#it's about the rivalry it's about the intensity it's about the intricate rituals

[laviejaguardia]

okay but since we're talking fútbol AU, can i just say that ever since i watched this video i can't stop thinking about a joenicky fútbol AU based on it. i have 0 plot ideas 0 anything only vibes. the enemies to lovers of it all. the sudden tenderness and gentleness with which they try to save each other. peak joenicky imo IDK IDK I JUST HAD TO SHARE THAT BECAUSE IT'S BEEN IN MY HEAD FOR MONTHS

okay first, that video is GOLD ajehjf i love it. there are so many good fútbol moments that could go in fics, like it makes me insaneeee i could talk about it for hours. the switch from enemies to just LADS it's so great

and second, (france lol) i wrote one a while ago.

and a half 🤡🤡🤡

cause LISTEN,,,,, i- i have no excuse i'm just a sucker for these no regrets would write more for sure

[theresattrpgforthat]

Is there a modern Rural or Small Town TTPRG? Without agriculture as a central theme? Maybe something focused on community or the idea of rural? 😳

Theme: Small Town Games

Hello friend, I think I have a few games that might work out for you. Some are collaborative, some are petty, and some are in small towns but the focus in on something a little different.

Turn, by Beau Jágr Sheldon. @beaujagr

Turn is a slice-of-life, rural supernatural tabletop roleplaying game for three to six people. Players are shape-shifters in a small, rural town--able to turn into animals like raccoons, cougars, and bears. They must balance their human lives and habits with their beast lives and instincts, while pursuing acceptance and community with other shifters - and with the mundane humans and beasts that populate the town. 

Players and the Town Manager build their town together using a unique town building system, and create the characters who populate it and the wilderness around it. Turn uses the Script Change toolbox to support player comfort and consent, and explores themes of identity, community, self care, and otherness.

Turn is a rural game that adds a supernatural twist in that your characters are all shapeshifters. The small town is meant to be a setting that will likely challenge your characters and provide emotional growth. The game itself is written very carefully, with essays sprinkled throughout to help you navigate difficult topics that may arise within the game.

Unincorporated, by Ethan Harvey.

An optimistic person might call this place a town. It has a name, a gas station, a few stores. It just doesn’t have many people. Which makes these other losers still hanging around here important. The same few people are your co-workers, your neighbours, your dating prospects, the folks you run into everywhere.

"Friends" might be a stretch, but they know you. Or at least they know who you used to be. They know about all the stupid things you’ve done, and they won’t let you forget it. Nobody gets a clean slate here. But maybe you can shake off your reputation and become something new.

Unincorporated is a collaborative, mostly-GMless story game for 3-5 players who take on the roles of ordinary people caught up in petty rivalries, long-held grudges, intense frenemyships, and hopeless love affairs, all while trying to shake off the weight of expectations.

If what you really want is small-town drama, this might be the game for you. The basic rules are inspired by Powered by the Apocalypse games, and the settings are flexible - you can use a pre-suggested playlet, or build a setting of your own. This means that the game can also be used alongside another ttrpg, if you want to experience the intricate lives of the town your characters live in alongside their larger-than-life adventures.

The Woman of Sayora Village, by luciellaes.

Your country has been at war for several months now, closing on a year. Your village feels empty. Anyone capable of fighting has long since been taken far from home, leaving more than enough work for those left behind. For some, that work is a welcome distraction from the pain and fear of separation, while for others the added burden is overwhelming enough of itself.

Your village feels different. Most of the departing soldiers were men, and those who remain are mostly women, the young and the elderly. Until it happened, you had never quite grasped what a difference this would make. Toxic behaviours that were once tolerated or even celebrated are now shunned and punished. Feminine rituals and celebrations that had begun to fade into obscurity have seen a startling renaissance. Formerly taboo subjects can be discussed openly in the fields and on the streets.

Perhaps when the war ends, things will return to the way they were. Perhaps not. In the meantime, there remains much work to be done.

This is a very specific setting for a small-town game, namely in that it is about a town during a difficult time, and without almost half of its population. This game is also highly interpretive, because it uses a deck of tarot cards, which you will have to interpret as you draw them. The game is also GM-less, which means that everyone at the table will fill similar roles.

I Went To Bourbon, Indiana Once, by Beth and Angel Make Games.

I Went to Bourbon, Indiana Once is a hack of I Went to Seattle Once by Lucky Newt Games which is itself a hack of I Went to Japan Once by James Lennox-Gordon. As per the original, you are friends, family, or perhaps random strangers bored in line at a gas station who all suddenly realize you've been to Bourbon, Indiana, a small little town without much to do. Did you visit either (or both!) of the town's dollar stores?Check out the town gazebo, a local hangout spot? Or perhaps you hit up the Redbox kiosk and relaxed for the night.

Players roll dice and share experiences blending the results of two separate tables, but once too many players tell the same stories over again (as we Midwesterners are wont to do), everyone goes their own way and the reminiscence concludes.

As a game about the traveler's experience of a small town, rather than a resident’s, I went to Bourbon, Indiana Once may provide a unique take on the theme of small-town games. The game includes a number of prompts to provide you with events that happened during your stay, and that’s about it. I think that would make this game pretty hack-able for any small town that you can dream of - and it might also make this a great mini-game to put inside a larger campaign.

Our Town, by Miles Kirk.

Our Town is a theatrical 1 page tabletop roleplaying game with no dice, no masters.

Players take on the roles of citizens in a small town and play through snapshots of their lives from adolescence, to adulthood, to one of their deaths.The game can be played with 3+ players and can take 2-4 hours depending on the size of the group. It provides the opportunity to explore many different subjects surrounding everyday life; safety tools are strongly encouraged during play.

The creation of the town you live in is essential to the play experience of this game. You’ll come up with some basic details about the layout and buildings of the town, but you’ll also populate it, creating relationships between the residents and following them through a day in their life. Then the game moves out to observe the town in the long-term, asking what happens over the course of 10 years, as well as what happens when prominent characters die. If you want a game that looks at the bigger picture rather than a play-by-play, this might be the game for you.

Little Island Gift Shops, by astoryinpieces.

In this cooperative roll-and-write dice game, 2-4 players are members of the Little Island community, a place that puts helping your neighbors at the front. Each day, they'll decide how much time to spend diving for ocean goods to sell in their individual gift shops on the island. Unused goods are shared with neighbors, or can even be returned to the ocean as decorated gifts in order to receive its blessing. However, Little Island is only bountiful and strong when everyone uplifts each other! So organize your shop carefully, be respectful of your ocean home, and never be afraid to help your neighbour~

This game feels a little bit like a board-game, asking players to weigh decisions of different numbers of dice rolled, as well as strategize to determine which shop owner gets which trinket. The end of the game also asks the players to tally their scores, with the lowest player’s score setting the score for the whole group. As a result, this game should encourage everyone to work collaboratively, in such a way that the community succeeds as a whole.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

An Altogether Different River, by ehronlime.

What the Water Gave Us, by Jordanna George.

What’s So Off About This Small Town?, by Ostrichmonkey Games.

[dottie-wan-kenobi]

omg okay 9 and 56 for dickroy por favor (it's all the so you think you can dance i watched as a child that gets me imagining superheroes dancing bc they have sm control over their bodies!!! theyd do great ok) also also taking this opportunity to send HUGS I LOVE YOU 💙💙💙💙

First of all I love YOU!!!! Thank you for this 🥺🥺🥺 (your mind!!!! they would be so good at dancing! they would just blow every competition out of the water I am convinced now) also my god I did not expect this to get so long ksdjfahj

9. Dance AU and 56. Awful First Meeting (prompts found here!)

OH BOY. If I were to write this fic, Roy would be a dancer because it's fun. I don't have a particular dance style in mind for this AU (other than ballet tbh) but no matter what it is, he does it because he enjoys it, because it's stress relief, maybe it was something he and Dinah bonded over. Oliver is supportive in that, You can take this however far you want to go and I'll be there the whole way, sort of way -- if Roy decided he wanted to stop, cool, no big, we can find something else for you to do

Dick, on the other hand, does it because he's good at it. He enjoys dancing, sure, but he's competitive about it. He wants to go to the competitions and win, he wants the awards, he wants to be the best at it that he could possibly be. And Bruce matches this energy, fuels it, he wants to be the dad to the best dancer this side of the Mississippi and he will do whatever it takes to get Dick there

So with this background in mind. I want Roy to beat Dick in a dance competition.

more under the cut

I want them to be like... late teens, probably, and Dick comes in all ready for his win. He's nice to the other competitors who are all just as involved and determined as he is, but then he sees Roy. Roy is immediately intriguing to him, bc he's cute and he's got muscles for days, and Dick thrives on it like,, actually having to work towards winning. He knows he's going to of course, but it's more fun when other ppl don't make it easy for him

But then Roy is kind of like, "shrug yeah I'm excited to be here but I'm okay getting second place. Or lower. Whatever." Dick is HORRIFIED. Dick is DISGUSTED. Apathy?? In a competition with HIM in it??? THIS GUY IS GOING DOWN.

(I can't decide if Roy can tell what's going on in Dick's head or not.... I think probably at least a little? He also thinks Dick is cute and he's enjoying the intensity of Dick's attention a lot. A Lot.)

Dick gives this dance his all. He does amazingly. He probably gets like one or two points off from a perfect score (idk how scores work... or what would've happened to knock points off but that doesn't matter now lmao)

Roy goes out and everything just clicks. He's an awesome dancer on a bad day anyway, but this night, it all just comes together. He gets a perfect score. He WINS THE COMPETITION. Dick gets second place. Crushing loss!!! It's so much worse that he lost to someone so cute!

Thus begins a one-sided rivalry where Dick is BOUND AND DETERMINED to win against Roy. Roy honestly doesn't care if he wins or loses against Dick... except that when he wins, it's like pulling Dick's pigtails. They're flirting and fighting and Roy pretends to be above it all, and they're both having so much fun with it.

Every time they're both in a competition together, it's almost like Dick is a good luck charm for Roy. He always wins. And Dick is still killing it, still doing wonderful, still winning when Roy isn't also there (and I imagine living so far apart and only meeting at competitions doesn't help ksdjhfakhj)

I think I would end it with like... Roy accidentally getting hurt and having to forfeit his spot because he can't finish. Dick wins this competition, but as soon as his dance is over, he rushes to Roy, has to reassure himself he's okay. Somewhere along the line, losing to Roy has stopped feeling like a loss to himself (the PRESSURE this boy puts on himself to be perfect, holy shit). IT'S AN INTRICATE RITUAL!!! Dick can feel okay losing a competition if it's against Roy only. It didn't feel good this time. He just wanted to be with Roy, who cared about winning?

Anyway they kiss in the medical room or wherever they are and then they probably become dancing partners and win all the awards, the end

[calligraphist-artemisia]

14 | Ritual

Written for Kidgetober 2020. Week 2 Theme: Myths & Magic. Day 14: Ritual.

Summary: Alternate Universe - Magic.  All Pidge wanted to know was who her soulmate was. And if all of her attempts at using divination to find out were not going to work for her, then she'd just have to develop her own ritual for it. Nothing could go wrong with that, right?

Also posted on AO3 under the username Kishirokitsune. Titled as “Magic of the Season”.

- - - - -

14 | Ritual

The Castle of Lions was the premiere magical institute of Altea and notoriously difficult to be accepted into even for the best and brightest. They only accepted a maximum of five students per year and Pidge was blessed to count herself among the four chosen in the first year she applied. It meant there was plenty of individual training and enough room for everyone to have their own space to practice and study their chosen Craft.

Pidge loved her room. It was a circular space located at the top of the western tower and came equipped with a bathroom that she was rapidly coming to appreciate. Three windows allowed light to filter in whenever she pulled back her heavy curtains and there was a door that opened onto a tiny balcony that was perfect for stargazing.

Most important, it was her space and she could do whatever she wished without worrying about being interrupted.

She was especially grateful for that as she prepared for her newest ritual, one designed to allow her to divine the identity of her soulmate. It was a concept that fascinated her from the first time it was mentioned by High Priestess Melenor, but also one that felt completely out of reach for Pidge because of one very big reason.

She was awful at all forms of divination.

And from all of her studies, the tried and true method of ascertaining the identity of one's soulmate was through some form of that magical art. There was simply no other way.

Pidge threw herself into the process, taking the time to break down all of the steps and test out a few different ways. She'd gone through a full month of mediation and attempting Astral travel, but found it nearly impossible to quiet her mind long enough to achieve that goal.

When it became clear that meditating wasn't the right path for her, she moved onto the various forms of scrying, starting with the classic crystal ball. And although she tried it with several different types of crystal, she didn't find one that she “vibed” with enough for it to actually work and gave up on that path after two frustrating weeks. She spent another week with a shallow bowl of water and a quartz crystal cluster. And then a round mirror. And then a piece of hematite lit only by candlelight.

All of that brought her to the decision that the only way she would succeed in her goal would be if she crafted her own ritual. She'd had moderate success with Dream Magic in the past and hoped that it could be useful for what she intended.

Pidge took every step that she could think of the ensure the highest chance of success. Her room was already cleansed after her last ritual, so she began with a relaxing bath with purifying salts and herbs and remained there until her head felt clear and light, her magical energy brimming beneath the surface of her skin in anticipation.

She slipped on a simple cotton dress and clasped a band of hematite around her right ankle to help keep her grounded through the process. Next came a circlet crafted from silver, which had a sun-and-moon centerpiece made of sunstone and moonstone, locked by a small diamond on either side. It centered neatly over her brow.

She was ready.

Pidge gathered up the rest of her tools and began to arrange them in the center of the room, taking care with each item and focusing on her purpose. Using a piece of kunzite, she carved her chosen runes into the proper candles before setting them down around her. A stick of sandalwood incense was lit last and she stood with the kunzite in her hands and watched as the smoke curled up into the air.

She breathed in and then released that breath, feeling her magic rise in answer to her call, before turning to the north to begin the opening of her circle, calling in each elemental force to request their aid in her ritual as she lit each candle.

With energy swirling around her, Pidge slowly sat cross-legged in the center of the circle and closed her eyes. She held on tight to her intent, refusing to stray to any other thought.

She wanted to find her soulmate.

She wanted to know who they were and where she could find them.

The candlelight flared along with her magic as her spell took hold. Pidge could feel the heat of the flames. The thickness in the air. The scent of sandalwood, heavy around her.

It continued to build, higher and higher, until the next thing Pidge knew the soft early morning sun was shining in through the windows and all of her limbs were stiff and sore from apparently passing out on the floor.

Pidge groaned as she sat up, blearily looking around and taking note of the fully-melted candles and the stick of incense that was completely burned out. The kunzite was still in her hands, held onto so tightly that it left behind marks when she finally let it go.

As she examined the indents it left, she noticed something else unusual.

Encircling her right wrist was some kind of band of silver ink that was no more than a centimeter wide, comprised of intricate spirals that formed some sort of pattern, but not one that held any meaning as far as Pidge knew. She studied it for a moment, her tired brain working to try and make sense of it all, but a knock at the door interrupted her and she quickly jumped up.

“Just a minute!” she called out.

Pidge hesitated at the edge of the circle and then stepped back into the center. She took a moment to steady her breathing and then went through the steps to close the circle, taking the time to thank each of the elemental forces for their aid. Only then did she hurry around and prepare for the day.

Cleaning up would have to wait.

Another knock and the sound of her friend, Lance, calling for her had Pidge rolling her eyes at his impatience. She checked her reflection and took an extra minute to remove the circlet and place it back into its box before answering the door.

“You have got to learn some patience,” she said before Lance could open his mouth.

“Hey, I'm not the one running abnormally late,” he responded. “You didn't stay up all night reading again, did you? I don't know how you lose track of time doing that.”

“Some of us came here to actually learn and study.”

“Ouch. I'm wounded. My heart!” Lance placed one hand over his chest and dramatically swooned. “Your cruelty breaks my spirit! And after I brought you breakfast!”

Pidge's stomach growled when she caught side of the cloth-wrapped bundle in Lance's hands. “So should I profess my undying devotion to you now or do you want to wait until there are other people around?”

Lance laughed and handed over the food as they left the tower and headed towards their first lesson of the day with Alchemist Alfor. He chatted about whatever came to his mind while Pidge devoured the sandwich and made reaffirming noises so he knew she was still paying attention. She finished it as they passed under the arch marking the potions and alchemy wing of the castle and, coincidentally, came across the other two students of their year – all-around sweetheart Hunk Garrett and his more hot-tempered friend, Keith Hawkins, who also happened to be embroiled in an intense rivalry with Pidge.

The two pairs came to a dead stop beneath the archway.

Pidge was in no mood to deal with him so early in the morning and especially not after yet another failed attempt at divination spellcrafting, so she pretended as though he didn't exist as Hunk and Lance jumped into a lively conversation to try and lift the atmosphere around them.

“Anyway, there's a note on Alfor's door asking us to meet in the Four Seasons Courtyard for our lesson today. That's why we're on our way back through,” Hunk explained.

“Lucky for us that we ran into you!” Lance laughed as he slung an arm across Hunk's shoulders. “Do you think we're gathering ingredients for something? Or does he have another lecture on how our environment affects alchemic equations?”

Hunk shrugged. “Guess we'll find out once we get there.”

The two walked ahead, leaving Pidge and Keith to silently follow behind them. Pidge used every ounce of her willpower to keep her mouth shut and not look over at her rival, telling herself that it wouldn't be worth getting into an argument right before class.

It was when they arrived in the courtyard that everything went wrong.

Pidge tried to walk towards Lance to sit with him like she always did but was stopped by Keith grabbing her wrist and tugging her back towards him. She whirled on him, a snarl on her lips, only to be interrupted by his own furious remark -

“What the fuck? Let go of me, Holt!”

“I am not holding onto you! Why would I, Hawkins?” she snapped back.

In unison, they glared at their wrists, each seeking to prove that they were right, only to discover that they were both wrong. There was nothing there, though Pidge continued to feel pressure around her wrist as though there was something holding onto her.

“Is there a problem over here?” asked Alchemist Alfor as he approached.

Keith tried to yank his hand away from the invisible force but it only served to make Pidge stumble forward and throw a another glare in his direction.

“Alright, alright. Calm down,” Alfor said before either of them could start speaking again. He, like everyone else in the castle, was well aware of the animosity between the two of them. “I'm sure this is someone's idea of a prank and we can get it sorted out quickly. Lets take a look at what's going on, shall we?” He held his hand out over theirs and murmured a few words. Within seconds, a twisted braid of gold and silver appeared around their wrists, with a short chain connecting them.

Keith frowned. “What is that?”

“Fascinating... I've never seen anything like it,” Alfor admitted. “I would wager that the silver is related to some form of soul magic, but I'm unsure of what the gold represents. Melenor would be the best to ask about this sort of thing, unless either of you has an idea?”

Pidge's blood turned to ice in her veins.

Soul magic.

It couldn't be.

Not him!

“He is not my soulmate,” Pidge refused, unaware that she was speaking aloud.

Keith's eyes flashed with something Pidge couldn't define and he tensed his jaw before responding. “Who would ever want you to be their soulmate, Holt?”

Alfor must have called for backup while Pidge wasn't paying attention, because suddenly Battle Mage Shiro was there and was hurrying them to Melenor's office while Alfor stayed behind to teach Hunk and Lance the lesson he had planned for the day. It was there that Melenor confirmed her husbands thoughts that soul magic was involved, with the silver strand representing femininity while the gold represented masculinity – a perfect balance symbolizing the bond between them.

Pidge had no choice but the tell them about the ritual she performed and how it was designed to reveal her soulmate, and from there Melenor came up with a plan to help them.

“You will live together for one week. If you cannot learn to get along in that time, I will undue the spell tying you together. I want to make it clear that you will give this your best effort. Magic has bonded the two of you together for a reason and I should think that both of you would endeavor to learn why.”

So there they were, in the brand new set of rooms they were being allowed to borrow for one week while they lived together, unable to move more than a few feet apart. Neither of them spoke for the first hour, until Keith finally sat down and refused to budge, his violet eyes hard as he stared up at her.

“I don't understand what your problem with me is,” he said.

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Right.”

“I'm serious. From the very first day we met you've treated me like I'm the scum of the earth. What did I ever do to you?” Keith demanded.

Pidge opened her mouth to respond, but Keith wasn't finished.

“Imagine it's your first day in the most prestigious magical institute in the world and as you're leaving your first class you finally see your soulmate. And at first you think it's just another dream, like all of the others you've had since you were old enough to understand what a soulmate is, but when you try to talk to her it all turns into a nightmare.

“At first I thought you were just stressed, but that wasn't right, was it? Because you get along with everyone else in this school. Just not me. So what is it, Holt? What did I do to you that was so horrible that you need to turn every chance meeting into a confrontation?”

The hot flash of fury that Pidge felt when he first started talking dissipated the moment he spoke of his dreams. A heavy, cold weight settled in the pit of her stomach as her mind worked to comprehend what she was hearing. “You... you knew this whole time? Why didn't you ever say something?”

“What was the point? I knew it would only end in rejection. You proved me right about that earlier,” Keith responded. The heat was gone from his voice, replaced by a deep sorrow.

Pidge sat on the floor next to him and pulled her knees up against her chest, thinking back to her first week at the Castle of Lions. It had been a massive change from the rigorous structure and rules of the Galaxy Garrison where she previously studied and she remembered struggling to adapt to a new environment. It took her a moment to place when her first interaction with Keith, an event she blocked from her mind because it didn't seem worth remembering aside from it being the starting place of their rivalry. A rivalry she was starting to think was almost entirely one-sided.

She had volunteered to try and solve an alchemic equation Alfor presented to them and when she was finished, Keith was the first to speak up and offer a critique on her work. She remembered the flush of anger at being called out for making what, in hindsight, was a stupid mistake that spoiled the rest of her work, and then the embarrassment as two students of another year started sniggering to themselves over it. The fact that Keith completely snubbed her as they all left the classroom served to cement in her mind that he was challenging her intellect and from that day on she refused to show weakness.

She breathed out softly and pressed her forehead to the tops of her knees.

Had she really based their rivalry on a simple misunderstanding?

Had her time at the Galaxy Garrison really impaired her social skills that much? Lance was always joking about it, but maybe there was some truth to that.

The competitive atmosphere. The constant drive to do better and be the best. Maybe she carried that with her to the Castle of Lions and let it influence the way she interacted with her peers. She thought she was getting better at it with help from Lance and speaking with their instructors, but those first few weeks...

That first interaction with Keith, when he corrected her and then didn't say a word to her after that – so different from the Garrison, where rivalries were encouraged as a way to push one another to do better. That lack of acknowledgment for it made her feel as though he was looking down on her. Like she was unworthy of being considered an equal.

“Keith, I... I'm so sorry,” she murmured, unsure how to put all of her thoughts into the right words. “I don't know what else to say. All of this is my fault. Our fighting. This chain tying us together. I've never been great at divination and I've been trying for months to use it to find my soulmate – to find you – and after all of that I ended up making a spell and well... I guess Magic got tired of being ignored, so it found a way to make things more obvious for me. And here you've known all along! I can't imagine how that must have felt.”

She snapped her mouth shut and uttered another quick apology as she realized she had started rambling.

“I didn't mean what I said before,” Keith said after a moment of silence. “About how no one would want to be your soulmate? I didn't mean that.”

Pidge lifted her head from her knees. “I kind of deserved it. I've been awful to you.”

“And I was awful right back,” Keith responded, a sudden spark of passion to his voice as he twisted to look at her. “We've both said and done things that we regret. I'm not going to sit here and go over all of it when it'll only make us feel worse. Look, we're stuck together for at least a week, right?”

Pidge nodded.

“Then let's make the best of that time. By, uh, talking things through, I guess. I don't know how people normally do this sort of thing,” he admitted.

“Neither do I,” Pidge said with a grimace. “But we're smart. We can figure it out.”

Keith made a curious sound, but didn't voice whatever he was thinking. Instead, he stuck out his left hand to her – the one with the gold-and-silver chain clasped around his wrist. “Deal.”

“Deal,” Pidge agreed, grasping his left hand with her right.

The chain loosened ever-so-slightly between them.