#primer question

[duckiemimi]

so me and @ahresprite were talking and i brought up something like, "oh, i think there was one stsg cheating fic i read once," and she was like, "whaaat," and i was like, "wait nevermind, it was a cheating kink fic, i can't find it anymore," and she was like, "but imagine THE ANGST in a cheating fic," and i was like, "what about a football cheating fic," and sprite was like, "and make it EMOTIONAL cheating," and yeah, that's pretty much it. anyway, prayer circle to banish my writer's block, please and thank yew.

[puckpocketed]

So do you actually believe PLD is a good player or is that part of the bit?

The PLD Post

i spent a good 2 days giggling about this to friends. i cant tell if ur a curious caps fan, a person who knows me from my other teams, a disgruntled kings fan (i’ve mostly ruled this out because im pretty sure i know all of the active ones on here) or WHAT. but i’m laughing. the tone of this ask is hilarious and vaguely accusatory but i will take it in good faith and answer <3 tl;dr yes and no. he’s better than people think he is rn, but he’s likely never going to live up to the potential of his tools unless something . idk. recalibrates his entire being. who knows!

i was working on something longer and more complex but i thought about it for more than 5 seconds and i REFUSE to go hockey-bro mode and pull out the microstats and i don’t wanna make this into a full on PLD manifesto. so. caps girlies (gn) HERE are your adoption papers under the cut!

if you are looking at pierre luc dubois who is 6’4 + 220lb and thinking “Oh he’s a power forward” i have to inform you he is in fact THEEE smallest mouse to ever play hockey in the whole world and in all of history. he sips nectar out of a thimble and sleeps curled up in a match box and goes fishing in a boat made from nutshells and twigs . he’s big, but he sort of plays small.

this is not necessarily a bad thing — he relies on foot speed and skill over hitting.

he can throw hits but prefers to stick check. he leverages his big frame to guard the puck and to defend, and it makes him simultaneously VERY effective and very much what i like to call a Nexus Of Crime. he is either drawing ten thousand penalties because people have to do something to stop him from driving the net with speed OR he is taking ten thousand penalties because he gets eager in the corners.

PLUS he’s huge and refs do just assume he’s committing a crime when they can’t see what’s going on <3 hence, Nexus Of Crime! if there’s a penalty he’s probably involved LMAO

not a “dirty” player by any means. not physical unless he decides he wants to. and there is no violence inside of him unless he’s deeply horsebonded to his team <- IMPORTANT re; playoffs aspirations. you won’t see him put himself on the line simply for the love of the game, he HAS to be committed to the team.

to be committed to his team… i’m honestly not sure what that takes. i’d guess a combination of knowing his role on the ice and in the locker room (this was very unclear on lak) consistency of messaging from coaches (also seemed to be an issue on lak)

i know nothing about caps coaching or management or the team vibes but i’m sure you can fix him <3 i’m ready to fall in love and ride this team to the sunset

this failhorse will NOT shoot the puck and if he does it will be the saddest soggiest most pathetic shot you’ve ever seen. you will tear your hair out in chunks if you watch him expecting an elite goalscorer.

he’s a pass-first guy. likes to drop pass! likes to drive play from the middle but is also capable of getting pucks off the boards. he needs a finisher on his wing. i could pull up stats here, there are stats to be pulled up, but i know this in my HEART from watching dozens of kings games: he would have had 10-15 more points easily if he wasn’t stapled to the 3rd line and had better finishers. many times i watched him tee up a very good opportunity only for his guy to miss the net or fan or just get knocked off the puck

individually, he thrives in front of the net. his ass is fat and he’s about to use it to screen the goalie. hes good at catching loose pucks in the crease to send them home <3 see his performance at worlds. he scored basically all of his goals right up there!!

most media coverage/narratives will tell you his point production dropped off bc of effort (which is true) but even the MOST resentful kings watchers will say pld wasn’t given his best shot playing with inexperienced+fringe nhlers, being line shuffled the moment he got a bit comfortable, and also not getting ANY net front time on the lak pp. i factor this into all my judgements of his performance.

He’s def earned his diva rep LMAO!! this is personal opinion here but he seems like a sensitive and easily rattled little clam… like he will have a couple of bad shifts and if there’s nobody there to shake him out of it he’ll lose his grasp on the game and play like shit <3 a rolling joke on kingstwt was figuring out which PLD we were getting that game, and you could tell by his 5th if he was switched on or off!!

they hate him for this but EYE think this is nothing new for athletes and if he can consistently stay in the zone he’ll probably be pretty good. mental fortitude of a wet tissue my beloved….

moving onto the Vibes section!! he was always good humoured in media availability and didn’t shy away from scrums even when public opinion soured against him and critiques of both his hockey and his character had reached a fever pitch. i like this about him. he always gave authentic answers and tried his best to accomodate them, and never hid behind his captains.

he gets along quite well with teammates despite the narratives. no seriously!! some of the the kings had a hang out during off-season right before they went to worlds!! there’s bisexual lighting!!!!

there’s interviews from old jets teammates that are just like. “he used to turn up at my house with his dog and text IM HERE with no warning and that’s how we became friends” or “his obsession with euro soccer teams bewitched me”. he had control of the aux cord. he was a den mother and planned group gatherings. a genuine sweetheart to every teammate he’s ever had!!

I don’t think he’s some. idk. secret 100 point producing star 1C. but i truly believe with the right environment he’ll probably hit 60 points again.

thank you for your time if you made it this far and i hope to see you all in the trenches (caps lb) next season 👍

[rathayibacter]

been thinking about the parallels between ttrpgs and poetry lately, synthesizing some stuff i've been sitting on with both. i don't remember where i heard this from, but i really like the idea of defining poetry as writing that can't be edited down any more; if you made even one cut, one word replacement, you'd lose something. even the repetitions and redundancies are there to communicate something, because if they weren't they'd be removed. 

its not true, of course, but i don't think it has to be. as a lens to examine poetry i think it's fun, and as a goal when writing poetry it's helped me on more than one occasion. any claim to Fundamental Truth beyond that line doesn't matter much in my opinion. what i like about this isn't that it makes for poetry where you have to read a certain meaning out of every single line to "get it", its actually kinda the opposite! by assuming there's meaning baked into every detail, you can get meaning out of any detail you decide to focus on, and can narrow your focus as much or as little as you like. my favorite poetry is messy, colorful, and dense; you're not gonna get a single clean reading out of it because doing that requires ignoring all the fun little twists and turns, all the intersecting ideas that led it to this point.

and so that brings us to ttrpgs! role-playing games are a fascinating thing because they can really only get us halfway; even the most strict and detailed game has an innate fuzziness that comes from the peculiarities of how we play tabletop games. your mechanics are only airtight if everyone knows, understands, and remembers them, and those are three tall orders for any game, no matter how simple or intuitive it may present as. and that's not even a bad thing! interpretation isn't just "what percentage of the rules are the players getting wrong", its an adaptation of the rules as written to the game as played. even forgotten rules are part of this, cuz anything that's able to be forgotten (and again, that's potentially anything) probably was forgotten cuz it wasn't terribly relevant to the table forgetting it. 

so, as we write games and cast them into the world, fully aware that the thing that'll arrive at people's tables will never match what we had in our heads, what should we do? obviously some of this is just practical; don't bog players down with unnecessary busywork or minute exceptions to memorize, don't build a house of cards that stops working if any one part is missing or changed, you can use stuff like cheat sheets, examples of play, indexes, and asides to make it easier to learn, reference, and remember how to play.

but i promised you poetry, and poetry we shall have! so here's my big guiding principle for writing ttrpgs: only include it if it sings. every part of the game should be special, so that no matter what part or parts of the game a particular table winds up using, the game still shines through. by tangling the spirit of the game up in every line, every rule, every tiny little piece, everyone who engages with it can get tangled up in it too, and can fill in the spaces between in whatever way resonates most with them.

in more practical terms, this is "don't write anything that's less interesting than what the players will make up at the table", ie assume players will fill any missing spaces to the table's preferences, so only close those gaps if you've got something fun to say. don't fill space out of obligation, don't bog yourself down in the stuff that doesn't matter. this doesn't mean never add a polearms list because there's a million polearms lists out there already, but it does mean don't add a polearms list unless you're burning with passion to add it, and excited for people to share in that passion. if you don't, don't worry about it. they can figure it out. the table can always replace your good ideas with ones they like more, and they can always fill in the gaps when they come up, but it's not always easy to recover from a wall of bland filler or an ocean of lifeless cliches.

i wont tell you that if you follow this One Weird Trick then your game will be good. i don't know what a good game is. or rather, i know exactly what i think a good game is, and have no idea what you think it is, and have less than no faith that anyone could ever determine what a Truly Good Game is. but just like the quippy little definition of poetry at the top, universal truth isn't really what i'm after when i employ this. i'm trying to make something that satisfies the little itch in my brain, that sings to me as i make it and keeps singing even after i let it go. moreover, i'm trying to make something that doesn't waste my time as a writer, and doesn't waste yours as a reader or player or fellow designer. 

will this make sure players remember all the rules when they're playing? no, absolutely not. i wouldn't want them to, even if i could force it! but maybe, hopefully, what this does do is lodge one of those little razor-sharp slivers of text in their brains, and it'll sing to them just like it sang to me. not the same song, not the same tune, but just as beautifully.

[squidsquadlove]

Sometimes I look at NHL players' indulgences and realize my own perception of them is a wee bit skewed.

Wine cellars, for instance.

This one is Nathan MacKinnon's. As we all know, he had his house built next to Sid's, and it has almost as little personality as Connor McDavid's, except for the gym. I'm pretty sure he just said "sure, fine, whatever" to everything the builders asked him. As such, this is his wine cellar:

Totally for show. Where do you put stuff you're storing? And he's just not using it. (They would not have made him clear out his wine cellar for real estate listings.)

On the other hand, Brian Dumoulin is really well-known for being a wine guy. I hope he's enjoying being in Seattle, because our wine in Washington is spectacular. Here's his extremely cute baby and a good view of his very respectable wine cellar:

Technically it looks smaller, but the wall racks on the left are three deep and this whole thing is full. Plus there's tons of great storage at the bottom, including for magnums (double-size bottles) and boxes from your wine clubs.

Now here's why I say my perspective is skewed. My husband and I do not have an NHL budget. What we do have is about 15 years of being into wine. (And we're about 10 years older than even the older Penguins.)

Here's our wine cellar:

The racks in the middle (and across the bottom) are two deep, the ones on the left are six deep, and the table is cutting off the view of the storage we have for wine club boxes.

Most of our collection is Washington, since we live within a 20-minute drive of over 110 tasting rooms (not exaggerating!). ("Have you been to all of them?" I ask my husband; "Um... at some point in the last 14 years? Probably?")

We remodeled our kitchen about five years back, and a wine cellar was a priority. The builders came up with this, and it's spectacular.

ANYWAY if you're ever writing a character who plays for Seattle and is seriously into wine, hit me up, I'm your girl. I am ignorant on Napa and Oregon and shit, but Washington wines (and for that matter, fancy Washington restaurants) are very much my jam.

[wumblr]

men will literally build a third failsafe device and bring a cassette tape player with prerecorded versions of conversations back to the beginning of the divergences in the timeline to demonstrate proof to each other that they've outmanuevered the other's best efforts at grappling for control of the time machine. like i know. i know the rituals are intricate

[shih-coulda-had-it]

my sister and i made a book bingo for 2024 and one of the categories she chose was romantasy and i rarely, rarely do this, but i MUST tell you that my pick for romantasy (a far wilder magic by allison saft) has me looking up one-star reviews on goodreads to validate my feelings.

[rivertigo]

I’m so serious about the glam rock club night I’m testing makeup for long wear and everything

[clonemedickix]

hello friend, hope your day is going well so far! 💖 for Primer and Volte off the nsfw oc asks--

3, 12, 18

Thanks for asking about my boys!

Primer -

#3- Quickies vs Planned sex - thoughts?

Primer is more than happy to take advantage of what time he has, even if it’s spontaneously in the middle of the hour. He of course likes to have a full evening of meaningful love making, but if the mood hits and his partner is likewise struck by the notion, he can make it happen. Just a side bonus of being a decisive, work with what you have type of leader. 😉

#12 - Would they be more or less likely to send a risky/risque text to their partner in the middle of a crowded/public area?

All of the men of Dragon Company are famous for their independent, somewhat naughty streak. Autonomous thinking and creativity go hand in hand for these guys, and Primer is the “prime” example. He would send a naughty/risque text in the middle of a crowd, even during an important meeting,, especially if he can observe the recipient’s reaction from a short distance away. Loves making his SO smile and laugh, while imagining how turned on he might also make them at the same time. Not above taking bets on what the recipient’s reaction will be with his brothers.

#18 - Their favorite actions during sex - chin grabbing, hair pulling, wrists being pinned, etc.

Primer deeply enjoys that first feeling of being joined, the initial insertion. But he also appreciates entwining his fingers through his lover’s while holding them above their head, almost as if pinning them but more lovingly. He’s more in it for the soul, and lovemaking to him is perhaps more deeply personal rather than just fun.

Volte -

#3 - Volte is a man that always plans his actions out before they occur, a guy that hangs back a bit and studies the situation to make the best possible plan. He’s not very spontaneous, so a quickie would be more of a rarity for him. He would rather give all of his attention to a longer session of lovemaking than something rushed.

#12 - Volte *might* send a risky text if it was initiated by his SO first. But it’s not going to be his first thought, and he’d be the one grinning like a little fool, blushing in the corner while the little conversation is going on.

#18 - Volte loves to give kisses, making sure to do so along all the known erogenous zones on his lover’s body. He’s very knowledgeable about the human body and takes that into consideration when he’s making love; a very precise guy that gets fabulous results. Volte also likes to have his hair played with during sex, maybe not an outright pull, but since it’s fairly wavy and longer than a standard cut, he likes having his partner run their fingers through it and lightly tug a good fistful.

[romanticxsuicidx]

¿Estoy cansada de no encontrar el amor o de no reencontrarte a ti?

[tillman]

addicted to opening my world building doc and staring at it blindly instead of adding anything of note .

[starscelly]

hearing them vaguely say genres or a single artist they like isn’t enough anymore. i need all nhl players to drop their spotify profile with a minimum of 5 public playlists. thank you.

[nowoyas]

oh my god I'm doing my philosophy readings for class. I accidentally made rEAder's quirk a philosophical fucking question regarding truth values. goddammit. goddammit.

[lost-and-cursed]

13: Biggest turn ons?

At risk of sounding cliché acespec...

Consent. There's nothing more arousing than knowing that your partner is comfortable and you're wanted.

Trust. Honestly it's more of prerequisite than turn on, but what are you doing in my bed if I can't feel safe to be intimate with you.

Being genuinely invested/interested in partner, fascinated with them. Guilty as charged, demisexual. Being platonically obsessed with someone is surest way to passion.

And on that note...

Competency kink. I don't find competency necessarily arousing, but I always half way platonically in love with skilled and competent people, so if you take in account previous point. It works.

It's not enough to be good at something though. You also have to love it. There's nothing more attractive than person who both knows and loves what they're doing.

I do have soft (hot?) spot for eloquence and physical competence, and their ideal middle ground of Debates. I mean if you can't fight me with a sword and you can't fight me with a tongue, what queer sex are we supposed to be doing?

On the queer and probably less annoying note, two words:

Gender Fuckery

Honestly, there's nothing more hot than non-conforming gender expression. X2 to attractiveness of any person who does crossdresing, drag or just expresses themselves in queer way. I wouldn't fuck you if I don't trust you, find you interesting or if I am not sure you understand consent, but you're fucking hot regardless.

The fact that involves Confidence (also very attractive point, if other stuff matches) and being comfortable in your own skin.

There's probably other turn ons, but it's the biggest factors? Like, sure, I like strong hands or long nails, and neck openings are hot!!! It's more of a nice addition, though, on their own they doesn't mean anything.

[villanesus]

@give-that-wolf-a-pistachio I shenanigans’d this ask and it got eaten by the void. (Literally had to view it in cache to get a screenshot of the original questions. 😅 I blame tumblr.) I’ll answer each question in its own post, since I am so long-winded.

If you could turn back time and change things you regretted or you wished had gone differently but you wouldn't take the lessons learned with you, would you? And would your answer differ, if you could go back with all memories intact?

In the case of the former, changing something without retaining knowledge, I’m not sure that I would? I’m pretty happy with where I ended up in my life and I don’t know if I would want to jeopardize that by changing things in the past—thinking mostly of big moments.

There are a lot of small moments that stick with me where I wish I could change what I did, but I’m not sure how big the effect would be. Be more patient with this person, be more kind about this thing, be more observant here, etc.

Part of me wishes I could actually make someone else do something differently, but I also think that would drastically change the person I am now and I’m not 100% certain that person would be better. Maybe worse.

If I could retain knowledge/memories, there is a point in my life where I would consider going back to do things differently. I think about it a lot. But my brain also gets caught up in, “I should just tell myself to buy Apple stock as soon as I’m able to afford it,” and then the thought exercise derails. 🙃

[fuiru]

A 44 year old man goes to a K-Pop Concert

I promised you a report on the K-pop concert that I, a 44-year-old accountant, went to a couple of weeks ago with my wife and daughter in Toronto. So here it is.

The band we saw were Ateez. They're my daughter's favourite band and my wife's second favourite. I know most of my mutuals are similarly aged like me and may not be familiar with them so let me give you a brief primer on Ateez.

Imagine the most attractive eight men you can think of, just unfathomably beautiful specimens of aesthetic perfection, and make them sing songs that somehow combine the subjects of 'dancing like nobody is watching' with 'we live in a dystopian hellscape that we must all work together to overthrow'. Give them an ongoing music video story lore that literally nobody - not even the band themselves - understand, so that online discussion of their visual motifs looks more like the fevered rantings of a conspiracy theorist, complete with speculation about alternate realities and time being a Moebius strip. There is also a giant sand timer, for some reason.

That's Ateez. That's what you need to know.

Now, K-pop concerts are very different to the gigs I've been going to for the last 28 (!) years. There's no support act, for a start. Also the band perform for like, three hours, with breaks for costume changes and interpretive dance. Furthermore, hanging above everything is the constant looming threat of mandatory military service.

So this being my first such concert, I wasn't sure what to expect. What happened was difficult to explain, but I will try as I am already six paragraphs into this write-up and I'm too invested to stop now. Here goes:

In his Wicked + Divine comics series, Kieron Gillen places modern pop icons as deities, feeding upon and gaining strength from the worship of their fans at the altar of musical performance. I thought I understood that metaphor. I thought I understood it AS a metaphor. I was wrong, because that night Ateez WERE Gods with a capital G and we were their worshippers, a crowd emanating adoration (in the religious and non-religious senses), bestowing strength upon them and gaining their strength in return.

If that sounds weird, it probably is. But as pointed out above, I have lived over four decades and never yet experienced anything like the overwhelming passion of that crowd, the utter abandon with which they conveyed their love for the band.

"But Fuiru, what of the actual music?" you ask. Thinking back, there was a moment in one of their songs - I can't remember which - where I watched the stage, and the people around me, taking it in, and I thought, "Man, I just love Music". But that doesn't answer your question, sorry.

Ateez's music is bloody great. As a tiresome indie/rock/metal kid I'm resisting the urge to add the usual tiresome indie/rock/metal caveat of "...for pop music" because honestly that does it a disservice. They have some genuinely amazing songs. Halazia is an absolute fucking masterpiece that descends into furious hardcore breakbeat. Bouncy is a big, brash racket that somehow is also a perfect pop song. Utopia, Wonderland, and Guerrilla are similarly superb. The obligatory boy band slow number is represented by Dancing Like Butterfly Wings which will make you cry because you will forever associate it with your twelve year old daughter being pointed to and waved at by her favourite Ateez member (Seonghwa) because of her Seonghwa-branded lightstick.

That might just be me, though.

So in summary: being a 44 year old dad at his first K-pop concert rules and you should endeavour to partake in the experience if the opportunity arises.

Finally, for any Atiny reading this: my bias would be San or Seonghwa but my wife and daughter said they were taken so it’s Mingi. My concert outfit (designed and created by my offspring) reflects this.

[clonemedickix]

hello!!! for the nsfw oc asks, may I inquire about 18, 22, and 25 for Lara, Primer, and Volte 🤩

hope you have a great day, babe!!!

Lara:

#18 - Their favorite actions during sex - chin grabbing, hair pulling, wrists being pinned, etc

Lara loves kissing during sex. It makes her feel more grounded and intimate with her partner, when making out at the same time. She could care less if there was no speaking at all, if she could kiss her partner the entire time.

#22 - Favorite thing/part about sex - intimacy, role-playing, etc

Lara’s favorite part of sex is the intimacy, for sure. She’s been alone for so long, and only opened herself up for real love and connection since she met the clones, so in many regards, she’s as new to sex as a virgin, not looking for a lot of experimentation. Plus, the last time she really was involved in a sexual relationship, she was there simply to provide heirs and not so much for love. So this is something of unexplored territory for her, and she wants to make a real soulful connection to her partners.

#25 - Share a sample line of dirty-talk

Lara loves to be funny and employs A LOT of very dry humor and euphemism from Earth. It’s hard for her to keep a straight face if dirty talk is involved. You’re more likely to get a line like, “assault my pink palace, great knight of the bologna bazooka!,” than anything meaningful. Total bonus if it stops her partner in their tracks and makes them laugh.

Volte:

#18 - Volte loves to give kisses, making sure to do so along all the known erogenous zones on his lover’s body. He’s very knowledgeable about the human body and takes that into consideration when he’s making love; a very precise guy that gets fabulous results. Volte also likes to have his hair played with during sex, maybe not an outright pull, but since it’s fairly wavy and longer than a standard cut, he likes having his partner run their fingers through it and lightly tug a good fistful. Volte might be seen as somewhat boring or run of the mill, but no partner will ever say that after he’s lit them on fire like a torch and produced results that would make a professional pay him instead. 😉

#22 - Volte’s favorite part of sex is pleasuring his partner, making her come undone so completely she’ll be like melted wax when they’re done. As I said, those still waters run surprisingly deep.

#25 - Volte’s stream of conversation during sex is going to consist of checking in to make sure he’s doing everything just right to get his partner the most mind blowing orgasm he can muster. He will say things like “Is that good?” “Is your heart racing now?” You could very well pass out from the energy of this climax but don’t worry, I’ll be right with you to recover you.”

Primer:

#18 - Primer deeply enjoys that first feeling of being joined, the initial insertion. But he also appreciates entwining his fingers through his lover’s while holding them above their head, almost as if pinning them but more lovingly. He’s more in it for the soul, and lovemaking to him is perhaps more deeply personal rather than just fun. Primer is searching for a connection, something so personal he can call it his.

#22 - Primer’s favorite part of sex is both intimacy and pleasuring his partner. He wants to have that connection deep down, but he also wants to know his efforts produced the best results. I’d say his next favorite part is the post sex cuddling, where he can hold his lover in his arms and feel them coming down from the high he gave them.

#25 - Primer’s idea of dirty talk is complimenting how his partner’s body is responding. If she is super wet for him, he’s going to praise her for that, because it’s a reflection on his foreplay and how emotionally connected they are. He will also gush over how tight the fit is, because no matter how good a man he is, he’s still a guy. You’re going to hear “Oh Maker, you’re so wet for me!” Or “You are absolutely soaking, look at you!” And “Kriff, you are so tight I could just sit here and enjoy the feel.”