#once I know my general editing speed i'll probably be able

[zombubble]

Chat have we just gotten to the last chapter (before the epilogue) of draft one?!

Yes, we have uwu.

Endings are hard.........

[niuttuc]

Tawnos, Solemn Survivor is my favorite commander and I try to upgrade them a little every set, got any cool tech for this guy? It's all about making tokens, and making tokens that make tokens, and playing cool artifact stuff, and making tokens of cool artifact stuff...

I do have some neat stuff for artifacts, let's start with an innocuous one.

This is a simple artifact that sits on the cheap end for your deck, cycles into another card, makes you a second artifact as a token, makes sure your mana is used because all of that is at instant speed, and then it has a third mode that mostly doesn't matter... But in your deck can allow you to put it into your graveyard if you don't have any other way to bring it back with Tawnos. And then Tawnos can start making copies of it to draw more cards and make more food to feed more activations. It's not the flashiest artifact, but it gives a pretty nice floor for a one drop artifact.

People don't expect the Act of Treason effect from the esper deck, and definitely not one every turn as you keep copying your apple. It puts itself in the graveyard if you need it to, then you can start doing it at instant speed with Tawnos. The tokens legend rule each other, but you don't really care.

If you're editing it with every set I'll assume you've already taken a look at the Big Score artifact stuff and the entire crafting archetype from Lost Caverns of Ixalan, of course, that probably gave you some nice tools. If you haven't, this is a reminder to look at it.

Some of the more fun mana rocks for this archetype, I don't often see Noble's Purse played, but it's particularly nice here to keep generating tokens for Tawnos once you copy it. Misleading Signpost is just very neat to start making instant speed copies of.

Machine-God's Effigy is REALLY good here, but even better if you're aware how it interacts: if you copy something with it, and then later make token copies of it, they will be artifacts that have the text of whatever the original Machine-God's Effigy copied (with the mana ability), whether that thing is still on the battlefield. However, you CAN choose to copy nothing when it enters, and then you'll be able to copy different creatures when you do copy Machine-God's Effigy. It's up to you to figure out when that might be the correct line of play.

Speaking of copies, you probably already know about Phyrexian Metamorph, but Synth Infiltrator went a bit stealthier in the fallout precons. It's trivial to improvise it down to two mana. Sadly, both of these are base 0/0s, so you can't usually do the same trick as with Machine-God's Effigy where you leave them as the original, but they're another way to convert any creature on the battlefield into an artifact. Imposter Mech can though, and just like Machine-God's Effigy, it can sit around immune to creature board wipes and only costs 2 mana.

To have some suggestions that aren't blue: The necron deck is probably one you might want to give a look, plenty of artifact goodies in there. Necron Deathmark is just a good card, an instant speed removal with a big body that ALSO mills you AND happens to be an artifact for extra shenanigans. Imotekh is more specifically for Tawnos's second ability, since activating it exiles an artifact from your graveyard, making two tokens to fuel it again whenever you want to activate it again. It's less good on its own if you don't have more stuff to get artifacts out of the graveyard though, so might not be worth the slot.

[bcofl0ve]

I can't believe that fans, even after such an incredible performance by Austin, manage to dig out the drama (I'm talking about that ridiculous discussion about the sketch about Elvis). Austin said they only had one night to rehearse all the sketches. Do you seriously think that he ran to the toilet and frantically wrote to Priscilla or Lisa Marie, asking permission for a sketch that he didn't even write? This is insane. These women agreed to use the image and name of Elvis in much more ridiculous things, because they were paid for it, I'm sure they will be able to survive one joke in a sketch that they probably haven't even watched. In general, this deification of the Presley family, the idealization of Austin (as if he is a damn guardian elf of Graceland, when he is actually Gollum) and the sacralization of their relationship will not end well. If only because when the Elvis award season ends, and Coppola's film enters the final stage of post-production, then you will hear a lot of Priscilla's praise for Jacob (regardless of how he embodies the image of Elvis). Some of you are definitely not ready for this.

they might have only rehearsed once but rehearsal was not the first time anyone knew what the sketches were- there are read throughs and what not where things are changed/cut/edited/etc. and i'll stick by thinking it's in the realm of possibility lisa and austin spoke at some point between him being announced as a host and last night. and snl probably came up even if casually when he was talking to priscilla at the celine show. of course i don't know for sure- i unfortunately am not on speaking terms with any of them LOL it's just my opinion.

but i do agree to your other points and think the ppl most upset about the skit were just waiting eagerly for him to do something they disliked so they had a reason to drag him/say he sold out/doesn't really respect e and the family etc. they were praying on his downfall and jumped at the first opp to be "proven right" even if he didn't really do anything wrong- and the family seems to be a-okay given that riley liked baz's post. and i share your sentiment about the priscilla movie too. my opinion on that project as a whole is nawttt popular on etwt and i am also not ready for all the drama when that gets released. god speed and good luck to us all ig.

[creamypudding]

I should cut myself some slack. The pace at which I'm working on my current story obsession (Clack omega/werewolf fic) has ground to a halt as I've been struggling through making sense of the middle part of the plot.

It feels like each day drags and nothing gets done. Like I'm stuck in the quagmire of writers block because the text doesn't come as freely and easily as when I started the story.

I shouldn't beat myself up about being in a tough spot. Afterall, it's harder to write the middle of the story because as I've been writing, the story has grown more complex as I've gotten to learn about the world the characters inhabit and I have also learned how the world's shaped them.

It's this added complexity that makes me second guess a lot of things around what path the story should take to get to the desired ending. I end up leaving myself so many notes about changes I have to make on subsequent passovers and those become more tempting to write than trying to push through the discomfort of whatever scene I'm stuck on.

But I have been -mostly- good at writing forward and not backward. I did have to go back to the start and completely rewrite the opening scene, but after that hurdle was partially started, I left myself notes on how to finish off the intro scene and went back to trudging through the most current part of the story.

I'm not sure yet if this style of working - writing forward instead of editing as I go - is a style that works for me. I'm enjoying getting to chip away at the story so it's all done and I can go back and edit it later (which is the part I love most about writing), but I'm also dreading how much rewriting I will have to do to incorporate all the changes I'm making on the fly. I worry I might miss something if I don't make the edits while I think of them on the spot. But I guess I should trust my note leaving process, and trust that the way the story should be will solidify in my head by the time I'm done with it so if on my re-read come across something incongruent I'll be able to patch it easily enough. 🤞

I guess I won't know if this process is going to work out for me until I've gone through the whole process and finished the story.

Some days the finish line feels forever away.

It feels like I've been stuck here forever with nothing in the story really moving forward, because I haven't obtained clarity or any real writing flow to indicate that I am confident about how to pull off what I want to have happen.

But then I take an objective look at this story and discover that I started it 19th October. It has just been a month since I started it, and I'm already halfway finished writing the first draft, in relation to plot points. Like, that's pretty fucking good.

And I know that once I get unstuck and onto the parts of the story I have been itching to write and explore, the flow will come back.

Yet, in the meanwhile, the struggle I'm facing right now feels like it's been going forever and will be another forever before I'm through it. But I gotta remind myself that I started the first tough chapter on 11th November, and the chapter I just finished today I started 2 days ago on the 17th.

2 days ago. It feels like a lot longer. Maybe because I've been trying to make sense of that aspect of the story for a lot longer? I've been living and breathing it, rejecting ideas, tweaking ideas, reworking them into something that hopefully might make sense over and over for a while now.

So, it would seem like it's probably a very normal thing to experiencing, when I've sunk so many mental hours into this story. I need to chill and cut myself some slack. And I certainly can't trust my feelings. Hard date stamp evidence shows I flew through the latest chapter, so some confidence in direction must be returning to me.

And th general take home is that it's ok to struggle. I always pull through and at surprising speed.

There are a few more difficult transitions I have to write and wrangle before I think I'm through the worst of it. I'm agitated that other than finishing the latest chapter today I haven't gone on to start the next one, beyond getting down the preliminary chapter outline.

I'm being kind to myself and rationalising that with the weekend coming I have no time to dive deep into the next part. I'm telling myself I'd rather start fresh with all my thoughts ready to go in one swoop rather than stop and start as I juggle the weekend. But it's still tough to be idling when I know I could be writing.

Not that I know what I should be writing.

I think I need some rest after that week of plodding through some heavy structural stuff. I have earned a guilt-free weekend. Maybe not guilt. I don't think I feel guilty. Just... Unproductive. But it's ok to not be productive. It's necessary to rest so I can have reserves in the tank so I can start my next week of writing with much energy.

Yes. This is a post to tell myself to rest. And writing on my blog here is a nice way to be writing and 'productive' without the need to be perfect and find the right words or turn of phrase.

It's been a good use of my time.

Thanks for listening, to anyone who read this.

I look forward to bringing you this story in the new year and I'm having an amazing blast writing it. Even when I'm stuck I find some gold nuggets I enjoy.

Cheers.

[onebangtanstan]

Power Style - Chapter Twelve : The group

I am in shock. Everyone is turning to me, following his gaze. They're starting to understand what is going on.

"KIM NAMJOON ARE YOU SERIOUS???" I'm yelling.

Yoongi tries to catch me as I start walking angrily towards Namjoon. As I'm arriving near him, I extend my arm and point my finger at him.

"You and me. Outside. Now."

He follows me out, and we're now facing each other once again. This is starting to become a habit. The cold doesn't even bother me at this point, my body is so hot from the rage.

I put a distance between us to be able to fully look at him while I spit my anger. He's standing as if nothing was wrong, with his hands still in his pockets, smirking at me.

I start scolding him.

"How could you do this?! You know how photoshoots work. And you just randomly decide to change your whole aesthetic?! As if it couldn't have waited until tomorrow?!" I am telling him off as if we was my child. I barely see the boys come out, I am too focused on him. "This is my job, and probably the biggest account I've ever done, and the only thing you seem interested in is how to fuck it up for me! What the fuck did I ever do to you?!" I can't see anything but his smirk at this point, which only enrages me more. I can't stop. "You are the most arrogant, annoying, disrespectful, ungrateful-" I vaguely hear someone call out my name "-cockiest piece of-"

"GINA!" I finally turn around to the sound of Jin calling me. He's standing right beside me. "Don't give into him." He whispers, looking deep into my eyes. He's right. I start to realize what I've just done.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. No. What did I just do?" Jin takes me in his arms, which instantly heats me up. I didn't realize it but my body is numb from the cold.

"Breathe, Gina, breathe." Tae and Kook are beside us now too.

"Dude, even I wouldn't have went that far, and that's saying something." I hear Jimin talking to Namjoon.

Hobi is on the phone and soon hands his phone to Namjoon. Someone is obviously on the line, because I immediately hear a voice coming out of the device. Given the look on his face, he's probably being told off by someone above him, and he doesn't seem happy about it.

"Are you okay?" Hobi asks, arriving near our little crowd. "Do you need anything?"

I think of something. Something I haven't done in a very long time. But it's the only thing I can think of right now.

"Um.. I don't know.. I think I.." Why am I embarrassed? "To be honest I thinks I need a cigarette." I can tell that they weren't expecting this, but I see no judgement on their faces.

"Don't move." says Kook before running off to the parking lot.

He's back a few seconds later with a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

"They're all yours. My drivers treat." I smile at him.

"Could I have some time alone guys?" They all nod, Jin takes me in his arms once again and proceeds to give me his coat.

As they walk back inside, I start looking for a place where I can sit down. Once that's done, I hold the packet in my hand and stare at it for a long time. Fuck it. I take one out and light it up, feeling the nicotine spread to my body.

I sit there and smoke my cigarette while staring ahead of me, contemplating what I just did. I hope this doesn't cost me the account, or even my job. I royally fucked up on this one, I never should have snapped that way at him. He's my fucking client.

I hear footsteps coming towards me, making my eyes focus again. I see Namjoon walking towards me.

"Please, just go." I tell him.

"I just want a light." What? He smokes? "Don't make that face, it's one cigarette here and there. Plus, I don't owe you anything. Give me the lighter."

"You do owe me this campaign." I start. "As for the rest, I agree. But it's not an excuse to treat my like shit."

"Please may I have your lighter?" He says ironically.

I simply lift my eyes up, handing him it. I can't get mad again.

I look up at him while he takes his first puff. Ok, he's hot. The hair colour really suits him, but it doesn't excuse the fact that he did it in the middle of shooting a campaign.

"Gina," The tone he's using startles me. I've never heard him talk to me like that, calmly, no anger in his voice. "I was just on the phone with my boss. I would like to apologize for what I did. I know it could have compromised all the work you've done." Sounds like a fake apology, but ok I'll take it.

"Look, Namjoon. We don't have to like each other. It's what I told you yesterday. But we are going to have to find a way to work together. We'll be seeing each other everyday for the next 6 months or so, and I can't be in this state of mind every time we see each other. And I most certainly can't fuck this account up, if I didn't already, it would jeopardize my entire career."

"Don't worry about that, the blame is on me." This feels weird. It's the first time we're talking without fighting. "As for work, I agree. What if we don't talk unless it's about Fila and the promotion? Would that work out?"

"Yeah I guess. We don't have a reason to talk other than that so yes." Wow. That was mature of him. "But it doesn't fix your hair problem."

"I'm an ass, I'm not stupid. I had a wig made exactly like how my hair looked yesterday."

That fucker. So it really was just to piss me off. He wanted to make a grand entrance, and he wanted that reaction of me. I swear t- Stop. Don't start again.

I simply stand up, finish my second cigarette -that I lit up unconsciously- and head back inside.

The atmosphere is tense when I walk in, and all heads turn to me. I sense a general relief when they see that I have calmed down.

"All right guys, we're shooting today. We've lost enough time, so let's speed everything up to finish in time." I direct to my staff.

The boys are almost done with makeup, while Namjoon is heading towards them, his wig in his hand.

"You are such an asshole." Jimin snarks

30 minutes go by, and we are all set to go. We start shooting, but we can still sense the tension in all of their faces.

"Guys, it's not working." I let them know. "Let's take a 15 minutes brake, have a coffee, some food, some air, I don't know, but let's all come back with a good energy, okay?"

Everyone scatters around the room. I sit down on my chair and just stare vaguely at the set up. A cup of coffee appears in my vision. The hand holding it is attached to Jin. He's standing beside me, Yoongi, Hoseok, Tae and Kook around him.

"Thank you" I smile at him as I grab the cup.

"What do you need Gina? We'll do anything to make your life easier." Jin is now kneeling down beside me.

I think for a bit but know exactly what has to be done. "Could you make us laugh?"

"WorldWide Handsome, at your service, you know?" I giggle. I knew this could lift my mood.

For the rest of the brake, I just watch Jin head over to each crew member, asking them if they know BTS. Kook is back to being the carefree boy he usually is, Tae and Hobi are having a dance battle with Yoongi as a judge.

From the side of my eye I can Jimin and Namjoon near the toilet, but don't pay too much attention to them. I focus on the others.

"All right people, let's get back into it!" Everyone takes their places, and we can already feel the mood has lifted up. Jin keeps telling jokes the whole time we shoot, making everyone relax as time goes by.

We take all the pictures we need before lunch. The company has ordered a bunch of food for us, and while we're waiting for it to arrive, I have a look at this mornings' shots. They are very good. I can see each of their personalities in them, but also their complicity. I stare at one particular pictures of them, and I think it will be the main visual for the campaign. I guess Jin had just made a joke, making Jungkook and himself laugh. The others all have a little smile on their faces. They look really cute.

"Hey, they're good looking men." Jin is looking over my shoulder. He points at himself. "Especially this guy."

"He's Jin from BTS, do you know them?" I smile at the sound of his laugh "He's known as WorldWide Handsome."

"I can see why." He answers.

The food finally arrives, and we all dig in. Well, almost all of us. I see Jimin roaming near the buffet, trying to decide what to go for. He ends up putting his plate back down and grabbing a apple and a bottle of water.

We finish eating and start cleaning up behind ourselves. I notice the apple on the table, half-eaten, and no Jimin. This is fucked up. He looks great, why does he do that to himself? I shouldn't say that, I know why he does that. Part of the reason I became an addict in the first place was because I thought I was fat. Nope, not going to think about that. I quickly clear my mind and focus on the filming part we have to do this afternoon.

The boys get changed while we arrange the set for the filming. I gather everyone around, staff and band, to give my directions.

"Okay everyone, we don't have much time to do this, and we will most likely have to do only one take per person. I'm gonna need everyone to put out their best work in order to make everyone else's lives easier. Do we all know what we have to do? Okay perfect, we can do this guys!"

Everyone rushes to their place, while I fill the boys in on what I'm going to need from them. They take place in front of the camera.

"Are we all ready? Aaand Action!"

We film all afternoon. Everything goes smoothly and I feel very relieved knowing we'll be done today. The only thing left will be the editing, and we'll be spending all weekend on that.

"We have everything we need guys! Thanks so much everyone, it's wrap!" I start clapping at my team, and everyone tags along.

I then head to the band.

"Thank you, you were brilliant today." Well almost. Thanks Namjoon. "I'll keep you updated during the weekend on how the editing is going. You can go now, thanks again."

As they head back to the dressing room, I start helping my team pack everything up. We have to empty the whole place since we won't be needing it anymore. I notice Namjoon and Jimin leave, but to my surprise, the others are helping out.

"Hey, no you don't have to do that."

"We said we wanted to make your life easier. This helps you all leave sooner." Jin says, as he picks up a cable.

"Yeah, and you and I have plans, so I'm staying until you're done. Might as well help out." Hobi tells me.

"Thank you guys, I really appreciate it."

We all get back to cleaning up, and we're done in about 30 minutes.

The crew leaves one by one with their respective equipment, but I have to stay until everyone is gone.

Jin comes up to me. "I have to go, but call me tonight?" He's holding my face in his hands. I nod and smile back at him, he answers with a kiss on my forehead. Yoongi leaves with him, and simply waves goodbye at me from afar.

Tae and Kook both give me a hug goodbye not long after Jin left. "Dinner at mine on Monday? To celebrate the launch." Tae asks.

"Absolutely!" I tell him.

Everyone is gone now, expect for Hobi who is just sitting on the floor. "Are we good to go?"

I check one last time if everything is in order, grab my stuff, and head out the door. I lock it behind me and turn to him, a smile on my face. "Let's go."

[laisai]

I can see one big problem for some people, esp families, to migrate from Apple -- their photos. Google photos is fine but I have no idea how it compares to Apple and how they transfer. Personal data like that are probably one of the biggest reasons people hold back.

Also Apple's line about how everything "just works" is BS because once something breaks you cannot fix it. And these days Windows and Android are perfectly accessible for less tech-focused people.

And just to make it clear why Apple's insistence on being the only one to repair their products is not consumer-friendly, my last three laptops all either needed an upgrade or some hardware fix at some point, because I wear out computers faster than most people.

All I had to do was unscrew the back and I had access to everything. One laptop was just missing screws; I got some from a local computer repair guy and he even tried to give it to me free lol.

Another one, I took out the RAM from my old laptop and stuck it in the new one because it was the same brand and speed etc. (don't do this if you don't know computers tho; at least check on youtube or read up a little. but general advice is buy ram in pairs and put both in together bc they need to match.)

RAM is literally one of the easiest things to upgrade or replace. My dad showed me how when I was eight. I did it and it was fine. And boom, my computer doubled in RAM without paying for extra. I was able to reuse parts from my old laptop and now my new laptop could run much faster and have more programs open at the same time. (RAM can sometimes extend a computer's life for a few years if your computer is slowing down.)

I took out the hard drives from my last two laptops and stuck them in a case with a usb cable. It cost like 13$ and the instructions were literally just, unscrew and snap in. Now I have one external hard drive with all my old files (and one new hard drive I stuck in my new laptop; I have triple the space without paying hundreds extra)

Also, my new laptop unfortunately has no cd/dvd drive. New laptops are mostly removing them, which is sad bc I have all the LOTR extended editions on DVD. So I took my old computer, unscrewed the cd drive, got a cable off amazon and boom, new usb cd drive for like 5$. And it's not going into a landfill. I'll probably need to get a box to house the cd drive at some point, since it does vibrate a bit, but for now, using it sparingly, it's perfectly serviceable.

Apple's way of doing things is not only anti-consumer by hiding all the computery bits from you, to make you think certain aspects of computer hardware are more mysterious and difficult to understand than it is, it is also anti-ENVIRONMENT.

You can't easily salvage Apple parts from old Apple devices. You can't reuse or recycle them because they can't be easily taken apart. It's ridiculous and they want to keep you, their consumer, unaware of how much power and ability you really do have in relation to your tech.

A lot of reluctance I see from older adults and my AFAB friends is because of people trying to make this shit confusing so they can keep their jobs (and also ageism and sexism). And for actually thorny issues it is better to pay a professional. But so many simple things can be done by yourself -- by a child who's got decent fine motor control even.

Don't buy Apple. They want you to think you're dumb and they also don't care that they're contributing to tech waste.

I am sorry. I’m bashing Apple here. And for good reason.

This is a plea to my followers.

Stop buying Apple products. I know you’ve used them for most of your life, and I know it’s inconvenient to move to a new brand because in most cases, you cannot take your contacts with you on various chat apps.

I know this is inconvenient. I truly do.

But Apple is not the company it was before. There is now no difference between an Apple computer and a Windows computer in terms of graphic design. I know this for a fact. I had to use both in college 20 years ago, and non-apple computers are now generally better for design work than Apple computers.

Most non-apple companies encourage self-repair of your own devices, while Apple refuses it. I also know this for a fact, as I watched Apple computers become slowly less reparable through the late 90s and early 2000s. Where I was once able to do the repairs on our office computers, we had to start sending out our Apple devices because they started gluing things down on their logic boards. Notably the glue they used was not heat-resistant and led to device damage should the heat sink system fail. But they did this because they wanted to dig more money out of their customers.

Apple software is also designed to fail. I cannot believe people are still buying new devices after the scandal where Apple was slowing their phones in order to force people to purchase new versions.

Apple hardware is designed to become obsolete. Motherboards and logic boards are designed to hold exactly what comes attached to them and will fail if upgrade attempts are made.

Apple refuses to work with software developers despite promises of cross-compatibility. One of the very first coding problems I discovered was to discover a gigantic hole in a software program that made a plotter (giant printer) compatible with iOS. This caused a memory leak, leading to necessary resets of the computer after every 2 feet of printing.

I know that it’s not possible for most of you to just throw your devices away and buy a new one. I wouldn’t be able to do that, either. But eventually there will come a time when you have to upgrade, and I encourage you to take the plunge and purchase a non-apple device. I don’t even have a recommendation for you because literally anything is better than Apple. A rock that you write on is better than an Apple phone.

Unfortunately I expect to be shadow-banned on Apple devices because of this, and I’ll try to report on decreased activity as much as I can.

It’s time to stop trying to beg Apple to change. They won’t. It’s time now to just stop supporting Apple.

[thedeadflag]

Hey, pretty soon I'll be playing a friend of mine is gonna be DMing Tyranny Of Dragons for me and a couple of friends, and I can't decide whether I should play a Monk (probably Open Hand, maybe Kensei) or a Ranger (either Beastmaster or Horizon Walker), 'cause I've never played either of those classes, nor has anyone at the tables I've played. Can you tell me a little about your experiences with these classes?

The Ranger has been one of my favourite classes throughout the editions of D&D in terms of flavour, and I’ve had some fun with monks as well. In 5th edition, both took a fair bit of a hit in utility (individual and within group dynamics) and power at pretty much all ranges. The Ranger was propped back up a little bit in Unearthed Arcana in the revised ranger archetype, but both are still largely considered at best middle of the road classes, and at worst, the lowest tier of classes in the game in utility and character. 

That’s not to say they can’t be fun and have a lot of flavour, and still find use. If you’ve watched Critical Role, you can see Vex and Beau weren’t useless by any stretch. No class is junk in 5e due to the improved parity compared to some past editions. So power and utility aside, if you feel drawn to any class/subclass, and you want to dive into its particular brand of flavour, then I say go for it. I would gauge the rest of the party’s makeup in making your decision, because group synergy is important, but you have to make yourself happy, too, right?

Anywho, I’ll break down my take on both.

When it comes to Monks, I like Open Hand the best. If you want to have a Monk-style gameplay with weapons, then Mystic or Fighter are probably better options with some more flair and utility involved than Kensei imo, but if that’s the route you want to take, it’d be alright. However, Open Hand has quivering palm, which is pretty incredible late game as far as damage and flexible timing from a single person through 3 ki pts and an action. If you do ever reach level 17, I would recommend multiclassing after that if you’re allowed, since the rest of the Monk’s class progression is kind of junk in comparison, and it could use some much needed utility from 3 levels of another class. Anywho, I like open hand not just for the flavor of being a class that’s capable of being an unarmed beast in battle, but also because of the way it can work in alignment with fighters who can also control the battlefield, like any fighter with a sentinel/polearm master. The ability to shove an enemy up to 15ft with one of your flurry attacks, launching them into the range of a fighter who gets a free opp attack against them and can from then on lock down their movement with a successful hit? That can be an excellent tag team. The Monk isn’t excellent for utility, but the Open Hand technique is probably the best at providing utility in combat among all the monk disciplines. Like, another option after hitting with flurry of blows is to steal all reactions for the opponent until the end of your next turn. This can be especially helpful against casters, as stealing reactions = preventing counterspells. And Monks can get a lot of attacks = lots of attempts to disrupt concentration of enemy casters, so the open hand monk is especially helpful at being a designated mage wrecker with having the mobility to reach casters and the ability to destabilize them. It’s arguably the one thing (aside from unarmed damage) that (this one kind of) monks do better than just about anyone else, arguably.

Now, to Rangers.

Honestly, I don’t like beast-focused Rangers. I think they’re a lot of work in order to get the mechanical payoff most other classes can achieve without a lot of thought or effort. Generally, any class that can let me focus more on flavour and RP is one I’m going to prefer, and beast master’s just…unwieldy. A lot of people say the class is junk, and if you run it without getting into the headspace for optimizing, it’s probably going to be more of a frustrating experience than you’d have hoped for. With BMs, you’re managing not just your character, but your companion, and you have to keep up with the different mechanics of both, you need to be 100% on top of choices made while leveling up, you need to have a strong understanding of battlefield control and your companion’s capabilities from the get go, and you really ought to be the kind of player who is happy to take a backseat to everyone else in and out of combat because the way you’ll shine is by helping everyone else do what they do with a little bit higher odds of success than otherwise. Personally, I like playing that sort of character, but I can do all of that with other classes a lot easier, and usually better, so this isn’t the kind of archetype I’d choose for a character myself. If you really want to, and think it’s cool, go for it, though.

The first thing I’d do is ask if you can use the UA revised ranger instead of the PHB ranger if you’re going the beast route (it’s “beast conclave” archetype in UA). If your DM allows that and insists you choose your companion from the list provided here, take the wolf (pack tactics is v helpful, same with 40ft speed and being able to send enemies prone after attacking) or ape (climb 30ft, melee/ranged ability, good stat baselines). 

The second thing you’ll need is to lock down a quality companion, and that can take a bit of wheeling and dealing with your DM to let you use one of the supplementary books as a source, which is especially necessary if you’re not able to use the revised ranger class from UA. You do not want a hawk, mastiff, or panther, the PHB offers some shit examples out of the gate (panther and hawk are only conditionally good if you’re only ever going to have your companion rushing around the map using the ‘help’ action, or scouting to some extent, and the latter becomes less useful and reliable the higher level you become). Don’t choose a CR 0 companion, or one under ¼. If you absolutely must use a hawk for character flavor, then a blood hawk that at least has pack tactics would be a must. But if you are hoping for a companion that can do damage, look for something with certain damage if it hits, like added poison damage. Look for good AC if you want a tank. Look for versatility in mobility and senses. Look for special abilities (the boar having a relentless ability where it’ll go back to 1HP if it falls below 0; the wolf spider has web walk and web sense which can really help with casters using web if players don’t want to wade into the difficult terrain or are having difficulty finding enemies caught in the web; etc.)

But yeah, beast-focused rangers  will be best when they’re spamming the help action with their beasts, using their beasts to get enemies out of cover, using their beasts to help control the field and give others advantage/take advantage, etc. You need to be quick mentally to know what you want to do with your character and your companion each time your turn comes around (most DMs, myself included, aren’t going to let you have as much time as you need to figure out what you want to do on both fronts, so if you can’t juggle two characters at once without losing a step, it might not be the archetype for you). This type of ranger requires you to know exactly what you want to be able to accomplish for yourself and your party right out of the gate, so you’ll want to gauge what your party members will be specializing in, what they want to be able to do, and see if there’s a way to shape your ranger to aid in that, particularly in choosing a beast that can be the most effective in ensuring that. Group cohesion is the name of the game with this form of ranger, so you’ll want to consider race selection a part of this process, too. I’ve had one player bomb hard as a BM and re-roll a different ranger, and I’ve had a friend who ran one who was the group’s unsung hero a lot of the time during their campaign. If you’re looking at Vex from CR as inspiration, keep in mind she had an excellent set of stats from lvl 9 onwards, and plenty of magical weapons to make up for much of any class shortcomings as characters scale up…look at how often Trinket was useful (very rarely) and understand that the bear was essentially just flavour for most of the campaign, and Vex would have been considerable underpowered compared to the rest of the party if not for some considerable DM intervention in ways that make things a lot trickier for DMs (adding magical weapons/items can easily unbalance a campaign, and it’s a matter of experience in knowing how to dole them out without throwing balance aside…Matt Mercer’s comfortable handing out flying carpets and multiple +2AC items  and superpowered magical weapons by level 9, I wouldn’t give them out before level 14 or 15 and it would really only be if a player was severely struggling and refused to re-roll a more appropriate character while dying or nearly dying most combats). Other classes and archetypes have features and abilities that scale as you level, some earn specific spells as they level up that others can’t get, etc., but with beast conclave rangers, it’s their beast that slightly improves in a few meaningful ways. So if you’re going that route, you need to commit to a great beasts that’s a great fit for you and your party, and you need to commit to making the absolute most out of them and knowing how to make the most out of them.

Horizon Walker’s a simpler archetype that has some badass spells, but the flavour for the class can be a bit…strange in some adventures. It might not fit well with Tyranny of Dragons, I’m not sure how much planar travel’s involved in that adventure. Which might not be a problem for the DM, or you. I still prefer the UA ranger conclaves, but out of the PHB ones, this one’s probably the best of the bunch, even if it’s mostly going to lean towards being a melee build (which, again, check your party comp to see if that’s something that is workable). 

Anywho, those are my late night D&D ramblings. You can take my words with a grain of salt if you’d like, and as always the rule of cool applies…if you think it’s cool and you really want to go with something, go for it and I hope the DM will find a way to help you make it work, but yeah, these classes can be a bit of an uphill battle, though I suppose potentially a rewarding challenge if that’s what you’re looking for.

Best of luck with the campaign, I’m sure you’ll have fun!