#probably multiple campaigns running at the same time

[vvitchinthewoods]

there is absolutely a D&D club in the Spider Society and you cannot convince me otherwise

[flickering-nightfall]

Playing with some ideas mostly regarding gender/reproduction in RW, and slugcat colonies.

Full transcript under the cut!

Creatures in Rain World are typically simultaneous hermaphrodites but require partners to reproduce, with either individual capable of being a genetic donor or carrier. Alongside what we are familiar with, this has lead to interesting reproductive strategies such as rotating donor/carrier roles, or dual/simultaneous genetic swaps.

Rotating donor/carrier roles - A K-selection reproductive strategy. One partner carries the first child, the other partner carries the next child, and so forth. Allows each partner to recover from the demands of childbearing.

Rain Deer aren't quite monogamous, but they tend to choose the same breeding partner whenever mating season rolls around. They serve as a donor one season, then bear and raise a child the next. Calves are raised away from the rain and worm grass, in places that have less food but more safety. Calf wool is softer, not yet gunked up by the dirty rainfall. Their legs are sturdier as children, allowing them to run for cover while the parent wards off threats.

Dual/simultaneous genetic swap - An r-selection reproductive strategy. Parents fulfill the donor and carrier role for each other. The more children you make, the more likely some are to survive!

Multiple batflies lay thousands of eggs in a single "blue fruit." Several eggs congeal and become nutrient paste for the surviving eggs (and for hungry slugcats). Like some plant seeds, batfly eggs that are consumed before pupating can survive passing through the digestive system. Ew.

Ancients also fell under this umbrella. Their genders (and the genders of iterators by extension, who have no sex anyways) could have been determined by a variety of other factors, such as societal role, donor/carrier preference, or simply different categorizations of personal expression.

It's difficult to say how well their common pronouns would translate to ours, but it seems they can translate to an extent, given what Moon and Pebbles use canonically.

Slugcats, like real slugs, can have children with a partner or self-fertilize. Unlike real slugs, they are often known to adopt.

In the case of self-fertilization: children who are born from one parent may display a large amount of genetic diversity despite the circumstances. Maybe slugcats have some sort of... genetic reservoir independent of their own genetic code?

Slugcats live 20-30 years on average... if they manage to reach adulthood. Their mortality rate is sadly rather high, especially in pups. If they were to develop as a civilization, it's likely their lifespan would increase dramatically.

Slugcats in a colony are more likely to have more children, and to successfully rear those children to adulthood, than those who wander alone or in small groups. The safety and stability of a colony cannot be understated.

Colonies either have a set, cycling migration path, or wander continuously. Survivor and Monk's tree home was a nesting site that their colony frequents about once a year. So it's likely that they'll see their family again!

...also, the strength of large colonies are why scavengers are likely to become the dominant species. In the time of Saint's era, continuous migration has become more of a risk, and it has become more difficult to support large populations. Slugcat populations have shrunk back to the more forgiving equatorial zones.

Saint's tongue is pretty unusual and probably unique to them, or to a small population that they hail from. Fur (of varying thickness) is much more common.

Meanwhile, scavengers are bulkier and covered in thicker insulating fur. They:

have seemingly massive populations

have a burgeoning society (the existence of merchants, tolls, bartering, elites and leaders)

are adept at communicating (non-verbally)

manipulate their environment

can build structures (scavenger-made structures were a scrapped idea from Saint's campaign)

can create complex weapons and tools

may have agriculture behind the scenes (unsure if scout parties prioritize exploration or hunting)

I would wager on scavengers developing more quickly than slugcats, but it would be nice if there was a future where both could co-exist.

[honeyspawn]

A few thoughts about the recent starkid news:

1) BRYCE CHARLES AS THE LEAD fhdnxkksbzbsn

I can't wait to see more of Bryce. She's so talented, and I can't wait to see her in a lead role. I know we all know she's a great singer, but I think her acting is really incredible, and often overlooked. Her performances as Shapiro and Rose were some of my personal favorites.

2) Really excited for some high-fantasy. As much as I love hatchetfield, I'm really excited to see other genres than just horror.

3) Evil mom puppet. Idk what this means, but I love it.

4) Space Baby is coming soon (it's a pilot, right? I don't really remember, but I'm still excited)

5) I'm still not convinced that the thing Jon, Mariah, and Angela (and probably others) were shooting earlier this month was related to the new musical (and Curt confirmed that it wasn't Space Baby either). The way Jon referenced his Uber driver being Paul really seemed like he was hinting at it being a Hatchetfield thing. I'm not ruling out nmt season 3, but I don't want to get my hopes up too high since it seems like their working on a lot right now. Still, it's not unheard of for them to crowdfund multiple projects at the same time, so it's still a possibility. That leads me to;

6) it's probably going to be a while before the musical is actually produced. I imagine the April announcement will be the kickstarter campaign. Then obviously they have to book venues and rehearsal spaces and stuff, and of course actually rehearse. At the earliest, I would guess the show will run around the end of this year, and the proshot will come next spring or summer, but it may be even later. I just think this is good to keep in mind, so we don't get too far ahead of ourselves.

Overall, a lot of cool things are happening, and I'm very excited about them.

[mariacallous]

On Sunday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson went on television and mixed up Iran and Israel. “We passed the support for Iran many months ago,” he told Meet the Press, erroneously referring to an aid package for the Jewish state. Last night, the Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters introduced South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as hailing from South Carolina. I once joined a cable-news panel where one of the participants kept confusing then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. I don’t hold these errors against anyone, as they are some of the most common miscues made by people who talk for a living—and I’m sure my time will come.

Yesterday, President Joe Biden added another example to this list. In response to a question about Gaza, he referred to the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the president of Mexico. The substance of Biden’s answer was perfectly cogent. The off-the-cuff response included geographic and policy details not just about Egypt, but about multiple Middle Eastern players that most Americans probably couldn’t even name. The president clearly knew whom and what he was talking about; he just slipped up the same way Johnson and so many others have. But the flub could not have come at a worse time. Because the press conference had been called to respond to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents, which dubbed the president an “elderly man with a poor memory,” the Mexico gaffe was immediately cast by critics as confirmation of Biden’s cognitive collapse.

But the truth is, mistakes like these are nothing new for Biden, who has been mixing up names and places for his entire political career. Back in 2008, he infamously introduced his running mate as “the next president of the United States, Barack America.” At the time, Biden’s well-known propensity for bizarre tangents, ahistorical riffs, and malapropisms compelled Slate to publish an entire column explaining “why Joe Biden’s gaffes don’t hurt him much.” The article included such gems as the time that then-Senator Biden told the journalist Katie Couric that “when the markets crashed in 1929, ‘Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, “Look, here’s what happened.”’” The only problem with this story, Slate laconically noted, was that “FDR wasn’t president then, nor did television exist.”

In other words, even a cursory history of Biden’s bungling shows that he is the same person he has always been, just older and slower—a gaffe-prone, middling public speaker with above-average emotional intelligence and an instinct for legislative horse-trading. This is why Biden’s signature moments as a politician have been not set-piece speeches, but off-the-cuff encounters, such as when he knelt to engage elderly Holocaust survivors in Israel so they would not have to stand, and when he befriended a security guard in an elevator at The New York Times on his way to a meeting with the paper’s editorial board, which declined to endorse him. And it’s why Biden’s key accomplishments—such as the landmark climate-change provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the country’s first gun-control bill in decades, and the expected expansion of the child tax credit—have come through Congress. The president’s strength is not orating, but legislating; not inspiring a crowd, but connecting with individuals.

That said, although Biden’s Mexico mistake might not be a demonstration of dementia, it is a warning sign of a different sort that his campaign would be wise to heed. Recently, the White House declined to have Biden participate in the traditional pre��Super Bowl interview this coming Sunday. The administration framed this decision as part of a broader strategy favoring nontraditional media, but it was reasonably seen as an attempt to shield the candidate from scrutiny. The president’s staff is understandably reluctant to put Biden front and center, knowing that his slower speed and inevitable gaffes—both real and fabricated—will feed the mental-acuity narrative. But in actuality, the bar for Biden has been set so laughably low that he can’t help but vault over it simply by showing up. By contrast, limiting his appearances ensures that the public mostly encounters the president through decontextualized social-media clips of his slipups.

As Slate observed in 2008, the frequency of Biden’s rhetorical miscues helped neutralize them in the eyes of the public. In 2024, Biden will have an assist from another source: Donald Trump. Among other recent lapses, the former president has called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “the leader of Turkey,” confused Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley, and repeatedly expressed the strange belief that he won the 2020 election. With an opponent prone to vastly worse feats of viscous verbosity, Biden can’t help but look better by comparison, especially if he starts playing offense instead of defense.

But none of this will happen by itself. If the president and his campaign want the headlines to be something other than “Yes, Biden Knows Who the President of Egypt Is,” they’ll have to start making news, not reacting to it.

[autolenaphilia]

Fuck Chromium (and that includes Brave and Vivialdi)

I have made multiple posts about why you should use Firefox, and of course I get the reply "not all chromium browsers are bad, they are not all as evil as Chrome." And sure, browsers who use the chromium code are not required to do all the shady things that Google does with it.

Still, I think it's bad that chromium-based browsers are getting close to total market dominance. By this point it has made Google's competitors like Microsoft and Opera drop their own unique proprietary browser engines for chromium. Browsers are becoming a fucking monoculture at this point. And Chromium becoming the browser code base of choice empowers Google, since they are the ones who mainly develop, maintain and fund its code. It means supporting them in their quest to become an internet monopoly that can do things like drm the web itself.

So let me be clear: you are still supporting google by using chromium-based browsers. By helping out in making chromium the de facto standard for browsers, you are giving google power. They are the ones driving chromium development, they will set the standards. And those standards will be in Google's favor. They are an ad company, their goal is to kill off adblockers by making them impossible to use, first with manifest v3 for extensions and now WEI, their web drm.

Brave is a joke.

The supposed "good guy" chromium browsers people recommend are actually shady as shit.

The one i see recommended the most is Brave, and it's fucking terrible. For one thing, it is funded by right-wing techbro Brendan Eich. He was Mozilla CEO for some time, but then people found he was a massive homophobe who funded campaigns against marriage equality, and Mozilla forced him to resign. And that's why he created Brave. That's who you are supporting by using Brave.

It runs off chromium because that's the easy and lazy choice for a browser. And it's literally funded through cryptocurrency, probably the negative environmental impact is a plus in Eich's book. And its adblocker runs off the same dishonest business model as adblock plus does, it will not block ads if advertisers pay them for the privilege. This betrayal of the users is opt-in at least, and you get paid for watching ads, but it's in the aforementioned worthless crypto beans. Brave is a joke.

Vivaldi and the importance of open-source

And then there's Vivaldi, it's a freeware proprietary browser run by a for-profit company, which alone should scare you off it.

"If you aren't paying for it, you are not the customer, you are the product" is a phrase that sometimes unfairly gets applied to open source projects to dismiss them. If it's open source and either community-run or run by a non-profit foundation like the Open document foundation for Libreoffice and or the Mozilla foundation for Firefox/Thunderbird, you are safe even if it's free.

But that phrase 100% applies to free products from for-profit corporations. These companies need to make profits at some point for for their shareholders, and if it is not from selling goods or services, it comes from things like selling your user's data or "attention".

That applies to Vivaldi, who makes big promises about how they will respect their users privacy and never sell their data. But promises mean nothing, Google also says they respect your privacy. And the thing is, Vivaldi is closed source. Not entirely, ironically the bits they got from Google's chromium are open source, but other parts of their code is closed-source. And what that means is, they can make any and all promises about what their browser's code does and there is nobody except Vivaldi that can check if their code actually fulfils those promises. Only Vivaldi has access to that code.

I'm no open-source fanatic, like I don't care if some random game i install and play is closed-source, as long as it is from a credible developer. But open-source is important for security and privacy, because that means someone else other than the company who develops the program can vet it's code for vulnerabilities and privacy violations. Your browser and e-mail client (vivaldi has an e-mail client too) should be open-source for your own safety, because those programs handle sensitive data like your passwords or your e-mails. Closed-source is not more secure, since Kerckhoff's principle applies to digital security and privacy.

And Vivaldi by being proprietary software fails that test. Their own justification is that being closed-source is "their first line of defense, to prevent other parties from taking the code and building an equivalent browser (essentially a fork) too easily." It's the same hypocritical argument that Red Hat used to justify making their Enterprise Linux distro closed-source. "It's fine if we use chromium's code to build our own browser, and expressly for making an Opera clone (that's the literal point of Vivaldi, that's why the name is a music reference), but if someone does the same with our product, they're evil." It's nauseating and alone justification to distrust Vivaldi as it is crying out to be trusted.

Listen to some Antonio Vivaldi instead, his music slaps. And install Firefox and Thunderbird instead.

[prokopetz]

The third major revision of the increasingly overwrought tabletop RPG about what if Samus Aran was secretly three to five space gerbils operating a person-sized mech suit is now up.

This is primarily an "expansions and clarifications" type update, with few major structural changes, apart from splitting scenes into multiple types and providing simplified rules for the less critical ones. Those expansions and clarifications are substantial, however, so if you're updating from the previous playtest draft I'd definitely recommend giving the changelog a once-over.

My next steps, in no particular order:

Finish the mech suit upgrades table (there are currently a couple of unfilled slots, and I'd like to bump it up to a full 18 eventually)

Provide some examples of pre-generated space gerbil roles

Discussion of campaign play (including advancement)

Discussion of playing without a GM (possibly including solo play?)

Add a bunch of big stupid random mission tables (needed for both GMless play and hypothetical solo play module)

As always, comments, criticisms, and bizarre rants are welcome. Additionally, this is probably the first major revision of the game where a full end-to-end run is feasible (at least for a one-shot), so if anyone would like to volunteer to run an actual playtest, please drop me a line!

Illustrations by @pencilbrony

Full changelog under the cut:

Space Gerbils Changelog 2023-01-08

Note: all page numbers refer to the PDF version.

Print-and-play token sheet updated with twelve additional papercraft minifigs, courtesy of @pencilbrony

Added a brief inspirational media section (p. 8) and a not-so-brief glossary (pp. 9–14)

Two new full-page illustrations by @pencilbrony (pp. 16, 28)

Added procedures for randomly selecting starting mech suit upgrades and increased number of starting upgrades to 2 (p. 21)

Added two new mech suit upgrades ("Co-pilot Protocols" and "Copy Circuit") (pp. 21–22)

Re-worked "Hyperdrive" upgrade for compatibility with revised critical success rules (below) (p. 22)

Re-worked "Well Maintained" upgrade so that it doesn't require players to keep track of how many times it's been used in each scene; all upgrades are now either "once per scene" or "once per phase" (p. 23)

Added six new proficiencies ("Bodyguard", "Fringe Science", "Machine Empathy", "Motivational Speaker", "Observant" and "Psychic") (pp. 24–26)

Re-worked "Direct Neural Interface" proficiency so that it no longer benefits from cost discounts for pushing yourself (p. 24)

Re-worked "Special Operations" proficiency to be less complicated and (somewhat) less overpowered (p. 26)

Added a note about re-naming proficiencies (p. 27)

Made starting Stress Limit more explicit (p. 27)

Revised phase flowchart to reflect simpified workflow (see below) and made it available as a separate PDF (p. 29)

Re-worked Setup Phase to allow players to choose their initial positions (p. 30)

Clarified that Extravehicular Activity task may not be performed if doing so would result in no space gerbils crewing the mech suit (p. 32)

Revised protocol descriptions (p. 34)

Added rules for multitasking (p. 35)

Clarified handling of Fallout Phase when multiple tests were made in preceding Action Phase (p. 37)

Critical success now occurs on any success where the chosen result shows doubles or better, not just double 6s; critical success and complications may now occur on same test (p. 38)

"Lost" complication re-named "Scrambled", and now disallows Reassigning in following Operations Phase (pp. 39–40)

"Delayed" complication re-named "Time Loss" (pp. 39–40)

Subsection on complications and physical threats removed and replaced with more general discussion of interpreting mixed outcomes (p. 41)

Workflow for End Phase simplified; the End Phase now always follows the Fallout Phase, and its triggers no longer depend on what happened in phases prior to the Fallout Phase (p. 42)

Clarified and expanded End Phase triggers, and included a trigger for all space gerbils Stressing Out at the same time (p. 42)

Added explicit rules for recovering Stress and conditions between scenes (p. 42)

"Hazardous" condition re-named "Unsafe" to avoid potential confusion with scene Hazards (p. 44)

Brief discussion of mission structure added to "Running the Game" (p. 47)

Scenes now divided into two types: engagements and interludes (pp. 49–59)

Re-named Mission Clock to Threat Clock (p. 49)

Expanded discussion of Obstacle traits (p. 52)

Added eight new Obstacle traits ("Barrier", "Cryptic", "Hazardous", "High Risk", "Jinxed", "Small Target", "Stressful" and "Volatile") (pp. 52–54)

"Secure" Obstacle trait re-named "Big Target" (p. 52)

"Consequence" Obstacle trait re-named "Fixed Consequence" (p. 53)

Added rules for scene Hazards (p. 55)

Added discussion of handing the end of an engagement (p. 56)

Simplified rules for handling non-critical scenes and having adventures outside the mech suit (pp. 57–59)

[tobiasdrake]

While you’re on the subject of underexplored Dragon Ball trivia, could you tell us something on the Dragon Balls themselves?

Hmm... not sure how much underexplored trivia I know on the subject. I think most of the details about what the Balls are and how they work are pretty well known. But I can go into a run-down.

Originally based on Journey to the West, the core purpose of the Dragon Balls is to provide a sort of miraculous quest of worthiness to their seeker. On Namek, the planet they come from, each one of six Balls, stars 2-7, is carried by the Choro or "Elder" of the village. To make your wish to Porunga, you must visit each village in turn and pass some great test of virtue that the Choro demands of you.

With the final Dragon Ball, the One-Star Ball, resting in the hands of Saichoro or "Grand Elder". He is the final arbiter of worthiness for your desire to receive a miracle from Porunga.

Krillin, incidentally, is the only person during the campaign on Namek to successfully pass a Namekian elder's measurement of virtue rather than taking a Ball by force. For escorting Dende to the safety of Saichoro's home and for having genuinely good intentions for his desired miracle, Krillin is judged worthy and given the One-Star Ball.

300 years ago, after the Nameless Namekian ascended to the lofty position of God, he was able to make Dragon Balls of his own. Though he didn't have the same organized structure that Saichoro put into his Dragon Ball system, the idea was similar: the Dragon Balls would provide a means for people to produce great deeds when in need.

It didn't pan out. The Dragon Bal ls were a mistake and brought nothing but horror to the Earth, and he regretted ever making the stupid fucking things. After Piccolo killed Shenron, God was more than ready to wash his hands of it.

By the time we meet God, it's hard to disagree. Oolong thwarted a maniac's wish for world domination by spending Shenron's world-shaping miracle on a set of women's undergarments before he could make his wish. A jackbooted warlord shot up multiple regions of the world to claim the Dragon Balls because he wanted to be taller. Bulma shot a child in the face with a gun so she could have infinite strawberries. Or a boyfriend. Either/or.

Honestly, infinite strawberries sounds pretty valid for a wish, NGL. Still wouldn't impress God, though.

There's also a piece of obscure Dragon Ball trivia says that the Dragon Balls were once used to successfully make a wish for world domination. This is why the entire Earth is a one-world nation under the dominion of King Furry. I think it comes from a Toriyama interview? But I don't recall the source so take that with a grain of salt.

In any case, God feels that the Dragon Balls were a horrible mistake and it's hard to disagree. The only thing that convinces him they're worth remaking is Goku's nobility. He sees in Goku the great virtue that has thus far been missing from anyone else who would seek the Dragon Balls, and that makes it all worthwhile.

The process of assembling the Dragon Balls is meant to be difficult. However, Bulma's invention of the Dragon Radar more or less trivialized it.

Notably, as a sign of her genius, the handheld radar that Bulma carries around outstrips the competition every time. She's far from the only person ever to make a Dragon Radar; She's just the only person ever to make a portable one.

That huge wall console is the best that the world's most powerful rogue paramilitary organization could manage. And it's still a hell of a lot better than anything Vegeta or Frieza had. They had to track people and hope a Dragon Ball was nearby.

Though I would be remiss to bring up Bulma's invention of the portable radar and not mention that, fun fact, the Radar that we often see passed around throughout the series wasn't built by her. Bulma's Radar was stolen by General Blue.

It's never seen again after this scene. I guess it was probably still in HQ when Goku stormed the place?

No, the Radar Goku finished the RRA arc with and then continues passing along from character to character is actually this one, created by - I shit you not - a cameo guest star from Toriyama's gag manga Dr. Slump.

Having seen the inner workings of the Radar while it was being repaired, Turbo the flying genius baby is able to reproduce a second copy. This copy would become the main Dragon Radar going forward after Bulma's original Radar was lost and forgotten.

Yeah, Dr. Slump canonically exists within the world of Dragon Ball and has directly impacted the story of one of its most iconic elements. However, this Radar still remains Bulma's genius design. She completely obliterated the entire test of virtue concept. I need you to understand that Bulma is the greatest heretic in the history of the universe, and that she and Vegeta deserve each other.

And now she uses Shenron for plastic surgery.

God was right. Earth isn't worthy of power like this. It was a mistake to bring Shenron back.

With some limitations, the great dragon summoned by the Dragon Balls can grant any miracle that is within Shenron's power. The main restriction this places is simple: Shenron or Porunga may not grant a wish affecting a person more powerful than Shenron unless that person consents.

This limitation serves the narrative purpose of explaining why we can't have Shenron pop any enemy that shows up into oblivion, which had been the Muten-Roshi's plan for dealing with Piccolo originally.

Though I occasionally like to joke about an AU where Bulma uses Shenron to solve the Saiyans. Can't teleport them into the sun or something? That's fine. I wish for you to teleport their spaceships into the sun.

No, I know you still can't teleport them even if you teleport their vehicles. That's fine. I'm asking you to teleport only the ships.

And then everyone lives happily ever after. Until about six or seven years later when the Androids kill us all.

But Shenron's and Porunga's power limitations also mean the story can have fun moments like this.

Goku is able to resist Porunga's attempt to warp him back to Earth because he's too powerful for the dragon to move involuntarily. He must consent to the teleport.

Of note: This particular piece of context doesn't come up in the DBS: Broly film directly, but it provides a fun bit of context to its finale.

When Cheelai used Shenron to save Broly, he had to consent to that. He could have told Shenron to go fuck himself and kept fighting instead.

But he doesn't want to. You can feel it just from looking at his face. Gogeta broke Broly's legendary berserker rage. In this instant, staring down Blue Gogeta's Kamehameha, Shenron asked him, "You want out of this, my dude?" And he said yes please. I'm done. I'm ready to go home.

The power restriction is also the reason why Shenron couldn't revert the Twins to normal humans.

But he can pop those self-destruct devices right out of their bodies, no sweat.

The other key limitation that Shenron has is an inability to resurrect the same person twice - Something Goku just sort of throws in as a new rule at the start of the Saiyan arc.

It's interesting to note that it's not specifically a prohibition against repeated rezzes, but against "granting the same wish twice". This never comes up in any other context, but it's interesting to think about.

Good thing Porunga doesn't have that limitation. Like. At all.

Hey, look at that. He was able to bring back Piccolo, Krillin, and Yamcha even though he'd already revived those two before.

Before the Buu arc, it could be assumed that he could raise people twice because those people had previously been raised by Shenron. Different dragon, different wish history. But no. Porunga's just better.

Our bootleg wish-dragon is a pale imitation of the real thing. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you that. But ours can do multi-rez so suck on that Poru--

Oh, never mind. Muri found out about multi-rez and gave him a tweak. Porunga remains the superior dragon. Of course, he's not the only person to upgrade their dragon. We have Dende to thank for Shenron's upgrades too.

This is a point that I've seen people get confused on. Dende's Shenron grants three wishes like Porunga. However, a multi-rez is so costly that it expends two of those wishes. So you can have three individual wishes or a multi-rez and one other wish.

The language here is super ambiguous, admittedly. It's easy to interpret Dende as saying "If I activate multi-rez then I have to set the limit to two." Like. We can configure Shenron for three wishes OR configure him for two wishes but make it possible to do multi-rez.

But subsequent chapters and authorial statements have clarified the matter. As long as you aren't multi-rezzing, you get three wishes.

It's just. Nobody ever uses Shenron for anything but multi-rez so it rarely comes up. This is not helped by general inconsistency, which Toei is particularly bad about but Toriyama's guilty of too. In the DBS: Broly movie, Shenron inexplicably is back to granting only one!

My dude. What happened to your upgrade? You were upgraded, you defective knock-off! DX

I think he just wanted to get the fuck out of there before Frieza realized he can still make his wish for improved tallness. He grants enough of that shit for Bulma as it is. He doesn't want another person muscling in on it.

This is what his life has come to.

It's also interesting to note that with multi-wish dragons, you can bank a wish if you don't have anything else in particular that you want.

Speaking of inconsistency, they made a multi-rez wish so shouldn't Shenron be down for eight months, not four? Either way, point is that you can cut down Shenron's recharge time by not using some of your wishes. Which makes sense if you think about it, but is more user-friendly than a lot of magical reality-warping macguffins typically are.

Shenron's great about that in general, concerning himself with making sure that the miracle he grants is in line with the intent of the wish, not just the letter. Unlike that bastard Porunga. He knows what he did.

In fairness, that's as much Dende's fault as Porunga's.

That about covers it for the Dragon Balls and their Wish Dragons, I think.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Investigators’ Truth in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

We have mentioned before on this blog when talking about Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy that in Eureka roleplay is mechanics-driven and mechanics are roleplay-driven, but what does that mean?

The short version is that when making your PC, you put things on their character sheet that give bonuses when they act in a way that is consistent with their intended characterization.

One of these elements is called a character’s Truth. Every Eureka PC has a Truth, and they may even have multiple Truths. A Truth can even change as a result of events in the campaign.

A character’s Truth is some strong element of their personality or beliefs that is likely to spur them into action, get them into trouble, or both. It is not necessarily a flaw, but it easily can be, as one of the main purposes of it is to encourage and reward players for letting their characters screw up.

When playing a video game or a TTRPG, it’s often very easy to sit back and think out every problem and approach them perfectly logically, especially when time usually pauses as you discuss the next move among the other players at the table. But if every character in a movie or book or any other story always made the most perfectly logical decision, that would probably be a pretty boring story, and it certainly wouldn’t be a very realistic story. People don't always make the most logical decisions in real life.

However, when playing a game, it can feel like “losing” to intentionally make a character make a decision that you, in your logical detached mind, know will probably not work out well for them in the long run. Eureka argues that this is not “losing”, and that this is actually exactly how Eureka is supposed to go. To encourage this, we added the Truth mechanic.

Like I said before, Truth is not exactly a flaw, just some part of the character’s personality or beliefs that would spur them to action or get them into trouble. It could be a hot temper, a need to always have the last word, an overly competitive nature, a love of violence, or a compulsion to lie, but it could also be a strong desire to selflessly protect others, or the trust that one’s fellow man are inherently good.

Whatever it is, when a character acts within the parameters of their Truth, they get a +1 to the dice roll for whatever it is they’re doing, or whatever dice roll results from them acting in their Truth.

This doesn’t mean that a character acting within their Truth is always the worst course of action on their part, sometimes emotional gut decisions do turn out to be right. Maybe a character whose Truth is somehow based around trusting others is right to lower their weapon, because the monster might be just as scared of them as they are of him, and that +1 Truth Bonus is going to come in handy in the resulting Comfort roll to try and de-escalate the situation—or maybe they’re completely wrong and the monster was just waiting for an opportunity to seize the upper hand, and that +1 Truth Bonus is instead going to be used on an Athletics roll to run like hell.

This also doesn’t mean that a character always has to act within their Truth, no one realistically reacts the exact same way to every situation, and we do not encourage GMs to push or punish players if their characters do not act within their Truth, but Truth helps reward realistic, in-character behavior from the PCs.

In this way, the rules/mechanics of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy are tied directly to the roleplay of the character, and the roleplay of the character is encouraged and supported by the rules/mechanics.

Stay tuned for another post about a way that in-character roleplay and rules/mechanics are intertwined with the Traits system.

You can also pick up a pre-release PDF copy of this game(in a fully playable state) for $5 through our Patreon.

[astraltrickster]

The thing is - okay, let's humor Matt and say, fine, your story is 100% true. There was a popular user who got banned after being mass-reported and upon review of their (which I use in this intro paragraph because we're pretending for the sake of argument that it could have been anyone and gender played no role in this whatsoever) account, it was found that - oops, the post that got attacked was totally innocuous, BUT they ALSO did do some other stuff that was very much a bannable offense.

The actions and statement I would make in that situation are probably along the lines of:

"Thank you for reaching out with your concerns. We reviewed the case, and unfortunately, it's a fairly complicated one.

We've verified her [because I would, you know, fucking check what pronouns everyone uses] claims of harassment, and have taken action against the parties involved, including penalizing the blogs that were involved in the false reporting campaign and restoring the content that was taken down erroneously.

Unfortunately, upon review of the account, we did find multiple abusive messages to and about other users that were in violation of our terms of service. Because of this, we cannot in good conscience restore the account. The user has been made aware of the specifics of these violations, and if she would like to sign up again without engaging in this behavior, she is free to do so.

We are aware that this case was a very frustrating and difficult one for many people, and we apologize for the stress it has caused our community. We are constantly working to solve the open problem of content moderation systems being abused in the way we have witnessed here, and appreciate your feedback when something goes wrong, not least of all because we recognize the severity and the discriminatory nature of targeted harassment campaigns such as the ones faced by this user. If you see something similar happening, please don't be afraid to reach out, nor to use our reporting system for its proper purpose.

Thank you for using [WEBSITE]."

I would NOT-

Insist on keeping the fully SFW photos down because well the user DID have SOMETHING to get banned over so that's BASICALLY the same thing

Change my justification from "well she posted NSFW" - "I mean she THREATENED me LOOK!" [Looney Toons imagine spot] - "I mean she threatened and harassed me AND other users, really, I swear I have it right this time!"

Threaten to call the fucking FBI on someone over cartoon violence imagine spots posted for justified frustration with my website's moderation speed

Misgender/degender the user in question over multiple iterations until "well I'm just not SURE what that user goes by despite everyone and their grandma telling me in no uncertain terms 🥺" runs out of plausible deniability

DM the user's friends to insist that they just don't know the full story and really she was an awful person you gotta believe me

Go completely scorched earth on the user, past, present, and future

Continue to go on a days-long tirade about how no one UNDERSTANDS and no one has the full picture and refuse to provide even the slightest additional detail, expecting that if I just keep talking I'll find a way to please everyone

Admit that I believed there was no war in Ba Sing Se problem with arbitrary to bigoted harassment and the moderation system being too slow and overburdened to mitigate it at best and used to assist with it at worst until I was personally inconvenienced by the matter, despite the entirety of my marginalized userbase saying there was a problem since before I even took over the site and my predecessors having been under a legally binding agreement to fix it to the best of their ability which I then inherited

Choose THAT moment to say that yes there was at one point a rogue mod who got fired (partially because I or someone else representing the site would probably have made a statement about that AT THE TIME)

Threaten to delete the entire site over it

FOLLOW THE USER TO OTHER WEBSITES TO CONTINUE HARASSING HER

Otherwise shave years off my lawyers' lives

And okay. Sure. I'm no professional. In fact, someone who is a professional could probably draft a better version of that statement. If I were a professional, maybe I, too, would struggle to get it even this close to right under the stresses of trying to manage a website with more than maybe 200 users-

But that's WHY I don't manage a site at this scale. Because I know that I'm personally not cut out for that. Which is a level of self-awareness that more people in the online communications platform business sorely fucking need.

[nicolovespancakes]

Sometimes I think we don't talk enough about some of the guilt Jeremiah may hold over religion, and then I remember;

A lot of people don't know that Saint Ignatius of Loyola, or "St. Ignatius" as so called, is a Spanish catholic priest.

And why is that important? Let's take a moment to remember what the school Jeremiah went to after he left the circus is called,

That's the boarding school Jeremiah canonically attended after running from the circus. For multiple years.

So it is to be inferred that it's a Catholic Boarding School.

And when we first learn anything about Jeremiah, or Xander at the time, it's been, I think 6 years? Since he graduated from said school.

So he's had time to, process.

And Cameron Monaghan himself states he feels a sort of passion towards other men (like Bruce), that is definitely called more than platonic on a basic premise.

The catholic church itself opposes same-sex marriage and sodomy and is active in political campaigns against it.

It just makes me think of all the mental turmoil he must've had to go through. Catholic guilt, religious guilt in of itself, is horrible.

And religions like catholicism love to stamp out any form of individuality at the best of times. With how Jeremiah dresses? He probably had a rough upcoming.

And don't get me started on Post-Spray Jer and all the thoughts of catholicism at that point. Or the church he built for himself in season 5, where he oddly made his recruits dress more like Missionaries or Alter Boys.

If you add twinleska into it it's a whole other ball game too.

Or his family at all, really.

God, I think about it a lot.

[utilitycaster]

You've talked a bit before about genre and genre-expectations. If you have the time/inclination, could you talk a bit about what classifies something as horror? More specifically, what makes Candela Obscura fall into the category of horror?

As a bit of background: I am a Travis-level scaredy-cat, but I love the supernatural - ghost stories, monsters, superstitions. I tend to rely a lot on genre labels to help me differentiate, and media labelled "horror" is pretty generally a no go. I starting watching Candela out of curiosity because I'd heard great things about the characters in chapter two, and was fully prepared to have to nope out. Instead I found that it sat comfortably within my "supernatural" bubble of tolerance, and I absolutely loved it! Obviously a person's tolerance for what is "scary" is deeply individualistic, but its got me wondering what exactly classifies something as horror? (and whether there is other media similar to candela that I am missing out on because my genre expectations are skewed)

So...genre boundaries are all very permeable and take a on very "I'll know it when I see it" quality when you get to the edges. There's a poll about horror tolerance going around right now and I actually found it completely unusable because, for example, all three of Jordan Peele's films are considered horror, and while I consider myself also kind of skittish, I loved Get Out and Nope whereas the premise of Us fundamentally is on my personal "absolutely cannot" list. Basically: defining horror is tough (though I'll make an attempt, with the understanding that I am the most amateur and there are actual media studies folks in the fandom who might be a better bet) but also a lot of people, myself included, who consider themselves bad at "horror" often, as you say, actually have a very specific personal list of tolerances and plenty of horror is fine for them (and plenty of non-horror might not be!) Basically this is a great question and multiple people out there are writing their PhD theses attempting to answer it, and they probably have different answers, is what I'm saying. I also, in looking up horror on Wikipedia in order to see what that definition is, found that it defines the genre differently for literature vs. film. Short answer: no one fucking knows; scary shit.

I think horror is most generally works that are intended to build a sense of fear or dread, and I recall (possibly incorrectly) someone on a podcast talking about writing define the difference between a thriller and a horror movie is whether the protagonist succeeds; I'd modify that to say "whether they succeed without a great cost (thriller) or whether the price of success possibly outweighs the win (horror)."

Anyway, I do have a list of horror subgenres here that speaks the language of TTRPGs, namely Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, and I find that horror subgenres are more helpful signposts than just the "horror" label, and I suspect you may find the same as well. I'm not going to run through them all, but, for example, "Ghost Stories" and "Dark Fantasy" are two of them, and those never bothered me and it sounds like you like those! Candela covers a lot of ground - elements of body horror, gothic horror, cosmic/eldritch horror, and occult detective stories, but it is absolutely in the supernatural realm. It is worth noting that a lot of not explicitly horror shows often dip into horror and I (and possibly you) are fine with it. The CR main campaign and D&D in general absolutely has horror elements. I only watched the Nine and Ten seasons of modern-era Doctor Who but that absolutely has episodes that are basically straight up horror (Midnight? Silence in the Library? Don't Blink? Even though, famously, everyone lives in that one set during WWII, the "are you my mummy" line is chilling.) Again: genre/subgenre lines are very permeable and hard to use as signposts.

What has been most helpful to me in finding horror works I can personally enjoy is understanding what I can't do. I don't mind blood and gore but I don't want that to be the point (I don't think I'm so much upset by slasher films so much as don't enjoy them) and I don't want to watch torture porn (which is pretty much exclusively within the realm of horror film, not literature). I have a lot of trouble with zombie films but a lone zombie in a D&D game is fine. The premise of a film like The Thing is intellectually fascinating to me but the idea that you can't trust anyone or anything is too unsettling...although also that was kind of the premise of the monsters of Candela Chapter 2 and I thought that slapped. Psychological horror is case by case; folk horror can be great or can mess me up; like Marisha I flat out don't do narrow tunnels in caves and I especially don't do caves with water in them. Cosmic/Eldritch, dark fantasy, and gothic horror are all almost always okay or if they're not it's because they take place in a water-filled cave. Honestly, I don't have a good answer of how to find things but I use subgenre, talking to people you know who watched the film/saw the show in question, and understanding your own personal issues - whether they're genuine triggers or just "this will upset me and I don't find it fun." I will say a lot of the tropes within horror that bother me bother me out of horror; the cave diving, for example, is part of a general hard line I have; I don't like zombie comedies even though horror-comedy can mitigate other issues (eg: I liked Cocaine Bear even though it's basically a slasher film with a bear because it's pretty funny).

Another really big distinction for me that might be true for you: audio horror, literary horror, and actual play horror (even if filmed), where the visuals are limited or only described, is much easier for me than visual horror. I don't know if that's the same for you, but it's very true for me.

Some other similar media I can personally recommend as someone who I suspect has similar broad preferences re: horror:

Of the Candela touchstones listed, will personally vouch for V. E. Schwab's Darker Shade of Magic series (dark fantasy books, wouldn't even classify as horror), Frankenstein (the book); Crimson Peak (gothic horror/ghost story film; I recall it having a lot of blood but not gore but I saw it in theaters so it's been a while); Penny Dreadful (is it good? debatable. Is it fun? absolutely.)

The New Weird genre is often thrown around and I don't think Candela per se falls into it, but it's certainly the same vibe of horror/fantasy crossovers that don't always fit into one or the other. Anyway: I have brought up the Silt Verses, which is a podcast solidly in that genre which I think I would not enjoy as a film but greatly enjoy as a podcast.

The Southern Reach Trilogy is...not Candela in vibes exactly but I just think everyone should read it, and it is in that weird horror-inflected sf genre space.

Twin Peaks and the X-Files which are very different stories in some ways, but are also investigations of horrors in a world where most people don't believe in that, and Spenser says his cinematic description style is using some of that lexicon, notably from the X-Files' cold opens. (The X-Files is very long and I only watched a few seasons but also while there is an overarching plot, from what I recall it's kind of ridiculous so you can bounce around; Twin Peaks is worth the watch through though I never watched anything after the original series).

I'm not going to lie, I listened to all of Alice Isn't Dead, which was a horror podcast from the Night Vale team, because the actress was so good, but the plot never totally clicked for me, but worth checking out. More worth checking out, while definitely New Weird and not horror, is Within the Wires, which I mentioned before, if you find the concept of Newfaire interesting on a sociocultural level. I am going to make a shitpost about Within the Wires in a second so just look at that. I also never finished Old Gods of Appalachia, but if you liked the Candela playlist Spenser and Rowan put out and are interested in the Bridleborne Mountains region/vibe with folk horror, it was pretty good; I just found it hard to binge, personally, and I listen to so many fucking podcasts it fell by the wayside.

Hope this helps!

[its-rat-time-babey]

Rain World Artificer Headcanons:

(This is talking about a post-Scavenger King Artificer by the way)

The Artificer cannot ascend, that part is obvious, but the true extent of that inability to ascend is insane. Her killing of the scavenger king permanently bound her to the world in every single sense of the word.

When a creature dies of old age or generally natural causes in Rain World, they reincarnate as another member of their species (or whatever is genetically closest if their old species is extinct) in the same cycle. The higher karma and therefore less bound to the cycle the creature is, the less the creature remembers of its past life.

But the Artificer is so low in terms of karma (even when compared to other creatures at karma level one) that when they reincarnate, they remember EVERYTHING. Even other creatures at karma one forget something, however small that thing may be, but not the Artificer. They remember their past lives like it was yesterday.

But that’s not all. The Artificer is so bound to the cycle that the very cells and DNA in their body remembers what it was like before reincarnation, and after being reborn as a new slugcat, the Artificer’s body will slowly change back to that of the old Artificer over the course of several years. Her fur falls out to be replaced by dark red fur, her body heats up until plants like bubbleweed burn at the touch, her spit slowly becomes more flammable and sticky, one of her eyes loses its vision, etc.

Her Citizen ID drone also always eventually comes back to her as well, as Citizen ID drones were built with the intention of being able to find their old owners after they reincarnate.

And finally, the Artificer can’t just not ascend. She can’t become an echo either.

Despite the Artificer disappearing when attempting to ascend with the implications that she became an echo, we never see a slugcat echo in any future campaigns. Even the Saint in their pilgrimage to see every echo doesn’t see her. In the same game where whether or not you ascended as a character like the Hunter affects the next campaign, that seems strange. So I’m running with that information and using it for whatever I want.

You become an echo when you attempt to ascend, but there’s something preventing you from ascending fully. Something binds you to the world and holds you back, so you get stuck in between existence and non-existence and become an echo.

The Artificer fits all of those requirements for becoming an echo. They attempt to ascend but her anger and past violence holds her back, so she should get stuck in between life and death and become an echo. But that doesn’t happen. The Artificer is so angry and full of violence that instead of getting fully stuck between existence and non-existence, she ever so slightly tilts the balance towards existence, as her low karma just barely outweighs the process of ascension and she comes back to the physical reality.

Or at least her conscious does. Her body is completely vaporized by void fluid for understandable reasons (it is some kind of hyper-acid after all), so the only thing that actually comes back is her consciousness, which immediately has to reincarnate into a new body. It also takes a long time for her consciousness to actually leave the void, several years in fact, but it eventually happens. So void fluid ascension is basically just reincarnation with extra steps and a several year delay to the Artificer.

Even the Saint would struggle to ascend her (and with how the Artificer just keeps coming back, she’s probably still around somewhere by the time of the Saint. (Probably thriving with her naturally high body temperature and ability to create heat making it easy to live in the ice age)), with the Artificer either shrugging off the Saints ascensions or taking multiple ascensions to stay down. And even then they’ll eventually come back to the physical world. The Artificer is permanently bound to the cycle and nothing can remove them from it.

The Artificer (or at least my version) is basically the Anti-Saint. The demon to the Saint’s angel.

Both are slugcats that are permanently bound to the cycle, with even void fluid being unable to ascend them, but:

The Saint cannot harm others.

The Artificer is a destructive force of nature that sent the entire scavenger population into a permanent dark age with her violence and destruction, leaving countless dead in her wake.

While the Saint cannot ascend themselves, they selflessly ascend others, even those that cannot ascend like Iterators.

If you take the game mechanic of death taking your karma level down by one as more than just a game mechanic, then the Artificer actively prevents other creatures from ascending by killing them and by doing so, lowering their karma.

The Saint is an echo and therefore exists in a state beyond the cycle.

The Artificer is permanently bound to the cycle and exists in a state permanently within it.

The Saint’s cycle is never-ending and bound to a certain point in time, with ascension bringing them back in time to the beginning of their journey.

The Artificer is bound to a cycle, but that cycle forever moves forwards in time, with ascension and death by old age just making them reincarnate into a new body at the beginning of its own new cycle.

The Saint is the last slugcat in the timeline.

The Artificer is one of the first, beaten only by the Spearmaster.

The Saint is the living personification of Karma Ten, the highest level of Karma and the Karma amount required for ascension.

The Artificer is the living personification of Karma One, the lowest level of Karma and the furthest you can possibly get from ascension.

[askepitheterased]

INTRO

Hi, I'm Ari! I'm gonna be running this blog as an Epithet erased ask blog, and here are the rules :

NO NSFW asks - Not only am I a minor but it’s also common sense because a lot of these characters are minors

Asks will always be open, but please do not spam questions. ( like the same question multiple times, multiple different questions are ok )

Any character in the current epithet erased canon can be asked a question ( even Howdy Morning ) and I may reference some characters from Anime campaign Episode 1 and 2 ( the ones that have been officially released by Jello )

No shipping asks please!

Please do not target specific characters to bully for any reason. One prank once in a while is funny, but it gets old at some point.

The Jodi ( the OC that is used as an in lore explanation ) is not really meant to be asked questions but feel free to ask any other character :D!

Asks don't have to be purely talking, you can give characters stuff ( to an extent )

Please say what character you are aiming to talk to! Just for convenience. It doesn't need to be at the beginning, just somewhere in the ask! ALSO : the schedule is currently set for 6am, 12pm and 6pm GMT but may change These rules will probably have stuff added and changed! Also, this blog will have a small little in lore explanation for why this is happening that will be posted soon ^_^!!

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

I'm a bit surprised how many people are against the UK billboard! I did donate, but I never expected this billboard to have the same effect or visibility as the Times Square one... And of course, I also don't expect it to have real impact on whether we get picked up or not. I thought we might get a few news articles about it in the UK and a morale boost from it.

I understand the concerns about the fundraiser transparency, of course. I don't know how other fandoms have done these fundraisers, whether they've been better at organizing them... There's certainly a lot to learn!

I've seen some people suggest that we shouldn't buy another billboard because... we already had one? I was just reading about the Wynonna Earp campaign and apparently they bought over 250 billboards between s3 and s4 when the show ran out of funding (I also found a Twitter thread with pics of 100 Times Square billboards they bought). If they had that many, then how is 2 billboards for OFMD overkill?

This fandom gets hate for the campaign no matter what we do, even for just tweeting about the show... Isn't visibility exactly what our campaign needs, though? Are we going to tone down the campaign just so we don't get harassed? I don't really see the point in trying to protect the fandom, when the only way to really do that is to completely shut up about the show. And I certainly won't be shutting up about it :D

Anyway. These are just my thoughts on the subject. I'm very curious to see the new billboard! We'll probably learn a lot from it, from how it affects the fandom and how the press reacts to it (if they do)... And of course, how DJ reacts to it.

OMG IM SO SORRY ANON! Yesterday blew up and I never got a chance to get back to you!

I'm with you-- I'm sure there is always something more to learn! I had read the transparency policy a few times right before it was announced (cause I was asked to put it up on my repository), and it seemed like it was pretty straight forward-- but obviously some things needed to be clarified! From what I've seen on the Save OFMD Crew Discord since then, they're working on taking feedback and are going to be updating it to make it more clear.

I also saw that there was a vote going on about leaving the website the same, and I think that passed, but dont quote me on that.

HOLLLY SHIT 250 billboards!? WOW. Well I'm glad they found some funding, jeez! And hey-- it worked right? I think they got their renewal, or at least they're getting a finale.

I respect your thoughts on the subject and I really apreciate you reaching out and expressing them! It's good to hear multiple points of view on it. I definitely agree that there's always going to be someone mad about the fandom. It's just hard I think for our friends who have been around and probably have PTSD from all the hate by this point. I think that means we, the folks still able to do it, should be the front liners on all this and help fight that hate back.

I offer this freely-- if I have the time, and you are running into problems with hate inside the fandom, hit me up. I enjoy being a polite menace and talking through things with people. I got my degree in International Studies/Relations so I have a lot of experience with talking through things-- and I'm more than happy to help if I can!

I am excited to see what happens with the billboard, come good or bad. Thanks anon for writing in, and so sorry again for the delay!

Sending love <3

[splatoon-countdown]

What are your hopes/theorys for side order? :>

(Sorry this took so long to answer! I was having a lot of trouble forming my thoughts about it.) My hopes for Side Order... Well, one of my main hopes is that it'll be really good. I hope that neither Marina or Acht are the villain. I used to think that Agent 4 had to be in Side Order, but after a while I stopped expecting it, but I would still like to see Four in there. In general I'm really excited for Acht to have a big role in the story after so long. It was so surprising to see that they have connections with Marina. As for theories though.. Hmmm... I don't have too many interesting theories that haven't already been figured out by the community (that it probably takes place in virtual reality, that Acht's bandage is suspiciously at the same area of the weird thing around Eight's arm, etc), however I do think either Barry C., the owner of Hotlantis, might have something to do with it since there's various items in the background of some of the stages, or Glen Fiddler, the builder of Splatoon 3's battle lobby, who I'm even more suspicious of. More under the cut cause I wrote... a lot..

Glen Fiddler has a lot of strange things going on with him. He has a 3d model and two seperate renders in a sunken scroll, even though it would be much easier to just draw him there. Why have a whole 3d model if that character isn't gonna show up in-game eventually? It seems like a waste of time, especially when most things like that are drawn or use existing models to render something in the Splatoon franchise. The specific sunken scroll he appears in mainly focuses on monochrome colors, which is also similar to side order. I've seen multiple people, including myself, suspicious of the Copy Machine (especially after Splatoween, where if you inked the whole lobby there would be fish skeleton decals point to the Copy Machine?? (I know snowflakes replace the fish skeleton decals exact spots in Frostyfest but still)) which happens to be located in the lobby that Glen Fiddler built. Another suspicious character with a sunken scroll is Marigold, or the staff. She specifically runs Crab-N-Go in the lobby (that again, Glen Fiddler built) and shows up multiple times throughout the game with different jobs/purposes. Also, something I often see is that people think there are only 3 Marigolds throughout the game. But there's another in Grizzco that I barely see people talk about. If you check your rewards in Grizzco, someone is there to trade various items for scales. If you play without audio, you might not notice, but the voice of the person here is the same as Marigold's. Not to mention, they talk similarly to her too, with the same mannerisms. Frequent use of the name "dear" or "dearie." Marigold's situation is odd, as she has many aliases in many different places. It might be a cloning situation (which is very suspicious seeing as the first Side Order trailer had a shot of multiple Agent 8s, 1 looking normal, the other two looking almost holographic?), but that's not the point. The point is that Marigold has some shady stuff going on, the other besides her having so many aliases being that she works at Grizzco, a company that over the years has become less shady but still a bit shady. It's a bit odd she's everywhere for battle stuff (Crab-N-Go, Tableturf, Recon). Besides main suspects... I don't think Lil Judd is going to be involved. I feel like if he has a whole thing going on, he'd be the villain of a different single player campaign. Side Order just doesn't seem to fit what they're planning with him. I guess the skeletal fish enemies kinda line up with Salmon Run, which Lil Judd has many ties to? But besides that it doesn't make that much sense to me. If Lil Judd got anything it would be in like, Splatoon 4. Or a spinoff game. Or something. But there's way too much weird stuff happening with him for them to NOT do anything with that eventually, so I doubt this is the final Splatoon game. That got a bit off topic, but I really don't have any other Side Order theories yet.. Thank you for asking this, by the way! It's always very fun to talk extensively about my special interests :D

[staygoldwriting]

Hello!! How are you doing?

Could I possibly request Eddie Munson with a GN!S/O who has a Sunny Personality from Omori? (Personality is linked in sunnys name ^^)

Maybe it can be some headcanons with a drabble as well? :D

Thank You!!

Hey there! I'm fabulous, but I'm sorry this took a while! I hope you enjoy this--I tried my best to replicate Sunny's personality. I did a little research and tried to make the reader quieter and shy. I hope this captures what you wanted, and please don't hesitate to let me know if you'd like some changes or more! <3 Also, this is a mini-fic, headcanon, then drabble... sort of, haha!

As always, please show love and support! ❤️✨

☀️ Sunny!reader x Eddie

You had met Eddie through Hellfire club, sort of. You really wanted to learn the game, but you felt bad asking anyone to explain it all to you (you knew it was super complex), so you started sitting around their lunch table. Eventually, Eddie noticed how you’d keep your chair turned more towards them, and he decided to approach you one day

“Hey, you play D&D?”

“No, but I’d love to learn. I just don’t know if anyone has the time,” you said shyly. 

“I’ve always got the time to initiate a D&D newbie!” Eddie grinned. “We’re having a meeting tonight, wanna come sit in?”

“Yes please,” you said happily, feeling your anticipation for the meeting grow.

When you arrived, Eddie had a chair waiting for you right next to him. This gesture made your heart flutter.

“Here you go,” he said cheerfully, “a throne for our newest recruit. Everyone, this is Y/N.”

All of the members said hi to you and congratulated you. Apparently, Eddie had made Hellfire rather exclusive. One kid named Mike said he barely got in, and worried the whole summer that he would be kicked out. You laughed a little, but you also worried that you may have the same fate. 

You watched the game closely, observing how Eddie led all of the players, trying to absorb as much information as possible. Eddie made you a few reference sheets, so you looked at those on occasion. Eventually, you were just staring at Eddie, though. You were taken aback at how he so effortlessly and eloquently told the story, how he brought drama and dedication to each of his tales.

You were super quick picking up the game. Eddie told you he was impressed multiple times, even admitting that you were learning quicker than he did. 

You soon found out that you were able to join D&D so easily because, according to Dustin, “Eddie has a massive raging crush on you!”

You, doubting that a guy as cute as Eddie could ever like you, tell Dustin he must have misunderstood.

“How could I misunderstand this?” he says, pulling out a piece of notebook paper filled with your name with Eddie’s in drawn hearts, along with a doodle of him saving you in a knightly fashion.

Your cheeks burn and you grow incredibly embarrassed, wanting to hide from Dustin. He catches on and gives you a pat on your back to encourage you.

“You’re amazing, Y/N, don’t ever doubt that. Listen, I know this probably makes you nervous, so I want you to know that Eddie plans to ask you out tonight after Hellfire.”

You feel a shock go through your body as you quietly thank Dustin, then prepare yourself for Hellfire that night. 

You decided that your nerves were too much, so you were going to ask Eddie out before he could ask you. You showed up early to help him set up, a usual practice for you, and while you were positioning the chairs, you looked up at him.

“Hey, Eddie?”

“What’s up?” he asked sweetly.

“I-um, I had a campaign idea that I wanted to run by you, if that’s okay. It’s alright if you don’t have the time or don’t want to hear about it.”

“I’m always interested in what you have to say,” Eddie smiled, leaning on the table in front of you. “What’s it about?”

“Well, I was thinking about it being a quest for my character and yours,” you said nervously, your hands shaking.

“I like the sound of that, braving the unknown side-by-side!” he said valiantly. 

“And I thought, maybe, our characters could go to a tavern,”

“Okay,” Eddie said a little suspiciously. 

“And then maybe they could see a show of sorts, perhaps play a game or two?”

“And how exactly would this play out in Hellfire?” he asked, smirking knowingly.

“Well, I-I’m not really sure, but-”

“Are you asking me out, Y/N?” 

You’re taken aback by his bluntness, and you blush profusely. 

“I-um, y-yeah, sort of, if you’d like to I mean,” you started to ramble, and Eddie kissed your forehead sweetly.

“I could think of no better quest than a quest of love.”

-☀️-

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