#itd be one thing if it was The Middle of a character arc but... they switched the writers. that arc went to a farm upstate i fear

[earthspark-shockwaves-reduction]

EVERY FUCKING DAY I WAKE UP AND I MOURN GIRL DAD STARSCREAM

[puhpandas]

steel wool has the hugest opportunity in the world for a sb 2 like. vanny cassie plotline of her having been manipulated by mimic to be its new minion by framing Gregory during the elevator scene to cut off her one support system. gregory vanessa and freddy protags fleshing them out with dialogue as characters but also their motivations and what theyve been doing for years. have their long absence in games period but also in universe from helping the glamrocks/setting up mxes be explained by showcasing their fear and trauma by them just wanting to get away and they thought they were safe but they werent. have cassie be the reason they have to jump back into the fray and realize no matter what they do theyll have to kill mimic for good to be truly free even if they're afraid. plot of the game is Gregory trying to convince cassie he didnt do it and that shes being tricked and it takes all campaign to get through to her, probably after an intense dramatic climax. have Roxy be there by Cassies side to show how Freddy abandoning them at the Plex affected her and the 2 sides of the same coin the 2 of them have going on regarding sentience and their relationship with the characters they were designed to be with Freddy who got to be free and roxy who didnt. the actual vanny comes back as a big betrayal towards mimic after killing glitchtrap in hw2, either to become an antihero or to try and take over as mastermind. superstar duo reunite and names cleared. throughout the campaign Gregory finds out about ggy and its revealed in a room with documents about patient 46 and tapes where a final tape is found and Gregory speaks in it or is addressed by name. he grapples with it and not remembering it. btw setting is a modern day fallfest which is like amusement park size instead of small festival. boom peak game

[buckgettingstruck]

here to ask about the camera panning to eddie. give me the freak answer pls

when i saw that shit airing i yelled and spilled wine on my carpet.

like. i feel like this is common sense but i dont know if people realize how intentional each second of a show/movie is. like whether the show is a silly sitcom or a serious drama everything is so intentional and purposeful. of course theres always continuity errors and mistakes that happen when you’re creating a show of that size thats been running for so long but for the most part everything has its intentions. its why you see certain themes come back again and again. im not gonna get into outfit meta or anything like that because its not really my wheelhouse but i did learn a lot about camera techniques and im a writer so. yeah.

shots are one of the most important aspects of a movie or a tv show. they set the mood. close up shots convey intensity and emotion while more wide shots establish a scene etc. they gave us a lot of close up shots of eddie’s face in the kim and eddie scene at the end of 7x09 because it was an intense moment for eddie as a character for example. you have to get the shot right to convey what you want your audience to see yknow.

so. you have the medal ceremony. they couldve done the announcements for these people in literally any order because they fucking wrote the script. they didnt do it alphabetically or anything normal they literally had the trio of triangulated desire standing in the back with buck in the middle AGAIN while chim and hen were being normal and serving cunt up front. and when they were sitting they had buck in the middle again because reasons. then once they got their medals itd pan to their families and significant others clapping. ofc for tommy they pan to buck because thats the person there supporting him. for BUCK they had so many options. they had bobby, his captain that he verbally said was his father figure the next episode, they had maddie, his fucking SISTER AND THE WOMAN WHO RAISED HIM, and they had tommy, the dude he’s dating. instead they pan to eddie.

literally that is the absolute LOUDEST fucking thing the show has done so far in my opinion. they panned to buck for tommy!!! they couldve panned back to buck or done it in a different order if they didnt wanna repeat so they could pan to them for each other!!! but they panned to eddie and the director of photography was even emphasizing that choice on twitter.

the entire bi arc had eddie written all over it. they had so many opportunities to shove their relationship to the side and double down on their friendship but they didnt. instead we had buck tweaking at the gym where we have no idea who eddie was even talking to on that phone, eddie constantly mentioned by buck in a kiss scene with someone else, the line of all time ‘MY attention?’, eddie interrupting the date next episode, buck not even giving a FUCK about the date because he lied to eddie, the shit maddie said that episode about being confused about his feelings, eddie saying nothing is gonna change between them (which. thats a chekov’s gun if ive ever seen one), and all the entire shit with the bachelor party. not even mentioning the implications of the song choice for the karaoke scene that paralleled madney because we didnt get it in the episode. they couldve completely avoided all of that but they didnt and then when buck is dating someone else they dont pan to HIM being happy and supportive for buck, they pan to EDDIE. it feels as if its supposed to remind us what’s actually going on or another attempt to clue us in

also like right after they had the two who were dating acting as acquaintances. and had that guy also kinda put buck’s excitement down at said ceremony. and later in that episode had buck ditch plans with the guy he was dating to make sure eddie was okay. for reasons i guess. so buddie canon or theyre doing a real bad job at getting me to care about bucks actual man

[caffeiiine]

OK HI SODA HI HI HI I HAD IDEAS FOR THE V3 REWRITE THAT I WANT TO SHARE (IDK IF U WANTED TO SEE THE GENIUS IDEA FOR THE REWRITE WITH THE OC BUT ILL SEND THIS AND THEN IF U WANNA SEE JUS TELL ME) ANYWAY !!!

ok i dont acgtually have too much but!! but but but i do have some ideas right

as of rn ive got two survivors (korekiyo, kokichi), a potential mastermind (miu?), chapter 3's first victim (kirumi), chapter 3's second blackened (korekiyo), and chapter 5's victim (rantaro). idk if this is good or not biut like !!!! ebehebh !!!!

miu being the mastermind is something i had for my own rewrite like with my oc but also i really like the idea, we could also have her do something with kiibo at some point like install a virus on him or wtvr that would make him kill someone? because she operates on him in the game anyway so having her do so and then have that fall into place later but like not give him time to say somethingabout it is really fun to me

kirumi i dont really have a reason for her being the first victim other than im a sucker for kirukiyo and i think he'd be pretty distressed that she died (im being very self indulgent here but we can change this if u want to, idk ur opinions on kirukiyo so !!! its up to u), we could also do something where the murders happened at almost the exact same time so he could have saved her if he had just been somewhere instead of trying to kill someone for his sister to have another "friend" in the afterlife

kokichi i want to live because i love him. end of explanation

rantaro i wanted to die at some point but not at the start, in part bc i love him but also because i think itd be really interesting if he was killed in ch 5 instead of kokichi because he has a lot of importance too, right? so i think a killing with him could be just as good, he could have helped the killer because he wanted them to try to find out the mastermind during his trial or something idk. still in speculation but i think it would be cool

as for like, protagonists and stuff, i have zero idea, but !!!!!! i think it would be super mega awesome to have both kaede and shuichi survive but also that is like not possible because kaede's death made shuichi actually be able to be good and smart at things and not feel bad IDK WE CAN FIGURE THIS OUT AT SOME POINT BUT HERES MY IDEAS SORRY THIS IS A LOT OF PARAGRAPHS

starting out i’m gonna be all over the place with this <33

first off: THE KIRUKIYO ISEA IS SO COOL THO honestly i never thought of that ship, and im not a huge shipper myself outside of bsd so im super neutral about most ships <33 so yeah!!!! we can ahve kirukiyo!!!! i like that!!!! :3 <- since you asked about my opinion on it

ALSO ARE YOU IN MY HEAD OR SOMETHING. MIU MASTERMIND!!! MIU MASTERMIND!!! or if not a mastermind, then in the very least a killer. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve ranted to my rl friends about how miu should’ve gotten to kill somebody. like ik in canon she was supposed to be the killer for 4 but that got swapped last minute but SHE SHOULDVE BEEN ALLOWED TO KILL SOMEBDIY and yes yes yes yes yes she should do something with kiibo that’d be very fun

YOURE SO CORRDCT ON RANTARO BTW his character generally suffers from the fact he was killed off way at the beginning, and ugshdh he could have done. so much. if he was left alive a little longer. i’ve said this before but that’s a common issue just in general with the type of game danganronpa is especially with the writers not adjusting the arcs for their allotted time which causes me PAIN. yeah leave him alive for longer for sure. and oooo i like rantaro, i think he could go either way being a killer or victim. especially if at the end of it all no matter how it goes down, hes wrong. whether he kills the wrong person, or if he’s caught in the middle of a planned murder and happens to be collateral damage/the mistaken victim while he’s trying to go after the mastermind and either way their only lead to the mastermind is now just gone

one of the things i do really like about v3 despite all my criticisms against it, is the fake-out protagonist. i’m not saying we have kaede die again or shuichi goes in her place, but i think it’d be cool to include something like that with one of the cast members? maybe kaito? idk im throwing things at the wall rn but basically im trying to figure out a way to have a character haunt the narrative like kaede did

yeah i ahev no clue about protags either yet, we can always just figure that out down the line sometime🎉🎉🎉

also side note but i propose to throw out the real fiction plotline or whatever it was called that v3 went down in the game, thoughts?

also also second unrelated side note: do we have to keep the 3 survivors? not like the literal characters, just the number. like obviously we wont have everyone survive, but idk let’s not confine ourselves to a number yet

for my input regarding cases: in no particular order/killer - ryoma -> victim/survivor ; himiko -> killer/victim [i think it’d be cool to have her as a killer but i’m not sure how she’d even go about it or even why] ; tenko -> victim ; tsumugi -> killer [i think her execution would be super interesting] aaaand i ahve yet to think about the rest

inout regarding survivors: idk i really want angie to survive and i am shooting you with shinounaga found family propaganda

anyways!!! give your opinion!!! sorry this took me forever to type!!!!!

[im-smart-i-swear]

funky guys rant below

the more i think abt it the more confused i become abt what exactly to call the kind of relationship all the funky guys have. like i guess found family, in the way the term is used in fandom, describes it well.... but idk as someone who goes way back w the trope & who used to forcefully cram characters i liked into neat family shaped boxes, the term does carry a kind of... weight to it? one might even call it cringe, but i feel like its more of a frustration with pidgeon-holeing and fandomisation as a whole. i think i just read one too many fics where characters in a found family start calling eachother siblings and mom and dad and uncle and honestly that kinda feels sorta. culty, even, to me rn?

which one the other hand thematically speaking does kinda fit - not literally as a cult but more in the way theyre all so codependent and struggle to find a life outside of these dynamics. these ppl DO love each other bc they HAD to to survive and stay relatively sane but also that means this is not a very healthy arrangement. i think that rigid language might fit here thematically bc it represents them all unconciously replicating all the flaws and problems a regular family would have instead of trying to make something better. they (mostly tashi) are falling back on what they know abt how ppl who love each other should act and view each other. which also on a more meta level is just me being rlly fascinated with the fandom idea of a found family and deciding to kinda. bring the idea as far as i can? showing what fucked up dynamics could sprout if you threw a bunch of traumatised freaks together and forced them to play house lest they die in the wilderness alone.

like. when i started dabbling in trying to write for this au, i quickly found that describing them all as a family felt kinda. weird? it just didnt feel right. it felt trope-y, fandomised, flanderised (which is really funny if you consider that this au is in many aspects just that, as much as id like to pretend otherwise). and i have to wonder how much of that is the term not fitting in-universe, and how much is just me looking back at my younger self's less nuanced takes and wanting to have nothing to do with them?

in the end, in-universe, as much as it kinda cringes me out i think the funky guys do very much describe themselves as a family & as siblings - partially bc they do love each other platonically very much and thats just the only term they really knew to describe what they are, and partly for convinience bc its way easier to tell ppl theyre just a bunch of siblings than itd be to 1. explain the whole clone thing and 2. delve into the complexities of all of their relationships in great detail.

and also bc i think describing it as a family makes them more eager to stick together? i think tashi does very much weaponise that, either conciously or subconciously ('we are family, you cant leave!! im your big brother, i know whats best for you')(the thing abt tashi is that hes very good at reading ppl AND hes got separation anxiety AND is a bit of a self righteous idiot and this results in him being kinda manipulative and guilt trippy at times, esp when hes in distress.)

so like. the thing im trying to get at is. the love was there, the love IS still there, and thats kinda the whole problem! they all trapped themselves in this rigid form of relationship, but also around the stickbug mind control arc it all starts to kinda fall apart(sticks Whole deal, webby turning 18, soup wanting to branch out and develop new relationships, buds crippling guilt making them kinda an asshole, tashi getting progressively worse and worse to be around as he falls apart, and ryou being 13 and stuck in the middle of all of it) and none of them rlly know how to handle it.

i dont rlly have a solid idea to what happens after the mind control stuff, aside from the kuro stuff and the fact stick and een do definetely move out again after stick recovers. but the rest? its kinda one big vague 'its slowly and painfully and messily gets better'. this story has always been about making the best of a shitty situation, i think. about people forming deep meaningful bonds but still being messy and stupid and hurting each other, and abt how you can never turn back time and fix all the shit you did wrong in the past, but maybe, if the love is there, if you still want the love to be there after all of that shit, maybe you can try again.

[bramblepatch]

yeah im leaning heavily towards starting with icewind dale, i think itd be fun to start with seeing how drizzt is characterized before being designated giga series protagonist, without me already knowing a lot about the gang. but i suspect if i make it through one book at all, i'm going to read at least both of those trilogies eventually.

i've read a bunch of salvatore stuff as a kid (there was a thing with a nerd who lives at a library and then becomes the chosen of god and defeats his father and his father's boss or something? very aspirational. first time i heard "forgotten realms". and another thing with a guy who is raised by sword fairies to basically become aragorn i think. some other stuff. it's inexplicable i never got into drizzt books except maybe the local bookstore hated drow) so i feel like i roughly know what to expect in terms of tropeyness. i was present for i wanna say the latter half? second third? of the dragon heist thing but we didn't engage with jarlaxle much, in my mind he was just an inconvenient antagonist guy and being surprised that y'all are so into him is a good part of why i started paying attention to the drizzt posting. we did want to steal his hat though.

does all the drizzt stuff hold up or does salvatore eventually start phoning it in? is there like ongoing character arc things or do the character arcs happen in the first few books (i hate saying it like this) and the rest is kinda The Further Adventures Of style?

ty!!

Oh cool! If you've read his Cleric Quintet, some of the characters from that show up in the Drizzt books, too.

Personally, I think the later books hold up? This is kind of a controversial opinion in some parts of the fandom, and I won't deny that there are parts of the series that wallow a little, but it's not because Salvatore has run out of things to do with the characters, it's because he takes their trauma seriously and sometimes that means spending a while with a character who is straight up not having a good time right now. And this is compounded by the fact that Drizzt is a very young elf at the start of the series; around the middle there's an editorially mandated time skip and Drizzt goes from a traumatized teen who is coping through the Power of Friendship to a traumatized young adult who has outlived most of his mentor figures. There is a definite tone shift, is what I'm saying.

I think they're still really good, and Drizzt does eventually regain his equilibrium. The later parts of the series are also increasingly an ensemble act, with Jarlaxle and Bregan D'aerthe taking more of the spotlight. If you went up against the magnificent bastard (affectionate)(also derogatory) in Dragon Heist, you've had a taste for what it's like to be on the receiving end of his shenanigans, and yeah, that's frustrating. (My WDDH party actually ended up allying ourselves with him, and he still manages to be deeply annoying sometimes.) But he can be really fun to watch work when he's not messing with you, and he's a great foil to Drizzt. A lot of the time Drizzt just wants to be left alone to live a life that's not defined by his origins; Jarlaxle is all about drow solidarity and bringing what he's built with him.

[pensiveabstraction]

15 questions 15 mutuals

ty @dont-leafmealone and @elfinfair for the tags

were you named after anyone? for my deadname one of my middle names was the same middle name as my mum, my new first name and first middle name are indirectly and directly taken from the names of characters i like

when was the last time you cried? i think it was, i finally watched into the spiderverse for the first time like two months ago seeing all the hype abt the sequel, and when the big sad emotional climax moment happened, the one during the big fight, i was crying, not silent leaking eyes maybe sniffling a bit, like full on open mouthed sobbing. shit just hit me rly hard, that movie's so good

do you have kids? nah

do you use sarcasm a lot? i think so yeah. unfortunately i am also extremely monotone so i frequently have to be like 'no i was kidding' bc out lout my normal voice and sarcasm voice must sound a lot closer together than in my head

what's the first thing you notice about people? idk i guess i notice if their clothes style and whether face looks like someone i know/know of

what's your eye color? greenish-grey last time i checked

scary movies or happy endings? both. depends what mood im in tbh. if im watching a movie i dont usually have a huuuge preference of genre, i tend to prefer stories w somewhat developed characters who have arcs so u'd think that'd make me averse to scary films where the characters r sometimes neglected/used as a blank slate to experience The Horror through the eyes of but i ALSO rly like well built up tension and just,,, interesting creepy vibes. i usually try to stay open minded w watchin stuff. however there are times when i feel down and just wanna watch some dudes fuck around and have everything come up alright in the end

any special talents? hmm. man idk. im pretty good at making minecraft skins does that count lol.

where were you born? england and i shall say no more

what are your hobbies? writing, reading fics (do not look how many bookmarks i have on ao3 why would you need to), drawing's fun. used to watch twitch a bunch but the main streamer id watch aint comin back so w for my sleep schedule ig

have any pets? yes a dog he is an old man he looks sort of like a skeletal dark souls creature (not through maltreatment he eats like a king his breed r just skinny asses lol)

what sports do you play/have you played? netball, softball, cricket, bit of tag rugby, loads of rounders, street hockey was my fav out fo em i was pretty ok at defending (all of these r from when i was still in p.e. classes in high school idk if that counts but its what i got)

how tall are you? last i checked 165cm (like 5,5 in the other measures i think)

favorite subject in school? hmm. probably either art or english. though i only rly got an appreciation for english when i did this additional gifted kid project thingy and rather than just literally tell us an interpretation of a text to memorise for an exam the teachers gave us a bunch of analytical lenses to choose from to analyse a text and i was like "yo wait interpreting meanings from the text is kinda fun when you havent got bitches in your ear telling you 'ok so this is exactly what the author meant and you just need to memorise that and write it in the test'"

dream job? i honestly have no idea. i wouldve said author once but i enjoy doing it for fun, i dont think id be able to make smth publishable and if i somehow did i feel like itd ruin it. if i had some kind of like repetetive but simple task and i just had to do it over and over, maybe listen to music or a podcast or smth in one ear i feel like so long as i earnt a decent amount id be cool with it. i am a simple little guy my dreams amount to 'eh id like to do some cool stuff :]'

i dont think i have 15 mutuals so ill just tag a bunch @jctko @thinkingjasico @captainchibi @zodismegalame @aroacekitty @glummar @ablueeyedarcher @erisenyo

[cielospeaks]

short review of g f

so sevil part 2 event!!!!! hoo boy this one was actually really surprising (in a good way). like honestly

so im just kinda gonna list things

-the new friend (galanthalus i think?) gosh he gave me the biggest turnaround. like his story started out with ??? narrator who is uneasily calm in a heckscape with gratuitous ultraviolence and 99.9 percent of the time in this game that means that ??? is going to be the stereotypical "ow the edge unhinged uncaring murderous nonhuman something from another world" (ie the imposter girl from the ninetales events, morgan, etc. you know the cringe gratuitous violence scenerey chewing and not in a good way villans that this game keeps having to try and stop ppl from liking them more than the protagonists but it never works). but then the turnaround reveal that it was just a kid who was trapped in the sword for being not human and had been tortured and overlooked by everyone for centuries just bc he suited their needs? the biggest turnaround. and that the ??? who was talking to him/answering his questions wasnt a condescending big bad but keral who stayed to keep him company out of kindness????? and that both her and krel kinda let him be their child they never had and want to let him go back and live in the world?????? bro......

anyways tldr galan was a very pleasant surprise writing wise and i support him. also he lowkey reminds me of idunn and i dig that so much

-the arc of the main trio! ofc it was very depressing but im glad they didnt go for an ending where "everyone survives everything is fine uwu!" bc i feel like that sort of thing, tho it could happen bc of how op the main cast is, it would make all their suffering and pain feel trivialized and thrown out, and itd make me hate the main cast more (they already made themselves dislikable enough imo, with them guilting sevil to stay towards the middle just bc they didnt want him to leave, with no thoughts abt how hed feel. and that being said i love that the reason he stayed was to help galan, not bc he was guilt tripped into it). like it is really sad what happened, esp to krel at the very end, but it did feel conclusive which was nice (please no sequel. this was a good ending. we dont need a sequel to ruin it, i am looking directly at the knights and perfetto events. and maybe a sideye at the robomi ones for the unnecessary prophecy stuff)

-the side character development! like despite the angst, it all felt very organic (with sevil's story already having that old timey gin tama-ey feel it all seemed to make sense in the setting and not come across as cringe or insensitive angst). esp bc we didnt know a lot abt the characters in the first event, as they werent playable and didnt appear that much (they didnt even get journal entries either smh). so hearing more abt their backstories made them feel a lot more fleshed out. it was sweet seeing them stay to help w galan also, i do wish they were playable tho but it does make sense theyd be npcs

-have not seen gacha sevils story but im hoping its good! itd easily put him with caro and main gacha sturm of characters id really want (not to mention limited studra too ofc)

-and ofc. from kisumiverse side, i feel like kisumi is trying to resist the urge to punch danchou and co. in the face the whole time, while trying to be supportive of sev. who, to be utterly fair, is so wrapped up in his problems he doesnt necessarily notice kisu until towards the end. kisu doesnt want him to apologise as she sees that it isnt his fault, just asks him to take care of himself, and he realizes that he has a genuine alive friend in kisumi. its just a fun "friends dealing with grief and loss and the cycle of grief together" story.

-and then theres also the ending trope which is actually like tooth rottingly cute. "my sister and brother in law died and left behind a child that i am raising alongside my best friend" for some like slice-of-life hallmark movie angst-with-a-happy-ending. like literally. i feel like the sevil + galan + kisumi (w the father daughter too bc theyre cool) could be the casts in some heartwarming family movie or something

anyways this event, easy 9/10. maybe even 10/10. like i dont think g f could have a better event. zodicas was eh (playable ragazzo was easily the best part), knights was really meh, dont talk to me abt the perfetto one, i honestly dont mind no robomi bc the last one had elements i dont care for, everything else was just really bad except the really middle of the road collab and the slightly not so bad but also not impactful one w the grimmir squad. but yea this event is easily the best that theyve had in the last few years

[drinkinggblood]

wof makes me angry because i wish it would decide are these like watership down (animals with a basic hierarchy, rules, etc. but still.. Animals that do Animal things) or Animals With a Complex Society and Are Essentially People But Dragons. why is this important?? because it pisses me off and i think its dumb to have shit like "oh princesses must kill queen to become queen!!" when they can just... make... civil.. agreements... theres no reason for them to be super violent and the entire "princess v queen" fight shit isn't even an organized event?? its not like a princess offers to challenge a queen and they duel it out somewhere it's more "princess can kill a queen basically whenever wherever without punishment" like a princess can just murk a queen in private and everyone would accept it

like,,,, im kinda rambling but i need wof to decide if murder is ok because these are Animals with Basic Hierachy and Rules or is this just a bloodthirsty ass society. is murder punishable in wof? or is it not?? is shit thats immoral to us just ALLOWED in wof? why?? ???? im rambling sry. at parts this seems to be a middle-age society but at other parts it feels more like just Animals with a Hierachy/loose society than actually civilised fully functioning thing. its annoying. wof worldbuilding pisses me off in general, i hate how generic all the dragon designs are to eachother and how their adapations do not make sense, i hate the animus shit it makes me annoyed how loose it is and little sense it makes i wish itd just have.. clear rules and i reallyyyyy hate how loose the rules are of this society of dragons. makes me confused n angry. AGRAAAAAAAAAAGH ARAGHHH.

its an issue the laws and worldbuilding is THIS bad because it makes shit like that happens in arc 3 MORE THE ALL CONFUSING. also can i say how much i hate arc 3 my god i hate the sorta "two sides" bullshit that goes on with the hivewings and leafwings. hivewings essentially own silkwings as slaves.... and tried to genocide the leafs off the fucking continent. you cannot 'both sides' that.

i also hate how if you really look at it a bit more, the othermind feels more like way to excuse all the really gross shit the hivewings do as 'they are just mindcontrolled!!! they dont have control!!!" which really muddles the anti-racism parts of it for me. like.... tui you cant really write a anti-racism story that has mindcontrolling of citizens to do Bad Racist Stand-in Things then go "oh they r innocent they couldnt control!!!" it just feels so fucking off to me and is reallyy bad for a anti-racism message. people who do racist things are not mindcontrolled and dont 'have control of their actions'; it feels wrong to do that and then essentially go "oh they r innocent !!! just this ONE ruler of the country/state/whatever is racist!!! the rest dont have control" like??? am i insane??? thats not how that works and comes across as 'racists cant control their actions' to me am i insane. ????!??! it really feels like that to me. in general arc 3 is really shittly written especiallyyy and in general a lot of the anti-racist stuff in wof is really... bad... like the entire weird shit in arc 1 with the stereotyping of tribes, only to be proven right with 90% of them is really icky and feels weird. like rainwings are stereotyped to be lazy, idiotic, etc. and glory is actively like "no we are not" and then in book 3 it turns out they are 100% correct and glory is like "oh my god :/ :/ everyone's assumptions about my tribe was completely right and they all suck and are lazy" like are u kidding me. what the fuck was the point of that?? why have glory be the character defending her own tribe just to have her be proven WRONG about it. what was the POINT ?? why was it THERE???? is it that stereotyping is right sometimes?? i dont??? what was le point ! it adds nothing and its frankly dissapointing to see rainwings turn out to be exactly that negative stereotype. it wouldve been great to see they aren't that + add more worldbuilding to the rainwings and make them more interesting that "giant hippie tribe that is lazy and is fine w them dying to nightwings lol"

and also i hate theres eugenics in wings of fire. like... why..?? why would u add that. it adds nothing and its just fuckin WEIRDDDD and it's mentioned multiple times in the series of tribes. its WEIRD AS HELL and doesn't add anything. n shut up if its "oh its cool worldbuilding thing :] yeah itsmorally wrong and weird but its just !! how this dragon society is" shut the fuckupmy god. it adds nothing to anything; youshouldnt have shit like fucking EUGENICS in your BOOK if its just... ICING ON UR CAKE. it doesnt add anything to the themes, messages, characters, etc. it's just "oh yeah [eugenics]" it's just THERE and it does NOTHING. it's not even an anti-eugenics statement everytime this shits mentioned, its always just there. it's fucking weird as hell to have that. and dont say "oh its for the anti-racism message" no its not and even if it was the anti-racist message is alreadyyyy so fuckingggg dumbed down and simplified i dont see how adding a topic such as eugenics to the mix would add anything?? this series is ULTIMATELY for 11-16. what fuckin 14 year old understands what eugenics is??? i GET theres adult readers of this series buthats still.. not. a reason to have shit like eugenics in it. the target audience for this series would not understand what fucking eugenics is and itsgross to just put it in as essentially window dressing

i also reallyyyyhate how some wof fans excuse themore problematic shit in the series w "oh its just how this dragon world runsits fine its not an issue at all :D" you do realise.... you cant rlly just excuse everything w that. like. glorybringer for example. ive SEEN people excuse the age-gap with "oh well maybe its normal in dragon society" OK??? thats not an excuse?? its fucking weird. you need to think about what the writer's intention of adding an element like that to a story; ex: the eugenics shit. why is that in there. for what purpose does it serve. you cant just excuse it with "oh its normal in dragon society" because it doesnt matter if it is, it's still WRITTEN by a PERSON and you need to think abt what the intention of adding and element like that was to the store. usually something thatsadded to the storyhas a intention by the writer to add something to it, for the message, themes, characters, etc. u cantjust excuse everything w "for worldbuilding" when most worldbuilding as an intention or reason why the author wantedit to be there. even if its a DUMB reason like say...... all the animals are enlarged for dragons to around the same height theyd be if animals are our size and dragons are our size because idk its easier?? i gues??

[crowsent]

If, purely theoretically, someone was perhaps getting into DreamSMP, where would you recommend they start? I find myself, slightly overwhelmed by all the Cool Shit™️

dream smp is like dnd and theatre mixed together where every person is simultaneously the dungeon master AND the player. every single person on the dreamsmp is their own protagonist from their own pov with their own motivations and goals etc etc so its pretty hard to get the full picture right away

id say the easiest way to get into dreamsmp is to pick one or two perspectives and watch those all the way through to get a coherent linear story. my personal favourite is technoblade but he jumps in p late in the middle of season 1 and misses a lot of plot-crucial things so id recommend tommyinnit and tubbo_ considering theyre pretty involved in most of the major arcs and have 2 wildly differing viewpoints during the same points of the story so you can get a bigger scope of whats happening. there are also several “recap blogs” on tumblr you could follow to get a quick rundown of everything that happens in dreamsmp if you miss an episode from whichever pov you want to look through

i will say though, that the best way to experience the story is by alternating between different people. their streams are different, their content is different, and overall they explore a different part of the dream smp. like a party splitting up in dnd but each individual member gets their own coherent storyline that sometimes intersects with others.

its impossible to fully grasp ALL of the differing povs and motivations if you stick purely to one streamer bc of all the intersecting emotions and motivations and the complicated dynamics that play into the characters. i have adhd so i literally open three different streams at the same time and watch simultaneously but obviously that doesnt work for everyone so itd be good to check in with like. recap blogs/twts/ytbers

or the wiki

dreamsmp wiki editors work faster than god and harder than the devil. bless our troops o7

ALSO

obligatory “this is just roleplay” reminder

dreamsmp is like dnd and theatre combined AND like dnd and theatre, its all just roleplay. everyone is a “character” portrayed by their respective content creator and obligatory “dont hate on the content creator bc their character is an abusive radiated homeless teletubby that emotionally abuses, gaslights, and manipulates children” bc some people seem to forget that this is all just make-believe

the ships, the plot, EVERYTHING, is just roleplay. just a bunch of friends having fun. like dnd if the players actually showed up on time

if youre the creating type: fanart, fanfiction, etc etc, this is a really good blog to see which creators are comfortable with what things. some CCs are fine with shipping, others are not, etc etc

as long as you respect the boundaries of the creators then things should be good

good luck anon

[autisticstarseed]

if u could, perhaps, bless us with all the applicable symbols from that fic ask for hvh 👀

ooOoOOOoOO Rub s gay hands togehter omg ty friend 😍;;;;;;

💡 - What was the motivation behind the story?

hHH i hadnt written in 10+ years so when i latched onto this plot idea i just thought itd be a good time to jump the shark and try it again !! i just wanted smth really edgy and depthful bc im emo and the rest kind of snowballed

💎- What was your favorite part?

osdlfksd;lf it’s hard to pick a fav but the drunk scene was definitely the most fun to write at least

⛰️-  What was the hardest part?

THE SCENE WHERE THE GANG IS KIDNAPPED BY ENKI,,,, i debated toning down the violence but in the end i knew where the story was going (and where its still going) and that its gonNA be kinda dark so why hold back now ig

🎭- What was the feeling or mood you were going for?

BITTERSWEET AF,,, sort of just treading the line of ‘hopeful’ and ‘hopeless’ at all times to fully portray the feeling of being at your lowest, but with that classic tss ‘silver linings just around the corner’ kind of undertone

🏟️- Who was your intended audience?

mostly all the adults that watched tss as a kid and felt like spirituaLLY MOVED BY IT cuz i really tried to tap into that Emotion Tee Em we all felt when we found out that zak was [redacted]

🔬- Was there one scene you were building up to/knew you had to get just right?

hHH theres actually a LOT of scenes like that and i think a lot of my general motivation to keep going comes from that ‘WAIT FOR IT WAIT FOR IT’ vibe slkdf:SDF but the Plot Twist tm in the latest chapter was definitely a big’n, and theres a few more of those still to come :^)

🗝️ - What were you thinking when you wrote it?

kjdjFSDs:DF tbh whenever i start really writing, [’im shifting into soup mode’ seinfeld meme voice] im shifting into maladaptive daydreaming mode

🎥- Were there any tv shows, books, or movies that influenced this verse, if any?

:^) devilman crybaby pls forgive me for everytHing

📈- Was there a clear character arch you wanted____ character to go on?

i actually have a short list of what i somewhat consider to be the story arcs in my notes !! mostly just for organization and obvs i wont list the future ones but so far we’ve seen the kushtaka arc, the enki arc, and now we’re in what i call ‘the annunaki’ arc.

🎢- Were there any scenes you were nervous about? For audience reception or otherwise?

ALL OF IT JSHDJSKD, but again a lot of the enki scenes i was worried would be too edgy TM, and the whole annunaki plot as well i was worried might be too ‘out there’ for ppl, but it takes the story exactly where i always wanted it and lines everything up perfectly so i went for it lol. i was also ofc worried if people would like ila or not bc oc but most ppl love her actually which is so 😭❤️

☠️- Did you consider killing off any of the characters? Did you?

8^) [mickey mouse voice] this is a surprise tool that will help us later ,

✉️- Did you title your chapters? What title do you like best?

yes! the next one actually has my favorite chapter title yet, but so far i like ‘so strikes the harpoon’ since its a throwback to the first couple chapters

☀️- Was there symbolism/motifs you worked in?

o every single paragraph is an overly thought out middle school poem im entering in the talent show actually

🎵- Did you have a playlist/piece of music that went with this story?

Yes !! i have HVH insp part 1, Part 2, and an extra one for all those songs that have the vibes but just dont fit enough to make sense in a playlist

📜-Do you want to write something like this again in the future?

probably ! ive learned i definitely like the edgy/darker and emotionally driven stories with ongoing plot, so that trend will almost definitely continue. idk if ill write a dystopia again anytime soon, but i think my future stuff will at least retain that long and heavy vibe

💁- Did readers influence/change any part of this story?

oh yEA like basically i was ready to quit after the very first chapter before it was even written and kinda just got it all out on a whim of motivation but was expecting to flake on it like i tend to do with projects, but the invested response to it was just so uplifting that its what ive been riding on all ten chapters and im so grateful for it :’)))

✏️-Would you go back and change anything if you could?

hHHHHHHH yes and ok this is terrible but i actually tend to avoid re-reading my older chapters until i hAVe to bc i suffer from that sO much ,,, , its just little things like tiny words i wanna change or bits i wanna take out/put in and once or twice ive even caught a mistake or plot hole/smth i forgot to add that i rly do have to go back and edit and i just turn to dust every tim e

⭐- What’s a scene/paragraph you’re proud of?

i really liked the northern lights scene!! it was meant to be a pivotal moment of that ‘bittersweetness’ vibe i was talking abt and it was another one of those scenes i had been planning for a while;;;

“ I think of how much the rest of the family would love this. This isn’t like the moon and the sun, where I can see it and know that even if it looks different, they’ll see the same one soon enough, wherever they are. This reminds me only that I am not with them. It stings. It seems unnatural for something so gentle and natural to appear before us as if we aren’t in complete, total fucking chaos. After all we’ve been through, and the sky still dances. “

📣-What was the best piece of encouragement you got?

AVERY ALL OF UR LIVEBL OGS AND COMMENTS GIV ME SUCH L I FE, ,, ,, CRYIGN CAT FA ce

🔦-Did you learn anything while writing it? About yourself? Writing?

isdfhSDF YEs, part of my hesitation to write came from this thing where i always just assumed there was a wildly high standard of writing in fandom spaces like in original literature spaces, where you had to have like 10+ sentences to a paragraph and you had to describe every tiny detail of a setting and you had to follow every single grammar rule or it was unreadable but like. genuinely its like sculpting with words as long as you have a shape ppl get the idea which is such a weight off my shoulders lol, its still a lot of work but so much fun to know i can to an extent do what i want and ppl actually like it like that. i also learned that like most other writers i have to cause my favs emotional and physical pain,

🎁- Any writing advice for people who want to write something like this?

hhHHHH 1. please do it its so fun just give in to the edge my guy , 2. try to get comfortable re-reading your chapters, for me its like when ppl listen to themselves sing/act but im trying to do better bc its so much more consistent when i keep it fresh in my mind and it also boosts confidence when u can pick out the things u like instead of the things u dont, 3. trying to have at least one scene in mind for each chapter that ur excited to write so u can have motivation to update faster! for me it doesnt have to be smth i think would excite the audience either like it could be the most basic thing but just having an idea of it and knowing i want to see it come to life rly helps me stay on top of it all

TY SM FRIEND THIS WAS SO FUN x x )

[tfw-no-tennis]

One Piece Readthru

heyo ive decided its time for me to catch up on the one piece manga finally!! i last read it uhhh sometime late 2018?? MAYBE early 2019....anyways ill be liveblogging it, basically for myself but if anyone is interested then enjoy lol

so w.out further ado hers 927-931 hya 

uh ok i left off kinda in the middle of the wano arc, so im scanning thru some stuff to see what i remember.....i dont really remember what the deal is with that ginger (?) pompadour guy lmao. theres a lot of new characters and intricate politics in this arc from what i remember. 

i havent really gotten spoiled for anything....i know that something bad happens to kid & killer, somethins up w/sabo (but we dont know what), luffy fights kaido (more than once i think?) uhhhhh we get roger flashbacks and hear the yonkous bounties....thats abt all i really know. so im hype to find out what else has gone on....

im gonna start around 927, i defs read this but i want a refresher 

wow its amazing how sanji can oscillate so fast from being unbearable and annoying to like one of my favs

i loveeee the panels where those dudes start trashing sanjis soba stand and usopps like lol lets back up yall we KNOW sanjis boutta kick some righteous ass....YESSS

franky supplexing a guy....ily franky 

toko!!! i forgot abt her!!! cute kid, whats her deal? iirc she works at the uhhh wherever komurasaki works and she almost gets murderized later

sanji and little kids is so cute ;_; more of that and less stuff of him being gross w/women 

ok exposition....i do remember a lot of this

928, i feel like i remember this stuff so ill kinda blow thru it 

oh yeah i remember luffy n the prison shennanigans....good times

and kidds here too, talkin abt how he lost his arm trying to fight shanks...lol dude 

dude is really like oh i couldnt take down shanks, so ill aim for a different yonkou, im sure this will go much better a second time (and down an arm)

omfg i forgot abt this dude who apparently sold his FAMILY to get money for komurasaki....

i think we’re supposed to feel bad for this dude and think komurasaki is cruel or w/e but man honestly i just respect the hustle. girl knows whats up

HVBJSDKFBDS I FORGOT THE HILARIOUS LINE WHERE SHES LIKE ‘I HATE POOR PEOPLE <3′ IM....its literally like a weird twitter shitpost lmaooo

they cut immediately from komurasaki to tama asking momo if he has a sister....LMAO SUBTLE......

i dont even remember if that twist was spoiled for me, but either way it was my like immediate thought upon komurasakis intro lmao 

ok 929!

omg kanjuro selling some-drawn fish lol

OUGHHH CARROT AND THE OTHER MINKS....i miss carrot sm i hope she shows up more :( i really wish she would join the crew....

lmao that guy calling zoro a pretty boy and saying girls are probably all over him....zoros like uh ew no im gay 

OOOH PLOT SHITTTTT....caesar and doflamingo name drops...

VEGAPUNK HM [eyes emojiey]

orochis defs gonna get fucked up at some point. his design reminds me of wapol and other like corrupt king archetypes 

oguhfdbsjkgjdfbh laws head basket i forgot abt that. also i love when people call him traffy thats weirdly cute 

oh right the other supernovas who became kaidous bitches are here to fight...i recall that fight somewhat 

920 time! 

oh yeah the weird place where all the poor starving people laugh constantly...inch resting

OHH YEAH BIG MOM!!! man i definitely read a lot further than this lmao. w/e i was SO fucking hype when she showed up, imo the whole amnesia thing is pretty lame. we’ll see where it goes tho 

the art here is just so good oh man. the panel of big moms ship charging up the waterfall while she laughs? fantastic 

EPIC arrival. i hope big mom gets to do cool stuff even despite the impending amnesia

i ALSO hope her kids get to do cool shit too. im still holding out for a zoro vs amande battle (if shes even there? i dont see her, but thatd be such a waste)...and smoothie vs robin....

and she wants zeus back....NAMI FIGHT??? PLEASE???

oh its bdsm dinosaur guy....hmm never thought id type that

LMAOOOO law is like Dont You Dare Fucking Snitch On Us and usopp is like uh luffy pls come pick me up this guy is too hardcore

FINAL BATTLE thats so dramatic law please

sanji saying he’ll protect usopp omfg

oooh theyre destorying all the soba shops....here comes sanji to bring the PAIN

OMFG THE RAID SUIT i forgot he busts that out....hilariously quickly all things considered

931! ok but first my obligatory thots on how sad i am abt how the women of op look nowadays lmao revisiting old one piece just makes it all the more obvious how ridiculous its gotten....like nami and robin dont even look human, its insane, and the sameface has gotten so bad...idk i miss when op women used to look normal and could just exist without being Sexy Women bc that was a thing at the beginning and i really loved that...now its just like wow all titty no waist legs are 100x longer than normal....not to mention the writing for women in op has gone way downhill...ugh. ANYWAYS onward 

ofc as soon as i say that theres a rlly cute and p normal looking cover w/nami...i love her sm shes my fav character thats part of the reason this bothers me so much lol 

i miss her short hair tho...the long hair is pretty and i like her different hairstyles but i defs prefer the short spunky look. i wish she wouldve gotten a cool bellmere-esque haircut after the timeskip at least

ok im p sure i didnt read this...? i dont remember hgbvhjaksdfk

GERMA THEME SONG HBVJSDUIFJBSF are you telling me that the raid suit activation process involves a THEME SONG....please i need to hear this. thats so fuckign funny

‘GERMAAAAAAAAAAA’ [sanji doing an unironic magical girl transformation] IT CANT BE OVERSTATED HOW HILARIOUS AND AMAZING THIS IS LMAOOOOOO 

i think we saw this w/his siblings during whole cake but i forget lmao

of course franky and usopp are like OOOH FUCK YEAH 

HHBDSJKFJSB the implications of law knowing Exactly who that is....like i really need to see an omake of a campy power rangers/sentai/whatever-esque show/comic with all these germa personas omfgggggggg

and law having read the comics is SO funny 

also. sanjis hair is SO unfortunate lmaooo

O SOBA MASK HBVHSJDKUFJBDSK

germa was the bad guy group in the comics....good lmao 

law was defs a fan he knows ALL the lore LMAOOO

A BABY SANJI....and then sanji being weird. skip! 

ironic hows theyre like oh shit gotta challenge this dude so he doesnt destroy the town and their fight is gonna level the place anyways lmao 

oh i did read this i think cause i remember all those ninja busting robin for sneaking around

which ok theyre ninja but robin could grow eyes for surveillance so it doesnt make much sense that shed be caught so easily...alas

THAT GUYS HEAD HBVHJFKD LMAO

oh yeah then big mom washes up w/amnesia lmao. i hope that plotline doesnt suck, i dont have too much hope...normally i really like amnesia plotlines and honestly i think itd be cool to explore w/like one of the strawhats but in this case it just seems kinda like a lazy way to take big mom out of the game :/ my prediction is she’ll get her memory back at a certain time thats convenient to the plot, just in time for like an all out war w/kaidou and the straw hats and the yakuza maybe? we shall see (possibly) 

ok its past 6 am so its bedtime. more later! 

[venomgender]

I JUST THINK. ok. ok. ok

i just think the potential intereactions venom and deadpool would have would be so interesting. because while i wouldnt call them 1:1 parallels or narritive foils or anything like that theyre stories are INSANLY similiar. kind of. like deadpool kills for money venom kills LITERALLY TO SURVIVE and yet the one peter forgives is deadpool? ok. and like yeah sure it makes more sense for him to forgive deadpool because deadpool has never tried to kill HIM. at least knowing it was him you know. and venom and eddie's favorite past time is trying to kill peter. but i just think itd be soooooo interesting for venom and deadpool to interact ok. i think itd be interesting. i think venom and deadpool would end up teaming up and wade would be OBSESSED w the tagline of 'lethal protectors' and i think theyd become murder besties. and peter sees this team up on like the news or something and goes to confront dp about it like HEY!!!!!! why are you teaming up w a guy i hate and dp is like well we're alike. and it just. it just hits peter. you know

and i dont think peter would ever forgive venom because while dp at least stops killing around peter venom and eddie iteralluy. to live. need to eat human brains. so. but i thinkk it would Fuck Peter Up bigtime. which is so fun to think about. bc they *are* the same. kind of. deadpool anti hero turned kind-of-hero venom villian turned anti hero like. DO YOU SEE IT???? and i think even on the off chance that peter does end up forgiving venom (and i keep saying forgiving that is not the right word. i just dont know what hte right word is. if he does end up going through the same character arc of hating deadpool to being friends with him w venom and eddie venom would NOT forgive peter. lmao. because venom is at its core a little bitch that cannot handle rejection and eddie brock is a little bitch that i feel like genuinely wants peter parker dead. and OUGH. i just think thats so fun to think about

AND LIKE. idk what theyre doing in the 2018 comics but in the 2016 comics at least venom and eddie are literally in san fransico iirc so it doesnt really make sense logistially for a team up between deadpool spidey AND venom but the possibilities. they make me go insane

like venoms out hunting and is in the middle of saving Some Citizen idk when one of spidermans rouges blows up like the building next to them or something and spidey and dp are already fighting the villian together and v and eddie have this whole argument on whether or not they should even go HELP w the fight bc fuck spiderman but they decide to do it anyways bc ultimatley its the right thing to do and when peter sees venom hes like OH COME ON. WHY ARE YOU HELPING HIM meanwhile dps like omg hi!! and thered be this like whole tension at the beginning between venom and spiderman on whther they should Trust each other bt the situation starts getting out of hand so theyre like Fuck It. whatever. and idk wades there being wade and both venom and peter are talking to wade but they re like refusing to acknowledge each other and OUGH. OUGH. im normal

i just think its something soooooo fun to think about ok ok ok. and i imagine it ends up being peter and wades Fight Of The Month and at the next team red team up theyre STILL fighting about it and matts like. come on. guys. and OUGH. now im thinking of venom and dd team ups i need to calm down

there just REALLY TRULY IS something to say about peter becoming best friends with deadpool, world famous mercenary, but always being hostile to venom even when venom has shown just as much effort (if not MORE. what with the. theyr eno longer villians) as deadpool to get better and you literally cannot blame them. for killing people. when they need to survive. and i think it woul djust be soooooo intersting to explore peters character and his thought process in coming to this realization that theyre the same and yet treated comepltely differently.

and like. venom obviously knows spidermans identity right. theres like no way he cant w the combined memories of eddy meeting peter and v meeting spiderman (not the mention jus the nature of symbiotic relationships) so like venom HAS to know that sm is peter parker. and i feel like as dp and venom's relationship grows it becomes something of a. i guess joke? of venom to do to lord it over dp that he knows peters identity and he doesnt and i just imagine. that when. when peter eventually DOES tell dp that he is Peter Parker.... i dont remember what i was going to say that he could then like lord it over venom that HEY spidey told ME it WILLINGLY or something idk. idk

im normal

[malusdraco]

GUYS i need decision help

so i’m taking a screenwriting class (yay) and we’re going to be writing the first chunk of a whole screenplay. i’m really psyched about this whole thing but i’m not sure what i should do (and this is relevant cause i have to write 3 pages by monday OTL)

so i’ve been thinking

1. i could write something entirely new, from scratch. i’ve already got a new idea in mind that boils down to a chosen one story focusing on the comparatively “useless” best friend. the main draw here is that i’d want to make it emotional and kinda echo the sentiment that love is the most powerful force of all. however, it will take a lot of time and thinking to build it (i’ve got a skeleton i’m considering but its got some holes i can’t really ignore) and also i’m not sure i could pull off something emotional like that without sounding sappy.

2. i could take one of my bigger worlds, take a chunk out of a character’s story and focus on that. i’ve been seriously thinking about a story focusing on deneb just doing his bounty hunter stuff (before the crayn arc). itd be a fun sci-fi action comedy about this tiny, flirtatious alien dude. the drawback is that its nothing new, and i wouldn’t want to get extremely emotional with this story. so itd be fun to do but utterly meaningless. I would also need to come up with a plausible story, tho writing deneb will be significantly easier than writing a rando cause i know him so well.

3. i could take a smaller, less developed story and turn it in its entirety into a screenplay. my idea here was the necromancer queen and knight story since it has a definitive beginning and end. the downside here is that i’m really at a loss trying to figure out what happens in between the middle and end. this story in particular also is real depressing so i’m not sure if i want to spend my semester thinking about it.

anyway i wanna know your guys’ opinions on this, i’m sincerely stuck here .-.

[shonikado]

Warning: Contains "Shonikado Did Tabletop: Episode 5"

If it seems surprisingly soon for one of these, that's because it's not a regular one - I did a solo for the human barbarian

also i went back to using d20, because 1. that way everyone knows how to do things, and 2. it means mechanics are in place that create an actual lose state that the players might hit if they get in over their heads, which is important because i think we're all (myself included) mainly interested in fun stuff happening and playing a fun mechanical game, because we're not so great at the roleplaying yet.

anyway here's what happened

so the barbarian was getting bored of being with the party because they fought very little and seemed to have goals not entirely aligned with her "i want to fighty the things" goals so she got up in the middle of the night, took her cat, and ran off towards a mountain that seemed like it could be interesting

along the way she came to a giant mass of black briars, and a temple that looked like it probably went through them, but also was likely a tad infested, but hey seems like fun adventure times, on she went

inside there was this dead weird fantasy version of a liopleurodon, also unicorn statues, also the dead thing was called a serrkeru and it was more accurate to say it was a zombie. And it attacked. But before it could be properly murderated, there was this rumbling noise and the barbarian went out of the temple to see what was up and didn't see much but when she got back it looked like a gianter serrkeru came and ate the one she was dealing with. Oh well

also apparently serrkeru are from a different continent, that was a little fun factoid presented

so she went onwards and ran into this group of humanoid-frog skeletons, and one twig frog effigy, being puppeted by the black briars extending into the temple. the skeleton-puppets were guarding the corpse of a dead unicorn, until they weren't, because the barbarian smashed them to pieces pretty quickly. And then she took the horn, and then discovered that was a good move because the horn was needed to open a magically sealed door preventing further passage. So that door was opened and hooray

but there were like 20+ frog skeleton puppets in the next room and they immediately took notice of her

thankfully, the unicorn horn apparently allowed the barbarian to command the frog skeletons and so she had an army and she marched on with it. And then ran into the giant undead serrkeru that ate the smaller one she wanted to kill. So obviously it was time to murderate it in revenge, with a bunch of puppeted frog skeletons to back her up

anyway so after a very long time the big serrkeru was dead, and most frog skeletons were smashed to pieces, but victory and moving on happened! So the barbarian eventually came to this mud slide with lots of frog corpses and effigies, mostly effigies at the top, and she went up and got covered in mud and scared the frog people who she found at the top. And then her displacer beast came up and also scared them. And then the frog skeletons came up but by that point they were about as scared as they could be already. Also at this point it was revealed the frog-people were bullywogs, but we continued to call them frogs anyway

so after some questioning about desecration of sacred burial grounds, the barbarian asked about if the mountain she was heading towards was any cool, and the bullywogs were like noooo there's giants. you'll die. also political things regarding giants that we're not gonna explain because that'd take time and it'd probably be boring. but basically no, but if you DO want to go to that mountain and fight giants and actually have a chance of survival, there's a giant-hunting guild of sorts over in this city we want to head to

sure this sounds cool, says the barbarian, i want to go to this city so i can come back here and fight giants

and this works out for the bullywogs too, they say, because they've been unable to leave the swamp and go to the town to buy fancy clothes. because they have fancy clothes but they're all very dirty because swamps are dirty. and that's bad. they want good clothes. But the important part is the part where everyone keeps dying when they try to leave, there's always a survivor who comes back and the stories are wildly inconsistent

anyway so the barbarian acts as a bodyguard, and as such gets a free ride in the morning after a long rest that I'll mention later in my retrospective. so the bullywogs get on their boatcart, and two with hooks attached to their tongues shoot them at trees and tug the boat forward because that's an efficient way of travel. also on the boat is a survivor from the last boatcart ride who wants to help point out where The Thing Attacked Them, also a merchant, also a bullywog who just wanted to visit the city.

anyway so they reached the area where they got attacked, the barbarian spots a spear sticking out from behind a tree, the survivor is like "oh no thats it. thats it please go investigate"

so the barbarian prepares to get out of the boatcart but is then pushed out, by the survivor, who upon touching the barbarian morphs into them, complete with axe, because apparently it was actually some sort of shapeshifter. it then murderates one of the hooktongue frogs, the frog who wanted to visit, and uses its black-briar-bones to ensnare the merchant frog but then the merchant frog turned out to be buff and rolled a crit on a strength check and busted out

also this entire time the barbarian's cat was REALLY confused because there were two masters?? what do?? the barbarian's player kept making intelligence rolls to see if the cat figured out what was going on. It did not.

anyway the barbarian human successfully smashed the shapeshifter's face in for a few rounds before the shapeshifter sunk into the swamp and nope'd out. and then the frogs were like "ok lets go on to the town and figure out what that thing is and how to kill it" and the barbarian was like "great cool onwards" and onwards they went

~DING~ SO WHAT WENT WRONG? SOMETHING ALWAYS GOES WRONG.

I didn't actually have the temple part planned. I came up with the idea of commanding a frog army very late in the process, and the giant serrkeru fight, and was just sorta like "aces, cool, great, these combat encounters will be interesting" but really they were just kinda eh? But the player said they had fun, they figured it'd have been different for other players but with just the barbarian, who loved killing things, it was a blast

I HAD TO MAKE TWO RETCONS AND IT UPSETS ME. But they're for the greater good. The first was a fuckup on my part because the long rest sets the timeline up weird, the barbarian SHOULD have immediately gotten on the boatcart but I forgot, whoops.

The second is that we're saying the shapeshifter also cloned the cat too - I already knew it had the capability to clone beyond just the person it touches, since that's how it made the axe and also other items/clothes, but the cat is a stretch but not impossible given how closely tied the barbarian is to her pet. The reason this retcon is important is because the shapeshifter is going to be the one who rejoins the main party to try and trick them into helping find the frogs and kill them. (The shapeshifter is one of many tasked with keeping the denizens of the swamp inside the swamp through murdery means.) There's some extra details in there, but the high-level one there is just, yeah, fake barbarian in the party and the players will have no idea because NONE OF THEM READ MY BLOG, RIGHT? RIGHT? i told you not to read my blog i explicitly told you, you better not, youre only hurting yourself AND ALSO ME

Anyway. Overall it was a frantic flailing solo but it worked out decently. I couldn't do the bullywog voice I practiced - when it came time to do it I just couldn't summon up the will to make my vocal chords behave. But oh well!

Also I need to stop immersion-breaking and poking at my own world as a way to shield myself from criticism. When I told the player the monsters were called serrkeru I immediately started backpedaling and saying But Obviously Unimportant Arbitrary, which, I shouldn't do. I like the name. I like the names I give my stuff, I like taking my stuff seriously.

OH RIGHT ALSO I FUCKED UP i said the black briars were outside the temple waiting to take the frog skeletons with them, but then the player was like "theyre not coming with me right" and i was like (wait, should they? i mean i had plans to have the shapeshifter take command of them and itd be a cool twist moment, but, i guess) "nope they are confined to the temple" and so I mean, *I* know I fucked up there, but the player didn't, so. I just get to sit in solitude and feel like I need to do better

anyway, as a result of the upcoming arc I have been trying out my make-interesting-fights muscles, and there's gonna be a duo with the barbarian's player and the dwarf paladin's player (who will be playing a new character, a monk I think?) which will be a good testing grounds to see if I actually end up with interesting fights, or, if they just end up being... Really cluttered. WHO KNOWS

also I successfully figured out how to make Tinder 'N More feel like a valid part of my canon instead of a one-off joke for the sake I made to appease one of my players asking "where can i find tinder to burn down this dog shelter". I mean, it's still a silly concept that didn't need to be there, but I've taken it seriously enough in integrating it, and it led to a fun character backstory thing/ability idea, so I'm happy with where that is

I think this also counts as my first attempt to, like... steer a player down a certain path. It felt weird, but I think it turned out okay. This was the main feedback I took away from session 4 - i do not know how to do open-world well yet, so, sticking to slightly railroaded. I'm working on it! I'm working on it.

[isaacathom]

so im googling the towns the gyms are in so i can add a little more to them and their leaders and uh warrnambools coming up dust. dairy?? the fuck am i going to use with dairy for fuckin jimin??? what am i gonna do with that???? hes a flying boy! whats he got with milktank. like that doesnt actually help me

what ill probably do for him specifically is play up the port angle - warrnambool used to be a big port town, hence that kickass maritime museum (admittedly i was like 10 so maybe its not as kickass as i remember). so you play up that, that has a tie to the wind, so Jimin has relevance. give him a pelipper and hes all good. not sure i ever pictured him for a sailor type but he DID live in the big port city in EC so actually that does track. him and william are both good swimmers. explains why they live in port cities, ya? nicely done. can Mattie swim? probably not.

so actually him being in delivery makes total sense. but i gotta play up the seaward angle because sky delivery was Skyla’s thing, with the planes. he doesnt have planes, per se, but still! boats n shit. trains? oes.... does a train actually run to warrnambool from melbourne? i doubt it. oh, it does, but its one of those booked trains. wild. ok not trains, then. boats dooo seem kinda useless when its on the mainland, BUT if we make the route between it and WIlliam’s joint really long and arduous (which, to be fair, gettin to warrnambool from geelong is goddamn arduous even if great ocean road is a+). actually yea, make the route between those two towns great ocean. that way, it makes SENSE for people to use boats between the two towns/cities/yahea, because its just that little bit more convenient, especially if the winds are on your side. which, if youve got ol Jimin, you’ve got em! its his speciality. nice. plus, if the seas ever bad, and a delivery needs to be made, ya boy is here

this doesnt reallt change anything story wise, since i plan for Jimins city to be a fairly painless affair, to contrast the absolute fuck show Henry is going to force you through PLUS any other mess.

though. i do need to play Small Fry’s a-R FUCK I FORGOT TO GIVE SMALL FRY A NAME. /DAMMIT/. ok listen whatever. ol small fry has to get arrested at some point, BEFORE the player encounters Felicity in the base (but after the player has encountered Felicity in general). s, before the mountain trip. uh..... hmmm..... between sonya and lucienne? beechworths in the middle and it and luciennes town are all about the past, and ol ghosties (though sonyas town also has a nice ghost chunk due to, yknow, The Fires). would be fun for Elliot. thooouuuggggh would elliot be there??? i feel like he needs to be. for his character arc, i mean. hes gotta succeed some time? though he is present for the tower thing, which id argue to more the completion of his arc anyway? or a big point, since he either runs or he stays and that heavily impact his potential reconciliation with Rhia. so i guess he doesnt need to be present during? afterwards absolutely! itd be the build up - hes not present for any of the other Team shit up to that point, and now he finally arrives, late - but its him building up to actually being there. same when he rescues you from the base on the east.

so, the base is in.... beechworth??? well, i say Base. its a throwaway base. itd be really easy. in terms of trainer count, anyway. it SHOULD tip the player off that this isnt the end. its too early, too easy. theres something more. thatll be fun. maybe its on the route between them? somewhere between 6-7, sonya and lucienne. maybe its like.... west of beechworth? an area off of it. just a nice house, like what people live in. idk how youd get involved. maybe through Zeke? or [Sam]? Sam might be a good choice, since this is basically the last time theyll show up before you’ve basically locked in their route (insofar as that route impacts the Tower shit). mb the idea is that Sam meets you there and takes you to buy some of those Fucking Good pastries (no seriously beechworth pastries are really good i strongly recommend it. dunno about like veggie options but the snag roll was heavenly) and while youre outside chatting (getting those sweet convo points to set the route) you notice some grunts running off down the road with a pokemon. and sam, being a goodie, runs after them, and you follow, because its natural to do so (also mandatory because an npc who watched will force you to go if you try to leave lol). so you get to fight through the grunts with sam, and then theyll leave to call the Org/League/Etc. 

and, of course, this completely disrupts the plan for the Org. when they arrive and find you with a beaten Small Fry, who was completely caught off guard by you and soundly whooped, youve thrown a spanner in the works. Small Fry was the initial, easy option for a fall guy re: the legendary thing. youve just gotten them arrested, and the only way to have him still be the fall guy is to have him escape, which would damage the org reputation. so, youve fucked them. hence the escalation from that point to doing shady shit, trying to force Jun’s hand, or Rhia’s hand, or ANYONE’S hand. they could have succeeded at forcing Rhia’s hand if Elliot hadn’t shown up and ultimately given her what she wanted.idk. ooh, Rhia could show up the base, with the idea from the Org being that, of COURSE, you’ll fail to defeat Small Fry and Rhia, being disabled, will be unable to make it in time. of course, she’s more mobile than they think, and you’re a tough cookie, and Rhia makes the arrest. Rhia’s the one who fucks them. OOF, and aybe this is the point where you start getting Team vibes from Rhia. she walks in very calmly, calls Small Fry by his name (WHATEVER THAT NAME IS, god DAMMIT), and when he attempts to use that snark to escape, she stops him very calmly. the relationship is too casual to be coincidence. they’ve got history. but what IS that history? Rhia doesn’t tell you, but she’s got a sly smile. you assume its because shes sided with SF and she’s gonna free him, but shes actually smiling because she’s sabotaging T/O. nicely done. love you, rhia. blows kiss

hmm. yea. then Sam will congratulate you, you get your last mandatory dialogue with Sam prior to the Tower, and off you go, up the road, to Luciennes town and her Ghost gym. i think i like that set up. nice.