#me when widget is real

[feralferretxp]

I finally redid my first ever Storybots screenshot edit where I first inserted Widget! Also adding some light effects because epicness✨

Old/first one is here, and this is the og screenshot below

[sixeyesonathiel]

satoru insists on being your lock screen.

like actually insists. he’s made it his personal mission, his divine right, his sacred duty as your overly clingy, stupidly hot husband. the moment he sees your screen light up with anything that isn’t his face—your cat, a flower, a quote graphic—he gasps like you’ve just committed adultery in 4k.

“...a sunset? a sunset?” he blinks at you like you’ve betrayed every vow. “is the sun a pretty man with ocean eyes? no. do you kiss the sun goodnight? no. do better.”

instead of letting it go like a normal person, he floods you with selfies. hundreds. different lighting. different angles. thirst traps with his shirt pulled up to flaunt the sin that is his eight-pack. mirror pics where he’s flexing. ones where he’s pouting. one where he’s fake crying. him stuffing his mouth with mochi. him dramatically sobbing with a caption that reads, “you used to love me.”

and the worst part? he’s sending all of this while sitting beside you. phone angled down, giggling like a schoolboy, thinking he’s being slick while your inbox explodes. you’re already overwhelmed when you see it.

sandwiched between selfies and spam, a very accidental mirror pic. last night. you, bent over the bathroom counter, absolutely ruined, face flushed, mouth open in a silent gasp, while satoru stands behind you grinning like a menace, very much still inside you. you scream. you hit him. he yelps but laughs, no shame, no apology. “oopsie~” and “you looked so good, though.”

he doesn’t stop even as you glare. now he’s negotiating. bartering. one lock screen slot for a back massage. five minutes of home screen privilege if he orders your favorite takeout. a full 24 hours if he lets you pick the movie and doesn’t complain even once. he even pulls out the big guns—puppy eyes, soft voice, a breathy, “baby… do it for love.”

you roll your eyes, say no, but you’re already folding. he casually shifts on the couch, hand propping up his jaw just right, profile lit perfect by the golden hour. “what about now?” he says, voice all smug, like he doesn’t already know he’s stupidly pretty. “i’m moisturized. glowin’ like your man should. tell me that’s not lock screen material.”

and in his defense? your face is everywhere on his phone. lock screen, home screen, widget rotation. polaroids of you tucked inside his clear case—some with your cheek squished to his, one with your wedding bands on display. siri responds only to your voice. his notifications banner still reads “i ❤️ my wife.”

his favorites bar? just your contact and his camera roll. album names include: “my baby 🫶,” “hot wife hours,” and “the loml fr.” he’s got slow-mo videos of you laughing, candid shots he took while you were sleeping, a live photo of you on your wedding day spinning in your dress. even that pic you told him to delete? it’s buried in a hidden folder titled with a heart emoji and he opens it like it’s the damn grail.

it’s not even a bit—he just genuinely thinks you’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. so really, is it too much to ask for one lock screen in return? balance, baby. harmony. fairness in marriage.

you hold your ground for a solid ten minutes. you really do. arms crossed, phone untouched, lips pursed like you’re not even thinking about giving in. but then he starts pulling out the big guns—his stupidly pretty face all soft and glowy from your skincare, his voice low and coaxing like he’s seducing you into sin (he is), whispering, “just a day, baby. for me?” as if it’s not his lifelong mission to conquer your lock screen.

you scoff, bratty and unmoved. “you want me to advertise you on my phone? why don’t you get a billboard?”

“because,” he says, smug, “my wife’s wallpaper real estate is more valuable.”

you shouldn’t cave. you really shouldn’t cave. but then he kisses your cheek, trails down to your jaw, murmurs something sweet and stupid that melts your last nerve. you grumble about being weak for hot idiots, scroll through the absolute onslaught of selfies he sent, and pick the one where he’s grinning—smug, shirt slightly askew, and your lipstick still stamped on his jaw. it’s criminal how good he looks. you fight the urge to bite your lip and sigh like it’s the biggest burden of your life as you set it as your lock screen.

he gasps like he’s just been proposed to. dramatic hand to his heart, eyes glassy, voice warbling as he says, “i’m your lock screen. me. your husband. this is the greatest day of my life.” and then he traps you—physically. throws his whole weight over you on the couch like a human weighted blanket, peppering kisses across your face with alarming speed. “you can’t leave now,” he mumbles into your neck, “this is your new full-time job. cherishing me.”

you groan, swatting weakly at him, but it’s no use—he’s clinging like a damn koala, legs hooked around you, arms locked tight. “satoru,” you wheeze, “get off—” but he just shushes you, smug. “nope. consequences of loving me. should’ve picked the cherry blossom jpeg.”

and because he’s him, he spends the next hour being insufferable. changes your passcode to your wedding anniversary (“for security and romance”), and sets calendar reminders titled “admire husband” three times a day. “any attempt to change it will be met with a lockscreen tax,” he warns, grinning. “one kiss per pixel replaced. i will collect.”

[corvuscorona]

today I want to recommend TimeJot android app name of TimeJot. I looked around for a while for an app that would keep track of when the last time was that I [ changed the sheets / started a new bar of soap / made chili for dinner / other ] while requiring as LITTLE effort or complex thought from me as possible, & TimeJot is it.

you make an Event Category. you can put tags on it if you want. (you can also make it into a widget if you want.) whenever you Do this Event, in your real life, you can slap the lil timer in the bottom-right & it creates an instance for you, that lives in the category, and also in the other main tab that has a timeline of All Instances Of All Events In Order From the Most Recent at the Top. & the event jumps to the top of the default view.

you can also backdate instances. & add notes to any of them, when you make them or after the fact, if u feel like Future You needs to know something about This Specific Time You Went Grocery Shopping or whatever.

this stops me from going insane about knowing that I have no fucking idea whatsoever when the last time was that I cleaned the humidifiers. I recommend to all adhd bitches android app TimeJot for knowing when things happened in your daily life. use free software today. thank you.

[gyeomsweetgyeom]

⋆⭒˚.⋆ Self-On Kode with Johnny ⋆⭒˚.⋆

idol!Johnny x f!famous!reader

summary: you should be comfortable around Johnny considering you've already interviewed with him before, right? Well, you're not.

(cw: f!reader, famous!reader, mentions of getting drunk but no alcohol consumption, reader is an internet talk show host like Youngji)

a/n: I am not currently accepting any new self-on kode requests

Johnny sat back comfortably in the blue chair, extending his legs as he waved at the camera with a polite smile, "hello, I'm Johnny from NCT. I'm so ready to figure out who my partner will be today, I'm going to figure it out easily."

He nods smugly at the camera, popping his earbuds into his ears to listen to his music while you walked across the blue wall and sat back in the pink chair. You excitedly wiggled your legs, looking around at the set with wonder, "wow, you guys have a pretty good budget over here."

The staff behind the camera laughed and the producer prompted you to introduce yourself. You nodded, bowing to the camera as you introduced yourself, "in case you don't know me I have my own YouTube channel where I get drunk and interview celebrities." Your manager face palms behind the camera and you furrow your brows, "I can't say we get drunk? But we do! It's so obvious!"

Your music has barely started to play through your headphones when your phone buzzes in your hold. "Amazon?" You mutter as you read the screen name. Your eyes flit to the camera, "is it Jeff Bezos? Amazon is such a weird name."

On the other side of the wall Johnny laughs as he reads your message asking him if he is Jeff Bezos. "No," he types back, "it comes from a nickname."

"You have weird friends, do you shop a lot or something?" You message back.

He smiles down at the screen, "it's not my actual nickname, I can't give you my real nickname or I might give myself away."

You nod to yourself, "smart, smart."

The both of you make small talk, getting used to talking to your anonymous partners while trying to pick up on any little detail about who they are. So far, you have nothing beside an unbased idea that your partner could be a guy purely based on the fact that he's quite straightforward. However, he does match your excited energy. It feels vaguely familiar but hard to place based on mere words on a screen.

You may not have any idea why your partner seems familiar, but both your managers and the fans certainly know. A month ago you had released an interview on your channel that went viral almost overnight. It was your most watched interview in all your years of having your channel. It was your most chaotic interview yet, the video beginning with you taking stressed shots as you admitted to thinking your guest was handsome. After being kind of cold and aloof toward your guest, you both eventually started to succumb to the affects of the alcohol. You both end up slurring your words and laughing so hard while leaning against each other with drunken flirty words exchanged until he stumbles out of your apartment with rosy cheeks and a flirty wiggle of his fingers. The person you were interviewing? Johnny Suh, the very same Johnny Suh sitting in his own matching chair on the other side of the set.

Kode, of course, acted on the virality of the video and all the hype of the fans. All the edits that would consequently come from this interview would send more fans to their channel. Subscribers that already watched Kode, would be sent to your channel to see your interview with Johnny. It was a simple, win-win situation. That's why you and Johnny were sitting opposite each other.

The staff instruct you both to send a screenshot of your homescreens to your partners. You face palm, looking at your mess of a homescreen, thousands of unread emails, hundreds of unread messages, and a widget of your notes app with a note of questions to ask your next guest. You couldn't have made it more obvious with the note titled, 'questions to ask Jisung'. Your only saving grace is that there is more than one Jisung in the kpop industry.

Johnny's jaw drops as he looks at the picture you've sent him, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he freaks out over the insane amount of unread texts and emails. "That doesn't bother you? How do you live like this? Wait a second... 'questions for Jisung?' Which Jisung?" He sends text after text.

You look up at the camera with wide eyes, "I messed up. I really messed up." You bite your lip as you reply, "what are you, some kind of cop? What about your phone, huh?"

Johnny laughs, "what about it?"

Your jaw drops, "so sassy! I don't know! Just stop questioning me! I didn't have time to fix up my phone because I woke up late. Sorry for being honest." Realistically, there is nothing weird about his homescreen at all, just a default screen and a couple folders with normal apps. It looks clean and orderly, no notifications and nothing particularly telling.

Johnny laughs again, reading your dramatic messages and continuing to pick on you until the staff prompt you both to send your YouTube history. Yours is rather boring, some cooking videos, but the picture sent to you has you first, going silent with your eyes wide with shock and second, screaming with excitement. You're screaming so loud that Johnny can hear you on the other side of the set with the noise-cancelling feature activated on his earbuds.

What has you so excited? Well, your partner was watching your video! Your most viral video with Johnny. It's always exciting to see that people watch your videos and enjoy them, it shows you that you and your team's hard work pays off.

"I heard you scream," Johnny texts you, "I know you're a girl."

Your screams quiet immediately as you frown, "dang it." You zoom in on the screenshot and smirk victoriously as you catch sight of the small circle on the bottom right hand corner with a simple J in a circle. A hint.

"And I know you speak English and your name starts with a J," you message back with a smug smile on your face.

"Dang it," Johnny repeats with a defeated laugh.

"I've almost got him," you nod at the camera, drawing laughs from the crew.

Johnny somehow manages to move the conversation along, distracting you from thinking too hard about idols who have English names that start with J. Eventually the last prompt comes up, and you send off a picture of you as a newborn. It's impossible to tell who you are from the picture and Johnny tells you that it's not fair.

Not fair, especially considering he sent you a picture of him as a young child. A picture where he's already kind of developed his face.

But the picture on the screen isn't nearly as telling as he thinks it is, the little boy on your screen has his face screwed up in some kind of scream or laugh. You can't get a whole lot of the picture, but the house in the background doesn't look like the homes you see around here.

"You grew up in America, didn't you?" You ask.

But right after you send the message you slowly loft your gaze from your phone to the camera and crew, "no... you didn't." An American, with a J name, a male. You narrow your eyes at your manager who stands with the Kode crew, "did no one watch the interview? Did no one see the amount of liquid courage I needed to talk to him? This better be Jeff Bezos!"

But even as the interview comes to an end and you stand in front of the bright blue wall, you feel nervous. Yes, you've met him. Yes, you've both bonded and maybe even become friends but that doesn't make him any less intimidating! He watched your interview! He had seen you freak out about him being so tall and handsome and having crush on him!

You see him before you've even had a chance to think of moving your feet. His handsome face breaks out in a smile and he pulls you into a warm hug before your brain can focus on panicking too much. It's a brief hug, friendly. Why does he smell so good?

"Well, well, well, look who it is!" He teases with a bright smile.

"Look at you! You can't get enough of me can you?" You tease back with a playful smile.

You both sit at the high top table and you make sure there is ample amount of room between the two of you. A tasteful, friendly, yet professional distance between the two of you.

His smile is still as radiant as the second he saw you, "Looks like the internet wants to see more of us together."

"Right," you nod slowly, turning to stare pointedly at the group standing behind the camera, "just the internet."

He laughs loudly, his head thrown back with a laugh, "so, did you guess it was me? I didn't think it was you, honestly."

"I did, actually. You know, the J name, the American house, the YouTube history— who knew you were such a big fan of my channel?"

"You didn't get it from Amazon?"

You cock your head to the side, "How would I have guessed that?"

"You know... Amazon, Ama-John," he explains, nodding slowly like he really wants you to get it.

"Oh, I get it," you nod slowly, "You're a lot more funny in person, you know?"

"And you seem more chilled out this time. I'm kind of glad you can actually look at me now even though it's only been 5 minutes. I'm also very glad there's no alcohol involved this time. Did you know that I was hungover for a full day after your interview?" Johnny asks with a laugh.

You're glad that he's so easy to talk to, the awkwardness dies down the more you two talk and laugh. Though the more you talk to Johnny, the more you realize all the awkward was coming from you.

Johnny's eyes widen as he starts his next thought, "I can't let this go, sorry. But over three thousand unread emails and almost two hundred texts, seriously, how do you live like this?"

"Johnny, I'm very busy. Plus, most of the emails are promotional anyway and it's a pain to sit there and delete them one by one," you dramatically groan.

"I can make some free time to help you out," Johnny slips in so casually that it takes your brain a second to understand that he's blatantly flirting.

Knowing that you can be around him now without the liquid courage, you have your confidence back. You're even proud of yourself as you reply, "well, you know where to reach me and you know where I live."

You can see what you think is an outline of your manager fist pumping triumphantly as you and Johnny both pose for your selfie. A selfie with the two of you both smiling at the camera, though Johnny's eyes are clearly on you.

Johnny ends up not only in your DMs a few days later, but a few days later also in your apartment. There are no cameras this time, no liquid courage, just two adults who get to know each other and kiss a little, but the internet doesn't need to know about that.

[alaniesims]

[RE-UPLPOAD]: iPhone Home Screen Canva Templates📱

(Formerly titled 'Canva templates for a Phone: Part 2 🩷' here)

Hi hi!

Next up in the Patreon uploads is the iPhone Home Screen template for your Sims 4 storytelling. I've also added some additional features and tweaks, and light mode versions for all of the styles again, just to provide that extra option.

What’s included in this release (light and dark mode versions for): - iPhone Home Screen plain - iPhone Home Screen with widgets (notes, music, photos, calendar) - iPhone Home Screen with an incoming call - iMessage chat - Editable text fields (names, dates, time)

You can always change the apps shown on the Home Screen by adding alternate app icons of your choosing.

Please remember and respect my Terms of Use:

💀 Don’t claim them as your own work [do not change how they look (i.e fonts, placements, etc) and not credit me as the creator]

💀 Don’t redistribute or re-upload them anywhere else

🩷 Always credit and tag me when using them

IMPORTANT: Please credit me as the creator whenever you use these templates. I go through a lot of effort to make these accessible for everyone, especially Canva free users. That means a lot of time is spent searching, testing, tweaking and joining items together to mimic and create real features and icons. Respect that effort by giving credit, it really matters to me.

Download here 🩵

[scientia-rex]

I got home from work today sneezing my head off with a right eye that won’t stop watering, took a hot shower, climbed into bed, and I haven’t climbed out since. I’m grumpy and I have a headache and if I’m not testing positive for COVID or debilitated by symptoms tomorrow I’ll still need to go to work because that’s twenty patient visits that would need to be rescheduled, usually with someone else, and that’s twenty people I’m letting down. Today I did one of my patented 45-second Pap smears (if it takes longer than that, your doctor needs to get better!) for someone with vaginal atrophy from menopause (it is both very common and very treatable) and she was in disbelief. (This time it was more like 30 seconds.) I saw a suicidally depressed patient who’s clinging to life with both hands and I changed their meds last week and I am not making them wait to see me. I cleaned a wound no one else gave a shit about and I saw a bitter pissy Republican Party bigwig who has terrible anxiety and depression she doesn’t tell anyone about, who’s alienated everyone but who I can still convince to try treatment.

I do my job on hard mode on purpose. I like being important—who doesn’t? I like being legendary, I like that when people move to town and ask for doctor recommendations on Facebook so many people mention me that other patients feel compelled to tell me about it. I got nominated for best doctor in our local region last year. (I didn’t win, out of 5 nominees.) But when I’m sick, when I’m the kind of sick that can be hidden easily, the kind of sick I was always expected to go to school and rotations and residency with, it’s so hard. I hate exposing patients, even to a cold, but the benefits of receiving care are probably enough to outweigh the chance of transmission. I wrestle with myself: if I call in, it starts a ripple effect. Can they get a per diem from their “pool” (of three) to come in? Can they reschedule my patients with me? I don’t have any open spots for five weeks. Can they open same days? None available for three weeks. Can they open blocked spots? That’s going to make my life hell when I come back from being sick. That’s clinic staff calling twenty patients, trying to reach them. That’s twenty patients who feel abandoned. They can know intellectually that doctors get sick too, but they don’t believe it. They take it personally. I have seen this over and over again, until I had to believe it.

It is so EASY for people who don’t do this job to tell me how I’m doing it wrong. “Just stay home!” Oh, okay, you want to tell the person whose chronic opioids I’m supposed to write for that I can’t? You want to put the nurses through getting the on-call to write a bridge prescription? I write more ADHD meds than most of my peers—usually a lot more. You want to tell my colleagues to write meds they’re uncomfortable with? How about tell my suicidal patients (which is a lot of them!) that the provider they know and trust after months or years will be replaced today by a 70-year-old white man who still thinks they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Tell my queer patients that they have to wait until I’m better and back to get their hormones and their STI screenings, reschedule a Pap someone was dreading. Every day is a kaleidoscope of opportunities to make a real connection with “difficult” patients. I’m good at it. I may be the best at it at my clinic.

I don’t hate calling in sick just because the clinic manager is a judgy bitch, though that doesn’t help. I hate it because of what it does to my patients. And it’s not simple. Pretending it is does all of us a disservice. I am not a widget. I am not easily replaceable. You can’t plug any of our per diems (all men, 2/3 white, 2/3 old, 1/3 a Bitcoin bro) into my place and call it an equivalent, and my schedule is already so packed that if I call in sick, patients will be guilt-tripping me about it for months. I’m not kidding. That happens every single time.

Christ alive, I wish it was true that doctors never got sick.

[jennamoran]

The Far Roofs: Systems

Hi!

Today I’m going to talk a little bit more about my forthcoming RPG, the Far Roofs. More specifically, I want to give a general overview of its game mechanics!

So the idea that first started the Far Roofs on the road to being its own game came out of me thinking a lot about what large projects feel like.

I was in one of those moods where I felt like the important thing in an RPG system was the parallel between that system and real-world experience. Where I felt like the key to art was always thinking about the end goal, or at least a local goal, as one did the work; and, the key to design was symmetry between the goals and methods, the means and ends.

I don't always feel that way, but it's how I work when I'm feeling both ambitious and technical.

So what I wanted to do was come up with an RPG mechanic that was really like the thing it was simulating:

Finding answers. Solving problems. Doing big things.

And it struck me that what that felt like, really, was a bit like ...

You get pieces over time. You wiggle them around. You try to fit them together. Sometimes, they fit together into larger pieces and then eventually a whole. Sometimes you just collect them and wiggle them around until suddenly there's an insight, an oh!, and you now know everything works.

The ideal thing to do here would probably be having a bag of widgets that can fit together in different ways---not as universally as Legos or whatever, but, like, gears and connectors and springs and motors and whatever. If I were going to be building a computer game I would probably think along those lines, anyway. You'd go to your screen of bits and bobs and move them around with your mouse until it hooked together into something that you liked.

... that's not really feasible for a tabletop RPG, though, at least, not with my typical financial resources. I could probably swing making that kind of thing, finding a 3d printing or woodworking partner or something to make the pieces, for the final kickstarter, but I don't have the resources to make a bunch of different physical object sets over time while I'm playtesting.

So the way I decided that I could implement this was by drawing letter tiles.

That I could do a system where you'd draw letter tiles ... not constantly, not specifically when you were working, but over time; in the moments, most of all, that could give you insight or progress.

Then, at some point, you'd have enough of them.

You'd see a word.

That word'd be your answer.

... not necessarily the word itself, but, like, what the word means to you and what the answer means to you, those would be the same.

The word would be a symbol for the answer that you've found, as a player and a character.

(The leftover letters would then stick around in your hand, bits of thought and experience that didn't directly lead to a solution there, but might help with something else later on.)

Anyway, I figured that this basic idea was feasible because, like, lots of people own Scrabble sets. Even if you don't, they're easier to find than sets of dice!

For a short indie game focused on just that this would probably have been enough of a mechanic all on its own. For a large release, though, the game needed more.

After thinking about it I decided that what it wanted was two more core resolution systems:

One, for stuff like, say ... kickstarter results ... where you're more interested in "how well did this do?" or "how good of an answer is this?" than in whether those results better fit AXLOTL or TEXTUAL. For this, I added cards, which you draw like letter tiles and combine into poker hands. A face card is probably enough for a baseline success, a pair of Kings would make the results rather exciting, and a royal flush result would smash records.

The other core system was for like ... everyday stuff. For starting a campfire or jumping a gap. That, by established RPG tradition, would use dice.

...

I guess technically it didn't have to; I mean, like, most of my games have been diceless, and in fact we've gotten to a point in the hobby where that's just "sort of unusual" instead of actually rare.

But, like, I like dice. I do. If I don't use them often, it's because I don't like the empty page of where to start in the first place building a bespoke diced system when I have so many good diceless systems right there.

... this time, though, I decided to just go for it.

--

The Dice System

So a long, long time ago I was working on a game called the Weapons of the Gods RPG. Eos Press had brought me in to do the setting, and somewhere in the middle of that endeavor, the game lost its system.

I only ever heard Eos' side of this, and these days I tend to take Eos' claims with a grain of salt ... but, my best guess is that all this stuff did happen, just, with a little more context that I don't and might not ever know?

Anyway, as best as I remember, the first writer they had doing their system quit midway through development. So they brought in a newer team to do the system, and halfway through that the team decided they'd have more fun using the system for their own game, and instead wrote up a quick alternate system for Weapons of the Gods to use.

This would have been fine if the alternate system were any good, but it was ... pretty obviously a quick kludge. It was ...

I think the best word for it would be "bad."

I don't even like the system they took away to be their own game, but at least I could believe that it was constructed with love. It was janky but like in a heartfelt way.

The replacement system was more the kind of thing where if you stepped in it you'd need a new pair of shoes.

It upset me.

It upset me, and so, full wroth, I decided to write a system to use for the game.

Now, I'd never done a diced system before at that point. My only solo game had been Nobilis. So I took a bunch of dice and started rolling them, to see ... like ... what the most fun way of reading them was.

Where I landed, ultimately, was looking for matches.

The core system for Weapons of the Gods was basically, roll some number of d10s, and if you got 3 4s, that was a 34. If you got 2 9s, that was a 29. If your best die was a 7 and you had no pairs at all, you got 1 7. 17.

It didn't have any really amazing statistical properties, but the act of rolling was fun. It was rhythmic, you know, you'd see 3 4s and putting them together into 34 was a tiny tiny dopamine shot at the cost of basically zero brain effort. It was pattern recognition, which the brain tends to enjoy.

I mean, obviously, it would pall in a few minutes if you just sat there rolling the dice for no reason ... but, as far as dice rolling goes, it was fun.

So when I went to do an optional diced system for the Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG, years later, to post here on tumblr ... I already knew what would make that roll fun. That is, rolling a handful of dice and looking for matches.

What about making it even more fun?

... well, critical results are fun, so what about adding them and aiming to have a lot of them, though still like rare enough to surprise?

It made sense to me to call no matches at all a critical failure, and a triple a critical success. So I started fiddling with dice pool size to get the numbers where I wanted them.

I'm reconstructing a bit at this point, but I imagine that I hit 6d10 and was like: "these are roughly the right odds, but this is one too many dice to look at quickly on the table, and I don't like that critical failure would be a bit more common than crit success."

So after some wrestling with things I wound up with a dice pool of 5d6, which is the dice pool I'm still using today.

If you roll 5d6, you'll probably get a pair. But now and then, you'll get a triple (or more!) My combinatorics is rusty, so I might have missed a case, but, like ... 17% of the time, triples, quadruples, or quintuples? And around 9% chance, for no matches at all?

I think I was probably looking for 15% and 10%, that those were likely my optimum, but ... well, 5d6 comes pretty close. Roughly 25% total was about as far as I thought I could push critical results while still having them feel kind or rare. Like ...

If I'm rolling a d20 in a D&D-like system, and if I'm going to succeed on an 18+, that's around when success is exciting, right? Maybe 17+, though that's pushing it? So we want to fall in the 15-20% range for a "special good roll." And people have been playing for a very long time now with the 5% chance of a "1" as a "special bad roll," and that seemed fine, so, like, 20-25% chance total is good.

And like ...

People talk a lot about Rolemaster crit fail tables in my vicinity, and complain about the whiff fests you see in some games where you keep rolling and rolling and nothing good or bad actually happens, and so I was naturally drawn to pushing crit failure odds a bit higher than you see in a d20-type game.

Now, one way people in indie circles tend to address "whiff fests" is by rethinking the whole dice-rolling ... paradigm ... so you never whiff; setting things up, in short, so that every roll means something, and every success and failure mean something too.

It's a leaner, richer way of doing things than you see in, say, D&D.

... I just didn't feel like it, here, because the whole point of things was to make dice rolling fun. I wanted people coming out of traditional games to be able to just pick up the dice and say "I'm rolling for this!" because the roll would be fun. Because consulting the dice oracle here, would be fun.

So in the end, that was the heart of it:

A 5d6 roll, focusing on the ease of counting matches and the high but not exorbitant frequency of special results.

But at the same time ...

I'm indie enough that I do really like rolls where, you know, every outcome is meaningful. Where you roll, and there's never a "whiff," just a set of possible meaningful outcomes.

A lot of the time, where I'm leaning into "rolls are fun, go ahead and roll," what it means to succeed, to fail, to crit, all that's up to the group, and sometimes it'll be unsatisfying. Other times, you'll crit succeed or crit fail and the GM will give you basically the exact same result as you'd have gotten on a regular success or failure, just, you know, jazzing up the description a bit with more narrative weight.

But I did manage to pull out about a third of the rolls you'll wind up actually making and assign strong mechanical and narrative weight to each outcome. Where what you were doing was well enough defined in the system that I could add some real meat to those crits, and even regular success and regular failure.

... though that's a story, I think, to be told some other time. ^_^

[hyuckssunshine]

what do you think the dreamies will be like long distance?

nct dream in a long distance relationship

notes: tried smth different this time, if u want a text version just lmk! Hope u like it, its my first time doing it like this <3 Also, not proofread so there might be typos!

Mark makes playlists with songs that remind him of you and listens to them 24/7. Also makes playlists with you so you can both put in stuff you like and listen together. When he comes to visit you, he hides random little love notes or short poems around your house for you to find later (adorable pls). Gets so excited whenever he sees your name pop up on his screen and replies in 0.5 seconds.

Renjun sends you letters, actual handwritten letters (😩), where he pours his heart out. For some reason texting his feelings makes him cringe, but writing them in a letter's fine. Sends you pictures of his drawings and draws you sometimes, adding every little detail so he doesn't forget them. Complains to the other members about how much he misses you allll the time.

Jeno prioritizes you over anything, he'd drop everything to pick up your call. Listens to you talking about everything going on in your life, just happy to hear you voice. Also calls you while doing daily tasks, where you two don't necessarily talk a lot, but he enjoys just knowing that you're there. Makes movie dates over zoom a weekly ritual and you take turns picking the movie. He usually just ends up staring at you on his screen instead of the movie.

Haechan has absolutely no patience at all and expects you to reply to his texts as soon as he presses send. Would block you when he's mad but unblock you after 5 minutes because he genuinely can not go longer than that without telling you the most random things on his mind. Sends you a ton of selfies every day so you "don't miss his handsome face too much". Everyone's aware that he's a physical touch type of person, so whenever y'all do get to see each other he'd spend the most time literally clinging to your side, you can try whatever you want, there's no way you're getting him off of you.

Jaemin is so cute, he remembers your favorite flower and whenever he sees it somewhere, he takes a picture and sends it to you to make up for the flowers he can't give you in real life. Jaemin has one of those widgetable pets with you, which he takes very seriously by the way, he takes care of it like its his child. Cooking dates over face time, where you both (try to) cook the same meal, which usually just ends in very messy kitchens, but atleast its fun.

Chenle tries to go see you as much as he can or flies you out so you can visit him, which sadly still isn't a lot due to your busy schedules. He got y'all totwoo bracelets so you could communicate through them at all times and absolutely loves them, cause he can annoy you even when he doesn't have his phone on him. Gets gifts delivered to your house or just orders food from your favorite restaurant to your address when he feels like its time for you to eat something.

Jisung would try to get you into videogames so you'd play with him and he'd love to go on minecraft dates with you. Texts you a lot and then stops out of nowhere because he's worried that he's doing too much and you'll get bored of him. Overall Jisung's quite anxious because of the distance, so he needs you to reassure him a lotttt. Any new app for long distance couples to exist, trust me he has it and he makes you download it too.

[strikefourth]

Fourth Strike Apr-May-June Roundup!

Hi everyone! We're back with the latest monthly roundup from your favorite queer music collective 🌈 Read on for new music, album AMAs, t4t art shows, and more!

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Our askbox is OPEN for questions about EXPANSION, the Garages' upcoming album covering Blaseball's Expansion Era! We'll be answering as many as we can over the course of the day. Send us your burning questions/wonderings/just pop in to say hi!

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2. Gabi ( @girlballz) has a new single out on bandcamp and streaming! Check out "how can i be gay when i am just a passionate ally?" at the links below:

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3. Gabi's also a member of the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble, who had their spring showcase early last month! The performance recording is up now for you to watch back:

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4. @dynamicentropy is taking commissions to help cover school applications fees! You can check out their art and rates over on their blog (linked below too for easy access). If you've got the money to spare, why not commission a cool young artist to draw your blorbos/original characters?

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5. Pre-orders are open for Aran P. Ink's upcoming EP DEADNAMES, releasing July 4th! If you've heard any of Ceri's song jam tracks, you know her tell-tale slick production and breakneck pacing, both of which are audible on lead single "SCATTERBRAIN," available now for listening:

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6. @girltentacles has been working towards its senior composition recital for actual years--and it shows. You can support her by checking out the concert recording over on YouTube:

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7. Nia did her first-ever event mix for FieldFX's shader livecoding jam at the end of last month! In her words, "It's 20 tracks I like at 174 BPM, mostly drum 'n' bass but with a few other genres thrown in — hopefully people will enjoy it!" You can take a listen on MixCloud, or over on Nia's blog:

What's that? You want to download it in FLAC? Well, they've got that up for you too!

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8. Resni's surreal RPG Mythic Mire is out now on Steam! Play as Faeya as you work with the digital Pixies to traverse the dream-like Tower and find out what happened to your town...

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9. Bagel's been a developer on Cloutchase, a "social media parody personification visual novel based on the real time events that were/are happening to the management of these sites. And it is incredibly lgbtqia+ and 100% Transgendah!!" Itch and socials below:

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10. June September will have a piece in The Factory's upcoming T4T art show on June 12th! If you're in the area, definitely go check it out; there's going to be tons of cool local artists showcasing work!

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11. Sunny's band, Care, will be performing at the Utah Pride Festival in SLC this weekend! They go on at 4:30 on Saturday. Also, CupcakKe's headlining. Full lineup below!

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That's all for this month! See you in July, and don't forget to send in your Expansion questions 🪙🎸

[rorysterr]

Matchup for @kazumi-jpg 𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋🎧ྀི

Your romantic matchup is…

Beelzebub!!

- our favorite ginger himbo! :D (jk he’s actually very observant and understanding, just a bit oblivious)

- so I was actually planning on giving you Satan originally because personality wise, I think you’d get on well with him. You’re smart, both academically and when it comes to your passions, and I think that Satan would enjoy someone who’s pretty intelligent. I feel like he’d like someone who he can have deeper conversations with. Satan is also a tease so he’s funny in his own way. Plus, I headcanon one of Satan’s love languages as quality time AND he’s incredibly knowledgeable so he fits your criteria pretty well. However, the only downside is that you struggle with seeing more emotionally deep things and I think Satan would like someone who would be pretty perceptive when it comes to emotions. He is the avatar of wrath so he feels very strong and deep emotions. He may keep up a calm and collected front most of the time, but I think he’d need someone who will notice when something is up or when he’s going through it. Plus, you said you like someone who’s sweet and yes Satan is kinda more of a gentlemen, but he can be a bit mean with his teasing, so Beel it is!

- ik you said you would prefer someone who’s taller than you and Beel is crazy tall even for demon standards LMFAOO so u don’t gotta worry about your partner being close to your height☠��

- but real talk, I think Beel fits your criteria pretty well. You said you tend to like people who are either very intelligent or just not there at all. Beel is not stupid, he can just be pretty.. oblivious and food driven LMAO he’s not smart in the same way that Satan or Solomon are, but I think he’s emotionally intelligent or people smart.

- Beel also strikes me as someone who will be vulnerable with their partner. Beel loves very hard and deeply. He’s not about that casual love bs LMFAO I personally think that when he loves someone, he’ll show them every part of himself and likewise, he’ll want to see every part of you. he’ll show you his more goofy side but he’ll occasionally show you his more vulnerable side. he’ll show you how guilty he feels for saving Belphie instead of Lilith or how he worries about loosing his family. Beel is similar to Lucifer in the sense that they’re both very family oriented and share the same fear of loosing their family. I think Beel would have no issue with being vulnerable with you. I do think he wouldn’t approach you immediately whenever he’s feeling down, but I could see him telling you if you notice something is up or if it’s late at night and it’s just you two.

- Beel likes to care for the people around him and I think he’d love feeling like he’s taking care of his partner, but I think he’d also love to feel cared for by you sometimes!

- Also Beel is very sweet. He strikes me as the type to give you piggy back rides or just carry you bridal style whenever you’re wearing uncomfortable shoes or just feel too tired to walk LMFAO he also strikes me as the type who will just listen to you yap about your interests even if he’s not personally interested in them. he just likes to hear you talk man 😭

- This is super irrelevant and off topic, but I feel like he’d ask Asmo to help him install little widgets with you LMAO his lockscreen would probs be a pic of you and then he’d have widgets with pics of either you or the two of you together (some of them would have Belphie in them too!!) but he’s so sweet and he just loves you so so much 😭 (although that phone screen probs has a bunch of oil prints and grime because he uses his phone while he eats so maybe that’s not cute ☠️)

- anyways, you also said that you like someone who’s funny and I feel like Beel is unintentionally funny. He’s pretty oblivious so he’ll probably misunderstand certain slang and misuse it LMFAOOO i feel like he’s the type who genuinely thinks that wap means waffles and pancakes so he’ll say that he likes to eat Lucifer or Satan’s wap with the biggest and most innocent grin on his face meanwhile Levi is blushing super hard in the back and everyone else is shocked LMAOO

- i haven’t even gotten to how you guys started talking oops 😭 i could honestly see you guys getting closer together because you got paired up for a project. yeah that seems boring, however I could see the project being about a topic you’re interested in (like science) and you just yapping away as you work. I feel like Beel would be pleasantly surprised but would listen ofc. he’s a really good listener so he’ll nod and listen whenever you talk about something you’re passionate about!

- I could see him inviting you to restaurants with him or even having little movie nights with him and Belphie in their room! Yall would probs watch horror or thriller movies and I could see Belphie “falling asleep” just so you and Beel can have a moment together yk?

- I honestly feel like you would have to confess first just because I doubt Beel would even realize his feelings for you are romantic (at least not until someone points it out or he just does something abnormal because of them). But if you don’t confess first, he will after a crazy long time.

- when you do date, you can expect A LOT of quality time!! He’ll wanna spend time with you whether it’s going out to eat, doing simple tasks like grocery shopping, or even just spending time in his room.

- also omg matching bracelets. if you ever make matching bracelets for the two of you, Beel will straight up never take it off. He will proudly flaunt it and tell everyone that his partner made it for him.

- also please make little ramen or food bowls for him!! he’d love if you made him pottery things but if you made him food related stuff, he’d treasure it so much

Runner Up… Satan

Your platonic matchup is…

Satan!!

- I went on a bit of a tangent before and explained why I think you guys would get along already so ill keep this one shorter so I don’t repeat myself 😓

- Satan isn’t too into theater himself, but I could def see him indulging in it occasionally whenever it’s based on one of the books he’s read! i could see you guys bonding over it and maybe even seeing a couple shows together. I feel like after the show, he’d discuss with you the plot and how accurate the play stayed to the book.

- Satan isn’t huge on jewelry at all, but if you make him a little keychain or something with a cat charm, he’ll freak. we all know that this man is a massive cat lover and will obsess over anything that’s cat related so make him a little keychain or phone charm with a cat on it and his life is yours.

- Satan is also into horror or murder mystery genres so I could also see you two bonding over that whether it’s a book or a play, you two would geek over it together LMAO

- Also much like you, Satan is very smart so I could see you guys being eachothers designated project partner LMAO I could also see you guys studying together in the library for exams !

Honorable Mention… Belphegor

[cut-the-camera]

Long Distance Relationship with Charlie Spring

Charlie Spring x Male Reader

I feel like you either met on the internet or you met while he was on holiday to your hometown/country

He'll always defend your relationship to people who think long distance relationships don't work, aren't real relationships etc

He always gets so excited when he sees you've texted him, he always gets in trouble in class for having his phone under the table to text you

If you have different time zones then he has yours as a widget on his phone though after a while he does just have it memorised.

He'll fiercely defend your country or hometown to anyone who talks badly about it even if he's never been there. If he takes geography then he does any projects or presentations on your country and you happily help him

If you speak a different language he immediately starts a duolingo streak for it, blushing when people ask him, "Why are you learning that language"

He has your timetable/schedule memorised perfectly so he knows when you're at work, at school, sleeping, at a club etc. If you ever break up he absolutely resents this because he'll always think, 'oh Y/N's in class right now' or 'Y/N's at work right now'

You have each other on life 360 so you always know where each other is, whenever Charlie gets sad or misses you he'll look at your life 360 to remind himself that you're okay and you're out there

You call whenever you can, every spare minute which he gets teased for by Tao and Isaac because he'll end up calling you at break or lunch. You do homework on call, you make dinner on call, you call when either one of you is commuting/ walking home from school. You even experimented with phone sex

Sometimes the two of you sleep on call, whether on purpose or by accident. Depending on timezones, one of you will be asleep at night while the other goes about their afternoon occasionally taking screenshots of how cute the other is while sleeping. If you can both sleep at the same time you'll snuggle up together, with your device rested on the pillow, talking until one of you caves and starts falling asleep, "I think it's bedtime Char, you're falling asleep," "mmh-no 'm not"

Tori often comes in sometimes to tell him to keep it down if you two are calling at night, sometimes she leaves him be just happy he has someone to talk to but sometimes she needs her sleep

Charlie's parents eventually found out about this and worried. They worried about your relationship as a whole because they didn't like the idea of their son chatting to people on the internet for obvious reasons but they warmed to the idea after you met the via video call and they realised you weren't a 40 year old weirdo. However, they did still worry that Charlie wasn't getting enough sleep if he was always on the phone with you (which may or may not have been true)

Charlie gets a lot more jealous than he'll admit to. He trusts you completely but he'll still stalk anyone he sees tagged on your Instagram story. He loves and hates seeing you post about being with your friends because as much as he's happy you're having fun, he wishes that he was there with you and worries that you have more fun with them than you do with him

He gets very insecure in general, it's not uncommon for him to cry on call when you've been together for a while about how much he wants you with him. You often hear things like, "you don't have to be with me you know, if there's someone you like where you live....." "You don't have to always call me if you don't want to," "We don't have to plan to meet up if you don't want to..."

You always try your best to reassure him and help the two of you to feel closer together like sending him little gifts or letters in the post. For his Christmas you sent him one of your hoodies or jumpers in the post, sprayed with your cologne so it smelt like you and he cried and didn't take it off until new year.

He seems the type to send you more handwritten letters, handmade things or little trinkets that made him think of you. If you live in a different country, he'll send you lots of British sweets/snacks/tea for you to try.

You always try to send him little reminders that you're thinking about him whether that's good morning messages or little titkoks or little vlogs/pictures of your day and he loves them

He opens up to you about bullying and his eating disorder and sometimes you get really choked up because you just want to hold him. He comforts you about any problems you might have in your life too

You two get all the cute couple apps like Obimy or Livestatus or Widget pets (he takes the care of your little widget pet incredibly seriously and will shout at you if you forget to feed them)

You two try as many virtual dates as you can think of whether that's watching films together, studying together, making vision boards together, gaming together, cooking together, book clubs, making playlists etc

You definitely have a Minecraft world together where one of you does all the monster killing and equipment gathering and the other creates aesthetic houses and builds

When you revealed you could come over to him for a few days he squealed and got told off by Tori for being loud. He begged his parents to let you stay over at leats one night and they agreed on the condition you keep the door open (No Hanky Panky in this house)

He makes a countdown to when you're coming over whether that's on a physical calendar or on a little widget on his phone counting down the days until you two meet. His mates are all soooo tired of hearing about it because he does NOT shut up about the fact that you're coming over

You two had the cute couple 'run and hug each other' moment at the train station/airport even if you swore you wouldn't because that's "cringe"

Charlie excitedly showed you around his room before quickly pulling you onto the bed while you watched your favourite show together. He'd planned all these different things about what he wanted your first day/night together to be like and all the things you'd do together but in reality, Charlie fell asleep almost immediately after you started cuddling because he finally felt so safe

He shows you around all of his favourite places and introduces you to his friends which he was a little concerned about but he was on cloud 9 when you got along with everyone really well and everyone loved you

You two take as many pictures as humanly possible together, making them your wallpapers, profile pictures, anything to show how excited you were to finally see each other

You two spent a good half an hour in the airport sobbing and holding onto each other before you had to leave, never wanting to let go of each other.

He manages to convince his family to come on holiday to where you are so you can spend all week together or maybe the whole of the summer holidays if you're lucky.

He loves seeing your hometown and making notes of all the ways its different from where he lives

It's hard sometimes but you two are determined to make it work because you can't see your lives without each other and you still manage to have fun and show your love for each other without being right next to each other (it just makes it all the better when the two of you eventually can move in together)

REQUESTS

[moonspirit]

For that send a ship thing, I was hoping Levihan, but if you don't ship them then eremika??

(or maybe AruAni?)

Hiya!

And I definitely do ship Levihan haha xD So here goes:

{Edit: Whenever Hange is referred to as "she", please feel free to read as "them" if you prefer! I revert to using "she" by default because I've been doing it for a long time :<}

Who said “I love you” first

The way I see it, Hange probably always says "I love youuuuu" in that casual unserious kind of way - and its not just Levi who hears it, it's everyone. She needs someone to do her a task? It's a "Hey will you please do this for me, oh you will? Great, thanks I love youuuu~~"

Similarly Levi gets "I love youuuu~s" every so often when she's being annoying and needs him to put up with her rambling.

But the Real "I love you" probably comes first from Levi himself. It's hard to get him to be vulnerable with words, simply because he's a man of few words in the first place, but he says it quietly, and from his heart, taking Hange by surprise. There's no doubt he means every bit of it, and suddenly, she can't really come up with any silly joke to laugh it off.

Who would have the other’s picture as their phone background

Hange, lol. Levi looking grumpy and tired and cute, that's her wallpaper. He on the other hand, probably has a picture of the sunset (because he's secretly a sentimental man, but shhhh) with a shopping list widget stuck on the side so it's easy for him to see what he's got to do grocery runs for.

Who leaves notes written in fog on the bathroom mirror

Hange. And Levi fucking hates it because by the time he's reading it, the words are getting all runny and watery and blurring off, and asking her what the fuck she wrote on the mirror only gets him a "teehee! you're so slow, levi!" in response.

Who buys the other cheesy gifts

Listen, listen. I know it's easy to say Levi would get Hange very functional and useful gifts, but the man is a soppy romantic at heart. He's the one getting her a boquet of flowers, doing her a candle-lit dinner, and maybe a box of chocolates for valentines. It's his old-school gentlemanly side kicking in every time he goes gift-shopping. Hange on the other hand? Maybe a free-hot-springs gift voucher or a pair of boxers with rainbow ducks on them for him. She's a scientist, for god's sakes, don't expect her to spend time picking out the best gifts! (Secretly he finds them all cute).

Who initiated the first kiss

It was an accident. She meant to kiss him on the cheek, he turned, and smack, there it goes on the lips. She's shocked because that wasn't what she'd planned to do, and she's worried Levi will storm off, finding it to be crossing a line they've never spoken about crossing - and Levi would be disappointed inside, because that's not how he'd planned on kissing her, carelessly and without enough emotion put in. But accident it is, and now maybe they'll finally fucking talk about that stupid line - and cross it.

Once they recover, ofc.

Who kisses the other awake in the morning

Levi. I did say he's a romantic at heart. Hange sleeps late and wakes late, she's all over the bed and drooling into her pillow, he's the one getting up early to get the coffee and breakfast going. So he gives her a kiss with a scratchy "it's morning. wake up." before heading to the bathroom (because brushing teeth and shower comes first before anything else).

Who starts tickle fights

Hange! And she always loses! Cuz she's all pomp and victory at first but she's the ticklish one, not him, so when he finds an opening and stops grumbling, it's game over for her.

Who asks who if they can join the other in the shower

Hange. Because she's running late, she's got an experiment to get started on in her lab or a lecture to give, and she's got no time to wait until Levi finishes scrubbing himself spotlessly clean. So she asks him if she can join, and is stripping before he even says yes, prancing into the steamed-up bathroom shortly after.

Who surprises the other in the middle of the day at work with lunch

Levi. Because Hange forgets to eat when she's neck-deep in a lab-test or studying the results of a hypothesis. So he's there with all the food she hates, because she sucks at nutrition and whatnot, and she needs to get something in her system besides just junk. But he does have a very nice milkshake for her he thinks tastes like shit. But she loves it, and he loves her, and as long as she's polished off that broccoli piece she's trying to hide, then it's okay.

Who was nervous and shy on the first date

Levi!!! Romantic at heart, didn't I say! Is secretly worried and bothered about making sure Hange has a good time! Genuinely wants her to really enjoy the date, and make it as memorable as possible!

Not that you could tell any of this from his "fuck-this-shit-I'm-out" face.

Who kills/takes out the spiders

Levi. No spiders are taking up residence in his house. Nu uh. He doesn't want the cobwebs and spider eggs. Besides, he feels bad shooing them off or killing them. Better not to have them in the first place.

Who loudly proclaims their love when they’re drunk

Hange. She does it even when not drunk. Need I say more?

[13leaguestories]

hello!!! i literally just binged season 1 of superstition and finished it in two days…so amazing. On that note—i exported my save and it won’t let me load it in. I filled out the play without importing field but i was wondering if there was anyway to get the relationships as high as i had them before? Either way i’m so excited to play season two! thank u:)

Alright, gather around me and sit. Let me tell you a story about the dumbass shit that we sometimes find ourselves in.

TLDR; I can't fix this bug because it'll create other much bigger bugs so if you play before the rewrite is done you'll have to just recreate your character. I'm sorry, blame me and my past laptop.

So, I remember getting someone sending me something pertaining to this and I found the issue. Real easy issue. No idea actually how it happened to be honest. Solved it but then found an even bigger one.

I changed laptops a while back. I believed I transferred everything over. That is not the case. At all. When I transfer, sometimes it likes to act like it all transferred and the folders and all that will be there but if I comb through it then I'll find things missing. I legit had to recreate a few things due to this or just change them entirely. So many archived files, lost.

Anyway. One of the issues is that this is now what the assets folder for Superstition S1 look like compared to what it should look like.

Yes. That's it. That's the entire folder.

Now. Normally this wouldn't be a big issue of course, because I do indeed have all the files as you can see, that's how I'm doing the rewrite. I would just have to grab the missing ones from that folder and throw them here. Merge em. Push it out. The problem is still fixable.

But guess what. The earlier episodes all have been tweaked due to the rewrite. You can say: "damn Tee why didn't you just make another folder for that." Brain doesn't work that way. If I have too many folders, my brain shortcircuits and everything becomes a mess. I'm about to have that issue with Ozara from ToA, it's why I'm avoiding her right now. But that too, will soon have to be addressed.

My organization is very precise. But very shit.

So back to the point. Throwing them all in that folder, ignoring the ones rewritten will actually create more problems and bugs. That's because of the new variables introduced, new widgets for things, etc. And I can't just throw Episode 11 in and call it a day because I will still have to merge the files into the index, meaning that all of the episodes that aren't there, will not be there. You will be playing a game with 4 episodes.

So yea. It's a fun time when you figure shit like that happened. I'm sorry, cos it sucks and it's on me. A problem I didn't realize until it was brought to my attention. I legit checked all my backups hoping one of them would be correct but no. I'll have to try and fish out my old laptop and hope that it powers on for me to see if it has the correct versions on there.

[alaniesims]

[RE-UPLOAD]: iPhone Lock Screen Canva Templates

So,

I recently got some feedback that said I should move my older templates onto Patreon as well, so all my templates are in one place. So, in line with that, I’ll be uploading my earlier templates onto Patreon over the next week or two.

Starting off the re-uploads is the iPhone Lock Screen template, the first template I ever released (cue small scream🤭). Formerly called 'Canva templates for a phone 🩷' here on Tumblr.

I've added light mode versions for the different notifications, just to give you all that extra option, along with some additional tweaks cause I couldn't help it lol.

What’s included in this release (light and dark mode versions for): - iPhone Lock Screen - iPhone Lock Screen with widgets (battery, fitness, music) - iPhone Lock Screen with multiple missed calls and texts - Editable text fields (name, date, time, notification previews)

You can always change the notifications on preview by adding alternate app icons.

Please remember and respect my Terms of Use:

💀 Don’t claim them as your own work 💀 Don’t redistribute or re-upload them anywhere else 🩷 Always credit and tag me when using them

IMPORTANT: Please credit me as the creator whenever you use these templates. I go through a lot of effort to make these accessible for everyone, especially Canva free users. That means a lot of time spent searching, testing, tweaking and joining items together to mimic the real features and icons. Respect that effort by giving credit, it really matters to me.

FURTHER:

While you’re free to tweak my templates and the features within them a bit to fit your aesthetic and vibe, please don't tweak them or make changes to them, and not credit me as the creator. I’ve started seeing this a bit more recently so I’ve decided to address it.

Download here 🩵

[venture-venus]

This is more of a rant and sorta like a confession-

I haven’t been praying a lot lately. I’ve been so swamped with school, work, and wrapping things up with graduation stuff that it’s all been so busy for me as of late. Typically, I do readings and keep up with small weekly offerings followed with prayers but have t been doing any of it. I need to tidy up my altar space (there’s so much dust in my room it’s insane). I keep falling back on like random stuff rather than any devotional things in my free time and I feel so bad.

Gen question- would the gods be mad at me because of this? I feel worse as a devotee. When I can I whisper small thanks, wear devotional jewelry, and they’re constantly lingering at the back of my mind.

I try to listen to music associated with them or the practice to help as small acts of devotion.

Like for Lord Hermes, I opt to walk home from work for practicality and just for some eco friendly eco transport. Then, with Lord Ares, it’s randomly bringing him up or just dancing in my room mid daydream or something along those lines. I even have a small widget of a group of Greek statues of the olympians on my phone- sorta mini digital altar.

I just feel real bad lately and needed to let that out 🫶

[whiteheartlight]

hey I wrote a fic while my internet was down about the world's grumpiest Toa while he and the others were traveling back to Mata Nui with the Matoran. please let me know if you enjoy. Onewa is such a bastard. but a bastard with nuance?? I've always thought he and Vakama should get to talk after the Visorak arc

.

It would actually be pretty cool, Onewa thinks, if Nuju didn't manage to concuss himself so bad while he did it.

He was up there where he needed to be, that's the thing. And Onewa's not afraid of heights like Whenua is, but when that bird smashed through the window of their airship and tried its damnedest to get Vakama by the waist, Onewa did think to himself, for a moment: I'm a Toa of Stone. Maybe the others should handle this.

Nuju might have intuited that thought, or maybe he had just been itching for some action after being stuck on a ship with the rest of them for weeks on end, but one way or another, he pulled out those ice spikes and practically leapt out the window to go after that over-sized set of knives on wings.

“Can't we just let the poor thing go?” Whenua had called, clinging queasily to a nearby support pole as the wind rocked over him. “It was probably hungry!”

“So it gets to eat Vakama?” Matau replied. “Or do you think it needs two of us?”

“If we let it go it could go after the Matoran spheres,” Vakama called over the wind. “We need to at least knock it out of the sky!”

“I'll handle the draft it's riding!” Matau shouted, leaping out the window and spreading his wings. He dipped hard before he caught the wind and came back up towards the bird, one hand curving through the air as he redirected the draft.

Unfortunately, he didn't redirect himself to avoid it. The bird panicked at the sudden change, flapping hard to try and course-correct, and Onewa heard Matau go “oh, whoops” before a metal wing was slicing towards his own. Matau disengaged his wings to avoid the blow, and he instantly started to plummet.

Onewa grabbed him neatly by the back of the armor from the side of the ship.

“Can you watch it, Matau?” he snarled at him. “What a stupid fucking stupid way to die that would have been.”

“Aw, were you worried?” asked Matau, making a fake pout.

“There would have been a whole village of Matoran with no one around because you weren't paying attention. Do you even care about that?”

“Spirits, Onewa, I would have quick-caught myself. Don't be a stuck crab about everything.”

“You two both focus!” Vakama called sharply, and Onewa swore before hauling Matau back in to safety. The bird swooped past them again, enormous talons reaching for either one of them before it darted back out again. He probably did need to focus, but honestly, in that moment, he felt so angry he could scream.

Look, it's not just been this, okay? Ever since Vakama got back from his stupid fucking solo trip that he still won't even tell them about, the others have been wearing on his nerves like they're getting paid good widgets to do so. He doesn't even really know why. They're just all... the same. They're all the same beings they always were. Weren't they supposed to change over time? Not just Vakama putting his shadows to rest, or Matau toning down the sarcasm, or whatever you want to call what any of them have been through. Wasn't there supposed to be a moment where he looked around and realized that they were all – you know – professionals?

Aren't they supposed to feel like real Toa?

Instead they're here, on a busted old airship, trying to caravan a pack of comatose Matoran across unexplored waters because they couldn't save their real homeland. It seemed to strike him in the chest for a second, as the shadow of the bird's wings passed over him. No matter how many times he thinks it, it always punches him. He always thinks to himself Lhikan expected more from us.

He was thinking it again when Nuju distracted him by finding his footing along the side of the ship. Onewa couldn't even see what support beam or structuring he was standing on, but, with his ice spikes in the side of the ship's metal to steady him, Nuju got up.

“Oh, wow, he's up there,” said Whenua, and then promptly covered his eyes with his hands. “Be careful!”

“Matau, be ready to catch him if he falls,” Vakama ordered, and Matau bounded back into the sky. Nokama had a selection of clouds pouring down a fence of rain, bringing the predator bird towards Nuju, there on his feet, and he pulled an arm free, striking it through the air like he was giving a command. Onewa saw the light catch brilliantly on the heavy ice that formed along the creature's wings, sending it swerving, shrieking, and then falling. It came close to Nuju, who leapt away gracefully, back towards the entrance of the ship –

And, in one unfortunate push from the bird's spiraling wing, cracked his head hard against the edge of the open window.

“Oh!” groaned both Whenua and Nokama at the same time, everyone shifting towards Nuju in a collective alarm. Vakama grabbed Nuju's shoulders from the front while Matau swooped back inside to grab him from behind. He was only limp for a second or two, a white hand staggering up to grab at his head, but they had all heard that metal clunk of his cerebral casing connecting solidly with the harsh edge.

“Is it cracked?” asked Onewa tersely, coming to stand at Vakama's shoulder, hand out-stretched with nothing to do. Vakama was looking at Nuju's casing with a forger's eye, searching for any fractures.

“I don't think so. It'll be the inside we should worry about. Nuju, you need to sit down.”

Nuju was trying to get onto his feet without needing support, but not having much luck at it.

“I'm fine,” he snapped, voice shaky. “I handled it.”

The attitude is what's really getting Onewa mad, now that they're all here, crowded around Nuju. Onewa scoffs, shaking his head at him. “Seriously? You could have fallen too. We couldn't have just handled that from inside the ship? A couple ice darts wouldn't have taken it down the same? Oh, you were just aching for a fight.”

“Onewa,” warns Nokama, trying to get Nuju to at least lean back on them. “Not now.”

“Don't worry, sister, I think the odds of him remembering any part of today are pretty slim after our resident genius's latest idea.”

“Nuju, sit down,” Vakama insists, pulling his shoulders. Nuju's being such a pain. Is this how Toa act?

“I don't want you all touching me!”

“We're trying to stop you from falling. Let us get you checked over and then we will all back off, I promise.”

Nuju grabs at his mask again, groaning, but he doesn't let them lower him. He grips at the wall and then shoves Matau's arm off him. “Brother, just one second,” Nokama's telling him gently. “You're okay, we've got you.”

“I'm fine, get off!”

“Oh, by the spirits, Nuju,” Onewa hisses, something molten rising up in him. “Just sit down and shut up.”

Nuju's legs give out from under him so fast he nearly smacks his head a second time, but Matau scoops him up with a yelp. Pale blue eyes pierce Onewa with a fury that needs no words, but as his mouth fails to glow, Onewa realizes he can't talk.

Something races down his spine. He didn't mean to command him like that. Or maybe he did – the intention was there, it has to be, for his mask to work, but he didn't mean –

Nokama grabs Nuju's wrist before his hand can come up to strike back with ice. He grabs her wrist in return, mask contorting, but then something goes blank in his eyes and he sways, just trying to breathe. He hit his head hard.

“Onewa, go cool off,” Vakama orders shortly.

Oh, yeah, of course the Fire Toa's going to handle this. Their fearless leader.

Onewa scoffs and turns his back on his siblings, feeling four sets of eyes on him as he goes.

He shouldn't have done that. But this is it. This is... this is destiny, he supposes.

It doesn't feel right in his chest. Nothing has for weeks.

.

“You come to kill me, ice-weaver?”

Onewa's adjusting the shape of his whetstone carefully in his hand, its form shifting like water beneath his fingers, when he hears the steps approaching him.

Honestly, he's impressed Nuju knows about his little hiding spot. At the back of the landing bay, on the bottom of the ship, the tow cord stretches out towards the airships connected to their own. The windows around it are meant to allow Matoran to check that the cord is intact and undamaged, but it also makes a nice viewpoint. The other ships bob along through the air behind them, and at this time of evening, the sun comes through everything like its trying to cram the light inside. He likes the white noise of the nearest blade spinning through the air too – whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, low and heavy.

“Nokama's trying to talk him down,” comes a voice that isn't Nuju's. “He was more sullen than angry. I think he's embarrassed. It wasn't very kind of you.”

Onewa turns to level Vakama with a look, taking in the sight of him crouching to meet Onewa's gaze, still outside the bubble of the tow cord area, which is not tall enough for a Toa to stand in. Onewa shakes his head and pulls out his proto pitons, setting them on his lap.

“There's no difference between embarrassed and angry for a Ko-Matoran. He'll have his revenge, and I'll take it. End of story.”

“You lost your temper with him.”

“My real punishment is right now. Nokama really knew who to send to give me the most grief, didn't she?”

“She didn't send me.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Come on, you know she's focused on Nuju right now.”

Onewa snorts. Okay, that's fair. She takes care of all of them in a lot of ways – probably more than she should – but she does pick favorites sometimes. He doesn't care, though. He doesn't want her coddling and he loves his sister no matter who she's standing up for.

“Look, Onewa,” Vakama says, taking in a deep breath. “I understand entirely that you have extra doubts about everything since what I did with the Visorak, but – ”

“Can it,” Onewa cuts him off, curving his whetstone along the underside blade of his piton. He loves that slide of protodermis on stone. “If you could get out of your head for more than five seconds you'd remember that I'm not treating you any differently than I always have. Honestly, that whole drunk-on-power shtick might be the most interesting thing you ever did in your life. No more big sad eyes. Just bright red rage.”

Vakama scowls at him. “It was monstrous.”

“I can't tell you how little I care about your pity party. Seriously, if I tried to find the words – ”

“Alright, alright,” Vakama sighs, sitting down beside him. “Well, you're certainly treating the others differently.”

Onewa examines his piton in the light. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Sure,” Vakama answers flatly. “Onewa, one way or another, couldn't we try getting off on a better foot? All of us?”

Onewa finds that pretty funny. “A tiny bit late to be asking, don't you think?”

“Now's the time. We're going somewhere new. Leaving old enemies behind. Old shadows. Speaking for myself, I can acknowledge I'm in a much better headspace to be...”

“Less aggravating?”

Vakama pins him with a look. “Whatever you need me to be.”

“How noble.”

“Onewa. You controlled Nuju today. He's going to have your head. You can't be treating the others like that. I don't know why you'd choose Nuju of all people to pick on, but whatever I need to do to help you – ”

“Did you ever meet Toa Rooka?” Onewa asks.

Vakama stops short, evidently turning this change of topic over in his head. “No,” he replies. “Saw him from afar, you know how it would go. Rooka, of course, was – ”

“Larger than life?”

“In a number of ways,” Vakama agrees. When Onewa doesn't answer, he presses on. “You knew Rooka?”

“I saw Rooka die,” Onewa says.

Vakama goes quiet. “I didn't know that.”

Onewa nods at nothing, frowning out the window.

“How did it happen?” Vakama prompts him.

Yeah, he still remembers that answer in vivid detail, no matter how the years pass. Onewa presses his thumb hard into his wrist, below his vambrace. “Dark Hunters. Long before Nidhiki started crawling around or anything, just... the war, or its remnants. I was out in the fields where the fighting had happened, part of a search and rescue thing that the Mangai were leading. All the Hunters were supposed to have cleared out, but... I wandered onto them. Had my carver's tool in my hand. I remember coming over this crest and seeing him there, more gold than brown in the sun like he was. They put an axe through most of his throat, and the ichor sprayed like crazy. He didn't make any noise or anything. I think I said his name, so I'm lucky they didn't hear me. Or maybe I said 'Toa.' I think I just said 'Toa.'”

Onewa shifts in place and shrugs. “Anyway, some of the others must have been patrolling with him, because Naho and Lhikan were already looking for him before he was gone. I didn't go fetch them or anything, but they saw me sitting on top of the rocks, watching. Naho started cleaning up Rooks, and Lhikan came and got me. He picked me up – and you can imagine how much I would tolerate that normally, but I let him that day – and he took me home. Checked on me, afterwards, and then, he just never stopped checking on me.”

He can see the second Vakama becomes tempted to cut in with some anecdote about how Lhikan was always so caring like that, wasn't he, and Onewa cuts him off sharply.

“So I'm saying you aren't the only one who lost him, Vakama.”

“I never said I was,” Vakama shoots back, with a little of that Fire Toa heat.

“Yeah? You act like it sometimes. Now you know. And whatever, okay, you were stuck in your head, that's fine. But if you could stop acting like this is the fire-spitter show for two minutes, it would help me out, thanks very much.”

“It's always something I'm doing wrong, isn't it?”

“And here we go, right on schedule.” They glare at each other for a second before Vakama reels himself in, puffing out this hot, annoyed breath and crossing his arms over chest.

“So, what? You're saying you're just grieving, then, and that has you tearing into Nuju for no reason?”

“First of all, the reason was that he's insufferable. But no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying – it's been on my mind – I just thought you should know that I miss him too.”

“Oh.”

Onewa twists his vambrace around unhappily. “Yeah, fucking 'oh.' And I know that I've been an ass too. And now there's a lot to adjust to, and I don't know, Vakama. I only ever started following you to whatever degree I did – or sticking with any of the five of you – because I thought it's what he would want. But now look at us. Are we really getting anywhere? I'm supposed to believe we can lead a whole society of Matoran now? I don't understand why he picked us. Any of us, sometimes. But I loved him too.”

Vakama sighs and spreads his hands in an open gesture. “I know you did, Onewa. I know you're not actually... I don't know. Unkind.”

Onewa scoffs, shaking his head. “Really? How would you know that?”

Vakama frowns. “Well, I know you're not.”

“And you're so sure?”

“Yes,” says Vakama simply.

Onewa drops his hands into his lap, frowning back at him.

“Onewa,” says Vakama. “I would rather be your brother than your enemy. We all would.”

“So you're asking me to start being nicer and then we're good?”

“I'm asking you to follow me,” Vakama replies, which is pretty fucking bold, considering what they were just talking about.

“Why should it be you?” Onewa asks. “What have you ever done to deserve my loyalty? Two weeks ago you ran off on your own back to Metru Nui! Why would it ever be you?”

“Are you so opposed to it?”

He's not, Onewa realizes, turning irritably back to his other piton. No. He thinks Vakama could do it, actually. He saw him there at the end of the Visorak, coming back to them as himself, somebody upright and certain, if worn. He saw a leader.

“Maybe you're just not used to following, to being part of a team,” says Vakama, softer. “Which is fine. But here we are, Onewa. You're looking at your future and realizing we're all going to need to be leaders, together. We're going to need to be united. And not just to save our own tails when trouble comes, but because...”

His hand moves towards the other ship in the sky behind them, and Onewa stares out at it. He knows. There are hundreds of Matoran there who will need all six of them. United. There are Matoran who might need someone to carry them somewhere safe, and then to look after them. And that's him, somehow, him and these others. Because Toa Rooka and Toa Lhikan and the others are all gone, and Onewa and these five beings here with him – they're what's left. No other options, not anymore. Onewa and his brothers and sister.

“Deep down, I think that starts your heartlight flashing in a way you're not used to,” Vakama continues. “So maybe instead of telling us you're nervous, or scared – ”

“Watch it, fire-spitter.”

“ – you lash out. But Onewa, the reason that it should be me – just so we're all on the same tablet – is because that's the leader the others chose. And I have not done anything to deserve that. In fact, I've done plenty to be banished from your sights forever. But here we are. Call it destiny, or Lhikan's hope for us, or even say it's only because this is the fire-spitter show, I don't care. Here we are. I never want to be five minutes late to helping you because you didn't call for me, Onewa. I want to be your brother. I'm asking that you fall in line at my side – and all of our sides – and start accepting what we are now stepping into.”

“Well.” Onewa looks down at his pitons again, touching the cold metal for a second. “Maybe I don't know how to do that.”

Vakama hums at him. “I think you do.”

Say what you want about Vakama, but truthfully, this is that Fire Toa bravery they always talk about coming out to play, because in that moment, he has the nerves to put his stupid fucking hand on Onewa's shoulder.

“By the way,” Vakama adds, as he claps his armor and then starts to rise. “You're more gold than brown in the sun, too. Think I know where you got that from. I can't be Lhikan, but I'd be happy to check on you instead. Whatever happens, you won't be alone. We all want to be in this with you, no matter what comes next. Believe it or not, brother, but... we have your back.”

Onewa covers his mask for a second, sucking in a deep breath.

“This is real, huh? This... I'm really stuck with all five of you forever. Lhikan's really dead. It's the five of us. Mata Nui. You lot are stuck with me!”

He can grasp that Vakama's trying to be a cool and collected leader who came to give him words of wisdom, but really, when he breaks and start cracking up... Onewa thinks it's a good sound. Been a long fucking time since he heard Vakama laugh like that, bent over himself and covering his mouth. Or maybe never. Maybe he never knew Vakama when he was full of laughter. He shakes his head and turns away from his brother.

“I have your back too,” Onewa says. “At the end of the day, at least.”

“Yes,” Vakama says, smiling at him. “I know that. I'll see you later, Onewa.”

Then he's gone. Self-righteous forger.

Onewa looks back at the other ship again, the spheres that hold his people gleaming just a few bio away, and he's no tower-loving Ko-Matoran with a penchant for star-gazing of any kind, but in that moment, well... when he closes his eyes and lets himself imagine, he thinks he sees the future.

Yeah, Nuju's going to kick his ass. But there will be good things too. And bad things. And mistakes. And triumphs. The six of them will navigate it together.

.

He knows what Vakama means to do before he does it.

Maybe Onewa always knew it would be the price. He doesn't know how any part of him was ready for this, but somehow, he is. He sees Vakama reaching out his hand, and he doesn't feel scared. He isn't surprised. He's ready.

Vakama touches the Matoran sphere. A light begins to change him. When it's done, he's not Toa Vakama anymore, and Onewa feels the others staring at him and the spheres in silence. Onewa steps up beside him. He puts his hand on the next sphere over.

.

thanks for reading <3