#learning from watching other GMs is wonderful

[cozage]

Gm!! I saw your inbox was open!! I was hoping to request something with Sanji, Ace n Franky with a selective mute (gender neutral) reader talking to them through their voice for the first time to confess? 👉👈

(Btw I wanted to let you know that your writing has such a grip on my heart, I must have re-read your Sleepy Afternoon hcs at least a hundred times 🥺🫶 and i hope you have a wonderful day!)

So sorry I didn't get a new chapter out today...the holidays kept me busy! Enjoy these sweet short stories instead <3 Characters: gn reader x Sanji, Ace, Franky Cw:  none :) Total word count: 1600

First Words

Sanji

Ever since you joined the crew, you had found yourself gravitating toward the kitchen. 

Being with Sanji was easy. He never pestered you with questions or asked you to speak. If he did ask questions, they were always non-invasive, yes-or-no questions that you could answer with a shake of your head. 

You realized you had feelings for him when he came into the kitchen one morning, dark shadows under his eyes. And before he began cooking, he signed good morning to you. You had signed back the same phrase before you realized that he had signed, not spoken. 

He beamed with pride as your eyes widened in shock. 

“You learned how to sign?” you signed quickly. 

He focused intensely as he watched the way your hands moved, and then slowly nodded. 

“I stayed up all night trying to learn the basics. I figured it’s lonely up there in your head.” He tapped his temple with his forefinger for effect. “I’m not very good yet, but I’ll try my best to follow you if you ever feel like communicating.”

You gave a soft nod, the thought making your eyes shine. Even just the effort of knowing good morning made your heart swell. 

As the days went on, Sanji got better at sign language. So much better that he indirectly became your translator for the rest of the crew if you ever felt like adding to the conversation. He came to your defense whenever Luffy begged you to speak, and helped make sure your voice was heard without ever judging you. 

As the two of you were sitting out on the deck one night under the stars, you decided you couldn’t hold it in anymore. You had to tell him. 

“I have to tell you something,” you signed.

Sanji stood up a little straighter, looking at you with slight concern. “What is it, my love?”

“I think-” you paused your signing. Saying the words with your hands didn’t seem right. You trusted Sanji with everything. You wanted to tell him. You wanted to say it. Out loud. 

“I think-” you whispered softly, your voice raw from time unused. But you grew more confident when you spoke again. “I think I might just be in love with you, Sanji.”

You could see him struggling to understand your words; the fact that you had spoken was enough to send him into shock. 

And then he leaned in and kissed you. 

You melted under his touch. Your body craved the feeling of his skin as he held your face against his. 

“I love you too, my dear,” he whispered back. “And my name on your lips is sweeter than anything I could ever cook up.”

Ace

Ace didn’t mind that you didn’t speak a lot. Or speak at all. He did enough talking for the both of you. 

Still, you liked being around him. At meals, you often found yourself sitting next to him. At parties, he was often at your door, dragging you out onto the deck to have a few beers with everyone. 

You liked how he could bring people together. He was always the life of the party anywhere you went. You enjoyed his warmth, both through his devil fruit ability and personality. 

You often found yourself staring at him, admiring everything about him. You knew every other person on the ship was doing the same thing. So even when his eyes locked onto yours and the two of you had silent conversations, you did your best to ignore that ache in your chest. He was loved by everyone. You weren’t special. 

“Thank you for coming tonight,” Ace said, taking a seat next to you on the deck. “I know you didn’t want to, and I know these parties can be overwhelming. So thanks for coming for me.”

You shook your head slightly, smiling softly. It’s no big deal.

“It is a big deal! You-” the rest of his sentence was cut off by a few of your crewmates screaming at each other and everyone cheering loudly. 

“Come on,” Ace mumbled, rising to his feet and holding out his hand for you. “Let’s go somewhere quieter. I can’t hear myself think here.”

You smiled and nodded, taking his hand. It was loud and overwhelming. You were here for Ace, to celebrate him being promoted. But that didn’t mean you liked being around crowds or rowdiness. 

There was only one place that was quiet on a night like tonight: the crow’s nest. So the two of you quietly snuck up the ladder and hid away from everyone. A moment of quiet amongst the sea of noise. 

“It's so peaceful up here,” Ace said softly. “I love it up here.”

You hummed in agreement. “I love you.”

Both of you froze. You hadn’t even been thinking about a confession. It had come out entirely on its own. 

You could feel Ace’s sharp gaze on you. “What?”

You cleared your throat, ignoring the heat on your face. “The view. I love the view.”

“You’re speaking.”

You finally looked at him, your voice rough. “I speak sometimes.”

“Never to me!” Ace ran his hand through his hair and took a long drink from the bottle in his hand. “You’ve never spoken to me!”

“I-” you stopped. You hadn’t spoken much since you had joined the crew. Only to Pops, really. And only whenever you were asked a direct question. Ace had probably never heard your voice. “I thought you had. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize!” Ace said, laughing. “I just want to hear more of it! Tell me a story! Your voice is- is like-” he struggled for words, and then he smiled as his eyes locked onto yours. “It’s like a breath of fresh air.”

“It is not,” you smiled at his words, though. “You just feel that way because we can breathe up here without smelling our lovely crewmates.”

Ace barked out a laugh. “Stunning and funny. You really are the total package.”

You quieted at that. A true compliment from Ace didn’t happen often, and you could feel the blush creeping its way through your face. 

Instead, you laid back and turned your head toward the sky, choosing to watch the stars instead. You were almost asleep when Ace spoke again.

“I love you too, you know.”

Franky

You liked being in the workshop with Franky. Franky never tried to get you to speak. Most of the time it was too loud in there to hold a conversation anyway. The extent of your conversation was him asking you to get a tool for him, and you silently retrieving it. 

You weren’t sure it changed into something more, but you began watching him closely as he worked. After a day or two, he began explaining what he was building and all the steps that went into it. It wasn’t long before you were working on the bench next to him. 

Some days, Franky was chatty. He talked about his home, his old life, and other projects he had done. Sometimes he asked you simple questions about your past, but he never pried too deep. 

That’s what you liked most about Franky. Everything had been on your terms, and Franky had always received your decisions enthusiastically. He always supported you when you wanted to help him build a bench, but he also encouraged you to take rest days when you simply wanted to observe. 

Franky was always on your side. No matter what you decided, he was going to agree. He was your biggest fan, always cheering you on. 

And as his strong arms wrapped around you, both of you holding the torch to weld two pieces of metal together, you realized the heat on your face wasn’t just from the flame. 

Franky pulled his welding helmet up. “So, do you like welding?”

You nodded. “I think I like you more, Franky.”

Franky’s mouth fell open in shock. For once, you had stunned him into silence. Only the hum of the generator buzzed in the air. 

The silence made you feel strange, and words began falling out of your mouth in an attempt to fill it. 

“You’re so kind and supportive to me and you always help me learn new things. You’ve been so amazing and patient these past few weeks and you’re always so encouraging and…I just…I like you a lot, Franky, and I was just thinking about how I wanted to tell you and then it just…came out.”

Franky was still staring at you, awestruck. “You can speak?” 

You covered your face. He was missing the whole point. Maybe he would forget the words you had actually said. 

He seemed to remember your words at that exact moment. “Me? You like me?”

A small smile creeped across your face. No backing down now. “Yes, I do.”

“Super!” His words made you laugh. “I’ve liked you for quite some time as well. Just didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Your smile finally widened, full and genuine. “You’re the place I feel most comfortable, Franky.”

He gently wrapped his arms around you, pulling you in for an embrace. “And I will never stop being that for you, I swear it.”

[heybiji]

hi i found your page cause of your Masks art!!

imma be running a game of masks and was wondering if you have any tips

Oh hello! Very cool you're gonna run a MASKS game, it can be a lot of fun!

I'm not sure how helpful my advice will be since I'm still learning and am not sure how well I actually run the game haha, but for starters there's a whole lot of great advice on Reddit that will help with the mechanics and the structure of the game. In my opinion, the Principles section in the GM part of the core book is critical and succinct and is great advice for running ttrpgs in general.

my top advice is:

"We play to get the next issue picked up!"

Play the game like we want people to buy the next issue and not put the series down! Take chances! Make big choices! Make it interesting! Be bold!!

other things:

Theme. Establish the themes of your story early on. This will help you understand how the world and story should respond to the PCs. And make the themes interesting to you! For example, beyond the general coming-of-age story themes already built into the character arcs, I lean heavily into the concepts of fame, celebrity, and the 24-hour news cycle. And all the things that were going on in the early 2000s.

Be a Fan of the PCs. This is my favorite rule from The Principles. Make sure all your players soak this rule in. The MASKS mechanics mean characters will often make less-than-optimal decisions, so players must feel supported in their character choices. You should be a fan of the characters, and so should your players! They should want to help bring out every character's arc, not just their own.

Treating Human Life as Meaningful is what Makes Threats Real. This is another principle, but yeah, make the world's NPCs feel like they matter, and that will make the world worth protecting. Treat them as people. Give everyone Drives, not just your Villains. Mentally treating even non-villain NPCs as having Conditions can do a lot to help with characterization.

Condense. Condense your world, your NPCs, make the world feel smaller. In our game, for example, having the Protege's mentor also be the same superhero who saved the Delinquent years ago was a great decision.

Playlists. I have a bunch of different playlists for the campaign, from a big one of music of the time (our game is set in 2004) to playlists for important NPCs, to playlists I asked my players to curate for their characters. Music inspires me a bunch, a song can help create a villain for me, and I also like choosing a different "ending" song for every episode based on whatever happened.

Stories. Okay, here's the thing. I don't really care much for superhero stories. Why did I choose to run MASKS, you ask? Because of the emotion-based mechanics. That's my shit. But anyway, I don't take in much superhero media... But I do LOVE movies and television and stories in general, and I think taking in a lot of "short stories" is helpful to develop an instinct on how to pace a story, make a character or moment memorable, etc. And because MASKS has an episodic nature, this is extremely important! The sheer amount of movies I've watched has helped me a whole bunch, since they have to get the Beginning, Middle, and End done within such a short time frame.

Don't Wait. This is an instinct I've picked up from some of my favorite media. Don't wait for The big important moment. Make a lot of big important moments, and make the characters have to make a lot of important choices, and keep the momentum going. Paint yourself into a corner and then force yourself to think of ways out! It makes the story more interesting. (this may not apply to everyone, I get this kind of mindset from shows like Breaking Bad and Succession, which for your story could be too much haha)

Everyone Works. Okay, I am not a benevolent, sweet GM, I will not smile with tears in my eyes and quietly work away and accept that without complaint. no way. I make my players help me a lot. I'm gonna whine. Guys I'm doing so much work! Guys this is hard! Weeehhh! MAKE THEM HELP YOU. RUNNING A GAME IS SOOOOO MUCH WORK OH MY GOD IT'S SOOOOOO MUCH WORK!!! Ask them to take notes! Ask them to treat the world with sincerity! Ask them to make NPCs! Ask them to play NPCs! Ask them to help fill out the world! Ask them to tell you what their character wants to do next so you have extra time to consider it! Ask them to make playlists for their characters to help you figure out how to engage with them! Don't let them just show up on playday!! I'm a "you get what you give" kind of GM. You're a player too and you deserve to enjoy the game as well, and having the other players help you helps a BUNCH. PUT THEM TO WORK.

what else. uh. visuals help a lot with engagement so i subscribed to a bunch of modern battlemap patreons. i run using Foundry which lists the rules upon every roll which is great for me, someone with horrid memory. if you're lucky and favored by god, you'll have a benevolent player that will be the scribe for your sessions and log everything down so they can be referred back to (again, great for someone like me with a horrid memory). remember to give focus to the PC's out-of-costume lives as well. make NPCs in response to your PCs (superheroes, villains, touch on something of a PC in the creation process). be silly. be serious. be sincere.

i'm still figuring out how to run the game, maybe i'll have better advice on a later day, but i hope this can help some! sorry this is longwinded and more a stream of consciousness than it is succinct.

[modoreadsttrpgs]

Game Reactions: Transgender Deathmatch Legend II

Link: https://ratwavegamehouse.itch.io/transgender-deathmatch-legend-ii

Bear with me, but I’m still on the motorsports idea, it will make sense soon maybe. I’m also kinda cheating as I read this in late Feb pretty much as soon as my copy arrived (ironically, on the day I was out watching The People’s Joker). I’ve gone back to it though, as I was riding the ADHD brain-train through ideas for this motorsports game, and I remembered playing Top Trumps as a kid, with a pack focused on cars of course. Of course I thought wow, what if you could base the game around a Top Trumps deck?! I have no idea how that would work, but also I looked at modern Top Trumps and they’re just about the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, and not even in a fun way. Look at this thing:

Terrible photo, cropped onto a horrible background, with nasty colours and just about the worst design for usability you could ever imagine. So this was definitely a bad idea. Anyway, it did remind me of TDLII, which uses a trick-taking card game as its core mechanic. In short, I’ve wondered whether a hack of this would work well. I’ll come back to that at the end.

The game itself is fantastic. In contrast to Top Trumps, it looks great - it’s a spiral-bound A4 book in landscape format, so it looks different to anything else I own. Most of the art is photography of Kayla Dice (the creator of the game) and Forest Jones. They’re caked in blood, holding weapons, grappling etc. It’s violent, in your face, and sets the scene perfectly.

I should probably say it’s a game about pro-wrestling, primarily designed for 2 players, one Promoter (GM) and one Face (player). There are rules for more players too though. As mentioned, the core mechanic is a trick-taking card game, which determines the outcome of each fight. The fights take place as part of a hexcrawl, and the game includes seven distinct hexcrawls as well as rules for designing your own. It’s about pro-wrestling, but it isn’t just a series of organised matches. Each hexcrawl is a scenario playing out that has you fighting in and out of the ring. A booker hasn’t paid you and you need to fight through his goons to get your cash, a trans healthcare provider is denying access and you’re going to beat some sense into them, and so on. The hexcrawls give it vibes of 90s beat ‘em ups like Streets of Rage, or movies like The Warriors. Kayla in fact lists both of these, among many others, in the bibliography, as I just remembered!

Basically that’s the core of it. The framework is pretty straightforward, in that you crawl through the hexes, and play the card game when there’s a fight. Some hex variations can give you weapons (a bonus card to play at an opportune moment), story beats, or other events. The flavour all comes from the hexcrawls themselves, which are really strong individually, and come together to build a collection with both variety and a consistent theme and voice. It makes me not want to hack it for the motorsports idea because it would pale in comparison :D

Before I get back to that, one last word on the book. In addition to everything mentioned so far, there are three essays included. One about Kayla’s relationship to wrestling, one about the history of wrestling (that is only a single page but would legit be a great thing to share with anyone who knew nothing and wanted to start learning), and one about blading (or more specifically, about pain in art, contrasting pro-wrestling with stand-up comedy). All three are brilliant. The first in particular comes along on page 2, and immediately had me reeling. I don’t know how old Kayla is, but we must be vaguely similar ages. My family couldn’t afford Sky Sports, and yes I’m also autistic so I watched the shitty Sunday morning highlights show as well, and checked the WWE website (and then other websites, like Rajah was specifically my main go-to for a long time) religiously. I never got a bloody nose from taking a pedigree, but I had a bad back for a while from taking a chokeslam (onto a small rock I hadn’t seen before landing on it spine-first). I related quite a bit already, so when Kayla describes Eddie Guerrero’s passing as “the first time I became aware of death” I think I paused and had to interrupt whatever my partner was doing to animatedly point all of this out. Other than my childhood dog, Eddie was the first death I was actually sad about, and I could never process that the week before I was watching him wrestle, then he was gone. To this day I will just randomly think about Eddie sometimes, and it will still make me sad. He will forever be my favourite wrestler, not just because his untimely passing adds weight to the memories of him, but because he was genuinely the best to ever do it. I had no idea we’d lose him early when he won the title and I screamed in joy at the TV, jumping up and down. Nor when he unlaced his boot to cheat Kurt Angle out of a win and I cackled with glee. Eddie was the fucking greatest.

That was a bit of a tangent, but I will never feel bad about giving props to Eddie Guerrero. Getting back to the notion of hacking this for the motorsports idea, I really like that it has a simple card game to play out the fights. As I’ve gone through a couple of explicitly motorsports-themed games, I’ve honed in on the exact dynamics I’m aiming for. I want it to be about a driver’s career, revolving around the racing, but zoomed out enough that a race is a few minutes, not an entire play session. You should be working through a full career over a game (that could be multiple sessions), and have the opportunity to play through multiple careers. I loved the dice mechanics for the racing in Grid Beef, but there isn’t the space for something so detailed. The subject of the game is the driver’s career, not the racing itself, but equally there needs to be an element of uncertainty in the race and championship outcomes. TDLII has respawn checkpoints if you lose a fight, but I’d like to let the cards determine whether your driver wins the race, and the championship, or not, and you play through the consequences. Sometimes a really talented driver just misses out on a win, and it sends their whole career down a different path.

I’m less certain right now how the hexcrawls play out. Each could be a championship, which would be very clean, though perhaps more zoomed in than I’d expected. They could also be shorter though, and then feed into a meta-structure where the results of each championship determine what options you have as a drive in the following year. Each crawl could also be a whole career, but that could get unwieldy, or too zoomed out. It all feels like it fits very well though, so well that I’m struggling to escape the gravity of the idea, and have already written a load of notes about how to reconfigure the fighting styles, the hex types etc. I don’t think I can get my brain away from building it in this way. It’s also notably a 2 player game, when I’ve had this idea as a solo game - either I figure out how to make the card game solo-able, or I turn the idea into a 2 player one. I honestly wouldn’t mind the latter, I’d love more 2 player games in the world.

To come back to the actual game at hand though, it’s easily the best thing I’ve posted about so far. If you’re interested in wrestling, 2 player games, or just good TTRPGs, I’d highly recommend checking it out.

[greyplainsttrpg]

This is kind of a random post that is TTRPG related. This is about running games as a GM/DM/etc., not a callout to indie game designers/developers.

However, this will be meaner/more self aggrandizing then usual, which is why I wanted to gauge interest in this kind of post before going through with it. You have been warned.

If you find this post and are outside my 5-8 most honored mutuals, I don't know what to tell you. My bad.

Sometimes, it feels like I'm the only one directly challenging the medium of TTRPGs. And while I know this isn't strictly true, I wonder why I don't see/hear about more creators like me running games the way I do.

I have been working on a presentation to my local TTRPG group titled "Psychedelia in Fantasy Gaming." And while I stand by everything in the presentation, the idea of framing the style of GMing I use as "psychedelic" serves only to launder my ideas into more philosophically moderate language. It is a new framework I have developed to teach people what/how my GMing is. I don't know if it is intellectually dishonest to develop an entire philosophical framework to explain to people that "no, you should make your players actually explain how they do X," but we work with what we've got. It feels dishonest because I have to engineer a bunch of bullshit just to have my ideas, which I feel are actually really obvious/straightforward, to be taken as thoughtful advice instead of weird edgelord trolling. I will post the presentation slides to this Tumblr after the presentation and I get some feedback.

My larger point is that my style is (I would say "very") relatively confrontational to players. That's not in a typical GM v. Player dynamic where I am trying to kill their characters to prove a point. My style is much more "I am testing you, the player, and your capacity to expel your presuppositions about the situation and think in new/unconventional patterns." The result of doing this is often "having a melancholic time" as the players realize that they have willingly entered a no-win situation that they have to examine their own sense of morality v. their character's agency to navigate. The point of the adventure is not to have fun. My adventures are often grueling, stressful, and resolve without clear narrative answers.

YET, especially as I've gotten better at perfecting this, Players who make it through really love my games. They often tell me that it was the best game that they've played at a particular event or whatever. I know why this is: it's because my games are engrossing and escapist in a way that the rest of the field doesn't offer. They are, ironically, more fun because they are not designed to be fun. However, when I have tried explaining my style to others in the past, other GMs often ridicule me for negative traits they assume are parts of the games that are not actually present. They assume the games are pedantic, cruel, boring, etc., but this is simply not the case. It just sounds like it would be some of those things when you hear elements of it in isolation from the context of a whole session/adventure linked together.

Like, yeah. Letting players aimlessly futz about for 4 real-time hours as they seek methods to research a problem that doesn't make sense sounds really fucking boring if your standard of "a good game" is X number of combat encounters per session, X minutes of roleplay, and X number of "cutscenes" per session. HOWEVER, and I know this sounds crazy, futzing about for four real-time hours can be pretty epic. Watching as the players slowly chip away at their expectations and learn about the insane situation you've developed is really engrossing for both you and them. There's something about "no, actually the dumbest thing you've ever thought of is probably the correct methodology to crack this puzzle" that is amazing and cannot be replicated in any other genre of media.

I also take umbrage to the framework that my games are "simulationist" as per GNS theory. Yes, there is simulation involved, and the games do provide an experience that could be described as a simulation, however that is not really the point of it. The purpose of my games is not to provide an accurate simulation to a fantasy world. The purpose might be, for example, to trick players into performing state violence so that they can reconcile the nature of power and the convenience of fascism as an apparatus to wield power. Is that "narrative"? No, because I usually do not have a pre-planned, grander story. Is it "gameist"? No, although I do heavily rely on the inherent mechanics of the systems I've built to play these kinds of games. Are they "simulationist"? Closest, I guess, but not really because the circumstances are so odd and I rarely have planned the exact mechanics of what the party generates as the solution to the problem to create a convincing simulation. This is why GNS theory is generally considered passeé. It's a convenient tool, but it doesn't have the means to solve the nuance of the actual experience of playing a TTRPG outside of what the text of the game presents in a vacuum. Being called a "simulationist" dumps me into a pool of game design that I don't think actually fits what I am trying to achieve, and it also allows the people who place me there (usually without ever having actually played one of my games) to kind of belittle the theory of what I'm doing as "lesser" than their "pure" gamist/narrativist experiences. This sounds like the most stupid takedown, but I swear this has happened to me lol.

That's why I've pivoted to calling the style "psychedelic." I'm fronting my GMing strategy as a counter to "Surreal" games that I consider to be the generally established norm within the fantasy game space (not that there's anything wrong with that). The core of the argument is that a Surreal adventure is one that fronts the themes of the experience via the emotional demands of the character and the story as the primary vector of narrative progression. A psychedelic adventure is one that fronts the situation (in abstract of a planned "story") via the intellectual demands of the players as the primary vectors of narrative progression. In other words, surrealism is themes v. characters, while psychedelia is setting v. player.

This is all leading to my major point: I think GMs are cowards for not believing enough in players. The most common criticism I get for this kind of gaming is that "my players wouldn't like that." Maybe. I've had some failures with players who were NOT ready for this style of play. However, I have found that most players, when given the time and creative space to figure out what is going on, are really interested in and excited to experience a real challenge. A challenge that isn't based on playing their character optimally to output damage but a challenge to themselves directly. It is paradoxically a more mature AND childlike form of play because it is more creative and challenging. It's really fun for myself (because I get to organically react to shenanigans), and it's fun for players who are actively rewarded for creating shenanigans. Going "off the rails" isn't a "the GM was so mad" kind of experience. It is literally required to advance the session. I am happy to see my players figure the situation out and come to their own solutions to the problem.

This gameplay also leads to players talking to each other and playing together. Players are not focused on their character, they're focused on the situation and how their character, as a tool, can engage with it. In this style, the players actually need each other for more than just managing the action economy of the game with their character's abilities. Players need each other because they need the shared experience, knowledge, and creativity of everyone at the table. There's a lot of talk about TTRPGs enabling collaborative storytelling, but my games are among the few times I actually get to experience players collaborating to tell the story during a TTRPG session.

What would a greyplainsttpg on tumblr dot com post be without shitting on 5e and 5e culture? I have had this issue with games for a long time. Long before 5e. This is not an issue unique to 5e culture. However, I think 5e has increased the daycare-style of engaging players that I find genuinely insulting. More than anything, this "googoogaga don't worry your little head, you'll be able to beat the BBEG, here's a clue to your puzzle uwu please don't be upset, please don't cry, you're a good boy/girl/pal aren't you!" is so rude to me. I'm an adult. Give me something to chew on. Let me ponder the morality of the situation I've found myself in. Why am I even playing a game that doesn't respect my agency? That doesn't expect me to be a human? Why am I playing a game, RAN BY A FELLOW PERSON, that doesn't seem to respect my agency as a human being by the structure of the culture of the game that they are playing? I don't think that they know what they're doing is disgusting to me. Maybe this is just the turbo autism talking. But do y'all (players in general) like this? Do you enjoy having a car toy shaken in front of you as a distraction with no real substance. Evil is bad, good is good? That's the game we're playing? Fucking really?

This is related to my disdain in 5e culture of referring to characters solely by their class and not their name or their role. It's so cookie cutter. It feels like the goal of 5e is to make exactly 12 characters that you can add custom gear to and then go through all the "wacky" little adventures the GM cooks up. It's the same 12 characters in every game of D&D in different permutations. The same 12 characters reacting to every situation forever and for all time. You are the ones in a simulation. You're not playing a game. The game has already been played the second you picked your character classes, you just get to see how it plays out (exactly as you predicted it would). Playing 5e in particular makes me wonder why I'm even playing a game instead of letting the AI play my barbarian for me. Would it be any different? Because if I play my Barbarian "correctly" than what is the difference between me and every other barbarian player in that adventure? You know? It's soul-crushing. Playing 5e crushes my soul in a way that "I don't know, I like 5e" people will never understand. It's not a game. It's not collaborative. It's lines on a chess board of optimal play for "WOWEE" points. It's so fake.

If you try to use 5e to play a real fucking game, the entire math of the system collapses around you. This can be funny to do intentionally, but god damn is it annoying to endure. 5e does not have the tools in it to play a game of Dungeons and Dragons. All it has are the tools to simulate what playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons looks like from the opposite end of the camera on the set of stranger things where they roll a d20 to determine if fireball hits? What the fuck am I watching that's fucking crazy the demogorgon has MR it first would need to roll a % die what are you doing mike fireball was a fucking terrible spell to use you're all in a confined space, WILLIAM YOUR WIZARD HAS NO MORE THAN 30 HP WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR SWEET LITTLE GAY HEAD CAST A SPELL THAT DOESN'T INTERACT WITH MR. The entire plot of Stranger Things happened because Mike refused to let Will TPK his own party as the demogorgon is immune to fireball. Ironically, this could have been used as part of the plot because Psionics SPECIFICALLY gets around MR and that would been a way to tie the events of the show to the game that they were playing but what the fuck do I know. I swear this is on topic for my post at large. Cause, like, watching people play D&D wrong feels pretty similar to watching people play D&D "correctly." People have their characters act so bizarrely/rigidly it makes me wonder why I'm even playing a game.

Play games with people and systems that respect you. Play games that value your human spirit. Play games that could not be better replicated on a computer. Play games that challenge you and ask you difficult questions. Play games that are worth playing. Be a player that is worth playing with.

[litsnobconfessions]

A Year of Animation Day 129-130

Date: May 9-10, 2025

Day: 129-130

Content Watched: Craig of the Creek, Season 2, Episodes 21-30

Year: 2017-2025

Rating: TV-Y7

Run Time: 110 minutes

"Tea Timer's Ball" proves, once again, that I am Kelsey. I really struggle with foregoing my own feeling in order to protect the feelings of others. I'm really glad that episode talks about this, though personally, it doesn't hit the same as Bluey's "Dance Mode" because I've realized that growing up, my family frequently invalidated my feelings, and I was more than once told to apologize for doing things like walking away because I was offended. But this may hit better for someone in a different situation, and I do like that they showed why public proposals are a terrible idea. Basically, every kids show needs episodes like this.

In fact, "Secret in a Bottle" is kind of about the same thing, considering multiple kids have to learn to air their grievances with each other rather than keeping them (literally) bottled up to avoid hurting other people's feelings. I also expected the Secret Keeper (as I will from now on refer to this kid) to air everyone's dirty laundry. Instead, he covered for the girl who doesn't like horses, so he seems really committed to keeping everyone's secrets, despite loving the gossip. So does he just like to hear about it, but doesn't care to spread it? Or does he want to be able to blackmail people who get too big for their skirts, like Eliza? I kind of hope we get to find out more in the future.

My favorite episode is probably "Ancients of the Creek." I love that they found this old hideout, which (being underground) reminds me of the Lost Boys' hideout in Peter Pan. I also love that Founders Keep belonged to three kids that were very similar to Craig, Kelsey, and JP. I even wondered if it was going to turn out to be their parents. I was really excited to see more research into the Ancients in "The End was Here" (as well as more bonding between Jason and Craig!) They clearly had fun with this one, especially the fade to sepia while JP was reading the war letter. I did notice that even though Craig says the most recent book in the GM's chest is from 1980, there's one at the end of the episode from 1981, so I'm very curious to learn if this was a flub or if it was put there on purpose as foreshadowing.

Between this episode and "Mortimer to the Rescue" I started to realize how little JP has his phone out. In both episodes, Craig and Kelsey are armed with their devices when JP isn't. In "Ancients of the Creek," he even chastises them for using their phones, even though they're doing research. While this can be a problem (like when you have three percent battery and you need to make a call), I like the degree to which JP commits to being present. It's a great lesson and something I want to emulate more.

I also really liked "Kelsey the Worthy" because it's another great parent episode. I love that Kelsey's dad took her to the hardware store to pick out exactly what kind of PVC pipe she wanted (she did mention this earlier in the show) and that he basically had a knighting ceremony (also, I love Piper the Pipe Smith, and I want her to return because she is an Amazing Human Being.) But I love the conversation they have about what it means to be worthy, and the agreement that they come to about her helping to fix and repaint the wall. Of course, he needs to communicate with the Williams family better. Seriously, copying their key without permission?! I kinda see where he gets it from....

It was also exciting to finally meet JP's mom, who is confirmed by Kelsey and Craig to not be around that much. But being a pilot does a good job of explaining that, and I love the moment in the background where she's talking to Kelsey about their animals and her experience in the air force! It's clear how much she loves her kids, and like Craig and Kelsey's parents, she makes time for JP, even when she has a late schedule, and she involves his interests (like bringing him magnets from places she travels). Also, I love that JP makes "wieners in the nude" because, even though I suspect he means they're not in buns, they're on a bed of noodles, which my friends sometimes shorten to "nudes.")

I have noticed one big difference between Creek and Bluey is that Creek blurs the line between reality and imagination more. This is very clear in episodes like "The Cardboard Identity," in which there are cardboard keyboards and pass codes and holograms. And even though we can kind of see how this is all pretend, it's not made explicit. Bluey does this sometimes, such as in the episode "Fairies," or when Bluey and Bingo control Bandit and Stripe while playing racquetball, but for the most part, the events are clearly established as pretend. Creek skips a lot of that, as early on as the letters from Helen. I've read some comments online from people who are bothered by it--not being clear what's real and what's pretend, but I love it. I feel like I'm really immersed in the world of the creek. But, I also love magical realism, so take that with a grain of salt.

Finally, I like the anime references in "Trading Day" and "Crises at Elder Rock." I understood "Two Piece" and "My Hoagie Academia," but I'm curious to know if "Buoy Buoy Panic," "Surf Garden," and "Shovelmaster Gorobi Q" are also specific references or if they just fit the rest of the episode. Let me know if you know, or if there are other references I missed!

I'll see you tomorrow at the creek

[campaign-spotlight]

Campaign Spotlight FAQ

Now that we're halfway through Season 2 this seemed like a reasonable time to add a pinned post! We're going to try to answer the questions we've gotten via email and Tumblr DMs. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to get in touch!

I'm a GM and I'd like to be on the show! How do I get in touch with you about that?

Send us an email at campaign.spotlight@gmail.com! Or send us a Tumblr DM. But email is infinitely smoother for everyone.

I'd like to be on the show, but I don't have a campaign to talk about!

This is a big part of why we've added the PC intros to the Season 2 episodes. It's a chance for players to showcase their creativity too! If you feel like introducing a future episode, send us an email at campaign.spotlight@gmail.com.

I'd like my GM to be on the show! How do I make that happen?

Have them send us an email at (you guessed it!) campaign.spotlight@gmail.com. It makes more sense for us to talk with prospective guests directly.

I have a cool campaign, but I'm under 18. Can I come on the show?

First off, it's been wild to learn that anyone born in the 2000s uses Tumblr. But in answer to this question - we're always really psyched to hear that people are running creative and innovative campaigns, but fundamentally this is a podcast by and for adults, and so we're only going to be interviewing guests who are themselves adults. To be clear, this is less a "the podcast is all about sex and drugs!" type adult show and more "the hosts are in their thirties and talk about stuff like comfortable mattresses and well-organized filing systems on the podcast" type adult show.

Where do you get the music for the show?

Other than a couple guests who have written their own intro music, Reilly writes all of it. If you're wondering how all the music lines up so well when Perry or Kit or Max or Erika introduced their campaigns at the beginning of their interviews - it's because those are all custom compositions from Reilly. We're working on ways to share more of Reilly's music with all of you, so definitely watch Reilly's Bandcamp.

I have a new game system / actual play / third-party supplement to promote. Can I come on your show to talk about it?

If you have an interesting and creative campaign you've run, and something you've made as a result of running it is available for purchase, and if it's distinct from anything we've discussed on the show before, then get in touch with us about being a guest on Campaign Spotlight! If it doesn't really make sense as an interview, get in touch with us about advertising. We're not averse to running ads, but we'd always keep them clearly distinct from our interviews.

This is a cool show. How can I support it?

Thanks for asking! Subscribing to Patreon helps pay for hosting and other expenses, and subscribing and/or leaving reviews and comments on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube helps other people find the show. Ultimately, helping other people find the show helps us find new guests with unique and thoughtful campaigns to share.

[mliter]

Elsword.

I was about 11. I was in despair in the basement of my new home, because it finally set it that i've moved away from all of my friends to some boring town in rural Canada (as i saw it then).

I saw an ad for this game when i was trying to distract myself. I wasn't sure what it was, i think i clicked on it by accident. The initial trailer that popped up on the page that i was on caught my attention. I usually stay away from MMORPGs because i found their gameplay to be mostly boring. But in this one, you hit stuff. This had combos. Skills. I would later learn that there was movement tech specific to each character. The enemies actually reacted to what you were doing when it happened. it was a 2D beat em up! It was so cool. Looking back, i was looking for more of a fighting game experience.

I booted up the game on my shitty acer laptop and gave the game a shot. It wouldn't hurt. I didnt have anything to do. At the time, there were 7 characters, including the newly released Ara. I picked Elsword. The kid with the sword. The other characters seemed too complicated for me. As i played, i got really excited. The gameplay was so much fun. The dungeons were amazing. The bosses were epic. Using skills was awesome. There were so many cool looking players. The customization was on another level. The character models looked just fine on their own, but the player expression here was elite. The community formed around the small areas of this game felt like a neighborhood. You could recognize people just like that. I discovered what classes were, and was wondering how everyone was changing into them. I took a visit to Elwiki, and looked at the classes that were available to me. At the time, a new class, Sheath Knight came out. He was a dual wielding knight with a talking sword by the name of conwell. I think i remember the moment i finished the grueling class quest. I was beyond excited. I would later make my tumblr account, as the GMs of the game updated their playerbase through their tumblr blog. From then on, my dedication was cemented.

The game had a bustling competitive scene. I found that the skilled players had the unreal movement, and insane combos. My favorite players to watch were Zero (Amazon (?)). He was a skilled Blade Master player. His combos were exquisite, and his ability to hold onto the last pixel of HP before turning it in. He also involved a lot of sound effects and commentary on his videos as he played making his videos so much fun to watch.

Another player was Rebelliel. or known as Rebel. I wholeheartedly believe that this person was the greatest Rune Slayer player of. all. time. His skill was rarely matched. I loved watching his videos. He would find himself in the most disadvantageous of situations, always managing to bring it back every. time. He also utilized many sound effects in his videos, making sure to include a familiar song for one skill. Wind Blade.

Watching him use this to me was like watching a superhero do their signature move, or a football player do celebration they're known for. It was so awesome to me.

There are many other amazing players, such as Kirbyblader, a legendary NA Blade Master player, due to his mastery of the character on a technical level. There was also spergus, an elsword player i really liked to watch. And there was one of the greatest. Je Hae Gwon. He was a very skilled and stacked player. He was playing the newest raids, the newest classes, the newest dungeons and dominating in all of them. He was just. good. His videos were entertaining. I remember them coming out around the times i would come back from school. I remember conversing with the people in the comments of a lot of these videos, and having them explain the korean memes that would be used in them. It was some of my first exposure to the korean internet, learning it's memes, and standout websites. It was cool.

one technique i found myself being proud of mastering was the X drop. People did this in the middle of combos to reset the internal count that automatically knocks players over so they don't die in one combo. You could keep your combo going off of this and do serious damage. Many of these techniques were muscle memory to me. I found this especially cool to see on Elsword, Raven, and Chung players. Witnessing all of this lead me to start making youtube videos in the same style, with my friends or without. I wasn't very good at the game. I only made it to S rank. But it was fun. Part of me wishes i could go back to those simpler times. running around fields, and wasting my time in the practice sparring rooms.

Elsword's character design and art in general is immaculate. Each character has so much thought put into them, even with the game cycling through lead artists throughout the years. I found myself enveloped in the well designed world. The skill cut ins were the most impressive to me. They had so much energy. They would occupy space in my brain back then. I wholeheartedly believe this game's art is some of the most impressive and greatest i have ever seen from a video game. Like it's gameplay, It shaped my influences, standards and my tastes.

I became obsessed with these characters, and found out that they made comics! I read them all and went to a certain community on the internet to post them. After a verbal lashing, i ended up meeting people on there. A lot of them were about my age. We ended up playing the game together. From then on, it was history. I played this game for years, finally stopping around the tail end of the 2010s. I still hang out with them today. We somehow just, stuck together. We're all adults now. We ended up growing up alongside each other. I don't think I've never conveyed it, but they all are truly are one of the greatest treasures of my life.

Nowadays, the game isn't what it used to be. All of the people I've mentioned in this blog post have moved on. Started families, are playing other games, or have left us.

I met some people which i consider childhood friends through this game. This game shaped my tastes, influenced me and set standards for video games. This game is a key part of my childhood. i spent countless hours playing it, and had endless fun during it's peak period. I'm happy i was around for that. Everyone has that game. This is mine.

[druidx]

OC Favourites Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @writingonesdreams :D

Tagging back: @strosmkai-rum @spacetimewraithwrites @wildswrites @tetrodotoxincs @odysseywritings @ayzrules @morganwriteblr @my-writblr @bexminx @writingingraves @dreamwishing @aalinaaaaaa @wardenoftheabyss @pleaseloathemyveryexistence @jaguarthecat @catharticallysarcastic @bread-of-death @bluegreystarstuff

Rules: Post your top 3 favorite facts about your top 5 favorite characters. What makes them your favorites? What is so great about them?

~ Elowyn O’Toreguarde (Fighting Fantasy World of Titan)

Elo is my top fave because she's so ridiculously put-upon. She's an accidental Mary-Sue who constantly finds herself neck-deep in trouble, and half the time she's the one who put herself there! Her story arc, triumphs and tragedies were fun to play through at first, but tiring and I find she's more fun to write.

Facts about Elo:

She started out as a simple Watchman, destined to become a Detective. However, her path changed drastically, and started to hear the Call to become a Paladin.

She changed her name from Featherdown when she came of age to help her embrace her future, rather than dwelling on the past.

When Elo was blessed by the goddess Kerellim, part of her blessing was to glow when giving impassioned speeches. Both I, the player, and the GM find this hilarious; Elo does not. She finds it embarrassing, but learns to wield it as the tool the goddess intended.

~ Farren Breakwood (Fighting Fantasy World of Titan)

Farren is Elo's Watch partner, best friend, confidant and mentor. He's my second fave because he's Elo's perfect foil, and just a lovely guy to boot. He's funny, caring and wise. He's got a good line on bad jokes, his banter is en pointe, and his interactions are amazing to write. Half the time he's as bad as Elo, when it comes to getting into trouble, and half the time he's the one pulling others from the fire.

Facts about Farren:

He's amazing with kids and young adults, and always seems to know just what to say to help them through a tough time.

He's a highly skilled detective. He knows Toreguard like the back of his hand, and exactly who to talk to for the intel he needs.

He enjoys the simple things in life: A hearty bowl of stew, a slice of cake and a pint of bitter.

~ Aderyn Griffiths (TESIV: Oblivion, Modern AU)

Aderyn is fun in the same way Elo is fun. She's a moderate disaster, 80% filled with angst and trauma and pretending she isn't, and talks in a way that's really fun to write. Also "cursing like a sailor" is a defining character trait.

Facts about Aderyn:

She lives in her car, a beat up 1980's Land Rover Defender.

Part of her character voice is she cannot say "okay"; it becomes "right, yeah, sure". Did I mention she swears like a trucker?

She was hired by the Grey Fox at 17, because she broke into the wrong house.

~ Talis Omelian (TESIV: Oblivion)

So soft! So sweet! So fluffy! My most precious baby baker boi <3<3<3 He's so cute and adorable and wonderful and sunshiny, you just want to pinch his cheeks and coo. You could just eat him up, he's so adorable. ... And that entire display would have him blushing and mumbling at his feet ^.^

Facts about Talis:

He is an excellent pastry chef, who specialises in lore-friendly patisserie.

He strongly cares about people, and wants to help even though he's not a fighter or a mage or anyone important.

He leaves stale bread and unsold cakes in a barrel behind the bakery. If Mistress Embertame knows, she doesn't say anything. If Rindir ever asked, it's to keep mice out of the shop. In actuality it's for the beggars

[raksha-the-demon]

You don't have to answer this, I understand I can look up most of this stuff, but I wondered if you had any advice for playing DnD? My friend 'suggested' me as someone who could act as DM for a campaign among a wider group of friends - I made it clear I had no experience but I was interested in learning how. I do have the starter kit instructions. It's just a little intimidating, people seem to take this quite seriously? (I might have been on anon but I asked you about vampires a while ago)

First of all I love talking about TTRPGs pls ask me all of the questions always.

Second, I absolutely have advice, starting with "check out Matt Colville's Running the Game videos on Youtube". You don't need to watch them all before your first session (hell, you don't have to watch them all, period) but they're full of tips and tricks that I have personally found very useful. But the most important bit of advice from those videos is that running games is fun, and you can do it. Because it is, and you can.

I’m not going to go in to a ton of specific advice about rules, or what kinds of modules you should run (aside from “you should run a short level one module rather than committing to a whole campaign right off the bat”) because that advice is already explained in a million places, including Colville’s videos and probably your starter kit as well. Instead I want to talk about how intimidating it can be to GM, because I think that’s something everyone deals with. It can be very scary to step behind the screen and take over running the game, because it feels like all the pressure is on you. What happens if you fuck up?

Well I’ve got great news, because fucking up does not matter. Seriously. Half the time the players won’t even notice, and the other half they won’t mind because it’s just a game and you’re all collaborating to have fun together. Misread a rule? If it’s a big deal you can retcon what happened, otherwise who cares? Accidentally make an encounter way too difficult? The bad guys decide to take prisoners instead of killing anybody, and now you’ve got a jailbreak adventure. Accidentally let the players do something completely encounter-breaking? Congratulations, they will never forget how cool that moment was or how awesome they felt doing it. (Seriously, just ask @ultranos or @birger-wuvs-elsa about the Flour Incident.)

You don’t have to take this super seriously. You don’t have to remember the rules perfectly, or always stay in character. You can say “hey I don’t understand this rule, hold on.” You can disallow things that make sense, because it’s not covered in the module and you’re not comfortable going off-script yet. You can do something, realize it was dumb, and then rewind and do something else. And you can allow the same for your players, too. 

At the end of the day, this game is about a bunch of people sitting around playing make-believe. So just tap into your inner five-year-old and go play.

[felassan]

Check out this video interview with Mark Darrah, ‘On Anthem’s Launch, Dev Advice, And Leaving BioWare’. It’s interesting and pretty substantial. He talks about a bunch of different things, including his YouTube channel, things BioWare could’ve done differently, crunch, whether he’ll write a book about his gamedev experiences, gamedev pitfalls, Anthem’s troubled development, the development of projects he worked on including DA2, cancelled projects (and what happened to them) including Jade Empire 2 / ‘Jade Modern’ / Revolver and Mass Effect: Corsair, the reasons why he left BioWare and Dragon Age 4.

I recc giving the whole thing a watch, but if you’re not able to, here are the Dragon Age 4-related quotes and other especially interesting-to-me portions transcribed for ur convenience! (under a cut due to length):

Mark: "There is a tendency for projects that are small to think they're amazing, because it's so much easier. Like when I ran Sonic [Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood] - it was a 20 person team - it's just so much easier to make things go smoothly than when you have a 200 person team. So I think that we've made progress, but as Dragon Age pivots into production and that team gets bigger and bigger, it will be interesting to see if that's true or if it's just the blindness of being a small team. Like when Inquisition was in the throes of shipping, both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem would love to talk about how they were 'doing things right!' and then they fell in totally different holes, but still fell in a bunch of holes after Inquisition shipped. So I do think that there is a hubris that comes from a project in early development where you feel like this time you've figured it out."

---    Mark: “As Dragon Age [4] was moving towards production, I could see that like, the team, I've been told by people that they've never met a team that more wants to be in production than Dragon Age team. But what ended up happening was, in order for the team to really explore the space properly, we had to sort've train them to be in pre-production. But that meant that that team no longer really wanted to be in production, they wanted to be in pre-production. And so, looking at what was going to be required to pivot that team into production, it wasn't a challenge that I thought I was up to any longer. I think that team, once they get into the mindset, is capable of moving entire mountains, and will move entire mountains, but they need someone that can lead them through that."

Interviewer: “Yeah, from the outside it's striking that you and Casey Hudson left at the same time. It sort’ve definitely implies a ‘fuck this’ moment for the two of you. If it was just you saying ‘I can’t do it’ then it’s understandable.”

Mark: “Yeah, no, I mean, it’s hilarious, because, we definitely were not coordinated. That was, as near as I can determine, there was nothing that triggered us on the same moment other than maybe just a sort’ve mounting, just, like, this friction, being at the, I would say, the GM and EP, the point at which the [something?] friction and the project friction meet, and you’re just sort of grinding there. But I don’t think there was a massive injection of anything late last year that triggered that. Not that I can point to. For me, yeah, I do think it was, weirdly, a coincidence. Casey and I have stayed in touch, we didn’t leave to go form a studio together or anything.”

---

Interviewer: “Are you being torn apart a little bit internally about that pressure of, ‘I know if I just made a video that said, The Secrets of Dragon Age - not even Dragon Age 4, whatever the hell that thing’s called at this point - but just, The Secrets of Dragon Age: Origins’, like, you know that  audience surely would show up. I imagine there’s that community that’s screaming at you, like, ‘Tell us something we don’t know about Dragon Age, tell us about the future!!’, versus, trying to play it a little more straight and actually offer gamedev advice.”

Mark: “Yeah, for sure, absolutely, like, looking at, there is an entire segment of YouTube which is ‘Dragon Age fans talking about Dragon theories and watching the trailers and picking them apart’ and I could do that, and that would be, I feel like that would almost destructive to everybody, because I could deflate all the theories, some of which are completely completely wrong, some of which are amazingly right. But I think, like, I don’t think the community actually wants that. They might sort’ve think they do, but I think if I just sort’ve pulled away the curtain, I think it’d be like, ‘Ohh.. but now what are we gonna talk about? :(’ Like I don’t think that anybody wants that honestly. It would be great for my metrics but I don’t think anyone really wants that.”

Interviewer: “And not to offer you advice, but like I think there’s somewhere in the middle. Like when they have the next teaser trailer for the next Dragon Age project, you could do a reaction video to that and it would be your most viewed thing by a mile, and you wouldn’t be stepping on anybody’s toes.”

Mark: “Yeah, I have thought about that exact thing. Cause we’ve now moved, I think, beyond the horizon of anything that comes out of Dragon Age at this point, like if they’re at EA Play, and I don’t know if they’re at EA Play or not, then whatever that is will be something that I didn’t have anything to do with, so we’re reaching the point where I can now, I feel like, start to provide, yeah, reaction videos from the perspective of, an incredibly well-informed outsider.”

---

Interviewer: “And you must know, even though you’re not inside the studio, like, just have an appreciation how much that [MELE’s good success and good reception] can do for the studio’s morale. I’d imagine it’s just night and day.”

Mark: “Oh, absolutely, like. Andromeda and Anthem being the last two things before the remaster, that is a cloud that hangs above the studio for sure.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, I mean I remember visiting for Dragon Age: Inquisition, it must have been, and it was still, like, the Mass Effect 3 ending, I feel like, even visiting the studio for two days, you could feel that like, funk, of just like ‘ugh, good Christ, we’ve gotten the crap kicked out of us’.”

Mark: “Yeah, I mean. The Mass endings is an interesting one for me. Because, it’s not the choices I would have made to end the game, but those are the choices that were made. I wonder... I don’t like ultimatums, and I feel like with Mass 3, the team kind’ve gave into an ultimatum. The community was so angry that we then released new better endings to ‘fix it’, and it’s not that that’s a bad piece of content, that’s a good piece of content, but I just worry that, the internet today, seems almost like... a reaction to the Mass 3 endings. Almost like, the internet learned that if you just yell loud enough you get what you want. And I don’t think that’s real, because it’s Mass Effect, it’s not Star Wars.”

Interviewer: “But I mean, if it wasn’t the ending of Mass Effect 3, it would have been something else in that era of Voices On The Internet Being So loud that it causes a big company to pivot and be like ‘Okay, we’ll try and make you a little bit happier, please just relax everybody’.”

Mark: “Yeah, totally. So I mean, I don’t think Mass Effect bears the brunt of the blame of toxic fan culture. But certainly it’s one of the very first examples of that culture managing to make something happen.”

---

Mark: “Now I do feel that maybe I overlearned that lesson, because, something that I did a lot on Anthem was talk about how, you know, ‘this is not a BioWare-style game, this is not gonna have the storytelling that you’re used to’. And I think maybe I overstressed that. I do think that at the end of the day where we are with Anthem today, if you were a BioWare fan that liked all our other games, and you play Anthem with an eye to playing it as a storytelling game, it’s certainly not our best, but it’s not bad.”

Interviewer: “So Anthem marketing and messaging was hurt because you were overlearning the lessons from Sonic, that’s the takeaway?”

Mark: “I do think so. I do think that like, I don’t think it was from the marketing perspective, but I do think that both Casey and I overstressed [that]. We didn’t want people to get mad at us for making a game that wasn’t a very good storytelling game, so we wanted to get ahead of that message and say like, ‘it’s not a very strong storytelling game, it’s a game about all this other stuff’, but, at the end of the day, it is a storytelling game, it’s still in there. And those are the people that stayed away. And if those people hadn't stayed away, I’m not saying the game would have suddenly done [awesome], but it would’ve softened the narrative a little bit, I think.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m sure you understand this better than anybody, but that’s such a loaded term to say ‘This is a BioWare-style game’, and obviously there’s that era of EA where they were trying to say that every project within EA was a ‘BioWare-style’ game and so, it’s interesting to hear you kind’ve, hemming and hawwing about how much to lean into, ‘no no, this one is 100% BioWare, this one is 73% BioWare’ - it’s such a murky thing.”

Mark: “It absolutely is, I mean, and I even said these things. Like we made MDK2, well, we made it, so I mean is that a ‘BioWare-style’ game? Is Baldur’s Gate a ‘BioWare-style’ game? But if it is, then how is Mass Effect a ‘BioWare-style’ game, and certainly I don’t think anyone would argue that Mass Effect is not a ‘BioWare-style’ game. So that term has to evolve as the studio continues. But I think for whatever reason, for a variety of reasons, I guess, with Anthem we were worried that maybe we’d pushed it a bit too far. And then I guess we did.”

Interviewer: “Did you enjoy any part of working on Anthem, or was it just a matter of putting out so many fires that it was just nothing but stress til the end?”

Mark: “It was stressful for me. I mean. I have a weird - the last ten years of my career at BioWare seemed to involve a lot of helping people land their planes. And that’s what Anthem was for me, I wasn't there from the beginning. I was helping to land it. I think there’s a satisfaction that comes with landing a game, with finishing a product, and I felt that with Anthem as well, and there were a lot of talented people on that project that I’d never worked with before, and that was great. It was great to, y’know, figure out these people that had only ever worked on a Mass Effect, that I’d never worked with before, their skills and abilities. I really like understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a person and building around that. I didn’t really have an opportunity on Anthem to do that because y’know, we were just trying to get the plane on the ground, but I think, having learned about what those people could do, that’s very gratifying because it lets you imagine what you could do with them in the future.” 

Interviewer: “Yeah, if things aligned magically, but for you you realized it never was gonna align, and it was always just right on the horizon of being able to cobble this amazing talent together and focus it down.”

Mark: “Yeah, I mean - I think that I, the mistake that I made on Anthem, I think the biggest mistake, was I’m used to getting a team that pushes back on me in a certain way. So as I’m sort’ve pushing the stick down to get the plane to hit the runway, I’m used to pushing it sort’ve too far, because I know that the team is gonna push it back and then we’re gonna end up where it should be. And I think that given the state of the team on Anthem when I came on, and given the differences in personalities of the leaders there, versus the ones that I’d been working with for ten years, that’s not what happened. I think if anything, I pushed it down, and then they grabbed it and pulled it even further, because they were desperate for help in decision-making, and I was providing decisions. And they were grabbing onto that, and so I thought we were on this glide slope [motions], I was aiming at this glide slope expecting that we were gonna be like [this], but instead we were like [this], and so we, yeah, we landed that pretty rough. But, I mean, it was my call, I’m the one that said we shouldn’t push to move this, not because I thought it was perfect, but because the only path I could see to making it way better was moving it a lot. And when you’re in the last eight, nine weeks of a project, I could only see like, if we were gonna move it, we [would] have to move it like a year. And that’s - in a public corporation that’s a hard argument to make.”

---

Mark: “One of the most expensive things a project can do is slip. Because, your team, when you do that your team is at its maximum size, so if you got 200 people working on a project and you move a month, well that’s 200 staff months, you just got a bunch more expensive just by moving a month. Whereas actually adding more people, well if you only got a month left, to add 200 staff months to a project, you gotta add 200 people, that’s a lotta people. Moving the date is one of the most expensive, and you can reach a point where it’s like, look, it’s not worth it, if we move the date it’s gonna cost more to continue this project than it’s gonna make, so we’re not gonna. But rarely is that the case, you’ve already spent the money you’ve spent, so the only cost that matters is the cost going forward.”

Interviewer: “So, do you regret not pushing for Anthem to be delayed a year or was it good just to get something on the ground so that we could start building to take it off again with a living game?”

Mark: “Yeah, honestly, I don’t regret it, the [team/game?] was tired and it didn’t have another year in it, and I think a lot of the things that are super obvious now, some of them we knew, some of them we knew, like the balance, we had done one, clean balance pass, by having QA come in and hotseat their way through the game over Christmas break. Like literally playing the game 24 hours a day. We’d done basically that once. So we knew that, we knew that. But a lot of the other things kind’ve only came out once it was out in peoples’ hands. I think the path that I wasn’t capable of seeing at the time that could’ve maybe resulted in a better game would’ve been to put it into beta, like a real beta, in the state that it was in, and run it like that and then release it a year later. But I don’t know if there was the will to do that frankly. There might be now... I think Anthem taught EA a lot of lessons.”

Mark: “[on Cyberpunk] I think many of the same things happened there [as with Anthem]. They had a team that was tired and it wasn’t ready but they couldn’t see the path to getting it more ready. If the team is too tired, just taking another two months just isn’t gonna get you what you think it’s gonna get you.” [source]

[dmsden]

The Role of Critical Role - How a podcast made D&D cool

Hullo, Gentle Readers. With the rare 5th Monday this month, it’s time for a freestyle article, and I wanted to talk about something that has been an incredible influence on D&D for a few years now. Maybe you’ve watched or listened to it all (I have). Maybe you’ve never seen it, but you’ve wondered about this “Mercer Effect” thing. Odds are, however, if you play D&D, you’re at least aware of Critical Role.

Critical Role wasn’t the first actual play D&D podcast, but it is, arguably, the most influential. With two massively consumed campaigns in podcast form, innumerable one-shots, a campaign-setting book that was published by Wizards of the Coast themselves, their own game-publishing company, comic books, art books, and a forthcoming TV series on Amazon that was funded by a Kickstarter that raised over eleven million dollars, Critical Role has made a heck of an impression on the gaming landscape.

It has been noted elsewhere that Critical Role has demonstrated its influence over the gaming community in a number of ways. I look to the example of Firbolgs as proof. When they debuted as a 5th edition playable race in Volo’s Guide to Monsters, there wasn’t much fanfare. When we got to know Pumat Sol, Nila, and, of course, Caduceus Clay in Critical Role Campaign 2, the popularity of the race skyrocketed. Suddenly everyone I knew had one in their campaign, and art of Firbolg characters online proliferated faster than a Myconid colony!

It can be argued also that Critical Role also boosted the overall popularity of D&D 5E. Yes, there had been D&D podcasts before...the Ac Inq podcasts, for example...but CR was different. Here you had this large cast of incredibly funny, charismatic, and, to be honest, really good-looking folks playing D&D. Their skills as voice actors and improvisational performers stood them in good stead, making the game a true pleasure to listen to. And yes, I’ve groaned at some of the things they’ve done as a player and GM myself, but, overall, they’re so darned likeable that they won my attentions and got me to watch and/or listen to hundreds of hours of game play. 

I think the reason Critical Role was so successful was that it showed audiences a group of people playing D&D that was more diverse than we’d seen in other popular podcasts. There were more women, for one thing, and there was good queer representation. But it also showed them to be just a bunch of dorks. Talented, funny, attractive dorks, yes...but dorks none the less. It demystified the game, making it clear that it wasn’t this crazy complicated thing, but just some cool storytelling around a table. Some people did accents, but many people in the group didn’t. They joked around and cracked each other up. They made mistakes and apologized. They asked questions. They weren’t perfect, and it made the game incredibly appealing and so much more accessible than I think a lot of people would’ve guessed.

You don’t have to like Critical Role, but I don’t think you can dismiss it, for good or for ill. On the one hand, it’s invited more people into our hobby, and I think that’s a good thing. On the other hand, I do worry that it generates unreasonable expectations in some players, specifically in what to expect from their DMs. Now, I’m not personally worried; I have over 40 years of experience, and I have confidence in my skills at running a good game. Newer DMs, however, might feel like they have a lot to live up to, and they might never start, thinking there’s no way to measure up to Matt Mercer’s skills.

If you’re a DM, and you’re worrying about living up to Matt, then please read this. Matt’s an excellent DM, but he’s not fallible. I’ve heard him make rules calls that’ve made me cringe, even as I respect him making them in the moment, because that’s sometimes what you have to do. He does a lot of great accents, but you don’t need to do accents or be an actor to make memorable NPCs. He’s fantastic at improv, but that’s something that can be learned. Your players don’t need Matt Mercer; they need you. And I’m pretty sure Matt would be the first person to tell you that, because he seems like a fantastically nice guy.

So love it or leave it, Critical Role is likely here to stay. You can enjoy it or ignore it, but I don’t think you can just discount it. I’m personally loving it, and I hope they keep giving great content. I can’t wait to see what they play in Season 3! Until then, keep on rolling those dice!

[little-diable]

Witches brew - Jasper Hale (fluff)

Request by anon: Hi!! So I know it's pretty short notice so no pressure especially if it's not something u wanna write but it's my birthday tomorrow!! So I was wondering if it was possible for you to do a jasper imagine where like the reader is his mate and shes a witch and they meet when shes out collecting herbs, and hes out with friends or well family and she knows what they are right away but isn't scared and it's just super cute and reader is a smart ass and sassy. Sorry that's so long and messy thank you!!

Happy Birthday lovely anon!! Maybe a few of you are lotr fans and will notice something... Enjoy my loves. xxx 

(y/gm/n)= your grandmothers name

A few stars were dancing across the night sky as (y/n) made her way through the forest, mind set on a specific place, a place where she was sure, that she’d find whatever she was looking for. (Y/n) was too focused on her task, to feel the little thorns that were molesting her legs, not noticing the way a bit of blood was oozing out of the wounds. 

(Y/n) came to a sudden halt, she crouched down in front of the Athelas plant,  eyes focused on the blossoms, her hands were moving like they were on autopilot, slowly picking the flowers apart, carefully putting them into different jars. She could still remember her grandmother telling her all bout the plant, the different brews she’d have to mix up, in order to unfold its magic power. 

Her grandmother had been a witch, just like (y/n), she had taught her everything she knew by now, told her all about magical creatures and how she’d be able to protect herself, something she was incredibly proud of. (Y/n) missed her grandmother, missed to have somebody to talk to, somebody that would understand what she was struggling with. 

The witch was still too focused on the Athelas plant, to notice that somebody, or rather a few somebodies, were nearing. The whole Cullen clan was standing behind (y/n), watching the girl mindlessly looking at the plants, “she’s bleeding”, Alice couldn’t stop herself from speaking up, hands covering her nose, trying to switch her focus away from the heavenly smell.  

Alices voice ripped (y/n) out of her state, her head whipped around, eyes finding seven pairs of golden eyes watching her, the pale skin made her realize, who was standing in front of her. Vampires. A smile tugged on (y/n)s lips as she rose to her feet, “you must be the Cullen family.”, she wasn’t a stranger to the towns gossip. 

“I’m Carlisle Cullen and that's my family,-”, the blonde haired man took a step forward, hand reached out for her to take, a tight smile on his lips, “-, we are sorry to disturb you. We certainly didn’t expect, to come across somebody, in this part of the forest.”. (Y/n) firmly shook his hand, chuckling as she took in the state his family was currently in, eyes dropping down to the shirt from the bulky looking boy, blood was smeared all across the fabric.  

“(Y/n) (Y/l/n). Seems as if I’ve disturbed your hunting session, I’m sorry.”, she bowed down to pick up her basket, eyes wandering across the Cullens shocked expressions. “Well, you should probably clean up a bit nicer, the next time you approach somebody, after you’ve been hunting.”, she pointed her finger towards Emmetts shirt, a smirk on her lips. 

“You must be (y/gm/n) granddaughter.”, Carlisle took in her features, he had read all about her family before, about the witches traditions. (Y/n) nodded her head “yes”, eyes finding the golden ones of Jasper, she felt her heart flutter as he smiled at her, a tingling sensation shot through her.  

The Cullens had invited her into their home, curious to get to know the witch, witches were rare in this part of the world, something you wouldn’t come across every day. “Would you stop staring at me like I'm some kind of weird animal.”, (y/n) shot Rosalie a glare, already getting annoyed with the way the blonde haired vampire was staring at her, not missing the way Edward and Jasper were smirking at (y/n).  

It didn’t take her long to pull most of the Cullens, besides Rosalie, into her charm, they were intrigued by her, especially Jasper, he couldn’t get rid of the feeling, that (y/n) could take on a big role in his life. Carlisle was impressed with her knowledge about herbs and plants, being able to learn a few new things from her, Esme enjoyed to have somebody near, that she could cook for, a massive smile on her lips every time she got to use her kitchen. 

Even Jasper and (y/n) got to know each other better over the past weeks, she was just as mesmerized with him. He couldn't stop himself from wanting to be close to her, even if he’d just watch her brew another potion, “come on, it’s your turn.” (y/n) pulled on his hand, trying to ignore the tingling feeling. She began to explain to him, what he should add into the jar, how many times he’d have to stir it, chuckling every time he messed something up. 

A groan left him as he managed to mess it up again, “seems as if I’m a hopeless case, darlin’.”, golden eyes finding her (y/e/c) ones, (y/n) grasped his forearm, front pressed against his side, showing him how to stir the potion. She felt her breath hitch in her chest as she realized that he was still looking at her, eyes switching between her eyes and her lips. “You should concentrate on the jar, Jasper.”, (y/n) whispered as she looked into his golden eyes, her stirring came to a halt as he dipped his head down, whispering a small “sorry”, before pressing his cold lips against hers.  

(Y/n) had to let go of the spoon, hands grasping his face, trying to pull him even closer. She felt her insides burning, sparks were running up her limbs as he kept on kissing her, enjoying the way she was melting into his touch. By now it was quite obvious to the whole clan, that (y/n) was Jaspers mate, even Rosalie felt happy for her brother, Jasper deserved to have somebody by his side, that would love him till eternity.   

[inkdemonapologist]

Tfw it’s like 6am and your penpal shows up at your hotel room but he’s like partially a demon and also won’t stop smiling????

Hi again Allison we’re all Very Normal

[BatIM Call of Cthulhu Masterpost]

ANYWAY HAVE SOME, OUT-OF-CONTEXT QUOTES for Session 6!!

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[GM] You said you were there for... inSPECTION?? [Jack] In hindsight, that must've been a HECK of a Fast Talk considering half the group is in pyjamas.

[Henry] It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to sacrifice Henry.

[GM] *about Sammy's sacrifice attempts* He was very polite about it. [Sammy] Yeah, he was! [Henry] He was very polite, he gets points for politeness. [GM] And then he got yelled at, so unfairly! By someone. [Sammy] And then melted! So everyone was on the whole very rude about it. It's your own fault he's like this now.

[GM] We'll say it's ajar, how about that? [Joey] Oh, I thought it was a door.

[Sammy] You can spend Luck!! [Jack] Do I want to use Luck points, though? Here's the problem, I'm the person who finishes the JRPG with twelve thousand healing items, and has used TWO. [Sammy] Here's my counterargument: if your Luck gets really low, you start failing Luck checks, and bad things happen to your character. [Jack] ...that's a perfect counterargument, I'm going to do it.

[GM] You both spot the hat with the press card! Lying on the floor, over by one corner of the sliding doors. [Jack] Oh that's BETTER than taking sanity damage! [Sammy] EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!

[Joey] There's another jug of space juice. [Sammy] I don't want space juice!! I WANT PAINT.

[Henry] *tired* Hey, Sam. [Sammy] What providence, my little sheep! [Henry] ...Good to see you too.

[Sammy] Go into the other room and introduce yourself! [Joey] With two hats on. [Sammy] ASSERT DOMINANCE!

[Jack] Jack is going to take the hat. He's going to have, uh, at least one emotion. [Jack] Maybe more [Jack] Imagine

[Joey] Joey is immediately going to clamp his hand onto Sammy's shoulder, and ask him if he can feel it. [Sammy] UHHH? His... hand...? [Joey] Not-- No, the stone. [Sammy] OH

[Jack] Jack, how are you going to communicate this if one of your hands is taken up by a hat? [Joey] Interpretative dance! [Sammy] Put hat in elbow while writing, you can juggle stuff, [Henry] Put the hat on. Over your other hat.

[Sammy] Sammy will scurry with or without the sheep, but they are his navigation system, so,

[Joey] That is a place we are known to be by the people who tried to... murder us?? Or something. Snake us??????? [Jack] (Snurder.) [Joey] Snurder us.

[Henry] We're just gonna grab our stuff and head out and... let you finish dealing with the sNAKE, I guess!! [Jack] (the snake has already been dealt with!) [Henry] Okay, but the aftermath of the snake! The snaftermath.

[Sammy] In case we get grabbed by an Angel [Sammy] the much less well-liked sequel to Touched by an Angel,

[Sammy] You traitorous sheep, this is not what I asked you for! [Joey] Do you want to die. Is that what you’re interested in?! Just, sacrificing yourself, without doing the proper rituals, not getting anything done--?! [Sammy] What do you know of proper rituals?! [GM] (....quite a lot, actually,) [Joey] Yeah! Much more than you do! And I will make an intimidation roll! [Jack] Boys,... you’re both pretty,... it’s okay....

[Joey] We’re pretty sure there’s Angels.... does she know how to kill them. [Jack] What a first thing to—! No pleasantries, no “please excuse the fact that I’m grinning and have weird eyes and also Sammy has weird eyes and also I have a tail,”

[GM, speaking for Allison] She would like to know what all this is about! [Joey] We’re having problems— [Sammy] He tried to contain something that should not be contained!! [Joey] Shut up, Sammy! We’re having problems!

[Joey] Joey is just going to quickly explain that he.................... [Joey] *mumbling to himself* how do you explain this???

[Joey] Um... I guess he’s going to mentally ping Bendy and ask him how he would describe himself? Like... what was his job, I guess?? Security??? [GM] Bendy says that he’s an eldritch construct that was defending a cult... and now he is something else! That he doesn’t have a word for. [Jack] !! He’s a FRIEND now!!! [GM] He’s friend-shaped! But not at the moment. [Joey] No, right now he’s Joey-shaped.

[Sammy] I mean the whole body is garbage but you apparently want Sammy to wear clothes, so whatever.

[GM] Allison adds that she thinks she might have a connection to get you guys in to the party, if you need that -- [Joey] Wouldn't hurt! [GM] -- so long as you don't mind pretending to be the help! [Joey] ...hm,,,

[Joey] Admittedly, having two angles would be better than one. [GM] Two angels, what? [Sammy] There's an "I can be your angle or yuor devil" joke somewhere in this campaign...

[Sammy] Well, we've learned how to bind an angel, [Jack] Gotta teach the angel proper binding techniques!

[Sammy] Sammy will thank Allison for her help. [Joey] Oh god, there IS something wrong with him!

[Joey] Let's go get Norman tied up in this more! So we can hire him later!!

[Sammy] Jack over there like "I hope it doesn't taste bad" meanwhile Sammy's been grimacing as he swallows paint for the last two hours, [GM] Ink is much better, didn't you know! [Sammy] Ink is better... this tastes wrong... [Joey] I just really love the idea of Sammy longingly looking at Joey's flask like, "aw, you have the good medicine, mine tastes like the terrible cherry crap!"

[GM] So you all have shots with Allison! Space juice shots. [Jack] What a way to start the morning!

[Jack] These boys are gonna heckin' pass out! [GM] They got, what, maybe 3 hours of sleep? [Jack] And all of Jack's sleep last night was sat upright in bed, with his glasses on, surrounded by notes, [Henry] sounds like college [Jack] You're exactly right, Jack's sleep was exactly like college! He was stressed, he didn't sleep for very long, he was surrounded by notes, Pete was there,

[Joey] *saying farewell to Allison* Keep yourself safe; don't go out where we're going. [Joey] Unless we don't return, then pLEASE COME OUT AND FIND US,

[GM] Norman says, "Oh, I see you're back with your friends, Smiley." [Jack] I love the concept of Norman calling Sammy "Smiley," and then Prophet Sammy, in response to this, smiles, and Norman has no idea if this is like, weird? or some kind of strange power move to assert dominance.

[GM, as Norman] When I said I saw things happening on the 2nd, you're the one that went pale! [Joey] How's Prophet Sammy's cONCEPT OF TIME, [Sammy] Not great!!!! [Sammy] I don't think he... knows when the 2nd was.

[Sammy] Forgive my memory. That doesn’t ring a bell! [Joey] He's... a little affected right now. [Norman] ...you don't say...

[Joey] Listen. I have $75 here for you, to take us out to the lake, as soon as possible. [a couple minutes of googling later] [Jack] That's equivalent to $1,464. Joey. [Sammy] CAN YOU IMAGINE?? "We need you to take us to the lake please" "Alright, but explain to me what's going on?" "SORRY, the guy who said that is clearly HIGH OUT OF HIS MIND, here's A THOUSAND DOLLARS, take us to the lake please!" [Jack] its a trip to the lake, what could it cost, $75 [Joey] *laughing* I should've looked up how much money I was saying before I was saying it, [Sammy] No, no, I think this is accurate to JOEY DREW

[Henry] Henry is just watching everything happening... [Sammy] Henry is waiting for the next video game breadcrumb trail to show up. [Henry] YEAH, [Jack] “Oh! Looks like I need to put three gears in this thing!”

[Sammy] I'm so angry on Sammy's behalf that you've made him meet two different people like this.

[Joey] If he does ask for money later, Joey's going to give it to him, because he has no concept of.... money.... [Sammy] No concept of GIVING OUT ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS [Jack] Can Joey Drew meet me, in real life, please? [Joey] I don't know if you want that to happen,, that might be more of a curse,,, [Jack] I'll take a curse! Gimme money! [Sammy] vOICE OF EVERY JDS EMPLOYEE

[GM] And you've got suits, and dress shoes...... [Sammy] We are not dressed for this. [Sammy] ...We are more dressed for it than we were earlier. I promise you, Norman, this is a step up, believe it or not.

[Sammy] Probably making a face because it tastes bad. [Henry] Tastes like paint! [GM] The cab driver might just wonder if that's a new drink this year. [Sammy] If nobody jumped on top of Sammy to stop him from using his mouth, he would probably say something with vibes of "this is beyond your comprehension" [Joey] Joey might try to stop that, and instead just be like, “Yes. It is.” [Henry] He's high. Don't worry about it. [Jack] Driver's just like "oh, I should try some of that when I get off work, seems like a good time!" [Sammy] You should! It'll open your eyes! [Sammy] (I'll stop evangelising the cab driver now.)

[Henry] Henry is: Sims Tense Moodlet.

[Joey] Joey instantly does not like this, and it is apparent on his face, if Sammy can see it in the mist. [Sammy] Probably not! [Jack] You could say he mist it!

[Henry] We need to hurry—! [Sammy] *screaming* THATS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING!!!!!!

[Sammy] Sammy will be, sort of... whispering reassurance? I don't know how reassuring it actually is, [Henry] I'm sorry Sam, nothing about you is reassuring right now. [Sammy] Just kind of like, hush hush, come my sheep, that sort of thing, [Joey] Prophet ASMR Channel! [Jack] I'm sure Jack would appreciate this actually, it's a shame he's not the one getting this, [Joey] No, he's getting whatever comfort Joey can offer, which, uh, [Sammy] Well, and I will say, he's not like, whispering it in Henry's ear, like-- [Jack] I don't think Sammy in any form is capable of whispering. [Sammy] ...y'know [Sammy] that's fair

[Sammy] Well everyone's doing alright! We're doing great, it's going great! [Jack] Nooooo! No going great! I want more insanities! [Jack] ...I can stop at any time, I swear.

[Sammy] We can hold Norman's hand if you want, like, that's up to you. [Joey] Roll for gay, Norman! [Henry] Take him to dinner first,

[Sammy] This is such a bad idea that we're having.

[Joey] Joey is probably at this point holding onto someone else to guide him, and more in his head than not. [Sammy] Sammy's out of hands at this point, Joey, so you'll just have to figure this out. [Sammy] Got his hands full of sheep.

[Joey] Did Norman drink the juice. [GM] Did he...? Did he...... I think he was convinced enough by “this drink will save your life” that he does take a drink! [Joey] I'll roll intimidation if that helps! [GM] Yeah, you can roll to see how quickly he does it, or if he drinks enough of it. [Joey] *rolls* That's an EXTREME SUCCESS. [GM] Well, there we go; there's a preview, Norman, of your work environment!

[amesstm]

Nice Receive!

WC: ~2K

A/N: So... I couldn’t figure out Social Dummy, because I am a dummy :D And since no one told me if they wanted an actual schedule or not, we will now work around my work hours which is a lot because my gm is evil :)

~series masterlist~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The weekend passed quickly with much needed rest being earned. Yet, there was that voice in the back of your mind urging you to do some form of exercising. After all, this was your last year in high school and the last time you could go to nationals.  

In fact, your volleyball team had been mourning the loss of their libero loudly in the group chat. Everyone joked that they would have to take down the 189.5cm man somehow. It seems that you had an army now, with your cousin Yu as its commanding general.  

For now, that wasn’t your concern because all you could think about was the upcoming exams. Yuki was studying more often with her boyfriend, which meant that you had the dorm room to yourself. Even Yuki was putting her studies before her volleyball practices because she skipped the one yesterday. So here you were with your text books and notes all laid out before you as if the words would jump off of the page and into your brain.

But after an hour of trying to focus on what was literally right in front of you, you gave up from the sensory overload. You sighed and collapsed onto your bed, hoping that the bed would swallow you. You closed your eyes and breathed slowly to prompt your muscles to relax. Perhaps you should start meditating.  

A soft knock interrupted your thoughts, immediately causing the irritation to return. But you opened the door and saw it was your whole volleyball team. Of course, the coach wasn’t there, but the manager looked like she led the brigade to your room.  

Your manager Tamako bowed with a smile, “We come in peace.”

She held up a pompompurin kotatsu plushie and you quickly forgot about your past irritation. You waddled towards her and clutched the plushie in your arms. “I accept your peace offering.”

The volleyball team cramped into your small room. The first-year opposite hitter Hana leaned in with wide curious eyes like that of a newborn baby, “Is it true that you and Ushijima-san like each other?”

Hana’s adoptive-mother, second year setter Karin shushed her, “They don’t know it yet!”

Hana poured and whined, “But it’s so obvious!”

You tilted your head and blinked, “What do you mean?”

Captain Hoshimi, the mountainous middle blocker, sighed, “You two are so oblivious.”

“Anyways,” Tamako cleared her throat, “Yuki says that she knows you’re dying to be on the court again. Obviously you can’t but you can watch!”

A part of you felt bad, knowing that Yuki was worried about you this whole time. You were about to open your mouth but she added, “Hoshimi has noise-canceling headphones.”

“Oh, okay that should work!” You grinned and sprung with life.  

Finally, you were able to be in the gym again. It wasn’t a formal practice, so everyone was just playing together. Unfortunately, you still had to sit on the bench. Of course, you were used to it since you were the liberal and weren’t always on the court; but every time the ball hit the floor, you couldn’t help but think that you could’ve gotten it.  

You watched Hoshimi block Hana with great speed and height. Although Hana had immense talent for her age, she needed much refining. You were sure that Tamako’s fast scribbling was notating all of this down even if she was off-duty.  

Still, you couldn’t hear what was going on. Everything you absorbed was purely on seeing the ball fly or land and feeling the vibrations of the ball landing or being smacked. So, you also didn’t hear someone approaching you and calling out your name. 

A light tap on your shoulder finally caught your attention. You whipped your head to see Ushijima talking to you, but you only saw his lips moving. Although you couldn’t hear, you said, “I can’t hear you. These are sound-proof.”

He nodded and sat down next to you instead of trying to find a way of communicating. It’s not like you two could learn some form of sign language or Morse code in a few minutes.  

Yet, there was that comforting silence. Sure, you were always flustered around Ushijima but now? Now, you’re on a different playing field – or court for this scenario. The embarrassment and hesitation scattered away, and the confident and radiant personality Ushijima always heard of came to light.  

After Hoshimi’s team won the set, Hana came panting to see how you were doing. She also wanted to check on her ship but that’s besides the point. Karin wandered towards you three, like a mother hovering around her chick. You decided that it’d be safe to remove the headphones since there weren’t ball smacking across the court now. “You guys did really well!”

“Did I?” Hana asked, red from huffing. “I think I could do so much better.”

“Try opening up your shoulders to Karin more,” you said, making the young spiker tilt her head. “You limit your options when you close yourself off from your setter. You’re only a few centimeters taller than me, but you’re still considered short on the court. Opening yourself up should make a difference.”

Ushijima watched you, observing the way you speak like a coach. No, nothing like Coach Tanji. On the contrary, your advice was constructive and kind, but still precise. Your voice’s volume didn’t raise above speaking level, which was another big difference. In the short time that Ushijima was considered “short”, he had to learn how to spike in ways similar to how you would have to.  

Once you were done advising Hana on what to do, the next set began. Soon, Hana was scoring more points. With each one, she would smile at you with all the brightness of the sun. You would smile back and raise your thumbs up in pride.  

Tamako tapped on your shoulder and asked if you could follow her a bit towards the back. You whispered in Ushijima’s ear, “I’ll be right back.”

It took him a minute to process that you were just that close to him that he could feel your lips almost on his earlobe. After controlling his rush of emotions, he nodded. Ushijima wondered what you two were talking about. Maybe it had to do with Hana’s improvement or the earliest you could return to playing. Either way, Ushijima continued watching the girls play, waiting for you to return to his side.

Hana soon excelled quickly, getting in quick spikes that couldn’t be received soon enough to get back into play. They’d smack onto the floor and then fly away. As Hana got more and more in the game, her spikes became quicker but also more forceful. There was no doubt that Hana would become the ace of the girls team when she got even better.  

But then one of her balls went astray. Ushijima noticed that this ball had a certain angle to it as she hit it at a cross. Knowing where the ball would go next, Ushijima rushed off of the bench just as the ball was about to hit you. He managed to receive the ball in time.  

On the other hand, you were also prepared to come in contact with the ball as you placed yourself in position. Of course, you might’ve been scolded for playing before you were allowed to, but you were sure that you could handle it. But Ushijima got to it before you could.  

After his dig, the ball bounced back into court but no one went to catch it. He looked behind towards you, eyes wandering over your face to see if you were shaken. Yet you didn’t look fazed at all. Instead, you grinned, “Nice receive!”  

Now, you definitely noticed a change in Ushijima’s stance. His shoulders drooped in relief and his features softened. His eyes looked at you as if you were the only one he cared about.

“Are you okay, Y/N?” Hana asked, running towards you in worry. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly as she examined your state.  

You shook your head with a soft chuckle, “I’m fine, Hana. That was a really good spike!”

Hana crumbled underneath your compliments. Then, she turned towards Ushijima and bowed deeply from her hips. “Thank you for receiving the ball before it could hit her!”

Ushijima stated with seriousness etched into every centimeter on his face, “I won’t let another ball hit her ever again.”

To the team, it was practically a declaration of protecting you – which they swooned over. To you, it sounded like he didn’t want you playing. “But I’m the libero?”

With your confusion, the team sighed with dejection. Hoshimi groaned, “You’re so dumb.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You complained, eyes aimed towards Hoshimi.  

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Karin said, sticking out her tongue.

“I’m literally older than you,” you replied with a raised eyebrow.  

“And denser, too,” Karin jabbed back, earning a snicker from Hana who followed her mother’s behavior.  

You rolled your eyes, choosing to ignore the duo. “Anyways, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

You returned the headphones to Hoshimi and started to walk towards the exit. But you felt a presence behind you and saw Ushijima looking at you expectantly. “May I walk with you?”

“Of course,” you smiled.  

As you two walked, you were surprisingly calm. Perhaps that moment in the gym reminded you that the superstar of Japan was just another human being. Of course, he was someone with fans who would do anything to be with him and recruiters who would fight to have him on their team. But something about him seemed more human to you.  

Another thing that surprised you was that Ushijima was a slow walker. Perhaps you were always used to walking fast because you always rushed to catch up to your taller friends, but walking with Ushijima was a different pace. Now you could take the time to absorb the scenery around you.

When you approached a ledge that had a brilliant view of the sunset, you just looked at it in awe. Was the sunset always this beautiful? Japan was known as the Country of the Rising Sun. Then again, you wouldn’t be awake enough to enjoy the sunrise even if you were awake.  

But this sunset? You actually took the time to look at it. You didn’t walk past it like you would usually do because the sun would always set. But as the pinks and oranges cascaded from the sun to the rich purples and indigo of the night sky, you couldn’t just walk away. “Has it always been this beautiful?”

Ushijima noticed that you stopped to admire the sunset, so he stopped, too; but all he could look at was you. Something about the way the spring breeze brushed your hair away from your face so the golden hour could paint your features was captivating. “Always.”

You looked behind your shoulder to see that Ushijima got closer to you. “Haha, sorry. I didn’t realize that I had stopped.”

“No, it’s fine.” Ushijima said, opting to sit on a rock that laid along the side of the road. “Sit with me, we can watch it longer.”

You took the opportunity to sit on the rock closest to him. Again, with that comforting silence. There was no need to speak because you two could just enjoy each other’s company. Then Ushijima spoke, “Will you play volleyball professionally?”

Of course, you had contemplated it but it didn’t seem completely viable. Sure, you were among the top three liberos in the country. Yes, you would love to continue playing the sport that you’ve dedicated so much time to. But could you really do that? “I’m not sure, yet.”

Ushijima’s gaze left the sunset to look at you, so you returned his gaze. “It’d be a waste of talent not to.”

The breath you were intaking halted dramatically. “You’re right. It would be.”

“Will you at least play in university?” Ushijima asked, hopeful that you would at least continue then.  

“Absolutely,” you chuckled. “I don’t want to say goodbye to years of my life just yet.”

“You should play professionally,” Ushijima stated, his confidence in your ability making your heart flutter. For some reason, the sentence felt really familiar but you couldn’t remember why.  

Anyways, you didn’t know what to say. When you finally spoke, it was to say goodnight. Ushijima left you at your dorm room and with plenty to think about.  

When you finally collapsed onto your bed, you pulled out your phone. There was a notification from Hana. You opened your phone to see it was a picture of you and Ushijima watching the sunset. Underneath was a caption saying, “Nice receive ;)”

[finalfantasy7]

Letting go

Despite all the crying, all the pain, all the disappointment that came from that little bookstore, I’m still scared of letting it go. Honest to god afraid of allowing it to become a distant memory where I can barely make out most of the details.

Little did I know going in I would barely register as a real job, strictly viewing it as a seasonal gig, only to leave it with bleeding heart strings.

I remember how at first I didn’t allow myself to see it as a long term gig, not after only staying as a seasonal at a previous location (a decision that admittedly ended up being a strike against my confidence). And yet, as the holiday season came closer to ending, the more anxious I became about being kept on passed the holiday season. It only became worse as I started to bond with the team there. Everyone and everything seemed to click. I very quickly found myself in a new “comfort zone” and much like love, it’s beautiful to experience and even scarier to lose.

What I failed to realize until now, was I had personally laid down the structure of the home I now associate with that environment. Yes, my colleagues were each as warm as they were individuals; each carrying a back full of personalized arrows and hearts full of dreams and fears alike. But looking back, so many of them highlighted how their kindness was not cheap and for some, certainly wasn’t free.

I now understand what [redacted] means when she says I seem to be the “glue” between people. A substance whose sole purpose is to hold things together and tightly at that. That being said, there are few cases of universal glue. No, in fact there’s specific types of glue for specific materials. I am nowhere near being a universal glue but I seem to be a decent brand for people…or at least those who can afford to be a bit vulnerable and honest.

To this day I will rave about my former coworkers, even more so about the ones I still keep in contact with today. But I’m now starting to see that the bookstore was home to me for a bit BECAUSE I made it home. I could have come in day in and day out and never looked back but I didn’t, at the time it almost felt like I couldn’t. How could I? When a small, insecure being was being suddenly labeled with tags and titles they had never heard before.

I wasn’t “[dead name]” when I stepped through those blue doors but “Finn Acosta”. Nor longer was I this lost entity, a ball of failure, fears and anxieties. No, I was now “Finn”; an attractive, fashionable leader who always seemed to “really see” people for who they were. But even at the time these words read hollow, not because I didn’t believe the genuine sentiment behind them but simply because I didn’t see that person looking back at me in the mirror. They unfortunately went from compliments to a heavy mask I felt I needed to wear, to proudly carry and maintain lest I seek to disappoint everyone.

There was a time period when “life was good” at work. I had recently been hired and I was hungry. You wanted to teach me how to make a table? Let’s do it. Need help with overnight inventory? Something I’ve never done before? I’m game. Wanna teach me how to rearrange every decorative piece on a table? Can’t wait. I suppose this time period could accurately be labeled as “Finn was bubbly” here or at least that’s how one manager described it when discussing how much I had changed by the end of my bookstore career. Managers seem to like this time period as much as I did. I used to think I was happy here and I suppose I was and yet, looking back it all seems so Illusionary? Perhaps our image of happiness changes more throughout our lives than we’d like to admit. But here I was in a relationship which I believed at the time was perfect, was in a workplace I believed was perfect and was starting to carry a new outlook of myself I had, you guessed it, deemed as perfect.

I sometimes wonder if I had the opportunity would I go back in time and warn that version of myself about the storm that was starting to brew? No, I don’t think I would. Even with the knowledge I have now, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to unfold, not really. Plus, who am I to rip off those rose coloured glasses off my past self- she was genuinely as happy as she could have been. I feel weirdly maternal towards that person. I know they were doing their best….unfortunately their best would soon be crushed by reality, more specifically, the flaws and beauty of what it means to be human.

Now going into my second year of psyche I can confidently say reading about humans and experiencing them are very different. To read about projection and have it’s description neatly grouped in small bullet points is very different from someone angrily shutting down your greeting because they’re having a bad day. I experienced a lot of projection at work and equally threw in my own.

It’s fascinating to think I experienced both appreciation and questioning of personality all at once in the same environment. I would be commended on how understanding I could be but equally questioned on how I couldn’t view things as more black and white the same people. How could you see only grays, is what I’d heard in my mind. Where was the fire? Where was the anger? Did it mean I didn’t care? Perhaps I simply didn’t give enough thought to these topics? But that wasn’t the case at all. For months on end I would ruminate about work; everything from issues of health and safety, union processing, to the well being of my coworkers.

This was my pack and I needed to care for it as best as I could…so I did. Someone didn’t feel comfortable addressing concerns to management? I’d do it for them. Let me check in with everyone I saw to see how they were. You look tired, allow me to buy you a coffee. Let me send out feedback forms to see what people need. Remember, each and everyone one of you matters and deserves nothing but care. Oh wait, management is also made up of human beings so I should also extend all this to them. Let me do this, let me do that, I will do this, I will do that. Eventually I became a husk of the person I started off at the beginning of the year. I felt bitter and broken. To put it frankly, I was exhausted.

I’ve never broken down so much in a place of work. I would sit in the corner of the washroom and cry (not too much so we couldn’t stop but enough to get a good sob out). No one ever knew. I know because I’ve now highlighted this to a few former coworkers and they each wear the same look of surprise, sadness and empathy. But why the tears? It was just a part time job and it was…until it wasn’t. Somewhere along the way this part time job truly became something else. I went from clocking in and out, to bringing every person who worked with me home. I packed up their fears in a precious bag and wore it around, how couldn’t I? They were afraid and I was used to carrying around people’s emotions with me. I was even better at wearing a bright toothy smile that hid my own emotions.

At some point I stopped being a CER and started to be..well..I suppose glue. But remember what I said earlier about different types of glue for different materials? Well, you see- management wasn’t particularly fond of the type of glue I was, at least a majority of them didn’t seem to be. You see in the eyes of my leaders, I WAS someone who was just clocking in and out and they weren’t happy with this. You see, the company preferred the type of glue that bonded workers and the company’s “vision”. Workers that were so bonded with that vision that it became almost indistinguishable of where the person started and the sales pitch ended. They wanted you to take work home with you, just not in the way I did. Ironically, because of this I was rated as a low performer; because I didn’t care enough, when all of my peers were telling me the opposite.

But there it was, the other shoe had finally fallen and little Finn isn’t as sturdy as they seem. No, in fact, I remember running out of the performance review in tears, rushing past my coworkers as I digested being told I was a failure (another notch to add to the belt). It’s true when they say, sometimes it’s not the information itself but how it’s delivered. I felt ganged up in the review; mine being the only that required the GM to be present (more like be the one who conducted it but I digress). My mind had completely shut down as my superiors watched me shrink into myself, using the little energy I had to not break down and cry. The surrealism of them joking around about not being able to find a seat in the mall to conduct the review as my mind turned into static. They told me I had “really up days and really down days”, a sentence that may as well be a death sentence if you deal with a form of mental illness. They noticed, they noticed I wasn’t neurotypical, that I was different and not in a good way. You know what hurts the most? These two women were part of a moment of trauma for me and they didn’t even try- for them it was just another day at work. They’ll never know how I spent the next few months psychoanalyzing myself, speaking with professionals to help me find “what I did wrong?”, “why was I a failure?”.

After months of pouring every bit of energy I had towards my team I was told I wasn’t good enough. A part of me wishes I could send this letter to those women, to show them “look what you did to me”. But I feel it would give them another opportunity to dismiss me when I’m most vulnerable, a moment similar to when they glossed over my anxiety disorder, chalking it up to, “I think we’re all anxious right now”.  At the end of everything I’m more hurt than bitter. I’m not a manager, I’m not a leader but I know I would never put someone in such a situation and at the very least I can sleep at night knowing that.

To say my time at the bookstore was a learning experience would be an understatement. One day I was at cash dealing with a customer who clearly wasn’t having a good day and I decided then and there, I needed to leave. So, I finally ripped the rose coloured glasses off and decided to give my two weeks. Those two weeks were the least stressed I had been the entire year. Ironically, I had to leave the bookstore to finally take to heart the kind words that were told to me in it. I remember how I was told at my previous location how incredible it was of how many interpersonal relationships I had made in the short amount of time and it looks like here was no different….but it was. I’m now permanently leaving this company behind and realizing if this is what I can do with a few months, a year, imagine what I can do in a permanent career setting? I think I’ll be just fine; not because I’m “Finn”, not because I’m glue but because I try and maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

RANDOM REVIEW #2: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)

“This game has got to be about more than winning. You’re part of something.”  Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and featuring Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, LL Cool J, James Woods, and Matthew Modine, is my favourite sports movie of all time. Of all time.

I’m not betraying my favourite sport by saying this. The Mighty Ducks is a kid’s movie. It’s okay, but it’s not a timeless classic. I don’t like the Slap Shot series, Sudden Death is fun but silly, and the Goon movies were a missed opportunity. The only truly good scene in Goon is the diner scene where Liev Schreiber tells Seann William Scott: “Don’t go trying to be a hockey player. You’ll get your heart ripped out.”

  Such is the sad circumstance of the hockey enforcer. They all want to play, not just fight. Here’s a link to a video in which the most feared fighter in the history of the NHL, Bob Probert, explains that he wanted to be “an offensive threat...like Bobby Orr,” not a fighter: https://youtu.be/4sbxejbMH4g?t=118 Heartbreaking. But not unusual.

Donald Brashear, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson, Frazer McLaren: they all had hockey skills. But they were told they had to fight to remain on the roster, so they fought. As Schreiber says in the film: “You know they just want you to bleed, right?”  If the players don’t bleed, they don’t get to stay on the team. So they fight, and they pay dearly for it later. Many former fighters have CTE or other head injuries that make day-to-day life difficult. The makers of Goon should have taken that scene and run with it. I was so disappointed they didn’t, especially given what happened right around the time the film came out, with the tragic suicides of Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, and Rick Rypien, all enforcers, all dead in a single summer. So Hollywood hasn’t even made a good hockey movie, let alone a great one. Baseball has a shitload of good films, probably because the slower pace of play makes it easier to film. Moneyball has a terrific home run scene, Rookie of the Year does too. Angels in the Outfield was a big favourite of mine when I was a kid, plus all the Major League films, and Bull Durham. 

Football has two good movies: The Program (1993) and Rudy (1993).    

And football has one masterpiece. The one I am writing about today.

A young Oliver Stone trying not to die in Vietnam. ^ Now, I know Stone is laughed at these days, given his nutty conspiracy theories and shitty behaviour and the marked decline in the quality of his films (although 2012’s Savages was underrated). I know Stone is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but do you want a football movie to be subtle? Baseball, sure. It’s a game of fine distinctions, but football? Football is war. And war is about steamrolling the enemy, distinctions be damned, which is why Any Given Sunday is such an amazing sports film. I love the way it shows the dark side of football. In fact, the film is so dark that the NFL withdrew their support and cooperation, forcing Stone to create a fictitious league and team to portray what he wanted to portray.

This is not to say the movie is fresh or original. Quite the opposite. Any Given Sunday has every single sports film cliché you can think of. But precisely because it tries to stuff every single cliché into its runtime, the finished product is not a cliched mess so much as a rich tapestry, a dense cinema verite depiction of the dizzying highs and depressing lows of a professional sports team as it wins, loses, parties, and staggers its way through a difficult season.  Cliché #1: The aging quarterback playing his final year, trying to win one last championship. (Dennis Quaid) 

Sample dialog: Dennis Quaid (lying in a hospital bed severely injured): Don’t give up on me coach. Al Pacino: You’re like a son to me. I’ll never give up on you. ^ I know this sounds awful. But it’s actually fuckin’ great. Cliché #2: The arrogant upstart new player who likes hip hop and won’t respect the old regime. (Jamie Foxx) 

Cliché #3: The walking wounded veteran who could die if he gets hit one more time. Coincidentally, he needs just one more tackle to make his million-dollar bonus for the season. (Lawrence Taylor) 

Cliché #4: The female executive in a man’s world who must assert herself aggressively in order to win the grudging respect of her knuckle-dragging male colleagues (Cameron Diaz). Diaz is fantastic in the role, though she should have had more screen time, given that the main conflict in the film is very much about the new generation, as represented by her and Jamie Foxx, trying to replace the old generation, represented by Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. Some people think Diaz’s character is too calculating, but here’s the thing: she’s right. Too many sports GMs shell out millions for the player an individual used to be, not the player he presently is. “I am not resigning a 39-year old QB, no matter how good he was,” she tells Pacino’s coach character, and you know what? She’s right. The Leafs’ David Clarkson signing is proof positive of the perils of signing a player based on past performance, not current capability. Diaz’s character is the living embodiment of the question: do you want to win, or do you want to be loyal? Cuz sometimes you can’t do both.

Cliché #5: The team doctor who won’t sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (Matthew Modine).

Cliché #6: The team doctor who will sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (James Woods) 

Cliché #7: The grizzled, thrice-divorced coach who has sacrificed everything for his football team, to the detriment of his social and familial life, who must give a stirring speech at some point in the film (Al Pacino…who goes out there and gives the all-time greatest sports movie “we must win this game” speech) 

Cliché #8: The assistant or associate coach who takes a parental interest in his players, playing the good cop to the head coach’s bad cop (former NFL star Jim Brown). 

Best quote: “Who wants to be thinking about blitzes and crossblocks when you’re holding your grandkids in your arms? That’s why I wanna coach high school. Kids don’t know nothing. They just wanna play.” 

Cliché #9: The player who can’t stop doing drugs (L.L. Cool J).

Okay, so the first thing that needs to be talked about is Al Pacino’s legendary locker room speech.  Now, it’s the coach’s job to rile up and inspire the players. But eloquence alone won’t do it. If you use certain big words, you lose them (remember Brian Burke being endlessly mocked by the Toronto media for using the word “truculent?”). The coach must deliver the message in a language the players understand, while still making victory sound lofty and aspirational. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. One of my favourite inspirational lines was spoken by “Iron” Mike Keenan to the New York Rangers before Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. “Win tonight, and we’ll walk together forever.” Oooh that’s gorgeous. But Pacino’s speech is right up there with it. 

“You know, when you get old in life…things get taken from you. That’s parta life. But you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff. You find out…life’s this game of inches. So’s football. In either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it…one half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin difference between winnin’ and losin’! Between livin’ and dyin’!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY  Somehow, against all odds, Any Given Sunday succeeds. It is the Cinderella run of sports movies. You root for the film as you watch it. The dressing room scenes are incredible…the Black players listen to the newest hip hop while a trio of lunkhead white dudes headbang and scream “Hetfield is God.” There is a shower scene where a linebacker, tired of being teased about the size of his penis, tosses his pet alligator into the showers where it terrorizes his tormentors. There is a scene where a halfback has horrible diarrhea, but he’s hooked up to an IV so the doctor (Matthew Modine) has to follow him into the toilet cubicle, crinkling his nose as the player evacuates his bowels. There is a scene where someone loses an eye (the only scene in the film where Stone’s over-the-top approach misses the mark). There are scenes that discuss concussions (which is why the NFL refused to cooperate for the film), where Lawrence Taylor has to sign a waiver absolving the team of responsibility if he is hurt or paralyzed or killed. I wonder how purists and old school football fans reacted to the news that Oliver Stone was making a football film. If they even knew who he was (not totally unlikely…Stone made a string of jingoistic war movies in the 1980s) they probably thought the heavy hands of Oliver would ruin the film, take the poetry out of every play. But the actual football is filmed perfectly. The camera gets nice and low for the tackles. It flies the arcs of perfect spiral passes. It shows the chaos of a defensive line barreling down the field. When Al Pacino asked quarterback Dan Marino (fresh off his own Hollywood experience acting in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) what it was like to be an NFL QB, Marino said: “Imagine standing on a highway with traffic roaring at you while trying to read Hamlet.” A great explanation. Shoulda made the movie. So the football itself is fabulously done. Much better than what Cameron Crowe did in the few football scenes in Jerry Maguire. The Program had some great football, as did Rudy, but neither come close to the heights of Any Given Sunday. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jamie Foxx insists that his white coaches have routinely placed him in situations where he was doomed to fail or prone to injury, and we believe him because white coaches have been doing that to Black players for decades. Quarterback Doug Williams, who led his Washington Redskins team to a Superbowl victory in 1987, was frequently referred to by even liberal media outlets as a “Black quarterback,” instead of just “quarterback,” as if his skin colour necessitated a qualification. Even now, in 2021, the majority of quarterbacks are white, although the gap is gradually closing. The 2020 season saw the highest number of starting Black quarterbacks, with 10 out of a possible 32.  Quarterback is the most cerebral position on the field, and for a long time there was a racist belief that Black men couldn’t do the job. Foxx’s character is a composite of many of the different Black quarterbacks who came of age in the 1990s, fighting for playing time against white QBs beloved by their fan base, fawned over in hagiographic Sports Illustrated profiles, and protected by the good ol’ boys club of team executives and coaching staff. Foxx’s character isn’t demoted because he can’t play the game. He wins several crucial games for his team en route to the playoffs. He’s demoted because he listens to hip hop in the dressing room, because he recorded a rap song and shot a video for it, and because he’s cocky. Yes, the scene where he asks out Cameron Diaz is sexist, as if her power only comes from her sexuality, not her intelligence and business acumen, but it’s meant to show how overly confident Foxx is, not that he’s a sexist prick. Any Given Sunday isn’t a single issue film. It’s basically an omni-protest piece. It gleefully shows football’s dark side, and there is no director better than Oliver Stone for muck-raking. He’s in full-on investigative journalist mode in Any Given Sunday, showing how and why players play through serious brain injuries. How because they are given opiates, often leading to debilitating addictions (this happens in all contact sports...Colorado Avalanche player Marek Svatos overdosed on heroin a few years after retiring from injuries). As to why, Stone gives two reasons. One, team doctors are paid by the team, not the players, therefore their decisions will benefit the team, not the players. And two, the players themselves are encouraged to underreport injuries and play through them because stats are incentivized. James Woods unethical doctor argues with Modine’s idealistic one because an MRI the latter called for a player to have costs the team $20k. But the player in question, Lawrence Taylor, plays anyway because his contract is stat incentivized and if he makes on more tackle he gets a million dollars. Incentivizing stats leads to players playing hurt. And although I loathe this term, a lazy go-to for film critics, Stone really does give an unflinching account of how this shit happens and why. When Williams is inevitably hurt and lying prone on the field, he woozily warns the paramedics who are placing him on a stretcher to “be careful…I’m worth a million dollars.” It’s tragic, yet you’re happy for him. The film really makes you care about these guys.  Thanks to the smartly written script, the viewer knows that Williams has four kids, and you’re pleased he made his bonus because, in all likelihood, after he retires, his injuries will prevent him from any kind of gainful employment (naturally, they give the TV analyst jobs to retired white players, unless Williams can somehow land the coveted token Black guy gig). Stone is not above fan service, a populist at heart, and he stuffs the film with former and then-current NFL players, a miraculous stunt given the fact that the NFL revoked their cooperation. Personally, I think this was a good thing because it meant Stone didn’t have to compromise (the league wanted editorial say on all issues pertaining to the league…meaning they would have cut the best storyline, which is the playing hurt one). It also meant that they had to rename the team and the league. While I’m sure this took away from the realism for some fans, I’m cool with it. It also allowed the moviemakers to name the team the Sharks, a perfect name for this roving band of predatory capitalist sports executives. In another example of fan service, the call-girl Pacino’s quintessential lonely workaholic character rents a girlfriend experience from is none other than Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, who had been unfairly blacklisted after the titular Verhoven/Esterhaz venture, a movie my wife showed me one day while I was dopesick, which I became so transfixed and mesmerized by that I forgot I was. As mentioned above, the only misstep in the film is one of the offshoots of the Playing Hurt arc, where a player loses an eye on the field. Not because he gets poked, but because he gets hit so hard his eye simply falls out. A medic runs onto the field and puts the white globe on ice. Stone cast a player with a glass eye in order to achieve this effect. No CGI! Still, the scene is unconvincing, a tad too over-the-top. But this is Oliver Stone. At least Any Given Sunday’s sole over-the-top moment is a throwaway scene lasting all of thirty seconds. It easily could have been a secondary plot-line in which government officials try to sneak a Cuban football prodigy out of Castro’s communist stronghold but the player is brutally murdered the morning the officials arrive at his apartment to escort him to the private plane. Or else the team GM is revealed to be a massive international cocaine dealer. Or the tight end is one half of a serial killer couple. The film follows its own advice, focusing more on the players growth, particularly Beamon’s (Foxx). The anonymity of the title, Any Given Sunday, elevates the game, not the players. Thank God, the movie doesn’t force Beamon to assimilate into Pacino’s mold. He buys into the team-first philosophy without renouncing his idiosyncratic POV or his fierce individuality. This is a triumph. One of my biggest problems with sports is the flattening effect it can have on creative individuals. Players take media training in order to sound as alike as possible during media interviews, a long row of stoic giants spouting cliches. It’s boring. Which is why media latch onto a loudmouth, even while they scold him for it. All sports are dying for an intelligent mouthpiece who can explain his motivations in a succinct, sound-bite-friendly, manner. Sports are entertainment. As much as I love Sidney Crosby, in my heart I have to go with Alexander Ovechkin because Ovechkin is far more thrilling, both on and off the ice. Unlike almost every other NHL star before him, all of whom were forced to kneel and kiss Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em ring, Ovechkin defiantly told the media he simply did not care about Cherry or Cherry’s disgusting parental reaction to one of Ovie’s more creative goal celebrations (called a “celly” in the biz). On the play in question, Ovechkin scored the goal, then dropped his stick and mimed warming his hands over it, as if his stick were on fire. As cheesy as the celebration appeared to the naked eye, it’s both a funny and accurate notion. Ovechkin was the hottest scorer in the league for many years and his stick was on fire, metaphorically speaking. The only celly I can think of that matches up in terms of creativity and entertainment value came from Teemu Selanne in 1993, who scored a beauty of a goal, threw one of his gloves straight up into the air, then pumped his stick like a shotgun while “shooting” his glove. Of course, Cherry took exception to it. Cherry’s favourite goal celebration features Bobby Orr putting his head down and refraining from raising his hands over his head. Cherry’s idea of an appropriate goal celly is no celly at all. This from a man who claims “we’ve got to sell our game.” But when an arrogant player shows up and he’s not white, he’s in for a shitload of bad press. Foxx’s Beamon illustrates this beautifully when he yells at Pacino after Pacino cuts him for an older QB who has lost four games this season. “Don’t play that racism card with me,” Pacino warns. “Okay…okay…” Foxx nods, “Maybe it’s not racism. Maybe it’s ‘placism’…as in…a brother got to know his place.”

Here is the original theatrical trailer, featuring Garbage’s classic “Push It.”

Above Lawrence Taylor begs Matthew Modine for Cortazone.  There’s also a great scene where Pacino is trying to figure out where he has gone wrong and Diaz just looks at him. “You got old,” she says simply. No enterprise is more cruel to an aging human being than sports. And this movie makes football a big giant corporate machine that chews players up and spits them out, injured and drug addicted, after four or five years. Those who play for a decade are lucky. This is still how the NFL works. And the NHL is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. Experience matters less and less.

When I started watching hockey in the 90s, players regularly competed into their late 30s. Not so anymore. Players peak at 23-24 now, and are often out of the league by age 35. Thornton and Chelois are exceptions, not the rule. After more than two hours, Any Given Sunday finally lurches across the finish line, bravely refusing to give its viewers a traditional happy ending, in the great tradition of underdog sports films like Rocky and Rudy. The bombshell dropped by Pacino’s character at the end feels less surprising than inevitable, but by now the movie has explored so much of professional sports' seedy underbelly that you're glad it's over. The film is great but exhausting. Stone seems to be advancing the notion that the sport itself is pure, but the people in it are corrupt. If money weren’t involved, the game would be played for its own sake.

I agree with this. People playing pond hockey are engaging in wholesome fun, not necessarily practicing to make a professional league. Commerce corrupts the purity of the game, and the extent to which it corrupts is directly proportional to how badly the individual in question needs the commerce. Of course, the sport is highly racialized, with people in positions of authority white, and those being told what to do with their bodies Black.

Any Given Sunday is an important film, but it never sacrifices entertainment for the sake of moralizing. That it pulls off such a strong moralistic stance is a testament to the actors, who are all incredible, and the material, which is among the strongest of Stone’s career.

He never really made a great movie after this one. So check it out sometime.