#might watch a let's play or something

[yume-fanfare]

meow meow meow (enjoy ur republican pokemon)

HELL YEAH >:)))) im actually not buying it anytime soon because i still havent finished british pokemon and i wouldn't have much time to play anyways but i still love that republican pokemon exists

[art-from-the-juice-box]

annnnnnnnd qsmp mostly purgatory cause i was doodiling through every charlie slimecicle vod for those as i caught up lmao

[babymorte]

ive been sitting on the cod home screen waiting for these goddamn gamepass points to pop and my dumbass forgot that i bought bo6 for the beta and am no longer playing on gamepass 🪦 i haven been sitting here for 2hrs trying to get this shit to work and it turns out im just an idiot

[alchemistc]

Going to a baseball game tmrw night, I apologize in advance for the person I always become when I am in the middle of a shippy hyperfixation and go to sporting events.

If I'm still on this train in October y'all are in for a deluge of hockey hc's.

[em-b-sides]

I think about that tiktok trend where you like paint your partners eye color on your nails or make a bracelet or something with the color a lot actually

[a-motherfucking-beast]

coach ur so cool but i hate exercising :(

SON. LET ME TELL YOU. THERE IS A CERTAIN THING ALL THE LANKY BINOS IN THEIR HAUGHTY-TAUGHTY UNIVERSITIES AGREE ON. AND THAT'S THAT THERE ARE *SOME* THINGS THAT ARE ESSENTIAL TO BEING A HUMAN. ART -- MUSIC, DANCE, VISUAL MEDIUMS. FRIENDSHIP, BROTHERHOOD. JOY AND SORROW. SHARING OF KNOWLEDGE. FAITH. LOVE. FOR SOMEONE ELSE, FOR THIS WORLD, FOR YOURSELF.

AND, LAST BUT NOT LEAST -- PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. FUCK YEAH

BE IT PLAYING TIGGY IN THE SCHOOLYARD OR BEING A PROFESSIONAL LINEBACKER PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE PLAYS A SPORT OR EVEN JUST WALKS SOMEWHERE AT SOME POINT IN THEIR LIFE. FOR GOOD REASON -- EXERCISE RELEASES ENDORPHINS AND DOPAMINE AND OTHER FEEL-GOOD SHIT IN YOUR BRAIN, BALLFACE, AND EVEN IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ALL THE OTHER BENEFITS OF STAYING HEALTHY AND BEING ABSOLUTELY YOKED AND TAKING CARE OF YOUR BODY THAT SHOULD PROBABLY CONVINCE YOU TO TRY OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

SON, I'M NOT GOING TO CONVINCE YOU TO TAKE UP BODYBUILDING OR ANY OTHER HEFTY COMMITMENT LIKE THAT. THAT WOULD BE FANTASTIC BUT EVEN I CAN RECOGNISE THAT IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE. I CAN ONLY OFFER THIS ADVICE.

IF YOU HATE EXERCISING THEN THERE ARE ONLY SEVERAL (AT LEAST ONE) POSSIBILITIES WHY YOU DO.

A) YOU HAVEN'T FOUND THE RIGHT OUTLET. TRY OUT A NEW SPORT YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED BEFORE THAT YOU CAN PLAY AT YOUR LOCAL GYM. HARRY WAS THE FUCKING GOAT AT BEING A GYM TEACHER BUT NOT EVERY GYM TEACHER IS AS FANTASTIC AS HE WAS AND MAY NOT FACILITATE THE FULL EXPERIENCE OF PLAYING A SPORT SO MAYBE EVEN TRY PLAYING SOMETHING YOU THINK YOU DON'T LIKE. HELL, MAYBE TRY SOMETHING LIKE ACROBATIC ARTS, THAT SHIT NEEDS STRENGTH AS WELL. FUCKING BREAKDANCING. BECOME AN ANAL ACROBAT LMFAO. HELL, YOU DON'T NEED SOMETHING STRENUOUS -- EVEN IF YOU GO FOR A WALK IN YOUR LOCAL PARK EVERY MORNING WHEN THE SUN'S JUST RISING (THE VIEW AROUND THE LAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF JAMROCK IS BEAUTIFUL) OR DO SOME STRETCHES WHEN YOU WAKE UP THAT COUNTS FOR SOMETHING. DON'T LET ANYONE PUT YOU DOWN FOR DOING LESS THAN THEM.

B) YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE RIGHT PEOPLE SUPPORTING YOU. AGAIN, YOU ONLY WISH YOU COULD'VE HAD OUR HARRY AS YOUR TEACHER AND REFEREE, BUT IT ALSO COMES DOWN TO YOUR TEAMMATES, WHETHER THEY FACILITATE YOUR PRESENCE AND BUILD A SENSE OF CAMARADERIE WITH YOU. YOUR SPOTTER, WHO YOU PLACE ULTIMATE TRUST IN. YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, THE PEOPLE YOU HOLD CLOSEST WHO YOU CAN SHARE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS WITH. OR EVEN JUST THE PERSON DOING THEIR OWN THING NEXT TO YOU WHO MIGHT GIVE YOU A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT OR CONGRATULATE YOU WHEN YOU HIT A NEW PERSONAL RECORD. GOING TO A GYM CAN HELP WITH THIS WHEN YOU ALL HAVE A SHARED GOAL, BUT THERE'S PLENTY OF ELITISTS THERE WHO MIGHT SHIT ON YOU FOR BEING A NEWBIE OR NOT HAVING THE SAME CAPABILITIES AS THEM OR EVEN HARASSING YOU FOR YOUR IDENTITY. TUNE THEM OUT. THESE KINDS OF PEOPLE ARE PRESENT EVERYWHERE YOU GO AND YOU SHOULDN'T ALLOW THEM TO SULLY YOUR EXPERIENCES. OR ALSO YOU CAN DECK THEM IN THE FACE. PERSONALLY I'M LEANING TOWARDS THE SECOND ONE BUT IT'S YOUR CHOICE (DO THE SECOND ONE)

NOW THAT WE'VE GOT THAT STRAIGHT, I'LL TELL YOU RIGHT NOW -- ONLY DO SOMETHING YOU KNOW YOU'RE CAPABLE OF, AND SOMETHING YOU KNOW YOU CAN ENJOY. DON'T TURN THIS SHIT INTO A GODDAMN CHORE THAT LEAVES YOU SUFFERING EVERY TIME YOU DO IT, THAT'S NOT THE FUCKING POINT OF ANY OF IT. I DON'T KNOW YOUR PERSONAL SITUATION, NOT EVERYONE'S GOT THE MEANS OR THE TIME OR THE PHYSICAL CAPABILITIES. BUT CALISTHENICS DOESN'T TAKE ANY SPECIAL EQUIPMENT AND EVEN JUST SOME STRETCHES WHEN YOU GET UP WILL DO. GODDAMMIT, COACH *WILL* FIND SOMETHING THAT WORKS FOR YOU, BOY

ANYWAYS DAMN RIGHT I'M FUCKING COOL DON'T YOU FORGET THAT

[syekick-powers]

honestly. being real. ive looked into a lot of various indie ttrpgs that haven't spoken to me, and i end up just coming back to D&D over and over. and i think i finally fully understand why that is.

D&D is very heavy on rules for what can happen in combat, but fairly light on rules for when it comes to story structure and roleplay. as a result, roleplay scenes feel a bit more natural and flowing, with the only mechanical aspect being the occasional skill check for like, intimidation / deception / persuasion / etc. but then, unlike the roleplay, the things that can be achieved in combat are pretty strictly regulated. this is fun for how i like to roleplay, as someone who used to do a lot of freeform RP--the problem with freeform RP style combat sometimes is that if you're RPing combat with someone who gets really wound up about making their characters always win, it can be really fucking hard to counteract the shit they have their characters pull out of their back pocket. having a VERY clearly defined and strict set of rules for specifically combat makes it so that when combat DOES happen, people can't just Say Shit about what they have their characters do--they have a limited character framework to work in and a limited set of tools that they can work with, and enjoyable combats come from using those tools in that framework creatively, effectively, and excitingly. this makes combat feel like it has genuine stakes, and when done right can be very intense and exciting. and then when you do actual like, character interaction and story building? there's just not a lot of strictly defined rules for what can and can't be done in those realms, both for a player and the DM. there aren't any constraints on the structure of the narrative that the DM presents, which means it's fairly easy to rip out the pre-packaged D&D lore, re-fluff a few things that heavily reference that lore, and just homebrew your own story structure and lore and world and characters and pantheons and the like.

my problem with a lot of indie TTRPGs is that a lot of them are married to either a very specific story structure that the system mandates that you follow, or a very specific pre-made world that the system is mechanically built to form around, and that level of pre-determination doesn't interest me either as a player OR as a GM. like these are fundamental rules in these systems that would gut it if you tore them out and replaced them with something else, which means that if you tried to go against those premade structures/settings, you would basically have to homebrew the entire goddamn thing from scratch anyway. D&D's relative rules-heaviness of combat and rules-lightness of roleplay makes it easier for D&D to provide me the kinds of stories that i actually want to participate in, even if people insist it's not as "flexible" as many people think it is. like. yes. don't run a regency romance game in D&D, obviously. but if ur running a high fantasy type of game focused on adventuring, D&D can be adapted pretty well to a homebrew setting and world with minimal effort.

and tbh, i really think that's why it has the cultural dominance that it does, and why i personally keep engaging with it as a ttrpg even as people yell from all sides to play something else. "just do freeform RP!" ive done freeform RP. it's good for character building and dialogue and intrigue and sex but it fucking sucks when characters have to fight. i fucking hate it when im trying to RP fighting in freeform RP and whatever person im fighting against just keeps fucking kicking my ass no matter what i have my character do because my RP partner is so invested in forcing me to lose or give up that they just pull whatever the hell they can think of out of their back pocket to beat my character into submission. at least with an incredibly well-defined set of rules for how combat works, your opponents are also working in a limited framework with limited tools, so even if they do fucking kick your ass, it doesn't feel completely stupid and arbitrary, and since opponents' attacks are governed by dice rolls almost as much as players' attacks are, the amount of arbitrariness in the combat is not wholly stacked against you unless you're fighting against something that's WAY out of your party's league--and even then, those creatures and people are still going to be bound by their dice rolls as much as you are, they might just have better bonuses and/or fewer penalties to make things a bit more favorable for them. that horrifying fucking monster you're fighting may have an insane bonus to attack, but it could still roll a critical fail when it tries to attack you, just as much as you might roll a critical fail to attack it in turn. everyone operates under the same rules and will have similar limitations placed on them by those rules, and participants have much less leeway to make their characters' combat prowess be whatever the hell they want whenever anything even mildly threatening happens.

[nostalgia-tblr]

i suppose this is a book review

I finished a book! It was The Usurper King: The Fall of Richard II and the Rise of Henry of Bolingbroke, 1366-99 by Marie Louise Bruce (Amazon link, sorz - I read this Kindle edition). I wasn't that keen on it at first so I skipped some bits early on and in the middle but once the actual usurping got underway it was quite exciting. I think one of the parts I skipped was the Peasants' Revolt (oops) so I shall have to find out about that from somewhere else, and as usual I kind of gave up on keeping track of who all the various nobility were who changed their name every time they got promoted (and in this particular story occasionally demoted). This is all part of the backstory for the Wars of the Roses though so I had some idea who most of the the most-royal people were already - this is the bit where we skip from the son of the first son of Edward III to the son of his third son and the kid who doesn't get the throne in this one is Important Later On, or at least his descendants are.

Anyway, Richard II is the son of The Black Prince (nobody seems to know why he was called that, so let's just say he was a goth) and he is quite unpopular with basically everyone, and he got semi-deposed in the 1380s but hung on and then got vengeful about it a decade later. Anyway he'd pissed off everyone and he'd had this weird sort of sexual tension loyalty-but-also-bitterness thing going on with his cousin Henry (son of the third son of etc) and then banished him and disinherited him, at which point the book notes that Henry considers this to be Richard breaking his coronation oath and adds ominously that all this fuckery therefore dissolves Henry's bond of fealty to his king... and then shit - as they Americans say - gets real.

So Henry comes from France to England with about a dozen boats and he has maybe 200 men in his can't-really-call-that-an-army BUT as mentioned everyone fucking hates Richard so as he wanders across England his forces grow signficantly. (If England had a penny for every time an invading Henry has overthrown an unpopular Richard...) And Richard's at this point off oppressing Ireland and for some reason dilly-dallys a bit there despite the Cousin-Usurper-Has-Invaded-England thing, and when he does show up (in Wales) he promptly falls for some oath-breaking (of which there is A LOT in this story, mostly from Richard himself) and gets arrested and deposed.

At this point the author expresses some scepticism about whether Henry really had much in the way of grounds for claiming the throne (oh and also he'd told most of his new allies that he wasn't going to - see previous mention re: the shocking amount oath-breaking going on here) but he manages to get it and then to hold onto it he of course has to kill Richard but he's not keen on the idea and then there's a failed rebellion and then soon after that Richard conveniently dies, possibly because they stopped feeding him (GRIM!) and then there's the history equivalent of a post-credits teaser for the next film, where Henry (now the IV) dies and apparently his son liked Dead Richard more - I should look into that as it sounds a bit fucked up. And like I said the 'skipped-over second son' plot point will become important in the 1460s or thereabouts.

Some of the primary sources are quoted in the original Badly Spelled English - though in fairness there's no standardised spelling as yet (and won't be for some time) but still it's hard to make sense of in places so I often just skipped those quotations. There's also the odd bit of untranslated Latin (thanks, shitlord!!!) but never more than a line so it could be worse. Sometimes events are referred to without further explanation which is a bit annoying - I want to know why Henry V will be so pissed off at his dad! And why an archbishop gets executed in some later installment! But yeah mostly I found it a bit of a slog early on but once - as the French say - la merde got le real it picked up a lot and it became quite the page-turner which is partly the nature of the events but points to the author anyway cos I know that - alas! - a bad writer can turn any bit of history dull.

I'd initially given this 3 stars but then upped it to 4 when I was finished because it got rly good in the last half.

[probayern]

damn i'm realizing that i've really made it basically impossible for myself to watch a whole bayern match until. october. do i hate myself subconsciously or something

[juneboat]

so anyways the latest rtgame video makes me want to cry /very pos

[keeps-ache]

who even wakes up at this hour!!! [<- is awake at these hours]

[angeloftrumpets]

Thinking about the other f/o 🥹🥹🥹

[doubletalkingmaeve]

Having a bad night

[goldensunset]

hehe i can begin pokémon violet tomorrow >:3

[randomnameless]

Modern AU Seteth is always on the verge of explosion -

Let it be Manu who’s, well, Manu -

Willy’s random friday evening text messages “hey bro can you take care of kid for the weekend I’m going to fuck your sister, I dropped him at your place with his artistocats dvd, k thx” -

(always followed by Rhea’s following “thank you for babysitting, we’re going on a sightseeing tour this week-end with your car I borrowed :p”)

Hanneman’s usual “I need to probe your anus, for science I swear!” -

Flayn’s “I’m going to watch a movie with Mercedes and Annette and the rest of the gang!” when he knows who is the “rest of the gang” -

Billy’s random ass questions “Ladlegard invited me this weekend to have “tea” in her mansion but no one else was invited and she told me we will be alone, should I go or will it be unprofessional?” -

Macuil’s usual “Don’t call me brother, I am very busy. Call me only when you’re about to die, and even in that case, leave a message” -

Indech’s “Sure I don’t have anything to do this week-end, but I prefer to stay in my house instead of going to yours, I prepared a prank for the neighbour with dynamite and I want to know how it’ll turn out” -

and sometimes, the icing on the cake, his mom invites herself over, to remind him how his house is small and he’s broke “I know you can do better than that!”, eats some sweets with the kids, maybe watches a DVD or two and then leaves.