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netflixandchilis · 6 years ago

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Weekly Fic Rec (6/8/19)

*this does not necessarily mean fics posted this week but fics I've read this week

Zimbits

Brunch is (entire series) E 100k

Shitty and Lardo are overly-invested and creative friends. Jack and Bitty are just trying to figure out what's in the box.

Ill Equipped E 70k

Jack's first mistake was getting drunk in a salsa club with Kent Parson. Or, the accidental Vegas married AU no one asked for.

And you may say to yourself, my god, what have I done? E 39k

The last thing Jack Zimmermann remembers saying to Eric Bittle is "lucky shot." That doesn’t explain, at all, why he just woke up in Bittle’s bed.A companion piece -- this time it's Jack's turn to get a peek at his future -- to And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? M 38k

Bitty goes to bed after his "lucky shot" having made a decision. When he wakes up he ... is not where he expected to be. He has a career, and a baby, and -- this is the biggest surprise of all -- a husband who looks a lot like Jack Zimmermann.

Ethics of Journalism T 12k

When Dan Erikson is assigned to write an article about Jack Zimmermann's years in college, he thinks he knows what he's getting into.

Then he meets Professor Simpson, Jack's photography professor.

[also known as: Good Guy Reporter Dan Erikson]

He’s a Baker NR 5k

Jack loves his parents a lot - and they just want him to be happy. So, in order to stop them from worrying, he invents a perfect boyfriend. A man who couldn't possibly exist.

the slow pace of geologic time T 4k

Jack looks at her and then puts her luggage down and leans in, grabs her into a full-body hug, right there on the sidewalk, holding her so close. She can’t remember when he last hugged her this hard. “He told his parents. About being gay. About us,” he says into her shoulder. “They were awful.”

Call Me, Maybe G 3k

Based on a tumblr prompt in which Eric Bittle becomes a famous competitive figure skater whom Jack Zimmermann develops a celebrity crush on.

Jack isn't interested in a Falconers' PR opportunity to be on a reality show ... until he finds out who he'd appearing with.

If Pies Could Talk E 3k

Jack wants to ask Bitty something but he can't find the words. If pies could talk, they'd call him a lovable failboat.

#pickericbittleup G 1k

Everyone has an opinion about Jack Zimmerman figure skating with another man on television. Tater records his reaction in a Falconers' publicity video.

(Companion Piece to Call, Me Maybe)

Each Time You Close Your Eyes T 1k

“Do you talk in your sleep?” Jack asks over frittata the next morning. Bitty’s cheeks pink up and his eyes get huge. “Oh lord, did I?” “I think so, Bits. You tried to tell me something about pineapples at three a.m.”

Casual Gaming E <1k

Can Bitty distract Jack from his phone?

Harringrove

Give In To Him (entire series) E 13k

Follows Billy and Steve’s relationship development from roommates to more...

Hargrove T 13k

“Chief?”

“Yeah?” Hopper responded. It was barely eight o’clock; he’d just made it to the office.

“Principal Wallace needs you down at the high school. The Hargrove kid’s sleeping in his car again, and they can’t get him to wake up.”

Jim Hopper Always Knows T 2k

Four times Hopper is pretty sure Billy and Steve are a thing, and one time he's DEFINITELY sure. aka: how Hopper figured out Steve and Billy were together

Parkner

PROOF SPIDER-MAN LOVES CLICKBAIT WIP G 60k

When Peter Parker gets a job working at Buzzfeed there's really only one subject he can write about: superheroes. And what superhero does he know better than everyone's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?

What he didn't expect was that everyone would think Peter's new obsession with the hero would be interpreted quite like That.

The Corruption of Peter Parker, by Harley Keener E 3k

Harley had meant to intimidate Tony’s intern -that’s the only reason he wore his nice jeans with the stupid maroon shirt that brought out his eyes. He even gelled his hair, for fucksake. Except, the moment he actually saw Peter Parker, baby blue sweater layered over a button up, jeans ripped where the extra fabric dragged as he walked, he threw that plan out the window. OrHarley really wants to fuck Peter so hard that he’s crying for it. He settles for wooing the fuck out of him instead, and maybe making Peter cry when the younger begs him for it.

Baby, Look What You've Done To Me

T 1kHarley was set in his mind. He wouldn't be pursuing anything with Peter. Yeah, maybe some mildly flirting here and there that honestly went over Peter's head because he was too shy and innocent for his own good, but that was about it.Until Harley saw Peter wearing one of his sweaters that was basically swallowing Peter's small frame.Or: Peter wears Harley's sweater and he loses it.

Broken Promises and Needy Omegas

E 1k

Afterwords, when Harley was pressed up against the omega’s back, knot stuck deep as Peter purred and preened, the alpha sighed as he realized he had backed out of his promise, yet again. Peter was content now, but the shitstorm was coming. OrHarley gets really overwhelmed when Peter tries to ride him. Also, Tony wishes he could bleach his brain.

Stucky

Bucky Barnes and His 1001 Fetishes (or at least eight of them) WIP E 60k

Bucky Barnes is an out and proud, completely unashamed kinkster of epic proportions. From panties to gags to weird, alien dick sex toys--he's game for it all.He's

definitely

game for raining down kinky fiery hell on his new crush: Professor Steve Rogers.

A History of Birds NR 2k

"You look like him," Bucky says. No prompting, no nothing. He just speaks, like this is a thing he does.

"What?" Steve asks. He didn’t really hear it, too stunned by the fact that words were coming out of Bucky’s mouth to understand their meaning.

"You look like him. So did Pierce." His voice is soft, gravelly from disuse. "Is that why they picked you?"

Steve’s heart plunges like an elevator with the cables cut. “Buck, it is me.”

The hard line of Bucky’s mouth softens just a little. “Sure,” he says.

Winterspider? (idk the ship name)

just in case you fall in love with that boy in your chemistry class

WIP E 20k

A collection of mostly unrelated drabbles and blurbs in a Peter Parker/Bucky Barnes high school au. Each chapter is an independent fic/concept, chapters labeled and all contain individual summaries, ratings, + warnings/notes.

I write 'em as they come. I've got lots planned, but there's no main plot or end goal here, just a relatively non-chronological compilation of generally unconnected, short fics and headcanons. Tags will be updated as I go. Welcome to my trash bin, let's get fucked

**also, its an unpopular ship but if anybody has any prompts that'd be sick

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thank-you-phipps · 5 years ago

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Review: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

So, I’m on my third of fourth reread, and it’s held up well over time. I was in a pretty shitty mood today, so it’s had its work cut out for it, battling all my negativity, which tends to manifest in intense distrust of this sort of book. I’m thinking the cynical mood will help to balance out the blinding heart eyes and give an objective perspective.

When I first read this book I thought I’d found the holy grail, and though there have been a few books after that that have taken the cake, I still think it’s wonderfully written and it has basically none of my usual rom-com pet-peeves, which makes it easy to like.

That being said, this book doesn’t try hard enough. I know this isn’t literature. I don’t expect to be tossed about so much as by Jane Eyre wandering the moors, putting her faith in nothing but God Himself; but the sheen has worn off rather quickly for a book that once held pride of place in my heart. I mean, Red, White, and Royal Blue is a rom-com through and through, but I can hardly read the emails for how heart-wrenching and raw they are, so it’s not the genre’s fault.

My main problem, which wasn’t immediately clear to me after I’d read it again, is that there’s not much of a plot or any kind of conflict at all. It’s pretty up-hill the whole ride, and even though they are “mean” to each other for a lot of the book (I’d classify this enemies-to-lovers), there is no real threat of any meaningful harm being done to there relationship, however caustic it may seem on the surface. You know they’re just flirting, albeit kinda antagonistic flirting. Of course you root for them, but at some point banter isn’t enough. As I’ve said, there’s basically no plot, and though I’m a decided rom-com light-skirt, when, for all intents and purposes, the whole book is the hooey gooey precious cuddles, the soft stares, the love words, or the antagonistic sexual tension, then the quality of the romance takes a hit. From what I can tell, the “climax” was Lucy finding out that Josh and Mindy were together a long time ago, and she feels insecure. That is quickly gotten over, though, and a hot sex scene is queued up ready to go. No big deal. Well, if the author doesn’t want too much conflict stemming directly from the romantic pair themselves, fine, but they’ve got to make up for it with conflict elsewhere, or else what am I here for? You can’t keep me on the hook if you just keep feeding me sweets. Now that the novelty has worn off, I had to shoulder all the work, trying to imbue myself with some sense that there are stakes involved and some reason to get attached to the story when there wasn’t really a whole lot to keep me invested besides her feminine wiles and his cutting whit. You gotta make me suffer a bit. You can’t rely on the characters alone to carry the romance. It always helps to develop a romantic pairing when they are forced to play with the world the author has created (e.g. The Soldier’s Scoundrel, and The Lawrence Brown Affair, both by my lady love, Cat Sebastian, to whom I’ve sold my immortal soul.) and that’s what I found most lacking

This is all thrown into unflattering relief by the holy undeserved overabundance of sap. Now that I’m looking at it with more objective familiarity (not a good mindset if you’re wanting to actually enjoy a romantic comedy) Josh’s ministrations at the end of the book especially felt over the top. Don’t get me wrong, I still go a little starry-eyed. Sally does a superb job at love talk, making it original to boot, and I was emotionally masturbating to this emotion porno of epic proportions. But if you’re going to serve me that good, you’d better make your characters suffer to balance the scale. I’m more likely to let myself enjoy that kind of over the top confessional stuff if it’s in some historical romance a la Lisa Kleypas, where I’ve already thrown out my dignity with the bathwater. But this is a real life rom-com (…oxymoron…) where the romance takes place in world whose inhabitants should be self aware enough to call bullshit. I mean, come on. There is literally a sepia-filter road trip montage scene. It’s jarring when you’re trying to enjoy something good (despite my critiques), but you’ve put it in this gaudy picture frame and you can’t help questioning it’s value. Couldn’t you have at least tried to make it seem a little more down to earth, so the negligible chance of this ever happening in the real world aren’t rubbed in my face with quite so much heartless glee? You could have made it just as poignant and also made it feel realistic. Would have pack more of a punch that way.

Anyway, one huge point in her favor: Sally does a fine job of making Josh masculine without resorting to alpha male-ism, which I suppose many authors find difficult (Looking at you, Kleypas). Lucy is cute and actually has a personality, but it irritated my that she objectified Josh as much as she did. It’s something I noticed in 99 Percent Mine, Sally’s second book, in which the objectification of the male love interest made me feel a bit ill. It started out so promising and then the romantic pair were together for a few pages and I had to stop. I’m all for the main characters taking pleasure in each other’s bodies, but the way Lucy was practically drooling over him when it came time for that, turned me off. It sounded as though she wasn’t really paying Josh himself any attention, and there was a literal scene in which she's squeezing and weighing is muscles in her hand. Gross. I’m hyper sensitive to this particular quirk in romance, and I think Sally does a good job overall of cancelling those blips out with comments on the other end of the spectrum, but it still rankles.I will say that it’s not nearly as pronounced as in 99 Percent mine.

I know this review is negative on the whole, but keep in mind, I’ve read this book four or five times, so it must being doing something right. It’s one of the better rom-coms by a long shot, and I’m sure I’ll read it again in another few months and eat it up shamelessly. Just didn’t have much patience today.

#book review #review #romance #romantic comedy #ship #book blog #book #booklr #the hating game #sally thorne #99 percent mine #book nerd

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thefilmfatale · 6 years ago

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Always Be My Maybe and How to Ruin a Rom Com

There is an art to a good romantic comedy.

Let me preface this post with a confession: I am a rom com enthusiast. Go ahead, turn your nose up at me, you snobs! But I unabashedly love romantic comedies. Yes, I’m aware that the genre is much maligned for being painfully predictable and vapid, but it would surprise you how tough it actually is to produce a solid rom com that hits all the right notes.

You see, there’s a formula. Boy Meets Girl (yes, I’m being deliberately heteronormative for this example, put your pitchforks down). Girl plays hard to get. Boy persists and wins her over despite how much the lady doth protest too much. A conflict introduces tension and separation (”Gasp! This was all part of a bet?!”), throwing the relationship into jeopardy. Boy performs Grand Gesture™ to win back Girl’s heart. Girl forgives Boy and the two gallop into the sunset. Cue Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” as the credits roll.

The formula works, but only if the filmmaker can trick the audience into believing that this on screen romance has real stakes. To do that, you have to have a script that at least pretends to explore an interesting relationship which, as it unfolds, gives the audience butterflies and makes them want to root for the star-crossed lovers. Without audience investment, you have no rom com.

To get the audience to invest, you need likeable leads who have great chemistry and just enough tangible sexual tension to create that air of “Will they or won’t they?” After all, no one ships a couple who are devoid of personality and lack chemistry. Most of this sexual tension is physical—in the way the actors interact with each other—but what can really help establish this is verbal, by way of witty repartee.

Think of some of the classic rom coms, like When Harry Met Sally. Why does it work? Sally is a Type A personality. Prim, proper, particular, and uptight. Harry is more laid back, casual, and candid— unafraid to tell it like it is. He’s also a bit of a troll who enjoys getting a rise out of someone. Throw the two on a road trip together and you have a recipe for romance (or disaster—however you want to look at it). As a viewer, you begin to root for them because we’re told that opposites attract and complement each other. Harry softens Sally’s rough edges, Sally helps Harry realize he needs some maturing.

And you all know the Big Gesture™. A New Year’s eve confession that inspired a thousand sappy rom-com speeches.

What makes When Harry Met Sally successful?

Harry and Sally are different enough from each other that there is enough sexual tension and push and pull to make their interactions interesting.

Each half of the couple has their own personality that feels authentic to their character. They have their own ambitions and goals. They also have traits and quirks that uniquely position them to attract each other.

The relationship does not seem guaranteed—the audience has to have a moment of doubt or uncertainty that makes them will the couple back together.

Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal have fantastic chemistry.

It seems pretty straightforward. Follow the formula, and you’ll be fine. In fact, it’s hard to screw up a good rom com if you just imagine unconventional ways to put two individually interesting but opposite enough people together then lean back and watch the sparks fly.

So all this to say that nothing could have prepared me for the soul-sucking awfulness of Always Be My Maybe, the Netflix flick starring comedian Ali Wong (know for her Baby Cobra Netflix special) and Fresh Off the Boat’s Randall Park.

The story follows Sasha Tran (Wong), a renowned chef and restauranteur, who rekindles a romance with her childhood best friend Marcus Kim (Park) when her marriage engagement suddenly falls through. Tran is portrayed as ambitious and driven, while Kim is unmotivated and immature, using his widowed father as a crutch to not follow his dreams. In its purest form (this summary), the gist of the story seems fine. Nothing to write home about (certainly not novel), but this is romantic comedy and the bar is more of a footstool so no one’s begrudging sticking to convention. But Always Be My Maybe takes that convention and, in true Asian fashion, approaches it with textbook diligence that just sapped the joy and life out of what should have been a fun, light-hearted romp. So much for subverting Asian stereotypes!

Now I’m a fan of Ali Wong and Randall Park’s, but this movie was so mind-numbing, it made me physically ill. Ali Wong? Hilarious! Randall Park? Extremely likable and has great comedic timing! Together you would think they would be dynamite. Fireworks! An explosive affair of epic proportions! And for those of us who’ve had a hankering for a rom com with Asian leads (and God knows we’ve waited a long fucking time—thank you, Crazy Rich Asians) we know about the demand for one.

Alas, what a disappointment. A telephone pole and I would have had more chemistry than Ali Wong and Randall Park. As much as it pains, I have to say that Always Be My Maybe just might be one of the worst romantic comedies I have ever watched.

Not only did this movie put two leads together who had zero chemistry—or at least enough sexual tension to help the audience suspend their disbelief that these aren't just actors—but the story unfolds in a fashion that actually makes the audience keenly aware of the formula. I know I said if you just follow the formula you can’t go wrong, but Jesus they didn’t have to make it so obvious! It’s like Fight Club, you know? The first rule of making a good rom com is YOU DO NOT MAKE THE AUDIENCE AWARE THAT THEY ARE WATCHING A ROM COM. I mean, at least try to approach it like it’s actually an interesting story about two people.

Instead, the movie followed story beats that seemed to exist for the sake of moving the story along instead of actually selling us on the relationship. The beats were so obvious that you can actually pinpoint where they begin and end because they were helpfully (and often unnecessarily) bookended by old school hip hop songs. Cue music! Here comes the conflict, the part where Boy and Girl rekindle their romance only to find that the years apart have made them different people. Boy judges Girl for being pretentious and obnoxious. Girl judges boy for being immature and unmotivated. A big fight ensues! Insults are hurled at each other that are so truthful they hurt! But it’s only a sign that they are meant to be with each other because they can trust each other to be this honest!

You know your movie is bad when your story beats are so obvious that they take the viewer out of the movie. You know your rom com is bad when Boy’s Big Gesture™ felt like a very clear When Harry Met Sally rip-off with dialogue that makes you want to get a lobotomy. There’s certainly nothing wrong with being referential or, even better, deliberately parodying romantic comedies. But Always Be My Maybe wasn’t really trying to be either. It was just stuck in this weird gray area of trying to be a romantic comedy and failing.

Always Be My Maybe’s biggest problem is in its turd of a script. It was so cringeworthy, filled with inauthentic lines and tired Asian jokes (the joke about Asians hating tipping was played out to the point of exasperation). Even their attempts to make fun of woke culture (which is an effort I wholly endorse) felt contrived and flat, which is such a bummer because that would have been a cool differentiator. Even the promising jabs at the pretentiousness of haute cuisine were awkwardly executed. Most of all, it didn't do its lead actors any favors, turning them into cartoonish cardboard cut-outs that were designed to follow the formula of a rom-com without putting in the work to earn the audience’s investment. Performance-wise, Wong did a passable job, but there were times when it felt like she was reciting a line that was clearly more apt for a comedy skit rather than a piece of dialogue that a character in a movie is saying. Park’s attempt at faux awkwardness, on the other hand, was excruciating to watch. Couldn’t he just be a dude in a rap band who happens to live with his dad? That's a decent enough back story. There really wasn’t a need to give him a personality quirk that seemed put on rather than authentic.

The film’s most promising moment was a Keanu Reeves cameo. And it’s only because Reeves was so game at poking fun of himself and the pretentiousness of celebrity that it worked. But just like the tired Asian jokes, at a certain point the humor was played out to the point where it became unwelcome. I also want to give credit to the film for portraying an Asian American upbringing that wasn’t the Fresh Off the Boat variety. While there isn't anything wrong with that portrayal, it’s also a treat to be able to see a different dimension of Asian culture, one that shows how typical and relatable it is to the average American’s upbringing. Premarital, promiscuous sex! Rap music! Being into pretentious food! Much as I hate to admit it, the whole “Asians—we’re just like you!” approach is kinda needed in film and television because it removes this layer of exoticization that can be restrictive to Asian characters.

While not tokenizing Asian characters is a positive, it still doesn’t make Always Be My Maybe a good movie. While I did watch it all the way to the end (despite my body’s vehement protests), it hurt my soul in ways I didn’t anticipate. How did they ruin this rom com? First, and most importantly, there was a shocking lack of individual character development. You don't get a sense of who these people are individually. Instead, they just seemed to be characters created for the sole purpose of putting them together and contrasting them enough to where they should have some sort of chemistry. But you can’t manufacture that. Each actor has to go through the work of making their characters likable. If I like the characters individually, I like them even better together! See how that 2+2 worked? But without dedicating the right amount of time and space in the story to showing their inner lives and what makes them tick, you’re setting them up for failure.

Second, and on a related note: there were no real stakes to the relationship. because setting up Sasha and Marcus to be together just seemed like a given from the get go. There didn’t seem to be any real jeopardy to their relationship, even once the conflict was introduced. The forced repartee between the characters came off like lines of dialogue instead of natural conversation, not to mention the very apparent lack of chemistry between Ali Wong and Randall Park. So much so that you didn’t really want to see them make out, let alone root for them to end up together. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you ruin a rom com.

If you, a friend, or family member just watched Always Be My Maybe and are experiencing similar symptoms of nausea and misanthropy, may I direct you to a Netflix original rom com that is actually good? Go check out Set It Up, if you haven’t already!

What did you think of Always Be My Maybe? Am I full of shit? Did you like it? What are some of your favorite romantic comedies? Sound off in the comments below!

#always be my maybe #movie reviews #Ali wong #Randall park

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battlestar-royco · 6 years ago

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I was wondering what went wrong with ACOWAR bc I have read bad reviews of stans who loved ACOMAF (I just couldn't finish it) and yet the last installment didn't work even for them. Can you explain a bit what was wrong with ACOWAR that even stans were disappointed?

Yeah! So AC0MAF is pretty universally understood to be SJ/M’s most successful book. It’s the first book with Failsand and it was the peak of SJ/M’s and Rice’s “feminism.” It’s the book that put the AC0TAR series on the map and vastly expanded SJ/M’s readership in general. I think the high point of MAF for stans was Faerug’s character development and her relationship with Rice. He’s essentially the ultimate wish fulfillment love interest and Faerug is the ultimate self-insert because 1. SJ/M refuses to hold them accountable for any of the terrible things they’ve done, and 2. the proportion of smut in MAF was the highest yet for her books at the time of publication.

AC0WAR, on the other hand, was a letdown for many reasons. First of all, it had to follow the stellar reception of AC0MAF and close the Failsand arc, which is always hard for a third book/highly anticipated book to do. Second of all, the blatant retcons and terrible treatment of M0r and the walking stereotypes of characters such as T/hesan and H/elion were obviously, disruptively, offensively forced. I think M0r’s portrayal was one of the top 5 reasons why the book failed for so many stans because while stans and antis alike are upset at the piss-poor representation of wlw, more stans were upset at the sinking of their ship M0riel as far as I can tell. M0riel was clearly set up in AC0MAF with all the trademark SJ/M “he was a boy/she was a girl” signs: romantic pics of labeled “M0r and Az” showed up on the AC0TAR pinterest, MAF!Assriel was heavily implied to be in love with MAF!M0r, they were always touching, etc. WAR!Assriel is violently protective of M0r, sex with men makes WAR!M0r ill, Faerug forces her to come out, and M0r has an elaborate story about how the rest of the IC doesn’t know about her sexuality. There’s a clear tonal shift in M0riel between MAF and WAR, much like the difference between TAR vs MAF!Tom Lane and L/ucien, or H0F vs Q0S!C/haol. The difference is that instead of the characters in question being the losing love interests that SJ/M no longer cares about, it’s a popular m/f ship. That is unprecedented for SJ/M stans.

Aside from the sinking of M0riel, Failsand also lost its novelty due to the horrible way Rice and Faerug treat others. Faerug destroys an entire court right before a war, she gets a sentry whipped, she invades L/ucien’s mind and sexually harasses him and nearly leaves him to be assaulted by I/anthe, and she doesn’t care about her sisters unless they’re dating her new hot guy friends. Rice’s feminism becomes laughable and paradoxical because he takes over M0r’s responsibilities and doesn’t do anything for I/llyrian women, and the Failsand sex scenes are beyond cringey and inappropriate. Although the MAF sex scenes are ridiculous, they are somewhat relevant to Failsand’s emotional arcs. In WAR, no such arcs exist, and there’s even less tension in Failsand’s tepid banter than in MAF because they’re already together and their characterizations now completely revolve around obsessive sex. Plus, this was supposed to be an ~epic~ finale to a story featuring stan-beloved characters, but the war was super rushed and unrealistic and superficial for the characters and the world. Suffice it to say, WAR was the book that finally showed many stans that a lot of what antis had been saying was right: SJ/M’s diversity sucks, she retcons the fuck out of her characters, smut takes precedence over everything else, and she does almost no research. This time it was all concentrated into one incredibly rushed book and it actually effected characters the main fandom cares about.

#asks #anti sjm #anti acotar #anti acomaf #anti acowar #anti feysand

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alcego · 7 years ago

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(softly) what is,,, tsa,, because it seems Pretty Interesting

(pulls up a chair and whispers back) my tsa tag refers to The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. tsa is a series in the extended universe of the Cosmere, which he explains here.

so far as i’m aware, The Stormlight Archive is where Sanderson intends to merge the Cosmere over the course of 12 books of quite literally epic proportions.

while it’s not necessary to do so to understand or enjoy The Stormlight Archive, i’d definitely recommend checking out some other books in the Cosmere first so that you’ll have both an idea of how Sanderson writes and so that you can develop a firm layer of trust, as none of the books in tsa have clocked in at under 1,000 pages and require a fair amount of dedication to read.

that being said, i was so floored with Words of Radiance (TSA Book 1) that I finished it in just under a week.

i strongly recommend reading Mistborn: The Final Empire (trilogy + Mistborn: Secret Histories, which delves farther into the Cosmere) and Warbreaker (single novel, at the moment) before checking out tsa, if only so that you can appreciate the easter eggs from Warbreaker and Secret Histories spattered throughout the books. then again, i’d recommend these books on their own as well. Mistborn is an eternal favorite, and as i’m rereading i’m finding myself absolutely blown away by how cleverly Sanderson slipped in foreshadowing, and how well he set the story up for necessary plot twists… that ended up feeling like less of a twist, and more of an inevitable secret come to light.

i’m gonna throw in a cut here, because i really and truly can talk for hours about the Cosmere and i haven’t even begun to explain what’s going on in tsa

Sanderson talks about The Way of Kings here, and includes the inside flap & back cover blurbs at the end of the page, if you’d like to learn a little more from the book (and its author) before i continue my rambling (you don’t have to, but the blurbs are Good).

i’ve heard tsa described as a book about transformation. Kaladin is a soldier turned slave become hero. Dalinar is a warrior turned politician turned prophet. Shallan is a thief become scholar turned spy. but none of this are quite right, because you can’t call Kaladin a hero without first acknowledging the path he took to get there; you can’t call Dalinar a warrior without understanding his tyranny, or how his fervent obsession with politics comes after his communes with God; you can’t call Shallan a thief and avoid the technicalities behind it, nor can you call her a spy without acknowledging her conflict of identity.

tsa is hard to describe. it’s about a planet’s struggle against a higher being who derives his power from the hatred people feel towards themselves as a result of their actions. it’s a book whose leading theme is that there is no progress without first taking responsibility for your actions. it’s a book with profound introspection and questions of morality, a book which blurs the line between “good” and “evil” and says, ultimately, that there is nothing of the sort. there are only the people who forgive themselves, and the people who do not.

and it’s about so much more than that. it deals with racism, xenophobia, gender roles (and why they’re bullshit), mental illness, addiction, disability, corruption, war… the list goes on and on. and all of this is done through the telling of a coherent and compelling narrative which doesn’t stoop to the genre’s annoying habit of equating violence to tension.

you’ve got characters with autism (Renarin ((many people agree that Jasnah is as well))), depression (Kaladin suffers from seasonal depression), PTSD (Dalinar has seen some shit), and split personality disorder (Shallan; this is done without villainizing or dehumanizing her). there is only one white character with a recurring narrative point of view.

just… there’s so much to love about tsa. it’s such a rich and complex story that delivers what’s promised within a reasonable time frame (unlike most fantasy books….) and maintains an element of suspense without resorting to gratuitous violence. the cultures and religions are integrated into the story SO fucking well, and despite the book’s size, Sanderson takes care to remind you of who is who, and what is happening, and how the cultures and religions and politics work… without disrupting the flow or taking you out of the narrative.

honestly, i can’t do this series justice. it’s worth the read, and, if you’re wondering whether or not Sanderson will be able to bring such an ambitious project to a satisfying conclusion, read Mistborn. he is the master of foreshadowing and plot twists and satisfying ends. after all, there’s always another secret.

#the stormlight archive #csfbf #cosmere #brandon sanderson #i'm so soryr if this started getting jolted and weird towards the end my sele p aid kicked in and i'm abt to pass tf out #i'm always thrilled to talk cosmere so hmu any time!!#oeht #answer

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xtruss · 3 years ago

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Are You Ready and Willing to Be Free Again?

“Care what other people think of you and you will always be their prisoner.” — Lao Tzu

— By Stacey Rudin | September 16, 2021

The modern West’s sudden and near universal acceptance of “lockdowns” — a novel concept of government-enforced house arrest — signifies a far-reaching and sinister shift away from bedrock democratic values. When fear was injected into the atmosphere by the media, the West was a sitting duck, ready to accept any lifeline offered by any politician — even the communist dictator — in a stunning reversal of our nation’s founding principles.

“Give me liberty or give me death” was our original rallying cry. Oppressed by British rule, Americans rebelled. They fought for independence, for the right to live their own lives in their own way. This passion for liberty created the most successful republic in history, a nation to be proud of — a beacon of hope and prosperity for people of all nations.

Today’s Americans behave in a diametrically opposed manner, trusting the government with blind allegiance and giving it full and total control over their wellbeing. Even personal health decisions like whether or not to receive a quickly-developed vaccination are entrusted to politicians to mandate. Any neighbor who disagrees is marginalized and rejected: “She’s an antivaxxer; she must be an ignorant Trump supporter.”

You cannot betray the concept of “give me liberty or give me death” any further than by adopting the premise that no one can disagree with you and still be a reasonable person. When you are on board with a plan that includes subverting your neighbors’ autonomy and violating their bodies as you deem necessary to satisfy the people on TV, you’ve rejected the American experiment. You’re a collectivist, and I wonder: have you looked into how well collectivist systems have worked out for regular people lately?

It is shocking how many people appear to want to live in a world where everyone thinks just like they do. The average person quickly distances himself even from political opponents, as if it would be desirable to have just one political party that everyone votes for. Yet in 2021, in affluent coastal communities, republicans have to pretend to be democrats, and they actually do it. When even this commonplace difference of opinion cannot be accepted and dealt with, it’s clear we’ve moved far away from prizing eccentricity as John Stuart Mill did in 1859, back when Liberty was cool:

“[T]he mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.”

“The mind-bending part of conformist behavior is this: we all know the truth. We know. We just aren’t saying or doing it”

This fear of eccentricity — which I’d argue is tantamount to freedom — was laid bare in March 2020. Even when the “deadly disease” propaganda out of China was thickest, the average person really did not want to lock herself at home and pull her children out of school, let alone force people out of work. Yet it was only the very rare person who made this desire public. Everyone else pretended to agree — they decided to “go along to get along.” They put the “stay home, save lives” sticker on their Facebook profiles. They did drive-by birthday parades (my God.) And now that the failure of lockdowns is irrefutable, they refuse to admit they were wrong, afraid to face the damage they helped to cause.

To summarize, the appearance of universal agreement with lockdown was just that: an appearance. Agreement was depicted because most people do “what’s cool,” and because mass media is everywhere, and because social media astroturf propaganda efforts are very effective. A society that wants to “be cool” is very easy to manipulate. The dissenters will betray themselves to stay cool, so just make something appear cool, and the conformists will jump on board.

To today’s Americans, appearances are everything — we are afraid to be different, lest it make our friends uncomfortable (maybe we will lose one, whatever will we do?!) We have ceased caring about truth and authenticity entirely. We have tacitly agreed as a society that true things should be hidden whenever they conflict with what is “popular”; with what everyone “smart” and “cool” is doing. Anyone acting outside of these boundaries — the “eccentrics” of centuries past, considered by Mill to be geniuses — are today’s untouchables.

In a nation founded by rebels, somehow it has become cool to be a conformist.

Thanks to lockdowns, we know that people want to “stay cool” more than they want they want their kids educated, more than they want to open their businesses, and more than they want to breathe freely. They will even accept open-ended vaccine dosages for an illness that poses less risk to them than driving a car — anything to “stay cool.” Disagreeing with someone is too much for Americans today. Confrontation is so scary that we’d rather let society dictate who we are; that way, everyone else will feel comfortable.

“Care what other people think of you and you will always be their prisoner.” — Lao Tzu

This is how the West sacrificed freedom before lockdowns were ever imposed. We care far too much what other people think of us. We fear freedom. Freedom is truth and authenticity and acting in your own interest, as your own person, even when — especially when — it makes other people uncomfortable. Why would you want a bunch of fake “friends” who only like the image you’re projecting? They will leave you the second your social power is tarnished. If you’ve never burned a bridge in your life, these are the people you’re surrounded by, guaranteed.

Speaking the truth, even when it burns bridges, will dissatisfy just the people you want to be rid of: the people who want you in a box, who resent having to follow onerous rules themselves, and mean to force you to do the same. The only power they have is the power to reject you, and once you don’t care about that, you’re free. You say the truth, accept the results, walk away from the wrong people and end up with the right ones.

Trade truth for popularity, by contrast, and you kill yourself in a sense. All that’s left of “you” is what society finds acceptable, which isn’t “you” at all. It’s completely external to you and has nothing to do with you. By conforming, you betray yourself by accepting the premise that there is something wrong with the real you. Maybe you’re so bent on being perfect (as defined by others) that you don’t even know what “you” is. That would make you the perfect cog in a machine, but as for your personal well-being, there is nothing worse. You will suffer.

“We defraud ourselves out of what is actually useful to us in order to make appearances conform to common opinion. We care less about the real truth of our inner selves than about how we are known to the public.” — Montaigne

The mind-bending part of conformist behavior is this: we all know the truth. We know. We just aren’t saying or doing it. There are dozens, hundreds of people who email me thanking me for opposing lockdowns and for standing up for medical choice and privacy. So why aren’t they doing this themselves, if they admire it so much, and know it needs to be done? If everyone did it, there could be no repercussions for any of us. Yet it isn’t happening because we are scared of telling the truth, which means we fear freedom. Far too many of us fear freedom.

We fear freedom and authentic humanity so much that we pretend people are robots. One glimpse of human frailty and a person can be blacklisted without a trial. Humanity is barbaric at present, demanding a certain perfect image and absolute cooperation with majority rule or social death. It isn’t hard to understand why people eventually crack in such a system, or develop severe anxiety disorders. Consider one of my favorite passages of literature from modern philosopher Karl Ove Knausgaard, discussing how he was banished by his family for simply telling the truth in his epic autobiographical novel:

“The social dimension is what keeps us in our places, which makes it possible for us to live together; the individual dimension is what ensures that we don’t merge into each other. The social dimension is based on taking one another into consideration. We also do this by hiding our feelings, not saying what we think, if what we feel or think affects others. The social dimension is also based on showing some things and hiding others. What should be shown and what should be hidden are not subject to disagreement . . . the regulatory mechanism is shame. One of the questions this book raised for me when I was writing it was what was there to gain by contravening social norms, by describing what no one wants to be described, in other words, the secret and the hidden. Let me put it another way: what value is there in not taking others into account? The social dimension is the world as it should be. Everything that is not as it should be is hidden. My father drank himself to death, that is not how it should be, that has to be hidden. My heart yearned for another woman, that is not how it should be, it must be hidden. But he was my father and it was my heart.”

“He was my father and it was my heart.” What is there to gain by calling Knausgaard a freak and rejecting him, when we know these things happen all the time — alcoholism and infidelity? Shouldn’t we revere him for his brave example, for his confidence? I find his display of human vulnerability incredibly attractive, perhaps because I see so little of it in my daily life. I’m tired of the display of perfect people with perfect lives and perfectly-scheduled, perfect kids on the path to Harvard. I want the mess, and I want to show my mess and still be accepted and loved.

Knausgaard, I guess, is the rare modern eccentric. He puts it all out there. Here he is again, discussing the purpose of publishing a novel so true that he lost family members over it:

“I was there, turning 40. I had a beautiful wife, three beautiful kids, I loved them all. But still I wasn’t truly happy. It’s not necessarily the curse of the writer, this. But maybe it’s the curse of the writer to be aware of it, to ask: why is all this, all I’ve got, not enough? That’s really what I’m searching for, in this whole thing, an answer to that question.”

Maybe that’s the heart of it all — even the heart of the current crisis. We are all so empty despite “having it all,” because “it all” has been defined by something other than us. Hollywood, the media, popular politicians — they are telling us what to be, and we have listened, and we are miserable. We are lying, pretending, putting on a show; hiding our pain with drugs, drink, porn, overspending. Things that they sell us.

The end result of this entire exercise in anti-self-development is lockdowns and forced perpetual vaccinations, a segregated society with everyone suspicious of everyone else, and technological apartheid on the horizon. Slavery. If we had all defined ourselves, instead of turning into a mass with one hive mind, afraid of any differences — of freedom — would we be here? I don’t think so. We’d be happy, healthy, and free.

“To be satiated with the ‘necessities’ of external success is no doubt an inestimable source of happiness, yet the inner man continues to raise his claim, and this can be satisfied by no outward possessions. And the less this voice is heard in the chase after the brilliant things of this world, the more the inner man becomes a source of inexplicable misfortune and uncomprehended unhappiness.” — Carl Jung

We’ve neglected individuality in pursuit of perfect conformity, and as a result we’ve become a miserable society filled with miserable people who will never feel safe enough. There is no boundary they will not cross in pursuit of perfect compliance with the rules, doing anything and everything that’s needed to “be cool” today, as defined by The Today Show. “Come to our all-vaccinated wedding!” “I won’t play tennis with ‘the unvaccinated,’ regardless of the fact that I took my own vaccine and stand 40 feet away.”

This is what we’ve become.

We simply must revisit truth and authenticity sometime very soon. We urgently need to find what’s real in all of this fake, and that can’t be done without individual human voices. If you care about liberty, you must do this one scary thing: embrace it. Be free. “But to be free, you have to be inconsiderate.” Yes. Inconsiderate to others, but considerate to yourself. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

— Stacey Rudin is an attorney and writer in New Jersey, USA

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years ago

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Damage to Children’s Education — And Their Health — Could Last a Lifetime

Before the pandemic, 16-year-old Na’ryen Cayou had everything he needed. He had his own room. A partial scholarship to a boys’ prep school. A spot playing trombone in the marching band, performing in parades all over New Orleans.

Then covid-19 blew through the Big Easy like a hurricane, washing away nearly everything that helped him feel safe and secure. Schools shut down. His mom lost her job and couldn’t make the rent. Their landlord evicted them.

Na’ryen and his mom now live with his grandmother. His mom sleeps on one couch; he sleeps on the other. He spent half the school year in virtual learning rather than in class with friends. Although he has struggled with math and chemistry, his mother, Nakia Lewis, said there’s no money for a tutor.

“He went through a real deep depression,” said Lewis, 45, a single mother with two older daughters living on their own. “This is nothing anyone could have prepared them for.”

As Americans crowd into restaurants, line up at movie theaters and pack their bags for summer travel, people are understandably eager to put the pandemic behind them. Yet kids like Na’ryen won’t rebound quickly. Some won’t recover at all.

After more than a year of isolation, widespread financial insecurity and the loss of an unprecedented amount of classroom time, experts say many of the youngest Americans have fallen behind socially, academically and emotionally in ways that could harm their physical and mental health for years or even decades.

“This could affect a whole generation for the rest of their lives,” said Dr. Jack Shonkoff, a pediatrician and director of the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University. “All kids will be affected. Some will get through this and be fine. They will learn from it and grow. But lots of kids are going to be in big trouble.”

Many kids will go back to school this fall without having mastered the previous year’s curriculum. Some kids have disappeared from school altogether, and educators worry that more students will drop out. Between school closures and reduced instructional time, the average U.S. child has lost the equivalent of five to nine months of learning during the pandemic, according to a report from McKinsey & Co.

Educational losses have been even greater for some minorities. Black and Hispanic students — whose parents are more likely to have lost jobs and whose schools were less likely to reopen for in-person instruction — missed six to 12 months of learning, according to the McKinsey report.

Missing educational opportunities doesn’t just deprive kids of better careers; it can also cost them years of life. In study after study, researchers have found that people with less education die younger than those with more.

Schools across the country were closed for an average of 54 days in spring 2020, and many provided little to no virtual instruction, said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. A study he co-authored found the learning that kids missed during that time could shorten an elementary school boy’s life by eight months and a girl’s by more than five months.

The total loss of life would be even larger when factoring in the loss of instructional time in the school year that just ended, Christakis said. “We’ve interrupted children’s education, and it’s going to have a significant impact on their health and longevity,” he said. “The effects will linger a very long time.”

Assaulted on All Sides

The double hit from the pandemic, which has impoverished millions of children and deprived them of classroom time, will be too much for some to overcome.

“Living in poverty, even as a child, has health consequences for decades to come,” said Dr. Hilary Seligman, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco. “Children in poverty will have higher risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.”

A growing body of research shows that poverty reshapes the way children’s brains develop, altering both the structure of the brain and the chemicals that transmit signals. These changes can alter how children react to stress and reduce their long-term health and educational achievements.

“Adversity literally shapes the developing brain,” said Shonkoff, of Harvard. “It affects your memory, your ability to organize information, to control impulses.”

Chronic stress in children can lead to persistent inflammation that damages the immune system, raises blood sugar and accelerates hardening of the arteries. The heart disease that kills someone in midlife can actually begin in childhood, Shonkoff said.

“What happens to children early on doesn’t just affect early language and school readiness, but the early foundations of lifelong health,” he said.

More Kids Going Hungry

The pandemic has deprived millions of children of school-related services that normally blunt the harm caused by poverty.

From March to May 2020, students missed more than 1.1 billion free or reduced-price meals that would have been provided in school.

Children who experience even occasional “food insecurity” suffer two to four times as many health problems as other kids at the same income level, said Dr. Deborah Frank, director of the Grow Clinic for Children at Boston Medical Center.

Kids who don’t consistently eat nutritious meals are more likely to develop anemia, more likely to be hospitalized and more susceptible to lead poisoning, Frank said. They also are more likely to behave aggressively and suffer from hyperactivity, depression and anxiety.

The consequences of food insecurity last well into adulthood, she said, increasing the risk of substance abuse, arrest and suicidal thoughts. “There’s going to be educational and emotional fallout that won’t disappear right away,” Frank said. “These kids have endured a year and a half of deprivation. You can’t sweep all that under the rug.”

Kids at the Breaking Point

Young people are already showing signs of strain.

The proportion of emergency room visits related to mental health among kids 12 to 17 increased 31% from 2019 to 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although overall suicide deaths haven’t increased during the pandemic, as many feared, teens are making more attempts. ERs treated 50% more adolescent girls and 4% more boys for suspected suicide attempts in February and March 2021 than in those months the year before.

Diagnoses of obsessive-compulsive disorder have soared 41% among girls 12 to 18, according to a June report from Epic Health Research Network. Diagnoses of eating disorders have jumped 38% among girls and 5% among boys.

Many children separated from their peers during the pandemic have been depressed and anxious, said Dr. Lisa Tuchman, chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“Mental illness thrives in isolation,” Tuchman said. “The longer the behaviors and thoughts persist, the more entrenched they become and the harder they are to interrupt.”

Falling Behind in School

The loss of educational opportunities has been far more extensive than many realize. Although the majority of students were back in classrooms by the end of the last school year, most spent a large part of the year in virtual learning.

And while some students thrive in virtual classes, studies generally find they provide an inferior education to in-person instruction, partly because students are less engaged. Just 60% of students consistently participated in distance learning, recent surveys found.

Test scores show students have fallen behind in math and reading. And those scores likely underestimate the damage, given that some of the most vulnerable kids weren’t able to report to school for the exams.

An estimated 3 million marginalized students — including those who are homeless or in foster care — received no instruction during the past school year, either because they had no computer or internet access, had to leave school to work or faced other challenges, according to Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit that focuses on disadvantaged students.

Less-educated students can expect to earn less after they leave school.

Lost educational time will cost the average child $61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings, McKinsey concluded. Lifetime earning losses are predicted to be twice as great for Black and Hispanic students as for whites.

“Many of the teens I see have given up on school and are working instead,” said Dr. Sara Bode, a pediatrician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “It’s helping their families in the short term, but what does it mean for their future?”

Learning From Katrina

Experience with natural disasters and teacher strikes suggests that even relatively short interruptions in education can set children back years, said McKinsey analyst Jimmy Sarakatsannis, co-author of a 2020 report, “COVID-19 and Student Learning in the United States: The Hurt Could Last a Lifetime.”

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, for example, it disrupted the education of 187,000 Louisiana public school students.

Katrina left 80% of the city under water. Although New Orleans students missed an average of five weeks of learning, children wound up two years behind peers not affected by the hurricane, said Douglas Harris, professor and chair of economics at Tulane University.

Na’ryen Cayou was just 2 months old when Katrina submerged his house, leaving the family homeless. He contracted whooping cough in an emergency shelter, the first of four moves in eight months. His sister, O’re’ion Lewis, then 4, didn’t attend school at all that year. When she finally began prekindergarten at age 5, the other kids “were already ahead of her,” mom Nakia Lewis said. For a time, teachers even mislabeled O’re’ion as having dyslexia. It took five years — from prekindergarten until fourth grade — before she finally caught up with her peers, Lewis said.

It will be years before researchers know how far behind the pandemic will have left American kids.

After Katrina, 14% to 20% of students never returned to school, according to the McKinsey report. “As kids fall further behind, they feel hopeless; they don’t engage,” said Sarakatsannis, one of its authors.

Under normal circumstances, high school students who miss more than 10 days of school are 36% more likely to drop out. Based on the number of absences during the pandemic, dropout rates could increase by 2% to 9%, with up to 1.1 million kids quitting school, Sarakatsannis said.

Communities need to find ways to repair the damage children have suffered, said Dr. Gabrielle Shapiro, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Children, Adolescents and their Families. “How we behave as a society now will determine the depth of the impact on the younger generation.”

Nakia Lewis is hoping for better days.

O’re’ion is now 20 and studying nursing at community college. Although her classes were virtual last year, she expects to attend class in person in the fall.

Lewis recently landed a job as a manager at a Shoney’s restaurant and is looking for an affordable home. She looks forward to reclaiming her furniture, which went into storage — at $375 a month — when she was evicted.

She said she’s relieved that Na’ryen’s mood has improved. He found a summer job working part time at a food market and will begin marching band practice this summer.

“He is happy and I’m happy for him,” Lewis said. “Now I just have to worry about everything else.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Damage to Children’s Education — And Their Health — Could Last a Lifetime published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 4 years ago

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Damage to Children’s Education — And Their Health — Could Last a Lifetime

“He went through a real deep depression,” said Lewis, 45, a single mother with two older daughters living on their own. “This is nothing anyone could have prepared them for.”

Assaulted on All Sides

The double hit from the pandemic, which has impoverished millions of children and deprived them of classroom time, will be too much for some to overcome.

“Adversity literally shapes the developing brain,” said Shonkoff, of Harvard. “It affects your memory, your ability to organize information, to control impulses.”

“What happens to children early on doesn’t just affect early language and school readiness, but the early foundations of lifelong health,” he said.

More Kids Going Hungry

The pandemic has deprived millions of children of school-related services that normally blunt the harm caused by poverty.

From March to May 2020, students missed more than 1.1 billion free or reduced-price meals that would have been provided in school.

Kids at the Breaking Point

Young people are already showing signs of strain.

The proportion of emergency room visits related to mental health among kids 12 to 17 increased 31% from 2019 to 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Mental illness thrives in isolation,” Tuchman said. “The longer the behaviors and thoughts persist, the more entrenched they become and the harder they are to interrupt.”

Falling Behind in School

Less-educated students can expect to earn less after they leave school.

Learning From Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, for example, it disrupted the education of 187,000 Louisiana public school students.

It will be years before researchers know how far behind the pandemic will have left American kids.

Nakia Lewis is hoping for better days.

O’re’ion is now 20 and studying nursing at community college. Although her classes were virtual last year, she expects to attend class in person in the fall.

She said she’s relieved that Na’ryen’s mood has improved. He found a summer job working part time at a food market and will begin marching band practice this summer.

“He is happy and I’m happy for him,” Lewis said. “Now I just have to worry about everything else.”

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Damage to Children’s Education — And Their Health — Could Last a Lifetime published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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allonsyroleplaythings · 4 years ago

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Baerithryn Gysse'Tylar

Birth Date: Dragon Age 9:00, 3rd Month of Drakonis, 24th Day Birth Place/Home-town: Highever Alienage, Ferelden Relationship Status: Eternally Single Sexuality: Asexual Occupation: Currently an Inquisition healer Class: Mage, Healer/Rift/Dreamer Pet: Pet black cat named Mr. Dribbles (though many of the other healers took to calling him "Little bob") If you ask him why he would name a cat "Mr. Dribbles" he will simply stare at you with an impassive face and say, "I do not see why I need to explain to you my choice in names for my cat, it simply is what it is, and matters not why."

Personality

"Bob" is not someone that wears is heart or his emotion on his sleeve. Occasionally he's been mistaken for a tranquil, though he doesn't understand why someone would make that assumption when he clearly does not bear the tranquil mark on his face. He often misunderstands jokes and sarcasm and misuses them when he tries to do them himself. Either that or people think his blunt way of speaking is meant to be sarcasm when in fact he is really just being blunt. He finds fulfilment in helping others, no matter their race. He deplores stereotypes. He's not easy to get to know, but once he considers someone a friend, he takes that very seriously and would die for any one of them without batting an eye. He's fiercely loyal once he stands behind a cause. He doesn't smile or laugh much, at least not how most people smile and laugh. He feels humour and happiness, but he doesn't feel the need to go around laughing and smiling on the outside. He often finds himself in awkward situations, though he doesn't understand why this keeps happening to him. He also hates being called Bob, because that is not his name. History

Once upon a time, a man fell in love with a woman, and then hearts were broken. You see Baerithryn's father was a Dalish elf, and while his clan was near a human settlement, he met and fell quite smitten with a city elf. Despite her being an elf, Dalish elves and city elves aren't big on intermingling. She wasn't accepted in his clan, and as he was the Keeper's first, he ultimately chose to stay with his clan instead of going to the Alienage to be with the woman he loved. When she realised she was pregnant with a child, she begged him to leave his Dalish life behind and help her raise their son, but he chose duty over love and shunned her, despite the feelings in his heart. She turned stone cold to love after that, even towards her son Baerithryn, she did care for him and make sure he had food to eat, but she was distant, aloof, and not an outwardly loving mother. She taught him that life was cruel, and that there was no place for love in it. When he was 13 and showed signs of magic, his mother tired one more time to get his father to take him in, but the Dalish clan already had a limit on mages, and again he refused, even for his own son. His mother worried constantly that her son would be found out a mage and sent to the circle. She debated leaving and going somewhere more rural, somewhere out of the way, but she didn't know how she would survive. She wasn't a mage herself so she couldn't teach Baerithryn magic, and she was hardly a fighter who could hunt or take care of them both outside of the city. When Baerithryn was 16 another child caught him using magic and reported him. After that he was taken to Jainen Circle for a few years, but when he found out his mother had fallen ill, he managed to escape to go tend to his mother. Now he was 20 years old and an apostate. He knew the Templars would use his phylactery to find him, so he took his mother and they fled to Orlais, hoping to put as much distance between them and Jainen as they could. The travelling was hard on his mother who was fragile and sick. Eventually they settled in a tiny village in the Dales. Things seemed ok for a few years and he tended to his mother as best he could. While there he found another elven mage that taught him magic as well as how to develop his dreamer abilities properly. When he was 25 years old, his mother finally succumbed to her illness. He wasn't sure what to do after that, so he started travelling all around Thedas, and was in the Free Marches when the Fifth Blight hit. He was finally captured by templars and brought to the Ostwick Circle when he was 31 years old. This is where he remained until the rebellions finally made it to Ostwick. He wasn't eager to become an apostate again, although he felt that changes needed to take place, he didn't think outright war was the way to fix things. When he heard of the Conclave he wanted to be there, but there was too much going on for him to travel. He was trying his best to work with the Templars at the Circle to convince them that not all mages wanted to fight against them or run around as apostates. After the Conclave exploded tensions with Templars and mages grew to epic proportions, yet he remained steadfast in his resolve to keep things calm. Finally he decided his help was best used aiding the Inquisition, he felt that they were the way forward for both Templars and Mages. He's been at Skyhold for about Six Weeks or so. Shortly after arriving in Skyhold, a fellow Inquisition member had a hard time pronouncing his name, Baerithryn, so he started calling him Bob. It was a joke at first, but somehow it stuck, much to Baerithryn's dismay. He remains unamused by the name Bob. Abilities

Best at healing and rift magic. He's also a dreamer, but not as talented as other dreamers. He has a way with animals, especially small creatures like cats, ferrets, fennecs, nugs.

#dragon age inquisition #roleplay #oc #Baerithryn #leonard nimoy #mage

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kingofthenorth49 · 4 years ago

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You light up my life

Tonight Lenz ate the last of the Walmart solar lights. It was like the solitary survivor, the last man standing so to speak, then in an instant, it was over.

“Your dog is eating the last light”. Funny, he’s always my dog when his behavior is like a left leaning college student. Over the last 35 years she has developed a very unique way of reminding me of my bad decisions in life, and has perfected the art of not letting me ever forget them.

Those lights, the thirteen of them, have stood a silent vigil over the west side of our pool since 2017. I paid good money for them, a buck fifty if I recall correctly, plus the cost of the plastic bag of course. I remember bringing them home and deploying them between each of the cedars we planted with the intention of having them grow into a hedge that would shield the pool from the back sides of the Rupert street neighbors.

The cedars are dead too. Pretty sure Lenz is responsible for that as well, apparently he doesn’t believe in using one spot for relief, he’s got to spread the love around like some French sailor on shore leave.

Tabernac. Thanks Dan for building that one into my lexicon.

So I think it was Christmas day when I realized the ugly truth that’s been hiding in plain view all along. I realized then that I had psychologically repressed it, likely to make him more loveable, more warm and loving given the way he looks and acts sometimes, but the cold hard truth is as unavoidable as Hunter Biden dipping into the collection plate as it passes by at church on Sunday. My dog is a socialist.

Speaking of Karl Barks, he’s put a few pounds on as of late, seems our diet and exercise regiment some what deviates from the RCMP Dog services cadet program. Last weekend I decided to take Lenz and do some lead work at the bird sanctuary and when I put his black tracking harness on, it was, ahem, a bit snug. A bit snug means I had to take it off him and loosen all the straps to get the clips to properly snap. I guess he has not avoided the COVID-19 twenty like most people.

But I digress.

So why would I think my new dog of five months is a card carrying socialist?

First it’s his economic dependency on the state. Less than six months ago he was on track to be the next K( dog wonder of the world, chasing bad dudes and finding bad stuff and riding around in a cool SUV all day with unarguably the coolest team member of the RCMP force, the dog handler. Ok, so I took a bit of liberty right there, sorry (You know who you are). Anyway, he had a job, was earning his keep and his future looked bright right up until some bad choice or decision ended his life’s ambition and he found himself on a 5 AM flight out of Calgary heading for a new home outside the force.

He doesn’t work anymore, well, he doesn’t work HARD anymore. By that I mean he puts in some effort to sit and beg occasionally, usually at the supper table, and he still likes to chase balls in the back yard until he doesn’t, until it’s time for his mid-afternoon nap, which is slightly longer than his late afternoon nap.

His basic essentials are taken care of, his food, shelter and needs are met by the state (Gloria and I).

He gets free health care (and boy does he like taking advantage of that!)

He watches TV and whenever he sees a working dog on Border Security or Live PD he just yawns and goes back to chewing his bone.

He barks at other dogs who are out walking by with their owners, only because they are doing something he doesn’t want to, so therefore he needs to bark-shame them into submission.

He has developed a wait and see attitude towards any instruction offered towards him.

He feels entitled to sit by the table and stare at you unwaveringly until you submit and offer him something from your plate, which he had no part in preparing but fully expects to receive the benefit of.

The other night we were all enjoying pre-bedtime snuggles on the bed when a picture fell off the wall in the dining room (I’m sure the ghost had something to do with that) and he heard the bang, issued a single bark, and went right on back watching the Real Housewives of Orange County with Gloria. Didn’t even stand up. (Ed note. As I’m writing this, coffee in hand in front of the warm fire, his fur-ship is sitting here on the couch with me, chewing his favorite rubber kong bone in a rhythmic pattern. I don’t recall him paying for that either….) Let’s just say he’s not exactly earning his keep.

Yep, he’s become a socialist. He might even be a communist, but we haven’t had him long enough to understand his politics yet.

Now as you can imagine this presents some level of frustration for me as I believe we all must contribute, if not only for the good of society, for our own personal sense of well-being. One only needs look no further than these ill-advised lockdowns to see the damage caused by idle hands. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incumbent upon society to protect those who can’t help themselves, but I also just as firmly believe it’s our responsibility to contribute not only to our own keep if we can, but to the general good (i.e. by paying taxes to fund common need).

Don’t get me wrong, if they can change the world into a panacea of love and unicorn farts with this “great reset” and make the world a better place, I’m all for it. But unfortunately, I read a lot and it’s been tried over and over again with epic fail results each time, most recently in Venezuela, which is now suffering greatly and on an economic slide of historical proportions.

But that’s not real socialism is it.

Reality would be if we stopped supporting Mr. Barks with food, shelter and love, he would quickly become feral and have to forage for food, something to which he’s not accustomed. He’s have to fight others’ for food and shelter, compete for resources as it were.

I’m sure he’d be fine, his 275 pounds of jaw strength and his tenacity would ensure he didn’t want for food, but the same can’t be said for the poodles of the world. The only concern he has to face is the lack of an opposable thumb. Opening doors will be a challenge.

Anyway, we are still today in a free market economy, so after I muster up the inclination to grab a shower off we will go to Co-Op to pick up a new $70 bag of Ekanuba dog food (which surprisingly Lenz will have forgotten his wallet at checkout) and maybe we will head out to the bird sanctuary for a hike to burn off some of those snacks we’ve been getting overly accustomed to during the break.

I do know one thing, at some point we are going to run a few tracks today, and by we, I me he. He’s going to earn his keep while he can, because we all need a sense of self-worth and pride to keep us healthy and on the right track.

Go out there today and give it your best shot, because if it’s your best shot and at the end of the day you feel good with the results, you are doing ok. If you aren’t satisfied with the results, take stock of why they aren’t and adjust your approach, you’ll get there.

Just never leave any of that to anyone else. They won’t ever have your best interest at heart like you will.

That’s freedom.

Jim Out.

#noreset #trudeaumustgo #weneveraskedyou

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theonyxpath · 7 years ago

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Above is a piece of art by Michael Gaydos from Beckett’s Jyhad Diary, which is going live on DTRPG Wednesday so you can get the PDF and/or the physical copy, PoD versions if you didn’t back the Kickstarter. For backers, you’ve already received the backer PDF, and we’ll be sending out a link to DTRPG to get the PoD at a reduced cost if you want to. Your Deluxe version is going to press, and will come to you once we get it all printed up!

Matthew Dawkins, one of the book’s writers and devs, posted this “making of” blog about Beckett’s Jyhad Diary last week: http://theonyxpath.com/writing-and-developing-an-epic-sourcebook-v20-becketts-jyhad-diary/

This week is a bit of a short one, and next week I may or may not be able to get this posted on Monday, but expect it Tuesday for sure. Unless weather issues strand me in Milwaukee, and then all bets are off!

Of course, if you are some of the folks who usually read this on Tuesday, then expect it later in the day. Probably.

The reason for our schedule shifting is, as long-time readers know, our annual trip to the MidWinter Convention in Milwaukee. This year is even more special than previous years, because most of our in-house Onyx Path folks are going to be there this year, as well as a whole bunch of our freelance creators, and then our Onyx crew are staying an extra day to have our yearly summit.

So, there will be the usual yearly wacky posts from Maders German Restaurant, and probably from the Safe House, where Mirthful Mike will have a Spy’s Demise cocktail after 17 years (he says). I expect a lot of nostalgia waves from the Mirthful One, as Milwaukee was where White Wolf first attended Gen Con back in the dim mists of time. I expect he and I will pour one for Stewart Wieck at Major Goolsby’s, the first food place WW could afford to eat at (besides fast food) at the con.

At the con, we’ll have our booth in the exhibitor’s hall, and the Wrecking Crew will be running games throughout in the Oak Room. We also have our own table in the Oak Room, and we’ll have various Onyx folks demoing games there as well. Plus, there are our events, including the intimate Onyx Path Q&A in the Founders Room, which is like an Ask Me Anything but face-to-face. With drinks. I think that is sold out as it is a limited seating event, but we also have our Top Secret Announcement panel on Friday at 12 noon which is regular seating, I think, that will be a fun thing in itself, and a chance to ask us general questions, too!

Trinity Continuum art by Marco Mazzoni

And then there is the Summit.

Now this is not a new thing, but I found that doing it as we have been, after dinner one night at GenCon every year, was really not conducive to bringing forth sparkling fresh ideas. We were tired and full of dinner (and drinks), and often trying to squeeze the Summit in between other engagements. Not really the uber-focused strategy sessions we were looking for. But GenCon was the one time we were all already together, so it made sense. Of a kind.

This year, though, after looking at the possibilities, it just made more sense to switch our full attendance con to MidWinter and for everyone to stay over an extra day so we could really devote some intense time to our review and planning. The hotel prices and the con prices, and cooperation of the great folks from MidWinter (Hi, Anne and Bill!), really made this Summit something we could do at MidWinter this year.

Because, while we have learned to work quite well with email and texts and Skype, I think we sort of need to recharge our human communications batteries at least once a year in order to provide a physical memory or impression of folks so that we can draw on that connection when the emails fly back and forth fast and furious.

Vinsen’s Tomb art by Pat Loboyko

Ben Monk, the lead finance guy at WW for just years, used to love to quote that human communication was 87% body language. I think we could swing that percentage around a bit, but if it’s even a little bit so, then you’d think that only communicating with text would only impart so much info, and voice-only communication would be a bit better, and video-conferencing would be a bit better still. But not the full 87%, or whatever it is.

By getting together, we are reminded of all the other times we have been together over a lot of years. For good or ill, they are still shared experiences, and then those impressions of that person color and inform subsequent messages. Like have you ever read an email and could just hear the other person’s voice as you read it? That sort of thing.

So, we’ll be sitting around a conference room, and we’ve got some presentations prepared to share. We’re going to try to keep the grousing and gossiping about our industry down, but, we’ll see. Financial info, a look at the past year of releases, a little team building exercise using the dreaded Quadrants, how we can better prepare and actually train our developers, and then, as I like us to do as a group every year, we’ll discuss and decide on our release strategies for 2018 and into ’19.

Because at the end of the day, our joy is to put plans in place so we can create all these amazing games for all of you, and live up to our motto:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

The Trinity Continuum Kickstarter will go live in a few weeks in January! Trinity Continuum: Aeon, is our reboot of the classic Trinity (Aeon) game, and Trinity Continuum: Core is the core book that all of our Trinity Continuum game lines will spin off from. Both books will be a part of this Kickstarter. James Bell, our Kickstarter Manager, has got some fun ideas in store for how to run this KS, so we hope you’ll check it out!

As we try and find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking! It just has had its biggest update yet! There’s been tweaks to all elements of the UI, you can now preview every die type in the store, and you can use multiple die types per roll! Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

(The Solar Anima special Dice)

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook stores on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble). Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Andand six more more:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

And even more books are now on Amazon and the Nook store!:

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday, one of the most legendary of Kindred will share his personal journal with you! V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary goes on sale in PDF and PoD versions on DTRPG.com!

It’s ever been a loaded word among vampires. Jyhad is in force everywhere from lofty, perfumed Elysium to cloying, smoke-filled blood feasts. Jyhad’s the eternal game played by elders, Methuselahs, and worse — it’s the agenda of beings so utterly beyond humanity, one such as yourself could scarcely understand its movements.

Luckily for you, you’ve picked up a copy of my diary. With my help you may just take a step on the first rung of understanding. Information worth having is information you must earn through blood, and oh, how I’ve bled for what’s contained within these pages.

— Beckett

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary serves as the definitive book of setting and plot for Vampire: The Masquerade, containing 30 chapters spanning different geographical regions, encountering vampires of every clan, profiling obscure and profound segments of the mythology, and providing countless story hooks on every page.

Masterfully written by the likes of Neall Raemonn Price, Joshua Alan Doetsch, Myranda Sarro, Steffie de Vaan, Malcolm Sheppard, Alan Alexander, Renee Knipe, and Matthew Dawkins, Beckett’s Jyhad Diary is as fascinating to read as to use for your game Chronicles.

With a howl of RAGE, the W20 Changing Ways Advance PDF charges at you this Wednesday on DTRPG.com!

Changing Ways is an in-depth look at what it means to be a werewolf, both on a personal level and as part of a pack. It digs deep into what it feels like to have bones re-knit after breaking, the range of senses available across all forms, and the sudden heady rush of the Gifts and Rites bestowed by spirits. It also provides a look at what life is like for lupus and metis werewolves, characters who have had experiences alien to any person. It shows the many ways that werewolves organize in packs, and how those packs are designed as groups of warriors, rather than aligned to the behavior of wolves.

Changing Ways contains:

• A detailed look at what it means to grow up as a lupus or metis werewolf, and how that colors a character’s perspective.

• More information on what it feels like to be a werewolf, a creature that changes in both body and mind.

• Frameworks and organizations for packs, along with new tactics and systems for forging the pack as part of play.

Arriving at DTRPG.com this Wednesday, and soon to your tables: The M20 Mage Cookbook!

Food is Life

We are what we eat. As mages throughout history have realized, the foods that sustain our bodies sustain enlightenment as well. Such foods become extensions of the people and cultures that create them. Now Brother Oliver Lyon, Knight Templar and a humble baker’s son, travels around the world hunting the Fallen and gathering fine recipes along the way.

Enchanting Recipes

From Mandarin lion’s heads to alchemical booze, Brother Oliver’s collection of delicious recipes spans the cultural realms of Mage’s human world. Among these many culinary concoctions, you’ll find:

Lobster Bisque

Angel Torte

Chicken Nanban

Corn Fufu

Beef Wellingtons

Battenburg Cake

Cannibal Stew, and so much more

Feed Your Body, Feed Your Soul

The M20 Mage Cookbook is a non-canon but tasty culinary perspective on the world of Mage: The Ascension

The world of Pugmire comes alive in this full cast audio drama experience “Thank You, Darcy Cat” available now on DTRPG.com! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/226921/Pugmire-Thank-You-Darcy-Cat

The police dogs have called Alistair Afghan to discuss the crimes of his valet, Darcy Cat. But this misunderstanding leads to the discovery of a deadly secret deep in the heart of Pugmire society. Will Alistair and Darcy be able to save Pugmire from this threat?

Created by Audioblivious Productions in conjunction with Pugsteady. Check out Audioblivious at https://www.audioblivious.com/!

We unveil Vampire: The Requiem 2e‘s Half-Damned as an Advance PDF on DTRPG.com!

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/227500/Half-Damned

I love her, she’s family, but I don’t love what she is.

– Antonio Ramírez, dhampir

This book includes:

• An exploration of what it means to be one of the Half-Damned, dhampir, revenants or ghouls.

• Mechanics for creating Half-Damned characters.

• Information for creating and running chronicles using the various Half-Damned character types, both with vampires and alone.

• Information on Half-Damned antagonists for vampire chronicles.

Legacy of Lies, the V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart, goes undead in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222956/Legacy-of-Lies-A-V20-Dark-Ages-Jumpstart

TWO PRINCES. BITTER RIVALS. AND A COTERIE CAUGHT BETWEEN THEM.

Marcus Verus, the vampiric Prince of Chester, secretly prepares to go into torpor. Should his plans be made public, the Prince knows the wolves — both real and imagined — would launch an attack, threatening all within his domain.

That’s where you come in.

Legacy of Lies includes:

Basic rules for players and Storytellers

Introduction to the Vampire: The Masquerade Dark Ages setting

Introductory adventure

Characters for players and Storytellers

Appearing on DriveThruRPG is the Advance PDF for Arms of the Chosen for Exalted 3rd Edition! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/226224/Arms-of-the-Chosen

Take up the panoply of legendary heroes and lost ages, and awaken the world-shaking might of their Evocations. Before the dawn of time, the Exalted wielded god-metal blades to cast down the makers of the universe. In an ancient epoch of forgotten glories, Creation’s greatest artificers forged unimaginable wonders and miracle-machines.

Now, in the Age of Sorrows, kingdoms go to war over potent artifacts, scavenger princes risk everything to uncover relics of the past, and the Exalted forge great arms and armor on the anvil of legend. These treasures are yours to master.

Discover the mystical power of the five magical materials and the secrets of creating your own Evocations. Wield weapons of fabled might and don the armor of mythic heroes, making their puissance your own. Claim Creation’s wonders: the miraculous tools of the Chosen, living automatons, flying machines, hearthstones, and more. And unleash the mighty warstriders, titanic god-engines of conquest and devastation, to once more shake Creation with their footfalls.

What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! PDF and physical book PoD versions available on DriveThruRPG.com. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/214130/Thousand-Years-of-Night

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing. There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more!

Is a life of running and hiding a life worth living? We say yes. There’s always something between the running and the hiding, and those moments of grace make it all worthwhile.

The Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology is a perfect companion piece to Changeling: The Lost, 2nd Edition. These stories spin tales of the Lost, of those abducted and enslaved by fairies. Those who escaped, but whose captors will stop at nothing to find them. These fairies summon forth the Huntsmen, primordial hunters who understand nothing but pursuit and capture. The Huntsmen are unstoppable monsters, and the Lost can only look to each other for respite, rare comfort, and rarer trust.

The Hedge has parted and you can get the Advance PDF of The Huntsmen Chronicle Fiction Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition at DTRPG.com! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/210042/The-Huntsmen-Chronicle-Anthology

A Land Where Legends Walk

Drawing enthusiastically on Greek mythology, the revised and re-imagined Scarred Lands nonetheless retains its place as a modern fantasy RPG setting. This is a world shaped by gods and monsters, and only the greatest of heroes can expect to be counted among them. The most populous continent of Scarn, Ghelspad, plays host to vast unexplored regions, hides unsolved riddles from ancient cultures, and taunts adventures with the promise of undiscovered riches hidden among the ruins of older civilizations.

Yet the myths of the Scarred Lands are relatively recent events. The effects of the Titanswar still ripple through the world, and the heroines and villains of many of these stories are part of living memory, if not still living.

The Award-Winning Fantasy Setting Returns

Scarred Lands has been a favorite fantasy setting since the release of the Creature Collection for the d20 System in 2000. In subsequent years, over 40 titles were published for Scarred Lands, making it one of the most fully supported fantasy RPG settings ever and the premiere product line of Sword & Sorcery Studios.

Available in both 5th Edition and Pathfinder compatible versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193014/Scarred-Lands-Players-Guide-Pathfinder

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/197803/Scarred-Lands-Players-Guide-OGL-5e

CONVENTIONS!

Midwinter Game Convention in Milwaukee, January 11-14 is THIS week! It’s where we’re going to be bringing a big crew of many of your favorite Onyx Path designers and we’ll be running demos and making some special announcements at the show! http://midwintergamingconvention.com

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Guide to the Night (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Redlines

Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition) – with Neall for some tweaks

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

WW Manuscript Approval:

Editing:

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Cavaliers of Mars – New art getting assigned.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Origin – Last of the art getting assigned.

Ring of Spiragos

Changeling: the Lost 2

Trinity Continuum – Stuff coming in.

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – Sending feedback to cartographer for map, color sketches to devs.

Pugmire – Pan’s Explorer’s Guide (or whatever) – Should all be in by the end of the month.

Boggans – Art notes out this week.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Pugmire/Scarred Lands Community Content – working on the logo.

Book of Freeholds – With Mark

Pugmire Fetch Quest – Printing out rulebooks at Kinkos for MidWinter.

Pugmire – Vinsen’s Tomb – Notes are out. Need to input the changes on the first proof.

Wraith 20 Screen – Got Dansky’s list in.

Dice Packaging – Knocking those out before we leave.

Proofing

Wraith 20 – Making fixes from WW.

Beast PG

DtD Enemy Action – With Josh

At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – To fulfillment shipper. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Printer starting to assemble books.

Prince’s Gambit – Printer files sent. Uploaded updated epub, fixed layout epub, mobi, and PDF quickstart rules… should be able to use those on phones and tablets. The epub versions look nice on my iPad...

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology – PoD Files ordered.

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary– PDF and PoD versions on sale Wednesday, the 10th.

C20 Ready Made Characters – Errata fixing.

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Errata changes being input.

Pugmire Artisan Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pugmire Shepherd Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pentex Indoctrination Manual – PoD proofs ordered.

VtR Half Damned – PoD proofs ordered.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Headed to MidWinter with almost every one of our Onyx Path crew, and we’re going to do the con thing and then sit down together and review our last few years together and plan for more. As a group, face to face, which is not how we are set up as a company: so that is in itself a cause to celebrate!

#Onyx Path Publishing

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wiremagazine · 5 years ago

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SPOTLIGHT FILMS: 22 OF THE BEST FILMS AT THE 2019 OUTSHINE FILM FESTIVAL FORT LAUDERDALE EDITION

Photos and film synopses provided by OUTshine Film Festival

ADAM (U.S., 2019) Director: Rhys Ernst In English

It's 2006 and awkward, self-conscious Adam Freeman has just finished his junior year of high school. His cool older sister Casey (Margaret Qualley) suggests he visit her in New York for the summer. Casey has enthusiastically embraced life amidst Brooklyn's young LGBTQ+ community and invites Adam to tag along with her to queer bars, marriage equality rallies and other happenings. When Adam falls at first sight for Gillian, a smart, beautiful young woman in this new crowd, she mistakenly assumes he is trans. Flummoxed and enamored, he haplessly goes along with her assumption, resulting in an increasingly complex comedy – and tragedy – of errors he's ill-equipped to navigate.

AND THEN WE DANCED (Georgia, Sweden, France, 2019) Director: Levan Akin In Georgian, with English subtitles

Merab is a talented dancer. His burgeoning romance with stage partner Mary is thrown into disarray by the arrival of the magnetic Irakli, leading to a forbidden sexual attraction that recalls those in Moonlight and God's Own Country. Georgia is a country that only celebrated its first LGBTQ+ pride event seven years ago and its society remains conservative. Because of this, And Then We Danced has stirred controversy and many involved remain anonymous out of fear. Amid the potential for socially explosive fireworks, Swedish director of Georgian heritage Levan Akin has captured something uniquely tender and personal.

BENJAMIN (UK, 2019) Director: Simon Amstell In English

In Simon Amstell's affecting, bittersweet comedy, a rising young filmmaker is thrown into emotional turmoil by a burgeoning romance and the upcoming premiere of his second feature. It's perhaps no surprise that the imminent release of Benjamin's sophomore feature plunges him into an existential crisis. In this heightened state of insecurity, even meeting his potential dream match, young French musician Noah, doesn't soothe Benjamin's fears and self-loathing. And that's before he has to screen his film to the merciless film festival audiences. Benjamin is a low-key, intimate film, exposing the contradictions of a creative culture while perfectly balancing drama and comedy.

DEFIANT SOULS (Cuba, Switzerland, 2018) Director: Fernando Pérez and Laura Cazador In Spanish, with English subtitles

Defiant Souls is based on the true story of a woman who, disguised as a man, became the first female surgeon in Latin America. In the early 19th century, Swiss doctor Enrique Faber (Sylvie Testud at her best) travels to Cuba to search for his son, who is said to have been killed in a slave uprising. The local population is jealous of Faber's success as a surgeon and his marriage to Juana, an attractive outsider. Before long, rumors spread regarding his high-pitched voice and his gentle features, and a drama of epic proportions unfolds around one of the most scandalous cases in Cuban colonial history.

EVERYBODY CHANGES (Panama, 2019) Director: Arturo Montenegro In Spanish, with English subtitles

The Ponce Family is the perfect family. They live in the quiet, close-knit mountain town of Bambito, where everyone knows everyone and, unfortunately, everyone knows everyone's business. Frederico is the successful father, Carol the loving mother, and they have three wonderful boys. Despite appearances, perfect might not be the best way to describe the family as Frederico and Carol share a secret: Lizzie, the woman that Frederico has always wanted - no, needed - to be.

FROM ZERO TO I LOVE YOU (U.S., 2019) Director: Doug Spearman In English

Pete Logsdon is just a guy in Philadelphia whose fear of intimacy creates his history of getting involved with married men. His father and his soon-to-be step-mother are on him to settle down and find someone who's actually available. Instead, he finds a man named Jack who is fifteen years into a perfect marriage, has two beautiful children and an enviable wife, and is firmly inside the closet. Could this be the one? Featuring strong chemistry between the leads, director Doug Spearman (Noah's Arc) creates authentic characters in this highly engaging, obstacle-filled romantic comedy.

HAM: A MUSICAL MEMOIR (U.S., 2019) Director: Andrew Putschoegl In English

In this dazzlingly filmed live performance of Sam Harris' award-winning one-man musical, Harris belts out original songs and beloved ballads while playing 11 different roles to tell his own life story - from growing up gay in Oklahoma's Bible Belt to his escape for Los Angeles, where his rendition of "Over the Rainbow" on Star Search led to fame, Broadway, television, platinum records and Carnegie Hall. But after the highs and lows of a life in show business, Sam ultimately learns to ask: when is enough finally enough?

LEONARD SOLOWAY'S BROADWAY (U.S., 2019) Director: Jeff Wolk In English

Through verité documentary footage, humorous storytelling, interviews and archival film material, Leonard Soloway's Broadway captures a Broadway few ever see as told through the eyes of a legendary Broadway producer you've probably never heard of. He lives an unconventional life on his own terms and, over a 70-year span, staged over 100 shows (and counting) which generated history making headlines, over 40 Tony Awards, 62 Tony Nominations, 21 Drama Desk Awards, 29 Drama Desk nominations and 3 Pulitzer Prizes, in addition to launching the careers of famous stars known the world over.

SELL BY (U.S., 2019) Director: Mike Doyle In English

Does every relationship have an expiration date? Adam and Marklin are about to find out. Their 5-year relationship has gone from a passionate flame to a medium burn, forcing them to reconcile with each other's shortcomings all while watching their support network crumble around them. But in this mess, hope springs eternal as they all muddle their way through to try and make life work. Featuring Scott Evans, Augustus Prew, Kate Walsh, and Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson, Sell By asks the timeless questions… how do you know who's right for you and how do you know when to let go?

SONG LANG (Vietnam, 2018) Director: Leon Le In Vietnamese, with English subtitles

An unlikely bond develops between hunky, brooding and tough debt collector Dung and Linh Phung, a charismatic young opera singer from a struggling Cai-luong troupe (traditional Vietnamese opera). The two meet when Dung comes to forcefully collect a debt from the opera troupe, but when their paths cross again, a friendship – and then more – develops, awakening surprising, tender feelings in both men. Their story, too, soon scales operatic heights. Director Leon Le has delivered a rich drama, a smoldering relationship between two apparent opposites set against the backdrop of a gorgeous, fading art form. Set in 1980s Saigon, Song Lang is a gritty underworld noir hiding a tender, romantic heart.

STRAIGHT UP (U.S., 2019) Director: James Sweeney In English

The path to relationship bliss is often filled with self-doubt, second guessing and other methods of self-sabotage, but Todd takes this to a whole new level. After all, he is questioning his sexuality… not a good start when forging a new relationship. Todd might be gay. Rory might not care. The result is a neat, romantic-comedy drama with a twist; this is a love story without the thrill of copulation. With wit, humor and poignant moments, coupled with some of the best rapid-fire one-liners in a movie, Straight Up is a feature film about intellectual soul mates.

THE PRINCE (Chile, Argentina, Belgium, 2019) Director: Sebastián Muñoz In Spanish, with English subtitles

Chile, 1970. During a night of heavy drinking, Jaime, a lonely 20-year-old young man, stabs his best friend in what seems a crime of passion. Sentenced to prison, he meets The Stallion, an older and respected man in whom he finds protection and from whom he learns about love and loyalty. Behind bars, Jaime becomes known as The Prince. But as their relationship grows stronger, The Stallion faces the violent power struggles within the prison. The Prince is brutal, raw and cold, yet also beautiful, sincere and honest.

THE SHINY SHRIMPS (France, 2019) Director: Maxime Govare and Cédric Le Gallo In French, with English subtitles

Matthias, an Olympic swimming champion at the end of his career, makes a homophobic statement on TV. His punishment: coach the Shiny Shrimps, a very flamboyant, very bad and very LGBTQ water polo team. They have only one thing in mind: to qualify for the Gay Games in Croatia where the hottest international LGBTQ athletes will compete. It's the start of a bumpy and joyful ride. If the Bad News Bears were a water polo team, and LGBTQ, they would be The Shiny Shrimps. Faster, higher, stronger… and fabulous.

UNSETTLED: SEEKING REFUGE IN AMERICA (U.S., 2019) Director: Tom Shepard In English

A remarkable look at the untold stories of LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers who have fled intense persecution from their home countries and who are resettling in the U.S. The film follows four new arrivals, each of whom have escaped potential peril in their native countries for being different. They've landed in the purported "gay mecca" of San Francisco, yet even there, building a new life in an adopted nation is a precarious undertaking. As new leadership in America continues to restrict immigrants and drastically cuts the flow of refugees and asylum seekers, Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America humanizes a group about which few people know.

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE (U.S., 2018) Director: Anthony Meindl In English, French, with English subtitles

In Binghamton, an ESL teacher dealing with domestic abuse finds even greater violence at her school. In Orlando, two lovers drifting apart may be separated by the hate of another. In Paris, friends on an introspective night out are caught up in a brutal madness. Three acts of terror disrupt the lives of ordinary people. Will love win out over violence? With gripping performances and storylines all too familiar and frightening, Where We Go From Here is not an easy film to digest nor is it a question easily answered, but both are ultimately worth the effort.

MEN'S SHORTS

Black Hat Director: Sarah Smith, U.S., 15 minutes

Softer Director: Lovell Holder, U.S., 10 minutes

The Proposal Director: Gerlando Infuso, France, 15 minutes

Thrive Director: JamieDi Spirito, UK, 17 minutes

Touchscreen Director: Arthur Halpern, U.S., 15 minutes

Vacaciones Director: Juan Olivares, Spain, 21 minutes

Wonder Director: Javier Molina, U.S., 16 minutes

This was originally published in Wire Magazine Issue 20.2019

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