#come to think of it I don't think i've ever really seriously played dnd like with high detail and technical aspects

[bookwyrminspiration]

Yessss dnd nerds :DD and dam yeah that is a wacky situation it turned out sick tho!! Perks of being at least mostly blonde is i dont have to panic ab bleach tho i was thinking about combing like the three leftover pinks i have and then maybe doin somethin like what u have cause its so cool and i like Need to dye my hair again soon qhfkks <3

Grew up with a dnd nerd (my dad), so I think it's in my dna or something, just latent rn. I've engaged casually, but the extreme nerdom has yet to be activated.

But yeah I really just fuck around and find out with my hair most of the time. If it really goes bad I can just shave it off, so very little stress about it all (despite what my christmas color near meltdown might imply).

Also you are SO lucky ough that's a whole step and situation you don't even gotta deal with I'm. Damn. I'm not jealous because I have no desire to be blond but like. Bleaching is such a hassle and you don't even gotta do it -_-

But also!! If you do something like what I have I sooo wanna know about it and hear what you end up doing! Fun hair colors are a delight of life so I'm very happy for you!! Have so so much silly with it :3

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

Thoughts on Jason Todd’s choice of weaponry?

:D an ask! Yay!

Oooh, lets see, I'll start with the crowbars because I appear to be like one of three people on the entire planet who actually likes them.

They're a tacky as fuck riff on the fact that Jason's death is central to his character. They overemphasize the manner in which he died, muddy the waters about what part of his death is important to him, and strangely cheapens the manner in which he died through the parody feel of it.

No one seems to really disagree with my analysis here, but I happen to enjoy that about them and think it's very on brand for Jason. What can I say? They're fun!

Best Quality - His Wiggles

This ultra-sharp curved blade used to be his signature character design feature, the way the white streak in his hair is now, and I'm really not sure why it didn't stick!

Best weapon he's ever had, bring it back please!!!!!

The All-Blades

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM...

I have mixed feelings about the All-Blades. Like much of Lobdell's work: phenomenal idea, poor execution. Giving the guy who is most known for being morally grey a set of powers that is exclusively based on moral absolutes sucks shit, I gotta be honest, and the trick he pulled on the blood blade was cool but ultimately does nothing to solve those problems.

HOWEVER

I want to love them so fucking badly. A set of glowy soul blades is a dope sicknasty off the chain concept and I wish the well wasn't poisoned with the moral implications and the restrictions to use them only on the "Untitled", a set of enemies that only exist for Jason so far as I can tell. If someone seriously took Jason down a magic based path that removed the DnD alignment chart bullshit, I would be so game to see them come back! Hell I wouldn't even insist on a better cooler design for them!

...though uh, yeah those are the least interesting magic sword designs I've ever seen tbh

Normal Ass Swords

They're alright I guess. Like, there's nothing in it really, but it's not bad?

Guns - Real Bullets

Excellent, evocative yet simple, straightforwards and to the point. It makes hella sense thematically to boot, love this for him, please give him back his pistols and miniguns and shit

Guns - Rubber Bullets

Hate. HATE. hate ick disgusting bad NO.

I just fucking hate rubber bullets, like, as a concept. I refuse to accept "non-lethal" bullets as a valid use of gun, either in real life or in fiction. Guns are for putting many holes in things very fast!!!! If you're gonna use a gun, fucking well own up to that!!! Do not play this silly ass game of pretending that you can change out the material and do the same things as with lead bullets but with the video game status effect of "non-lethal" applied. YOU ARE GIVING PEOPLE SMALL CIRCULAR BRUISES. This is still harmful, yes, ooph ouchie, but it is not even slightly a good use of a gun, you are wasting holster space, and carry weight, and the physical materials used to make it all!!

JUST USE A FUCKING STICK! YOU DON'T RUN OUT OF STICK AMMO!

My belief in his capacity to take out enemies is shattered the instant those fuckers are on panel. Maybe this ain't entirely rational, or realistic to how fights go with rubber bullets IRL, but I hate them so much on principle that I will ignore any counterargument you might have that they'd work. I will die on this hill. Rubber bullets BAD. Please stop making him use this!!

Bombs

Love it, give him more bombs forever

ka-BOOM!!!!

His Brain

This is actually his best weapon - sorry wiggly knife, you're being shunted down to number 2 on a last minute technicality! I think Jason is at his best when he's outsmarting people and making long term fucked up schemes to ruin people's lives.

He's so good at it! It's so fun to watch him do it!

Genuinely a shame that this facet of him was mostly lost after Flashpoint, though to give credit where it is due, in Rebirth Jason did ruin the Penguin's life in an impressively elaborate way, which I did really enjoy. I want to see him be a tactical deliberate menace to one person in specific again idk, that's part of why I do kinda agree that he works better as an antagonist than a protagonist - which it should be noted does not mean I think he works better as a villain necessarily, his ethics aren't what matter here - he's just had his best moments as the schemer, and it's hard to have a protagonist schemer even when you make them ethically the good guy.

I hope you enjoyed my nattering on about Jason's weapons :D thank ye again for ask!

[vanillatalc]

the anxiety came upon me a bit yesterday and didn't really leave - I'm alright now

embarrassingly most of the anxiety is from the wedding but not even the marriage part of it really like... not to be complacent about things but we've been together 10y and lived together for 7, don't want kids so there's not that potential stressor, not moving out without ana (we love ana) so we don't have THAT stress either so the marriage thing is like just not really that scary 🫥 I'm committed, he's committed (afaik lmfao), it's literally been us two in this really tight friendship & relationship since 2012 and yeah I mean it is what it is lol

BUT THE ANXIETY OF THE WEDDING ITSELF is so crazy lol like we have never been hugely social anyway but post COVID we've seriously become absolute shut-ins who spend all our time with each other (this includes ana), especially me BC I work from home on my own so like.. also obviously no kids to farm parent friends from (maybe the only thing that seems like an improvement on not having kids) so this will be the first time in YEARS that we've socialized much and also with a whole bunch of people I've never met in person before BC I couldn't get married and NOT invite my internet friends who are as important to me as anyone else at this point. like we've got a few people coming in from America which is AMAZING and I'm so thankful and excited, but I'm also like oh my fucking god what if I've somehow misrepresented my entire way of being.

meeting internet friends isn't even new for me - let it not be forgotten that me and Ben met on Tumblr and me and ana met on fucking livejournal!! and obviously things turned out well there lol 👁️👁️ but this is the first time I've ever met so many at once lol. I was saying to Ben earlier like what if they think I'm so ugly.. and he was like of course they won't!!!! it's also really telling my primary concern is that they're gonna think I'm ugly (read: fat.. sigh) instead of boring or whatever like!!! get a fucking grip Cham oh my god!!!!?!

basically it's just gonna be a lot at once and I am gonna try and think of ways to mitigate the insanity I assume will arrive at some point. have already informed everyone that the day after the wedding I'm going to be doing fuck all + sitting in silence on my bed and they were fine with this and I think they might be playing wedding themed DND with Ben on that day instead which I think is such a cute idea lol

[violetsystems]

A Jehovah's Witness sent a letter to the building in Spanish. I translated it and did the forensics in a Columbo-esque sort of way. I think they were a realtor. That is a deadly combination. Like a dual class dnd character. Thief Shaman. Maybe that's too harsh of a conclusion. The letter mentioned proverbs 14:30 which had something to do with envy and rot. So naturally I applied it to Elden Ring which I finished finally with the Ranni, Age of Stars ending. I'm baptized, confirmed and non practicing in terms of Christianity. It doesn't mean I'm not spiritual. But people around here tend to judge you harshly if you don't go to church which is odd for an urban city like Chicago. That's kind of why I moved here from the suburbs to keep my business to myself. But I know enough about the Bible to have read through it once or twice. It's Christmas time anyway so it's good practice to get in the spirit of the holiday. The letter said if the message resonated to call them and since they are probably a realtor I wonder if they would try to witness me out of my apartment. People use religion of all kinds to confidence trick people out of the freedom of their life. That's how cults start. I'm not here to judge anyone's faith which is ironic in this context. But I did get to practice my Spanish. I'm celebrating Christmas with my mom late with Chinese food. We were both raised protestant but she has worked in the Archdiocese as a teacher for a few years. There was even that time growing up that we both had more affinity for Wiccan practices like Tarot. I never really gave up on those kind of ideals but I never really stopped being raised the way I was. Call it upbringing. I've been told I'm going to hell for more things than I can count but that's not really something I take too seriously in context of my own faith. She told me she tells people that I am too nice sometimes. Which isn't really true when I yell at the wall alone in my apartment in frustration with everything. But that niceness comes out sometimes humoring people and situations that don't deserve it. And then there are the people that do deserve it without question. I'm lucky to have those people in my life. But writing letters for me to accept Jesus is kind of redundant at this point. In America it never is good enough if someone asks about your spirituality. They never leave you alone. They expect something out of your faith. And that isn't really religious freedom at all. Imposing your divine will on someone else's like God so you can play it. I thought the concept of unconditional love was unconditional. Beyond all the religious imagery, it is a real important side of the Elden Ring lore. Queen Marika is the figure on the stakes you revive in. She's seemingly impaled on a rune arc. I wonder if the hidden message there is that faith can be a blessing for some and a burden for others. I'm not trying to lecture anybody on religion here at all. Just saying there's a classy way to express you believe in something without imposing your divine order on everybody else. Golden order or otherwise. For everybody who thought I was Satan around this neighborhood? It's not like you ever asked my first name. What's that line about judgement again? I think I read it on a yugioh card once. For the record, it's a little too late for introductions at this point. Nice letter though. Even if it wasn't addressed to me. Yours truly, Mr. Current Resident.

[hollyvorpahl]

Also, for the wip ask game: please pick one you really want to answer!

12. What inspired this wip?

A Vow from the Winter Lord: I've wanted to write a Faerie romance story based in a Winter Court for a long time. A lot of Fae Romance is Dark Court or Spring Court. Winter is my favorite season and when I was a kid I got a chunk of my winters in one of the most beautiful winter areas, Alaska. There's just something magical about the quiet world in a snowy winter. It takes the littlest amount of light and makes the world glitter. I had bits and pieces to a story but not enough. It wasn't until I read Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik that I started to piece more together. I liked the book but it wasn't really what I was looking for. So I was finally able to put together what I wanted from a Winter Faerie romance. 

The Dot Duology: This one started as a DnD side thing for myself. Almost a decade ago, I started playing DnD. My first character was a Halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer named Beth. She liked to cook. My best friend and I would rp a story with her and an oc my friend made that was set in our own world. This actually got me back into seriously writing on my own again (long story). Few years later, a module for DnD came out called Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. I played a revamped version of Beth that I renamed Dorothy Lynn Pippetwhistle (the last name was from an Asmr video by Goodnight Moon Asmr) or Dot. Her whole backstory was she wanted to open a tavern then expand into an Inn. The DM indulged this completely. We'd do quests then in the downtime when others were doing stuff for their factions, I was building business for my tavern. It was the most fun I've ever had playing DnD. I started to write about Dot on my own to relax at night after a hard day. Nothing serious. But then I was talking to someone about it and they got super excited about the idea. See, I didn't think there was a market for something like this. Low and behold, there is! So I started to develop it into a serious wip.

A Princess Guide to Love and Necromancy: This one is gonna reveal something about myself I hope you're ready for. For a very long time, I've loved the idea of a Princess in a tower falling in love with the Dragon guarding it. I also really like this little scene I have in my head where a knight comes to rescue the princess but she fights him off because she's happy in the tower with the dragon. And the dragon comes running, clearly worried and she's all annoyed because this is the second time this week that she's been attacked in her home by a jackass in a can. I matched this with the aesthetic of a DnD character idea I had for either a Necromancer Wizard or Shadow Sorcerer. Picture Lottie from Princess and the Frog but medieval and wielding scarier forms of magic. I like the contrast. I love all of my stories but some of them feel like I'm writing more for the reader. This one is the one I write for myself. Idk if anyone would ever want to read it but I do. It's the one I also feel the most guilty for writing. It feels like a waste of time because it's the least likely to sell. I have this enormous sense of...duty (?) about my writing being something that'll make our lives easier and any time I'm using to work on something that won't sell is time wasted and I'm a failure. Just to be clear, this is all me. My husband encourages me to write what makes me happy and tells me that he thinks it'll sell really well (I don't believe him). I work full time, so does he. Our bills are paid and everything is fine. My brain just hates me.

[vanilkaplays]

You know, I think I really like the concept of "critical miss", and while I've never played the pen and paper version of DnD, I suppose this makes me understand why it could be great. Or so I at least imagine.

I imagine an archer shooting an arrow and on critical miss it somehow just bounces around and ends up in their own butt cheek, because why should it make sense?

I imagine a druid, wanting to keep their distance, using a sling, and accidentally shooting the helmet off their friend's head with a loud metallic BONK.

I imagine a knight, swinging their sword, missing their mark and ending up in their enemy's embrace. I think there's a comic about that floating around somewhere and it's the most glorious thing I've ever seen.

I imagine a mage who, with that one moment of terribly unlucky aim, misses their foe and after some silence everybody can hear some china shattering and the roof coming down, and the villain goes, "You will pay for that! And I mean, seriously, that was really expensive."

I imagine a thief clumsily pinning their sleeve onto a wall with a dart instead of silently eliminating a pesky guard, then falling out of their hidey hole as they try to undo the mess, alerting absolutely everybody and their dog to their presence.

Is it just me or is it an infinite source of slapstick comedy?

If that's not how it works, please, don't pop my pretty little bubble. I like it here.

[your-turn-to-role]

This is coming from a place of genuine confusion....but why does a sect of the fandom dislike Marisha so much?? Like, I haven't seen it for ANY of the other players. Is it a "wife/girlfriend of the DM" complex, because I've seen that before. Idk, I don't get it, and no amount of googling has made me understand lol.

yeahhhhhhh

okay, to preface, i absolutely disagree with all of the marisha hate, i think she's a great player and is really unfairly treated

but a couple reasons why this tends to be a thing:

1) just plain old regular misogyny, yeah. all the girls on cr get it to an extent, but it's stronger with marisha - the idea that dnd is inherently a man's game and therefore no woman could be good at it is pervasive even in this fandom, not outright, but in subtle things, like how people give the guys a lot more leeway to do dumb shit than the girls, and on dnd posts in the past i've seen comments like "this reads like how laura and marisha would describe dnd while their husbands facepalm in the background", which like... isn't really harmful on the surface, but i have a hard time imagining matt and especially travis ever facepalming at their wives genuine ideas? like if it's obviously meant to be something ridiculous and not taken seriously, sure, but otherwise, that subtle implication that they see travis as a better player than laura is just way off. (and matt has more dnd experience than marisha but like... she's still a very good player)

2) the keyleth instinct. so here's the thing about campaign one and the characters they chose to play - the majority of the cast played within their comfort zone. they branched out a lot for c2, and obviously they as people aren't identical to their vox machina counterparts, but they're not too far away either. liam's stated he irl would be a rogue, taliesin likes playing intelligent edgy teenage assholes bc he was one, laura is a bit more goofy than vex but she still thinks a lot the same, scanlan is very sam, travis is obviously a lot smarter than grog but he still fell very in line with the kind of character travis is comfortable playing and the things he wants to explore.

but marisha chose a character in campaign one who was completely the opposite of her natural self. marisha is confident and very take no shit and a natural leader, keyleth is awkward and shy and doubts herself and overthinks things and has really bad luck in basically everything she ever tries. and people watched campaign one and assumed all of those traits were just the way marisha was. if you aren't drawn to keyleth as a character, it's relatively easy to find ways to hate her (which again circles back to the misogyny a bit). they see keyleth constantly fuck up due to awkwardness and think "marisha doesn't know how to play the game". they see keyleth be a mess of a person socially and think "wow marisha's not a very good actor if she can't handle this", completely ignoring the fact that she is acting very well and it's proven by the fact that they think keyleth is marisha

(and while she still gets hate as either character, the keyleth hate was far worse than the beau hate)

3) people just, not getting what she's doing. i wasn't in the fandom for the early days of cr2, but i have friends who were, and they've said there were circles of the fandom where everything marisha did was in question, even people not believing beau was a lesbian when it's made obvious in episode one, because what if she's doing it on purpose as a scam? and like, to broaden that a bit, i think marisha's characters and their decisions get misread a lot. i personally happen to find both beau and keyleth very relatable, so i usually get where they're coming from (mostly, bowlgate i was more on caleb's side there, but i still don't think she deserves hate for it), but to people who don't, or just haven't put effort into trying to understand marisha's characters, then between keyleth's awkwardness and beau's abrasiveness i think the majority of what they pick up from marisha's characters is negative

which is a shame, because they're both really good, well thought out, interesting characters.

4) this is going into my own meta for a bit, but, something i've found about marisha's characters is they're quite down to earth and very easily the viewpoint character of the group, in a way? like obviously it's an ensemble cast, but like... let's take keyleth. campaign one starts and ends with her. the very first adventure is triggered by her leaving home for the first time, to start her aramente. she's led a sheltered life up to this point, she doesn't know the world she's walking into - so we learn about this fantasy world at the same time she does. she has the most linear and easy to follow development, her aramente spans most of the story, and once it's done things only get more centered on her. she's now a leader of her people, she's fulfilled her destiny, but that means she lives so long all her worst fears are coming true - that she'll have to spend the rest of her life alone. how did we learn this was her biggest fear? because she's been scared since the start of losing vax, but the reason she has him at all is she resolved to not let that fear control her. and then as the endgame comes in, she suddenly has to face that head on. vax has a week left to live. barely two days after, they run into sprigg - someone who lived so long after all his friends died that he's lost himself, forgotten them, become a hermit of a person who's just living because he's got nothing better to do - everything keyleth believes she will become, and fears so much. but he proves she can still choose to remember them, and choose to live in their absence, not just survive. keyleth is the one who seals away vecna, who's grown so much in her power since that little scared druid girl, she can banish a god. and our story ends with her, and her father, and a raven - she's moving on, she's living, she's thriving, but she'll never forget.

if i was gonna write out vox machina's story as a novel, there is no character who would better suit being the protagonist than her

it's a bit less strong with beau, but she's still one of the more relatable characters, she's a human, who had a rebellious teenage years because of shitty overbearing parents, she's not a magic user, she's from the country we start in (and doesn't have a dark dangerous mystical secret like caleb and veth), a lot of the big turning points in the story have had her take the lead, it's the relative mundanity that gives a contrast to and lifts up the others, while still being a highly interesting character in her own right. beau is a grounding force of the mighty nein.

i personally like those kinds of characters, but i've noticed in almost all fandoms with a main character and then a group of side characters, the main character is rarely anyone's fave, overlooked in favour more (subjectively) interesting side characters, but then because the story puts the focus on the main character, people get sick of them and start to hate them? and in this form of storytelling, there is no main character, but people sorta do that to those kinds of characters anyway. and in addition to all the other marisha stuff, that probably contributes

[delusion-of-negation]

Sorry to vent but idk figured you might have a similar experience and maybe some words to offer me. So I told you sometime ago that I'm just not one for a romantic relationship, just not for me, I'm not a fan of any part of it, right? Honestly I'm starting to feel really conscious about it because at this point I'm the only person in my group of buddies who's single and I think they might be starting to think I'm weird or something or even pity me (which might not sound bad but it's honestly the worst for me. I hate being pitied.), and that's honestly also starting to eat at my mind because, I'm not sure if this is the norm, ever since I was small my female relatives taught me that once you find someone you won't need pals anymore and will just stop hanging out with all of them sooner or later, and you'll need only your SO, and since I'm the only single one I'm starting to seriously worry that I'll be left fully alone because they'll all just stop talking with me and hanging out with me and with our group and will only meet up with their SO and since I'll be the only one with no romantic relationship I'll be like...ALONE alone.

Also have you ever expected feeling inferior because you were "just" a friend? Like I don't even want to have anything with any of my pals but for some reason I feel like I'm somehow on a lesser level and less important than their SO specifically because we have a platonic relationship.

yeah, all the time - honestly, I find the extent of it depends on the friend group. like, if my sister and her friends have a partner, that person is a focus of their lives all of a sudden, and it's next to impossible to socialise or feel as valued, and when you do all they talk about is them. but in my dnd group, people's partners are like these voices we sometimes hear in the background if we're playing online, a few funny stories, some funny comment that's relayed to us that they'd said while being told about a prior convo in the group chat, etc. like, the partners still exist, but they aren't the focus, and they know enough of our convos to have made remarks that get our humour, but they're not like someone who has to be mentioned constantly, they don't have to give permission for us to hang, they're not just gonna demand we cancel a session for them to have a date because they think they're more of a priority than their partner having hobbies, it's more healthy. sure sometimes sessions will be cancelled because a partner is sick and needs help, but that's different than knowing that any given plan may be cancelled on a whim since a spontaneous romantic night can supercede an already established plan every single time, with no regard for how maybe you could've done it on literally any other day of the week. I think it comes down to how my sister and her friends, no shade to them, are normies who's lives just revolve around the pub, the parties, facebook, and getting a relationship, while my dnd group is people who are very involved with hobbies in such a way that some have entire careers built on said hobbies (eg running shops, making the miniatures, stuff like that), so they've also built their romantic relationships on a foundation of knowing that it matters to them. you may have guessed, I've known my sister for a quite a bit, and honestly I think she doesn't know what it's like to have a life that isn't defined by someone else - every time she's single it's like she thinks the world is ending and drinks as such, until an average enough looking asshat stumbles down the pub steps and into her lap. I love her, but it is a chore to even talk - she always scrutinises me for every little thing, and whether or not it's gonna make me more or less date-able is such a reoccurring point. like, it's a real problem and it's exhausting, but there are people who aren't like that, so it's really about lucking out on how your particular friend group is regarding this.