#yes this is about with great power

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This wine tastes like pigs blood!

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[pinacoladamatata]

blink and you'll miss it moments around skyhold....

[lbhslefttiddie]

honestly i don't think sqq (jiu) would have minded the accusations of preferential treatment from yqy if they'd felt true. like as children he guarded the title of being yue qi's Favorite with teeth and claws. why shouldn't he be given preferential treatment? everyone ought to know just who qi-ge likes and trusts over everyone else. and for good fucking reason--who else here is watching out for qi-ge? as peak lords he's literally 2nd in command and chief tactician, if yqy values his word over yours, then its both what makes most sense and also what he deserves.

the thing is that to sqq, being accused of being favoured by yqy over others now just feels like a sick joke, because obviously (to him) that's not the fucking case. if he actually gave him preferential treatment you'd think he'd listen to what he has to fucking say, instead of believing what anyone else tells him about sqq. you'd think, if he was yqy's favorite, he wouldn't have left him to rot.

so i think, in a setting where they reconcile after becoming peak lords, that sqq would very much slap yqy's love for him in everyones faces as a kind of power move. a kind of, "oh, you thought that was favouritism? you havent seen yet what it looks like when qi-ge lets himself favour someone."

[ardate]

Every Boromir hater makes my enormous love for him grow stronger. Sorry you couldn't understand him, I get him tho and we're holding hands and the whole of Gondor is laughing at you

[antigonesghosts]

What I loved about Cinderella's Castle is it is so entirely about Ella. We know starkid can handle a show with tons and tons of characters but I found it quite refreshing for it to be so wholly her story? I think it was a lovely choice for this show and man Bryce did such a perfect job of it, she is truly such a star

[anetherealpoetess]

the anti-haladriels circling me because they believe shipping galadriel x sauron is a sign of abject moral failure

[heybiji]

ialso love playign superhero ttrpgs can i ask what the Masks ttrpg is? i love finding neww hero themed ttrpgs ^-^ yay!

Ohhh!! Hey! i love getting to talk ttrpg stuff thanks for the question!

MASKS: A New Generation is a superhero ttrpg about teenagers all trying to figure out who they are in a world filled with people constantly telling them who they are and how the world works. It's less about the powers and the fights and more about the emotional journey of the PCs with mechanics that support that. It's a really narratively driven game!

tldr: try it out! it's fun! it's simple! and it's low-prep (apparently, just not for me, but i'm always just gonna do Too Much). you want a system with mechanics that revolve around telling a story? around your character's emotions and how they view themselves? this is the one for you! it's great and i've really been enjoying it!!

First of all, it's a fail-forward system, so the way your character levels (advanced) is by missing rolls. I like this a lot.

There are ten core playbooks that are essentially the classes you can choose from. They each come with their own powers, some intentionally more impressive than others, but it's not about the powers; it's about the core conflict that comes with each of the archetypes. Here are a few playbook examples:

The Delinquent: You've got these cool powers. But everyone keeps telling you how to use 'em. You know what they need? Someone to give them trouble, to make sure they don't always get their way. And hey! You're the perfect her to do it.

The Legacy: You're the latest in a storied heroic lineage, a family that shares a name and a cause. Now, everybody is watching and waiting to see if you've got what it takes to uphold that tradition. No Pressure, right?

The Nova: You're a font of power. Channel it, and you can remake the world into exactly what you want. Unleash it, and you can do miracles. It's wonderful... and terrifying. Lose control for even a second, and other people get hurt.

Your stats are your Labels. They're how you see yourself, and how others see you. The Labels are DANGER, FREAK, SAVIOR, SUPERIOR, and MUNDANE. Different stats help with different Moves/rolls, so for example a high DANGER stat helps you Directly Engage a Threat, while a low MUNDANE stat makes it harder for you to Comfort or Support Someone. Your Labels are constantly being shifted around throughout the game as your character's self-image changes (and that self-image changes a lot, basically the NPCs are just label shifting machines).

The mechanics are fun! Instead of traditional damage, the PCs have Conditions that they take on, and what conditions a character has affects their rolls. The Conditions are Afraid, Angry, Guilty, Hopeless, and Insecure. So if you're Angry you take -2 on your roll to do the move Comfort or Support Someone, if you're Afraid, it's -2 on Directly Engage a Threat, etc. There are multiple ways to clear your conditions but the most straightforward way is to take a particular action, so if you're Angry you have to hurt someone or break something important, and if you're Afraid you have to run from something difficult. These actions lead to some awesome and surprising story beats!

There's some other stuff as well, but that's the gist!

Coming from DND, it took me some time to adjust to something so wildly different in terms of the system, but I've been enjoying it! I haven't gotten to play it as a PC, but running it has been an interesting challenge. I think it's a pretty simple system to work with, and I at least hear it's low-prep (again not for me tho lol). It's mechanically looser than the only other ttrpg I've played (dnd) and requires a lot more decision making from the whole table, so I think in a way it asks more of its players in that way. And the GM role is constantly on in a specific way, because it's up to the GM to listen and call out when a Move is being triggered and a roll should be made based on what the characters are doing in any particular scene.

anyway I can always have more to say but MASKS has been fun. I recommend giving it a shot! And then you should tell me what you thought about it!!

[instantpansies]

life is hard for us oz fans who are only meh about wicked. have half a meme.

[homicidalbrunette]

Hey here's three minutes of Plane Jane and Katya vibing/flirting you're welcome

[moongothic]

Quick point to re: is Croc openly trans or not

So Ivankov's ability to change someone's biological sex is kind of a "myth" in the OP world, right? The way Bon-chan talked about Ivankov was with an aura of legend, how they had heard all these incredible things about Ivankov but couldn't even be entirely sure the person truly even existed until they got to meet face-to-face, because the stories told about Ivankov were just so incredible

Of course, between Iva-chan's imprisonment 6-5 years ago and the actual difficulty people would have genuinely finding them to begin with (being a Rev and travelling around the world sometimes and othertimes just hanging around in the Calm Belt on Momoiro Island), the word about their deeds would turn into Stuff of Legend as few would be able to actually verify it, see it for themselves and tell others all about it, but those stories had to start somewhere, right?

And we do have an interesting note here, as this prince mentioned his mother visiting Kamabakka Queendom 15 years ago (pre-timeskip)

Now one could think that hey, maybe this is where The Legends about Ivankov's miraculous abilities began, but think really about it for a moment; Why would some ruler of a kingdom go out of their way to travel to Kamabakka Queendom, ruled by a member for the Revolutionary Army (=potentially dangerous for a monarch), if they hadn't heard about Ivankov's ability from somewhere else first?

And that's where the timeline mention gets interesting. Because guess who was born just two years before this prince's mother made her brave journey to see Iva-chan?

I'm just saying, if Crocodile went missing for like 4-9 months and then came back fully transitioned out of nowhere, and Morgans made a huge god damn deal about it on the news, letting the whole world know about the Warlord magically having become a man, yeah, that would start some rumors about who what where and how this even happened. And needless to say, this could easily send a lot of people out to the seas to try to find the Miracle Worker who transed Crocodile's gender, including some monarchs who have the resources to both verify the legends but also actually make the journey to find Ivankov (Also, if the inciting incident that started the legends about Ivankov happened due to Crocodile like 17-19 years ago, that would add to that aura of myth Ivankov has around them, as it would've been a long ass time ago when the first rumors about Emporio Ivankov would've gotten out there)

[cipher-zoo]

Something, I personally think, some Power Scalers fail to recognize, when they pitch Zoro and Sanji against each other, is that Sanji's Story has never been about being 'the strongest'.

I often see them going on and on about how Zoro could easily beat Sanji and, while not easily, yeah. I agree. Zoro is stronger than Sanji and Zoro could probably beat him.

[even Sanji thinks so, otherwise he wouldn't have asked Zoro that one favor!]

But these power Scalers often try to make it appear as if that is somehow a flaw in Sanji's character when it is not.

Sanji's Story at its core is about healing.

Zoro's is about protection.

You can have one without the other but it won't do you much good.

[talispraisekink]

thinking about that damn cottage by the stream, theres a small farm with a handful of chickens, an old donkey, and a few goats, and they just shrug and take it up, there clearly used to be a water wheel that they improve upon and create anew, they build a small forge on the other side of the house, make sure it attaches to a room off the kitchen thats well ventilated for small tinkering, they make the mistake of growing zucchini, jayce ends up having to feed one of the baby goats by bottle and it gives viktor such intense baby fever he gets jayce pregnant that day

[magicalgirl6]

magical girl transformation sequences are about being your truest self, your strongest self, being euphoric, being happy. They're representative of how it feels to transform, how it feels to be a magical girl. They're fun, they're joyful, they're pretty AND YES ☝️ they are trans

[shitty-mh-aus]

au where Jay Merrick is called Gay Merrick and he defeats the operator with the power of homosexuality

.

[trappedinafantasy37]

I just went back over my footage of the confrontation between DJ Shadowheart and Viconia as I edit my next chapter and noticed a pretty interesting pattern.

As I've mentioned plenty of times before, Minthara and Shadowheart do have shared mommy issues and I think Minthara would connect with Shadowheart over that. Minthara also has a habit of using the word "child" when speaking to children or those that she perceives as being in need of guidance, such as Lae'zel or Shadowheart herself. One of my mutuals proposed the theory that Minthara uses "child" as that is more than likely how her own mother spoke to her.

In the confrontation between Shadowheart and Viconia, Viconia repeatedly uses the word "girl" when speaking to Shadowheart. If my mutuals theory is correct, this would draw an immediately parallel between Shadowheart and Minthara in regards to how they were treated by their mothers, and could provide some insight into Minthara's relationship with her own mother. Personally, in regards to the gods and their mother figures, Minthara can easily project herself into Shadowheart's situation, similarly to how she projects herself into Durge's situation (since Shadowheart and Durge have very similar storylines).

This is something that I do plan on addressing in To Be Free From the Gods and my eventual Shadowheart fic. But, just imagine how Minthara feels watching one of her closest allies be treated by their mother in the same way that she was when she was a child. Now, Minthara is definitely one of those people that goes, "I was beaten as a kid and I turned out fine" (when it is very obvious to everyone around her that she is not fine). However, Minthara also does label her mother as her tormentor so it makes me feel that Minthara deep down does acknowledge she was abused as a child, even if she feels that abuse did make her stronger. But Minthara is also extremely protective of those that are in her circle and would not abide witnessing one of her allies being abused in a similar manner.

I'm gonna get a little personal here, which isn't something that I do often. But, I had a parent who often spoke to me with that kind of language. They would often refer to me as "half a person", or "not quite yet a person", or "still cooking", and things similar to Minthara being called "child" or Shadowheart being called "girl". Even as I got older, the language never changed and they often did not even call me by my name and instead opted to use these "nicknames" for me. Because to them, I was always going to be a child. And that type of language made me feel so small and weak. They always wanted to remind me that I was less than them, that I could never accomplish what they could, that I would never be able to understand what they could, and that I would always be dependent on them because otherwise I would fail without them. It's dehumanizing.

Shadowheart is nearly 50 years old (cause remember, she's a half-elf). And Viconia is still calling her "girl" because that's what Viconia wants Shadowheart to feel like. She wants Shadowheart to feel small, and weak, and like a child. Even when she has Shar's (or Selune's) favor, there is just a brief moment, and it is really easy to miss, but for just a brief moment, that is exactly what Shadowheart feels when she encounters Viconia again. And Minthara is just standing there, watching this interaction take place. Throwing her back to herself growing into her own 50's, and then making her first century, and then getting to 200 years old, going through clerical school, becoming a paladin of Lolth, and yet still being called "child" by her mother. Not to mention, the prefix "Min" in her name translates to "lesser" in drowic. For as long as Minthara would live, she would always be less than her mother and her mother would never let her forget it or feel otherwise.

It must be so cathartic for Minthara to watch Shadowheart kill Viconia as that is all Minthara wants to do to her own mother for tormenting her and always making her feel weak.

[sysig]

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