#introducing the first prompt list yesss

[yyprompts]

#1 🌙🩷🤍

theme/topic: deep end mix tape - Tabber

You're eating at a run-down, empty restaurant and lighting the candles on your birthday cake when suddenly, a bunch of bikers with their helmets still on come running to sit at your table. You're confused because you've never met them before, but turn around and see a rival biker gang is approaching, and decide to play along.

"I need you with me at night, I'm not fooling around with you." / "It's sad that you think I'd fall for that." / "But every night that you're not here with me, I feel as depressed as a wilting rose..."

"How many times would you die for me?" / "Exactly twice."

You meet your date for the night at a strange hotel nearly empty despite it being summer and prime vacation time. Little do they know that despite their hopes of finally securing a long-term romantic relationship, you're here searching for your next bloody victim.

There's a strange person running around like a maniac, making laps, and police cars around the neighborhood won't stop blaring their alarms. On their sixth lap, bored out of your mind from overtime work at a nearby store, you decide to interrupt their run. However, when you manage to stop them, you realize they're no normal person, and that they're covered in blood with fangs poking out of the corners of their lips.

[zedecksiew]

Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

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Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

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Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

+

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

+

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

+

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

+

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

+

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

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Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

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This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

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I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

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lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

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Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

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( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

[hariosborn]

james potter fic recs!!

lily evans, i see you, hear you, and i respect you... but we’re gonna forget about you for a hot minute

no please don’t say that... by @hello-everyfandom tag yourself, i’m sappy james :(( i just want to attend at least one gryffindor party in my lifetime. thinking of shifting realities :// jkjk i have no free time on my hands :(( but if i ever did, i would for sure visit the marauders and hang out w them in the common room 🥰 hashtag gryffindor pride!

match made by @slytherinquill who is y/n and why does she get all the guys 😔i would hate to have to choose between two boys who like me, but lucky for me no one likes me! as much as it squeezes my heart, i love the fake dating trope with all my heart bc of all the emotions it puts me through - and this one was so well written! love that for the writer, could not be me, i suck at writing <3

too late for love by @futurewriter2000 just the right amount of steam and heartbreak ;( fun fact: i used to only read and write on w**tpad and that was where i read my first hp fanfic after 2 years of being on the app (i had promised myself hp was off limits) and like i was looking on google to see the marauders fancasts and i saw a gif of aaron taylor johnson and i accidentally clicked on it and it took me to a oneshot on this writers page, and i was like “oh well, might as well” and i read it and i was crying and then for a month i was going on incognito tabs to try and read everything on her masterlist and then i caved and got a tumblr and here we are! so shoutout to @futurewriter2000 for being the writer to suck me into this lovely whirlpool that is harry potter fanfiction heehee

numb love by @heloisedaphnebrightmore i love non-cannon stuff because lets face it, my existence is not cannon. but this! this right here! wow! yes! it hurt, but it was worth it! i love how i could still have my own harry potter uni fantasy, but still have it line up with the cannon timeline 🥺

jealous by @writingfortoomanyfandoms short and sweet but dang! my heart did that little b***rflies thingy 😳i think best friend!remus is the best thing ever, and sirius’ little jabs at lovesick james were *muah*

nightmare by @marauder-exe more butterflies! i won’t spoil it - but when the prompt was mentioned (like james used it) i melted onto the floor. i became a puddle of puddy on the floor. i went so soft. i felt like i was in my natural soft girl state. romantic hari was activated :0

summer revelations by @pregnant-piggy YESSS!!! YAAAASSSS!!! SUMMATIIIIME!!! i live in ~la~ and its that kind of nasty hot rn (and during the summer) bc we’re having a heat wave, and i just wish with my entire being, that i could instead spend my summers in the english countryside in a cute french style house with cute boys dancing around their feelings for me. thats the dream right there. y/n has it lucky. i bet she takes that sh*t for granted 😒 jkjk love her! i am her! also i had in mind the exact dress i would be wearing, and bc of the humidity, i’m imagining my curls would be ~activated~ and so my messy bun would just be at peak cuteness <3

pushing the right buttons by @heloisedaphnebrightmore i don’t know why (actually i do) but the word “waist” and the action of “wrapping his arm around your waist” makes me feel something amazing. i’ve learned that my love language is physical touch + affection and this fic has that, and then paired with the idea of someone appreciating my waist just makes my brain go into overdrive. and then shirtless james is obviously a plus as well. 5+ points for that alone. 

uncontrollable wandless magic by @heloisedaphnebrightmore ooo imagine having powers 😏eleven typa beat. (OMG WAIT THE CHARACTER FROM STRANGER THINGS, NOT THE AGE AJKABVKJ)

schemes series!masterlist by @futurewriter2000 OOOO YESSS! this series broke my heart, but like in the best way possible, so its all good. also this fic introduced me to the idea of fantasizing abt mulciber, so i am not complaining. love me some remusxreaderxjamesxreaderxsiriusxreaderxmulciuberxreaderxplatonic!regulusxreader

potter by @mellifluousmalfoy relative of ernie mcmillan??? james potter??? soulmates??? the answer to all of those questions is yes. yes i do. yes i am. yes i is.

a golden lion and the pale blue bird by @remusishotterthansirius im not saying i agree with this authors user, but i a*ree with this authors user. back to the scheduled programming - i love study buddy!remus. like period bestfriend. introduce me to my future mans. you go do that remus. you play matchmaker. go ahead, i give you full permission 😌 

just go by @jamesmydeer i don’t even - i just - when - AGHHH. maybe its like a disease, but i love putting myself through pain via heartbreak stories on tumblr. it gives me a rush. pretending i’m actually in love. its nice ya know? its definitely an obsession, but i think its a healthy one! 

Y’ALL I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DOING MY HOMEWORK BUT I PROCRASTINATED AND MADE THIS LIST! AHHHH

but its okay bc its been a looong time since i made my first post - which also, ty for the nice messages from all the writers mentioned 🥺

hope you liked these recommendations! i’m sorry if you’re a writer and get tagged in like ever single fic rec list i post, i just really like your stuff 🥺

ANYWAYS I HAVE TO GO, I HAVE SO MUCH HOMEWORK TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME BYEEEEE

happy reading! 

[thelanguageoflovers]

Hello! The angst anon again and sorry for making u uncomfortable oops. But hey, how bout some fake/pretend relationship w lots of fluff?? Tyrus is gd but anything is fine :)))

You didn’t make me uncomfortable, I just wouldn’t know how to go about tackling something like a school shooting. It has such a gravity to it.

Anyway, yesss cute prompt. (Also I’m ignoring the fact that Josh said Cyrus can’t cook because I feel like he absolutely can and is super extra about it)

—

“I need a really really big favor,” Cyrus started, skipping a greeting, as soon as TJ picked up his facetime.

“Why hello to you too, Underdog,” TJ sat up in bed, readjusting his skewed glasses. “But shoot.”

“Oh no! I woke you up? I’m so sorry!” Cyrus exclaimed.

“No no it’s fine! I just fell asleep reading, but you’re worth waking up for,” TJ shamelessly flirted. “What do you need?”

“Brace yourself,” Cyrus warned, oblivious to TJ’s romantic intentions.

“I’m ready,” TJ chuckled.

“I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend,” Cyrus said quickly, bracing himself for TJ’s response. 

“Okay,” TJ shrugged.

Cyrus spent a few moments staring at TJ. His dark brown eyes met sparkling green, and for a moment all else was lost. Cyrus could feel his heart fluttering in his chest, and felt a newfound appreciation for his rib cage, for he was sure it was the only reason his heart was still within his body.

“Uh… What? I- I had reasons prepared. I was ready to beg and plead and- and you’re just. You’re just saying okay?” Cyrus stammered in disbelief.

“I mean, yeah. You seem like you just dug yourself into quite the hole, and you need me to take away the shovel,” TJ smiled at his own comparison, and Cyrus could have sworn he could feel himself falling more in love with the boy by the second. “So of course I’ll do it.”

“Really?”

“Anything for you, Underdog. On one condition,” TJ said, smiling coyly.

“Oh no. What’s the condition?” Cyrus asked nervously.

“It’s really not that bad, don’t worry! I just want to know the whole story as to why I’m doing this?”

“Ugh, fine.” Cyrus exaggerated. “I was basically ambushed today by all four of my parents. I went downstairs to find something for lunch, like a normal person, and I found not only my mom and step-father, but all FOUR of my parents. And boy let me tell you. You have no idea how awkward it is to walk into a room full of therapists, all talking over coffee, and then they just stop talking. It was so obvious they were talking about me, oh my god. Anyway, I walked in and all four of them just stared at me the entire time I made lunch- fajitas, by the way. I swear they didn’t even blink. It was terrifying, they were like porcelain dolls, just staring at me.”

“Cyrus, if you could move past the petrifying porcelain parents, I’d appreciate that,” TJ joked gently, smiling through his phone.

“Right. So I sat down at the head of the table, on the opposite end from them, and they just watched me eat for like a solid five minutes. And then finally my dad said something. But that was even worse because he flat out asked me if I have a girlfriend. I got flustered and didn’t say anything, so they assumed that was a yes.”

“Okay, but at this point couldn’t you still clarify that you don’t have a girlfriend, right? Not to mention the fact that I’m a guy?”

“Oh it gets worse. They started going through a list of every girl they’d ever seen or heard me interact with, and when I said no to all of them, they decided that then would be a good time to clarify whether or not I actually have a girlfriend. I said no, and they asked who I spend all of my time texting. At this point I was wildly uncomfortable and wanted to leave as soon as possible, so I told the truth, and told them I was texting you. Then, they asked if you were my boyfriend and I kinda had a moment of gay panic and said yes.”

“I see. But why can’t you tell them the truth now?” TJ asked, trying desperately to make sense of Cyrus’s story.

“Because I am still digging myself into this hole. They invited you to this party they’re throwing, and I said that you’d come,” Cyrus confessed.“And I also made up a whole backstory for our relationship, to avoid telling them I lied.”

“Ah okay. So, what’s the backstory?” TJ asked, sitting up further, and moving backwards to sit against the wall behind his bed.

“It’s nothing special, it’s basically just our actual backstory, except you won the one-on-one with Buffy and when I congratulated you, you kissed me. And then we went on our first date that Friday. Which makes our anniversary the 28th of the month.”

“That’s fair. I swear I just had a question to ask- Oh! When’s the party I’m going to? And what should I wear?” TJ asked, counting questions on his fingers.

“Okay I kind of underexaggerated there,” Cyrus confided. “It’s not a party, per se. It’s kind of a charity ball? It’s also very very soon. Tomorrow night at 6, in the ballroom at Hancher Hall. Formal attire.”

“The things I do for you, Underdog. I’ll ask Amber to help me find a suit, Lord knows I have no sense of style.”

“Thank you thank you thank you!” he exclaimed, and TJ was sure Cyrus could have jumped through the screen to hug him if he tried hard enough.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Underdog,” TJ said fondly, hanging up the call.

TJ took a deep breath, standing outside Hancher Hall. He was wearing a dark green button down that brought out his eyes, a black suit jacket, and black pants. He’d lost his contacts that morning, so he was resorting to wearing his glasses. He finally stepped into the hall, and into the ballroom.

“TJ!” he heard a voice call from his left. TJ looked around, and his eyes settled on Cyrus and his parents.

TJ walked over to Cyrus and, remembering the role he was supposed to be playing, kissed him on the forehead in greeting, an arm wrapped around Cyrus’s waist.

“Hey, Underdog. You look great,” TJ said in reference to Cyrus’s dark blue suit, white button down, and black bowtie.

“Thank you! So do you, I’ve never seen you in a suit. It- well I was going to say it suits you but I am now seeing the fault in that particular phrasing. The point is, you look good in a suit, TJ. I like the green, it brings out your eyes.”

“Thanks, Underdog. Amber thought the green would be a good idea. She was right, as always,” TJ chuckled. “Oh God, don’t tell her I said that though. She’ll never let me forget it.”

“I won’t tell, I promise,” Cyrus held his hands up in surrender. “I’ll spare you from her wra-”

“Cyrus, are you going to introduce us to your boyfriend or not?” they were interrupted by Cyrus’s step-father, Todd, stepping forward to nudge his step-son, a glass of champagne in one hand.

“Oh! Yes,” Cyrus turned around to face all four of his parents, taking TJ’s hand and intertwining their fingers. “Mom, Dad. Step-mom, Step-dad. This is my boyfriend, TJ Kippen.”

“Hi, it’s great to finally meet you,” TJ smiled politely, extending the hand that wasn’t holding Cyrus’s to shake all four of their hands.

“How long have you been together?” Cyrus’s step-mom Sharon asked, shaking TJ’s hand with a smile.

“It’ll be four months on Tuesday, right TJ?” Cyrus interjected, realizing that TJ probably didn’t actually know that.

“Cyrus! Tuesday is the 27th, not the 28th, it’ll be four months on Wednesday,” Cyrus looked at him, astounded that he’d remembered. 

“Oh, you’re right! I could have sworn that today was the 26th. I’m sorry!” 

“Don’t worry about it, love,” TJ added the pet name at the last second. Cyrus’s phone started ringing at that moment, and he checked the screen.

“I’m sorry, this is Buffy. I’ll be right back,” Cyrus excused himself from the conversation, squeezing TJ’s hand as he left. TJ watched Cyrus step out of the ballroom, standing just in his line of sight as he held his phone to his ear, before turning back to the younger boy’s parents.

“So, do you play any sports, TJ?” Todd asked.

“Oh, yes. I’m the captain of the boys’ basketball team,” TJ stated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Do you intend to break my son’s heart?” Cyrus’s father asked, unaware of the fact that Cyrus had hung up the phone and was now within ear shot. TJ took a moment to recover from the initial shock of the moment, considering what to say.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Cyrus, having heard his response, wrapped his arms around TJ’s waist, rising onto his toes to rest his chin on TJ’s shoulder. “Ah! Why hello there, Underdog.”

“Hi,” he whispered. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah, of course. Is everything okay?” TJ turned around, concerned.

“Oh, yeah! Everything’s fine, I just wanted to talk to you?” TJ nodded, allowing Cyrus to lead him out of the ballroom, weaving through silk, satin, and velvet skirts.

“So, are you sure everything’s alright?” TJ asked when they got outside the room.

“Yeah, I just- Um. I have something to tell you,” TJ gave him an inquiring look, urging him to keep going. “So, um… I just. I don’t want to pretend we’re in a relationship anymore.”

“You don’t? Do you want me to pretend to break up with you? Or the other way around? Why?”

“No, TJ. It’s not like that. I just- I want to actually be with you, TJ. I don’t want this to just be for tonight. I want this to be real, TJ,” TJ was stunned into silence. “And I get it if you don’t want this, or if you don’t even want to be friends anymore, but I had to tell-”

“Cyrus! I’ve been flirting with you for literal weeks. I don’t want this to be fake either.”

“Really? Because you don’t have to-” Cyrus was cut off by TJ leaning down to kiss him. Cyrus wrapped his arms around TJ’s neck, standing on his toes to be closer to the other.

“Are you gonna break my heart, TJ?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”