#maybe it was in the last iteration of my multi....

[eluntara]

I don't subscribe to like 95% of night warrior canon (a well-structured post on that tomorrow bc it's 1am now and I don't have the brain power) but I specifically don't subscribe to what was directly shown of elune, and tyrande would have abandoned her faith entirely if she learned her goddess willingly used the lives of her people as fuel to solve some shadowlands issues. like. she's going to kill elune herself, in fact.

[kurthorton]

multis and sideblogs and current blogs included....... 210

compiled a list of every solo blog ive had not including sideblogs and only the ones that arent active currently and that i have the emails to. no multis included.............. 122

[insanityclause]

When Tom Hiddleston landed his career-changing role in Marvel’s Thor back in April 2009, he never dreamed he would be playing the character for nearly 15 years. To be fair, no one did—except maybe Marvel’s mastermind Kevin Feige, who had begun laying the cinematic groundwork for a multi-billion dollar franchise. At the time, Hiddleston happily threw himself into extensive research and prep to play the duplicitous brother of Thor (Chris Hemsworth).  “I was cast in April 2009, and I had about eight months to build the character from the ground up,” Hiddleston says on this week’s Little Gold Men. “So that was a deep dive into everything Loki from any comic book, any Norse myth, any saga, everything—from the whole run of Marvel comics to the ancient Scandinavian stories, and how he pops up in The Ring cycle for Wagner, and Jim Carrey is wearing the mask of Loki in The Mask.” Hiddleston was trying to discover “this sense of, what's Loki's impact on human imagination and culture? And then synthesizing all of that into the story we’re telling. That was such a delightful period of discovery and curiosity.”

Hiddleston’s scene-stealing portrayal made him an instant fan favorite, laying a formidable foundation for a character who went on to appear in six more films and the stand-alone series Loki. The two-season series threw the character into a new dimension and timeline, stripped him of all his creature comforts, and gave the actor new challenges to tackle.

“In successive iterations, [my approach] has been, how do I keep it interesting?” he says. “I genuinely say this to myself and to others: ‘We're not reheating yesterday's meal in the microwave. We're cooking up something new.’ It's trying to find new ingredients or new challenges for the character, for us as actors, so that it feels like the same person is growing. Because that's what human beings do. They don't stay the same, they grow. Sometimes they regress, but there's always movement.”

Hiddleston has gone on to star in a wide array of projects outside the Marvel universe, of course, from his Emmy-nominated, Golden Globe-winning work in The Night Manager to Jim Jarmusch’s acclaimed romantic vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive and Steven Spielberg’s epic War Horse. But he’s definitely spent the most time with the God of Mischief. And though no official announcement has been made, the final episode of Loki season two strongly indicates the closing of a formative chapter.

The actor and executive producer stopped by Little Gold Men for a thoughtful discussion about the gift of developing and playing a single character for so long, the surreal fun of working with drama school classmates turned costars Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku, and getting to come up with the character's last line (for now). Listen below, where you can also read excerpts from the conversation.

Vanity Fair: Did the series version of Loki feel a little more stripped down, or did you have the same kind of mindset playing him as you did in the films? Tom Hiddleston: Yes. I think it was stripped down literally in the sense of taking away the costume, but stripped down spiritually and in his soul. I thought [the concept] was such a brilliant idea, and it wasn't mine. It was [executive producers] Michael Waldron and Kevin Wright, and the great and the good at Marvel Studios. I thought for any character, if you were presented with your life and watching a kind of highlight reel of it, what would it add up to? Would it be satisfying? Would it be meaningful? Would it be amusing? Would it be disappointing? And I thought to do that with Loki especially, as it's the journey of a life that the audience is familiar with, but he hasn't seen it. I just thought it was a brilliant conceit. And then I leaned into this idea of the leopard being challenged to change his spots. Because you'd have to if your life ended up in murder by Thanos and humiliation. You'd want to try something new.

And that was really fun, developing a story which was actually very philosophical. It asks the question of Loki, as I hope it asks the question of all of us: Are we in control of the course of our lives? Do we have any free will, and can we break free from any kind of predetermination? It seemed like a great question, and a fun way to ask it.

You’re also an executive producer on the series. How did you take on that role? What did you get to do?

Honestly, it was such an honor and I loved it. I loved the extra imagining and problem solving. I was invited into the writer's room really early, season one, even earlier on season two. And to borrow the words from Lin Manuel Miranda, to be in the room where it happens, and to sit around the table and break story and crunch through the great creative ‘what if’ questions—what if Loki did this? What if Mobius [Owen Wilson] did that? What if they couldn't find Sylvie? What if the TVA ran on an energy source, and it wasn't energy, it was time?

Can you take any credit for bringing Ke Huy Kwan or your RADA buddies Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Wunmi Mosaku on board? I love that that was a little bit of a through-line, that you all got to work together.

Well, when their names came up, Gugu and Wunmi particularly, I was able to say, those guys are great. And Ke was just an amazing idea because actually, [his character] Ouroboros was coming to life on the page. Somebody suggested Ke, and Everything Everywhere All At Once had just come out. And I was like, genius: somebody call him now before we lose him. He was so joyful and optimistic and happy to be there, so honored to be there. He'd wanted to be in a Marvel project his whole life, I think, and, and he brought everything and more to that character.

The day he landed, he came from the airport straight to the studio, probably thinking, ‘I'll just say hello and go back to my digs.’ And Owen and I were actually rehearsing the scene before Mobius and Loki meet OB for the first time. And he came in and he listened. And then we got to the bit where we were like, ‘You're in the next bit. Do you want to do it?’ He said ‘Okay!’ And he stayed and rehearsed for three hours. I think he felt completely crazy having just [traveled] across the continents, but it was so brilliant. And the chemistry was so immediate between the three of us, and so funny. We all love Ke.

Thinking about your journey with this character and all the places he has taken you, has there been a surreal aspect to it? I think about you being in drama school with Gugu and Wunmi—now you're getting paid to play.

It's a wonderful question, and I'm never unaware of the great gift that this job is. Especially because it happens all the time,: I go out into the world and I meet young people or children, and they're so amazed that they’re meeting Loki. I'm obviously not Loki, but the response is so immediate and so emotional and so joyful. What a gift. It's the best job in the world. And I never dreamed back then that I would be part of something with such reach and for so long. It just is the most unlikely, surprising, delightful thing. And we—Wunmi and Gugu I've known for a long time. It is amazing to look and go, ‘Can you believe we're here, we're doing this?’ It is exciting too, because it feels right in some way and they're great actors. They are brilliant.

Do you get recognized as the character, or are people starting to recognize you for your other work?

Oh, it's always different. I went to a friend's birthday party the other day—a friend and his wife, both turning the same age. They got a taco stand. I went to get my taco and the guys were like, ‘Only Lovers Left Alive, man. Love that film.’ And I said, ‘Thank you very much. That's very kind.’ Some people say The Night Manager. Some people stop me in the street and go, ‘It's you! You're the dancer.’ And they're referring to some talk show, some bit of dancing I did on a talk show from like a thousand years ago, which really tickles me.

Speaking of dancing, I wanted to bring up your physicality. With the most recent season of Loki in particular and that time slip, did you have to have massages and stretch after? Because it seems like such a jarring movement.

It's jerky, yes. I had to put my body under a kind of relentless physical stress. But I think it pays off in the way it's presented. In terms of movement and physicality, it comes from my own admiration for other performers when I sense that there is a really, alive and visceral physicality in the performance. Some of people are great actors, very cerebral, very intelligent, but sometimes not always fully embodied. And I love the actors who are giving me a sense that the whole body is occupying whichever space that is. They could be on a horse, they could be driving a car, they could have just run in through the jungle. I don't know, it could be anything, but a real sense of physicality is always something I admire in other actors.

One of my favorite things in doing a little research about your work on this season was that you got to craft Loki’s last lin,e and it also maybe came from going on a run. Can you talk about that? Well, first on running, I love it and it is a big part of my life. And a big part of my creative life. Running outside, in space, in the world with only your own legs to carry you and your own breath to fuel you, I find incredibly freeing. And it's where I do some of my best thinking and dreaming and imagining. Things bubble up from inside you. So I often run at the beginning of a day, very early and with an awareness of what's coming, what the scenes of the day are. Sometimes things will bubble up. And maybe that's just extra oxygen in the brain, who knows? 

But to the point about that last line: one of the things I kept trying to guide our team back to was that the whole series, both seasons, was really about finding purpose, or re-finding, re-defining, re-discovering a sense of purpose. And I think a primal need in all of us, is that we need our lives to mean something. So I kept coming back to this line from The Avengers, ‘I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose.’ And we kept thinking, well, if Loki has a second chance, he gets to redefine his purpose or re-imagine it. I went for a run and was listening to some film scores, and it was a beautiful day. I was thinking about the journey of playing this character and where it started, and all the people that I have had the great good fortune to work with and become friends with—that completely unique kind of soul-sharing relationship where you make something together. And I remembered the end of the first Thor film, and how emotional that felt and. I just suddenly thought, that's what he should say—but it should mean something completely different. Loki's last line in Thor, directed by Kenneth Branagh, is, ‘I could have done it, Father. I could have done it for you, for all of us.’ And of course his effort to gain his father's pride has been misguided and ill thought-out. And then at the end of Loki season 2, 14 years later, he turns to Mobius and Sylvie and says, ‘I know what I want I know what kind of god I need to be. For you. For all of us.’ It felt very resonant somehow. I hope the audience picked up on that.

Are you able to just say goodbye when it's wrap time, or do you have any sort of meditative, formal way of saying goodbye to a project or a character?

That's such a good question. I think it's a very honest, immediate feeling of relief, which they say is the most intense human emotion. You'd think it was anger or grief or something, but actually relief is—the way relief kind of washes through you, and a sense of finality that some finish line has been crossed and there are no more miles to run. And for me anyway, huge amounts of energy have been stored inside myself which had been poured out over time—over maybe 20 weeks or however many months. 

I love that feeling of completeness. The great joy of what I do for a living is that it involves very intense, very close working with a team. And the pride that you can feel with your teammates, with your crew, with your cast—you just hang around and say goodbye, but it never really is goodbye. And there's just a sense of, like, “that'll do, pig,” you know? Yeah: that'll do, pig.

[naranjapetrificada]

Time for Fanfic Friday!

First, a WIP update: it appears that the much lamented Izzy POV section of Chapter 3 was important scaffolding for the chapter as a whole, and finally tackling it clarified most of the rest of the structure I needed. I order to gauge my progress over the last several weeks, I moved everything to a new doc and it looks like I'm about halfway to my self-imposed upper word count limit of ~8000. That's not a goal, it can be shorter, but it will certain grow on revision.

All of which is to say that the weeks I've spent whining about my slow progress weren't necessary, because I have been making progress, even if it wasn't visible to me at the time. TLDR Chapter 3 will be here sooner than you think, although idk exactly when. My progress over the next couple days will determine whether it takes one week or two (or three) for me to have a beta-ready draft. I think. I hope.

Anyway, time for recs! I seem to have fallen into a rhythm of a few OFMD recs and one from GO, and if it ain't broke I won't try to fix it! Here's some things I've been reading:

Maybe it's just time to give @piratecaptainscaptainpirates a permanent Fanfic Friday slot, because no matter what he seems to end up on here. And this time I've got TWO recs! There's Moth to a Flame, a sweet funny modern one-shot where Ed pretends to share Stede's enthusiasm for bugs early in their relationship, with predictable consequences; and their newest multi-chapter WIP On a Bright Day, Next Week, which is (sort of?) a Portal/Portal 2 AU? Or at least inspired by it? In any case, I've never hit the subscribe button faster.

fuck ’em, only we know by @medievill, which is more of the inevitable Zaddy fallout, something I cherish every possible iteration of.

In "older fics I'm finally circling back around to" we've got Here's to the Night by @xoxoemynn, a Y2K NYE AU because who doesn't love acronyms? But for real, it's sweet and funny and full of wonderful 1999 flavor that made me smile a lot.

As an Astrology Gay you know I was gonna love Connecting the Dots by @theyellowestmustard! It's so good I can even ignore my personal headcanon that Ed is a Pisces, whereas in this fic he's a Cancer. At least we agree on his undeniable watery nature, and that even though astrology is fake, he's too sweet to ever be a Scorpio. Anyway what really matters here is Ed getting pampered on his special day by Stede "The Most Romantic Motherfucker Alive" Bonnet, as is right and proper.

Last but not least there's Waddle Together by @sylwritesstuff, a weird wonderful GO fic that I genuinely can't explain how I found, but I have to assume it was fate because I had such a blast reading it. This may be the first and only time I've finished a fic where Crowley and Aziraphale aren't their eldritch selves. They're uh, not human either. Just roll with it.

As always, happy Friday and happy reading!

[djemsostylist]

Since starting this blog as a Vampire Diaries blog back in 2012, I've gone through a number of iterations. After my stint as a TVD blog for the better part of three years, I expanded out into a multi-purpose, whatever is my current hyperfixation blog. There are, of course, always the long running staples (Star Wars, Warhammer, LOTR) but I have gone through some pretty specific weird ones. The summer/fall of Mad Max: Fury Road, my years long Steve Rogers obsession, my summer of The Musketeers, that month of The Originals. The year I lost my mind and started watching dizis (lol, thank god that one is over).

The point is, I've had many throughout the years, but I haven't had one ongoing and deep since maybe the first season of House of the Dragon. (That one ended abruptly when I finished reading Fire and Blood and realized that the source material was stupid as shit, the writers were possibly dumber and this show was going to make me mad sooner than later.) In addition to an extremely busy past year or so and the disappointment of the end of The Siege of Terra, I haven't really had anything that has captured my interest for a long period of time. (Decimus Androndinus Felix, Lord of Vespator and the Eastern Marches is the current love of my life but he was only in four books and now they are done and I am SAD).

Welp. This summer I spent a week with my brother @bonesingerofyme-loc as I do every summer, and in light of the extreme heat and our extreme laziness, we decided to binge watch the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender. He's been a fan for a long, long time, but since I was like, 16 when it came out, I wasn't exactly the target demographic. And its taken me a while into adulthood to truly embrace certain interests, and he patiently waited to spring this one on me.

And buddy. This show got me. It's got everything I love in a show, in a children's show (I love children's media that isn't just mindless entertainment, and there is a particular type that just does it for me) and it's the sort of thing that is just beautiful as it's written and also really needs no explaining. It reminds me of Bantam Star Wars (it's best era), and that sort of unique blend of magic and mystery and family and despair and hope and love and everything in between. Aang is just so Luke, with his love that is greater than the world and also for the world, with the breathless way he uses his power but with so much thought and care. With the family that they build, with the truly excellent writing. I could go on at length, and probably will in later posts on in later drafts, but this show. This fucking show man.

And then, of course, bc he can never leave well enough alone, he tells me about his ship. The ship. And it's a rarepair, which is insane because I NEVER ship rarepairs, both because rarepairs are usually silly, often more infuriating than not, and so limited that the full scope of fangirling and obsession is hard to fully realize. But like, it's fucking perfect and I'm handling it about as well as you'd expect lol. (It's Zuko/Toph, because of course I would fucking fall in love with that pairing.) Anyway, expect Avatar span for at least the next two weeks until work starts again (or even more if I'm stressed enough to need an escape lol).

[greyplainsttrpg]

5e Villain Arc 5.5 2024 One Next

The last post was a diatribe into specifically the absurdity of turning into a Brown Bear at Level 2. My problem with turning into a Brown Bear is that it is really easy and really powerful for a Level 2 Character to be able to do consistently. My complaint is not that the Brown Bear is the best thing that the Moon Druid can turn into. No. What makes the Moon Druid so unbelievably ridiculous is that the Brown Bear is THE FLOOR of what you can do at Level 2. The Floor, mind you, is twice per day getting a bunch of temporary HP, literally healing as you do it, getting a bunch of Str and Con, getting Longstrider, getting multi-attack, getting to-hit bonuses, etc. The Ceiling is MUCH higher, especially in comparison to what every other Class can do at Level 2. This ceiling is also far and above what every previous iteration of the Druid. Yes, including "omega-busted 3.5." The 3.5 Druid IS good, but not that good.

Let's first start with an overview of some of the crazy animals that a Druid can transform into at Level 2:

Dire Wolf: Fast, strong, bulky, stealthy, solid perception (best skill in the game).

Giant Eagle: 80 flying movement, strong, advantage on sight-based Perception (not a Spot Check btw inshallah) (still the best skill in the game) (also, the druid keeps THEIR Wisdom, btw).

Giant Spider: We'll circle back to this in a moment, HOWEVER, Climbing Movement, +7 stealth, stupid bite attack that does a crapload of damage, web projectile to control any non-martial Str-based Character (worst Ability Score, btw).

Lion/Tiger: The two are pretty similar, tbh. I think they are okay. They have a conditional multi-attack triggered off their pounce action, but like this is clearly just a worse bear in most situations. Getting advantage to attack as a lion (so long as sduifbewivb) is AN upside.

Reef Shark: This is not a CR 1 monster, but it is important to note that the Moon Druid gets immediate access to a pretty solid aquatic option on command. If the DM planned a "hard fight because water" and they forgot that they have a Moon Druid in the party, well that fight is pretty much over now. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but it adds to the overall stew of "why being a 5e DM sucks." The Moon Druid has a solution to basically every problem at Level 2 via spellcasting or wild shape. It peeves me a bit that the shark does not specifically require salt water to function, but whatever.

This is just what is available in the Player's Handbook. This does not include everything in the Monster Manual that the Druid gets access to. Granted, these are actually pretty slim pickings. The Giant Octopus is an upgrade to the Reef Shark in many cases. Nothing else stood out to me at CR 1 that was not better than the ones in the Player's Handbook, tbh.

Let's compare this to what every other Class gets at Level 2:

Barbarian; Reckless Attack and Danger Sense: The Druid gets ways to have Advantage via its various forms without the downside of giving opponents Advantage to hit them. Danger Sense does not matter if the Druid turns into a literal spider that cannot activate traps, a bird that flies above traps, just tanks the damage from the pathetic traps in 5e by being a self-healing bear, or is turned into something with excellent Dexterity.

Bard; Jack of All Trades: Why have 1/2 Proficiency when you could have +7 Proficiency to the skills you need by turning into the animal that accomplishes it? Yes, I know that an animal form will NOT give you all the skills you might want. The Druid cannot perfectly replicate this, but they can often outperform it when possible.

Cleric; Channel Divinity: Turn Undead and maybe a feature from their Divine Domain. If you happen to be fighting undead, this feature is great. If you are not fighting undead (most of the time), then this feature does literally nothing.

Fighter; Action Surge: This gets better, but for now Action Surge is strictly worse then being a Bear and always having more movement and multi-attack.

Monk; Ki and Unarmored Movement: Ki for multi-attack and Unarmored movement for bonus to movement. Literally just being a worse bear with more resources and without the option to have a flying movement speed of 80.

Paladin; Spellcasting, Divine Smite, Fighting Style: The Druid already has better spellcasting. many of the wild shape forms are similar to paladin fighting style. Divine smite is somewhat similar to the Druid healing themselves with Spell Slots during the transformation into Wild Shape in how they work. I think Divine Smite is better, but the average damage of being a bear out-performs the paladin with divine smite until the paladin receives Extra Attack. Even then, the bear is still doing pretty solidly at Level 5 with fewer resources.

Ranger; Fighting Style and Spellcasting: Strictly worse than the Paladin because no Divine Smite. Otherwise the same (excepting that the Ranger has Fighting Styles that the Druid cannot emulate).

Rogue; Cunning Action: LMAO. Okay, buddy.

Sorcerer; Font of Magic: Being able to shift how your magic works a bit is not overall as good as the inherent flexibility of being able to turn into so many different animals at Level 2. I'm strictly comparing the depth of flexibility between the two features, and I would rather be able to turn into anything.

Warlock; Eldritch Invocation: Again, in a purely flexibility comparison, whenever you have to choose anything you are losing to the Druid which does not really need to compromise.

Wizard; Arcane Tradition: A few of these are quite good. Portent, from Divination, is maybe the single only feature that is similarly potent to Wild Shape. Twice per day, the Divination Wizard can replace any d20 roll with an alternate roll. Depending on those dice rolls, that could be more critical to success than turning into a Brown Bear. On average, turning into a Brown Bear or anything else is probably better, but it is is debatable. Other than that, Abjuration is pretty good. Enchantment is okay. Evocation is okay.

So, besides the Divination Wizard, no other Class can compete with the Mood Druid at Level 2.

The counterargument I have heard a lot is "yeah, but the Moon Druid is not as good at higher Levels." Well, considering D&D 5e falls apart at higher levels anyway, idk how much I believe that or care. For one, the Druid is still a full Caster. For another, they eventually get to turn into an elemental which is... okay. I see it like this: between levels 2-8 or so, the Moon Druid is the party's primary combat threat and best utility option. After that, they shift solely to the party's best utility option and remain a solid combat threat. Also, by the time Combat Wild Shape becomes less good, the Druid can just cast Polymorph instead to be a CR ridiculous beast. Let me say it like this: I would prefer to be a level 15 Moon Druid over a Level 20 Fighter (any archetype). This is purely for the utility/power of being a full spellcaster with a huge upside of being able to quickly spam out extra HP as a Bonus Action. What the Moon Druid eventually lacks in offensive output with their Wild Shape they make up for in being the bulkiest spellcaster in the game (and it is not even close). I would likely prefer to be a Moon Druid over anything else in the game at basically any Level. Adaptability, speed, and bulk are just that good.

The Druid was not always this way. Combat Wild Shape has a lot in common with the bizarre power-creep of Dexterity (discussed in Villain Arc 4). In an attempt to simplify the nature of Wild Shape for players, the result is something obviously over-centralizing. It's not a perfect 1-1, obviously, but they share a number of aspects in game design failure. What is interesting about Combat Wild Shape is that it was actually fine in the D&D Next Playtest. In fact, it was actually way more interesting in that version. Let's take a look at what Wizards was cooking up before they burnt the house down.

So the text formatting describing what you get after the entry itself is... questionable, but this is not a final product so filing an actual complaint about that is actually unfair. This is the kind of thing I was expecting to change going from the Playtest to the Final Release. Not whatever the hell happened.

The important thing to note with this version of Wild Shape: You get access to kinds of forms over several levels. So all Druids start with the Hound, and then the Moon Druid gets bonuses to being a Hound. Then all Druids get the Steed, and then the Moon Druid gets the Bear and Cat. All Druids get the Rodent and Fish form at 7th Level. Finally, the Moon Druid can turn into a mammoth or some other huge animal. The Moon Druid gets access to a couple of unique forms (Bear, Cat, Behemoth) and they get bonuses to being them. It is a pretty okay subclass. In its current form, I would argue that it is actually somewhat weaker then Land Druid. If I were to make some edits to this Druid Circle, I would add a bird (or "Raptor") option instead of Cat. I think the Cat is too much of an in-between of the Bear and Hound and does not provide enough utility over what a Raptor would provide. Additionally, I think they should get Proficiency to the relevant Saves in their Wild Shape forms. Infinite uses of Wild Shape is a bit silly, but it is Level 20 so I don't really care. Like, it basically means that the Moon Druid can always heal themselves back to at least half-health+. It's not THAT overpowered though, so it's fine I guess. Now that I'm thinking about it, I would probably increase the healing from reverting from an animal form to be Double Level or Level + WIS MOD + PROF or something. It needs a little more sauce, in my opinion because the Druid doesn't just, like, get an infinite number of health-bars. I also think the bonuses to STR and DEX could actually go up. +2 and +4 are not amazing.

That's the primary difference between this Druid and the released Druid. This Druid assumes the SHAPE of an animal, but they can also fudge it around with room for player expression. The Release Druid just IS a bear (or whatever). One of the reasons that Release Moon Druids are so overpowered is because they do not need to spread their ability scores out, like, at all. They can roll up with a 8, 8, 8, 15, 15, 15 pre-species point-buy and do totally fine. Because in what situation are they not using the physical attributes of a better form? When they are casting spells in the background? The Next Druid needs to actually consider their ability scores. They are not a Bear, they are a Druid with the appearance of a Bear. It is a huge distinction that sets a wildly different tone for the game.

Another interesting thing to note here is that the small forms (fish and rodent) are locked away to a higher level than the more obvious combat or utility forms. That's because being Small but with the HP of a Druid is actually pretty epic and powerful. This is why CR is NOT a good metric to determine what is or is not reasonable for a PC to be able to turn into at X Level. Small is kinda cracked actually, and being able to access these forms should be gated to a higher level.

This leads us to the elephant (CR 4 btw) in the room. Binding the Druid to the worst thought-through mechanic in any TTRPG was always going to lead to disaster. This is my conspiracy theory, but I genuinely believe that the Moon Druid in particular is responsible for the entire cascade of nonsense that is the CR system in 5e. Maybe not intentionally, but certainly functionally. Let me explain.

Let's pretend that I am a WotC Designer in the years 2013-2014. We have come up with this system called "Challenge Rating" that clarifies what a party of 4 PCs should be able to fight and defeat with using some amount of resources. Similar to WoW and Skyrim, some of the early enemies a party should be able to fight are animals. I'm not sure WHY this is the case, but it is. However, there are now two questions: 1) what Level should a party be to fight the animal and 2) what level should the moon druid be able to turn into it? The result has beast-master results. Because I don't think the average person knows just how truly nightmarish and kaiju-adjacent brown bears are. They are faster than horses, can run as long as horses, they weigh several hundred pounds, their claws are razor-sharp, they consistently carve and powerlift their way through cars to get a baggy of peanuts, they can climb trees and other objects as fast as they run. Do you know how bears deal with wild fires? They run INTO the wildfire to get to the other side as quickly as possible. Their survival strategy for the kill-everything button is to just tank the damage. And it works. Bears are more powerful than your wall of fire spell. Bears have some of the most sensitive noses in nature, exceeding dogs by a fair amount. The actual power of grizzly bears is not properly reflected on their stat block. Why are they so terribly nerfed? Probably so that the Moon Druid can turn into them at Level 2. All the animals in 5e are not accurately portrayed. They are all much slower, weaker, and less adapted than their real-life counterparts. Take for example the expected Strength Score of a Brown Bear. It naturally has 19 Strength. As a game mechanic for a Player to turn into, that is a pretty impressive number, but for an actual bear that number is pretty terrible. Think about it like this: the strongest humans can temporarily power-lift something as heavy as a sedan car for a few moments by a few inches. Bears have been known to simply push these kinds of cars over for scraps of food. This is funnier when you think about elephants. Elephants have 22 Str? That's it? Like, no. They don't. Bears should probably have like 25-30 Str, and elephants probably have like 50 Str. HOWEVER, this would be really weird game mechanics in the situation that something were to turn INTO a bear or an elephant. Imagine being an elephant for a moment. You just are the biggest thing on land currently existing (that is alive and can move). One mid-level wizard and a couple of elephants could probably defeat most dragons.

Think about it like this. Ignore the the total number and consider just the modifier as it presents on a d20. Each number on a d20 is equivalent to 5%. RaR, a Brown Bear is 20% (+4) stronger than a guy/gal/gaul (first thing that came in my head and I thought it was funny--don't tell Caesar lol). An elephant is 30% stronger than a commoner. Like, think about that. What the hell? What--the hell. That's not how elephants work. 30% stronger? If you could deadlift around 250lbs with some practice, then an elephant could deadlift 325bs. Now, how much can an Elephant deadlift is a confusing question because they don't/can't do that. However an elephant can lift over 650 lbs with their trunk alone. So an elephant's trunk, not the elephant itself, is 260% stronger than an average-ish human. And an elephant does not practice specifically to be the swolest elephant, so we don't really know what the peak strength of an elephant's trunk is. Anyway, put into 5% increments and then added to 10, the elephant's trunk should have a Strength of 62 and possess a modifier of +26. That is not the elephant itself. That is the trunk, okay. Now, as game design, should the elephant's trunk have a +26 to attack and damage? Probably not. That's why it MIGHT not be a good idea to give enemies the same kinds of ability scores as player-characters. Would you believe that D&D did not use to do enemies this way?

Is AD&D/2nd Edition perfect? No. Does this game properly represent an elephant? Probably not. However, the elephant has an effective +11 to attack, 5 attacks that each do 2d6 or 2d8 damage, has an average of 55HP (you have to understand, that's a pretty solid amount of HP for AD&D) or more if you assume max role (many GMs do, thus 88HP), and they appear in groups of up to 12. What is the CR of AN elephant, let alone 12 elephants? You might say, "but Mr. Greyplains, this is not strictly more powerful than the 5e version!" True. Again, this is not a perfect translation of an elephant either. However, the numbers that are smaller are scaled to a game that generally has smaller numbers. Assuming a Character is the same level as the Elephant's hit die, a Wizard will have an average of 32 HP at Level 11, and a Fighter will have an average HP of 61-70 (if they have at least 15 Con for the second number). So 2d8 + 2d8 immediate damage could high-roll 1-shot a Level 11 Wizard. It could then Trunk/Stomp the fighter for 2d6/2d6 and then stomp something else for another 2d6. Then up to 11 more elephants get to resolve. Back to the primary subject at hand.

This leans the conversation back into Villain Arc 4 territory. I think that the solution to Strength's problems, in particular, is to just let it get unbounded from the other ability scores. You want to have super-heroic strength? Sure. Put enough levels into Fighter, and you can have like a 26 Strength or something. Pop-off king/queen/themperor. I'm not against super-heroes being as strong as bears. I'm against bears being as strong as a strong guy. Strength can be less useful overall (as per Villain Arc 4) if the number is allowed to get gigantic. This hits on the similar subject as Villain Arc 3. The Beast Master Ranger is partly so bad because of how weak the animals they control are. The real-world elements of Dungeons and Dragons 5e are worse then their reality equivalent IN ADDITION to being worse than their magical alternative. Truly, it is the Strength Ability Score, in particular, that is the actual through line of WotC's terrible game design.

What level should 4 adventurers be able to fight a brown bear? Like, a real one. I have no idea. You see, the problem with CR is that I have no idea who the party is, what their levels are, what their equipment is, what the temperament of the Players are, what the temperament of the GM is, etc. A PC that is optimized to fight a bear could probably do it pretty easily with planning. Say for example you had a character who could train several dogs (impossible RaR, btw) who could spook a bear into a specific position. At this point, the character would take their very powerful projectile to the place wear the bear is cornered and then kill it from a safe position. This is how bear hunting works. It is terrible for the bear but also the dogs because the hunters VERY OFTEN just leaves the dogs in the woods, however people CAN kill bears with a winning strategy. Is this hunter a Level 1 Player character? Are they part of a Level 1 party, they being a Level 1 character and each of their three dogs also being level 1 characters? People hunt elephants. It sucks, but it is achievable. It's not that hard. The general trick is to 1) have a car and 2) have a gun.

The Moon Druid is just the perfect synthesis of everything wrong with 5e. The Moon Druid is too powerful, yet they are also too weak. They are too weak because otherwise the non-casters would not be able to compete with their most common form--the brown bear. The same kinds of non-casters that historically are absolutely capable of killing the un-nerfed, real-world bear with proper strategy (without character levels). The Moon Druid should not be able to turn into a bear because turning into a bear should be essentially game-ending. The game is fundamentally vexing because the elements which are based in reality are weird and video-gamey to a comical degree. I can see an anti-simulationist argument here of "yo, this is a game, it does not have to be realistic." Sure, but if the designers want to use real creatures in their game, those will be used as touchstones to compare all other elements of the game to.

The result of this nonsense is that 5e is not a power-fantasy game. The PCs are not that powerful, really. The universe they inhabit is just so incredibly flaccid that it crumbles to the slightest bit of organic strategy and exploits of mechanics. It is a daycare. You are a child in a padded room with little toys to smash into each other with no actual risk. And I, as the DM, am the underpaid daycare worker who is begging you to play with the toys fairly and to stop hitting the other children with the toys. The parent, WotC has LEFT the building and only comes back to reprimand me for not allowing their precious little child to do whatever they want because "I'm paying for this service" in the sense that we only are working daycare because they provided the context to allow it to exist. Not a perfect analogy, but that's how it feels DMing a 5e game with a Moon Druid PC. "Oh yeah, I turn into a bear! Oh yeah, I turn into a giant spider! Oh yeah, I turn into a shark!"

Fucking kill me.

#transrights

#freepalestine

#buymybook

Previous Villain Arc Post:

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

65

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

325,309

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Actively: primarily Supernatural

Past: MCU, Harry Potter, Twilight, Divergent, Hunger Games, House M.D.,

4. Top 5 fics by kudos:

1. Disillusioned

Twilight, Bella/Carlisle, incomplete & on indefinite hiatus

2. Common Courtesy

Captain America, Steve/Bucky

3. Love Isn't All That It Seems (I've Been Sleepwalking)

Supernatural, [ship omitted out of respect for others]

4. The More That You Say, The Less I Know

Supernatural, Castiel/Dean

5. Plants Awoke and They Slowly Grow (Beneath the Skin)

Supernatural, Castiel/Dean Winchester

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I try to respond to all of them, though sometimes I miss an email and it takes me forever.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Going with only completed works, I'd say it'd be one of these two:

Knives In My Heart - Divergent, Eric/Tris, MCD

They're Burning All The Witches (Even If You Aren't One) - Captain America/MCU, Steve/Bucky, rape/non-con

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh god, honestly most of my works have happy endings, and a few with more open/ambiguous endings, so really there's no way to pick one.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

People seem more courteous now, but I used to all the time. I tend to add some kind of snarky iteration of "don't like, don't read" on most of my controversial ones now, but my ships have definitely gotten me hate.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes, though I just call it porn. I'm in spitting distance of 30. I call it what it is. And I'd say I'm pretty good at it, overall.

10. Do you write cross-overs?

Not full on, no. I've had a crossover moment or hint before, but full crossover fics, no. I'd like to experiment with it someday, but not right now.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I'm 99% sure I have at least once, I know I've gotten at least one comment asking to. I never followed up on it though. Maybe I should.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Kind of? Though it was more a meshing of ideas and getting so much input from the other person that I credited them as a co-author, not them literally typing part of the fic.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Stucky (Steve/Bucky, Captain America/MCU) is my absolute OTP, forever and always. I have a few ships I love, but they're my #1. They're also one of, if not the only ship that's not problematic in any way, shape or form.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

Sadly, most of them. I started posting chapters as soon as I wrote them and then my hyperfixation for the pairing/fandom passed, and I lost all motivation. If I ever did a multi chapter WIP again, I'd probably get most or all of it written before I started posting it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Definitely explicit material, porn, smut, whatever you want to call it. I've improved in the last few years for sure, and I know there's better than me out there, but I do pretty well.

I think I write well overall. There are some people who write and they have fantastic ideas but it just doesn't flow, and that's not a problem I've ever had.

I'm fantastic at one shots. I can write something short and sweet and tie it right up. Most of my work is under 10k.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I cannot write anything long worth a damn. My only longer works are unfinished, I completely lose steam. I currently have an AU in mind that I desperately want to write, but my history with abandoning multi chapter fics is scaring me away from starting it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

I only speak English, so I don't. I used to try, until I was told that google translate sucks, so then I swapped to putting the English in italics.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Oh god, I have to go to FFN for this. Though before I actually joined any fanfic sites I sat down and wrote an alternate ending for the Twilight short story about Bree Tanner in a notebook, that was before I knew fanfic even existed. As far as posted works, it appears to be Hunger Games and Harry Potter.

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Definitely All I Feel As I Get Closer To You, absolutely no contest. It's a Supernatural fic, Dean/Castiel set in season 10, at 9.2k words.

@aaronthe8thdemon is the only one I know for a fact writes fic regularly that I can think of off the top of my head, but I'll informally tag anyone who wants to participate.

[foxgloveinspace]

@thoseeyeslikefire @absentviolet @kyloreno-911

It's another LONG w.i.p. Wednesday! Explanation for why I haven't been making these, I guess:

took a week off in October cause I didn't feel like taking pics, then we had company and I didn't have time to do it, and then I got sick, ugh. But now I'm back and I'm gonna try to do these when I can again, possibly not every week, maybe every other week, cause I want to spend more time reading and writing this month if I can. (it's gonna be my first 'real' NaNoWriMo. Where I have a goal and such).

first off, the confession. I frogged the cardigan part of the og skulls cardigan. I kept looking at it, and looking at it, and I went 'I'm never going to wear this, I'm just doing it, to do it'. It's gone through like, three other iterations that I haven't been talking about cause I was really just trying to figure it out. I've finally found something I'm excited about making, which is a pieced together cardigan of double crochets, where on the right side rows I crochet through the back loop only. I'm feeling very inspired by this, especially since I could work on this even when I was super foggy from having a cold. Sadly, it did not get done in time for Halloween, but also I didn't intend for it to be just for Halloween. Hopefully this is something I'll wear all winter. It's my main w.i.p. rn and I hope to get it finished this week, so I'll post finished pics when I get it done.

and another 'wellllll there was a goof' project, lol. I messed up the left sock of my hocus pocus socks. so I decided to frog it, since then it would be easier to make the heel flap and gusset of the right sock! so! i then paused the first sock until I can catch up on the second sock, and when they are both ready to knit the foot, I'll pick them both up to knit two at a time again. I just haven't been able to knit very much cause of the foggy head from my cold. But! I am really happy with these and hopefully I'll have them done before the end of the year.

I picked back up the pass the honey cardigan! mostly cause it was easy knitting while I was, again, foggy from the cold..... wow. Any way, I know it probably doesn't look like it, but I did get some progress done on it, I think like two or three pattern repeats? I wasn't sure I wanted to continue it, but then I had the thought of 'it looks like dragon scales, not just honey comb' and now I love it lol. It's my dragon scale armor now.

and now! my birthday shawl!! (The Gaia Shawl) I only did the first bit on my birthday cause I was DETERMINED to get it started on the right day. I am loving this yarn and how it's working up, and I am really liking the little bit of the pattern I've worked at well. I'm not worried about how long it takes me cause my birthday shawl last year was being worked well into January. It'll be there when I feel good enough to work on it again. The only problem is that the pattern website keeps freezing.....

small yarn haul time!

the multi colored yarn is from one of my mom's friends actually, she has sheep and she goes through the entire process with it, and I got it from her 'booth' at the Heritage Days festival in Warsaw (which is no where near where I live). I have no idea what I want to make with it?? I'm thinking a hat and some socks maybe? it is a fingering weight yarn. Definitely the hat first, and then if I have enough yarn left over the socks. It's so soft and squishy, and I really love it.

and then the blues are for a project for my sister in law.... she kinda volunteered me for it, but it'll only take me a couple days at most. It's for a pixie from Harry Potter. The yarn is nice and soft, and I guess I'm looking forward to the challenge, but also she's just...... It's complicated.

And that's it from me! Thanks for reading <3

[cloudyyoungjaes]

I have no clue what despairing vacation is about- but I saw you reblogged that one post again and I'd love to hear about it! And why you made the decisions you did! 🥰

Rubs hands together oh boy.

(Mentions of cannibalism and decapitation)

So despairing vacation (DV) was a multi fandom roleplay group that was based on danganronpa. So basically a killing game rp. We ended our last iteration like two-ish weeks ago? Around that time with Despairing Vacation 4.

I joined in Despairing Vacation 1.5, which in the timeline it took place in between the first game and second lmao (though it took place after 2 happened in reality). I brought in Ahn because at the time my ass was obsessed with He is Psychometric and I love Ahn like a son. So naturally I chucked him in there and he got scars around his right wrist and more trauma than he had before the game started. I also uhhh fucked up his canon beyond recognition lol. (I’ll probably post his carrd here later—). Out of the three muses I have played in DV, he’s the only survivor. Because of this he can’t wear bracelets anymore lol. He still has his psychometric powers but it comes at a greater cost for him. He’s also the only kdrama character in despairing vacation lol.

For Sento…I was pretty obsessed with Kamen Rider Build and I related hard to Sento in terms of some of his underlying issues so I played him! I think originally I was going to play Gaon devil judge, Peter Stone law and order, Kiriya exaid, or taiga ex aid but I like Sento :). As to why he died: he was pulled for culprit so the people just scrambled to do smth and it was around the time that he returned to his original identity of Takumi. Sento (as Takumi) killed Shadow the Hedgehog by biting his neck off and as a result Sento (takumi) got executed. Sento basically had to pay for Takumi’s crimes (I’ll link his execution here lmao. Maybe). He a ghost now living in an Eyecon that takeru gave him lol. I miss him :(. I Also fucked up his canon by making the amnesia permanent. I’ll probably post the link to his execution. Maybe. Fun fact: I wrote it during the trial jfnsksnsjsnoasmks

As for Nitoh…I was still torn about who to bring; I think this time I was tempted to bring Gaon (again), Shen Wei, Tokatti toqger, Noel lupat…and then I said to Jason ( @/gameraramen) ‘hey wouldn’t it be funny if I brought in Nitoh wizard and tossed him in as victim?’ Because in Despairing Vacation he and Haruto are married and I thought ‘hey wouldn’t it be funny—‘. The decapitation was gale’s (@/galeforcewings (I think that’s gale’s tumblr)) idea because he wanted decap meanwhile the cannibalism was gonna be there because Jason’s character Chidori persona 3 has kamen rider Amazons’ lore in there. The only thing was that Nitoh’s housemate Mike ensemble stars was also picked to be victim so naturally it was a double murder and ah ha. Nitoh’s death was one of the darkest because you may not see it in the crime scene photo. But he doesn’t rlly have much of his body left + his head was on a serving plate. Tbh it was my only chance to be victim so I said ‘fuck it make it dark’ and at first we weren’t sure if the mods would let us (they came in and said ‘make it worse’). The chapter name in the murder server is called ‘women moments (gone wrong)’ because at the time Chidori was ‘dating’ Eve moonlit evilous and :miku: women moments.

God I hope all of it made some sense fjsnskskksksns

[flecks-of-stardust]

Lunar Greetings: Chapter Three

Chapter three of a multi-chapter Rain World short story featuring Looks to the Moon.

Contains lore spoilers for the Downpour DLC; read at your own discretion.

Read this chapter on AO3.

1509.213 - PRIVATE Five Pebbles, Big Sis Moon

BSM: Hello! FP: hello. BSM: It’s good to finally be able to talk to you! There’s been so much talk about your construction. I believe there are still some final touches being added as we speak. FP: there was something about the bridge, i think. BSM: Yes, the bridge connecting us. I was told briefly about a mechanical part failure close to you, but I hope it’s been resolved since I was last updated about it. BSM: Either way, welcome! It’s so great to meet you, I’ve been so excited to get to talk to you. BSM: How are you adjusting? I’m sure it’s a lot to take in, especially with the special circumstances of your construction. I’m very sorry about that, by the way; it’s so much extra stress on top of the initial moments of being turned on. FP: i’m fine. just reading the information i’ve been given. BSM: Yes, they did give you quite a bit. Take your time, I know it’s overwhelming. FP: no, it’s fine. BSM: Haha, okay. If you need help processing the information, or if you just want to chat, I’m always around. I am your big sister after all! FP: really? BSM: Kind of! It’s not often that iterators are built so close to each other, let alone connected by a bridge like we are. I also just have seniority over you~ BSM: But either way, I’m here to help if you need anything. FP: there’s another iterator contacting me right now. BSM: Oh, is it Seven Red Suns? FP: yes. how did you know that? BSM: They’ve really taken to greeting every new iterator that’s been turned on, especially with… FP: with what? BSM: Ah, I suppose you don’t know who Delight of Day is yet. I can tell you about her if you’d like. FP: maybe later. BSM: Alright. Again, if you need any help, I’ll be here. It’s great to finally meet you, Five Pebbles. FP: i don’t need help yet. BSM: Haha, that’s okay. I’m just offering for the future. Let me know if you need anything. FP: i’m fine, really. BSM: Hehe, how independent. The offer will always be up for whenever you need it. I’ll let you go now though, so Suns can greet you. BSM: It’s good to have you here, despite the circumstances.

(1) Softly, the wind blows, (2) amid a peal of laughter, (3) and moonlight shining upon the river stones. (4) This boundless innocence, glistening in your eyes, (5) shines bright as you nestle into my arms.

[technodromes]

🧠 Starter Call 🧠

Heya! Like/Comment** on this post for an unplotted multi-para starter with the mighty Krang himself. If you are a multimuse as well, specify in your comment for which muse the starter is for and/or which verse you would like. If you just like this starter call, I will make any choices myself.

Verses that are currently available;

 V: Enter the Technodrome (default*) I prioritize the 2012 lore for characters and plots, but they are also heavily inspired by the 1987 iteration (especially Krang & Shredder) or IDW (Bebop & Rocksteady). The characters may enter your muse’s world or the other way around. That verse leaves a lot of room for plots here. Both parties can stay in their own canon and get to meet each other that way. * While this is usually my default verse for my Technodromers, this will also include cameos of Shredder and/or Bebop & Rocksteady. For Krang only, I suggest one of the verses below. V: Invader from Dimension X Generic verse for 1987 Krang (including his 2012 cameo) He is out and up to his usual invasive shenanigans. Since he is on his own in this verse tho, he might try to trick or scam your muse in one way or another to get his Technodrome back and functioning again. Krang has a bit of a reputation as a scammer and trickster, after all. However, maybe he ends up thinking of your muse as a valuable asset to his army after all. V: Warlord Krang Generic verse for IDW Krang. I haven't put much thought in this yet tho, but basically, Krang tries to invade and terraform a planet for the last remaining Utrom. He tries to save his species but chooses questionable means and ways to do so. He is more ruthless than his 1987 version and also on bad terms with Shredder.

** Since people can't read rules and I'm growing tired of it: I write with RP blogs & mutuals only! If I don't follow you back or you're no RP blog, please DON'T interact with this post or I'll block you right away.

[talenlee]

bloodwork: Combination Locks

Here’s the banner!

Okay we have a collection of six factions across two types, and they all represent a different kind of builder card game:

The Pyramid: A multi-level marketing scam that uses a dice roller mechanic. You set up a business that gets bigger and bigger, with each vampire triggering off a dice roll. These Vampires draw from ideas of monarchy. These are Old vampires.

The Sang Bleau: Aristocratic, entrenched, old money power that expresses itself as the administrative authority of the police. These Vampires are a line, and has to cycle members of it every turn, chosen at random by the dice. These are Old vampires.

The Brotherhood of The Crypt: Oldschool money investors, excluded from modern money because of all the crimes, sinking their value into the crypto stock market. These vampires have a set of Operations, which their Thralls bounce around between, as a sort of ‘blob.’ These are Old vampires.

The Red Hand: Hand builder vampires! You play a vampire from your hand into the group, and it does its act. The next turn you play another vampire and then it and all the others in the group trigger. You continue until you don’t have any more vampires and have to pick up your hand. These vampires go through wax/wane cycles, active in force, then have to regroup. These are Young vampires.

The Line Walkers: Gangs of vampires that maintain their presence on street corners, communicating with one another. There’s no leadership so they don’t take risks of losing people to violence. These are Young vampires.

The Jacks: Unpredictable, wild and lairy vampires, the Jacks show up abruptly do something, then fall to the shadows. They work on a blackjack mechanism, with all their cards gathered at the start of the turn, then you flip them until you either flip two cards with a matching trait. This mechanically pushes them to value diversity, and gives them uneven, explosive turns. These are Young vampires.

Now the big change here is that nobody is a deck builder. Nobody needs to draw cards out of a deck. This was one of the big problems in my last iteration of the design, where the simple number of cards necessary for a deck builder versus a Machi Koro style dice roller is very different. Each of these designs can start with one card and then grow out from there.

This is an attempt to address what I thought of capacity. Originally, I planned the design to run on simple icons, and each faction used the icons differently; if a card let you ‘draw’ a card, that meant something if you had a deck but it didn’t mean anything if your structure was the multi-level pyramid. A deck builder needs enough cards to shuffle, it needs a big chunk of cards to make hands matter.

But also, there are still things that vampires want to do that’s different: The dice roller mechanic means that only the Old Vampires care about being able to reroll the dice. Vampires that let you reroll dice are powerful and valuable to those vampires, vampires that give you more dice are powerful too, but … uh, young vampires don’t use dice at all. The dice are meant to represent the movement of the great infrastructure that the old vampires have access to.

This meant I was thinking about how to use the dice roller icon in the marketplace. How many cards can have the dice on them, if that dice means nothing to most players? Since every card has multiple icons, it could be that there’s no card that does just dice. Also, does this mean that there’s a powerful mechanic (dice rerolls, extra dice) that the young vampires don’t get? Maybe! That could be alright!

That said, I want to make sure that no matter the shuffle, you can’t end up with a marketplace with nothing in it but vampires you don’t want as a Young Vampire, so there’s no way for the whole market to be nothing but dice-rollers. That means in a marketplace of 9, there can be, at most, 8 cards with the dice on them. Now, if we assume there are say, four player symbols (A, B, C, D) and that D represents dice, then there are only going to be four possible combinations of each (AD, BD, CD, DD). In that case, the game can have two matching sets of this distribution, and then if all the dice rollers come out of the market at once, there are at most eight of them, leaving one slot free for other players to take.

This is however using combinatorics and math to try and shortcut around a potential problem of the market being full of cards that a player doesn’t want. I refer to this situation as a lockup, and some games overcome it by having the market just reset itself if it’s not touched (a technique I used in Cafe Romantica). A market that constantly cycles feels like a great way to keep the game from ever locking up. It’s also a tedious physical action which requires some player to maintain it and it can make people feel bad when they have to choose between one thing or the other. It increases the likelihood of shuffling, too.

When the time comes to track epiphanies, it can feel like a small victory to consider that I’m making a choice like this because of personal preferences. When considering the idea of the market cycling, I keep finding myself resisting the idea, even if it makes sense and makes the design easier and makes more sense. I think part of that is the feeling that I want the market to not need to constantly cycle because I value the convenience and accessibility more than I am intimidated by the needs of the math to prevent lockups. That is, I think I can ‘design around’ the potential problem of a market lockup, and I’d rather than than make the game require regular maintenance.

I want the game state to ideally require very little maintenance. The idea of making parts of the game iterate or change based on turn starts opens doors for kinds of design but I don’t want them. They feel to me things best done with a board, not with cards – and this game wants to use just the cards and the space between them to manage relationships.

More on next time, on directly attacking life points.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[racingliners]

F1 Re-Watch 2013: Round 3 - China

I am FINALLY picking up my 2013 watch through again. This was always going to be a chilled out thing but just have no had the headspace lately bc of various life things constantly kicking me in the teeth 😭

Anyhow, despite still being early on in the season we’re already nearing the end of races I haven’t seen at all, but I obvs still know the main bits of what happened (Fernando winning, Seb and Lewis battling for P3). So, let’s finally jump in!

gonna say it again, the old F1 intro my beloved

also also this was the first race post Multi-21 (I did start this re-watch out of order, if you’re wondering why Malaysia is the first post in my tag) so I assume we’re going to get some spicy comms (or an attempt, since it’s Crofty and Brundle)

also also also, I legit miss Shanghai on the calendar. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but we had some really good races there, it’s a really good track.

aaaaand starting grid: Lewis on pole, Fernando in 3rd, Dan in 7th in a Toro Rosso, Jense in 8th Seb down in 9th... Jev in 15th 😭

(god it feels SO WIERD seeing Rosberg on the grid as a driver, does not compute)

lol Webber starting from the pits bc he ran out of fuel in quali.

oh, this was Lewis’ first pole for Merc 🥹🖤

[Formation Lap]: Helmet watch: I loved how Lewis’ yellow helmet with the red and green accents had a blue, green and amber multichrome visor to match. (Yes these are the important things that we discuss here at racingliners.tumblr.com)

Just F1 culture things: the mad dash of mechanics and engineers running from the grid to the garages.

“Whatever way round it was it was still a [Red Bull] 1-2 in Malaysia” oh we are getting some spicy comms after all 

Helmet watch 2: Seb’s red helmet is v pretty

[Start/Lap 1]: Lewis having a v zoomy start, we love to see it

While Raikkonen got dropped by both Ferraris

Meanwhile cars going three wide in the midfield bc insanity

oh no Force India on Force India violence at the last corner

[Lap 2]: Webber makes his first stop, inch resting

Man, the ever constant of Lewis and Fernando racing against each other

[Lap 3]: Lewis 8 tenths up on Fernando we love to see it

Livery watch: of the many iterations Team Enstone have raced under, the black and gold Lotus livery is very much one of my favourites (Pink Alpine will always be superior though)

[Lap 4]: damn Fernando really caught up with DRS

Seb finally making moves and passes Dan for 8th

[Lap 5]: ...not both Ferrari’s getting past Lewis on the main straight. what the DRS

meanwhile Seb got past Jenson, and passes Rosberg at the hairpin for 7th

[Lap 6]: and one of the Force India’s has a broken rear wing, and Mercedes just did a double stack

This race went from 0 to 100 very quickly

oh shit the Force India’s brakes are now on fire

Team Silverstone’s no good very bad Chinese GP

oh no it was Gutierrez who just ploughed into the back of him. whoops.

[Lap 7]: Alonso pits

I am barely paying attention to tyre compounds with all the demolition derby shit going on

aaaaand Lewis back to being the fastest on track. noice.

cut to Jev v Bottas for P11. ngl it’s very wild watching these races back knowing how some of these guys careers have unfolded a decade later.

(Jev’s a double FE World Champion, so fuck you Marko)

ahem back to racing

also hi Pastor Maldonado

[Lap 8]: Oh my god Hulkenberg is leading the race after all the pit stops and carnage what the fuck

but more importantly Seb P2 and Jenson P3 🥰

in reality Alonso is the net race leader bc everyone in front of him is yet to stop I’m just living in delusion

[Lap 9]: whoops some drivers allegedly used DRS in a yellow flag zone, that was silly

[Lap 10]: ngl, I really miss it when we had a legit mix of possible strategies (in this case a 2-stop vs a 3-stop). Pirelli make better tyres challenge

[Lap 11]: What is a polar bear (Di Resta) doing in Arlington, Texas?! (5th place).

Good for you though Team Silverstone I love you Team Silverstone

Livery watch: the glossy metallic blue with purple accents rbr I MISS YOU

[Lap 12]: of rip not Fernando being 1.6 seconds faster than Seb on his new tyres 😭

anyway now I’m finally paying attention, the soft and mediums were the tyre compounds for this race

[Lap 13]: Seb and Rocky team radio interactions my beloved 🥰

[Lap 14]: How the fuck is Hulkenberg still leading????

Meanwhile Alonso is just cutting through the field like butter fvhaeudhu. He’s up to 4th

[Lap 15]: lol rbr pitted Seb to get him out of Hulkenberg’s dirty air and he pits anyway

but Seb jumps him in the pits!

the devil works hard but RBR mechanics work harder

NOOOOO WEBBER CRASHED INTO JEV

back to back races of Red Bull on Red Bull violence. oof

“How does the car feel?” “Not too bad” HIS FRONT WING HAS BEEN SHREDDED

[Lap 16]: oh not Raikkonen going into the back of Perez

both incidents happened at turn 6, what was in the water in the lake in the paddock?

aaaand cut to a slow moving Webber (and a depressed looking Adrian Newey)

[Lap 17]: Oh shit there goes Webber’s right rear tyre, just... rolling across the track

[Lap 18]: Meanwhile, Jenson is in first so I think we should just stop the race and call it a day

There has been SO MUCH GOING ON

[Lap 19]: “Should they remove the car? It’s not on the racing line” My lord jesus christ IT’S ON THE TRACK CROFTY

Obviously you can’t see me as I’m typing this but I’m looking into the camera like I’m on the office

They haven’t moved the tyre either it’s just sat on the grass run off, that is NOT SAFE MY DUDES

[Lap 20]: Meanwhile Massa and Rosberg pit again

And Seb up into P5 🥰

“Button leads the race” STOP THE COUNT

“Alonso catching Button but he cannot pass him... Jenson Button doing a fine fine job” I love this song

[Lap 21]: ...nvm Fernando took the lead going into turn 1

It was wonderful while it lasted, considering the 2013 McLaren car was painfully average

Rosberg pits again???? I wondered why they cut to a bemused looking Merc pit wall

[Lap 22]: The synchronised Merc and Lotus pit stops *chef’s kiss*

Lewis comes out in 9th but considering the massive pace difference between old and new tyres he should be back on the top 5 pretty soon

[Lap 23]: oop Rosberg retires with a mechanical fault

mild shock, I just about understood when Jenson said over the radio. He didn’t sound like static for once

and Lewis overtakes Dan for 7th

[Lap 24]: Jenson pits for his first stop, and Fernando for his second

...Jenson and Grosjean under investigation for using DRS in a yellow flag zone 🤦‍♀️

Braincells boys, braincells

[Lap 25]: anyway hiiiii Bono

Just Lewis things: collecting fastest laps like pokemon

[Lap 26]: And Fernando moved into P2.

...and now he chases down Seb

man this race is just peak 2010′s F1. Fernando racing Seb and Lewis, Lewis chasing down Jenson (and Jenson’s car not being completely shit for once). Raikkonen just vibing and somehow being faster after he got a broken front wing and nosecone

also while I haven’t had my obligatory “TEEEEED” reaction, he is in the pitlane living his best life.

[Lap 29]: And Lewis passes Jenson on the main straight.

and we have passed half distance!

[Lap 30]: And Fernando takes the lead

“It’s Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen for the top 3″ damn Brundle’s third eye was wide open (spoiler alert, that’s our podium just with Lewis and Kimi swapped round)

[Lap 31]: that is a very tragic sight of Raikkonen passing Jenson with his very broken nosecone

[Lap 32]: Seb makes his second stop, but he still has to run the softs

and he’s already moving back up into 6th place

[Lap 33]: ...and now into P5

He is zooming 

[Lap 34]: Oh the old tyre strategy graphic!! I did not know I missed it until I saw it, it’s way easier to follow all the different strategies if they just have all the tyres drivers have ran thus far on screen 😅

[Lap 35]: Not Seb being 2 and a bit seconds faster than Jenson 😭 (a combo of 2 stop vs 3 stop, and it being the 2013 RBR vs the 2013 McLaren)

[Lap 36]: and unsurprisingly Seb passes Jenson for 3rd

The current race order being Fernando, Lewis, Seb, Jenson and Raikkonen

[Lap 38]: And Lewis makes what I think is his final stop

He comes out in 6th, behind Ricciardo

[Lap 39]: So Fernando has to stop again, but he has a decent gap over everyone else. Seb and Jenson who also have to stop again less so

“What’s the situation in the race?!” Ted is me and I am Ted. mainly because I started this after 10pm my time

Lewis once again collecting the fastest lap. Purple really is his colour.

‘Use of DRS in yellow flag zones for cars 1, 2, 7, 17, 19 and 23 will be investigated after the race’ I had to pause bc I couldn’t stop laughing.

That’s an awful lot of paperwork, the stewards are booked and busy bc Jenson and Jev were already on that list

so about a third of the grid potentially doing something very unavoidable. F1 is a Serious Sport™️

[Lap 42]: Anyway, Fernando makes his final stop, and only comes out in 2nd behind Seb.

[Lap 43]: And he once again passes Seb going into turn 1, so just second and third to sort out.

[Lap 44]: Raikkonen passes Jenson for 3rd at the last corner

[Lap 45]: ...and Lewis passes Jenson for 4th a few corners after

seeing your fave driver go from 3rd to 5th vs seeing your other favourite driver get into 4th

[Lap 46]: 10 laps to go

[Lap 47]: “No need to push” “I’m not pushing” Fastest Lap: Fernando Alonso. rguheuraghu

Fernando Alonso certified menace to society

[Lap 48]: Seb (2nd) and Jenson (5th) still haven’t stopped yet, so they’re either leaving it as late as possible, or going to try extending to a two stop. 

[Lap 49]: ah nvm Jenson’s race engineer said they were doing one more lap before stopping 😅

also YIKES the soft tyres sucked that much this race if they only want to do 7 laps on it

[Lap 50]: and Jenson finally pits for the soft tyre, he comes out in 7th place

[Lap 51]: Jenson passes Massa for 6th 

and he’s setting purple sectors 🥰

[Lap 52]: Seb makes his third stop for softs, he comes out in 4th

*5 Laps remaining klaxon*

and apparently Jenson’s tyres are already dying 😭

Pirelli you can and will meet my fists

[Lap 53]: meanwhile Lewis is close to Raikkonen, but not close enough to try a pass

[Lap 54]: ✨Seb fastest lap✨

and Di Resta pits which promotes Jenson to 5th

oh jeez the amount of marbles off the racing line, they could legit make a whole set of tyres, the track is literally black where they’ve all gathered

[Lap 55]: Seb closing in on Lewis at a huge rate of knots

last lap spice you say? 👀

[Lap 56]: the gap has gone from 5.2 seconds to 2.0 seconds in about two laps. whew.

A Lewis and Seb battle is the superior battle, you cannot change my mind

although Lewis is caught up in a train of traffic, which is allowing Seb to catch up even more.

[Finish]: Fernando wins, can we cut to Lewis and Seb please

MASSIVE LOCK UP FROM LEWIS

oh jeeeeeez it was a drag race to the line and I think Lewis got him by a front wing end plate. WHEW.

Final Top 5: Alonso, Raikkonen, Lewis, Seb, Jenson

Oh jeez that race was actually really decent! Normally I hate strategy races BUT in this case it made things genuinely interesting bc there was a good split of drivers using the 2-stop or 3-stop, and most importantly it gave us some decent battles and made the results somewhat unpredictable! And the last lap chase of Lewis v Seb was SO GOOD. It literally wasn’t over until the last lap, and it being between Lewis and Seb was just even better, and podium or not Seb had such a great comeback drive from what I think was a brake issue in quali the day before. And that’s before you get into all the stuff going on at the start... WHEW.

Easy 8 out of 10 race, next one is Bahrain!

[kinetic-elaboration]

I'd love to hear more about your Autumnverse fic + any other fun tidbits of your Southern Gothic story since I think what you've shared so far for it is sooooo good!!! Or since you've talked about that one before, maybe your Dollhouse one? – Kathryn

Hi! Extremely belated reply, but my eyes are always bigger than my stomach (or, brain I guess) when it comes to tag games and asks--even though I love them.

The Autumnverse is a project I often don’t put down on WIP lists because it’s so vague lol. I’ve had something like this idea for years and it’s gone through many iterations. It’s been everything.

Originally, it was a traditionally structured modern AU multi-chapter, set during October in a broken down industrial town not dissimilar to where I lived as a teenager, centering on the delinquents as teens or maybe young adults, and heavily influenced with the vibes of R.E.M.’s album Document, which is one of my favorites and has some, imo, extremely spooky music on it. There was gonna be some political stuff and some A.L.I.E. stuff and some ghost stuff.

Then it sort of morphed into more of a place for my half-baked ideas about experimentation in form. I thought it might be more of a universe, snippets here and there, fics of different sizes, inspiration from different places, more about strong aesthetic and vague theme than about a plot per se. If this sounds very vague, it is!! That’s why it’s been on slow burn sizzle on the back burner since 2017 and barely exists in real life in any way lol.

The most I did (aside from some notes in my writing folder) are a few ficlets, on the tag “autumn fic.”

As for the Southern Gothic fic--I love knowing at least one other person is enthused for this because I do think if I can ever write this properly, it could be awesome! Unfortunately, I haven’t worked on it since January or so, so there’s not much in terms of news.

I am planning on taking a mini-vacation soon and trying to give myself a kinda.. .writer’s retreat, I guess, some time to focus on being creative again since I’m so stalled. And this will be my main project during that time. I want to collect all my notes, which are very scattered right now and stressing me out, and then do a ‘need to include’ list for each chapter, including some brainstorming of the aesthetic for each. Then I can hopefully get back into writing again. It’s currently stalled at about halfway through Ch3.

The last scene I wrote, the first half of Ch3, is an attempt at a long-form urban legend style narrative--stark, not too detailed, campfire-style stuff--about Octavia’s background before the start of the main narrative. She’s the little sister of a former criminal gang leader, and the friend of more than one witch, but she doesn’t believe in magic herself; she’s become bitter from loss and a deep sense of injustice, and though she puts on a friendly face to the minister of the local church (and de facto town leader) she has a disdain for the hypocrisy she sees in it, and cannot be scared by invocations of the devil or warnings against evil. Her only relief from mourning and loss and frustration is her ability to occasionally take justice into her own hands--because she is a very good baker, and she knows how to measure undetectable but lethal amounts of poison into her baked goods.

...That’s just a summary of her off the top of my head.

Aaaand I talked about the Dollhouse AU here!

[foodbytesback]

The Cereal Itself is the Least Interesting Part of Dippin’ Dots Cereal

While perusing the aisles of the store I work at, I noticed a couple of “new” (we’re always really behind on getting new products) selections in the cereal aisle: Dippin’ Dots flavors.  Always a sucker for a gimmick and always desperate for something to write about here, I grabbed one of each.  Curious as to just how behind I was on getting these, I turned to my go-to source of cereal news, cerealously.net, where he had a post from April announcing their re-release.  Yes, re-release, as the cookies and cream flavor had originally come out in 2018 alongside a banana split flavor, both featuring a cookie-cluster piece reminiscent of the crunchies inside an ice cream cake.  Alas, these clusters weren’t invited back for the reunion tour, and the banana split was replaced by a flavor the cereal aisles of 2021 have come to know all too well: birthday cake.  Dan Cerealously warned that chances are, without those clusters there would be almost nothing noteworthy about these (and also that birthday cake cereals are typically pretty boring).  But since he hasn’t written anything about these specifically, I guess I will have to.    

First things first: I can smell the cereal through the box.  I haven’t even opened them yet, but these boxes smell heavily of saccharine cereal.  This is one of those things that isn’t inherently a bad thing, but like… why is it happening.  How does the outside of the box still smell this strongly.

The cookies and cream ones are a bit of a mixed bag.  The white orbs have absolutely no taste to them whatsoever, save for a vaguely sweet glaze if you eat them dry.  The chocolate ones taste close enough to Coco Puffs to get the point across. When you eat them together, they are the sum of its parts.  Both pieces are also slightly softer than a Coco Puff, but every once in a while there’s one that’s almost tooth-shatteringly hard, which makes for a confusing eating experience.  

The birthday cake ones tasted fine for the first few spoonfuls.  They had enough of that vaguely eggy flavor to distinguish its flavor as “cake” and not just “sugar.”  However, as is often the case with a flavor this… subtle, by the time I was halfway through the bowl, it was extremely bland.  On the bright side, at least it didn’t have the slightly corny flavor the other ones did, as one would expect from a “multi-grain” blend vs the other one begin just corn.  They also left behind a coarse, brown dust floating in the milk that doesn’t really correlate with any of the color of the cereal pieces themselves? So that’s fun.

There…. really isn’t anything else I can really say about these cereals.  There’s nothing intrinsically bad about them but they aren’t good either.  There’s definitely nothing explicitly Dippin’ Dots about them.  With nothing else to say about it I have no choice but to talk about…. The box.

In short: much of the box art seems like a generic cereal box you would see in the beginning of a movie about some kind of dystopian suburbia, subtly foreshadowing that things might not be quite right.  The cookies and cream box has a maze, and the birthday cake box has a word search.  These are normal, back-of-the-cereal-box things.  But both prominently feature Frozeti the Yeti, an alleged Dippin’ Dots mascot that, upon googling, does exist to the extent that they have a costume for events, yet no one I know has ever seen him on any other piece of Dippin’ Dots paraphernalia.  It may also be worth noting that the word search features words like “liberty ice,” which also not a real thing, as far as any normal person is concerned.  

Both boxes also feature recipes like Rice Krispies Treats but with cookies and cream orbs and “breakfast parfaits” consisting of birthday cake cereal and yogurt, which maybe could be less “alien trying to figure out what humans eat” and more “cereal executive knowing they have a bad product and are trying to find any way to get people to finish the box.”   

The side flap opposite the nutrition facts advertises something called “Comfort Zone Camp.”  At first glance the name made me think this would be some sort of alt-right, “welcome to the real world, snowflake” bullshit about ripping kinds from their comfort zones, but apparently it’s for children who recently experienced the death of a parent or guardian.  So… that’s kind of a bummer, and a weird thing to put on the side of a bright and colorful cereal box for children.  

But the real kicker? It’s the one thing that any eagle-eyed cereal enthusiast would notice on sight, but I saved it for last for a very good reason.  This cereal isn’t made by General Mills, or Kellogg’s, or Post, or even Malt-O-Meal or some other generic cereal manufacturer.  

It’s made by a sporting goods company.    

OK, maybe calling PLB Sports & Entertainment a “sporting goods company” is a little over the top.  They specialize in merchandising deals where they take an athlete’s face and slap it on a box of generic cereal.  Some highlights of their product line, according to their online shop, include DeAndre’s Hop Box, HerrO’s Fruit Loops, Josh’s Jaqs (go Bills? I guess? This is the only one that even hints towards what team the person plays for), and the much less creatively named Field of Dreams Corn Flakes, with some select boxes autographed by Dwier Brown.  I don’t know who any of these people are.  But if you do, you can get their cereal.   

Notably absent from their online store, however, is Dippin’ Dots. Not even the company specializing in C-List athlete-branded cereals wants to be associated with these boring, bland spheres.  And since PLBSE only sells their products in select stores (seemingly mostly in the northeast, within driving distance of its Pittsburg facility?) Kroger and Publix shoppers will never get to experience these completely innocuous cereals.  

Conveniently, Dippin’ Dots themselves has seemingly also scrubbed all signs of this cereal ever existing from their website.  In order to find it at all, you have to go to their “merchandise” shop on Amazon, scroll down past the T-shirts and gummy vitamins, and even then they’re listed as “unavailable.” All google searches for Dippin’ Dots cereal brings up either the cerealously.net post I mentioned earlier or the 2018 iteration of the cereal.  Somebody at Big Cereal is trying to gaslight me into thinking this cereal doesn’t exist.   But I know they’re real.  I am holding the boxes in one hand and typing this with the other. I know they’re real.  I wish I could scrub my memory of this, because this level of conspiracy-theorist-rambling is way more attention than this boring cereal deserves.  

Dan Cerealously, if you are reading this and want these, just to prove they are real, I will mail you some.  But you don’t want these.  You’ve known for months you don’t want these.  

[national-nobody-writes]

2020 Creator Wrap

2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

I was tagged by the oh so talented @irolltwenties!

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I’m not a particularly prolific writer (WIPs for days, but completed projects? Not so much). Somehow in this hell year though, I did manage to complete more fics than in any previous year for a total of seven new works (~49k words, all on ao3), plus a chunky chap of a long running WIP (~20k words) so I’m actually pretty damn proud of myself! I also made some new fandom friends in 2020 which has easily been one of the biggest delights of the year & has definitely helped my creative momentum, so ty all for that. <3

Counting down from 5, here are my favs:

5. Downtime

I have endless love for JayRoy and it felt so good to finally finish something for them for once this year! All of my past WIPs primarily focused on them ended up firmly in my graveyard folder, including the fic that this one shot was originally meant to be connected to. I liked the way this turned out well enough to clean it up and post it on its own though, so at least now I can say that I have something published for them at last.

(Also it got me back into the JayRoy headspace enough to outline a whole YJ/Earth16 JayRoy fic that I’m excited to start drafting in 2021, so we’ll see where that goes...)

2.3k NSFW; A mix of playful sweet and roughness, just like them.

4. Mirror Image

Bluepulse Week really saved me this year in terms of forcing me to just write, damn it! Did I finish all the prompts this year? Nope. Did it get me to complete a handful of fics that I ended up really loving? Yes. This was one of them.

This fic zoomed into existence entirely out of necessity as an alt idea to a prompt that I had a much longer idea for, but didn’t have time to complete. It then got a positive enough reception that I decided to turn it from a crack-adjacent, passable one-shot to a slightly more developed two-shot by request of one of my commenters. Really, it was writing that second chapter that ended up endearing the fic to me.

6.3k Humor, time travel shenanigans & accidental dating. This fic is the sweetness of teenage crushes, the confusing mess of discovering your sexuality, & laughter with your best friend.

3. Soft Wesper One Shots

Would you look at that, another nsfw piece. Could it be that I’m starting to get to the point where I can look back at completed nsfw fics without cringing terribly? Love that for me.

This fic took me by surprise, tbh. I wouldn’t consider myself a part of the grisaverse fandom (I’m utterly ambivalent toward the OG trilogy & have no plans to read them), but I did fall deeply in love with the whole Six of Crows gang earlier this year to the point of having quite the book hangover afterward, unable to pick up anything else except related fanfic for a couple weeks straight. These fluffy, nsfw scenes were born out of that, and I was pleasantly surprised to see such a positive response to them in the comments. The whole SoC gang has my heart, but the dynamic between Jesper and Wylan in particular got my writing fingers itching.

3.7k Domestic, post-canon fluff & tender sex with flirty Jesper & blushing Wylan abound.

2. Stick With Me

Ohh, I still get warm fuzzies thinking about this fic! If I’m only low-key proud of the first three on this list, this is one I’m legitimately very proud of. I had this idea on the docket already from a convo with @ivyxwrites early this year (or maybe last year? who knows, time means nothing anymore) but used Bluepulse Week as the excuse to finally get started, and I ended up adoring the process of writing it far more than I anticipated.

As much as I love planning out meticulously crafted, plotty stories, sometimes all you want to do is pick some well-loved tropes out of a hat instead and run with them (in this case: stuck in a cabin, only one bed, & heated argument leading to confession). It was freeing to just mess around and have fun with this fic, knowing pretty much right from the get-go how I wanted it to unfold and seeing it so vividly in my mind. It also probably helped that I was writing it for Ivy; it’s much easier for me to stay motivated when creating directly for my friends.

Finishing this was also such a serotonin-filled burst of pure victory for me since, as previously stated, I’m terrible at finishing projects--particularly multi-chap fics, particularly within a decent timeframe.

25.5k A showcase of the essence of what I love about the best friends-to-lovers dynamic. Part character study, part wires getting crossed & uncrossed, and whole idiots to lovers. This fic is the warmth in the pit of your stomach from a yearning made real & the sudden clarity of realizing what you were looking for had already been there all along.

1. The Rest Pt 1: Delicate (Remember Me Chap 4)

Oh, Remember Me. Of everything I’ve ever written, this story remains the one I’m most proud of and certainly the closest to my heart (not to mention the longest running, whoops). The first iteration of the beginning of this story was actually drafted back in 2017, but I walked away from it for a couple of years before deciding to dust it off and try again. It has spiraled into something far bigger in scope than I originally planned for, but I’ve come to love the path it’s led me down so far, and finishing this whopping 20k chunkster of a chapter was like breathing a huge (if temporary) sigh of relief.

This chap was particularly cathartic to write because it allowed for a number of convos between the boys that had really needed to happen, and was finally the ‘getting together’ moment the fic had been building toward for a while. It’s also so sappy I could die, but I will not be apologizing for that, lol. I was really hoping to get Chap 5 up this year as well, but y’know. Sometimes things just don’t work out like you plan for and that’s okay. 

Chap 5 does have 17k done already (with prob another 5-8k still to go) & I’m itching to share it, but no sense in rushing if the end result would suffer for it. Luckily, everyone in comments has been kind enough to beat me over the head with ‘take your time, we don’t mind/we’ll still be here!!!’ which I’m immensely grateful for. So, at least the pressure to hurry up and get it done is purely self-inflicted.

Of all my works, this fic has not only gotten the most passionate responses, but has also been the main gateway for me to interact with other bluepulse creators, which has been a real joy. Nothing brightens my day like the essays people leave me over there from time to time after discovering the fic. That kind of engagement is the highest praise, & responding is very self indulgent fun for me (bc, clearly, I could go on and on about this fic & YJ in general forever).

54.8k total so far (WIP). Bart & Jaime’s relationship journey from beginning to ‘current day’ (aka the moment the fic begins), using amnesia/memory restoration as a framing device. The high highs and low lows of first love, navigating a 3 yr age difference, and the long, winding road from best friends to lovers as the years roll on. Slow-burn-adjacent (in terms of both the boys’ relationship to each other and reader’s relationship to the fic bc of how long I take between goddamn updates).

Tagging @ivyxwrites, @incorrectbatfam, @paintingwithdarkness, @bluepulsebluepulse