#I am not doing too great but this helped

[incaseyouart]

Sketches of @danielhowell with the kitty for serotonin

[koszmarnybudyn]

Here is the slut.

[samarecharm]

People who really like shuake also seem to write themselves into a corner wrt Akechi and his relationship to Akiras team. Contrary to popular belief, the team, including Haru, does not hate Akechi. At worst, they tolerate him and deal with his attitude. Hes a good teammate and respectable fighter and the team recognizes that at the end of the day, he was a teenager who was manipulated and abused by a man who saw him as disposable. Just about every thief understands this intimately. They have the same mindset wrt adults who take advantage of the people beneath them. Under different circumstances they wouldve been friends. And if u approach it from that angle, it becomes less about Akechi being the sole person who ‘gets’ Akira, and more about the thieves being the only people in the world who ‘get’ Akechi.

When you expand your thoughts to include the thieves as members of his Team and not roadblocks that get in the way of your ideal shipping dynamic, you allow urself to give Akechi and Akira more depth and nuance to their own relationship.

Akira and Akechi are wildcards; both of them struggle with the face they choose to display to the world. Its the first time Akira interacts with someone who is, at a literal, technical level, his ‘equal’. But Akechi is one of many firsts for Akira yeah? Every thief has their bond with Akira thats completely unique and personal. Akechi will never be the person who witnesses Akiras Awakening, hes never the person who watches Akira have his restless nights alone in the attic, and hes never the person who realizes in real time that the teenager hes housing is just Some Kid, not the delinquent hes been warned about. Hes not Ann or Yusuke, or any of the thieves; he doesnt have the time or experience that they have with Akira, and I think its interesting to explore that part of their relationship, shippy or not.

Akechi is someone who is incredibly lonely and self depreciating despite his cockiness and attitude. He has no positive bonds to speak of save for his connection with Sae. To have him see a team that works together and cares for each other, how do you think he would feel? Out of place? Inferior in some way? Angry about how hes been alone for so long in this single minded quest for revenge? Wouldnt that be a point of struggle between the two of them? I think what makes shuake good for me is knowing that Akechi needs alot of time to heal, and the thieves would want to help with that process. They do it bc they care, bc Akira cares, and bc they trust Akiras opinion (and he trusts theirs in return); if Akira feels like Akechi is someone who can be trusted Now after everything thats happened, then the thieves would do their best to help. And how would Akechi feel about that? Angry about the show of pity? That even now, he has no real say in what happens to him? Or begrudgingly grateful that they are cordial with him? Because they do care, he KNOWS they care, they care TOO MUCH actually; but the one thing he values over brawn and wits is honesty- fighting for what you believe in without having to use soft words to justify it.

[mueritos]

its crazy how coming into clinical social work, i really just thought I was up against systems and cycles of trauma....but it turns out i'm up against those two things AND other therapists. the amount of work spent correcting mistakes from other clinicians--whether with clients or during the classroom--is fucking crazy.

i totally get we're all on different journeys in terms of being clinicians. but it is insane finding out day after day of therapists and clinicians saying the worst things ever to clients. demeaning them, telling them "it's all in their head", the racism and the ableism and harm that is caused. like no fucking wonder people are afraid to seek therapy (on top of the accessibility issues). while i'm a little biased and think that at the very least clinical social work training focuses on viewing people within their environments (so not engaging in the medical/individualist models of practice that a lot of counseling programs focus on), that doesn't mean it gives every person the skills to be an effective therapist. i'm also not saying i'm the best clinician ever--I'm literally in training--but boy! it is jarring seeing how some of my peers interact in class and wondering...is that how you are with your clients??

my social work program at the very least also has a focus on anti-racism, but i know students from other programs and some of them don't even mention racism AT ALL and focus entirely on diagnosing people "correctly", or finding the perfect form of therapy to use on a client. but man, what none of these programs teach are basic life skills. wanting to be a clinician isn't enough, especially considering that an inhumane amount of people in my program are 1. so nervous about making mistakes that they lose scope of their practice 2. have so much internalized racism/white guilt to work thru 3. or they have absolutely no listening skills.

again, im not trying to make it seem like I am the number 1 clinician in the world ever. I don't even have a psych background or bachelor's in social work. my reasons for going into social work are quite selfish (I want a job that is very flexible, easily transferable, and can be done in different contexts), and the helping people part is just a plus. i'm just saying it's very jarring seeing other people in training and realizing they too are working with clients. i have conversation after conversation about these issues with other BIPOC/queer/marginalized clinicians, so I know i'm not the only person worried about some of the people that will be out of this program in a few years practicing on their own or with vulnerable populations.

[ninjasmudge]

heres my oc for today, shī tóng, hes a guardian lion brought to life by a wealthy dragon household, but when his other half died (guardian lions almost invariably come in sets) he left to go wander. he was almost consumed by his own magic in grief until he came across two kids, one of whom had the ability to cancel out magic for a short time. long story short hes a dad now.

[heybiji]

hi!!! i just wanted to say i really love all of your MASKS stuff. i'm something of a newbie when it comes to the TTRPG community, but MASKS seems to be not very well-known and i think that's a real shame. i'm a huge fan of old-school superhero-adjacent stuff, especially the silver- and bronze-age ones!

by the way, i was wondering if you'd be willing to share some tips for a first-time GM? you don't have to if you'd rather not! i just figured i'd try asking since i was planning on GMing a MASKS campaign for some of my friends later, but despite my decade's worth of roleplaying experience i've never been in a TTRPG campaign nor a GM (or similar) role before

Thank you so much!! I was just lamenting about how I felt bad for the MASKS tag because it is now flooded with all my npc nonsense hahah so this is really nice to hear.

It's awesome you're planning on running a MASKS game for your friends!! There is an indispensable post on twitter I saw that has a LOT of great tips for running MASKS that I recommend checking out. But for my own personal tips that are just me things, here's what I got. Sorry it's gonna be extremely long-winded, it may take a few months to read through it.

(Note: I am also hugely into RP and probably put more into it than what is necessary, especially with MASKS which is meant to be able to be played out of the box. It was definitely not played out of the box in our case because I require a lot out of myself and everyone else to feel good about running something. if anyone else wants to continue seeing me as a normal human being please don't click the Keep Reading)

Since you're running it, make the world interesting to you. If the world runs around themes you're personally interested in then you'll have a much easier time coming up with answers on the fly. For me, themes I'm interested in that lend themselves well to a superhero world: money, power, family, celebrity, media, the 24 hour news cycle and the desensitization of violence. Because I'm interested in this stuff anyway, wrapping a world around them makes it much simpler for me to figure out how the world ticks and thus how the characters fit into it and how the world reacts to them, and I am DESPERATE to find out how the characters react to all the questions and expectations the world is imposing upon them.

Make sure your players have a good grasp of the tone of story so they can make characters that gel well within it. For me the tone is a lil more adult because I'm not personally into younger morality tale stories in tone, it's pretty grounded, and I think comedy and tragedy work hand in hand so I lean into them.

Talk. A lot. Talk about the characters, talk about the world. MASKS is fun because it's a LOT of talking and figuring out the narrative together. It's not a lot of crunchy mechanics, it's all around seeing how the characters react to the world narratively, all hurt and comfort and emotions which (for me) requires people to have a good grasp on their characters and the world. I like to give my players "homework" where I ask them a question involving their characters in some way like "what hero did your character look up to as a child?" so they get to come up with past heroes, or "How does your character feel about _____?" etc etc. The only fans are gonna be your table and fans love to talk so be the biggest fans of the PCs!!

Figure out your framing. I know in MASKS they suggest framing it like a comic book, and basically talking about the frames on screen. For me, because I'm more into movies and tv than comics, I frame it like that. So I have an active "camera" in play during sessions and will ask things like "would anyone like to grab the camera?" to encourage the players to put the character into a scene or "what does the audience see as the camera focuses in on your character in this emotional moment?" There is a LOT of playing up to the camera and framing the sessions as episodes of a show, so it's like, okay, you have several options but what is going to be interesting for the audience to see? I find this encourages the players to have their characters take bigger swings and feel comfortable letting us into how their character is feeling because it all looks GREAT on camera. The camera loves it. The PCs are the story after all.

Because I frame it a show, I also like to play individual ending songs over the "credits" at the end of each episode. So I asked my players to make playlists for their characters so if I feel an episode had a lot of emotional focus on one character in particular, I can play one of their songs at the end of the episode! I also made a general MASKS playlist with a bunch of songs from the era we set it in (2004) to pull from. It's a fun little addition that I really enjoy and that I hope makes it all feel more special.

The Dino Donut Effect: create landmarks in your world. (OK THIS IS GONNA BE LONG BUT WORK WITH ME HERE) They don't have to be locations, more solid landmarks of the story that the characters can refer back to and lean on to make the world feel more "real." I call it the Dino Donut Effect because in our world the thing that made everything click into place was talking out the backstory of one of the PC's figuring out they had the power negation ability. We were talking one night trying to figure it out; we wanted the character to fall out of a building and be caught by a flying superhero and accidentally turn off their powers, so they toss the kid to another flying supe whose powers also get turned off. But we were like... holy shit what is the height of a building needed that can handle this much action in the air without them hitting the ground in 3 seconds. So after a long night of talking about terminal velocity and looking at Splat Calculators we figured out the height of the building, and we needed them to crash into something that wouldn't fuckin kill them. The first suggestion was a truck full of bananas. Nah. We landed on a giant balloon that could take the impact. And the balloon became a giant T-Rex holding a donut that was the mascot of the city's beloved decades old donut shop Dino Donut. And so we decided that one of the two flying supes grabbed onto the kid and the other and flew into the giant balloon to try and keep them all alive, which destroyed the balloon, which was a city institution, and there was a crowd of children there that day that saw their friend Dino Donut die. Killed by a superhero. The balloon deflated loudly so it sounded like Dino Donut was screaming in agony. All the kids were traumatized (screaming crying throwing up), the city was furious because everyone loved Dino Donut, it was constantly in the news cycle, and it ruined the career of the supe that "killed Dino Donut." AND THEN THEY REPLACED THE DINO DONUT BALLOON WITH A LAME "UPDATED DESIGN" DINO DONUT STATUE which everyone hates and people consider to be a memorial to the old Dino Donut. ANYWAY, the Dino Donut effect is that now all the PCs have one single incident to refer back to that they all have feelings about. A couple of them were there that day and heard Dino Donut scream, one is now the protege of the disgraced superhero that killed Dino Donut so she feels uncomfortable talking about it, there's the kid that was saved that day but was sworn to secrecy by the supe so no one would find out about his power negation ability, and then there's the kid that wasn't there because she's an alien that just arrived to earth and now the kids have to explain the incident to her with all their varying opinions. Now the PCs' meeting spot is at a Dino Donut. Having this one solid incident that is both funny and kind of goes into the themes of the world has been an absolute treat. Creating "landmarks" like that in the world has done so much and now I'm like okay I'm gonna try to do this moving forward with any other thing I run.

anyway these are my extremely specific to me tips. my RP standards are kind of high which makes me a bit of a terror but also when the flowers bloom from it it feels GREAT. i'm not sure if this will help but hopefully there is something there that can be useful!

MASKS is fun and simple once you get the hang of it, though, so I'm sure whatever you do you and your players will have a lot of fun! especially if you're someone who is into RP which is the background I'm coming from too; MASKS is extremely narrative! i'll be looking in the tag for your game hehe

(The Day Dino Donut Died art by JD)

[pepperpixel]

Rune factory 5 art!!!! Cuz I’ve been playin it a lot recently! And I finally got married to Lucas so I wanted to draw some stuff of him!! Cuz I love him. He is a lil weirdo god whomst I cherish and adore..

[andthebeanstalk]

One of the things I love about Glass Onion is the way that the camera and music work together to tell nonverbal jokes.

Like when Benoit basically has to hold Miles' hand to get him to the conclusion that someone reset the puzzle box Benoit lies about receiving:

Benoit asks if it's possible that someone reset the box, and Miles then declares that someone must have reset the box like it is this huge reveal - and the camera zooms out while the music subtly swells as though he really has figured out something smart, when actually he literally restated what Benoit just said.

[finniestoncrane]

said to my counsellor that i wasnt built for friendship because everyone always eventually just. stops speaking to me and she went “ok why do you think that is?” and then when i finished my dumb sad list she went “ok so maybe you aren’t good at friendship” and i. have never regretted spending £50 more in my life lol

[jeanmoreaux]

hi friend! wanted to ask you smthn

ive been thinking and wondering why Snow didn't have Katniss (and everyone she loves) killed outright honestly or staged it somehow.

i'm remembering how Haymitch won and i still don't see it as a way of 'mocking' the capital. but Katniss' stunt with the berries was far more openly rebellious to me as a reader yet Snow sat on this decision to take care of her but murdered Haymitch's family within 2 weeks

im just contemplating hmmmm was it because others were already rebelling as well and if he took her out ASAP then it might've just added fuel to the fire ?

you got me wanting to revisit the series!!!! curse you (affectionately)!!!!!! i need to find a thesis topic send help OTL

hi there! well, you're definitely right in your assessment that haymitch's defiance was less inflammatory in the grand scheme of things. idk if you have read tbosas but i think that book gives you a good idea of how snow is not just obsessed with power but also control. and haymitch doing what he did took some of the capitol's control over the narrative of what makes a victor. it wasn't that he won because he proved himself to be the stronger, more ruthless fighter. he won because he was smart. and while you can easily manipulate a victor who wins the games on the capitol's terms (and is basically a capitol drone), a victor who defies this traditional victor narrative and uses the capitol's weapons against them poses much more of a threat (at least in snow's eyes). and i think, at least to a degree, snow was worried that if given a chance, victors like haymitch would use their status to rally people behind them. so he made an example of him. he didn't have to kill all of haymitch's loved ones, but he did. simply to show that he can. (not just show haymitch but every living victor and all the victors to come.) in the end, i don't think that it had much to do with haymitch and everything to do with the possibility of what some like haymitch could represent. the kind of stories you could spin around someone like haymitch.

and then katniss comes around, and unlike haymitch, she isn't reaped. she volunteers for her little sister—a blond, pretty little thing that half of panem becomes enamoured with over the course of katniss's games. the people do not just fall in love with prim, they also fall in love with katniss, the girl that keeps showing a lot of compassion for the people around her. and she does draw attention with that. people know her. people support her. oh and what a story she makes! oh what a narrative! the girl who volunteered! the girl on fire! and then she does the most rebellious thing by pulling out the poisonous berries and threatening the victor narrative that has been so carefully established over the years. the girl with the berries! she flips the script in the most radical way, and if she didn't have all of panem's eyes on her before, she does now. and the people look at her and her compassion and begin to stir. they begin to see that change is possible, so they rebel. you mentioned it already, but killing her AFTER the stunt with the berries was impossible. not just because people would have known why and by whom she was killed, but because it would have added fuel to the fire. snow, much like coin later on, realises that the rebellion will only co-opt her image and make her a martyr. snow definitely sees that katniss alive can be used in a way that can potentially help his cause, whereas katniss dead will always gonna end up helping the rebels in their cause. and killing katniss's mother might have been possible without raising many questions, but killing prim? no way he could have had her killed without making people suspicious. there is also a big chance that the rebels would have co-opted prim's death as well (or at least bank on the suspicions swaying some people). and without her family, how would snow have anything to control katniss with?

and the thing is. while haymitch was an incovenience he was never a real threat. not the way katniss is. killing haymitch's family was a means to an end, but nothing more. snow didn't need to control him beyond making him fall in line because haymitch had absolutely no social power to rival snow's. but katniss has. she has many of the district citizens at her back. and the only way to contain her (in snow's eyes) is to hold the threat of hurting her loved ones over her head. take that away and snow has nothing to stop her from leaning into the role the rebellion has assigned her. which is also why he doesn't kill peeta in mockingjay. again, with peeta gone there would be nothing holding katniss back from working with the rebels.

the social power that haymitch and katniss wielded after their respective games is basically what makes all the difference (in my opinion). and that's why, with katniss, snow's hands were tied by circumstance (in a way). retaliating against her directly (either by harming her or by harming her family) would have resulted in more problems than solutions, while killing haymitch's family & girlfriend was a quick and efficient way to stop an inconvenient victor in his tracks AND use him as an example that saves snow the time to put every victor in their place individually. in a cruel way, haymitch simply had bad luck on top of his bad luck.

[itspileofgoodthings]

Well, I actually have the most mundane of questions, but it’s been so long since I’ve been in an English class that I feel like I’ve completely forgotten (and I’m curious how you do it): how do you go about reading a book as a class? Do you assign them the chapters to read at home and most of them actually do it? Or do you give them class time to read? Do you have the kids who try to spoil the rest of the book for the class? Basically, how does one teach a book in the year 2024?  😀

And do you have your students annotate inside their books? (I know the English teachers in my school require the students to do that, and I get why, but I inwardly shudder every time I see a student marking up a page.) 

Haha I love this question because I too am always asking myself how DOES one each a book in 2024?

It’s sort of a combination. I absolutely assign reading every night (almost) unless it’s Shakespeare or any play in which case we read it all in class. But for a novel there’s a couple chapters a night. I read aloud to them a lot too. Sometjmes I make them read aloud to the whole class, rotating kids who read. Sometimes I assign a chapter to be read in class silently with questions or quotes due at the end of the reading. Sometimes I put them in groups and make them read aloud to each other. There’s no one way that works for sure and of course ultimately I have no control over how much they read and I’m not naive enough to think that most of the reading assigned for homework doesn’t get skipped most of the time buuuuuut.

My bottom line is that I believe it’s my job to get excited about the actual text itself (easier for me in some cases than others but overall pretty easy because it does fill me with excitement) and then commit to taking them on the journey of the story with me. And my goal—that I’m sure I often don’t reach—is to make that experience so much more fun if you have actually read. And the way that I teach is pretty text heavy which is why I always make sure I’ve read the chapters for the day and am not just relying on my memory because the way I do it is just sort of absorbing it all up like a vacuum-cleaner, schwooooop, and then either pulling stuff out of the reading to look at directly or directing them to do the same thing. So the big thing that I have going for me, if any, is buy-in. Is getting kids excited about actually reading the actual text. I also speak often and passionately about the evils of sparknotes etc. not because they help kids get better grades or whatever but because they present you with the husk and shell of a story, stripped of all that makes it interesting, and that by reading that alone they’re reading something so dry and dull and are not achieving what I always want them to achieve —which is, have an Experience with the Literature.

Again, it never works perfectly by any stretch and there are so many ways I want to explore in my quest to get better at it but overall I think, at my very best, I can create this wave of energy and excitement in the story itself which is the most organic and ultimately most helpful way to get them to want to read.

Also no haha. I don’t let them annotate! Though occasionally kids DO of course. But sometimes they bring in their own copies in order to do that. The spoilers absolutely happen and are annoying but I sort of get by it by moving on very quickly and/or talking about how it’s often not the ending but how you get there that makes it interesting. Because that’s just true!

[jaevy]

your room was square

i once noticed from there

in your bed, as you slept

and i held my breath

everything had its own place

and i wondered what space would i take

in the order you kept

[prototypelq]

Okay so, yesterday I've been on my worst DRG mission yet xD

I am a very green-greenbeard (barely over 10 hours playtime), my fav mission type is Liquid Morkite mining (space oil mining, you need to build a system of pipelines leading to each morkite rift, which requires a lot of fun terrain-conquering problem-solving), because building pipelines is addictively fun. So, as a complete idiot, I see a mission with modifiers (this was a decision I would later regret-but not really) and get on it on a public server (meaning any player can join in, which normally doesn't take too much time at all).

The modifiers on that mission? Low oxygen and Cave Leeches (Cave leeches are enemy type that grab you and drain your health to zero unless somebody else saves you, Low Oxygen means precisely what the name implies, and you need to regularly come back to the mining station to refill your oxygen tanks.) Oh, and the Cave Complexity was 3 (which means, as I've intimately learned on that mission, that the map becomes much bigger, and more obstacles will get in your way, this pairs very badly with low oxygen modifier, as your mission objectives are placed further, but you constantly need to route back to be able to breathe)

So, there my lonely Engineer was, with my best boi Bosco (robot-companion while you play solo, he actually does what you ask him to so he is more useful than actual players xD yes but not really but yes), terrified of the amount of lootbug mess I just stepped into, once I logged in and realised what exactly all those modifiers meant.

I was terrified to explore, as it would be extremely easy to get caught by leeches and Bosco can only revive me two times, and this was only the prep step of the actual mission. Very carefully, I was able to find the first morkite well, and then the real issue arose. While, I am really glad I picked Engie for this mission, as his ability to create platforms is extremely useful when building pipelines, he also is one of the classes that doesn't have innate fast mobility options. In the context of a big map and pipeline building this meant that I had to: imagine the route I can build the pipeline to that particular morkite well, figure out how to mold terrain so the pipeline route would be actually possible to build, go out and mold terrain, then immediately route back because I have no oxygen left, rinse repeat, but switch 'terrain mold' to 'pipeline construction'. Very soon the time I spent getting to the construction point and back took most of my oxygen, so I could work like 30 seconds maybe on a pipeline, before heading back, otherwise my dwarf would suffocate. Also, somehow, Nobody would join. I think I spent around 30, maybe a bit more minutes just trying to build the first pipeline. I was terrified of going outside the tried and true routes because of the cave leeches, so I didn't even have any nitra for a resupply when my platform gun ran out of ammo. I started manually digging through the rock to build the second pipeline. I mean, I started digging for 2 seconds at best, then had to run back because of low oxygen, then back to mining for my two limited seconds.

For some reason, I persisted through this, and built two out of three pipelines. Thankfully, the best route I found for the last line went parallel to my first built line for a long time, so that eased the process a little, and the middle morkite well turned out to be closer than the others, so that was a break. I only had the longest pipeline to build, the one where I had to manually dig a tunnel to place, when, THANK GOD, another player joined in. It was a Gunner, he clearly didn't feel nearly as terrified as I was of the cave leech ambushes, was I bravery or stupidity I know not, but he found us nitra, and I was finally able to order a resupply. Things went easier after I figured out that his ziplines took less time to go up the cliff that pipeline surfing, and with my reloaded platform gun things got much easier. Then another player joined in, a scout this time, and it all went pretty smooth after that. The entire mission took me an hour and a half to complete, and for the most of it I was on my own.

Bosco, I will never forget the bond we built on that mission, robot-buddy my dear,

and the joined guys really saved my ass there,

I would never have finished the mission without them. Remember, if you Rock and Stone, you're never alone!

[lyxchen]

I looked at the songs for the new Mean Girls musical movie and.. why did they leave out all the songs that show Cady's feelings or emotional development?? Like... It Roars? More is better? Do this thing?? These are some of my favorite songs!!

Also I saw that they made a new song that probably replaced It Roars but I listened to it and.. it's really not the same (in a negative way)

I also heard the new version of Stupid With Love and I am so sorry, I'm totally fine if they decide to make changes to the songs but this is just. No. Because this version of the song is so not Cady. She is this little weirdo who for the first time falls in love and has such big emotions and doesn't really know how to handle them but also this crush makes her really happy and the new version just smashes that into tiny pieces and glues them back together with a weird rythm and music that is supposed to be slow and romangic but just really doesn't fit with the lyrics at all. Like I'm sorry but you can't say calcu-lust like that. You just can't

Both of these songs on the new album lack the absolute extatic excitedness Cady has for a lot of the musical which are a big part of what makes her a really lovable character in my opinion and they're also just all around very fun songs!! So to take that away and Also take away two other songs that show her inner world just makes me kinda sad :(

[deus-ex-mona]

series i’m gatekeeping from my family vs series i’m ✨ok✨ with my family knowing i’m into:

[throughpatchesofviolet]

Oh my gosh ... I got the cat her meds on the first try, this morning ... I hecking did it.