#it'll be okay... ill be okay...

[temporalhiccup]

In an effort to ease out of burn out and try to feel real and human again I'm digging around old games and seeing what would be fun to tinker with. For most of my games they get to at least an Alpha Build/Playtestable stage, but Never Break The Chain is one of the few that didn't quite manage to get that far (though it honestly wouldn't take that much more I think!)

Never Break The Chain mechanically and emotionally is a response to The Eventide Club, which was @jdragsky's response to Apocalypse Keys.

It's clear that this game is partly a love letter to jay dragon's design and how it makes me feel, and I wrote this during a time when I was insecure about my design. I was reeling from the idea that my games were too emotional to be enjoyable, that strangers were never going to like the games I create. (Typical Capricorn, even the way I work through my shit has to be productive in some way)

Every player character is made up of two components: a Musician Playbook and a God Playbook. It's my take on the very popular idea of fallen gods feeding off divine worship as musicians. I wanted to create a really fun and emotionally intense game (inspired by how famously messy Fleetwood Mac and other bands can be, definitely The Wicked + The Divine too).

It's been three years since I took a look at this stuff and it's fun remembering the mechanical shenanigans I was up to: tightening chains, breaking them, creating halos, shattering them, etc. I'll tinker a bit with these mechanics and see what comes of it.

The more complex of the playbooks are the Musician ones. What remains of the divine is raw and simple, ever fading and barely there. In comparison, the Musician playbooks are a chance for me to explore some truly messy human stuff.

Here's the Musician playbook, The Mask, it's mostly intact from the last time I touched it years ago. I just tightened a few options here and there.

I'll spell out the inspiration for this playbook: David Bowie, specifically the maddened Bowie interviewed by Cameron Crowe in 1975.

Bowie was famous for his different personas, and you can see some of them represented in the masks below: Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, Halloween Jack, the Goblin King, and the Minotaur.

This playbook is an exploration of what it could have been like for Bowie exploring these different personas, based on various events written about or talked about in later years, offering points of tension and intensity (deconstructed and awaiting creative input, like always) and hopefully creating explosive moments of playable drama.

I do think this playbook leans most into Bowie's contentious phase as the Thin White Duke. This was a man who was clearly breaking apart on stage, underneath the thinnest veneer of a persona that was holding itself together with a white-knuckled grip. Other personas were haunting him, discarded or never worn. Station to Station is my favorite Bowie album on most days, and his live performances of its music are almost painful to watch (while impossible to look away from).

I think, if we ever get this to playtest, I'll probably leave this playbook mostly as is (barring some mechanical tweaks that will be applied to all playbooks maybe) and just see where things go.

The Mask

You understand better than anyone that music is a story, and that performance is a mask well worn. You have created several Masks and stories over the years, and the Masks have recreated you. But as you seek fame and fortune, will the Mask become more real than you ever could be? One day you'll wake up and there won't be anything of you left, just a blank face both empty and signifying nothing.

Your Name

(Choose 1): A completely made up name that is never questioned, an appropriately dramatic name, a single initial that no one pronounces properly, I change my name every few months, a series of letters and numbers that only makes sense to my fans, a name that is as enigmatic as it is beautiful.

Your Look

(Choose 3-4): A painfully sharp and pale business suit with splatters of paint and blood on it, shades that almost no one has ever seen me take off, hair dyed into every imaginable color, the cruelest smile, the kindest eyes, an intoxicating scent, small and delicate tattoos that tell all my secrets, the body language of a predator, an unexpected scar, something else that betrays my mortality and weakness.

Your Role in the Band:

(Choose 1-3): Lead vocalist, lead guitar, muse, song writer, fuck buddy, everybody's ex, the face of the band, I'm here to look pretty baby

Choose the Mask you currently wear, one Mask you discarded, and one Mask that threatens to consume you.

I am an alien from a dying planet and harbinger of an inescapable apocalypse, my music is wild and haunting

I am royalty from a fictional past and deride the love I desperately need, my music is rhythmic and romantic

I am a rebel leader from a dark future and I shall orchestrate a dystopia of our own making, my music is hypnotic and delirious

I am the fae king who grants ill-cast wishes and offers dark bargains, my music is ethereal and manipulative

I am a serial killer who turns willing victims into impossible art pieces, my music is violent and eerie

I am a fallen angel, on the run from divine hunters and mortal lovers and only you can save me, my music is soft and beautiful

I am a broken doll mimicking life, perfect and made to fulfill your every desire, my music is naive and inviting

I am a warrior from another time and place, only you can heal my wounds and recreate my fate, my music is loud and lustful

As The Mask I gain 2-4 tokens when I:

Hide my true feelings behind a Mask

Ask someone to wear one of my Masks, for now

Give a part of myself to a Mask

When you gain your fifth token:

The divine music swells within you and seeks release. You cannot gain new tokens until you choose one:

Go to another band member and take off your Mask, reveal something vulnerable and raw about yourself. If they reach out to touch your real face, they break a chain. If they do anything else, break one of your chains.

Reflect on the god you once where, and create a new Mask to contain that memory. Your power wanes, crack one halo.

The Mask's Chains:

A whisper that comes from my mouth but doesn't sound like me at all

An embrace that promises more than it should

A kiss that comes dangerously close to unmasking me

One of my Masks on someone else's face

A song I wrote that will weaken a single Mask

A Mask I created that takes a life of its own

A Mask someone else creates to imprison me

Someone I love wearing my true face

The Mask's Move:

When you put on one of your Masks to tell its story, describe how you embody it and how you draw others into your spell. Spend tokens and roll.

On an 8-10 You are in control of the Mask, choose one:

A part of your Mask becomes more real than real, create a new Chain that reflects this.

A part of your true self gives way to the Mask, one Halo becomes whole again.

Someone is inexplicably drawn to you, you have them wrapped around your finger, for now. Say who they are and place a chain on them. If they're a band member, they place a chain on you as well.

On an 11+ The Mask begins to consume you, and you cannot tell the difference between art and reality. Choose one:

Another band member must become a part of your story, both of you place a chain on the other. For now, you are obsessed with crafting a Mask for them to match your own.

One of your fans is convinced the Mask is your true self, you cannot outrun them. For the rest of the scene you are at your fan's mercy. Describe how their obsession for you draws out something painful and real from you. When you return in a future scene gain the chain: an obsessed and dangerous fan

On a 7- your sense of self shatters and the Mask bleeds through. Until you regain your sense of self and remember you are not your Mask, you cannot perform. The Audience will tell you what happens next.

At the start of every session:

Spend a moment with your Masks and consider who they are and what story they have to tell. Choose one:

Put down the Mask you're currently wearing and pick up another, why does this one call out to you?

Change something essential about one of your Masks, what part of you refuses to bend or break?

Create a new Mask, based on someone you're obsessed with and yearn for. What does it feel like when you pretend to be them?

[asurrogateblog]

just because you two are the blue ones to your red counterparts does not mean you're the normal ones

[taegularities]

this is gonna be the absolute worst jk you'll ever see around taegularities town

[gigashadow]

[crsssie]

hey its my first time asking so sorry if im doing this wrong, but for the 1989 tv event can i ask for 21 (is it over now?) with tim drake x fem!reader if possible? thank you!

was it over, and is it over now? - tim drake x reader

You stare at the magazine in hand, blinking slowly as the front page raves all about Tim's new girlfriend. You flip to the page, reading the information and how they got caught by the paparazzi, pausing when you stare at the clearer photo of her.

You scoff, pulling your shades down to raise a brow.

She's a carbon copy of you.

It makes you almost bitter, but it was never your problem.

Tim wasn't a cheater, but the way that it had been less than a week after your breakup and the magazines were already screaming about his new girlfriend made you feel disgusting.

He had lied about how she had had pure intentions when befriending him, and he had lied that the two of them had done nothing when you had asked him for a break in your relationship.

A permanent one.

You moved all of your stuff out over the break, leaving nothing behind. You suppose that's why Tim thought it'd be fine to run around with her so soon.

In technical terms, you hadn't even broken up with him yet.

So you close the magazine as you click through your phone, opening Tim's number, pausing at him typing.

tim: is it over?

You leave him a thumbs up, deleting him from your contacts.

Now it is.

1989 event

[paging-possum]

hm. might fuck around and draw some other peoples ocs just for funsies when I have time its a nice change of pace from what I usually do

[ichabodjane]

Do you know what would be just fantastic???

If ONE (1) pharmacy could, just once, have ALL of my meds in stock so I don't have to scramble to call multiple locations of multiple pharmacies to chase down the things I need to digest food or *checks notes* fucking breathe.

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Kind of surreal to be pulling in slightly larger checks while not changing my spending habits so now I kind of have no excuse to not get myself a pressure cooker or the. the ultrakill blanket

[altruistic-meme]

i only have an hour of work left but the need to Escape is much stronger than expected rn

[sillydizzybxtches]

the overwhelming urge to spend my money on cds and vinyls, but this is the first time i've had good money in a while and i wanna save up :(

[mchib]

sweet potato fries ran out. sorry if my madness really mounts this week

[maraskywalkers]

I'm excited for Buck tell Maddie but if we get a tender scene of him telling Bobby I will actually cry all of the tears possible.

[a-purple-pineapple28]

ok, listen up

to the person who said Before Your Eyes wasn't sad at all

I will find you

[ghostprinceiii]

ykw while we're posting art:

Looks To The Moon from earlier this month, originally drawn and posted on Chicken Smoothie (which is why its a crunchy jpeg since idk how to effectively use that site lmao)

[thorntopieces]

man

[aloeverabagel]

The air is getting fresher and the nights are getting warmer. It makes me think maybe I can keep on living a little longer..

I'll try anyways.

I'm still not quite ready to give in yet.

I hope all this staying around is worth it.