#i will probably edit this with updates and additional thoughts because i basically just started the episode lol help

[jazzically]

MAG 32 HIVEEE BABYYY!!!!!!! oh my god this one. this one is sooooooooo fricking good. i loved every single word of it when i first listened to it and i still do now. its written SO GORGEOUSLY

just the simple fact of this literally being a firsthand account of someone being taken over by the corruption, the infiltrator, that utter terror that comes with every disgusting thing thriving under rotted floorboards makes the concept beautiful by itself

cause jane wrote this just after she became too far gone, fallen helplessly to the worms' song, but before she was completely incoherent due to the lovely harmonies formed by the slithering of thousands of individual bodies through her vital organs. you can hear her despair manifesting, those last dredges of what she truly was struggling through the cloudy haze of unearthly love. and she lets it speak through her so beautifully. remember this is the making of an avatar transcribed. she describes how her relationship with the hive grew into something far more personal than a threat to her safety or sanitation. it's about the confusion that drops in on you at the beginnings of addiction and the combination of desire and sunk-cost that makes you want nothing more than to sink deep into its open arms and fully give yourself over to the only thing that says it can save you.

and throughout it all, she somehow makes this Crawling Rot — this mysterious thing that we know to be inherently gross and despicably filthy, that jeopardizes the security of the archives and its staff — sound hypnotic, in its own twisted way. enticing, even. that is the true horror. that is the most terrifying part, to me: that we are suddenly able to see where she is coming from. it's kinda like how jon spoke on how it unsettled him that the distortion said it wanted to help them instead of hurt them.

plus!!!!! i mean!!!!!! its so viscerally horrible and i love it!!!!!! its literally the corruption its the bending and destruction of things we find familiar and safe (ooOOo stranger and desolation overlap?) like its not just plain old disease and dirt yknow? its the SYMBOLISM of that disease and dirt and what it means to people whose lives become infected :3 love how jonny prolly went "hmm what are people afraid of? bugs? sickness? germs? what does that tie into? ah yes corruption" i feel like this specific statement was a great opportunity to really showcase how the corruption affects the mind and jonny maximized the writing to that effect. that was a lot of unnecessary words but basically what im trying to get at here is that jane prentiss's statement didnt reframe the corruption and her worms for me, it took the whole situation and flipped it on its head, upside down and inside out. it made the flesh hive seem so graceful.

umm not to mention the way the statement drops foreshadowing for the institute being eye-aligned omgomgogmgfndibf

EDIT...

OLIVER BANKS!!!!!!!!!! OOOOLLLLLIVERRR

edit 2 :3

I KNEW THAT IT WAS NOT SO SIMPLE AS TO CALL OUT TO WELL-TRODDEN GODS!!!!!!!!!!

god that line has stuck with me ever since i first heard it. it's SO GOOD. it is a perfect way of putting that feeling

RRRAAAAHHHH the web and the hive are so awesome when taken together

AND THIS. the Hive, more infinite than it can describe itself, is beautiful in a way most will never understand, for beauty is subjective. its indescribability alone is astonishing. the radiance of its power, seen as simple and dismissed without true understanding ever permeating its frothing membranes, is far more than we could ever deserve

i think this paragraph is just SO well done dude like go listen to it feel the impact of those words again because it's so raw: i see now why the hive hates you. you can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. you rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.

that bit was introduced and explained perfectly. its so satisfying nnnnrrrrrgggghhhhhfnkkffncnnfr

the sheer poetry of this series never fails to amaze me. oh my god

also i love how when jane is addressing gertrude it's done more vaguely so that it's almost like she could be talking to jon and the institute of the present day

poor jane she mustve been suffering for a very long time

[many-bees]

How to play every Team Silent game

Saw a post showing people how to install and play the original Silent Hill 2 so I thought I should probably make this because the other games are just as great.

Silent Hill

This is the only Team Silent game that requires an emulator. The one I recommend is DuckStation. It's fairly easy to use but it does require playstation BIOS files which can be found here. The ROM for the game can be pretty easily found through google but I've found that CDRomance is a very reliable source. If that goes down then another will inevitably pop up.

It should be noted that in addition to being the only one you have to emulate Silent Hill is also the one without an alternate control scheme, meaning that you have to use tank controls. Thankfully, unlike Resident Evil, Silent Hill is very forgiving when it comes to combat so it's very easy to get used to.

Silent Hill 2

You've probably already seen that other post so I'll make this short. It's abandonware so you can download it on this site devoted to sharing abandonware. Be sure to download the full-rip version since using the disc files is a pain in the ass. After downloading that you can download the Enhanced Edition and put it in the folder you just downloaded and unzipped. Then just double click the installer and it'll do everything else for you.

Silent Hill 3

Basically the same as Silent Hill 2 except you don't need a mod for it. Here's the download link. Like 2 I recommend getting the full rip version. There's a mod called PC Fix by Steam006 which adds some options like restoring removed audio and higher screen reolutions but whenever I've had it installed the game wouldn't start so ymmv.

Silent Hill 4

This one's just available legally. It's from GOG who patch all their old games to keep them updated for modern systems, including games from as far back as 1979, so you don't need to worry about mods or compatibility issues or anything. Also everything they sell is totally DRM free. If you wanted it for free though you probably wouldn't have to look for it very hard.

[utilitycaster]

hi, what are your thoughts on the recently announced changes to dnd classes? I'm particularly interested what you think about the new paladin and warlock since you always have very correct opinions on them.

Hi anon, I must admit I have not been keeping up with the PHB playtests; I do intend to get the updated book when it comes out but I found keeping up with every change was a lot of time I would rather spend on other things, especially since they came out very intense and have walked a lot back (some for valid reasons, some not)

I did, however, go look at Paladin and Warlock though I didn't go into depth with any subclasses.

Warlock, since that's the one I found first (Playtest 7): in terms of general progression I am always pro focusing more on invocations so having them from the start and having two more is good in my mind. I am also pro pact magic. I think it is a cool different thing and is a feature of the class; making it a normal spellcasting table was a mistake. Spell progression/cantrips/slots seem otherwise the same as the 2014 PHB, which seems reasonable.

I haven't read thorough other classes so I don't know if swapping cantrips is true of every class; I do think there should be a way to change out cantrips because sometimes you pick a bad cantrip. You shouldn't be able to prep them if you're a prepared caster (wizard, cleric, etc) but yeah I'd say levels or at least ASI levels should permit cantrip swaps.

Magical cunning is GREAT actually because that used to be a L20 feature and now it's slightly weaker and L2. Hilarious, but also I think it offers more opportunities for engaging with your patron and the RP/story that provides. Same with the Contact Patron L9 feature. Keeping Eldritch Master for the capstone is admittedly a little weak but also I'm lenient on L20 because so few people play at L20.

I think the pacts being invocations is fascinating because like, you could just be a pact boon-less jack of all trades if you really wanted, OR you could have all three, and that's funny to me. I also like that you get additional spells rather than just expanded options.

The one thing I'm not sure about is moving the subclass to L3. This works okay for paladins because paladins are like, you dedicate yourself at L1 and your powers come from your own dedication and conviction, and then you take an oath at L3. Warlocks are like...until you have a patron you are just a guy. That should be at L1.

Paladin:

Bonus action lay on hands is killer. incredible. no notes. big fan. I do think they should still be permitted to cure diseases however; basically 5 lay on hands should be a lesser restoration spell.

Simplifying spell prep is probably a good idea just in terms of time and ease but the drawback is you don't have as many cool options each night. Less of a big deal for a paladin but this would be an issue for full prepared casters, and I checked and (EDITED I FORGOT TO INSERT WHAT I MEANT TO SAY HERE) full casters get full spell prep as before so nevermind, fine for paladins.

haven't been following weapon mastery but given most characters don't swap weapons that often, seems fine.

Smites are also fine; paladins can do STUPID damage as is so limiting smites to only one per turn is not unreasonable imo.

Big fan of find steed always being prepared because I think a lot of people just don't use it because there's better spells unless it's a really important part of their character. We need more steeds.

Abjure Foes seems awesome; Radiant strikes are great also FINALLY. SORT OF SMITING ON UNARMED STRIKES.

Restoring Touch makes more sense to me than Cleansing Touch, also seems reasonable.

Broken Oath flavor text very good

Overall this seems pretty good for paladins and the only warlock thing is that I think they need to work on when you choose a subclass.

[megumi-fm]

this week fortnight on megumi.fm ▸ the last leg

is that a pun referring to my aching ankle? yes. is resting at home for another week gonna ruin my mental health? yes. but am I exaggerating and throwing a tantrum for something that's probably not a big deal? also yes.

📋 Tasks

💻 Internship // progress tracker ↳ biopython model replication ✅ ↳ code for obtaining single fasta from overlapping sequences ✅ ↳ running HMMer and superfamily script✅ ↳ output analysis 🔁 ↳ literature review on transport proteins 🔁 ↳ transport protein family analysis 🔁 🎓 Uni ↳ our paper is finally out! there's a doi and everything now <3 it's not open access though :/// I might do some totally legal things to ensure more people can read it ↳ collected the hardcopy of my LOR ↳ collected my gradecard ↳ visited my advisor and updated her on stuff 🩺Radiomics Project ↳ radiomic features finalized✅ ↳ data cleanup 🔁

📅 Daily-s

🛌 consistent sleep [14/14] 💧 good water intake [14/14] 👟 exercise [/14] just basic stuff to maintain ankle mobility

Fun Stuff this week

💗i went to uni to watch one of my friends present something to the juniors! then I spent the afternoon chatting with my guide and later on went window shopping with my best friends (in retrospect i should not have done this because my ankle got infinitely worse the next day and now I'm stuck resting at home for an additional two weeks) 🎮playing undertale with @muakrrr 📺 ongoing: Marry my Husband, Cherry Magic Th, Perfect Propose, Doctor Slump, Flex X Cop 📺 binged: Blueming, Roommates of Poongduck 304 📹 Started watching Going Seventeen // so I've been listening to SVT for a while now and I did watch their Don't Lie II eps like two years ago but I never really checked anything else... however, considering that I'm stuck at home and that @zzzzzestforlife (who has impeccable taste) has mentioned it often on their posts, I decided to check out GoSe properly and. wow. I started with their mystery episodes [fav scenes under cut] and now I'm watching GoSe2020 in chronological order and !!!!!! The concepts, the storylines, the acting, the humour, the editing, even the subtitles are all so so good. I've been watching this show for two weeks now and I am now officially a cubic <3

📻 This week's soundtrack

Wk1: The Best of ATEEZ // I've been real obsessed since their 2024 world tour clips started showing up on social media; I was a casual enjoyer up to this point and then I went and checked them out and it's all so dystopian and immersive. My favourites would be Intro: Long Journey (which makes me feel like I'm in Pirates of the Caribbean), the Symphony version of Wonderland (for its musicality and Jungho hitting those notes), MATZ (that is insane in it's the visual storytelling in the MV) and Wake Up (whose performance choreo ended me) Wk2: The Best of BTS // in an attempt to revive a project I abandoned a year ago, I spent wayy too much time curating this playlist to get the most satisfying BTS transitions ever and I can confidently say that I'm nowhere close to my goal T-T but I kind of like the way it is now so I am simply going to give up

---

[Feb 12 to Feb 25 ; week 7+8/52 || this was not supposed to be one post but then... idk what happened... I feel very dull lately because of my ankle and just when I thought it was getting better it's become painful again... my friends and parents keep chastising me (and fairly so) for trying to move around even before I fully heal but patience has never been my strong suit. sitting still is really the biggest punishment for a hyperactive ADHD kid like me... i'm sure plenty others have it worse but... yeah... GoSe really carrying my mental health right now ]

my fav GoSe scenes

---

[alexissara]

The Best of Me 2023

I did a ton of writing on tumblr this year, with at least one post a week but multiple weeks with 2 or 3 posts in a week. I've worked hard to make writing that is relevant to my fellow sapphics and artists. I want to talk about the stuff I wrote this year I am most proud of.

Note: This list does not include my articles for Anime Feminist because they are professionally edited therefore a cut above anything I am posting on tumblr but please do read them here and tell them you want more articles by me [I actually have more to write for them ooops].

Why Hunt Monsters?

I am so proud of this little article, for me this is one of the things I feel very strongly about. As a TTRPG player I have found myself retreating from a lot more games because I just can't get behind, we murder monsters plots and I was really happy to share my perspective on this fairly taken from granted feature of games.

How To Find Sapphic Media 

This little guide to finding Sapphic Art was really important to me because well, I was really tired of seeing people say there was not compelling art about and by sapphic women and so I wanted to make a base level resource for finding amazing sapphic shit.

Sapphic Games Goddess List

In my efforts to make Sapphic Art more known I have worked really fucking hard to research what sapphic games are coming up so people wouldn't even have to put in the effort to go hunting them down. I want people to be able to live out there sapphic dreams and so it's important to me to share what I am researching for my own play time since I at this point really only play games I can be a lesbian in or otherwise are standout in gameplay with probably no romance instead. I even did an updated version of this list since most of the games on the first list have come out and I am working on the next one as we speak with more new additions gearing up.

Why Obsession Hits Different When Gay

I love diving into queer theorizing. I am not going big brain citing a ton of people or doing a lot of academic research but I like to share my own thoughts, experiences and the stuff I have learned over years especially as a writer and general creator of sapphic art. I think it's a perfect little rebuttal for folks who may claim there is a "double standard" that lesbians have or something.

Polyamory Is Queer

This is a deeply personal little blog post I did where I talked about why polyamory is so important to me and why it is in fact queer. I have seen so many people demonize polyamory over the years and I was just tired of seeing people in my own community bullying other polyamorous folks.

Fantasy Vs Sexuality Labels

As a writer this is maybe one of the things I feel most passionate about a creative choice for my fellow queer creators. I really wanted to make my case on why we should use labels in fantasy worlds and why these labels matter for stories.

My entries for Edelgard Rarepair week and Monica Week

I from time to time to time write fan fiction and I had a blast doing it this year for two different week events going with both the Edelgard Rarepair week and the Monica fics week. I love Three Houses/Hopes so it was a blast to throw my passion into something even if in general I don't like to be a free marketing arm for companies by making creative works like those.

TTRPG Characters Need Trauma In Their Backstory

I had one person who utterly hated this post and started attacking me in basically every post I made on some social media site I abandoned because of it. That alone makes me love this post even more because it made me sit down and think about this post and feel even more assured that what I wrote is correct and that trauma is in fact needed for TTRPG characters. I think I wrote something that really dived into the idea of what is trauma, how trauma relates to us as humans and why it's basically propaganda to remove us from trauma.

Trans People Deserve More 

I feel super strongly about this article, I sat on it for a long time but I've met so many other trans people with awful relationships and mild relationships with their family. I wanted to make a shout out to all my fellow trans folks to tell them that it's okay to demand more, that we don't need to settle.

A Dive Into Heather 

I adored diving into one of my all time favorite Fire Emblem characters and it's something I've wanted to do more of. I'd love to do more dives into characters in video games I like and I did well before this post have a series of drafts that I still have up as a series that particularly is just a bit by bit break down of Edelgard's political beliefs.

[backslidesims]

a slightly different post regarding some refurbishments made to the walker's lot. i preface this with two thing: a) i could have announced the change within some kind of storyline but i am still not great at storytelling so i have just decided to make a post like this and b) i am not a builder and i typically use the premade lots and eventually decorate and add to them like here so no judgement on the fact i am playing in a very basic base-game house lol.

you probably recognise the the green home of this lot. this is where the walker's have been living. since living there, they have put a lot of effort into saving in order to expand this home to cater to their family needs...

and they have put a lot of effort into saving with my mod that increases the bills from 1.3% of assets to 15% of assets - when 15% starts getting too easy, i can increase it to 20%, 25% etc which is exciting as i like a challenge with money.

with their savings they have built an additional home on their lot (maybe something granny annexe-esque - i feel like that's a very british term lol but it is just a smaller additional home like what the sekemoto's have too). i enjoy doing this in my game play because i do not like moving sims out as i like playing with them all but the idea of having the whole entire family as they begin to branch off e.g., when francesca and / or gabriel have partners and / or children, it feels a little unrealistic for them to live under one small roof.

i thought i would introduce the construction that has took place on the walker's lot because otherwise i think it would have been strange for all of a sudden to have a new house there. also, it will probably make things easier storytelling wise when sims start moving into the additional home / granny annexe.

this was such a ramble however, i did enjoy sharing about how i go about my legacy gameplay and also about my bills mods i use. i cannot play without harder bills so i want to share if people do not know about the mod. it can be found here (you might noticed the 15% of assets bills are not there - i edited the package file as when starting out, i felt 10% was too easy by 20% was too hard. if anyone wants pointers on editing the package file, let me know and i can explain.

ah omg such a long post. if you read this far, thanks! i know it is probably not that interesting but i enjoy sharing the silly little ways i find joy in this game.

updated family tree found here.

[13leaguestories]

February 2023 Forecast

I am writing this with my back and neck in horrible pain. Worse way to start your morning is to get up, stretch, and then pull something. I feel bed ridden.

"T, are you done with your break?" No idea. Define break. My brain is slowly coming back to me so good news is I'm not quitting lmfao. My brain almost had me in the first half ... and most of the second. When I do return though, I'm implementing a new writing process called "write what I want to fucking write when I want to fucking write it."

"T, did you need to add all those expletives?" No. But you know how a lot of folks be like 'as I get older I'm going to curse less?' I'm the opposite. I curse more. It makes me feel all tingly inside.

Alright, welcome to the second best month, purely because it's my birthday month, that's literally it. You know I share this month with both my brother and my father, plus my parents and my brother's anniversaries. Like, the shortest month is basically the busiest for my family in terms of celebrations. Why did they do this? I don't know, no one uses sense in this family besides me.

MOVING ON! Bout to enter into a All My Woes episode.

Superstition S3

Still on break. Do not ask me when it's coming back. Because I'm going to do what I should've done (and what you guys thought I do already) and actually write a good bit of it. I'll probably put up a poll asking if you guys want to keep the bi-weekly schedule or if I just update it as the episodes are complete.

Throne of Ashes

Working on updating the demo with Makaio's finished demo and some bug fixes for the other routes. Nour is next and Ozara will be following them on that upload schedule.

Insight

Because unlike its cousin, For the Crown, Insight is not 100% dead, it's more like on life support. But I'll be updating it with the new UI that I have to bring it in line with the others. Also an additional chapter will be added so now the demo will end at Ch5.

Future T here. I've already updated it with the new UI and the first bug fix. A bigger one is coming so still, if you find any bugs, hold off on sending them in. Bug reports make me depressed and you guys don't want to see that, right? RIGHT?!

Horizon: Sea of Stars

Per my "do what ya want" lifestyle, yes, Tierra has done it again. She has said fuck it to common sense and those two friends out of ten that said don't do it, and she went and made a new project. I blame eight friends who inspire me in the most negative ways because I never blame myself. Never blame yourselves, you're never toxic, it's those around you. (That's a lie, do not quote me. My god.)

This is a scif-fi project (because I needed to have the holy trinity of the best genres out there to make myself feel complete (jokes on me I still feel empty)). The MC is like Phoenix MC in some ways where this is not exactly 100% self-insert friendly, there are a few traits included and mindsets that you as the reader can't change. 6 romances, 2 males, 2 females, and 2 nonbinary. 5 of the 6 are aliens. And art is on it's way with two of the characters already done. I have art of the alien species as well because I know how difficult it can be to picture an alien based off of descriptions alone. They will be included in story to further help.

This is me just telling you guys, I'll post all of the info of the book itself with the demo like I normally do. Especially when I figure out where I want the demo to stop at. It's still pretty much in alpha mode with only one chapter done and even that is still seeing edits.

Also if any of you have got this far and know an artist or you are someone who can do really nice colorful covers and are good with backgrounds then tell me because I'm still searching for a cover artist.

. . .

There is also now a Light Mode on some stories. If it's not there then it's being worked on. Don't look at Superstition, it's not there.

Alright, I think that's it. I'm going to go lie down and scream at the heavens about my neck.

Future T again. My neck is better but if I look over my shoulder it's like "naw girl, stop that."

[note-boom]

Getting Around Here...

All right, we’ve reached the point where I’ve been told I have 1000 posts on here, so I’m gonna make a navigation/what’s this blog about post so I don’t go insane...

What’s This Blog About?

Basically this started as a realization that I was saving way too many BSD-related links on the app I use to keep track of all my obsessions, reactions to things, etc. So I figured a Tumblr blog would be the solution, and now this is my archive of things I would usually just save as a link elsewhere (plus some thoughts of my own to spice it up a bit.)

Navigation Stuff

Now how do I tag things for future explorations?

Fandom Tags: #bsd, #bungo stray dogs, #bungou stray dogs (will be updated if I switch/tack on other fandoms)

Character Tags: In general, I just use [acronym] [character’s most used name]. Like #bsd atsushi. Sometimes, I use two like #bsd edgar allan poe/#bsd poe or #bsd gogol/#bsd nikolai gogol but only when I’m not sure what their most used name is. There’s also #bsd characters (for unnamed characters or just incorrect quotes) this one (when there are too many characters to tag) and group specific tags (armed detective agency, port mafia, bsd guild, soukoku, shin soukoku, there’s no naming consistency)

Meta Tags: #bsd musings (for literally anything that contemplates bsd) #bsd theories (for theories, specifically) #character analysis (metas about characters)

Specific Media Tags: #bsd official art, #manga things (anything that features the manga panels) #anime things (anything that features anime screenshots and the like) #light novel things (anything referring to the light novels) #stage play things (anything featuring stuff about the stage play) #bsd fanart, #bsd edits, #bsd gifset, #bsd fanfic. Of course, there will also be tags for the light novels specifically, which is usually just bsd [light novel name], and wan.

Additional Tags: #humor, #alternate universe, #crossover, #random fandom spamdom (generally fandom related either because of my tags or the post’s contents itself) #bsd fandom slander (mostly a subset of humor that lovingly slanders the characters) #not fandom spam (has nothing to do with the fandom specifically) #spitting nonsense (my posts) #rambling in the tags sorry (when I get a bit TOO carried away) #note re-reblogs (currently nonexistent but the time will come...i advise blocking this tag lest you wake up to find 50 posts rereblogged because I didn't want to queue them...)

Spoilers tags will be tagged bsd spoilers (for all of them), manga spoilers/bsd manga spoilers, and anime spoilers/bsd anime spoilers.

In (Rambly) Conclusion

Why am I writing this like a three-point thesis...ah never mind.

And that’s how I sort out my obsession with this stupid show. If any other piece of media seizes me by the throat like BSD has, then I’ll probably start posting about it here (but my fixations are usually short lived and thus onto main sideblog they go).

I tend to...ramble in the tags a lot, which I mildly feel bad for (there’s a reason why I generally just privately save things). So if you’re seeing this because I spam reblogged you and you wondered who in the world was crowding your notifs with tags, I’m sorry. I also try not to crawl out of the tags too much, though, just do so if they don’t fit my rambles (oops....)

I try and lessen the blow by slapping most everything on the queue (but I don’t tag what I queue, let there be CHAOS), so maybe that helps a bit?

That said, I DO love tags, so feel free to spam reblog whatever you want from here and comment-tag as much as you want...I LOVE seeing people say stuff (whether I agree or not, this IS just for fun). I don’t usually use the comment/reply section or the like button because I don’t actually do anything in my main blog (I just work off sideblogs, heh), so I’ll likely abuse the reblog button a lot or just hope my vibes of appreciation are psychically felt.

OH RIGHT!! Asks are always open. Feel free to scream at me about literally anything, ask anything, or share cool links and shiny stuff I can reblog/save (the last one especially because I am a magpie of fandom things). I generally have to be asked things to talk about them, so I do warn you that the right ask can really get me going.

And with that, back to spamming I go!

[lostinfantasyworlds]

Under the Northern Lights updates!

Here’s my typical (and probably last 😭) progress update about UTNL, since it’s been about 3 weeks since I posted the last chapter.

I’ve been working on the epilogue almost every day! Along with the two drawings that go along with it, which I am SO excited to share 😁. 

In addition to that, I’ve been going back through the earlier chapters, and have been doing some actual editing. Since I know some people like to wait until a story is completed before binge-reading, and/or just in case anyone ever felt like rereading, I figured I’d go through the whole story again and tighten everything up. 

Nothing will change about the plot whatsoever, I just will be working on making the flow smoother and taking out really unnecessary inner monologue/backstory that is already shown in other ways. When I first started writing this story, I had only been writing for a few months, so I wasn’t even aware of the most basic writing advice such as ‘show, don’t tell,’ let alone all of the nuances of flow/syntax that I think I’ve improved on over time.

Like...I already know I have a tendency to be wordy/over explain, but when rereading those first few chapters I was like omfg Taryn...you don’t need to write that he balled his hands into fists, growled, and that he’s feeling angry...I think they get it 🤦🏻‍♀️ 😂. Hahaha but it’s okay, we’re all improving as we go along!

As an example, I just finished going through Chapter One and I trimmed almost 600 words while also improving the general flow, as well as occasionally tweaking the dialogue just a bit to make it more in character (now that I have the entire rest of the story written to cement those versions of Inuyasha and Kagome...which was not the case at the time I started). 

It definitely will still have plenty of room to be improved further, but I had to stop somewhere for now due to time constraints. Also, my writing style I’ve established does like to dive deep into the character’s thoughts and feelings, so I didn’t want to take too much of that away.

ANYWHO

Because I’m doing all of that at once, it’s going to take a bit to wrap everything up. Ideally, I’d love to be able to post the final chapter and artwork by next weekend, but we’ll see how things go with work/life always getting in the way. 

Until then...

I put a few bullet points with teasers for the epilogue under the cut!

I said in the A/N for chapter 15 that the epilogue takes place sometime in their future...but what I meant is that it actually spans several points in their future. There are 4.5 different scenes that all take place at different times...(Yes, I am being excessive as always, but I love a good thorough happy ending hahaha, plus each of those scenes just popped into my head at various points throughout the last year, I couldn’t help it 😂)

It also takes place across multiple locations...I think 4 total?

Several new (but familiar 😉) characters will make an appearance, or at least be referenced in some way

Both Kagome and Inuyasha cry....possibly more than once....(all in a good way!) 👀

[shandian-go]

Reflections

Happy Wednesday everyone, and hope you’re looking forward to the long weekend! I can’t believe it’s been a year since I started this group order and I’m feeling a little sentimental so I thought I’d take some time to reflect in an actual post (instead of rambling in the tags like usual). FYI this is NOT a goodbye post - it’s just me rambling to myself and there’s no important updates or anything so feel free to skip :)

So much has happened over the past year that I don’t really know where to begin to be honest. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I first started asking around to see if there would be interest in a group order and the way this GO has grown has honestly taken me by surprise. It’s probably been one of the greatest learning opportunities of my life and has pushed me to work harder than I thought myself capable of.

Before all this happened, I was living a very average, boring life - I’m not particularly talented or insightful so my fandom involvement was limited to hanging out with some friends in my little corner of the internet. As for IRL, I’ve always been surrounded by people who were smarter, worked harder, and more capable than me, so I never really thought of myself as the type of person that could take charge and shoulder responsibilities. Whenever I edited the ‘problem solving’ part of my resume, I’d have to rack my brain to come up with examples because the fact is, the challenges I’ve faced in school and work haven’t been all that special. The problems were (mostly) within my comfort zone and there was always a teacher or textbook to guide me.

That wasn’t the case at all with this GO and ever since the very first batch order, there’s been problem after problem that I had to figure out myself with no ‘how-to’ manual to follow. I don’t talk about it too much because I don't want to cause worry, but there honestly isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not trying to resolve an issue with an agent or seller behind the scenes. I remember learning about the difficulties with shipping powders in the first order and having to search for a way to ship it over. I also remember the panic I felt the first time a seller screwed up an order and the struggle to coordinate the return and exchange process. Every time an issue came up, my gut reaction was to imagine the worst possible outcome and I wouldn’t be able to relax until it was resolved. To be honest, I still get anxious whenever I encounter a problem I’ve never seen before, but it’s a bit more manageable nowadays (relatively).

My day job involves understanding how various businesses perform but as an outsider, I never really had a good grasp of what happens day-to-day because all I get to see are some finalized reports at the end of the year. It’s a bit like watching a recipe tutorial on 2x speed without actually doing any of the cooking. I knew - theoretically - how things should work but it was only when I got involved in this group order that I started to understand what it was really like being in the kitchen. In addition to resolving issues, there’s daily tasks to stay on top of, like tracking which orders have shipped and which have been consolidated, checking in with the shipping agent on packages in transit, checking for updates from sellers, checking store availability for limited items etc. etc. And when stuff arrives at my place, there’s items to sort, boxes to pack, labels to make and shipments to follow-up on as well.

There’s honestly so much involved just to keep things running smoothly and the work is far different than what I’d expect in theory. In theory, all you have to do is prep the ingredients, cook them and then make everything look all pretty on a plate. In practice, sometimes you run out of basic stuff like salt, sometimes the food ends up burnt and sometimes you accidentally knock over the plate and have to start from scratch - and you just gotta deal with it. As someone who’s only ever been exposed to the ‘after’ side of a process i.e. tasting that picture-perfect dish at the end, the change has been refreshing (and at times frustrating). And while cleaning up messes isn’t always fun, there’s definitely a sense of satisfaction when things do work out and knowing that you had a hand in making it happen.

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I definitely fall under the Chinese/Asian stereotype of having had to learn a musical instrument as a kid. For me, it was the piano - which I genuinely came to love - and most of my adolescence was spent practicing away, playing the same pieces over and over again until it was ready for some exam or competition or other. I’m pretty sure this was the main cause of my perfectionist tendencies and it’s actually been handy for my day job, given the high standards and attention to detail needed to meet said standards. While perfectionism may have helped with staying organized for this GO, I think an important lesson that I’ve learned is that getting something perfect isn’t always feasible in the real world, especially when there are so many factors that I can’t actually control.

Failure - the opposite of perfection in my mind - was something I took very personally. I would often blame myself for not being able to avoid it - after all, when my fingers fumbled during a performance, it was my own fault for not practicing the piece enough and letting the nerves get to me. Failure was something I dreaded, which resulted in me putting a lot of pressure on myself to get everything perfect on the first try. Whenever I did encounter failure, a part of me would freeze up and it was always hard to stop myself from looping my own shortcomings in my head. But after dealing with so many issues for the GO, I think my mindset has changed a little - while I still get upset, I spend a little less time despairing and am quicker to start looking for a solution. I think I’ve also come to accept that the world isn’t my piano and I can’t will things into perfection with enough practice. In fact, the world will only pose an endless number of problems, but instead of getting stuck in the ‘why couldn’t these problems be avoided’, I’ve tried to shift more to a ‘how can I fix the problem at hand’ approach, and it’s actually been a pretty welcome change in my mentality.

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For most of my fandom existence, I’ve spent 99% of the time on priv, emoting about whatever new fandom pit I fell into. I've mainly kept to myself because being known is a Mortifying ordeal and there wasn't much I could bring to the table anyway. However, the number of followers for this GO has hit numbers that are pretty shocking to me, and thinking about how many people might be seeing my posts is still kind of nerve-wracking. I've spent most of my virtual presence chilling under a rock so hanging out on public is still jarring to me.

Even as a lurker, I’ve seen the influence - both positive and negative - that accounts with large followings have had on fandom spaces. While I still don’t think anything I’ve got to say is all that earth-shattering (because I’m the same boring old potato as I was before), I’ve been more conscientious of the influence that I might have and it’s pushed me to think more about what I could do to make a difference. The November charity auction was my first attempt at making a positive impact and truth be told, I didn’t think it would get much traction. However, it far exceeded my expectations and I was very humbled and moved by everyone’s generosity. The Novel Club was another attempt at creating positive change - it was clear that there were barriers preventing fans from legally supporting the webnovels and I kept trying to figure out what I could do to help out. While I’m personally not behind the recent #SupportAuthors initiative, I’m so happy to see it take off and with every new Novel Club order, it gives me hope that this shift in fandom is here to stay.

These extra projects do take a lot of time though and unfortunately I haven’t been able to do more because there’s always so much work involved just to keep this GO going (pun intended). However, they’ve definitely made me realize how much good can be found in fandom and that the toxicity and drama that can sometimes spread like wildfire isn’t the only side to fandom, even if it may sometimes be the most visible. While I don’t think my projects have created change on a monumental scale, it’s so much more than what an under-the-rock lurker like me could have imagined a year ago and it’s been really inspiring.

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I think I’ve joked before about how managing this GO has become a full-time job and the hours that I’ve put into it probably do add up to a full-time job by now. I’m used to working a lot of overtime anyway but it’s gotten to the point where I clock in to work on GO stuff the minute I clock out of IRL work and just...keep working until it’s time for bed. Weekends tend to be even busier than weekdays because I use them to catch up on all the GO tasks I couldn’t get to during the week, so there's not much time left for anything else these days.

This isn’t meant to be a complaint, but I’ve definitely had to push myself a lot just to finish everything on my GO to-do list, and there were many moments when it felt overwhelming. Because of how much responsibility is involved, I can’t help but worry about the GO constantly and it’s actually gotten pretty hard to take a step back and de-stress. My body has also developed the terrible habit of waking up in the middle of the night (which is the middle of the day in China) and I end up checking my phone and spending 30-40 minutes dealing with pressing issues, before falling back asleep.

Again, I’m not begrudging the amount of work involved nor am I trying to gain sympathy - I do this willingly and lots of people out there have to work much harder in roles they don’t enjoy. But I just wanted to be honest and the truth is, it’s been a really...exhausting year. While I’m fortunate in that I’m the type of person whose selective memory tends to forget the bad stuff and remember only the good stuff, it’s undeniable that running this GO has impacted my mental and physical health in ways that probably aren’t sustainable.

It’s still manageable at the moment though so we’re not quite near the end yet! But just to give you heads up, there will, eventually, be an end and I think I’ve mentioned before that this wasn’t meant to be a long-term thing anyway. I’ll stick around as long as I’m able to and will of course finish managing all existing orders before closing this GO, but at the end of the day, this was never my primary job and with pandemic restrictions lifting, there’s so many other things I’d like to learn about and explore.

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Finally, I definitely don’t say this enough but thank you all so, so much for making this GO possible and for giving me the opportunity to learn so much over the past year. I know I’ve made mistakes along the way and many of you have had to adjust to a long list of changes, but thank you for your patience and understanding through it all. Thanks as well for the kind messages you’ve sent my way - I may not always have time to respond in detail but every message has lifted my spirits and I’m always grateful for the support. July will probably be another busy month given the number of packages that are expected to arrive but I definitely want to host some sort of thank you giveaway and will also try to sort through my own collection to see if another charity auction might be doable.

If you’ve read this far, thanks for sitting through this very long, very self-indulgent ramble. Hope you enjoy the long weekend and take care~

Mel

[onebizarrekai]

v3′s art is comically terrible for a professionally distributed game in a series: a compilation

in this not-essay I will list all of the mistakes and problems I have spotted in v3′s art. don’t worry, it’s entirely for fun and I’m doing this on a whim, so please feel free to not take this seriously but also it’s hilarious and embarrassing how ridiculous this is like what happened did they speedrun the whole production or what

see, there are some things you can take as meta like “they made it bad on purpose to allude to the downfall of tv shows that have been on air for much too long” but I have a very strong feeling this is not the case due to the nature of some of these errors

disclaimer, the more I study this art, the more I fear that the artists were underpaid and underslept, so if this is in fact the case, I am so sorry to all of them but also I’m going to make fun of the art anyway

anyway let’s get started!

if you study this image for longer than 5 seconds, you will see that kaede is the only one fully shaded and keebo is literally just his normal sprite pasted into the image. every other character is just an ordinary ref, hence most of them facing the exact same direction with neutral expressions on their faces. it looks like a bad edit, and is probably one of the worst pieces of art in the game. it kind of gets better from here on, but my roasting will not.

with that out of the way, here’s the problem that officially bothers me the most and clarifies my viewpoint of “this is not meta and an actual lack of company communication”

this freaking cg, which seems normal at a glance, but some wiseass was like “oh, kaede is a girl, so obviously she’s going to be shorter than the Male Protagonist™” ah, that’s funny. because if you look at the character bios, kaede is, in fact, one inch taller than shuichi and not like 6 inches shorter as she is shown here.

also shuichi’s shoulder is disproportionate and horrendous and he looks vaguely like a jojo character, but I wasn’t even thinking about that until right now.

thanks guys, 50% of the fandom who has never bothered to check these bios thinks that kaede is like 5′3 (did the developers really put so little thought into her to the point where drawing her correctly in the game didn’t even matter??)

also I would like to point out that, even though this isn’t related to the art itself, yes, a character kaede’s size being only 117 lbs is unfeasible, but this applies to literally every character in danganronpa ever and it’s not new news that it’s unrealistic

update: someone in the tags informed me that in versions of the game that use centimeters, like the japanese version, kaede is actually shorter than shuichi, which just adds another thing to the list of weird decisions the localization team made for no reason. that said, after confirming this, kaede is 167 cm in the original, while shuichi is 171 cm, which are approximately 5′6 and 5′7 respectively, but one inch is still nowhere near as drastic as it is depicted above. (in spite of this, I would rather depict kaede as slightly taller, so I’m probably going to keep doing that.)

the journey continues!

bro if you want kaede to have shoulder length hair then stick to it to begin with

you can pretend this is at an angle all you want but they definitely committed the shorter kaede sin a second time

wait a goddamn second.

DO YOU SEE THIS

no………… it wasn’t kaede who shrank. it was shuichi who got taller

speaking of which, can we talk about how shady the perspective is in this elevator pic? look at shuichi and kokichi in comparison to kaede. kokichi, who is canonically 7 inches (edit: or 5, if you’re loyal to the original) shorter than kaede, looks taller than kaede. he’s growing too. what steroids are these gays taking

running into the room, electric boogaloo: I don’t think tsumugi is supposed to be the same height as kokichi

gonta… gonta you’re lookin a bit like a jojo character there

I love how kaito’s head looks kind of like it was pasted onto his body. why is he the same size as shuichi? shouldn’t he be high school bully size or something? his torso is teensy

ah yes, white angie.

I love this cg but why is shuichi’s right hand so much bigger than his left hand

I also love how this cg looks like they literally took pictures of trees and pasted them into the background, especially on the left. the shadows are so weird, especially closer to the ceiling, it’s difficult for me to believe they didn’t do exactly that.

return of Enlarged shuichi

puberty update: kokichi is now taller than shuichi in spite of shuichi never missing leg day. what crimes will he commit

I have to mention it, guys. this has to be one of the worst danganronpa cgs. kokichi’s facial proportions look atrocious. look at the way his face sticks out like his jaw is in the wrong place. his scarf is a pasted texture. that’s it. this moment was so iconic but the cg just looks so… so… off. like something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

you know what? let’s get into that ‘pasted texture’ thing.

let’s imagine you’re an artist working on a professional game. you’re assigned to draw cgs of kokichi ouma, who has a checkered scarf from hell. sure, it will be terrible to draw, but you only have to draw it once at a time! plus, perspective is pretty important, right? can you be bothered? nah, actually. let’s just copy paste a checkered pattern into the cg, because I’m sure nobody will notice. it’ll blend right in with the other cgs that someone actually put effort into drawing his scarf in, right?

no. the answer is no and I very much noticed. this genuinely looks terrible and I would understand taking a shortcut like that in fanart or even an indie game but this is a full price pc and console distributed game

(an addition: look at kokichi’s TINY HANDS in that last one)

meanwhile, they straight up forgot to color in kokichi’s scarf in this cg.

dude. I forgot about whatever the hell this cg was. anyway look at keebo please just look at him

lovin kaito’s baby arms

real talk, maybe you could argue that he’s missing muscle because he’s deathly sick, but most of his cgs don’t line up with this, and his arms just look disproportionate to his torso size (granted this is a consistent problem across all danganronpa games and a lot of characters have this weird problem, like hajime, but also kaito is bigger than hajime so I kind of have higher expectations of him) maybe it’s his stupid goatee and the way he reminds me of yasuhiro?? it creates this illusion that he’s older than he is and so I keep expecting him to look more like an adult

oh, also rantaro is missing some of his accessories in that video he made–you know the one–but I don’t wanna go back and screenshot it

also you may have noticed that I’m skipping all of the monokub cgs because I literally do not care about them and I’m not even bothering to check and see if they have artistic mistakes in them

JIMMY NEUTRON???

hey um uh kaito you seem to be missing your neck

hey guys do you like my pregame fanart

so, that done, the sprites are also pretty terrible at times. they’re not as interesting to go through, however, and downloading the full sprite sets for every character and studying every single one of them will drive me insane, so I’ll just sum some of the ones I noticed up. I made things for kaede and shuichi before deciding I wasn’t going to get into it, so here are these.

that said, other mistakes include kokichi missing his purple highlights in all of the sprites encompassing a specific pose, stray pixels all over the place on everyone, and everyone also has heavily inconsistent shading, but literally all I think about is how pregame shuichi is unshaded and two of kaede’s pregame sprites have glaring outfit change mistakes in them

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous ramble. in all seriousness, there’s this looming presence of some lack of communication in the development team, like with all the art and design inconsistencies, pieces and sprites that look rushed, stray pixels, and missing basic proportional stuff. these are the kinds of things that you supposedly have to pretty much have in the bag in order to get jobs in professional businesses, so it’s really weird to me that this game suffers from so many of these problems. it’s like they tried to make the art so much more crisp than the other games, but it fell on its face as they realized it was going to take longer to draw everything and they started to rush. it’s weird, because the coloring itself looks normal–it’s just sloppily drawn, and the proportions are a mess once put into the context of perspective. many of the cgs look like they were drawn by different people, and I’m still not over the fact that half of kokichi’s cgs have his scarf pasted in as a texture.

the moral of the story is that if you’re selling a game at full price that also happens to be in a series that has had 3 very good games in it already the stakes should probably be higher than this. v3 has been out for more than 3 years and it’s still $40 (did it cost more than that before? I sure hope not), and the overarching quality of the game is just not as high as the other games. I’m not saying that the other games don’t have any problems with their art at all, they’re just not as glaringly obvious and every artistic choice in those games feels intentional.

regardless, I had a blast roasting the art at 2am, so maybe you got a kick out of all this chaos.

[dmsden]

A History Lesson - Looking back at D&D’s history

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Well, this is the 5th Monday in March, and that means I get to write about anything I want! It’s also my birth month, which means it’s my anniversary of getting into D&D (42 years!), and that has me feeling nostalgic. Coupled with a discussion I had recently with some friends, I thought it would be fun to look back at the various editions of D&D and give you all a bit of history. I’m not going to get into Gygax vs Arneson or any of that. I’m only talking about the published game itself, not its creators or its storied origins.

The original D&D (or OD&D as it’s sometimes called) came in a small box. It had three booklets inside - Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures - along with reference sheets and dice. Each was softcover and roughly the same dimensions as a DVD/BluRay case. The game was pretty rudimentary - for one thing, it assumed you already had a copy of Chainmail, D&D’s direct wargame predecessor. It also recommended you have a game called Outdoor Survival for purposes of traveling through the wilderness. It had only three classes - fighting man, magic-user, and cleric - and nothing about playing other races. It did have the insane charts that 1st edition would ultimately known for, and it was possible to play a pretty fun game of D&D with it, as its popularity would come to show.

The game expanded through similar chapbooks - Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, Gods Demigods & Heroes, Swords & Spells. With the exception of the last one, each brought new facets to the game - new classes like Thief and Monk, new spells, new threats. It was clear the game was going to need an overhaul, and it got one.

I consider this overhaul to yield the real “1st Edition”, as so much of the game didn’t exist in those original games. The game split into a “Basic” game, just called Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

The basic game was a boxed set that included a rulebook, a full adventure module, and dice...or, well, it was supposed to contain dice. The game was so popular and new in those days that demand for dice outstripped production. My copy of D&D came with a coupon for dice when they became available and a sheet of “chits” - laminated numbers meant to be put into cups (we used Dixie Cups with the name of the die written on it), shaken, and a random number pulled out without looking. It was meant to introduce new players to the game, so it was a trimmed down version. Races were human, elf, dwarf, and halfling, and classes were fighter, cleric, magic-user, and thief. The box only included rules for going up to 3rd level, with the intention that players would then graduate into AD&D. This is where I joined, with the old blue cover box set and In Search of the Unknown, before Keep on the Borderlands even existed.

AD&D was the game in its full glory. Along with the races I mention above, we got half-elves, half-orcs, and gnomes. The four basic classes also had sub-classes, like paladin and ranger for the fighter, druid for the cleric, illusionist for the wizard, and assassin for the thief. There were rules for multi-classing, as well as “Dual-classing”, a sort of multi-class variation for humans only, which, when done in the correct combination, could yield the infamous bard...which didn’t actually yield any bard abilities until around level 13 or so.

This edition had 5 different saving throws for things like “Death Magic”, “Petrification & Polymorph”, “Spells”, and so on. It had the infamous Armor Class system that started at 10 and went down, so that having a -3 AC was very good!  It also had specific attack matricies for each class; you would literally look on a table to determine the number you needed to roll on a D20 based on your class, your level, and your opponent’s armor class. It was fun, but it was very complicated.

It also had some, frankly, shitty rules. There was gender disparity in terms of attributes, which my group totally ignored. Because the game designers wanted humans to be a competitive the game, and because non-humans had so many abilities and could multiclass, non-humans were severely limited in the levels they could achieve in most classes. In fact, some classes, such as monk and paladin, were restricted only to humans.

As the years went on, things got a bit muddled. It probably didn’t help that the rules in Basic D&D and AD&D didn’t perfectly line up. In D&D, the worst armor class was a 9. In AD&D, the worst armor class was a 10. All of this led to an overhaul, but not one considered a separate edition. AD&D mostly got new covers and new books, like the Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeon Survival Guide, Monster Manual 2, and the Manual of the Planes. It got a number of new settings, too. In addition to the default Greyhawk setting, we got the Forgotten Realms setting for the first time, details of which had been appearing in Dragon Magazine for years, thanks to the prolific Ed Greenwood. We also, eventually, got the whole Dragonlance saga, which yielded the setting of Krynn.

In this new version, Basic D&D broke off into its own game system to some degree. Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling started being treated like classes rather than races, with specific abilities at different levels. Higher level characters could be created using progressive boxes - Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal, each with its own boxed set and supported by Mystara, a completely different setting that got its own updates over the years. It was odd, because D&D essentially was competing for players with AD&D, and I remember arguments with friends over which version was better (I was firmly in the AD&D camp.)

In 1989, when I was in college, they finally brought forth 2nd edition D&D. This streamlined things a little. Armor Class still went down, but now attack rolls boiled into a single number called To Hit Armor Class 0, or THAC0. It made the whole process of figuring out what you needed to roll a bit less cumbersome, but it was still a bit awkward. The classes got a lot of overhaul, including making Bard its own core class. But what I remember best about 2nd edition was the boom in settings. This was the age of settings, and many beloved ones got started, including Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer.

It was also the age of the “Complete Handbooks”. They brought out splatbooks about every class and race in the game, as well as books expanding several concepts for the DM, such as the Arms & Equipment Guide, the Castle Guide, and the Complete Book of Villains. There were also splatbooks about running D&D in historic periods, such as Ancient Rome, among the ancient Celts, or during the time of the Musketeers. The game got new covers for the rule books again, and a bunch of books about options started coming out. It was a boom time for books, but many people complained there was too much.

Without going too deep, TSR ended up in severe financial troubles. They declared bankruptcy, and there was real fear of the game going away. And then Wizards of the Coast (WotC) stepped in. They helped TSR get back onto its feet, and they helped produce some modules specifically engineered to help DM’s bring an end to their campaign...possibly even their whole campaign world...because something big was coming.

That something big was, of course, 3rd edition D&D. The game got majorly streamlined, and many sacred cows ended up as hamburger. AC finally started going up instead of down. Everything was refined to the “D20″ system we’ve been playing ever since. Races could be any class. There were no level or stat limits for anyone. After years of the game being forced into tight little boxes, it really felt like we could breathe. I had stopped playing D&D, but 3rd edition brought me back into the fold. I often say that 3E was made for the players who’d felt constricted and wanted more flexibility.

The trouble with 3E, and its successor 3.5, is that it was still a dense and difficult game for newcomers to get into. It’s been acknowledged that D&D essentially created many of the systems we see and know in other games - experience points, leveling up, hit points, etc. But trying to break into the experience for the first time was difficult. The look of 3E was gorgeous, but I understood that it must seem awfully daunting to someone who’d never played.

4E and its follow-up, Essentials, was an attempt to course correct that. They tried to make this edition incredibly friendly to new DMs, and, frankly, they succeeded. By creating player classes and monsters and magic-items that were all very plug and play, they did a great job of creating a game that someone who had never DMed before could dive into with no experience or mentor and start a game pretty easily. Encounter design was given a lot of ease, and there were promises of a robust online tool system that would help out with many of the more tedious aspects of playing.

There was also a lot of shake up in terms of choices. Suddenly, new classes and races were proliferating like crazy. We got the dragonborn, the tiefling, and the eladrin right in the core book, but we said good-bye to the gnome and half-orc at first. Suddenly the warlock was the new class everyone wanted to try. We got paragon paths and epic destinies that would really shape a character as time went on. The game went very tactical, as well, which some of us loved. The concept of rituals came into the game. Later books like the Player’s Handbook 2 and 3 gave us back gnomes and half-orcs, and also gave us minotaurs, wilden, shardminds, and githzerai. We got new psionic classes, brand new class concepts like the Runeknight and the Seeker...

But there was a tremendous backlash. People felt that, in making the game so very plug and play, they’d taken a ton of choice away from the players. Without the tools (which were never that robust, frankly), it was almost impossible to navigate the massive panoply of options. And, worse, it was harder and harder to develop encounters without those tools. People complained that the game had gone more tactical in order to sell miniatures and battlemats. Given that I have never played the game without miniatures and battlemats (since I started in the days when D&D was still half-wargame), I found this odd, but I also understand my style of play isn’t everyone’s.

The one argument I will never understand is that it didn’t “feel” like D&D, or it was somehow ONLY a tactical game and not a role-playing game any more. Again, given that the original game didn’t even call itself a role-playing game, this felt odd. Personally, I roleplay no matter what game I’m playing. If I’m playing Monopoly, I’m roleplaying, doing voices, and pretending to be something I’m not. I honestly enjoyed 4E, and I know a lot of folks who did, too. A lot of it may simply come down to style of play. But I also enjoyed all the games that came before, including Pathfinder. To paraphrase the YouTube content creator The Dungeon Bastard, “Does your game have dungeons? Does it have dragons? Great. I wanna play.”

As a sidenote, in the months leading up to 4E’s release, a lot of internet videos were released by WotC emphasizing the nature of change and talking about differences in the rules. They also released some preview books showing the direction they were heading. WotC must have anticipated that people were going to find this edition very different indeed. They also cleverly brought in some very funny folks - Scott Kurtz from PVPOnline and Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade - and got them to play D&D for podcasting purposes. Looking back, this must’ve brought in a lot of listeners who might never have played D&D and given them a reason to try it out.

After its release, WotC clearly noted that missteps had been made, as this edition of the game was losing them players. They began work on what they referred to as D&D Next, and, this time, they did massive amounts of playtesting, some of which I participated in.

I don’t feel like I have to describe 5E to any of you, Dear Readers, as you could go to virtually any store and pick it up. I am a big fan of 5E’s simplicity and elegance, and I suspect this is the edition of D&D we’re going to have for some time to come, especially given its popularity. Given the effect of podcasts like Critical Role (and I might save an article on Critical Role’s importance to D&D until my next Freestyle article), D&D is likely more popular now than it’s ever been, with a much wider and more diverse audience than ever before.

I know I’m painting with broad strokes here, but I hope this was, at least, entertaining, and maybe you learned something, Gentle Readers. Until we next meet, may all your 20s be natural.

[water-writings]

Shards on AO3

Marnie Hemmings and Wally West have been friends for as long as they can remember. Living down the street from each other will do that. But Marnie has noticed her friend's lack of attention to plans and lies. When a field trip goes wrong and puts Marnie in the hospital, it brings the two friends even closer in more ways than one. Along with fear, pain, and a dark force after Marnie.

I finally posted chapter 1 of Shards on AO3. I’m trying to get more into posting on that site in addition to FF.net. I’ve used FF.net since high school so I’m so used to posting there so I’ll probably slip up every now and then and forget to post updates on AO3. But I’ll do my best. 

You can read it here!

Edit by the amazing @biscottibitch​ / @pen-in-hand​

Tag list @pen-in-hand​ @apocalyvse​ @nightwingshero​ @loopally​ @starsandstormyseas​ @ocfairygodmother​ @witchofinterest​ @demidemongoddess​ @oathofoaks​ @childish-kiwi​​ If you would like to be tagged or removed from the tag list let me know and I will fix it :)

Here’s a little snippet of the chapter!

She glanced down at her phone with a huff. 8:15. The tapping of her foot was one of the few sounds that she could hear besides the sounds of birds chirping and the occasional car driving down the street.

They were going to be late at the rate he was going. School started at 9 o'clock and they still had to walk to get there and then there was the matter of getting their books from their lockers. She did not want a tardy on her record.

The sound of a door slamming shut and hurrying footsteps came from behind her. She already knew what he was going to say before she even turned around to look at him.

"I'm sorry, Marnie," he said, sounding barely winded. It always amazed her as to how he could be late and never be out of breath whenever he raced to her. "I misplaced my Literature homework and was running around looking for it."

Marnie rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure you mean you were racing to get your Literature homework finished." She crossed her arms and shook her head. "We both know you don't like Literature, Wally, and it's not the first time you've done the homework at the very last minute. Heck, you usually ask me to do it for you. What's your grade in the class again?"

"A C…" Wally mumbled, glancing down at his feet.

"That's only because I help you with the homework and assignments. Not to mention helping you study for the tests." She sighed before giving her friend a smile. "Come on, let's go."

They began walking side by side at a steady, quick pace. Marnie was setting it as she didn't want to be late to school. Thankfully it wasn't hot this morning so they wouldn't have to worry about looking like a sweaty mess when they arrived. Marnie couldn't stand to have a single frizzy hair stand out of place.

"But I did it all on my own this time," the red head said, holding up the paper homework with a grin.

The girl didn't look as amused as him and raised a brow skeptically. Without a word she held out her hand. "Let me see it."

"Thanks, Marn," Wally said with a chuckle as he handed her the paper. "I think I did pretty well on these questions. And I didn't even need your help." He grinned triumphantly as he adjusted his backpack on his shoulders.

"Wally...your class is reading Great Gatsby, right?" the brown haired girl asked, glancing at her friend over the top of the homework.

"Yeah, why?"

"Do you know who Dan Cody is?"

Wally's face faltered for a split second before he recovered, clearing his throat. "Well duh. He's uh Gatsby's butler. He helps take care of Gatsby and his house...and he gives him great advice on life while keeping him in line?" His voice rose by the end of the sentence, his face scrunching up with a look of unease and uncertainty.

"Yeah, no." Marnie lowered the sheet as she looked forward, waiting for the street light to change so they could cross the street. "How did you even come up with that?"

"Oh you know...inspiration sometimes just lurks in a dark corner and hits you in the face when you least expect it." The redhead's face squinted sheepishly as he gave her another grin.

A look of pure puzzlement grew on the female's face as she stared at Wally. "I don't understand you sometimes. No. Dan Cody is the man Gatsby saved from a storm and he offered Gatsby a job. He's Gatsby's mentor and Gatsby wouldn't be where he is without him."

"Oh," Wally chewed the inside of his cheek. "I uh knew that."

"Sure you did. And can you tell me the symbolism Gatsby's house represents?" the girl asked, passing the paper back to the boy, who still continued to give a sheepish grin to his friend. No answer came from the red head. "I thought so."

"Can I ask my amazing best friend to tell me?" he asked, slinging an arm over Marnie's shoulders.

With a roll of her eyes, Marnie sighed. "Gatsby's mansion basically symbolizes two broad themes of the 1920s. It represents the grandness of the 20s," she said, lifting her left hand up. "It being a giant mansion, and the 1920s being all glitz and glamor." She raised her right hand up. "And the emptiness of the 20s. I don't think I need to elaborate on that one. And the second theme is Gatsby's love for Daisy. His house basically represents that as well. He used his 'new money' to build it to rival those with 'old money' that had taken her away from him."

"Geez, Marnie, how do you remember all this?" Wally asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Every book we've read since middle school you were able to pick out every detail in it and come up with the symbolism in it. It's amazing." He gave her a big grin and chuckled.

A light dusting of pink covered Marnie's cheeks as she smiled back at her friend. "Thanks, Wally, but it's nothing really. I just know what the teachers want us to find." She shrugged, turning her head to look in front of them.

[pzos-amiserableidiot]

I love striders so much so here’s all the interesting tidbits, trivia, and lore I could find on them from https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Strider, https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Zombified_Piglin, https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/meet-strider. After the readmore is facts copy and pasted from these sites themselves.

Only adult zombified piglins spawn on striders. Zombified piglins are zombified versions of both piglins and piglins brutes; as well as pigs struck by lightning. If a zombified piglins is riding the strider, the strider pursues the player if the zombified piglin is angered.

Striders are the only mob capable of walking on lava. When swimming in flowing lava they move more slowly than they would on land, especially when against the flow.

Water, rain, and splash water bottles harm striders. They take damage from rain even in lava. For some reason striders don’t take damage from water in a filled cauldron. However, what’s confirmed not to be a bug is that they don’t take damage from any form of snow.

When out of lava striders turn purple, have a deeper frown, shiver, and move slower. With the speed effect striders move faster on both land and lava, still moving significantly slower on land. Due to a bug, striders take fall damage when falling from a height into lava source blocks.

A baby strider that spawns on an adult strider still grows into an adult but adult striders on adult striders don’t spawn naturally. Baby striders not walking on an adult follow the closest adult strider.

When being ridden they aren’t attracted to warped fungus outside of it (placed, another player with warped fungus, or held) even if not being directed by warped fungus on a stick by the rider.

Baby striders obtained through breeding take 20 irl minutes to grow up. This can be slowly accelerated by feeding them warped fungus; 10% off the remaining time to grow up with each use.

For every strider that spawns, there is a 1 in 10 chance of an additional baby strider to spawn riding on top of the previous strider. A baby strider on the adult strider continues to grow although it does not dismount the adult strider once it has grown up. Zombified piglins have a 1 in 30 chance of spawning on top of a strider, creating a strider jockey. If this happens, the strider spawns with a saddle and the zombified piglin spawns carrying a warped fungus on a stick. The zombified piglin also does not despawn (except on Peaceful difficulty).

Adult striders drop 2–5 string upon death. The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 2–8 with Looting III.‌

Striders wearing a saddle always drop the saddle upon death, regardless of if they spawn wearing it or if a player puts it on them. In fact, the only way to remove a saddle from a strider is to kill the strider.

When an adult strider is killed by a player or tamed wolf, 1–2‌ xp / 1–3‌ xp experience is dropped.

Unlike most mobs, striders can walk on lava.

Upon being harmed by another mob, striders attempt to flee for a few seconds while making "retreat" noises.

Striders are damaged by water, rain, and splash water bottles,‌ which deal damage by 1 per splash water bottle or half-second in water or rain, which can kill them. Striders still take damage from rain even if they are in lava. However, they are not harmed when standing in a filled cauldron. They also cannot be harmed by snowfall, neither can they be harmed by snowballs. They also are not immediately damaged by powder snow, which has been confirmed to not be a bug.

Striders outside of lava change to a purple color, change their expression to more of a frown, and shiver. They also move slower when outside of lava.

If a strider has the Speed effect applied to it, the strider moves faster on both land and lava (though its land speed is still considerably slower).

If a zombified piglin is riding a strider, the strider pursues the player if the zombified piglin is angered.

Due to a bug, striders that fall from a height take fall damage when landing in lava.

A baby strider on an adult strider still grows into an adult. Adult striders riding other adult striders do not spawn naturally. Baby striders not walking on an adult follow the closest adult strider.

striders move forward automatically while their direction is influenced using a warped fungus on a stick, at a speed of 4.14 m/s if on a flat lava surface (such as the Nether lava sea) or 1.74 m/s if on land. Striders move much more slowly in flowing lava than on land.[more information needed] They swim especially slowly against the lava flow direction.

In Java Edition, saddled striders being ridden by players never move on their own accord (when not seeking lava within around 10 seconds) unless being directed. In Bedrock Edition, striders wander around freely when ridden by a player not directing it. Once in lava and unmounted, striders actively seek lava or wander around when not seeking lava.

A strider ridden into flowing lava slowly rises to the top. Fall damage does not affect striders that have dropped onto flowing lava, unlike the bug for lava source blocks.

When ridden over land, striders automatically walk up any one block high slope. They also cross any 1-wide block gap or air space that is only one block higher - diagonally up - when ridden directly upward and not completely sideways to the slope.

When being ridden (by a player, zombified piglin, or another strider), a strider is not attracted to warped fungus outside it. Whether held, or warped fungus on a stick of another player, or else placed. Even if not being directed by a warped fungus on a stick, of the rider.

If striders are given warped fungus, they breed to create baby striders, granting the player 1–7 experience orbs. The parent striders have a cooldown of about 5 minutes before they can breed again. All babies obtained through breeding take 20 minutes to grow up. The growth of baby striders can be slowly accelerated using warped fungus; each use takes 10% off of the remaining time to grow up.

Trivia

Striders are the only passive mob that spawns exclusively in the Nether except for hoglins and piglins on peaceful difficulty.

Striders are the only (non-zombified) mob introduced in the Nether Update that do not zombify when leaving the Nether.

Striders are the only mob that can spawn in every Nether biome.

The strider is one of two mobs that can naturally spawn with a saddle. The other is the Ravager.

If commands are used to saddle a baby strider, and the player rides the baby strider, the player takes fire damage.

At one point in the strider's development, before it was added to the game, a strider out of lava would retract its legs start to take damage and bounce around until they died, similar to how fish suffocate when out of water. This feature was discarded for being too sad.

Part of the reason that striders drop string was to answer the question of "how do piglins make crossbows?"

The bobbing animation that the strider makes while walking was initially an accident. However, the developers thought it was "quirky and fun", so it was added as a feature.

Striders now have the correct health of 20 × 10 instead of 15 × 7.5.

——————

The Nether is crawling with hostile mobs who won’t hesitate to make player pudding out of you given the chance. However, there is an exception: an adorable anomaly that couldn’t care less about you, me, or Bob’s debris-hoarding. We call this happy little accident the Strider.

“The Strider is unique in the sense that it is the only non-aggressive mob in the Nether,” says Brandon Pearce, developer on the gameplay team who’s been heavily involved in the Striders design. “Some players were scared of it, because that’s what they’d expect from something in the Nether, and because it was seen as somewhat ugly – only to realize ‘Oh wow, it’s actually peaceful!’”

I beg your pardon? Ugly? Preposterous! The Strider is a natural beauty; a grumpy yet charming smile, long silver hair, and a perfect block-shaped body held up by two elegant legs – what’s not to LOVE?!

Sure, the Strider may appear somewhat meek but it’s all for show. On the contrary, the Strider is probably the toughest being in the Nether thanks to its rather unique ability of being completely fireproof. While many mobs would meet a certain doom in lava, the Strider thrives in it. According to Brandon, there’s a practical reason for it, besides the obvious bragging rights.

Random fact XVII: The Strider drops string, and the reason behind it is because of how its beautiful bristles resemble the material. Brandon explains: “There was kind of a point where players were asking ‘How do Piglins make crossbows? Where does the string come from?’ – so there you go, strings come from Striders!”

2000 degrees hot liquid baths

A ride on a Strider can be a shaky experience. Not just because of your own palpable fear of falling into lava and losing all your belongings, but because of the Strider’s moveset. When it walks, it wobbles back and forth, like that bobblehead in your parent’s car you simply can’t stop poking. Extremely charming, but also a complete accident if you ask Brandon.

“Animations in Java’s version of Minecraft aren’t done with an external tool. Instead, it’s basically math functions that make them move in a certain way. At one point, I was playing around with this, and the Strider just did this sort of wobble from side to side. It felt quirky and fun, especially in combination with the Strider’s… unique appearance. It just made it look so lovable!”

Parking your Strider mount can be quite a hassle. Not because of the Nether’s terrible Sunday traffic or shortage of parking lots in bastion remnants, but because of its relation to anything but lava. A Strider that leaves its boiling bath for a walk on land will soon turn purple and start shivering.

Really? A mob that spends most of its time in a burning ocean will freeze on land? Don’t worry Strider, I’ll knit you a nice warm sweater for the winter holidays! The freezing mechanic wasn’t Brandon’s first idea though, but probably the best given his earlier drafts:

“In one of my first versions their legs would just retract in and they would bounce around and take damage until they died, which was kind of sad,” he admits. “Now people create lava pools just so they can keep Striders warm. There’s nothing that forces players to do that from a mechanics perspective – but they still feel compelled to because they’re so immersed in the world and want to be nice to these creatures. That’s so interesting from a design perspective and I hope we’ll be able to carry that into future features down the line.”

Freezing on land, ferrying players across lava lakes… It's obvious to me that we don’t deserve this pure little beast.

——————

A piglin or piglin brute that enters the Overworld or The End transforms into a zombified piglin after 15 seconds. When baby piglins transform into zombies, they do not have weapons, unlike baby zombified piglins that naturally spawn, and when piglin brutes transform into zombies, they keep their axes.

A zombified piglin keeps any armor or weapons collected before being zombified‌.

Baby zombified piglins also have a 5% chance of becoming a chicken jockey‌.

[isisparker]

My marvelous MPUB theorists, ever since I’ve realized a good bulk of us like theorizing and speculating what the heck is going on with this show, for my own benefit I compiled a timeline of the events that happened 500 years ago. I know they were told in flashbacks, but I thought it’d be more helpful in the order I believe that the events unfolded. 

It’s pretty up to date with the latest episode, but since I also wanted to share it with you all, if I’m missing something please let me know and I’ll edit this! As the episodes reveal more and more, I’ll do my best to keep up and edit so this tells a more comprehensive story!

Weol Ju’s Past Life [updated: as of Episode 11*]

Weol Ju living her [best life] with her mom, both gifted shamans in their own right [Weol Ju deals with dreams while her mom, I believe, is more into future reading]. 

Weol Ju and her mother sometimes go to the caves where the Cinnabar, a sacred rock meant for both its healing abilities and chasing away evil spirits, resides.

Weol Ju’s mother is against Weol Ju using her gift. Tells her to see a matchmaker, advises her to get married [and essentially lead a normal life]. Weol Ju scoffs at that and says that she’s let fate bring her love and THAT’s when she’ll marry.

The Cinnabar takes human [female] form at night to visit the locals. On one of her nightly strolls, she comes across a handsome man and falls in love at first sight. *

The Queen prays to the Sacred Tree to help heal the Crown Prince.

The Court Lady approaches the Queen, telling her that there is a shaman that could possibly help the Crown Prince.

The Queen sends out a Royal Command to Weol Ju.

Weol Ju and the Queen meet. The Queen orders Weol Ju to read the Crown Prince’s dreams.

Weol Ju reads the Crown Prince’s dream and immediately tells the Queen what’s troubling him: vengeful spirits that the Royal Family had killed are haunting his dreams.

Weol Ju advises that the spirits need to be comforted instead of destroyed. She says that they should dig up the bodies in the woods, place them in graves where the sun hits [I’m assuming in an open field] and have a memorial for them.

The Queen needs a location for the bodies in the woods, so Weol Ju requests for a couple days with the Crown Prince [reading his dreams] so she can talk to the spirits and find out where they are buried.

The Queen gives her approval. States that to save the Crown Prince’s life, she’s willing to do anything. [probably not a big tidbit but who knows, this may be important motivation later on?]

The Cinnabar and her handsome suitor often meet at night and she offers pieces of the rock [herself]. He insists that he’ll keep on gifting these pieces of cinnabar stones to those that need healing. * 

The first couple of nights Weol Ju spends in the Crown Prince’s dreams are restless and tense. She’s doing her job and comforting the souls.

The Crown Prince awakens during one of her sessions and asks for her to hear his story since she’s spent this entire time hearing the stories of all these spirits she’s been helping. 

The Crown Prince admits to Weol Ju that he heard her voice from the start [of her healing him] and immediately fell in love.

The Crown Prince heals and [I’m assuming] they found the bodies of those vengeful ghosts and gave them a proper burial.

The Queen meets with Weol Ju. Weol Ju says she won’t enter the Crown Prince’s chambers anymore as she was able to comfort all the spirits that haunted the Crown Prince. The Queen agrees that the Crown Prince looks better and that he’s smiling now. The Queen expresses her gratitude on behalf of the Royal Family. She wants to compensate Weol Ju but Weol Ju doesn’t want anything for it as she’s happy to have helped.

The Queen won’t take no for an answer and delivers many gifts to Weol Ju.

Weol Ju looks bothered by having received all these gifts. Reason why? Because she and the Crown Prince started to fall in love with each other.

The Crown Prince seeks Weol Ju out and confesses his unwavering love to her. Weol Ju is hesitant as she thinks he’s just really grateful for her helping him. 

The Crown Prince makes himself sincere and finds ways to see and spend time with her. Enter his childhood friend, Kim Won Hyung. He is also the handsome suitor that meets with the Cinnabar. The Crown Prince introduces his friend to Weol Ju. He also uses “hanging out with his childhood friend at night” as an excuse to see Weol Ju.

When Weol Ju leaves after every night she spends with the Crown Prince, Won Hyung walks her home. They inform the Crown Prince that they talk [teasing that Won Hyung shares stories about him to her].

The people in and around the palace start to notice the “dazed [besotted] look” on the Crown Prince’s face. People start speculating and gossiping. Talks about how much valuables she received from the Queen, how she probably seduced the Crown Prince, that he visits her every night. Overall opinion? Weol Ju had “bewitched” the Crown Prince.

Weol Ju’s mom overhears the rumors. She’s [rightly] bothered.

The Queen and her Court Lady speculate as to what is up with the Crown Prince now. The Court Lady thinks that maybe Weol Ju’s abilities had a side-effect.

The Queen summons Weol Ju. The Queen confronts Weol Ju for being involved with the Crown Prince. She warns Weol Ju to never set foot inside the palace again and that if she sees her again, she’ll be killed. The Queen also threatens Weol Ju’s mom as well. 

Weol Ju starts to have a restless night as she contemplates what to do when the Crown Prince visits her [again]. 

She frets and wonders if he came alone, if anyone saw them, what was he doing here? She also tells him that if he keeps this up, he will get both herself and her mom in serious trouble.

The Crown Prince assures her that as his future role involves protecting a “whole kingdom”, he can, OF COURSE, protect the woman he loves. He asks her to trust him.

They embrace, him happily and, despite her still feeling troubled, she returns his embrace.

Following day, the Queen informs the Crown Prince that the arranged marriage they had planned for prior to when he had gotten ill is back on now that he’s healthy again. He is to marry Lord Kim Jin’s daughter. Lord Kim Jin is the father of Won Hyung. The Crown Prince starts to protest against it, but she tells him to have her [Weol Ju] disappear from his mind and if not, she [the Queen] will have her disappear for real.

Weol Ju’s mom has a premonition about Weol Ju being in danger.

Weol Ju’s mom talks to Weol Ju. Instructs her to not only dress like her mom but also head off to her uncle’s home in Suwon quickly [as time is running out] and to wear her hair up in a bun.

Weol Ju argues that if she wears her hair in a bun that people will talk because that particular hairstyle signifies her marital status [and she isn’t married, obviously].

Weol Ju’s mom point-blank tells her that there’s more to wedding than a marriage, like LOVE. [ accidentallyadramablog helped clarify in a reblog that Weol Ju’s mom let her daughter know that she knew about her loss of virginity. Netflix subs didn’t exactly make that translation clear. also I myself am not familiar with sageuks so thank you, lovely, for the additional commentary!]

Weol Ju is stunned that her mom basically confirmed she knew of her and the Crown Prince’s affair/relationship.

Weol Ju’s mom talks about the rumors that she knows her daughter is also aware of and that Weol Ju’s now in danger because of it and must seek safety by leaving. She can’t fathom doing this alone and without her mom.

Weol Ju’s mom gives her binyeo to hold onto and find comfort in. That she needs to hold tight and that it will eventually bring Weol Ju the person she desperately seeks. This seems more like a prophecy because she then asks Weol Ju if her advice has ever proven her wrong.

The [infamous] Night Weol Ju leaves, she walks past one of the spots she and the Crown Prince usually meet at. He's planning to give her a jade ring. She watches with longing and sadness, saying goodbye to him from afar.

Weol Ju walks away. She doesn’t see Won Hyung watching her leave.

Won Hyung enters Weol Ju’s house and kills Weol Ju’s mom and sets fire to her home. Unbeknowst to him, the Cinnabar [who has been getting some bad vibes off of him] witnesses him coming out of the house after having committed murder and arson. She decides to stop seeking him out. *

Weol Ju gets a bit outside of the village, at an overlook when she hears and sees a big fire raging at one of the houses.

Weol Ju runs back and realizes that it is HER HOUSE that is burning.

Weol Ju enters and sees her mom, dressed like Weol Ju [hair and all], dead. Weol Ju screams for help while holding her mother. No one comes.

Weol Ju runs to one of the local governor’s, pleading for help. She gets denied help.

Weol Ju runs into Won Hyung, who has blood on one of his arms. She sees the blood and he instantly explains that he had seen an assassin coming out of her house and ran after them. By the time he came back to her house, it was already burning.

She realizes that the assassin thought that her mother was her.

Won Hyung tells her that she has to leave this place quickly.

Weol Ju begs him to take her to the Crown Prince.

Won Hyung says that she can’t see the Crown Prince ever again. When she asks what he means, he explains that the Crown Prince is marrying a woman that the Queen had chosen for him. That the Crown Prince wanted to meet up with her [Weol Ju] one last time to tell of his upcoming marriage.

In a daze, Weol Ju [defeated, hurt, and angry] heads up to where the Sacred Tree and its alter is at. Weol Ju destroys the alter in a rage. She looks over at the village and curses everyone there. She proceeds to hang herself. She dies. A moment later, her binyeo falls from her hair and the ground below her feet breaks upon its impact. The tree crackles and bursts into flames because of her curse.

The spirit of the Sacred Tree [specifically its sorrow] mystically merges into the soul of Weol Ju/Crown Prince’s unborn son.

Won Hyung, notices that Cinnabar has been pulling away from him and seeing him less and less. He follows her one night and discovers where she [the Cinnabar stone] resides.  He enters the cave with the plan to gather all the cinnabar stones and sell them to help him with his plan to overthrow the throne from the Crown Prince’s rule.  The Cinnabar comes out of the stone and tries to stop him and discovers his true self and motivation. Won Hyung “kills” her. *

The Queen prepares the Crown Prince for his arranged marriage. 

The Crown Prince, meanwhile, had discovered [too late] Won Hyung’s plan and the crimes he had committed to getting as far as he did, even making sure that his little sister marries into the Royal Family. He had planned to use the day of his wedding to Lord Kim Jin’s daughter, the day that he thinks his friend will believe his plan will finally come to fruition, as a way to trap him and make him pay for his deceit. *

The Day of the Crown Prince’s Wedding to Lord Kim Jin’s daughter begins with the Crown Prince immediately declaring treason on Won Hyung. Won Hyung denies the charges at first, but his pride and anger eventually have him admitting that he did plot an uprising with the many people he paid off for his loyalty and the weapons he amassed [the money he got for the cinnabar stones]. Most of all, he admitted that he killed Weol Ju’s mother and in doing so managed to rid Weol Ju.*

In a rage, the Crown Prince kills Won Hyung for his betrayal. * Yeom/Lord Kim Jin sided with the Crown Prince’s decision to execute his son.

Later that day, * the Crown Prince is seen, tired and worn, dragging a bloody sword up to where the skeleton of the Sacred Tree stands. He looks up at the burnt branches, defeated and heartbroken. He talks of how he failed Weol Ju and he promises to find her in the next life. That if he does, he’ll do a better job at protecting her. Even if he has to sacrifice his soul to make that happen.

Crown Prince, real name of Yi Hon, kills himself.

Updated from info revealed in Episode 11 - * Episode 12 **

[lanonima]

This is a long post with my more in-depth reviews of all the danmei/baihe novels I’ve read. Although it’s still only a paragraph each. I could do really in-depth reviews of stuff if people cared or if I felt like it, but those would definitely have to be their own posts.

In future updates of my graph, I’ll put these down below a read-more and only show the review for the newest entry. Also after this, I’ll only be tagging the newest one because otherwise things will get nuts.

So anyway, my Thoughts:

Mo Dao Zu Shi

Author: MXTX

 Quality: 9.5

Enjoyment: 10

 Comments: I have a huge emotional connection to this novel. There are some weak parts, the tension isn’t quite even, she’s pretty terrible at erotic scenes and not great at fight scenes...but that being said, I love the characters and some of the plot points really ripped my heart out. This is a novel that’s really driven by the characters so if you’re a character-focused person like me, definitely look into it (as if we all don’t already know it lmao). I really, really love this story. Every single adaptation of it has also been great, but the novel is still my favorite. It was my introduction to xianxia novels too, so you can say it changed my life!

Would I read it again: I’ve already read it twice, and consumed every adaptation (sometimes also multiple times)

 Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Author: MXTX

 Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 5

 Comments: I’m not much of one for comedy and, as I discovered, not really into system novels either. Clearly weaker than MXTX’s later work, many of the characters are somewhat bland, she hasn’t quite found her groove yet. It’s not my style but the fandom is hilarious and the fans constantly produce content that I actually do find entertaining so overall I still have some fond feelings for this one, even if not for the source material.

Would I read it again: I found a different translation and am willing to try again in the future, I’m also willing to watch the donghua. But I can’t guarantee I’ll like it any more than previously.

 Tian Guan Ci Fu

Author: MXTX

 Quality: 10

Enjoyment: 10

 Comments: I love this book...but not as much as I love Mo Dao Zu Shi. I think the plot is somewhat typical, however the characters are great once again (though maybe slightly less deep than MDZS), and her use of thematic repetition and foreshadowing are killer. Actually, I liked this book more the second time around because it just hits differently. Definitely the best of MXTX’s couples, they are so soft and sweet. Very long, but worth it.

Would I read it again: I already have, was personally translating the manhua before I hurt my arms, and am eagerly awaiting the donghua this fall!

 The Villain’s White Lotus Halo

Author: A Big Roll of Toilet Paper

Quality: 10

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: Fuck, I love this one so much.....even though it’s also a system novel. But that part is in it so rarely that it reads more like pure fantasy. I love the characters, I love the plot, I love the way the relationship is developing. Oh yeah, the translation isn’t even complete but I already purchased not only the original from JJWXC but also the print edition. I’ve even drawn fanart for it, which is so unlike me. Every time a chapter comes out, I’m ruined for the rest of the day, I can’t think about anything else. Good fight scenes, which is uncommon. My favorite danmei novel so far.

Would I read it again: I fully intend to once the translation is complete, and also plan to read it in Chinese later (I’ve already read certain parts in Chinese hahaha but not the whole thing)

 2Ha (Husky and his White Cat Shizun)

Author: Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat

Quality: 8

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: 2Ha is not for the faint of heart, it’s very horny, and violent, and has a lot of questionable content. However I love it so much. The story and characters are great, Meatbun really has me by the heart. The writing is a little more on the casual side but it hardly matters because the story is so great. Good fight scenes. Chu Wanning is like, the ultimate Me(tm) character, I hate how much I adore him. If you read this, just go into it knowing that it’s a long emotional journey, the characters are very dynamic and there’s a lot of character development.

Would I read it again: Same as the above, I plan a reread when the translation is done and have read parts in Chinese and might read the whole thing again later. Cautiously eager about the up-coming live action and donghua.

 Di Wang Gong Lue

Author: Yu Xiao Lanshan

Quality: 2

Enjoyment: 9

Comments: This is one of the most terribly written things I’ve ever read, but I’m a character girl and the characters and ways they interact fucking kill me. I’m constantly entertained....although I don’t think this is actually supposed to be a comedy. If I were going to treat myself and like, take a bubble bath and read something that made me laugh, this is exactly the sort of trashy romance I would want to read. Technically a political intrigue story but it’s so abrupt and full of holes, are any of us reading it for the actual plot? The donghua is on Youtube, I watched it first and recommend others to do the same. If you can handle that, you can handle the book because it’s exactly the same in quality, just gayer. I do love the main couple a lot, the set-up surrounding the relationship is great, and the side characters are also really fun.

Would I read it again: Probably not, but I’m still having fun with it. I watched the donghua and read a bit of the manhua as well, which has very cute art and is probably my favorite version of the story.

 Liu Yao

Author: Priest

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 7.5

Comments: I really struggled getting into this one, it took me about 25 chapters to get invested. Initially I had rated it a 6 in enjoyment but after careful thought, I realized that even though it was so hard for me, it probably is my favorite Priest novel and I really do love the main couple so much. Her side characters also seem to be slightly stronger than usual in this one. Decent plot, not too much or too little. It seems really chill to me, doesn’t provoke much of an emotional reaction but I do think it’s very sweet, which is nice sometimes too.

Would I read it again: No, but I think (?) it’s supposed to get some kind of tv adaptation (drama or donghua, not sure), and if that happens, I’ll watch it.

 Didn’t Know the General was Female

Author: Rong Qing

 Quality: 4

Enjoyment: 6

Comments: Not the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but cute. It’s short, and a little lesbian fluff is never a bad thing. Writing is a bit weak and the plot is basic, but the characters are enjoyable and I liked it overall.

Would I read it again: No.

 Wrong Way to a Demon Sect Leader

Author: Yi Zhi Dayan

Quality: 4

Enjoyment: 7

Comments: Again, not the greatest in writing or plot, it’s a bit shallow. But I found the idea of it to be entertaining, and actually liked it more than I would have assumed. It’s fairly short and cute, like a good summer beach read.

Would I read it again: Probably not, but possibly, if the stars align.

 Female General and Eldest Princess

Author: Please Don’t Laugh

Quality: 7

Enjoyment: 6

Comments: A very good first effort, but the writing is a bit weak. It’s slow to start and I don’t think the political plotline is spectacularly strong. Some things were left unexplained, and her sense of battle tactics and fight-writing were very confusing, definitely room for improvement. I don’t think it’s as good as people say, but she writes with the air of someone who will continue to improve. And also, a lesbian author writing lesbian stories so that’s a plus. Overall I enjoyed the experience, this story is definitely worth a read.

Would I read it again: Maybe, but probably not.

 Sha Po Lang

Author: Priest

Quality: 7

Enjoyment: 7

Comments: Originally I rated this one higher, but on later thought I realized that I actually enjoyed Liu Yao more. I personally have issues with the way Priest writes, and this book showed a lot of them. Characters were okay, I did like the main couple, but side characters were weak as usual. The plot is pretty good, though not great, and I think some of the pacing is off. Some descriptions were confusing, but that could be a translation issue. Overall, still a pretty good political drama, but I would say that of the three I read, this was the Priest novel with the least impact on me.

Would I read it again: No. But I will watch the live action if it ever gets made.

 Guardian

Author: Priest

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 5

Comments: I love Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, thought the plot was interesting, and there were some enjoyable moments. But it has all the problems I usually have with Priest in addition to some choices that offend me as a queer reader. I spent about 75% of the time reading while pissed off. And actually the fact that it had a happy ending kinda bummed me out because I love a good tragedy. Overall, I can only give it an average score. If you like Priest, you'll like this one too. I’m not a tv person but I binged the hell out of the live action, I really loved it, so I was sort of disappointed that the source material didn’t seem as strong as I had assumed.

Would I read it again: No, but I will happily watch the live action again some day.