#counter monkey

[thehomelybrewster]

"Leaping Wizards" - Are player characters supposed to survive?

So I decided to rewatch Noah "The Spoony One" Antweiler's TTRPG vlog series Counter Monkey again and I just finished the video titled "Leaping Wizards". In that video Noah recounts an attempt to DM with the RPGA (the precursor to the Adventurer's League) back in the 90s, playing AD&D 2e. He describes an encounter he ran, modified from the module he had been given by the RPGA, where six PCs (all 1st level) encountered three 1st-level wizards, each of whom were supposed to have a single Magic Missile prepared. Spoony, seeing this easy encounter, changed the spell selections to Sleep, Charm Person, and a third spell that wasn't even used. The two enemy wizards, through good rolls, kill two of the PCs, and the players were so unhappy that they complained and Noah got barred from DMing for the RPGA in the future.

The core conceit of the RPGA, at the time, was to provide players with an avenue to continually play characters they liked. RPGA modules were designed to be very unlikely to kill PCs, even at the time.

And I've seen people in the past few years claim that World of Warcraft popularized the notion that D&D characters shouldn't die (permanently), that WoW's success and reduction of frustration about "unfair" DMs led to this (concurrently with the trend of CRPGs and JRPGs to develop more complex narratives), and here's this kinda-grognard over a decade ago recounting something that predates 3e that mirrors the same sentiment.

Anyway, it's apparently very normal for TTRPG players to be frustrated at character death, or at least that has been the case since the 90s. No wonder the OSR mostly builds on D&D0 and B/X..?

[sunnykeysmash]

what I wouldn't pay to see mac punch holes into the walls of the suburbs house as he's tasked with fixing something he doesn't know how to fix and meanwhile the only constant in his mind is how much he misses dennis

[imminent-danger-came]

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)

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(4x13 Rip and Tear)

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When your overpowered lego is trapped by a giant being of some kind and then wraps around said giant being's arm to escape

[xraiyax]

LawLuffy’s counter list why dating Luffy would be a bad good idea:

3. I don’t want to only be known as the pirate kings boyfriend in the future.

Nami said you would be known as my queen.

[artbyblastweave]

Thinkin’ about The Siberian

I was sitting on a draft that said something to the effect of “Worm AU where Manton pulls an NBC Hannibal and moonlights as The Siberian on top of being a globally respected parahuman studies researcher. Is this anything.”

Then I thought about this a little more and realized that this might not be far off from what actually happened. There’s a throughline in Manton’s interests, in his trajectory through life, where he’s trying to figure out what you can use powers to get away with doing to people- about identifying constraints and overcoming them. 

He’s the guy who somehow credibly catalogued, and got his name associated with, the fact that powers generally can’t be used to pop people like balloons, and he did so reasonably early in the timeline, in the nineties at the latest. That’s.... an interesting direction to take your research! When people are just coming to terms with the fact that parahumans are real he’s out there taking careful note of whether they can manifest their powers inside people to instantly kill them. How did he test that? What capes did he collaborate with to test that? What did those conversations look like? Did the IRB at a minimum issue any revise-and-resubmits?

And then, of course, he gets picked up by Cauldron (also known as the infinite untraceable victim depot) to work on improving the vials- gaining a sufficiently in-depth understanding of what they are, how they’re made, and what they can do to people that when Cauldron told Legend that Manton had gone rogue and was the one creating C53s, he found this plausible. You’ve got the guy who’d later become the backbone of the Slaughterhouse 9 basically systemically cataloging every conceivable way a power could violate someone’s physiology- first from without, and then, at Cauldron, from within.

Then, when he pulls the trigger and gives himself powers, the resultant ability is essentially a distilled refutation of the Manton Effect- a minion that can obliterate anything, eat anything, delete any material from existence, viscerally dismember people in a unity of conventional and esoteric, power-enabled violence. And he’s insulated from the consequences of his actions on two levels- in terms of Siberian’s invulnerability, but also in the discrepancy between his form and that of his minion. He mixed the vial that gave him that power himself.

Essentially- I don’t think Siberian is something that just happened after a psychological break following a messy divorce. I think Manton basically pre-committed to becoming something like The Siberian, spent most of his career working towards some form of transcendence through superpowers, and the messy divorce was downstream of the cracks starting to show as he got closer and closer to what he’d been chasing.

Now to segue into a complication that’s more directly supported in the text- it’s Worm, it’s always complicated- Master powers spring from loneliness. My theory is that while Manton wanted apotheosis, and while he’d probably been gearing up for a rampage for a while, he genuinely didn’t want to do it alone; he wanted a sidekick. Hence why he bothered pursuing a family in the first place, hence why he fed his daughter a vial, hence why his own projection ended up looking like his daughter after he accidently made her explode or whatever with the bad vial- a monkey’s paw restoration, giving him back a facsimile of the person he wanted to take along for the ride, and making his capacity for violence inseparable from her presence.

This is why he joined up with the Nine rather than remaining a solo act; it’s why he engages in a bad imitation of the Parent/Child relationship with Bonesaw; and it’s why he seeks out Bitch as a candidate. His interest in her candidacy parses to me as genuine- Even moreso than Bonesaw, even moreso than Jack, Bitch has arrived at a no-frills fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want outlook that’s very appealing to Manton. He wants to have a murderer-daughter relationship!

But Rachel got where she is the hard way, by having a life that sucked a lot, by getting near-constantly kicked around! She has a clear reason to be so angry! Even if all my postulations about Manton having a long game are complete bullshit, there are several stages at which Manton had to actively opt in to the same lifestyle and reputation that Bitch was forced to adopt as a basic survival tactic. He didn’t have to start eating people! He’s a tourist! His “freedom” is inseparable from his distance, his disguise. Rachel’s “freedom” is just the freedom of having nothing left to lose.

All of this to say- In an interlude in which Bitch has an extended internal monologue about how people with families have the opportunities to be assholes and monsters to a captive audience, it is absolutely not a coincidence that she’s scouted by a would-be parental figure who proceeds to be an asshole and a monster in front of a captive audience, before trying to buy her affection with a puppy. In rejecting Manton, Rachel dodged an esoterically-packaged but ultimately very familiar bullet.

[czaneavecg]

I MISS HER

[skitskatdacat63]

2009 European Grand Prix - Rubens Barrichello(ft. Lewis Hamilton & Kimi Räikönnen)

[wigmonster]

nobody has been fucking tipping lately and I'm going insane

[bandomgay]

Love the way Matt , Nick and Jamie (and miles!) treat Alex like their weird little sopping wet boyfriend they found in a cardboard box

[pnksh1rts]

talenti makes their containers like ice block enrichment items for animals

[imminent-danger-came]

Hello! I just recently watched LMK and predictably immediately got brainrot and I've been Loving reading your meta and theories! Love your takes and analysis, they all feel very well though out and well supported by canon and i can't help but chomp them up like a little goblin.

I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on something that i've noticed and feel could make for intriguing developments and/or conflict later. Something I've noticed is every time after MK comes down from his monkey form he seems wildly drained (most obvious in s4e8 and tew special), and i was wondering what you make of it? Is it just the effect of him constantly pushing it down, does it seem like it's too much for him to physically handle? some other third thing? More importantly, if it's a Thing that's gong to be a constant symptom of his monkey form how do you think it's going to come into play in future episodes? Especially relating to any of your theories (eamk, mk vs wukong, mei hero mk warrior, etc...)? Just thinking how MK could be convinced or manipulated into a position where he's at risk of hurting himself from power overuse or maybe how in a direct fight against monkey MK the win condition might not be overpowering him but out lasting him.

Aw thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed the show!

Anyways *inhales cigarette* I wish I knew what was going on with MK any of the time anon. It seems like he can't help but flicker into Monkey Form at some points, yet prolonged use leaves him weak. During his fight with Azure he starts off feeling very un-MK-like, but halfway through he begins to act more like himself. At the end of 4x13 he's practically thrown out of his Monkey Form by reality fraying apart. And, despite his monkey form being his true identity (maybe), it hurts him. It causes him pain whenever he starts flickering into it. Like, what. What is going on here

So at this point, it seems like MK's Monkey Form is too much for his body to handle...but why. I've drawn a connection between Monkey Demon MK, Samadhi Fire Mei, and Jade Emperor Azure many times before, like the way they're all containers for uncontrollable power, but MK's case is particularly strange.

My first thought would be that it's tied to the way MK views himself and his identity. So maybe it's part him pushing it down, part it being too much for him to physically handle, and part secret third thing.

But yeah, I'm super intrigued to see how all this will be implemented in the future! I really like the idea of outlasting MK to beat him

[xraiyax]

LawLuffy’s counter list why dating Luffy would be a bad good idea:

Nr. 18

I would be happy and that’s kind of scary.

You’re funny Torao. I would be happy too.

You need seri

[siixkiing]

“Very tempted to buy a very obscene looking frying pan right now.”

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

I was going through Zillow tonight and found this horribly tiny kitchen, but with a cute little area for seating

Then I found this... Interesting. Kitchen. Honestly I kinda love it.

And finally, not even the bare minimum of what makes a kitchen...

[xundeadqueenx]

Me trying to supress my monkey urges to climb up on top of the counter to get shit from cabinets when I literarlly have a step stool in the damn kitchen