#ITS A LONG ONE

[theosconfessions]

if youd like to read the stephens from the beginning you can over here :)

if youd like to read the stephens continued you can over here:)

@ohsosims

theo- yeah we moved pretty fast

scarlett- for someone who didnt want to settle down you did. but he was worthy of that right?

theo- [smirks] you know im not fan of you being passive aggressive as fuck right now. why dont you skip all this shit and ask me what you want to ask me.

scarlett- okay if dustin was the type youd settle down for. whyd you cheat on him twice? i mean the second time you full on left us. him everything you built. the first time well you just couldnt control your dick.

theo- turn the cameras off.

scarlett- sure

theo- im being serious turn the cameras off. im not putting this out there for everyone but if you have questions. fair enough. turn them off.

scarlett- cut the live, blake. say what you need to. but my phones still recording .for dad.

theo- dad knows everything im about to say to you.

scarlett- so say it again.

theo- thank you. so the first time was just stupid and im paying for that with my health. you want answers to why i left you guys and although dustin and i have been good for awhile. i never apologized to you, robin or river. that was my oversight. i could it here and give excuses but there are none. the problemw ith these types of shows, scarlett. especially with guys like me who are completely full of themselves..these shows feed into that. a house full of people who want to fuck me? as a young guy? are you kidding me? i mean, scar do you really think that it was just marlee and lillie i was involved with before dustin? i thought everyone wanted me and i acted as such. so all that aside, i turn 50. im married, i have a five year old you at home to take care of since marlees head is so far up jamis ass by then. BUT the problem is im still thinking like that. like everyone wants me. how could i say no i thought. it had nothing to do with your dad.dustin wanting kids. it had everything to dowith me. im a shitty person. no excuses. i left. and then i woke up. and then sex with strangers wasnt hitting like it did before. woke up alone strung out. still had to go to work . still had to see your father everyday knowing what i did to him. the worst thing ive ever done was hurt that man. it wasnt a quick forgive for him. i was on my knees literally some days. and he rightfully told me to fuck off. he had you guys to look out for.

scarlett- how did you get dad to forgive you? i barely remember you moving back in. you were just there.

theo- wasnt easy . like at all. and i didnt deserve his forgiveness. it took time a lot of it. i had to prove that he could trust me again. we started right back at the beginning. less sex this time though.

scarlett-youre gross

theo- some things dont change

scarlett- do you think dad trusts you now?

theo- if he doesnt? he has every right not to. but id hope in the ten years that weve patched things up that he does. id like to think he does.

scarlett- i still dont

theo- understandable. i dont think river or robin really trust me either. but im grateful youre giving me a chance scarlett. that youre even speaking to me. even if this thing started off as a witchhunt. and your dads probably going to kill me when i get home.

scarlett-[sighs] blake, start the live.

theo- whats this?

scarlett- just wrapping up. do you have any regrets in doing the bachelor?

theo- i regret how i treated the people on it.

scarlett- advice for people going into it?

theo- mm dont think with your dick.

scarlett- charming.

theo- im a charming guy.

scarlett- and where does the future take you,theo?

[being-of-rain]

Okay, time to write my thoughts on Empire of Death. Like the rest of the season, I've only watched it once so far. I think soon I'll binge all of Fourteen and Fifteen soon. And as with many of the episodes, I'll be interested to see what I think of the finale on a rewatch. Anyway, this post gets a little long-winded, and I hope readers will forgive me for feeling my way around my opinions on the episode as I go.

I've already said that I wasn't a big fan of the episode. But part of me thinks that Empire of Death is a very subjective one. People I've seen defending it have said that critics aren't engaging enough with the themes, and are being too nitpicky. That sounds familiar, because I know I've held opinions along those lines on other controversial Dr Who episodes. So in that case, what you think of the episode is going to depend on how you connect to the themes, and to the emotions. How much do you think the themes and emotions earn priority over other aspects of the story and how its judged?

Then again, I suppose I might be contradicting that when I say that there's some themes I liked in the episode, but (like in The Giggle,) I really didn't like how the episode executed them. The idea of Ruby's mum being an ordinary woman is something I like in theory and am not surprised by; celebrating the ordinary in the midst of the extraordinary is a signature move of New Who and has been the twist conclusion for quite a few story arcs already. But while it's done as explicitly here as it ever has been, the plot doesn't really manage to support it.

I'm sure I don't have to list a lot of the questions and nitpicks fans (including me) have here, but even the catch-all explanations of 'a god was interested in the mystery' and 'magic is in Dr Who now' don't feel like they really work for me. For the first because it feels out of character and contrived that Sutekh cares about this mystery at all, and if he does then why only this one? And for the second, well its unclear how or even if the magic unleashed in the 60th specials affect this finale at all, since Sutekh seems to have completely different origins to the other two gods (and if it does have bearing on this episode then that isn't made clear at all). You could say this is me getting hung up on nitpicks and details, and I really do hate letting those things get in the way of a story... but it's hard not to when those details are such a large part of the story. I don't quite agree with the harsh criticism of RTD taking advantage of the viewers or whatever (which I think has been said about every showrunner), but this arc/s and final two episodes are so geared towards speculation and building up questions in spectacular ways that brushing over them with not much of an answer feels... well, like a plot hole.

As a result, statements like 'this ordinary woman is so important because of what we thought of her' and 'time is memory and memory is time', while really lovely sentiments, and themes I'd love to see explored, only really make sense if disconnected from the rest of the story. To come back to my first paragraph, they're themes that you have to give so much priority to over the rest of the story that they basically become premises that need to be accepted in order to carry the plot, rather than the other way around.

Does any of this make sense? I think all this was to say: for me this story definitely doesn't earn the 'themes are good enough to ignore the details' approach, even though I love the themes. Never mind, that summary made even less sense.

Another criticism I had of The Giggle, and pretty much all of RTD's finales, is that RTD really wants to go for big emotional moments and let the emotions carry the plot... but the emotions just don't always hit for me, especially when it doesn't feel like the story's earned it. That feels like more of a problem in Empire of Death than ever before.

Maybe the scene with the biggest emotional impact on me (not a massive impact, but bigger than the rest of the episode) was the scene with the lady giving the Doctor the spoon, possibly because it felt so strangely divorced from the rest of the episode, like a scene from a different episode dropped in the middle.

Ruby's departure was... well for one, unexpected. I know she's in the next season, right? Is it a series 4 Martha come-back-as-a-guest-star situation, or a series 9 Clara the-departure-was-a-fakeout situation? Anyway, the departure was... about as satisfying as I've found Ruby's character arc. I really had hoped that her only important defining character trait wasn't 'orphan who wants to meet her bio mum,' but its hard not to think of her that way after this episode. I never really found anything to hook me on the character. Shame.

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but I can't help but compare Ruby's arc to Izzy Sinclair's arc from the DWM comics. On an obvious level, Ruby's arc concludes with her successfully tracking down her bio mum while Izzy's arc concludes with her happily returning to her adoptive parents, no longer considering her 'secret origins' as a missing part of herself. And while I definitely prefer the sentiment of Izzy's story, I don't want to say Ruby uncovering her origins and gaining a new parent automatically makes for a bad ending to an adoptee's story. But I think just as important is that with Izzy, we really dive into why she feels the way she does. We learn in great detail how her feelings about being adopted connect to many other things in her life, not least her self image. In comparison, Ruby feels downright shallow. She's incredibly curious who her mother is, considering it part of her legend... and that's about it. It doesn't really affect her in any way most episodes. Maybe I'm being unfair here and I'd be less harsh after my rewatch, we'll see.

Unfortunately the resolution to the Sutekh plot also didn't satisfy me. Dragging Sutekh back through the time vortex to 'bring death to death' just... doesn't work for me. Not even on a storybook level, or fairytale level, or purely emotion-based level. It felt... idk... childish?, in a way I really didn't vibe with. But honestly I would've been happy it happened if, when the Doctor started listing planets he was bringing back, he mentioned Gallifrey and revealed the Time Lords were alive again and then we could all just move on. Sigh.

I think that's most of the major points. What else do I have to say?

The oppressive empty atmosphere of Sutekh's dead universe was cool. There was a scene with just Sutekh and his minion where everything beside them was intensely silent, which really hammered the point home. It's still funny/silly to me that the so-called god of music wanted this exact same thing.

Mel is still lovely, and call me a nerd but her recognising Six's outfit and later cuddling with Seven's was maybe the best part of the episode for me. Apart from that she sure spent a lot of time standing around with no dialogue. I finally got an answer to the question I'd been asking since November last year- if there'd been a reason Mel in particular was brought back to the show- and the answer is Not Really. I did laugh when a friend pointed out that there's plot-important computer hacking in this episode and during that Mel was told to go keep watch in the corridor.

Meanwhile Kate felt like she was parodying herself by trying to recruit Susan at the end of the episode. Teens work for UNIT because Kate can't be around someone for five minutes without trying to headhunt them. I saw Kate and the random soldier hold hands at the end but read it as (or maybe very much hoped it was) platonic and relieved to be alive.

I don't think I truly knew how much the Vlinx annoyed me until it was killed by Sutekh, and for one short moment I was filled with joy at the belief it wouldn't be coming back. Sorry the Vlinx.

The TARDIS has a laser that can be activated with a whistle? Huh? Did I miss something or is that just a fact? The only thing I could think to connect it with was the 'heart-of-the-Tardis-laser-beam' from Flux, which would make it much stupider.

I'm pretty sure Mrs Flood will be a new character, but heck if I know. She doesn't seem like Susan anymore. Oh yeah! So I guess Susan wasn't in this apart from one second of archival footage. Unless next season uses this as foreshadowing, it feels like a waste.

And that's all I can remember after one viewing! I believe the next episode is a christmas special by Steven Moffat? I've decided I'm excited for it. I think Moffat christmas eps have more hits than misses, as opposed to RTD finales.

[drakesvalley]

So introjection right. That thing where you internalize external things and they manifest as alters/traits/etc somehow. This isn't going to be about being treated like your source character.

This is about being treated as a source character.

We're pretty open about ourselves. We love talking about our experiences and what goes on in our head. We often draw ourselves and share it online because it makes us happy.

In the one public system space we hang out in, people have introjected us as alters from time to time. Which is OK I guess. We honestly don't mind that in particular. It happens. Especially with how we present ourselves publicly.

As long as you still remember we are real people with real feelings.

It's actually really really weird being referred to as a source. As something to be consumed. As something to take the bits and pieces of that you like. As something on the same level as a fictional character.

I know introjects of real people (aka factives) exist, but we're not a public figure or content creator. We're just some guy with DID and us as alters are a direct representative of that. We deal with some really rough shit actually and I don't Particularly enjoy that being taken in a light way.

One of us has a "stage name" for example. He doesn't use it normally. He hates using it unless he's actively going through it. It's a very direct metaphor for something that happened to us.

Seeing someone introject him, take that name and use it casually is very fucking uncomfortable actually!!

I guess like. If something like this happens, please talk to us about it. Please ask us directly where our boundaries lie. Ask the person in question if they are OK with you using the same profile picture, or name, or anything. I want people to communicate with us about that kind of stuff. So we don't have a major mutual freakout over it.

And... please, if someone is uncomfortable. Don't try to justify it with saying you can't control introjection and that it happens very easily for you. What happens in your head happens, but you can control how you respond to it. And deflecting someone else's discomfort with you taking their trauma responses isn't the way to go about it.

[komokura]

The next chapter of Living-Dead will be released this Sunday!! (Possibly earlier, we'll see.)

[goatpaste]

Rubbing my grubby hands togeather, now that I finished that comic project, time to immediatly move to my next big project 😈

[naavispider]

Chapter 39 - If you playing me that mean my home aint home

He could hear the pounding of a dozen footsteps behind him, along with shouts and yells to get after him, but he paid the soldiers no attention. He managed to slam the door to the airlock shut before anyone caught up to him, which was a good thing too, because they couldn’t unlock it now without breaching the pressure of the entire cabin. Soldiers ran into the small circular window to the airlock, thumping furiously on the glass. 

Spider threw his mask on, and raised his finger in response. 

Curses were thrown his way as the green light pinged and he threw open the other side of the airlock. Sunlight streamed across his body, but he couldn’t afford to slow down - soldiers out here were already running towards him. 

[spanishinfluenza]

a little late Valentine's gift for you all but it's still Feb so this is fine

Chapter 7 of my au Carlisle/Esme fic, Rope in Hand is up and it's the longest one yet. plss feel free to let me know if you enjoy (or hate it lol)

[e17omm]

Upcoming chapter of Snippets AU is currently sitting at 6,880 words.

[saltwaterinks-blog]

Chapters: 1/30 Fandom: One Piece (Anime & Manga) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Portgas D. Ace/Reader Characters: Portgas D. Ace, Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco, Thatch (One Piece), Izou (One Piece) Additional Tags: Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Verse, Omega fushichou marco, Alpha Portgas D. Ace, Omega Monkey D. Luffy, Omega Reader, Alpha Thatch, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Thatch Dies, No beta reader, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, non-traditional relationships i guess, Pirates Summary:

Omega Reader gets saved by Ace who just joined the Whitebeard Pirates officially.

Turns out she could be his fated mate? She is going join the Whitebeard Pirates?? Will Ace finally accept love??? Is Marco ever getting a peacefull afternoon for himself?!

I'm bad at summarys and english isn't my first language (y-y )

[gross-gal]

So, I have to ask your opinion on Sonic X. It's the only Sonic related thing I have the most knowledge of.

So, X is one I have a lot of mixed feelings on. I didn't get a chance to play very many Sonic games as a kid so X was basically the best I had and for what it is, I think it's a pretty good introduction to how these characters are meant to be. They're all pretty accurate for the most part, albeit, kind of stupider.

I binged through this with a friend and rewatched S3 recently and...yeah this show is not very good. I find it boring for the most part and when it's not letting the Sonic cast take focus, it's really annoying. Even when getting to arcs that were "the most exciting," they're also not good. S2 just tells worse versions of the Adventure storylines and S3 only gets engaging towards the end.

Almost none of the original characters for this show are that interesting either. I kinda feel about the same for Cosmo as I do for Chris.

But...at the same time...

When this show has it's moments...they're genuinely really great and you can see a glimpse at what a good Sonic adaptation could be.

A lot of people bash on S1's filler stuff, but I actually found them to be the most entertaining. There's just something comforting about seeing these characters in more simpler action scenarios or just simply seeing them hang out or do little nice things. Everyone thinks about the episode with Sonic helping Helen, and for good reason.

And when they have emotional moments, I always think about Season 2's last episodes. I feel bad that Chris gets as much shit as he does, for good reason because they made him so weirdly dependent on Sonic, but I genuinely love that episode where Sonic takes time alone with him so he's ready when he's gone.

Sonic X has some fantastic emotional beats that are really great from an outsider perspective, but watching the show, they're a lot more heartwretching cause they overall mean nothing.

Genuinely, this show has some of my favorite writing for Sonic's character. And a lot of the problems this show has will make sense if you know that this was written by Sonic 06's writer. But what I like about that and X is how it show's Sonic's heroism and sensitive side. They have his attitude down so well, I think about it a lot.

Season 3's finale with Sonic talking to Dark Oak is engraved in my mind. AGGHHHH I HATE THIS SHOW BUT I ALSO KINDA LOVE IT.

Oh but it does have the worst Amy ever and that pisses me off.

[franciskirkland]

new chapter of dancing w a stranger is up homies i struggled thru this one

[generic-cleric]

Session 54

Doc

Folder

Curse of Strahd spoilies lie within. Read at your own risk!!1!

Take Me Out

They begin at the gates of Krezk. The guards see them approach and meet them in front of the large wooden doors to the community. They explain that they brought Ilya home and would like entry pleeeaaase. The guards thank them for bringing their kid back and call for the knife to commence the hand slicing test while quickly ushering Ilya through the door. The party is like “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up man!” because they were really hoping to avoid that whole thing.

Bedlam nudges Jander and quietly asks him to charm the guard so they can get through. Jander obliges and hops down from the wagon. The guard fails his roll against Jander’s (vampiric) charming personality and is super jazzed to see him again. They step away from the cart and speak with each other hushedly, glancing back at the wagon a couple times during their conversation. The party waits with bated breath until the guard calls over “Miss Kolyana! You two have been granted entry." She hands the reins over to Vondal and says “Good luck, I’ll see you guys inside!” and hops off the wagon and walks with Jander through the doors. Jander looks back at the party and says “Get sucked.”

The party was caught between laughing and panicking, in and out of character. 

A guard from inside swings the wooden doors wide open, instead of presenting a dagger, motions for the party to enter. They were hella relieved. They entered the community and found Jander and Ireena waiting for them. Jander thought it was hilarious. 

“Of course he does!” huffs Bedlam’s player.

They decided to stop by Dimitri Krezkov’s home in hopes of some reward for returning Ilya. Jander decides to wait outside. He’s worried the party is going to oust him as a vampire and doesn’t want to be there if they do. 

The Baron’s home is a cottage, so the room they were in had two chairs and was kind of small. The players joked about the silly ways they were sitting in the seats and Bedlam’s player said they were going to refer to Vel as “my client” during this interaction.

Dimitri explains that as far as he’s concerned the party has earned their keep. They have full access to the community and what it has to offer. (So they don’t have to work to earn their stay) They will be given a home to use while they are here. (This does not work like their home in Vallaki. It’s more of a vacation home or a timeshare.) Dimitri also recommended utilizing the services of Iosef Moldovar, an exquisite tailor. (They get to design a new “winter” outfit for their character using Heroforge.) He also recommended Gerta van der Knupple if they wanted a great meal.

He says to them that he doesn’t want to ask anything of them but they have more than proven themselves capable of dealing with… well anything really. 

They are gaining quite the reputation between this and restoring the winery

ANYWAY, he explains that they are experiencing a food shortage. They have been getting ransacked and robbed. Both in Krezk and on the road near Tsolenka Pass. He also offhandedly mentions that they’ve been grave robbed a lot recently as well. They assume it’s the werewolves. He explains that they have found evidence of wolf prints near the crime scenes. Well, there were other animal prints too- and feathers and scales, but there were definitely wolf prints. The party suspects the folks in the abbey because the werewolves are also experiencing a food shortage.

Dimitri explains that he doesn’t really care who’s doing it, he just needs it fixed. While rifling through some old papers, he found some records of an estate about half a day’s journey from Krezk. He tells the party that if that land can be used as farmland for Krezk, they would have more than enough food to go around. The only issue is that he doesn’t know the state of the property, but if the party can go check it out and remove any squatters, they would be welcome to whatever fortunes lie in the vault of the wealthy family.

The party agrees to take on the request. They also get to talking about lycanthropy. Bedlam mentions that Ilya destroyed one of their couches one night and Dimitri seemed embarrassed and apologized profusely. Bedlam assured him it’s all good, but asks for some advice on handling lycanthropy. Dimitri makes some inquiries and Bedlam explains that Vondal has been afflicted and the full moon is in like two nights. He didn’t mention Ireena, even though she was standing there with them, and I forgot to ask the player if that was on purpose or not. Not that it matters, I’m just curious.

The Baron tells them that they thought the cellar and silver manacle combination was fool-proof but alas, they are the fools. Up until now though it had been working. Bedlam asks if Dimitri has any spares that they could have or borrow. Dimitri says he’ll dig around and see what he can find.

The party leaves the house with two sets of silver manacles. Using two sets on a lycanthrope will incapacitate them, while using one set will restrain the lycanthrope. While restrained with one set, the lycanthrope has disadvantage on strength rolls to escape.

They decide to leave and consider their options since Bedlam has plans at night. While they are toddling around town, they notice Ismark with a tall buff guy. Ismark is holding a paper and motioning to it and talking to a lady.

Bedlam shouts and calls him over. He happily rushes over, limping and leaning on a cane. He greets everyone warmly and is so happy to see that Ireena is alright. Everyone asks what happened.

He explains that Doru escaped the basement of the church and attacked the town. He also says that a monster of a woman with a platinum skull mask sliced his leg really bad and injured him, seemingly permanently. He never would have survived if Parriwimple here hadn’t been there. The big man nods.

“And what does Parriwimple sound like?” asks Bedlam’s player.

“Parriwimple doesn’t talk.”

Anyway, Ismark describes the village to look like a scene out of a zombie movie- er… play. Dead bodies in the street, houses boarded up, screaming and all that stuff. You know. Like normal but worse. He tells them that he is in need of more guardspeople and that Vargas rejected his request. If he can’t get guards from Dimitri he might have to travel south. They try to convince him to come to the abbey to ask some of the folk up there to go be guards. They were snickering and giggling while saying this, so I think they just wanted to see his reaction… and honestly I think it would be worth seeing. 

He tells them that he would love to go, but he’s starving and in need of a hot meal. The blue Water Inn wasn’t open when they were in Vallaki and he’s really bummed that he missed out on an Urwin meal. At the reminder of food, Vondal is now also focusing on food and only food.

“Okay, okay, let’s go check out this nipple lady.” sigh the other players who were desperate for hooks just a moment ago.

I describe a town square-esq location where all the people with specialties live, like smiths and carvers and such. A place for people to bring their excess supplies and things. One of the places looks more like a makeshift cafe with an open, community kitchen, though one woman seems to be making all the food and handing it out. 

She tells them that they get whatever she serves them because that’s what she has the ingredients for. Which is fine because it was delicious. She ends up mentioning to the party that her good-for-nothing son Gojko lives across the street and unrightfully gets more visitors than her because he stole her cookbook. She says that she can cook a meal twice as good as this one if they can get the book back for her. They agree and immediately begin coming up with ideas to heist the book out of there. Vondal gets up from the table and begins marching over there to just take it from the guy.

She stops him and mentions that there are far too many people in there during the day to steal it, and that she recommends going there under the cover of the night. This prompts a discussion of how they are going to spend the rest of the day and evening. After a lot of debating and considering and DM intervention, they had their plans formed.

They go to the Abbey to check in on Evelyn and decide this time they were going to explore the place. The party wanders into the garden, scare away some rabbits and then they hear the horrible chorus of laughing and wailing. They debate on what to do. First they decide to go in there and kill whatever monsters lie within… then they decide “Well Evelyn has all kinds of weird projects going on here, maybe we should check in with her first before we go crazy.” and with that they decided they moved along to the courtyard. They were surrounded by locked sheds full of sounds of screaming and laughing. Vondal opened the lid of the well to see what was inside and found a beastfolk skittering up the cobblestone toward him. I let him roll to see if he could close and secure the lid in time, and he was successful. After that, I think they were done exploring the Abbey because it was way too unsettling for them.

They find Vel’s mom moping at the table in the main Hall, pieces of Vasilika I scattered on the floor. They ask Evelyn if she’s okay and have a short conversation. She begs Veledrel not to get caught up in this mess and to please let her handle it. She is confident that if she can make a perfect bride for Strahd, she can get everyone out of here safely. Vel is extremely skeptical and doesn’t trust Strahd.

They get around to asking her about all the screaming and wailing, she tells them that some of the beastfolk are sick in a way that renders her unable to cure them. She tries her best to help them, but with the Vasilika Project, she has been unable to give them much attention so she created some babysitters to take care of them. They seemed pleased with that answer and didn’t push it more. I cannot express to you how unsettled they were by this place.

They skedaddle back to their place. They come back to their warm little vacation home. Jander has a lovely smelling simmer pot bubbling away on the stove, a fire crackling in the fireplace. Jander is sitting at the table whittling with Lancelot sleeping at his feet. Okrin sits at the table with him tending to his collection of weapons. Ireena was out with Ismark and they all expected Jander to be moping

We joke about how Jander was working happily until the party enters loudly and abruptly, it startles him and he ruins his craft, grumbling and tossing it into the fireplace, and returning to his normal, broody disposition.

Bedlam spends some time getting ready for his date, fretting about his lack of outfits to wear. Ireena offers to stitch up any holes in their clothes for them and they take her up on the offer. Not only does she mend them, but she embellished them with embroidery! Also Jander heckled Bedlam for not having anything to gift to Anastrasya.

“I am the gift, baby!” he says with a wink and a smile.

They also exchange custody of Sergei because Bedlam wants to do a debauchery and doesn’t want Sergei to have to see that. It’s a dramatic experience for both of them, but Sergei is super happy to be with his buddy Jander. 

Night falls and Bedlam waltzes out to meet his date. He finds her hanging out at the front gates talking to the guards and laughing as they try to impress her. Bedlam shows up and convinces them to leave via deception roll regarding an illegally parked wagon. Once alone, they discuss their plans for the evening. She tells him that she wants to go dancing and that she knows a little place as long as he’s not afraid of horses. Tch, of course he isn’t.

She uses Phantom Steed to summon her personalized misty skeletal horse with gaudy reins, saddles, and whatnot. Beautiful long wavy mane and tail that end in wisps of mist pooling on the ground that only seems corporeal because there are red ribbons braided throughout. Bedlam tried to not act too impressed, but he was really impressed.

They both hop on and ride into the night at breakneck speeds. Bedlam had to make a few rolls to hang on and to avoid taking damage from surrounding trees. He successfully stayed on the horse and took no damage all the way to the graveyard.

Meanwhile, Vondal and Veledrel enlist Jander to help them break into Gojko’s place. Of course he doesn’t want to, but he eventually relents, though I think he was hoping Ireena would be strong armed into it but she wasn’t. She stayed at the cottage with Okrin because his player was gone this session.

They sneak out and find the target destination. First they try to lure Gojko out with Dancing Lights, but when that doesn’t work out, Vondal decides to break a window, turn into a rat, and climb through. Veledrel followed, inviting Jander in as he went. Jander turns into a mist and moves past him, reforming inside the main room of the establishment. Veledrel marvels at the fact that he isn’t wet for the Jander mist.

They eventually find a hatch door that leads them to a basement corridor with a door to the right, left, and before them. 

Anastrasya raises an undead orchestra and complains about the low number of music players. Bedlam inquires and she explains that this graveyard is full of great musicians and was one of the few that hadn’t been ransacked by Escher. While Anastrasya preened herself, Bedlam took a loot around the cemetery.

He didn’t bother to open the mausoleum, but he did look at the headstones. None of them were names he recognized, except for his own- though when he did a double take it was another name. He also noticed that some of the gravedirt looked slightly churned, and there were spots where the ground felt like a mole trail. 

Anastrasya announced over the music that she was ready to dance, and dance they did! With the help of some excellent performance rolls, they had a wonderful time dancing into the night. They hardly noticed the ground shaking. Something was tunneling under the ground at them, displacing gravestones as it approached. A big, gross Otyugh erupted from the ground.

Veledrel opens one of the doors and finds a storage room, the door of which is flanked by two golden statues. Vondal and Vel start digging through the boxes and only find meager baking ingredients. Their snooping caused the statues by the door to animate and attack. This is where they find out the statues are actually butter. A fight ensues and eventually, the boys are able to take down the butter golems. Now covered in greasy butter, they make their way to the next room.

They approach the door and spot a tripwire. I honestly don’t remember if they just stepped around it or if Vel used a fire spell to trigger it safely, but they were able to avoid the trap in the hallway.

They open the door to find a messy kitchen and a man chanting an incantation in front of a huge oven. They can easily spot the family cookbook resting on the counter. Gojko looks over his shoulder at them and says “You’re too late, happy birthday to ME!” and a large cake monster bursts from the fiery oven. My description was “Huge man-shaped Muk (Pokemon) looking creature, made of icing that is constantly rolling down its body, and he has like 30 something to 40 something candles on his head.” I also described how Gojko bolted out of the room with the family cookbook.

“Uh… Happy Birthday!” says Vondal.

We run probably one of the most ambitious combats I have undertaken and it went so smoothly. I had them roll initiative and then chose initiative for the enemies and npcs based off of the party’s. Veledrel, Vondal, Jander, and Cake Boss were at the beginning of the combat, while Bedlam, Anastrasya, and the Otyugh were the second, lower half of combat.

By the end of the fight with the cake monster, Vel, Vondal, and Jander were covered in buttercream barf and singed from it’s candle attack. But they defeated it! They were able to track down Gojko who was hiding under his bed. Vondal grabbed him by the foot and yoinked him out. He was cowardly and terrified of them and offered them anything if they spared his life. They snatched the book and told him to get along with his mom better.

Bedlam and Anastrasya had a great time fighting together as well as having some great banter. He was impressed with her spectral flying swords she could summon, and while the orchestra played, they got a +1d4 to their rolls. After they beat the horrible creature Anastrasya told him that the vibe was totally ruined here and that they should go back to her crypt or his. He directs her to the tower on the lake since the Krezk cottage is a cottage, and the house in Vallaki usually has a lot of people there. They go and have a fade-to-black, he also takes damage from her bite and one slashing attack.

In the morning Vondal and Vel return the book to Gerta who tells them that she knows all the recipes because she wrote the book. She doesn’t need it, she just didn’t want her son to have it. She offers to let the party keep the cookbook, which they do.

It’s an item that may be attuned that gives the benefits of the Chef feat without the ability score increase!

That’s pretty much where we decided to end the session. We decided that Bedlam would be returning to the party when we picked up next time!

I used this adventure when creating this session for my players. I changed what I needed to in order to make it fit the setting of Krezk but kept the overall structure of the adventure. I also scaled the monsters way down and removed a few things from their statblocks as they were presented in the homebrew adventure. I’d be happy to go on about it but this post is long enough. Feel free to send me an ask if you wanna know more about the changes I made.

If you read all this, wow, thank you so much! You get inspiration!

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[ofwinterandwolves]

Backlogs building. First two chapters are edited and ready.

Eeeeeeee.

[zanmor]

We are well beyond canary in the coalmine warning levels with the way trans people and particularly trans women are treated on this site.

Maybe you've heard the metaphor of allowing wolves and sheep to share the same space, welcoming everyone. You end up with just wolves because allowing them in that space makes it unsafe for any sheep. Or the story about how a nazi goes into a dive bar and is refused service. The bartender then explains to someone else at the bar that if you serve them once they tell their friends and before you know it you're the nazi bar they all go to and normal customers don't feel safe.

Terfs and other bigots are seeing these targeted harassment campaigns succeed against trans women and rejoicing. They see Tumblr ban them and officially stand by those decisions as endorsement for their harassment. It's a sign to bigots across the internet that Tumblr is a good place for them.

And what's more is that a lot of us probably don't realize just how much trans women contribute to Tumblr. The women banned recently were sources of site-wide memes and posts I wasn't even aware originated from them.any years old memes and references can be traced back to trans women on this site.

How many of these folks have to be removed before this is no longer a site you want to be a part of it? Sure you cultivate your own experience, but you can't follow or interact with people who aren't here. And if I wanted to interact with the nazis and terfs I'd go to reddit.

I encourage everyone to reblog this. Trans women shouldn't have to be the only ones speaking out against the bigotry they're experiencing. They shouldn't be the only ones risking their blogs being nuked by staff. We have to stand with them.

[lokh]

communication is key 💪