#page layout in excel

[aerophone-amphibians]

Goddamn, MTMTE goes hard on the third readthrough

[huellitaa]

girl's guide to academic success: ep 1! ⊹˚. ♡

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 this post focuses on: actively rooting for success! ♡ part 2 -> ♡

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 1. organisation

first off, have something to organise ur academic life with! i personally use notion (which i'll add later) but u can use anything as long as it's cute, convenient, unique and accessible to you, your life and your schedule specifically. especially as a visual learner, i like to have somewhere i can dump literally everything regarding a singular area in my life, so i do this for almost everything along with school and i highly recommend this <3

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 2. recognition of talents & improvements

analyse your strengths and weaknesses. think back on tests, exams, marks, and analyse which ones you got highest and lowest on. dont beat urself up for it, obviously; it's just to check which subjects you're doing good in and which ones have room for improvement. for example i love science but im not the best at it sometimes and we had an assessment recently and i didn't get as high as i'd like so i wrote down a little list on a piece of paper in my pencilcase for the topics i got the least in for me to study on my own to practise later.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 3. laying out goals

set down specific goals; i like to do this week by week accustomed to my schedule that week in my school notion page along with images and vision boards based on the term/semester, but you can do it for the week, the month, the year, anything as long as its helpful to you

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 4. productive planning

plan accordingly based on ur time energy. when creating any to do list or productivity plan dont pile a ridiculous amount onto it that just leaves you stressed and overwhelmed because that defeats the entire point; this works the same for academic plans and goals and lists etc.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 5. extra credit

put extra work in to the subjects you know will help you in the future. for example, for my personal aspirations i need to excel in english, history and textiles so i always try my absolute hardest and put my all into those lessons and do extra studying for them in my free time where i can. school is to prepare you for the future so take advantage of that

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 6. asking questions

please don't be shy to ask questions! that's what teachers are there for and you won't have them forever so take advantage of it while you can! you can even do it in that little window of time just after class if ur too nervous to ask in class. for example, on my last english exam i went to my teacher after class and asked about what i needed to improve on to get the marks i missed next time, and he told me i added too much detail and some other things so i wrote it down and am keeping a note of it to remind me to improve on that next time! (i got top of my class though so i didnt mind. still kind of pissed i added too much detail though)

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 7. participation

participate! ok im saying this as someone who still struggles with social anxiety a fair amount but if u wanna get higher marks and get on good terms w ur teacher i 100% recommend this. i don't do this in every class but i do it where i can and when i'm confident in my answer, and it's really intimidating at first but what i did is i did it first in the classes i felt most comfortable on and continued from there. it gets easier every time i swear, and nobody's judging you; they'll forget about it after five minutes. plus, what would they be judging you for? being smarter than them?

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ 8. prioritising ur health

this is mentioned a lot in these types of posts but if you're tired or burnt out or overworked or just feel like you need to take a break then do. do the best you can and compromise like i said earlier if you need to, just make sure u are prioritising yourself over anything. <3

──★ ˙ ̟🎀inspo

──★ ˙ ̟🎀my notion

i also really recommend this layout by @honeytonedhottie ♡

all my love 🩷✨💬🎀💗

[secretsnowclub]

This is the Berserk TTRPG You Need!

The purpose of a tabletop roleplaying game book is to make you want to play it. That’s rule number one. All else can go out the window for all I care. Forget layout, forget gimmicks, forget ad-copy, forget poetry. I don’t care how you accomplish it. The book should ache to be played. If its claws aren’t pulling me from the pdf to a discord group chat and forcing me at gunpoint to type “hey, is anyone free for a game soon?” then I’m afraid it’s not doing its job.

I had to sell all the pretty things on my shelves several years ago to avoid losing my home, and at the moment I sold a beautifully destroyed copy of Berserk Issue 1, I stopped giving a damn about having something cute to put on my shelf. I desire that which demands play.

It’s rare in the realm of one hundred plus page books to find something that does that. Too often you’re inundated with blocks of text describing to you the thing you’re reading. Entire pages detailing the promise of the book instead of, you know, the actual contents of the book. Waxing and waning about hypotheticals. “This book does blank. This game creates blank.” But rarely does the book do either of those things, it just promises you that it will.

Whip pan to Rookie Jet Studio’s “Red Giant.”

Expletive, expletive, expletive. This book makes me feel alive.

It’s fitting as I’m rereading Berserk right now (slowly buying the beautiful, black-leather omnibus editions as a way of healing, I think). Reading Red Giant made me think back to that beat up copy of Berserk, and to the used bookstore I sold it to, and the power of that made me want to buy a physical copy of Red Giant on the spot. If only it wasn’t print-on-demand. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I believe the book deserves better.

The layout done by Emanuele Galletto features many deep blacks and cursed reds. It’s clean and elegant, framed perfectly by Juwan Yi’s brutal illustrations. There’s not a chance that Drive Thru could do the colors justice. This is a book that demands. And for printing it demands a professional printer. It demands its own black leather. It demands an embossed red moon on the cover. It demands Corey Burns name in foil on the spine for the excellent world building and mechanic’s-driven writing. Even if he decided to put snobbish philosophy quotes throughout.

Even in that regard, the ones Burns chose to feature within the one hundred and twenty pages add to the bleak sobriety of the world. You’re diving head first into Castlevania territory. You get quotes from Baldwin, Nietzsche, and Sartre. It gave me hints of Kingdom Death and the blood-filled streets of Yarnham. This is a world where deep-voiced narrators talk about hopelessness and nihilism. It’s an edgy, gothic nightmare. The kind of anime you’d love if you were fourteen again.

The system is where the game hooked me though. It’s where this worldbuilding shines through—not in lengthy blocks of lore text, but in the character creation itself. It’s a simple, four-stat system. The kind you’d be familiar with if you’ve played any other game (video, board, or ttrpg). Along with Health, Spirit (mana), and Sanity (which functions more like Insight from Bloodborne than it does, say, sanity in Call of Cthulhu).

The archetypes are where this takes shape. Stats are assigned to you based on your archetype, and each one comes with its own special skills, much like any dungeon crawler. But it’s the packaging of these things together and the limiting of skills that makes these feel truly special. Harkening to the role-infused Troika! backgrounds, Red Giant prescribes you a piece of the world with each archetype. Simple yet evocative names that range from the kick-ass-driven Slayer to the strange-and-mystical Aegis. You might get the ability to sing a song that controls the weather, or early access to the keyword-based magic system.

Regardless of which you choose, it feels like you’re reaching into a grab bag of Red Giant’s influences and pulling out the silhouette of a legendary character. It ditches the vagueness present in a lot of modern, anime-inspired games and trades it in for specificity. And in that specificity, the world blooms.

Afterward comes my favorite section of the text: the Exchanges. These are bite-sized special traits, like feats or class abilities, that you can choose from. Each one framed as something you can just do. Without rolling! Or any other outside influence on your success! However, each one has its titular exchange. Trading abilities for health, sanity, or spirit. Some limit your exposure to daylight. One turns you into Guts Berserk himself in the fatal heat of combat.

I’m jealous of the Exchanges. I wish I wrote them. It’s a Good Idea. It is the answer to the premise the game promises you. Crafting a strange, devilish world through mechanics. Even if the first few pages tell me what an RPG is and how to roleplay and what Red Giant is, the character creation alone backs it up. It walks the walk where the intro talks the talk.

I can’t continue to only praise the game though. There are several Exchanges where their mechanical ties are weaker or missing entirely. These are easy fixes but still fixes that hold a good idea back from being perfectly executed. The character advancement feels tacked on, and the text even suggests tossing it out the window, which, if that’s the case, then it should have been tossed out the window and not left in the book.

There are several moments where the text struggles with strong language and opts for weak sentences that mosey around ideas instead of making definitive statements. The advantage and disadvantage mechanics feel like a vestigial limb, added simply because the same thing worked in other games. And over all, the rest of the mechanics outside the character creation feel like cobbled together bits from other OSR-adjacent games the writer liked. Which, if that’s the worst thing I can say? Then you’re doing a helluva job. We are a tapestry of our influences.

I need to take a moment to give a nod to the game’s use of Sanity too. It suggests you “roleplay the effects” of your depleting Sanity, but it doesn’t specify negative consequences. And in that there’s a cartoonish respect. In other games that try to use Sanity as a measure for horror, you’re often confronted with ableist language and outright disgusting mockery. But Red Giant uses it as another health pool that depletes dramatically as you face Horrors and replenishes slowly afterward. Despite any negative connotations in labeling it “Sanity”, I’m willing to forgive it for the sake of atmosphere when it doesn’t turn its nose down at me.

If you’re picking this game up, you’d be able to run it tonight. It comes with two adventures (called Scenarios) that are at least serviceable, though I would love to see a more fleshed out version of a Red Giant adventure. A Castlevania-esque dungeon crawl, perhaps. And the book boasts plenty of wonderfully horrific monsters for you to pluck out and throw at your weird, little adventurers.

Overall, Red Giant is a good example of what one writer and a very small team can do. Rookie Jet Studio funded this as their second project on kickstarter, raising thirty-thousand dollars. To its benefit, it seems like the book deserved it, and maybe even more.

You can find Red Giant here.

To support writing like this, there’s my patreon or my substack (where you’re reading this). I’m on bluesky as well, for less-words and more-posts.

[dervampireprince]

so i've been coding a website

home of: the dervampireprince fanart museum, prince's art gallery, a masterlist of resources for making websites and list of web communities, and more!

[18+, minors dni (this blog is 18+ and the art gallery and art museum pages on my site have some 18+ only artworks)]

littlevampire . neocities . org (clickable link in pinned post labelled 'website')

if you don't follow me on twitch or aren't in my discord, you might not know i've been coding my own website via neocities since june 2024. it's been a big labour of love, the only coding i'd done before is a little html to customize old tumblr themes, so i've learnt a lot and i've been having so much fun. i do link to it on my carrds but not everyone will know that the icon of a little cat with a wrench and paintbrush is the neocities logo, or even what neocities is.

neocities is a free website builder, but not like squarespace or wix that let you build a website from a template with things you can drag in, it's all done with html and css code (and you can throw in javascript if you wanna try hurting your brain /hj). i love the passion people have for coding websites, for making their own websites again in defiance of social medias becoming less customisable and websites looking boring and the same as each other. people's neocities sites are so fun to look through, looking at how they express themselves, their art galleries, shrines to their pets or favourite characters or shows or toys or places they've been.

why have i been making a website this way?

well i used to love customising my tumblr theme back when clicking on someone's username here took you to their tumblr website, their username . tumblr . com link that you could edit and customise with html code. now clicking a username takes you to their mobile page view, a lot of users don't even know you can have a website with tumblr, the feature to have a site became turned off by default, and i've heard from some users that they might have to pay to unlock that feature.

i've always loved the look of old geocities and angelfire websites, personalised sites, and i've grown tired of every social media trying to look the same as each other, remove features that let users customise their profiles and pages more. and then i found out about neocities.

are you interested in making a site too?

neocities is free, though you can pay to support them. there is no ads, no popups, they have no ai tool scraping their sites, no tos that will change to suddenly stop allow 18+ art. unlike other website hosters, neocities does have a sort of social media side where you do have a profile and people can follow you and leave comments on your site and like your updates, but you can ignore this if you want, or use it to get to know other webmasters.

to quote neocities "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

i'd so encourage anyone interested to try making a website with neocities. w3schools is an excellent place to start learning coding, and there are free website templates you can copy and paste and use (my site is built off two different free codes, one from fujoshi . nekoweb . org and the other from sadgrl's free layout builder tool).

your site can be for anything:

a more fun and interactive online business card (rather than using carrd.co or linktree)

a gallery of your art/photos/cosplays/etc

a blog

webshrines to your a character, film, song, game, toy, hobby, your pet - anything can be a shrine!

a catalogue/database/log of every film you've watched, every place you've visited, birds you've seen, plushies you own, every blinkie gif you have saved, your ocs and stories, etc

hosting a webcomic

a fanwiki/fansite that doesn't have endless ads like fandom . com does (i found a cool neocities fansite for rhythm game series pop'n music and it's so thorough, it even lists all the sprites and official art for every character)

i follow a website that just reviews every video game based on whether or not it has a frog in it, if the frog is playable, if you can be friends with it. ( frogreview . neocities . org )

the only html i knew how to write before starting is how to paragraph and bold text. and now i have a whole site! and i'm still working on new stuff for it all the time.

i just finished making a page on my website called 'explore the web'. this page lists everything you might need to know when wanting to make or decorate your website. it lists:

other neocities sites i think are cool and i'm inspired by, check them out for more ideas of what your site could look like and contain!

website building resources

coding help and tutorials

free website html code layouts you can use if you don't want too start coding from scratch

places to find graphics and decorative images for your site (transparent background pngs, pixels, favicons, stamps, blinkies, buttons, userboxes, etc)

image generators for different types of buttons and gifs (88x31 buttons, tiny identity buttons, heart locket open gifs, headpat gifs)

widgets and games and interactive elements you can add to your site (music players, interactive pets like gifypet and tamanotchi, hit counters, games like pacman and crosswords, guestbooks and chatboxes, etc)

web manifestos, guides, introductions and explanations of webmastering and neocities (some posts made by other tumblr users here are what made me finally want to make my own site and discover how too)

art tools, resources and free drawing programs

web communities! webrings, cliques, fanlistings, pixel clubs (pixel art trades) and more!

other fun sites that didn't fit in the other categories like free sheet music sites, archives, egotistical.goat (see a tumblr users audio posts/reblogs as a music playlist), soul void (a wonderful free to play video game i adore), an online omnichord you can play, and more.

i really hope the 'explore the web' page is helpful, it took three days to track down every link and find resources to add.

and if you want to check out my site there's more than just these pages. like i said in the beginning, i recently finished making:

the dervampireprince fanart museum

every piece of fanart i've received (unless the sender asked me to keep it private) has been added to this museum and where possible links back to the original artists post of that art (a lot the art was sent to me via discord so i can't link to the original post). every piece of fanart sent to me now will be added on their unless you specifically say you don't want it going on there. there's also links to my fanworks guide on there and how to send me fanart.

other pages on my site

about me (including favourite media, quizzes, comfort characters, kins, and more)

art gallery (art i've made, sorted by month)

graphics (so far it's just stamps i've made but plan to remake this section of my site)

media log (haven't started the 2025 one yet, but a log of all films, tv, writing, music, theatre, fandoms, characters and ships i got into in 2024)

silly web pets

shrines

site map

update log

my shrines so far:

i have ones for lucifer from supernatural, sam winchester from supernatural, charuca minifigures (arcade prizes i wanted as a kid that i'm trying to finish collecting as an adult), my waifuroulette discord tcg collection. my masterlist of every lgbt+ marvel character is a wip. i love making each shrine look different and suit the character/fandom/thing the shrine is about. and then there's also:

the european musical section

i ramble about them a lot and it's no surprise there's multiple shrines for them. i fell in love with german musical theatre in 2020 and that expanded in being interested in all non-english language musical theatre and trying to spread the word of it and how they deserve to be as known as english-language musicals. one musical in particular, elisabeth das musical, is my biggest special interest so expect a very detailed shrine about that one day.

so far this part of the site includes

'enter the theatre' an interactive web theatre where you choose a ticket and that musical will play on the stage (click a ticket and the embedded youtube video for that musical will appear on the stage and play. i dealt with javascript for the first time to bring the vision i had for this page alive, it might be slow but i hope enjoyable)

elisabeth das musical webshrine [not made yet]

tanz der vampire webshrine [not made yet, might abandon the idea]

my favourite european musicals [not made yet]

a masterlist of european musicals [a wip, only two musicals listed so far, i am listing every musical and every production they've had, this was a word document i kept for a long time that i always wanted to share somehow and this page is how i'll do it. there's no other list for european musicals out there so i guess it's up to me as always /lh]

the future for my site

i will update my art gallery, the fanart museum, my media log and other collections as often as i can. there's so many more pages i want to add including:

profiles for my ocs

finish my european musical masterlist

finish my 'every marvel lgbt+ character' masterlist (i have no love for marvel or disney's lgbt+ representation nor are all of these characters good representation and a lot are very minor characters, but for some reason i have gotten hyperfixated on this topic a few times so here comes a masterlist)

make shrines for loki (marvel), ares (hades), my sylvanian families collection, vocaloid (and/or vocaloid medleys), my plushie collection, pullip dolls

make a 'page not found' page

and i have one big plan to essentially make a site within a site, and make a website for my monster boy band ocs. but make it as if it was a real band, an unfiction project (think like how welcome home's website portrays welcome home as if it was a real show). this site would have pages for the band members, their albums, merch and maybe a pretend shop, and a fake forum where you could see other characters in the story talking and click on their profiles to find out more about them. and then once that's all done i want to start posting audios about the characters and then people can go to the website to find out more about them. that's my big plan anyway. i hope that sounds interesting.

i also want to make an effort to try and join some website communities. be brave and apply for some webrings and fanlistings, and make some pixel art and join some of the amazing pixel clubs out there.

but yeah, that's my site, that's neocities. i hope that was interesting. i hope it encourages people to make their own site, or at least look at other's small websites and explore this part of the internet. and if you go and check out mine feel free to drop a message in the guestbook on the homepage, or follow me on neocities if you have/make an account.

[archeo-starwars]

You wouldn't happen to have an extensive layout dissection of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant? Or even a list of all notable and obscure sections of the Jedi Temple? OR or even labelled areas that are public and reserved for only temple residents. Both from canon and legends, please and thank you!!!

The best I managed to find comes from Star Wars Complete Locations - you may check out the whole archived version here. The “zoom in” option is pretty good for reading details. Below the pages (I suppose the best is to open them in new tab for better reading):

As for the list of locations, I recommend wookiepedia's list. Plenty of data, both for Legends and New Canon.

Additional sources worth to check out:

Jedi Temple Locations & Jedi Temple History - both published as official material on star wars.com in regard to prequels and New Canon sources. Pictures and references to various places inside Temple.

Star Wars.com's The Clone Wars episode guide + videoclips from the series, like

A) Jedi Archives Tour (the entrance to one of the most restricted areas of the temple: The Holocron Vault).

B) Layout of Jedi Temple Library (source)

C) Jedi Temple funeral room + environment illustration by Tara Rueping (source)

Old Data Bank for Jedi Temple

HoloNews mentioning "a mob of 20 university students attempted to infiltrate the Jedi Temple" and "managing to get as far as the Second Atrium Lobby"

Star Wars Battlefront (2) game wiki provides some map and location description

and if you have time (and patience) you can watch gameplay from 501st Legion's mission in Jedi Temple for reference, like this one

The wookiepedia's articles should give enough good idea of the rooms, their location and functions, but I'm adding a few source pages:

STAR WARS: FACT FILES #36 provides a lot informations what and where was inside the Temple and some general data about visitors, security, Grand Balcony, Grand Corridor & Towers. Not all is super specific, but worth checking out for sure.

The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia mentions this:

and for Jedi Temple entry:

As for the named locations that are public or reserved for only temple residents, there is definitely a division like that, however I'm not sure if this issue was very well explained. The source gives us some ideas, like for example, Jedi Archives have data accessible only for Jedi with rank of Master or higher (thus most likely separated areas to study). At the same time, Fact Files #25 says that Jedi Archives offers an "excellent resources to researchers, including star-map hologram consoles", but also an access to entire scientific and historical knowledge of the Republic

so non-Jedi were allowed to use Jedi Library/Archives for their own research and work-related needs. We also must remember that the Jedi Order had various scientific branches, including archaeology, exploring unknown regions, and medicine, so logically thinking Jedi worked with other, non-Jedi specialists of many fields.

We also know from various sources, that politicians and important guests were invited for various occasions. We could see in Republic comics series that Bail Organa, Mon Mothma and senator Ask Aak were allowed to listen to Jedi reporting before High Council about his last battle

or attending Jedi Funeral like Duchess Satine and Padme Amidala did for the (fake) Obi-Wan's one or just visiting as a friend/comrade-in-arm

I would need to make more research about this issue as there is plenty tie-in material to Jedi Temple on Coruscant that would take a lot time to study, but at this moment, I think the best is assume how far a non-Jedi may walk into Temple will depend greatly who is that person and what is nature of their business with Jedi.

At the same time, Purge: Seconds to Die has this line "Clone Troopers? This deep in the Temple? Not permitted."

The Jedi was in Archives herself, so it is worth to take into account that clones could have more limited access to Temple than the average guest before war did. At the same time, clone troopers could make a report before Yoda and Mace Windu/High Council, as was presented by Star Wars Tales (Honor Bound):

so it is not like they were outright forbidden to enter the temple either.

Hope it will help!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any recs for pick up and play/no prep ttrpgs?

THEME: Pick Up & Play!

Hello there, you’ll probably find a bunch of one-shots in this collection, as I find one-shots tend to gear a bit more towards low-prep play.

Lost Goths From Beyond, by goblin goulash.

You are not from around here. Maybe you’re dead (you sure liked playing the part anyway). Maybe you’re in Hell (your parents warned you). Maybe you found a Victorian city in your dreams. Maybe you come from the Realm of Fairies, or a timeline stuck in the 90s, or a planet far far away… Well you’re here now, and you gotta do what you gotta do to get back. And you intend to do it in style. High heel, black leather, smoky eye style. You’re a Goth from Beyond, and you’re here on a Mission!

Lost Goths from Beyond is a stylish, rules-light TTRPG for 1-5 Goths and 1 GM.

As a hack of Lasers & Feelings, Lost Goths from Beyond is meant to be quick in execution, with obstacles coming up as you roll - and for that reason I think it doesn’t really require much prep. I’d say that the most you’ll have to do is actually collaborative at the table - deciding the setting and limits of your characters, and determining what subject matter you do or do not want to explore in your game.

I have two things I like about this game - one is the layout, how clean and succinct it is, communicating the vibe while keeping the instructions short and to the point. The other is the thirteen special items you can choose from to give your Gogh character their own unique thing - whether that be nail polish that turns you invisible, a body piercing that emits light, or stylish sunglasses that can see in the infrared.

Christ Heist, by shawk games.

ALL ABOARD… It’s 1907 and you’ve been down on your luck. Jobs are drying up, wars are being waged, and the west is growing. As luck would have it, your reputation precedes you: as a storied felon, you and your crew have been forged through indominable industry expertise and pulled together for one last job: Rob the Church.

It was a dangerous journey to Kansas City – but you all know your roles, and you know what you need to do: trick the laity in St. Anthony’s Chapel Car out of their tithes, make off with the Solid Gold Jesus Crucifix, and exit the train in Denver before anyone notices.

Heist games are excellent for one-shot games, and this heist is built on the fabulous Honey Heist rules, which are designed for little to no prep. Because you’re robbing a train, the game comes with a timetable for each of the train’s stops, which can be placed in front of each player so they can come up with a plan on the fly. As per Honey Heist tradition, you also have a series of roll-tables for the GM to help design the Chapel Car of the train and the nature of Bishop Bartholomew, as well as the kinds of complications to make your heist interesting!

The Quick, The Quiet & The Dead, by Whimsynaut Games.

Play as a group of survivors, working together to survive the night from a random table of horrors. Will you be escaping an alien spider in a rusting theme park, an eldritch horror in an abandoned campsite or a murderous cyborg aboard a cargo ship in a storm? 

Another Lasers & Feelings hack, this game also gives the GM some roll-tables to generate a situation on the fly. The basic setting is that you’re surviving some kind of horror scenario, but you can cater the scenario to fit the style of horror movie you’re interested in. If there’s a horror setting that you like, you can probably layer that over this game to give yourself a quick horror rush.

If you’re not a bit horror fan, I definitely recommend checking out the broader world of Lasers & Feelings!

The Head, by forkfrenzy.

Vassago's body lays before you. His head is in your backpack. The labyrinth goes on forever. It’s your home. It’s everyone’s home. Maybe you'll get out some day, but right now you have to deliver this head to the Duchess. 

The Head is a 1-page, 1-session roleplaying game (RPG) by Levon Jihanian — set in a mysterious, labyrinthine world. The player characters have just cut off Vassago’s head and are tasked with delivering it to the Dutchess, who lives at the palace at the center of the labyrinth. The game builds on the mechanics of Fuck! It’s Dracula and The Agony of Elves.

I don’t own the rules document for The Head, but I did find a copy of the rules for Fuck! It’s Dracula, which is about 200 words long and fairly simple. The game appears to go through a various number of phases, with roll-tables used to both generate characters as well as events that will bring you closer and closer to the narrative climax.

It looks like much of the details behind the main premise are also meant to be explored during play, which I also take as a sign of low to no-prep. If you ‘re coming up with the lore as you play, you don’t need to prepare it beforehand!

Loom of Blood, by curubethion.

Spin your webs of fear through the night, from the corners where you lurk.

Loom of Blood is a game of unfolding horror: sketch out the strokes of unsuspecting lives, and then uproot them into murderous mayhem. Build your own horror movie franchise with your friends, and delve deep into a tangled tapestry of wickedness, bloodshed, and frail humanity.

Loom of Blood is collaborative, and for that reason, I think it’s a great option for a no-prep tabletop game. I find that GM-less games still typically require a person to exist in a facilitator role, so you might have to read through the pdf before you sit down to play, but each beat of the story is introduced in the process of play - try to come up with too much beforehand, and you’ll probably feel like you’re trying to turn the story in a direction it wasn’t naturally set up to go.

On your turn, you’ll introduce either a Moment, a Fool, or a Mirage to the story. Moments are descriptive phrases that introduce a new horror to the scene, like the rustling of trees, or a scream of something “neither animal nor human.” A Fool is a character doomed to stumble into the danger, their death perhaps not imminent, but likely to happen before the story is over. A Mirage is a place that feels safe, a location that fills out the map of your story.

The elements of this story feel somewhat similar to I’m sorry did you stay street magic, which is also beautifully collaborative, as well as a game I’d consider no or low-prep. If you want a game of collaboration that leads you through each step, you might be interested in Loom of Blood.

Let’s Kill the King, by Obli-Awa.

The revolution has begun.  The people cry out for justice and, as night falls on the capital city, they have swarmed its streets in righteous fury, pitchforks aloft and torches blazing.  The guard have locked things down as best they can, but you, you lucky few, have made it over the wall; managed to slip into the castle thus far unnoticed.  Tonight, the old order falls.  You will be the regicides who bring it crashing down.

A TTRPG designed to indulge in the fantasy of bringing corrupt leaders to the justice they so richly deserve by our own damned hands, LET'S KILL THE KING offers 2-4 players and 1 game master a raucous couple hours of manic, king-hunting glory.  Absolutely no preparation of any kind is needed from either GMs or PCs: encounters are generated via table and the basics of who a character is can be rolled on the spot.  

Games like this one, which have a very strong premise and a very clear goal, are often really good options for folks who want little to no prep. You are sitting down knowing what all of you want - to kill the King - and you also have a few other facts that are already determined for you, such as the fact that you’re hunting through the Castle, so you have a good idea of the limits of what you might or might not find. I’m also a big big fan of the fact that you have two clocks that you can use to track your progress - one for the Hunt of the king, and one for the King’s escape!

Black Bars, by HMLW.

Black Bars is a roleplaying game for three people about slipping secrets past censors that want to prevent the TRUTH from getting out. One of you will play the Whistleblower, the one that creates the Secret and the Messages. Another will be the Censor, redacting the Messages whilst trying to discover the Secret yourself. The last of you is the Decoder, receiving a heavily obfuscated Message and tasked with finding out the Secret.

The prerequisites for Black Bars are pretty specific (3 players only), but I really like the goals for your characters here. A game about trying to code, decode and redact messages, you can invent all of your own reasons for why these messages are being sent and obfuscated, but you can also play competitively, which might allow for a nice transition from boardgames into roleplaying games, if that’s a background that your players share.

Goblin Errands, by Sharkbomb Studios.

Goblin Errands is a no-prep RPG for 2 to 4 goblins and one Tall Person. Together you'll go on comical (mis)adventures trying to complete seemingly mundane tasks as you struggle with a world not designed for you. 

You've just joined a new family of goblins and you are determined to prove yourself useful. Clearly, the best way to do so is by running errands for the community. 

Unfortunately as a goblin you live in a world made for folk much bigger and stronger than you. And on top of that you have only a single brain cell to work with - and one that you have to share with your fellow goblins. Even otherwise ordinary everyday tasks turn into hilarious challenges.

A lighthearted game with cute misadventures, Goblin Errands describes itself as a game about “solidarity among the unrecognized” - folks who don’t fit in to the infrastructure of the world as it is. It’s a game about underdogs, but the stakes feel rather low, so this might be a great palette cleanser, or a nice way to start roleplaying with a group of people you don’t know as well.

While the game styles itself as a no-prep one shot, you’ll probably have to do a bit of reading beforehand, just to make sure you know how the rules work. Character creation looks like it needs to happen at the beginning of the game, since you generate something called the kenn together. The fact that the goblins are sorted into playbooks signals easy of entry to me, since playbooks often provide all of the information you need to know about your character in one place.

When it comes to running the game, the GM will roll to generate an errand, but I think the obstacles and challenges that arise will likely become apparent thanks to the collaborative worldbuilding that happens before you create the characters.

Also For Your Consideration...

Low Improv Games

Zero-Prep Characters / One Shots

Holdfast Station, by Lampblack & Brimstone.

If you like what I do, consider leaving me a tip on Ko-Fi!

[the-timewatcher]

A disgruntled Tumblrina (gender-neutral) made a website and why you should too.

Or "reject social media, return to personal websites".

PART 1: THE PART WHERE I CONVINCE YOU TO MOVE TO PERSONAL WEBSITES

So, the Web 2.0 social media infested landscape seems to be crumbling before our very eyes. Reddit's leadership is increasingly greedy, Twitter is sinking under the weight of Elon's massive, yet increasingly fragile ego, Tumblr is slowly turning into another lifeless corpo-fest, complete with the layout, Instagram continues to be vapid and soulless and Facebook seems to be going the way of MySpace.

(feel free to check the alt text on these, btw)

In these troubling times, where everything looks the same and you're expected to be milked for every dollar you're worth, what is a disgruntled Internet surfer such as yourself to do? Move to an untested alternative that's bound to get overrun by fascists thanks to poor moderation? Stay the course on the sinking ships you're used to?

Well, what if I told you that we've solved this problem way back in the 90's and early 2000's and were merely duped by the Big Zuck into forgetting our legacy? What if there was a cure for the sanitized, dull social media hellscape?

It takes a bit of work, when compared to just using a social media site, but even if your particular use case makes switching difficult (ex. an artist looking to promote their work), it's still a good secondary option to consider.

The core appeal is the ability to customize and individualize, make a corner of cyberspace unabashedly yours,

It can also be an exciting avenue of creative expression, giving whatever you want to say a unique coat of paint,

Most website hosting services are a bit more lax about what you can do on them, due to changes in the profit structure (rather than depending on advertisers and investors, they either have a premium option to give supporters perks, have another product, or, in the case of paid services, you renting that space IS the product),

If you want your website to be more accomodating and accessible, you don't have to file tons of feedback - do it yourself,

If you'd like to connect with other webmasters and promote each other's websites, we have webrings - sets of circular links that connect websites with something in common, be it a topic, aesthetic or friend group,

You're less likely to have your stuff purged by an ill-advised change in policy (especially if you have a backup of your files somewhere),

The more people do it, the less power those massive social media corpos have over the internet,

It can be a load of fun!

If I have you convinced, keep reading into part 2. If you just wanna see what I did, skip to part 3. If neither, feel free to continue scrolling. I won't hold it against you. You'll be missing out, that's all.

PART 2: SO, YOU WANNA MAKE A WEBSITE!

Good choice, here's some resources!

sadgrl's absolute beginner's guide to Neocities - what it says on the tin!

W3Schools - a more in-depth tutorial site, a learning resource so excellent it substituted for what I was supposed to learn in technical highschool (because our teacher just told us to go on W3Schools instead of teaching us shit)

A list of free layouts for your website - whether to use as a base to learn from or to simply take for yourself,

Neocities - the posterchild for free website hosting for personal websites. Doesn't allow video or audio, but you can get around that by linking those files from elsewhere. Beginner-friendly to a fault - once you have an account just drag and drop your files in,

Gitlab (& Gitlab Pages) - a more advanced option, but it has a few advantages of its own. Gitlab is a website hoster second and a version control service first - which is programmer speak for "keeps track of changes in your code and stores a backup of it online". it helps a lot when working on multiple devices or co-writing with a friend. And secondly, you can use Gitlab Actions to automate putting your website up (even on Neocities, like I do!)

My askbox - I am not joking, if you have any questions about any of this, I'd love nothing more than to help you out!

But with most of my indie web propaganda out of the way, it's time.

PART 3: Welcome to Timewatcher OS.

Of course, because I couldn't be normal when it comes to making a website, I had to turn it into a fake operating system. Each subpage is an "app", opened in a separate embed window. It has unlockable wallpapers (no pay2win, prommy). There's bideo games on it! I even made a music player for it so I can share my incongruent music tastes!

Like I said in my Tumblr bio, if I ever go radio silent for more than a month, it means I've gotten fed up with this hellsite and moved to my own homepage permamently. And I highly advise you make an option like this for yourself too! Lastly, if any of y'all would like to start a webring, do let me know in the askbox - I'm down to manage it if I'm not alone in there.

Anyways, I hope I convinced you to make a website, or at least check out some of the cool sites you've been missing out on! Hope to see you on the Old Web!

[techalertr]

Shrink Data to 1 page | Excel page layout | Bulk data ko 1 page me kaise print karen 🔥🔥🔥 #shorts Full detailed video : https://youtu.be/LVvzsX6mhB0 #techalert #technical

[jadeshifting]

— HOGWARTS CLASS FAVORITES & NON-FAVORITES

( AKA 25 DAYS OF SHIFTMAS … DAY 10 )

Icicles — What is your occupation in your DR? Your coworkers? (Or if student, your classmates?) What is your favorite and least favorite aspect of your occupation?

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

a STUDENT at HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY

every part of my Hogwarts life is either a polished gem or a glaring nuisance—there’s no in-between, and i wouldn’t have it any other way. my academic experience is a mix of glamorous highlights and deeply petty frustrations, all colored by my passion for my studies (and unmistakable flair for dramatics)

CLASS FAVORITES

— POTION BREWING . i adore the simmer of bubbling elixirs and the snap of sharp, exotic scents—it’s chemistry meets witchy mischief

— LATE-NIGHT LIBRARY CRAWLS . there’s nothing quite like the whisper of pages in the Restricted Section at midnight and the thrill of finding spells that aren’t technically allowed

— WRITING ESSAYS WITH A MAGICAL FOUNTAIN PEN . ink that sparkles with a faint shimmer? my parchments are practically pieces of art

— CHARMS CLASS PRACTICAL EXAMS . a chance to show off my wand work with elegant, graceful flourishes that make my magic look like a ballet dance

— PERSONALIZING TEXTBOOKS . annotating margins with sharp quips and cheeky insights, plus enchanting my covers to look more luxurious—every book screams i was here

— WINNING MAGICAL THEORY DEBATES . watching someone crumble under my razor-sharp logic is intoxicating—intellectual combat at its finest

— LEARNING RARE SPELLS . anything obscure and tricky makes me feel like a prodigy (bonus points if it’s not exactly legal)

— QUILL SHOPPING . picking out sleek raven-feather quills that glide like liquid moonlight over parchment

— WINNING HOUSE POINTS . watching those emerald gems spill into Slytherin’s hourglass because of my brilliance? mwah

— TRANSFIGURATION CHALLENGES . the art of turning a teacup into a kitten feels like alchemy for the soul (and i love showing up classmates with my technique)

— PERFECTLY ORGANIZED NOTES . i charm my parchment into a flawless layout, complete with color-coded highlights that rival the most meticulous Ravenclaws

— IMPRESSING PROFESSORS . watching their eyebrows lift as i deliver a particularly brilliant answer feels like snagging a trophy

— SILENT HEXING PRACTICE . perfecting subtle wand flicks to cast spells with zero sound—it’s deadly elegance

— POTION BOTTLING . i spends extra time arranging my concoctions in sleek, jewel-toned vials—presentation matters

— TUTORING FRIENDS . while i try to be chill, so i’d never admit it, helping a mate ace a spell gives me a quiet, smug glow

— WRITING IN FANCY COLORS . deep emerald green and shimmering gold inks make my notes feel like royal decrees

— SNEAKING SNACKS INTO STUDY HALL . charm-conjured warming spells keep my contraband pastries just right (it’s fuel for genius)

— HOLIDAY-THEMED CLASSES . a transfiguration lesson where we turn goblets into snow globes? Hogwarts at its festive finest

— QUILLS THAT RUN OUT MID-ESSAY . very few things ruin a writing flow like needing to whisper-shout Replenish at an inkpot mid-thought

— CUSTOMIZED CALDRON GEAR . my engraved silver stirring rod and emerald-green scales are the high fashion of potion-making

— MAGICAL THEORY DEBATES . turning academic discussions into verbal duels—extra points if the professor lets it go on long enough for me to leave my opponent speechless

— FLAWLESS SPELL PRONUNCIATION . watching others trip over incantations while mine roll off her tongue like silk? that’s just witchy excellence

— ACE MARKS IN TRANSFIGURATION . when McGonagall gives a rare nod of approval, it’s like being handed the academic version of a crown

CLASS NON-FAVORITES (anti-favorites? hm)

— GROUP PROJECTS . the bane of my academic existence—carrying lazy tagalongs while maintaining my high standards is not the move

— HISTORY OF MAGIC LECTURES . Binns’ droning voice could put a banshee to sleep—i spends the hour doodling and muttering hexes under my breath

— UNNECESSARY OWL STRESS . i’m already going to ace everything; the professors need to stop pretending this is a life-or-death situation

— POORLY WRITTEN TEXTBOOKS . when a spell description is so convoluted it literally makes me twitch—who approved this drivel for the curriculum?

— MANDATORY STUDY HALLS . i don’t need structured time; i’ve already done the work—let me live

— CLEANING UP AFTER POTIONS . the bubbling, sticky mess after an advanced potion experiment makes my arms sore to think about

— THE ASTRONOMY TOWER STAIRS . dragging myself up those endless spiral stairs for star charts feels like cruel and unusual punishment

— GRYFFINDOR BOYS’ BRAGGING . listening to overzealous lions gloat about Quidditch victories in class when they clearly didn’t study for the upcoming test

— RAVENCLAW PERFECTIONISM . nowhere near as bad as the Gryffindors, but watching eagles over-analyze a single question until they spiral into a panic is both grating and exhausting to witness

— UNRULY POTION INGREDIENTS . slippery, wiggly, or overly smelly components? A hard no

— UNFORGIVABLY UGLY WIZARDING FASHION . the student who wore a clashing house scarf and mismatched robes still haunts my nightmares

— CARELESS WAND FLICKS . students waving their wands around like toys? a disaster waiting to happen

— CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES’ SMELLS . as much as i adore all of the creatures, the scent of burnt Blast-Ended Skrewt tail is a hard pass, personally

— LATE OWL DELIVERIES . nothing like a screech owl dropping an overdue textbook in my lap mid-breakfast

— END-OF-TERM ESSAYS . five feet of parchment on Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration? i’m convinced this absolutely qualifies as academic hazing

— HISTORY OF MAGIC NAP PATROL . Binns droning on and on about stuff i already know is a snooze-fest, but the fact that i know he’ll notice if i fall asleep—tragic

— SLOPPY SPELLWORK . watching someone fumble a first-year level basic spell makes me want to hex them into next week—standards, people

— PROFESSOR SPROUT’S DIRT OBSESSION . planting is fun, but endlessly digging in soil for Herbology feels more like a detention than a lesson

— UNFINISHED ASSIGNMENTS ON SHARED TABLES . if someone’s half-baked essay ends up under my notes when i’m trying to work, it’s going straight to the fire

— OVERACHIEVING GRYFFINDORS . watching them grandstand in Defense Against the Dark Arts just makes me roll my eyes—calm down, hero

— QUILL THIEVES . borrowing my enchanted, gold-tipped quill without asking will literally get someone on my watch list

— MUD EVERYWHERE AFTER QUIDDITCH PRACTICE . tramping through puddles to get to flying class while the quidditch team cheers? absolutely not

— ACCIDENTAL SPELL MISHAPS . being in the blast radius when someone botches a fire-starting spell isn’t the kind of hands-on learning i signed up for

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

[biconickyoshi]

Update on the status of the next TAatFP chapter!

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long you guys. Was out of town this past weekend for a family thing and have had to catch up on work notes and stuff all of the first half of this week. I have been working on those comic pages I mentioned every evening since we got back, and I think I’ve finally got them mostly finished (just need to add some final touches for cleanup).

I am very proud of how the pages came out, especially since it was my first time making anything comic-related - it definitely took a few tries to get the layout right. There are two pages each for Aang and Zuko, and I hope they help y’all visualize the scenes better. I’d like to do more of these comics/illustrations to go with chapter scenes in the future since they’re really fun to make, but I need to make sure I’m not putting too much work on myself because obviously it does create a delay for posting the chapter.

My goal is to finish the comic pages and post the chapter sometime this evening, so be on the lookout for an update notification if you’ve got those turned on! I’ll probably post the comic pages here too after I post the chapter :)

I appreciate all of y’all and I hope you have an excellent first day of spring! 🌸💐🌷🌻

[sprintingowl]

Changed Stars

More TTRPG reviews!

DieselShot sent me a copy of their big full-featured scifi TTRPG Changed Stars, and it was both polished and modern and a trip down memory lane to the mechanically robust heartbreakers of the 90s and early 00s.

I'll put the full review below, but if you like stuff like Farscape and Mass Effect and the Expanse, you should give this a look.

--

Changed Stars is a space opera TTRPG about a universe where humanity tried to colonize the galaxy and got quickly set to rights by the other reigning powers of space. Instead of simply backhanding humanity into their home gravity well, these powers took on humanity as a project---could they make us less like violent children and more like proper citizens of space?

The PDF is 306 pages, ​with small, dense text in a professional layout. This is an old school style full featured TTRPG, and it packs in information and art and mechanics. Everything is bookmarked and hyperlinked, and it feels relatively easy to navigate.

Writing-wise, both the ideas and execution are solid. The text feels compellingly told, and the geopolitical situations the book sets up feel chewy and interesting. Most of the conflict comes from humans falling back on old human atrocity-doing, and I think Changed Stars get a lot of mileage out of positioning us as the galaxy's work-in-progress disaster.

In terms of character creation, things are decently granular without being overcomplicated. There are four stats, twelve skills, quick and slow hp, and a decent spread of species to choose from. Classes are loose, and come with some attribute and skill bonuses, a couple feats, and a unique gimmick called an Edge Break where you can go all out in a class-specific way and then fall into a coma. To round things out there's a robust equipment section and a big chunky drones and vehicles chapter. Ships are quite detailed, and come with a wide range of things for crew to do in combat and while exploring, hitting a very gameable sweet spot in between "5e spelljammer" and "this game is now entirely about ships."

Mechanics-wise, Changed Stars uses a d6 pool. Sixes are hits, one hit is enough to succeed, additional hits can be used to "yes and" the success. Players have decent control over the dice with Edge, that same thing from the Edge Break I mentioned earlier. You can use it to nudge regular rolls too, taking smaller consequences in exchange for goosing the dice a little. Combat, survival, healing, and other tabletop staples are all at about the same level of complexity, but feel fully fleshed out.  Violence feels dangerous, and its consequences feel life threatening, but you can absolutely go loud and have a hero moment without dying.

For GMs, there's a huge worldbuilding section plus general advice, safety tools, a bestiary, and a starter scenario. Nothing feels missing, but also I don't know that anything in here will fundamentally change the way you GM if you've been doing it for a while.

For visual readers, the art by Patrice Danielle Long is excellent! It's a mix of black and white and color, and it does a very necessary job of anchoring the descriptions in the text to something immediate and tangible. The xenofauana looks nice, and the playable species have a lot of charm to them.

I think the folks who might bounce off of this game are those who are looking for something mechanically simple. Changed Stars isn't complicated for the sake of being complicated, but I'd also say it's at about Shadowrun complexity level. A 4--6 player group that's been doing TTRPGs for a while should be able to tackle it with ease. 

Overall, I'm glad games like this are still being made. A GM who clicks with the setting can spin a robust tale inside Changed Stars' universe, and a group who plays in it will get to make detailed characters, get into space hijinks, and more than likely shoot their way out.

[landoseswins]

GUYS GUYS GUYS

[Press Release]

FIA Approves Grade 1 Plans for Historic South African Circuit.

Constructed in 1961, the original Kyalami circuit established itself as the premier motorsport facility in Southern Africa. The pleasant summer climate made Kyalami a favourite destination for European competitors unable to compete on their home soil owing to the winter off-season.

By the mid-1970s Kyalami had gained recognition as one of the best Grand Prix circuits in the world, hosting a total of 21 F1 Grand Prix races. The Kyalami 9-Hour became a favourite race in the sports car world championship. Moto GP also visited Kyalami from 1983 to 1985. These events gained world-wide coverage, not only for the circuit but for South Africa as a country.

The current 4.522km layout, upgraded in 2016, already holds FIA Grade 2 certification and the Kyalami precinct has proven itself as a successful, self-sustaining venue with year-round commercial activity. The facility’s multi-use functionality—conferences, shows, exhibitions, activations, lifestyle events—remains central to its commercial model.

Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit is now poised to take the next step in the evolution of the track, having received confirmation that the Federation International de l'Automobile (FIA) has accepted final design proposals to upgrade the circuit to Grade 1 status—the highest international standard required to host Formula 1.

The FIA’s written acceptance of the amended design marks a significant achievement. Once the capital works are completed and a final inspection conducted, Kyalami will become Africa’s only FIA Grade 1 circuit, capable of hosting Formula 1 on the African continent.

At a press conference held at Kyalami, Circuit Owner Toby Venter and Clive Bowen, Founder and Director of UK-based Apex Circuit Design, detailed a plan which has been ongoing for five years, culminating in FIA approval of the venue’s upgrade design. Apex, an internationally recognised circuit design house also steered the design of, amongst others, the Miami Formula 1 street circuit.

“This is a defining moment for South African motorsport,” said Venter. “When we acquired Kyalami in 2014, we made a commitment to restore it not just as a world-class venue, but as a beacon for motorsport across the African continent. The FIA’s acceptance of our Grade 1 design is a major step forward in that journey.”

The proposed FIA Grade 1 upgrade—which notably requires no change to the circuit layout—focuses on enhancing run-off areas, barrier systems, debris fencing, kerbs, and drainage. “This is a light-touch upgrade in engineering terms, but one that enhances the already excellent circuit standards to meet modern Grade 1 requirements,” said Bowen.

The FIA plan approval grants Kyalami a three-year period to complete the intended Grade 1 upgrades. Initially, works will commence during periods when current business partners face no disruption to their event. Selected works will be actioned pending the successful outcome of South Africa’s place on the Formula 1 calendar and Kyalami being selected as the preferred hosting venue.

The Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit & International Convention Centre stands proud as Africa’s most iconic motorsport venue, and the preferred destination for a variety of events in the expanding metropolis between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

“Today, we turn the page to a bold new chapter for Kyalami. We are ready for the return of Formula 1 to African soil,” concluded Venter.

End.

[bitsofshanshine]

2025 Student Planner Notion Template: Your Ultimate All-in-one Study Hub

Imagine having everything you need to stay organized and focused in one sleek, customizable space. The 2025 Student Planner Notion Template offers an intuitive layout that makes managing your life seamless and stress-free. Perfect for high schoolers, college students, or anyone pursuing academic excellence, this template is your key to an empowered and successful year.

✿ What's Inside? ✿

Class Notes — Manage your study sessions with dedicated pages for every subject. Organize notes, jot down ideas, and never lose track of critical details.

Tasks & Assignments Page — Keep all of your tasks checklist in one place. Plan, prioritize, and track assignments and tasks with ease to stay on top of your deadlines.

Habits Tracker — Cultivate good habits and monitor your progress daily. Whether it’s studying, exercising, or self-care, track it all in one simple space.

Goal Tracker — Set and smash your goals! Whether academic or personal, this tracker keeps you motivated and focused on achieving what matters most.

Grade Tracker — Monitor your academic performance and calculate your grades effortlessly. Stay informed and motivated to excel.

Academic Calendar — View your entire school year at a glance. Add important dates, events, and deadlines to plan your academic journey effectively.

Upcoming Exams Schedule — Never miss an exam date! Organize your preparation schedule and stay stress-free with this dedicated feature.

Life Diary — Document your thoughts, experiences, and milestones. Reflect on your growth and cherish memories along the way.

Productivity Journal — Boost your productivity with structured journaling. Plan your days, track your progress, and celebrate your wins.

Additional Gifts

☘️ Free PNG images and Notion page banners that I used on this template (ZIP File)

✿ Get 2025 Student Planner Notion Template only on Gumroad and Ko-fi! ✿

[therottenkingsreckoning]

[TRANSCRIPT]

Ozzy: Hello Hello, what's going on here? Are there more of you now? Oh uhh…I guess there's more of me too.

Walter: (watching the scene) Damn, now that's hot. Wish I could be working on that right now.

Eddie: Uhh…Pardon?

Walter: What, have you never seen a limo before? Wait, DID YOU FU-

Yol: F-Friend William! We are holding a feast in honor of our guests later, if you should like to join us.

Walter: (instantly calm again) Oh, sure thing man!

Ozzy: Yeah, we're always down for what the crab is cooking.

Yol: Excellent!

Eddie: crab?

Yol: I shall see you there then.

(In the background, Wally can be seen approaching Sally)

Wally: Where were you? You had me spooked for a minute.

Sally: M-My apologies darling, I ah…I needed some air. Psychic work is quite exhausting.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Finally, after 7 months of artblock sucking out all of my energy, we've finally got another page of the comic! Moving forward, the panel layout and greyscale color will be more like this, which I think is much more appropriately comic-book. I've also added a few details you might've noticed, and which we'll pretend have always been there:

-Julie has a tail now because reasons

-Eddie has a Tgate (essentially a chest-mounted Bag of Holding) along with the smart glasses & gloves for it. He got it from a volunteer delivery job he's signed up for, tho for the moment it's being used to hold everyone's stuff.

-she isn't here for this page, but Barbie now also has the digi legs. They're just too fun not to draw, and I feel like it's more authentically dog to have them.

Work has already been started on page 12, so we're (hopefully) looking at a return to a semi-regular posting schedule. Stay tuned!

[THIS IS AN AU. NONE OF WHAT I POST IS CANON TO THE WELCOME HOME UNIVERSE.]

[littlejuicebox]

A Pocket Full of Rainbows, A Star Up My Sleeve (1950s AU) / Chapter 1: The Drive In

Click here to read on AO3.

Summary: It's 1957, and for the first time in his life, Astarion Ancunin is happy. He's a newlywed, his spouse, Gustav Adler, is the editor-in-chief of the city's second most prominent newspaper, and they play keeping up with the Atherwindes next door. They are picture-perfect domesticity. Or so it seems. Secrets Astarion has kept hidden from his spouse begin to surface around their first anniversary, and Gustav is left to wonder... who exactly did he marry?

Tags/Warnings: This one starts off with smut (light BDSM if you squint and tilt your head) in Chapter 1 so there's that. This longfic will have a lot of hurt/angst/comfort + mild gore + mentions of Astarion's past trauma. I will update with a warning if there is a significant concern in any chapter.

Notes: Special thanks to @leomonae for beta-reading and holding my hand while I write this entire thing that has taken hold of me body and soul. And special thanks to all the awesome supportive people on my discord server that have hyped me up enough to give me the courage to post this.

-----

Cigar smoke spirals out of the barely cracked mahogany door and into the newsroom as the editor-in-chief, Gustav Adler, finalizes the layout for this weekend’s edition of the Baldur’s Herald. He’s running late — he should have been halfway home, by now. His wife is going to be furious with him if they miss the beginning of the movie. 

But this story has a chance of finally getting the Baldur’s Herald ahead of the Baldur’s Gate Gazette; he has to get it just right. There is still more investigation to be done, of course, but no one can deny several missing persons and multiple eyewitness reports of a mindflayer in the lower city. It’s certainly enough to sell papers and promote intrigue. 

The paper had gotten a decent boost when he’d been promoted to editor-in-chief a few years ago. The promotion of an openly gay man – a half-drow, nonetheless – to the position had garnered quite a bit of attention. Good and bad, of course. But as the saying goes, all publicity is good publicity. 

In the Herald’s case, that had been true. The groundbreaking move had put the previously small paper on the map and quickly catapulted it to second place in the rankings, where it had been ever since. Tav was convinced it would only take one powerful story to overtake the Gazette; he felt confident the culmination of this story would be the one to do it. 

A rapid knock on the door pulls Gustav from his work as he takes another drag of his nearly finished cigar; his top investigator, Karlach, is leaning against the door jamb. 

“There’s been another mindflayer sighting. Dekarios is on the ground now, I’m on my way to meet him,” she says, her eyes alight with excitement. The tiefling had been chasing this story for weeks and finally had enough for her article to make the front page of this weekend’s issue.

“Excellent — I’ll be back in the office tomorrow morning, Kar. I expect an update then. I would go with you two, but the wife won’t forgive me if I cancel two weeks in a row,” Gustav responds as he extinguishes his cigar in the unfinished coffee that sat atop his desk all day. 

Karlach chuckles good-naturedly as she straightens from the doorframe and moves to put on the suit jacket she’d been holding in her hand. “Tell Astarion I said hello; and thank him again for mending this for me.” 

“Will do— oh, and Karlach, can you run this by the printers before you head out? It’s the final layout for the weekend edition,” the editor-in-chief says as he moves to exit his own office. He hands the mock-up to his journalist and heads out of the building for the night. In the parking lot, Gustav rushes to his car and hopes his wife isn’t too terribly upset with him for being a bit late.

Astarion had been Gustav’s secretary for nearly six months before he finally worked up the courage to ask the other man on a date. It was never easy for Tav, doing such a thing, although sexuality laws had changed in his early adulthood and it was common to see people just like him about the city nowadays.

He couldn’t have assumed Astarion was interested in men simply because he alternated between wearing suits and dresses – which had been, of course, one of the things that caught Tav’s attention and fascinated him early on. Astarion managed to look breathtaking in both; Gustav had never seen anything quite like him and spent more time than he should have admiring his secretary sitting just outside his office door. As it turned out, Astarion had been flirting with him for months; he had always worried he was misinterpreting the signals. 

It wasn’t until Karlach hassled him for a week that Tav finally broke down and asked Astarion to dinner. They dated for just under a year, and married as soon as they were legally allowed – all legal documentation still required assigned roles of husband and wife, and in the public sense, these designations were required across the board. They’d randomly assigned titles with the flip of a coin.

It seemed ridiculous, in the beginning. Bureaucracy and politics could be so short-sighted; the world never seemed to dot all its i's and cross all its t’s before moving on to the next agenda. In public, the couple always used the assigned titles; at first, this had been mostly to avoid confusion or ignorant comments. But then one night, Gustav had jokingly called Astarion his “wife” and it had instantly ignited something within his lover. He’d never seen his spouse so excited in bed until that moment. 

From then on, in public and in private, Astarion was his wife. The word just had different meanings depending on context. As an editor, Gustav could wholeheartedly appreciate the subtleties of the phrase; as a husband, he loved the effect the word had on his wife when they were in bed.

*

As Gustav pulls up to the brownstone townhouse he and Astarion share, he immediately notices the new gardenia shrubs and mulch surrounding the Atherwinde’s front stoop. A soft groan of annoyance escapes his lips; he’d planned to tend their own garden next weekend, but now he would have to move that project up. He was not about to let their annoying nextdoor neighbor, Edmund Atherwinde, throw subtle remarks at him for an entire week whenever they ran into one another while leaving for work. Gustav is almost certain Eddie waits to see when he comes out in the morning, just to harass him as they both climb into their Chevrolet Bel-Airs. Gustav’s is the most recent model; Eddie’s is last year’s model. Not that he’s comparing, of course.

He glances at his wristwatch; it’s twenty minutes past the time he was supposed to be home. They should still be able to eat dinner and make it to the drive-in. He grabs the bow-wrapped box from the backseat and then makes his way into the townhome.

A quick jangle of keys echoes through the short foyer before Gustav calls, “Astarion, I’m home!”

“You’re late,” a cool, clipped voice replies from the kitchen. “I’ve had to keep dinner warm in the oven for twenty minutes, Tav.” 

“I’m sorry, baby,” Gustav responds as he moves to join his wife. He presents the box to Astarion with a toothy smile and a wink. “But, perhaps this will make it up to you.” 

The scowl that had been painted across Astarion’s face soon pulls up into a grin as he takes the box from Tav. A quick tug of the black grosgrain ribbon reveals the present inside – a mink stole. A soft gasp escapes Astarion as he removes the fur shawl from the packaging and wraps it around his shoulders. 

“Gorgeous,” Gustav compliments as he admires his lover. “I think it will go well with the gown you plan on wearing for our anniversary dinner.”

“Of course it will, darling,” Astarion responds before lifting onto his toes and pressing a kiss against his husband’s cheek, right upon the old scar Gustav got back in his military days. “It’s beautiful, thank you. Now, dinner, dear– and we’d better hurry.”

*

Dinner was nothing to write home about. Astarion was a fair to middling cook nowadays – in the beginning of their marriage, he’d burnt nearly every meal he made. Almost a year later, he’d managed to get the hang of a few simple recipes. Gustav, to his credit, never complained. All his time in the military taught him to accept far meager offerings than his wife’s creations; if he could eat cold beans from an aluminum can, he could handle a slightly charred meatloaf. 

They made it to the drive in just as the last previews finished. Astarion had been exceptionally excited to see this film – a horror movie about vampires, of all things. Gustav was not particularly interested in the movie, but willingly endured for his wife’s happiness. Until, of course, Astarion pressed up against him a little over halfway through the film – an innocent reaction to the scene playing on screen – and gripped dangerously high on Gustav’s thigh. 

Desire immediately flared through Tav, and when he turned to look at his wife, he wanted nothing more than to smear the perfectly painted red lipstick on the other man’s lips. So he did.

They were locked in a passionate kiss for several minutes, the movie all but forgotten. Their tongues wrapped around one another in a familiar embrace, a comfortable dance the two of them had become accustomed to. It did not take long for Gustav to begin advancing eagerly upon his wife.

“You’re insatiable,” Astarion chuckles as his lover playfully nips into his neck. A delighted shiver ghosts up his spine.

“Can you blame me?” Gustav asks as his lips trail to his lover’s chest, just exposed by the neckline of Astarion’s collared dress. His tongue swirls along alabaster skin before a sly hand moves under the skirt hem. “You’re delicious… and I’d very much like to have a taste.” 

Gustav’s thick, purple-gray fingers run along the inside of Astarion’s pale, muscled thigh and travel all the way up to the edge of a sheer, nylon stocking. He quickly finds a garter strap, pulls, and releases the elastic band. Astarion jumps and gasps as the skin on his leg turns into gooseflesh; his husband palms insistently between his legs.

“S-surely you don’t mean here, Tav,” Astarion whispers, his legs spreading slightly, making more room to accommodate the hand teasing his hardening cock. But even as Astarion says it, he’s hoping his husband actually does mean here – the mere thought of such a scandalous act is causing arousal to dampen the front of his undergarments. 

“Mmh, and why not?” Gustav asks, already beginning to slide from his seat, down to the floorboard. He wanders his hand down under the seat and pushes it back as far as it will go. It isn’t much, but enough for him to comfortably kneel between Astarion’s legs. He brings his hands to his wife’s knees and slowly presses them open with a sly smile. 

“I…” Astarion tries to respond, his face suddenly feeling quite hot as a blush of both embarrassment and desire spreads across his skin. His mouth goes dry as he looks down at the man between his legs. Gustav is slowly pushing up the hem of Astarion’s skirt and peering up at his lover as he licks his lips. 

“Do you want me to stop?” He questions, cocking his head just slightly. When his wife doesn’t respond, he begins to lower Astarion’s skirt; his purple-gray hand is suddenly caught between slender, milky-white fingers.

“Keep going,” Astarion quietly urges before casting a glance out the window. They’re in the final row of the drive-in. Only one other car is in the same row as them, and the couple in that car are far too distracted by one another’s mouths to pay any mind to the two men.

Gustav hums happily as he unceremoniously lifts Astarion’s skirt and drops his head underneath; he’s greeted with a pale, leaking cock straining against a pair of sheer, silk panties. The sight causes his own cock to stir in his trousers. 

“Now be a good little wife and hold very, very still for me, baby,” Gustav commands with a final snap of Astarion’s garter strap. His wife gasps and squirms in his seat before obediently stilling. Tav doesn’t waste any more time with foreplay; his hands come under Astarion’s dress and quickly tear the underwear in two – he’ll buy a replacement pair later. Astarion’s cock springs proudly from its confines, bobbing slightly and begging to be sucked.

Tav brings both hands to the pale thighs on either side of his head as he pulls Astarion’s cock into his mouth. His tongue swirls around the head languidly, causing more pre-fluid to leak onto his tongue. The salty, musky taste makes his mouth water in delight. He’s certain he will never tire of tasting his wife.

A whimper escapes Astarion’s lips when his husband takes all of his length. Gustav’s warm, wet throat contracts around Astarion’s cock and then, much too soon, he retracts and begins to swirl his tongue around its pink, swollen head. Tav repeats this several times and each time his throat squeezes around Astarion, it takes everything within him to not buck upwards. His thighs are trembling. He so badly wants to move, to seek the heat of his lover’s mouth. But he wants to be a good wife, so he forces himself to obey the command. 

The excited keening becomes louder and more insistent the longer Gustav teases him. By now the movie is almost over, and Astarion is catching flashes of the end scene through blurred vision and panting breaths. He clamps his eyes shut as Gustav, once again, swallows him to the hilt. This time his husband holds the position and hums, both hands squeezing into Astarion’s thighs.

“Aah, Tav–” Astarion whimpers, his tone pleading, “Tav, please–” 

But Gustav retracts and his wife whines. He cannot help but smile at the neediness. He forces Astarion’s skirt up over his thighs, exposing his arousal-slicked face and his lover’s hard, weeping cock all at once. He peers up at his wife with a pleased smirk; Astarion meets him with half-hooded lids and blown pupils. 

“Already, baby? Really?” Gustav purrs, one hand coming to caress Astarion’s scrotum. He applies a light bit of pressure and admires the way pre-fluid dribbles from his lover’s desperate cock. His tongue darts out to slowly lap up the string of clear liquid running down Astarion’s shaft. “I don’t think I’ve worshiped my wife quite long enough.” 

Astarion impatiently squirms in his seat. He’d been doing a rather excellent job holding still until now, but the ache between his legs is growing increasingly insistent, and his husband has teased him long enough. When Gustav’s hands wrap around his cock he moans and his head falls back reflexively. The movie’s end credits are starting to roll. 

“Please, Gustav… I can’t– I can’t any longer, please–” Astarion begs, through sharp shaking breaths. His hips stutter forward insistently into the other man’s fists.

“Very well,” Gustav responds, and with little warning he drops his hands and takes all of Astarion in his mouth again. Pale fingers clutch into Tav’s cropped white hair, pulling slightly just at the nape of his neck. He hums his encouragement as he bobs his head up and down the length of his wife’s cock, covering it in saliva and spreading the growing amounts of pre-fluid dripping from its tip.

Gustav can tell by the breathy keening sounds his wife is making that he is close to release. His own cock is straining within his trousers – but that can wait until they get home. The first orgasm always leaves Astarion desperate for more, anyway. 

Tav swallows Astarion’s length once again, intentionally contracting his throat around the pale cock in his mouth. His wife bites back a moan and comes, hips thrusting up as warm seed spills down Tav’s throat. Astarion’s cock continues to pulse for a while longer, and Tav expertly swallows every last drop of his lover’s spend. 

When he feels the other man’s fingers retract from his hair, Gustav carefully pulls back and releases Astarion’s slowly softening cock. He swirls his tongue around the tip one last time, forcing a final whimper from his lover before easing back and placing a few kisses against Astarion’s thigh. 

“Darling,” Astarion pants as he runs his fingers through sweat-drenched curls. His lipstick is completely smeared across his face; he looks wrecked. “Take me home and make love to me.”

Gustav grins in response as he begins to climb back into the driver’s seat. Many of the cars in the lot have pulled away by now. “Anything for my beautiful wife.” 

*

They crash through the townhome door, a mess of half-removed clothing and desire. Astarion shoves Tav against the front entrance as soon as it shuts behind them and grinds himself along Tav’s thigh. The rotary phone in the living room is ringing, but they pay it no mind. 

Gustav quickly undoes the buttons of his wife’s dress and strips it from his body. He’s entirely naked underneath, save the garter belt and stockings – the ruined bits of underwear were left on the floorboard of the car. Astarion is undoing his husband’s belt buckle when the phone stops ringing; he moves to drop to his knees right in front of Tav, but he is quickly pulled back up.

“Not here on the tile, baby. It’s much too hard,” he murmurs as he guides his wife over to the carpeted living room. As soon as they’re in front of the couch, Astarion rips Tav’s trousers and undergarments off in one swift motion and then guides his husband to sit on the serpentine sofa. 

“Now, darling, let me repay you for earlier,” Astarion purrs as his hands teasingly slide up his lover’s purple thighs. He’s just about to take Gustav’s cock in his hands when the phone begins ringing again; it’s a sharp, shrill, distracting sound.

Gustav groans in irritation. He quickly leans over to pull the handset from the stand and uses a finger to hang up on the caller. He tosses the receiver haphazardly, leaving it off the hook so that the phone will not ring and interrupt him and his wife again. It’s well past ten at night; whoever is calling can wait until the morning and call back then.

He turns his attention back to Astarion and smiles. Then, he reaches out and brings two fingers under his wife’s chin before he gently presses upwards. They meet one another with a slow, gentle kiss. When Gustav retracts, Astarion is staring up at him in wide-eyed adoration.

“Now, where were we?” Gustav asks. Astarion chuckles in response before wrapping two pale hands around the cock in front of him; it’s already leaking in anticipation as he slowly strokes up and down the length.

“I think we were just getting to the good part, my love,” Astarion murmurs, peering up at his husband through hooded lids before dropping his head to take Gustav between a pair of lipstick-smeared lips.

The phone stays off the hook for the rest of the night. 

[twopoppies]

Hi! So I was actually at Morriña festival a few days ago and wanted to ask your opinion on the theory that Harry was there, then saw that you already posted a bit about it. So here’s my take. I’m actually still on the fence about it, but leaning towards “within the realm of possibility”.

My arguments in favour:

• Louis was very funny and cheeky with fans for most of the show, but for some specific lines he got significantly more serious. What stuck out to me personally was “love you cannot hide” in The Greatest, the entirety of Saturdays, the second verse of We Made It. His gaze seems to be much more focused and pointed, not moving at all, and with it being during these specific lyrics… I am ready to clown lol.

• In the beginning of We Made It (and maybe more times, this is just what I recorded) he pointed twice somewhere high - too high for fan signs, but lower than he usually points for emphatic value. And I think that he pointed in the general direction of the projector tower, which, as I’ll explain later, is the likeliest place for Harry to be if he was there.

• There was technically a place for Harry to hide at, despite the open layout of the festival. You can see the scheme at the festival’s insta page here https://www.instagram.com/p/C9zvd7ni6MF/?igsh=MWdkMWhkZDZqb2NsYQ== and the building you initially posted about was indeed just a warehouse with toilets. I was inside, although a little drunk already, but I only remember very high ceilings and windows to let in natural light, so I am 99% sure that there is no proper second floor. Other buildings on the site are too small, so instead my best bet is the projector tower in front of the stage. I saw some people say that there was someone in the side of the stage, but I couldn’t notice anything, and I had an excellent view of that side, plus Louis didn’t look that far to his left.

• After the show Louis posted a picture of himself from the back, and the tower is well within his range of aforementioned medium-high pointing.

• Harry’s most recent bike pictures - they were backdated exactly to July 26. I don’t have nearly as many experience as you, but to me such backdated pap pictures have come to mean that Harry was actually in a different place that day.

My arguments against:

• Based on what I could observe from my spot, Louis’ gaze doesn’t seem to (always) land on a plausible spot for Harry to hide in. Sometimes it goes a little too far to the left from the projector tower (even on the picture he posted he seems to be looking more to his left), and there are no other suitable buildings in that direction. Unless we consider industrial buildings beyond the festival grounds, but this seems ridiculous to me. I doubt that Harry could’ve come to a random Galician cement company and be like “Oh, my secret boyfriend is performing in front of here tonight, can I please hand around your cement mixing tower or whatnot for half the night?”

• I only notices a lot of the aforementioned things a good while after the show, when I heard that Harry was supposedly there and began rewatching my footage to prove or disprove that. So I may be cherrypicking facts to fit what I would really like to be true. Except for the Saturdays thing, though; he was genuinely so emotional during it, and his demeanour shifted so suddenly when he started it, that I noticed this even in the moment.

So here’s what I can say, what’s your opinion?

And an unrelated fact for your interest: the majority of the crowd, or at least those who camped and ended up at the barricade, were larries (I was at the barricade too btw… best night of my life). During Back To You Louis didn’t sing the “I love … “ line at all, but we all screamed “I love him” and he nodded and smiled at us.

Lots of love and best wishes :)

Hi, sweetheart. You comment about the cement mixing tower made me laugh. 🤣🤣🤣

First of all, I’m so glad you were there and got to be at the barricade, and had such a good show.

Second, I do think the photos of Harry in London were likely from any day but the day they dropped, based on his clothing (and that there was no particular reason for him to be papped in London that day)

Third, I don’t think it’s impossible that he was at the festival, and your comments about why and where, make more sense than anything I’ve seen yet. We’ll never know for sure, but I’d love to believe he was able to be there.

x