#in the way that actually works and is fun and accessible for them; while also making me realize that Wait *I* Can Do This TOO :O

[olderthannetfic]

Someone recently left a comment on one of my fics that they were disappointed I wasn't addressing any of the criticism or comments I got on Goodreads. After all, I reply to comments on the actual fic. Why am I ignoring the Goodreads commenters?

Well, 1. I didn't know there was a Goodreads page for my fanfic 2. I think if they wanted a reply they'd say it where I'm known to reply to every single comment without fail and 3. the kind of dumbass who treats 800k of free fanfics in a series like something they paid for is not the sort of person I want to engage with. If 800k of stories, with main stories, tie-ins, prequel asides, missing scenes, etc. for free wasn't to your liking, just... go read another? We have stories in this fandom whose whole series clock in at over a million words. We have stories where people have done fan songs and fanart and fancomics tying into their main work. We have stories with multiple timelines. You have so many options, all of them totally free and easy to access. If my stories, which I fully admit ares flawed and show some of my weaknesses as an author, don't do it for you, you have options. You have wonderful options.

If I had an editor and a publisher and my stories were actual books, I wouldn't have this reaction to this comment. But these stories have one person working on them total. I'm not making income off of this. This is what I write while working two jobs, for fun. As much as I do view writing fanfic as something that helps me learn the ins and outs of writing and put my all into it, it's going to be rougher than if I'd had help with it or had time to do more drafts than the three I normally do.

And if I was known for ducking criticism, I would get having comments on another site. There are authors in my fandom who delete anything that's not praise. But I have had long conversations with my haters in which I take everything in good faith and explain my writing choices, word choices and ideas. I have my tumblr which is just about my fandom stuff listed in the AN of every chapter. DMs are open and anon is on. My Dreamwidth account, also under the same name, also has DMs open. I have publicly stated when I have made shit narrative choices and owned that yes, sometimes I have genuinely dropped the ball. This has influenced later chapters where things go off of the original outline in order for the shit choice to have consequences in a way that makes sense and feels true to the characters in the story.

So "why are you hiding from the Goodreads commenters?!" feels like the most baffling thing I've ever been asked. I tried to be nice about it, but all I could think was, "why didn't the Goodreads commenters who wanted a reply post their comments where they know I 100% would've responded to it?"

--

Madness!

(Also, lol, half the pro shit with a lot of comments on Goodreads is barely edited. Maybe they were bitching about content? But if it was whining about craft, the bar is in the floor and they have nothing to complain about.)

[starflungwaddledee]

Oooo starstruck dee has little stars at the bottom of her feet! Are they just aesthetic or would they make imprints into the ground? (like pawprints)

exactly like that! though she's not the only one...

edit: might need to add some additional dialogue to this to make it more clear, but a clarification in the interim; he knows about his own footprints. he's just surprised to see something similar already there when he knows he's only just landed. he lifts his own shoe to confirm that they're not identical (and also to reveal this to the viewer). seems his stoicism beat off the clarity in this one, sorry 😭

[elftwink]

one major difference i have found between service industry work (in my case food service but this is widely applicable to similar jobs) and other public-facing positions is that the job itself is often very similar because people is the same, it's just in service everyone approaches you already thinking they're right and you're a fucking idiot and its their god given right to disrespect you, where in other positions even if they are not nice to you they usually acknowledge that you know more than them on issues pertaining to your job. like the difference in behaviour from people who see you as serving them vs helping them is unreal. i am doing literally the exact same things. customer is always right mentality did irreparable damage to the fabric of society

[sevicia]

I wanted to make a cleaner summary of last week's classes and also review the classes I have this week since the material is already uploaded beforehand but I was feeling so horrible throughout the day that when I sat down I was just gonna look at the ones for tomorrow but I think I'm just gonna go to bed because I just gave my little numbers game a few tries and not even the joy of tribial elementary school-level math games is bringing my brain cells and/or full sentience back

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

I am opening my mouth like a baby bird for the barebones offline version of the rpgsolo stuff .. excited to see :3

i hope you enjoy it when it goes up, anon!! my main issue so far is trying to figure out how tf to format the percentage tables over text on a tumblr post. i could just post screenshots of it, because as it is it formats terribly onto here, but it's critical for it to be screen-reader accessible. i might go ahead and put it in a pastebin to link along with the screenshots; i'd like to get it down in multiple formats and mirrors in case something happens to one version, i Do Not Trust hosting sites these days, but i think that's probably a good start.

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

i have been in community with profoundly developmentally disabled peers and peers with brain damage my whole life, bc i had a childhood diagnosis. i have also been leftist my whole life; my mother was a marxist and raised me that way, and while their politics were absolute dogshit, they were lefty dogshit.

my entire life, i have seen leftist educators throw mentally disabled people away as "lost causes" because they couldn't engage with the material the way it was being presented. leftist outreach and education does, genuinely, have a massive lack of accessible material. to be blunt, people are not interested in retrofitting their leftist outreach to be accessible to people who learn best through episodes of sesame street.

as in, i have repeatedly faced outright laughter and cruelty over the idea that this could be a priority. or even something that we consider doing at all.

"people who are that mentally disabled don't need to know about these things," the kindest interpretation goes. ("people who are that mentally disabled don't interact with the world, anyway, they're all in institutions or monitored 24/7 by their parents," the uncharitable underlying assumptions go. "they wouldn't be a worker who needs a union. or a library attendee. or a member of the community garden. or a volunteer at the food bank. or or or")

the people i have seen this hurt the worst, over and over again, are profoundly mentally disabled people of color whose lack of access to accessible antiracist education is causing real danger in their lives. institutionalized disabled people of color who have learned racist ideology and behaviors from white authority, whether they were adopted by white families or incarcerated in care institutions run by white staff. who are treated lower than garbage by leftist educators, who view them as "lost causes," as unworthy of time and effort and attention, as deserving of their abuses because they... what... internalized the abuses that make up every aspect of their lives since birth?

i see people saying things in this conversation like "disability isn't an excuse for racism or transphobia or whatever, people have the obligation to improve themselves." oh, believe me, i have seen again and again how many privileged disabled people utilize their disabilities to punch down on others, try to escape accountability for their punching down by citing disability. but individual weaponization of identity is just that: weaponization of identity.

the power structures at play are what they are. it is a noble and admirable goal to want leftist outreach and education to be more accessible to all. if that is truly your goal, you must eventually reckon with the existence of people who do, actually, really need it presented in a picture book. or an episode of bluey. or a conversation where you only use examples of people they know in real life, using things that happened to them personally. the existence of people who cannot grasp forms of abstract reasoning, who need information presented as rules, or as guidelines, or as categories. the idea that yes, fully grown adults who need daniel tiger to explain racism to them are human beings who not only deserve access to that very thing, but who also deserve to be a part of leftist spaces and benefit from leftist organizing. are people for whom it might be INTEGRAL they get to be a part of leftism. are victims of racism themselves and suffering without access to antiracist spaces and community and support.

and you will need to reckon with the abject cruelty of your peers who laugh and mock the very idea of this. you need to reckon with the fact that a lot of people you respect, a lot of leftists doing genuinely good work, will respond to this by making fun of the people you're serving, even outright telling you their violent fantasies about these people. that is the experience of organizing in leftist spaces for profoundly disabled people. that is why so many of us burn out so fast. there IS a structural problem with mentally disabled people being seen as disposable and not a part of community. and it is EXTREMELY present in leftist organizing and outreach efforts.

[chuthulhu-plays]

I generally watch LPs of horror games bc I'm too anxious to actually play them but a lot of them have FANTASTIC stories, so sometimes I just binge-watch KrinxTV for background noise. Been watching a lot of playthroughs of Still Wakes The Deep because it's such a delight to hear Scottish voice actors get work and I thought I'd address some questions I keep seeing Let's Players ask:

--Adair is a member of the National Front as you can find out from posters in his cabin, a Neo-Fascist British political party that’s been going since the sixties. While it often preaches British ethnic unity, in practice that often means “everybody in the UK should be exactly like East End Londerners” and features plentiful disdain for Scottish, Irish, and Welsh folk, alongside those perceived as “not British”. No wonder the wanker eats alone in the canteen.

--Neeps and Tatties=turnips and potatoes, mashed, drenched in butter or sauce. Fills your belly, keeps you warm, probably makes you sink like a stone because it’s so heavy.

--Cranachan=a dessert made of raspberries, honey, cream and oats, absolutely delicious

--Rennick calls Caz a “wee ned prick”. Ned is apocryphally said to stand for “non-educated delinquent” and is basically just a way of calling someone an uneducated, lower-class criminal

--A lot of things said by and about Roy indicate that he’s a teetotaller who went through AA and specifically became Catholic and is making an effort at converting Caz.

--I think it’s entertaining how Scottish nicknames often follow a pattern of shortening/rejiggering that I also see a lot with Australian nicknames—Cameron becomes Caz, Rafferty becomes Raffs, etc. Trots is an unusual one but is almost certainly a reference to him being a communist, presumably a Trotskyist. Gibbo is also an unusual one in that it’s just very silly. There’s a kind of indignity implied in being killed by a guy called Gibbo.

--A few times on the radio you hear the Shipping Forecast, a type of weather report aimed at specifically reporting weather conditions out on the ocean, and is also famous for the report being read in such a calm, soothing tone that some folk use it as a sleep aid.

--All the yellow paint for interactable things is very video gamey, yes, but is also in line with old British health and safety standards, and yellow paint on things like emergency ladders or on the edges of stairs that are trip hazards is a thing ou can still see in some older buildings.

--Caz keeps saying he’s “good with the leccy”; leccy=electricity. Caz is implied to be quite a wee guy who can get through a lot of tight spaces, and my uncle swears blind that electricians used to refuse to take on apprentices over a certain size because they only wanted to train wee guys who could get up into the tight spaces that a lot of older buildings are full of. On that note, “wee man” is a term of endearment, generally, and isn’t exclusively applied to short guys.

--Finlay saying of Gibbo that “he’s no right” is INCREDIBLY OMINOUS. It sounds mild but “he’s no right, that boy” is what older folk say about a child who’s been found disembowelling cats for fun or someone they strongly suspect is a pedophile. It’s not something you’d say about a friend who’s just acting a bit unusually.

– “Great minds united over a Buckie”--Buckfast, or Buckie, is a caffienated tonic wine that’s cheap, widely accessible, and is a bit like rocket fuel for bad decisions.

– “Ya roaster” tbh I don’t really know where it comes from, calling someone a roaster, but I’ve always felt like it has a vibe of telling them they’re huffing their own farts.

--Scunnert/scunnered--buggered, screwed, utterly fucked, etc

– “You’re the jammiest bastart on this rig” Someone who is jammy is someone who has incredible luck that is implied to be related to their sheer confidence or willingness to engage in risky behaviour. Walking along the street and finding a pound coin isn’t jammy; crossing the road confident that the cars won’t hit you and stopping in the middle to pick up a pound coin before making it unscathed to the other side is jammy as all hell.

--Barlinnie is the biggest prison in Scotland, and largely hosts violent offenders—it’s where Caz would definitely go for hospitalizing a man.

--Weans are children (contraction of wee yins/wee ones). I thought this one was contextually obvious but apparently not.

SPOILERS BELOW

--”One spark and the whole thing’ll go up”—this is referring to the wee spark of flame in the lighter used to blow up the rig, but is also kind of a pun because electricians are often called sparks or sparkies, and in the end it’s Caz who blows up the rig.

[elexuscal]

So just over a year ago, I made a resolution to myself to get better at Fitness, since I was getting older and i knew if i didn't, the Consequences would begin to manifest. One problem? Historically i have always hated working out.

i knew there were two main reasons why: 1. lingering trauma from the usual Fat/Neurodivergent Kid Mistreated In PE Class Experience 2. oh my god it's so so so boring i would rather do anything more entertaining.

So. I'm not an expert, and i'm definitely not a professional fitness instructor, BUT i have genuinely come to not just tolerate but actually enjoy exercise this past year. So if these are any problems you personally have contended with, these strategies May Help.

One: Remove Barriers

a lot of flavours of neurodivergence struggle with switching between tasks and executive function generally, especially towards something you don't find fun. So first you gotta identify any barriers keeping you from exercising, and removing or mitigating them.

For me, a hurdle i recognised is that if I could not easily access the equipment, I was unlikely to use it. honestly if i couldn't see it i would probably forget it was there. So my first order of business was making a Work Out Zone. I unrolled my yoga mat and gave it a near-permanent place in my room. my weights came out of the closet and placed on a low shelf where i could easily access them, as did my resistance band. now they were always Right there.

I also realised something I detested was the general feeling of sweaty clothes, and in particular, having to change out of them. So Gross. so i started scheduling my work outs for in the the morning after breakfast or right before my nightly showers, aka: when I am changing in and out of my PJs. I'll do my routine (mostly) naked and not have to contend with the extra steps and laundry that sweaty clothes bring.

two: secondary entertainment

like i said: i found exercise very boring. and while i've gotten better over the past year, and can find it meditative, i still prefer having something else to catch my attention.

i used to like to put on video essays. but then i realised i was so often pausing my work outs because the particular video ended, or the pace got slow, or the topic turned to something dark and depressing out of nowhere and killed the vibe, so then i had to stop to find something else--

No. You need something that will keep you in the zone, and won't knock you out of it. I didn't used to listen to music much, but this year i took advantage of a Spotify subscription my sister gifted me (😔) and started just putting on upbeat rock, hip-hop, and pop mixes. it doesn't need to be my favouirte music ever it just needs to Keep Going.

i do find the loud, rhythmic music is really good for keeping my pace up, but if music doesn't do it for you, you might find audiobooks or autoplaying favourite old tv shows/sitcoms might scratch that itch.

Three: Find Other Motivators

Or, "if you can't make your own motivation, store bought is fine"

Gameification is really good here. You might be someone who'll benefit from a pedometer or step-counter app. I have a friend who swears by the Switch Ring-Fit, and I've also heard of folks who use games like Just Dance, Zombies, Run! and Beat Saber to rely on the sweet sweet endorphins generated by hitting a high score.

(BUT: do beware the dark side of gameification, which is the risk of demotivation if you don't hit your goals. For example, after doing GREAT on exceeding my step goal for a month, I got hit with COVID. For about a week and a half I was barely moving beyond the kitchen and back. My step counts plummeted, there was no way to edit the record out, and that made it harder to get back into the groove. Be mindful relying too much on gameification!)

Even outside of literal games, there are ways to scratch this itch. I used secondary objectives as a way to encourage me to keep up with my daily walks. Walking my roommate's dog when he was working long days is an obvious one, but we don't always have a furry friend at our disposal. Then I would rely on mini-challenges like, "pick up 10 cool rocks to paint", "fill this bag with wood for the fireplace", "take 10 pretty pictures", or "get to the corner store to get more milk".

And of course, consider team sports! Many folks I've talked to feel having set training/play times with a team that relies on them crucial to keep them on track!

Four: Don't Measure Success By Weight Loss

I know. I know. Easier said than done. It does not help that like 80% of workout resources online are going to mention this. but above all else, you must resist the beast. (and while not as dicey, measuring success by visible muscle gain can fall into a similar trap).

The biggest benefits to exercise are invisible. it improves cardiovascular health, brain function, tissue regeneration, immune system function, lung capacity, energy levels, literally our whole body. no matter what external changes your body does or doesn't go through, you're still going to be benefitting from exercise, and you do not want to get demotivated chasing unrealistic/irrelevant goals.

Instead, to track your progress, focus on questions like these:

How is exercise impacting my mood? Do I feel less stressed or anxious?

Am I sleeping better?

Is my balance improving?

Is my stamina increasing?

Am I becoming more flexible?

Can I lift/carry heavier weights?

Is my breath control improving?

Over the last year, I've seen marked improvements in all of these. My joints don't hurt as much; it's easier for me to to get up and move; I don't get winded as easily; I generally feel more relaxed and cheerful. Those are all amazing outcomes, and I hope that everyone on their own fitness journey can find the same joy there as I have.

[howtofightwrite]

So. There is no safe place (in the body) to be shot. There are places that are slightly safer than others to be stabbed (i.e. being stabbed in the meat of your calf is less likely to be lethal than your torso). For the purposes of an arrow wound, which feels like a combination of shot+stab for a swords n sorcery world, is there a “less lethal” place to take an arrow? My character is traveling with companions and gets into a fun little goblin skirmish. I need her to catch an arrow somewhere that will be concerning, but not immediately fatal. Magic Bullshit™️ will keep the wound from healing properly for a few days, but I’ve accounted for field wound care (cleaning and bandaging and such) as she’s being taken on horseback to get proper treatment.

Not deeply.

So, the problem with all of these is tissue disruption. If the injury gets deep enough, the chances that it will hit something vital (especially on the torso) increase dramatically. So, getting stabbed and having the blade catch bone, instead of getting in deeper is “relatively” safe. Similarly, getting stabbed (or shot) in the hand or foot is unlikely to kill you (though, those injuries are likely to result in permanent damage impairing the use of injured appendage.)

Arrows are a little different, in a couple of ways. First, if you get shot, you do not want to pull that off (nor break it off and push it through.) That will increase the risk of bleeding out. Arrows make fairly large holes in people, but if the arrow sticks in the wound (which, it should) it will actually limit the amount of bleeding. Effectively the wound has a partial plug in it. Pulling out the arrow means that plug is no longer there, and they can happily bleed to death on the spot.

The second thing about arrows is that they actually pin muscle together. Think of it a bit like holding two pieces of meat together with a toothpick. If the toothpick isn't there, the pieces can slide across each other without issue, but that's not possible when there's a wooden shaft running through them. Your muscles are a complex web of meat, that slide over each other as you move. Pinning those together means that part of your body will actually lock up. For example, if you're shot in the shoulder, you won't be able to adjust the position of your arm. It's been toothpicked, and it's not going anywhere.

Arrowheads can get wedged in bone. If it's a broad head, or hunting tip, that will be obnoxious to get out.

At the risk of reading too much into your setting, goblins often means poisons, or other nastiness. Though, really, even just getting a tetanus infection (it used to be called “lock jaw”) from their blades is a pretty horrific potential fate. Even if the wounds themselves were relatively minor (cuts and scrapes, maybe a graze or two), a couple days might still result in some pretty horrific harm after the fact.

Also, remember, it's unlikely that bacteria will be understood by the medical science of your setting. So, first aid would still run a real risk of secondary infections.

Depending on their skill in first aid, anything outside of a severed artery or catastrophic organ damage should be (technically) survivable, though the wounds could easily result in permanent impairments, depending on exactly what was hit. A punctured lung might not kill her, but it could result in permanent respiratory issues, such as a cough, and chronic pain while breathing heavily from then on. It could also result in pneumonia and death, which is also, usually, pretty permanent.

Some of this depends more on where you want to land on a spectrum between dark fantasy and swords & sorcery. The genres are similar (and potentially overlapping), but can scatter out into dramatically different works. But, you do have some options on how you want to proceed.

-Starke

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[celestial-robots]

Explaining Eclipse (A Theory/Headcanon)

Spoilers for the Ruin DLC below!

Okay so I've been thinking so much about Eclipse and what they mean. You know, as you do XD. Just a lot of wondering what they mean for the ~lore~ and how they fit in with the rest of the Sun and Moon stuff. And after a lot of thinking, I may have figured stuff out.

I've seen a couple posts wondering if Eclipse is the way the Daycare Attendant is "supposed to be" and if Sun and Moon are the result of the DCA breaking down or something. But personally I just can't see that. Not only do we hear Sun go "thank you" after the Eclipse encounter, implying he's still around and hasn't permanently "fused" into Eclipse, but it also wouldn't make sense with stuff in Security Breach. In-game Fazbear merchandise and advertising have a lot of focus on Sun and Moon as two separate individuals, not the DCA as a single unit. For example, see the giant golden statues outside of Daycare. Two different forms of the Daycare Attendant. Collectibles are also identified as "Sun" and "Moon." It's not like they're labeled "Eclipse Doll (Sun form)" or "Moon Eclipse Doll." No, it's just "Sun Doll" and "Moon Doll."

So here's how I think it works. Sun and Moon are two separate AIs within the DCA body. They can function on their own, independent of the other, in the way we've been thinking this whole time. BUT they're also designed to join together, like interlocking puzzle blocks. Two separate forms that come together to make a "whole" that's greater than the sum of the parts.

This makes sense from a programming perspective. Sun is designed to play with kids and entertain them, Moon is designed to watch over kids while they sleep. They're both made for specific scenarios, but taking care of kids is a lot more complicated than just "play time" and "nap time." So whenever one of them encounters something they can't deal with by themselves, they call for help from the other, who activates as well, combining their features and protocols. I'm willing to bed this also activates several specific "Eclipse" features that can only be accessed when both AIs are active, which would explain why Eclipse has such a different personality.

But if this is the case, then why haven't we seen Eclipse before? Why did they only come out when Cassie rebooted the DCA?

Well that's where this theory by @dana-chan-the-control-brain and @twinanimatronics comes in. The two of them theorized that the Balloon World arcade cabinet in the DCA's room was some sort of signal broadcaster that kept their AIs divided. I think that Ruin confirms this—or at least provides a lot of solid evidence.

In the main game, Balloon World is in the DCA room, up and active and with a form of Eclipse inside. In Ruin, the Balloon World cabinet is broken. And you can see weird purple glitches coming from it while in AR vision. It's only in Ruin, after the cabinet has been damaged, that we finally meet Eclipse.

This is venturing a bit into headcanon territory, but let's have some fun with this. I believe that the Balloon World cabinet was put in the DCA's room to infect them with the virus. Probably a long time before the events of the actual game, since the worn-down state of the room shows it's been a while since any human or robot cleaners were in there. This might have been some sort of test run to see if the virus could affect the animatronics.

However, the virus couldn't affect the DCA while Eclipse was there, acting as a sort of stabilizing failsafe for Sun and Moon. So the virus then cut off the "fuse" function from Sun and Moon, locking Eclipse away and preventing them from stepping in when Sun or Moon encounter something strange—strange like a virus. Sun probably couldn't be affected by the virus because the virus attacks nighttime and/or security protocols, and he no longer had access to those once Eclipse was gone. Moon, however, did. And that's why he's hostile.

But then, if the Balloon World cabinet was keeping Eclipse contained, why were Sun and Moon still freaking out in Ruin even after the cabinet was destroyed? Why did they need Cassie to reboot them?

Well, I think that forming Eclipse requires both Sun and Moon to want to fuse together. And Moon clearly doesn't want to do that in Ruin. Why? Probably because he's mad at Sun. You can hear how angry he is in voice lines where he says stuff like "No more Sun!" and "No more light!" (Seriously, props to Kellen Goff, holy shit.) Moon was only able to be "awake" for short periods of time in the main game, partially because Sun was encouraging everyone to "Keep the lights on." Of course Moon would be pissed and want to be in control now that the lights are broken. He wasn't about to risk losing that .

But not having Eclipse around was ultimately damaging Sun and Moon. They were meant to stabilize the system when the two individuals couldn't do that alone. Not to mention their systems were already damaged, judging by Moon's increased light sensitivity in Ruin. They needed Eclipse so they could be stable again.

Cassie rebooting the DCA's systems was a lot like restarting your computer. Everything shuts down and then all the systems start running again at once—including, in this case, both Sun and Moon's AIs and whatever Eclipse functions were now restored. That's why Eclipse was in control after the reboot. Presumably, the rest of the software damage was also fixed, which probably helped calm Moon down. So, overall, a happy ending.

Relatively, I mean. The DCA is still stuck in an abandoned Pizzaplex, but at least Eclipse is back and Sun and Moon aren't fighting anymore :)

[inbarfink]

Part of Fionna’s frustrations with Mundanewold were subconscious longings for her old life of magical adventure, but a lot of her problems tied more into deeply-rooted issues of monotony and a feeling like she can't do anything to change her lot in life and like her actions don’t matter.

And it does seem like Fionna and Friends’ lives have been kinda Stuck in a Rut - especially when you compare the way their lives parallel and diverge from their Mainworld counterparts. Most of the differences are... rather than just different choices diverging into different arcs - it’s the same arc, but the Fionnaworld characters are just stuck behind.

Fionna is still reeling from the breakup with DJ Flame and only met Hunter at the very day our story starts. Marshall Lee has more Unresolved Issues with his mom compared to Marceline and her dad. He and Gumball haven’t even met yet. Not to mention the Mundaneworld-specific problems like Fionna being unable to hold a steady job or Gary eternally spinning his wheels about opening his own bakery. 

Fionna thought she wanted a world of magic, but while the added bits of strangeness and whimsy to Fionnaworld by the end of the show are certainly a cool fun bonus (and Cake is surely thankful to have the ability to freely think and speak her mind and stretch) - what Fionna and friends were really missing was a world where their actions matter, where things change, where they are real. 

And especially important for Fionna and Cake to admit it, because handling the fact their actions have consequences has been a huge part of both of their character arcs. For Cake it was all about getting used to the fact that her newfound human-like sapience means being measured against human-like morality. For Fionna it's about not comparing everything in her life to video games and thinking through her actions at least a little bit.

Consequences are the thing Fionna and Cake struggled with the most, but it was what they were missing all along.

Now this seems to be, like, an actual metaphysical thing. I mean, the show hasn’t gone super into detail of how Fionnaworld worked but it does seem like Prismo’s stories had an active role in moving the events of the World forwards, possibly using the same event-manipulating-Magic that make sure his Wishes have that Obligatory Ironic Twists?

And once Ice King turned back to Simon, Prismo lost all ability to observe or create stories for Fionnaworld. And what happens to characters of a story once the writer can’t access their external hard-drive anymore? They just sorta get stuck. Moving their own lives forwards without Prismo’s stories is just a lot harder.

And if there is some sort of force in control behind the scenes of Fionnaworld at the start of the series, it’s only Simon’s subconscious - a fact F&C alludes to numerous times 

And at the start of the show, how was Simon’s feeling about his own life?

In addition to Simon’s longing and memories for the pre-War world shaping the exact form of Fionna’s nonmagical world, perhaps his feelings of ennui and depression and helplessness have also subtly ‘infected’ this world?

It is perhaps not a coincidence that Marshall Lee and Gary Prince’s storyline only starts moving forwards after Simon embarks on the adventure and starts climbing out of his mental rock bottom. When things seem to move forwards for him as well.

As such, ‘Canonizing’ Fionnaworld solves more of Fionna’s problems much more than simply making it as magical as Ooo but keeping it as a tiny hidden bubble in someone's dome. It ensures the World’s inhabitants’ free will and agency and ability to enact change on the status quo with no need for Prismo’s stories or being dependent on the still-kinda-shaky mental health of Simon Petrikov. Thus giving them a world where everything matters and things can always change.

But also there's a psychological element for the Fionnaworld protagonists. You know, the reason why Fionna is stuck in her rut is because she’s too impulsive and careless. Gary is too perfectionist. Marshall never had someone who would stand up to him against his mom.

Fionna’s whole arc in the show is about learning to be more thoughtful and careful and considerate through her Multiverse Adventure. While Gary and Marshall Lee find release from the thing holding them back within Fionnaworld, with each other. 

‘Canonizing’ Fionnaworld is like... half actively altering their world into a ‘real’ one where change is possible, or at least easier - and half about an affirmation that their world was always real because change is about them outgrowing their personal issues (and also, y’know, about protecting their universe from the spiteful Beetle Cop).

And with how Fionna used to feel ‘trapped’ in the City, with nowhere to go and nothing to do - there is another change in Fionnaworld as a result of ‘canonization’ that feels very notable. 

I’m not entirely sure, but from Scarab's dialogue it seems likely that becoming a ‘real’ authorized universe just kinda manifested a whole planet and universe beyond the borders of the small existing Fionnaworld. Although I guess it's also possible that the process of repairing the existing city they found a way to expand it gradually - maybe it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that either way, Fionna’s horizons have been literally expanded. 

So you know, if she ever gets that thirst for adventure again... she actually has a Whole New World to travel and explore, it might not have (a lot of) magic but... she already heard Simon's stories of his adventures in a similar low-Magic world. It's a totally viable outlet for her.

What Fionna really needed to find the joy in her life is to be Real - to know that her actions have consequences for ill and for good. Because sometimes an adventure looks like saving a Prince of candy from an evil Ice Witch, or going on a multiverse journey to uncover a cursed Magic Crown… but it can also look like backpacking through Europe or campaigning against your evil landlady.

[loudclan-clangen]

sort of an out of the blue ask, but I remember when Weed was first introduced, she and Tundrafrost were said to be old friends and they were being pretty touchy and blushy with each other and Chickadeeblur seemed kinda jealous. Did they actually have a thing for each other, or did Chickadee just misinterpret it that way?

…also I can imagine Weed sort of being the wine aunt to Tundra’s kids and that’s cute to me lol

Tundrafrost and Weed did in fact "have a thing" in their much younger years. Tundrafrost and Chickadeeblur didn't grow up in the valley, and throughout their journey to it Tundra had many non-serious flings, of which Weed was one. When Weed was looking for a place to settle down for her old lady years, she reached out to Tundrafrost, whom welcomed her to the clan. Chickadeeblur had no real reason to be jealous, as she has no interest in taking a mate at this age, and the three are very good friends now. You're so right though, they definately do a kid trade where Tundra and Chickadee get to enjoy Cavepaw's baby phase and take him exploring out of camp to get his energy out while Weed settles down to talk Kingfur, Sockeyepelt, and Chumpaw through their standard teenager drama.

*bonk* *bonk* *bonk* *bonk* *bonk* *bonk* *bonk* *bonk* *bonk*

hehe, love it!

I try to keep the names the game gives me if it doesn't contradict with the setting. Things like "Owl", "Weed", "Jagged", or "Fierce" while not being Alaska specific are things or ideas that would be accessible to the cats and therefore I leave those. But names that do contradict or just seem boring to me I do try to change to something similar but more specific. Sand -> Silt, Chicken -> Chickadee, Prarie -> Tundra, Dog -> Dogwood, etc. It's not that any of these couldn't exist in nature in alaska, they just didn't feel like they fit the story at this point. In the first couple of hundred moons I tried to make sure that litters were named thematically based off of the oldest kit's name and their parent's personality, but after time this just became too much work and I think the random names are fun too. That's why the Tundra x Chickadee babies are all types of salmon and the healer kits all have long plant names. Some themes are definately looser than others. I do definately change the sillier names and try to balance out the "weird", for example, the fish babies all have pretty plain suffixes because their prefixes are pretty out-there and nothing else seemed to pair very well with them. "Kingflight" is just a little much, to my ear at least. Also the healer kits will have short suffixes because their prefixes are so long and just from a purely mechanical standpoint I can't fit "Dogwoodcaterpillar" or "Rosehiptadpole" in a comic panel.

Thank you! And go for it! I'd love to see people use my ideas in their own ways! If you want to give a little "insert idea inspired by @loudclan-clangen" I'd appreciate it a ton, (mostly cause I want to go see what you guys are making), but if not that's totally fine. I'm definitely not the first person to do a lineage challenge, but I'm glad that you like my system!

[invertedshroom]

final a square and sphere designs (LIES . i will probably tweak them later)

also image description and littel rant under the cut because . the hyperfixation has me in a chokehold i need to rant about how much i love this book (and hate the movie)

id by @/accessible-flatland-art:

[ID: A digital drawing showing original designs for A Square and the Sphere from the book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, drawing against a pink background.

A Square is dark blue with a white outline, four stubby legs, two tiny front arms, and glasses.

The Sphere is gold-orange, with two eyes with yellow sclera, small red irises, two small eyelashes on the bottom corner of each eye, and a red bowtie. He has a large yellow spot on his forehead, overlapping with a darker orange ring around one eye. There are three orange stripes on one wrist, and his other hand is orange.

First A Square is drawn saying, "i hate woman", while the Sphere looks at him, thinking, "gay?"

Then A Square is drawn by himself off to the side.

Finally the Sphere is drawn showing A Square a cube, while A Square looks up at him with a blush, thinking, "yaoi".

End ID.]

rant:

now that i've almost finished the book and am also reading the simplified version i'm honestly shocked about how bad the movie is in comparison, not just because the creator is disgusting, but of how much was changed and how it completely missed the point of the satire??? especially the personalities and the entire spaceland segment . actually crazy i think sphere being an asshole is kinda funny but sphere being a kind guide makes a lot more sense and i think i like it better actually, same for a. square him being a pathetic wet noodle just randomly put into another dimension is fucking hilarious but him being a bigot makes way more sense

i was also pleasantly surprised that the book is not only about how a 2d society could work but its a satire of society ??? like what thats so interesting ???? and i am sucker for horrible unjustified characters so i love a. square even more now

the best part about the book being a satire is that the creator of the movie (ladd ehlinger) didn't get the fucking point of the satire which . is SO FUCKING FUNNY how do you make an adaptation of a book without realizing ITS LITERALLY MAKING FUN OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU

anyway boooo bad movie booooooooooo read the book

[a-substantial-trash-pile]

hey guess what. it's finally time for my Stardew Valley Loredump. i’m about to ramble about my farmer and yo-yo/yoba and shane in a probably long-ass, disjointed post because i have a problem ok. not expecting anyone to read it all of course—just want to finally write these brainstorming shenanigans down. the loredump will be below the cut below the image 👇 (WARNING: IT'S LONG):

SAMUEL IZAWA:

*samuel is 28 years old, pan, japanese okinawan (no im not self projecting hahaha), and goes by he/they. main thing is that they’re from “our world” where stardew valley is a video game, but he died and ended up in the stardew universe. because i think isekai tropes are fun and silly. as the player, samuel can do things others in the stardew world can’t do, such as: 

summon the in-game HUD that’s only visible to him, so he can see health/energy levels and inventory and all that.

speaking of inventory, it’s essentially a pocket dimension samuel can shove stuff in. the inventory doesn’t really care about size/weight/etc as long as it’s something the system considers an “item.” so like samuel can put a whole ass four poster bed in there but he can’t do that to a person or a whole house. samuel just needs to touch the item to make it disappear into his inventory. he can then summon it back out when he needs it. the game’s inventory limit system remains the same. samuel gets 12 slots on their own, but if they have a bag on them it increases to 36.

can access the player menu you can normally access in game. so like profile, skills, collections, relationships, etc are all there. no options or quit tab though. having the relationship tab is a nightmare for samuel, who has major insecurities about what people think of him. that tab is a quantifiable measure on how much people like him. it a real brain demon for him to know it exists and is right there for him to access anytime. 

can see the “stats” of food and healing items. hp/energy recovery amounts, buffs, etc. 

*funny thing is that samuel has never played SDV himself and only has knowledge based on what he’s heard and seen online secondhand. ironically he was planning on playing the game for the first time before the whole dying thing ruined it. they can’t even remember how they died, but it doesn’t bother them as much as they think it should. they didn’t leave much behind in that life.

*anyway, i’m talking a lot of game terms here, but don’t get it twisted. while samuel has all these game systems going on, the SDV world is very much a real one that doesn’t normally work by that logic. by that i mean time flows normally like in our world and there isn’t just 4 months in a year. things exist outside the valley. there’s a whole planet of places and people. 

*luckily samuel has help in navigating this new world in the form of yo-yo the junimo, who is the first living thing samuel sees when he first wakes up in that joja cubicle. yo-yo helps explain a lot of things and guide samuel around in its own abrasive way. he’s also there to be like, “hey i gave you a second chance at life so you kinda owe me actually. sign this contract.” and samuel, who is a pushover and also confused, is just like, “ok.” (yo-yo sounds like danny devito btw. because i think it’s funny.) 

*i call the contract a “magical girl contract” because that’s essentially what it is. samuel gets access to extra powers/abilities on top the stuff he can already do as a player. in return he fights monsters n shit for yo-yo and generally does things for them that they can’t do easily on their own. the extra benefits include: 

higher pain tolerance. which isn’t always a good thing. especially when you tend to not be great with self-preservation like samuel is. 

can heal most injuries by just eating/drinking stuff to regain hp.

yo-yo can teleport the both of them around as needed, but it’s tiring and it drains a lot of magic. distance matters too.

yo-yo can spawn items but it drains magic as well. the more valuable/rare the item, the more draining it is. spawning items is already a magic-intensive thing in the first place. also yo-yo isn’t creating the item out of nothing. they’re actually randomly taking it from wherever it already exists in the world. for example, say yo-yo “spawns” a jar of pickles. somebody in the world is going to open their fridge and discover their jar of pickles is missing or maybe a grocery store will have a sudden empty spot on its shelf. yo-yo doesn’t have control of where the items are taken from (or so they claim).

samuel and yo-yo’s magic pools became connected so they can both do more than they could do on their own before. this is one of the reasons why yo-yo wanted a contract with samuel, who has a larger magic pool than normal due to being from another world. but it’s possible for one side to use up all the magic for the both of them. 

*samuel’s personality can be summed up as Awkward People-Pleasing Tired Sad Garbage Dork. either he’s dressed like a grandparent in sweaters and turtlenecks or he’s wearing a button up shirt with the collar undone and jeans. they usually have their neck covered in public to hide the mark of yoba embedded there. he has a “resting bitch face” as some may call, but that’s just because his brain is busy over-analyzing 193828 different things. he loves being outside in the grass and dirt, looking at bugs n shit. he’s also a nerd who likes to play video games and ramble about the lore in them (he likes RPGs the most, but if the game’s got a good story and cool world, he’s into it). they like to do things with their hands like model building/painting. in their new stardew life, they get into woodcarving after willy teaches them the basics (he carves shane a little chicken). 

*samuel does NOT know how to say “no.” absolute pushover. their self-worth is based on how much they’re liked by others, which isn’t healthy obviously. he has a fear that the only way he can be liked is by being useful. he’s scared that he is inherently a bad and selfish person, because he can’t say for sure if he’s helping others purely out of kindness or because it just makes him feel better about existing. deep down there’s anger/frustration that’s accumulated over the years, anger towards himself and also others because he’s always doing things for other people—going above and beyond—but it never feels like enough. at the same time though, they hate it when these thoughts come up because they believe that you shouldn’t go into helping somebody expecting that you’ll get something out of it. he hates how much of a hypocrite he is. he hates how he bases so much of his self-worth on the opinions of others, but feels helpless to it. they usually just push these emotions down because samuel feels guilty about them. how can they be a good person if they’re thinking like this? how can they deserve to exist with this mindset? however they get a chance to let out the anger/bitterness/frustration through fighting monsters. kind of disassociating in a way. this also isn’t a good thing because his demeanor is much colder and scarier during combat. having someone who’s felt powerless for so long suddenly gain power is a dangerous thing.

*this mindset when monster fighting shatters when samuel meets krobus and realizes that monsters aren’t just the simple enemy NPCs their brain had been automatically categorizing them as. guilt galore. he gets real depressed about that for a while but yo-yo, krobus, and shane are there to help him. 

*SPEAKING OF SHANE… it’s crush at first sight for samuel because hot damn is shane their type. i mean just look at him. mamma mia. haha anyyyway, they first meet at the stardrop saloon. samuel’s waiting at the bar for his to-go order near where shane is drinking. shane’s looking sad, so samuel gives in and decides they’ll start a convo to maybe distract him from whatever’s bothering him. samuel employs the “crack a dumb joke to hide the fact that i’m nervous because i’m talking to a hot person and then use that opening to introduce myself” strat. shane, being an asshole, is like, “oh so you’re the new farmer. here’s a tip: don’t bother me.” samuel takes 999 damage and their brain immediately goes “THIS IS MY FAULT I FUCKED UP like who wants to be talked to by a stranger when they’re sad goddammit why am i so bad at this?!!” it’s overall not a great first impression. after that, samuel tries to avoid shane out of embarrassment, but circumstances keep making them run into each other. for instance, samuel works a lot with marnie with her being a mentor figure to him in animal husbandry, so he and shane have a lot of opportunity to interact through that (plus marnie is secretly trying to get them closer to each other). through these meetings and shenanigans, samuel and shane get to know each other better until one day they’re friends. then good friends. then best friends. then kiss friends. then marry friends. :)

YOBA (A.K.A. YO-YO): 

*yo-yo is ????? years old and goes by any pronouns but most of the time it's it/they.

*yo-yo is actually THE yoba, but they’re not the completely benevolent creator-of-all-things humans have made them out to be. maybe they were in the past, but now they’re selfish and rude and swear a lot. but they do still care, even if they don’t admit it (tsundere-ass). yoba is currently stuck in the form of a little junimo and is substantially weakened because it gave too much of itself away to the world in the past and got burned for it. because the world kept taking and taking. and now there’s war and pollution and shit and yoba/yo-yo is maybe just a teensy tiny bit angry and bitter now. but it’s ok because now they got this human from another reality to help them reclaim the pieces of itself. and maybe along the way relearn how to love the world again.  

*oh also yoba didn’t create the whole planet like the creation story claims. they’re technically an alien that came across a young planet full of life and decided to stay and help it develop. 

*main reason yo-yo made a contract with samuel is because it needs help finding/reclaiming the pieces of itself. pieces can usually be found in strong monsters empowered by the piece. this isn’t always the case though. sometimes it’s in an ancient artifact. sometimes it’s in a specific place like a temple. sometimes it’s in a person. 

*samuel doesn’t have to deal with having an existential crisis about yo-yo, since he’s from our world where yoba doesn’t even exist as a god. yo-yo claims to be the one responsible for bringing samuel over into the stardew universe, but there are holes in their story. where did yoba even find the power to do such a thing when they’re in such a weakened state? mysterious. 

*the first time yoba reveals itself to shane is kind of chaotic. it’s in the middle of the night when yo-yo suddenly appears in shane’s room, grabs his face with its little stick arms and yells, “WAKE UP!!! YOUR BOYFRIEND IS IN MORTAL PERIL!!!” shane is like, “WHAT THE F–”     it was an act of desperation on yo-yo’s part, because samuel was in trouble and shane was the only one it could think of going to for help. essentially samuel meets something Bad in the deep mines, something that takes him out of commission and puts him in a trance state while draining his lifeforce. y’know, the classic kind of trance state where you need to figure out how to get the person back–how to snap them out of it. yo-yo tried and failed, so that’s where shane comes in. it’s the classic “love-interest-breaks-main-character-out-of-mind-control-with-sheer-power-of-love” trope. except shane does punch samuel during it. lovingly. in the face. hey it works ok.     after the chaos is over and everyone’s safe and gathered together, samuel and yo-yo explain everything to shane (well more like samuel explains everything while yo-yo wishes outloud that they had their memory erasing powers back). shane, who is canonically an atheist, learns that this talking pottymouthed jerkass apple is actually THE yoba and is just like, “yeah. this might as well happen.” and then he remains atheist because what else are you going to do when you learn that god is a talking pottymouthed jerkass apple who calls you a bitch and is also responsible for your partner having to go do dangerous shit. he and yo-yo have a rocky relationship at first to say the least. but once they both realize how much the other cares about samuel, things get a little better. 

*yeah, yoba may be a bitch and they may be angry and they may be bitter, but they really do care, even if they try to convince themselves otherwise. even though so much got taken from it, it still cares about humans and dwarves and shadow people and everything else on the planet. and when it eventually comes down to it, yoba will step up to protect what it loves, even if it means losing everything again. 

SHANE FINCH: 

*this post was technically supposed to just be about my farmer and yo-yo’s lore and stuff, but i gotta give some personal headcanons i have about shane… like for instance his last name is “finch.” because i thought the bird theme was cute. he’s 29 years old, bi, and half asian, half white (in our world that asian half is korean). i’m not being specific because i don’t know if korea even exists in the stardew world, since all we know in the game is that there’s a “ferngill republic” and a “gotoro empire.” i was thinking of just headcanoning that stardew’s planet is essentially the same as earth. so like most of the same countries/nations exist except the history diverged a bit along the way, leading to the ferngill republic and gotoro empire. OK SORRY for the tangent—back on topic.

*so shane is a trans man who started transitioning back in high school. he had two best friends who were very supportive and really helped him on his journey to figure himself out. those two friends were like family to him. it was good that he had this support because his parents were always pretty shitty and shane transitioning just made them act even shittier. the only good family member of shane’s is marnie, who was supportive, but she lived far away, was busy, AND wasn’t on good terms with her sister (shane’s mom), so shane didn’t get to see her much. 

*the moment shane became a legal adult, he got away from his parents, finding a place with his two best friends and moving in together. oh and his friends’ names were rosa and heath. should’ve probably mentioned that earlier oops.     shane, rosa, and heath go to the same college together, suffer student loans, graduate, etc. haven’t thought of what shane would get a degree in yet—most likely something “generic” because he’s unsure of what he wants to do himself (i feel u bby). 

*ok so rosa and heath were dating since high school, but they were so comfortable with shane and vice versa that things never got that awkward living together. however when rosa and heath got married (“yoba, FINALLY,” shane would say), shane felt like it was time to find his own place, much to the devastation of his bffs. the apartment ended up close to where rosa and heath lived of course—the couple made sure of it (“stop backseating my apartment hunting!” “MAKE US”). 

*rosa and heath get pregnant and have a healthy baby girl that they name jasmine. i headcanon jas as black (from heath’s side) and portuguese (rosa’s side). everyone is thrilled about the baby. shane was immediately offered godfather role and he happily accepted. jas was the cutest baby ever and he adored her. he babysat jas all the time. 

*jas was 4 years old when rosa and heath tragically passed away in a car accident. they were coming home from a business dinner when they lost control of their car on some black ice and slid into oncoming traffic. shane was babysitting jas when he got the call. in the span of one cold winter night, shane and jas’s world shattered. 

*rosa and heath didn’t have any reliable relatives either. those relatives only came to take the money and belongings. shane was the only one jas had, so he adopted her. he tried his best to pick up the pieces. he really did. he lasted for a year trying to raise a kid on his own with the salary of a dead-end job, but he knew the situation wasn’t good with the money and how much his mental health was spiraling. he knew he and jas were in dire need of more support (“jas deserves better than this”). so he turned to the one person he had left to rely on: his aunty marnie. and that’s how shane and jas ended up in pelican town.

*shane’s joja jacket was actually originally rosa’s. rosa worked as an accountant for joja and would get free promotional items all the time from the company. the jacket was one of the only things she actually ended up using because “it’s pretty comfy for being joja bs.” she would wear it all the time, much to her more fashion-conscious husband’s chagrin (yet he would patch up any holes she’d get in it anyway). after rosa died, shane kept her jacket. there were a lot of memories in it. 

~~~

ok that’s it for now. if anyone actually read all that, thank you for even wasting your time to process my ramblings. i’m sorry it’s so fucking long like jfc.

*who is mr. qi?

[bu-blegh-ost]

The time has finally come, @girlsonlytreehouse !!!

Today I shall share with you the fruits of my work. But first, allow me to take you on a journey I myself have been through while counting all of this shit down.

First things first, I decided to count the rolls in the context of the characters rather than the people playing them, simply because the luck of the actual people could not be measured accurately if I only take Riptide into consideration (and also I thought it would be more fun). The guys have several different campaigns, some that I do not have access to, so I've decided to seperate all their Riptide rolls into characters they play instead, cause then we can clearly see which character is the luckiest. But ofc if you want this to be attributed differently, the data remains unchanged, so that way you all can interpret the results however you wanted and still have all the info you need on hand.

Another issue were the advantage/disadvantage rolls. When a character rolls at advantage, they roll twice and the only roll that counts is the one that was higher, while the other is discarded and the opposite goes for disadvantage. So for example if you roll at Disadvantage and you roll a nat 20 and a 2, that nat 20 technically doesn't matter. Despite that I decided to count each adv/disadv roll anyway, because despite the fact that it does not count, it was still physically ROLLED, which means it contributes to the character's overall pool of luck. I tried to separate them at first so you guys can make your own decision whether to add them or not, but in the end I decided against it cause it was insanely hard to keep up with. There were just too many and too often, which led me to believe that it was fair enough to count everything as long as they actually rolled a dice.

Which brings me to the last complication, which is of course Gillion's Prophetic Screwup. At the beginning of the campaign Gillion was able to exchange anything that he actually rolled into a nat 20, and in return the DM can change any roll he does afterwards into a nat 1. That way there was supposed to be an equal number of wild unrolled nat 20's and nat 1's to balance Gillion out back to 0, but it didn't turn out this way. In more cases than not, Grizzly would either forget or fail to find a good place to screw Gillion over, so the ability bacame much too unbalanced. So they changed it somwhere in the middle of Edison Kingdom Arc. From then on, if Gill rolled anything from 1-10 it would automatically become a nat 1, and if he rolled from 11-20, that'd be a nat 20 instead. Either way these rolls had nothing to do with luck, as he wasn't actually rolling anything, thus I decided not to count these 'artificial' nat 20's/1's. However I did keep track of them nonetheless and I'll still give you the number of those, just separately, and from then on you guys can make your own decision on whether or not you wish to count it.

OOOFFF ALRIGHT.

Without further ado, here are the nat 20's results (up to ep106):

Gillion: 52

Chip: 58

Jay: 55

Goobleck: 8

Surprised? Yeah I was as well. First things first I never expected this to be this close. And never in my right mind could I possibly predict that it would he CHIP of all people to have the highest score here. But I've seen it with my own eyes. And tell you what. Jay had this in the bag for most of the damn series. She would consistently roll good and always when you need a good roll the most. There were times when she would have such a massive lead it was unthinkable she could loose it. But then she would just kinda...stop rolling good for a bit and allow the other two to catch up. It just wasn't as visble if you don't pay much attention, but I thought it to be cute. It's as she was waiting for them <3 But she was still mostly leading. It was only the current arc that made Chip surpass her. After his terrible luck in Feywilde, he bounced back so strongly right after, that he managed to jump in front of the luck queen herself.

And now I bet you're curious about the other side of the coin. Give it up for natural 1's!:

Gillion: 55

Chip: 53

Jay: 52

Goobleck: 1

You see, I kind of expected it to be Gill, but I need you guys to know that this wasn't the case at all times. Jay? Yes. If there is one thing that's consistent is that she had the lowest amount of natural 1s at all times almost, but the person that was suffering from nat 1 curse for a long while was Chip. In the Feywilde Arc he would be so far ahead of everyone, that I was genuinely sure that there is no way anyone catches up to him. But then he popped off in the next arc with nat 20's and Gillion? Oh my gosh, Gillion didn't disappoint. I've never seen a man fail this much let me tell you XD He ended up with the least nat 20's as well, but I thought the difference would be much higher until he didn't roll 4 fucking nat 20s in ep 100 and then this double nat 20 attack roll in the Black Sea whduihdius AND HE CAUGHT UP AS WELL, more or less.

Idunno, maybe this is just how luck works, but it truly seems that the trio shares their successes and burdens almost equally. They support each other and in return fate has their backs as well. Honestly I couldn't have hoped for better results. Also can we give shout out to Goobleck, the true MVP? He's been on the show only for a while but look at this nat1 - nat20 ratio!!! Go goop man goo!!!

So now for the additional stuff that I also counted just for fun:

*Prophethic screwup nats:

Before the rules changed Gillion replaced 8 of his rolls into natural 20s, and in return Grizzly replaced 3 of his rolls into natural 1s.

After the rules changed he only got high enough number for 4 nat 20s, and a low enough number for 7 nat 1s.

So that together makes additional 12 nat 20s and 10 nat 1s from the prophetic screwup alone. I don't think they should be added, but the numbers are there so feel free to do whatever you want with them :)

Downs and death saves:

Throughout the campaign Gillion went down 14 times and rolled 8 death saves.

Chip went down 6 times and rolled 4 death saves.

Jay went down 4 times and rolled 3 death saves.

No shocker here, Gillion dies a lot XD

Knights:

In their journey Gillion knighted 4 people: Julien Booker, Clorton, Garrieth and Duke.

Corruption score:

Thus far each character has the following amount of corruption points (Black Sea):

Gillion: 0

Chip: 2

Jay: 3

Queen: 1

Gryffon: 2 (i think, unsure abt that one, may edit later XD)

Earl: 1

That is all I have for now. I may be clinically insane :)

Good day to everyone and I hope you found this data interesting. Take care <3

[xenodile]

Really though, FFXIV was both very smart and also shot itself in the foot when Shadowbringers introduced a character that exists to solidify the Warrior of Light's connection to the First. Like Feo Ul signing an almost literal fey bargain with the Crystal Exarch and WoL where in order to enable WoL's ability to travel between the two worlds seamlessly, Feo Ul gets unlimited access to another world and to watch the WoL literally every second of the day. It's a great way to explain otherwise jarring or tone-deaf game mechanics and make them work, while also allowing for new narrative possibilities, which are then worked into Il Mheg, Feo Ul becoming Titania, and all that entails.

But it creates a new set of issues where Feo Ul is now present in literally every single moment of the MSQ because They are bound by their contract to the WoL. Feo Ul can show up and start talking at absolutely any time in any context after Shadowbringers, and after a while, it becomes strange that They don't. Like when wild fuck shit starts happening to the WoL's soul in Endwalker, THEIR sapling's soul, Feo Ul really isn't gonna say anything? After how possessive They were of the WoL in Shadowbringers?

I just want Feo Ul to be relevant again, they're a fun character and it's a shame their actual omnipresence in the Warrior of Light's life doesn't get used more often.