#i have only seen a handful of salamanders irl

[abirddogmoment]

Found a salamander today!

[fatehbaz]

I really love and appreciate your blog, primarily because I have zero background in this field but your posts are very good at presenting bite-sized pieces of information that encourage thoughtful consideration without browbeating me for my ignorance. Every time you post something, I'm like "I'm gonna learn something cool and important!" and I'm never afraid that I'll be belittled for needing to learn it. (1/2)

Oh. Wow. Thank you. I know I’ve said before that I struggle to accept when my effort is acknowledged or when kind things are said about me. I do struggle. So, once again, I am a bit speechless, especially at the magnitude of acknowledgement like yours here. Thank you for … recognizing me and for letting me know this. You’ve given me what is probably the most important type of compliment, the one that probably means most to me. Which is that I, in whatever capacity, have been involved in making someone enthusiastic, and that specifically I’ve somehow encouraged excitement about learning A Thing. I know this sounds like something you’d hear from, like, a lifeless artificial intelligence-infused robot programmed to embody the worst of superficial but ultimately cynical 1980s-era sloganeering. But I mean it, and I want to try to explain why.

Regarding “education” and sharing of information generally: I see sharing of information as a sort of community. You share your expertise with me, I try to contribute something as well. Mutual respect. Mutual aid. Respect for each other’s experience and autonomy. Genuine consideration for each other. Stuff like that.

Regarding the amount of my writing that ends up being “informational” even when I didn’t originally intend for it to be: This is going to sound a bit childish and schmaltzy, but I just want to share. But, like, not share in a “please listen to me speak” kind of way. It’s more like, I want to really share. When I’m rambling about landscapes or salamanders or ecological relationships or whatever, I don’t want to force-feed information to people, I don’t want to be perceived as woke or knowledgeable or authoritative or whatever. It’s more like … I found a shiny rock or a dazzling orchid, right? And I’ve got it in the palm of my hand, and I’m holding it up and I’m saying “look, look at this thing, isn’t it precious!”

Sometimes, it’s literally because I found a frog or a wildflower, and I’m like “look!” Is it kind of about validating my own existence? Am I asking “Am I the only one seeing this? Confirm or deny if I’m really alive and participating in consensus reality by acknowledging that we’re observing the same thing.” Maybe a little bit. But still. It’s more like: “We’re all depressed, we’ve all been traumatized, the world is dying in flames, but look at this thing! This toad is smiling at us!”

—-

Your words are a lot for me to process, not only because they are thoughtful and kind and specific, but because you’re directly talking about two things that I honestly and wholeheartedly care deeply about: (1) enthusiasm for sharing information, and (2) patience (or, more specifically, finding a balance between “avoiding coddling” and being patient and accessible.)

I really don’t want to distract, but I hope you don’t mind if I just ramble for a minute about coddling and compassion? (I ask rhetorically as I continue to ramble anyway!) I’m not going to monologue just for my own sake, I promise. (I know that it might sometimes look like I enjoy hearing myself “speak,” and I promise that I really don’t.) Instead, I want to say this as a way of letting you know that you “correctly identified” the things that I care about when approaching dialogue, education, and community-building.

On coddling: I care deeply about compassion. Something I didn’t get a lot of exposure to as a child or young person. I actively try hard to consider where other people are coming from. Though, of course we won’t coddle people who consciously provoke harm, people whose actions and opinions actually and consistently result in harm. Like, I won’t ever hesitate to call-out mean-spirited stuff; abuse; unjust violence; stuff like that. (Well, in fact, I actively look for these things to call-out, especially IRL or in-person.) But, in a group of well-meaning people, who genuinely want to be good, who might have some “not-great” opinions but who are genuinely willing to improve when encountering new information and who won’t resist and deflect upon encountering the information? I absolutely have multitudes of patience for that.

As someone who cares for and explicitly writes about decolonization, I have to say: I have patience for well-meaning people. Lots of patience. Don’t get me wrong, though. We’ve seen this behavior on this site and online spaces aplenty: If people resist and deflect when encountering new information, in order to preserve their own privilege and comfort – and this is key! – even after they’ve been shown resulting harm and they have consciously recognized the harm they might inflict? Were they really “well-meaning” to begin with, then?

So ultimately, I really don’t want to sound overly sentimental, like an after-school special, or in the way that a person might mask their own quiet discontent by overcompensating with superficial florid performance of extreme emotions, but! I feel obligated to say that I’ve been a not-great person plenty of times, and I’ve had plenty of “ontologically incorrect” opinions. And I try to constantly improve, to lessen the harm that I still cause, even if it’s inadvertent. So, if people mean well, I want to offer patience and extend benefit of the doubt. I didn’t always get offered that room to grow and improve when I was young. And it’s painful, and I don’t want to inflict that upon anyone who’s genuinely putting in the effort. It’s extremely disheartening, if someone is actively attempting to improve and participating in an educational dialogue. You know how some people get dramatic secondhand embarrassment on behalf of others? I experience secondhand wincing and pain when I see someone who’s genuinely trying to learn get shut down.

I guess that, by saying this, I wanted to basically let you know that I’m very grateful that you brought these issues up. And thank you so much for specifically saying that I’ve actually, occasionally achieved that balance between patience and avoiding excessive coddling. I don’t know if I have, but I’m glad it shows that I’m trying!

(Despite all this florid writing, in “The Real World,” I’m told that I physically appear somber and perpetually angsty, for what it’s worth.)

–

So, the feeling’s mutual, in a way? (Makes sense?) I am grateful to know people here and I’m grateful to share. We’re sitting in the cyber-prairie opening, pointing at the pool in the stream’s eddy: “The 11,000-year-life of civilization is collapsing and we’re caught in the middle! Look at these salamanders!”

Typical response from me: needlessly long, overwrought, meandering, probably looks very pretentious. Thank you all for tolerating me. I mean it.

I feel like I’m not doing you justice by leaving this with a simple “thank you,” so just know that I sincerely appreciate that you reached out.

[light-and-darkness-equally-well]

I Saw The Crimes of Grindelwald

And like any movie, there were things I loved.

Baby. Nifflers.

The freaking artistic departments and the COSTUMING were all very beautiful.

I liked Theseus Scamander more than I thought I would - maybe I was getting more realistic older sibling vibes, maybe his human moments just hit me. Idk.

OMG the cast performed so well??? I’d literally just list all their names if I wanted to point out anything specific. If you’ve seen the movie yell about the spoilery things in the comments with me?

SPOILERS BELOW

Okay, Leta was awesome and I had honestly expected her to follow Grindelwald? But they definitely broke expectations with this one. Really pulled a Last Jedi on us in that regard - the person we expect to be tempted to the dark gave her life for the right reasons, and one of our brightest, most hopeful and wholesome characters in the first movie goes dark.

BTW she made me want to cry when she screamed “Walk with me,” ugh. I really hope she doesn’t die still on Grindelwald’s side. The man must be a powerful occlumens to not reveal his actual endgame to a legilimens that just hears people without even trying. I’m glad it wasn’t just “for love”, though that is a driving factor for her - it’s for freedom to express that love, and being caught in a moment of vulnerability in the crowd, and Jacob finally calling her crazy out loud for that decision.

Also, like, can we talk about how her descent into darkness was definitely not unexpected? She enchanted Jacob to keep him compliant! I mean, I get it - but Jacob was the one who loved more in that scenario, because he cared more about her than about them being together. She could have campaigned for the right to marry him at the Ministry - but she went with mind control. There’s a clear difference in what she believed was right and wrong versus others.

IDK I just hope that if she does come to a breaking point it won’t take someone killing Jacob to bring her to the Light again.

Nagini was pretty cool even though she was just kind of along for the ride? I liked her companionship with Credence. Unfortunately we already know how her story ends.

Okay, gonna touch on Johnny Depp - I’m not extremely well read on the irl controversy and really based off of what I know I can’t personally condemn or acquit him just because I don’t have all the info.

But I’m able to separate a person’s actions from their work either way and - he was a goddamn good Grindelwald. Very charismatic and softspoken when he needed to be, cruel in turn to see where loyalties lie, and he knew how to push all the right buttons. The only part that just made me giggle at the absolute wrong moment for a movie to make me want to giggle (with death and destruction on the line, ugh) was the “I hate Paris”. It was too cheeky for me at that moment, idk.

ON TO HOGWARTS

Freaking Jude Law, ugh. He definitely was an amazing Dumbledore. I was all for his performance, and there were definitely images with the Mirror of Erised scene where I just was like wow, you two had such a profound bond. And Grindelwald used “The Greater Good” line, which was a thing between the two of them regarding their positions on this whole new world order thing. He’s enigmatic and friendly, especially in his interactions with Newt and Leta.

(OMG McGonagall was there for a hot second and it was perfection)

Theseus Scamander, my friends. He is SUCH an older brother around Newt. I am an older sister, and can confirm. My heart broke for him when Leta died, omg.

and Flamel was unexpectedly hilarious and simultaneously badass?

Tina was kind of following a trope that I expected of the spurned girlfriend, so meh on the storyline but A+++ with the “salamander” dialogue between her and Newt and the moment when she pulls out the little bell toy.

I don’t have much to say about Newt because he was very typical Newt. It worked well and I was glad he wasn’t the only main player in the movie, but I adored every bit of him.

AND OKAY THE NIFFLER BEING THE ONE TO STEAL THE THING FROM GRINDELWALD OMG

Okay, you’ve guessed that I’ve been holding back on the Credence bit because -

What the actual fuck?

Okay, the very first option is that Grindelwald is a lying liar that set it all up, and that would not be a surprise honestly.

(Gonna still call him Credence for a bit on account of that notion)

But these things tend to be important, these “phoenixes come to Dumbledores” type of things. So I’ll take it as truth for now.

And we have heard nothing about an Aurelius Dumbledore even existing until this point - and we know very little about Ariana and Aberforth. So I suppose it’s plausible that we never heard his name before. Still!

He has been pulled from every side for every reason to use him or destroy him, and that breaks my heart. Look at how freaking powerful he is at the end at Nurmengard (which we know later, of course, will be Grindelwald’s prison) - all he could do. And that of course worries me, because under Grindelwald he could do a ton of damage.

The one good thing Grindelwald does, imo: give Credence a freaking wand. Ezra Miller has been waiting too goddamn long for this moment, probably vibrating in his seat with excitement, let him be a proper wizard.

And how in Merlin’s name did he get where he is? I have a pretty interesting timeline.

Ariana Dumbledore, the youngest Dumbledore until now, was an Obscurial child because of muggle bullies. She died during a fight between Albus, Aberforth, and Grindelwald (who may have already witnessed her power and had ideas of how to use her? Albus hadn’t enjoyed the burden of caring for, essentially, a disabled sister. Maybe he had been wondering how to take her off his hands, and Aberforth had seen it coming and that’s how that mess occurred.)

Anyway, she died in the fight - no one knows who killed her out of the three. This was 1899.

Credence was born two years later.

Now, he doesn’t necessarily have to be a brother - he could be a cousin - but I’m super inclined to think that if he is indeed Aurelius Dumbledore, that he’s the youngest brother, or at least is symbolized as such if he is a cousin. (Wizards live a lot longer than average humans, so it’s totally plausible to have siblings that far apart I think) It would be a different mother, because Kendra Dumbledore (Albus’s mother) died some time the same year before Ariana did.

And Albus, upon finding out about Credence and perhaps guilty about his own treatment of Ariana, thinks I am not fit to care for a child keep away and offers to send Aurelius and his mother to America. Thus we have Credence.

NOW this is assuming we don’t get an entire retcon of the Dumbledore history. If we do that, then my mini-headcanon is a bit more disturbing.

We know very, very little about Ariana Dumbledore. We didn’t know she existed until the seventh book. Same for Aberforth. We learn a lot about Dumbledore all at once from some unreliable sources (Skeeter etc) through Harry, who finds certain information more important than other info.

I looked up the timelines earlier, so the first theory fits better with canon. If we throw timelines and whether Kendra Dumbledore died at a certain point out - if we assume that the little tidbits might be wrong -

What if Ariana wasn’t hidden away in the house? What if she was born later? What if she and her mother moved to America when it became clear that Albus wouldn’t support them?

And this is sort of fanfictiony, and very weird, but what if -

Aurelius was Ariana? I mean, Obscurials. Dumbledores. What if Dumbledore didn’t love his sister enough to keep her close, and supposedly lost her to a storm at sea?

What if, in a bout of childhood accidental magic, Credence changed their own body, uncomfortable as a little girl?

(This leads Mary Lou Barebone to scream about witchcraft for the rest of her days, but she still takes care of the cursed little boy. She feeds him, houses him, hopes his sins will be forgiven, punishes him because he’s a little curse on her too, and Lord if it happened to her-)

So Albus believes Ariana to be dead, but if he can save this Obscurial boy, just maybe -

Yeah. Okay. So. Tangent over, fanfiction to be written, this movie was great and weird and confusing and cool. Ta-da.

[anewbiegm]

Tales from Thursday RP

A new campaign, and a partially new group as we venture once more into the shit-caked universe of Warhammer 40K. Unlike the Dark Heresy campaign, these are not mere mortals, but rather members of the Adeptus Astartes, the genetically enhanced super-soldiers, created by the God-Emperor of Mankind, as we venture in the forbidden lore of Deathwatch.

At least for now, there are seven players in the group, three of them new to our Thursday group - although not new to RP, 40K or Roll20, we’ve been calling them newbies - the Kill-Team is a little homogeneous, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The break-down of Speciality, Chapter and player is;

EDIT (3rd May)

- Bannus Metalius, Tech Marine of the Iron Hands chapter, played by Strelkov, the Arbite from Dark Heresy. Scheduling conflicts have forced Strelkov to drop out of Deathwatch, but he stays with us as Rulav the Tzimisce in the Vampire game.

- Einar Fritjof, a Tactical Marine Wolf Scout of the Space Wolves chapter. Played by Grey, one of the newbies we picked up from the Roll20 LFG thread.

- Strix, Assault Marine of the Raven Guards chapter. Strix is the rebuilt version of Einar the Space Wolf Scout, sill played by Grey. The way the first mission went, and how Grey was playing his character, Raven Guard Assault Marine was a much better fit. 

- Fortem Ferrummentis, a Devastator of the Iron Hands chapter. Originally billed as being either Dark Angels or Ultramarines, Fortem is played by Kenners, another newbie we picked up. Disappeared without a trace, or word. Listed as MIA.

- Apothecary Ipos, a Ravenwing Veteran Apothecary, of the Dark Angel’s successor chapter, the Consecrators. Ipos - pronounced Ee-pos, and I swear I’m going to get this character’s name correct - is played by CommanderRenegade who played the dæmon killing Psyker, Merlinus - Mer- lie-nus, not Mer-lin-us, as I spent a year calling his charcter, in Dark Heresy.

- Librarian Varen Cordalis, a Librarian - Psyker - of the Ultramarines chapter. Originally a Salamander but asked to switch to Ultramarine when he learnt there was already a Tech Marine in the Kill-Team. Played by Galen, the last - technically the first - newbie we picked up from Roll20.

- Librarian Ferox, an Iron Hands psyker. With the loss of the Iron Hands Devastator, Galen decided to tweak his Librarian a little, so changed the Chapter - as well as a few other things around.

- Ruman Cantos, an Assault Marine of the Blood Angel’s successor chapter, Hell Bringers. Played by Buckmeister, or Claude Asmend from the Dark Heresy game. Hell Bringers are a custom chapter that he’s wanted to play for a long time, using the chapter creation rules in the supplement Honour the Chapter.

- Sergeant Skold, a Tactical Marine of the Space Wolves chapter. Skold is played by Dreadcon, also known as Haxtes the Tech-Priest from Dark Heresy - who may or may not come back as a passing villain in Deathwatch after his abrupt warp exit and betrayal at the conclusion of our Dark Heresy game. 

- Techmarine Guillermo Sanchev, a Tech Marine of the venerable Crimson Fists chapter. Sanchev is played by one of Ipos’ IRL friends, and was available, and looking for a game. 

All in all, the Kill-Team looks noticeably different from when this was originally posted back on 25th March.

The game is a mix of Errata version Deathwatch - I’m looking at you weapon stats - Only War for it’s comprehensive vehicle rules - thanks to CommanderRenegade and his ever-present Assault Bike - and Dark Heresy for updated versions of Actions, and Weapon Qualities. I realise this makes it into a little bit of a Special Snowflake game, with a bunch of annoying house-rules, but as much as I love the 40K RPGs, the early ones were clunky and messy as hell in places.

Ideally, I’d intended to write my own version of the 40K RPG, but that’s a bit of an undertaking. I’ve got two starter documents; one using the traditional 40K d100 ruleset, the other using Modiphius’ 2d20 system. Mutant Chronicles has a lot of similarities between 40K, I’ve mentioned before that it often seems to have a Rogue Trader era feel to it, but that’s a huge job, and needs some of the improvements seen in Conan fudged into, on top of a total conversion. Anyway, back to the actual Deathwatch we’re playing. 

The first scenario in the start of our campaign is the Extraction mission from the Core Rulebook, I like to run these basic scenarios first as they’re a gentle intro to the system, the setting and a new group. It gives people a chance to get to know how others work, what their characters are like, and to re-jig sections of their character if they’re unhappy with it.

Extraction has them drop-podding onto the dying world of Tantalus to rescue a Magos of the Tech-Priests of Mars, and the data-core he’s carrying, before the world is consumed by the encroaching Tyranid swarm. 

The Magos’ ship had crash-landed on the world, and he’s severely injured, complicating the rescue attempt. The Kill-Team only has a few hours to locate him, before extraction - hint, hint - becomes impossible thanks to the innumerable Tyranid bio-forms swarming the surface, atmosphere and in orbit. 

The Magos’ shuttle had crashed in the centre of a region dedicated to promethium refining, a refinery know as Pyroclast-Gamma-9. The area had been evacuated some days before at the start of the Tyranid invasion, is eerily quiet, smells of burnt promethium and an undercurrent of blood.

Some exploring later, they found the butchered remains of several local militia forces, the Tyranids having ambushed and attacked various locations, as well as well as a potential location for the Magos. Some additional good news came in the form of a Commissar and a small squad of PDF troopers who’d been unable to evacuate in time. Sending them to the highest ground, the best spot for extraction, they were confident that they had at least been able to secure their exit route - if only temporarily, knowing the Imperial Guard’s resilience against the fearsome xenos.

After a particularly dangerous fight, being ambushed by the bio-form designated as Shrike the group have had to wait a fortnight before the next session, and hopefully concluding part of Extraction.

A little slow to start with, time zones and all that, new group, new characters and a kludged ruleset, but the first session was enjoyable, and I’m confident about the new guys. Although, the Old Guard are struggling at the minute with scheduling conflicts, so I’m not 100% sure how many of them are going to be a permanent fixture in the session. Time will tell.

Up next, more Tales from Thursday RP as we venture into Eastern Europe in the late 12th century, in Vampire the Masquerade: Dark Ages campaign, Transylvania Chronicles.