#they had these core characters and then they'd just improvise

[airenyah]

not my brother randomly calling me to ask what were the characters in my dad's made up bedtime stories bc my brother could only remember two of them

fyi they were:

der hase, der schi fahren konnte (the rabbit/hare* that knew how to ski)

die kuh mit der gepunkteten hose und dem grünen schal (the cow with the spotted pants and the green scarf)

der vogel mit der gelben jacke (the bird with the yellow jacket)

das reh mit der rosaroten kappe (the deer with the pink cap)

der fuchs mit den roten stiefeln (the fox with the red boots)

*technically "hase" refers to hares and "kaninchen" refers to rabbits/bunnies but in reality every german speaker uses "hase" to refer to rabbits as well soooo you can picture whichever of the two creatures you want, it was never really clear which one of the two it was

my dad's younger (child-)self was also part of the stories (he was friends with the hase) and at some point my brother started inserting himself as well. sometimes there was also the farmer and, if i remember correctly, also a forest ranger

my mom on the other hand would always tell us stories of "die drei kleinen maulwürfe" (the three little moles) who lived at/by a farm with their mole mother. my favorite story was always when the three little moles would go to the zoo and visit all the other animals there

[magicassholesinspace]

Backstory, Acknowledgements, etc.

Before I dig into things for the game itself, some acknowledging my biggest inspiration, and a little storytelling.

The reason Magic Assholes in Space exists at all is because of a TTRPG called Space Kings, and the Pretend Friends podcast, run by Kevin Cole, creator of Space Kings and many other very cool games and maker of many cool podcasts! Space Kings is notable for it's card-based core resolution mechanic, and it's improvisational storytelling. Very influential, to say the least.

Back in 2018, my weekly game nights were a kind of in shambles. Scheduling problems and general burnout had killed several attempts at getting a consistent campaign going. We were both just too tired and switching systems, spending the time reinvesting in a new setting, only for the game to fall apart after a couple sessions was getting badly demoralizing.

So I had this stupid idea that combined my desire to play something with a tone like Space Kings, my ever-present itch to design a TTRPG, and a handful of ideas I'd piled up. Back in 2018, Space Kings wasn't out yet, (it is now! Go check it out!) but I still wanted to use that inspiration and I wanted to turn the act of designing the game into a group activity. Trying to dump a whole-ass setting on the table before the game started was a thing I'd also burned out on and not something I wanted to waste the energy on, so I adopted a more improv and collaborative approach for that, also.

I initially played with the idea of mixing and matching sets of dice, but the allure of Space King's "Faces and Aces" card mechanic just sounded too fun and I started getting this little voice in the back of my head that kept saying, "Why the hell not?" The whole idea might not even last or go for more than a single session, so I thought it was better to just take this chance and try it! At least it would be a chance to scratch that itch.

Why the hell not? would later become a sort of mantra for this whole thing.

I knew I wanted to do something with space as the setting, but with magic as a prominent element. The title "Magic Assholes in Space" came to me almost instantly and I don't think I could ever come up with something better and I really wouldn't want to either. It perfectly captures everything I wanted this game to be. After 2 weeks of lazily jotting down ideas and slapping together a character sheet in google docs, we jumped into our first playtest session and hit the ground running.

The first playtest session had a couple hiccups, but it worked! Some things needed tweaking, but that was fine! The players escaped the belly of a space dragon, fought a cosmic snail knight, assembled a new ship out of two ships, and installed a mythical V8 engine into it so they could escape the dark space between galaxies! It was awesome!

We had several players come and go, but the playtest turned into a year-long campaign that ended up being supremely memorable. Hands down the best experience I've ever had running any TTRPG in my life. Even with there being no rulebook and some big changes being made week to week, running and playing was a breeze in a way that none of my previous campaigns had ever been.

Now, in the intro post, I said I started in 2019 (since edited), and that made no sense for a particular reason. MAiS was actually started in 2018. My memory is just awful. This is mostly important because the first playtest that ran for over a year was put on pause in February 2020, which ended up being about a month before covid lockdowns started. For obvious reasons, things kinda went on indefinite pause. We had talked about returning to our storyline with the same characters and seeing where the story went after the crew decided that they'd fucked up too much in one galaxy and it was about time to go check out another one, but the opportunity just never really came around again.

Since then, development has slowed, but some big strides were made. We did a couple one-shots run by other players. There were the GenCon games in 2021, the short-lived Hypermall game in 2022, and the currently paused online game in 2023. There's talk of starting something new, but we're still in the very, very early pre-game phases on that.

I kept telling myself I'd keep working on it, but my desire to work on the game is seemingly proportional to the amount of time I spend running it. So, one of the things I hoped to accomplish by tumblr'ing stuff about MAiS is that it would both motivate me to do more work, give me excuses to talk with people about it, and allow me to trick my brain into staying in gamedev mode long enough to finish some kind of, at minimum, zine-like share-able version of the ruleset.

And here we are now! Space Kings is out and I can say that my game definitely shares its DNA, but also that it is distinctly divergent in its design philosophy. I hope this post gets some people to check it out, but I also hope people stick around to see what I've got going on with MAiS because I personally believe it's got a lot of cool things going for it.

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

i HIGHLY doubt there will be a portal 3 (though i hope i'm proven wrong) but that post made me remember some ideas/speculation for what the plot of portal 3 could be

- Prequel similar to Portal Stories: Mel in Old Aperture or maybe immediately post GLaDOS activation where you're trying to survive in an unstable facility and a very young, volatile GLaDOS

- Something to do with time travel. A few mods have already implemented this in different ways as game mechanics, but it could also be used plot-wise. Maybe GLaDOS finds Cave Johnson's old time experiments, which then bring all the characters back to Portal 1 or 2 with their old memories and a chance to change things around a bit, despite some new antagonistic force trying to stop this. Or maybe GLaDOS wants Chell to come back, and time travels to convince her to stay in Aperture as a very confused audience has to figure out that it *is* a sequel and not a strangely familiar Portal 1.

- Exploration of the consequences of portals. There was this one star trek tng episode where the characters find out that warp drives are making dangerous rifts in space, maybe portals make similar distortions in space time. This could feed back in to the time travel thing or even let us have something along the lines of into the portalverse essentially. we might get to see rattmann, alternate versions of characters, or maybe some of the old cores from portal 1. it'd be a cool way to integrate the multiverse cave thing from the DLC into something more plot substantial.

- Wheatley is a fan favorite so if they're doing a continuation story, I don't think Valve would leave him out. I don't think they'd ever do a human wheatley/blue sky type thing and honestly I'm glad. if anything i think they'd play his redemption mostly for laughs.

- you could conceivably do a half life crossover but given it'd be a portal game i don't know how inclined valve would be to do a canon crossover. i think it'd probably be there'd be a few half life elements, like references and some black mesa technology, but i don't think you'd have chell meet gordon and alyx or anything

- people have had the idea of portal 3 taking place on the surface, which i think would be interesting. you'd have the chance to mix old aperture aspects of the testing environment, but then it'd add a new layer to the puzzles because you'd also have to improvise with outside elements. i think that could open up some really cool open ended puzzles with multiple ways to solve, which would be neat imo

- if it did take place on the surface, i think the plot would probably have something to do with GLaDOS asking Chell for help doing something only Chell could do, or maybe using both the surface and Aperture as game locations to complete a goal. Maybe they have to rescue Wheatley for some reason. Either way, it could definitely expand the game's environment.

- There's a scrapped idea that Portal 2 was about Chell bonding with various personality cores, that'd be such a cute idea if we can see more cores or maybe even get the Portal 1/2 cores back. They're adorable and I want to see more of them, it'd be so so so cute if they each had a section of the game they accompany you through

- also also more GLaDOS character development. not necessarily going back to being Caroline per se but opening herself up to Chell more as well as possibly other people, which she's already starting to do with the birds and atlas and p body. just her and Chell generally having more friendly interactions while she still maintains her sarcastic, morally bankrupt nature would be both cute and hilarious

- one of the missions in the game could be to wake up rattmann. i find this a little less plausible since rattmann is a human and the portal games shy away from showing models of human characters, but if they put him in a core (or... companion cube perhaps?) that's more plausible to me. i think it'd be cool to learn more about him that way but it might also take away part of his mysterious nature as a character who existed before the narrative. it could work but valve would have to be careful about it's execution

- cave cube. if you know what i'm talking about, you know what i'm talking about.

[maybeacrowdedmind]

My Top Seven Favorite Musical Moments In Shows That Aren't Musically Driven* and why (in no particular order)**

*By not musically driven I mean shows that do not have plots driven by music (i.e. Glee, Smash, etc. etc.)

**I know I said top seven, but I just mean out of the many I have seen, these seven are the ones I like the most.

Note: None of the images used are mine; they belong to various internet gods.

#1

Legacies Season 1 Episode 11: We're Gonna Need a Spotlight

Kaleb and the Vampire faction singing "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone at the Salvatore School talent show.

While the entirety of the talent show was amazing (Kaylee Bryant's singing voice, Raf's slightly awkward yet still appropriately dramatic poetry), it was Kaleb and the vampires who stole the show. Chris Lee has an incredible voice and his rendition of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good" was stunning, both visually and vocally. I'm also a great lover of epic dance moves, so it was no contest.

#2

Gilmore Girls Season 7 Episode 20: Lorelai? Lorelai?

Lorelai singing "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton originally (Whitney Houston covered) at Stars Hollow karaoke to Luke, despite beginning the song as a dedication to Rory.

Lorelai and Luke may be broken up, but Lorelai's beautiful (and slightly alcohol-fueled) version of Dolly Parton's kind of cheesy yet nonetheless tender "if you love someone, set them free" ballad that was later made into an iconic cover by Whitney Houston was proof that they'd never really be over. Sure, she says she's singing it to Rory, but the moment Luke walks in and they lock eyes, everyone knows. Lauren Graham also has a good voice, and the emotion that comes through is so real, a cheesy karaoke moment becomes a heartfelt cheesy karaoke moment.

#3

Everything's Gonna Be Okay Season 1 Episode 5: West African Giant Black Millipedes

Nicholas doing a drag queen routine to Thelma Houston's disco hit "Don't Leave Me This Way" for Alex and his friends.

Okay, so I love this scene so much, because not only is it done to an incredibly fun song, it also showcases Nicholas doing something so utterly entertaining for Alex and a bunch of people he was nervous about meeting. The fact that just a few days before watching this episode I had watched an episode of Ru Paul's Drag Race where two queens had to lip sync for their lives to the very same song made the scene that much more enjoyable to watch. Nicholas looks amazing, his dance moves are to die for, and his lip syncing game is strong. I also appreciated the fact that when he did this scene, Josh Thomas committed to it. The scene is done in full, not going for a bit and then fading out before we get to see the end. Also, I know that Nicholas isn't technically singing, but it still totally counts.

#4

The Magicians Season 1 Episode 4: The World in the Walls

Quentin starting up a group sing-along to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" to get Penny's attention in the mental hospital while under Julia and Marina's spell.

I just started watching this show after having read the first two books, and this scene was HILARIOUS! I loved that the show used a random interaction between Quentin and Penny from a previous episode and turned it into something more because usually shows ignore one-off interactions between characters. Also, Quentin singing off-key at the top of his lungs with everyone else joining in and dancing while Penny suddenly hears it in the real world was so funny and a huge break in an otherwise extremely dramatic and rather dark episode.

#5

Skam Season 2 Episode 3: Er det noe du skjuler for oss? (Are You Hiding Someone From Us?)

Noora singing Extreme's "More Than Words" on William's guitar, initially doing so to make fun of him, but quickly turning into a super sweet and romantic moment between the two.

Skam is another show I started watching recently, and Noora quickly became one of my favorite characters. Now, I'll admit, I wasn't too fond of the idea of William and Noora at first, but this scene changed my mind immediately. I'm also very into the whole "enemies to lovers" thing these two have with one another. All of the songs Noora sings in this scene are good, but "More Than Words" is the one where you really begin to see that William's feelings for Noora are not as one-sided as she says they are. Josefine Frida Petterson, who plays Noora, has an absolutely beautiful voice, and the vocalization and soft musicality throughout are stunning. This is one of my favorite scenes in this show to date, and everything about it was perfect.

#6

New Girl Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot

Coach, Schmidt, and Nick singing "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes from Dirty Dancing to Jess, who eventually joins in, after her date stands her up.

Poor Jess had just broken up with her boyfriend, moved into an apartment with three guys who have little to know emotional know-how when it comes to women, and had her first date since her breakup stand her up at a fancy restaurant. The situation was made worse by the fact that she was told to give up her table. When the boys showed up and claimed to be her boyfriends, it was sweet, but the moment they began singing "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life", they showed that they really did care about her. What makes this scene so funny is the fact that Nick (who begins it) and Coach (who joins in after Nick elbows him) don't really know the words, they're both singing different parts in different tunes at different volumes, and then Schmidt (who initially says he's not singing), comes out of nowhere belting the song with the correct words and tune. Then Jess joins in and they have a great time until the restaurant makes them leave. They head back to the apartment, watch Dirty Dancing, and show that any problem can be solved with good friends and 80s movies.

#7

Angel Season 2 Episode 11: Redefinition

Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn sing "We Are The Champions" by Queen at Caritas after Angel fires them.

Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn had just been fired by Angel so he could kill Darla and Drusilla without their interference and the trio was at a loss for what to do next. Angel Investigations was disbanded, and none of them had any clue what to do about it. Their solution? Terribly sing Queen's "We Are The Champions" at Lorne's bar Caritas and drown their sorrows. While an extremely short scene, Cordy, Wes, and Gunn's reaction to being fired was super relatable, and you can never go wrong with Queen. They also have three very different personalities; Cordelia is snarky, has a lot of wit, and tends to be rather superficial, but she has so much heart beneath the surface, Wesley is a stuffy English professor type, and being a former Watcher means he couldn't be hip and cool if he tried, and Gunn is a hardened vampire hunter with a strong resolution and loyal to the core, who was still relatively new to the group when Angel gave them the boot. As such, seeing them all be together with arms around shoulders singing their hearts out was immensely fun to see.

Honorable Mentions:

Legacies: Alaric singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" terribly off-key before Kaleb and Cleo swooped in and saved the day with their improvised song.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Giles Singing "Free Bird" while playing his guitar in his home.

How I Met Your Mother: Lily and Marshall singing "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" at karaoke, effectively making up after Marshall accepts a corporate job rather than one that fits his morals.