#tabletop fuckery

[studiousbotanist]

new icon thanks to naomhán :) !!!!!!!!! my boy jace .

BEHOLD HIM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CRYINGGGGGG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wirefoxboys]

some Jace’s from a tabletop campaign w irl buddies ! ft. him in the family guy death pose cause this guys constantly in danger

[ramsei501st]

A little somthin somthin (somthin somthin = Isaac's updated design post-Copher-Desert-Shenanigans)

I changed his hair and changed the way I drew the Druchii cloak he stole- i know its not the way it looks canonically but im famous for not caring 🫡 and also!! he has a bird now. i was gonna get him a dog but i forgor :')))

[bigbenalpha]

Oh look...

Using the desktop version of Tumblr, I copy/pasted the exact same pics that I tried to post earlier from the mobile app. They went easily from my phone to Twitter, then from Twitter to here. 

And to reiterate for the question I received asking me to elaborate- I made my post, hit the button to post it, the progress bar turned all the way green, then it turned red and said it couldn’t do that right now. Reblogs work fine. Blank text posts work fine. But the mobile app consistently is unable to post pics from my phone. I just want to show off my modest, yet cute dice collection. This better be sorted by the next time I feel like taking pics of my cat.

[aurosoul]

sharing because I am steadily getting more into the hang of this whole acting thing re: the Beam Saber podcast I'm playing in and I like how Sunlith's part came out in this :)

(I'm playing an uplifted dolphin! to no one's surprise. you can learn more about his character in his tag and learn more about the campaign at @calamitycascade!)

[seriously-mike]

Unusual Approaches to Warp Fuckery

So, in the Dark Heresy "Perils of the Warp" (AKA Major Psionic Fuckups) table, one entry goes as such:

Rending the Veil: The air vibrates with images of cackling Daemons and the kaleidoscopic fabric of the Warp is rendered visible to mortal eyes. All sentient creatures within 1d100 metres must test against Fear (2). The psyker must test against Fear (4) instead. This effect lasts for 1d5 rounds.

So, in practice, for one to five rounds, you're basically fighting in Technicolor Final Fantasy Bullshit, freaked out, with all the local daemons mocking you while intangible.

Of course daemonic hilarity doesn't end with them standing behind your opponents and showing you the L sign.

A couple of Bloodletters drag a Pink Horror from your line of sight and kick the shit out of it off to the side, because blocking LOS is considered Bad Form to the servants of the God of Mayhem.

A Plaguebearer yells "Jackass!" at the party healer.

A Flamer is taking bets on which side is going to win.

Daemonettes are displaying their Daemonette things. Nobody's distracted for some reason. Probably rainbow mist conjured to cover them up because distracting the combatants is considered Bad Form.

[prokopetz]

Why are you so desperate for a metamechanical metroidvania? You've made like a dozen different "Metroidvania but the upgrades are Weird" posts, if not more.

(With reference to this post here, among others.)

It's where I put all my ideas for stupid player-hostile fuckery which I've determined would be impractical to implement in a tabletop RPG.

[qveerthe0ry]

What Means to You, What Means to Me

Summary: Max Phillips changes everything. Written for @perotovar 's offering of Frith Word Count: 8,046 Pairing: Max Phillips Loki (The Trickster God of mischief and chaos) x afab! NB! Bisexual! Reader Rating: 18+ mdni Warnings: smut, talks about gender non-conformity, talks about gender dysphoria as it relates to sex, GENERAL GENDER FUCKERY Beta: My sweet angel @for-a-longlongtime of course A/N: Under the cut

Author's Note: First of all, I just want to thank Erin for putting together this writing challenge and sharing SO much about Norse Paganism. The effort you put into this, from the moodboards to educational resources is incredible. And the fact that you've shared something so close to you with all of us made this writing challenge feel like getting a warm hug <3

Second, see the author's note I wrote at the end (as to not spoil the story) if you want to know the ways Loki ingrained himself in this fic.

_

You’ve heard of this queer club before, but you’ve never been inside. You’d thought the descriptors were exaggerations, but you find out quickly that you were wrong. 

Security is tight at the door, and they ask you questions as they scan your ID that sound like small talk but are a bit more probing once you think about it. Your pockets are patted down and you walk through a metal detector before you even breach the front door. 

You’re wondering if it’s even worth all this. You’re by yourself, no one’s meeting you here, and you don’t plan on going home with anyone. 

Really, you’re just bored, in a fairly new city with no one familiar but your new co-workers to converse with; those are the last people you want to be around on a Friday night after a long work week. 

So you’re here. Are there a dozen other queer bars you could have gone to on this rainbow-lined street? Yes. But none of them really feel right. So you’re here, finally in clothes that you feel comfortable in, around people who aren’t going to make you feel uncomfortable in them. 

And its reputation precedes itself. 

Gaudy. Over-the-top. 

There’s three floors, the top two cut out to overlook the dance floor in the middle of the ground level. There’s chandeliers everywhere, far too ornate for a fucking nightclub. Candelabras litter every tabletop with flaming wax that you’re sure is a fire hazard in an establishment like this. There’s fuzzy, cozy-looking lounges and really hot people walking around serving complimentary waters on gold trays and maybe it was a mistake, coming here. 

But you’ve already been through the TSA of nightclubs, and so you might as well grab a drink while you’re here and make the uber ride home worth it. 

At least the drinks seem to be cheap. You take too long staring at the specialty cocktail names when a bartender asks how you’re doing, and end up ordering your favorite drink anyways. At least they seem nice, unlike some of the bars you’ve been to at the not-mandatory-but-suggestively-obligatory happy hours after work. 

You sit at the bar, a little intimidated by the fancy decor and skilled dancers that overwhelm the club. 

The music is unsuspecting, something soft and melodic that you only realize is live music when your eyes settle on her. 

Her fiery red hair cascades down her shoulders, igniting all the skin exposed by her backless dress. She’s sitting at the piano in the middle of the dancefloor, obscured by couples and others dancing around her. 

She’s everything. The most gorgeous woman you’ve ever laid your eyes on. Her nose is strong and her jawline juts and contrasts with those soft brown eyes. You’re yearning before you can even realize it, a kind of consumption that leaves you breathing heavier than normal as you sip your drink probably way too quickly. 

You focus on her long, nimble fingers, painted red at the nails and fluttering so skillfully over the ivory keys that it makes your cheeks feel hot. 

The ringing of the keys doesn't register over the thumping of your heart and the blood rushing in your ears, which feel like molten lava. Perhaps that’s why you don’t notice she’d finished her set until she’s a foot away from you, placing an order you’d only know if you were able to read lips.

Christ, her lips. Plump and painted in the same shade of red as her hair and nails, they purse as she sips from a champagne flute. She’s so dainty, and poised, everything you’ve never had the desire to be. 

And she’s staring right at you. 

“See something you like?” 

Your breath gets stuck in your lungs and your heart flutters in a medically dangerous way. 

“You’re incredible.”

The words roll off your tongue without any go-ahead from your brain. 

She laughs anyway, with her head thrown back, and the sight of her throat elongated makes your own go bone-dry. 

“If I had a nickel,” she jokes with a wink. 

Your half-melted brain scrabbles for something to say so you can be graced with her presence for even one more second. 

“How long have you been playing?” 

She quirks her perfectly shaped eyebrow at you, and she smirks, and something about the way she can see through you like cellophane turns you on and it makes you feel wicked. 

“You don’t really care, do you?” 

From your peripheral, you see her long, toned arm inching closer to yours on the bar. Her fingers touch yours, feather-light, and you shiver before you freeze in place. 

“I— No, I do.”

You can barely hear her low chuckle over the house music that’s started to play in her absence, but you do, and it sounds like heaven and hell all at once. 

Slowly, torturously, she leans closer to you, and her bubbly breath ghosts across your cheek, your jaw, and then gusts in your ear. 

“Don’t lie to me, handsome.” 

Her tone is teasing, sing-songy in a way that might be annoying if you weren’t so aroused. 

Your fingers clench around the glass you’re holding, and her own do the same over yours. 

“What do you want me to say?” 

You don’t know if you’re more scared, horny, or irritated. They’re all three tied for gold, at this point, with tipsy coming in second and way too warm bringing up the rear. 

And the pure audacity this woman has is impressive, as she places her lips so so lightly under your earlobe. You hope to god her lipstick stains. 

“Ask me if I wanna get out of here.”

Your lungs inflate too quickly, and your eyes close, and you lean into the touch of her lips. 

“Where would we go?” 

It’s a stupid question. Why in your right mind do you give a flying fuck? She could drag you to the DMV and you’d happily follow like a pup. 

She stands from the barstool, tall, taller than you realized, and the proximity puts her between your spread legs. 

Your thighs flex involuntarily, and your fingers twitch and ache to touch her. 

“I know a place. If you want?” 

Her eyebrow is quirked at you again as she leans back. You can’t find your words, so you stand in answer, and now you’re too close. Every delicious curve of her body is pressed against your front and you unhand your drink to dig your nails into the top of the bar. 

“Please.” 

Her grin is so mischievous that it startles you, those sharp canines on full display. You think about how they’ll feel against your skin as she nods her head and prompts you to follow her. 

You might as well be wearing a leash, the way you trail her so closely. You twist your fingers as the nerves start to pick back up, and all of a sudden you’re in front of some elevator doors with a very huge and intimidating bouncer guarding the buttons and staring you down. 

“Before we head up, just so you know, I’m working with a… different set of equipment than you might expect.”

You nearly ask her to repeat herself, a bit too overwhelmed with the eyes on you and the situation you’re about to get yourself into. But your brain plays a game of catch-up, and somehow this little fact makes you feel more comfortable. 

“That’s cool— me too. I mean, maybe? I don’t know what— uh, what you’d expect me to have, but… yeah.”

Your voice trails off as the big burly bouncer chuckles at you, and your face could probably melt off of your skull with how hot it feels, but then she grabs your hand and squeezes to tug you into the elevator with her. 

The club sounds are nearly all drowned out now, and you’re certain she can hear your heartbeat in the silence as she crowds you against the back wall. 

“My name’s Max,” she says, speaking all breathy and low against the skin of your neck. 

You shiver, barely eke out your own name as her body presses against yours. 

It’s heavenly, the way she feels against you, but the way she teases your earlobe between her dark cherry lips feels hellish. You still haven’t touched her, even though your hands are burning to feel the silk of her dress over her waist. You’re intimidated and horny and mentally working yourself up to do anything on your own without her giving you direct orders.

There’s a ding, and all momentum is lost when she turns away from you to enter the snow globe of a penthouse beyond the open elevator doors. You follow eagerly.

“This is your place?” 

Your voice is awe-filled as you look around. The walls are just windows, and the city lights and the last few minutes of sunset brighten all the dark wood and leather around you. 

“Yeah, so’s the club.”

Her tone is nonchalant, and you gape at her as she steps out of her strappy, expensive-looking high heels. Maybe you shouldn’t be so surprised. She has all the confidence of someone who owns the world, and her cockiness is reflected in the ostentatious nature of the club and her penthouse. 

But you’re still shocked. Maybe you’re shocked because she’s chosen you, out of every other patron, to come up here with her. 

“It’s nice— the club. And here, too.” 

She chuckles and shrugs but she thanks you as her bare feet bring her close to you once more. You feel your hackles raise as she approaches, along with your heart rate, but she walks right past you. 

“Follow me.”

As if you’d dream of doing anything else. 

Her bedroom is all windows, too. The bed is huge, much bigger than a normal king, and the space itself is fairly empty of any personal touches. It suits her mystique. You feel like you have a million unanswered questions, but none of them matter when she shoves you down onto the mattress and straddles your thighs. 

Your mouth drops open, but she steals the words from your breath when she grabs your hands and places them on her hips.

Finally. 

Fuck, she feels incredible under this silky dress as you squeeze her waist and arch your hips up into her. 

You tell her as much, and get another one of those cocky chuckles that goes straight to your center. 

“Do your worst, handsome.” 

And maybe you’ve never been the best at getting into someone’s bed, but you’re certain you’re the best once you’re between the sheets. 

It’s no exception, with her. You’re so eager to please. You worship every last inch of her body once it’s revealed to you. You take note of all the places you kiss and lick that make her breath hitch, you tease her until her cock weeps, and you take her so far down your throat that tears sting your eyes. 

Her nails dig into your scalp, and you feel like the cocky one when she begs you to pull off, when she tells you that you’ve damn near sucked her soul out through her dick. 

Your clit is throbbing and you’ve soaked through your underwear by the time she hastily pulls them off of you. She kisses you breathless and bites your lip with her sharp teeth as you roll the condom down her length. The way she whimpers when you finally straddle her sends you reeling. Your hand finds her tit, and your palm rolls against her taut nipple as you finally get her cock to slide through your slick folds. She arches into your touch and she begs and there’s no force powerful enough to keep you from giving in to her pleas.

Her face twists up so fucking beautifully as you impale yourself on her. Inch by inch, so slowly, teasing her like she’d teased you earlier in the night. You feel satisfied and hungry at the same time when you’re flush with her thighs. Her hips buck when you pinch her nipple, and she hits the perfect spot, and neither of you have any resolve leftover. 

It’s a give and take that lasts too long and is over far too quick. You ride her, and she thrusts up into you, back and forth until you both crumble at the same time, blinding and intense and loud. 

You might black out. 

One moment you’re stroking her skin with your fingertips and thanking her over and over, and the next you’re sitting up against her headboard with a glass of water in one hand and her fiery hair in the other. 

She’s sighing in your lap, nuzzling into the heat of your thighs with her aquiline nose. 

“You’re incredible,” you say for probably the millionth time that night. 

She chuckles again, just like she did when you first told her, but her pretty brown eyes shine when she looks up at you. 

“You’re not so bad yourself, handsome.”

Your face gets all hot again, and you feel shy, eyes darting around the room to focus on anything but the gorgeous woman resting on you. 

“Does it bother you when I call you that?” 

You huff. 

“Not at all.”

“Are you trans?” 

You huff again. 

“No. I— I don’t know. I’m just… me. In-between. I don’t really feel like I fit any one description.”

She hums and presses a kiss to your mound through your underwear.

“I understand.” 

“I’ve always been like this, you know? Before I knew what it was. I just didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. Not in an insecure way. Just that it didn’t feel right.” 

“Do you want a dick?”

Her bluntness makes you laugh. 

“Sometimes I do.”

She nods, and the way her silky hair feels against your bare thighs makes you shiver. 

“It’s actually kind of awesome, I’m not gonna lie.”

She laughs with you. 

“Don’t rub it in.”

“I’ll rub it in if you give me another five minutes.”

She does.

You fall asleep in her arms, exhausted and sated and happy.

She’s gone in the morning. All the shades are drawn, those same hazardous candles from the club lighting the apartment dimly. Your clothes are dry cleaned and hanging in a bag you’re certain costs more than your entire outfit. There’s a note next to your half-empty glass of water on the nightstand.

See you around. 

Except you don’t. 

You wait eight whole days to go back to the club. You wear something nicer, go through the tight security, and saunter up to the bar with much more confidence than your first visit. You wait for her. You drink one too many and hope to find her walking around or playing the piano. 

A few people come up to you and ask you to dance, and you refuse each one with the bitter taste of irony on your tongue, and then you go home alone after last call with a headache and queasy stomach. 

Maybe she’s just out of town, you tell yourself. She owns an entire nightclub, she’s clearly a very important woman, probably quite busy, too. 

You go back the next weekend, and the next, and you don’t see her once. 

So after a month, you go again and this time you accept the offers to share a dance, grind against people with a weird confidence you know comes from the woman you hope to see tonight. You share meaningless kisses and buy a few people drinks but refuse an offer or two to ‘get out of here.’

You start to lose hope when the dim lights flicker brighter and last call is announced. But as you bid goodbyes to a group you were hanging with, that very large and scary bodyguard from the elevators is walking towards you, and this time his presence is more exciting and less intimidating. 

“Max would like you to come upstairs.”

And while it’s kind of annoying, and seems pretentious— why didn’t she come down here and tell you herself?— you follow. Eagerly. Once again. 

He lets you take the elevator up by yourself, and this time the anxiety is more anticipation than it is fear. 

Though, when the doors open, you’re face to face with a guy.

He’s got a familiar cocky smirk on his face, messy gelled hair, and he’s leaning up against a wall with his arms crossed. 

Panic, is what your body tells you to do, leave, run. But you’re frozen under his thick gaze. 

The elevator doors start to shut, and you take a step back when he moves to hold them open, but he chuckles. 

A cocky little chuckle. 

“Who are you?” 

“I’m Max.”

“No you’re not.”

“C’mon, handsome. It’s me.”

You shiver when he calls you that, but not in the same way you did when she said it. 

“Is this some kind of joke? Listen, she didn’t tell me she was exclusive with anyone—”

He cuts you off by saying your name in a pleading tone. 

“Come in, please, just give me a minute to prove it to you.”

Panic. Run. Leave.

You ignore every instinct to finally step out of the elevator. 

“You told me, last time, that sometimes you wished you had a dick. Right?”

You nod before you can think better of it. 

Who is this guy?

You’re no stranger to genderfluidity, the way a haircut or makeup or different clothes can drastically change someone’s look— but this isn’t that. This can’t be that. While they have similar features, her sharp noise was still softer, her eyes were less crinkled at the edges, her brow bone was much less prominent. If this is smoke and mirrors, she’s one hell of a magician. 

“Do you wish you had one right now?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess. Are you guys twins or something? What’s going on?” 

He chuckles again, and you have to say, it’s much less arousing coming from him than it was from your Max. He reaches out to touch your arm, and you want to shove him away, but you can’t.

Your body feels frozen, again, but not from fear. There’s a strange sensation that courses through you, some unexplainable energy that makes your bones feel like they’re vibrating, makes your blood feel thick and heavy in your veins. 

It scares you, but the newly soft look on this Max’s face is just comforting enough to keep you from a full-fledged panic attack. 

That, and the fact that it’s over just as quick as it started. Your body loosens back up as Max’s hand on your arm rubs reassuring circles. 

But then you feel weird. A strange turning low in your gut, kind of like arousal, but not quite. And your pants feel tighter, more constricting than they did earlier. 

You look down. 

There’s a bulge in your pants, like there would be if you were packing. But you’re not. You’re certain you made the decision to leave it at home when you left earlier in the night. 

You look back up at him. He’s smirking. 

“You can touch it.”

You do, despite your brain screaming how weird it would be to touch your crotch in front of a man you’ve never met before. 

You have a dick. 

You feel it now, and while the feeling of it in your hand isn’t foreign to you, the fact that it’s sensitive and fucking actually attached to your body is. 

You pull your hand away like it’s been scalded. 

“What the fuck?! How did you—“

You stare at him open-mouthed and terrified and maybe a little bit turned on.

“Does it matter? I gave you what you’ve always wanted.” 

He looks from your face to your… dick, and back again, smirking, admiring, like he’s just finished an art project.

“Will it… Will it go back?”

“Do you want it to?”

“I— I don’t know.”

Max chuckles that damn chuckle, all full of himself. But this time, it’s her. You know it is, now. As crazy as it sounds, it’s the only thing that makes sense. This is your Max. 

“Why don’t you take it for a test drive? If you don’t like it, I’ll change you back.”

You gape at him. It’s all clicking. This is your Max, and they’ve listened to you and done something so fucking weird but so fucking sweet. You don’t know how, and you honestly are starting to care less and less the longer Max keeps staring at you like he’s proud. Of you or himself, you’re not so sure, but it’s working. 

“It’s— it’s you, isn’t it?” 

“I told you so.”

“Fuck,” you sigh, “where have you been? I came back. Every weekend.” 

Max hums. 

“I was a little caught up. Got into a bit of trouble, as I do. But I’m back, and I wanted to see you. I’m glad you came.”

“Are you— I mean… you look a lot different?” 

He shrugs. 

“Do you still think I’m hot? I can change back—”

“No! No, sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. I was just confused. You’re still—”

“Incredible?” 

You huff a laugh, and finally relax for the first time since you got into that elevator. 

“Yeah. Incredible.”

His cocky demeanor falls to the wayside to make room for something more sincere. He takes a few steps until you’re face to face with him, and places a suspiciously cold hand on the back of your heated neck. 

“I missed you,” he mumbles. 

“I— I missed you too. That night… I’ve thought about it so much.”

“Mmm, yeah? Me too.”

You kiss the stupid smirk off of his face. 

He tastes the same as you remember before, like champagne and sweet mint and her. His teeth are just as sharp, scraping your tongue as it explores every bit of his mouth. 

His free hand grabs your hip and pulls you even closer to him and fuck, that feels better than it has any right to. Your cock stirs in your pants and you buck your hips again, fiending for this new type of friction. 

“Come to bed with me?” 

All you can do is nod and follow. 

The bedroom looks just the same as it did last time, but the lack of sunlight makes everything feel quieter tonight— slower, more serene. 

He turns down the covers slowly, and you stand at the foot of the bed, extremely uncertain about what happens next, even though your dick throbs with anticipation. 

“You still into this?” 

Max’s voice startles you out of your own head. 

“Yeah, sorry. Nerves.”

He hums and steps closer to you. 

“Nothing to be nervous about, handsome.”

You nod and let your eyes trace up and down his body, noting his broad shoulders in that crisp white dress shirt and his thick thighs under the satiny sheen of his slacks. He’s still just as gorgeous in this masculine form, and it’s as irritating as it is enticing.

“Do you wanna fuck me?” 

“Shit.” 

His words go straight to your cock, and you’re unashamed to palm it in your hand and press and curse at the completely new sensation. 

“I’m assuming that’s a yes,” he chuckles. “Do you want my ass or my pussy?” 

Your hand on yourself stills. 

“You— you have a pussy?”

“I can.”

And it shouldn’t surprise you, after everything else that’s happened in the last ten minutes, but it still does. Your breath stutters in your chest and your dick fills out even more against your hand and you distantly wonder how big Max made it, if it’s exactly what he wants. 

“Can I— Will you show me your pussy?” 

He leers at you when you ask, and it only turns you on even more. 

“I was hoping you’d go for that.”

He starts unbuttoning his shirt, but this whole mad situation has you feeling much more comfortable, in a fuck it kind of way. You step into his space and work the buttons free, and follow with your mouth. His skin is cold under the heat of your lips, and by the time his shirt hangs free from his shoulders you’ve made it your personal mission to warm up every inch of him. 

It’s easy to work his belt open, undo his fly and watch it open to a thick thatch of pubic hair. You pause to press your lips to his again, to reach around to cup his pert asscheeks as his slacks fall to the floor. 

You can’t stop grinding against him, even as you press him back and down onto the bed. You just follow, fully clothed, hesitant to deny yourself this new heady feeling of pressure to your cock. 

It’s only when he suckles your top lip and reaches down to palm you that you realize you’re teetering on the edge of embarrassing yourself. 

Your hips jolt away from him and it hurts a bit when you rip your lip out between his teeth, but all the better to take your mind off the intense, heavy arousal in your gut. 

“Okay?” 

He asks it with a smirk, like he already knows the answer, so you don’t give him one. You just stare down past your heaving chest to see the damp spot on your pants and start to unfasten them to relieve some of the pressure. 

“You’re gonna want to chill out. Refractory periods are annoying with those things,” he warns. 

You huff. 

“That’s kind of you,” you joke. 

It’s better, just in the thin fabric of your underwear, less resistant. You want to take them off too, but you’re afraid that the euphoria from seeing yourself with a dick will really conflate the issue at hand. 

So you shuffle down the bed a bit, and press your lips to Max’s flat chest, to his nipples that are half the size they were last time. They pebble quickly under your attention, and you bite down on one when you accidentally drag your cock along the mattress. 

He groans and arches into you, goads you on with a hand on the back of your neck. 

“Are you as good at eating pussy as you are at sucking dick?” 

It’s almost comical, the way he applies pressure to urge you further down his body. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

You nip at his sparse happy trail as he pushes you down with his large hand on your shoulder and delight in the way his muscles twitch under your mouth. 

“Some time this century, yeah.”

You hum, nose at the wiry curls on his mound and grab the wrist of his hand that’s still pressing on you. 

“You’re not very gentlemanly,” you tease.

He laughs as he stares down at you with his dark eyes. His hand moves to cup your jaw and you let it, let him trace your bottom lip with his thumb. 

“Is that what you want? A gentleman?”

You suck his thumb into your mouth as you shake your head, grinning around his knuckle. You bite down a little harder than you mean to and he hisses. He yanks his hand from your mouth to grab the back of your head and tug until your face is buried between his thighs. 

You relent, breathing in the scent of him, bypassing any preamble to shove your tongue inside of him. The way his hips buck into your face makes you smirk into his folds and dig your nails into the skin of his thighs. 

He still makes the most beautiful noises, when you get down to it. Desperate, hungry, eager. For as cocky as he is, he sure writhes against you like a shameless whore as he whispers curses into the dark room. 

You savor the taste of him, the warmth and tightness of him around your fingers, the scratchy feeling of his bush tickling your nose. The way his strong thighs tense and relax under your grasp makes you want to feel them do the same around your waist. 

You look up when he starts clenching around your fingers like a vice, and the thought of that feeling around your new dick makes you whimper into his pussy. You focus even more on the way you suckle and flick his clit, to try and set the arousal aside so you don’t come before you can even slip into him. 

He’s got his head thrown back, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his back arched off the bed when he finally shudders and comes. You work him through it, lapping at his dripping hole, letting him grind against your tongue until he’s squirming away from your touch. 

You’re dragging this out. Stalling. You press little biting kisses to his thighs and his mound as he’s coming down. Maybe if you just worked him through one more, you’ll be calm enough to—

“C’mere already.”

You roll your eyes at him as he tugs on you, but you go willingly to hover over him and let him lick his taste from your mouth. His hums are lower and more subdued in the aftermath and they rumble deep in your chest as you try your hardest not to grind into him. 

It doesn’t matter. 

His free hand wraps around your cock and the feeling turns you on so much that you almost feel nauseous. You can feel all five of his fingers there, even with how big his hands are. He’s around you, and the familiar sensation on the inside mixed with the foreign sensation against your skin is a bit confusing but so hot. He squeezes and you jolt, bite down hard on his lip, but it only makes him chuckle. 

“That good, huh?” 

You groan into the crook of his neck in answer, completely at a loss for words. 

“I’d like to say the novelty wears off, but I haven’t found that it does.”

You feel like you’re on fire, honestly, like you’re trapped in a burning building with no way out. It’s hard to speak or breathe or think with his hand wrapped around you over your underwear. You can’t even begin to imagine how good his skin is going to feel against yours. 

“C’mon, handsome, lie back for me.”

You do, with his help, reclined back against his decorative pillows. Your breathing is ragged as he takes his time getting your shirt off and pressing surprisingly sweet kisses to everything revealed to him. 

You ground yourself by petting his hair, coarse and a little sticky from hair gel but thick enough to be extremely satisfying to card through. For a moment you’re able to focus on the feeling of it slipping between your fingers instead of the throbbing of your prick. 

But then his thick fingers find the elastic waistband and creep underneath. It shocks you out of your false sense of security. When your panicked eyes meet his, they’re so warm and soft you think you could maybe cry a little about it. But he speaks up instead. 

“Are you still okay with everything going on?”

And you are, even though you’re hanging by a thread and preemptively embarrassed by what’s about to go down; you want it so bad. 

So you nod. 

“Words, handsome.”

You huff. 

“Yes, Max. Please.”

He hums and smiles. 

“Good boy.”

You’re engulfed by embarrassment when your cock jumps dramatically at his words, right beneath his hovering face. You feel even hotter when he huffs out a laugh.

But then he’s pulling your underwear, and it’s there, in plain sight, a gorgeous cock. It’s perfect, it’s how you’ve always imagined yours would look if you had one. Like Max knew, somehow, was inside your brain and could see the same fantasies that you could. 

It jerks again in the cool air. You can feel the blood rushing there, a powerful gush that makes it twitch when you think about how it’s your dick, on your body. He hasn’t even touched you yet and you can feel pre-cum dripping down your shaft. 

“Can I taste?” He asks. 

You nod, then remember your words. 

“Please.”

You can’t produce more than a whisper as you watch him lean forward, like slow motion, with his tongue hanging out dramatically and his eyes locked on yours. 

The first touch of his tongue against your skin has your hips flying off the mattress at a speed that you’re sure defies laws of physics. 

He just looks so fucking gorgeous with your prick eclipsing the middle of his face. Your prick looks so gorgeous. God, you’re starting to understand where cis men get their audacity from. 

You tighten your grip on his hair for no other reason than you need something to hang onto or you might just float off into space. He teases you with more kitten licks, up one side, then the other, and you watch in awe. You can’t take your eyes off it, even though it may delay the inevitable if you could. 

He kisses the head of it, and his tongue does something wicked right underneath it that makes you tug his head back by his gelled locks. 

“Too much?” He asks, even as he winces at your tugging. 

“You’re teasing, and all that’s going to lead to is disappointment on your end.”

God, why do you sound like you’ve just run a marathon?

“I’ll never be disappointed by making you come, handsome.”

He’s so fucking annoying. You want to fuck his face just to shut him up, but you know that would only last about ten and a half seconds. 

You curse and close your eyes and dig your head back into the pillows. He must take it as a signal to continue, because bright, staticky stars burst behind your eyelids when he takes you into his mouth for the first time. 

Fuck. You’re inside him. It feels hot and wet, kind of squishy, but so tight when he sucks and sinks his mouth down even farther. 

You yell. The dramatic noise is ripped from your vocal chords without your consent, and your eyes fly open to look down at him. Those plush fucking lips look so goddamn good wrapped around you, all wet and red and swollen. You squeeze his hair in your hand. You’re so torn between wanting to chase the warmth of his mouth and wanting to arch away from it. 

Then you feel it, that familiar twisting deep and low in your gut, only it’s ten times as intense as it usually is. You start to panic. 

“Max! Max, please, I’m—!”

He pulls off quickly, and squeezes the base of your jerking dick. It kind of hurts, and you hiss and watch in horror and wait for something to come out. But it doesn’t. It’s so weird, the way he’s manually shut down your orgasm with one touch. Completely different than the way you would have had to hold back without this new dick. 

“That’s—”

“Incredible, right?” 

You huff in the midst of catching your breath. You still feel like a hair trigger, but without someone’s finger hovering over it now. 

“Oh my god,” you sigh. 

He laughs and lets go of you. You watch him wipe the corners of his pretty mouth and distantly think that you can’t wait until you get used to this, so you can make him gag and watch his drool and your cum seep from it. 

Your dick jerks at the thought, and it’s strange to have the evidence of your arousal be so obvious. It’s like a damn car alarm. 

“Wanna fuck me now?” 

You laugh, delirious. 

“My new nickname’s gonna be One Pump Chump.”

He slithers up the bed to lie beside you. 

“It’s totally understandable. Normal, even.”

You raise your eyebrow at him. 

“How big is the sample size?”

He shrugs and smirks but his eyes focus on the bedsheets between you. 

“I know I seem like a douchebag, but I really just wanna help.”

You pout at him, but fix your face before he looks back up at you. You run your hand through his hair, gently this time, and something about this whole situation is making your heart feel all gooey. 

“You only seem like a little bit of a douchebag.”

He grumbles at you but smiles. 

“Besides, there’s like, a billion things you’re gonna want to try with that thing. You’ll get practice.” 

That thing suddenly doesn’t feel as pressing anymore. You’re still hard as rock, but it finally feels like it would take a little more than a gentle breeze to make you spill. 

“Let me fuck you, then.”

“Yeah?”

You nod and smile; and some of that eagerness comes back to light up his devious eyes. He reaches for the condoms in the bedside table and you admire all of the taut muscles under his tan skin. 

“You want help with this?” 

You roll your eyes, but it’s kinda sweet. You’ve never actually put one on at this angle before. So you get between his thighs when he lies back and let him roll it on you. 

“You can definitely get someone pregnant with this too, so… be warned. Don’t sue me about it, it won’t go over well in court.”

Your dick bobs in his grasp as you laugh. It feels so weird and fascinating.  

“Noted, thank you for the disclaimer. And sorry about the lawsuit?” 

He squeezes your prick around the condom and smiles up at you. 

“No worries, that was decades ago.”

You laugh until the words catch up with you. But you don’t have time to question it much, because he’s lying back and spreading his thighs for you, getting a pillow under his hips so his glistening pussy is tilted perfectly. Your mouth waters at the sight of him so aroused and ready for you, and at the thought of how much more wet and tight and hot it’s going to feel compared to his mouth. 

You sigh and play with his little clit, still wet from your saliva. He keens and seeks out more friction and you have to fuck him. His pussy is even more enticing now, knowing you can slide your prick inside. 

You shuffle closer and try to remind yourself to take your time. You purposefully glide your hands up his thighs, feeling the way the hair gets more sparse and fine the further up you go. You’re delighted by the little goosebumps that form under your fingertips and the way he sounds so relaxed when he sighs. 

Shuffling even further now, you settle those thick thighs over your own and let your knees cage his slim hips. When you look up, he’s watching you through hooded eyes with his bottom lip between his teeth.

“You really are gorgeous,” you tell him, softly, afraid to disturb what’s becoming a very peaceful calm before the storm. 

His breath hitches a little and you see it as it ripples his chest. 

“You really are handsome,” he winks back. 

Your hand wanders up higher, across his ribs, and your thumb presses against his stiff nipple and rolls it. You feel the small noise he makes under your palm and smile. 

Your other hand grabs the base of your cock, sure to keep the base of the condom from slipping down. The subtle move kind of makes you feel like a pro, and you’d snicker about it if the euphoria that flooded through your body didn’t overwhelm you. 

It’s kind of like an out of body experience. But you’re also painfully aware of your body and this new appendage and the way the feeling of it is wreaking havoc on your entire being. 

You slide your cock through his wet folds and even just this feels incredible, the way every bit of him feels rubbing against your sensitive cockhead. You can’t drag it out any longer, you know. 

“Are you ready?” You ask him hesitantly. 

“Are you ready?” 

You snort and roll your eyes and pinch his nipple. His back arches and the movement makes your dick slip down, press just barely against his opening. You suck in a breath and it takes every ounce of willpower not to shove yourself inside to chase that wet heat. 

“Okay, okay, I’m ready. Just fuck me already. Gonna feel so good.”

For him or for you, you’re not sure which he means, but it doesn’t matter. 

You try to take your time. You really do. But as soon as the head of your prick slips in it’s like you have no self control. 

You chase the warmth, plunge all the way into him, and stay. 

Oh my god. 

“Oh my god.”

Max chuckles at you and you can feel it. You’re so fucking wrapped up in him. Every little move, shift, clench, it surrounds you and overwhelms you. 

“You feel so fucking good, Max.”

You’re sure you look absolutely wild. Your jaw is permanently dropped, eyes wide as you try with all of your might to hang on. 

“Ditto,” he breathes. 

His eyes look dark and intense, when your eyes can finally focus in. 

“Do you— did you make it exactly how you like?” 

It’s so stupid to be asking questions right now but it’s the only thing you have to keep you somewhat composed. 

“Yeah,” he admits, a little breathless. 

“You get off on that?”

You know he does before he answers, can feel him clench and contract around you. You muster up the dexterity to find his clit with your thumb and press. 

“I do! I do, fuck.”

You finally start to inch out of him, slowly, afraid that too much friction will send you over the edge. 

“Are you using me like a toy?” 

He whimpers, and the sound alone makes you snap your hips back into him. 

“No, no, that’s not it.”

Your brows rise up in question, and you pull out again as you wait for him to explain. 

“It’s— I dunno. I like that you… hah, shit, like that, don’t stop.”

You feel smug that you’ve derailed his thoughts by starting to fuck him with a slow rhythm, if only because he’s derailed yours a million times in the two nights you’ve shared. 

You circle his clit and groan at the way his pussy squeezes you. It’s hard to even pull out of him, it’s like he’s sucking you right back in. 

“You were saying?”

And it doesn’t sound smooth coming from your mouth, your breathing labored and your voice strained. 

“I like that you’ll think of me when you fuck. I like knowing I made you like this for me even if others get to enjoy it. I like knowing— shit— I like knowing I’m the one that makes you feel good.”

You balk at his confession. Such a beautiful explanation for something so possessive. From anyone else it would sound so objectifying. But with this strange relationship the two of you have, it makes your entire body burn. 

You collapse on top of him once the words really sink in. You hide your face in his sweaty neck and begin to rut into him with the knowledge that you’ll probably crumble far too quickly, but you don’t quite care. 

“You do, you make me feel so good,” you tell him. 

He whines and works his hips against yours to meet your frantic thrusts. You grab his hair again and bite faint marks into his neck that make him writhe and squirm against you. 

“You do too— harder, please, fuck me harder.”

Man, your hips are starting to ache, just like with your strap, but this time the sensation of feeling him wrapped around your very real cock keeps the discomfort at bay and it’s just pure bliss. 

So you double down, raise back up to put more of your back into it. Your sweaty hands slip against his skin as you try to grab his hips for leverage. 

“You gotta touch yourself for me,” you pant. 

The way he scrambles to comply just turns you on even more, gives you one more tick in the ‘power tripping’ column. He looks so fucking beautiful under you, back all arched in pleasure, his face scrunched up in concentration. His bicep is bulging as he slides three fingers back and forth across his clit, so frantic but so practiced. 

You fuck him and try to think about anything other than how good he feels. You’re plunging into the world’s softest, warmest hole and he’s moaning for you, you’re making him feel just as good as you do, and you’re going to lose it. 

“Gonna come, Max. I can’t—”

“Do it, come for me. Wanna be the first.”

Your hips stutter as the wave finally, finally crashes over you. You try so hard to fuck through it, try to make him come again, but as the first shock of your orgasm spikes up your spine, you can’t think to do anything but try to bury yourself as far as you can into his tight cunt. 

You know he’s saying something encouraging by the tone of his voice, but his words go in one ear and out the other as you grind into him and rest your sweaty forehead in the middle of his chest. It feels so good you could cry. 

Your fingertips dig into the flesh of his hips as you ride it out, and your chest starts to burn and your throat starts to ache and your eyes start to burn.

You are crying. 

“Shit.”

It comes out as a broken sob, muffled into his chest, and he starts at the sound. 

“Hey, it’s okay. Just breathe.”

You shake your head against him. 

“I’m fine.”

“I know, just breathe though.”

The breaths you suck in are all shuddery and stilted, and there’s snot, and it’s so embarrassing but comforting all at once. 

He urges you to slip out, and he even holds the condom for you, pulls it off, and ties it while you try to reel yourself in.

You don’t, not right away at least, because once you get over the crazy rush of endorphins and serotonin and dopamine or whatever that’s flooded your body, you start feeling extremely self conscious about the whole sobbing during sex thing, and the fact that he didn’t get off, and—

“Come snuggle?” 

You’re not sure when he got up, but he’s holding up a robe for you in one hand, and cradling your head in the other, and ushering you out into the living room. His fireplace is on now, and there’s a tall, snobby glass bottle of water on his end table. 

You’re tired, now. Like, bone-deep exhaustion. You slump into him where he’s sprawled out on his leather couch and close your watery eyes. 

“I’m sorry.”

He shushes you gently, pets your head that’s on his chest that definitely has your dried snot on it still. 

“Don’t be sorry. As long as you feel good, I feel good.”

You nod, and taking a deep breath comes easier to you this time. You brave a look up at him, and his eyes are warmer than ever as they reflect the orange-yellow flames.

“Thank you.”

He smirks then, and you feel the tension in the room shift. 

“So how was it?”

You grin and hide it in his pecs. You’re hyper aware of your spent dick lying soft and sticky on your thigh. You’re so much more tired than you ever usually are after an orgasm. It was all so different, every little bit of it. And there’s this calmness you feel now, after all the commotion, and it hits you all at once that it all feels right. 

There’s no cleaning your strap, putting away your toys, no sliding on your underwear to hide the thing that just gave you pleasure. There’s no awkward dissonance. It’s just… normal. Normal in a way it’s never been before. Effortless bliss, like a sensory deprivation tank. Nothing. 

“It was everything.”

-

Author's Note: I wanted to share a bit about what really resonated with me as I learned more about Loki. The one thing that stuck with me throughout this writing challenge is that Loki is not a bad guy. I will be honest, the only thing I knew about Loki before this was from the MCU, which to me seems like an oversimplification of the norse god from everything I've learned about him. Erin provided me with this very thorough video that analyzes Loki and his myths. To me, he seems like someone who liked to 'stir the shit' for the sake of curiosity. I didn't find much ill will at all in these tellings of his trickery, just a guy who wanted to fuck around and find out about things, someone who did more than just wonder what would happen.

Second, Erin said he's Like a fun older brother. Very playful and mischievous. Very straight-forward. Protector of outcasts; lgbtq+ folks, disabled people, neurodivergent people, etc. This was another driving force behind this fic. It wasn't a coincidence that Max met reader their first night at the club, they founded the club for the sole purpose of creating a safe space for queer people and takes an active role in making sure their patrons feel like they belong.

Lastly, Erin said their pick for me would be Max / Loki because of the gender fuckery, which excited me as much as it made me feel honored. When watching the aforementioned video, I learned about Loki turning himself and Thor into a bridesmaid and a bride, respectively. Loki himself was unrecognizable and was the exact image of a woman. However, Thor pretty much just looked like himself in a dress (this is paraphrasing.) I loved the idea that Loki's shapeshifting could not only be directed toward other people, but could vary in vagueness. These undefined rules for Loki’s gender felt like how I personally view gender in general, as well as how I relate it to my own identity, and I really took that idea and ran with it.

Anyway, thank you again @perotovar for this writing challenge and the piece of yourself you shared with all of us. I love you so much! <3

[iiitsnotbase]

Iyengar and the Portrayal of Class and Power in her Games.

Since its origin in 1974, Dungeons and Dragons has been used to tell multiple types of stories, all depending on the players at the table and the dungeon master at the head of it. Most of these games (and other Tabletop roleplaying games, of course) tend to have a central theme in common, which is the theme of power. Whether that be a power over the world, for example, a king or nobility or dragon terrorising the nation, or the gods having power, or anything in between those, power always comes into play. Especially when it is commonly argued that one person at those tables, the dungeon master, or the game master, has the majority of the power over the table (excluding dice rolls, obviously. Dice rolls are left to the whims of fate.). 

There is one Game Master who portrays power in not only her games, but her characters, and she portrays it well. Though at times the way she portrays this power is often subtle and un-noticed, it is there; As intrinsic to her characters as the fact that they are alive, as threaded into the worlds she builds as the people (or even stoats!) that live in them. The way is not too heavy-handed, but it is not so subtle that you cannot see it, it is a delicate balance that she always manages to strike. I am of course talking about the Game Master of (most recently, at the very least) Candela Obscura; Tide and Bone, Aabria Iyengar. Though Candela Obscura is her most recent project (as of writing, 30/2/24), she is also known for her work on Dimension 20’s A Court of Fey and Flowers, Burrows End, The Ravening War, Pirates of Leviathan, and Misfits and Magic, as well as her appearances on Critical Role and being a main cast member of World Beyond Number. She is also widely regarded in all of these fandom spaces as (jokingly) ‘One of our own’, due to her frequent appearance on fanblogs. This is also sometimes colloquially referred to as ‘getting Quiddied’. Although Iyengar’s portrayal of power is always there, it is never more obvious than in Dimension 20’s A Court of Fey and Flowers.

Whatever you are imagining for A Court Of Fey and Flowers, times it by 10, add much more court drama, secrets, espionage, and one single, drugged-up, horny Grandfather who is all the worst parts of birds, and you might have something somewhat close. The table for this season of Dimension 20 includes frequently famous fliers (bird pun fully intended) such as Emily Axford (Lady Chirp Featherfowl), Brennan Lee Mulligan (Captain K.P. Hob), and Lou Willson (Lord Squak Airavis), as well as newcomers such as Surena Marie (Gwyndolin Thistle-Hop/BINX Choppley), Oscar Montoya (Delloso de la Rue), and Omar Najam (Prince Andhera), with Aabria Iyengar at the head of it, controlling all of their fae fuckery (both literal and metaphorical).

A Court of Fey and Flowers is Bridgerton on steroids, with magic and dice and eating feathers, and it is exactly as insanely wonderful as you think it would be. Interwoven with the romance inherent to the regency genre (BINX/Prince Andhera and Delloso de la Rue/K.P. Hob), there are themes of class and social standing, not only among the general population of the courts, but among their peers. This is there right from the beginning, in fact, as across the series illegitimate marriages, secret engagements, and whole secret children are revealed. Being the Game Master of this season, Iyengar portrays these struggles with a gentle touch and an ice-cold grip, never letting you forget that they are there, waiting to be shown, in the background. 

In the very first scene we have with Axford and Wilson’s characters, we learn both must marry for power, which tips many off to the way this society works. Their Grandfather (portrayed by Iyengar), demands they marry for power. This move, on Iyengar’s part, is a masterful portal of class, and hints at the social standing the characters have in the show. Unlike every other character mentioned, these two do not belong to a court. The implications of needing to marry well so they are not tarnished and banished from future social events do not go unnoticed by the players or the audience. Axford and Wilson would both later go on to reveal their already secured, entirely inappropriate matches, and cause many issues for their Grandfather. 

Another, darker moment of power is the power that the parents have over their children in this world. ‘Parents’ is a strong word for what some of these relationships are, ‘maternal’ being an even stronger word, so we will, for the purposes of this essay, say they are the people who watched over these characters as they grew and now hold power over them. Starting with the positive parental relationships, Marie’s character is shown to have a very unique relationship with their parents and family.

Unique in the fact that they are dead, and still holding power over her (in a somewhat positive way). Marie’s character’s grief spurs her to action on multiple occasions, at one point almost causing the end of her life through a power more powerful than grief. This is also down to Marie’s performance as BINX, her grief is interwoven with her character, holding court on her seat with her. Iyengar, several times, uses the care Marie’s character shows to her old family against her; Particularly in Episode 10, when she brandished a weapon for the first time against Najam’s Characters sister. The scene is incredibly impactful, as Iyengar cuts across to use the moment BINX (Marie) removes Andhera’s (Najam’s) shard to show Suntar (Andhera’s sister, Iyengar) losing the little power she had over Najam’s Character. 

Though Suntar is not the only person who held power over Najam’s character, his Mother, the Queen of Air and Darkness (again, Iyengar) is shown to terrify them. In fact, the power The Queen holds over her son is so deeply rooted into his character, it is a part of his design, a shard shoved into his neck that rains on him when he gets upset, or any strong emotion. This allows Iyengar to offer reminders to the cast, even when Najam is portraying the emotions, that there is always someone more powerful than the main six out there, waiting. This impact is made even heavier by the fact Najam plays one of the most powerful characters at the table himself, a Prince of a court that is widely well known and highly regarded. There is a case to be made about how he might play the most powerful character at the table, because while Marie’s Character is the leader of their court, that court is diminished, and Montoya’s character still answers to other people. 

Speaking of Montoya’s character answering to other people, The Chorus are some of the most prominent threats despite never being explicitly stated as villains (like characters such as Prince Apollo (Iyengar) are). They run one of the most powerful courts, The Court of Wonder, and help put together the entire event the story takes place in, The Bloom. The power they have over Montoya’s Character (Delloso de la Rue) is never unnoticed. It is integral to the character, given that they wore a glamour (a magical illusion to make them look like a green-skinned elf) every single day, to hide the fact they really are an owlbear, which are typically considered monsters. The Chorus only really exert their power once in a threatening way, but just because something is not said does not mean it is not felt. For example, Wuvvy (Iyengar) is a member of the Court of Wonder, and although she is Delloso de la Rue’s assistant, she is still a member of the Court of Wonder, which means she also answers directly to The Chorus if she is asked. Though all the examples mentioned so far are subtle in their power, one court likes people to know they have power, perhaps because the people in it are so very tiny. 

Mulligan portrays Captain K.P Hob of The Goblin Court, which holds the most explicit power in the season. Before we have even learnt the name of Mulligan’s character, we learn he is a Captain, which might mean something in another, kinder universe. This ties back into the Goblin Court holding all the power, K.P is a captain of their court, and this is so important to him we don’t learn his first or second name until much later. Iyengar and Mulligan work together to portray the court gaining and losing power rapidly, and using its members with significant ranks to find and hold that power. This is shown when the Viscountess Grabalba marries the Head of the Trickster Court after her previous engagement is called off. It is shown, in a much more solemn light, when K.P Hob is promoted to Major and ordered to marry for the court, which he does. 

There is also power in the way the cast chose to do their romances in this world, which Iyengar facilitates with several events throughout the ten-episode season, such as a Masquerade Ball and a Hedge Maze. There is power in the way Axford’s character has her own, secret family, in the way Wilson’s has a lover in every court, in the way Marie and Najam’s characters find each other, and in the way both Montoya and Mulligan’s leave their old lives behind for love (in Montoya’s case, in an almost direct parallel to Wuvvy). You could write an essay on the romances in A Court of Fey and Flowers, but this is an essay about power, and while love does have power, I would next like to discuss another Dimension 20 season headed by Iyengar and featuring Mulligan that heavily plays on power. 

Dimension 20: Burrows End is Chernobyl (the TV show) meets Chicken Run (but replace the chickens with stoats) meets Peter Rabbit (but they are stoats) meets 1984 (but with stoats). There are a lot of stoats in this season. Almost every character is a stoat, with exception of the two named humans (one of whom is secretly a stoat). Again, this cast includes some frequent flyers, such as Brennan Lee Mulligan (Tula), Isabella Rolland (Lila), Siobhan Thompson (Jayshon), and Erika Ishii (Ava), as well as the transition of Rashawn Nadine Scott (Viola) from Play It By Ear to Dimension 20, and 3 Black Halflings’ Jasper William Cartwright (Thorn Vale). All in all, this cast is best described as a powerhouse. 

Iyengar portrays class and power in this season in a subtler, more intimidating way. It is not so obvious at the beginning, as all the power seems to be in the hands of Cartwright’s Thorn Vale, the leader of an exclusive cult that worships The Blue. There is an argument to be made here that The Blue is the one with the power, despite not being a technical character in the season, it holds its place by being constant, whether that be through Cartwright and Scott’s character’s cult, or whether that is through forcing the beating of Mulligan’s character’s (Tula) heart. In this, the force which holds all the power is not a character at all; It is similar to what holds all the power in our world, which is simply nature. 

When the main six reach a location known as Last Bast, or The Last Bastion of The Light, or Warren Peace Nuclear Power Plant (we’ll continue to refer to it as Last Bast), some of the first characters there that they meet have the least power. They meet the working-class of stoats first, before anyone else, and thus begin to see Last Bast from their perspective. They meet these working class stoats when they are dying, when it is implied they are expendable because they have no power. In reality, they have all the power, being the ones to provide the food for the rest of Last Bast, and being the ones to provide the food, which keeps the area going. In reality, as much as the ruling class don’t think the working class have any power here, they have all the power. 

One of these working class stoats (as a reminder, these are all stoats) is an outspoken adolescent named Sybil, who loses her brother in the first meeting with the main six. Though initially she is portrayed as weak and powerless (literally being dead in her first appearance), we learn that she is resourceful, and if she is not strong in the literal sense, she is strong in the mental sense. She is also used to show the power that the leader, The First Stoats, have over their people, when they kill her in front of the Main Six to prove a point. Her death is explicitly described as being “The price of treason,” (Iyengar). Though Sybil is often argued as just simply being ‘a narrative device’, could the same not be said for all the characters in this story?

Sybil is also used to portray the idea of love conquering all, an overused trope but a trope for a reason. One of the most popular phrases in Last Bast, and a phrase used to guide other stoats towards it is “Follow your instincts towards the light.” Sybil takes this extremely literally, following her brother and breaking rules for her family, such as saying Curtis’s name even after he died (an act forbidden by The First Stoats).

Which brings me nicely onto the next point, the way The First Stoats attempt to hold power over death. The first way this is shown is through the disallowance of names for the dead, for the people who don’t technically exist anymore. This furthur shows their dictatorship and need for power and control; The way they cannot control death so they outlaw the names, taking away the family’s process of mourning and grief. The second way they do this is through Sybil’s aforementioned execution by them. They capture and kill her, showing again how they have the level of power and control that other stoats in Last Bast do not have. 

Candela Obscura; Tide & Bone is not only a masterclass in relationships and trust between players at the table, but a masterclass in power. The cast includes Sam Riegel (Oscar Grimm), Noshir Dalal (Professor Rajan Savrimuthu), Gina Darling (Madam Cordelia Glask), Ashly Burch (Dr Elsie Roberts), and Liam O’Brian (Professor Cosmo Grimm). This cast includes Critical Role old and new friends, all voice acting powerhouses in their own right, and is headed, as all these tables are, by Aabria Iyengar. 

Tide & Bone does not only choose to focus on the power of human emotions, but on the power of nature, and the freakish things we cannot control even when trying our best. To understand the portrayal of power in this game, we first need to understand the characters and their relationships to each other, since one of the long-standing themes across the circle is what power, and how much power, do our emotions have over us?

This theme is most obviously portrayed through Burch’s performance as Dr Elsie Roberts, a young Doctor with Cullet and a panic disorder that materialises as a terrible monster when she gets too stressed (take it literally), and Dalal’s performance as Professor Rajan Savrimuthu, a professor with a hive in his chest. I highlight these two not because they are the only people to portray the theme of emotions holding more power than they are worth, but because they are the most obvious. It is well stated that the professor and the doctor were together (romantically), “For a time.” (Burch). 

The scene that highlights this the most is the opening scene to Episode 3, Candles in The Dark, where it is revealed to the audience that, for an unknown reason, Professor Rajan Savrimuthu spent the whole night outside Dr Elsie Robert’s bedroom door, after him leaving in the previous episode. This scene, or the opening to it, shows how people are easily manipulated by their emotions, especially people such as Professor Savrimuthu and Dr Roberts. 

This theme is further explored later in the scene with the line “(Oscar) is interesting. He has certainly earned your trust.” Said by Dalal as Professor Savrimuthu. Oscar Grimm is one of Dr Robert’s best friends, and the only person to have ever seen her transform into the beast outside of herself (“I would have seen it before, right? So I know.” (Reigel as Oscar Grimm, narrating his internal monologue.)). This is further questioned by Dr Roberts, when she wonders why exactly ‘Raj’ is choosing to bring up this moment now, when they are about to go on the run, saying Elsie’s internal monologue is asking “Is this an inopportune moment of jealousy? What’s going on here?”.

However, romantic emotions are not the only emotions shown to have power over people. When Dr Roberts transforms into The Beast for the first time on-screen in Episode 1, it is not Professor Savrimuthu who comforts her through it, it is (one of) her best (and only) friends, Oscar Grimm. ‘Comforts her through it’ is a generous term to say ‘he is the one who takes the fall, not only for Elsie but for the rest of their circle, as she kills him’. Oscar Grimm cannot die, but he can still be killed, and he is. As he is being killed, though knowing she cannot hear him, he whispers, “It’s ok. I’ll be fine.” and then promptly dies and comes back.

This is another way that Iyengar portray’s power in this story; The power of death, and those who defy it, through Oscar Grimm, Empress Iomene, and Cosmo Grimm. While many other themes are ran rampant throughout their story, the main one is death and mourning, and finding power over those things.

For Oscar, the man who never dies, death is not something to fear. He cannot comprehend or remember what happens when he dies, and though he is often not alone, he dies far more than any one person should. Both him and his son, Cosmo Grimm, have power over death in separate ways. Whilst Oscar does not actively seek death, it seeks him, and he keeps coming back, whereas Cosmo actually seeks death and does not find it. The constant death for the elder member and the constant undeath for the younger one make this duo interesting and give them some of the most power in this circle. 

The last character to explore power in a unique way in this circle is Gina Darling’s Madam Cordelia Glask. She shows us the power of the gods, who took her entire family from her. Darling also, during her portrayal of Glask, holds a necklace like a rosary, showing how she still has faith in the gods that raised her and ripped her family from her. This point also further proves the power that our childhoods hold over us, even when we are in a different location, as Glask is. 

There are then the themes of communal power that are portrayed in the story, most obviously the power of names and titles. In Newfaire, there is a literal divide between the Eaves and the rest of the city, the literal divide being the staircase into the Eaves. This is evidenced in the circle by the fact that only one of them is not titled in any way shape or form; That person also being the eldest in the circle, Oscar Grimm. Whilst all the other characters are titled somehow, with either Professor or Doctor, offering academic achievements, or Madam, offering social achievements. This creates a divide in the circle, which is particularly emphasised when you realise that Oscar works for Madam Glask.

In conclusion, although power has multiple meanings, somehow Iyengar is able to portray all of them across the games she leads. This essay only covers the elements of her games, it mentions nothing of her characters, the ones who destroy themselves for power (Suvi and Laerryn) and the ones who let power destroy them (Karna). Power, as most things are, is a storytelling device that can often be overused. Iyengar does not do that. Iyengar’s take on power is refreshing, and in so many words (3410 to be exact), oddly comforting.

[whitherwordswither]

02: Wrapped Up For Your Continuance

Some undetermined amount of hours had passed since the overwhelming pleasure of morning's first light, but it was like a distant dream upon the ledge of a precipice I could no longer reach. An echo, and a questionable one at that. The collective haze that had been buzzing in my brain and casting a heavy fog of war over my entire existence was gradually fading. But the picture was far from being any clearer.

I blinked, rubbing my eyes. I found myself sitting at my kitchen table, staring down at the dark oak top. Fingertips traced over the old scuffed surface as I tilted my head. There was no recollection of getting out of bed, much less putting on the clothes I found myself wearing. So why was I here? More over… I couldn't seem to recount for… for… how long had it been? What happened to yesterday? The day before? And even before that?

The spacious gaps in my memory were concerning and immediately piqued my anxiety. Why couldn't I remember anything? Shakily, I gripped the edge of the table in an effort to make myself stand. I didn't quite get that far as I, instead, found myself frozen in place. Having lifted my head, I was now staring across the table at… at what? It didn't make sense. Not at first.

It was like someone had neglected a garden for far too long and it had gained sentience through overgrown ire then murdered its abusive gardener with their own trowel and then casually assumed a facsimile of their shape. Or maybe I had taken a lot of drugs, which would account for the brainfog and lapses, and constructed some weird plant-matter piece of art in a state of heightened neuro-fuckery.

Neither were quite accurate. This plant construct had a face. Eyes. A smile. It tilted its head in the same fashion as I did, a singular vine worming its way across the tabletop to lay across the back of my hand. It was warm and applied pressure, squeezing. Comforting… in a not-from-this-side-of-reality kind of way.

"Good morning, again, my little sweetling~"

A mouth shifted beneath some leaf-like facial coverings. It was familiar to me, somehow. I felt we knew one another. My eyes fell to the vine, little fronds rubbing against my hand and over my wrist. My body slumped and I found myself sitting back down. No. This wasn't right, was it? The eyes across from me were deep, dark pools with traces of luminescent green, languidly oscillating like ripples stuck in a loop. I wanted to close the distance between us. I wanted to be wrapped in those arms. Those vines. But… why?

"W-wh…" My mouth was dry. Parched, like I hadn't spoken in days. Another vine shifted across the table, pushing a glass of water toward me. I took it and drank, slowly gulping it down, letting the cool liquid refresh me. More vines crept under the table, touching and gently brushing over my legs. Who? What? Where? So many questions rose in my mind as it struggled with the remote feeling that it knew this entity and at the same time not at all. I set the glass down and tried again to speak.

"Who… a-are…" Was all I managed to get out before the tip of one of those tendrils pressed to my lips.

"Tsk, tsk~ You know who I am, my darling. Are you feeling well? Does anything hurt? Tell me… and I will ease your discomforts straight away~" A series of smaller vines unfolded from the plant's shoulders and back, buds blossoming with colorful flowers… with totally non-threatening thorns at the center where a stigma and anthers should have been.

I shook my head, turning my hand over, gaze falling once more as I ran my thumb along a stretch of vine. Smooth. Soft. Why did I feel attachment? Yearning? My brows furrowed. "N-no… no. I'm… fine… I think…?"

"Are you certain? You've been through quite a lot of mental turmoil. I don't want you reopening any of those nasty little passages and slipping in to the cracks again. We'll keep you safe. Everything will be alright. We're together now." The words were meant to be reassuring, but my brain wasn't letting things go so easily. The gaps fueled that fire. I pulled my hand away from the vine.

"Who… are you…? Wh-what's… what's going on…?" I stammered through my words, my pulse picking up as I squirmed in my seat. Uncertainty seeded and grew quick in my mind, raising red flags. Sparking a wave of anxiousness. The clouds cleared. I shoved back from my chair as I stood, unsteadily falling back against the dining hutch behind me. Glass rattled with the impact. Now that I had a hold of that uneasy thread I wasn't letting go. This was my house. I lived here. Alone. And many years before, family. Stepmom. Father. Sister. I grew up here.

The plant was out of place. Alien. I could feel a frantic bile at the back of my throat as my brain scrambled in attempts to calculate the best course of action. My legs refused to comply to my many demands that they move me, with haste. I turned my head toward the kitchen. The island counter, cluttered with years of knicks, knacks, odds, ends… and knives.

Movement had my attention snapping back to my uninvited guest. The vines had withdrawn back toward it as it slowly stood. It was taller than it had any right to be, having to bend slightly to not hit the ceiling, which was lower in this part of the house. It's features, for a moment, were twisted in what I could only describe as distaste… then swiftly shifted to comfort. For my benefit? Was it playing harmless? It's body rustled, leaves twitching as if in a breeze. It seemed to shrink, folding in on itself, tendrils constricting as it adopted a more humanoid shape. My leg muscles were cramping and a strained noise warbled in my throat as it approached, tapered digits akin to branches spread, showing it meant no ill will. My brain screamed I could trust it at the same time it screamed to get away. And all I could do was shrink back against the hutch, near to hyperventilating as my thoughts raced like bolts of lightning across a boiling sky.

"Shhhh~ Shhh~ It's alright, sweetling. You're alright. I am not here to hurt you. I would never." It crept closer. Closer. Those spindly fingers traced up my arms, rubbed over my shoulders and neck then carefully cradled my face. I could look nowhere else except in to those mesmerizing eyes, opening wider and wider before me. Swirling. The front of the plant's body pressed against mine, exuding warmth. "I can see that I did not do a very acceptable job in altering all the appropriate neural pathways… for that I apologize, little one. It has been, admittedly, a long time since I have worked with your species."

The words whirled around in my ears, fixating on one in particular: Altering. What did it mean? Pathways? Worked with? A pit formed in my stomach as I shook, despite the calming caresses. Vines played along my sides and hips, trying to lull me back in to a more tranquil state.

"Wh-what… d-did you… do? Why… c-can't I… re… remember…?" Why did I feel so accusatory, so certain this creature was at fault? Was it? Was I? My inner monologue separated in to pieces and argued. I hated when it did that. It was always a circular struggle that went nowhere.

"You will not remember." It's next words were sharp. Commanding. The bark-like palm of it's hand pressed to my cheek. Stroked. I found my head tilting in to it as the entity's voice softened. "It's for your own safety, little one. I know things are fuzzy and frightening right now. But I am here to help you. I'm going to make everything better. I promise. You won't hurt ever again…"

I was so focused on their eyes I didn't notice the two flowers snaking around, nor did I feel the dual pinpricks against my neck. Those eyes were too beautiful I wanted to do nothing else but stare in to them forever. No, more than that. I wanted to crawl in to them! I felt myself leaning toward the plant, the edges of my vision darkening. The whole world was darkening. But that was ok! I felt like I was being pulled in to those eyes. Swallowed by them. I could feel myself dipping in to warm murky water, thick like syrup. Swirls of green like ripples drifting outward from my body. That's when the haziness returned. But I didn't mind it. I was safe here. Everything felt tingly and warm and good. So very good. Was that me who giggled?

"Come with me now, sweetling~ We're going to have a nice dream. A perfect spring meadow. Just the two of us~"

Like the softest cotton, I followed those words deeper down and further out in to bliss. My body was forgotten, wrapped yet again in a thousand vines and carried off to the living room couch. Nestled down. Protected as I swam the endless ocean of the pools in the plant's eyes and dissolved in their obscuring waters. I became the salt in that sea. I swam and coalesced and drifted along until I could no longer feel myself. I was an empty vessel waiting to be refilled with the warmth of being.

I was an empty vessel waiting for meaning.

[studiousbotanist]

the jace conglomerate . like to imagine he's saying this about rose

[wirefoxboys]

jace shitpost <3

orig image:

[flagellant]

What's your favorite depiction of werewolves (including any idea that is like, a generally humanoid person turns into a more animalistic type creature, like twilight princess or sonic unleashed)?

It changes per media.

Literary: Honestly? Twilight. Set aside all the Mormon fuckery and the quantum indigenous appropriation. The way that werewolves work as a sort of metaecological immune response, as a way to keep your community safe against foreign parasites? Big sexy. And then there's the supernatural traits of the pack being able to essentially hivemind? Again emphasizing the point of community and cooperation???? Aaaaaaugh. And then the actual creatures themselves literally just being wolves the size of thoroughbreds???????? I'm really sorry but Twilight werewolves really were just the biggest bait to me. That said, there was a pair of books which I cannot overstate how influential they were on me: Goosebumps' Werewolf of Fever Swamp set me down a lifelong fascination with the act of transformation, and then there was this one short story, and I swear I wish I could find it because of how much it has stuck with me, but I cannot find any information on it and haven't for years.

The whole plot of the short story was just this teenage boy who volunteers at a vet, gets bitten by a fox I think, and then it just has this absolute strangest descent/transformation into werevulpine vibes? I remember, or at least I think I do, very clearly that the fox was growing out of his stomach or something, and there was this very tense dinner scene where it was chicken for dinner? I truly have no idea where the fuck I read it, but I think it was probably my first experience with lycanthropy-as-adolescence-metaphor intermingling with lycanthropy-as-sexuality metaphor. And it probably shows, if anyone else happened to know what this story was.

Tabletop: Okay so I have to preface this by saying I actually hate World of Darkness Werewolves. I kind of hate it in general with very few exceptions, it always feels as though it's openly offensive or blatantly trying to show how definitely-not-offensive the 2.0 is (which just highlights other problems that weren't addressed at the root). With that said, the sociocultural implications of WoD Garou are honestly really neat! Especially because--again--their purpose is as protecting their communities from metaphysical threats and dangers! That is so fucking compelling to me--and the history they have intraculturally, with how they interpret themselves, their theology, and their place in the world--I find it all potentially fascinating. And as much as I fucking hate the fucked up nazi ecofash werewolf tribe concept just as an idea that needed to exist in that manner, any game where I can be both a werewolf and a nazi-killer is a game I will try very hard to critically support at least certain parts, and tabletop makes it easier to just throw away bullshit I dislike and keep the stuff I do like.

HONORABLE MENTION: Exalted Lunars, which aren't so much werewolves as they are furrybait flesh warping nightmare shoggoths who luxuriate in heresy and taboo, whose very presence in reality functions as a sort of existential terror akin to The Thing, except Lunars can also steal your memories along with your shape, so like, get fucked. They don't play like werewolves at all, so they don't get to be the actual victor, but I love them and everything about them so much that it'd be irresponsible not to mention them.

FILM: I have two answers to this, and they're both equally important. The first is An American Werewolf In London. It was the very first piece of film which has a non-wolfman type werewolf. It is also surprisingly a little bit camp in certain parts, but it's the original transformation sequence which gets its spot here. I would rewatch it on 2008 YouTube over and over and over, fascinated by it in the same way a fractal is. AmWolf is an incredibly important piece of werewolf media for a lot of reasons which are far more important, but for little-kid me, I just thought it was the coolest shit.

And then the other movie is Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf. Mostly bc I just really loved Scooby-Doo growing up and I also really loved werewolves so there'd be no contest. In hindsight the fact that it's a blatant speed racer parody is the funniest shit in the world to me. It's not actually even a mystery at all! It's just Scooby-Doo Speed Racer Monster Mash!!!!!! I love that! It's the sort of crazy silly media we don't get to have anymore, not really.

POETRY: Yes, I'm making the last favorite media rep a poem. You'll see why in just a moment.

[bardkin]

need to fling some downer ttrpg group thoughts out into the ether.

really stuck in a rut, just in general, and like... it's the usual. hate work, feel shitty, co-workers turning my existence and mistakes into jokes, can't do much of anything about it.

only upside right now is my big online roleplay group has started back up, i'm involved in a monthly-ish online dnd game with out-of-state friends, and in-person friends are open to learning pathfinder 2e.

sounds great! why am i not nearly as excited as i should be !!!

i don't think i'm a good fit for my in-person group, when it comes to tabletop rpgs. out-of-state group is more of a balance when it comes to combat and narrative, tho they lean a little more combat thus far.

in-person group could do nothing but crunchy dungeon crawls and be more than happy. and yeah, combat's fun, but i like story - a lot. and barely any of them really seem to, or they at least could comfortably live without it.

so i know how pathfinder is going to end up, after a while. we can maybe get one session of roleplay bullshit before they start wanting to hit stuff with abilities. & like, fair to 'em i guess, but i'm personally kind of over heavily combat-focused stuff. like i said - balanced is nice. it just felt like a lot of previous sessions we'd done in dnd 5e were Mostly aimed at combat, or Getting To combat, with just a bit of inter-party fuckery in between violence-oriented shenanigans. mostly interrogating enemies that we saved for info gathering, double-crossing a group, shit like that.

their characters aren't Bland or Just Stats & A Class by any means, they're... it's the difference between a Paragraph of Biography vs a Page of Biography. like, it doesn't seem like much at first blush, but comparing concepts between all of us always... feels really imbalanced. and i always feel kind of ashamed and embarrassed for putting more than three to five sentences worth of thought into my PCs.

i wanna possibly bring up something like Kids On Bikes (and hacks/homebrews of it so we can fuck around in all kinds of settings & scenarios), but i really doubt they'd go for it. "never know till you ask" etc etc, my rsd is already flaring at the thought of them not liking the idea. i'll get around to it, i just have to be ready to take the hit & be further disappointed.

i just know they'd most likely turn it down. there is a chance they'd say "sure, let's give it a shot" but that feels slim & i'm also not sure what the fuck i'd do from there. i'm so expectant that they'll turn down the idea if/when i ask. that's Probably the anxiety talking, but it's a high likelyhood due to my observation of play styles. (i don't even wanna think of how they'd react to me asking if they wanted to try something like Wanderhome. i can just hear "what's the point [if i can't hit stuff & see big numbers go up]?") i really doubt any of them would be willing to get even close to the level of character roleplay that i'd love to engage with & put forth.

like. i'm not asking for crit role levels of Grown Theater Kid Actor roleplay. i'm not even asking for like... acting specifically. i think i just kinda want a game where the characters have a bit more to them, & we have pre-game discussions about what directions we want the story to go. not just "we all separately make our characters, only really share our info with dm, & provide an introductory sentence about our pc on game day."

it's not currently possible for me to make other in-person friends, let alone find ones that would want to play narrative-driven ttrpg systems.

so i'm just kind of stuck & feeling bad about it.

[scormey]

https://scormey.com/2023/08/asimovs-4th-law-loot-mechanics-336/ AI-derived content on DTRPG and Roll20 are now banned. This is great on the surface, but has some creators a bit upset. We discuss this and some Kickstarter drama with “Urban Shadows 2nd Edition”, on today’s show!

Intro (0:49) – Beoulus talks “Baldur’s Gate III”, and Scormey had another health scare.

Tabletop Gaming (5:31) – OneBookShelf (parent company of DriveThruRPG and Roll20) have banned AI content. Let’s discuss.

Wrap (23:40) – Fuckery is afoot at Magpie Games’ “Urban Shadows 2nd Edition” Kickstarter!

[jeff-from-marketing]

Surprise! It’s not a TTRPG post! ... it’s just another tabletop game instead (I swear I’ll have other things at some point, but I do not control the brain)

In the midst of all the “Wizards of the Coast is the worst” fuckery (and a sentiment that is well justified might I add) I wanna talk about my favourite card game: Magic the Gathering.

I have a very long history with Magic the Gathering, I’ve been playing it since I was very young, usually by playing decks that family members and friends had put together. First set I got into was all the way back in Origins, and the store owner at the time (quick tangent to say: support your local tabletop stores) was kind enough to throw in an old battered box just filled with Tarkir cards to help me get into the game more. Sure at the end of the day they probably weren’t going to sell those cards anyway, and giving them to a newbie as a gesture of goodwill is still a business move, but it’s a kind one and one I support. 

Anyway, that nonsense preamble before the actual recipe aside: I’ve been playing for a long time, and I do genuinely love the game. As someone who absolutely fucking adores theory crafting builds in games and tweaking shit in just about every game I play, Magic is absolutely a dream for me in that regard. Combined with some absolutely gorgeous art, and you have a recipe for a game where I’m like “yup, I’m sold.” Even if I’m not building a deck that’s meta or competitive (because I’mma be honest, that ain’t my thing at all) I absolutely adore finding just one card and being like “oh, I could have some fun with this” and building up decks around a theme. 

Now I’m not 100% clueless on the issues Magic has. I’ll admit, I’m not as in touch with the community and the controversies around it as I am with D&D as of late, but I still keep an eye on things every now and then. But honestly the more recent things aren’t what’s giving me pause at the moment, but they did give me an excuse to sit down and think some things through.

I’ll preface this with one simple thing: I’m not going to stop playing MtG anytime soon. I still find the game very fun, and it’s still very important to me personally. However, I am changing how I’m engaging with it. While the recent controversies definitely don’t help their case, that’s not actually what’s making me pull the trigger. No, the reason for that can be described in two words:

Booster Packs.

I realise I’ve probably elicited one of two reactions from people. One is probably “ah yeah that checks out” and the other is probably “what the heck is wrong with booster packs?” Given how long they’ve been a staple in TCGs, and not just Magic, I would absolutely understand questioning that thought. In fact I would encourage that anyway. So, what’s my problem with booster packs then if they’re such a staple in the genre? Well, my answer is simple: they’re the original lootboxes. While the game industry was in a spot of bother about lootboxes when Blizzard popularised them (even though TF2 and CS:GO did it first) and EA villainised them, the TCG scene was doing basically the exact same thing for decades at that point. I’m not saying this to mean “oh lootboxes aren’t that bad because TCGs have had basically the same thing for decades,” if anything I’m saying the complete opposite. Lootboxes are fucking awful, they’re just straight up gambling at worst and a thinly veiled skinnerbox mechanic at best. If people are so upset at lootboxes, they should be just as upset at booster packs. But they’re not. There’s entire events based around them! 

So why am I only just now coming to this thought, at least a decade after I started playing? Well the recent WotC controversies have put a bit of a spotlight on their business practices in general, but no. What did it for me is their online platform for Magic, Magic Arena. In that game, the parallel between booster packs and lootboxes is even more cut and dry. Hell, they even do the Blizzard thing of “here, have some lootboxes every now and then for free as a reward for playing the game, keep playing to earn more!” as a skinnerbox mechanic, while also encouraging you to buy additional booster packs on top of that. Now you can do that with in game currency, but guess what? That’s more grinding, back to the skinnerbox you go! Plus it’s coupled with my most beloathed recent addition to shitty monetisation practices: a battle pass. Now don’t worry, even if you don’t get the exact cards you want from a booster pack, you can acquire individual cards of your choice... after you open a bunch of booster packs beforehand. Y’see where I’m going here? The entire game revolves around so many psychological hooks designed to get you to pay and keep playing well after you’ve stopped enjoying the game. And I did actually stop enjoying the game playing it like that. Grinding out game after game against opponents who almost entirely play whatever deck gets them the quickest win just to get their rewards (because you get literally nothing for losing). Even playing with friends became a struggle, because I’d often go “oh I have a great idea for a deck!” and then have my spirits crushed at how much I’d have to grind (or the obscene amounts of money I’d have to pay) just to even try it out to see if it works.

Booster packs absolutely suck the fun out of what should be a game that’s filled with fun things to do. I refuse to support lootboxes in games, so I have to do the same for booster packs. Luckily, it’s still entirely possible to play MtG without booster packs.

I recently discovered Tabletop Simulator works surprisingly well for MtG, and you can just import a deck you’ve made from any deck building website with little to no hassle. No need to open a bunch of boosters, no need to grind out games you don’t enjoy just to get an extra card or two to maybe finish a deck, you can just play right then and there! This has absolutely rekindled my love of the game. And besides, flipping the entire table is a lot more fun than just simply hitting concede if someone comes up with an absolutely ridiculous combo. I genuinely recommend it if you’re looking into ways to play Magic.

Though the big question to all this is: if booster packs are so awful (which they are) then what’s the solution?

Honestly... I don’t have one. Obviously companies aren’t going to just stop without someone else stepping in, but I don’t know what the best way to do that would be. I don’t know what to actually replace them with. I just know that, if they ever are replaced, they need to be replaced with something that doesn’t involve gambling; something where you can know exactly what you’re getting before you buy it.