#it can be a fitting end for these three campaigns as a grouping
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I like that this era and the set of three games that ends the era ends with Vax and Keyleth.
But I'm not sure that I like that a campaign meant to be about Bell's Hells ends with them.
I don't know if that makes sense - and I know it doesn't matter if I like it or not because it's for them and they share it with us!
I just.
Hm.
#musings#bandit liveblogs#bandit liveblogs critical role#critical role#critical role spoilers#cr spoilers#c3#both can be true#it can be a fitting end for these three campaigns as a grouping#while still feeling like#...like ashton's long term is that he keeps going on adventures and coming back#and then going and coming back#until eventually he doesn't come back and no one knows what happened or why#and that's so heartbreaking to me#i don't know#also ludinus is still alive#he got what he wanted (in part)#and i'm not unhappy with the ending!#it's just#idk how to word it
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Happy Pride critty role friends I want to talk about Laudna gender.
Is this a weird choice? I don’t know. I have a lot of feelings about her approach to gender that feel clear in my heart, but I haven’t been able to fully voice them outside of rabid growling in my friend’s dm’s so here we go.
Is she cis? No. But also yes. I think Matilda Bradbury was a cis woman when she died, but Laudna is something different. And I think she feels like she doesn’t quite meet the criteria for woman, the same way she doesn’t quite meet the criteria for person in the world of Exandria. When she was confronted with an angry mob in What Doesn’t Break, and Imogen tells the mob “she’s not a thing” Laudna agrees simply with “I’m a Laudna.”
Laudna’s gender is very based in performance. She wants to dress like a lady, she wants to go to fancy balls and be seen as one. There was of course the time that Orym asked her to disguise herself in white robes and she was very uncomfortable, but there was also that night when Fearne switched everyone’s clothes as a prank, and while the rest of the group laughed about it, even though Laudna didn’t say anything, Marisha acted deeply uncomfortable, holding herself like she had some core part of herself stolen.
Laudna wants to be beautiful. She worries over her smell (with Orym growing flowers on her on the travel to the hartmoore, Deni$e with the makeup outside that small town, asking Imogen if she still smelled after the raven queen tied their souls together) and when she is feeling at her worst, she’s disparaging of her looks. (It doesn’t show in the transcript but I know when they reunited after the solstice, Fearne stumbled her way into saying maybe we can put lipstick on a pig and get the Issylra group new outfits too so they can feel a little better and Laudna grumbled that the pig would look better than her.)
When she meets powerful women, she seems in awe, and when she dares to speak to them, she starts with calling them beautiful. (meeting Vex and Kiki. Also her view on the women in the woods in What Doesn’t Break, and the paladin were all admiring) And the most powerful woman in Laudna’s life, the one with her thumb on Laudna’s brain, has divided the world neatly into Maidens or Monsters. Laudna knows which one of those she is.
She’s not the cis plus that comes with interrogating gender binaries. She has a blunt understanding of gender and knows that she does not meet the criteria. She’s cis minus, and she knows she’s missing the pieces needed to construct a whole woman.
What I’m trying to say here is, there’s a trans story that can’t happen outside of the fantasy genre. (I love these.) A woman who isn’t quite, who had to build herself out of disparate pieces, and she has so few of them that even the wrong clothes might break the careful balance she made. And best of all, over the course of campaign three, she was loved by her friends, accepted by them even when she got ugly. She was desired, a happy ending was made for her, and I think, given time, she’ll find an understanding of gender that includes her.
Laudna spent a long time as a monster, but I think, removed from the societal pressures to fit in, Laudna would be happy with she/it pronouns. And like maybe down the line old lady Laudna is happy to be defined more like a creature but i don't know for sure because 30 years is a long time to build trauma. It’s nice to think about.
I’m old. When I was young, “it” was a cudgel wielded against women who didn’t conform well enough. I mean, it still is, but man the ninties and early aughts were fucking Rough for queers. (It’s bad now, too, friends, and I’m sorry. We march on.) In my non fanfic writing, I’ve been writing characters that use it pronouns, and giving focus to stories for it/shes has felt… well it’s felt good. I love a monster story, and I really love when the monster gets to be a hero.
Laudna’s gender is important to me. Her gender might boil down simply to “I’m a Laudna” and hell, name/name’s a very valid gender. But yeah. It felt very good to watch a monstrous woman, who doesn’t always fit her gender, who’s afraid sometimes of fucking it up get to be the love interest, and the hero with the hail-mary spells, and a part of a community that loves her.
Happy Pride.
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Mint Plays Games: Changelings, Trauma & Gaming
Over the course of October and November, I returned to one of my favourite ttrpgs of all time with @thydungeongal and my girlfriend: Changeling the Lost. About once or twice a year, I get the itch to run the 1st edition of this lovely, lore-heavy game, and every year I come away from it thinking about its potential. This is meant to be a quick break-down of my latest Changeling session, as well as a reflection on the parts of Changeling that really touch my heart.
The Game.
This game happened over three sessions, involving a character creation session, and two sessions of play. We had one character who was a Darkling Gravewright - folks who dealt with the dead in their time in Faerie (and can also see ghosts), and another who was a Fairest Flamesiren, whose entire deal is about burning bright, but also burning out quickly.
I decided to give these girls a murder mystery, with a mortal body found just outside a gate to a Goblin Market, and a missing changeling to track down. We’d talked about themes of grief and addiction prior to my planning stage, so I figured dealing with both a death and a place that offers your wildest dreams (for a price) might be a good place to start.
I don’t like planning out specific plot beats in my games, so instead I tried designing the Market like an adventure location, with various vendors to tempt the players with their wares, while dotting the landscape with NPCs in various states of distress. I figured the Changelings would pick something that resonated with them, and we could go from there. This process also generated a few different villainous characters who could be responsible for the murder, which I’m glad I did, because as usual, what the players decide to do always falls outside the bounds of what the GM plans for.
The story ended up being about saving a kidnapped changeling from a hungry Fae, and bluffing through a group of Privateers (read: mercenaries) and bringing the victim to safety. However, they didn't escape completely unscathed - coming face to face with a True Fae caused a cascade of terrible memories coming back to visit one of our characters right after she thought she'd made it to safety.
Our session was an introduction to the world and lore of Changeling, and I feel like I did a pretty good job on that front. On the other hand, I felt like it was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things I think Changeling can be about.
The Potential
When it comes to the World of Darkness in general, I think Changeling: the Lost has a relatively sleek amount of lore regarding the various Courts, Seemings, and faerie characters. Each Changeling’s durance can be typified, but ultimately what they went through can be up to the player who designs them, and the Hedge is limitless in its weird and strange creatures, which gives the GM license to create all kinds of goblins and monsters to fit what they want their game to be about - and the players aren’t really expected to know what’s going on in there anyways. Most Freehold history exists in rumour, because talking too openly about it feels like you’re inviting the Fae to your front doorstep, and in the same way, the true nature of the Fae is left up to rumour and superstition, allowing your group to decide what they really are, or leave their nature forever a mystery.
That being said, the toys that you can play with are still more numerous than anything that you can fit into any one campaign, even if you’re playing that campaign for 4+ years. You can very easily play Changeling as a magical urban fantasy game (and I’ve done this fairly regularly with my group), but C:tL also has a lot of poignant themes that can delve into themes about trauma, addiction, and mental health.
Disclaimer: CtL is not always graceful in the way it represents mental health. There are antagonists presented in the books that come across as “madmen”, some pretty gross Merits you can take that can feel bad to play at most tables, and characters that have lost what makes them human, becoming threats to the players. However, I think that the Clarity system does have some interesting ideas in it that, if treated with care, can still provide some interesting depth to the game.
Clarity
Clarity is meant to be a measure of how well your character can tell truth from Fiction - a high enough Clarity score, and you can sniff out a Fae even if they’re trying to hide themselves; a low enough Clarity Score, and you have a hard time differentiating colour and smell, and might even start seeing an overlay of your Durance infiltrating your weekly grocery trip.
Your Changeling moves up in Clarity if they’re able to keep a stable life with elements that help you ground yourself and give you a sense of identity - and mechanically, once you spend Experience points. Your Changeling moves down in Clarity when they suffer “sins” - moments that disrupt that hard-won stability. This sins could be something we’d consider morally fraught, such as stealing, assaulting someone, or murder - but they could also be significant life changes, like losing your job, buying a house, losing a friend or getting married. You also always suffer a Clarity sin when you come in contact with a reminder of your durance - particularly a True Fae.
The higher your Clarity score is, the harder it is to keep yourself there. Smaller and smaller things can trigger a Breaking point, like going a day without human contact, starting a new college course, or using a Faerie token. Furthermore, the lower your Clarity score, the more difficult it is for you to tell truth from fiction - think of the scenes in Mockingjay where Peeta has to ask Katniss “real or not real” and try to trust her answers.
It doesn’t help that so many pieces of the Changeling experience after getting out of the Hedge seems designed to Fuck You Up - like the doppelgänger that’s been living your life ever since you left, or the fact that mortals can’t seem to notice the ways that Faerie has changed you: you can feel the horns on your head, but all they touch is a well-coiffed hairstyle. In many ways it feels like your whole experience with Faerie is invisible - and you’re fairly certain that even if you told a mortal the truth, they’d never believe you. If they did believe you, they would never treat you the same again.
I like this system because it doesn't really measure how "good" or "bad" your character is - instead it's a representation of how your lived experiences can often trigger symptoms even if others get lucky enough to survive those events with their mental health intact. I'm not a bit fan of derangements - but I think dropping in Clarity is an excellent time to ask characters about pieces of their time in Faerie that haunt them, and perhaps saddle them with Frailties instead - what personal rules do you have to follow in order to navigate the world when you have a hard time telling friend from foe?
Other Themes & Metaphors
The Fae themselves are also exquisite boogeymen, mercurial abusers without the familiar human emotions that we might feel more equipped to understand. They act on their whims and follow their appetites - and while real-life abusers often have very human reasons for being that way, we need not feel such compunctions from the Fae.
We might have to feel some compunctions about their right-hand Loyalists however, changelings who have agreed to work for their Fae Masters in exchange for some semblance of freedom. These are enablers: giving the Fae a step into the mortal realm and throwing mortals and other Lost under the bus, just so the True Fae won't turn their abuses back onto them.
Much of the ethos of the seasonal courts in the first edition has to do with different strategies for preventing a day where you find yourself back under your abuser’s control. Do you pretend that everything is fine, because they won’t recognize their victims if they’re happy? Make yourself physically stronger so you can tell yourself that you’ll win next time? Amass magic rituals in the hopes that learning just the right order of steps will keep you safe? Or do you make yourself as un-interesting as possible in the hopes that they give up on you for other prey? (Yes, I think the Winter Court could totally be all about grey-rocking).
On top of that, the Changelings that your characters embody (and interact with) are far from perfect. They have vices, fears and trauma responses that pull and push them into a dance of backstabbing, power-grabbing politics, full of seeking the upper hand and possibly even selling out their fellows in a gambit meant to keep the Fae focused on someone other than them. (A political game or LARP with these themes in mind feels so juicy to me.)
Next is the metaphors of power and/or addiction. The higher your Wyrd is, the more Glamour you can hold, and the more powerful your magic is. At the same time, the more Glamour you can hold, the more you need to hold it: what starts as a fun magical resource can grow into an addiction, if you lean into it hard enough. Sure, your Contracts become easier to activate and you can Incite Bedlam if you get powerful enough, but are you willing to chance withdrawal if you can’t get your daily fix of goblin fruit? How much are you willing to play with human emotions in order to get that sweet sweet taste of anger or grief?
Then there’s the seeming-specific traumas. Beasts struggle with wondering whether they can be human after giving in to animal instinct; Darklings fell into Faerie because they crossed an invisible or moral line and have had to make morally questionable decisions in order to survive. Elementals are used to being treated as part of the scenery, moulded to fit the whims of their captors; Fairest are constantly pressured to be the prettiest or the best with the threat of terrible terrible things should they fail. Ogres have undergone terrible physical hardships, including physical mistreatment and deprivation, while Wizened have been told time and time again that they are only worth something if they are useful. Stepping out of Faerie doesn’t magically “fix” any of these complexes, and as a result each Seeming has to wrestle with stereotypes even amongst their own: if you need someone murdered, go to a Darkling, If you need something made, go to a Wizened. If you need a hot piece of ass, a Fairest is sure to oblige - right?
Lastly, there's the Fetch: a copy of yourself that was made to replace you when the Fae took you away. This other-you is often so much better or so much worse than the person they used to be - they can act as a foil to your character, haunting you or making your life difficult, reminding you of who you used to be, or never letting others forget how badly you may have screwed up. In Changeling society, killing your Fetch is at the very least a regrettably convenient way of tying up loose ends, and at the most, a rite of passage. But it's also a surefire way to risk losing Clarity. Kind of a catch-22 situation, isn't it?
My Experience So Far
Past Changeling sessions I’ve run have included NPCs getting kidnapped by misguided friends, stumbling across characters who were at an all-time Clarity low, trying to save other Changelings from their Faerie kidnappers, cannibals, Fetches, and antagonists who are set out to betray one or more factions of the Freehold that is supposed to protect them. It’s always bits and pieces of what feels like a bigger picture.
On the one hand, I think that's to be expected. There's so much in this game, and I doubt that any campaign can really dig in to all of its systems and complexities. On the other hand, I’m not sure if I’ve been able to really dig into the themes of Changeling: the Lost in the way that I’d really love to be able to do.
The subject matter can be so close to real struggles, that I’m nervous about making those struggles too bare-faced at my local table. Gas-lighting, torture, hallucinations, drug abuse and cannibalism are so very easy to drop into a Changeling game, but are also so very easy to hit uncomfortable moments for someone who's unprepared.
At the same time, I think that playing a game like Changeling with a high-trust table that uses robust safety features has so many interesting stories that can give power to players, even if the setting is technically a horror one. I’ve been having conversations with @psychhound about a lot of the themes that folks try to explore in ttrpgs, especially in response to this post he commented on back in April. To summarize that conversation: TTRPGs are a great way for folks to tackle personal struggles and traumas from a safe place, in ways that can give them a cathartic experience or that can give them a fresh sense of identity. Changeling has been a significant part of those discussions.
I came to Changeling: the Lost as a fairly new GM the first time I picked it up, and the more I learn about Safety Tools and a culture of care, the closer I feel to getting to that game that lives in my head that lured me into TTRPGS in the first place. Every time I come back to It, I think I'm closer to pulling together a Changeling game that sinks its teeth into the themes I’m interested in and hit some of the grime beneath all that glitter. So every time I come back to it, I’m going to create funky little goblins and design weird Fae bars and take the characters’ memories and ask them why they hurt - figuring out how I can twist the knife just enough to peel back the glamour, without opening any wounds that we’re trying to keep closed.
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The Mighty Nein: Weird Coincidences.
I've been compiling these here and there when I've had time, but there was a particular reason I wanted to get this post out of the way now. And it's this.
There's been some nervousness surrounding this, and I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, people overstate just how hard the Nein's story would be to adapt and how much it would need to be changed for another medium. Can it be one-to-one with the original? Absolutely not. (Just as TLOVM couldn't be one-to-one either.) But the main issue is editing; the content is fine on its own.
And if this is the CRew themselves thinking the same thing, that's a little troubling, because it makes it sound like they might be changing more than they need to out of that unfounded fear.
On the other hand, all they might be talking about here is hindsight. The Mighty Nein's Campaign had a lot of strange coincidences, fortuitous thematic consistencies, and one-of-a-kind moments. The CRew is poised to reap the benefits of having these in mind ahead of time. This allows for some remarkable set-up and payoff if those involved are up to the challenge. Which, in the end, could be all they might be augmenting the story to do.
So maybe it's a good time to get into those weird coincidences, huh?
(Spoilers for basically all of Campaign 2 below the cut.)
Names
Veth Brenatto, her alias Bren, and Caleb’s original name: Bren. (This may have been inspired by the German word "Brennen", which means “to burn”. Thanks Liam.)
Fjord Stone. Cad’s families: Clay, Dust and Stone. How the Wild Mother fits the story of an orphaned sailor like a glove. And how Cad, his family history, and likely the Wild Mother herself never would’ve entered the story if Molly hadn’t died.
A Mollymawk (spelled with a w instead of a u) is a type of albatross. Albatrosses are supposed to be unlucky, but only if you kill one. Per the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, everything goes to shit after a sailor kills an albatross. Molly’s death is just as unlucky, as it paves the way for Lucien's and Cognouza’s return. (In a meta sense, it’s also unfortunate for Matt and Taliesin, as it derails whatever plans they might have had for the character.)
Nine
Whelp.
Nine. Lots and lots of nines. And while Nein doesn’t mean nine in German/Zemnian (it means no), the wordplay works.
Nine schools of magic.
Nine people killed in Obann’s attack on the Cobalt Soul in Zadash.
The three titans (Uk’otoa, Quajath, and Desirat) collectively have nine eyes and nine crystals to unlock them and set them all free.
Nine hells.
Nine betrayer gods as of Vecna’s ascension.
Nine eye tattoos on Molly, each a mark of the Somnovem, the sleeping nine.
And of course, eventually, nine members of the Mighty Nein.
(Just for fun, Tharizdun’s sacred number in its premier in Greyhawk was 333. [3+3+3=?].)
Nein and its actual meaning work thematically as well. The Nein repeatedly clashes with forces and entities that want to mold them against their will into vessels they can use for their own purposes. And the group repeatedly says “Nein!” to that.
Tarot Readings
Molly deliberately pulls specific cards for his readings. Taliesin makes that explicit. However, some folks have pointed out that you can interpret his original reading for Jester where he tells her “You’ve already found what you’re looking for,” to be true in a few different ways. (She’s already found the people who will help her find her father. She’s discovered the company she sought that she only ever had with her Mamma and the Traveler prior, etc.)
But once we get to Jester’s readings, things really pop off. (Pop-pop off?)
Fjord's Reading
In episode 110, Jester draws two cards for Fjord: one for his present and one for his future. His present card is the Eye, which has two hands holding an eye above a restless sea.
There’s no need to elaborate on how that relates to Fjord’s then-present.
His future card is the Home And Traveler. This card could work for all the Nein if you interpret it as someone who will find or reach their home after some travel. But it hits especially hard for Fjord, who finds a home with Jester, the devotee of the Traveler, on a ship that travels up and down the coast.
And then...
Lucien's Reading
The three cards Jester pulls for Lucien are his past, present, and future. Even at the time, they seem pretty fitting.
His past: History and a Dream, which Taliesin clarifies as depicting the Calamity. This fits perfectly with the Tomb Takers’ previous job for DeRogna and their coming into the Somnovem’s patronage.
His present: the Tyrant. We don’t know either Lucien or his goals too well at this point, but we do know he and his troupe kill indiscriminately and he holds an unnatural sway over the other Tomb Takers.
His future: the Death Card. You can attribute that to the upcoming fight between him and the Nein.
But in hindsight...whoo boy. In hindsight, not only do we know of Lucien’s plans to dispatch the Somnovem and become the Tyrant king of Cognouza and all its lost, broken souls, but we know of his fall. More specifically, who he falls to.
Jester, sitting across from him, pulls his last card and tells him “Facing you is Death.”
And then it’s Miss Lavorre who ends him for good.
Divine Intervention
Generally, a Divine Intervention is a Hail Mary. You roll a d100 (or an equivalent combination of dice) and only if you roll a number below your level do you trigger it. Logically, this gets easier the higher your level gets, but you can’t rely on it until level 20.
Taliesin rolls three of these for Cad in the last quarter of the Campaign. And that’s cool enough. But what’s even better is the Wild Mother’s Grave Cleric rolls successfully for Divine Intervention every time he makes a request (knowingly or not) relating to Cognouza. The city that's coming to swallow Melora's Exandria whole.
The first successful roll comes when Cad seeks info about Vokodo, the pseudo-god of the island of Rumblecusp. Vokodo, it turns out, punched a hole through the Astral Plane to escape the hunger of the lost ward of Aeor. And upon its death, it gives a vision that sets the Nein on Lucien’s trail.
The second success comes when the Nein is attempting to uncover the Tomb Takers' secret entrance to Aeor so that they can use it to set a trap. Cad’s success tells them exactly where they need to go. This allows them to get Zoran, Otis, and Tyffial out of the way early, even if it doesn’t stop Cree and Lucien from continuing towards the city.
As for the third, well...we all know what the third does. That it prevails after Critical Role’s first Resurrection Ritual failure, (due to a natural 1 no less!) is just the icing on the cake.
Caduceus even makes the point that Cognouza had functionally become a corpse that was unable to die and that he was uniquely called upon, given his family’s business, to put it down for good.
Odds and Ends
Nott distracts a Manticore from killing Fjord by killing its baby. Her own child ends up in need of a resurrection later on in the story, during their trip to the Fire Plane. Speaking of which, a painting of said Plane can be observed in Trent's house. You know, the one he would end up chasing the Nein to?
Fjord loses his chance to break the first seal to Avantika; he lands the first attack on her Revenant incarnation when the Nein catches up to her after she escapes with his orb, and he gets the final blow on her there, recovering said orb as he does.
Yasha and Caleb are the most susceptible to the Succubus/Incubus mind control. In the former's case, this could be chalked up to her low Wisdom score...but it also serves as some neat accidental foreshadowing for her time with Obann. And for Caleb, it can be a callback to his time learning under Trent.
The Circus Kids' stories sync up perfectly. Both of their bodies end up puppeteered by someone from their respective pasts. Both of them are used to try to end the world. And, probably once Matt noticed this synchronicity himself, both are revealed to have fallen under the sway of the Chained Oblivion. And their stories didn't have to go this way. Molly didn't have to die, and Matt revealed that Yasha could've theoretically made that wisdom save against Obann's control in the King's Cage. But that's not how things turned out.
Accidental foreshadowing:
Episode 19, Molly and Yasha, after acquiring an item from an Orc hermit living somewhat off the side of the road:
Molly: We made a friend. Jester: Did you kill someone for that? Molly: Yes. Yasha: He’s dead. Molly: He’s very dead. And then he rose up from the grave again and we had to kill him again. Twice. Same man.
Also, in episode 23, after meeting the Syphilis Bandits again and leaving one of them out cold:
Jester: What if we put some flowers in his hair; so when he wakes up, he looks really pretty? Beau: That’s good. Let’s do that. Molly: There’s nothing better than waking up in the morning with no pants and flowers in your hair.
In episode 48, Yussa and Caleb have a conversation:
Caleb: Sometimes I follow my friends places I shouldn’t. Yussa: That might someday get you killed. Or may one day get you what you seek.
Following a certain Tiefling up to Eiselcross got him both.
Nott also asks Caleb in this episode if he has an eye on his forehead. This is probably a callback/joke about Scanlan’s blessing from Ioun, but it foreshadows what happens to Veth much later.
Episode 49, about Ludinus Da’leth and in particular, Vess DeRogna:
Fjord: Then we kill the two elves. Jester: Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Maybe we go up into their room at night or something and just, you know... Stabby stab.
Episode 70:
Jester (to Essek): Maybe you’ll like us so much you’ll just hang out.
Dramatic Irony:
Everything the Nein say about Molly after his death and at his grave is, in hindsight, an awful twist of the knife, as his body's former life is far from finished with him.
Episode 41. The Nein learns Orly can make magic tattoos. Beau talks about getting an eye tattoo on her back to mirror Molly’s:
Jester: I mean, I don’t know, maybe it was really sacred to him and he would be really super offended by it. Beau: Oh, yeah, maybe it would, like I stole it from him? Jester: But it’s fine, I’m sure. Beau: Yeah, you know, he’s dead, so, what’s he going to do?
Almost a hundred episodes later, Beau's new tattoo gets a little addition...
Episode 65
Jester: Are you nervous? Yasha: Yeah. Yeah, I’m nervous. I just don’t know what we’re walking into, you know? Jester: Yeah. We’ve got your back though. That guy isn’t going to do anything bad to you.
Episode 91
Veth asks Essek at dinner if he’s heard of a Nonagon, or someone named Lucien. Essek says he hasn’t. This won't be the case for long.
Episode 95
Jester, talking about Cad and the Wild Mother:
Jester: Yeah. So like, when he asks her questions, you know what she does? Artagan: “Nothing?” Jester: She blows the wind. Exactly, she does shit. So and he’s like, “I sensed, you know, I understand what she’s saying.” She’s not doing anything, but he thinks she is.
This commentary is particularly delicious, considering which Cleric's Divine Interventions end up working.
And there's probably some I've missed! These are just the little bits and pieces I jotted down during a rewatch. It wouldn't surprise me if there's more.
But that's to say, just what we've got here is a monumental amount of things to build off of and play with. The Mighty Nein's animated series has the potential to be something extraordinary if the CRew can make use of all these little gifts deftly and with subtlety. There's power and potential here, and I am nervous as hell about whether or not they can tap into it successfully.
#critical role#travis willingham#taliesin jaffe#liam o'brien#ashley johnson#marisha ray#sam riegel#laura baily#matt mercer#critical role campaign 2#campaign 2#the mighty nein#caleb widogast#veth brenatto#jester lavorre#nott the brave#caduceus clay#mollymauk tealeaf#fjord stone#beauregard lionett#yasha nydoorin#essek thelyss#cr2 spoilers#c2 spoilers#the mighty nein animated#animated#critical role meta#campaign 2 spoilers#critical role campaign 2 spoilers#tm9
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Biden's "Dean Scream"?
A week and a half ago, I was convinced that "Biden had one bad debate performance" was going to be a 3-day story. But now I see why it wasn't. (I mean, aside from the fact that summer is Silly Season in US journalism.) How well do you remember Howard Dean's final run for the Democratic nomination?
Howard Dean was a "progressive" by the standards of his time, that is to say, slightly to the left of, say, Richard Nixon at a time when the post-Bill-Clinton center-right wing of the Democratic Party totally controlled the nomination process, and he was running on an FDR-liberal type platform.
And the press spent the whole time he was in the race asking him the same question over and over again, "Does this mean that you're angry at the 'Third Way' Democrats? I'll bet you're angry at Bill Clinton and the 'Third Way' Democrats? Governor Dean, why don't you say a word about how angry you are?" Because if he was still running against "militant centrism" in a post-liberal party, he must be angry, right?
But he really wasn't. I never saw him actually get angry that whole campaign. He was happy to have inspired so many volunteers, and proud of his plan to rejuvenate the state-party apparatuses in written-off "red states," and never not happy to talk to a reporter, any reporter. Which was all the proof they needed to show that he was not only angry, he was nefarious. Because they couldn't imagine any plausible reason why anybody would go to as much effort as he did unless they were genuinely angry.
After the New Hampshire primary, he stood up in front of a group of his campaign volunteers to cheer them on, and they handed him a defective microphone. So he screamed his cheers into the dead microphone, so the volunteers in the back could hear him over the din. But the press microphones? Worked. And he didn't sound excited, he sounded deranged. And I swear to God, 100% of the political press reported it as "Howard Dean finally reveals his inner anger," even though the video shows him grinning and smiling like a child on Christmas.
Why could nothing disprove the "Howard Dean is the Angry Candidate" theory before, why was evidence to the contrary taken as proof it was true?
Because it fit the pre-existing narrative.
Look, we have never not known that Biden's age was going to be a problem. Even as he was sweeping the primaries in 2020, it came up. That's where the "he knows he's too old, he's just reassuring older voters that the party is normal, he's going to step aside for Kamala Harris" rumor got started, remember that? No matter how many times Biden himself denied it?
And if there was any truth to it, there's no point to it now. She hasn't gotten any better at either of the president's jobs, not at public speaking nor at shepherding legislation, so unsurprisingly she polls even worse than Biden.
Should Biden be replaced because he's getting slower and more mumbly as he ages? Did Reagan? He sailed to easy re-election despite the fact he was visibly declining by the end of his first term, way faster than Biden is now. His White House Chief of Staff, Howard Baker, was, by all accounts, acting president for at least three years, making sure that the last person to talk to Reagan before he had to make a decision was the person Baker thought that Reagan would have agreed with if he could remember anything that was happening around him.
(It's not even the most extreme example in US national politics: look up stories about Strom Thurmond's last term in the Senate, which was full-on "Weekend at Bernie's.")
An entirely senile top official who put a good team into place before he sundowned can do a perfectly good job. And trying to replace him would just hand the election to Trump. So no, even if he were as tired and confused as the press and jealous Democrats are painting him, that wouldn't be a good reason to replace him, not at this late of a date.
(If the entire party apparatus had discussed this behind closed doors and agreed to set up, say, Michigan's governor Whitmer or Pennsylvania's governor Shapiro as an agreed-upon backup candidate in case something like this happened, and gotten it done no later than, say, spring of '23, we'd have a minimally plausible option. But we didn't, so we don't. The choice isn't Biden or someone better, it's Biden vs Trump or Trump unopposed.)
But even given how weak-sauce the argument that a few verbal slips and mutters mean that Biden can't perform the duties of the president is, I suddenly realize now why it wasn't a three-day story. Just like the Dean Scream, he handed them the proof they needed of something they've been saying for four years, long before it was true, and everybody loves being "proved" right. Because, as I always say:
Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.
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Trust in her will

Hello I’m back with my favourite for of character art except this time I couldn’t for the life of me make Kore look like herself so here we are
This is Kore if they were in Transplanar RPG’s Chaos protocol as an agent of T.R.A.N.S. It’s their second main campaign and I am currently about halfway through the second arc, out of the three available(I’m a slow listener ok?). And the characters go around their multiverse saving the day and getting traumatised :} So that’s what I did for prompt 15 as a kind of DnD au. Anyways, a rant under the cut
I’ll try to keep this as spoiler light as possible but there’s going to be some heavy ones for the Second Stranger campaign and the first two arcs of Chaos Protocol and both GODKILLERs(I think)
so with that out of the way, Transplanar has this idea of a multiverse where each world is it’s unique independent world, not like the „subtle differences” thing you would get most of the time. And TRANS is this Syndicate that does around to those worlds nudging chosen ones in those worlds in the right direction, and each time they go there their designs change a bit to fit the world so of course I went with that.
Anyway, Transplanar also has these precepts, Fate, Magic and Oblivion that are all these things and also characters, not to get too deep but Oblivion is a basically the titular Stranger in Second Stranger and it ends with like all the precepts coming in and stuff, it gets messy to explain, but Oblivion ends worlds, they’re the end of everything, and the reason many people join TRANS(which was made by Fate) is because Oblivion destroyed theirs.
And I imagine that here Kore’s world would get almost destroyed by this manifestation of Oblivion I would call Ink Storms that would just disintegrate everything they came across. Now, as you can see, little Kore used to have wings, she lost them in one such storm. I wanted to keep with the theme of Kore joining a well meaning but corrupted(?) organisation because she wanted to save her sisters, wether that be begging Grayson Gunn “no, not them, me take me” or wrapping her sisters in her wings, hoping they won’t all die. Now, they didn’t, one of TRANS’ strike teams came in to save the day, and wether they should or not, explained that these storms were fragments of Oblivion and that they fight against them. And Kore has this insatiable curiosity in her, right? So she begs to be able to join, not only to protect other worlds but also to be able to see Oblivion again.
I already mentioned strike teams, they are these four people teams that go together on missions and such, I think that Kore would be in a team with Kit(obviously) Adrian and Micah, since in the main timeline they would be the closest to a friend group Kore has. Another character I would mention, is my upcoming Dire Wolf oc, Alina, who would be part of that strike team that came in to save Kore’s world. She is also the Wolf hero that made Kore connect werewolves to gt but thats a story for a different post.
either way, I just wanted to make a bunch of different designs for if Kore was a PC in the CHAOS multiverse, so the one with purple wings is what she’s wear in the first arc world in the Wildsea, which is basically a sea but made of giant trees, and it has different cities and such and one Kingdom is just built in the sky and has these winged forces that I think Kore would just be elated to fly again after so long. The one she wears a skirt in is the City of Mist that the GM spun around and based around Chinese mythology, so I went and tried to do something similar.
Also this is for me but the way Oblivion manifested as the Stranger was, amongst other things, a giant Chrysalis made of wings so I thought it would be interesting for Kore to lose and regain her wings through Oblivion, I have this scene in mind where at first the wings are white(like the chrysalis) and then fill with, one by one, all the colours of the rainbow that would then start mixing and turn crow black, glistening with those rainbow colours.
well thats a lot, thank you for indulging me I already have the next prompt queued up and ideas for the rest.
If there are any nonessential words or sentences I apologise, my autocorrect is having a stroke and I am delirious from how late it is and I’m mildly sick
#gunntech au#gunntech oc#tea’s kore#gt oc challange#transplanar rpg#transplanar spoilers#the chaos protocol#oblivion#I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense to anyone else#this is purely self indulgent
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Uh so Gravity Falls x The Owl House is canon?! This is the best moment of my life guys
I'd like to think Luz decides to investigate anomalies on Earth when she can since Eda had told her weird stuff on Earth was just magic leaking from the Boiling Isles. She decides on Gravity Falls because it seems that's where the biggest traces of weirdness are. Mabel and Dipper decide to go back to Gravity Falls or attend college near there after high school because it's their home and they've already been away for long enough (and lets be real, everyone besides the stans are probably still there because it's a small town and families hardly ever leave those). Dipper studies paranormal sciences or an applied research major or both and helps continue studying Gravity Falls after he graduates since Ford is off on adventures with Stan. Mabel is studying Fashion Design or Graphic Design with a minor in Photography (the sweaters and scrapbooking stuck) and is now determined to make something (I'm thinking like a fashion line, plushies, or even a cartoon/comic series since she's very creative) inspired by the weirdness of Gravity Falls.
Luz and the twins end up meeting by chance when they're researching some of the more elusive creatures and they just kind of pause when seeing each other.
Luz: *is sweating nervously because she thinks the twins are freaked out*
Dipper and Mabel: *are sweating nervously because the last time someone found out about the weirdness the FBI got involved*
I think after a very long and awkward conversation they'd actually be really excited to know there are other humans who are open to the weirdness! Luz spent her life not thinking she'd be able to fit in around other humans and the twins have probably felt a little outcasted since they'd been through something no one outside a select few in Gravity Falls can relate to.
Hijinks ensue. Luz and Mabel feed off of each other's bubbliness and high energy personalities. Luz and Dipper are now combining their research with Luz's knowledge of the Boiling Isles and Dipper's knowledge of the mysteries of Gravity Falls. Luz ends up taking them to the Boiling Isles to introduce them to everyone and suddenly the twins feel like they're at home. Everything is going great until they recognize Eda as a woman from one of Grunkle Stan's old pictures and now they're on a mission to locate their grunkles from whatever adventure they're on to bring them to the Boiling Isles. Stan and Eda reunion (very awkward at first because they're cautious of lingering feelings from the other but they're both well established in life now and so the awkwardness fades, chaos buddies are back) as well as both sets of twins getting to explore the Boiling Isles.
Luz now has a human based support system that isn't her mother which helps her feel ok in her humanity. The twins are able to talk about their experiences with someone who understands and even thrives in the weirdness.
Dipper and Luz experiment and find new combinations of King's titan glyphs while Mabel and Luz work on a campaign to introduce the two worlds to each other while preventing the creation of more witch hunters or the FBI from being scared because yeesh they don't wanna repeat their trauma.
Dynamics between the gangs! I think Hunter and Soos would be an awesome pair of bros and I could totally see Amity and Wendy being the cool and composed duo of their respective groups. Luz, Willow, Amity, Mabel and Wendy having a girls night because lord knows they need it. The boys (Hunter, Gus, Dipper and Soos) simultaneously have a boys night but it’s Dipper introducing them to BABBA and Hunter having them carve wood while Soos and Gus try to spook them. Somehow the two groups end up combining and now it’s just a big sleepover with everyone getting into shenanigans.
King and Mabel would be besties and I can totally see her making little sweaters for him so they can match. Luz catches on and now we have three matching besties. Eda and Stan fuel each other’s gambling habits while Ford and Raine stand on the sidelines getting ready to bail them out. Dipper and Willow would totally get along and I can see them researching the more unique plants of the Boiling Isles together. Gus and Dipper discuss the differences in the worlds of witches and humans. Hunter would introduce the palismans to Mabel and she’d start sprucing up their homes and making them little sweaters. Waddles meant everything to her and if she could help them find homes then she would.
The Collector visits and all of a sudden the GF group gets PTSD from Bill because ‘oh looks its another all powerful interdimensional being.’ When questioned about it the Collector gets concerned and decides to look into it.
The Collector: *concerned because he knows how he was when he didn’t understand human mortality and thinks this ‘Bill’ just needs to be informed* “YEESH nevermind this guys a mess, you don’t have to worry, he’s being forced into interdimensional therapy. I wouldn’t put it past him to try his old tricks though so don’t make any deals or trust anything triangular’
The GF crew: “HE’S ALIVE????”
The GF group is lowkey paranoid after that because they risked so much to make sure Bill couldn’t hurt them again and the TOH group has to comfort them because they understand. The Collector is assuring them that he’s watching out for them so they don’t have to be too paranoid. The groups go back to doing what they're doing.
I lowkey wanna see Mabel learning magic while Dipper is lowkey just fine studying and researching since actually doing the magic stuff lost its appeal when Bill possessed him. I haven’t even thought of what Mabel’s palisman would end up being
…. WHO AM I KIDDING, IT'S PROBABLY A MINI WADDLES
OR A LLAMA
Or maybe like a squirrel or beaver, Stan’s would definitely be a crow but he and Ford probably are a little put off of doing magic themselves because of similar reasons to Dipper. Actually, maybe Stan would be a little more open since Eda is there and he knows that while she’s mischievous and a troublemaker, she’s nothing like Bill. If Ford and Dipper did wanna learn magic I think Ford gives off hawk palisman vibes while Dipper’s is definitely an owl. I just realized that all the Pines besides Mabel have bird palismans in this. That’s actually pretty good angst potential.
I COULD WRITE SO MUCH MORE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I WANT TO WRITE A FIC
I AM GONNA WRITE A FIC
#toh#the owl house#gravity falls#mabel pines#gravity falls mabel#dipper pines#gravity falls dipper#luz noceda#toh luz#toh x gravity falls#the owl house x gravity falls#stanford pines#stanley pines#eda clawthorne#gravity falls soos#gravity falls wendy#toh hunter#toh willow#toh gus#toh amity#amity blight
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hi! I really loved your headcanons! could i request a fluffy oneshot with y/n and the other commentary youtubers (drew, jarvis, kurtis, etc.) maybe they could be playing a game or minecraft or go on a group vacation? totally no worries if this isn't your style and thanks in advance!
This was so much fun to write! Hope you like it!
Title: Love and War
Pairing: Danny Gonzalez x Reader
The sun beats down on your shoulder. You are crouched behind the bushes- tired, sweaty, and just about ready to give up. But you know the stakes are high: this is war.
You peer over the leaves, assessing the battlefield.
“Pool area is clear. Over.”
“That’s what daddy likes to hear. Over.”
“Jesus Christ!” Drew groans into his walkie-talkie. “Can you please stop constantly referring to yourself as daddy?”
“No,” crackles Danny’s voice. You can hear the smile in his words. “Over.”
The commentary boys had recently received an obscene amount of Nerf guns as part of Nerf’s latest sponsorship campaign. Now that everyone has been reunited at an AirBnB mansion for Vidcon, all Danny wants to do is battle the other guys in nerf wars. Coincidentally, for the past three wars, the chosen opponents have been The Sad Boyz and Kurtis.
You suspect this is because Danny had caught you hearting a message from your best friend, emphatically claiming Jordan as the sexiest man she’s ever seen. Oh, boys.
“Y/N!” shrieks Amanda, “there’s an ambush headed your way!”
You leap up, wobbling as you brush away twigs pressed into your legs and your feet regain feeling. You whip your head towards the fence.
You can hear Kurtis calling, “We’re coming to get youuuuu,” in quite possibly the creepiest voice you’ve ever heard, and Jarvis and Jordan giggling as the three approach.
They’re getting closer and closer by the second. But where to go? They’re coming from the back fence, and the gate is locked from the north side.
“Guys, I’m trapped and out of ammo! I’m gonna die I’m gonna die I’m gon-”
“Y/N, we got you”, Drew’s calm voice soothes you over the walkie-talkie. “Danny’s on his way.”
“Babe, this way!”
You follow Danny’s voice to the north gate. You can hear the enemy approaching, and fear grips your heart.
“Danny, hurry!”
After what feels like an eternity, the gate door swings open. There he stands, your tall prince in shining-dripping-with-sweat white tee shirt armor. His green eyes, pale in the sunlight, crackle with excitement.
“You didn’t think I’d lose my girl to those diabolical cretins did you?”
You hold back a smirk at his ever insane vocabulary as he grabs your hand, hurrying you around the house and through the garage.
“Whew! That was close,” you giggle. You take a moment to admire Danny’s toned biceps and flushed cheeks as he pulls down the garage door, the back of his shirt clinging to the curves in his muscular back.�� You mentally take back every complaint you’ve ever had about his long runs and never ending gym sessions.
“You pervert,” he chuckles, wiping sweat from his hair.
“The damsel is safe,” he reports into his walkie-talkie. “I have her in an undisclosed location. Over.” He looks over at you with a wink. You grin and roll your eyes.
Danny walks over to you and hugs you from behind, wrapping you into his arms and kissing the top of your head. You let yourself relax in his warm embrace, and can’t help but marvel at how perfectly your bodies fit together. He sighs into your hair and squeezes you extra hard.
“It’s been so great seeing the guys, but I can’t fucking wait to go home. I miss having you all to myself,” he says. His voice is low and quiet, heavy with a desire you recognize instantly.
“Hmm... me too,” you hum. “You’re always getting us into situations like this though, you god damn extrovert.”
“Touché,” he murmurs. He spins you around to face him, and kisses you with a softness that surprises you. His warm lips find yours again and again, his hands cupping your cheeks..
“GUYS”, your walkie-talkies crackle loudly with the sound of Amanda’s voice, causing both of you to jump. “The Sad Boyz have disappeared from the pool vicinity-we think they might have advanced into the house. Team meeting under the deck, stat. Over.”
“Fuck you, Amanda,” curses Danny. “I was just about to start an amazing make out sess-”
“No one cares, Danny. Y/N’s too hot for you anyway. Over.”
“It’s true, Amanda. So true. Over,” you giggle as Danny bites your shoulder in play anger, wrestling your body closer to him as you squeal and try to escape.
Your team assembles under the deck to load up on ammo and get your bearings straight. Drew devises a plan, his calm demeanor prevailing even in the most dire nerf war situations. You plan to station yourselves at all sides of the house, so that the enemy would have no chance of escaping. Danny, to no one’s surprise, insisted that he be stationed by you to protect you.
“I was so close to losing you last time,” he says, looking into your eyes. “I’m never letting that happen again. You could have died.”
“Danny,” sighs Drew. “They’re foam bulle-”
“She could have DIED, Drew, you think this is a joke?”
Drew can’t help but grin, shaking his head. “Alright, you losers, come on. We got a battle to win.”
Drew and Amanda creep into the house silently, and you and Danny position yourselves behind the grand couches in the mansion. As you wait, he makes faces at you from across the living room, trying to get you to laugh.
Suddenly, you hear a noise in the hallway. You and Danny hesitantly arise from behind the couches, creeping forward to point your nerf guns towards the sound. Kiwi, the poodle, emerges from the hall, peering up innocently as he wags his tail happily.
But why would Kurtis’s dog be here? you think.
“Babe, look out!”
You look up to see Jordan and Jarvis standing across the room from you, grinning madly and pointing their nerf guns at your chest. You raise your gun, and as you do, feel something soft poke the back of your head. Kurtis.
You close your eyes, bracing yourself for the stream of foam.
“NOOOOO!” Danny screams. You open your eyes to see Danny leap in front of you as Jordan and Jarvis open fire. You quickly spin to shoot Kurtis in the chest before he can react.
His jaw falls open in shock. “The citizens of Kurtistwon will have their revenge,” he seethes. “Mark my words.”
You don’t even have time to revel in your glory, because Jarvis and Jordan aren’t content with their kill; they savagely empty their magazines into Danny’s still body on the floor, every foam bullet mercilessly striking his body instead of yours.
When the assault is done, Danny’s eyes flicker open and shut, his chest heaving as he pretends to struggle for air.
“D-D-Danny,” you sob. You kneel down to the floor, next to your boyfriend’s spasming body. Using every last drop of self control to keep yourself from smiling, you whisper desperately, “Why? Why did you do it, you stupid boy?”
“I had to s-save you,” he coughs as he chokes back a laugh.
“Danny, no! Don’t leave me!” you cry, bringing his limp hand up to your cheek, pressing a kiss softly into his fingers.
“I…I’ll always love you Y/N.”
And with that, Danny’s head lolls lifelessly to the side. The sight of his eyes crossed goofily and his tongue sticking out is enough to break you, and you burst out in a fit of giggles. Danny’s lips began to twitch and pretty soon he’s cackling too, the two of you clutching your sides, howling with laughter as your friends decide to unite and open fire against these two idiots on the floor. :)
#danny gonzalez#danny gonzalez fluff#danny gonzalez fanfic#danny gonzalez x reader#birds#brian david gilbert#danny gonzalez oneshot#drew gooden#kurtis conner#fox szn#baddie smp#commentary youtuber
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So I want to talk about the Legend of Vox Machina, Season Three Finale, but more specifically what it means for the coming spinoff(ish) season based on the second campaign, The Mighty Nein. If you haven't watched the newest episodes of season three or don't want MAJOR spoilers for TM9, don't continue on to under the cut.
Spoilers for the ending of TLVM S3 and the entirety of TM9:
Okay, I want to specifically talk about what this means for the VERY fucking controversial finale of M9. Those who were there remember it well, especially me, because the INSANE fighting that came out of nowhere ruined CR for me.
For those who don't know, instead of bringing back Mollymauk Tealeaf, Taliesin made a new character out of Molly's dead corpse and it really rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. Some were all for it (but from my experience, that was a rare minority), a lot were against it and an even larger group didn't like it but said "this is Taliesin's character, he gets to do what he wants". The fanbase kind of tore itself apart from the inside, esp on Twitter, Youtube, and a little on here but not as bad. Honestly, the whole thing killed a large part of the fandom and that's part of the reason why a lot of people fell off with Campaign 3/Bells Hells.
While I have my own opinions on the finale, I'm not going to share them here but this choice will probably be rectified in the M9 animated series.
TLVM seems to be trying to fix story issues, esp big ones that upset fans or didn't flow narratively which was almost certainly what Molly's/Kingsley's revival was for the greater Critter fanbase back in 2021. People (including me) had been watching for literal months back then, waiting to see if Molly was revived or not, then a sudden third thing happened that upset the majority of the fanbase.
I think a large part of that choice was Taliesin kinda hating Molly? More specifically he hated the popularity Molly got. Molly was a fan favorite, even after his death and people just wanted more of him even tho he was long replaced by Caduceus after Molly's death. I think Taliesin was just, done with Molly at that point.
Plus, it looked like at that time he wasn't enjoying Critical Role as much, Taliesin seems to wish CR never got as big as it did. He wanted it to stay small, something between him and his friends.
In a recent interview, Sam said he didn't have the fight that drove Scanlan away from Vox Machina because it didn't fit narratively in the show or really even in the podcast. I can see Taliesin having that moment of clarity within the past three years. He can see as a writer, as a director, as a storyteller, that choice upset the fans (and probably his fucking castmates, ngl). This is the chance to undo the damage a lot of people had but that's the cast's choice.
Do I think this is set in stone? No, I can totally see it going the same way it does in the campaign, and dear god, I don't want to deal with that toxic hellhole the fandom became back then. But this is what I think will happen. If you have any ideas or comments, feel free to reblog.
#the legend of vox machina#tlovm spoilers#mighty nein#cr m9#mollymauk tealeaf#taliesin jaffe#critical role#vox machina
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Fuuta and the Five Man Band Trope; BG Characters, User Icons and Graffiti Patterns Analysis
Hello members of the jury! Did you know Bring it On and Backdraft are very awesome? It’s true! Look it up!
Anyways, today I want to talk about a particular aspect of Bring it On which I consider interesting, and that is the gaggle of characters who show up all throughout the video, both in the “RPG fight scenes” and in the messages all around. In particular, these four who stand besides Fuuta after Killcheroy’s defeat, before abandoning him in the next few frames.
All of them show up in all three battles in one way or another, and the fact they’re here makes me think. See, I believe there are four of them to allude to a very common narrative trope used in a lot of fantasy stories, the Five Man Band. A trope where the story follows a group of five, of which the protagonist is the leader, and all the characters fit into certain archetypes. If you want a better explanation, I’ll recommend this fantastic video by Overly Sarcastic Productions, which is how I know about the trope in the first place.
There were already a few things making me think of this trope in Bring it On, so it’s especially interesting that it seems to carry over into Backdraft as well, with only four paint cans appearing in all three graffiti campaigns.
(Yes there’s a fifth one against Killcheroy, don’t worry I’ll get to it)
Blue, orange, yellow (also looks orange in the screenshots), pink paint/purple can. So, a recurring group of five with Fuuta. Is it possible, then, that these are related? Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. And in doing so, I accidentally fell into a rabbit hole which ended with me trying to assign each character an user icon and trying to figure out who killed Killcheroy- ooh boy.
Yeah as a warning this post is pretty reach-y and unhinged, but I like over-analyzing background characters so.
CW: Cyberbullying and online harassment, doxxing, death and murder, mentioned sexual harassment, mention of suicide, Killcheroy choking on paint image.
I’ll talk about each character individually, their role in the Five Man Band trope, who I believe they are in terms of user icon, and which paint can I believe represents them in Backdraft.
The Hero/Leader: Fuuta
In stories where only one member of the party is the protagonist, they are most likely to be the leader. They are the most outwardly heroic, usually passionate and driven, and of course, the leader of the group, the one who makes the tough decisions. In terms of fighting style, they’re usually well-rounded short range fighters.
Obviously this is Fuuta. Not only is he obviously the protagonist, he’s the one who puts up the ‘wanted’ posters for the second and third battle (though not the first!), and in those two battles he’s shown as the first to enter battle. He’s also the one who first sprays over the graffiti in Backdraft, obviously using the red can. In terms of combat style, he also fits pretty well, as he’s a short-ranged fighter, but still has quite a bit of versatility. Looking at his move sets:
Left and top look to be simple attacks, but bottom appears to be some kind of Area of Effect attack and right appears to be a self-healing move. What the hell that would look like in the context of online discourse, I have no idea. Additionally, it is common for the protagonist to exhibit the most growth in terms of powers, which certainly fits his shifting moveset.
In case you’re not aware, he’s also “pazuzu” in the social media seen in Bring it On. He’s the only one with a consistent username, the rest all vary throughout the MV, and the only way to recognize them is through user icon. No idea what Fuuta has to do with a god of wind, but here we are.
I don’t think I have to justify this one too much. Let’s move on to the focus of the post, the other people.
The Lancer: Spear Guy
The Lancer is the Leader’s right hand man, or alternatively their second in command. They may disagree on occasion, but they can be very close friends who always have each other’s backs. The Lancer can fit a ton of archetypes, but they’re usually a foil or an opposite to the leader, and can be either the most supportive of the leader or always butting heads with them.
Incidentally, do you know what a lancer is? Like, the actual word, not the literary term? Well, it’s a warrior who uses lances. Or as you may know them, spears.
To no one’s surprise, the Lancer is Spear Guy. He’s the closest to Fuuta, as can be inferred from them always standing close and Fuuta looking to him after his big victory in the second battle. The fact he uses a lance as a weapon is a possible indication that we really are going for the Five Man Band trope here, because it makes him literally a Lancer.
Incidentally, this also makes him pretty easy to identify in terms of user icon. He's Poison (the skull icon), Rumerie.
In case you're not aware, the name Rumerie appears intertwined with "pazuzu" in Backdraft (gonna ask you to look it up yourself because I've reached the 30 image limit), implying a particularly deep connection between the two. And although the username changes like all others, the fact the very first shot of Bring it On contains Poison being referred to as "rumerie", it's safe to say they're the same. Additionally, check out what rumerie is saying. (Translation by rochisama here, it's a bit difficult to follow but it's a really good resource! As a warning, I might get some of these messages wrong because my critical lack of Japanese knowledge hinders how well I can actually check who is saying what)
[Poison] るめりえ@D_T @/RUMERIE_... Know any good games?
(Notes: るめりえ is just "Ru me rie")
And shortly after:
Indeed, a guy in the arcade flashes green, presumably Rumerie. Note how he's in the center, as if he is the "leader" in Fuuta's absence, in case you needed any more connections to the Lancer archetype. You'll also notice he and the blue guy next to him have faces, which in Milgram signifies importance. I believe these three are all part of the Five Man Band. Why is there one missing? I'll get there.
Additionally, note how Rumerie wears a watch on his right hand. This is important because it lets us know exactly which can of paint in Backdraft belongs to him. In the scene where Killcheroy is attacked directly, we see a hand with a watch holding the blue spray paint can.
(The bottom left image is to show that the blue looks lighter than it really is in the upfront shots. When the lighting shifts a bit, it's more clear that this is specifically Rumerie's darker blue. The rest of the graffiti is the same, so Rumerie is the splotch at the bottom right.
And in the Killcheroy attack you can clearly see the difference between the two blues. The lighter one is even lighter than what it looks like in the other shots. And yes, the pattern's different, I'll get there)
So Rumerie has blue spray paint, which unfortunately means there's no clear connection between the colors in Bring it On and Backdraft.
Still, there's something interesting to note. Everyone in the Five Man Band has a particular graffiti pattern they stick to in the first two campaigns and at the start of the Killcheroy attack. For Rumerie, this is a big splotch with two small trails leaking down.
Why is this important... for me at least? Because the same patterns can be observed in the red paint over the Guilty prisoners in the section of the video dedicated to them.
And can you guess which one got Rumerie's?
Fuuta. The way I interpret this, it means Rumerie was particularly important in the reason Fuuta ended up with a Guilty verdict.
Why? Well, I believe Rumerie is the person who originally got Fuuta into cancel culture. Notice how the last message before Fuuta joins in on the Ice Gorilla attack is Poison's, and how Spear Guy fights in the frontlines of that battle, combined with what I said before, that Fuuta didn't put up a wanted poster for that battle.
("Frontline" is admittedly debatable)
[Poison] み @/MiMiMiMi.... You can only get away with stuff like this when you’re a primary school kid~
[Fuuta] Storm Pazuzu @/pazuzu_soccer... Ahhhh, this is the end for you huh
(Note: み is "mi" and means either fruit according to Google translate, or what I think makes more sense, "hot water", as in, Ice Gorilla is in hot water).
(Also note: I find it interesting that Rumerie here seems more forgiving of middle schoolers than at the end, when we know he was one of the people who attacked Killcheroy. I think it may be trying to show that everyone in the group got worse, not just Fuuta).
So, Rumerie caused Fuuta to cause Killcheroy's death by getting him into the whole cyberbullying thing. We can also see him encouraging him later on, when Fuuta takes a photo of the sexual harasser.
[Poison] 恐縮です @/i_am_sorr... I’m amazed you were able to get a photo
(Notes: 恐縮です translates to "I'm afraid." I... don't have a single clue why the hell this is like this, I'm just gonna ignore it)
The final thing to note is that Rumerie's graffiti pattern is different in the post-spraying scene of Killcheroy I showed earlier. Instead, Green Paint takes Rumerie's pattern, which is incidentally the one on Fuuta's Guilty thingy. More on that later.
As to why Rumerie's pattern changes in the first place, it's possible that's trying to imply the final attack on Killcheroy was much, much different from the others, possibly more vicious. Which we know is likely true, so I think it works.
Anyways, other messages he sends (I'll skip the icon since you know it's Poison). To Ice Gorilla:
NETANASHI@DT @/NETANATASHI_darkT You’re gonna die a really dumb death
どくろっち @/DOKI_DOKI_52 You’re never gonna be able to live this down www it was a good life while it lasted www
(Notes: "Netana tashi" appears to mean something like "added information," fitting the idea of cyberattacks. darkT and therefore DT is likely a reference to the Dark Triad, which seems to be Fuuta's "guild" displayed right next to his level.
どくろっち might mean "mole cricket" (???), and doki doki is an onomatopoeia for the beating of the heart. Take that as you will.
Rumerie comes off as quite aggressive in these messages, as you can probably tell. "www" is the way Japanese people write laughter, equivalent to "hahaha" in English)
He also writes another message during the second "battle."
るめりえ@D_T @/RUMERIE_ What a fucking pig, that’s just gross wwww
(Notes: The name Rumerie returns, if you were somehow still wondering who this is. It's the exact same username as before, funnily enough. Also has D_T for the Dark Triad)
The Heart - White Robe Wizard
The Heart is the conflict solver of the group. They are usually the most emotional and expressive member, and is often a healer or otherwise a magic user, or specializes in some combat niche like archery.
Also, if your Five Man Band has a token girl, this is most likely the token girl.
(Wow this collage sucks. Tumblr 30 image limit my arch-nemesis)
Listen, I don't usually like to assume character's gender merely by appearance, but we know less than zero about this people, so I'm gonna have to bend my principles a bit. This wizard is the most femenine looking of the Five Man Band, so I hope you forgive me for assuming both that she is a girl, and that she is the only girl of the group.
Regardless, there are other reasons to assume she's the Heart. Mainly, she seems to be by far the most expressive of the group, being the only one to show any emotion in the lead-up to the Killcheroy battle. The white of her robe may represent purity of heart, which doesn't fit anyone in this group, but would fit the Heart better than other archetypes. There are arguments for her being the Smart Guy, but I think Heart works a tiny bit better.
Then we get to icon, and I'm comfortable in saying she's the Galaxy. From the messages related to the second "battle."
(Quality's trash but I'm trying)
[Galaxy] ♡MANA♡ @/inoue_mna... Mr Inoue……? That’s scary……
(Notes: mna is likely just short for mana. No I don't know why she shares a last name with the asshole professor)
Even ignoring that galaxies are usually associated with mysticism and magic (mostly because I'm not even sure that is a galaxy), this user takes the name "♡MANA♡". As in, the thing wizards use surrounded by two hearts. Additionally, the message does sorta feel like it fits her more than other characters, I guess? I mean, it's perfectly fine for anyone to express discomfort and fear at seeing sexual harrassment, but this is a toxic Twitter community, I doubt the boys here want to express any """weakness""" as reasonable as it may be. Do you understand what I'm saying?
You could argue this should maybe go to the Purple Robe Wizard instead, but consider this other message from the same "battle."
[Galaxy] AAA@DT @/55552G4r6ggc... Has he got no shame!!! Go to hell!!! That’s so gross!!!
(Note: The 5s might be Ss. No I have no idea what the fuck that handle is)
Apart from shouting, the name has "DT" in it, for Dark Triad. There are only four icons which ever appear related to it, and since Fuuta's isn't one of them, it could be presumed that the four which have DT are the members of the Five Man Band.
Then, look at this exchange, from the batch at the start as Fuuta is walking down the street.
[Fuuta] Storm Pazuzu @/pazuzu_soccer... A L L M Y C L A S S E S A R E S O D U L L . W A S T E O F M Y S C H O O L F E E S
[Fuuta] Storm Pazuzu @/pazuzu_soccer... Everyone else there is an idiot so it’s boring
[Galaxy] YU-TA @/YUTA_199... Let’s go to the arcade then!!!!
[Fuuta] Storm Pazuzu @/pazuzu_soccer... The people in charge here are shit. I could do a much better job
(Notes: Yuta is primarily a boy's name, which sorta contradicts the thing I said about this being a girl. However, this can be easily solved by assuming she's transfem and in the closet.
That's mostly a joke, but it is a possibility, I just don't know why we're giving so much characterization to a side-side-side character you feel? The more likely explanation is that while in Japan Yuta is a boy's name, there's also a version for girls which derives from Hebrew, and is also just Yuta. Given we've already seen characters with odd names for their gender (Haruka), I don't think it's a stretch to say this is such a case.
Anyways this might imply we know the full name of this wizard, that being Inoue Yuta. Interesting)
The main takeaway her is that Galaxy did want to go to the arcade like the other members of the Five Man Band, but probably didn't since Fuuta appears to have turned her down.
(... Why did he do that, actually? He went to the arcade anyways...
Though I guess she does look at him very enthusiastically in that second post battle scene... and the Heart is often the love interest of the Leader...
CRACK THEORY: White Robe Wizard has a crush on Fuuta, and he doesn't reciprocate)
So, if Galaxy wanted to go to the arcade, we can maybe assume they're part of the Five Man Band. In fact, we specifically know they're the only one who wasn't at the arcade, which lets us completely narrow down which of the spray paint cans belongs to them.
Yep. In case you missed the spoiler with the color I've been using for her, she has the yellow paint can. Not only does her right hand itself look slightly different than the others, it also has a ring none of the people at the arcade had (debatable on orange guy ig but I think we would see it if he had it). Since this paint can is part of the Five Man Band, we can assume it's the missing member's, therefore Galaxy's, therefore White Robe Wizard's.
The pattern which corresponds to them is a thick, horizontal bar, which shows up over Mahiru in the Guilty prisoners section. Certainly fits with her being the Heart (and having an unrequited crush on Fuuta). The pattern changes in the Killcheroy post-spraying sequence, again possibly because that attack was expressely different.
Again remember the colors are a bit off in the front-facing shots.
(By the way; Rumerie's altered patterned after the Killcheroy thing may look extremely similar to this thick straight line pattern, but it's not quite the same. This pattern has two small trails going down, Rumerie's has four and the bar is longer)
(You could argue it's still meant to be the same thing, but I think they're different enough that I don't have to find a way to relate them)
Here are the other Galaxy messages. The only ones I haven't talked about are in the Ice Gorilla fight.
[]足 @/speed☆star Looking this I can really feel how terrifying ( ) SNS can be lmao
(Notes: We can't see the first symbol of the username, and since 足 is "feet" apparently, I don't think we can know what that is. The parenthesis are empty in the video too. SNS is Social Networking System, so social media. Fits the "That's scary" MANA message)
(…)@/NAGARERUYOURE_UfU You’ve ruined this store’s business, I hope you were charged a lot for your idiocy
(Notes: I think this is the right message? It's really hard to know which message is which in the translation I'm using. In any case, it sorta fits. Putting that handle into Google translate gives me "flow less" or "streamlined", but I'm not sure how much sense that makes)
The Smart Guy - Cloak Dude
The Smart Guy is smart. That's their thing. Usually some flavor of quirky, but the main thing is they're clever, and they have a good head on their shoulders. They're intelligent and sharp-witted, and- okay I'll stop with the synonyms. For combat, they're usually not in the frontlines. Usually they're mages in fantasy settings, but archers and other long ranged combatants aren't out of the question.
This one, frankly, is almost entirely through process of elimination.
Cloak Dude has the dubious honor of being the only one apart from Spear Guy and Fuuta to show up on all three post-battle cutscenes. He seems to be an archer.
As I said, saying he’s the Smart Guy is more process of elimination than anything else. Shield Man sorta has to be the Big Guy, so we’re left with Smart Guy for Cloak Dude.
Thankfully, I think Identifying him in the icons isn't too difficult. Remember when I said he's the only one to show up on all three post-battle scenes? As if he's slightly more important than the Heart and the Big Guy? Well, there very well may be an icon which fits both that and the Smart Guy archetype. Water Drop, and therefore the Orange Arcade Guy.
Not only do they share the first message shot with Rumerie, check out what they say.
[Water Drop] 流@しずくと読みます @/D_TTTT... School work has really been a pain lately… I don’t want to type another word
(Notes: 流 means style. しずくと読みます apparently means something like "I read it like drop [water]" which I guess work with the icon)
Note the @/D_TTTT Dark Triad handle. So, they're tired from school work? That means they're doing their school work to some extent, and academic diligence is usually associated with the Smart Guy archetype. Other messages keep up this theme. In the Ice Gorilla battle:
[Water Drop](…)@/drop_[...]... There’s a limit to what sort of things you should do. How are you gonna live the rest of your life after this?
And in the second battle.
[Water Drop] io @/io_dog_very... Sexual harassment is pretty much the worst thing a person can do. How are you gonna explain this???
(Notes: "io" appears to mean "say it")
Their style of speaking is quite articulate, using longer sentences than other icons and with a more serious tone. No use of www either. The one counterexample is this:
[Water Drop](…)@/[...] You’re wasting everyone’s time, idiot
But I still think it sorta fits. There is also one message from the second battle I don't have the translation of, but it also doesn't include www so.
Why is this important? Well, it's not. But more articulate speech, while not an actual indication of intelligence in reality, is a common way to communicate a character is smart in fiction.
Their final message is particularly interesting. It's one of the only messages we have in relation to Killcheroy.
QRT [Fuuta] Storm Pazuzu @/pazuzu_soc... I think I’ve got all her details now. Based on her previous tweets I’ve worked out her school. The fact she lives so close is hilarious lol
[Water Drop] Judgement☨Onizuka @/MONSTER_BUZZ... You’re the worst offender of all
(Notes: ☨ is the Cross of Lorraine, a symbol often associated to Joan of Arc. I guess you can connect the idea of a hero being later burnt at the stake for heresy to Fuuta's story)
Water Drop, despite the fact they do attack Killcheroy themselves (more on that in a moment), are condemning Fuuta for doing exactly that. They're hypochritical, but they're trying to claim a moral high ground by distancing themselves from Killcheroy's death. Again gives me vibes of someone trying to present themselves as smarter and more level-headed than they really are, but it's hard for me to explain why that is. Do you get the vibes too? I hope so.
Anyways, graffiti. They can be either the pink or the orange paint, but I think Orange Paint fits the best. Their graffiti pattern is a thin line which vaguely looks like an arrow to my completely unhinged mind, and it's the one associated with Amane, who is not necessarily smarter than the other guiltied, but she is very diligent in her studies as implied by several Timelines conversations. Smart Guy thing again.
The other thing is that their color can't be seen in the shot right before Killcheroy's final appearance, but it can be seen in the initial "attack", and we can see his hand attacking Killcheroy later. I believe this is representing what I said before; although Water Drop attacked Killcheroy like everyone else, they later tried to distance themselves from the fact, they "erased their paint."
(The angle on the Amane thing is slightly different, but I doubt that matters)
(The latter images are to show that yes, Orange Paint did attack Killcheroy. The can may look more red because of the lighting, but as you can see on the example to the side, the orange paint can does look almost red anyways)
Now, there is one more thing to say about the missing orange at the end there. And that is the gray-ish paint to the bottom left. What's interesting is that while it follows the Heart's pattern, it doesn't correlate with any of the colors we see actually attacking Killcheroy.
So... do you wanna go insane with me for a moment?
What if that is the orange paint, but they painted over it with gray/lilac to distance themselves from the attack as stated previously? The reason it looks like the Heart's pattern is because he's trying to appear more conscientious of others' feelings than he really is. Of course, that is deranged even for my standards, but it is an explanation.
Anyways, not much more to say about this guy, since I already talked about all his messages in Bring it On.
The Big Guy - Shield Man
The Big Guy is the muscle of the group. Generally physically big, though it can also be metaphorical. Their exact personality can vary quite a bit, but the most common trait is loyalty and protectiveness over the group. Sometimes can be quite an idiot, himbo style, but not always.
And if we're talking big and protective, there is someone who perfectly fits the trope.
Protective? Man has a shield. Physically big? The biggest of the group bar maybe Spear Guy. And just look at how he stands in that post-battle two scene! My guy has zero thoughts in that head of his. I think the archetype fits him perfectly.
Anyways, if you've been paying attention, I said before the members of the Five Man Band could be identified by which icons ever appear with D_T on their username, so by this point we could narrow it down by elimination alone. The final member by this logic is Supernova, and I think it fits enough. It also has a deep blue background, therefore we're likely seeing Blue Arcade Guy here.
[Supernova] Avyxs@D_T @/Dark_Avyxs_T... Uni is so much fun! It can be a pain depending on your subjects but my friends and teachers are hilarious
Loyalty, check.
To be clear, there is absolutely an argument that he instead should be Thunderbolt, since that icon shows up right before we cut to the first sidewalk scene, pairing it with Rumerie and Water Drop; and speaks twice during the second cancelation, the same as Rumerie, Galaxy and Water Drop. Or Rock even, some of their lines and the icon itself point to the trope's personalities. However, I personally think the D_T connection is a bit more interesting, which is why I'm going with Supernova for him. It's not like this matters much anyways.
Process of elimination also assigns him the Pink Paint/Purple Paint Can, who has a zigzaggy pattern which trails off with a weird blob at the end. Mikoto gets this one... sort of. It looks like it's flipped and rotated around a bit, but it's still a zigzag pattern which trails off with a weird blob at the end. I think it's close enough, and I also think it makes sense. Mikoto is canonically the strongest physically out of the Guilty characters. I believe there was a ranking of arm wrestling strength that put him only below Kotoko and Kazui. Additionally, the alter who killed likely did it to protect the system, which works with the protectiveness of Shield Man.
(It sure was convenient four people got guiltied in the first trial huh)
The pattern also changes pre-Killcheroy appearance, you've heard why before, the attack was different.
... Yeah maybe I'm reading too much into the repeating patterns, maybe they're just like that to make things easier on the artists, but at this point I'm in too deep to back out.
The other Supernova messages are the following. In the Ice Gorilla fight:
実家傷兵 @/super_power... He’s shut in www is the fridge your new house now ww
(Notes: 実家傷兵 means either "family wounded soldier", "soldiers garrisoned at home by their parents", or... "soldiers stationed to protect a country's territory during World War II." I assume it's the first two things)
(…)@/[...] Just stay in your beloved freezer forever wwwwwwwww
(Notes: He wrote the same message twice. Really not beating the "not particularly sharp-witted" allegations with this one)
(…)@/lightning_player Definitely not buying any ice cream there
(Notes: What the fuck did Ice Gorilla do anyways? Lock themselves in a freezer full of ice cream? I'm so confused)
There is also an obscured message where Supernova has the handle @/NaGGrYjYP2Fe or something like that. I am not gonna even try to decipher what the fuck's going on there.
Finaly, on the second cancelation.
毒門第一号 @/warokeru_080... Oof lmao she looks like she’s gonna be sick
(Notes: Focusing on the victim more than the attacker does vaguely fit Shield Man. 毒門第一号 is "poison gate number 1." No comment. "Warokeru" apparently means "meltdown." Also no comment)
The Sixth Ranger - ???
The Sixth Ranger refers to a sixth character who joins the Band during the story rather than at the start. Where they come from is very variable, but sometimes it's a reformed villain of some kind.
Funnily enough, this trope is replicated in Backdraft too. Let's circle back to the big question. Who is the extra, green paint can in the Killcheroy attack?
They paint over the part Pink Paint usually takes, and later we see their paint with the Rumerie and Guilty Fuuta pattern. Additionally, they're the only one in these cases to paint over the small name graffiti, which combined with the fact they could potentially be closely linked to Fuuta's Guilty verdict, could imply they're the ones who killed Killcheroy. Because as many know, Fuuta's victim in the Undercover kill shot has both shoes on, unlike Mahiru and Kazui's victims who have a shoe missing to represent their suicide. And this could imply Killcheroy was outright murdered by someone else, though obviously not Fuuta himself.
If that's true, given how odd this Green Paint person is, I would assume that's the person who killed Killcheroy. Let's run through the other Bring it On BG characters to see if we can narrow down a suspect. I will skip over anyone we see only in the Ice Gorilla battle, because most of them are never seen again.
The Blue Haired Soldiers
These two show up quire a bit, though weirdly, the soldier with lighter hair doesn't show up in the Ice Gorilla battle itself nor the post-second battle scene. But he's still seen in the post-first fight battle scene and in the lead-up to the second fight. Still, this odd pattern could maybe mean he's the killer? He didn't participate in the strictly online battles, but possibly yes in the Killcheroy one? I'm not sure, I think there's a better candidate so.
One reason I don't think Light Blue Haired Soldier is the killer is because I would assume he's Rock, since his hair vaguely fits the color. Additionally, his armor looks very similar to Shield Man's (see: neck guard thing), which could imply they're the same "class." That would make him a Tank probably, who is usually associated more with defense even if they have good offensive capabilities. Rocks are also usually associated with strong defense, a claim I'm basing practically entirely on Pokemon typing philosophy lol.
Aside from him, Dark Blue Haired Soldier would probably be Thunderbolt based on the fact it's sorta the only one left, and again, color fits.
Here are their messages. Sidewalk scene:
[Thunderbolt] キマ注意@ダークトラ… @/K_I_M_... Nothing’s happened lately, it’s boring
[Rock] まっすMAN(強化中)@/MusclePu... …wait, it’s Monday? Which means uni today??? I haven’t… done my homework…
(Notes: As I said, Rock shares similarities to the "Dumb Big Guy" archetype. Again, same class.
キマ注意 means "be careful" or "pay attention", and the @/ダークトラ is @/Dark Tiger. Thunderbolt is very aggressive, so the username sorta fits.
まっす can mean a few different things, I'm not sure what the best translation is. 強化中 means "currently being strengthened", so again, fits the Tank role)
Ice Gorilla battle:
[Rock] 問答 @/s... Just get out already
[Rock] 小箱の〇 @/[...] We won’t let you get off lightly for this^^
[Thunderbolt] サンデー~(…)@/[...]_1004 The food looks so good wwwww you should just [...] and die
[Rock] 〇石〇じ @/[...]TAKAI As far as learning experiences go this one sure cost a lot. What you did really was a huge waste. Thanks for all your hard work. Here’s hoping you do better in your next life.
(Notes: Thunderbolt is very aggressive, as you can see. His armor is similar to Fuuta's, so likely a Warrior class, which makes sense.
問答 means Q&A basically. Huh. 小箱の〇 is missing a character, but what we have appears to translate to "small box." 〇石〇じ also has characters which haven't been recognized.
サンデー~ means Sunday~)
Second battle (how long until my readers notice I don't remember the name of the second guy-):
[Thunderbolt] 自由(ちきゅうじん)@/not_jiyuun... My uni is done for now wwww
[Thunderbolt] kakikukeko@ド @/DONK... What an idiot, you should just (…) already
[Rock] まっすMAN(強化中)@/MusclePu... Super gross, thanks for exposing a lowlife sexual harasser
(Notes: Interestingly, Rock takes their original username again. Thunderbolt is once again a dick, caring more about his uni being "done" than the victim.
自由 means freedom, which I guess fits the tweet? Interestingly, though, jiyuun is also freedom, so "freedom @/not_freedom"? What is this fucking naming scheme.
ちきゅうじん means earthling (?). I couldn't find something solid for kakikukeko or ド but "DONK" is funny)
Purple Robe Wizard
If you're like me, you've seen me mention this person and immediately asked "is that Killcheroy." But no, since we see them in the lead-up to the Killcheroy battle in Bring it On, as we see every other character mentioned here. Additionally, I believe they might be the one responsible for the big attack which takes away like half of Killcheroy's life bar, but not the one who kills her, as Killcheroy still has health after that attack disappears.
If we do assume that attack is theirs (because there's no indication of who else is in the Killcheroy fight otherwise), then they have to be represented by one of the paint cans attacking Killcheroy at the end of Backdraft. Since they also attack Ice Gorilla, they are unlikely to be Green Paint, and therefore are most likely Light Blue Paint.
No recognizable pattern there.
Unfortunately, we have an issue. We've run out of user icons, which, uh...
You could maybe argue they share an icon with someone else? Or something? Or maybe they exclusively send DMs so Fuuta can't see their harrassment. I hope this isn't too big of an issue.
So, here's the thing. I don't think any of these three characters, the blue haired soldiers and the purple robe wizard, are Green Paint. Because they lack one critical feature: being the "Sixth Ranger." The Green Paint isn't notable just because it appears, it's notable because it appears alongside the Five Man Band. In particular, it has a penchant for replacing Five Man Band members. It paints over Pink Paint when the gang first attacks Killcheroy, it steals Rumerie's pattern in the aftermath shot, and it shows up when Orange Paint doesn't in said aftermath shot. It doesn't really matter who they replace, they have a pattern of replacing someone.
And wouldn't you know, there is a character that sorta fits that in Bring it On. The only character who is never seen attacking Ice Gorilla, neither in the shot of the battle itself or the aftermath.
The Black Knight
I'm calling them that because their armor is darker than everyone else's and I think they killed Killcheroy lol.
Do you see an interesting pattern here? They don't show up in the first battle at all (and I cannot stress enough, it’s the only character that doesn’t), but after the second battle, they're always seen with the Five Man Band minus the Heart. As if they replaced her, in the same way Green Paint usually replaces a member of the Five Man Band.
And you could argue it should be the other way around, that White Robe Wizard replaced the Black Knight, except White Robe Wizard shows up in the Ice Gorilla battle while Black Knight doesn't, so if someone's Green Paint of the two, it would have to be Black Knight.
But hold on, you may say. Black Knight shows up in the second battle, they can't be Green Paint!
Except for one detail. Yes, Black Knight is in the post-Rypirotes (finally looked up the name) fight scene, but there's one person in that post-battle scene who didn't fight Rypirotes. Check out the minimaps:
(I'm ignoring the distorted minimap because, well, it's distorted, and it's before the Killcheroy battle, not during)
The blue triangle is Fuuta, the red dot is the "enemy," so the green dots are the other people in the battle.
The Ice Gorilla battle minimap shows 11 green dots, which perfectly fits the amount of people on screen there. The Killcheroy battle shows 6 green dots, which perfectly fits the amount of paint cans we see attack Killcheroy in Backdraft.
And yet, there are seven people in the post-Rypirotes battle scene, but only six dots in the minimap. Which means one person in that post-battle scene didn't fight.
Obviously, it's impossible to know who didn't fight. All this does is open the possibility that the one who didn't fight there is Black Knight.
But here's the thing. Everyone else in the post-Pyrites battle scene is displayed in the Ice Gorilla minimap. The only other recurring character who Green Paint could be, then, is Light Blue Haired Soldier. But as stated before, they're never seen as part of the Five Man Band, so I find it unlikely this is the case. Also because color-scheme wise they fit Rock, and Rock does "attack" both Ice Gorilla and Rypirotes, just not at the same time as the time we see the minimaps I guess.
So there’s the thing. Because Black Knight didn’t fight either Ice Gorilla or Rypirotes, we don’t have an user icon for them, which makes it all the more suspicious that they show up in the lead up to the Killcheroy battle. I guess the blue haired soldiers didn’t attack her for some reason, since there’s only six paint cans.
And then there's the class thing. You remember how I said Light Blue Haired Soldier fits with Rock because he seems to be a Tank by armor? Well, Black Knight wears the same armor as Fuuta and Thunderbolt, they're a Warrior. What could this mean? Well, if Fuuta is the guy that doxxed Killcheroy, and Thunderbolt is one of the most aggressive "attackers" as seen by their comments, we can infer Warriors may represent particularly dangerous or vicious characters. Keep in mind these aren't actually videogame classes but they're metaphorical. Thus, it would fit Killcheroy's killer to be a Warrior.
... Ok, to be fair a lot of this is based on like a hundred different assumptions stacked on top of each other like a house of cards, I feel like I'm reading too much into too many things and I'm pulling conclusions out of my ass, but I think these interpretations are at least interesting enough to share, which is why I'm sharing my brainrot with you all. You can probably find several thousands of holes here if you think critically, but you know. Vote Black Knight Guilty (wait that’s not-)
Conclusion
I am never beating the insanity allegations.
I do think the Black Knight is probably the one who killed Killcheroy, but knowing that, and everything else I said in this post, is more for curiosity's sake than anything else. This doesn't really add much to Fuuta's character or anything, but eh. I enjoyed going crazy over these side-side-side characters, and I hope you enjoyed my ramblings as well.
If you actually managed to read all that, then you deserve a Five Man Band all for you! Which role do you think you fit best? You don't have to answer that this isn't YT. Take care!
#milgram#milgram project#milgram theory#fuuta kajiyama#milgram analysis#i need severe amounts of help#bring it on mv#backdraft mv#rumerie#tagging him cause hes the one people care about#well normal people anyways#cw doxxing#cw cyberbullying#cw death
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Dungeons And Dragons Meets Taskmaster: Using Real World Mechanics In TTRPGs

There is a dreaded moment in tabletop RPGs, more feared than a total party kill, more dreaded than the phrase “but that’s what my character would do!”
It’s that moment when all the players look at each other and realize they’ve spent the entirety of yet another game session doing nothing but going back and forth about what they might do… without having actually done anything.
I mentioned this to a friend of mine recently, and he passed along a concept I’d not thought about before: introducing a mechanic from the real world into the game.
“You tell the players the bad guys are going to show up in a day in game-time. Their characters can do anything they’d reasonably be able to do within a day. But the players have no more than an hour of time in the real world to tell you what preparations they’re going to make. So if they waste their time, that’s on them.”
The simplicity of it — as well as how it both moves things along but provides the freedom and space for people to think — struck me as a wonderful mechanic.
So, of course, I had to take it a step further.
I was planning to run an in-person one-shot over the holidays for a full table of friends, and wanted to run something new for them. I really liked the idea of Troy McConnell’s “Monster Chef” encounter on 2 Minute Tabletop, but I knew that pacing it to fit in a four-hour timeframe as the encounter is written would be challenging. I didn’t want the players to feel like they were entirely on rails for the entire session, so there had to be a way of moving things along. There are a lot of fun sub-encounters in the module, but as written they’re combat encounters, which tend to take longer with larger groups. And this holiday season, I thought we needed something more light-hearted than a bunch of fighting.
In the month after the election, I’d been clinging to Junior Taskmaster as a source of distilled joy and wonder. The delight in play was the antidote to the ugliness of the world outside.
And that’s when it hit me: I could get my players to do Taskmaster-style tasks by having the characters working to catch the animals instead of just killing them.
Designing And Choosing The Tasks
There were a few design principles that I had to keep in mind:
Nobody was required to do the tasks; I wasn’t going to make a mistake like the one I described in this short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zBYeLuIliKo. So to give the players an incentive to do the tasks, they got bonuses to the relevant die roll to catch the critter in question. Nobody would be penalized, so there was no way that participating in the task would hurt a player’s chances in the game.
The tasks should have some kind of relationship to the in-game fiction.
The tasks should cover a couple of different areas of skill — art, memory, words, etc.
I found that three “tasks” per session/module seems to be the sweet spot; more than that and it starts to feel cumbersome.
Everyone — including the GM — should have a chance to be silly and participate
I drew inspiration from Taskmaster itself, the Taskmaster wiki, and a number of wikis and forum posts discussing tasks to do at home, as well as old kid’s games from when I ran a scout pack. I also ended up running a variant of this scenario with my online campaign, which required a slightly different selection of tasks.
For example, one of the creatures in the module is a “spiderfish”. {1} I figured these creatures were ambush predators, so they’d be hiding away and would have to be tracked down or lured out.
For the in-person table, I printed out a little sketch of a spiderfish for each player on a 2″ (~4cm) square. They put their initials on the back of their spiderfish. I left the room for a few minutes, and they could hide the spiderfish on any flat surface, uncovered, and accessible. Then I had two minutes to find as many as I could. The first one found got a +1, the second +2, and any I couldn’t find (which was the rest of them) got a +5 to their survival roll to track the spiderfish to their hiding spot.
For the online group — which is audio-only — I told them they’d have to lure the spiderfish out of their hidey-holes with a certain strange call… which we represented by having the players say “Super Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity” as for as long as possible in the angriest voice possible without laughing. The person who kept at it the longest got the highest bonus, and so on. {2}
It was a blast for everyone involved.
Incorporating these kinds of real-world mechanics helped elevate a good session into a really fun and unique session for my players, both in-person and remotely.
{1} If you decide to run this adventure, check with your players about phobias. A player in one of my sessions has a bad snake phobia, so the venom chicken was replaced by a different kind of chimeric animal. If someone has a spider phobia, then the spiderfish would have to be replaced. Which is also why the example image of the spiderfish I used for the task is here: https://imgur.com/a/n4P8GGq to avoid triggering phobias of those reading this.
{2} Yeah, sometimes the “connection” between the task and what was happening in-game was somewhat tenuous, but there was enough of a link that it still felt like it was part of the session.
(original post at https://ideatrash.net/2025/01/dungeons-and-dragons-meets-taskmaster-using-real-world-mechanics-in-ttrpgs.html)
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A.N.I.M. Adventure Art: The Seedtown Party
Meet the Seedtown Party. This is a cast of investigator PCs from one of the earliest test runs for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, back in late 2021. It didn’t even have any sort of combat system when this campaign started, that was written hastily somewhere in the middle of the campaign, somewhere around February 2022.
This campaign is maybe the longest we’ve ever done with Eureka, lasting 6 months with a session nearly every week, and it was amazing.
Four investigators find themselves one way or another in a small town in the mountains of Arkansas, coming together by chance due to shared interest in a series of seemingly related missing persons cases.
It pains me greatly that I cannot remember exactly what was said, but the way that this group of characters came together and agree to work with each other to locate these missing persons in the first session was the single most natural and organic way I’ve ever seen a TTRPG party form.

Eunica, an actual professional private investigator from the big city, here on a personal mission, as one of the missing people is her own nephew.

Joseph, an extremely friendly local bartender who has been manning his brother’s establishment since his brother’s death more than ten years ago.

Sarah, a moviestar who sought to disappear from the spotlight and run away to a quieter life, only to find that some of the missing persons posters feature *her* face, and did before she even arrived.

And finally Alice (pronounced in the French way, sounds more like “Elise”), a cheerful and energetic young Cajun-French biker claiming to be a friend of one of the missing people. She was definitely the youngest of the party, appearing to be in her early twenties, with the next youngest investigator being Eunica in her late thirties. Alice had the rest of the party in love with her sweetness, energy, and optimistic attitude, as well as many weird but endearing quirks like how sarcasm and jokes always flew right over her head, her insistance that her food never have any spices whatsoever, and the fact she wore the same part of sunglasses day and night. In fact, they never actually even saw her sleep, she was always awake when they went to bed and always awake in the morning when they woke up. Alice was “the baby of the group”, and all of the older investigators went out of their way to protect her and curb her bold and reckless actions, despite her insistence that they didn’t need to.
Art by @theblackwarden
This art has been posted here with permission as part of A.N.I.M.’s Adventure Art initiative in our TTRPG book club.
All of these characters are PCs from Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy by A.N.I.M.
If you’d like to join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club, you can find the discord invite on our website.
If your art fits he parameters outlined on this post, and you’d like it featured here, tag us or post it in the book club’s Adventure Art channel on discord.
If you’d like to support us and get a prerelease copy of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, check out our Patreon! Our Kickstarter is planned for launch in April 2024!
This group of investigators followed what clues they could through local urban legends, organized crime, police corruption, and finally occult ritual among the state’s wealthy elite in a remote manor in the mountains, ending in a high-stakes shootout as the gang attempted to flee the premises after disrupting a plot that could’ve brought the world as we know it to its knees, and then a confrontation with the source of the aforementioned urban legends. For the most part, the investigators got out unscathed, except for Alice, who caught three bullets during the shootout, way more than enough to kill an investigator, or most any character, in Eureka. She also did most of the killing in this shootout.
Alice near flat-out refused medical attention, instead sneaking away as soon as the others’ backs were turned, leaving a farewell message at the bar before getting on her bike, and riding away. There was no way to track her or find out where she went, who she was, or if she was even still alive. They never even learned her last name.
Not only was this a test run of Eureka in general, but also the origin of its unique approach to supernatural characters, wherein not even other players sitting around the table know which members of the party are supernatural or not. With exceptions that I’ll get to in a moment, none of the IRL people playing this game except the Game Master knew that there would be any supernatural element to this mystery, let alone within the very investigative party itself. Nearly all of the players were relative strangers to each other before the group was brought together for session 0, not knowing each others’ interests or original characters, so there was little chance of guessing anything was amiss before the session even began.
Eunica shocked everyone about a two-thirds into the investigation, after the involvement of occult ritual started to become apparent, by revealing that she was no ordinary private detective, but really one of a more magical variety, capable of more than a little magic herself, and the person you’d go to if you needed someone to, say, hunt and slay a vampire. This took some time to process for everyone and Alice had what seemed like a hundred rapid-fire questions about the truth or the supernatural.
Alice, on the other hand, didn’t shock anyone, no one suspected a thing. No one, not PCs nor Players, ever guessed that sweet “Alice”, “the baby of the group”, was actually the oldest of them all, an 800-year-old vampire named Yvette Preux. The other players didn’t find this out until a month after the campaign ended. In between regular sessions, secret one-on-one sessions between GM and player were being run while the rest of the party slept, wherein “Alice” did some investigating, and other things like drinking blood, on her own during the night, the findings from which she would sprinkle in casually during discussions of the case the next morning, subtly enough that no one ever asked where she got this information or why she was so sure of it. On a few occasions she even did a lot more than investigating during these nights, like when a crime boss, who had told the investigators that he would have them disappeared if he saw them in town again, mysteriously turned up dead the next day, never seeing any of them again. What a lucky coincidence for everyone else.
Alice actually clocked Eunica as some kind of vampire hunter or the like right away, on the very first day they met, which didn’t really concern her at all. If so-called vampire hunters were any good at their “job”, she wouldn’t be around to laugh about it, would she?
Really, in hindsight, she could hardly have been more obviously a vampire—the sunglasses at all hours; avoidance of garlic, onions, and any other spices on food; hoe she never seemed to sleep; how she always seemed to have something in front of her mouth when she talked; her avoidance of mirrors; taking risks like she was invincible; and always running ahead every time the party was about to enter a private domicile so that she could directly ask to come inside. She even at one point when the party needed to disguise themselves as occultists, revealed that she just *already had* a fine hooded cloak with black on the outside and bright red on the inside in her luggage. That was all pretty weird, but it turns out, when nobody tells you to look for vampires, they actually become extremely hard to stop! This isn’t even a massive failing on Eunica’s part, if it weren’t near impossible to identify them, vampires wouldn’t be considered just a silly superstition in the modern age.
In truth, “Alice” reveled in just being herself right under a wannabe vampire-hunter’s nose, feigning shock when Eunica revealed this, and going out of her way to ask as many questions as she could about real vampires and what they’re like.
This is the ultimate Eureka experience, what starts as a mundane investigation spiraling into sprawling madness, and if what the people you thought you knew could reveal about themselves will shock you to your core, imagine what they keep to themselves. They might not even be playing by the same rules as you, it’s always who you least expect.
#eureka: investigative urban fantasy#rpg#eureka#coc#ttrpg#tabletop#indie rpg#monsters#roleplaying#adventure#adventure art#art#artwork#artists on tumblr#illust#art tag#illustration#vampirism#vampire#vampcore#detective#bartender#actress#celebs#celebrity#biker#biker girl#biker babe#indie#indiegames
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My current DnD 5e group is encouraging each other to write session recaps in the form of journal entries for oneself. Obviously I can't comply normally - because of course - and I recap my Prologue Session/Session 0 as an interrogation scene happening afterwards.
(Dusty and his partner Thorne got imprisoned at the end, because the campaign itself starts off with the entire party in prison)
Here's my session recap after the cut <3
Interrogation Log - Svirfneblin Prisoner - 01
Guard: "Our writer is set up now, so let's get this started. What's your name again, svirfneblin"
Prisoner: no response
Guard: "What would you want me to call you?"
Prisoner: stays silent
Guard: "No answer? Alright, I'll keep going with dark gnome then. Why did you come to our wonderful capitol of Aldea, dark gnome?"
Prisoner: "…Would you be happy if I said sightseeing?"
Guard: "I sure would be, but we both know that's not the actual reason, is it"
Prisoner: "I wouldn't tell you any other reason. Are we done now?"
Guard: "Not so fast. What you're saying is, you have another reason… Anything to do with all that treasure we confiscated?"
Prisoner: "I'd like that back, by the way"
Guard: "Yes, yes of course. Once you tell me what's up with it"
Prisoner: "No way in the nine hells-"
(a thump can be heard as the Guard slams the Prisoners head down the table)
Prisoner: "Darn Drow, what's wrong with you?!
Guard: "Please tell me what's up with that treasure of yours"
Prisoner: "Nothin'! Can't an adventurer run around with a bit of money in his pocket?! that hurt, ow"
Guard: "Not if they wanna enter our glorious City; there are customs to pay and paperwork to be filled out. You don't think we just let any scoundrel waltz in"
Prisoner: "You almost let me"
Guard: "Yes, thank the gods we noticed. You were barely visible without any moonlight, I'll give you that"
Prisoner: "Sure, thanks…"
Guard: "Back to it, what's up with that treasure of yours?"
Prisoner: "Like I said, I'm an adventurer. That's all"
Guard: "I know what types of adventurers are out there. Most of them are better off behind bars if you ask me-"
Prisoner: "I didn't-"
(a heavier thump can be heard as the Guard slams the Prisoners head down again)
Guard: "Don't interrupt someone while they're speaking to you. Now where was I?" Guard: "What type of adventurer are you? Murder for hire or opportunistic thief"
Prisoner: "Dungeon delver, if you can believe it… Effin Drider, that hurt like hell"
Guard: "Speak loudly so I can hear your mumbling" Guard: "'Dungeon Delver', ok… Fits with how easy you're missed. Tell me about your latest excursion and I just might not put another hand on you"
Prisoner: "Geez, you're a pain. I'll talk" Prisoner: "My partner and I heard about a sunken temple to some deity, I don't know which one. We roped down from a hole in the top and began exploring. Further in we found goblins in a weird trance. A couple were just standing around, others walking in circles; it was weird man"
Guard: "The goblins just stood around?"
Prisoner: "Yeah"
Guard: "And then? Keep going dark gnome"
Prisoner: "We arrived in the deepest chamber, just in time to deal with a newly summoned demon-"
Guard: "Describe them in detail"
Prisoner: "… If you let me speak? A newly summoned demon, purple skin, with spikes all over him and wings resembling a cloak"
Guard: "Sounds more like a 'Spined Devil' than any demon"
Prisoner: "What does it matter now, it's dead. Anyway, in said chamber we found that treasure you're asking about" Prisoner: "Then we had to buck it out of there, as the remaining goblins snapped out of their trance and started chasing us"
Guard: "You didn't clean up as you continued?"
Prisoner: "After we got rid of the first three we noticed they would just ignore us if we ignored them"
Guard: "Ridiculous… So what then. Why did you take your treasure here?"
Prisoner: "To sell, obviously"
Guard: "You're not from here, dark gnome. You could have sold it closer to the dungeon, but you came here… Any reason?"
Prisoner: "Sightseeing, of course"
(the Guards chair clatters back as an even louder thump erupts)
Guard: "We're done for today. Put that gnome back in his cell and bring me his partner. He seems like the more cooperative type"
Prisoner: "Bastard"
End of Interrogation Log - Svirfneblin Prisoner - 01
#creative writing#ttrpg writing#dnd 5e writing#oc writing#original writing#interrogation scene#Dusty Lightfingers#ellipsus#I used ellipsus as my writing programm and it's nice
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hi! have you seen the TTRPGS for Palestine bundle yet? and do you have any recommendations from it
https://tiltify.com/@jesthehuman/ttrpgs-for-palestine
THEME: TTRPGS for Palestine
The TTRPGs for Palestine Bundle is going from April 12 to May 7, so there's not much time left to get it, but here's some recommendations of some really awesome games that you can find in it.
Gubat Banwa, by makapatag.
GUBAT BANWA is a Martial Arts Tactics and War Drama Tabletop RPG where you play as martial artists poised to change the world: Kadungganan: the cavalry, the wandering swordsmen, the tide turners, the knights-errant, the ones to call in darkest night in a world inspired and centering Southeast Asian folklore.
Witness, grand warriors, honorable gallants that trudge and toil under kings and haloes. Witness, KADUNGGANAN, that refulgent name. That blasted name: WITNESS NOW. The end of days is upon us: and the new world MUST BE BORN. Bear your blades, incant your magicks. Cut open your tomorrow from the womb of violence. Inscribe your name upon the very akasha of this world.
Gubat Banwa is designed for fans of 4th edition D&D, with in-depth character abilities that make you feel both unique and powerful, in a colourful and flavourful world full of vibrant cultures and clashing conflicts. The game uses an action economy with different action options carrying different weights, which also reminds me quite a bit of Lancer. If you want a game that pushes you to strategize with your friends and weigh your advancement options carefully, you want Gubat Banwa.
Gun & Slinger, by Nevyn Holmes.
GUN&SLINGER is an RPG geared for short, episodic sessions about a weapon and a wanderer. A Maestro and two players (Gun and Slinger) set out into a dead planet mutated by a god's forgotten child and hunt strange bounties, investigate the world and unlock hidden powers. During play, they seek to learn the nature of what’s hunting the Slinger, figure out why the Gun is sentient and discover how the world died.
This game is specifically for three players, using the rules of Go Fish as a resolution system. Gun & Slinger is all about using your resources to the best of their ability, and your resources might exist on your character sheet, but they also exist as cards in your hand.
What really intrigues me is the lore that’s baked into your character sheets. One of you is a wanderer in a twisted world, tempted by strange powers that guarantee to change you into a monster. One of you is a sentient magical gun, borne by that wanderer and designed to deliver death and pain.
Gun & Slinger has expansions included, allowing you to instead play as a wanderer possessed by a demon, a mech and a pilot fused as one, or someone who bears a cursed sword. I think the fact that it requires a small table and the fact that the characters’ lives are tied together makes this a high-stakes, terribly intimate game.
Apocalypse Frame, by Binary Star Games.
In a ruined and terraformed world where most of humanity is under the yoke of a brutal regime, the former workers of a once-remote factory - now known as The Collective - have risen up to create a future of freedom from oppression. You are an Ace - a highly skilled pilot referred from a Division in The Collective and assigned a humanoid combat vehicle known as a Frame. You and your Strike Team of fellow Aces must take on The Collective’s greatest threats, ensure its survival, and carve a path for its continued success.
Apocalypse Frame takes mechs and fits them into the LUMEN system, which centres competency as well as fast but effective rounds of combat. The game includes a variety of different threats, allowing you to tailor your campaign to your group’s tastes, and the tailoring doesn’t stop there. You choose both a division that your character belongs to, and then one of three mechs within that division, allowing players to share similar fighting styles but differ in weapons. You can also modify your basic frame, adding general modular systems alongside systems and armaments that can come with your mech, making character creation and progression exciting for folks who love tweaking and tailoring to their heart’s content.
If you’re a fan of Armored Core or Battletech, you’ll want to check out Apocalypse Frame.
Here, There Be Monsters!, by wendi yu.
No matter what they tell you, there’s still weirdness and wonder everywhere. You just have to know where to look. At the edges and cracks of ‘normal’ life we exist, we persist, and we resist: the monsters, the magicians, the anomalies, the freaks, and the outcasts. We gather in the shadows, trying our best to live our lives in a world that, when it doesn’t exactly fear or hate us, doesn't even believe in our existence.
here, there, be monsters! is a rules-lite response to monster-hunting media from the monsters' point of view. It's both a love letter and a middle finger to stuff like Hellboy (and the BPRD), the SCP Foundation, the Men in Black, the World of Darkness games and the Urban Fantasy genre in general. It is an explicitly queer, antifascist and anti-capitalist game about the monstrous and the weird, in any flavor you want, not as something to be feared, but to be cherished and protected.
Here, There, Be Monsters is a love-letter to anyone who has been made to feel monstrous, as well as an homage to media such as Hellboy, the SCP Foundation, and Men in Black. It’s urban fantasy meets organized power structures, and as the monsters, you’re here to burn those structures down.
This game uses descriptive tags to slap onto your characters to represent what they can do. You can choose from a number of different monster character backgrounds to give you guidance towards, and there’s plenty of monsters both in the base game and in the game jam wendi ran back in 2022. If you want a game of power, anti-capitalism, and punching up, this is the game for you.
Pale Dot, by Devin Nelson.
Pale Dot is a collaborative storytelling game for 2-5 players about a crew of non-human cosmonauts leaving their planet to explore a strange solar system, finding threads to unravel the unknown along the way. It is fantastical, surreal, and perhaps very unlike humanity’s own ventures in space exploration. Though one thing is universal: leaving home is terrifying, dangerous, humbling, and a catalyst for changing one’s perspective.
Pale Dot is a GM-less game where players work together to create an alien setting and subsequently envelop it in cosmic mystery, embodying cosmonauts called Dustlings, as well as one of 5 different settings. During their journey they will be able to travel to 24 different locations within their solar system, each with several prompts for improvisational scenes. Each player will also have to manage the integrity of their cosmonaut and their shared ship while avoiding space's many perils.
The cover for Pale Dot gripped me the first time I saw it; a tiny creature in an astronaut suit, looking up in fear at something in the sky, as vegetation blooms inside their helmet. You play as the Dustlings, non-human but sentient species exploring the Cosmos, a strange, horrifying and wonderful universe that changes those who venture into it.
Mechanically, Pale Dot uses a GM-less structure similar to Dream Askew, but there feels to be a much bigger emphasis on the setting your cosmonauts explore, rather than the cosmonauts themselves. Your characters are assembled traits, drives and equipment, almost all of which can be expended to cause or solve problems. Each player is also responsible for at least one setting element, such as The Cosmic Wilderness, The Wondrous Endeavour, or The Omnipresent Danger. As you visit locations, different elements will be prompted to influence the scene, while your cosmonauts try to navigate the scene and try to finish the mission. If you want a game that is collaborative and evocative, I definitely recommend Pale Dot.
Fractal Romance, by Ostrichmonkey Games.
A never ending abstract landscape of rhythm and soft glamour. Wander the halls, rooms, and chambers. Encounter strange Denizens and get to know them better; befriend them, fall in love, just chill. Try and fill out your own blurred edges. Fractal Romance is a tabletop role playing hangout. You will pick up a character to play and explore the Fractal Palace, generating its infinite sprawl and the Denizens that inhabit it, as you play.
Fractal Romance is all about searching; for something you need, something you want, or even for who you are. It feels rather surreal, perhaps like a dream dimension that you are moving through. The game uses a deck of cards to generate rooms, as well as the denizens of this gigantic, dream-like palace. This game uses rather simplistic playbooks, each asking you to choose three descriptive words, and then uses cards to fuel your character’s actions: you have things you can always do, things that cost a card to do, and things that you must do in order to draw another card.
If what you want out of a game is a chill time with friends, moving from one vibe to another, and generating emotional stories for your characters, you might want to check out Fractal Romance.
Himbos of Myth and Mettle, by huge boar.
You are big. Big arms, big tits, big thighs, big brai- you're big where it matters. In addition to a heaving, throbbing body, glistening lightly with a thin sheen of pleasantly fragrant perspirant, you have one singular unifying trait - come hell or high water, you are going to help.
Himbos of Myth & Mettle is a high fantasy, high camp role playing game of epic proportions (of body), for 2-5 players, one of whom will act as Game Guide. The rules center around a simple roll under mechanic and prioritize narrative flair and cinematic descriptions. Himbos is inspired by many classic fantasy properties (and could be considered OSR adjacent) , but leans towards a more garish, salacious and queer (gay or odd, pick your fighter) style of play. It is designed with comedy and flamboyance in mind, but is not without it deeper and darker touches. It's definitely not grimdark, but there will probably be blood. Think classic fantasy pulp in style, but contemporary sensibilities, modern rules-lite mechanics, and a player philosophy centred in helping, kindness and being fucking hot.
I’ve heard rave reviews for Himbos, and I think the idea of leading an entire group of well-meaning but possibly over-ambitious adventurers is a great set-up for a game full of laughs. Himbos is very much designed for a light-hearted evening of fun, flirting, and fucking up (but in the best way).
Other Games from the Bundle I've Recommended:
Space Taxi, and Creation Myths, by GothHoblin.
Caltrop Core, by Titanomachy.
Souvenirs, by Rémi Töötätä.
Thunder in Our Hearts, by Marn. S.
Eldritch Courts of Some Repute, by AlanofAllTrades.
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Have you ever thought of crowd-funding?
Thank you so much for the question and for your support -- and for the support of those who've asked similar questions.
We got a few like this, so we figured we'd answer them all in one (and our apologies if we've missed your question -- our inbox is apparently very hungry, eating asks before we get them, and we have quite a few people who have to try three or four times before their question ends up in our inbox).
Crowdfunding comes up every now and again as a solution, especially when people see other fandoms doing it to purchase ad space (such as the OFMD fandom recently). We've seem many fandoms do this over the years and many fandoms avoid this, and there's pros and cons to each approach.
As far as we're concerned -- speaking here as Twitter and Tumblr Mod, not by any means speaking as the One True Voice of the Fandom -- crowdfunding is very often a slippery slope. There have been a few things crowdfunded within this fandom -- space at cons being the one that comes to mind -- and in our opinion that kind of thing makes sense. It's small and personal, and has a real, tangible result -- aka a booth -- along with a set price and very little wiggle room for presenting where money is going. You've probably seen posts on this blog alerting the tumblr space of these happenings, and we're comfortable with that.
Crowdfunding for ad space -- billboards, blimps, electronic ads, and their ilk -- on the other hand, gets tricky very quickly. There have been dozens upon dozens of crowdfunding scams within fandoms -- not saying within ours, saying that with our decades of experience in fandom, we've seen more than our fair share. Crowdfunding attempts that start out with a small group's passion can turn ugly very quickly, and it's a big ask to trust strangers on the Internet not just with your passion and time, but also with your money.
And while there's a chance for high visibility, even if everything goes perfectly, it's a lot of outlay for little to no tangible benefit. There have been fandoms who use it who have had their show picked up; there have been fandoms who use it without any effect whatsoever. It's not a guarantee; it's not even something that always does something.
We the mods invest our limited time and humble talents. We're always amazed at how LockNation has gathered to provide their prodigious talents and time to make this campaign something to be proud of. Knowing the inherent risks of a lot of crowdfunding campaigns, especially ones as directionless as saying (random example we made up but have seen in past campaigns) "donate to save the show" with no other information, causes us to be extremely wary of such efforts.
Once again, we don't speak for the fandom at large. At its core, and like we say in our pinned post, this blog is primarily a place for a lot of information to be gathered in one place and for positivity and encouragement -- celebrating the wins, keeping up momentum, and marveling at what LockNation has managed to do, all in less than a year of the show being out, and less than 9 months since Netflix's hissy fit (as we call it). Others may use their allotment of time and energy and, yes, capital, as they see fit.
There's a post about 2 weeks ago on this very blog from our friends at the Discord, looking for donations to get a booth at GalaxyCon Richmond if you're looking to get your wallet involved! If you have the power, more power to you. We're huge fans of the power of cons here on this blog.
Being the Fandom Grandmas (affectionate) that we are, we've seen nebulous crowdfunding events go south a few too many times to try to organize anything ourselves, and you won't see a big sweet to buy ad space on Times Square anytime soon originating from the mods. We're comfortable with the constant, measurable successes we've been able to bear witness to and help along in some small way here on this little blog.
Above all, we all love the same show, and we're all working towards that awesome day that we get the S2 announcement! Let's work towards it the best ways we know how. We'll be at the finish line before we know it.
#save lockwood and co#lockwood & co#lockwood and co#l&co#answer post#thank you to all who sent in a question like this! we answered it all in one just for clarity's sake#once again we do not speak for our friends in the discord nor any other fans except ourselves! go crazy!#we're just not comfortable promoting or starting Big Nebulous Ad Crowdfunding here due to Internet Safety etc etc
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DND AU - Classes V1
I've got excerpts along with what I think are some fitting classes for the Dangan characters (based on talents and personality from the three main games). Here's Version 1 under the cut while I finish up polishing some upcoming Diner AU drabbles. Also, I played DND once and watched a couple of DND campaigns but most of these are based on the wiki (dnd5e.wikidot sort of wiki) regardless of obscurity. There's also multiclassing and I may have taken creative liberties.
Chiaki Nanami:
Cleric (Peace Domain) / Wizard (School of Enchantment)
Pink eyes glisten and delicate lips turn upward as she outstretches her arms. Grass crunches as the dark wolf pup marches forward. It's caught in a warm embrace. She glides a hand over its matted fur, softly murmuring, “it’s okay. I don't wish to harm you. Nothing will ever cause you harm when I’m around.” She stands, the pup zipping through her legs and yipping. She eyes its capturers with a frown. “Unlock the cages. Leave at once, and reflect on better paths for yourselves.” They obey. The released animals warily step out. She nods at them. “Go home guys. I'll ensure it's safe, I promise.”
Kokichi Ouma:
Rouge (Thief) / Bard (College of Satire)
“Serve us, and we shall provide you with great power!” The god’s voice reverberated throughout the dimly lit chamber. He laughs, loud and sharp. “No thanks! As if I want to serve anyone. I have my own followers, thank you very much! I’ve met enough royal assholes to know a terrible deal when I see one.” His smile drops. “Now get out of my head, you pathetic piece of shit.” He wakes up refreshed the next day. Would it be there? He reaches into his pocket and feels a solid, smooth surface that wasn’t there before. Purple eyes glint with a grin. It’s not everyday that I get a chance to steal from a god.
Nagito Komaeda:
Sorcerer (Wild Magic)
It’s no secret that Nagito has experienced some strange things ever since he was born. Very early on, he was plummeted into an otherworldly space. His parents were right by his side one minute, and in the next, every sensation dissolves into a myriad of stars. Around him, he faces a galactic mosaic with a strange sheen. He would turn if he could, frantically searching for the people he was just with- if only just to point out the oddness of this place. He can't seem to speak here though. Instead, he moves forward. The mist swirls, with its colours looking so pretty. He hopes it would lead to them. Unfortunately, the stars blink out, replaced by an arena of orange and yellows. They fight each other for dominance, harsh, nicking him in the process. He still doesn't really feel anything, but he can feel the temperature start to rise... He wants to leave. He doesn't want to be here. The next thing he knows, everything turns into a breeze and he is left amongst black powder dotting the terrain. A group of people find their way to him, fussing over him. They took him in after that, but it didn't stop there. His body turned blue. He doesn't know how. All he remembers is the fear on the lady that was always kind to him. Frantically, she takes him to a cleric. They told her they removed the Curse on him, and his skin was back to normal. Yet that wasn't the end. He started glowing shortly after, blinding her temporarily by the flash. ...She didn't remain kind after that. When he was in the forest, he saw a unicorn. Of course, it's entirely possible he hallucinated it, but he distinctly remembers being able to pet its soft fur and riding on its back. It even dropped him off at the nearest village. The memory is something he treasures, even if he looks back and cringes because of how unworthy he is to have interacted with it. Whatever may be the reason for any of this, he can't ask anyone about it, because the people who might've known are gone and the people he could've gotten help from have shunned him. He definitely considered that he may just be permanently cursed. But he's witnessed the world bend to his will sometimes. The way people never see him when he doesn't want them to. The way he suddenly got rich after he managed to get a job, despite being some random orphan with shoddy acting skills. The way someone attempted to capture him, and he pulls something from within him, causing them to fall while he scrambles away from their hands. Even the way some people would be kind to him, despite the fact he shied away from everyone. So he calls it "luck".
#dr dnd au#dnd au#chiaki nanami#kokichi ouma#nagito komaeda#canon typical angst#aka nagito's backstory#also idk if it's obvious but it wasn't luck that people were nice to nagito he just thinks it was#the rest are the results of failed ability checks#au lists#kinda#drabbles#nagito's originally wasn't meant to be the behemoth it was but the words wrote themselves#danganronpa#danganronpa au
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