#mish among us

[drdemonprince]

what was your journey from libertarian to leftest/anarchist like?

well, as a teen i hated authority and society and wanted complete freedom so i was a libertarian. then i realized i was gay and trans and libertarianism weren't gonna do shit for me. when obama won in 2008 i noticed that i felt relieved, even though i had not voted for him. I went away to academia shortly after that, and became surrounded by liberal people, all of them doing research with a liberal point of view, and what do you know, product of my social environment and queer and desperate for acceptance among the group that said they cared about me, I became a liberal too.

over time academia mistreated me and rejected me for who i really was, and i started to transition and realize that i was disabled. i became more left-leaning frankly because it seemed like that was the only way to be able to survive as what i was, identity wise, and find anyone at all who would correctly gender me or tolerate me. if you want to be able to hang out with other trans people and have them treat you right, there are values you basically have to say that you subscribe to. anyone who didn't subscribe to those political values was mistreated, viewed skeptically, talked to like they were dumb, and ostracized. and some of those values did make sense to me, whereas others didn't.

i saw people pushed to the social margins for being libertarians, for instance, as if that is a political ideology that carries any danger when some random trans woman with a very weak social support system says in a support group that she maybe kinda subscribes to it. i was even terrified of people finding out that i used to believe in anything "wrong" according to the social dogma, for a while. but i tried to make the most sense of the confusing tangle of community held beliefs as i could, so that i wouldnt be completely ostracized from both straight and queer society at once. and so I was vaguely leftist, but with a confused understanding of systemic oppression based on identity (among lots of other things, like abolition and anti-colonialism), and a deep terror of ever saying anything that would ever get me criticized/cancelled/viewed as a bad person.

and then the pandemic happened and i wasn't so beholden to mass community scrutiny anymore. i read a ton i looked at how politics actually plays out, and i got a little bit more capable and secure in myself and came to similarly feel awed by how much people are really capable of when they aren't being controlled or dependent upon approval in order to survive. and anarchy basically asserted that it had always been there in me, i just hadn't known the name for it. and by then i felt safe and strong enough and had enough faith in others to decide it was okay to have opinions that others disagreed with, and that i wouldn't starve out in the cold if i gave voice to them.

like a lot of people, i had misconceptions about what anarchism really was and writers like Graeber, Wengrow, Solnit, etc really disabused me of that notion and made me understand that it wasn't a scary worldview at all, it was the most human and accepting one there really was out there.

My political journey has not been especially principled or philosophical, it has been emotional, intuitive, and rooted in a lot of social influences. i think that's what most political ideologies are about for people, ultimately, belonging and safety.

I was originally a political scientist by training and in that field's body of research we see that most people do not have consistent political belief systems, they agree to a mish-mosh of statements and support various policies that don't all add up in a logically explicable way. they also don't tend to have stable views over time. just as i think morality is a pretty bad explanation of why humans do what they do, and why we help eachother and avoid doing harm, it's very evident that political ideology is a piss poor predictor of political behavior or affiliation. the far clearer explanation far more consistent with the evidence is that people politically align themselves based on their social milleu and their feelings.

this is why i always feel myself holding back from dying for a cause, and blanch when MLMs start talking about needing to do all they can to bring about communism with an almost religious fervor (beyond the fact that such thinking also doesn't line up with a lot of communist thought and theory about how capitalism falls anyway). i dont think that any of these ideologies really carry all that much weight or influence people's actions, affiliations, or political behavior on the level we all pretend that they do. i dont think they're "real". anarchy is more of a philosophy of how to relate to other people in daily life, for me, rather than a religion about how the world needs to be or where we specifically need to be heading. it's more big-I Ideological for plenty of other people, and again, i blanch when they start preaching about it as if their whole life is in service to the idea of it. I think we do anarchism by living as if we're free, every day. and that's what i care about, if i'm being honest. feeling free, safe, and cared for by some other people, without conditions, right now.

[ganondoodle]

"bc i find it weird and uncomfortable how nintendo treats and comments on Riju and the gerudo as a whole"

Could you elaborate on this? Outside of men perving on the Gerudo (which is honestly just representative of real life scenarios) I can't think of anything problematic in regards to how they or Riju are treated. (Her being put into power at such a young age is questionable but that's just one of the downfalls of hereditary ruling I think.)

This is genuine, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or obtuse or anything! I never noticed anything overtly concerning so I just was curious what you were referring to. (Sorry I'm sure there's a post or something I missed where you were talking about it.)

so, this ask comes off as a little weird since the Gerudo are very overtly orientalist/racist stereotypes and you can just .. .research it instead but, given that i recently got an ask from someone saying they were 14 i will answer it bc i know sometimes you think first about asking someone about something instead of looking it up yourself

so, mind you, i am not a person of color, and the issues are a giant can of worms i cannot possibly go into every detail of nor know every detail of

the Gerudo, both in older games and new ones (botw/totk) are basically a bunch of stereotypes about black and arab people rolled into one, they are based on a mish mash of middle eatern cultures together with popular stereotypes about them

they wear stupidly impractical sexy clothing for people living in the desert, its very skin exposing (something that is the opposite of what you do living in an environment like that) and based on the wrong but popular idea of the 'belly dancer' outfit- an outfit that isnt sexual but was popularized as something akin to a strippers outfit by western people (colonizers im pretty sure .. who else) and is STILL used as that, they also wear high heels ... in the desert ......... a sand desert .... and wear heavy make up (like hylian women dont)

even worse then that the EXACT SAME outfit is used for the children as well, they too are put into heels, heavy makeup, and that 'belly dancer' outfit which is very VERY uncomfortable if you know what that oufit is largely seen as .. (even if youd try to argue that Riju wears it to seem more like a competent leader, it falls flat bc the children wear the same damn weird outfit as everyone else)

the Gerudo are also all very muscular in a way that no other women is in the game, which plays into the stereotype of black women being more masculine/mannish than uwu frail little white women and thus, among more, less women, or being able to feel less pain (yes that is an actual belief wtf??), while at the same time still sexualized

now in OOT they were thiefing evil women (thief being yet another stereotype for arabs as well as evil) whos only 'good' one both rejecting some of their tradition (kinda playing into the idea of those tradtions being wrong and adhering to the "good" traditions of western people is what makes you good) and is also abused throughout the game; in botw/totk they are not eviiiil but live in a closed to all men city and their entire society revolves around finding a hylian man to marry, their only goal in life is basically to find a man and have a family which i HOPE i dont have to explain why that is problematic (misogyny anyone) while it is treated by other NPCs as something to be conquered, something alien and other that beckons them to invade, they constantly try to get into the city where all da sexyyyy women are (hello????????????) and its less treated as disgusting and more like a haha little joke (in botw theres a guy circling around the city at all times??? excuse me?? and in totk the same guy is SNEAKING ON THE ROOFS OF THE HOUSES IN THE CITY LOOKING TO GET IN?????????????????)

the argument of that just being real life is ... not all wrong per se but the thing is, ONLY the Gerudo are treated like sexy things to be oogled at (both in OOT and botw/totk, possibly even more but i am not as familiar with all games in the franchise) and no other women from any species is eyebrow raising to say the least, and it never really gets called out either beyond making fun of that one guy by scamming him out of his boots by .. pretending to be a girl (pretty sure link is the only non Gerudo that is oogled at by anyone and its the creepiest creep)

then, with Riju in particular its made even worse that she is not just young but VERY young (which also begs the question why the fuck the Gerudo would put someone so young into the seat of leader of their entire region- something also no other race does), shes only 12 in botw and yet, like all the other children too, put into the same kind of outfit, but then theres also the commentary in the concept art book saying that "gerudo age faster than hylians and thats why shes got a mature air to her" which, among being a way to make how shes sexualized (both in outfit and at times camera angles- also applies to Urbosa) seem more okay (its not) and plays into the stereotype that people of color are quicker to gorw up and thus be treated as adults despite being children like any other child- hence why often in the news when a black child is shot they dont call them a child but "young man", using that to subtly shift it to seem more okay (like we are currently seeing in the genocide of palestine, news calling a murdered SIX year old palestinian "YOUNG WOMAN" while calling a 19 year old white soldier lady who got a little bruise an abused child)

and it also applies to Ganondorf, he is the epitome of evil arab men stereotype, power hungry abusive and ruling over lots of women (in this case its his entire race...), (with a hint of antisemitism too, his hooked nose being both used as an overemphasized feature for arabs and jewish people as a sign of their connection to the devil/sing of evil and to other them from white 'good little noses'- (((i want to yell about this so much bc big and hooked noses are so cool and beautiful argh))) and his skin tone being always some strange greyish-yellow color no one else has and even worse mint green in totks official art, despite him being very dark grey in model- green skin being yet another antisemitic trope PLUS playing into the whole idea that being evil means you also LOOK evil, whichs is often, who would have guessed- anything that isnt the traditional western beauty ideal of thin thin white and young)

while also in totk, he as well is sexualized with his new revealing outfit and the weird constant emphasis on how he is meant to be sexy to everyone alike (and it not being apparent in the game nor used in it) in multiple interviews with the main people in charge of the franchise- and his evilness being what all the Gerudo must atone for, they birthed this eviiil man (who is evil from birth i guess bc thats totally fine and logical) and they have to bear that sin for all eternity (as in dialog about him in the gerudo sage cutscene, plus the whole idea of the closed off city, despite there having been no ganondorf in thousands of years, being closed of to men as to shut out any potential Ganondorf or similar evil? though the latter im not sure how supported it is .. i cant remember every line of dialog ok) while the hyrulean monarchy and its uwu blonde god descdendants are never even confronted with the horrible shit they did, bc its fine if they torture and murder people (OOT and possibly more), chase them into the void or persecute their own servants bc da king got afraid they could rise up against him- with their only choice being give up their tech and knowledge to live under the royal rule (botw/totk ancient shiekah- shiekah, and its presented as a good thing, we are all happy beign the eternal servants of the monarchy :)))) or be killed, and the ones resisting are eviiiill and now a cult and also very stupid and silly and not to be taken seriously (yiga) while its mentioned once as a fun fact and never ever mentioned again, bc, the hyrulean monarchy is all god descendant uwu white blonde people that are so good you guys, everything they do is in the name of good uwu and neva to be questioned uwu bc obviously everyone that opposed to them is evil bc they are the perfectest good guys uwu

youd think, and i hoped, they would do better by now, in botw, the gerudo are not well done at all, different than before but still bad, but at least they introduced other people with darker skin tones that arent Gerudo so they are not the literal only people with non white skin anymore- but with totk espeically, they had the chance to make Ganondorf into an interesting villain with a point, maybe not even full blown villain, bc he has a point- he does but its not treated as such, its treated as if he is the most blatantly flat evil guy ever- even more flat and one note evil than all his previous appearances, which is frankly, quite insulting to say the least

look i wanted to keep it short but here we are, i dont know if this anon was genuinely being genuine or not (since bigots like to act all non offensive and like to ask you to explain your very obvious point ..) but i dont htink i ever talked about it as a whole so eh- i probably missed stuff but anyway, heres a good video about it for zelda in particular

[emilybeemartin]

Ok ok ok ok listen. Because I have anxiety I feel it's my duty to say that this show won't be for everyone. I came to it over quarantine because my husband suggested we read Bernard Cornwell's series together, and I agreed because I liked Hornblower and knew this was the army equivalent and, let's face it, I wanted to see scruffy mid-thirties Sean Bean in uniform.

THE PREMISE:

Richard Sharpe is a lowborn rank-and-file soldier in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars who is raised to an officer after saving Sir Arthur Wellesley's life (this all happens differently in the books, but the basic event is the same). Throughout the series, he rises in the ranks thanks to his bravery and heroism/recklessness, but he's always caught between two worlds--trying to be a leader of common men while never being accepted by the rest of the highborn officers.

Let's start with the bad:

CONS:

Look, this is a 90s drama glorifying the British army. So like, there are gonna be issues. Women are mostly romantic side pieces to be wooed and rescued, and there are plenty of subplots, verbiage, and stereotypes that didn't age well. Production values are low for the first few and so you've got battle scenes with like fifteen guys and a horse, which honestly I find endearing. But no episode is more cringey than Sharpe's Gold. Due to legal issues, the script had to be rewritten with none of the original material, and it turned into this bizarro semi-supernatural horror involving Aztec gold (in Spain, yes). It's completely different from all the other episodes, and even Sean Bean didn't like it (he called it a "mish mash," which is true). It's such a weird piece of work that we almost stopped watching the show, but we continued, and we were relieved to find that the rest of the series is markedly better. History Hack podcast does a great dive into why this episode was so whack.

PROS:

I MEAN COME ON

Sean really understood this character--absolute chaos on the battlefield and shy and awkward pretty much everywhere else. He's amazing in battle scenes and he's EPIC at acting wounded. But the scenes I replay over and over are when he's socially out of his depth and gets flustered and sputtery and so Sheffield the captions can't handle it.

Supporting cast:

You'll find a lot of your classic British TV favorites making appearances throughout this series, and the camaraderie among the riflemen is always fun. Obviously this is a dude fest, as stated above, but some of the women are also written and acted really, really well--- Assumpta Serna as Teresa is that winning combination of a love interest/action heroine who doesn't devolve into a damsel in distress, and even passes the Bechdel test on a few occasions. And Diana Perez as Ramona is so badass and enjoyable.

Locations: Aside from a few interior sets, these films are mostly shot outside on location, with practical effects and stunts. There's some gorgeous scenery of the Crimean peninsula standing in for Spain and Portugal, and it's just really fun watching these guys run around rocky escarpments and fields with flares and stage explosives going off around them.

Music: I saw someone tag the opening theme as "electric guitar jumpscare" and they're not wrong. It's wonderfully anachronistic and totally 90s and you'll never get used to it. But far better are the soldiers' songs John Tams threads throughout, as well as his and Muldowney's thematic scores, and you will always, always finish an episode with him singing "Over the Hills and Far Away" stuck in your head.

Filming Lore: There was a LOT that happened during filming. Everything from Paul McGann having to drop out as the lead to misadventures in filming in Crimea just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. History Hack podcast has an awesome series of "filming of" episodes with input from cast, crew, and historians, and Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) has a book called "From Crimea With Love" that details the batshit filming adventures. I haven't read it but he references it every six minutes throughout the podcasts.

So: you've been warned, you've been primed. Start with Sharpe's Rifles; it's on Youtube. Watch it and Eagle, maybe jump to Battle or Siege if you're not sure, and then make up your mind.

If this all sounds enjoyable to you, but you wish there were more tall ships, more Paul McGann, more heroic brooding, and even MORE true love cosplaying as masculine camaraderie, you're in luck! Because you should also watch Hornblower!

And then draw fan art of it all! Please,,, I am so lon el y

[antianakin]

You know what's something I wished fanon/fanfic/etc explored? The idea of clones, basically traveling the galaxy because of the war not only having their own traditions, but also picking up stuff and being taught things by various people they encounter. Not even necessarily like a culture/tradition. A planet's local militia taught a trooper how to weave grass during a long night waiting for orders.

Of course he brought this to his friends and now the whole battalion makes things from grass or leaves or thread. It's calming, it's fun, they experiment with materials.

The clones who've developed their own culture (not Mandalorian) but also enjoying learning and participating. Let them be happy and want to explore things beyond their DNA donors world. (I also enjoy the idea of them getting to relax and join in on fun, normal activities).

And the idea of different units having different traditions while also sharing them when they're deployed together is fun.

The idea of mindfulness being picked up from Jedi general's and everyone having a unique spin, either copying meditation or meditating while cleaning equipment.

Also I want people to appreciate the clones as their own people.

Yeah, I hardly EVER see the clones depicted as this really interesting mish mash of cultures due to potentially picking up a bunch of shit from civilian populations they meet and then just passing it around their own battalion which could then make it out to the GAR as a whole.

Weaving baskets is a cute one, it could also be something as simple as picking up new spices every time they land somewhere and so their food is this wild fusion cuisine of spices and maybe fruits/dried meats/nuts from all over the galaxy because they just pick up stuff that goes to the kitchens and the clones doing the cooking in the kitchens use whatever they've got available to try to make new dishes. And they end up perhaps getting really good at figuring out how to combine these different ingredients that, on paper, seem like they absolutely should NOT go well together and yet somehow they make it work. And so clone cuisine becomes its own completely unique thing. You could even compare it to Jedi cuisine where they probably end up combining things a lot themselves, but the Jedi would theoretically often have had more access to resources and time to learn whole dishes than the clones do so it's more that the Jedi prepare different specific dishes from a lot of cultures as opposed to the more fusion-style cuisine the clones have come up with.

Or games, it'd be so cute to have the clones picking up all these different sort-of idle games from different civilian children they meet, like gffa versions of hopscotch or hackey sack, maybe card games that aren't sabacc or board games that aren't dejarik but are more specific to this one planet or culture. Maybe the clones start coming up with their OWN card games as they go because they start getting bored of the few that they know and start getting creative from there.

And of course things like different styles of visual art like painting and tattooing and hair styles that they might pick up on and incorporate into their own style that either becomes very popular among the clones on its own or ends up sort-of hybridized and become its own unique clone specific spin on the artform rather than a direct imitation. Writing would be really cool, too, that they pick up things like novels or journals from different cultures and some of the clones start writing creatively and become really prolific among the GAR (and maybe the Jedi too) for their stories. Similar to before, they might start off sort-of imitating styles they see from other cultures, specific kinds of poetry or tropes, but then branch out and put their own spin on it or start combining different things they've learned from various cultures.

Some clones might end up sticking closer to one specific culture they've connected or that just matches their personal taste really well, while others embrace the fusion more, and everything in-between.

And of course we can bring the Jedi into it more, too, and have the Jedi constantly working to introduce the clones to more things, maybe things THEY know and love from various cultures that they think the clones would find fun or interesting. And not just that person's "birth culture" like Ahsoka teaching people about Togruta culture, but things from OTHER CULTURES that they themselves have experimented with and liked. Maybe Ahsoka has a Mon Cal skincare routine she fucking swears by, or a Zabrak meat dish that's her absolute favorite hands down because of how tender they cook it, or her favorite book is actually Rodian because she particularly loves Rodian romance novels. And she introduces the clones to THESE things as well because why wouldn't she? The Jedi have a smorgasbord of options available to them and their culture encourages learning and connecting as much as possible, something I imagine they'd do their best to pass on to the clones in any way available to them.

And of course the Jedi, as some of the only people really out there with the clones and interacting with them regularly, get to be the first to BENEFIT from the hybridization that the clones utilize and get to see more about how these different cultures they've learned and appreciated for so long can be combined in such new and different ways to create something entirely unique and beautiful, so they get to enjoy these things all over again and it's AWESOME! New favorite noodle dish that combined fish from Glee Anselm and spices from Pantora and noodles from Chandrila, new favorite poem that has elements of Naboo and Ryloth in it, new knitted scarf that combined a knitting style from Lothal and a pattern from Shili.

And I've been going more for physical material things so far like food and stuff, but you can include things like slang they pick up from other cultures or maybe rituals of some kind they saw someone do that they asked about and got permission to participate in that they continue to practice afterwards because it's nice and calming.

The interesting part about the clones is that they don't have a "birth" culture to go back to. They were raised in a very sterile environment where everything they were exposed to was something very specific and aimed towards a certain goal. So they might have a favorite fighting move from the ones they were taught on Kamino or a favorite ship to fly of the ones they were taught to use for war, but it would be SO incredibly limited to what the Kaminoans wanted them to learn and not intended to become something the clones really connected to culturally. The Kaminoans themselves clearly HAVE a culture of sorts, they seem to share a style of fashion at least and probably an architectural style, but this isn't something that was passed on to the clones or that they would've been allowed to ever really participate in (beyond maintenance to the buildings, but they wouldn't have gotten a say in things like paint colors or additions to the building for cosmetic reasons, etc). And of course I don't think canon supports the idea that the clones really had a lot of connection to Mando culture and certainly nothing that supports the concept that they would consider it their "birth" culture. Jango barely seems to have passed any sort of Mando heritage on to BOBA, so it seems INCREDIBLY unlikely he'd have passed anything significant on to the clones he DIDN'T consider his son. And the Mando trainers are a legends thing these days, and were never canon anyway, so their exposure to Mando culture would be even more limited than their exposure to Kaminoan culture quite honestly.

All of which means the clones don't really have a firm basis of a birth culture from which to start on and then sort-of experiment out from. They're almost entirely open to whatever they discover or are introduced to in terms of culture. They're not Mando, they're not Kaminoan, they're their OWN THING and they can literally incorporate just about anything and everything into the culture they choose to build and that's SUCH a cool thing to look at and to explore and I don't know if I've really seen that much of it in fics. Especially via the Jedi who are their own massively multi-cultural society and can take the opportunity to really widen the clones' horizons in so many ways.

[take-it-on-the-run]

Echoes

Lucy Gray Baird x Coriolanus Snow

How could Snow know that a song written for him would come back to haunt him, all these years later?

Word Count: 1.5k

Tags: ANGST, no happy ending here folks, big spoilers for TBOSAS and The Hunger Games, time skips (back and forth), Lucy Gray gets the last laugh

Characters: Lucy Gray Baird, Coriolanus Snow, Katniss Everdeen

Read it on AO3!

A/N: This is a mish-mash of the book and the movie, and also my first attempt at fan fiction ever. I wrote a large chunk of this in the bathroom at Thanksgiving because I saw TBOSAS the night before and couldn't get it out of my head. I hope you enjoy, and any constructive criticism is always welcome! Also, I hate editing on my phone :)

Coriolanus Snow Masterlist | The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Masterlist | Main Page Masterlist

The first time he’d ever heard the song, he was in a meadow, far from the prying eyes of the Capitol. Away from the television screens that broadcast his lover being thrust into the Games in a vain attempt at entertainment. The Games his life was bound to, forever.

The Games that, in a twist of fate, his lover had won purely through her charm and wit. The only weapon she wielded was his mother’s compact he’d given her in secret, filled with rat poison, which was returned when it was found on her person after the game. He was sure that if he hadn’t given her that compact and told her to hide under the arena, she’d have been dead before nightfall. She was a performer, after all.

She was there, Lucy Gray, sitting alone, idly strumming at her guitar. Once the Capitol released her back to District 12, she reunited with the Covey, her family, her one true reason that she needed to win in the arena.

At the time, he wanted to let himself think he was the reason she wanted to win, but deep down he knew her heart always laid with her misshapen family.

He slowly approached her, taking in the lyrics to the soft song she was singing. She sang so softly that if she sang any quieter, her words would be lost to the wind.

Are you

Are you

Coming to the tree?

He strolled further towards her, eyes scanning the empty landscape until they landed on the tree she was sitting under. Its branches were dry and could barely be called brown, and Lucy Gray was using a large chunk of it as a makeshift chair.

Where they strung up a man

They say murdered three

The lyrics to the song made him stop for a moment. Of all the things she chose to sing about, why would such a beautiful girl sing such a dark story?

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight

In the hanging tree

The second time he’d heard the song, he was in a forest, reeling at the pain from a trap his lover had set for him. Rain forced them to pause their journey of running from Panem, seeking shelter in a cabin among the trees. He didn’t know if his lover knew about the weapons stored beneath the floorboards, but as soon as he laid his hands on them, she must’ve thought his choice was already made.

She all but ran from the cabin, making an excuse to get food that she earlier deemed wasn’t ripe enough to eat. He knew that she was running from him, from the silver-tongued Capitol-raised son who was almost killed by her charms.

Almost.

He ran after her, gun in hand, looking to see where she’d run to. A rough trail turned into forest floor, trees suddenly the only thing he could see. He cautiously took more steps before his mother’s orange shawl he’d given her, crumpled in a small pile, came into view. Another piece of his mother given to her, being returned.

He bent down to pick up the shawl, snatching it off the ground when he felt a sudden pain shoot from his forearm. Stifling a scream from his lips, he frantically looked down, the source of his pain hanging from him.

An orange, black, and white banded snake was sunk into his skin. He ripped its fangs out from his arm with a grunt, the culprit slithering away into the grass before he could crush it with his boot.

He called out and asked the trees whether or not the snake was poisonous.

If she was trying to kill him, after everything he’d done for her.

There was a flash of bright color among the dark trees he was sure was Lucy Gray, and he fired. Without a thought, without remorse, and without a trace of the man he promised her he’d be.

He paused when he heard a grunt, a small part of him hoping he’d missed.

A larger part of him hoping he hadn’t.

He stalked through the trees, expecting to see her bleeding into the earth, but was met with her gold hoop earring, dangling with long pearls. He tucked it in his pocket, next to his compass and his mother’s compact.

He spoke again to the empty wood, saying this was enough, for her to stop.

The reply taunted him in his lover’s voice, dripping from the beaks of the dozens of jabberjays that started to circle above him.

Are you

Are you

Coming to the tree?

He craned his neck up to see his tormentors, ricocheting the voice of the girl he was running away with.

Where the dead man called out

For his love to flee

The voice of the girl that was now running from him.

He raised the gun that was slack in his arms, pressing the trigger and firing at the birds. He spun on his heel, desperate to stop hearing her voice colliding off the walls in his mind.

He fired frantically, screaming at the birds to shut up, but none of them seemed to hear his pleas or fall from the sky.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight

In the hanging tree

The third time he’d heard the song, his heart stopped, only for a moment. He was a decrepit old man now, his chin sporting a white beard that matched his hair, sitting at the head of the Capitol.

He faced a television screen that was broadcasting a large band of rebels, walking to the District 5 dam with explosives.

The attack was an act of treason against the Capitol, plain and simple. Giving the rebels a small glimmer of hope at rising against Panem’s government, all led by a seventeen-year-old girl.

The victor, the girl on fire, the Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen; she went by many names, all of which made him want to crush her like the pest she was.

Even more when he learned she twisted a song written for him by a lover he wished he could forget.

Are you

Are you

Coming to the tree?

He diverted his eyes from the screen, lightly pounding his fist to his chest as he covered his surprise with a cough.

Where I told you to run

So we’d both be free

He blinked, and suddenly he was back in the meadow, watching Lucy Gray play from afar. Her soft voice floating through the gentle silence of the wind blowing against an open field.

Back in the forest, hunting her down and being taunted by jabberjays as the song cut through the dense forest that still visited him in his dreams.

He dug his blunt nails into his palm, standing up and walking over to a window that overlooked a courtyard. Other people in the room were glued to the television, gunfire mixing with the voices of the rebels.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight

In the hanging tree

The final time he heard the song, he was standing at a post, center attention to every eye that had invaded the Capitol. Alma Coin stood on a platform behind him, and the dearest Mockingjay stood with an arrow trained at his head.

His eyes met hers, cold and void of the emotion they held when they met. Her lips were held in a thin line, the drawstring of her bow taut against her nose.

Are you

Are you

Coming to the tree?

He raked his eyes across the crowd, and he swore for a moment he saw her. Lucy Gray, young and bright as the day he’d met her. He knew his mind was tricking itself, some rendition of his life flashing before his eyes, but he still sucked in his bloody breath at the hope of seeing her again.

He’d always been honest to the girl on fire, and for that, he hoped she’d give him a swift death; but instead, she moved her aim above him, letting the arrow fly and killing Alma Coin.

He jaw went slack, the metallic taste of his blood sliding over his tongue. She lowered her weapon as the crowd behind engulfed her form, surging at him as he closed his eyes tight.

A peaceful death wasn’t in the cards for him after all.

Wear a necklace of rope

Side by side with me

Regret didn’t surge through his veins for the countless lives he’d taken, the people he’d enslaved, or the Games; it was for the man he chose to be. Taking the guns from the floorboards of that cabin, hunting her like she was a bird with its wings broken, and swallowing her memory like a snake in the grass.

He didn’t deserve regret. He deserved a fiery endless hell that would barely serve his actions justice.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight

In the hanging tree

As brutal hands clawed at his skin, tearing his soul from his body, he brought his mind back to the memories he didn’t deserve to have. With her, his lover, Lucy Gray. The girl that was lost to the trees, erased from history in a hope that the all-powerful President Snow would always land on top.

[fountainpenguin]

"Hey, youngblood! Doesn't it feel like our time is running out? I'm gonna change you like a remix, then I'll raise you like a phoenix!" (x)

---

New Criminal Experience chapter today!

Chapter 8 - “Shot”

❤️ Read on AO3

💙 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

---

Mumbo and his new friend sneak up on Carrie's illager patrol... Looks like she, BigB, and their friends have Impulse in a pickle. But what happened to Skizz?

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

---

Minutes later…

Despite Mumbo's insistence to the contrary, the enderman girl jogs with him down the messy street. Her name is Hazel, or at least that's what she tells him. What, are you gonna argue with her? She's just a kid, but when Mumbo urges her to stay out of the way, she laughs and skips backwards, keeping pace ahead of him.

"She can't catch me! I'd like to see her try. And I'd love to see those foreigners come crashing down. You should've heard that vex lady this morning; she was so rude when we were playing. I wish she'd run into my wall so I could crush her head with sand."

"Goodness me."

"Come on- Your glow will give you away. Can you turn that off?"

"Ah… No, I'm afraid. The illusioner pinged me with a spectral arrow, so even if I try to hide behind blocks, my outline's visible to everyone in range. Oh- Be careful with him. His species can see through blocks, whether you're lit up like this or not. Lighting us just makes it easier. For him and all his buds." The scythe hangs like an ice-coated stalactite in the center of his chest, right where his soul slot lies.

"Got it."

Wandering traders do get around quite a bit, you know. Even those who aren't big on going far from home (and there aren't many) have visited the neighboring hubs more summers than they've likely spent at home. Mumbo's seen a great deal of blocks, of course. The rare and the novel pass through Little Sun all the time.

But wherever he expected Carrie and her remaining raiders (Amused huff of emphasis on "remaining") to drag Impulse, it wasn't this. As they encroach the looming building, which must be at least, ah, five or six chunks high, Mumbo slows his jog to a trot. "Oh, my."

It's… a stadium? Yes, that might be the word for it, but if you think a community building like that has stayed untouched in an enderman city, you're terribly mistaken.

It's nothing the average person would construct. Mismatched blocks make up the walls, including anvils, birch, fence posts, gravel, leaves, and even sponges and kelp blocks. Those last two must have been traded for, because they stem from the ocean, and you certainly won't find one of those near the enderman hub. Mumbo gawks at them anyway. Wait a moment… Maybe he's been too hasty. Is it even a building? Is it the local dump? There are plenty of other endermen and endermites wandering around, browsing the walls like they're at the market for cupcakes and flowers. They cluster in groups, pulling blocks out and easing them back into place the way you do with drawers. Even the scrape of wood on wood's familiar, scratching in the grooves of blocks below.

"Who would trade for rare blocks, then shove them in a wall for anyone to take?"

"It's Mish-Mash," Hazel says, waving one arm with a flourish like she's introducing him to the finest work in the Fox Dragon's museum. "Mish-Mash is 'Give a block, take a block."

Mumbo tilts back his head, stepping backwards to take it in again. Technically, they're still within city walls (and the partially built ceiling above the amalgamation of strange things is there to prove it), but that doesn't stop a breeze from whisking through this place. It's dark out there… but the locals seem to like it that way. The claw-scratch moon hangs high above. "And… people do that? I mean, do they actually follow the rules of leaving things behind? … You wouldn't find that type of self-restraint among my kin; we wandering traders stock and sell whatever we can find."

Hazel huffs. "It's art. And if you take anything without leaving a drop-off, I'm turning you in."

"Well, we can't have that."

Right. So… Mish-Mash, then. Well. Mumbo asks his earlier private question, but leaves out the 'dump' bit this time: "Well, is this a building? I'm not seeing a door… And why do I smell pork?"

"It's a sparring ring," she says, making a bowl shape with her hands. "The seats go all the way around. They start up high, but the sparring ring is in the middle, down low."

… That might be a problem. Endermites can cling to blocks, scaling with little effort, and enderman can poof past walls without needing doors anyway. No stairs in sight, though. "So it's an amphitheater, then."

Hazel looks at him. "I'm 8."

Well, the semantics aren't important. Mumbo smiles anyway, shaking his head. Whatever it is, Hazel gets him in. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she teleports them both up to the upper seats, tucked as far in the back as she could get them. Vision blurs, the sky dips, stomachs squeeze… Now, how do endermen go from standing before they teleport to landing in a crouch? Do they still comprehend whatever twisted position their bodies take in that in-between space, even as the world ripples like smoke? That's a question for the ages.

Hazel sits up on her knees while Mumbo clutches his head, wincing through the ringing in his ears. She peeps above the awkward chairs for a few seconds, then ducks her head like a startled duck. Did I say 'duck' twice? Ah, it doesn't matter; you get the point. "The skunk's cooking."

"The skunk is cooking?" Mumbo sits up too. Hiding has its limits; even up here, behind all the careful seats made from cobble walls and stairs, the spectral glow pulsing from his skin is sure to sell him out. His flesh gleams with lantern light. Yeah, you could shake him back and forth and stick him on a hook, too. Carrie might try. He did tear through the whole patrol. Mumbo creeps his eyes above the lip of the nearest stair block chair. Hazel does the same. "Oh," he blurts. "Now, how about that? The skunk is cooking!"

Let's set the stage...

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[nova--spark]

TF OC - Anthea Santos

Alright fair warning

⚠️ THIS IS SET IN NO FIXED CANON, JUST A MISH MASH OF MY OWN IDEAS AND LIKES ⚠️

And as usual, blame @piltover-sharpshooter for like, most of this BS

With that, I present my word vomit below

Born to Camila Santos and Samuel Arroyo, Anthea was raised solely by her mother after her father walked out on both his then girlfriend and newborn, citing that he never had signed up for this and subsequently abandoned both.

With just her baby girl and herself, 21 yr old Camila would throw herself into her work as an engineer , specifically a mechanical engineer working at a car factory at the time.

Though things were hard at first through the years, Anthea and her mother spent their days cooking, dancing, and sometimes taking apart their broken lawnmower to make it into the neighborhood's fastest go-kart.

It was her mother's skills with machinery that would spark her interest in the subject altogether, as from early as elementary school, Anthea would start to learn how to make small robots and the like. From a young age, Anthea also had a fear of the dark, which was curbed by her mother's creation of a special nightlight that projected the stars for her at night.

When the beings known as Cybertronians, also called Transformers by the majority of the human population due to their nature, Anthea's curiosity only grew, as she was only about 7-8 years old when they had been revealed.

She wanted to learn more of what was out there, to soar among the stars, or even help future travelers going and coming from space.

So, in subsequent years, Anthea threw herself into her studies, science, robotics, engineering, coding, and even subjects like astronomy [and a bit of astrology for good measure]. Accepted into a fantastic robotics program at 18, Anthea would have been right on track to her goal.

But such studies cam to a screeching halt the day a battle broke out between both Autobot and Decepticons in the city, where Anthea had been studying. At the time , Anthea had been attending an event at her college stadium, where unbeknownst to many, Energon had been stashed by rogue 'Cons.

Unfortunately, as many fled or sought shelter, Anthea found herself in the proximity of the ensuing Energon explosion caused by the battle.

This explosion would leave her pinned under debris, her legs trapped and pierced by concrete and metal, bone and muscles severed beyond repair.

Unknown to her, the liquid around her that had pooled and flooded the area she was trapped in was liquid Energon, and had poured into her open wounds.

Call it an act of mercy, a freak accident or sheer luck, she would survive the ordeal in the end, but lose her legs.

She would take a year off entirely from school, rehabilitating with her mom, and going to phys therapy to get back to where she used to be.

Call it anger, spite, pettiness, she felt a drive to walk again, but not just to walk on simple prosthetics like the ones doctors had suggested her.

It took some convincing her mother, but paying a hefty sum, they got their hands on scrap metal from the Cybertronian battle and crash sites, and it took a year of working on them to create the prosthetics that Anthea currently walks on.

Working as a mechanic most days, Anthea spends some her free time at scavenge sits, refurbishing Cybertron tech of minor flaws and minor dangers to sell or use with her cybernetics.

[unsoundedcomic]

So Quigley didn't see Duane's face but just whatever Soud he'd picture himself matching his impression of the 'maa prokul Soud'. But what determined that specific caste then? Was it because the glamour was cast that way, was it because Duane actually is/used to be Soud, or because that's what he told Quigley (and lying about it would have produced a different caste)?

To an Aldishman, Duane is very Soud. Even without the confirmation Quigley received upon their first meeting, it would not have taken Quigs long to determine his caste. Duane uses certain words, certain turns of phrase, has a certain intonation in his Tainish, even carries himself like a Soud. There's an openness to Duane that is common among his kind - they're not a people who need to act as guarded around each other as the other castes do. But it's all an act of course. You never know what they're up to. You can't know them, can't trust them. But also they're friggin' imbeciles. Prok hashasa e chigasa palim rellao ul.

Duane tends towards perceptive spheres of Normalcy or Beauty for his glamour. Sette perceives him as what a "normal" Duane looks like to her, which is why we get that weird kinda gaunt looking Duane Adelier with the assassination scars on his jaw and eyes, since she saw that done to him. Also she thinks he should look kind of cool because he's her attack zombie. All of that forms the mish-mash that is "Duane" to her.

Quigley of course doesn't know what Duane Adelier looked like and I think it woulda been silly to disrupt the moment for the reader with a totally made-up face. But Quigs definitely does perceive a Soud as "normal" for the Duane that he's come to know. So whatever else he saw, he most definitely saw the blonde.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

https://www.tumblr.com/jamdoughnutmagician/730882062233518080

I hope this is ok and I’m not sure how to just like share it to your wall kind of thing tumbler is still kind of new to me. But the picture made me think of Curtis and Honey immediately and I hope it’s ok I shared it with you. Love there story and the playful Drabble you’ve done. I connected to that so much. My life if chaos at the moment and my bf has been a trouper and so supportive. It’s such a fine line between laughing at the bad stuff or crying and he’s held me when I cried and made sure I’m laughing too. Even if he’s a cheater and tickles..

Sorry that was a rant. Either way love Curtis and Honey and thought I would share. Thank you for the moments of peace when I’m reading your stories!

Hey babes,

its a bit of a process to learn, it doesn't really let you post on walls like FB does, but you can tag someone in a post you want them to see. Or this, this is perfectly fine with me if you wanted to stay anonymous.

Thank you so much for sharing, I can see Curtis pulling this off easily. He would make it so spontaneous too that Honey is in shock for a moment before she is shouting "YES!"

Im so happy that they have been able to be a source of comfort for you during this time, hopefully things start to get calmer and more settled for you babes. Your boyfriend sounds absolutely wonderful though, an absolute sweetheart. That support, knowing when you need some light laughter or just when to cry... oof I love that for you. It's that support we all deserve. I can even forgive him that he cheats by tickling you into giggles.

You are welcome and thank you for reading them! Honestly, they have gotten this far because of you guys letting me know what they make you think and feel. I hope this little thought helps. 💛🐝

And Chill?

Curtis x Honey Drabble

Your nose was stuck in a book, but not one of those fun ones you would become so invested in that Curtis often brought you tea and snacks after a few hours because you had forgotten.

This book was the newest teacher's handguide and it was reading as stiff as a stereo instruction manual. Already you had doodled along all the edges of the pages with random little pictures trying to keep yourself awake.

And the house was quiet, Curtis having left to help Grey and Edgar with a weekend project. So not even he could help distract you this time with it. So when you started humming along with the Halloween theme song, it clicked that the noise was coming from outside of the picture window. "What the hell?" You flung the book aside and got up from the couch to go peer outside.

Moving aside one of the gauzy curtains, you saw Curtis standing in the front yard, his black trench coat tails flipping in the bit of wind bustling the leaves around the yard among the Halloween decorations, above his head he was holding a cardboard sign reading "Horror Movies and Chill?" with a sketch of what looked like Micheal Myers peering around a bush. The music came from what looked like a dusty old tape player at his feet.

You waved quickly before bolting for the door and dancing out onto the porch. "Yes! Big giant YES!" You giggled as he let his arms drop the sign to tuck under his arm and reached to grab his boom box that was still doing the ominous theme song. "I can make us some snacks and pop some beers." You excitedly said while going down the stairs to meet him.

"No need Pretty Girl, already ordered us some takeout. You my Love just gotta get into comfier clothes than those. Although..." He leaned back a bit, smirking as his eyes fell down your teacher's outfit. "Keep on those stockings?"

"I will surprise you... Horror movies and just chill huh?" You tilted up to catch his mouth, sharing a kiss that you both grinned into.

"Cuddles too, all the cuddles Honey. Promise."

"Perfect, just what I was hoping for today, Curtis." You reached for the boom box's volume, turning it up when it switched to the Ghostbusters song, dancing away back up the stairs with a sway of your body, glancing at Curtis over your shoulder.

Curtis was right behind you, crowding you playfully through the door with a press of his body and the graze of his beard against your neck, making you tingle. Tonight was already so much better.

[pandagirl45]

"What even is Captain America? A guy who lived in ice for almost 6 decades?"

"Imagine being that old and lost in time. Maybe he made a deal with the devil."

"I wouldn't be surprise, he isn't human."

The cackles were heard, Steve fought to repress the chirps that could formulate among his sighs. Ever since Bucky own strange dna showing up and his own oddities, he felt the glares. He felt the mockery.

He was use to it. To skinny, sick, weak, and overall a burden to being to much. To strange. Weird. Subhuman. Over and over again. But then he sees Tony talk, the dots of electric arc blue, the super computer for a brain. Bucky who eyes reflected if a light hits them. His k9s being more fangs and the general Mish mash of seasonal hair change.

Then Clint who should have died over and over again. Standing there talking loudly and boldly, next to Sam and Natasha. Sam who was more enthralled with talking to Red Wing and his little Red Robin. Soft tweets being heard as the Falcon didn't pay attention to the strange looks. Natasha own past shrouded.

Old enough to be his mother? Young enough to be his sister? Or something else? She like Clint should have died many times but she hasn't. Injuries healing up far better than others. Her sight... not like Buckys but she has a sense about her that put even Spiderman on edge.

Vision, neither man nor machine. He was something new but comfortable in his skin. He is just is. Pietro, a man who died. Revived. Who can run faster than a bullet. Who body now van deal with Mach 1 speeds at a short burst but even then, he was something else. Magic born? Mutant born? Human born?

Then, the kids. Kurt talking with Ultron eating snacks. Even with the stares from adults, the kids were kids.

Looking around he spotted so many unique people who went through the days and lives with ridicule. Thor and Bruce who stood there confident, so confident people sneered and ran.

Then, he saw a hand on his shoulder and the cologne of redwood. He leaned his head back, to the strangest fella ever. Rhodes.

He seen it all and possibly done it all. He survived thing he shouldn't have. He kept his job even when he was threaten with being fired. He is a superhero. A genius. A guy who moves with grace, wheel chair, walking cane's, or on his own. This phenomenal man, James Rhodes took a seat next to him.

Steve swallowed thickly as the colonel head jutted to tue group that whispered things about them all, "people can be assholes. Heard I was slobbing your knob to stay on the team."

What?! Steve eyes whipped to find who said that only to see Tony tearing someone a new one. Rhodes eyes crinkled with a vicious smile, "Yeah, tones is on a rampage today. Others are joining."

Oh.

He looked around, Natasha polite glares. Clint bold blackmail. Sam fingers moving, a procedure to show the blackmail evidence. Bucky the looming shadow as Tony ripped into a crowd. Bruce face a tint green. Thor chest puffed up.

Oh. This was a war path for them.

"We are heroes Teddy."

Rhodes hummed in agreeance, "but we are still people."

Vision floated as he spoke down to someone. Pietro voice carried with laughter.

"We have every right to express our discontent against assholes, yeah?"

Steve blinked slowly as he watched his friends and teammates take over the night. Natasha taking the kids to eat. Bruce and Thor commanding the dance floor. Tony and Bucky following suit.

"You're right... you want to dance with me?"

Rhodey pressed a soft kiss on Steve cheek, "Come on froggy."

[topshelfworlds]

BEYOND THE TABLE: REALITY, THE SECONDARY WORLD, AND THE ROLE OF THE DUNGEON MASTER

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

DEFINITIONS

(Primary) Reality – whatever this is, just read some metaphysics or some shit

The Secondary World – the Other Realm, the place beyond Primary Reality bridged by Imagination

The Table – Imagination; the veil of play-space wherein the Secondary World makes contact with Primary Reality

Campaign – an excursion into the Secondary World via Imagination, obfuscated from Primary Reality  by the friction between Gameplay, Simulation, and Narrative

adjudication – the process of mitigating friction between Gameplay, Simulation, and Narrative

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

My most recent ex all but annihilated me last October with the contents of an amicable text message. Over the previous few months, we’d been slowly repairing our communication enough to plan cat-care responsibilities. By all accounts, it should have been a completely normal interaction following a breakup just finding its footing: she had unearthed index cards encoded with statistics for magic items her character acquired in my since-canceled campaign from among her effects and buried the small-bore offer of their return for my records under discussion of scheduling time for me to see Mr. Kitty.

I fell apart.

Background

The fantasy adventure campaign the cards originated from was easily the most ambitious – and quite possibly most successful – design of any game I’ve constructed in my near-15 years of facilitating TTRPGs: what started as a weekly Thursday meetup running dungeon crawls by the book for some co-workers quickly became a West Marches game with a roster 12–14 players deep across 2 regular play-groups using a hacked-up mish-mash system I built on the fly week-by-week. The scale was magnificent to behold, our hex map slowly blossoming as the players peeled at petals to see what the flower of this mythic land looked like inside. Nearing a year removed from those adventures, I am proud of what we accomplished to this day.

Session was an opportunity to run from the deep problems festering in my relationship; I had just moved into my partner's run-down, dream project home with her & absconded from any deeper thinking about the friction that had been building over the previous year, instead fixating on clear records of narrative timelines, dungeon excursions, side-quests, character relationships, and world events. When I made time for (free) labor around our changing living space, I permitted resentment to simmer: that my passion – being the best facilitator of this emergent fiction I could – was secondary to the dreams of my property-owning partner. When I surprised her with completed projects from her list around the house while she was away, anything less than her utter amazement left a bitter taste in my mouth. I let slip passive-aggressive moans at never having time for the prep work that made me happy, lacking the insight to realize the game was a shield against the loneliness I felt in my relationship. 

This was also my then-partner’s third Campaign of mine played in 2 ½ years. A stand out from the start, she rarely took time to understand the game outside of session for her natural ability to process mechanics and draw narrative details from thin air; creative writing and an overachieving academic streak gave her a leg up when attuning to the role she played in the group’s function. Piloting a campy, edge-adjacent build played with deadly seriousness, she worked from the shadows to accomplish her goals, maneuvering the roster’s characters as means to her ends. I was proud of her for this, the scheming and the side-quests and the subtlety, because she was playing the game and well. I could never get over the gnawing feeling that participating in the Campaign wasn’t her desire, though, but that a sense of duty absent of passion for my interests brought her to the Table; like she felt that playing was important because it was my game, and not because she was having a good time. I could never tell if she was having a good time.

When my partner and I separated last April, I disbanded the company of cordial comrades who attentively arrived to each session, oathsworn that our jaunts through The County of Blunderburry in Esterdale would continue at another time; The Secondary World moved and changed even when our minds’ eyes were occupied, I insisted, and each future visit was a promise of new ideas, of change. It wasn’t until months later that I let on to some of the game-regulars the real reason why I called our grand adventure off, well after I had found temporarily stable ground post-life-collapsing-around-me. 

Judgment

In the fallout of the breakup and upkeep of coordinating kitty care, I had completely forgotten that she had the cards, physical cues marking her in-game possession of the artifacts statted on them. Rather than answering the inconsequential question raised for me of the cards’ fate, I fell headlong into debilitating anxiety catalyzed by months of emotional turmoil, seeing past the oversight in my facilitation to the now-painful memories of hours spent at the table reaching into the Secondary World with her. My binder stuffed with dog-eared notes chronicling the escapades of the roster had gone untouched in months for the same reason; confronting the hurt inside those records of her achievements in my game was something I was not ready to bear.

I agonized over the “right” answer to her offer, begging myself to conjure something satisfactory to my principles. The way I understood the scenario, there were 2 outcomes:

• I take the cards

• She keeps the cards

These outcomes were further layered by the intentions associated with the choice:

• I take the cards...

… because they are sentimental to me … because unique items should not have duplicates … because I did not want her to throw them out

• She keeps the cards...

… because I want her to deal with them … because their existence is painful to me … because… because…

I had very little to lose, and I knew it: the items’ information – two magic swords with dragon-slaying enchantments – had been recorded in my binder upon their looting, reducing any stakes of the outcome to whether it would keep me up at night. People-pleasing tendencies reared reliably thrashing maws at my principles, insisting through self-sabotage that my only priority was to act without spite or resentment. I was frozen by this weightless decision resting on my dignity.

So I hit the copium: rather than address this unsettling quandary as the most authentic version of myself, I reached into the depths of my Imaginary Costume Chest and procured the garb of the Dungeon Master. What would the ideal facilitator do? How would they deliberate over such a low-stakes scenario, charged as it was with emotionality? I quickly found my answer and transformed through its adjudication. 

Experience dictates that enlightenment is not a once-and-for-all type deal, Siddhartha wasting away under the fig tree until perfection, weary from resistance, unravels forever. Rather, it is a series of accumulations, moments that shriek across the sky of inner sight, arriving unexpectedly and leaving as soon as you look away. In that moment, seeing through the eyes of the Dungeon Master, the Secondary World was there. The Table rose before me, and from ego-differed I saw what was due: that the fate of the cards should be decided by the player of the character possessing them, regardless of personal desire for the physical symbols. The player-character position of possession is weighty in classical adventure games; treasure is a promise of the play-style, the payout for characters bought into designs of Dungeons, Demi-Hells, and Derelicht Halls. The Truth of the Secondary World hinged on this adjudication: that – no matter what interpretation of the items’ possession I could enforce in later chronicles – the fate of their simulacrum in Reality must be decided by the equivalent representative of their possessor in the Other Realm. Any other choice was a dishonest attempt to twist the Secondary World around my selfish desire for power in Primary Reality.

Erudition

Who gives a shit, though, right? So much emotional effort spent just to decide the fate of some dingy 2x3 index cards pedantically recorded months before. Even still, I returned to the decision again and again, feeling a familiar truth that had evaded my comprehension for more than a decade of facilitation finally coming into focus. In therapy sessions following the breakup, I had confided doubts of my motivations for running games amidst shifting insecurities and self-loathing: that I used table time not as a thought-experiment I longed to leverage against those weaker parts of myself but as abolition of my responsibility to Primary Reality, to my obligations and concerns of a better life for myself and those around me. I doubted my practice, this steadfast duty to my happiness, in fear that it caused the crumbling of my relationship, rather than the tension and mistrust obviously sign-posted in shrinking gaps the farther down the road our time together traveled. 

Cloaked in adjudication, I found sublimity. I was free from expectations of self-importance and righteous grandiosity, unshackled from my self-imposed totalitarian responsibility to be anything other than a conduit for the Truth of the Secondary World. My weakness was leveraged against the fulcrum of objective judgement. Removing my ego from the equation, I found peace in the Dungeon Master’s decision. 

This epiphany is my remaking, an affirmation of my long-held belief in the practice of officiating the movements of the Secondary World; when we gaze into the Other Realm to see what could be, we are afforded the grace to think beyond our compromised persona in Reality to the idealization of our selves. The Dungeon Master’s thankless role is to give what is due the actions of those who brave the dangerous truths inside the Secondary World, moving and changing as it is even when our minds’ eyes are occupied; becoming this conduit, the Dungeon Master is anointed in acceptance of the truths they must bear. For me, just this is it: the idealization of my highest self is purest acceptance, and each orracular excursion across the Table and into the Beyond is an exercise in that action. With hope, I gaze into wonder and oblivion, knowing that the Secondary World is only just outside the scope of reality by the width of a dreamspan.

I sent her a reply with thanks for the consideration. In the post-apocalypse of my anxious breakdown, I coincidentally put my current game on hiatus for the season; sabbatical was spent compulsively plumbing the depths of myself for changes the Dungeon Master has imparted to me with years of practice. Any ttrpg player with some experience can describe at least one moment when the line between themselves and their character blur, the bounds between the Primary self and the soul on the Table becoming too small to sense. These event horizons eclipse the light of our egos, and in the cold shadow we learn where our silhouette overlaps with our characters’. Is the Dungeon Master a projection of my inner landscape, disappearing with ego death? An archetype of acceptance to aspire to, standing parallel to me in the shadow? Only a lifetime can tell.

[semi-imaginary-place]

back to shb eulmore

ok damn alphi. not easing them into it at all "everything you know is a line" what an opening line.

traveling by land up the cliffs is great and all but mt glug is floating, even if you try to avoid flying because of aerial attacks you're still going to have to fly to reach vauthy.

everyone in shb has depression

building a giant robot to grab a floating mountain has to be the least practical idea yet. you know how much material would be needed? why is urianger going to round up crystarium ppl and not the exarch. he's so bad at this secret identity thing.

I'm glad we have looped back around to the chai's tossing out that artist. i was wondering about that

lamitt was a freak huh. took off the helmet and was off lusting after ardbert's loins.

really wish there was a korma aetheryte

and thus with all our powers combined and all the friends we made along the way we achieved the impossible and reached the heavens

huh. if exarch had to merge with the crystal tower to extend his life, why are the scions not aging? the hero worship is real, just start a fanclub already. so many death flags

zenos roadtrip saga backpacking and hitchhiking across hydaelyn.

the feo ul plot point is so broken the writers had to not over use it.

mt gulg time. most of the time videogame building make 0 sense. but that's actually thematically appropriate here in that it's a mish mash of neoclassical design elemenents smashed together without any practicality. that builds are there to look pretty/cool not to have a function. hallways that lead nowhere. pointless staircases. a path that just runs into a wall. vauthy power fantasy self inset oc

yeah. again why was player character suppose to absorb all the lightwardens instead of distributing among all those with hydaelyn's blessing.

wow he had a villian monologue planned. does make a lot of sense to swipe the concentrated aether once it's already been gathered all together.

i'll be honest that chunking it into the rift sounds too easy. like why didn't you just do that with the lightwardens. or where is the rift? why not chunk them into the void/13th

emy sounds actually disappointed. awww did he get carried away on the pc's adventure to save the world, was there that little spark of hope, belief. he's angry the pc didn't win. why did he take the exarch? for info he says but he could have done that at any time

[a-gay-old-time]

hi emma! extremely specific question: what style of binding did you do for 'among ancient pines'? i have a fic a little bit shorter than 'among ancient pines' that i'm binding & don't think the traditional round & back will work for it. thank you!!! love all your work.

hi! thank you so much (i love your writing! it's so wild and nice to hear you say you enjoy my books)!

for among ancient pines, i did what i usually do for my flatback bindings -- which is kind of a mish-mash of several different tutorials that i've found works well for me for shorter bindings between 40k - 90k words (for reference, my binding of among ancient pines ended up being 268 pages for the typeset and the shortest book i've bound has been about 34k and was 168 pages). for the fics that are on the shorter end of the word count spectrum, i often increase the font size, spacing, and margins a bit just so i can reach a more substantial page count. i think this style of binding is just called a flatback binding but i'm not sure if there's a fancier word for it.

for these kinds of bindings, i generally follow @armoredsuperheavy's google doc tutorial (using the same board for the spine as i do for the covers -- rather than bristol board on the spine) and DAS's casebound book series but i don't round/back the book and so i skip those steps and also case in differently than he does in this tutorial. for the hinge, it's taken me a bit of experimenting to figure out what size hinge i like the best and i typically do a 2.5/8 inch hinge and i use .080 davey board so my hinge is a bit over 2 times the thickness of the board i use for the spine/cover. then i find it easier to case in for flatback books when i make an oxford hollow and case in that way (which is kinda overkill to be completely honest and not necessary for shorter bindings, i just find it less intimidating than casing in without one). if you don't make an oxford hollow, you can follow this tutorial.

if your fic is shorter, you can also experiment with different book sizes (such as A6 or smaller depending on how long the fic is). i don't have a lot of experience with that but the folks in the @renegadepublishing discord would have a lot more guidance for you if you want to go that route -- i've seen so many really amazing bindings in those smaller sizes.

i hope this was somewhat helpful, i wish i had more of a concrete answer for you -- it just has taken me practice and time to find what works best for me. i wish you all the best for your project!

also tip for flatback bindings: you really want to reduce the swell as much as possible for these bindings, so i spend extra time pressing the signatures after folding them and punching the holes. i also will run my bone folder along the fold on both sides of each sigature after sewing it onto the textblock so that each signature is as flat as it possibly can be and there’s as little swell as possible.

[incarnateirony]

“…there’s a contingent of VERY bitter shipping/meta people that screamed I was *too arrogant* about the authors or alchemy interpretation, because *they* had brought *their* moby dick meta or whatever and Jensen was like “?????? no?” Did Jensen shoot down the Chuck Won thing? I know someone was trying to give him a physical copy at the Phoenix con on behalf of its author.

IDK about Chuck Won yet, but look. I've been here a long, long time. What 2po has literally done is groom a dedicated cult server of people with agendas and biases.

The section I was talking about was the S14~ period that 2po *started* the "cult" screaming because tarot and alchemy meta. It's where those hysterics of his originated before he drifted his reasoning dramatically, as compulsive liars do.

Back in the day, people were all THATS JUST UR INTERPRETATION and I was like. no sorry it's just the show. UR SO ARROGANT!!! *OUR* meta got shot down what makes YOU better. IDK. Not trying to force a square peg through a round hole and writing about what they're actually doing. YOU CAN'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING yes I fuckin' can. OUR META GOT SHUT DOWN damn, sucks to suck. -- which, now you see, this is why he can't read or acknowledge the crew saying how much it all means while they tweet it out. This was the audience he played to with his cult hysterics first, before migrating the messaging to groom in other people with other biases and hate boners.

So anyway, you get bundles of Pissy Cool Girls mad about that. You get the banned server coup gremlins. You get the doxxy motherfuckers. You get the wincels, the bibros, and everyone trying to build their last stand of relevance. You shove them all in one server where they pretend "CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?" fandom moderacy is a new concept nobody ever tried in 2022. And really they're more of a hatedom that plasters over charity work they were nearly forced into from heat. You know. Spend 50K at gold panel cons "for charity autos" to raise a whole 4K for the charity back. Why gold and not silver? Iunno.

spnscripthunt is some of the deepest bloated rot of the worst lanes of fandom and piloted heavily by people with agendas like that. Hell, wigglebox was someone banned for a bunch of shit like stalking jensen's personal private home address via tree triangulation (hilariously, 2po once tried to go OH YEAH WHAT ABOUT THIS and show... me looking at roofs in a general neighborhood in hawaii nobody lives at?). She stunted bad over the 15x20 scripts, got weird as fuck, bitched and moaned about The Purples cuz she couldn't get access in my server, then OH LOOK WHO'S IN THERE SUPPORTING 2PO BEING SALTY AS FUCK, I WONDER HOW THAT HAPPENED.

Don't forget when, among the many misguided doxxing or accusation attempts 2po has tried (doxxing the wrong person as mish related, screaming about the wrong patreon), 2po dragged another Winchesters fan hub account that he thought I was still involved with, but had left months ago. Why? Because if he got shrill he could divert them to WIGGLEBOX's Winchesters Updates, and she was fine with these attacks against Winchesters Hub.

It's literally a hatedom server that's been spitshined enough that people don't realize it going in, it puts on a nice mask, but if by the end you aren't hating on the show or engaging in doxxing people, are you really part of that server at this point? Regardless of what any individual users THINK they're doing, the mods explicitly cultivate that server to inspire bad biases and use their following for aggro hate attacks, anon storms, doxxing, and more, by warping information and keeping them segregated out of culture like an ACTUAL cult by telling them DONT GO ACTUALLY READ WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING, JUST READ WHAT I TELL YOU THEY ARE SAYING shit. Which is how you get people insisting I say things that are DEAD OPPOSITE my blog messaging. He only sends them to my blog long enough to dump hate anons. Or attack a Winchester hub. Or attack a user. Or doxx a person. Or threaten a person.

[adrianasunderworld]

I'm sorry to trauma dump a bit but gosh my hatred for this elena woman is visceral, she reminds me of my birth mom who tried to abort me several times (ha i lived) yet had the audacity to came at my 4th and 8th birthday party once.

you made elena so realistic that i forgot that she's fictional haha

I remember my mom once saying that just means you were meant to be here, despite all the odds saying no. lol

Admittedly, Elena not based on anyone that I know of in my life, at least not directly... She's kind of a mish mash of traits that I thought were kind of common in those narcissistic parent reddit stories. (It's a guilty pleasure, I admit.😅 ) The using family as an excuse to mistreat people. The refusal to see that their actions have caused harm. The need to have everything be about them. (She only had Isabelle and married her father so she can be the center of attention.) Among various other oh so delightful qualities. So It's good to know that it worked, and that Elena is as dislikeable as she can be. 👍

[jscalzi]

The Big Idea: Piper J. Drake

People are a mish-mash of where they or their ancestors have come from, and where they are now (among, of course, many other things). But as Piper J. Drake makes clear in this Big Idea for Wings at Once Cursed and Bound, these elements of who were are are often in unexpected combinations… and may leave us wanting to know more. PIPER J. DRAKE: What does it mean to know who you are? The heroine…