#like. setting is secondary to characters imo

[liquidstar]

Docs still isn't letting me copypaste so I'm going to post screenshots of my OC au concepts instead... It's less convenient but oh well! This is mostly just for people who care about silly OC stuff like this! So. Here lol

[orpheusilver]

i think the common issue that creates boring dnd player characters is like. the fixation on backstory over character conflict. like if you think abt the typical "heres my super cool guy with a super cool design and a dark tragic backstory they dont want to talk about theyre so tortured and mysterious" its like. sure that might be an interesting secondary character for an animated series but thats not what this is.

like 1. nobody is going to see that cool design unless you painted a mini so youre just gonna be that guy who spends 5 minutes of session 1 describing your outfit; 2. none of the other players want to spend ages trying to interrogate backstory out of someone who seems like they dont want to share, they want to find a fight and flex their awesome build, so unless your dm pulls your 15 page backstory document into the main quest its all gonna be irrelevant anyway; and 3. trauma does not an interesting character make! not unless you can roleplay the effects of that trauma in a compelling manner!

imo its a wayyyy better method to come up with a Fucked Up Kinda Guy, complete with quirks and flaws and affectations and sure maybe a voice if thats your vibe, they dont need to be special or unique just fucking engaging to play beside, and THEN reverse engineer the backstory based on what would make someone be like that and usually its something fucked up and traumatic anyway bc thats how existing works. like dont get me wrong theres definitely merit to establishing your place in the setting but like. in taz balance absolutely no part of their written backstories did as much for the early group dynamic as "magnus rushes in" and "taako is good out here"

^ actually new different point based on that. if you show up with a blank slate guy then play off against the other characters! if you have a whole guy do it anyway! if someone is playing it safe then play impulsive or vice versa, if someone else has the same highest stat as you then get weirdly competitive, if someone plays dubious morals then be the ethical voice calling them out on it, there is no reason for your party to always be in agreement and if they are then disagree! be a dick about it! stories thrive on conflict so fucking make some, just please for the love of god do Anything that makes them behave differently than you with an ability

[muffinrecord]

Saw the ask about magical boys and your wish for magical trans kids: may I introduce you to Zoe from Sleepless Domain webcomic? She is one of the main secondary characters and she's super sweet and tries her best! (If you haven't read Sleepless Domain, try it out! It has a ton of fun concepts, pain and suffering, world cold girlfriends soft, parents know what is going on but are powerless to step in and have to let their kids fight, three mysterious gals, wholesome team(s) and survivor's guilt~

I love Sleepless Domain! I've actually backed both of its kickstarters. It's easily one of my favorite post-Madoka magical girl stories out there and I'd also highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good story in general.

Also imo CubeWatermelon is REALLY good at compositions. Seriously, if you like comics and can appreciate a good set of panels, check out her work (note that the first two chapters had their art made by a different artist, but Cube has done the art for the rest of the comic). I reread the comic once every few months just to study her pages. Like, take note how often she doesn't chicken out and will just make sure that excellent establishing shots and good backgrounds are included-- you never feel lost reading her work and always know where everyone is. The flow and movement are really good too. Fight scenes can be really hard to portray but you can easily tell what folks are doing.

I know that sounds like the bare minimum but you'd be surprised by how many comics out there really struggle with making sure that the reader, like. actually knows what's going on. Finding an artist that prioritizes clarity is a nice treat. I'm also always impressed at how much character and personality she can pack into a page. Off the top of my head, stuff like Tessa's room being full of her own merchandise:

Anyways yeah, Sleepless Domain is amazing and anyone who likes magical girl stuff should read it.

Edit: All that and I forgot to link the comic. Derp.

[ouidamforeman]

R.e. discussions abt the new Good Omens season being polarizing on whether it’s good or bad writing, I think just saying it’s bad writing is weird and dismissive of what actual problems someone would have with it, and is just dismissing what it’s trying to do because it wasn’t to your taste. I think it more or less succeeded in doing what it wanted to do, which is an entirely different metric of judgment than whether or not you LIKED the effect of what it was doing. Regardless of what issues I personally have with it, I still think overall it effectively did what it set out to.

The thing is, it reads less like a traditional season of television and more like half of a novel. It’s weird. It’s directionless and meandering not because it’s poor storytelling but because I genuinely think it’s doing those things on purpose for other reasons. This is a single chunk of a larger story and I believe the overall purpose of season 2 isn’t to like, actually have a big plot or complete character arcs? If I look at it solely from where it is and what it’s presenting to me and let go of my preconceptions and expectations it appears that this season is just trying to put a few plot set pieces in place for the continuing story, and to nestle those plot pieces in a nonlinear narrative solely focused not on character Development but on character exploration and revelation. I feel like that’s why the actual moving plot this season was a very basic mystery, because it isn’t really the point? The actual story events are just backdrop for revelatory character vignettes, and I think that if this piece of storytelling was part of a novel that included whatever season 3/the actual story conclusion is going to be then people wouldn’t have nearly as many criticisms about the writing as they do when it’s presented as a season of tv. That’s also why it reads so fanfiction-y imo. My honest opinion is that s2’s biggest flaw that isn’t something incredibly subjective is that it’s let down by the fact that it got trapped in needing to present itself as a television season with all the baggage that medium has and not something more unconventional that would be kinder to its weird beginning-of-a-novel-ish meandering. Is this something a season of tv SHOULD do? I don’t know. Is this a fucking weird piece of television story wise? Yeah. Is it now officially a different story from the original novel? Absolutely. Does it have flaws, maybe even flaws that amplify the issues already present in season 1? Yeah. Does it accomplish what it sets out to do though? More or less yeah, I genuinely think so. Now if any of that translates into “badness” for you that’s fine. I think it was an immense risk to do this kind of thing for a tv season and it’s not going to click for everyone. But that’s fine. This is a bizarre and novel-y piece of tv media that’s just sort of doing its own thing, and whether you think that’s bad or not is secondary to how interesting that is I think. I just wish the criticism was more engaging with it instead of judging it, because I think what’s happening here is both much more simple and much more complex than most people are implying with their critiques. It’s much more interesting to meet it where it is imho, even though I do strongly wish it didn’t have to be released in this technically incomplete form.

TLDR I think ppl pointing at this season and calling it bad writing are partially not actually engaging with it on its level and partly confusing objective badness with personal taste. Regardless of whether you LIKED what it tried to do or not it was at least trying to do something, something that it mostly succeeded at, and that’s all i can really comfortably judge a piece of art on

[ramshacklefey]

No but serious. Dungeons & Dragons is one of the least flexible systems out there. So whenever I hear someone asking, "Why can't I do X in DnD?" or "How would I do (thing that the system is totally ill-suited for)?" my first response is just "GURPS."

For those of you who aren't familiar, GURPS stands for "Generic Universal Role Playing System." I always say it's like the Linux of ttrpgs, in the sense that it's less a system and more a framework that you can use to do whatever you want with.

And I really do mean whatever you want. You want high fantasy? Done. You want gritty realism in a dystopian world? Got it. You want superheroes? Good to go. Super tech space opera? Oh boy we got you there. You want magic systems that aren't based on spell lists? Go for it. Horror games where character death is a constant and very real threat? Sure thing.

You can set up your game to be anything from a complex data driven grinder to a cinematic rules basically optional flight of fancy.

You can play characters who are anywhere from realistically squishy humans to god-like super beings.

Characters personal flaws and strengths can have a direct impact on mechanics. Character species can have a direct and serious impact on mechanics.

The existence of so many options can make GURPS seem overwhelming at first glance, but if you are willing to put in a bit of effort, it's actually a very simple system to play. Most of the hard work is front-loaded into setting and character creation. Once play starts it runs as smooth as can be.

It's totally possible to play it with just the two core books, BUT there are dozens of books that are nothing but tips and advice for how to build a particular type of world or a particular flavor of campaign.

And the books, while not nearly as pretty as DnD books, are laid out in a way that makes it incredibly easy to find exactly the information you want.

Some more mechanical things that I particularly like about it (under the cut):

Characters are created on a point-buy system, but you don't just buy your basic stats, you also buy your skills, advantages, and secondary stats. And you can gain points back by dropping stats below average or taking disadvantages.

The advantage/disadvantage system. This is sorta the core of the character building, and it is *so* much fun. See, rather than pick out a class or species, you have a list (selected by your GM from a much larger list) of things you can buy that will have mechanical impacts on you in the game. Basically, an advantage is anything that opens up more possibilities for you in-game, and a disadvantage is anything that closes off possibilities. They can be superpowers, species traits, cinematic plot armor, personality traits, or things like chronic illness, bad temper, physical or mental disabilities, or being doomed by the narrative.

Simple dice system. To play a GURPS campaign you need three d6. That's it. All checks and saves are done by rolling 3d6 (low rolls are better than high). This has an additional advantage over the d20 system in that there is a probability curve. You're more likely to roll numbers in the mid-range, which makes both critical successes and critical failures rarer, and therefore more satisfying.

Your target roll is adjusted, rather than adding/subtracting from the roll itself. Say you're trying to, idk, hack a computer. Your skill level doesn't affect your dice roll, it affects the number you need to roll in order to succeed. This makes things a lot simpler on the player's end, imo, because there's less they need to keep track of. (You're trying to roll under the skill check, so whatever the base difficulty is, the GM just adds or subtracts your skill level from that).

The basic stats are on a much tighter scale, and they make a lot more sense. Human average is a 10 in everything. When you make your character you can buy higher stats or take lower ones and get more points to spend on other things. All stats cap out at 18, because that's the highest number you can roll. At a 10 strength you are a normal person. At 18 you're basically Superman. You'd have to roll a critical failure not to succeed in a strength check, and remember: critical failures are far less common than in a d20 system.

I could keep going ad infitum here, but instead I'll just close with:

Come with me boy, play my games! We'll have cowboy times in space!

[mongeese]

Honestly I think FHJY is overambitious in its reach. Or at least, overambitious to be done in the episode limit they have. Like, previous seasons had one primary antagonist with a few secondary antagonists, with the secondary antagonists getting limited screen time, and 100% of the screen time we do have is dedicated to moving along the main plot (along with cast shenanigans, obviously). This season, there's still a primary antagonist (Porter) with a few secondary antagonists (the Rat Grinders), but the Rat Grinders were set up as being very important from the beginning, therefore giving them so little screen time feels disappointing. They're meant as character foils, but we barely know anything about them other than their class. Add onto that the fact that this season is also supposed to be about stress and academic pressure, represented by the downtime system, and there's a huge chunk of screentime that's not dedicated to the main plot or mystery at all. It's just too much stuff to resolve in a satisfying way in only 20 episodes imo

[silviakundera]

Ok, upon request my thoughts on Bad Buddy, a good queer romance drama that doesn't get much if any international exposure outside the circle of Thai BL fans. Full spoilers.

after consuming literally dozens of BB videos, the best trailer to the drama imo is actually the talented samyvids' "Just My Type" songvid. Perfectly captures the setup.

* the hook: 2 boys raised by their feuding families to be rivals end up attending a university that has a childish Jets vs Sharksesque historic rivalry between the science/engineering vs artistic/architecture majors. Despite these 2 barriers, the boys stumble into a secret bromance and then into love. Secondary couple here is f/f, though it's basically just soft girls meet cute then getting together (no conflict).

* Comedic and light-hearted drama that doesn't take itself too seriously, while also swerving into the appropriate amount of angst for its set up.

* This '20-something bros in love' dynamic reminds me vividly of what a lot of SPN J2 RPF and Hockey RPF has tried to capture. The 2 leads feel like your prototypical good natured university bros and falling in love never changes that. Friends AND Lovers is a challenging dynamic to capture imo but Bad Buddy succeeds

* It helps the Bros In Love vibes that the actors look less primped & polished than many other asian BL productions. They seem like guys you could have actually had in your classes in uni.

* If you welcome the drama's tone and just vibe with it, I think it successfully executes 4 popular romance tropes:

- rivals to friends to lovers

- forbidden (hidden) love

- fall first vs fall harder

- golden retriever bounding around paw cleaning cat

* If you are going to sell me on a modern day romeo & juliet esque queer rom-com, without the bloodshed, then you BETTER put your money where you mouth is and make their love actually forbidden.

* Thankfully, Bad Buddy understood the assignment. It's not just a misunderstanding. Their parents truly do have a feud and they truly are forbidden to even be friends, forget a romantic relationship. 2 kids obligated to be enemies since birth, bound by this twisted shared experience that no one else understands.

* Pran falling first, with enough time to comprehend how cruelly impossible they are. Pat falling late, fast, and hard - too impulsive to consider the consequences and wearing his heart on his sleeve.

* Both characters won me over quickly:  cautious & restrained Pran who likes order, chaotic Pat who craves his attention

* Love that the dramatic tension & hiding in all the early episodes isn't revealed to be pointless. If there was no consequence, then it removes the poignancy of its classic rooftop kiss scene. Prans' fears must be justified in order for the angst to stand up in a rewatch. Pran's friends DO reject him at first. Their parents DO refuse to accept the relationship, including his mom considering this a personal betrayal.

* Prans' fears are painfully rational and everything he is scared of does have to be confronted. But that also gives romantic weight to his decision to give in to the feelings and accept the consequences.

* In the way that scifi authors will try to explore sociopolitical topics through allusions & metaphor, and that Hunger Games author keeps writing dystopian YA whenever she gets heated about politics, Bad Buddy does a good job imo of using the feuding families setup to address the reality of existing in a homophobic and transphobic society while being queer -- demonstrating it in a way that straight cis people can relate to. And approaching from this angle allows the production to tell that story with a certain emotional distance for queer viewers who have experienced such struggles.

* The bittersweet ending sells me completely on this drama. Closeted but not. Open but not entirely. Accepting that you can't change the world and make all your family & friends & coworkers accept your truth... but refusing to abandon them OR your truth. It's a decision so many queer people have made over the years, in different countries and decades. And it's tinged with hope.

* Let's acknowledge that indeed there is tons of product placement in this series. Sometimes to hilarious ends. But frankly, without this sponsorship the series would not exist. So I'm very grateful to suffer through the marketing that helped fund it.

* Available streaming in multiple places, including YouTube.

[mrdarcygenderenvy]

Recent Austen adaptations yelling

Ok I DID make this blog to review historical-set Pride & Prejudice adaptations (with an exception made for iconic B&P). But for everyone who was DEFINITELY WONDERING, yes I have also been storing away a lot of opinions about other recent Austen adaptations that I Must Tell Someone.

.

Fire island (2022)

A modern gay party cheesy rom-com P&P that genuinely made me laugh. Having seen some other (whiter) cheesy gay romcoms that were extreeeemely PG & playing it safe, I was pleasantly surprised.

Also Bowen Yang and his story just came across really earnest in a way I was into - would watch this man cry again, 10/10.

Personally as an extremely disabled british nerd (now tragically unable to travel and/or go to the club...) this gay scene is a long way from my queer scene. But I still had emotions, you know?

Kinda wanted more of the Mary analogue and generally just normal looking people (almost everyone is so ripped) but I appreciate that's how beautiful smooth people often look in mainstream american films, we can't have everything.

DARCY WATCH: I do not want to dress like this adaptation's chinos Mr Darcy. But Conrad Ricamora was generally great and very hot and awkward and understood the assignment. Good ice cream throw.

.

Emma (2020)

I know I know, it's pretty... but I don't think that's enough!!!!!

Lovely production, beautiful costumes, a candy wes-anderson cinematography that really suits the story, and it's fun to notice references to actual outfits and prints from the time but lads. LADS. UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME: Where is the chemistry???

You can’t make Mr Knightley a nice sweet boy (so funny to have cast a posh folksy singing man) and leave the plot the same and expect it to work!! Also I was personally pissed off that a lot of the promo/ ads for this made it look like ~forbidden love~ when it's the 2 richest white people in town getting together?? ? There's actually not even a class difference in this one, guys.

Basically this romance was nothing to me!!! I felt nothing!!!!!!!! WHERE'S THE DEPTH

I did like the bit where he lies down though. Relatable.

Also why are you drawing so much attention to the servants when you don’t seem to have anything to say about class...? 'Wow look how many servants they had! Anyway, they don't get any speaking lines'... it's 2020 guys!!! like what are we saying here. 'isn't it cool to think about how people were rich'??

kind of the point of Emma (character) is she's pretty superficial, but the story does not, in fact, have to be

.

Persuasion (2022)

Weeping softly into a pillow........ did you know this version meant a version with Sarah Snook and Joel Fry got cancelled?? we could have had it all

(standing on a table yelling) THE MODERNISATION WAS NOT THE PROBLEM WITH THIS FILM!!!

Honestly I actively liked all the entire secondary cast in this. Louisa and Mary were extremely charming fun takes to watch. ('I'm an empath' IS right for the character if you're doing modern jokes!!!) And nobody can deny this was a correct and powerful use of Richard E Grant.

Henry Golding was naturally great. Apparently he got offered the lead and took the villain instead, which DOES mean the villain is super charming and fun to watch which is... hard to match and.... kind of shows up.... the main man.

It's been said before but the main two were WOEFUL imo. I have no beef with the actors I just question the DIRECTION and whether anyone making this knew (or cared) why people... enjoy things.

Book Anne is the quietest gentlest loser and I LOVE HER and so does basically every Austen nerd. Making her a quirky wine-bath girl who's honestly just cruel sometimes fully stops the main romance chemistry and plot from working.

And it means the main boy is still like 'god I'm so horny for how KIND AND CAPABLE YOU ARE' which is just 100% no longer true. You can't transplant a personality in a romance but leave the plot the exact same and expect it to work. The chemistry IS the plot in a romance..........

you can't act morally superior to your siblings and still rate people out of ten.... also so funny to me that everyone else gets period outfits and hair whereas this protagonist looks like she just glanced at a picture of any time in the past and grabbed a couple shirts from primark. it doen't even look good or build character!!!!!

Anyway, not to be an elderly man like 'ohhh why does nobody care about character these days' but the reason something like Clueless works is because it has the heart of the story right, instead of just copying the surface level stuff.

[rowanthestrange]

i just read the entirety of your Rogue is the Bad Guy essay, and i’ll admit, you’ve convinced me, but not that he’s the Master, but that he’s trying to cosplay the Master cosplaying whoever. Also, it was really long so, like, i’m asking with full concern: are you okay? it just seemed like it took a ridiculous amount of time /lh

What I think is the case, probably 51% the Master. Just squeaks it.

What I want is Pantheon member ‘The’ Rogue cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack. I’d prefer it by a very large margin. A huge one. But as to whether I think it will happen, I give that 49%. But that’s still good odds. (Chuldur #6 is somewhere in the rounding errors)

(I’ve got a lot of Pantheon!Rogue feels, ideas, and desires and have had nowhere else to put them yet, and this is a valid place to share them, rip. And to anyone else who followed the first Essay, let me convince you of my secondary Sub-Thesis in it.)

I’m giving that seemingly crazy high 49% despite the risky complexity of double-layering, because A) that was the Ruby resolution: she cosplayed the bird cosplaying as her - we’ve done it already and everyone got it.

And B)…Is actually complicated literal-meta but hear me out. Since they’re the only other writers this season I think there’s a very high chance they’re forerunners for next showrunners. I know at least one has high level management experience, and if they were given that as a test to do highly complex work to cut their teeth, this would be an incredibly good test that they passed imo. The Master is in themselves hard to write but necessary to fully comprehend because even when not present they are a lynchpin of the show. Here you’d have to write him well. But also effectively set up two twists (that he’s the Master, and then that he’s not he’s just pretending he is). You have to establish a Pantheon member - make an important part of an overarching narrative. And link together with other writers current and past. As well as create a good story with all functioning meta, on multiple levels.

The second you let Rogue be The Bad Guy the complexity of literally everything skyrockets anyway. (And one of the reason I’m a little annoyed that people want to believe he’s so flat - it does the writers a deep disservice to just think they wrote Space Darcy and there’s no shared metaplot there). But while Russell likes a certain amount of simplicity — Occam’s Razor 51% Master — RTD2 has been having fun with more complicated stuff, more prior-knowledge and using that, more thinking needed if you’re going to get the answers early. I think if he was going to give future showrunners something hard to do this would be it. For me Pantheon!Rogue is the pinnacle of that while still being perfectly possible to pull off to casuals without too much brainache. ‘The American accent guys, come on.’

I certainly think they have seeded all they need to, obviously can’t grade without seeing the full execution. And they certainly succeeded in writing ‘the Master’ well. Rewatching that ending? That actually got to me. And I’m a wall. I hated him which is what makes an actually good Master/Master-Proxy - you can neither go too far with that or the character becomes too unenjoyable (Simm!Master), but also too little with the hatred being turned almost entirely into pity (fandom), or even just they’re pretty purely enjoyable (Missy - but she’s an odd duck anyway), also robs them of something essential. This is pitched very well. Test passed on that score.

If my preference and height of percentage seems confusing, to me it makes no difference when talking about them whether he’s the Master or The Rogue perfectly playing the Master. Because if he’s perfectly playing him, as his Pantheon power should presumably allow him to do, it tells us about the Master anyway, so I don’t actually feel any need to differentiate most of the time. Certainly in The Essay it seemed stupid to bog it down with that and risk confusing the people still on ‘but he’s a good guy’ where it wasn’t necessary, because all arguments stay basically the same for a perfect copy. I trusted the reader to apply the level of abstraction themselves for the most part, only coming in with that where I thought something could be particularly relevant/missed in regard to that specifically. Muddying the issue with too repetitiously focusing on ‘remember it called also be a perfect Master cosplay’ and that seemingly complicated (even if I think valid) double-layering didn’t feel like the right call for something where just Rogue Is Playing The Bad Guy was already a hard sell to who I wanted to reach. Ymmv.

The only things that give me pause are that 1: The implication that he’s cloaked seems very high - the earring interference, psychic scents can mask real ones, seeming lack of recognition by allies (until the end I think - they shut up while he’s doing the scene rather than threaten or beg for their lives) etc. The Pantheon seem to have a lot of reality twisting powers. You wouldn’t need to, surely? You’d need to have a reason other than ‘same devices too close’ for that interference which starts the whole thing at minimum and I think ‘he made it happen for the Doctor to come over’ is too cheaty. And 2: The Bag. Why would you need to pack a bag and ensure you have it on you at the end if you can just snap your fingers?

But could be that it actually just contains his dice and he’s a stickler for doing things manually - think of daddy here, rules and ways to do things and following structure while also being creative within those constrictions. Which also very much applies to Dungeon Masters (won’t lie, the ‘Master’ part of that is what eeks it to 51% for just being him). This could come up, it’s feasible.

And there are lots of little things that complement the Pantheon element. We have the dancing scene where the lights dim. We have the fact he’s working with alternate dimension creatures and knows a lot about them. Certainly shows no fear at being sent to an alternate dimension once he’s got what he wanted. We have the American accent. We have him probably having watched Doctor Who like Bridgerton because he’s very familiar with Jack’s introductory episodes with all the references. We have the Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ - Dungeon Masters love making playlists for their scenes, so why wouldn’t he (and also Theme of Music)? Maybe he doesn’t overtly use his powers during The Session because that sort of ugly manipulation of the world is cheap and bad DMing. Daddy liked the Spice Girls, why wouldn’t he like Kylie? He’s a game player like daddy but there’s no winning D&D, especially as DM, which makes an easy natural conflict between them. And we need at least one Pantheon member, cus while I think this is actually just a set-up season for them, there needs to be at least four, really five to truly feel ‘Pantheon’, three would be bare minimum and not enough for when the shit actually starts to go down next season, need at least four by then. I’m assuming we see one: The Writer, or The Audience, or (The Twist At) The End/Grand Finale or whatever else you interpret the oldest one/one who waits to be, in the finale itself.

And this means we get a new character. Cosplaying the Master means The Rogue isn’t a copy of them, can just be playing The Bad Guy cus it’s fun right now, but they themselves don’t have to be Master-like, they can be anything. Something new. Anyone who knows me knows I wanted more rogue Time Lords and these guys are like that but with magic powers - what’s not to love? If The Rogue is a Joker, A Wildcard, and they just become a character that fills a void, that’s fascinating. Or they want to create exciting stories whatever that means and become whatever NPCs necessary to drive them on, that’s so interesting. Or they’re guided by being whatever they find cool much like the birds, with all the capricious ‘eh, bored now I’m wrapping this story up’ of a greek god (cus, well.) with all the associated dangers and disregard of these not being characters but people they’re playing with, and also expects there to be no hard feelings after The Session is over and next time it’s a new one. Can they perfectly roleplay a character but still break character if needed, or are they locked in to it until The Session’s done? Do they believe themself to have a ‘real’ personality or is that all fuzzy? Or all of the above. You could go anywhere from standard villain to a full Chaotic Neutral with that. And all the implications you could have of their power being to perfectly roleplay a person. And I use ‘they’ here because surely this is the most genderfluid a character you could get. The Rogue could literally be the red-nailed woman who picked up the gold tooth, think about that. How perfect would that be. Maybe that’s what’s in the bag. Live Tooth Reaction To The Kiss Not Clickbait. A character that could literally be anyone at any time, we would never know peace again. If Susan Twist appearing everywhere is something Pantheony, The Rogue is the inverse of this. Siblings maybe.

And see my Christmas Special pitch. Which is both a joke, but also an example of what fun you could have with The Rogue if you wanted. It doesn’t have to be pure heartbreak and misery Master 2.0. Especially if they are as seems here, a god not just trying to entertain themselves, but also entertain others. D&D requires a group, it’s co-operative, we see Rogue appear to adapt rather than (in any way immediately evident to us at least) externally force the story a certain way like a good DM. He never shoots the birds or threatens to or gets them in actual danger despite the in-character reasons to, and they looked like they all had fun - besides squished beak #5. But also sees NPCs as little more than set dressing as we ourselves would in a D&D game. What a dynamic that could be in a Pantheon god. It’s unique. Which is so valuable.

If it is the Master I’ll be fine and accept it, but I want this, because it does double duty. It might as well have been a Master episode as it has most of the benefits of one (for me anyway), but also gives us all this new possibility and complexity on top of it. Those options are currently open and I want it.

It’s not popular, but I’m really pro trusting the writers. All of them. They’re smart. And I know these two just seem like randoms, but I doubt they are, they could be our new mothers, and I really think that while the Pantheon Rogue option is complex, it’s viable and has so much scope. If I hate people trying to see Rogue as flat Space Darcy because it shows zero belief in the writers, then I gotta do the opposite and entertain the option that they have intelligently created a deep and complex story, and have taken that to the end of the road. Even if complicated is by nature less likely than simple.

also lol I started The Essay at around 11pm sunday, wrote til gone 4am. Then woke up at 9:30am and wrote solidly plus edits until about 4am, and in-between edited the subtitles into that video. Am I ok? Physically, yes. Mentally, probably not. It is literally 10k and that’s why I made the joke. But I’ve done infinitely worse writing fanfics so...

EDIT:

‘Pantheon member The Rogue cosplaying the Master’ has just flipped into the dominant reading! Alert! Alert! Cus he’d never do this about him literally being the Master. If he’s acknowledging we’re having the feelings we’re intended to have, there’s another twist in it.

I officially move Pantheon The Rogue Cosplaying The Master to 55% from 49% likelihood, and Rogue Is Just The Master down to 45% from 51%. You may wish to adjust your stock investment accordingly.

[familyabolisher]

Hello hope ur well. sorry to be so nosy but a goodreads friend liked your jane eyre review onto my timeline and I read this: “jean rhys takes this up but she does it badly” I’m dying to know what this means (sorry in advance if u have talked abt it before)

From the review in question:

i think what caught me the most this time around is charlotte brontë's v clear preoccupation with colonial holdings and their relationship to her notions of english girlhood; through bertha of course (the fear that a white woman from a jamaican former slaveowning family might somehow be tainted by her proximity to foreignness + Blackness and put at a remove from ~englishness by the fact is ... yeah. jean rhys takes this up but she takes it up badly so whatever.)

I was referring to Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel wherein she revisits Bertha Mason as Antoinette Cosway and traces her marriage to Rochester and eventual suicide at Thornfield Hall in a manner that intends to give texture and clarity and depth to a character that Brontë’s text was thought to have discarded.

WSS is like … wildly racist, frankly. Antoinette Cosway is from a white Jamaican family impoverished by 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, and lives on their sugar plantation until the newly emancipated Black Jamaican populace burn it down and kill her disabled brother. Rhys opens the novel with the suggestion that Antoinette and her family are isolated from other white people in Jamaica due to their poverty, highlighting the preservation of their whiteness as being a process of retaining property ownership in order to set the stage for the novel's marriage market plots; Antoinette and her mother each enter into abusive marriages with intent to restore their prosperity (which, ofc, would in effect restore their whiteness). Throughout, the central concern of the text is the inaccessibility of whiteness proper that would alleviate Antoinette's suffering, but this is never matched with a serious recourse to interrogate the Cosways' position as white Jamaican slaveowners; the sympathy that the novel intends to generate for Brontë's character sits very badly with me against the knowledge that that process of narrative construction rests on a) slavery and b) a relationship to the novel's Black characters that at best relegates them to secondary positions in relation to Antoinette and at worst paints them as aggressors on par with the white upper classes who remained prosperous post-emancipation.

Related to this current of racism running through the text is the fact that Rhys doesn’t really take up the issue in Jane Eyre that I pointed out in the original review, ie. that Brontë repeatedly appeals to Englishness as a desired state and relies on proximity to racialised, colonised people as a shorthand for inferiority and incivility. Bertha Mason, whilst somewhat sympathetic in Brontë’s text, is wayward, promiscuous, unpredictable, animalistic, 'dark' and 'discoloured,' and these are properties ascribed to her on the basis of the proximity she is given to Blackness (she is from Jamaica and it's possible to read her as being mixed race, certainly subject to an anxiety of racial impurity, though Rhys' Antoinette is white). Antoinette as a character remains constructed around the notion that her proximity to Blackness simply by virtue of having grown up in Jamaica is an 'othering' mechanism; the novel is frustrated that Antoinette can't be 'white' in Rochester's eyes, not that Antoinette's relationship to whiteness is one defined first and foremost over her family having owned slaves. Like, the text provides sympathy and interiority to Antoinette/Bertha, but it doesn't ... challenge Brontë's initial assertions in any real way.

WSS also has pretty significant currency as a ‘postcolonial text’ at least in the UK (I don’t know about elsewhere), which imo speaks to the incoherence of that category, lmao. I was introduced to WSS as a ‘postcolonial text’ at undergrad on a module that essentially aimed to trace the history of ‘the novel’ and thus appealed to WSS as the synecdoche of ‘postcolonial literature,’ despite the fact that Rhys was very much a white woman whose family owned a plantation in Dominica. In 2022, it was put on a list of ‘Commonwealth literature’ celebrating the Queen's jubilee—it’s a fucking wild list and a great example of the imperialist nostalgia that shapes the culture in this country, but like, Rhys being on there alongside Black and brown authors (and also other white British writers who upheld the colonial regime eg. Anthony Burgess and Muriel Spark) indicates this flattening of colonial subjectivity into one lump category of ‘citizenship’ wherein Rhys can make as much sense as a ‘postcolonial’ ‘Commonwealth’ author as can, say, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o or Chinua Achebe or Arundhati Roy &c. &c. I guess WSS just feels especially egregious for how easily its racism can be obfuscated as it gets folded into this category of literature that we might assume to be about and for racialised/colonised people.

(nb. I have only read WSS once, six years ago, so if I’ve forgotten plot details then like … sorry lol. I remember enough to know why it pissed me off to no end at the time sksksksk)

[msmargaretmurry]

would love to know which romance novels you’ve enjoyed!! i feel like we share a lot of “standards” so it would be pretty likely for me to enjoy anything you recommend.

p.s.: have you read any emily henry books? i feel like you might like those. <3

i have not read emily henry but i've heard pretty good things! i actually have a copy of beach read on my shelf that i am hoping to get to this summer. thank you for the recommendation! <3 will talk about some romance novels i've enjoyed under the cut. i am always accepting recs btw!!

my platonic ideal of a contemporary romance novel is evvie drake starts over by linda holmes. the setting feels real, the characters feel real and have real problems, the emotional stakes are proportionate and believable. bonus points for the portrayal of baseball and the main guy's relationship with baseball feeling normal and real. linda holmes's books (i also really enjoyed flying solo, tho not as much as evvie drake) are so character-driven that it almost feels like the romance arcs are secondary to the character arcs, which is ideal to me personally!!

i read a lot more historical romance than contemporary because i find it easier to get over the "that's not how that works!!" of it all in historicals, for reasons not worth elaborating on here. i tend to enjoy kj charles because she's very good at having a strong exteral plot in addition to strong characters! think of england is my fav of hers. for het historical romance i really liked courtney milan's brothers sinister series (esp. the countess conspiracy) and tessa dare's girl meets duke series (can't remember which one i liked best but i listened to them on audiobook at work and i do remember having to stop during a sex scene because i was like oh my god this is actually hot i can't listen to this at work LMAO). i have read every bridgerton and they're all a little dated and some are more mid than others but the francesca book, when he was wicked, is the best one imo.

i liked bringing down the duke by evie dunmore but i did not like the sequel so i haven't read more of hers 😅

it's not structured quite like a traditional romance novel but i really loved peter darling by austin chant, a gay trans peter pan retelling.

i do want to give a shoutout to a romance novel i did NOT think i would enjoy but wound up actually liking a lot, canadian boyfriend by jenny holiday. i was going to skip it because i don't like alternating first person pov but my coworker who loved it told me joshua jackson does the male pov chapters in the audiobook and i was like. fine i will listen to joshua jackson. and i had plenty of quibbles with the book (for one thing i thought the whole book could have been done without the central "fake canadian boyfriend" premise and might have been better for it, lol) but i was surprised by how moved i was by the male lead's complicated grief as a widower and i thought the hockey parts felt realistic and good. going in i was also like urgh ough hockey player/ballet dancer romance is gonna go so hard on the big strong man/tiny dainty woman of it all but it DIDN'T, and i thought the female lead's relationship with dance was nuanced and interesting. i don't think i could have read this book with my eyes due to the povs but the audiobook with alternating narrators worked nicely. and definitely not a perfect book (if i were to rate it on goodreads i'd probably do like a 3.5 rounded down?) but i liked it so much more than i expected to and i feel like i need to demonstrate that i am NOT a hater by default and i CAN be a generous reader when i think a book has earned it 😂

[thydungeongal]

Here's something I started thinking about recently, inspired by this post by @talenlee:

(Talen is one of my favorite writers in the RPG space and y'all should give him a follow if you want to read a bunch of really smart thoughts about games.)

The issue of ability scores trying to somehow model a reality is not unique to 4e. It's present in various degrees in all editions of D&D. As Talen points out, Strength does have something of a simulation attached to it (in terms of carrying capacity), but what a Dexterity of 16 or an Intelligence of 8 represents in the fiction is never really explained. In older editions you would sometimes get something like Intelligence determining how many languages you could speak and also act as a simple measure of your literacy, but it was so rough that it didn't actually represent anything measurable.

An Intelligence of 8 doesn't actually have any direct representation in the fiction beyond a -1 penalty to Intelligence checks. What this means is that when a person of average Intelligence (assuming that an Intelligence modifier of +0 is truly average) has a 55% chance of succeeding at an Intelligence check (DC 10), a person with an Intelligence 8 only has a... 50% chance of succeeding on that check. Looking at it like that it doesn't actually seem like that big of a difference.

Thing is, we don't have any way of measuring what any of these ability scores mean. A Charisma of 18 doesn't mean anything besides "a +4 modifier to Charisma checks." At the end of the day it doesn't matter whether your Monk uses their Dexterity of 18 or their Wisdom of 18 for their unarmed attacks (the latter is possible with the Astral Self), nor is there any functional difference between an Artificer making an attack with a magic sword with their Intelligence of 16 versus a Fighter making an attack with the same sword with their Strength of 16 (of course there is in the sense that the two may have different secondary effects attached to these attacks, but the raw numbers add up just the same).

I think that in a combat heavy game like D&D (any edition) there is value in giving players lots of discrete mechanical choices to make for their character and sometimes ability scores do end up reinforcing character archetype (it makes sense that Wizards would be good at Arcana, Rogues would be good at Stealth, and Bards would be good at Performance, and these are not only functions of their class but also of the ability scores these classes mostly utilize!) but sometimes there is a wide disconnect: Rangers and Druids won't be as good at Nature checks as a trained Wizard, Clerics don't actually benefit from being built towards being good at the Religion skill, and why are Clerics and Monks among the best character classes to build towards Perception?

I do think there is something to making it so that in a combat game a character's combat role is in harmony with their fictional identity, and D&D's classes are for the most part good at this (D&D 4e being a shining example of this type of design imo), but ability scores are a very D&D solution to the problem which often introduces its own set of problems.

[brookstolemybrand]

The thing about the writing problems with Sabo's character is that almost all of them could be so easily fixed by just mentioning him a bit earlier, or even just hinting about him (I don't count Ace's tattoo as a hint because it's only clear that it even was a hint in retrospect)

The way I'd do it would be to just have Ace and/or Luffy refer to him in some indirect way in Alabasta. Just enough for the audience to understand that the two of them have someone they both used to know who was important to them but who isn't around anymore

One idea I had was that maybe Ace stays for just a little bit longer with the crew and to celebrate the reunion he asks if they have any booze, and either him or Luffy ask for an extra cup. The others might be surprised since Luffy usually doesn't like alcohol. They drink and then pour the extra cup into the ocean

Nothing else had to be said, the implication is very much that someone is missing from the table (with bonus implication that they were lost at sea) and the audience gets to make their speculations

Also it'd be an early hint about how Luffy and Ace became brothers

And then when the flashback comes along later and Sabo is introduced, everyone would immediately know that this is who the extra cup was for, even before they see the scene itself

Obviously this is only possible in retrospect (because I'm pretty sure Oda hadn't come up with Sabo yet at that point) but I hope the live action version does something like this (even if it's not literally this, and even if it never actually gets far enough to introduce Sabo)

My point is, that's really all you need to make Sabo fully integrated into the narrative IMO. That way he's subtly introduced with Ace so it doesn't come out of nowhere when there's a third brother, but at the same it preserves the element of mystery and surprise, because we don't know anything about him

It also removes the problem of people seeing him as Ace's replacement because we would have been expecting someone like this ever since Ace's introduction

And I think that demonstrates that there really isn't anything wrong with this character, it's only that his introduction is a bit too abrupt. It's all about properly managing audience expectations. Unfortunately you can't always do that in a serialised format when you come up with something just a little bit too late and can't go back to add the foreshadowing

I'm glad Oda still chose to include Sabo because I genuinely think he was a much needed addition, someone (preferably someone young) for the audience AND Luffy to personally connect to within the Revolutionary Army and a sort of secondary protagonist for that side of the plot which Luffy can't yet be involved in because he's busy chasing his goals

Somebody needs to be fighting the World Government directly, otherwise the audience might feel too torn about the fact that Luffy is just over here having a fun adventure and looking for treasure while this totalitarian government is oppressing people and keeping slaves. Luffy has challenged them, yes, but only for his own reasons. Because Luffy isn't and doesn't want to be a hero. So to balance that out and to leave Luffy free to do his thing, you need heroes like the Revolutionary Army to respond to the glaring problem that the setting introduces so Luffy ignoring it (for now) doesn't feel jarring; somebody else is working on it

Sure it's probably ultimately going to be Luffy who takes care of the WG, obviously, because he's still the actual protagonist. But you get what I mean, right? If someone else wasn't focusing on that issue, the audience might feel like it's something Luffy should be doing before going after the One Piece, because it feels more pressing and urgent

That's why a character like Sabo is important; this is in fact his main role in the story, not just being Luffy's big brother but being Luffy's counterpart in the RA, similarly to the way Koby is Luffy's counterpart in the Navy

[callmearcturus]

aw yeah lets do this

S-Tier, AKA the Legitimately Good Tier:

HAWKEYE: Maybe my favorite MCU thing I have ever watched.

+ If you let Jeremy Renner actually act and give him a script, he's fucking great. + Kate Bishop is a perfect mess and I love her, I love she's young and excitable but also takes things seriously, she feels like she's a work in progress, I love her. + MAYA. Holy shit the gravity well of this character, how her presence dictates any scene she is in. Truly stellar. + This entire miniseries is like an extended apology for Hawkeye in every other appearance. "Sorry we dropped the ball with this character so consistently, we will bring the A game here." + The importance of disability. I'm among the ppl who was upset that Hawkeye's disability was dropped, so the way it is centered over and over and over in this, how its practical, how it's funny, how it's sad, how it gives us the most devastatingly emotional scene in all of the MCU yes I am talking about the phone call scene, finally. Fucking finally. + Florence fucking Pugh and her entire charm offensive. + The car chase scene.

- The first episode is unfortunately REALLY slow. - Nah that's all I got. I love this one.

THOR: RAGNAROK

+ "Asgard isn't a place, it's a people" is maybe the most poignant message any MCU film has ever managed. + Literally the funniest movie, but also basically a repair job of character building for everyone in it. + The camerawork in this one makes me so happy. + Tom Hiddleston is given so much to do and he's there with heels on, spectacular. + The giant turret/pegging visual pun, god bless. + Cate Blanchett can kill me.

- uuuuuuuuh. It's not as good as Hawkeye. Yeah.

GOTG Vol 2

+ Sorry but I am a GOTG Truther, I really do think its the one storyline in the MCU that is allowed to get away with really fucking intense character drama because it's not considered "main line." There is a reason ppl rioted when they tried to remove Gunn, and I'm with them. + The only good thing Chris Pratt has done since Parks and Rec. + The way this storyline centers on death and grief is devastating. + Rocket Racoon is the best character in the MCU and we all know it.

- I think the initial treatment of Mantis is REALLY rough even though in the end I think it works, but that's a hell of a hump to get over.

A-TIER, AKA the Great for a MCU Flick Tier:

BLACK PANTHER

+ My biggest problem with the MCU is the creative desert of its set and costume design, the way it feels like nothing is given time to breathe in the creative process. BP is the antithesis of that. I would watch a four hour documentary just on the visual design of this movie, from the architecture to the costumes to the make-up, everything. I don't want to hear from the director or writers, I want to hear four hours of just the craftspeople talking about their work. It's monumental. + Best Villain in the MCU, bar none. + Only MCU film to move me to actual tears in the movie theatre.

- I loved this movie! For the life of me I could not tell you the plot. I understand the plot of every Mission Impossible film but I don't know the plot of this movie. - If this movie was allowed to cut, like, 20 minutes of action and replace it with more character drama, it'd be the best MCU film.

IRON MAN 3

+ The MCU Movie That Pulls Exactly Zero Punches About Being About Mental Health And PTSD Holy Shit + Rhodey and Pepper get so much to do and I like an ensemble piece so much + Shane Black is in love with RDJ and I'm so happy for him + Pepper gets to be a lil monsterfied and that's hot

- Doesn't have Sam Rockwell. - The plot is kinda fully secondary to the character work, which imo is fine, but yanno.

GOTG Vol 1

+ All the stuff I said about GOTG Vol 1

- It's not Vol 2, which benefits from having all the bedrock foundation built by this movie to spring from.

B-TIER, AKA It's Fine I Guess:

IRON MAN 1

It's good! It invented the wheel! Part of it are fucking agonizingly painful to watch in 2023 but it also has more heart than 80% of the franchise so.

IN A CAVE. WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS.

LOKI

Okay it feels shitty of me to judge this one on its technical faults bc apparently it was shot during the pandemic and that causes a lot of the issues with the camerawork, the awkward editing, and just how Weird everything was put together. But also it's REALLY stilted and awkward, which butts up against the good script and the better acting, so IDK man.

Owen Wilson is amazing. Even my mother thought the way they canonized Loki being bi was a cop-out. And the final twist pissed me off. I hope Season 2 is better.

THOR 1

I DUNNO WHAT TO TELL YOU, BUT KENNETH BRANAGH UNDERSTOOD THE ASSIGNMENT.

DR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

This movie is a mess but once i figured out it was trying to be The MCU Does Gothic Horror, I was a lot more on board. It has all the flaws of the original Dr Strange and is hard to visually follow like most MCU films, but also has America Chavez, who I adore.

IRON MAN 2

It has Sam Rockwell, I don't give a fuck.

C-TIER, AKA I wish I cared but I do not 8C

DR STRANGE

I dunno I like the actual character of Strange weirdly, I like what a complete fucking asshole he is, I like his god complex and how he reacts to his disability as a surgeon. On the other hand what the fuck is Tilda Swinton doing here, this is just awful. My biggest issue with this film is that it didn't have to be this terrible but every decision made about it feels so fucking thoughtless and myopic.

WANDAVISION

yanno. i cannot even explain why i fell off this so hard. Like, this one Had Me all the way up to and including the Agatha reveal, but like the final episodes after that reveal somehow left me completely cold and uncaring. it's genuinely weird.

D-TIER, AKA Oh my god no thank you

AVENGERS

I hate the writing. Like, I haaaaate the writing. I feel like the only likeable relationship in this is Tony and Bruce, and that does not carry this movie. The quip-driven writing, the way the need for a joke supercedes naturalistic voices and dialogue making sense, it pisses me off. I hate the writing. Heartless movie.

BLACK WIDOW

oh my god i'm actively angry at this movie okay because for the first 20 minutes, I was like "wait, is this going to be a real movie," because it felt smaller, the action felt more realistic, that fight between the Widow and Yelena in the beginning felt like it could have been out of MI: Fallout, and the other fight between Natasha and Yelena in the safehouse was also good, I really thought for a few moments that this could be Good

and then it just took a hard right into The MCU Tries And Fails To Make MI: Fallout (They Even Stole The Mask Gag, What The Fuck Was That) and not only was I disappointed, I was like retroactively pissed for the 20 minutes when I had hope in my heart. If not for David Harbour's character, I would have just left in the middle of this movie.

AVENGERS: ENDGAME

Its not at bad as Infinity War! Nebula and Rocket carried this movie on their fucking backs. But what do I know, I liked Renner's mohawk of sadness.

F-Tier, AKA Fuck This Movie

INFINITY WAR

Fuck this movie with a rusted steel dildo, fuck this entire fucking movie, I despise it. The writing is so actively fucking terrible I want to fistfight whoever is responsible. I fucking hate the attempts to humanize Thanos over how sad he is about the daughter he abused and then murdered, boo fucking hoo, I hate the joylessness of the superhero combinations, I hate the quip-driven writing, I hate this movie with a burning passion. This might be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Soulless and destitute.

[bohemian-nights]

In regards to the Nettles being cut from s2 rumors, let’s keep in mind that what is being reported is just speculation. Let’s also keep in mind who is reporting these rumors (and how they aren’t matching up with previous leaks).

First, it must be said that these are the same accounts that have wanted her race-bent, and cut, and haven't even bothered to identify the two Black women in that leaked photo back in July where one of the actresses looked like Netty(going so far as to think one obviously Black woman was in Blackface 🙃)for months now.

This isn't the first time they've spread BS(particularly HOTD Black who seems to low-key have a, dare I say, racial beef with her and wants her replaced with Rhaena or race-bent):

And as mentioned these leakers(including the one who just leaked this rumor) have not really bothered to find the actress playing Nettles in the first place whereas they’ve made more than an effort with characters like Ulf White (even if they speculated inaccurately, they at least tried):

All hope is not lost. We have not received a trailer nor have we received anyone from actual HBO saying that she has been cut.

We have to keep in mind that though Nettles is a secondary player she is integral to the fabric of Daemon’s final arc. She’s the reason for why he ultimately betrays Rhaenyra and leaves to fight Aemond. Everything revolves around her.

So even if Nettles’ appearance might be pushed back until season 3(which is unwarranted even with the cut in episodes given that allegedly they are creating plotlines for Twiddledum and Twiddledee):

The odds that she’s fully cut are pretty low IMO.

Especially since we have Silver Denys there(who dies) and Rhaena appears to be heading to the Vale dragon-less:

If Nettles is cut, well simply put, I think it’s contradictory for a show claiming to want to appeal to a more diverse audience to instead try to cater to a set of fans who have used racially charged language to mock and bullied a Black character(and her fans) for over a year now:

I urge everyone to boycott the show if this is the cause. From killing off Missadei back in the Game of Thrones days to Laena being killed off in the most gruesome way possible down to this BS, this show has proven itself to have a misogynoir problem.

[custom-emojis]

Secondary set of homestuck emojis! Terezi and Vriska look So Good imo i love how theirs came out. which is funny bc they are Not characters i particularily enjoy. Anyways, enjoy the midbloodmojis! 

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