#All three are dead serious characters. Too bad for them their campaign is just literally Weekend at Bernie's

[supersquiddle]

I *swear* these guys are the evil-aligned party. Shrike is played by @scruffigus. Gabriel is played by FoolishPhoenix. Marcello is played by myself.

[jimmygibbsjrrr]

What are your favorite voice lines for each survivor and why? (for example, I die when Nick says "you are the first three people in the world I have ever trusted")

I think I have one for everyone (or at least, one picked outta a few favourites) but I really struggled for a coupla them lol

I know and love a lot of these lines because I play on a lovely modded server where a lot of people use voice mods, and I've heard a lot of these lines from the players there, so if they seem random or you've never heard them before that's why! a lot of em are one-off saferoom lines, or dialogue dependent on doing something specific with a certain character. that's also why I seem to gravitate towards the funny one-liners, but there's some more serious/story-related ones here too

also this post ended up being so fucking long! sorry about that! I put a cut in the middle so it's easier to scroll past

Louis:

Louis: "But you know, as long as I have a Molotov I can make a firewall! Get it Francis? A firewall?"

Louis is my favourite and he's got so many banging lines so you'd think this one would be hard for me to choose, but I had to go with this one! the line's originally from The Sacrifice but it's a favourite for Louis players with voice mods. thanks to that, I've got a lotta good memories associated with it from that modded server I talked about. first time I heard it I genuinely laughed because the punchline being that funny caught me off guard. the joke is adorable, very fitting for his character, and the reactions are priceless:

Zoey: "Oh, boooo." Francis: "You're such a nerd."

honourable mention to any conversation about Bill being old because that shit's funny every time

Francis:

Francis: "Groovy." Louis/Zoey: [Short laugh] Francis: "What's so funny? It is groovy."

alternatively:

Francis: "Groovy." Zoey: "[Imitating] Groovy." Francis: "A-FRICKIN'-men."

honestly could have picked any line for Francis because he's so funny but this one is the one that makes me laugh most consistently. that's. that's it really. I just think it's funny. he says this when he picks up an auto shotgun

honourable mention to when he thinks Riverside is in Canada, and any line where he calls Louis 'Louie' because I'm a Frouis shipper and I read into that as a cute endearing nickname :)

Zoey:

Zoey: "Sorry. I can't lower the bridge." Nick: "That's terrific, cupcake. Look, is there a man up there we can talk to?" Zoey: "Oh, boo-hoo, I don't know what to do. Go to hell, Colonel Sanders!"

most of Zoey's funny lines are parts of other running jokes, references that I don't get or very tied to the context of the campaign, so it was actually kinda hard to pick one. I love all of her lines as well which didn't make it easier. but this one has stuck out to me since I first played The Passing because it's brilliant. Nick deserves every scathing insult he gets in that campaign <3

honourable mention to basically all her other lines. especially the ones in The Sacrifice because they cut DEEP her voice actress really went for it christ it hurts

DIShonourable mention to her death scream it's so goddamn LONG and the many hours I've sunk into Tank Challenge have left me hating it with a passion, stop screaming at me I'm doing my best

Bill:

Zoey: "You think one day it's all just gonna go back to normal?" Bill: "I'll see peace back on earth if I gotta murder every one of these bastards with my bare goddamn hands."

I think this line is just a great example of Bill's character really, and actually prompts an interesting train of thought as to how his hopes for the future shifted from No Mercy to The Sacrifice; originally, they seemed much more aligned with Zoey's, possibly part of the reason she felt so betrayed later. also it just sounds cool. it's from the hospital elevator in No Mercy.

honourable mention to this cut line of Bill pickin up an incapped survivor because I think it's really sweet:

Bill: "Bein' brave doesn't mean you're not scared. It means you're scared as hell, and then you pick up the shotgun anyway."

Left 4 Dead 2 survivors under the cut:

Ellis:

Ellis: "If the laws of nature would allow it, I would bear that man's children."

it really couldn't be anything else. I mean, it could, because everything that comes outta this guy's mouth is funny, but I cannot believe this line is real. I love it. as y'all probably know this one's from Dead Center.

honourable mention to every Keith story, and all of his 'Taunt' and 'Argh' lines from the voicewheel. seriously my favourite part of this character is his lines we could be here all day.

Nick:

Nick: "I am breathing shit air into my lungs. It is being absorbed into my bloodstream. I am literally full of shit."

does this make me immature? perhaps. again, I really struggled to pick for Nick, but like many others on the list my reasoning is just that I find this one funny. he sounds so disgusted.

honourable mention to all of his whining about his suit, mostly because the others' responses are golden. and obviously his swearing. because again, I'm immature.

Rochelle:

Rochelle: "Axe me a question, I dare you."

I have such a weakness for bad jokes. first Louis's firewall joke, now this. it's just the way she says it I think. wow my sense of humour is fucked. this one's a possible voice line for when Rochelle picks up a fire axe

honourable mention to all of the funny things she says when she's on low HP, and "Dibbs on Gibbs!" when she sees an infected Jimmy Gibbs Jr.

Coach:

Coach: "I find a Burger Tank in this place? I'm-a be a one-man cheeseburger apocalypse." Ellis: "Well, Coach? I aim to let you."

I hear this line every time I play Dark Carnival - which, considering how much the playerbase loves Dark Carnival, is a lot - and it just makes me smile, especially since they re-added the previously cut line from Ellis in The Last Stand update. also, it reminds me of my first introduction to the L4D2 characters, "Steamed Hams but it's Coach and Nick", which is a masterpiece of video.

honourable mention to his opening line from the trailer, which sets the tone and introduces the character brilliantly, and would have been a great first introduction if my real first introduction hadn't been a Steamed Hams meme.

this post took a surprising amount of time and effort. holy shit. you're welcome ig lmao

[crossdressingdeath]

Honestly, I love the 3zun, the dynamic is so complicated that gives so many feels but o so frustrating too. Lack of communication is like a running theme between them. So many times I just want to scream “just talk to each other!” They all have their flaws too. JGY and his strive for power no matter what, LXC and his inability to choose a side, NMJ and his black and white view that leaves him to be a bit naive in a political sense. And it’s not only just them the entire world of MDZS has a communication problem. Like ironically, the one person that has the best time communicating is JC if only because he screams it out for everyone to hear all angrily while stomping his foot.

Yeah, ironically the one the stans claim is "just so bad at communicating that no one knows what he really means" is the best at communicating because he literally always says exactly what he means; he's just an awful person who usually wants to do serious harm to at least one other person in his vicinity. If he wants to hurt someone he'll say it, even if he has the bare minimum level of sense required to not go through with it. And yeah, 3zun are so good? They're so complicated! These very much are three friends whose relationship was shattered over the events of the Sunshot Campaign and the aftermath. It's very sad and very complex and MXTX did a good job of fitting that in even though most of it happened while our POV character was dead.

[rockabelle]

Things to consider:

In the temple, Jin Guangyao points out that that it was the Jin clan that helped the Cloud Recesses to rebuild. 

That got me thinking. Most of the Jiang disciples were killed when Lotus Pier was destroyed. The Lan, though the Cloud Recesses suffered significant damage and losses, were not brought to the brink of annihilation the way the Jiang were. 

The Jiang would have needed a lot of aid from the other sects, both during and after the Sunshot Campaign, to survive and rebuild. And who would be giving that aid? The Lan needed aid themselves. The Nie did some of the heaviest fighting during Sunshot, what with the Lan and Jiang being weakened and the Jin only somewhat participating (not to mention their proximity to the Wen sect), so they were licking their own wounds. 

The Jin rose in prominence after Sunshot precisely because they didn’t invest much in it until the very end, and then they swooped in and took credit for victory because of Meng Yao’s (Sorry, Jin Guangyao’s) actions as a spy and the beheader of Wen Ruohan. The Jin were already known as being the wealthiest sect even before Sunshot, and then they played both sides of the war and lost little, while still probably getting spoils. Afterwards, this left them at the top of the cultivation world as far as resources, stability, and military power.

The Jin already had a connection to the Jiang because of the friendship that had existed between the Madames Jiang and Jin, and the engagement that had been between their children. Bringing the engagement back and getting Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan married was a significant move. It made good sense for the Jiang, who were extremely vulnerable and would very much benefit from having such a tie and thus being under the protection of the wealthy and powerful Jin sect. As great as it would have been for Jiang Yanli to stay and help her brother rebuild, this was probably the best way she could help their sect (and be protected herself, from Jiang Cheng’s point of view). 

Through Jin Guangyao, the Jin had connections to both the Lan and the Nie- he literally saved Lan Xichen’s life when the man was fleeing from the Wen attack on the Cloud Recesses, and then he saved Nie Mingjue’s life when the latter was captured by Wen Ruohan. These connections were solidified when the three of them swore brotherhood and became the “Venerated Triad.”

The Jin gained a strong relationship with the Jiang through marriage, and a history as an ally and benefactor to the Jiang in their hour of need. The Jin not only had the advantage in their trade partnership and whatever role they had in giving aid to the Jiang, but Jiang Yanli, and then Jin Ling, were essentially hostages for good Jiang behavior. 

All of which is to say, when Jiang Cheng asked Wen Qing why she didn’t come to him for help, and she was like, would you have helped me regardless of anything else? What could you have done?- she wasn’t castigating him. She was pointing out what they both already knew: his hands were tied. He could not have helped her. 

(Even Wei Wuxian knew that, which was at least partly why he did not come to Jiang Cheng, either, when he decided to get Wen Ning’s location from Jin Zixun. He didn’t tell Jiang Cheng what he was going to do and he didn’t try to work through Jiang Cheng’s authority. He ignored him, his own sect leader, entirely. It made Jiang Cheng, already at a disadvantage as the youngest and most inexperienced sect leader, look really bad that his right-hand man/terrifying demonic cultivator underling did this and Jiang Cheng couldn’t control him. But it also made Jiang Cheng look innocent, made it clear that he was uninvolved in what Wei Wuxian was doing and did not endorse his actions.)

The previous time Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing had met, she had told him that they were even and he didn’t owe her anything. He insisted on giving her the comb, anyway, as the symbol of a favor that he was willing to give her and she could cash in if she wanted. Of course, it was also a symbol of unspoken romantic feelings, but that was not something that was ever explicit between them. When Wen Qing returned the comb, it was not meant to be a slap in the face. She was saying, again, “You don’t owe me any favors. You bear no responsibility for me.” 

It also symbolized letting go of the old hope for a romantic relationship, yes. Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing were pulled apart at every turn by their responsibilities to their sects. The final time they met was just the culmination.

Both Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing severed their connections with Jiang Cheng on the same day and for the same reason- to protect him and his sect. Wei Wuxian did this by asking that Jiang Cheng expel him from the Jiang sect, and Wen Qing by returning the comb and releasing him from any obligation to her. They knew he could not protect them and they could only endanger him, so they pushed him away. 

What could Jiang Cheng possibly have done when Wei Wuxian came to accuse the sects after the Wen remnants sacrificed themselves? The situation was even worse than before. Was he supposed to turn his precious remaining disciples against the other sects? Oppose the sect that had his sister and nephew even at that very moment? Destroy the alliances that kept his sect alive? 

And for what? A hopeless, apparently unjust fight to save the person who had killed disciples from almost every sect? Who had killed the Jin sect heir and made Jiang Yanli a widow and Jin Ling fatherless? And then Wei Wuxian made it all too easy for the sects to fight him at the end by acting unhinged and using zombies/his powers against them. Let’s be honest, here: he killed a lot of cultivators who probably didn’t deserve it.

There was nothing Jiang Cheng could have done, not without abandoning or dooming his sect.

After Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli were dead, Jin Guangyao disposed of his remaining relatives to solidify his position. Except for Jin Ling. Jin Ling had a better claim to Jin leadership than he did, why did Jin Guangyao allow him to live?

Simple. As long as Jin Ling was alive, Jin Guangyao had Jiang Cheng by the balls. 

By this time, Jin Guangyao’s connections to the other great sects all ran through himself. He had a very close friendship with Lan Xichen, who along with trusting him and being easily manipulated and willing to ignore his suspicions of any wrongdoing, was also quick in defending Jin Guangyao and thus lending him the shield of the First Jade’s excellent reputation. He was a great help in keeping Nie Mingjue under control. When Jin Guangyao finally got rid of Mingjue, he already had claws deep in the new Nie sect leader. He had a longstanding friendly, older brother/mentor relationship with Huaisang, who was incompetent, weak, and had a reputation for uselessness. Nie Huaisang made it even easier by relying on his san-ge for everything. Jin Guangyao honestly believed himself to have more control over Nie affairs than he even wanted. (Fucking brilliant misdirection, Nie Huaisang)

Under Jiang Cheng’s leadership, Yunmeng flourished and became strong again. Jiang Cheng himself became a force to be reckoned with as he grew in experience and confidence. But Jin Guangyao kept a firm hold over him through Jin Ling. Jin Ling was the only family that Jiang Cheng had, and he made his devotion to his nephew very clear to everyone. In their patriarchal world, authority was passed down through the father’s side. Since Jin Ling’s father was Jin, the Jin clan had ultimate claim on Jin Ling. He belonged to the Jin clan, not the Jiang clan, and he was the Jin heir. They might be expected to graciously allow Jiang Cheng to be involved in Jin Ling’s life, but the amount of time the boy was allowed to stay in Lotus Pier, for example, was under their control. Jin Ling’s life was in Jin Guangyao’s hands, and there was little Jiang Cheng could do to control what happened to Jin Ling when he was at Koi Tower.

Jin Guangyao could use Jin Ling to manipulate Jiang Cheng in all kinds of ways, and he could also use him to unknowingly provide information on the Jiang. 

Obviously, a lot of things are not being addressed in all this word vomit, but these are just thoughts I’ve been having when I see blame being put on Jiang Cheng for not “doing more” to protect Wei Wuxian or Wen Qing or Jin Ling, especially when folks assume that because Jiang Cheng was a sect leader, that meant he had more control over the situation. In reality, Jiang Cheng’s position curtailed his freedom very much, and made it impossible for him to do the sorts of things that characters with less authority/responsibility could. 

It also makes it easier to understand Jiang Cheng’s point of view. Because to him, Wei Wuxian should have been in much the same position as Jiang Cheng was, if he really meant to help his brother bear the burden of their sect. Wei Wuxian shouldn’t have felt “free” to act on behalf of the Wen remnants, either; not if he was serious when he told Jiang Cheng to depend on him. 

[oneweekoneband]

I’m slightly nauseous already with knowing I’m going to say this, but what does “self-awareness”  even mean? In modern parlance, as a descriptive phrase, as a comment on art? I’m asking in earnest, like, I’ve been Googling lately, which for me is basically on par with doctoral study in terms of academic rigor. The self is king, anyway, tyrant, so where is the line of distinction between material that intentionally is nodding at some truth about the artist’s life and what’s just, like, all the rest of the regular navel-gazing bullshit. I mean, I’m all self, I am guilty here. I can’t get it out of my poems or even make it more quiet. This is the tenth time I’ve invoked “I” in the space of six sentences. Processing art has always necessitated a certain amount of grappling with the creator, but the busywork of it lately grows more and more tedious. Joy drains out of my body parsing marks left behind not just in stylistic tendencies and themes, but in literal, intentional tags like graffiti on a water tower. This feels an age old and moth-holed complaint, dull, and I am no historian, or really a serious thinker of any kind. I’ve now complained at some length about self-referential art, but didn’t I love how Martin Scorsese nodded to the famous Goodfellas Copacabana tracking shot with the opening frames of last year’s The Irishman? Didn’t I find that terribly fun and sort of sweet? So there’s distinctions. I’m only saying I don’t know with certainty what they even are. I’m unreliable, and someone smarter than me has likely already solved my quandary about why self-knowledge often transforms into overly precious self-reflexivity in such a way that the knowledge is diminished and obscured, leaving only cutesy Easter eggs behind. Postmodernism has birthed a moralizing culture where art exists to be termed either “self-aware Good” or “self-aware Bad”.  Self-referentiality in media is so commonplace, so much the standard, that what was once credited as metatextual inventiveness often feels lazy now. In 1996, Scream was revitalizing a genre. Today, two thirds of all horror movies spend half their running time making sure that you know that they know they’re a horror movie, which is fine, I guess, except sometimes you just wanna watch someone get butchered with an axe in peace. 

This is all to say that in 2020 Taylor Swift looked long and hard upon her image in the reflecting pool of her heart and has written yet another song about Gone Girl.

“mirrorball” is a very good piece of Gone Girl —feels insane to tell anyone reading a post on a blog what Gone Girl is but, you know, the extremely popular 2012 novel about a woman who pretends to have been murdered and frames her husband for it, and subsequently the 2014 film adaption where you kinda see Ben Affleck’s dick for a second—fanfiction. It would be a fine song, a good song, really, even if it weren’t that, if it were just something normal and not unhinged written by a chill person who behaves in a regular way, but we need to acknowledge the facts for what they are. When Taylor Swift watched Rosamund Pike toss her freshly self-bobbed hair out of her face and hiss, “You think you’d be happy with some nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby. I’m it!” her brain lit up like a Christmas tree, and she’s never been the same. If you Google “taylor swift gone girl” there waiting for you will be a medium sized lake’s worth of articles speculating about how Gone Girl influenced and is referenced in past Swift singles “Blank Space” and “Look What You Made Me Do”. This is not new behavior, and if anything it’s getting a bit troubling to think that it’s been this long since Taylor’s read another book. Still, while the prior offerings were a fair attempt at this particular feat of depravity, “mirrorball” has brought Taylor’s Amy Elliott Dunne deification to stunning new heights. And most importantly, Taylor has done a service to every person alive with more than six brain cells and a Internet connection by putting an end to the “Cool Girl” discourse once and for all. By the power invested in “mirrorball”, it is hereby decreed that the Cool Girl speech from Gone Girl is neither feminist or antifeminist, not ironic nor aspirational. No. It’s something much better than all that. It’s a threat. I ! Can ! Change ! Everything ! About ! Me ! To ! Fit ! In !

Gone Girl (2012) by Gillian Flynn

“mirrorball” (2020) by Taylor Swift

When the twinkly musical stylings of Jack Antonoff, a man I distinctly distrust, but for no one specific reason, whirl to life at the beginning of this song I feel instantly entranced, blurry-brained and pleasure-pickled like an infant beneath a light-up crib mobile or, I guess, myself in the old times, the outside times, three tequila sodas deep under the disco lights at The Short Stop. Under a mirrorball in my head. I know very little about music, as a craft, and I really don’t care to know more. I’m happy in a world of pure, dumb sensation. I’m not even sure what kind of instruments are making these jangly little sounds. I just like it. I am vibing. We may not ever be able to behave badly in a club again, but I can sway to my stupid Taylor Swift-and-the-brother-of-the-lady-who-makes-like-those-sweatshirts-with-little-sayings-or-like-vulvas-which-famous-white-women-wear-on-instagram-you-know-what-I-mean song, pressing up onto my tiptoes on the linoleum tile of our kitchen floor and can feel for a second or two something approaching bliss. “mirrorball” is a lush sound bath that I like a lot and then also it’s about being all things to all people, chameleoning at a second’s notice, doing Oscar worthy work on every Zoom call, performing the you who is good, performing the you who is funny, performing the you who draws a liter of your own blood and throws it around the kitchen then cleans it up badly all to get your husband sent to jail for sleeping with a college student... Too much talk about making and unmaking of the self is way too, like, 2012 Tumblr for me now, and I start hearing the word “praxis” ring threateningly in my head, but I’m not yet so evolved that I don’t feel a pull. Musings on the disorganized self—on how we are new all the time, and not just because of all the fresh skin coming up under the dead, personhood in the end so frighteningly flexible—are always going to compel me, I’m afraid, but that goes double for musings on the disorganized self which posit that Taylor Swift still thinks Amy Dunne made some points.

Because on “mirrorball” Taylor is for once not hamfistedly addressing some “hater”, in the quiet and the lack of embarrassing martyrdom it actually offers an interesting answer to the complaint that Taylor is insufficiently self-aware. This criticism emerges often in tandem with claiming to have discovered some crack in the chassis of Swift’s public self, revealing the sweetness to be insincere. My instinct is to dismiss this more or less out of hand as just a mutation of the school of thought that presumes all work by women must be autobiography. And, regardless, it is made altogether laughable by the fact that anyone actually paying attention has known since at least Speak Now, a delightful record populated by the most appalling, horrible characters imaginable, and all of them written by a twenty year old Taylor Swift, that this woman is a pure weirdo. To accuse Taylor Swift of lacking in self-awareness is a reductive misunderstanding, I think, of artifice. Being a fake bitch takes work. Which is to say, if we agree that her public self is a calculated performance—eliding the fact that all public selves are a performance to avoid getting too in the weeds yadda yadda— why, then, should it be presumed that performance is rooted in ignorance? Would it not make more sense that, in fact, someone able to contort themselves so ably into various shapes for public consumption would have a certain understanding of the basic materials they’re working with and concealing? Taylor Swift, in a decade and a half of fame, has presented herself from inside a number of distinct packages. The gangly teenager draped in long curls like climbing wisteria who wrote lyrics down her arms in glitter paint gave way to red lipstick, a Diet Coke campaign, and bad dancing at awards shows. There was the period where she was surrounded constantly by a gaggle of models, then suddenly wasn’t anymore, and that rough interlude with the bleached hair. The whole Polaroid thing. Last year she boldly revealed she’s a democrat. Now it’s the end of the world and she’s got frizzy bangs and flannels and muted little piano songs. Perhaps this endless shape-shifting contradicts or undermines, for some, the pose of tender authenticity which has remained static through each phase, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been doing it all on purpose the entire time. I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try...

In the Disney+ documentary—which, in order to watch, I had to grudgingly give the vile mouse seven dollars, because the login information that I’d begged off of my little sister didn’t work and I was too embarrassed to bring it up a second time—Taylor referred to “mirrorball” as the first time on the album where she explicitly addressed the pandemic, referring to the lyrics that start, “And they called off the circus, Burned the disco down,” and end with “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me,” which actually did made me laugh, feeling sort of warmly foolish and a little fond, because it never would have occurred to me that she was trying to be literal there. I suppose we really do all contain multitudes. Hate that.

[123abcdrawwithme]

all spg albums poorly described by me bc i can

album one: steam man band: michael reed voice: GUYS HOLY HECK LOOKIT MY ROBOT FRIEMDS THEIR SO COOL OHMA G AD clockwork vaudeville: now when you say you bought yourself a pickle- sound of tomorrow: the jons audible lenny face as he says “in the nude” on top of the universe 2009 ver.: RABBIT FUCKED A TOASTER AND UPGRADE KILLED THE SPINE THE GIRLS ARE OFF THE SHITS on top of the universe 2011 ver.: alternate timeline where the jon and rabbit kill the spine and deny him ice cream i am not alone: poor one out for upgrades 1 (one) song, shes trying her best ice cream parade: i don’t even know where to begin with this one brass goggles: LOCAL ROBOS ARE FEELING EMO SO THEY HAVE A SING ALONG out in the rain: splish splash they was havin’ a bash electricity is in my soul: okay but whomst the hell is that electronic voice who sings the “la la’s”? serious question who tf is it???? steam man band reprise: michael reed voice: GUYS MY COOL ROBO FRIENDS ARE GETTING AN ENCORE HOLY HECKIE blind minstrel’s ballad: ominous captain albert alexander: listen,,,, he beat spider hulk in an arm wrestling match,,,, hes really cool,,,,,, the 2¢ show: steamboat shenanigans: some say they sang so hard they really did make it to the moon and across the stars ;) one-way ticket: CHU CHU I LOVE U ju ju magic: jonathan giraffe what tHE FUCK ARE YOU SINGING ABOUT HONEY? ARE YOU OKAY? me and my baby (saturday night): the spines a hopeless romantic and he loves to treat his girl and his siblings support him little birdie: jon makes friends with a bird or some shit idfk rex marksley: the spines a hopeless romantic and sings about his cowboy crush and his siblings support him automatonic electronic harmonics: they want to feel cool,, let them feel cool,, prelude to a dream: hey michael i thought you were supposed to be the human friend whats all this about not being a human being?? mike? m-mike?? make believe: FUCK SOCIETY, TRANS RIGHTS BITCHES *EPIC KAZOO SOLO* honeybee: ah yes that one song we won’t ever let them forget bc were all emo scary world: the morse code says spoopy the suspender man: rabbit voice: yeah theres this guys who sold his soul or whatever how fucked up was that, anyway i want to wear a dress :3c that’ll be the way home: THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL THAT’LL the ballad of lily: oh boi we about to have another character song on this album airheart: character song 2 electric boogaloo circuitry: y’all good? mk iii: curtain raiser: beebop voice: STEVETHY SOMEONES TRYING TO PLAY THE ALBUM   steve voice: oh fuck steam powered giraffe: HEHE NAME DROP mecto amore: this is some rabbits in love again shit but with WHAMST hatch fever: hatchy is here and the album version does not capture how feral hatchworth performed this on stage a way into your heart: spg as a whole @ their fans: we love you all so much thank you for the support over the years :) <3 me through tears: bitch,,,,, <3 ghost grinder: rabbit and the boys on their way to the graveyard at 3 am to party with rabbits dead gf please explain: i stg everytime i hear hatchy sing “gum in my gears” i think he’s saying something else and i’m sure you can fill in the blank, but the thing that gets me is thats so on brand for him to say dsfdfg she said maybe: rabbit is just young old dumb and full of love these days isn’t she? go spine go: almost 6 minutes of hatchworth and rabbit being two year olds and poking fun at spine roller skate king: everyone sleeps on how good this song is wtf i’ll rust with you: me knowing full well this song is about rabbit outliving her gfs throughout the decades bc shes a robot: oh,, so thats why theres so many love songs by rabbit on this album,,, rabbit you good?? wired wrong: the spine you good?? fancy shoes: hATCHWORTH YOU GOOD??? steam powered giraffe reprise: we interrupt your regularly scheduled robot angst hours with that good weeb shit™ turn back the clock: okay back the robot angst bleak horizon: our lovelys saying goodbye saying they’ll be back to bring smiles on our faces soon as we close out to some ominous as fuck shit teasing vice quadrant the vice quadrant: the vice does tight: okay so the vice quadrants fucked up and the robots are very concerned by this on a crescendo: ominous foreshadowing thats so ominous i had to look up what this song meant lore wise bc i just thought it was the robots just dancing and having fun steamjunk: my dear sweet honey darling is traveling through space and I’M WORRIED ABOUT HIM starburner: low-key robo angst bc their worried about their souls being damned or some shit but its cute  progress and technology: david YOUR RANGE wink the satellite: wink voice: YOU WAS MY BABY MY FUCKIN CINNAMON APPLE burning in the stratosphere: oh fire fire: this is the most haunting shit i have no joke for this sky sharks: hoo boi the sky sharks certainly won’t be killing us all today, but climate change sure will daughter of space: PREBBY SPACE GODDESS HNNNGNNGNG star valley night: honeys you know you can just wait for it to be night time right? then you can go play in the star valley at night- commander cosmo: BITCH YOU GOOD? where is everyone?: THERE SHE IS MY BABY gg the giraffe: MY DARLIIIIINNGGG SING IT HONEY  the pulls: wink my darling y’all ok? soliton: corpse man and space goddess sing a really nerdy analogy about love and its gorgeous where i left you: wink seriously are you okay? over the moon: rabbits just done but shes gotta sing it and go all out with how done she is bc shes extra it’s cosmic: is the “alright!” rav?? also is this love song supposed to represent them causing more fuckshit and destroying the universe and just not realizing it bc their in love?? idfk man it bops hold me: whether from the perspective of holly or rabbit i weep openly at this song the speed of light: david: this is where the astronaut turns evil won’t tell you why tho ;) literally every lore buff: *listens to this song and tries to theorize wtf happened* rav to the rescue: local green space twink rescues his space bf more at 11 starlight starshine: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO the space giant: three steampunk robots fight a giant starbaby in guitar hero to save a satellites crush; a planet thats a huge apple i have zero jokes for this is already too absurd  oh no: oh OH OH? O H. OOOH OH??????????? o  h... oh no.... necrostar: evil pissrock possessed evil dead guy and is ready to cause fuckshit while the robots sing about how scared they are at the end super space blaster centi-asteroid invaderpedes 2: cute interactions with the robots! i hate this title tho whale song: wholesome shit to distract you from all the lore and foreshadowing at the end Music from steamworld heist:  automatonic electronic harmonics, on top of the universe, electricity is is my soul, honeybee, and brass goggles: me minding my own business playing steamworld heist: *walks into a bar where spine rabbit and hatchworth are performing one of these songs* me: HOOOOOGH heist ho!: yeah thats piper for ya starscrap: hi i’m in love for rabbit? prepare for boarding: GET IN BITCHES WE’RE GONNA OVER THROW THE PATRIARCHY  the red queen: capitalism? demolished. what we need are some heros: the spine projecting his love for cowboys onto the player characters the vast frontier: hatchworth: I’M A BAD BITCH YOU CAN’T KILL ME the stars: they made it lads they made it over the moon and across the stars.... also how’d they keep singing for that long aren’t they tired? quintessential: malfunction: wow i can’t believe spg ended transphobia i don’t have a name for it: love? i guess??gd fgdsghfdg blue portals: the idea of hatchworth going through the blue portals when i know they’re made out of blue matter is terrifying  overdrive: they want to seem cool please play along and pretend their green screen work is cool the ballad of delilah morreo: this came right the fuck out of nowhere but fuck its here now and its fantastic love world of love: wonder what other balboa park songs they’ll bring back, like never gonna give you up :) only human: i’d die for you hatchy salgexicon: they deadass wrote a song about their dnd campaign  sleep evil sleep: i guess we’re all evil BC WE KEEPING SLEEPING ON HOW GOOD THIS SONG IS TOO photographic memories: walter worker chelsea? come get ur mans- leopold expeditus: hatchworth: hey guys checkout my fursona dream machine: this song keeps me up at night with the endING I JUST WANT RABBIT TO BE HAPPY AND ARTSY BUT THE WAY IT ENDED WITH THE VICE QUADRANT RELATED TEASER MAKES ME THINK RABBIT PICKED UP A SATELLITE FREQUENCY FROM WINK ABOUT HOW NECROSTAR WILL KILL RAV IN THE FUTURE DEADASS I’M NERVOUS WHAT HAPPENED

[writingonjorvik]

5000 SC Giveaway - The Lucky Six Campaign Tips & Tricks

So I’ve been running this 5000 SC giveaway for about a week now and there’s only three entries! The idea of the giveaway was obviously to get y’all hyped for our SSO inspired D&D campaign on Homebrewed, but also to encourage y’all to look up and learn a little bit about D&D so it won’t be a totally new experience. Don’t worry though, outside of myself, none of the folks on this podcast have played D&D before.

That said, asking people to dive into D&D is kinda a big jump and so I thought I’d give some tips along the way about classes, their basics, and hopefully point some of y’all into some close guesses. And, again, you can ask any of our players ( @centeris2, @emilie-catnight, @icewraiths for Ali & Gala) for hints too (some of them have put the answers out already and you can find the answer to number one on my Insta (@amelias.hart)). But here’s a run down of all the D&D character classes. If you’re still not sure, I used a lot of inspiration from subclasses to make choices (like Amelie, our stand in of the MC, has some serious magical origins, one might even say they’re sorcerous), but there may not be one to one (Aideen is close enough to a radiant dragon). And where all the classes I used for the Soul Riders are from core D&D 5e, some of their subclasses aren’t.

Barbarian - Barbarians are fighters filled with unbridled RAGE. In fact, it’s one of their core mechanics. But being impossible to hurt and impossible to avoid isn’t the only great part of these brute force tanks. When they get subclasses they typical channel that rage into types of magic, like storm powers or summoning the spirits of animals.

Bard - Ah, bards. They maintain everything about traditional bards, from the ability to perform well and persuade and audience, but their Jack of All Trades feature meets that the things they’re bad at their good at and the things they’re good at they’re great at. Sure, you could just be a magic singer with healing word, or you could swing two swords while you play your new rock album. 

Cleric - Clerics are the only class required to be religious and for choosing a god to work for they get to be absolute tanks and keep the whole party alive. They also scare the hell out of dead things, and depending on their god, can clone themselves, teleport, create thunder storms, or blind their enemies to death, and still have a prayer circle afterwards.

Druid - One with nature means one with shapeshifting. Druids work with animals, turning themselves into an animal, and then commanding all of the living creatures around them. Depending on the circle they join, they can sleepwalk, summon hordes of woodland creatures, or turning into that giant fuck-off bear for another hour without blinking.

Fighter - Fighters are the easiest class to play because they’re an actual jack of all trades (shoots fired, bard). Fighters hit good, shoot good, and shield good, and depending on their fighter archetype get better at horse riding, learn magic, or turn into a weeb and become a samurai.

Monk - Monks are martial arts specialists from any martial arts movie. They’re superhumanly fast and strong, catching arrows out of the arrow, and eventually becoming immortal because they’re just that one with the world. With subclasses, they can turn into the avatar, a ninja, an even more divine soul, or a storm god.

Paladin - Paladins are the pretend have to be religious class. Everyone things that because they typically take oaths with gods they have to believe in them, but paladins’ oath can be from themselves and their belief to kick ass. And if I was able to put my hand on someone and tell them to get the fuck up with an ability like Lay On Hands, hell yeah I’d have an oath with myself than some deity. Paladins are clerics if clerics could do damage (shoots fired, clerics), giving up some of that healing ability to righteously smite anything that steps in their path.

Ranger - One with nature, one with magic. Rangers often get considered a “utility class” because their abilities mostly focus on tracking and they only get like one thing they can kill really good. But explanded ranger subclasses are awesome, with rangers that can travel to different planes, rangers that are basically rogues, and rangers with hordes of dire wolves that you don’t want to mess with.

Rogue - Rogues are the sneaky stealth masters of D&D. If they’re hidden, they do fuck off amounts of damage with sneak attack, and when they aren’t, they’re either dead or flipping out danger like a pro. Rogues also get expertise, but with being stealthy, so if you blink, they’re gone. 

Sorcerer - Sorcerers are born into magic, innate. Whether that means their grandparents were dragons or if they met a radioactive spider, they got their magic as more or less a blessing and it’s not something they have to train for. And what that means if that the rules don’t apply to them. Out of spell slots? Spend a sorcery point. Need your spells to be silent? Spend a sorcery point. Want to cast your spell twice for one spell slot? Spend two sorcery points and what the world burn.

Warlock - Warlocks are magicians who made a deal with a patron to get magic. That could be a devil, a fairy, or the all-knowing and interplanar bringer of the end of the world Cthulu, but who knows! They can’t do as much magic but the magic they can do is hella powerful that don’t need to do it a second time, and with the most powerful cantrip in the spell list, it doesn’t even matter. Eldritch blast baby.

Wizard - Wizards are nerds. They spent years studying magic, mastered it, then went back to school to learn more. They’re any college’s dream student, because they only pay half price on one school of magic to learn literally any spell on their spell list, which means that just because they didn’t major in fireball doesn’t mean they can’t still do it.

Apothecarist - Apothecarist isn’t a core D&D 5e class. It’s not even officially published, but I did say there was one homebrewed class in the answers. Apothecarist is an original class I’m making that one of the players will be playing in both of our campaigns. It’s a battle doctor who told magic to fuck off (unless they decide not to later) and hordes herbal remedies that actually work. When they finish their PhD, they can horde more herbal remedies, get really high and make better ones, or fuck off with magic themselves and build abominations.

Those are all of the currently released classes in D&D 5e. Mystic and Artificer are supposed to be released, but since they aren’t (and mystic is broken) they didn’t make this list. I hope this helps for anyone still guessing. Y’all have until August 3rd to put in your guesses when the show comes out!

[jennaschererwrites]

'Jessica Jones': We Finally Have a Superhero Icon for the #TimesUp Era - Rolling Stone

A lot of people try to slap labels on Jessica Jones. If you've watched the first season of Netflix's Marvel show, you know that's a bad move if you want to keep your limbs intact. In the series' sophomore season, which starts streaming today, our detective with the strength of 10 men and the massive chip on her shoulder gets called a "vigilante superhero." A "freak." A "murderer." A "ticking time bomb." "Keep telling me who I am. I dare you," she says finally, officially hitting her fed-the-hell-up capacity.

"Fed the hell up" is, in fact, the very trait that makes Jessica one of the more captivating – and cathartic – characters on TV right now. As played by Krysten Ritter, she's a perpetually pissed-off private investigator with a wry wit, a drinking problem and enough super strength to deadlift a car or leap to the top of a fire escape. Not Captain America levels, but enough juice to be able to do some serious damage.

Most importantly, she's angry, all the time, courtesy of some very deep wrongs that have been done to her and the people she loves – repeatedly, brutally and committed mostly by men. And it's the ways in which she copes (or doesn't) with her rage, drinks it away or punches it out, avoids it or is shaken awake at night by it, that's turned her into such a compelling icon for the #MeToo age. It's no coincidence that the show's long-awaited second season is dropping on March 8th, which is International Women's Day. We are legion, and we are fed the hell up.

Jessica Jones is part of Netflix's stable of Marvel superhero shows, sharing a fictional Manhattan with Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher and the team-'em'all-up crossover series The Defenders. Adapted by Melissa Rosenberg from Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos' comic book series, Jones stands out from the rest. Jessica is a hardboiled P.I. in the tradition of Sam Spade and Rick Deckard (and, more vitally, Veronica Mars). She takes cases for money rather than any high-minded moral reasons, and she's only interested in her superpowers inasmuch as they help her to do her job. No spandex bodysuit or high-concept alter ego for this gal – just a beat-up leather jacket and a defiant sneer. As for the show itself, Its visual and narrative aesthetics derive less from typical superhero blockbusters and more from 1940s film noir. It isn't afraid to go dark.

In the show's first season, Jessica faced off against Kilgrave (Doctor Who's David Tennant), a mind-controlling supervillain who raped her and forced her to commit murder while she was under his influence. She was aided by a small but loyal band of allies: her adoptive sister Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor); her neighbor Malcolm Ducasse (Eka Darville); her erstwhile lover Luke Cage (Mike Colter); and her morally gray lawyer Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss). Flush with power, crippled by insecurity and literally able to bend the world to his will, Kilgrave served as a chilling avatar for toxic masculinity. He did his level best to unravel Jessica's world (talk about gaslighting); the only way she could be free of him in the end was to snap his neck. Kilgrave set out to possess and destroy her. In some ways, he succeeded.

That was back in November 2015, when Donald Trump's campaign for president was but a distant cloud on the horizon, Harvey Weinstein was still quietly ensconced in power and threats to women's welfare, at least superficially, seemed a lot less dire than they do now. With Jessica Jones, Rosenberg tapped into that aquifer of women's very real rage and anxiety bubbling just below the surface. Now, in 2018, it's become a roiling sea, whipped into frenzy by naked sexism at the highest levels of government and the exposure of sexual predators and inequality at every level of society. In other words, it's the perfect moment for Jessica to come roaring back to the screen, fists swinging and bullshit meter set to "fuck right off."

Rosenberg (who's also an executive producer) is committed to telling feminist stories both onscreen and behind the scenes. Pointedly, all 13 episodes of Season Two are directed by women, a bold and inclusive move that follows in the footsteps of Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar. The impressive roster includes Uta Briesewitz (The Deuce, Orange Is the New Black), Minkie Spiro (Better Call Saul, One Mississippi) and Rosemary Rodriguez (The Walking Dead, The Good Wife).

If the first season was about surviving deep trauma, Season Two is about what comes after: namely, anger. Rosenberg examines feminist rage from a variety of angles, through Jessica but also through the women around her. The big bad is less clear than it was in Season One, because it's everywhere and nowhere. Our heroine must delve into the murky origins of her super strength, which she'd rather not know about; and Trish reckons with a figure from her days as a teenage TV star, an all-too-real monster straight out of a #MeToo exposé. Meanwhile, Hogarth grapples with dire news that causes her question everything about her life.

All three women wrap themselves in armor – Jessica via detachment and alcoholism, Trish via her reputation and sense of control, Hogarth via wealth and power – that will feel familiar to any woman coping with simply trying to exist in a world that fears and marginalizes them. Jessica Jones asks the complex question of what happens when the coping mechanisms we build up over time, like thick skin growing over a blister, stop serving us.

What makes Jessica such a riveting character is that she wears her damage on her sleeve, something that many "strong female characters" aren't allowed to do. Rosenberg and Co. very purposefully co-opt the tropes of film noir, a genre that classically traffics in closed-off male heroes – and puts a woman in the tarnished-white-knight role instead of the femme fatale slot. Like those hardboiled private dicks before her, Jessica is tough, narrating her cases in grim voiceover, headlights through venetian blinds casting striated shadows across her face. She's also a mess, and doesn't care who knows it. Jessica has the grace to be brittle, and to fall apart. This lady performs for no one, including the viewers. And right now, that's a story we need to see.

[fairyboydammit]

Modules: Compare and Contrast

So I'm gonna talk about RPG modules.

First a little background, I've been playing tabletop RPGs off and on for two decades. Most of my experience is in D&D and other sword & sorcery type games but I've also played a smattering of other stuff, including Star Trek, GURPS, Star Wars (D20, not the West End version sadly) BESM, Shadowrun, White Wolf and Warhammer 40k. I've run about half the games I've played in and have traveled the whole spectrum from “Only lazy uncreative chumps use premade modules“ to “They don't have the monster stats in the module book? They seriously expect me to run this with a monster manual open too?“ So I've had an evolving relationship with modules and premade adventures, these days I've come to embrace them as a wonderful tool for facilitating fun game nights, though I do still love writing my own stuff now and then.

The impetus to write this came from having run two very different modules with wildly different results and with my perspective and experience I'm going to try to talk about why I think my experiences were so different, and what the differences in the modules had to do with it.

So, the two adventures I've been running are Hoard of the Dragon Queen, a module for 5th edition D&D that came out recently, and the Witchfire Trilogy, a campaign written for the D&D 3.5 version of the Iron Kingdoms roleplaying game which I adapted to use the more recent Iron Kingdoms tabletop rules. Some early disclaimers; Witchfire I'm running in person, Hoard I ran over Roll20 and Discord, the parties for each game were composed of different groups of people, the only person these two games have in common is me running them, and I know the players and how I interacted with them have had an impact on how the game goes so I'm going to try to account for those factors in how I judge these modules, but my experiences will color my perceptions for good or ill, objectivity is unattainable.

Let's start with the beginnings, both adventures start the party at 1st level, parties fresh out of character creation and open with some action. In Witchfire, the party starts the game as hired caravan guards going through a swamp, they get ambushed by Goblins and must defend the caravan. This is a cakewalk of a combat encounter, the goblins are weak and don't pose a real threat to the party, their objective is to steal from the wagons more than kill the players. I've played through this module before and this is never a tough fight, it serves mostly as a tutorial to introduce combat to the party and set up travel to the city most of the adventure takes place in. When I ran it this time the party wiped out the goblins in about 3 turns and did a good job introducing them to the rules, what they were capable of and how the system worked. The first encounter in Hoard of the Dragon Queen is a village being attacked by a Dragon. With an army. The encounter is actually a series of encounters, the adventurers are approaching the village of Greenest, under attack by the dragon and an army of cultists and kobolds. The first encounter in the series of encounters this entails is very similar to the Witchfire one in some respects, eight kobolds attacking a family, the book states the kobolds will not even attack the party if they don't intervene. So much like Witchfire you have a low-power encounter without much real threat to the party. A key difference I notice is that in Witchfire, once the goblins are beaten, that's the end of the fighting, the caravan cleans up, repairs and heads on to town, the party doesn't have another fight for over a day (barring particularly violent and rambunctious players) in Hoard, this encounter is followed by a series of encounters aiding the villagers of Greenest, the book intends for the party to do about seven of these before getting a Long Rest (in 5th edition, Long Rests restore all hit points and expended spell slots, Short rests can replenish some health but at first level you can only benefit from one Short Rest before taking a Long one) given that most of these encounters involve combat of some kind, potentially lethal combat in some cases, this can be daunting or outright hazardous to a first level party as they have limited means to heal themselves at this point.

After the goblin ambush in Witchfire the party heads to Corvis and meets The Main Questgiver who sets them down the path of the adventure proper with some investigation missions, leaving aside combat for at least an entire game session while the party explores the city and gathers information. Hoard has the party hole up in the town's keep until morning and face a tacitly unfair combat encounter that will likely leave a party member dead. I don't want to get too wrapped up in minutiae or bogged down in encounters, but felt these two beginnings warranted being contrasted. Witchfire opens with a quick and easy fight to introduce the mechanics, and introduces the setting in a moment of peace, when the party has had time to collect themselves from the fight. Hoard bombards the party from the word go, spiking the tension for what could easily be the entire duration of your play session and chasing it almost immediately with another fight.

Gonna switch gears to structure. Witchfire has a positively immense amount of preamble, the book dedicates 32 pages to the background of the city, its environs, the events preceding the adventure, where the notable NPCs are concerned with it and what information needs to be imparted to the PCs, and what has happened that they will have no idea about yet. Hoard has barely a page of content before the first encounter and most of it is just general background on the setting, where the adventure will be taking them and an overview of the adventures events. I don't want to seem overly unfair to Hoard, as being set in the Forgotten Realms means all the lore is already out there in one form or another, so they don't need to include the entire history of the Time of Troubles or the Spellplague at the beginning of this adventure, but what background they do provide is very barebones, giving very one-dimensional accounts of the NPCs and their motivations, which leads to some severe confusion later on.

NPCs can be tricky to write in any situation, simply because it's impossible to hand a GM a script of everything someone might possibly say to account for what a party might be, say or do. Hoard has fairly minimalist scripts, giving most NPCs essentially just a blurb about what they need the party to do, sadly some of its best NPC characterization is wasted on an extended travelling section that my players at least just wanted to be over. Witchfire does a similar thing but goes an extra mile in giving extended NPC dialogues a rough outline. In situations where NPCs will have extended conversations with PCs, the books gives them introductory dialog and a few scripted lines, then lays out some ground rules, stating what the NPCs motivation is, what they know, what they will tell the players, and what they will ask the players. I cannot tell you how useful this extra information was, even when surprised by a situation the book didn't anticipate, the context provided by the additional background gave me enough to infer a consistent and in-character reaction. This forethought also helped turn what would have been exposition dumps into question and answer sessions that were engaging for the players. Hoard had some serious problems with not clearly describing NPC motives and intentions, to the point where I had the party walk in on a character who the book gave absolutely no indication how they would react, beyond implying he'd be kind of a dick about it.

Both of these campaigns have relatively little downtime, throwing developments and encounters without giving the party a lot of time to mess about and do other things, but the way they do this is set up drastically differently. Hoard has periods of intense activity at the beginning and end, with a sort of 'downtime' period in the middle, consisting mostly of travel. This approach is made necessary by the narrative but makes for bad pacing. By the time the party gets to the travel section they mostly just want to move on to the next dungeon/adventure beat because that's what the module has accustomed them to. To further exacerbate things, the travel section isn't even really downtime because of the random encounters and intrigue that persist throughout it, so it ends up being run like a poorly structured dungeon where the party is stuck on a wagon going through it. Witchfire has very little downtime but a much more regular pace, players generally have a period of buildup followed by a period of decompression surrounding each of the dungeons or action beats, which themselves gradually ramp up in scope and intensity before climaxing (usually near the end of each of the three 'books' the campaign is composed of) each one feels like an organic endpoint too, giving the party some good falling action and resolution before leading them into another adventure in the next book.

Let's talk nitty-gritty stuff now, dungeon and encounter layouts. Both of these campaigns have some impressive dungeons and some really fun encounters, Both also take steps to prepare the DM for the specifics of the dungeon environments, though Hoard takes a slightly more cumbersome path. The dungeons in Hoard will often have environmental conditions (light, effects of weather, patrols etc.) listed at the beginning of each dungeon but then not mentioned in the pertinent areas, which can be confusing if you haven't committed the entire section to memory or have lost details in the intervening time in the dungeon. Also, a thing that only happens once or twice  but is still really frustrating that Hoard does: Information critical to the party in order to progress/accomplish a stated goal that they have literally no way of obtaining, that is bad structure. Witchfire by and large does a really good job putting all pertinent information in the room descriptions, as well as giving almost every dungeon room a clearly marked “Read this out loud“ flavor text callout (another thing Hoard neglects on a few occasions)

I suppose one more thing is important to cover before narrative structure and I suppose it can be best described as 'progression'. Progression and levelling systems are kind of the hallmark of the RPG genre, to the point where video games say they have 'RPG elements' because after you do a certain amount of stuff a number goes up, and levelling up is important to engagement and helps pace a campaign. I can't really compare these two games in terms of levelling up just because the adventures are different lengths, they use different systemic scales to determine levels and relative power, it just doesn't work that well, but there's another important progression system I can call upon: Loot. Loot is also a hallmark of RPGs and especially in games like D&D your equipment can be as much an indicator of your power as your level. Often times upgrading equipment eventually becomes the only way to improve key aspects of your character's capabilities, so its importance is hard to overstate. Even 20th level veteran characters can be total pushovers without the cartload of epic loot they've accumulated in that time. In Hoard of the Dragon Queen the party will find precisely zero magic items until the penultimate dungeon. Which they will be level 7 upon completing. Even basic equipment is startlingly rare throughout this campaign, with most of the enemies who use equipment having low-quality gear that party won't need. Even the treasure they do find (primarily currency; coins, gems etc.) isn't of much use as they're only in a town long enough to go shopping once near the beginning of the adventure. Now I've run low-magic/low-treasure games before, they can pose unique and interesting challenges and be a lot of fun if you're prepared for them. Whoever wrote this campaign however was not, as well before the party will see it's first +1 magic sword (in the final dungeon btw) they'll encounter monsters resistant to nonmagical attacks, making what should be relatively standard fights to build tension on the way to a real showdown into bone-crunching slogs where spellcasters exhaust their entire arsenal and fighters slash away for hours at enemies they can barely damage. This is, in my opinion, simply an unforgivable oversight in terms of game design. Given the numerous typos and editing mistakes in this campaign it would not surprise me at all if they had just left out some sections where the players were supposed to find some decent equipment, as it was I threw in a few caches to get my party up to having a fighting chance. I'm all for challenging players and giving them a fight that really tests them but there's an art to crafting a real challenge and throwing something at the party that you haven't given them the tools to deal with is not part of it. If I hadn't added my own loot to the game most of the party would be facing the final boss with the exact same gear they started with, and while that can work in some games, D&D is not one of them. Witchfire was a bit of an odd case because of how magic items work in IKRPG and the fact that it was written for an earlier edition of D&D made that a bit off for my campaign but as written, the party found a magic item (albeit a dagger) in the first dungeon, and had the potential to find more substantial equipment upgrades at a fairly regular pace throughout the game, and even had a reward for a side quest be „One free masterwork item of your choice“ at the local weapon shop, so even people with obscure weapon preferences could be assured they wouldn't be left out.

Okay now it's time for Narrative structure, buckle in. One of the big problems I had with Hoard was getting the characters invested, they never stayed in any place long enough to care about it, never spent enough time with an NPC to care about them, never encountered an antagonist enough times to build a rivalry with them, and while some of this I can chalk up to the travelling nature of the campaign, some it I can't. In the extended caravanning section the party has chances to meet up and talk with some NPCs but they're almost immediately shunted off somewhere else at the next stop, the party never returns to Greenest or speaks to anyone from it again. My party's most protracted NPC relationship was with a named Lizardfolk NPC about 2/3 into the campaign and didn't last past that particular dungeon. Even the organizations they were ostensibly working for only spoke to them once the entire adventure. This is not good writing, this is not good engagement, if I was reading a novel about these events I would constantly be asking myself “Why do these adventurers even care?” and I'm sure some of my players asked themselves that at least once over the course of this game, which is not a good sign. Witchfire on the other hand, I will first say has the rather significant benefit of actually being a series of novels, though honestly the roles of the adventurers are written in such a way that I can't even grasp what must happen in the novels, unless they just include a set of characters who make up the adventuring party. I'll actually probably go more in-depth in another piece about the writing in Witchfire but for now I'll stick to my comparisons. By having the campaign take place almost entirely in one city, the party has time, and inclination to get acquainted and invested in it, they're going to be interacting with this place for a while, they're going to go to places and visit people multiple times, the person they spoke to in chapter 1 will still be there in chapter 10 and that makes it easier for them to care. The primary quest giver, Father Dumas, is a staple of the campaign and rather than being relegated to a simple exclamation point telling the party where to go to next, he becomes a person, with a complex relationship to the story, the antagonist, the other NPCs, the city itself and yes, the characters. Even minor NPCs are given life and depth and engender empathy from the players. When terrible events befall the city my players were wracked with concern, vowing revenge on those who did this and putting thought and heart into how they were going to help.

Writing a novel is hard work, so is coming up with interesting and compelling scenarios for games, writing a tabletop campaign is a delicate alchemy of these endeavors and can be tougher than both. I wanted to write this primarily to show how a well-written and structured adventure could be truly amazing for everyone involved, and how laziness, poor structuring choices and a lack of attention to detail can make what should be a ton of fun with your friends feel mediocre, or even like a slog. I've learned a lot from these experiences, and I hope some of it I've been able to impart to others. To anyone out there thinking of writing a campaign or just running something fun with their friends, I hope this has been a helpful look into some of the harder to see aspects of gaming. Happy role-playing everyone!

[mystery-moose]

TAZ FIC REX

So there’s not a lot of stuff in this particular internet corner, but somehow there is a higher proportion of That Good Shit, so since this seems to be going around, I thought I’d put together my own (not at all) brief list of things to read if you like The Adventure Zone Dungeons and Dragons Podcast Brought To You By Totino’s™.

Emergency First Aid in the Pocket Workshop by Anonymous / 2.5k / mature / The Suffering Game

Magnus and Merle tend to Taako after his run in with some bad luck. His inner monologue goes a walking. // This is one of the absolute best, a great piece of character work with a unique use of POV, a bunch of really cool and well-captured details, and a great handle on all the characters. It don’t get much better.

A Long Day Without You by samalander / 4k / teen / The Eleventh Hour

Magnus Burnsides is happy; he has a wife who loves him, a shop that is the jewel of the craftsman's corridor, and a city that adores him. He just can't stop dreaming about a life of adventure, a life of trials, a life he's never lived. // This is a great little alternate history that slots neatly into canon (in as much as anything IS canon in the Adventure Zone) and is just... it’s a great, emotional little story. It executes on its premise damn near perfectly.

Angus McDonald and the Case of the Mysterious Butter Wyvern by yassan / 5.3k / gen / Lunar Interlude III

In retrospect, Killian should have known it was a mistake to put Taako, Merle, and Magnus in charge of getting the Director's birthday present. // Few stories truly capture the tone of TAZ quite like this one! It’s exciting, it’s a little emotional, it ends really strongly, and it never, ever takes itself all that seriously. It’s exactly what I want, all the time.

Compartmentalize by FriendshipCastle / 1.3k / teen

How the hell do these dudes keep doing what they're doing? // This is a brief little character study that I refer to fairly regularly when I write. It’s essentially just a series of small details, but they fit in a way that I didn’t expect. This one might be down to a “personal interpretation” thing for some people, but for my money? This is a great fic.

starting to sound like a friendship thing by Psilent / 1.7k / teen / post-Moonlighting

"You don't owe me anything," Magnus says quickly. "You're my friend and you were in trouble and protecting that button clearly wasn't working – really sorry about that, by the way – and I couldn't just stand there and do nothing!"

Taako is staring at him. He doesn't quite slump, just holds himself at different angles as the indignation slinks out of his posture to be replaced by bewilderment. "I'm your what?" // This is another story that captures character voices and tone better than almost any other, and those are two of my absolute favorite things about the Adventure Zone to begin with. Being set earlier, it also shows the beginnings of personal growth for this gaggle of assholes, rather than the later stages of it. Just fantastic stuff.

Bye Bye, Boy Detective by FaintingInCoils / 5.5k / gen / major character death

In which Angus dies, Merle and Mavis bond, Pan sends flower messages, and Angus's Rites of Remembrance are way better than Boyland's. // I honestly wasn’t sure I should even recommend this because how fucking dare they, right? But it’s good. It’s great, even. It manages to treat its premise with respect without dipping too deep into despair, to take it seriously without ever changing the tone of the source material. Which is incredible for a story about the literal death of a child, but perhaps not so incredible when you remember that Death is a character everyone knows and speaks to regularly. (Shockingly, this is NOT the saddest thing on this list.)

Coping Mechanisms by The_Bookkeeper / <1k / teen / The Eleventh Hour

They’re not okay, but it’s okay. // Once again, the twin strengths of character voice and tone are here in force. This is a short piece, but it’s one of my absolute favorites, because it acknowledges sadness but isn’t overwhelmed by it. Sometimes people get a little too... intense, for it to feel truly like the Adventure Zone. Not here! This is downright breezy for an examination of melancholy. And I mean that as the highest compliment.

What We Allow by patster223 / 1.8k / gen / The Suffering Game (ep. 56)

Not everything needs to be said aloud. Taako and Merle aren't the most patient of instructors, but that much they've been able to teach Magnus. // Yeah, you might have noticed a pattern with me. Character voices, tone, humor, emotion. You mix all those up just right, you have yourself a rec from me. This actually veers a little too far in the meta direction for me at times (though in service to a good cause!) but this is still too damn good not to recommend.

If Wishes Were Horses by droosy / 3.8k / teen

Taako and Magnus temporarily become a single being to save a village from a rampaging monster. // Now that description is about as plain and boring a way to describe one of the funniest, most pitch-perfect stories I’ve ever seen. This is next-level shit, folks—not only is the tone perfect, not only is it loaded with references to every McElroy family product, not only is it shockingly funny and charming and bizarrely well-written for feeling so absurd, and not only does it perfectly capture the comedic voice of the McElroy Collective, but it’s even got that traditional Adventure Zone arc of “this was supposed to be silly but in the end it’s kind of sweet and has some deeper world-building and a more emotional throughline than you expected.” Depending on the day, this is one of my favorite fics, period. It’s that good.

literally everything by goodnicepeople, particularly

Unhurried / 2.2k / teen / post-campaign / Life is short and some people keep rushing through it.

Like an Open Book / 1.7k / gen /  Angus has a Big Thought then, which is not uncommon for Angus, who is always chasing thoughts. But this one follows as such: He is alone.

Take Up a Place Beside Me / 4.3k / teen / post-campaign / Taako and Kravitz move in. Others move on. Some get dogs.

Everything this person writes is gold of one kind or another. It’s all incredibly well-written, well-realized, extremely evocative and perfectly fitting. The prose here is some of the best you’ll find, with beautiful turns of phrase and incredible use of imagery, and it captures the characters in a thoroughly lived-in way that I really envy. My only complaint (if it can even be called a complaint) is that the tone can be wildly more serious or emotionally intense than TAZ gets on its heaviest day, so if that’s important to you, you might find that takes you out of it. But I encourage you to give them a try, because these are truly spectacular.

HONORABLE MENTIONS BECAUSE THIS IS GETTING LONG (AND THE SAD THING IS I KNOW I’M STILL FORGETTING SOME)

Cinnamon Rolls by goldfishoflove / 2k / gen / The Eleventh Hour /  The morning after the Eleventh Hour, Taako and Magnus are still rattled by what they've learned. Does talking about it help? Hard to say. Do delicious pastries help? Almost certainly.

after all and up here, my dear by starlight_sugar / 2.5k & 1.7k / gen / The Hogsbottom Three / A handful of vaguely-related fics about Scales, Carey, and the world of Faerun.

liminal by starlight_sugar / 2.5k / teen / The Eleventh Hour / Angus McDonald is not dead. The woman he's talking to is.

reaper man by guttersvoice / 4.8k / teen / unfinished work-in-progress / Death is cold, and dreams of music.

[lindyhunt]

Should Your Brand Use Controversial Advertising? 5 Examples to Help You Decide

Two weeks ago, people were tweeting pictures of razors submerged at the bottom of their toilet bowls. No, this wasn’t a wacky teen challenge to make your dad late for work. It was a protest against Gillette’s latest advertisement -- one that confronts toxic masculinity.

Brands that craft controversial advertisements like Gillette’s, however, expect this type of response, at least from some people. Taking any kind of stance on sensitive social issues tends to lead to disagreement. But advocating for the causes you truly believe in usually has more pros than cons.

“Even if publicizing your beliefs may ostracize some potential customers, it also builds deep loyalty for those who share your values -- particularly values like celebrating equality and inclusion, which many people support, regardless of political affiliation,” Joe Lazauskas, the Head of Content Strategy at Contently, wrote in an article after the divisive 2016 presidential election. “The same goes for expressing concern and support for the diverse people who work for you. Loyalty isn’t just a marketing metric; it’s also critical for measuring the internal health of your company.”

Executed properly, controversial ads can be an unexpected, emotional delight that can not only deepen your connection with your core audience, but can also help you reach new audiences. For instance, after Gillette released their ad challenging toxic masculinity, Adweek discovered it actually resonated with women the most.

What Is Controversial Advertising?

Controversial advertising doesn’t aim to polarize an audience. It’s an attention-grabbing technique for stating an opinion, and brands use it to spark productive conversations about certain moral values. In recent years, any stance taken on sensitive social issues can be considered controversial advertising.

The Psychology Behind Controversial Advertising

People usually read and share opinionated content because it aligns with their own values. And by letting the world know about their beliefs, they can solidify an ideal image of themselves within their social circle and their own minds.

Opinionated content also has a knack for making people think and consider other points of view, which builds more loyal audiences because it can teach people something new and help shape their perspective on life.

But while controversial ads can generate more buzz than other types of ads, if executed poorly, they can be detrimental to your brand. For instance, consider SNL’s hilarious skit of ad executives pitching commercial ideas to the snack brand Cheetos.

Although SNL isn’t specifically giving controversial advertising a ribbing, they’re poking fun at the way brands exploit sensitive social issues to peddle their products instead of what they should be doing when covering these types of topics -- encouraging productive conversations.

Creating a controversial ad with an ulterior motive is a one way ticket to receiving Kendall Jenner & Pepsi type of feedback (we’ll cover this later). In other words, it can spark harsh backlash and bad publicity instead of meaningful dialogue.

So how do you avoid this type of negative response if you want to create a controversial advertising campaign? Below, we’ll analyze three controversial advertising examples that work and two that don’t to help you support the causes you genuinely believe in and better connect with audiences.

Controversial Advertising Examples That Work

1. Anheuser-Busch | Born The Hard Way

The United States has conflicting opinions on whether to welcome immigrants with open arms or not, but Anheuser-Busch’s ad about their founder’s origin story makes people realize that something so fundamentally American, like Budweiser beer, can have immigrant roots.

Budweiser is commonly associated with themes of American patriotism, so taking a stance on immigration, which is a controversial issue in the United States, conflicted with some of the brand’s most loyal customers’ political beliefs. But taking this social stance also led to a meaningful dialogue about how immigrants have founded some of America’s most iconic brands.

By telling a gripping and emotional story about the founding of their company, Anheuser-Busch could take a stance on an important issue that’s essential to their brand and connect with the people who understand that the United States is country of immigrants, helping the ad garner more than 21.7 million views in only three days.

2. Nike | Dream Crazy

“Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything” is an accurate life motto for Colin Kaepernick, a professional American football player. In the 2016 NFL season, he stoked controversy by kneeling during the National Anthem before the start of every game as a protest against racial inequality.

Unfortunately, all the controversy associated with him has basically barred him from the NFL -- no team hasn’t signed him since his controversial 2016 season. Yet, admirably, he still advocates for the causes he supported during his protests.

Along with Kaepernick’s story, Nike’s "Dream Crazy" weaves in other narratives of athletes who followed ambitious dreams to eventual success. And Nike made it clear that they want to help Colin Kaepernick achieve his dream of a righteous world, no matter how crazy it seems right now.

"Dream Crazy", while highly controversial, resonated with millions of people. Just days after they released the ad, Nike’s sales soared by 31%, despite videos of their gear engulfed in flames circulating throughout social media.

3. Heineken | Worlds Apart

In Heineken’s “Worlds Apart”, people were paired together and asked to build stools and a bar together. After they completed the activity and developed some rapport with each other, pre-recorded videos starting playing and revealed that their political views were actually the polar opposite of each others. They were then asked if they would discuss their differences over a beer. All of them said a resounding “yes”.

Making an ad where people with such differing political views actually engage in meaningful dialogue and don’t just belittle each other is a risky move. A lot of people have a fiery passion for their political beliefs and won’t associate with people who don’t agree with them. But that’s ultimately why Worlds Apart was met with rave reviews and called “The Antidote to Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner Ad” -- it focuses on putting our differences aside to work for a greater cause together, not Heineken’s product.

Controversial Advertising Examples That Don’t Work

4. Pepsi | Live for Now

If you think long and hard about it, could a can of Pepsi really mend the complex rifts that divide the entire world right now? Nope. Not at all. Even worse, is Kendall Jenner really an integral part of any social justice movement, or was she just there because she’s a famous celebrity who can grab almost anyone’s attention? You probably know the answer to this question by now.

After receiving five times as many downvotes as upvotes on YouTube and a glut of bad publicity and negative reactions on social media, Pepsi removed the ad from their channel only a few hours after posting it.

If you want to avoid this type of response when creating controversial content, don’t emphasize your product more than the issue at hand. All advertisements are technically self-serving, but people can spot overly promotional fluff masquerading as social justice faster than they’ll click exit on a pop-up ad. So if you don’t truly feel convicted to support a specific social cause when creating controversial content, it’s best to not even put pen to paper.

5. Nationwide | Boy

It starts out as an adorable story about a boy who seems to lack self-confidence, but Nationwide’s “Boy” turns shockingly dark when it’s revealed that the main character can’t live a normal childhood because he’s actually dead.

Child accidents are a serious problem that should be addressed, but this ad was criticized for being too fear-mongering and manipulative -- it literally uses the death of children to sell insurance. So even if your ad highlights a prevalent problem, make sure it doesn’t exploit a sensitive issue just to peddle more product. Otherwise, it might get crowned as the worst ad of the year.