#sources are mostly

[marshmallowgoop]

No matter how special it is, a kid's lunch is still just a kid's lunch.

I dunno, I liked "The Genius Restaurant" (Episode 1,089).

Happy (belated) birthday, Jimjam.

[Song link] [YouTube link]

[nipuni]

THE DOCTOR We had a pact, him and me. Every star in the universe, we were going to see them all.

My version of The Master and The Doctor in their Academy days 😊

A speedpaint video of this will be available at my Patreon on april 1st!

[moonyswarmsweaters]

Barty: All the haters being like “aren’t you wanted by the state?”

Barty: Its like-

Barty: I’m wanted by a lot of people okay?

Barty: that’s the price of being pretty

Barty: Anyways I did commit a bit of Arson

Evan: as you should

[therighthandofvengeance]

[inbabylontheywept]

Babylon's 6 D&D Tips

I DM’d D&D for ten years. I started in middle school, and I kept it up until my sophomore year of college. This is my mini-guide for what the game is, what it isn’t, and how to play it well. So. From the top.

Tip 1: Don't make your main storyline time dependent. 

D&D is an amazing open-world experience. You can pick at any detail. Nothing is a non-interactable part of the scenery. If there’s a sewer manhole, you can lift it up and climb down. If there’s a house, you can look inside and rob it. If there’s an NPC that you meet at the market, you can follow them home and see their whole life. Their parents, or their partner, their trade - all of it. It will be made up on the fly by some sort of reasonably skilled improv speaker, but it will also exist after that. That’s how the world is built. That’s the secret sauce that makes D&D beautiful.

If your plotline is too urgent, it kills those opportunities. The worst example of this that I have isn’t even from D&D, but FO4. The game is clearly built around exploration and adventure. The plot is built around rescuing your kidnapped baby. There’s a lot of tension between those goals. The plot does not work with the game mechanics, and it's really, really, jarring.

Be wary of doing that. It's surprisingly easy.

Tip 2: Don't set up giant, epic, fantasy battles between multiple armies. 

D&D is not a very good epic-battle simulator. There are games that have streamlined combat mechanics to allow for whole armies to fight, but D&D is very detail oriented, and trying to control too many people at once makes combat slow to a crawl. That very creative DM who can tell you every detail of an NPC’s life is also just not very good at multitasking. 

If you really, really want to - fine. But you should be ignoring standard mechanics when you do so. Move to a “cinematic mode” and just go by vibes. And generally, take a moment to “get” the game before modifying it. If the kind of plot you really want is urgent, and involves epic scale armies, maybe look into different RPG systems. D&D specializes in exploration and small, focused parties. Using it for things outside of that is kind of like hitting nails with a wrench. 

Tip 3: Don't prepare your plot like it's a book. Kill your lore codex. 

D&D is a collaborative storytelling adventure. That's the secret sauce. Writing out codexes and trying to crystallize the world before you start playing ruins the collaborative element. It’s genuinely better if you build as you go. It lets your players give input. And it saves you a lot of time. Why bother trying to write up who the Mayor of Snoresville is if there’s a good chance your party never even talks to him?  

(I would also apply this to writing in general. If you want to write all of your world's lore before starting your book, you'll never start your book. And you'll go crazy. Fear the lore codex.)

Tip 4: Prepare your combats and your NPCS rigorously, but generically. 

This ties in to Tip 3. If you spend a lot of time preparing the lore of the Bandit Leader of Redgrove, things like his family history, or his trauma, or his deep-down character motivations, and then the party never goes to Redgrove, it all goes to waste. D&D evolves rapidly and chaotically, so building things in a modular, reusable way really pays off. 

So. I tend to have two big pools for my NPC work. One is a character sheet pool. I keep it small and focused. I can generalize most melee classes ahead of time, so I can have an Archer, a Brawler, a Tank, and some Generalist Infantry. That’s like, 80% of your martial enemies, done. Spellcasters are a bigger pain in the ass, but a few pre-mades thrown into a campaign pays off if you know your themes. If you’re dealing with a death cult, make some death clerics. A dragon will probably have sorcerer acolytes. 

My second pool is a pool of character mannerisms. Some should absolutely be practiced ahead of time. Figure out what mannerisms make your villain really pop. And if the party skips that villain, just move those mannerisms to some new guy down the line and you’ll still be fine. Nothing wasted. A lot of the mannerisms are going to be picked with no heads up when the party does something weird, like following a random merchant around for a few days just to see how they live. You can get through almost all of those extremely well with just variations on the 4 humors, the 3 socioeconomic classes, and regional dialects.

Tip 5: Give your players permission to inject themselves into the world. 

It is common for people to over-formalize the rules and responsibilities of “being a player” vs. “being a DM.” I think the most common way to phrase it is something like “The Players are in charge of their characters and their backstories, the DM is responsible for the worlds and its NPCs, and both need to stay in their lanes.”

It’s isn't just better to mix it, it's necessary.

Failing to share these roles forces the world to exist in a crystallized state before the campaign even starts - at least if you want to integrate backstories into the plot. Groups that fail to do this can often feel like the characters were born the day the campaign began, and did nothing interesting beforehand. 

So, for DMs: Don’t be afraid of trying to inject NPCs and details of this world into your player's past. Imagine that your party rogue goes into a town and finds a fence for selling some stolen trinkets. Maybe, have the fence recognize the rogue. “Gods of fire, it’s McClellan. I haven’t thought about you since the candy-rat incident. You took a real beating making sure I got away that day. Glad to finally have a chance to pay you back!” 

Now, the rogue still has a choice here. They can say something like “Ah, this guy is mistaking me for someone else, but I can roll with it to get a better deal.” It’s their character, and their choice. But they can also go, hey, I do know this guy. I was apparently part of something called “The candy-rat incident.” I can decide how I know this guy, and where, and for how long, and what that incident was. That’s not less control - that’s more! 

And for players: Don’t be afraid of injecting your past into the world. Maybe you’re a fighter in a wartorn setting and you run into a group of deserters robbing refugees by the roadside. The DM has clearly planned this as some vindication, some enemies you get to thrash without feeling bad. But you have different plans. You take your helmet off, and you look the deserter’s leader in the face, and you say “Jack, you saved my life back on Stone Ridge. You were a good man once. You could be one again. Ride with us.” 

Now that's powerful stuff. Do you even know what Stone Ridge is? Hell no. Are you gonna? Hell yeah. And what you just did was way better than the DMs plan of bonking bad guys to feel good. You changed the writing of the world, commandeered an NPC, and made the whole encounter far more interesting.  

Tip 6: Ignore all portrayals of D&D in the media. 

The best players that I get are people with no experience with D&D of any kind. The second best are those that are willing to drop their preconceptions at the door and just play. The worst are people that have seen D&D portrayed somewhere and are insistent on imitating the portrayal. The exact nature of the failure varies - at worst, they’ve seen some kind of tongue-in-cheek parody, like order of the stick, and then hyperfocused on all the worst parodied aspects as the whole point of the game. D&D is not about outsmarting the mechanics (which is trivially easy, and largely pointless - it just makes your own storytelling less fun), nor is about turning everything into shallow tropes about Horny Bards and Dumb Fighters and Insufferable Paladins. At best, they’ll have seen some kind of ultra-cinematic example of D&D played on a podcast, where the DM has a theatre degree and ever party member is a professional actor. Those people are nice, but they often have unrealistic expectations.

[blood-of-the-bazaar]

When it comes to Fallen London I think the thing I wish most for is like. A comprehensive database regarding the characters and locations themselves (not just broad lore) in the world. Because while the wikis we do have are magnificent resources for their respective topics (the regular FL Wiki for gameplay and the Fifth City Lore Wiki for more general worldbuilding) part of me very much wants to spend the rest of my life and thousands of dollars combing through every possible text route in Fallen London searching for even the smallest of NPC names and cataloging all the strange places mentioned off-hand, and then putting them in a wiki to look at whenever I want to write something about one.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

new year new calne u know how it is!!!!

[daddiesdrarryy]

Narcissa: You two must still miss your mother terribly

Regulus: It’s debatable

Bellatrix: And isn’t it a crying shame neither of you got her looks?

Sirius: And we thank the lord every day for that

[angiedoodles]

Doodles of boyfriend shirt swap + obligatory puppyshipping dog and cat analogies 🫡

[megamagimugi]

He's-a Gone

Luigi time! To suffer, that is.

(CW: character death)

This is obviously a sort of comlementary piece to I Was-a Too Late. But it's more than just that as it also illustrates a certain fun, dark what-if idea I had. Please keep reading if you're intrigued!

Lore:

Luigi's Mansion, the first game. Everything goes the same as in canon until the final boss fight, when Luigi defeats King Boo in his Bowser costume. After King Boo comes out and Luigi intends to suck him in, the villain laughs and reveals the truth: Mario's painting was an illusion, so was everything Madame Clairvoya saw. All just to mess with Luigi. Meanwhile the real Mario wasn't just captured by the Boos, he was immediately killed by them on their King's orders. The only physical thing that's left of him in this realm is the five items Luigi found - hidden by the Boos for Luigi to find, another part of King Boo's sick game.

Luigi is able to finish the fight despite his shock and grief, fueled by the anger King Boo never expected from him. After getting out of the painting the plumber discovers that it is indeed empty, no Mario or anyone else in the portrait.

Heartbroken and guit-ridden, Luigi goes back to Professor E. Gadd's lab and gives him back the Poltergust 3000. He doesn't even want to stay long enough to see what is going to happen to the ghosts. Of course the Professor tries to offer some semblance of comfort, but we all know it's not his forte.

So Luigi leaves, only taking Mario's five items with him. He notices that the mansion has disapeared without a trace. The reality of it all finally hits him, and he practically collapses onto a nearby tree's large root protruding from the ground, putting down the precious items around himself, only leaving the matching red hat and the letter in his hands. He should have known something was off. After all, the Mario he saw in the painting was wearing his hat and both gloves.

Looking at all these items, to his growing horror he can't help but imagine what exactly might have happened to his brother and what his last moments might have been like. He hugs the hat to his chest and rereads Mario's note several times, knowing that the brief warning was his brother's last words to him.

Luigi can do nothing but cry for the beloved brother he couldn't save, desperately wishing it was his warm, living and breathing body pressed to his chest rather than just a couple of his belongings.

But Mario is truly gone, apparently having met such a horrific fate that not even a single part of his body is left in the physical world.

[Good night]

…I'll leave the rest up to your imagination ;) Sorry if I got carried away with my description. Occasionally even I enjoy being a little dramatic, though I'm no writer whatsoever.

Yeah, I'm not apologizing for making this one - I was nicer to Luigi than to his bro, at least here the Mushroom Kingdom and everyone in it (except for Mario lol) is still okay!

But alas,

You can no longer play as Mario (warning: this is a video with sound)

Rest in spaghetti, funny wahoo man.

EDIT 2025: my best friend and spiritual twin @silenzahra wrote an amazing fanfic Without him based on this piece and idea, as well as this drawing of Mario also by me❤️💚 I highly recommend it, it's an amazingly written story!

@federthenotsogreat I'm tagging you because you said you wanted more Mario art like I Was-a Too Late, thought you might like this one too!

@drones-of-innocence Also tagging you because you were interested in my idea.

Additionally: @silenzahra (remember, no rush) @c-lavanda @jell-o101 @stripetkattelalala54-gf

@luigixfanxayjay @itsavee4117

And you @giddlygoat just because you have a Luigi's Mansion AU and I thought you might appreciate this... Also because I'm a fan 👉👈

[chimeride]

Grand Bailla, the 247th Known One.

[nanenna]

I just had a very crack idea but I'm sharing it with you: ghosts of Robins past, a prank (that probably went too far).

It starts with this: halfa!Jason (an AU I've seen several times! Good fun for all), plus halfa!Tim (an AU I've only seen a couple times and usually takes some hoop jumping, always in the midst of BruceQuest), combine with unaging ghost half (that is Danny, Tim, Jason, etc. continue to age as humans but their ghost half stays the same age they died forever).

Now presumably our batboys' ghost forms are in what they died in, at least for their first transformation. For Jason that's Robin and for Tim that's Red Robin, but for this prank to work all they need to do is sneak into the batcave's storage and steal Tim's last Robin costume, infuse it with ectoplasm and boom! Two ghosts of Robins past. And while they're at it they find a version of Dick's old Robin costume that fits Danny. And hell, why not throw Steph's barely used Robin costume on Dani/Ellie? Her little 10yo self is no where near Steph's mid-teen Robin self but shhhh... the goons won't remember that.

Because in their minds the best way for the boys to show off their new ghost powers is to have a gaggle of "dead Robins" trailing after the newest one like overprotective ducklings and fuck with any rogues or goons that try to mess with him until the rest of the family figures out what's going on.

They're uh... they're taking a while to figure it out though.

[moonyswarmsweaters]

Uncle Bee and uncle Evy with baby luna- a canon interaction Barty: Okay Luna, there are 206 bones in the body, but! I’m gonna teach you how to dislocated someone’s body in 230 ways-

Pandora: Barty, She’s a child

Luna:

Barty: Oh yeah! You’re right.

*turns around for a few moments before turning back with puppets over his hands*

Barty, in somewhat a kermit voice: Hi kids! We're going to show you how to dislocate someone's body! Let's start with the Clavicle region. Do you know where that is?

Pandora: Oh my god

———*after a while*———

Evan: Wait what did you teach her?

Barty: There are 206 bones in the human body...

Evan: Barty! She is a CHILD!

Evan: If you are fighting an opponent your age Luna, there may be up to 270 bones in the human body. Children's bones ares still fusing together. Here is how you can use that....

[hvackisser]

Bro having multiple f/os vying for your attention feels like this sometimes

[starryeyed-seer]

Was looking into victorian cats and delighted by many things

1. These victorians at a cat show with their cats on leads

2. Illustrations from Harrison Weir's "Our Cats", which suggest the illustrator didn't like, fully 'get' cats.

3. The names, which were what I was looking for in the first place, which include:

Zillah, Lulu, Zeno, Fulmer Zaida, Lilah, The Colonel, Fritz, Dinah, Tiger, Sylvir, Sylvie, Tim, Lambkin, Lambkin no 2, Bogey, Chloe, Miss Whitey, The Old Lady, Guadaquiver

[golyadkin]

you can trust them, they're super scientists