#migrating over from discord

[halfagone]

AITA for not wanting to clean my parents' lab?

Danny makes a post on the AITA subreddit asking if he's the one in the wrong for refusing to clean his parents' lab. He makes an offhand comment about his accident that never gets explained. He says the most concerning things about his parents and acts like it's normal behavior for them.

Clark likes to read AITA stories on occasion, just a little self-indulgent gossip. He finds this story and freaks out. He shares it with Ollie, who shares it with Hal and Barry, who shares it with their respective families, which means that Wally hears about it, which mean that Dick hears about it, which means that Bruce hears about it. The People have Concerns.

I originally posted this in the Haunting Heroes discord in September and finally brought it over lol I know more than one person there has taken a look at it and may be posting a fic one day (as am I, to be honest) and I know there's been multiple takes already and would love to hear more >:3

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available. 

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community. 

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company? 

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists. 

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom 

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

-

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits. 

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people. 

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it. 

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.

[flecks-of-stardust]

The Bug Fables Wiki has Migrated to Miraheze!

TL;DR: If you're looking for the Bug Fables wiki, please use the Miraheze version instead! The Fandom wiki's maintenance is no longer being actively supported, and it should not be even visited.

The longer notice: The Bug Fables wiki is off Fandom for good! This has been a long time in the making, and it is overall a positive change. The Miraheze wiki is fully functional and better than the Fandom wiki was previously, with no ads, better formatting, and an active team helping to maintain and correct information. If you're reading this and would like to help out, by all means! You can always join the official Bug Fables Discord server and ask around in the wiki-spoilers channel, but it's also possible to simply use the Talk pages to communicate with wiki editors.

Now that the wiki is on Miraheze, the Fandom wiki will receive only very minor edits where necessary, if ever. However, do not vandalize the Fandom wiki. Beyond vandalism generally being unhelpful, any visitation to the Fandom wiki improves Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the Fandom wiki, pushing it higher in search results and thus burying the Miraheze wiki. We want the new Miraheze wiki to be higher than the Fandom wiki in search results so traffic gets directed there, so even vandalism benefits Fandom in the end. Simply do not engage, do not click, pretend it doesn't exist.

The Bug Fables wiki has also been registered in Indie Wiki Buddy, an extension that automatically redirects away from Fandom wikis to indie wikis or a wiki mirror. It's recommended to click on the indie wiki directly yourself, but in case the indie wiki has poor SEO, this can help direct you to it. To reiterate: do not engage with the Fandom wiki. Fandom's monopoly over the wiki scene contributes significantly to the SEO of Fandom wikis, and every click counts, so spend them elsewhere.

Regardless, the migration has completed, but there's always work to be done. Whether you're just a wiki user or looking to help out with editing, I hope to see you on the new Miraheze wiki :)

[disrespectre]

18+ VAMPIRE VS WEREWOLF DISCORD SERVER

: ̗̀➛ 𝐔𝐇𝐘𝐑𝐄 𖤐

❛ UHYRE noun. monster [noun] (also adjective) (something) of unusual size, form or appearance. a huge and/or horrible creature.❜ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦

*𝐈 . In the beginning…

Vampires and werewolves have been enemies since the dawn of time. A cat and dog rivalry, constantly chasing, attacking, and killing one another. In the past however, they were able to disguise their factions and fights, preying on humans in the shadows. The only ones aware were each other, bickering about not being careful, or splitting the rations of blood.

𝐈𝐈. Covens formed, packs were joined, and throughout history, they prevailed. However, as times would change, so did technology, and their deceptive ways had begun to grow detected. Tensions rose as wolves blamed their bat enemies for not being cautious enough, and vampires blaming their wolven rivals for rampaging in their werewolf form in the night.. over time, they resolved this conflict with an shared idea, as hunters arose as a threat.

𝐈𝐈𝐈. The covens and packs migrated deep into the woods, where they’d be hidden from humankind. This seemed like a perfect resolve.. but problems are never truly over- as now, a new night stalking Shapeshifting beast has been thrown into the ring.. having been hidden in the woods for decades since.

𖤐 18+ Literate - Novella Server on discord

𖤐 Extensive, easy to follow lore that’s continuing to grow as our RP goes on.

𖤐 Create a vampire, werewolf, human, or hunter OC!

𖤐 Friendly members and mods, ready to help you and greet you!

𖤐 welcoming server, with OOC channels to hang out in and an easy to navigate layout.

𖤐 Create storylines, character rivalries, friendships, ships, and more, and share all about your OCs in our OC info channels! were ready to get to know your characters, and you!

𖤐 Come say hello! We’re DYING to meet you.* ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦

[muditaaah]

:̗̀➛ 𝐔𝐇𝐘𝐑𝐄 𖤐

❛UHYRE. noun. monster [noun] (also adjective) (something) of unusual size, form or appearance. a huge and/or horrible creature.❜

꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦

𝐈. In the beginning...

Vampires and werewolves have been enemies since the dawn of time. A cat and dog rivalry, constantly chasing, attacking, and killing one another. In the past however, they were able to disguise their factions and fights, preying on humans in the shadows. The only ones aware were each other, bickering about not being careful, or splitting the rations of blood.

𝐈𝐈. Covens formed, packs were joined, and throughout history, they prevailed. However, as times would change, so did technology, and their deceptive ways had begun to grow detected. Tensions rose as wolves blamed their bat enemies for not being cautious enough, and vampires blaming their wolven rivals for rampaging in their werewolf form in the night.. over time, they resolved this conflict with an shared idea, as hunters arose as a threat.

𝐈𝐈𝐈. The covens and packs migrated deep into the woods, where they’d be hidden from humankind. This seemed like a perfect resolve.. but problems are never truly over- as now, a new night stalking Shapeshifting beast has been thrown into the ring.. having been hidden in the woods for decades since.

𖤐 18+ Literate - Novella Server

𖤐 Extensive, easy to follow lore that’s continuing to grow as our RP goes on.

𖤐 Create a vampire, werewolf, or hunter OC!

𖤐 Friendly members and mods, ready to help you and greet you!

𖤐 welcoming server, with OOC channels to hang out in and an easy to navigate layout.

𖤐 Create storylines, character rivalries, friendships, ships, and more, and share all about your OCs in our OC info channels! were ready to get to know your characters, and you!

𖤐 Come say hello! We’re DYING to meet you.

꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ꒦꒷꒷꒦

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hi! You have a really cool blog and have been getting me into indie RPGs, so firstly just thanks :) But anyway, any RPGs that could work well in a play-by-post format, even if you'd need to homebrew or hack it a little? Online friends on the other side of the world are a beast.

THEME: Play-by-Post.

Hello friend! So I haven’t done a lot of play-by-post games, but I’ve tried it out once or twice. I think in many cases, you might not even need a ttrpg in order to do online roleplay; I’ve played in Star Wars pbp that used the FFG system, but I’ve also seen Star Wars forums that are completely text-based and host their own wikis on information that’s been established in their world to keep track of what's happened so far.

That being said, I can understand having a framework to help guide you, especially if you enjoy the structure of traditional ttrpgs. The possibilities of playing these games by post are vast, although I'm noticing that most of the old forums have migrated over to Discord these days - and Discord makes things like rolling dice so easy, so it makes sense!'

If you're converting a ttrpg that uses dice into something that is play-by-post, you'll have a dice-bot, while if you're using a game that has no dice, or is a little more free-form, then that's one less mechanical piece that you'll need to worry about. Other considerations will likely be things like where you put character sheets, whether the game will be organized in a West Marches format or more like a traditional story, and how often players will be expected to write up what they're doing.

All of this is to say that the following recommendations are just the tip of the iceberg, really. Some of these are designed for play-by-post, while others are just games that I've seen out in the wild before.

Lords of Creation, by Five Points Games.

Lords of Creation is a rules-lite cooperative world building game with a focus on the Divine. Players create Divinities and populate a fresh, open world with a focus on myth telling and lore. The game is intended to be played via Play by Post, allowing players to run multiple societies, factions and elements at once.

Five Points Games clarifies in the game text that this game isn’t really their brainchild, but rather the culmination of play-by-post roleplaying on old WOTC forums. It’s a game about divinity and world creation, and each “turn” of the game takes place over the course of a real-time week. I think this gives a lot of time for each player to be involved in each step of the game, as well as providing in-universe ways to manage players who no longer participate, or who need to stop playing for one reason or another. Lords of Creation is also GM-less, allowing everyone to participate in a partial player, partial GM-style role.

Yowl! What A Strange Hotel, by Zargo Games.

Yowl! is a reviewing service that allows customers to rate establishments from 1 to 6 stars and tell the important details of their stay in a handful of paragraphs. This game is about telling the story of a particular establishment, in this case a hotel, through a series of Yowl! reviews. Reviews are from a different perspective each time, and should reveal something interesting and unusual about the hotel. Is there a dark secret that the hotel is hiding, or is something even stranger going on?

Yowl! looks to be designed for a shorter length of play. Together you will create a strange hotel, and then take turns leaving reviews, letting little pieces of information contribute to a larger story-line as you go. I think this is a relatively simple way of playing by post, although it relies mostly on each player’s creativity, as the game doesn’t come with any prompts.

World /Chronicles of Darkness Games (currently published by Onyx Path).

The World of Darkness franchise is a beast, and has been fuelling play-by-post form play for decades. There’s a number of reasons this collection of settings has been so popular.

It’s focused on factions and politics, which means that a large number of people can join in and fill out various political groups and start plenty of drama with each-other. Because the drama is so juicy, dice rolls can fade into the background. (I don’t think that stops you from being able to use it in a small group though!)

It’s got oodles and oodles of lore, but it’s set within the real world, so players can use something like Google Maps to create a fantasy version of a real-life city, and it provides a solid frame of reference.

It’s been around for a long time, which means that there is so much in terms of resources and advice that you can look at, such as the Onyx Path forums, or the WoD Discord Server.

The Chronicles of Darkness games are specifically designed to be cross-compatible. Changelings, Hunters, Vampires, Werewolves and more can all interact in the same universe - as long as the GM is on board with it. Most of the base rules are the same, with some tweaks for each splat, so if you have some players that really want to play a werewolf, while others are more interested in becoming mages, you can combine the two no problem!

Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, by @jennamoran.

The Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG is a dice-less RPG from Jenna Katerin Moran, author of the well-regarded Nobilis and an important contributor to Eos’ Weapons of the Gods and White Wolf’s Exalted RPG.

Pursue fabulous quests. Progress through Issues. And find a place for yourself in a world of breathtaking beauty.

Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine doesn’t require dice, but rather asks you to role-play through scenes and spend points in line with your character quests. You gain XP for the experiences your character has, the way they interact with other characters, and the steps they take to move towards completing their quest. Because character advancement is dependant on role-play, I think Chuubo’s is a great way to prompt interactions in a play-by-post setting, and character advancement is both a compelling reason for folks to participate and an engine that feeds the storytelling machine.

The rulebook for this game can be a bit of a big read, but there’s a starter adventure included, with pre-built characters to help you get going.

Kids on Brooms and Teens in Space, by Hunters Entertainment.

Kids on Brooms is a collaborative role-playing game about taking on the life of a witch or wizard at a magical school you all attend that uses the “Powered by Kids on Bikes” system, first used in the award winning Kids on Bikes. Kids on Brooms is a rules-light storytelling system that takes you on magical adventures.

Teens in Space is a space opera RPG that uses the “Powered by Kids on Bikes” system. Teens in Space is a rules-light storytelling system that takes you into the cosmos for adventure and profit.

Both of these games use the teen-horror inspired game Kids on Bikes. Since these games rely heavily on polyhedral dice, I think setting up a discord server that also has a dice bot is the way to go with this one. You can choose a character from archetypes provided in the books, or create your own piece-by-piece. Different locations could be represented by different Discord channels, and since these games seem to work really well in regards to mysteries, I think a GM could focus on putting clues in different locations for characters to find, allowing the characters to slowly piece together a mystery over time.

I think Kids on Bikes is a kind of game that is going to require a lot more work to replicate as a play-by-post game than some of the other games on this list, because characters will need to roll dice in order to get things done, and it's best used in a small group. However, one thing I think really works well for these systems is the relationship questions that you roll on to determine how your characters relate to each-other. It gives you a connection right from the get go, and it can give the players something to work with while they're finding their feet.

Belonging Outside Belonging Games.

As a rule, Belonging Outside Belonging games don’t require dice, and as a common feature, BoB games don’t usually require GMs either. Characters are typically organized into playbooks; tropes or classes or collections of abilities that both define characters and make it easier for new players to find their rhythm. These playbooks will come with three categories of abilities: things that you can always do, things that require a token to activate, and things that reward you with a token when you do them. These games also usually include the setting itself as a playbook, or a divided series of responsibilities handed out to each player.

I can imagine a play-by-post form of game moving between descriptive scenes and active scenes, with players alternating between introducing elements of the setting / narrative obstacles; and describing how their characters react to these new events. (I've also seen this kind of thing happen on a Wanderhome server.)

Some Belonging Outside Belonging games that sound interesting to me are Lunar Echoes (a solar punk hack of Wanderhome), Geese at the Beach (chaotic water fowl looking for shines), and Capitalites (urban Asian young people trying to figure out who they are).

I hope you found this useful!

[commodorez]

Retrotech Crew 10 Year Anniversary!

A one-off post from @virescent-phosphor sorta snowballed into a tiny community, mostly started as vague vintage computer/technology shitposting here on tumblr.

We slowly congealed in a Skype group chat, which lasted for several years until we migrated to Discord in early 2017 (because Skype was garbage). By mid 2018, our numbers started to grow well beyond the initial tumblr crowd. And then we got a website and an IRC channel , both hosted by @aperture-in-the-multiverse. Eventually, multiple representatives of our group started showing up to various Vintage Computer Festivals around the country -- "hey, you're so-and-so!" Now, friendly faces are all over the place with overlapping interests.

@techav created a mighty fine vintage style logo for us which now adorns buttons, stickers, and even a handful of t-shirts!

Sure, we may just be a few hundred randos who talk about old computers in our free time with delusions of grandeur. But we're also folks helping one another out on projects, sharing the things we enjoy about old tech, hanging out and having a good time, and even still shitposting like the old days...

To all of the members of the Retrotech Crew, thank you for being a part of us.

To those members we haven't heard from in a long time, we miss you.

Beyond tumblr, here's where we exist on the interwebs:

Discord: https://discord.gg/GQjtBWE3as IRC: #retrodreams on irc.slashnet.org Website: https://retrodreams.net/

[transcendence-au]

TAU Wiki 2.0!

TL;DR The TAU wiki has moved!

Hey everyone! Mod F here to talk about a project we're working on regarding the Transcendence AU wiki. As many of you may know, the TAU Wiki is hosted on Wikia/FANDOM, an extremely popular free wiki farm. They've hosted us for years, and using them has been an easy and convenient way to get information about TAU out to people who are looking for it.

However, especially as time has gone on, we (and FANDOM users at large) have had more and more issues with the way the site is run. FANDOM is a for-profit company, and they profit off of the free labor of its editors through advertising. Advertising that is generally very large and obnoxious on every page on the wiki. That's the biggest of our concerns, although there are others: they control the platform, so they can control the content if they want, and they give limited options for wiki customizability.

Because of this, we have decided to start our own wiki, off of FANDOM. This way, we can be in control of the presentation, and we can own our own work. The new wiki has already been set up, and pages from the old wiki have already been moved over (although images need to be migrated manually). There's a little migration guide I've been working on, for anyone interested in helping. Of note: the new wiki is hosted on my own web server, and it is guaranteed to be ad-free forever.

FANDOM does not like it when communities move away. They don't allow deleting the old wiki, because they want to continue to make advertising revenue from it, and they ban administrators if they promote the new wiki. On top of that, they will usually appear much higher in search results than wikis on any other platform. These things make this project difficult, but not, I believe, impossible.

Despite all of that, we still want to do whatever we can to make our new wiki the best it can be. We'd love it if you could sign up and contribute information about your favourite TAU topics! If you have any questions, you can send us an ask, or join the TAU discord to talk about it.

[myfirstgamejam]

My First Game Jam 2024 is on!

The optional theme is: “Light”

Here’s a few tips and links to get the most out of the jam.

Make a dev log on the community!

A development blog is a blog in which a game developer or team talks about the process they’ve made over the course of the game’s creation. Maintaining a devblog keeps your audience in the know and helps facilitate productivity so you’ll have something to blog about. It also serves as a record of problems you encounter as well as the solutions you find for those problems.

Development logs are essentially the same thing, except we’ll be using the jam forums rather than a blog. However, you are free to use both the forums and your own blog as you develop your game.

Doing so is not necessary at all, but check out all the logs from last jam! In order to get the most out of your jam experience, it is vital that you interact with your fellow jammers and the community surrounding it. They’ll provide valuable feedback and support to help you along the way. So please, we encourage you to mingle, post in other logs, and of course post your own!

In addition, you are encouraged to add images and gifs. Here’s some programs to help facilitate that:

ScreenToGif

Licecap

Start your dev log today!

Respect your community!

Take a moment to review our code of conduct. We strive to create a safe, supportive, and productive environment, and we appreciate your efforts to make our community welcoming for everyone!

Post daily updates!

Post screenshots or fun mishaps to your dev log, twitter, tumblr, or your own blog to track your progress and get feedback. Tag your posts as #MyFirstGameJam so other jammers can find your work! To get the most exposure you can also tag #gamedev or #ScreenshotSaturday for Saturdays! Share your work and link back to your devlog to get feedback.

Manage your time and tasks!

We have a list of of useful time and task management tools for staying on top of your project. Set goals early and keep track of how fast it takes you to reach them!

Use our resources!

Still deciding on an engine? No problem. Check out this post to see what fits your project best or try the sortingh.at!

We have also started migrating our resource lists over to a new jam resources wiki! Here's some direct page links:

Unity resources

Godot resources

Gamemaker resources

RPGMaker resources

Ren'py resources

Twine resources

Free assets

Resources tag on blog

If you still have questions about the jam itself, take a look at our rules page!

Join the jam chat!

Want to share your work or ask for help? Or even just take a break from dev? Join discord chat here! (Please note you must be at least 14 years old to join!) Feel free to say hi and share your work! If you need help with a specific skill or engine, you can @/Unity or @/2D Art to notify mentors. If you think you would like to help other people with some part of games–join us as a mentor! You can get notifications when someone has a question about engines or skills you have expertise in!

Here’s a quick guide to how you can become a mentor.

Heed advice from previous jammers

This jam we took the time to write up a quick summary of advice from previous jammers: Know how to scope.

You can read about the number one game jam killer here!

Take care of yourself!

Game-making can be exhausting as well as rewarding! You are more important than your work, and we compiled a list of helpful tools for getting the most out of you!

Aaaand good luck!

Game dev can be exciting, frustrating, and extremely rewarding. We hope to give you the tools to help you succeed in your goals in the next two weeks!

[halfagone]

Demon Twins AU: If Damian is Talia's favorite, then Danyal is undoubtedly Ra's'. But he will never be as physically capable as his elder twin, even if Ra's prefers Danyal's intelligence. But the Demon's Heir- and, by extension, the Demon's Head- must have both qualities, and thus Damian remains as the Heir. However, Ra's offers the spare heir an opportunity: If he can fake his death in a way that solidifies Damian's loyalty to the League, Ra's will let him run free. In a way, it is a test for Danyal as well, to see if that intelligence Ra's had attempted to nurture had been real all along.

Danyal completes his test with flying colors.

Years later, Danny returns to his grandfather's doorstep, knowing he is the only person left that will accept him.

Danny is now Ra's' favorite grandchild for a whole other reason.

[kaidanworkshop]

The Kaidan Workshop: Frequently Asked Questions

Looking for more information about the Kaidan Revioced: Community Expansion content? Check here first!

What is the Kaidan Workshop? The Workshop is a community-led project that aims to preserve & build upon the original LivTempleton Kaidan & Kaidan 2 mods. Due to the age of the original mod, Kaidan has a myriad of script errors & audio distortions that require more than a singular patch or edit to remedy; hence, the Workshop.

Who is working for the Workshop? Our staff is entirely made up of volunteers & other content creators from the Skyrim community, & we welcome all levels of participation; from those who simply have a suggestion, to those who have technical &/or artistic expertise. We operate under three teams: the Creation Kit & Assets Team, the Writing Team, & the Community Team.

What will be included in the Workshop's content? The Workshop content can be broadly broken down into three categories; revoice, custom follower interactions, & new content. You can read about those three categories in detail here or on our Discord under the "how-it-all-works" channel. Isn't there another add-on to Kaidan? Why not work on a brand new follower entirely? The original mod author of Kaidan, LivTempleton, left open permissions for Kaidan in 2020 for the Skyrim community; since then, a variety of modding groups & individual content creators have kept Kaidan alive via new custom follower interactions and updates to improve compatibility. All of these creators understand & operate under the premise that as per LivTempleton, Kaidan and his assets are freely open to anyone who'd like to work on him. We are simply joining the long established list of content creators who wish to continue to expand the titular character. Why is there a new voice actor for Kaidan? Mr. Lemon (the original voice actor) has chosen to work exclusively with a different modding group also adding on to the character of Kaidan, in which we wish him nothing but the best in. It is out of an abundance of concern for Mr. Lemon & his work with the Extended Edition team that we have decided to move forward with a new VA with a new accent, as it would be uncouth to use spliced dialogue or a VA attempting to impersonate Mr. Lemon. So who is the new voice actor? How is the Workshop paying for this? After our casting call back in March, we selected Paul Warren as our new VA & opened up a donation drive to raise the funds necessary to cover revoicing the original script. You can look over the budget plan here, as well as the update regarding the budget surplus here, & the proposals for that surplus here. The Kaidan Workshop is strictly non-profit: all funds raised are to pay Mr. Warren for his services.

Will [insert other Kaidan mod] be compatible with this?

The short answer: No, not without a patch.

The much longer answer:

Several features were changed or lost in the migration of Kaidan's framework (first from Legendary Edition to Special Edition, & now the modding migration into Anniversary Edition), & warrant a complete rebuild of his framework from the ground up. Many bugs that are associated with 'Skyrim being Skyrim,' such as his dialogue hang-ups or his issues with Kiai, are actually scripting issues that can only be addressed in this way. It will also allow us to introduce features commonly seen in more recently created custom followers, like nickname or outfit systems. Because of this, our add-on will not be compatible out of the box with ANY existing Kaidan replacers, patches, or extensions. This is for three reasons:

1) We fixed the underlying issue, so you won't need that patch anymore. Additionally, we'll be able to update Kaidan without the need for separate patches, freeing up space in your mod list.

2) The patches, as they exist now, simply will not be able to work with the new framework or assets that our team has been building. However, making a compatibility patch is a relatively simple process we are more than happy to assist in.

3) To ensure that any original Kaidan content created by other content creators will in no way ever be used, revoiced, or made compatible with our rebuild without explicit consent from those parties. While LivTempleton may have opened up permissions to the modding community to use Kaidan's assets freely, we at the Workshop completely support the independent work that those in the community have made in preserving & expanding the titular character. I want to know more about what each of the teams are up to! We release periodic updates every month or so to keep the community updated on our progress and our goals, but feel free to swing by our Discord; you can always ask the staff what we're currently up to! You can find the most recent update here. I have a question/comment/concern that wasn't addressed in this post! No problem! You can always leave an anonymous post, message us privately via this tumblr, or reach out to a Community Team member on our Discord!

[innocence-wont-save-you]

OOC: Migration Notice

I hate to do this so soon after I just came back to IWSY, but with the recent developments of what Tumblr staff has been doing, I've honestly had enough. If you missed it, the basic rundown is that the CEO of Tumblr, photomatt, has been personally targeting, harassing, and threatening to call the cops and the FBI on a trans woman. This is the last straw for me in a long string of fuck ups from Tumblr staff, and I'm moving operations off of Tumblr. I'm going to finish up Status Update 13 here, but future updates will no longer be on this blog.

That isn't to say that IWSY is shutting down for good. I've made an account on Cohost, but I'm still learning the new site and figuring out how things work. If Scene 14 starts before I've finished setting things up, it will be temporarily run over at the official website for IWSY. This is, for the record, the ultimate goal for the website: To function as a non-account dependent way to witness and engage in the story being told. But for now, IWSY is migrating to Cohost while I learn javascript and figure out how to add commenting functions. You don't need an account to read Cohost posts, thankfully, but you will need an account to interact there, just like on Tumblr. You can also join the official Discord server for IWSY as an alternative.

This blog will stay up and the pinned post will probably be periodically updated, but after this I imagine this will be converted purely into an ask blog that isn't canon to IWSY's events. Thank you for sticking around for this story, and I hope you'll continue to keep up with the gameplay. If not, the AO3 version will always continue updating.

[sybeez]

theres magic in splatoon?

oh HELL YES i get to rant about splatoon on here instead of on discord :]

@anemonequeen hey u can add on too 👀

So what i call magic in splatoon is less 'high fantasy bullshit' and more 'its all around and you don't notice it' like the post said (my example was electricity irl and how we use it rn for mundane stuff). It's all headcanon also btw but very supported by stuff from the games themself

List of stuff thats magic in splatoon in no particular order (ill go over these after): music, technology (human made especially), DNA, ink maybe?, salmonids migration, probably more but thats all i got (infodump under the cut)

SO music has been canon magic since splatoon 1 and actually its linked to the DNA part!! ,,,I probably need to explain human technology part first to understand that but it's basically all the Alterna logs basically.

Quick recap tho: the earth is fucked > some humans go live underground in giant domes all over the globe(unsure) > in one of them they devellop crystals out of molluscs like squids n octopus ability to change color based on emotions and use those to make giant LCD screens to line the dome > fast forward 2 generations of underground humans > the next gen scientists who want to go out even if thats a fucked up idea > rocket go poof n destroys the screen > the squid LCD crystals seep into the ocean n evolution happens for every creature to turn into anthros

also most impportantly the crystals retained the hopes of dreams of all of humanity down there* (important)

now fast forward 10 000 years and we find this scroll in splatoon 1

and that melody famously created a revolution by every single octarian realising they actually have free will at once (it did NOT break any kind of mind control they just lived all their live in an authoritarian society) so already we can tell theres something up with.

another time we find that melody thats important is the end credit for splatoon 3 (wave goodbye) at around the 3:00 mark

,,,now im realizing this isnt exactly what i had in mind but the first time i heard it i thought the voice had no gargling like inkfish voices n instead it was the voices of all humanitys ghosts coming together to sing that part. But if we still go with that then (my headcannon) that means that melody thats been etched into sea life DNA was actually a human anthem that was kept in the memories of the LCD crystal

Now in splatoon 3 theres a lot of magic anyway lol but idk how to even explain that (the 3 lights, lil buddy becoming a kaiju, big man making ink) so use ur imagination for that lol but its there.

other human technology that's also magic: the machine to keep judd alive that somehow made him immortal AND clone him

There's more magic hidden in the game (like however the ink from the ink tanks fuels our weapon via bluetooth and how some non-inkfish characters can somehow use ink for turf wars) but thats why i tagged sasha lol

oh yea for the salmon migration bit i'm specifically talking about the 7 rings when a big run happens. idk how to explain that so therefore its magic

[genericpuff]

Sooo does anyone know this artist?

Back to my reminiscing over RMD, there's one artist specifically from that site who was very popular on the platform and most well known for their 'animated stories' - not literally animated, but utilizing the flash replay tool to draw a scene, cover it over with the background canvas color, and then draw the next scene, making these little comics that you could watch being drawn from start to finish scene by scene.

And that artist was Sadik.

(CW: blood, violence, and old mid 2000's era art ahead!)

Anyone who reads my original works might recognize this name. Well, that's because Sadik is (or potentially was) a real person.

I got to know Sadik during my time on the site, they were an active part of the community and were peak mid 2000's "I made you a cookie but I eated it" emo culture. They eventually migrated to DeviantArt where they became more active there (this was something that happened to a lot of artists who evolved past the flash and Java tools of RMD) but eventually they sort of just fell off the face of the Earth.

Obviously I can't really show the animated works they did because those were constrained entirely to the flash software which no longer works (and thus can't be replayed via Wayback) but here are some of their standalone art pieces that give off exactly the vibe I just described (so if you didn't know what I was talking about before, this should help give you a visual aid):

I adored their work, as did many people at the time. Granted, RMD was a much smaller site, but the Internet as a whole was smaller back then. We spent a lot of time talking through PM's, I told them about Time Gate, and that's how Sadik - the character - was born.

We both sort of drifted away from RMD as time went on, and naturally didn't talk as often as a result. I don't know where Sadik is today. I don't know if they're still creating art or even still alive. Their RMD page is long gone, the few artists who have managed to reconnect through the RMD Discord have no idea who I'm talking about or where they would be today, and even their DA is long since deactivated. I don't even remember how I was able to preserve those older art pieces that were unique to them, but I hope they're still out there creating art. They were good at it and it brought a lot of people joy. I still have the drawings they created for Time Gate back in the day, when it was still just a silly little self-insert Zelda fanfiction. I didn't find these ones by happenstance before the site shut down or via Wayback after - I kept them, and have always made sure to back them up every single time I've switched PC's because I don't ever want to lose them.

So I guess in a way this series of posts about RMD isn't just a eulogy for my past self, old art, and a site that no longer exists - it's also for the artists who nurtured my work back when very few people were, my first fans, who created art that stuck with me through the years, and, in Sadik's case, even became a part of Time Gate's history, still a part of it today. Thank you for being there, Sadik. I hope our paths cross again some day ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

[van-goghs-smoking-skull]

Update: Due to Tumblr's decision to partner with MidJourney, I'll be moving to Cohost.

Music: https://cohost.org/downtempo-kestrel?page=0

Art: https://cohost.org/sibi-barknd?page=0

Writing: https://cohost.org/windblownsand?page=0

Everything else: https://cohost.org/van-goghs-smoking-skull?page=0

(My works/posts will be deleted from here as I move them over as separate posts on Cohost)

(Oooo, bonus, I can switch individuals posts on Cohost to 18+ without sending my entire blog to the void - no need to have an entirely different account for one whole fic.)

(If we were mutuals and I stopped following you, you didn't do anything wrong - it's part of the process of migrating. If you have a Cohost account, just DM me what it is and I'll follow you there, instead.)

(5/13/24, the export begins. It'll take quite a while, but once I have the full download - so I can sort things out offline - I'll only be around here for DMs. I'll be available otherwise on my Cohost blogs and I'll still be on Discord, so if you want faster responses, look for me there)

(Cohost went read only on 10/7/24 and will shut down entirely by the end of the year. If we worked out keeping in contact since, you'll know where I've moved on to. If not, I'm taking it as a sign you'd rather not keep in contact at all, so there's no point in posting my online moves here anymore. I'll miss you, but it is what it is, I suppose. I still hope life treats you well. Goodbye, old distant friends.)

[widowskins]

An end of an era and some updates

Please indulge me this moment of reminiscing and rambling. It is saddening to see Caution closing its doors. I understand why. The RPC has been shifting towards Discord servers for a while now, and I know that change is both good and inevitable. At the same time, I can't help but feel a twinge of... sorrow? Melancholy? to see the end of an era. I've been with Caution since it was on IF. Caution was where I found my first skins and templates, and through hacking them to bits, learned to code. I fell in love with CSS and HTML on Caution. Resource sites came and went over the years, but for the majority of the height of the resource forum era, every code and skin I made was exclusively available on Caution. I am slowly working on moving all of my templates onto my skin preview site. I'm also joining a handful of RPC resource servers on Discord. Although I am sad to see Caution go, I want my codes to be available to as many people as possible. It's time I get with the times. From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank all the staff, former and present, of Caution, for all the years you kept the forum running. I might not have been an active participant in the community outside of posting resources, but for many years Caution has felt like a home. I appreciate the welcome and wish you all the best wherever you go. And now, for a few updates: I'm tweaking a few codes as I migrate them over to my preview forum. I've also got two skins in progress. I think one will be a free resource, and one will be paid. I am considering lowering my prices on Luxury again. I don't want to insult anyone who has purchased it at the old price point(s), but the more I ruminate on it, the more I think I would prefer to offer greater accessibility to people from all walks of life and financial security. I'm not sure what the protocol is for lowering prices on an existing skin. Does one offer a partial refund to those who purchased at the higher rate? I'm not sure. If you're reading this, please feel free to chime in with your thoughts. Anyway, thanks for following and keep an eye out for the completion of my template migration and the eventual release of new skins!