#text v experience

[dailyadventureprompts]

At last, a dichotomy in TTRPG fans I can get behind!

I think "text" vs "experiance" is a really useful distinction to make here, specifically because a lot of games don't talk about their play culture despite how essential those cultures are to making the game actually run.

Yeah, you can technically play Vampire the Masqurade without a bunch of cliquey goths using it as means to flirt/farm drama, but it's an essential part of the game even if it's not a part of the game's mechanics.

What really made this click for me was something someone said a while ago along the lines of "D&D doesn't get good until you learn the secret oral tradition", which had been my EXACT experience. I'd been running the game out of the books between various editions for over a decade but because I was self taught/didn't have any more experienced nerd friends I didn't have any of the play culture to show me how the system should work. Along comes the critrole/5e reassurance and suddenly people are talking about running TTRPGs as a performance art and the game *unlocks* for me in a way that just reading and executing the rules never could.

This has been my unspoken complaint when getting into new systems, where I don't have a prevailing play culture to readily tap into and I'm going to have to make it up for me/my playgroup all by myself. Yes the mechanics can be elegantly designed, but to me learning how to play is SO much more than learning the rules.

Matt Coville actually has a fascinating video about the roots of TTRPG play culture, specifically when there was no unified idea about how to play and every group was making it up as they went along.

I think part of the disconnect between people who like to read RPGs critically and those who don't is that the former approach RPGs primarily through the text and the latter through their experience. The former group isn't interested in critiquing your group's session of Swumbles Big Jumble: The Motion Picture: The Role-playing Game, but the rules and the text of the game. To them bringing up all the ways your group fixed the rules of the game on the fly and how you had a good time even though you ended up ignoring half the rules doesn't sound like a convincing argument for the game being good, because it is an experience with the game ultimately divorced from the text. It's not a showcase of the game, it's at best a showcase of your game.

And to the latter group pointing out that the rules of the game, when played straight, actually produce a different kind of experience sounds like an attack, because they are more concerned with their experience with the game, and pointing out that disconnect sounds like it delegitimizes their game.

Anyway I'm in the former category: I have no interest in judging your personal experience with the game because I wasn't there and also that sounds like. Trying to review a video game based on watching the Game Grumps play it. In which case my review of most of the games would be "Arin Hanson is bad at video games."

[drusic]

HAPPY 28TH BIRTHDAY, GEORGENOTFOUND!

[ryllen]

[stonergirlfilmcanon]

on the decolonial/postcolonial gothic

'introduction: decolonising gothic' by rebecca duncan in gothic studies vol 24 no 3 (2022, pp. 219-227)

'the gothic origins of anti-blackness: genre tropes in nineteenth-century moral panics and (abject) folk devils' by maisha wester in gothic studies vol 24 no 3 (2022, pp. 228-245)

'decolonial gothic' by sheri-marie harrison in the edinburgh companion to globalgothic (2023, pp. 23-37)

'jean rhys's wide sargasso sea (1966) - postcolonial gothic' by tabish khair in the gothic: a reader edited by simon bacon (2018, pp. 25-30)

'gothic tales of postcolonial england' by sarah ilott in new postcolonial british genres: shifting the boundaries (2015, pp. 54-94)

'arundhati roy and the house of history' by david punter in empire and the gothic: the politics of genre edited by a. smith and w. hughes (2002, pp. 192-207)

[edda-grenade]

who's ready for some regency shenanigans :D

we have the season and the ton, except it's hunters and hounds (who are… not Not werewolves) trying to find a bond partner to go fight the darkness

bc it has eyes, and claws, and teeth :>

saar's a hunter who looks like she should be a hound, solas is a hound who looks like he should be a hunter if not a bureaucrat, they're gonna court each other in probably v unhinged ways

the rules are different, but there are still So Many Rules bc this IS regency

also fantasy mary anning is here. she wants to study eldritch monster corpses, but to do that you need access to the combat zone, and while she has a dog, she doesn't have a hound nor is she a hunter. so saar said, not to worry, i'll get a bonded hound and then We're In

to which solas said, you're both insane

[first image is based on the portrait of jean-baptiste belley by girodet]

[flockoff]

[our-afamspec-experience]

Being Afamspec and watching media filled with found families, real or headcannoned, is so wild bc I assume I’m Aegofamilial, but then I look at people and get super confused when everyone says that ‘Pomni and Kinger have such a father dynamic like aww <33’ or ‘IMP are the ultimate found family’ because it never clicks with me. I even sometimes don’t exactly process why someone would care about their mom’s death more than a friend’s.

It’s wild lol

[marley-manson]

wait are there beejhawk fics where bj is jealous and insecure because i've been looking for shit like that and requesting recs from people and i've never found anything except for like a few excellent beejhawk-y fics written by some of my mutuals lol, and a fic series from a little further back that ends up in poly i think which i'm not into and didn't finish

i don't mind if it's lazy characterization i'm here for angst and especially fucked up porn

[izzy-b-hands]

I actually managed to convince my mum to vote, also she's tried her first edible gummy last night and now thinks weed should be legalized on a federal level. Per her 'it can't be that hard to make edibles legal, right?'

What a day. And we haven't even gotten into the tidal wave of the election yet

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

Soooo, several days ago, I learned that I have an intolerance to parsley. Which it got me thinking about my favorite blorbos and how they'd handle that kinda stuff. Would have written this ramble the day of or the day after. Got really tired though better late than never! Makoto: Handles it all optimistically but still unhappy about the ordeal. A bit of it is him is more in shock that this would happen though, being blind sighted to all of this. Would not be shocked if he completely forgot that food intolerances were a thing and mentally classified stuff like peanut allergies and lactose intolerance as their own things. As for handling the sickness itself, out of the trio, he'd be most prone to vomiting and would probably just let it happen more than vigorously trying to keep it all in, being sure to scurry his way to the restroom to do so. Byakuya: Man is COMPLAINING. Not that that's a crazy concept. The heir's dramatic like that. Feel Byakuya would be mentally beating himself up for this, as if he could have foreseen any of this which is a very big ask anyway. Then again, in his eyes, he eats good, doesn't ingest any junk foods, probably ensures he's not indulging too much on sweets and then, one day, he's getting punished for all of this even though he's got the highest ranking chefs right around the corner and avoids processed foods like the plague. Feel out of the trio, he'd be very determined not to vomit and would do anything in his power to ensure that doesn't happen. I like to think Byakuya rarely gets sick due to being very carful so, when in sick situations, he doesn't handle them as gracefully as he'd like to admit.

Kyoko: A bit of a middle ground between Makoto and Byakuya. Not completely beating herself up for all of this, not entirely blind sighted. Probably thought of this happening at least a few times. Feel she handles nausea better than either of the boys as well. I like to think that her being a detective, seeing many corpses on the daily, seeing, hearing, smelling human bodies probably at their most decrepit states, that's caused her to become desensitized to her own icky bodily feelings. Not that she's some super human who can easily tank these illnesses but it being more being a thing she's mentally good at acknowledging. At the end of the day, she logically knows she's seen worse, delt with worse, experienced worse shit. Basically, she's seen so many corpses that vomiting is nothing for her.

Spoiler part of the post! Be warned! One other thing of note regarding all of them is that I feel they'd all handle it differently depending on if they learned of a potential food intolerance during their Hopes Peak days (though gosh that would suck ASS having their memories wiped and then forgetting about a food intolerance only to have it happen AGAIN) during their time working for the Future Foundation (and inevitably going behind their back to do stuff with fixing the Remnants of Despair) and handing it way into their older years when they're working as mostly responsible adults. For their Hopes Peak days, I feel Makoto just handles this all normally. A bit in shock but he just takes a sick day. Byakuya, I like to think is oddly taking a sick day too though still trying to work. At the end of the day, he's not like Taka, more of a workaholic with his company than in school. Feel he reads if he can while sick like this or do Togami Conglomerate work remotely. Maybe read stuff online if he gets desperate. Feel Kyoko's the same too. Taking a sick day though still being able to keep up with the work load she has due to taking a day off. For their Future Foundation years, they're all in the same "Must work" mindset due to the bigger stakes going on. Feel some of that also lingers well into their years in the future. Gotta love the trio suffering together B]

[ghosts-of-love]

not to be mentally ill but today when i went for a walk in a nature reserve i was climbing a hill and it was cold but so so sunny and everything looked beautiful and i saw so many cool things and i stood there and was like damn what's this feeling in my chest and why am i smiling so much?? my guy,, it's called fucking happiness. i was just present and content in the moment and couldn't contain myself so kept doing the silly arm shake thing i do and grinning at everything and then was like woah what's this feeling. fuckin, happiness dude.

[salmonsaur]

Sometimes I wonder if snow has a lot of significance in ToG.

About Horyang (Ilmar): during his backstory, after becoming the devil's right arm, we see he's being transported somewhere unknown. When I was reading this part, I remember it felt like Horyang was being transported to either be discarded/ destroyed, or sold to someone because the Workshop was done with him. Anyway Headon appears, the transport driver is shocked, Horyang is taken by Headon, and that's how Horyang ended up climbing the Tower. (S2 chapter 42).

The place Horyang was being transported to was over a body of water, and it was snowing. Horyang stated that it was his first snow back then, and that he thought it was beautiful. In the distance, there seems to be a fuzzy silhouette of maybe a giant tree or multiple trees.

About Wangnan: there's a scene (S2 chapter 230) where Wangnan tells Miseng that he was born in a cold place, and the Hell Train's cold climate is easy for him to deal with.

About Arlene: we learn in season 3 that Arlene has stayed at a place called Seolhyangwon that has eternal snow within it (S3 chapter 132).

------------------

What if all three of these mentions of snow and the cold are connected? Maybe it's a coincidence that they all have something to do with cold weather (and the possible tree silhouette in Horyang's flashback and Seolhyangwon is a coincidence too), but I have a hard time ignoring coincidences in this story 😅 Hopefully we get to see more Arlene/ Bam/ V/ Jahad/ Wangnan lore in the upcoming arc

[aldieb]

tbh after finishing i kind of retract the enthusiasm of my recommendation (but not necessarily the recommendation itself) for he who drowned the world. i still found some of the themes it covers really refreshing in the fantasy genre (for ex the descriptions of recognizing yourself in others across queer identities felt v real), but the way it covered them ended up feeling incoherent/unfocused in an area that imo especially needs precision in order not to blunder into insensitivity. (i also in the middle of reading saw people saying it treats eunuchs ahistorically, and frankly i know nothing on the topic and wasn’t drawn to the book for its historical elements—“real-world setting with tiny magical component” isn’t my jam—but that does match up with the whole slew of weirdness i’m feeling overall.) i’m glad i read it and the overall plot kept me interested but i’m hoping it’s the start of a trend in the genre rather than something to point to as “hell yeah, they did it”?

[imminent-danger-came]

I just wanted to let you know that you are one of the only people I trust with characterisation in the lmk fandom

I'm so honored

[birlwrites]

tried listening to an audiobook for a road trip. immediate result is that whenever i read something that's written in an even SLIGHTLY conversational style, i hear it in the voice of the audiobook narrator

[ra1ny-daze]

waow it’s been a bit since i posted digital stuff heh

n e ways have the silly<3 ft. some of The Lyrics Ever