#so I'm playing the long game here

[jq37]

Twice Upon a Time - Neverafter Ep 3

No Place for a Prince or Princess

Welcome to another entirely unhinged episode of D20 Neverafter and the first battle ep of the season. A battle episode with no dedicated healer with the whole party at level one? What could possibly go wrong? Well, let me tell you exactly what.

When I first started doing this commentary recap/posts, I did them in stream of consciousness bullet points and I'm going to do something similar for this recap since a battle ep means more nitty gritty that can be skipped over and also because I'm pressed for time due to being home for the holidays. Worry not though! I still have compiled all the most important juicy story bits for y'all. So let's get started. 

When we last left off, the group lost the element of surprise as they readied to attack the Fairy Godmother and her army of half human/half furniture goons.  Their goal in the fight is to steal the glass shard stuck into the Fairy Godmother that Cinderella stabbed her with and is greatly weakening her.

Puss right away Taun-Taun style dives into a dea cow while Roz distracts the Fairy Godmother by loudly declaring her princess status. As the mice told her, she can't resist a princess. 

Meanwhile, Red draws a ton of enemies into a corridor which they nickname "Ylfa's Bottleneck" as if it's a hit nightclub and it comes up so many times you just KNOW it's gonna be a shirt or a poster at some point.

Pinocchio offhandedly mentions that he's been a puppet for about a year which helps us with the timeline a bit. Also, he's apparently using his broken off nose as a weapon which is...not amazing.

Roz gets hit by a spell and she sees a vision of zombie looking versions of the fairies from her christening looking at her in her crib and the blue fairy asking what she thinks her gift would have been if she hadn't had to soften the evil fairy's curse. [Note: Hmm, wonder if that Blue Fairy is Pinocchio's Blue Fairy]

Oh, also the Fairy Godmother says to Roz that curses are also gifts in their own way and idk if that's annoying fae-speak or an actual valid thing to say.

Roz and Red both have to make Cha saves and when Roz fails, Brennan gives her a red token which he tells her to hold onto without explaining at all. Siobhan is trepid, as am I, despite Brenna's claims that it's nothing to worry about. 

Tim doesn't end up doing this because he wants to save his spell slots for healing (smart man) but his Vicious Mockery is a paternal "I'm very disappointed in you."

Puss tries to hide in another animal carcass, this time a mule (which Emily hilariously thinks might be Donkey from Shrek) but finds out that it's the mule of the 2nd brother in his fairy tale and also that he's just faking dead and is alive. 

Brennan introduces a new game mechanic: If someone deals more than half of your remaining HP in damage in one blow, you have to make a Con save or take a level of exhaustion. This counts for enemies and PCs. Yikes! This doesn't appear to have anything to do w/ the red token.

The Fairy Godmother says to Roz, "Don't you want the kind of life I can provide? [...] They're taken your true love from you." When Roz insists that he's coming, the Fairy says, "Then why did his face change?" Siobhan is like, "How did she know that?" and I'm like, "Girl, same."

Pinocchio casts Hex on the Fairy which takes the form of spectral strings appearing on his body and his Stepmom's voice pouring out of him to berate the Fairy. The Fairy, of course, recognizes the voice as they're from the same story. Pinocchio gets the sense that more is happening than his mom told him.

Ger realizes that this Fairy is the fairy who cursed him to be a frog for being rude to her as a kid! [Note: I knew we'd end up doubling up on fairies at some point!] He is, if you'd pardon the pun, hopping mad at the realization. 

Puss successfully lies to the Fairy that Cinderella sent him to help her get the shard out of her chest but that success will be fleeting. 

The fairy says, "Magic was never yours. Magic is ours!" to Pinocchio (and really, I assume to his mom) and drops him. [Note: Hmm, magic hoarding? Is this like a Fae and Flowers deal? This feels like a line that we might be coming back to.]

Ger drops to an attack soon after.

Puss on an investigation check realizes that they've royally botched this and all that's left are bad and risky options. He tries to get the Fairy to give him her wand but that's a DC 20 check with disadvantage that he fails. Roz does 12 damage on her and it does enough damage that the group realizes that she's a total glass cannon that they should be attacking.

[Note: Y'all, I'm not the type to backseat D&D--and I wasn't yelling at my screen or anything while I was watching this--but you always take out the monster that is creating the other monsters! That's battle strats 101! Of course--spoiler--they didn't despawn when she died at the end but still! Taking her out and grabbing the shard would have been my plan for sure.]

Oh, also, Brennan introduced yet another mechanic. Because battles in the NEverafter are super risky, on a crit there is a save and if your fail the save, you're insta-dead. Great if you're giving the crit, bad if you're getting it. 

At this point, it feels like I'm just reciting obits. Roz drops. Tim brings Ger back up. Puss goes down. Everyone is failing death saves--often with a fairy tale appropriate 3 on the die. 

Ger yells at the Fairy, "Are you happy? I'm supposed to be a handsome prince!" The Fairy, surprisingly, agrees. She says, "We're trying to set the Neverafter to rights!"

Lou points out they're flaming out in the EXACT same way they did in the first fight of the first season--Fantasy High. He is hilariously correct. 

Tim goes down. Ylfa goes down. The energy at the table is palpable as the inevitability of a TPK sets in.

Pinocchio fails his last save and black smoke sweeps through the dome. With his dying thoughts, he thinks about him and his father riding home to his village having escaped the belly of the terrible dogfish. He hears a voice--I think his father's--saying, "My little Pinocchio. She has lied to you." Then he fades. As his last action, he has to make a Cha save which he can choose to fail on purpose. He tries but fails and gets a red token.

Ger thinks about how the last time he needed to be brave--when his castle was being attacked--he hid with the children then ran. He sees Red and Pinocchio down and steels himself. There's no running or hiding today. He tries to get the glass shard and Brennan allows him to do it without a penalty IF he agrees to potentially get hurt in the process. He agrees and just meets the Fairy Godmother's roll, pulling it out. HOWEVER, as he pulls it out, the momentum sends it squelching into his own body, and he drops. The Fairy Godmother, as she dies, says, "Gerrard, we're here to help you! It's not what you--!" But of course, she's cut off. 

As I said before, when she dies, the soldiers don't de-animate. And they WILL kill anyone who stabilizes. So everyone has to roll a Nat 20 or die. It's a weird situation where sometimes you have to roll a failure to keep doing with saves. 

I'm going to tell you right now, no one saves. It's a true TPK. I'll run you through everyone's last thoughts. 

Puss: Puss dies with a Nat 1 on the die (a cat butt that they briefly think is the image for a Nat 20) and he sees himself in Tomas' castle, resting in a shaft of light. Brennan says he sees the king and queen. Then the castle on fire. Then he's gone. He fails his Cha save and gets a red token.

Roz: Roz also dies with a Nat 1. She sees herself on her wedding day, going to meet her true love. Brennan says she sees two beautiful princesses turn to look at her. Then she's gone. She fails her Cha save so she's now up to 2 red tokens. [Note: Princesses. Her sisters?]

 Red: Red gets the most intense vision. She sees herself with her grandma who then turns into a wolf and starts dragging her into hell. When she turns to face the wolf at his request he says, "Will you remember?" Then he says, "There are things trying to stop the turning of the pages," and asks her the 4 most important words. "Once Upon a Time?" she says. "I knew it was you," the wolf replies before she realizes he's falling into not hell or a boiling sea but a cauldron. She's blown out of a brick chimney and hears a voice from below say, "Got you now," with a suspiciously piggish snort. She seems to make her save and does not get a token. 

Ger: Ger actually stabilizes but that just means she's going to die via furniture. He cries and says that he and Elody should never have gotten mixed up in this. He sees his wife in front of him who says that it's not too late and throws a golden ball in the air. As he watches it, he experiences drowning for the first time and then is gone. He is the only one who elects to fail his save on purpose. He gets a red token.

Tim: Tim thinks about the last fight he had with his husband who wanted him to just get rid of the book and stay home while Tim really thought what he was doing could help save everyone. And he still thinks that despite everything. He sees the Gander who mocks him. He sticks up his middle finger and says, "I got your third with right here." "Granted," says the gander, biting his finger off as he vanishes. He fails his Char save. That's a token.

Brennan asks Red again what her last thought was. She says she thinks she realizes what's going on. They've been thinking about things wrong. A book is about new memories, not just nostalgia. They have to be creating new stories and all they have to say is "Once upon a time." And that's where we end: with a TPK and those immortal words. 

This new ep drops in less than 3 hours so I'm not gonna do a ton of speculation. I'm just gonna say that I haven't been this hyped for a new ep in AGES. Are we doing a time loop? Further fractured tales? How meta are we going? I can't wait to find out. Also, I'm glad we got such a mixed data set with regard to these tokens. Roz has two. Ger failed on purpose. And Red didn't get one. So we're gonna get a lot of data when this new ep airs tonight! Can't wait to see what Brennan has in store!

[lovely-v]

I do genuinely believe that the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and arguably the Zelda franchise as a whole, though i myself have played literally none of these games) is closer to fitting the description of ‘Tolkien-esque Fantasy’ than most other movies/shows/games/books etc that claim that label

Like, compare this post by tumblr user wufflesvetinari, which makes an important point about Tolkien’s worldbuilding, and also lives in my head rent free:

and then these quotes from Jacob Geller’s “Every Zelda is the Darkest Zelda”

and his conclusions about the messages in Zelda games are thematically very similar to the through-lines about friendship and love in LOTR, and what a lot of authors miss about what makes a fantasy story personal and memorable:

“A world without joy and humor isn’t a compelling world to fight for” is exactly why there are so many pieces of fantasy media out there that just feel like carbon copies of each other (i’ve seen many posts that explain this better than I can though I can’t find any specific ones at the moment, just know that I didn’t invent this thesis). You’ve got the cool swords, you’ve got the wizards and the spells and the battles, but first and foremost you need the LOVE.

[milkywayes]

GARRUS VAKARIAN: DATABASE IMAGE ACCESS. > PT. 1 : 2160, 2166, 2170. > all files backdated according to user preferences: (terran_coordinated.calendar).

[tapeworrmart]

Panic Attack 🪩👔

[helenedraws]

idk something about Call of Duty makes this splashy watercolor shit really attractive to do

[deeplyridiculouslyinlove]

I just rewatched 02 x 07 for the first time since finishing all the books and I can't stop thinking about it. I feel like everyone is either on the side of (1) it was all a big ploy, or (2) that's it for Moiraine and Siuan they can never come back from this--but I really don't think either of those are true.

I think the most in character thing Moiraine could possibly do is forgive Siuan, for the following reasons:

Moiraine knows that she would do the exact same thing that Siuan did here--namely, sacrifice anything (even their relationship and their trust in one another)--for the sake of the world and their mission. And this shared goal, these compatible values, and this mutual understanding is literally what has kept them together despite 20 years of distance and secrecy from the world.

[MINOR BOOK SPOILERS] We see in one of the books that Moiraine believes she and Siuan have made their beds and will lie in them one day by becoming involved in the quest to find the Dragon -- I believe the way she phrases it is about payment coming due for all the rules they've broken and the secrecy etc. that they needed for their quest. If this is her attitude, she is not only willing to give up everything, but expects to give up everything. And she expects it of Siuan as well.

Siuan has already proven how much she would give up for their quest. She became Amyrlin despite, as we learn this same episode, how much she did not want to be trapped in the tower and could not see her future there. She gave up any semblance of a happy life (how she would picture it both with and without Moiraine!) for this quest.

In some ways, if Siuan had just let Moiraine take Rand through a waygate to Falme, it would have actually been a betrayal of their mission. Their mission wasn’t “get Rand to Falme.” It was “protect and train the dragon reborn.” Siuan feels the need to do that as acutely as Moiraine does--and critically, Moiraine knows this about Siuan.

This goes quadruple if Siuan actually did think Moiraine could be a dark friend. Siuan thinks Moiraine lied to her!! And Moiraine knows this too, since Siuan does at least have the chance to say "You lied to me!" Moiraine would understand that if there was any chance Moiraine had been turned or was compelled, Siuan had to try and stop her from taking Rand off to god knows where.

Literally just a few days earlier Moiraine had threatened to have Alanna take Lan’s bond by force if he stood in her way--aka, the way of her mission. At this very moment, Moiraine herself has spent days (weeks?) contemplating what it would mean to betray the autonomy and trust of those she loves most if it means saving the world. And she knows what side she's on.

When Moiraine says, “if you have ever loved me don’t do this” my heart shatters into a million pieces. But that line is not just ,“it will be a betrayal of our love and trust if you compel me." It is that, but it's also a call for Siuan to see Moiraine for MOIRAINE. She’s saying “you know me.” She’s trying to get her (Siuan) to see that what she (Moiraine) is doing is not about her shame and pride but about the mission. Because it is ALWAYS about the mission, Moiraine IS the mission, and Siuan loves her because of that, and Moiraine knows Siuan loves her because of that 

Moiraine clearly hesitates before going through the waygate. Her character isn't one to linger out of shock and betrayal. She lashes out and she puts up distance--we've seen this all season. Moiraine moves forward. So I read her looking at Siuan here as far more "I love you and I'm sorry [I can't help you? it's come to this? we can't reconcile?]" than "How could you?" or "You're a different person to me now." I’m not trying to minimize the violation Moiraine is also feeling in this moment, I just think that if the violation was her primary emotion she would likely behave differently. And if she can have this messy a set of emotions even in the heart of the moment, I have faith she can similarly hold multiple emotions later when reconciling.

The flashback scenes are so heartbreaking but they don’t have to mean that Moiraine and Siuan feel so betrayed and far from those versions of themselves that they will never be together again. Those flashbacks can also be saying “remember when we were those people?” Holding onto those versions of themselves is how they hold onto their love despite this scene.

Those flashbacks also remind us that their relationship in the show is like 50 years old. It is deep. People don't throw away 50 years of relationship without a conversation, even if there is a deep betrayal involved. And that's normal people--not even people who have given up absolutely everything for a cause that the relationship has now gotten wrapped up in. In the books, they are together for a few years and then seemingly go their separate ways when the Dragon is reborn. I don't think the show would have gone out of its way to deepen and lengthen this relationship just to end it so quickly and unceremoniously.

[tomaturtles]

I've beaten Frontiers twice and it's still not enough

[mattodore]

whose dog is this?

[nientedal]

Usually I just save stuff like this to my drafts until I calm down but you know what, fuck it, I'm done.

Any so-called leftist who refuses to recognize that our options right now are "genocide abroad, progress at home" and "genocide abroad AND genocide at home" and that there is a significant difference between those two options is cordially invited to eat shit and die. We do not have time to entertain your anti-voting hopeless nonsense. A future in which we are able to move towards less death will always be preferable to the one in which we can't, and if you smug, sneering little clowns sacrifice that future on the altar of your own self-righteousness because you're too high on your own farts to realize how far up your own ass you are, I genuinely hope you fucking drown. Specifically, I hope you drown in the blood of the people who will die all over the world as a result of your bizarre refusal to work towards a future that doesn't include ethnic cleansing.

This is the United States. We sell war, here. I don't know how so many of you are only just now figuring that out, but you better get over your shock like yesterday because we are out of fucking time. We ran out of time when Reagan took office if not long before. You think not voting will improve any of this?

Keep calling, keep writing, keep screaming. Governments everywhere are (slowly) beginning to listen. Democrats are (slowly) beginning to listen. But Republicans never will, and if they seize power again next year (which they will absolutely do their damned to attempt), everything will be so, so much worse for everyone, everywhere. The work is slow and painful and imperfect but it will only get done if we show up and do the work, so keep calling, keep writing, keep screaming-- and when the time comes, you show up and vote for the future that lets us build a better tomorrow instead of just choking to death in the steaming shitpile of today.

[damnation-if]

hey!! can i ask for a color palatte description for the ro's? like what their hair/eye colors are?

hope you're having a good week 💙💙💙

Hi!

I spent a long time putting together a graphic for this before I realised that you asked for just a description haha... oops. well. here is the graphic anyway XD

If you're looking for a link to the page with more general descriptions, there are some on the RO's page.

Very sorry for the delay in replying! My life is. hectic. smdnfgbsfgf

[brynnmclean]

saw a post questioning shipping Senua and Thórgestr and started to reblog it with a tag novel-- felt weird about doing that since this is lengthy and potentially derailing, so making my own post instead. Spitballing under the cut:

First off, any time someone is like, "the real reason people ship this is because they find the dude attractive," this is SO funny to me as someone who doesn't find men attractive IRL and has fiercely loved Senua since I played the first game, like-- actually I find the dynamic between those two characters to be compelling and interesting precisely because of all the baggage between them re: their backgrounds, the rough (put mildly!) beginning of their relationship, all the things they don't talk about, and them finding a common enemy/common ground to work with. The explicit parallels between them stated in-game scratched an itch in my brain. The minute they pointed out the dark rot on his arm, it was like, "oh! hello there! NOW I'm interested in whatever your whole deal is" for me. Also, idk man, I too would follow Senua around after she knocked me into the dirt and then showed me a way to fight the giants that I very much wanted to fight instead of appease.

The idea that Thórgestr was part of the Orkney Raid that killed and mutilated Dillion is VERY interesting food for thought, even if I don't personally have that headcanon (surely there are more viking raiding groups than just the Bjorg). I think the Furies or the Shadow said something similar about Fargrimr (his kin murdered yours, you shouldn't save him, etc.) so I completely get that line of thought, but I think the game left it ambiguous enough that it's up for interpretation. Would I read fic with that premise? Yeah, I'd check that out. Could Senua forgive Thorgestr if his people were involved? Sounds fun to explore.

If (ha, when?) I write fic, I'd have to think more about it especially wrt timelines, like when did the Bjorg start specifically raiding for slaves for giant food sacrifices vs. killing people for resources and wealth? How far off are we from the old gods "dying" and the volcano erupting? Was it indeed a different group of raiders who made a deal with Zynbel, attacked Senua's home, and made the sacrifice at that time to Hela?

At the very least, I think there's a time jump between the end of Hellblade I and the beginning of Hellblade II since Senua wasn't alone on that slave ship and at least one of the (brief) survivors knew her by name. I wouldn't mind exploring that gap of time, too.

In any case I do agree that it would take a VERY long time for Senua to consciously catch feelings for anyone let alone Thorgestr with all their collective baggage. The idea of them having a relationship beyond friendship in the far off future of an AU where he survives is the only one that can make sense in my brain, personally. It would take time! Time they didn't get in the game! But I think there are a lot of different roads that could take, and some of them might be healthier than others. Shipping them certainly isn't forgetting or excusing what happened to Dillion-- or even mutually exclusive from still shipping Senua and Dillion. Or, frankly, also shipping Senua and Astridr, because I can see that ship too.

One of the nice things about all the details Ninja Theory didn't expand upon and that they left that ending so open is that the sky's the limit. I'm VERY interested in seeing fandom tackle this game as we get farther from the initial release.

[holocene-sims]

friendship with my semi-hiatus ended, now this sim i made is my best friend 🤝

[slitherpunk]

wish i had more to show off for girl's quest, but i've been working on the battle system, and it's pretty wacky and complex... and i *really* want this to feel right.

[aggressionbread]

oh one really cool thing i think i never noticed or really considered when I played the game, is that the Knight Academy rooms are actually a big room, divided in two with a wooden room divider in the middle. I have noticed that before, but what I didn't notice is that in Groose's shared room, Groose has presumably pushed the divider over so he has extra room for all his workout equipment, and just, space, meanwhile Cawlin and Strich are sharing that teeny room on the other half, but they also have a fancy golden couch for some reason, and I guess that makes up for it.

note: i did some looking through the other characters' rooms and houses, to see if this was indeed a fancy gold couch, or just a regular couch. after a very quick scan, I found that not only did i not find another golden couch, there was in fact only one couch of any kind that i could find in anyone's house (in rupin's house apparently, and its not gold)

also there's this picture of Groose wedged down between the desk and the wall divider

what is it doing there?

[dimension-20-every-introduction]

Everyone Introduced in Dimension 20′s Dungeons and Drag Queens episode 3

[grayeet]

The past few years I've been mourning the loss of old school minecraft minigame servers. I remember playing on the Hive and Mineplex and a bunch of other servers for hours because there were so many silly unique games to play.

But in the past few years I've found that there's really not much of that anymore. The Hive shut down and is only on Bedrock now (no hate to Bedrock but I personally just prefer Java and the Bedrock hive just looks like there's a different vibe), Mineplex shut down, and I feel like the minigame market is just dominated by Hypixel. I love hypixel, I grew up on it just like the other servers I mentioned, but let's all be honest here, it's really not as fun when there's only one place to go. (Also I'm super petty because their version of hide and seek is atrociously boring and I miss the Hive's hide and seek. Or even Mineplex's version with the mobs. This is the case with a lot of other gamemodes where I feel other servers did it better unfortunately.)

I know minigames aren't in the spotlight as much anymore. With the uptick of SMP content, that seems to have taken the forefront of the server market from what I've seen. And no hate to SMPs either, I love that kind of stuff, but I really do miss the variety of minigames.

So I really have to ask here, does anyone know any minigame servers other than Hypixel for java minecraft? Stuff that's not painfully competitive (Another of my issues with hypixel), maybe some classic survival games? Hide and seek obv, party style games, TTT, basically anything with the vibe of mid 2010s minigame servers because I've been looking for ages and for the life of me I can't seem to find anything and I'm desperate.