatch one employee to preserve stability, assuage a resident offended is necessary business to corporate execs, and if they happen to stop the personally motivated machinations  of an employee like Trudi Veals, which they had no idea existed, then all the better.  Whether it was rabidly disputed, although well-known among her confidants and helpers, they knew she was lying because they’d blown it and given her free reign.

For Trudi, just groom another assistant in the final intimidation -- the same spoiled dinner which put her appetite down -- only whetted it now.

Commission, as agent of Hotel, someone with no authority, who could then be explained away as acting autonomously in whatever foolish, non-procedural lunacies he decided of his own to commit, as  what occurred with the janitor, whom she picked as her favorite, one day after Christmas Holiday Weekend,  standing in my hall among his posse commitatus, all in the presence of a silently nodding BRPD, as if to say to any question I definitely had about the absurdity of this shitshow of authority, “... n da tom perrod'f tree our  firm nah (read in Jamaican patois) ...” officer nodding, there wouldn't be an answer. Just a command by the janitor to vacate, as a paid in full, with no court writ or order or notice to leave, to pack and be gone in three hours during the height of COVID-19 lockdown and Presidential Eviction Moratorium, December 27, 2020 -- 10 months since I had, a tenant in good standing occupied legally the dwelling at Richmond Inn & Suites, Baton Rouge, La.

Flight of Ideas and Magic Thought with a virulent predilection of her fantastical imaginings; her inability to control her trait -- relating as fact, lies of incredible construction, Dalian Hotel Policies of absurdity meant to entertain her during these manic episodes which, if confronted, she would blithely revisit, delighting herself again in her shock at admitting, ‘yes, it was all true,’ --  the grievances at Richmond Inn & Suites  left unaddressed for at least the year I was there were accommodated under the management of Trudi Veals.

Two coequal haints visit themselves upon unsuspecting whitebread rubes causing chaotic dustdevils of indeterminate origin.

What number in a year?

How many in a decade?

Of what percentage in the recent past did she dispense with issues in precisely this manner?

Veals enjoyed (as i would see it perpetrated) the $250 assessment.

A rainbow of dreaming washes over me to see its filthy lucre pour from tablespoons of sugar which Trudi administers herself and stirs in that same Macbeth Witches cauldron, while she is now rendered diabetic, debited of limbs and digits -- payment for criminality which through mawkish tears to a shrill interlocutor, she will respond in her Video Sentencing, as the culmination of a life in hospitality.

Inhospitable. No matter, Judge, nor Virtual Jury, Habeas Corpus Delecti, let him / her / it prevail.

That when HIS HONOR enter through Virtual Gallery his Courtroom, Hizzoner, heard bursting from Bailiff, virtual or corporeal, motions remanding  to house arrest, not withstanding, an ankle device shackles, which she did through counsel plead, too much like slavery its burden, her ankles hurting; unto which, adjudged too late, she fell prostrate, her clangorous show farced, and from request of referent obdurate did the Seersucker clown, whose Public Defense came from her diminution of payment -- she was entitled to her Constitutional Right to an attorney --  provided freely by the court, from the unrefined cowshed, overburdened, he couldn't remember which case was hers again -- from his car, to his watch, to his heels -- and through motions improper to a stickler at home for Kramer Vs. Kramer, but not in this Federal District Court of Appeals, appellate counsel for appellant to Bard of the Bench, his days at Harvard and Oxford and his rise through the ranks, horsehair wigs, robes, bibs and gavels,

Criminal barristers will keep wigs and gowns, as the Lord Chief Justice intends to keep the current court dress in criminal proceedings. The Bar is a single advocacy profession with specialisation in particular practice areas. There is logic in having the same formal court dress, where formality and robes are required, for criminal and civil barristers... There is strong identification of the Bar of England and Wales in the public's mind and its formal dress nationally and internationally.

to Justice whose scales weild equal to the malice practiced by those whose Liberty it steals, the gavel heard in the Barrister’s Vatican, like a Solomonic Revelation brought from  unsealing  those Seven Seals -- no Branch Davidian to waste judgement further,  enthroned, not  by Holy Rood,, but Terrible Swift Sword -- the Word of Law -- and before it ,she ask Mercy, which jurisprudence disinclines, a Judicial Granting on what she was standing, on grounds that she just couldn't stand up much longer,  Honorable man in the robe she did cling to as he floated on issue to his decision, a final declination to a continuance deemed by  court; that, And hereby, on this day, now, Say:

By preponderance of irrefutable evidence and with special circumstance, a verdict of guilty, through choice of Defendant --  wishing no man to judge her, but the eminence through Law Whom Ruleth Equal  All. No Prejudice Nor Fear, did he set down sentence which should end thus: To a term no longer than that which Defendant should be incarcerated, as to  the amount of days and nights in moral turpitude she squandered her victims, he rendered the craven acts with special malice and cruelty of intent, as a mere agent Lessor of Lodgement, an Innkeeper, unlawfully with deprivation in violation of Plaintiff’s Covenant of Peaceful Existence, did she relieve.

And so by Order of the Court, she SHALL serve out her sentence under the overpass where the I-10 ends in a maze of Los Angeles’s Skid Row, in a tent where she be remandered, although not really standard, under the lowermost overhanging awning, in a place of habitation -- already, before her, the I-10 so loud and fumid, where she'd be able to think clearly throughout the ordeal.

Warranty durable, should it of necessity in its fulfillment of determinant, subsection policy of coverage to which no clause, nor likelihood of risk amortization, through those Great Bodies of Bayesian Logic, Probability Statisticians, managed to assess that which boldness demurred, with warning our proclivity of enjoyment, times of danger and lack of inhibition, such courageousness wasted of adrenalized wash, natural narcosis, which we enjoy, compared with our duty to dispatch one-quarter century of pent-up niggling, as visited our frustration, whose credit shall present us who read this, no obloquy which I caused, you hear, as that to same degree, I shall enjoy a fireplace on the side of the transcontinental dedicatory slab to the movement of all our narcotics, this land, from its West to its East, an hyperbolic Woody Guthrie pharma-colonized mixture, which is our land now, and made for you and me.

In the deep, wretched South of my birth, says Barry Hannah -- wretched, but, still howling -- like the dinning rubber meeting road of Mario Andretti on nights you hear high-whining Formulae, its Straightaway Quarters where races are won; cacophonous to God -- to the Devil such an idea of fun -- inner-perturbation become discomfit as in dreaming,  you find yourself lost in its midst, the ringing never respite,  tintinnabulation -- this starts, so you now do, clangorous noise you weren't dreaming, remember the concept of Hearth, warm like home, your stay it may see you through this place, the same way as Religion absolves, guarantees of mortals to Glory and Promise of sinning, wanting you commit  your memory as Gospel, when you from sweating awaken into a sub-tropical destination, at 90 degrees humidity, it's really not the heat, it's the torpidity which require strong one-two punch to cough-up your lunch, from economy of motion lost is gained 90 degrees insight whose side of the Highway is not paved with gold, nor paved with  sound barriers, when looking across, it is seen, the thing which precludes  asking aloud when outside, but which would provide perfect protection from eavesdropping G-Men tailing John Gotti and Sammy the Bull, who loved nothing more than eluding them through Bridge and Tunnel traffic massing upon Little Italy Gravy Joints,  FBI packing in for home; the other side, where I, from my third story watch as you, like the painting by Munch, I cannot hear, but the shape of your mouth is as though you appear, ready to scream.

I know because it happened to me, I, like you, now also deafened by sounds only Eviller ears hear, they abound on both sides of the Slab, I-10, where you hear -- its squeals, through the name of the One, it to you hearkens with dread, and dead cursed squall, its sequel, again, and once more, it screams: Trudi Veals!

You late check-ins may wish her, or beware (by reading) The Curse of Richmond Inn & Suites, a Wyndham Hotels and Last Resort Trademark Collection, or the story of Trudi Veals. She is most simply recognized by her bromidic, counterfeit deficiency of presence, resembling the Executive doubles, who, saved by the Plague and its Social Distancing, indispensable to onerous owners of Inns and Suites which are inhospitable and untenable, and cannot be defended. Though Katrina would finish a Century of Death denied it by five years with interest, and finally restore it through penalty of profiteering, abusive mobs, unlike the present Gallows Humored fable, 'Ring Round the Rosie,' illustrative of Corporate Raiders and bottom-tier Hoteliers, whose review provides, simply through teetering acquisition by newly installed CEO, for reasons illustrated by its janitor, Mike, with two unopposable thumbs, the minimum rating it can receive is 'Two Thumbs Down.' SMC Clusterfuck, only Good Ol' Boy Hotel Investment Group of the Shreveport Country Club, Marina, building Hotels for Sam, over to Alabama, Walmart Corp., right in their back yard, who through anti-white racist tending by a General Manager of one-quarter century employ, Mrs.Trudi Veals, to fuck up the 'one car funeral' which was my brief 10-month stay at his lodge,  Richmond Inn & Suites, a Wyndham Trademark no one wants to steal. But everyone wants to read what really went on in the NEW Hospitality Horror Mystery Novella:  The Curse of Richmond Inn & Suites Repeats - a Trademark Collection John Holmstrom, through what strikes me as sensible,  and intuitive in his initial resistance in support for Trudi Veals -- refusing to authorize her request to evict me over what was transparently fallacious.

but President, Delton Smith, Number One Son of great old man Henderson Smith who has just passed, to carry on a family business with as much respect, courtesy, decorum, and hospitality, as a preppy rich kid in a Beemer, wheeling through cherry-picked gig of 8 years at the Hyatt®, a riot of paychecks, nothing really his, everything free to take, the helm, the Presidency of Boards and even Louisiana Hotel and Lodge Association (a derelict clubhouse), even the spotlight at the Socialite event of the Season, marrying another Shreveporter, Dame of Vassar, probs.  Together through wealth and throwing money at things, may their short time together, as they settle down in a place, well, since they both hate it there, it is excellent indeed, that Delton's a Hotelier.

Grandson of former Times section editor feted at engagement party Maggie Martin Shreveport Times  Elegant black and gold invitations requested the presence of friends at the Nov. 10 engagement party for Delton Smith and Caroline Wiggins, who marry on the most glittery of evenings — New Year's Eve.Invitees gathered at the Pierremont area  home of Dr. Kurt and Prissy Grozinger with others co-hosting.

It was an evening to remember with lamb chops on the dining room table and fried oysters passed by wait staffers, the talked about offerings of the evening.

Smith and Wiggins met through mutual friends, and Smith proposed at Capella Resort near Singapore. 101 is a lucky number for

Capella as well as promising 101 alluring waterfront accommodations, the hotel opened

its doors on 10.1 - October 1st

The two went were there for wedding of friends Smith met when he worked in the city. Smith is in hotel development and Wiggins is manager at Poppy's Monograms.More:

Fireworks surprise newlyweds after Coushatta reception

Smith's parents are Harrison and Cissie King Smith. His maternal grandmother is the late Beverly King Hand, a former Times editor well remembered for revising a Times style section. The bride's parents are Susie Wiggins, of Shreveport, and Pat Wiggins.Spotted in the crowd: Brian A. and Ginny King Homza, Drs. David and Carol Clemons, George and Clare Nelson, Bobby and Maura Pugh, Andy Querbes, Gary and Lisa Love, Dr. Charles and Katherine Sale, Lounelle Black, Mary Patrick Baucum, Bill and Nancy Broyles and the groom's paternal grandparents Shelby and Adelaide Smith. Maggie Martin is a Times reporter/columnist. She can be reached by calling 820-7404. Email: mmartin@shreveporttimes.com.

More on this story

trudi

trudi

veals

hotel atrocity

fuckin dickhead who is a dumbass bullyhes such a fuckin delton

Long Reads

Mental health

Social media

Young people

[aeris-blue]

I have a question about the season of grillster. 👀 If I recall correctly grillby was going to send a break up text but later on delete it. How would the plot be affected if he did send it?

Ow... Ouch! That hurt! Haha whelp I’m sure you mean this as a hypothetical but here’s just under 3000 words on the matter!

“All that’s left is the message,” Asgore smiled as he cooed over the bright orange flower under the glass dome. It was to prevent any accidental recordings since this would only work once.

Gaster fidgeted with the tails on his suit jacket before he took a step forward. He pulled out his phone and tapped the play button: “I love you.” It was his voice unperturbed by his natural Font. The idea of Grillby being able to hear that to really understand that he’s saying it made his soul so light he wondered if he was actually touching the ground. This whole venture had been so much prep work but it was definitely going to be worth it!

Asgore gently lifted the glass from around the flower, “We’re back dad!” Papyrus called cheerily and Asgore quickly clamped the glass back down.

‘Thank you boys so much!’ He turned around to see Papyrus’s knees and fingers coated in dirt from placing all of the echo flowers. ‘What happened to the tools Asgore lent you?’

“They are all tucked away securely in my inventory but something this important must be done by hand! Nyeheheh!” Papyrus put his hands on his hips as he laughed.

“You could say he left no stone unturned,” Sans winked as Papyrus groaned. Even Sans had a bit of dirt around the knees of his black pants which meant he’d done more than provide transportation like he said he would. 

He had two glorious sons who wanted nothing more than to see him happy. Without much of a thought he wrapped his arms around the pair, “Thank you,” he whispered, hoping the harsh sounds of his Font were more tolerable at a lower volume.

“When you put so much effort into something even I can’t sit back and do nothing,” Sans smiled as he patted his dad’s back.

Gaster’s phone buzzed in his pocket and Papyrus practically pushed him away, “That’s Justin!” He practically squeaked, “It’s go time! Ah! I wish I could see Grillby’s face!” Gaster chuckled as he pulled out his phone: one missed message from Justin. This was it, all that was left was to put the message in the flower and go up the mountain! His magic spun circles of excitement in his narrow bones as an almost manic smile excavated his teeth. 

Another buzz, this time from Grillby. He opened it without a moment of hesitation: Hey Gaster. It’s pretty obvious you have a lot of things to catch back up with after what all happened to you. My work schedule isn’t the most flexible of things either so maybe we should just call this whole thing off? Spend time with your friends and family.

Some carnivorous creature entrapped its’ fangs around his soul then after rereading it the wretched thing bit down hard enough to feel every incisor straight back to the molars. That was… this was fair. Yeah, yeah, he should have actually known this was coming. It was easy to see if he just took a moment to think about it.

Grillby had finally had enough of garbled memories and a partner that didn’t know the first thing about a relationship. One with a broken skull and malformed--just about everything else. His wonky ugly Font coming back was just the icing on the cake… A fruit cake even. A disgusting amalgamation of fruit and batter too much of a mismatched mix to be anything more than a once a year torture.

Was he shaking? He felt like he was shaking.

Of course his short stint at a relationship was over. This was why he’d always avoided such things right? Even if someone could take the time to look past his scars, his wounds, they’d just find a battered bore underneath it all. He was nearly incapable of kindness how on earth did he think he could manage love? How stupid. He was a being of logic. That’s what he was for: to make and do things for others. That’s how he’d prove he was good and that he wasn’t a mistake. He wasn’t a mistake. He wasn’t a mistake.

“Dad?” Papyrus squeaked.

“You’re crying, what’s up?” Sans’s eyelights pointed up into his one fully functioning eye.

Family and friends. That had always mattered to him more than trivial pursuits of clumsy half capable romance. Friends and family. He loved them. Those bonds were the only way he was capable of love. It was foolish to try anything more than that he’d never felt anything more than that. 

Grillby had him all figured out. He always had. OKAY, he responded. He took a shuddering breath then picked his hands up to sign. They shook more than he was expecting, trembling like leaves at the ends of his twig like arms, ‘I am so sorry for wasting everyone’s time. It appears things are over between Grillby and I.’ If that’s what Grillby wanted then who was he to deny his feelings?

Damn it, damn it, damn it, Grillby paced back and forth behind the bar like a tiger in a cage. His shoes smacked against the wooden floor as he took sweeping glances at his phone resting so uncaringly atop the counter. He hadn’t meant to hit send, he didn’t want to hit send, he wanted to talk to Gaster about disappearing first, now he seemed like a moody teenager. Over and over the thought crossed his mind to text him back that he sent that in error but it was out there now.

Finally, after what felt like an agonizing eternity his phone lit up. He pounced atop it eager to here Gaster’s counter but… the word ‘okay’ was displayed in caps lock instead. Okay? Okay! That was it? Everything they’d been working towards was over and all he could say was okay?! His flames blistered white as a deep rootted rage built in his chest. So he meant that little to him?

“Woah,” Justin held his hands up as he exited the backroom, “you uh… Got something on your mind?” Justin’s glasses were a sheet of white as they caught Grillby’s reflection in them. He needed to calm down, he knew that, but he couldn’t! His flames were a wicked storm across his form licking gently through his clothes to lash out against the whole world if they had to.

“I’m fine,” his voice was a snarl just short of a roar.

“Hey uh, I know I’m just your GM and you’re the owner but… Do you need the day off? I’m here, I’ll cover for you,” he slipped his hands in his pocket.

This human didn’t understand what he was looking at or he wouldn’t be so casual. He was an indestructible force of nature and right now he wanted nothing more than to return to his roots. Burn the whole bar down if he had to. He needed to do something to exert this toxicity billowing around him and harness it into-- something. “No,” he decided on finally, “I need to work.”

Fisher, one of his regulars, sauntered through the front door it only took a moment for the monster to cock his brow in confusion. If Fisher was coming in for the morning he just wanted something light to tie him over before he left for his construction job. A glass of juice, some mushy egg toast, and a few veggies. Easy enough he’d been doing this for years.

Grillby reached under the counter for a glass. In the short amount of time it took to place it atop the bar the glass shattered in his grip, the remains melted against his palm while he was left looking dumbfounded at the shards around the store. Right. He was too heated for glass at the moment. Stupid. He was always so stupid.

How long had Gaster known that his favorite book was at the intelligence level of a preschooler? That sentimental smile across his teeth had been mocking him. It wasn’t from affection at all, how could someone so smart find anything but amusement at that? 

Okay.

He said okay.

It was that easy for him to just throw him away. He laughed audibly but didn’t care. Of course it was that easy! Grillby was just a little toy soldier after all, you just tossed him out when you were done playing with him. The only good Eternal was one that obeyed. Well fine. He’d be the good little flame everyone wanted.

Gaster says it’s over. Okay. Gaster doesn’t even want to talk about it? Okay. Gaster thought he was a boring washed up unintelligent relic from a time gone by? Okay.

“Hey, B,” Justin put his hand on Grillby’s shoulder. Grillby immediately recoiled, no one should touch him when he’s angry, no one should even be near him, he’ll hurt them. Humans. Monsters. It didn’t matter! They shouldn’t touch him they shouldn’t-- 

In that second it took to blink something cold settled over his hearthstone and sunk straight down into his soul. Soot danced freely from him as he stared with his mouth agape at Justin, “Did… Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Justin showed him his hand, “I’m fine. You wouldn’t hurt me.”

He had no idea what hurt Grillby was capable of.

“Please B, even if it’s just the afternoon crowd I think you need to go home and rest a bit.”

Soot settled lazily atop the shattered glass, his flames dimmed from white, to yellow, to orange, and down into a dingy red, “You’re right.” He swallowed hard, “Yeah. If you need me I’ll be upstairs don’t hesitate to ask.” With a disheartening pop of the stitches he tore his bow tie off from his neck, “Sorry I’m leaving you with such a mess.”

“No worries B just take care of yourself okay?”

“Yeah.”

Even the late nighters had left the bar by the time he stood with a fit of butterflies in his ribs outside of the door. Deep inside he knew it was wrong of him to be here, to be so close, but… He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t rest, and he’d grown tired of his cocoon of blankets. Gaster wrapped his hands around the door handle but could not muster the nerve to move it.

Ever since crawling out of that black pit he’d had to work exhaustively to balance between what had happened in the past and connecting with who his friends were in this new present. Seeing his friends, his sons, with the painful knowledge that everything he had built with them was gone had been more than crushing. Everyday any conversation was a constant game of chess against himself where he could only lose. 

So why did this hurt worse than that? Why did it feel like at any second his soul was going to dissolve into dust under the weight of fangs far stronger than he? His mind had proven incapable of thinking of anything else but that didn’t change it was Grillby that had been the one to call it off. He couldn’t deny Grillby’s feelings but every attempt to crush his own had been futile. 

The key turned to lock the door and Gaster tugged it open to come face to face with Justin. He blinked stepping back quickly in surprise, ‘J-U-S-T-I-N?’

“Ah man you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he rubbed his eyes whether for emphasis or actual exhaustion Gaster wasn’t sure. “It’s two a.m. what are you doing here?”

‘I could ask the same of you,’ Gaster signed quickly perhaps too quickly as Justin didn’t seem to piece the Hands together.

“It has been a very long day, so please, go upstairs and talk to him like an adult.”

‘I will,’ he signed but his ribs stuttered. Stars, he really didn’t want Grillby to be angry at him for showing up but he couldn’t just let it end like that. Of all the monsters, of all the friends, the family, the memories, Grillby was the only one that it didn’t really feel like he was starting over with. They tried the dating thing and maybe that voice in the back of Gaster’s head had been right all along that it was doomed from the start but he wasn’t about to lose his best friend.

With one last unsteady breath in his ribs he marched up the stairs to Grillby’s home above the bar but by the time he was staring down the door he had already lost his nerve. He’d promised thought hadn’t he? That he wasn’t the little skeleton that ran away anymore… He hadn’t been that monster for a long time. Before his strength could leave him again he knocked on the door twice.

There was some fumbling on the other side of the door before it opened to a swirling mess of hot reds and purples. A pungent bitter fruit smell wafted through the air as wide white flecks studied his face, a deep orange line cut across his face, “Okay,” he practically giggled. 

‘You’ve been drinking?’ Gaster raised a brow.

“Wine, it’s classy,” he gestured vaguely to the living room as if inviting him over to it but he just leaned against the half wall that framed the entryway.

‘Why don’t you burn some of that out of your system?’ Why was Grillby so upset? He was the one that sent the text. Still, he found it difficult to be angry, if there was anything Gaster could sympathize with it was being sloppy drunk.

“Why didn’t you fight at all? You just,” he gestured in what might have been an attempt at hands, “said Okay. You didn’t even care.” He leaned heavily to Gaster who wrapped his arms around him and carefully maneuvered the door shut behind them. “Why didn’t you care?”

‘I--’ He tried to sign but his arms were full of churning flames and he had a sneaking suspicion that was done on purpose. With a painful familiarity he pushed his shoulder further under Grillby’s to force him to lean against him. The two stumbled their way onto the living room couch where Grillby splayed his arms across the bad and swung his legs wide. For a moment Gaster wondered if he passed out but the large white flecks returned tainted with a bit more yellow than he thought.

“So? Do I not matter to you?”

‘What? No! Grillby you are and have always been one of the most important monsters in my life!’

“Then why did you say okay?” He batted away at the tears that were floating about his glasses.

‘I thought-- it sounded like you were done, I wanted to respect your feelings! Breaking up is the opposite of what I want but if that’s what you wanted I wasn’t going to fight about it.’

“Why not? If you wanted to stay together, why didn’t you say so?”

‘Because,’ he tapped his fingers together, ‘I’m not supposed to… that is that I don’t… I stole so much from everyone I don’t really… I shouldn’t be,” he rubbed at his sockets as his teeth started to chatter. He didn’t deserve to be happy. Straight down to his soul he knew this but he couldn’t help hoping, he couldn’t help dreaming, and knowing this just made it so much easier to accept whatever ill came his way. 

A warm violet and orange arm wrapped around him then lead him to another one. Pressed firmly against Grillby’s chest he felt so safe, so warm, and so stupidly happy. He pressed his fingers against Grillby’s shoulder blades as if he could compress himself into the rolling flames. “I love you Gaster, I love you so much, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to send that to you I was just angry.”

‘You deserve to be,’ he still wasn’t sure what Grillby was upset about but he had no doubt he had every right to whatever emotion he wanted to feel.

“No! I wanted to talk! I wanted to work through it like we’re supposed to,” he squeezed tight enough for Gaster’s back to pop, “I hit the wrong button. Then you said okay and… I didn’t want to talk anymore.”

‘That’s okay I forgive you,’ he looked him in the eye, ‘do you forgive me?’

“Of course! A thousand times over! I shouldn’t have put you in that position at all!”

‘And I shouldn’t have--’ Well, he probably shouldn’t apologize if he didn’t know what it was for. ‘Let’s talk,’ he leaned back and held Grillby’s hands tight to his chest while a pair of hand bullets finished his thoughts: ‘let’s talk about anything and everything.’

“So you still like me?” Grillby’s voice was just short of a whimper.

Gaster smiled softly then pressed a kiss to his temple, ‘I love you.’ He said it, maybe not as grandly as he wanted but he finally told him exactly how he was feeling. If anything this whole ordeal had merely confirmed for him how true the statement was. 

“You love me?” His flames stoked into their usual orange and yellows as he sat up proper.

‘I love you with everything I am.’

Grillby lunged forward in a crippling bear hug that sent both of them squealing to the floor where they laughed in the face of everything they’d been feeling. Their laughs were infectious to one another and it seemed everytime one stopped the other just started up again. They could talk later but for now, this was what they needed.

[phantoms-lair]

This is completely random, but I’v been thinking about this for a while. 

When the Pathfinder Adventure Path Strange Aeons came out, I was excited. How could I not be? Fantasy RPG and mythos style horror, yes please.

I’ve since become very disillusioned with it, and I’ve been trying to put my finger on why. In the end, it comes to a balance of motivation, effort, and reward, which I don’t think the module achieves.

SPOILERS FOR STRANGE AEONS

The first two parts (In Search of Sanity and The Thrushmoor Terror), I enjoy greatly and highly recommend them. You start in an asylum that all hell has broken loose in. Cannibalistic undead are abound and Dopplegangers replacing people, so you don’t know if someone’s real, and other survivors doubt you are.  To make matters worse you have no memories of who you are and how you got there. Solving your personal mysteries, figuring out what’s going on, surviving and helping other people survive. These are strong motivations, it’s challenging, but the puzzles and haunts are interesting and you feel a real sense of victory when you overcome it.

The next part has you in town, learning who you were and how you got there, as well as uncovering strange occult happenings and piecing everything together. Again the fights are challenging, but finding the truth feel rewarding. It ends with you leaving town in pursuit of the Nobleman who hired then betrayed and tried to use you as a sacrifice.

Unfortunately, after that it quickly looses me. It doesn’t help that pretty early in the third part of the module it commits what I consider a sin of adventure writing - the unbeatable enemy.

The Formless Spawn was a horrific first enemy to run into in the dream world. As a small cavalier I literally could not damage it. After taking horrible hits we retreated and did other things while trying to come up with a way to deal with it. And I mean we spent real life months  trying to figure it out. Turns out, we were never supposed to fight it, we were supposed to run away (GM finally told us when we went back with the intention to sneak past and it was gone). If you present something as an enemy and have it attack, the players aren’t going to intuit that it’s unbeatable, just that they’re not doing something right. Especially in a game that has really challenging encounters as a matter of course.

But we progress, and do a large number of fetch and subquests to get to the location Count Lowls is at - only he’s not there anymore.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, became the recurring theme of Strange Aeons. An adventure doing a number of sub quests for characters we don’t care about in exchange for Lowls location, only to have just missed him and having to start the whole process over again. And to be frank, I have stopped caring. It just gets to the point where you shrug and want to go the way of ‘the best revenge is living well’. What began as a very personal mission has lost all spark. What’s the point of tracking him down when we know he won’t be there anymore? We get loot, sure, but never the goal we seek

I know the game tries to counter this with ‘Lowls is going to destroy the world and we have stop him’ but...we don’t? Like this is the world with the Pathfinder Society, Medevian Crusaders, heck even the Hellknights wouldn’t be down for the end of the world. There are absolutely more qualified people we could turn this over to.

And like I said this module is hard. Like Byahkee (intended for level 4) and Dopplegangers (for level 3) at level ONE hard. It’s a lot of work and constantly being denied the promised reward is draining. I have heard my fellow players say ‘Why are we doing this again?’, never something a good module should make you feel.

If I had to change something to make it better, I would have had the party catch Lowls at the end of the third part, only to find out he was either the pawn of another, or had set things in motion that only we could stop due to our status as failed sacrifices. The story continues on, but we reached our goal and felt good about. Just look at Carrion Crown, you complete your initial goal, collecting your inheritance, very early on, but it doesn’t make you want to stop exploring and see things through to the end. It never gets old.

Strange Aeons tried to go for style, but completely lost the substance early on and never really got it back.