#supplement 1

[smbhax]

Cover illustration by Greg Bell

[destronlok]

Greyhawk Monster Combinations

For your reference

[temporaerthaervaerk]

I really am a sucker for dual male lead media where they appear as complete opposites only to end up being eachothers foils and somehow also ending up being completely depended on eachother despite of (because of) their differences

[starmocha]

Since last week I celebrated 100 days playing LNDS, might as well give this a go (◡‿◡✿)

[everchased]

i have a small headcanon that one of the reasons finch and lae'zel get along so well and so quickly is both of their tendencies to subtly express themselves through their long fuckign ears

[serpentface]

I'd say the 'aware of loss of faculties until they aren't' description is apt, but with less of the horror that most humans experience with this knowledge. Units have a sense of personhood, but archin do not tend to philosophically imagine a 'self'. Their consciousness being an emergent property of many interacting bodies kind of precludes the illusion of some core, unchanging individual essence.

The basic experience of being divided is something every unit would have been through, an entire unit is not in literal constant communication and will temporarily divide itself even down to the individual to perform simple tasks (though always with the comfort of scent trails leading back to the collective).

It would still be unsettling and a source of deep melancholy. The pain would be more knowing that there is no going back, the scent trails lead nowhere, there are no more eggs being laid that will replace the parts of you that die or are separated. You would increasingly struggle with abstract concepts and complex ideas, the edges of your personality would slowly be smoothed out, you are increasingly running on raw instinct. You remember everything, but without any way to organize these memories into anything more than flashes. Most of the pain would be a profound sense of loneliness.

How a merger would feel would depend on how much of the unit remains. If its personality is more or less intact, it will probably survive as the same 'person' (mergers are usually accomplished with recently pupated ants, or by taking a few individuals from many units so as not to disrupt other consciences). If it's down to just a few ants, any remnant of the original personality will be lost upon the merger and they will settle into the new personality (perhaps subtly changing it, as all units do over time, but not in a distinct, easily identifiable way). The only thing that remains of the former unit is their raw memory. Even individual archin have very good memories and their learned experiences will supplement the new consciousness with everything it has experienced. So the new merger might learn and 'remember' the pain of loss, though not in a complex way (complex memories, like being able to tell a story, are stored in the collective and not the individual).

Mergers between roughly equal numbers of ants are rare and only done in desperation due to being incredibly disruptive to the personality of each, and a very literal danger that individual archin will become panicked and attack the 'foreign' bodies. A large ratio is ideal so one side has enough of an intact group consciousness to tamp down these impulses, and ability to physically restrain the other side until they have calmed and accommodated to the new scent. All mergers have risks of aggression, but introducing similar numbers is especially risky and sometimes fails entirely due to too many being killed in the process.

[foursaints]

music taste of barty, evan, pandora and reg? like genres and artists and songs? that they like?

anon.... i was waiting for this. i actually very psychotically have a playlist of music that i think barty listens to. I have so much respect for the people that want barty to listen to Lana del rey & mcr or whatever. but THAT'S A GRIMY DUDE!

he's listening to terrible traphouse music & drill & fuckboy rap & industrial noise and the day that juicewrld died was probably his personal 9/11!!!

[utilitycaster]

The answers Marisha gave in this 4SD felt a lot more realized than in the past, which is good! But it still makes me feel like this character concept is incredibly ambitious and when juxtaposed with the various "I don't want to think anymore"/"go with the flow" statements I'm not sure she realized that.

The biggest example is that Laudna has two conflicting traits: she is extremely sensitive to betrayal, and she is very quick to trust even after experiencing a number of betrayals in her life. And when I say "conflicting" I mean that they are in conflict with each other, not that it doesn't make sense for a character to be a complicated person with traits that frequently work against them; in fact that's in my opinion a fantastic way to create a compelling character. But it feels like the why is only just starting to get explored in any capacity, and because of that even good choices raise more questions: why is this only coming out now; why so young a regression; why has it peeked out so weirdly and inconsistently in the past; why haven't the repeated betrayals in the past two months affected her mindset and made her more closed off. It once again makes me really wish we'd gotten a sustained outburst after the party reunited, because that would have made far more sense - a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me situation.

I agree with the opinion that Laudna conceptually just fits far more with being an actual child herself - her desire to befriend children frankly comes off slightly weirder (not line-crossing or anything, just a little off) than it would had she died younger, as does her approach of dolls, and her failure to do anything with Delilah would make a lot more sense if she was at an age to be much more reliant. It would also make her inability to just blend into a city much more reasonable; no one is going to rent to a lone 11 year old. It really does feel that when the creepy child idea was rejected - which is a valid choice - it wasn't reworked sufficiently to fit someone who died in her late teens or early 20s.

I also don't really get the idea of her childlike nature being without malice. A pretty consistent theme for the various traumatic childhoods the characters of Bells Hells (and, tbh, past parties as well) has been the cruelty children are capable of - Ashton even says it in 3x78. Delilah being stuck with someone without malice would honestly lead to a situation in which Laudna was very trusting of her, which isn't the case, which again goes back to the conflict of betrayal as a trigger vs. being so quick to trust. Given that Laudna was frequently bullied and rejected as a kid, one would think she'd be aware of this. The specific example of Delilah calling Ashton a child and Laudna making him a doll still works wonderfully, but the overarching theme falls apart in places.

I think things have been on an upswing as of late, but ultimately we're at a point where, without some retcons I don't think Laudna will ever truly make complete sense because it's just such an intensive concept that did not get the work that required, and still feels reliant on a now-rejected premise.

[waddup-its-homegirl]

also. love the old man yaoi we have going on this season but what happened to the original old man yaoi???????

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

I Have Cooked This Week:

Lemon chicken soup (made creamy by eggs!)

Sourdough bread (2 loaves)

Scrambled eggs

Gluten free lasagna (for a friend with a new baby)

Chocolate chip bundt cake (small group potluck)

Chocolate chip shortbread cookies (brunch group party)

Gluten free peanut butter cookies (leaked oil all over the tray but they were tasty enough? For dinner with friends)

Dad's chili

Sweet potato sausage hash

[pastafossa]

Ok. TRT business and a question, cause I need feedback from readers at this point.

First: the final chapter of the Raven What If fic should be posted this week, I'm about done editing it. The bigger, much more important question: So I have a potential chapter for tomorrow. I've been worrying and fretting over posting it, not because I think it's bad, but because it's short by TRT standards, currently around 2k words, and it both frustrates me and makes me feel weirdly guilty at the thought of dropping what's so much less than my usual. I'm used to being able to write longer chapters, being able to squeeze everything I want into them, and I have a literal outline of this goddamn chapter that has this good stuff in it and I know what needs to be written. I can see it right there. The movie is playing in my head just fine. But the truth of it is, my writing is slow at the moment thanks to post-covid brain fog. I'm checking in with my doctor, I've started taking specific supplements (which I'm hoping to see results from in the next few weeks), I'm clawing my way back bit by bit, but I continue to write slowly, mostly because I either can't focus or I have to stop every few sentences to struggle with a word I can't remember. It's incredibly frustrating. The thing is though, at least I *am* writing, which gives me hope. But this is where you - the readers - come in. Because right now we have two possible paths for updates going forward for a bit. Option 1: Longer gaps between our usual chapters. If we go this road, it'll take longer but as I chip away, I'll eventually have the full planned chapter, which I'd post. This would be a chapter closer to what we've had most weeks for the past oh god like 2 years. At current speed I'd drop it in a few weeks, and then hopefully the next one would come a little faster, until eventually we're back to our usual. So basically, you'd get your big chunks when the updates do come, and the same natural endpoints and arcs as before. Drawback is obviously the time between updates, so you won't be fed as often (though I'd try to find things in my editing folder to clean up and drop, like the Raven fic).

Option 2: Shorter chapters but more regular updates. If we go this road, we'd be back to weekly updates of our adventures with Matt and Jane. There'd just be less than usual for a bit and then, hopefully as I improve, you'll see the word count begin to climb back up. So in this case, you'd be getting a weekly dose of TRT, the usual fluff and angst and action, but the catch is less overall to read (likely individual scenes rather than multiples), and potentially sudden endpoints/more cliffhangers as I 'end' at what was outlined as a scene change.

Which way I go will mostly depend on ya'll tbh. I think I can make either work, since I've managed to start writing a little again and I really, really am hoping the supplements help. But since this'll potentially alter the update schedule we've had for years, I wanted to see which you'd prefer.

So, Option One - longer gaps but long chapters - or Option Two - shorter chapters weekly. Which would you prefer?

[antoncrane]

Being an utterly normal person and cracking open my books on necromancy, so come October I can start bothering people by making comparisons between real world and Nevarran practices.

[newtness532]

nurse comes in the office, looks at me for a few seconds, "are you anemic?"

[slugcatsafari]

closer look at the argument at the end of cycle 4.5

[angelmush]

your post (july 9th) abt being happy and content with your life made me so fucking happy wow

oh that's incredibly sweet!! i meant every word, i'm in a very happy place in my life at the moment. i still get horribly anxious about things sometimes but my baseline is consistently in the range of neutral to good, which is a foreign but welcome feeling :))

[starrysnowdrop]

Wolmeric Week 2023

#1: First Meeting

28th Sun of the Fifth Umbral Moon, Year 1 of the Seventh Astral Era

Today, I met the most drop dead GORGEOUS man I have ever seen in my life! I might never recover!

Okay, let me back up just a bit. I was supposed to be going back to St. Coinach’s Find to help Raha and the others with the investigation of the Crystal Tower, but instead I was told that Alphi had requested to see me. This wasn’t all too strange, but then he sprung it on me that we were to be meeting with the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights of Ishgard. I was intrigued by this, of course, as I still have not given up my desire to learn more about Ishgardian Astrology. But then Alphi said that the Lord Commander himself had requested that I be there. No, not any Warrior of Light, but ME. And he knew my name and specifically wanted me to be there so he could meet me in person. So that already made me a bit nervous, since… why me, right?

But then when we get to the meeting room in Camp Dragonhead, a man and a woman walk in, which I look up and my mouth falls open. The elezen man is gorgeous! And I mean he is absolutely beautiful! His black hair fell into his face in waves, his eyes were a piercing ice blue, and his lips were plump and oh so kissable… or so I imagine. And before I could actually steady myself and try to conduct myself with any kind of hint of professionalism, he begins to speak. OH MY GODS, his voice was just sinful! It was dripping with sex, and I am not kidding when I say I stood there with my eyes wide and I truly lost all composure.

When he introduced himself, which I now know his name is Aymeric, and a sexy name at that how dare he, and he turned to me and said that he had been looking forward to meeting me, I stumbled over all my words and likely looked like a fool in doing so. I’m still mad that I wasn’t informed of how beautiful this man was so I could’ve better prepared myself.

Oh and then the meeting went on and things were discussed, then interrupted by Iceheart and the heretics, you know, normal, boring, political stuff. But I’m still not sure why Aymeric had wanted to meet me specifically. Yes, I was there to confirm the Ishgardian Astrologian’s observations that I too had seen the waxing of the Dragonstar, but I didn’t think that was entirely necessary for the negotiations to continue. So… why me?

Anyways, I need to get ready for bed now, and I know who I’ll be dreaming about tonight.