#playing methuselahs

[spirk-trek]

S3E19: Requiem for Methuselah ⋆.˚ ✧ · ˚⊹ ·

[kaliido-s]

Oh hey I remember those guys

[per1w1nkl3]

I've definitely said this before but the fact that spocks likes music is so dear to me

[nightingaletrash]

me: *writing vtm fanfic* Beckett:

[sisterdivinium]

@ghostofcatscradle I hope you know I have spent these past few days holding myself back from reaching for my Guide to the Camarilla but at the same time I can't stop listening to Twin Tribes and Haunt Me so I think I won't be able to resist. A WN x VtM prompt... This is your fault!!!!

[cata613]

Guys shut up and look at the shirt my BF got me from Nice Shirt Thanks.

[etherealspacejelly]

i know jack SHIT

about star trek

but what do you like about spirk and why

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE GONNA MAKE ME EXPLODE /POS

oh god where to start

its the fact that they are so perfect for each other for one thing. jim says in final frontier that he "always knew he would die alone." but edith keeler said in city on the edge of forever that spock belonged "at [jim's] side, as though you've always been there and always will". and its fucking TRUE. spock is Always at jims side, and hes like a lost puppy without him. he sees his lifes purpose as serving as jims second in command. he doesnt want command of his own. he "has a responsibility to [...] that man on the bridge". he is devoted to jim. loyal to a fault.

and jim Needs that. he needs that stability. people in his life come and go. he has so much responsibility as captain, 400 lives depending on his every decision. he needs his unflappable second in command to keep him steady, keep him focused.

spock sees jim as the most important thing in the universe. he throws himself in harms way time and time again to save him. he jumps in front of the poisonous flower in the apple, he launches himself into v'ger in the motion picture, in (im pretty sure) requiem for methuselah he insists on going into a dangerous room first.

BUT jim also sees spock as the most important thing in the universe. SOURCE: THE ENTIRE MOVIE THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK. he is literally willing to sacrifice his life, his career, his crew, and his ship to save spock. "the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many" HE NEEDED SPOCK. HE NEEDED HIM BACK SO BAD HE BLEW UP THE FUCKING ENTERPRISE TO DO IT.

but its more than that. its the casual little intimacies of their relationship. its the way they reach out to touch one another when they're scared or worried or happy. its the prolonged eyecontact, the longing stares, the lighthearted teasing. its playing chess in the rec room, and despite spock being a creature of pure logic, jim winning 50% of their games.

its all of this:

THEY MAKE ME INSANE RAAHHHHH

[fishcat076]

A commission I had done of my Nos, The Owl! She's an incredibly wealthy information broker and black market dealer, and I'm currently playing in a Chronicle where a Laibon Methuselah teleported my coterie forward in time so we could escape from the Second Inquisition!

Made by the Wonderful aureolinflax on Discord!

[blackberrysummerblog]

Hi everyone! It’s been a busy few weeks and has only been getting moreso lately, but I so appreciate everyone who’s been continuing to tag me! And thanks to @orange-peony and @monbons for the tags this morning!

I finally finished writing Chapter 3 of Time Will Lie Down and Be Still, my COBB with the brilliant and amazing @rimeswithpurple. Her art for this latest chapter was really incredible, so I hope you check it out and let her know how gorgeous it is!

I began working on chapter 4 this week, so here’s a little excerpt of a Simon POV from that:

Merlin and Morgan and Methuselah, this would be my luck. I lower my binoculars as Jeremy, perched atop my head, crows, “It’s time we went our separate ways!”

“Come on,” I groan, waving a hand in the hopes of loosening his claws’ iron grip on my curls. He clenches in and scratches my crown.

This is just my miserable luck—the one night I decide Penny is right and that I need to let the investigation breathe, Braden Bodmer has vacated The Rosewood and evidently taken Dev Grimm with him. Fuck. The question now is, where have they gone? And magic help me if it’s the Welsh countryside.

“Jeremy,” I groan, offering him a dry cricket from a little bag I bought at Sainsbury’s. Barbecue flavoured. He loves them. “I beg of you. Can you at least get off my head while I go inside to talk to the check-out desk? This doesn’t look professional, mate.”

“We’re too alike!” Jeremy massages my scalp with his little bird feet, making a strange tingle play up the back of my neck. I reach to pick him up and he beats me around the head with his wings, but finally hops down onto my shoulder.

Have a great week everyone! No pressure tagging: @beastmonstertitan, @papierhaikuphoto, @nightimedreamersworld, @aristocratic-otter, @valeffelees, @c0nsumemy5oul, @alexalexinii, @prettygoododds, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @nausikaaa, @thewholelemon, @supercutedinosaurs, @youarenevertooold, @cows4247, @larkral, @confused-bi-queer, @asocialpessimist, @aceumbrellaheroes, @cutestkilla, @artsyunderstudy ,@hushed-chorus, @shrekgogurt, @stitchy-queerista, @ic3-que3n, @raenestee, @letraspal, @bookish-bogwitch, @forabeatofadrum, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @thehoneyedhufflepuff, @bazzybelle, @theotherhufflepuff, @iamamythologicalcreature, @ionlydrinkhotwater, @fatalfangirl, @facewithoutheart, @palimpsessed, @stardustasincocaine, @whogaveyoupermission, @onepintobean, @wellbelesbian, @j-nipper-95, @ileadacharmedlife, @imagineacoolusername, @sailorblossoms, @arthurkko

[the-elder-polls]

I'm considering getting borrowing BUT I'm. I'm really bad at finding my way around in games and I've heard it doesn't have quest markers?

I get lost very easily even in games with maps etc and appreciate when there's instructions.

Do you think morrowind would be just too, idk, frustrating? I want to know The Lore(tm) and am a big dunmer fan but if the game will just give me a headache then maybe I'll settle for reading the lore

i'm gonna assume that autocorrect didn't like "morrowind" lol

personally, i also get lost very easily in games (and irl to be honest) but i was able to navigate morrowind without much issue. it does give you directions, just not quest markers. you gotta read and listen to what npcs tell you. the game will also usually tell you in your journal something along the lines of "go til you see [xyz], then turn right and go straight til you see [zyx]". that's how it navigates you about and it generally worked well for me. (also, online guides can help you if you get really lost. the game is older than methuselah, there's SO many guides available.)

the dialogue is so fun to explore, the characters are really fun, and the lore is absolutely delicious. the game is butt ugly by modern standards (you can mod it, if that's your style -- personally the butt ugly graphics really grew on me and quit bothering me surprisingly fast), combat is hilariously awkward and weird and honestly bad, and cliff racers exist. (you will understand my hatred of cliff racers if you play. yes, they are a negative point all on their own.)

also worth noting, you better really like to read. 99% of this game is reading. i love this part, i find it very fun, but i know it's not everyone's style.

i will always recommend morrowind, though always with the disclaimer that if you try it out and learn it just isn't for you, that's okay! the lore is cataloged online for that exact reason. :] no pressure either way.

[gorbalsvampire]

Gehenna War

It's pretty neat, yo.

Like Blood-Stained Love, it transforms the core "personal and political" horror of Vampire into another subgenre. Unlike Blood-Stained Love, it has a lot of concrete advice for Storytellers on structuring scenes, assembling pools, building characters to interact with, and making that subgenre work at the table.

An effort has been made, here. There's a little chart in the introduction claiming that Chapters 2 and 3, and the Appendices, will be of use to any action chronicle, be it more high concept or street level, and having read the durn things I think that claim's borne out. I'm gonna talk about those sections first, and later loop back around to the specifically Gehenna War stuff.

Chapter 2 has neat archetypes for characters in various armed conflict roles - generals, spies, intelligencers, recruits, veterans - with recommendations for priority stats rather than statblocks, so these can be flipped for player or Storyteller use. Suggestions for bonus XP amounts if you want more powerful starting characters, and focused specialisations that advise you to focus particular areas of your character sheet - almost like soft classes, or playbooks. A handful of new Merits and Flaws (one of which is getting slammed onto Penny), and a mixed bag of Discipline powers. Bloodform is back? Woo! There are "reroll Rouse checks for raising this one Attribute or using this one Discipline" openers for the Physical Disciplines? Swing and a miss, more filler. There's two incredible new high-end Blood Sorcery rituals (I shall be using both of them very soon), and some funky Thin-Blood Alchemy if you want your Duskborn to join a Methuselah cult.

Then: advice on running Basic Combat, and explicit guidance on the modularity of the Advanced Combat rules, and a few new ones. This is brilliant stuff for new Storytellers, reflective of the demand for the Combat Primer, and it's given me some ideas I didn't have before, and ALSO. VINDICATION. OBSERVE.

One of the things that waters down play over time is if the characters need to build the same dice pool every time for the same task. To avoid this, Storytellers should vary the traits involved according to the situation, to keep things interesting and to curb players trying to optimize their pools.

Leaving aside that awful syntax at the start - "Play becomes predictable if the characters need to build the same dice pool every time they attempt a task" - activate your voice, and dismiss "is" clauses, you cowards! - anyway, leaving that aside, this is how I've been doing things all along and I love that a book explicitly says "do it and don't get hung up on the exact RAW every time."

Car chase mechanics, cute new gear (I like the Scourge Blades, nasty-ass duelling swords that delay vampiric healing). Then it's on to story advice!

Chapter Three does something I wish Blood-Stained Love had done for romance: getting into the structure of action stories, how action interacts with other genre qualifiers (crime, horror, survival, thriller etc.), the escalating role of villains - like, actual formalist thinking about how stories work. We then get some mechanical advice on how to shift the mode of play, how to approach things like Hunger and Frenzy to make them more or less of a factor. It's short, but it's fuckin' GOOD.

Appendix I is all about dice. When you should and shouldn't roll, as opposed to taking half. Grouping those moments into broad types by what they do to the emergent story. How to add variation with tracker rolls or unusual dice pools. How to manage failures on tests and what to offer players to keep the story moving. And, most important of all, how to deal with the Beast, going through each Skill and showing how the Beast impacts a Messy Critical (still a success, remember!) or a Bestial Failure.

You need this Appendix. The corebook needed this appendix. Maybe it took six years of best practice and sharing ideas to get these ideas fully understood. Maybe if there'd been one dev team since the start we might have had this sooner. At least we have it now.

I'll talk about the Gehenna War itself in a follow-up post. That's Chapters One, Four, Five and Six, and Appendix II.

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played SPIRIT OFTHE CENTURY ?

By Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, and Leonard Balsera

The deadly Doctor Methuselah seeks to unravel time itself with his solution to the Eternity Equation… Gorilla Khan stalks darkest Africa from conquered Atlantis… Mad scientists, strange sorcerors, and power-hungry dictators all seek to undo the fate of humanity. It's the final century of the second millennium-and you are our last hope! Spirit of the Century is a complete, stand-alone pulp role-playing game based on the award-winning Fate system (Indie RPG Awards include: Best Free Game of 2003, Best Support, and Andy's Choice). Spirit features a heavily revised, revisited, and reimagined vision of Fate. Character creation can be done as quickly as a few minutes, or expand to take up an evening; adventure design is a snap with three methods for creating relevant, flavorful, player-focused stories at a moment's notice. Spirit's mission is to deliver an evening of fun, a "pick-up" game that requires little preparation, but provides hours of entertainment. All you will need to play are some friends, some dice, and this book. 2006 Indie RPG Award for Independent Game of the Year 2007 Silver ENnie Award for Best Rules

[t0ast-ghost]

S3 EP19 (Requiem For Methuselah) let me guess. Kirk is romancing.

Forthwards:

- beaming down together <3

- uh oh a time limit!

- Spock grabs McCoy’s arm to get him out of the way of the fire

- very drawable right here

- Kirk is not fucking around today

- wow. Just wow.

- A SHAKESPEARE FIRST FOLIO?!? This guy is fucking rich holy shit

- She’s just like me when I watch Star Trek

- I like that she wants to talk to Spock about science :))

- “What is loneliness?” “It is a thirst. It is a flower dying in a desert.” Wow

- “Thank you, Doctor. I will have a brandy.” “Do you think the two of us can handle a drunk Vulcan? Once alcohol hits that green blood—” They’re adorable

- fuck off fuck off fuck off (edit: this is probably about them immediately flirting with Rayna)

- Bottles of colourful liquid. You think one of them is ketchup?

- Does Kirk know how to play pool? Is she showing him for no reason? He seems to know what he’s doing…

- I love that Spock likes playing musical instruments

- His boyfriend is dancing with a woman RIGHT THERE. I wonder what a rewrite of this would be like with canonical queer Kirk in a relationship with Spock and McCoy and why he would choose to dance with her. Cause I think he should be able to just enjoy doing stuff like dancing and holding hands without it being romantic. AND THEN MCCOY WALKS INTO THAT OMG THE DRAMA

- Damn Kirk isn’t interested in Spock’s info dump about Brahms. Tragic.

- and they’re kissing

- The way Kirk just pushed her out of the way-

- YEAH SAVE YOUR BOYFRIEND SPOCK!!!

- Flint kinda wishes that the bot killed Kirk

- Yeah it sucks to be home schooled

- This is becoming like Twilight but without the baseball and vampires

- This is a horrible power imbalance between Flint and Rayna

- And they’re kissing (Nichelle nichols futurama clip where she says "I had to kiss Shatner) (edit: here's the clip at 1:26)

- WHY IS HE SHAKING HER LIKE THAT BRO WHAT THE FUCK

- Kirk’s ass damn why is Flint hiding the Ryetalyn

- “(Spock): Captain, I shall get the Ryetalyn.” “(Kirk): Why you?” “(Spock): There may be dangers within.” “(Kirk): Let’s find out.” “(Spock): Let me go alone captain.” “(McCoy): Why? Get to the point, Spock. If there is one.” “(Kirk): We’ll all go.” Kirk and McCoy ARE NOT about to let they’re boyfriend go into a dangerous area alone

- OMG SHES BALD! (She’s bald and she’s torturing people who have hair)

- “Her only flaw, she is not human.” THATS HER FLAW??? First off Spock is RIGHT THERE. Second I'd say the flaw is that she's being controlled by a awful man

- Wait what? this guy is DA VINCI?!? And still no bitches...

- “She is my handiwork, my property.” EW DISGUSTING KILL HIM

- HE JUST BLOOPED THE ENTERPRISE OUT OF EXISTENCE

- I’m giggling

- “Give me back my ship. Your secret is safe with us.” YOU’RE JUST GONNA LEAVE HER?

- “Because you knew I could bring her emotions alive.” Bleh

- Kirk gets absolutely beat the fuck up

- “No. Do not order me. No one can order me.” YES GET IT! YES

- “She’s human. Down to the last blood cell she’s human. Down to the last thought, hope, aspiration, emotion. She’s human. Her human spirit is free. You have no power of ownership! She’s free to do as she wishes.” Kirk’s so happy for her!

- “No man beats me.” “I don’t want to beat you. This is no test of power. Rayna belongs to herself, and she claims the human right of choice. To be, as she wills. To do as she wills. To think as she wills.”

- Okay but she shouldn’t have to choose between two men. There’s so many more out there in the galaxy

- OH NO DHES SEAD

- “What happened?” “She loved you, captain.” Spock just admitted Kirk’s drop dead gorgeous

- This is giving boyfriend vs. father vibes which I hate. I hate that this is how women are treated. As burdens to be thrown from one man to the next. This is reminding me of A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen it's a pretty short play and the ending is phenomenal for the time

- Kirk is lonely :(

- “If only I could forget.” Spock spends several seconds staring at Kirk and contemplating until McCoy comes in

“Oh thank heavens, sleeping at last.” McCoy just wants Kirk to get a good nights rest

- yeah

- “You see, I feel sorrier for you I do for him…because you’ll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries. The broken rules, the desperate chances. The glorious failures, and the glorious victories. All of these things you’ll never know, simply because the word ‘love’ isn’t written into your book. Good night, Spock.” “Good night, Doctor.” WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT AND WHY HAVENT I SEEN AN EDIT TO THAT. Also now I REALLY wanna write a mcspirk fanfic based solely on THAT

- “I do wish he could forget her.” BOTH McCoy and Kirk wished for this and so Spock does something crazy for his loves omg omg I’m gonna throw up wtf

- there’s literally romantic music playing in the background as Spock leans down to mind meld and says “forget”

Well

Masterpost

Episode written by Jerome Bixby

[warpfactor9]

forever thinking about the scenes of spock playing piano in Requiem for Methuselah

[ryttu3k]

Hello mutual of my mutual,

I would like to ask a vykos question to the knower of vast vykosian knowledge (ie you if Dusty's reblogs are correct).

Basically, I've been starting the clan novel saga from the beginning (previously i had only read the nosferatu, malkavian, and tzmisce ones) and I never quite figured out who had been writing "love" letters to sascha.

My first thought was illias cel frumos. As they were lovers. But I heard someone say it was vitel? Which makes no sense to me and don't know if they were correct either.

So out of curiosity, who is sending these letters to Sascha in the clan novel saga? If its not their lover, then why is someone else doing it? I sadly am not that knowledgeable on vykos.

Hello, mutual-in-law! SPOILERS for the Clan Novel Saga ahead!

It is indeed Vitel! He's playing all sides - posing as a loyal Camarilla Ventrue as 'Marcus Vitel', actually being a Lasombra methuselah with his own agenda of ruling absolutely, slipping information to Sascha as 'Lucius' (his real name is Lucius Aelius Sejanus) in the hope that the Sabbat will help fuck up the Camarilla for him (while also trying to manipulate the entire Sabbat in the process).

He is... quite good at what he does. By the time Sascha and Parmenides try to assassinate Vitel, not even they realise that he and the 'Lucius' they've been getting information from is one and the same, meaning 'Lucius' is obliged to keep up the impression of a loyal and passionate admirer and information-provider even as Sascha takes over his city as Archbishop of DC, while secretly trying to manipulate them into doing what he wants.

Some of the later letters are quite funny. Like they're still written romantically but they're also super thinly veiled threats. Sascha's last letter, after they learn who 'Lucius' is:

"I find your city in good order and commend you for having left it so. There is no step I tread, no sight I behold, that does not usher thought of you to my mind. Fear not that you will lack reward for your sojourn among the infidels. No good deed goes unpunished, or so the wits are wont to say. For now, however, I languish in your absence, wishing only that I might lay hands upon you."

Translation: "Hahahahaha I'm gonna turn you into a throw rug :)"

Anyway, eventually he gets revealed to the Camarilla, and gets taken down by Theo Bell and his companions (including Christof from VtM Redemption). He re-emerges in BJD a few years later, determined to take back DC and declare war against Vykos' Sabbat!

(Sascha, for their part, has gone "you know what, fuck this" and has abandoned DC. It's quite funny. Vitel gives Beckett nigh-unlimited funding to go in search of information, including multiple private planes, which means that he's more or less directly responsible for Beckett saving Sascha's unlife then making out with them in the men's bathroom of a huge gay club in Rio, but anyway...)

Anyway! If you're not too far in, I super recommend that instead of reading the original novels, you read the compiled versions instead! They're called The Fall of Atlanta, The Eye of Gehenna, Bloody September, and End Games. Not only do they compile everything chronologically, but, and more importantly, they include a lot of extra content from short stories, other novels (like the Lasombra Trilogy, which is super important for Lucita's storyline), and, my favourite part, content written exclusively for the compiled versions! Highlights include a gorgeous Sascha-centric story in Bloody September by Lucien Soulban, writer of Constantinople by Night and thus Sascha's creator, and the exclusive epilogue in End Games by Janet Trautvetter, which beautifully concludes Jan's story, reveals a great deal about Hardestadt, and also has Sascha in it too. That epilogue deals with Gehenna and so has technically been retconned, but the reveal about Jan has been continued through to BJD, and so is still canon!

However you read it, have fun! It's a bonkers adventure!

[anewstartrekfan]

Explaining/rationalizing Bones’ speech in Requiem of Methuselah

A lot of people call what Bones said about Spock never knowing love because it isn’t in his book, uncalled for and straight up inaccurate to the show. And to that I say it’s intentional. Bones in that scene is pissed at Spock for being insensitive when Rayna died and wanted Spock to help Kirk cope.

My evidence is two fold.

1. There’s a scene earlier in the episode where Bones uses reverse psychology to get Spock to drink some brandy with him and Kirk.

The scene itself is innocuous on its own. Just banter between the triumvirate. But when you compare it to the big scene stealer, it shows McCoy’s abilities and intentions. It also shows how much Bones has gotten to know Spock over the show. Whereas in conscience of the king Bones would just straight forwardly ask Spock if he wanted a drink and Spock would shoot him down, here in Requiem, Bones has to almost goad Spock into partaking in this human vice. And at the end of the episode he does the same thing when he says Spock will never know the lengths men will go when they love someone.

It’s just with the Brandy scene Bones is playful. Whereas when Bones says Spock will never know what love is, he’s laying it on thick so Spock will do the opposite. To get it into that thick Vulcan skull that yes he does love Jim enough to help here. As evidenced by the love theme from empath literally playing in the background as Spock erases Kirk’s memories.

2. When Rayna dies Spock is cold AF

Listen, I understand that Spock is Vulcan, and literal, and logical. But no amount of that is ever gonna excuse the first 6 seconds of this exchange.

Kirk whispers: What happened?

Spock, normal volume: She loved you captain.

Like good lord look at Kirk’s face Spock just ripped his heart in half.

Especially when earlier in the episode Spock was trying to hide Rayna’s true nature because he’d hoped he was wrong. (He wanted to protect Jim’s feelings) Also before she dies, Spock tries to warn Jim not to overwhelm her with his love but Spock stops short of saying that explicitly. And the reason this matters is Spock sees himself in Rayna. He sees what will happen if he allows himself human emotions.

It kills her.

So Spock, explains plainly to a clearly emotionally devastated Kirk why she died to answer Kirk’s question and to justify to himself why he will never let himself have these emotions. And Bones, Mr. “Emotions are good even when they’re bad,” stands there in silence because in this instance, what Spock is saying is literally correct.

“The joys of love made her human, and the agonies of love, destroyed her.”

Notice how the first half of that statement doesn’t have a positive connotation at all. It’s just “made her human.” Meanwhile the second half is clearly negative.

Yeah Bones was not gonna let Spock get away with saying that in the long term.

"You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him because you'll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories. All of these things you'll never know simply because the word love isn't written into your book."

Is what Bones said fair? No. Could Bones have gone about it less harsh? Of course. But after what Spock said there was no freaking way Bones was gonna let him off the hook that easily.

In closing, Bones’ speech at the end makes sense when you take into account he’s shown to know how to manipulate Spock earlier in the episode and there was no way he was gonna let Spock get away with shit talking emotions to the degree that he did. Regardless of the accuracy Spock could have been kinder to Kirk and the old man. Instead, how Spock explained what happened left Kirk in such a state that he admits how lonely he is.

And he’s not even drunk.

Why Bones said what he said comes down to character motives not “was Bones right?”