#just a lot of chat macros basically

[cups-official]

my biggest problem is that all the projects that I'm the proudest of are things that I probably cant put on a resume

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapter 7: caged 🪽

thank you for reading chapter seven of Beasts! this chapter, we see the fallout from the controversial punch, watch harry and ginny go through about ninety bottles of ink writing precisely one bazillion letters to one another (my loves), and fret as the residents of grimmauld place fight a losing battle with pixies that may or may not be a metaphor for our characters’ own multiplying traumas, chasing everyone around and refusing to be contained. pray for our babies, for no-one is thriving - let's chat chapter seven! (plus a sneak peek of chapter eight, which includes a letter from a character yet to make his Beasts debut...) 👀

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

vibes: this chapter, i wanted the vibes to be claustrophobic, tedium, all hogwarts, real focus on ginny and her restlessness and over-it-ness, her starting to write a lot, both to harry and to others, and her starting to push the boundaries and rebel now she's lost her sense of purpose in returning. (@pocket-lilacs brought up pandemic-era uni vibes of 'what is the point of studying when all this is going on' and that is exactly the energy here). the politics is more a backdrop to ginny's arc in this chapter, though the thicknesse trial has uncomfortable echoes for gin's own set of experiences, and i'm having so much fun but also banging my head up against the wall/grappling with turning up/turning down the volume on the different macro/micro plots in different chapters to try and get different effects and to follow ginny's own engagement with the Big Questions of the postwar wizarding world. scale is hard, who knew!

quidditch: by far the hardest part of this chapter to write was the quidditch scene. it was 3000 words long originally, and i had to go at it with a sledgehammer to bash it into bits, dump most of it, and then just keep the most important parts to fold into this much quicker, punchier scene. the worst part of writing is spending days crafting a section and in doing so learn that you don't need it lmao. so yeah that's why this chapter was a week late. this one was a nightmare but we got there in the end lmao

the forest detention: our first flashback to the war year at hogwarts! why haven't we had more? answers on a postcard, all will be revealed, including the context for the silver trio's forest detention, but for now will just say the fact that snape sent the gang into the forest with hagrid for detention after stealing the sword has a) always had me in a chokehold because all of the endless ginny/forest foreshadowing but also because i've never been satisfied with the explanation that the detention was just an obvious easy option. can't wait to share more !!!

harry and ginny: all i want to do is write more letters for those two. 'sneaking out of grounds, booze, leather gangs' - that was how @madammalkins23 summed it up beautifully, getting at the vibes i keep coming back to with both of these characters: the sirius-black-shaped elephant in the room, basically. escaping from hogwarts with buckbeak? the risk being what makes it all fun? harry fixing up the motorbike? fighting a war against grimmauld place and getting on the whiskey? the looming shadow of molly weasley? it's truly giving padfoot. the idea of harry and ginny in cahoots, as partners in crime, really kept me going when writing this chapter - like, what if harry for the first time did have another person in his life who was of the 'fuck it' school of thought? (i even went back and read that jkr short story of sirius and james on the motorbike lol). basically, the sirius echoes just sort of ended up writing themselves, as they always seem to do in this fic. when it comes to the letters, it's striking to me that in canon harry is very preoccupied with who does or doesn’t write to him - at the dursleys', but also after sirius' death ('It’s just hard,' Harry said finally, in a low voice, 'to realise he won’t write to me again.' - HBP). i've never really got fics that have harry as a non-loquacious letter writer in the post-war period, especially to ginny - harry seeks huge comfort and reassurance in getting letters from people who care about him, and channels his worries about people he's close to into letters, especially people he views as family (sirius, ginny). that harry and ginny would become a bit emotionally codependent through letters seemed in some sense a natural choice, basically, and although they're still being very avoidant, in some ways, i think they're building a foundation towards becoming each other's person in ways that's important. (i am putting together a sirius and ginny parallels meta playing with these ideas and character-trait overlap that i'll share hopefully soon, so stay tuned on that one)

why won’t ginny open up? by far the question i've been asked most this week! i am really really excited and happy about the arc i’ve got in store for ginny on this question, so don't want to reveal too much, but there have been some beautiful insightful guesses in the comments section about why ginny is struggling to come clean with harry or her family. here we see harry begin to see through gin's defences, a little bit, but also show his own blindspots that come from him not having asked the right questions or always probed about her interior life before now. i'm always so grateful and blown away by the trust readers have put in me to deliver on all these protracted question marks but this week especially i felt v glad for readers' compassion towards these characters and especially for ginny and hermione, as they fuck up and get it wrong and struggle yet still get grace in the comment section. both are on a journey, but i know more impatient readers could be sick of waiting for them to get there, so just to say i am really glad everyone is getting it and seeing where both characters are at with empathy and kindness, because ofc what they’re both doing is frustrating (and, when it comes to gin, harry is beginning to think so, too)

plus thicknesse: had a long chat with @saintsenara about ol thicknesse, because he's kind of a baffling figure - ex-auror who gets successfully imperiused, becomes minister and then goes on to actively commit horrific war crimes while under yaxley's control. what's fun about the trials, though, is that you can use them as a conduit to raise these big moral questions for postwar wizarding society - in thicknesse's case, it's questions about agency, free will, and culpability, in ways that has real implications for ginny's reflections on her own experiences. so cheers pius love u

harry's patronus: i am salivating at all of your theories for this one - obviously i'm saying nothing for now, but keep them guesses coming, i live for em! and if you guess right, i'll come up with some kind of prize lmao

detention, career advice (and graves' apathy): back in the site of former detentions, ginny shows her remarkably sparse knowledge of wizarding careers in a scene that i hope shows her trying on for size different role models/authority figures and seeing which ones she feels most like. (i like the idea that ginny would actually be a bit interested in being an auror, if only she'd been in of age and able to benefit from kingsley's hiring amesty after the battle). having ginny hover over the idea of being an unspeakable was particularly important for me, because i like the idea of the dept of mysteries being quite a formative space for her (i feel like all i do is say 'wait and see!' but... i have things to do and say with this dimension i swear!) graves is like, do what you want, babe, i don't care. i'm here for the pension, frankly

michael corner: 'surprise bitch!' - michael corner, probably. do i think michael and ginny were mates after the breakup end of ootp? no i do not. but i have always been so struck that ginny and michael must have actually spent a lot of very intense time together during DH as die-hards in the DA (michael is the only character we hear whose torture by the carrows after attempting to rescue a younger student is described as particularly severe, which i think suggests his level of commitment to the cause). readers will recall my open disdain for michael corner up til this point - i have described him as the jack berger of hogwarts quidditch, for my satc fans - but i'm afraid to say i have now decided i quite like him and am excited for him to rock up in person real soon. i think he's a know it all softboi but with a goodie core. also as a writer there's something quite refreshing about bringing in a character who is an ex who probably can see through some of ginny's shit by virtue of having spent a lot of time with her but no longer needing to/caring about impressing her, placating her or keeping her on side lol

hermione: alaskanastro left a comment that summed this up: 'Man, Hermione is really just doubling down on the whole "I'm going to try desperately to control something in life to feel like I'm in control even if it's my friend's life" isn't she? Or at least trying to'. yep, that's what she's doing! we still don't know all that hermione's going through, but this hit the nail on the head fr. i feel bad that this fic is ginny pov at this stage in its arc, because i think ginny sees hermione in a particular way rn (their final conversation in this chapter really speaking to these tensions - ginny does not want to feel mothered, at least not by hermione...), but these two have a long way to go to get to a point of mutual understanding. wanna write a meta on their friendship soon, hopefully will get chance to before i finish chapter 8. but anyway - wonder what's going on with her and ron... hope we find out soon... hope someone tells us... :) :) :)

everything but the ghoul: the dumbest pun, but had to use this joke in a chapter where ginny skips school (everything but the girl's most famous song is called 'missing'... get it)

songs from the playlist for this chapter:

girls getting grouchy and teenage in their feelings is the big ol mood this week:

the middle of the world - nicholas brittell | sidelines by phoebe bridgers | difficult by gracie abrams | simulation swarm by big thief | crisis by elizabeth m. drummond | delete forever - grimes | chinese satellite (copycat killer version) by phoebe bridgers

i did promise a sneak peek didn't i...

From the desk of the MINISTER OF MAGIC Whitehall, London Dear Ginny,  I hope you’re well. I’d like to meet with you on Saturday the 12th of December at 11 o’clock. It’s important that we’re discreet. Please vanish this letter after reading. Sincerely, Kingsley

[racke7]

Me vs FF14

I've been raising the levels on my DPS-jobs (trying to get them all to fifty), and so I've been using the leveling-queue.

(Ifrit is still fucking bullshit and shouldn't fucking be there)

Had a WHM get completely lost in a dungeon, and had to talk them through how to get to us.

Saw another DPS with some kind of "go tank and pull everything"-chat macro, which... is kind of none of their fucking business as a DPS? The ones deciding on how fast and hard we should go are the tank and healer who are the ones making sure we don't fucking wipe. The fucking disrespect.

A tank actually used their Limit-Break during the final boss-fight. Against a boss that does basically fuck-all damage. Had to take a moment after that dungeon to stare at a wall, because what the fuck.

On a not-actually related note to that last one, I've now mapped the "target-priority"-button to a hotkey, so I can tell people to not bother with targeting the adds when they don't need to.

I've also created a few chat-macros of my own for things like "sound alert telling the tank to set tank-stance" and "basic rules a tank should know" which are as follow:

"Pull until your healer asks you to stop"

"Never stop using your AOE"

"Don't move around unless you have to"

The reasons for the first is that the tank sets the tempo of the dungeon, and some tanks are scared of wiping. Wipes happen. Inattention, greed, random chance.

Your job is to go as fast as you can, and to try and not-die when everything catches up to you, and the one who gets veto on how you do that? Is the healer. So pull as much as you can, and if you wipe or your healer complains? Slow down.

(Everyone else can shut their fucking mouths about it.)

The second one is there because I kept seeing tanks who lost the fucking aggro, despite having tank-stance active. And this is usually because they either don't use their AOE-skill (probably not helped by the novice-tutorial shit telling tanks to "stop using" AOE once a target is "captured" which is bullshit and bad math), or they're not standing in a place where they actually hit the enemies.

But if it's the latter, then they can usually be caught by the tank by just having the targeted sucker run into the tank's AOE-range. Which only works as long as the tank keeps using the AOE.

(The math in this case is: there aren't really a single-target skill that does more than 300~ dmg. Even the shit AOE-skills do 100. So up against three targets? AOE is just more DPS. And you should be up against groups of like... six or more.)

The third and final bit was added specifically for that one tank who thought he was a fucking bard and was running back and forth like an idiot.

There are a few different reasons for it though.

First is that if the tank stands in one place? Everyone else can move so that they don't get hit by things like non-telegraphed cleave-attacks.

Second is that if the tank doesn't move? Then neither does the enemies, so it's a lot easier for the DPS to do their positionals correctly (ie, "hit from behind" etc).

Third is that if reinforcement shows up? The non-tanks can just move to stand behind the tank, forcing the new arrivals to go through the tank first (at which point the tank's AOE would pick them up).

So. Those are my three "tank 101"-macros.

Since I'm suddenly on the subject. Added tank-lesson for anyone wanting to try it is that ranged mobs? They have to attack through line-of-sight. So running behind a corner before you stop will force ranged-mobs into AOE-range.

However, it'll also break your healer's line-of-sight though, so they won't be able to heal you until they can catch up. Be warned.

(An easier option is often to just run past their base-range until they mass, and then run back to them.)

Speaking of fun buttons, I also found out that the "confirm"-button actually lets you select nearby objects. So if you bind it to a convenient button and double-press, you don't have to worry about people blocking your mouse-clicks.

[safeandsnowy]

hi! i’m snowy! i use any pronouns, though do generally have a slight preference for she/her. i’m also like maybe a weird kinky furry gender non-conforming therian something something. if you don’t like weird little freaks this isn’t the blog for you. i love weird little freaks <3

my gender is a mystery! if you figure it out let me know. i’m amab, but my identity fluctuates a lot. if i must pick a label i’d say genderfluid, but labels are scary.

i’d consider this a kink blog, or at least vaguely a kink blog. if i interacted with your post and you’d rather i didn’t, feel free to dm me and i’ll resolve it. i try my best to respect dni’s wherever i see them, but i make mistakes.

you can call me snowy, or you can pick pretty much any pet name you want. i do like being called kitty though!

i’m romantically taken, so don’t expect to get into a relationship with me. that being said, feel free to flirt or send nsfw asks / dms, i enjoy receiving them!

ok, enough teasing. a bunch of nsfw info below the cut :3

i’m a switch! i lean sub, and usually when i’m “out of character” i act subby, but in the right context i can be a dom.

my dm’s and asks are open for absolutely anything. any questions, horny chat, roleplay, i’m open to it all. i like attention :3

i’m very much an experimentalist, ill try basically anything once. if it’s not on my limits list, im willing to try it.

my favorite kinks are petplay, watersports, cnc, and generally anything with a very significant power dynamic. i really enjoy a lot of other kinks, these are just my absolute favorites :3

my limits, which are non-negotiable, are:

ageplay of any kind

unrealistic hyper-proportions (micro / macro is fine, as long as it’s proportional)

diapers

i think that’s all! thank you for reading, i hope to hear from some people :3

[fleurarmor]

Raise and Other Job Action Macros for FFXIV

If you play FFXIV long enough you'll end up seeing a message in chat while running a duty letting folks know someone is getting raised. These are usually done via macro.

Why Do People Use Raise and Other Job Action Macros?

Raise messages basically boil down to "Other healers and raise capable members of the party, I am raising this person so don't waste your Swiftcast."

They can also communicate if this is a hard rez (no Swiftcast) and will therefore take time.

They tell you who scraped you off the floor so you have a suggestion of who to give your commendation. (This is why I appreciate others using them, personally).

They communicate part of a mechanic that another player might not know. The classic example was Paladin's Divine Veil, where they needed to be healed for the action to be completed. Although Divine Veil no longer requires it.

Creating and Editing Macros

Click the System button.

Click User Macros.

Select an empty macro or one you would like to overwrite.

In the opened macro, click the macro icon.

Select an icon to represent this macro. Or, use /micon in the macro itself to use the icon for the action.

Enter a descriptive name in the Name field, like Sage Hard Rez.

In the main body of the macro, you will enter the code of the macro, making sure each line is its own line.

Macro Components

/ac tells the system you are starting a command about an action.

"Action Name" says which action you want to use. This is job specific so you will need to make a rez macro for each job as it is Egeiro vs Raise vs Resurrection vs Ascend etc.

<wait.#> is telling the system to wait before executing the next line. The number tells the system how many seconds to wait. How long you need depends on your computer, internet connection and how congested the immediate area in game is. 2 seconds works for my current machine very well, 3 seconds worked better for my old laptop and if I'm at a world boss Fate or hunt train I don't even try to use the macro due to the long wait time needed.

/party tells the system to send the text that follows to the party chat.

<t> tells the system to substitute the name of who you are currently targeting in whatever message you are sending in chat.

<#> The number will tell the system who to target based on the position in the party list. So a 3 will target the 3rd person on the party list.

/micon "Action Name" will tell the system to give the macro the same icon as the named action.

Optimizing Rez Macro Placement on Your Hotbar

To get the most bang for your buck on your rez macro, I recommend the following order on your hotbar:

[Swiftcast] [Quick Raise Macro] [Raise] [Full Heal Action]

This set up will let you see if Swiftcast is still on cooldown. If it is you can skip your Quick Raise macro and either just click Raise directly or a Long Raise macro (which in that image is the X icon below my Quick Raise macro's icon).

Example Macros

These can all be directly copy and pasted into the body section of the macro editor.

Basic Rez Macro (RDM)

/ac "Swiftcast" <wait.2> /ac "Verraise" <wait.2> /party Raising <t>! Get back in the fight!

Hard (Long) Rez Macro (SGE)

/party Swiftcast is down! Hard rez-ing <t>! <wait.3> /ac "Egeiro"

Rez Macro with Swiftcast and Thin Air (WHM)

This is specific to WHM level 58+ and will allow you to instantly cast Raise with no MP cost to help make the most of your resources.

/ac "Swiftcast" <wait.2> /ac "Thin Air" <wait.2> /ac "Raise" <wait.2> /party Raising <t>! Get back in the fight!

Improvisation Macro (DNC)

Unless your team has played a lot of Dancer themselves they likely won't understand how Improv works. Macro messages are great for telling other people in your party what they need to do to benefit from things like DNC's Improvisation or PLD's Passage of Arms.

/micon "Improvisation" /ac "Improvisation" /party Stand near me until you hear the bongos for healing!

Aetherial Manipulation (for the BLM Who Can't Target Party Members to Literally Save Their Own Lives)

Its me, I'm that black mage. This automatically targets the third person in the party's list which will be the healer in a Light Party or the second tank in a Full Party. You will aether skate over to whoever that is.

/ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <3>

Living Dead Macro (DRK)

This is no longer required as Living Dead has been updated. But it is a good example of making a macro message fun while giving a needed instruction.

/micon "Living Dead" /ac "Living Dead" <wait.2> /party Whether by accident or purpose, I have used Living Dead. Please heal me to full or else I will soon be Dead Dead. :')

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

Day whatever of being hungry

I checked the meal plan and it seems it's a good thing I've been out making friends with the local birdlife because they have me eating what looks like seeds and nuts for breakfast AKA Keto Muesli

Not having a proper weigh in until Sunday but my current clothes are somehow already a bit loose, might dig out those old jeans and hang them up and stare at them for a while and see if that helps with the motivation

The headache went away once I remembered you're supposed to watch your water during the switch of diets, I'm still feeling warm but it's not exactly uncomfortable, it's more like just having warm muscles or something? Moved the daily walk to post workout, seems to help with the sore muscles, today was pure sweat but was a lot easier than the last one, it's kind of nice having company at the gym and it gets you a little competitive even if everyone is going at their own appropriate pace

The Nutrition app is fantastic, tracks your macros, easy to swap something out (I'm not fucking eating Kale) for something more to your tastes, I haven't chatted very much with the Nutritionist directly but they're right there if you need them, I haven't found anything too difficult to navigate

It turns out the Wellness regime I've joined is actually a competition, so I'm trying to figure out how this points system works, basically you just need to show up and keep going

I still need to sit down and do the goal setting properly but for right now it's just that pair of jeans

💜🪽🌟

[radsunny]

vers 1.1 update

This is going to be the first big update about the project. Mostly because I finally got around to re-tooling the project into an actual narrative – think of this first jump from CONCEPT to DRAFT.

Many issues to consider after doing so, and the main points are:

This thing is way too goddamn big!!!!!!!

There are issues with how the player accesses pages in a chronological or nonlinear order (basically, the calendar page “index” is not very responsive)

I need to telegraph more clearly when players have made a choice that changes the narrative structure or adds new content

Some screenshots of what CHURL looks like right now:

Graphically, it looks great. It’s exactly what I want it to look like. It makes me happy to see how insanely garish and overwhelming it is to see the content for the first time.

The main point of this prototype was to see if the content I already had could be fit into the new framework of treating BEED’s narrative like a blog you can browse through a centralized WayBack Machine-like index calendar page.

The gameplay cycle is as such:

Look at the index and pick a date (does not have to be day 1, but that does help contextualize the story more easily.) to visit a version of BEED’s site at that moment in time.

Browse the main page (BEED’s posts), the chat (side window) and other links (ABOUT, TYPEWRITER, PROJECT ARCHIVE, etc.) that look clickable. Read the content, analyze what is happening on that day for all the characters.

Repeat for all the available days on the calendar.

(not implemented yet) according to the textual clues collected during the month cycle, provide a summary statement on what BEED’s research ‘yielded’ or not throughout the month.

The most difficult part of transferring the project from a straightforward linear set of Twine passages to this new format is figuring out how to repeat content structurally while changing the content narratively on a fairly frequent basis.

Also, just in terms of my own lack of restraint when it comes to filling out the game, I ended up with six days of content in the new prototype totaling 58 passages. The original prototype outlining three weeks has a total of 55 passages. big time uh-oh moment.

A part of why CHURL ballooned so hard is that I am limited in my understanding of Twine’s ability to automate sections of the narrative, so I was basically copy-pasting static pages time and time again when a new “MAIN’ page was created.

Coupled with this is the fact that I wanted to include bonus content for players who visited certain pages or clicked ‘secret’ links. I had only become comfortable with using the (else), (either), (if x is true/false) macros that I limited myself to a binary variable structure. Again, this led me to just start multiplying passages to avoid the confusion that comes with players clicking the “RETURN TO MAIN.HTML” button and it working only on day 4 + 5, when they are on day 6…etc.

The solutions to these problems are basically: pull out the Harlowe Cookbook and read it properly without taking the simplest macros and trying to push them past their limits.

There is also the issue of how I started using Twine: as soon as I booted it up three years ago, I realized that I could use HTML and CSS to deal with a lot of the game’s links, pages, and graphic elements. I largely discarded the idea of using Harlowe as a language for this kind of stuff, so I am now atoning for my sins by trying to understand it better.

Turns out telling yourself “oh wouldn’t it be cool if also this happened” every time you thought it makes it impossible to maintain a workable structure for a project that you want to have an ENDING by April. So, I am also pulling the reins hard on outlining a developing/designing pipeline that does not kill me (metaphorically, psychologically, metaphysically).

After having the folks from the Behaviour Research Chair group play the prototype, I was given feedback which I summarize here:

Figure out the saving of player options, constant hotlink that takes the players to what they’ve found – journal updates for players – collects for them, shunting off a path – an inventory of sorts

How to get back to the progress, locking content and saved

History and Storylet tags in Harlowe/Twine – need to look into

The peripheral chatter is great – helps flesh out the world nicely – read on BEED through them

But, it isn’t clear who “I” is, who is it coming from sometimes – who is speaking at this moment?

The handholding of the first week of content – tutorializing the site!!!!

(not familiar with Beowulf) Felt overwhelmed – what is Beowulf? you have to tutorialize a bit

Every month could be a self-contained chapter, drip-feeding the initial bits

Real-time events – look into how to add this, maybe

The sound of the old mouse clicking, ads, broken gifs, etc

Notification sound or graphic on the DM window to draw attention to it

Interacting with the game’s text confirms the excitement for it, the text is great – it is a rewarding chunk of text every time, my time is worth it       

The trajectory is hard to understand – need framing for why you are doing, you would accumulate, this is developing live to some extent – how do you take this? needs to be framed – needs a progression scheme

Rather than a test, this site is a quest – directing the attention of the player to something

For ex: We unearthed a snapshot of the website, click on it – to move forwards the next website page

Telegraph a few things, and they should be part of the experience – it is worth overdoing it and backtracking.

“this will be remembered” something like that

On the issues with the Calendar Index page: The story might be better served without the overarching top-down view – leaning more into the interactive idea

Idea to replace the index: The split screen of the graphs (the top section of the WayBack Machine) always present on top of the screen, letting players interact with them at any point

Waypoints for the next prototype are pretty clear after documenting what I’ve done and listened to feedback on what could work better or differently:

WORKING LIST OF NEEDED TASKS (EMPHASIS ON NEEDED, NOT WANTED):

Investigate the storylet and history macros in Harlowe

Talked to another designer who has used storylet extensively – this might be an option for more ‘randomized’ content rather than structurally aligning things to happen one after another in a specific list.

Re-tool the narrative to be spread out across a much larger span of in-game time

A “week” of tutorializing sounds good to me, and it will allow me to fix a couple of issues at a time:

orienting players, setting up the “quest,” telegraph how player choice impacts the narrative.

Turn the landing page into the graph of years the WayBack machine has “crawled” a site and paste it on top of the MAIN.HTML page of content, allowing players to go back and forth between days more easily.

Maybe keep the calendar index for the overarching narrative which is supposed to last a whole year (with gaps!!!!!!!!!! I will not write a whole year of content that’s crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

[annealeph]

Mildly effective Collapsing Hotbars guide

Imagine if you will, someone with all jobs leveled including crafters, should they want to put all of their jobs on hotbars, that would easily take more than 3 whole hotbars and at all times, which means a very cluttered UI especially on lower resolutions, but what if we could make that into one hotbar with a button that opens a selection? First thing, a little preparation, you will need at least 2 hotbars that do not change when you change jobs, and I personally like to have 3, so hop onto Character Configuration > Hotbars > Shared and set a few up for use

These will be where we put: The button to show the jobs, and the jobs themselves, I have a third one for if I need a button inside a button or something of the sort

Now, we'll be making Macros to get this done, they can be found in the System menu, go ahead and get a few started for any and all categories you would want to switch to

At the moment, these are empty and will do absolutely nothing, we will fix that in a moment but before that we need to take a detour back into hotbars, specifically the non-shared jobs

Now, there's one concept that we are absolutely going to need for the next few parts, and that is non-shared hotbars. They all change with your job, and we will need to borrow a few (lot) of them for this to work, but if you had any to spare you wouldn't need to be doing all this, would you? No, we need to find non-shared hotbars we can use without changing any of our current jobs, and for that, we need to turn back to 2.0: A Realm Reborn ARR had its jobs evolve into other, more powerful jobs with the use of the Soul Crystals, and the part that is useful here, is that jobs with crystals and jobs without crystals have completely different hotbars! This is my Dragoon with its Job Stone

And this is what it looks like if I take it off, changing me back into Lancer

And since we're not planning on using Lancer without the DRG job stone any time soon (Or so I hope to god we don't), let's steal those and put all of our jobs in those! (I will be using Thaumaturge for my own bars and throught the process)

And just like that, we have everything prepared to make those hotbars!

Well, once we have gone over Macro commands, there are a few you'll have to understand in order to do this, these are: "/Hotbar Display X on/off" - Either hides or shows the X hotbar, useful for cleaning up when you don't need to change jobs, for example "/Hotbar Copy JobA X JobB Y" - A bit more complex, this command will copy the hotbar X from JobA and paste everything on it to the hotbar Y from JobB, so say I want to put everything I have on the THM bar 1 into the Shared bar 9, I just need to type "/hotbar copy THM 1 Share 9" and voila

Now, we can get to working on our Macros to hide, display and select the bars showing up, we will use the "/Hotbar Display" to ensure we can see hotbar 9, and the "/hotbar copy" to ensure that hotbar 9 is showing the correct category for each Macro, since I have them separated into DPS / Tanks / Healers / Crafters, my Macros will be copying THM's hotbars 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 into our Shared 9 respectively, which will look something like this

Now just toss these into Hotbar 10 (Along with another "/hotbar display 9 off" button if you'd like to hide stuff after you're done) and boom, you have the basics of it down

Maybe you're already having a few ideas on how to expand this and good on you for it, with just this info you can extrapolate and imagine a ton of ways of adding into things... let's throw one more into the mix, shall we?

So, we know how to copy hotbars around now, great, lovely, hotbar 10 is still static and it's ugly and I hate it, let's change that, and I'll be borrowing Conjurer's (CNJ) hotbars for this

As you can see, I added a few more categories and nuked the "hide" button, that's because we're going to be putting it on top of whichever category is active at the moment. So let's use "/hotbar copy" in chat to paste the current category setup on CNJ's hotbars, doing it for as many categories we have + 1, if you have more categories than bars for that job, just steal from somewhere else! (I will be needing one more, so Arcanist will be the one holding the current hotbar)

Now, the annoying part, each one of CNJ's hotbars will become an "activated version", with the hide button taking the place of the current active category, so drag a hide button over one of the buttons of each hotbar except the +1 you made earlier. You likely won't have all hotbars visible, so feel free to "/hotbar copy" a modified share 10 into the CNJ hotbars

And lastly, the annoying part, you are going to put in all of the category macros a little line saying "/hotbar copy cnj x share 10", with share being the hotbar where the hide button covers that category, and in the hide button, you'll instead put the hotbar that holds the first bar you made, the +1 you (hopefully) didn't change Now, just test all your macros and then realize that half of them aren't working oh god why are they not working I'm gonna have to check the hotbars again I fucking hate this game if all is good, congratulations! Now go off and find even fancier ways to break these hotbars (Tip: You can use "/micon X" to change the icon of the macro into whichever skill or item you substitute on X, put it in quotation marks if it has a space in it)

[toskarin]

Hey, I've wanted to start Warframe for a while but everytime I try it I bounce off because the game doesn't give you much direction, are there any resources for new players?

there are! iflynn's stuff is a godsend for getting into the game (he does video tutorials). you'll hear his name a lot, but it's because he's just very comprehensive and up-to-date in his stuff. it's the next best thing to having an experienced friend to coach you through stuff

also, warframe is a wiki game. this means you're gonna be using a wiki pretty often to cross-reference drop locations and the exact mechanics of frames, so you'll be on WARFRAME Wiki a lot

everything past this point is less "new player resources" and more "stuff you might not know about as a new player that experienced players are absolutely using" so read on if you want!

-

trading is done using the out-of-game site, warframe.market. this is allowed and basically just works logistics so you don't have to fish for buyers in trade chat or anything

if you want builds, check out overframe.gg, which has community voted tierlists and build guides. most of these won't be useful to you early on, but they'll point you in the right direction when you start getting further into the game

Warframe Hub will help you keep track of timers and clocks. it'll seem overwhelming at first, but it's the best source for at-a-glance info on the worldstate

and last but definitely not least, WFInfo, which may need some introduction. firstly, it's not a mod and specifically follows the rules for how a tool like this should work. this is important because of the second piece of info: DE does banwaves for actual mods and macros. so it's very useful that WFInfo only takes a screenshot and then OCRs market prices for you without injecting anything into the game

hope that helps a little! if it seems overwhelming, don't sweat anything but those videos and the wiki

[belethlegwen]

Was there anything out there that inspired you to write the stories you’ve written?

How many story ideas do you have tucked away in hopes of writing once your current stories are “finished”?

Alright, so, this may get very long and kinda real for a moment but nothing too serious, I promise. I'll keep it relatively vague.

I've always kind of bounced in and out of writing throughout my life. Big stints of lots of writing, long stints of not writing basically anything, but I enjoy it in a lot of ways so it's always been AROUND when it comes to me. I've got two short stories published in some local collections, that's pretty neat. I was in a novel writing class for a long while that was being run by my publisher (he eventually got sick of seeing me because he saw I had learned everything I could from the Moderate level class but kept re-enlisting because it was basically a few weeks of access to the in-progress works of other people and I just loved reading and sharing what other people were up to and chatting with them about it. He kicked me out of the class and told me I could only come back for Advanced class-- which would require me to have at least most of a first draft for a full novel already done hahaha) Anyway, I had a pretty bad string of relationships from about ~2016 to January last year, sapped all of the creative energy out of me and despite being in the novel writing class during the 2016-2019 relationship I just... couldn't really sit down and hammer either of those two stories out without the direct motivation of the class. One of them got scrapped completely because my vision for it and what I felt comfortable in being able to pull off, I just couldn't get to mesh. Around early summer last year I hit a pretty bad bout of loneliness, and I had sworn of relationships indefinitely as a result of the last couple of dudes (and because women are scary to talk to ;-;) so I started trying to find SOME kind of outlet for it. Tried to get back into RP the only way I really kind of knew how, which was WoW, and that didn't... go... at all. Struggled through it for a month or two and then just finally got fed up and cracked open Google Docs in August 2021. Told myself I was just going to write for ME, write what I WANTED, and make it SPICY if I wanted to, so I did. That's how Small Date happened, and why it's got missing scenes and chunks and the like, because I was literally just jumping to the good shit that I wanted to write and have to read for myself. I had tried looking for micro/macro writings and art but was finding it very hard (because I wasn't familiar with the G/t tags or terminology or anything, I'm an internet ancient) to find anything that really fit the kind of vibe I was hoping for (not aggressively/violently sexual, no vore, not gory, not furry related, in the preferred size range, etc) so writing something that hit all of the notes I wanted just to have something for ME was great. I kept poking at it and writing it up until the start of the extremely busy Christmas season last year.

By the time things had slowed down again and I could get back to writing, I realized I had been sitting on the concept (and ancient, ancient chapters I had written multiple times and that had been wiped by computer crashes and rewritten etc etc) for The Rescue and The Stranding for over half of my life, so I figured it was time to break out Henry and start writing. I was about 30 pages into Stranding, I believe, by the time I thought about posting it to actually share with people. This was obviously a kind of media I was craving and needed and saw a pretty sizable gap with in my searches, so I figured if maybe I could post it and it could find even one person who was looking for something like it, who now had something to fill those niches, it'd be worth it. It was pretty early on into it being posted that I got an incredibly sweet comment that asked me about how Melanie and Henry originally met, and if there was a companion story, and that inspired me in the moment to both try to scour through my ancient archives and see if ANYTHING had survived the last 15+ years (one did! Woof, ouch) and start writing The Rescue. I started writing The Stranding on February 7th this year, and started writing The Rescue on February 26th. As for when they're finished... I have no idea. I might jump back into the Small Date universe in some way; it's similar in a way to the kind of things going on in the background of Zip's Rose & LaPorte universe and that just seems like a fun space to play in again eventually. But if I'm being extremely honest, I feel like the stories and universe of The Rescue/Stranding could go on basically until my fingers fall off if I want it to. I'm sure by the time I'm anywhere close to down with both stories, I'll have ideas in mind. For now though, this is where my head is firmly at. ...That said though, I've been running around the ConceptSpace with Zip lately discussing "The Rescue but with Miller instead of Henry" and god damn, the gold in that thar hill... ANYWAY! Thank you so so so much for the lovely ask! - Belle

[autumnslance]

I had some Thoughts last night, and earlier today after hearing some friends discuss a rough Castrum Meridianum run. I do still think we need to slow down and take time to explain things in dungeons and raids and trials to newbies (heck, if you don’t recall mechanics, quick pop open a wiki with strat summaries to copy, I’ve done that). I’m starting to make quick macro-able or copy-paste quick notes for a lot of old fights that our glut of new players are going to struggle with in their minimal ilevel gear and lack of knowledge of not just the instance but their classes and FFXIV combat in general.

But there are ways the game itself could do better at teaching folks what to expect and how to be good group members, and expanding the Hall of the Novice mechanics and making them Mandatory--not just at level 15 but also higher level versions at 50 and maybe even beyond--would go along way to alleviate a lot of the pain, stress, and anxiety for Sprouts and Veterans alike.

It’s kinda the devs jobs to teach us how to play their game, after all, and how many of us have mentioned there aren’t a lot of good tutorials or info available in the game?

Transcript of my tweets below the cut:

Was thinking last night w/#ffxiv's booming popularity, Hall of the Novice needs a minor overhaul/expansion & made Mandatory before entering group content. Add a hat & other jewelry maybe a weapon reward, make some optional reading in the Hall a focus of some training. Also... 

Add a Hall of the (Intermediate? IDK) at 50 before a player can enter raids, trials, etc. Expand on telegraphs. Maybe rework some of ARR's non-standard telegraphs to fit later concepts set in HW & beyond. Then... 

Make these also Mandatory when a player boosts a new Role they haven't unlocked before (Tanks, Heal, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS; maybe Caster DPS). Maybe make the gear dyeable too so those players feel a little more incentivized by the gear rewards for glamour. Heck, add tomes. 

We have so many new players & FFXIV's continued growing popularity & frankly there needs to be more in game to help people learn the basics of play. There currently isn't much. Oh! ANOTHER IDEA!

Add voiced lines to the trainers in the Hall. Trying to complete combat & read chat or even mid-screen popups can be hard or impossible for some folks; add accommodations in the form of audible instruction as well as written! I remember @qtrcirclejab mentioning this & he's Right. 

If we need a Hall of the Expert for role boosters, or even just later expacs "hey here's a bunch of new mechanics & options added to later raids" why not? I'd roll with it I like doing the Hall on alts & new jobs, even boosting, cuz I do think it helps. But it could be More.

[manonamora-if]

Saturday June, 25.

Word Count: 33.563 (+1.044) Coding Progress: UI revamped, V2. Endless Mode ready. Themes Tested. Hoped EDU: Summer 2022

Hya everyone!

This week has been a lot. So I am a bit all over the place and tried to distract myself a lot in the meantime. Progress with this has been going and also slow at the same time? I dunno that's how it feels. Anyway, CRWL will be updated next week and going on partial hiatus for the summer so I can focus fully on this. On to the progress report!

UI-Design

The Basic V2 design should be the final one (give or take a few tweaks in the CSS for smaller screens and forgotten menu when the Coding is dine). The Endless Mode design as well (it will look like a chat)!

I also had loads of fun coming up with Themes. I wanted to try out multiple palettes mainly to have a darker mode, but ended up with 6-7 different kinds at the end. Though I would want to include about 2-3 to the update, I still don't know what. So... you can help me by telling me which 3 you prefer (POLL)!

CODING

So much-ish progress on that side.

The widgets for both story and endless modes are ready and take into account the stats. The Menu popups are also edited and work as intended.

Endless Mode is finished(-ish) and tested (by just me). It works fine and the CSS animations didn't need much editing to make it fit. There is only one design/widget/javascript macro thing that is not working, but I might just end up scrapping it altogether if I can't make it work still. It would be neat if it worked, but it might just end up being too much of a headache theme wise. Pinned for now

ALSO I found all the macros I should be needing for this project, especially one that will help my show the translation of French words/sentences in the story (thanks to HiEv).

No more coding until the writing is done!

WRITING

Very little progress was made there. I have drafted 2 1/2 rounds and cleaned my file of old passages that have been included in the previous rounds or don't make sense in the story (hence the low wordcount addition).

I have a few passages where I am thinking of adding some sort of choices, but i've put a pin on this until everything is drafted for now.

THOUGHTS

To be honest, this is ending up being much more of a longer read that the jam version. Like over 10 times extra so far, and I am not done with the rounds yet. I am wondering if I should just include the Jam Story Version as well (even if I don't stand by it anymore) for people who want to play a fast game. I think I need to mull it over. I could always add it when I am done with the re-writes.

TO DO LIST

Fix the sizing for medium screens (between 800px and 1kpx width it's a bit weird) and very small screens (though I don't think this is a good game for mobile...)

A random colour generator for the Endless Mode (might be scrapped)

The UI of the Endless mode

Continue Writing

OTHER

There are only few templates for Sugarcube online right now, would you guys be interested in having the basic structure of this one as a template? I would need to tweak a few things to have the file editable on Twine and include the CSS for other basic macros. But if you are interested, I could have that out this summer too!

Note: the template would probably not be very mobile friendly

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Controller Hotbar

So you want to be a great FFXIV player and you’re on a console, huh?

AND you’re playing...ALL the jobs?

Okay, let’s work out some structural ideas about how to put together your hotbar.

First, I don’t think a high level of play is even POSSIBLE without enabling the second crossbar. Push the options button on your controller and then go  System > Character Configuration > Hotbar Settings > Custom Select the top option, “Enable Expanded Controls With L2+R2″ Personally I use the first 2 options: L2>R2 (Cross Hotbar 2 - Left) R2>L2 (Cross Hotbar 2 - Right) Once that’s set up, now if you press just L2 you’ll be able to select one set of 8 buttons (the four directional arrows and the four symbol buttons), and if you press just R2 it’ll give you a different set of 8, and if you press L2 and hold it and press R2 it’ll give you a third set, from your next hotbar setup, and if you press R2 and hold it and press L2 it’ll give you a fourth set.

The reason I call this essential is because a bunch of the jobs really do use 25-32 different buttons for situations. If you don’t have this you need to be pressing R1 and symbols to switch to specific crossbar setups mid-fight, or worse, just pressing R1 and flipping through your crossbars like pages of a book. These options are way too slow.

If you’re playing several jobs you should also go into System > Character Configuration > Hotbar Settings > Sharing and make sure 4-10 are checked but 1-3 are unchecked.

What this does is make it so your first three sets of crossbars you set up are unique to each job, so you can put together a build that is just for Dragoon, just for Black Mage, and so on. Meanwhile you have hotbars 4-10 where you can put, say, emotes. Or macros to say things like, “<t2>, it would appear you’ve forgotten to turn on your tank stance. You’ll pull aggro better if you keep that on!” and “Hey, does anybody want to run daily roulettes with me?” In these cases you’ll want to say these things on several different jobs and you’ll have the time to do the slower button combos to flip through to your emotes page or chat macros page.

Personally I also set up a macro named Set and Forget that reads, /micon Kardia /merror off /ac Defiance /ac Grit /ac “Royal Guard” /ac “Iron Will” /ac “Summon Eos” /ac “Summon Carbuncle” /ac “Closed Position” /blueaction “Mighty Guard” /ac Kardia <t2>

This puts all those abilities you use once at the start of a dungeon on a single button you can push once. Then you keep this button on one of the shared hotbars and it won’t be in a place where you can accidentally press it during combat.

SO

Now you have this concept of the front page - the set of 16 buttons your crossbars show you when you aren’t holding any buttons down on your controller. Pulling the left or right trigger makes the left or right eight of them grow in prominence. Pulling the left then right trigger or vice versa makes the eight from your left or right half of your “back page” of options pop up.

I put parts of my rotation that are supposed to be “use on cooldown” on my front page, and parts that are supposed to be “save for reaction” on my back page. For example on Gladiator/Paladin your early ability Fight or Flight is something you basically want to use whenever you can. It’s just a button that increases your damage for a bit. The only time you’d want to save up it is if you’d gotten out of sync with your party on extreme raiding. Meanwhile you have the role action Low Blow, which stuns a regular enemy (doesn’t work on bosses basically ever once you get to 50+ content). A stunned target gets less stunnable, until after 3 stuns they’re immune for a while. So rather than stunning willy-nilly, you want to save this to stun them out of moves that annoy you. For instance a lot of beefy enemies even in level 90 content use a big circular AoE that forces you to back up and wait for it to go off, and since you’re melee this is time when you can’t be stabbing them; You have to use the much less damaging Shield Lob or maybe Holy Spirit. If you’re ready for it, you can just kick them and they lose the attack and you and your melee DPS can keep up your rotation without interruption. So my 4 reactive role actions - Low Blow, Interject, Arm’s Length, and Reprisal - I have on R2>L2 + symbol buttons. Importantly this is true of all four tank jobs, so that my muscle memory from one isn’t getting in the way of another. I consider Rampart something you more or less use on cooldown, so I put it on my front page with my other tank defensive cooldowns, but again, it’s on the same button for all four jobs.

If there were an optimal way to put Arm’s Length/Surecast in the same spot for absolutely every job, that’d be my recommendation. It is deep magic and I haven’t figured out how to do that. Other requirements for certain jobs keep shoving it out of place. But that’s the ideal I’d recommend you aspire to; Maybe you can make it work for you.

Also, I put my tank’s Emergency Button - Hallowed Ground, Living Dead, Holmgang, and Superbolide - in one spot. All four want to push the button for pretty much the same reason, though they might have different timing for it. Because of Superbolide’s side-effect, I put it a little out of the way - R2>L2+Down - which is easy to reach quickly but fairly unlikely to happen by accident.

I use L2>R2 as my AoE Zone. So where my normal rotation (say, Ninja’s Spinning Edge - Gust Slash - Aeolian Edge/Armor Crush) is on R2 + Symbols, my buttons for dealing with crowds are on L2>R2 and then similar buttons. So if combo part 1 is triangle, the start of my AoE combo is still triangle.

I use R2>L2 as my Alternate Phases Zone, or on healer a backup spot for specialty buttons. So for instance my buttons for Dragoon’s 5-hit combo end up here, and so do my buttons for activating and using Life of the Dragon - Mirage Dive, Gierskogul/Nastrond, and Stardiver.

Keep in mind! “Use on Cooldown” is something that isn’t level-dependent! Bunshin on Ninja and Living Shadow on Dark Knight are abilities you pretty much want to use whenever you can. They’re higher damage abilities than the other things you can spend the same points on, but have a long cooldown. So in spite of not being able to use these until level 80, I have these on my front page so that if I can use them, I don’t forget to use them.

If you want it’s possible to set up your UI for each job with extra copies of “use on CD” buttons just sitting on your UI as reminders. At that point you can get away with putting them on your second page if you want. I just haven’t gone into the process of doing that.

[fistofgork]

I’m super interested in Alarielle, but don’t know much about her personality in AoS. I only really know her major plot points. I know in the End Times she merged with Ariel and Lileath and in AoS she died but was reborn more “warlike”, but what else? Does her character come across the same as her Fantasy self? Does she even remember her daughter, or Tyrion, or Finubar? From what I’ve heard she’s more like Ariel now, especially if she's going to be paired with Kurnoth/Orion and not Tyrion.

To begin with I should note we've mostly only gotten a very macro view of Alarielle. Not very much a personal one. That being said, from what we've managed to glean, she does seem more connected to her Isha/Ariel self than the old Alarielle in behaviour at current. Again, however, this is mediated through the fact that we've only really gotten a look at her in the midst, usually, of leading battles, whereas Alarielle from Fantasy has several novels-worth of scenes where she is just relaxing or not literally in the middle of a melee.

Kurnoth is weird because whenever Alarielle is written about in person she seems to act as if she doesn't even know she ever had a consort called Kurnoth, so how much he meant to her is hard to say.

On the front of Tyrion's interactions with her these are sorta hamstrung by the fact that, until Tyrion has a miniature, he's basically a ghost. Like he's technically in existence, but he always has some reason why he can never be interacting with anyone, so its not like they can write scenes of him and Alarielle chatting or sharing opinions.

Eldyra, sadly, largely seems forgotten, that much I can say.

I think when approaching AoS approach Alarielle, all the characters in it, more as new characters, appreciate them on their own merits and such. I like Fantasy's Alarielle/Tyrion a lot as well, but AoS Alarielle doesn't cheapen what the Fantasy pair had.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Jinjer overcome a decade of war, trauma and uncertainty with Wallflowers

Jinjer were forced from their home in the Russo-Ukraine war, but new album Wallflowers sees them forging a bright future as metal's hottest up-and-coming stars

At least once a day, when I’m home in my apartment, I catch myself thinking, ‘I wish I could go home.’ But I have no idea what that actually means.”

For Jinjer frontwoman Tatiana Shmayluk, home is a nebulous concept. Having spent the better part of a decade on the road, her Kiev apartment – the setting for today’s Zoom chat – has been little more than a glorified storage space. Case in point: when COVID hit, rather than rushing back, she decided to stay in the US, waiting with terminal optimism for everything to blow over so they could continue their tour of the Americas.

But then, neither Tatiana nor her bandmates are actually from Kiev. Growing up, ‘home’ was Gorlovka, a small city in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast region. But in 2014 they were forced to leave their childhood homes and families behind, when war broke out between Ukrainian armed forces and Russian-backed separatists. For the next 18 months, home was a run-down apartment near the Polish border, often living without basic amenities such as heating, electricity or water, and facing discrimination from locals due to their origins in the Eastern part of Ukraine.

Little wonder, then, that this was when the band began to play shows internationally, opting to fill their calendars rather than bemoan their lot. It paid off – when Hammer last met with Jinjer, in Germany in October 2019, they were riding high on a summer of sold-out shows and packed festival performances, the enormous crowds at Wacken and Download testament to the band’s breakout appeal. Poised to release their third record, Macro, Jinjer envisioned a chance to replicate their European success on an intercontinental scale, and booked headline dates in the US, Australia and South America.

In a case of pathetic fallacy, the weather was uncharacteristically gloomy as Jinjer prepared to take the stage at Mexico’s Hell & Heaven Metal Fest on March 15, 2020. The band already knew it would be their last show of the tour – all other immediate dates were pulled as COVID-19 began ravaging the planet. “We had hopes that it would all blow over in a few months or so, but soon all hope was gone,” admits bassist Eugene Abdukhanov.

“It felt like a lot of people were just in shock, like they knew nothing would happen for a while,” Tatiana adds. “It was a really depressing way to end the tour, but the show itself was great.”

While Tatiana waited things out in California, Eugene and the rest of the band headed home to their families in Ukraine. “At that point, I was almost happy to stop and be in the same place for longer than a couple of days!” he admits. “But after three or four months I was getting tour-sick – I craved that feeling of playing live onstage, of seeing my bandmates every day.”

Having spent years cooped up together in buses, studios and backstage areas, it’s unsurprising that separation anxiety set in. But it also gave Jinjer a chance to regroup and reflect, recognising that across three records and innumerable shows they had developed into a genuine metal sensation, capable of selling out venues internationally and pulling enormous numbers on streaming platforms. A big part of that success is due to the charismatic Tatiana, her voice ranging from soaring 90s alt-metal cleans to death metal growls and snarls. It’s exactly the kind of thing Youtube reaction videos are made for, Tatiana inspiring a host of wide-eyed ‘Wait, WHAT?’ moments.

“[Before lockdown], we couldn’t really see what we had achieved, because we were always running from one place to another,” Eugene says. “After we stopped we could look back and see all this road we’d covered.”

“It’s crazy how much we needed that,” agrees Tatiana. “It gave us a kind of time and perspective that no money could buy.”

Unfortunately, this personal development came at the cost of their ambitions for Macro. A steady stream of music videos and a live DVD release (last November’s Alive In Melbourne) kept the band’s profile up while touring was on pause, and they even managed to undertake a short international tour in September 2020, playing shows in Germany and Switzerland (“It felt really weird – almost like we were playing a food festival or something,” Tatiana says). But they knew they couldn’t wait in a state of arrested development forever.

Reconvening in the studio in early 2021, Jinjer found that the music flowed immediately. For Tatiana, however, the process wasn’t quite so simple. “We were already well into recording the album and I hadn’t written a word!” she admits. “I pulled Eugene aside and said, ‘I don’t have any idea of what to write about! I only have the darkest and saddest feelings in my mind and I don’t feel free to express them, because if I do the whole album is going to just be, ‘Wahhhh, I’m so depressed.’”

“I think you were afraid,” Eugene points out.

“I was afraid!” Tatiana agrees. “How long would people tolerate me whining? But he just said, ‘Fuck it! Write what’s on your mind!’”

“I told her to be herself,” Eugene says. “From there, the ideas burst forth. It’s like she was bottling it all up, but once some of it escaped it just kept coming and coming. I saw the lyrics to one song and almost started crying because they were so powerful.”

If Macro was Jinjer holding a spotlight up to the ugliest parts of the world – covering everything from abuse of power and mental fragility, to direct references to the war and their displacement – Wallflowers largely turns that spotlight inwards, allowing Tatiana to vocalise feelings of isolation, depression and dissociation that have long plagued her. In the title track, she sings the lines:

‘Your castle is your fortress where you can lick your wounds’, ‘Avoiding people/Fall in love with solitude’ and ‘I’m a guest in my own skin.’

“I decided to dedicate this record to my personal, psychological state,” Tatiana explains. “Even if people have related to broader issues I’ve sung about in the past, you don’t always need to hear that motivational ‘be strong’ stuff; sometimes it helps to just have someone say, ‘Hey dude, I feel the same way.’ I do care about what is happening in the world, but I needed to put my thoughts in order.”

“Did you manage?” Eugene asks.

“Nope, I’m still totally [makes cuckoo noise],” Tatiana laughs.

Sitting beside Eugene in an apartment she would usually barely spend time in, in a city she can’t truly call home, it’s understandable that Tatiana might retain some sense of disassociation.

“I had a nightmare recently, that I’d been excluded from Jinjer and nobody would tell me why,” Tatiana recalls. “It was like, ‘You don’t fit anymore.’ And I cried, grabbing people by the scruff of their neck and bashing them against the walls, screaming, ‘How could you?!’ Then I woke up so relieved it was a nightmare! I often say, ‘I’m going to quit this band, I can’t do this anymore!’ but that dream made me realise that I couldn’t imagine my life without Jinjer.”

If Macro was Jinjer’s breakthrough as international artists, Wallflowers is the creative breakthrough that puts them in the upper echelons of progressive heavy music. The sheer blistering extremity on display in tracks such as Call Me A Symbol and Copycat still sits perfectly alongside the mesmeric prog metal of Colossus or the album’s lead single, Vortex. Chuck in decidedly anthemic vocal melodies on the likes of Wallflower or Disclosure! – a song that positively oozes Alice in Chains worship – and the elements are there for Jinjer’s most ambitious and emotionally moving record to date.

“We could have sat and cried about not getting to properly tour Macro, but that wouldn’t be us,” Eugene explains. “It was a bitter pill, but we swallowed it! We’re not the people that made Macro anymore – we’ve grown up a lot and gained more confidence. Now we’re ready to take risks and break boundaries.”

In 2019, Jinjer were a band thrust into the spotlight, still coming to terms with extraordinary events in their recent past. Time may not have healed all their wounds, but it has certainly given them enough space to reflect and regroup. And now, in 2021, they are tighter and more determined than ever.

“Over these years we really became a family – we love each other no matter what,” Eugene tells us. “We can be horrible to each other, even violent, but we’ve learned to move past all of that. I’m lucky to have three homes – where my parents live, where my kids are and wherever my band goes.”

Tatiana is slightly more hesitant. “I think my home is… first, maybe where my childhood was spent,” she admits. “I want to see my parents; I haven’t seen them for two years and I really miss them. I dream about the scenery and scenarios from my childhood every night. But then you realise that you bring home to every place you go; home is a feeling of inner peace.”

Taken from Metal Hammer issue 353. Wallflowers is out now via Napalm Records

[roll20]

Tome of Tips: Macros

Welcome back to the Tome of Tips! Today, we’re tackling a big topic in the world of Roll20. It’s macros! 

If you’re not particularly well-versed in macros, you might find them intimidating. In fact, you might have started shaking in your boots of striding at the very mention of the name. Never fear; the Tome is here to help. 

We have a couple simple macros at the bottom of this post to get you started. Once you see how powerful and easy-to-use macros really are, you’ll never go back! 

But before we get into that, let’s talk a little bit about what a macro actually is. 

What are Macros? 

Macros are, quite simply, user-defined shortcuts. They help you quickly and easily input commands you want to regularly repeat. Instead of having to type multiple commands over and over, you can type just one short command and cover the whole of what you want to accomplish. 

In the most basic terms, macros are just saved rolls and commands. 

Once you’ve set a macro up, you can then save it to the Macro Quick Bar or Token Actions for quicker access during play. That’s it! 

How Do I Set a Macro Up? 

Head to the Collections tab in the Sidebar. 

Name your macro, then put in the command. A command could be typed text, a roll, or an emote; it’s whatever you want the macro to accomplish. 

Click Save Changes, and just like that--your macro is saved and ready to go. 

When you want to call a macro and use it, type # followed by the name you set up for the command into the chat and press enter. 

Setting up macros is the easy part. Getting your macro to do what you want is the real trick. 

It helps to think of macros as their own sort of language. Like any kind of language, there are grammatical rules to consider when writing. 

Let’s break down a simple macro to see what that grammar looks like. /r 1d20 + @{selected|perception_bonus} This is a very, very basic macro--so basic, in fact, that it’s essentially built into the 5E character sheet. Let’s break down the components! /r--this is the command. It tells us the platform what we’re doing. In this case, we’re rolling dice--1d20, to be exact. Then, we want to add the value of the dice roll to something else, so we connect it with a +. 

That “something else” happens to be the perception bonus of the token we have selected. The “@” sign tells the system who to look to, and the “{}” set off the rest of the variable. “Selected” notes that we want to check for the value associated with whatever token we have selected at the time we use the macro, and finally, that “perception_bonus” tells it what trait we want to look for. We can name the macro something like “#per,” and then when we want to make a perception roll for the selected token, we just type #per into chat. It’s that simple! 

If you’re looking at the example above and feel your mind start to overflow with a bounty of possibilities, welcome to the wonderful world of macros! There are tons of great resources on how to get the most out of them--on the forums, YouTube, and elsewhere in the Roll20 community. Check out our Help Center to get started and go from there. 

If not, hopefully this simple example shows you just how easy setting up quick macros can be, and how much time they can save you in the long run. Like anything, setting up macros takes practice, and you’ll get better as you go along.  

Use Macros to…

Roll Initiative and send the result to the Turn Tracker

If you roll initiative with a token selected, your roll will automatically be sent to the Turn Tracker (see the Turn Tracker Tome of Tips entry to learn more).

If you want to include that process as part of a macro, just use the command below: 

/roll 1d20 + 5 &{tracker} In this case, “1d20+5” represents the character’s initiative roll. That &{tracker} will ensure the roll is automatically sent to the turn tracker. 

You can also add or subtract the value of the roll from the current turn value by using &{tracker:+} or &{tracker:-}, which is useful for global countdowns. 

Execute multiple actions with a single command

This is one of the most common uses for a macro. 

Let’s say I’m playing a fighter, and I want to set up a simple macro to make an attack with my broadsword. First, we think about the individual actions we want to accomplish. To swing the broadsword, we need to: 

Describe what’s happening 

Roll to see if we hit 

Roll for Damage

Let’s name this macro #smash. 

So, we need three commands. 

1. Describe what’s happening

This is pretty simple. We want to send a message to chat. We can do that with the following: 

/me swings the vicious blade 2. Roll to see if we hit 

We’ll want to roll our attack to see if we hit. To do so: 

/roll 1d20+10 vs AC 

This will make the roll and automatically add our modifier to it. 

3. Roll for Damage

Finally, we want to roll damage. 

/roll 1d10+2 Damage 

This is a really simple take on damage, of course; this is just the baseline for our broadsword with a proficiency added. You’d probably have other modifiers you might like to add to it, and the broadsword is a particularly interesting example, since it’s versatile. You might want to set up two separate macros; one for a one-handed swing, and one for a two-handed swing, or, if you’re feeling particularly advanced, you could set up a drop-down prompt for the macro--we won’t cover that here today, but know that it’s possible. 

 Put it all together, and we’ve got:  

 /me swings the vicious blade

/roll 1d20+10 vs AC 

/roll 1d10+2 Damage 

Now, when we type #smash into the chat, this is what we see executed: 

It’s that easy!

Add flavor text to the rolls you send to chat

In the example above, we added a little descriptor to bring the attack roll together. Macros are a great way to add some flavor to your rolls--especially with the /em command. Consider the following:

/em @{selected|token_name} pauses, soaking in the surroundings. Then... /roll 1d20 + @{selected|perception_bonus}

This is another very basic addition to our perception roll, but it adds a lot to a text-only game. You might also do something similar to set up a warlock invoking their patron, or a barbarian screeching a signature catchphrase as they cleave a greataxe through the air.

Whew! That was indeed an exhaustive entry, but hopefully, you have more confidence in the macro-magic just waiting to be unlocked in your heart. This is just the beginning; there’s a whole world of possibilities out there, and the Roll20 community can help you master macros like the best of them. Take a look at the forums to learn more! 

Have any topics you’d like to see the Tome tackle? Tweet at us and let us know!