#okay in total fairness

[encryptedlunacy]

The springtail cultures in my terrariums are so interesting to watch because in one terrarium you can see a wholesome example of the springtail community working together to break down a dead leaf and you get to see the decomposition cycle and how terrariums sustain themselves and then in another terrarium you're watching a cage fight that started exactly like the "she's touching me" argument in Lilo and Stitch with the whole neighbourhood stood in a circle to watch shit go down like where is the middle ground here

[evilminji]

You know what? I just had A Thought(tm)~☆

Danny. Our bby boy. MINDING HIS BUSINESS. Maybe visiting one of his buddies in the Realms after he graduates. When he just?? Get full on tackled from the sky.

And like?

Huh.

THIS hasn't happened in a bit. Not since he's become king. Legit, no one dares. He's honestly kinda missed it. Alright, square up... Mr. Uuuuuh.... Who are you?

And it's this barely formed New Ghost. Still in that glitch-y goopy blob phase and everything. Is Baby. Why... why does this infant Want To Fight God? I mean. He Respects It(tm), no lie, but? Not exactly usual for him?

And it turns out? This dude is some rando hero. He basicly JUST died. By all rights SHOULD be resting and gathering his strength to Form Right. But he's so worried for his team mates and everyone else he CAN'T. Recognized a fellow Hero's Costume even at a distance.

Please. PLEASE! You have to help him! We have to WARN everybody!

And Danny is just? Oh no. This Actual Infant Baby is gonna Anxiety himself to Actual Second Death at this rate. Yes! Sure! Just CALM DOWN! Anything you need buddy! BREATHE.

And this dude? Who died? Is legit a minor player who got WAY too deep but refused to abandoned People In Need(tm). It happens. It HURTS. But he saved a LOT of lives before he went down. Him and his team were just some Minor Heros from Belarus. How they ended up in deep space? Even THEY couldn't tell you.

They couldn't even bring him home.

He forgives them.

He could NEVER blame his friends. Not for this. The planet is in danger. Some... some THING. An invasion. The League has to be made aware. He DIED helping a planet try to evacuate all that they could. He... at least he...

He can't remember if the Eggs got out. They... they're like babies. A whole room full of toddlers who couldn't run. They had to de-connect from the main building to lift it out. He can't... can't...

He saved them... right? Held on.. long enough? Why can't he.. he...

Danny has to make him focus be for the kid spirals. Don't think of your last moments. Purpose. You NEED to do something right now, right?

Right! The League! We gotta warn them! And... okay. Danny can totally do that. (What LEAGUE??!) He DEFINITELY knows who you are talking about and will tell them Right Away. YOU however are gonna rest up.

So he leaves the kiddo with Lunch Lady. Mother and Frightening Matriarch Extraordinaire. Lunch Box promises to SIT on him if he tries to sneak off. Good kid. Now eat your soup before you BECOME soup.

Time to bully the eyeballs. Whoms't the F*ck is this "league"? And where does he find it? Talk. He has sand and he's not afraid to use it. Don't MAKE him get out the pepper grinder! Yeah. That's what he THOUGHT.

After much, prolonged and unnecessary, whining and dramatic threatening... he gets a printed out map. Cheapskates even used flimsy paper. He gets there. Jaunt is even kinda nice. He says hi to a few folks he hasn't seen in a while.

Opens a portal.

Steps out.

Gets punched in the face. RUDE! He punches the flying blue man back. Dents their wall. Not even a LITTLE sorry about that now! See if HE does you a favor aga-... is that his Ex? John?

John! Constantine you B@STARD. YOU OWE ME 20 BUCKS. *Ten different hands slap a twenty on the table at his feet, including Constantine. Who is refusing to look at anybody.* Well, okay then. Debt payed. Gonna buy himself a shake or something, after this.

ANYWAY~ Good News Or Bad News?

He is met with silence. It's like they've never seen an ethereal, giant, glowing man with a suit that looks like a cut out of the night sky, step out of an eye searing rip in reality before. Man they're lives must be boring. But frankly? Danny can wait. It's not HIS reality that's gonna get messed up. He can take care of it if the wanna be Wah Babies. Good News or Bad News??? Pick one.

He sits back in the air and waits.

@stealingyourbones @cyrwrites

[relaxxattack]

every time someone calls moirallegience just an alien qpr i wilt a lil like YEAH thats more or less the CLOSEST human thing but its also Literally Not That. like a qpr is fundanmentally not romantic and thats not even going into moirails whole Actual Purpose of calming ppl down. its just. aughhhhh pisses me off i see the confusion but, as aformentioned, aughhhhh

OH MY GOD THIS HAS BEEN BOTHERING ME TOO.... but i don't want to get petty at the people in my notes always saying "moirails are QPRs!" because in some ways that is the closest human thing so it's hard to be mad...

i think there's definitely some overlap in some ways. but NOT because moirallegiance and qprs are the same at all really, but INSTEAD because both relationships can be outside of popular human norms.

you know... like any relationship.

like the only reason the two really have overlap is because they are both committed emotional partnerships that aren't required to involve sex? that should be true for all romance, even if it's not the norm right now.

they're both just romances* that are unconventional to human norms, which makes people view them as the same thing when they're not.

i think the REAL issue here is that humans insist on using human words to understand things that are just, fundamentally, alien. can't we just appreciate alien romance for being... alien romance?

no, moirallegiance is not platonic, it's romantic. it's just romantic in a way you don't understand, is all. that doesn't invalidate that romance.

*in generalization, most QPRs are not romantic, because they are made up of aroaces who are life partners in a non-romantic way. however i want to disagree with you that none of them are romantic, because that is up to the partners in question.

[autistic-danieljackson]

The thing about Stargate is that sometimes you just have to go 'it was 2005 🤷' and not excuse it but if you don't just sort of look past it then you're going to have a bad time

[proshippers-against-censorship]

I truly feel bad for neutral-shippers who don't want to get involve in shipping discourse, because a lot of antis keep putting them with proshippers together in their DNI lists or even harass them for not choosing a certain side, like accusing them of "ignoring serious problems". Bruh what.

Anon, I say this with all the kindness in my heart, but there's no such thing as a 'neutral-shipper'. This is a very black and white issue. Either you think fiction is just as bad as real life and harass people over it, or you don't. Either you follow DLDR, or you don't. Either you follow SALS, or you don't. Either you follow YKINMKATO, or you don't.

Being neutral amongst the controversy is still proship by definition.

[catboyidia]

how good i think asgzc would be at comforting people:

angeal: i think he would try his best, dad mode would kick in and he would provide a good shoulder to cry on, but i think he could also be a bit emotionally reserved and not really know the right thing to say (very dad of him)

sephiroth: he’s very awkward about it and i dont think he would be good at comforting people at all, at least not intentionally, but he is absolutely amazing at being logical about things, which in some cases could be extremely helpful

genesis: i think he could go both ways tbh! i think it’s fun to imagine he would be the type to cry too, but ultimately i think he would simply just be very sympathetic and supportive, he has no shame in being emotional so he would encourage others to just let it all out

zack: the BEST like the absolute best of the best! he will give then a shoulder to cry on, he will listen and give them comforting words, and when they have nothing left to say/have cried it all out and calmed down, he is a master at cheerful distraction so that they cheer up and forget what they were even crying about!

cloud: not great but will at least try to listen, i imagine he would be very awkward and clumsy but still try to an extent!

[littlefankingdom]

I just finished Future State: Gotham and here are my final thoughts.

Things I hated:

Jason being a cop (at the beginning, it made sense because he was manipulated to be. At the end, nope, he should have resigned)

[SPOILER] The lack of reaction from the Batfam to Dick's sacrifice??? Only Barbara speaks about it with him, but Bruce is right there. You're telling me Bruce Wayne would not lose his marbles at Dick sacrificing himself for Gotham and Damian??? You're lying. He would not be okay with it! Especially when he said just a couple of pages earlier that Dick was the heart of the Batfam! And the lack of grief in the story afterward??? Bruce would not be fine if Dick was dead! He would not be okay! That's his firstborn!

Things I loved:

Talia's characterization was gold. She is badass, she is a caring mother, she is a Batfam's member, she is not evil. I love it so much. There's one moment when she stabbed Jason, but she explains herself later as being so preoccupied with Damian, she wasn't thinking, she had no time to lose, and apologizes. She's great. (Her and Bruce aren't together, btw)

Bruce and Jason's relationship. They love each others so much, they cannot communicate for shit. Jason being like "I will beat the shit out of Hush for impersonating my father, even if it's the last thing I do!" when he was like "Bruce is not my dad!" to Rose earlier. Bruce being like "Jason, my son, I'm so happy to see you!" when he sees Jason. Jason, half dying, accepting to stop fighting with the others to assist Bruce, also half dying, the parallel between father and son. Bruce leaving Gotham for Jason to protect. Jdizbztcforc, finally some good food about them FROM DC.

Bruce not being able to be a vigilante anymore at the end, after all the fights and the torture, with a cane, looking at his baby with pride.

Dick being fucking nuts. It's so funny to me, the man loses it when his dad is dead. He is also such his father's son, to the point that other batfam's members LITERALLY tell him "You are acting just like Bruce rn, and you know that's not a good thing." but he refuses to listen. He's high on drugs, fr.

Actually, all Bruce's sons lose their mind when their father dies. They all go "I'm gonna do something so stupid because I miss my dad, watch me". Batshit insane family over here.

[heybiji]

hi!!! i just wanted to say i really love all of your MASKS stuff. i'm something of a newbie when it comes to the TTRPG community, but MASKS seems to be not very well-known and i think that's a real shame. i'm a huge fan of old-school superhero-adjacent stuff, especially the silver- and bronze-age ones!

by the way, i was wondering if you'd be willing to share some tips for a first-time GM? you don't have to if you'd rather not! i just figured i'd try asking since i was planning on GMing a MASKS campaign for some of my friends later, but despite my decade's worth of roleplaying experience i've never been in a TTRPG campaign nor a GM (or similar) role before

Thank you so much!! I was just lamenting about how I felt bad for the MASKS tag because it is now flooded with all my npc nonsense hahah so this is really nice to hear.

It's awesome you're planning on running a MASKS game for your friends!! There is an indispensable post on twitter I saw that has a LOT of great tips for running MASKS that I recommend checking out. But for my own personal tips that are just me things, here's what I got. Sorry it's gonna be extremely long-winded, it may take a few months to read through it.

(Note: I am also hugely into RP and probably put more into it than what is necessary, especially with MASKS which is meant to be able to be played out of the box. It was definitely not played out of the box in our case because I require a lot out of myself and everyone else to feel good about running something. if anyone else wants to continue seeing me as a normal human being please don't click the Keep Reading)

Since you're running it, make the world interesting to you. If the world runs around themes you're personally interested in then you'll have a much easier time coming up with answers on the fly. For me, themes I'm interested in that lend themselves well to a superhero world: money, power, family, celebrity, media, the 24 hour news cycle and the desensitization of violence. Because I'm interested in this stuff anyway, wrapping a world around them makes it much simpler for me to figure out how the world ticks and thus how the characters fit into it and how the world reacts to them, and I am DESPERATE to find out how the characters react to all the questions and expectations the world is imposing upon them.

Make sure your players have a good grasp of the tone of story so they can make characters that gel well within it. For me the tone is a lil more adult because I'm not personally into younger morality tale stories in tone, it's pretty grounded, and I think comedy and tragedy work hand in hand so I lean into them.

Talk. A lot. Talk about the characters, talk about the world. MASKS is fun because it's a LOT of talking and figuring out the narrative together. It's not a lot of crunchy mechanics, it's all around seeing how the characters react to the world narratively, all hurt and comfort and emotions which (for me) requires people to have a good grasp on their characters and the world. I like to give my players "homework" where I ask them a question involving their characters in some way like "what hero did your character look up to as a child?" so they get to come up with past heroes, or "How does your character feel about _____?" etc etc. The only fans are gonna be your table and fans love to talk so be the biggest fans of the PCs!!

Figure out your framing. I know in MASKS they suggest framing it like a comic book, and basically talking about the frames on screen. For me, because I'm more into movies and tv than comics, I frame it like that. So I have an active "camera" in play during sessions and will ask things like "would anyone like to grab the camera?" to encourage the players to put the character into a scene or "what does the audience see as the camera focuses in on your character in this emotional moment?" There is a LOT of playing up to the camera and framing the sessions as episodes of a show, so it's like, okay, you have several options but what is going to be interesting for the audience to see? I find this encourages the players to have their characters take bigger swings and feel comfortable letting us into how their character is feeling because it all looks GREAT on camera. The camera loves it. The PCs are the story after all.

Because I frame it a show, I also like to play individual ending songs over the "credits" at the end of each episode. So I asked my players to make playlists for their characters so if I feel an episode had a lot of emotional focus on one character in particular, I can play one of their songs at the end of the episode! I also made a general MASKS playlist with a bunch of songs from the era we set it in (2004) to pull from. It's a fun little addition that I really enjoy and that I hope makes it all feel more special.

The Dino Donut Effect: create landmarks in your world. (OK THIS IS GONNA BE LONG BUT WORK WITH ME HERE) They don't have to be locations, more solid landmarks of the story that the characters can refer back to and lean on to make the world feel more "real." I call it the Dino Donut Effect because in our world the thing that made everything click into place was talking out the backstory of one of the PC's figuring out they had the power negation ability. We were talking one night trying to figure it out; we wanted the character to fall out of a building and be caught by a flying superhero and accidentally turn off their powers, so they toss the kid to another flying supe whose powers also get turned off. But we were like... holy shit what is the height of a building needed that can handle this much action in the air without them hitting the ground in 3 seconds. So after a long night of talking about terminal velocity and looking at Splat Calculators we figured out the height of the building, and we needed them to crash into something that wouldn't fuckin kill them. The first suggestion was a truck full of bananas. Nah. We landed on a giant balloon that could take the impact. And the balloon became a giant T-Rex holding a donut that was the mascot of the city's beloved decades old donut shop Dino Donut. And so we decided that one of the two flying supes grabbed onto the kid and the other and flew into the giant balloon to try and keep them all alive, which destroyed the balloon, which was a city institution, and there was a crowd of children there that day that saw their friend Dino Donut die. Killed by a superhero. The balloon deflated loudly so it sounded like Dino Donut was screaming in agony. All the kids were traumatized (screaming crying throwing up), the city was furious because everyone loved Dino Donut, it was constantly in the news cycle, and it ruined the career of the supe that "killed Dino Donut." AND THEN THEY REPLACED THE DINO DONUT BALLOON WITH A LAME "UPDATED DESIGN" DINO DONUT STATUE which everyone hates and people consider to be a memorial to the old Dino Donut. ANYWAY, the Dino Donut effect is that now all the PCs have one single incident to refer back to that they all have feelings about. A couple of them were there that day and heard Dino Donut scream, one is now the protege of the disgraced superhero that killed Dino Donut so she feels uncomfortable talking about it, there's the kid that was saved that day but was sworn to secrecy by the supe so no one would find out about his power negation ability, and then there's the kid that wasn't there because she's an alien that just arrived to earth and now the kids have to explain the incident to her with all their varying opinions. Now the PCs' meeting spot is at a Dino Donut. Having this one solid incident that is both funny and kind of goes into the themes of the world has been an absolute treat. Creating "landmarks" like that in the world has done so much and now I'm like okay I'm gonna try to do this moving forward with any other thing I run.

anyway these are my extremely specific to me tips. my RP standards are kind of high which makes me a bit of a terror but also when the flowers bloom from it it feels GREAT. i'm not sure if this will help but hopefully there is something there that can be useful!

MASKS is fun and simple once you get the hang of it, though, so I'm sure whatever you do you and your players will have a lot of fun! especially if you're someone who is into RP which is the background I'm coming from too; MASKS is extremely narrative! i'll be looking in the tag for your game hehe

(The Day Dino Donut Died art by JD)

[haughttopics]

finally watched happiest season and i totally understand why people hated the ending.

except for Jane. she deserves the world.

[familyabolisher]

an annoying corollary to the whole "self-flagellating for crime of being a customer" thing is when people make perfectly legitimate and polite complaints to me at work and apologise five billion times for doing so like i don't care....

[cephalofrog]

noah caldwell-gervais is the only motherfucker to have ever been correct about dark souls and elden rings' difficulty. no one else understands

[legolasghosty]

🐑 Alternate Universe- Magic, Mutual Pining, Demonic possession, Furbies

Oh dear...

Alex is attending one of the most prestigious magic academies in the country, on the orders of his parents of course. Even though Laiz Fier Academy reviles even the name of the only type of magic he's ever been good at. His parents swore he'd find another specialty here, and he'd let himself believe them, like the idiot he is. He's scraping by in classes. Barely. At least he's managed to make a couple of friends and figure out how to sneak into the library stacks to find books that will actually help him hone his skills.

However, Alex realizes now there's a reason why it's not recommended to do your first summoning alone. Because, while he does manage to summon a demon, it doesn't exactly end up in the silvery urn he'd laid in the center of the pentagram.

So now he has a talking, demonic Furby to hide. One that, despite its too-wide eyes and disconcertingly smooth voice, Alex thinks he might be developing feelings for.

(Fake fic ask game!)

[essektheylyss]

what people expect when you sign up for an LIS degree: haha quirky book nerds, so fun, I remember toddler storytime at the library are you gonna read to children

what they actually get when you sign up for an LIS degree: smashing Alexa isn't enough anymore I need to learn how to run my own internet and also build a house on a totally closed circuit system.

[1am-s0-veryt1red]

with the leaks to the 2nd to last chapter out can I just ask that we hold off on criticism of whoever until the last chapter is officially out? I know it's asking a lot

[mermaidsirennikita]

always a disappointment when you're reading a romance novel and they're getting down to it and the heroine is all "oh wait I'm sorry I'm on my period" and the hero's like "oh it's okay let's cuddle :)" instead of doing this

[nazmazh]

Tonight's Mission:

Time to give some dragons (And a wizard) a bath!

So, I've had these statuettes since like, high school [My brother also has a set of his own, which was likewise dug out of storage this past summer, when my folks and I moved out to the farm - Lest you think I was alone in my coolness], but when I moved out east after my first stint in university for my first post-university job, they got packed up and put into storage.

And they've been sitting there, in the shop, since, like 2009.

But now that I've got more room (and found some decent bookshelves on FB marketplace for a reasonable price, so I have enough storage space), it's time to bring them back out into the world, I think.

But, yeah... 15 years of sitting in a box in the workshop hasn't exactly been great dust-wise.

(Seriously, the old beat-up box they were in was a Sears box, because Amazon delivery just wasn't as big of thing by that point).

And their individual boxes weren't exactly great to begin with.

So, like, there's dust deeply embedded in some of the grooves and such:

(I probably wasn't super diligent about dusting them thoroughly when I was younger, either, if I'm being honest).

So, we'll see if a quick rinse in the sink with some dish soap can shine 'em back up!

Thankfully, my pewter ones (which were better quality overall anyway) came in nicer boxes and seem to have been largely spared the extra dust. Which is good, because they probably are a lot more touchy about cleaning methods, and it means I don't have to cross that bridge today.

The Results:

Looks like the rinse worked perfectly, no weird effects because dish soap is pretty safe for most materials, I'd imagine resin/acrylic/whatever these were made of included. Got into those hard-to-reach nooks and crannies and looks like the dust has been rinsed out.

The one downside - I apparently have precisely one statuette (even including the pewter ones) that has a felt-lined bottom.

I only realized that once it was already in the water.

Ah well, as long as it dries properly, I can't imagine it being a big issue in the long run.

Once these bad boys dry, they're going up on my bookshelves and returning to their duties of being rad as hell.

Might even have to look through my dice bins and find some sets to pair with them all for some photos or something.