#th: sidebar

[teleportationmagic]

The thing about Jayce and Mel is that like. She does not view him as an investment. That is just certifiably false. You have to skip over all her scenes to believe that.

In the beginning she does! She absolutely does! She conceives of their relationship as a business one - where she makes profit off his inventions, and he profits from her business and political acumen, both monetarily and powerwise. And overall, she believes she's fulfilled her half of the bargain.

It's only when he comes back to her after Viktor gets sick that she realizes he believes this is something deeper. And it's notable that she responds to that emotion - she opens up about herself too, comforts him, and expresses real emotionality about it. It's then that we see his ideals start to influence her - especially reawakening in her a desire for nonviolence.

Wanting to do things peacefully is something that's been with her since she was a child. It is what guides her away from Noxus, because her pacifism just does not fit there. It's why she loved Piltover so - they aren't a violent expansionist empire, which is a really low bar, but that's what she's grown up in.

She never finds the violence in Zaun, because she never goes looking for it. This is her fault, and her flaw, let me make that clear. She has some of the most power in the city, and should know about what kind of violence is holding up, and work to resolve it, truly. But she doesn't, because she's focused on her own exploits, and has so insulated herself away from the class struggle that it does not register for her until it grows to violence.

And then, once that violence comes, she maintains that pacifism with an iron grip, more than Jayce himself. It is Jayce who constructs (almost) all the HexTech weapons that are used in the Undercity, in Caitlyn's police squadron. He betrays the oaths that he's made to his partner, where Mel keeps the promise she's made to her's. She is the only politician left to try to tamp down on the worst of Ambessa's instincts, and her removal from Piltover is what marks it's descent into militarism.

She is ultimately a complicated woman, with a bunch of interesting relationships to Piltover and Zaun. I think you can divide Piltover as a city neatly between her, Jayce, and Caitlyn - each of them standing for some of Piltover's best instincts, and some of its worst.

[desceros]

me: oh wow, a donnie pic that has completely melted my brain right out of my skull. i wonder who [checks username] [clenches fist] DONATHAN.............

the scientist

[jianghushenanigans]

In defence of Shan Gudao

I can hear what you’re thinking. “Shan Gudao??? What the fuck is wrong with you???”

In my defence. Well. People defend the actions of villains who have done much worse with less valid motivations.

Look at him. He's crying. (Granted he's about to throw his son in a murder pit but still.)

TO CLARIFY I am not denying that Shan Gudao did things that are bad. He’s in general not a great guy. I’m just saying that a lot of what he does is reasonably understandable given everything that happens to him. This is very tongue-in-cheek and should only be taken as seriously as you want to. But also I’d kill for more fics/meta/etc that dealt with Shan Gudao as a 3D character with complex motivations (Which he can be!!!!! If you try hard enough!!!!!)

Warning: here be spoilers. (Obviously)

Things that Shan Gudao does that are Not Good: abandoning his preganant not-girlfriend; bullying a disabled child; joining the evil foreigners; not dying even when he said he did; killing his shifu; and throwing his son in a murder pit.

Abandoning his not-girlfriend and unborn child

To begin: casual sex is not a crime. Sleeping with the girl who won’t stop following you around and is clearly has a crush on you a bit of a dick move, but the first thing Shan Gudao actually says to He Xiaolan, as per the flash back, is something along the lines of ‘you’re bad at martial arts and should go home’. He’s not her keeper, he’s not her babysitter, he’s not her lover. She falls in love with him – because she’s into negging, apparently – but they don’t actually have any sort of two-sided relationship going on at any point.

(And honestly who can blame her for falling in love. The man looks like this. He should never have grown that moustache.)

He Xiaolan returned to Tianji Manor ‘heartbroken and pregnant’. But, notably, she didn’t actually tell Shan Gudao about Fang Duobing. He didn’t know his son even existed. This screams, ‘he finally agreed to sleep with her after she kept following him around, and when he still didn’t return her feelings after that she realised it was over and finally gave up’. He didn’t abandon her: she left him. If she left him because he didn’t return her feelings, this… isn’t really his fault? The most he could be blamed for is not communicating his feelings but honestly we don’t get to see much of them at all and what we do hear about them suggests that He Xiaolan was the one doing the chasing and he wasn’t encouraging her.

Sidebar: I’m aro + ace and the idea of blaming Shan Gudao for not returning He Xiaolan’s feelings makes me feel kinda ill. To clarify I am not blaming He Xiaolan in this situation either. It’s fucky for everyone involved.

Also, Shan Gudao did not grow up with healthy relationships to model. We don’t know much about his upbringing other than that he was living on the streets until he was around 12 or 15 or however the timeline works when Qi Mushan found Li Xiangyi, and even if we did know about that, he doesn’t remember it. The only ‘romantic’ relationship he has actually ever seen is whatever the hell was going on between Qi Mushan and Qin Po. He might not have even recognised that He Xiaolan actually had romantic feelings about him, because his only example was a couple who used their two disciples as a way of fighting each other.

And finally regarding this point: eight years after Fang Duobing is born, when Shan Gudao finds out that he does in fact have a son, he wants to take him with him. This is not the move of someone who willingly abandoned his pregnant not-girlfriend. Obviously he does change his mind when he actually meets Fang Duobing, which leads us to…

Bullying his disabled eight year old son

Yeah this one’s pretty indefensible, other than the fact that Shan Gudao never had a father/uncle/shifu/parental figure who ever said anything nice to him either so he didn’t really know any better. This is a reason but not a justification. Stop being an arsehole to the child.

Joining Feng Qing and the Nanyin rebels and attempting to take the throne

Picture, for a moment, that you woke up with no memories in some guy’s house, and he says he’s your shifu now, and this 5 year old who says you’re his older brother. And then your shifu begins training you and it’s not only immediately obvious that this 5 year old is better than you at martial arts, but also your shifu does not like you and does not want you in his house and only took you in because of this child who he thinks is the best thing that ever happened to him. And you grow up and this child continues to show you up in every way and gets lots of praise for it and your shifu thinks you’re such a burden to train he gives you to his wife so they can use the children as a way to compete with each other.

And then you leave home and some guy sees this token which is literally the only thing you own that you had with you when you woke up with no memories, and says ‘You’re important. You’re the person we’ve been looking for all this time. We want you with us. You deserve the world’.

Like, I’m sorry. Who wouldn’t say yes in this situation? Shan Gudao, neglected and ignored and alone in the jianghu, was ripe to be groomed for this sort of thing. Why wouldn’t he get swept up in the daze of finally being someone that mattered to someone other than a child?

As far as literally everyone other than his shifu and shiniang are aware, Feng Qing is telling him the truth. But because they didn’t bother to tell even Li Xiangyi about this, let alone the other boy they didn’t even want, there was literally no way anyone could have known any better.

And the truth is, the descendant of Consort Xuan/Nanyin heir did have a right to the throne by blood in a way that the present Emperor of Da Xi very much did not. And how would Nanyin get the throne back if not by a coup? If the heroes had been the ‘true heirs’ to a throne then the coup would have been presented as a good thing to do. But I digress.

Joining Feng Qing and attempting to claim the throne he was led to believe was rightfully his actually makes sense given everything we know about Shan Gudao. They gave him a family and a home in a way that the dysfunctional shit going on on Yunyin Mountain never managed to provide.

Faking his own death

Technically not really a crime. Yeah Li Xiangyi got a bit sad about it but then we wouldn’t have got to see Cheng Yi weeping as he cradled his shixiong’s corpse in his arms. So really, we should all be thanking Shan Gudao for his totally normal and rational plans.

Killing his shifu

This is, technically, the worst crime that Shan Gudao actually commits. This being said. Looking at it from Shan Gudao’s point of view, Qi Mushan deserved it actually. I have already ranted about the fucked up way Qi Mushan and Qin Po raised their disciples and especially Shan Gudao and there’s no need to rehash all of it. But there are always a few extra things I have to say about Shan Gudao and his fuck-ass shifu.

At the end when Shan Gudao is, unsurprisingly, having a massive breakdown about how everything he has been told and made part of his personality for the past twenty years has all be a lie, Li Lianhua says ‘no one was ever competing with you’. And to an extent this is true. Li Xiangyi was not competing with him, from his point of view: they were just training together. But Qi Mushan and Qin Po were competing with each other using him. For Li Xiangyi, the younger child, the always-victor, this had the effect of bolstering his pride and arrogance, but being young (and proud and arrogant) he wouldn’t necessarily have noticed anything else about it. For Shan Gudao, who was forced to always compete with this child he could never beat, who was the tool that meant Qin Po would never be able to win? No wonder this fucked him up immensely.

When Qin Po finally decides to bother telling Li Lianhua about his heritage, she looks at Shan Gudao and LAUGHS at him and says ‘do you really think you were a nobleman from Nanyin? You were just a little beggar Qi Mushan and I took from a group of beggars’. Like wow, I can’t believe you have delusions of grandeur despite the fact that everyone in a position to know anything about you either refused to tell you anything or genuinely believed what they told you to be true. You pathetic beggar child. You should have known your place.

He should have killed her also xoxox

Throwing Fang Duobing into his torture-dungeon-pit-thing

This was also reasonably uncalled for. He’s not a particularly great dad. Do we blame this on the fact that Fang Duobing, like everyone else, chose Li Xiangyi over Shan Gudao? (If so that’s definitely on Shan Gudao, no wonder he didn’t pick you, stop bullying children) Or do we blame this, once again, on his shifu and shiniang using him as a tool to fight each other with? I will choose the latter for the sake of making a point.

ONE FINAL NOTE

Shan Gudao was looking after Li Xiangxian and Li Xiangyi on the streets. This child in episode 30, who is buying food for Li Xiangyi,

is the same as this child in episode 39, who is Shan Gudao.

He’s not someone who was inherently incredibly selfish. He wouldn’t have wasted his own resources on taking care of an unrelated child otherwise. He got an illness that gave him a brain injury bad enough that he forgot his entire past, and then was raised in competition with Li Xiangyi, however much Li Xiangyi was unaware of it.

In conclusion: everything is Qi Mushan’s fault. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

[krashlite]

C!Pearl’s a character who people usually only analyze from DL onwards, with her Scarlet Pearl arc influencing future seasons. However, I think it’s very important to look at LL when talking about her, since that season formed a lot of her fundamental viewpoints in this game, viewpoints she’s forced to unpack in later seasons.

LONG POST under the cut!

LL was the most chaotic and violent season BY FAR, even including LimL! The deaths in LimL were very much gamified, while in LL every life counted. The main lesson the three newcomers learned is that the world is cruel and they can never truly trust anyone. Well, except Pearl didn’t learn that second lesson

Mumbo and Lizzie both spent LL in a constant state of either panic or confusion, with there being a few very brief breaks between. This is the case for LL in general, but with the newcomers it’s so much more startling. They don’t know how this goes, and they see Experienced players paranoid alongside them.

Not to mention Mumbo and Lizzie were constantly put in situations where they couldn’t trust the people around them, whether it be because of a boogeyman or any other reason. With them being in a group of 4-5 people, there was a much higher chance of them being betrayed and they never let themselves relax

Pearl definitely experienced the same panic and confusion, but she adapted much quicker than they did. This is mostly due to Scott being her ally- him being pretty consistent and calm as a person. Not to mention, Pearl only had a single person to worry about, when other alliances had 4-5 people to consider. Any one of them could turn and still have a place with the other members, but a group of two didn’t

(Also sidebar, 3L turned into a game of factions, so in LL everyone immediately started with factions, the exceptions being Ren, Lizzie, Pearl, and Scott. Ren was recovering from his Red King arc and ashamed of his former self, while Pearl and Lizzie were new and hadn’t been adopted into a group like Mumbo had. Scott’s reasoning for picking a small group is that he only stayed safe in 3L when him and Jimmy were fairly isolated, so that’s why he will usually opt for a group of two. Anyways)

Since Scott Only had her, he wasn’t about to turn on her and Pearl knew this. When Cleo later joins the group, she isn’t a risk either due to the circumstances of her joining. Cleo was betrayed, they were killed by a boogeyman in their group. BigB’s betrayal hit so hard that Cleo named him her sworn enemy. Why would they turn on Pearl if this affected them so much? Pearl is able to lean on them comfortably, even as the rest of the server begins to target the alliance (for a green name I might add! Pearl was safest for the longest amount of time this season)

Pearl could trust her team, and her team was honestly well provided for. They had nether goods, they had a spawner, Pearl had enough lives to keep them stable for a few deaths. They’d managed to defend themselves against Constant invasions and weren’t backing down anytime soon.

As for others, Pearl only ever saw them if they wanted to rob her or kill her, having very few interactions outside of that. This establishes that theft and threats are one and the same, with robberies threatening their resources and their survival and threats being, well, threats

The main lesson Pearl learns here is that her team are the only people she can trust, and she trusts them wholeheartedly. They will always have her back, they will always steer her in the right direction. The world is hostile, but they’ll face it together. What Pearl doesn’t learn is impulse control. Her impulse control came in the form of Scott and Cleo, with them being much more cautious than she is

Because of them, Pearl made it to the final four in her FIRST SEASON. This is incredibly impressive, Especially considering how, again, LL was the most violent and chaotic season. She might’ve fallen in the final melee, but she rested easy knowing her teammate won. She had gotten him there, and counts it as a personal victory

When DL rolls around, Pearl employs the same tactics as the last season. LL had a very quick race for resources at the start, specifically for sugar cane and goods from the nether. So Pearl assumes it’s the same thing. She’s preparing for the same chaotic environment as LL and is reassured by the soulmate feature

In her mind, her soulmate is her one designated ally. She trusts them wholeheartedly and assumes they feel the same. No matter what they face, she knows they’ll face it together

Except that isn’t what happens

As it turns out, Scott was her soulmate. But she overlooked one key detail about him- Scott plays it safe. He doesn’t endanger himself unless absolutely necessary. She’d previously assumed it was a matter of practicality, but really it’s a means of defending his own peace above all else, even at the expense of others

So her little trip to the nether with Martyn didn’t just endanger them, it endangered their soulmates. It endangered Cleo and it endangered Scott

Their response is to abandon their soulmates because they felt abandoned. They don’t feel that they can trust their soulmates because of the fact that said soulmates were prioritizing a dangerous mission over them. Except Pearl doesn’t understand this. All she sees is that they abandoned her after she went on a dangerous mission For Them, a mission she would have been previously praised for

Pearl is dropped by the very people she trusted with her life last season, and she doesn’t know Why. To say this crushes her is an understatement

It wasn’t just a rejection from her former friends, it’s a betrayal of a fundamental worldview she developed last season. How could a group that was basically family abandon her just like that? If her designated ally wanted nothing to do with her, then whats the point in trusting anyone?

That last question is pushed to the side, with her insisting on Tilly being her true soulmate. Tilly would never abandon her, she can trust Tilly wholeheartedly. Except Tilly dies almost immediately afterwards, starting her Scarlet Pearl arc

(And I do want to say, I consider Tilly to be fully Dead. The second wolf was a different wolf entirely, but Pearl was in a state of delirium and wanted so badly to have someone to rely on. If it couldn’t be another player, then it would be her dog. Funnily enough, this actually comes up later but that’s an asterisk*)

This arc was basically a constant downwards spiral for Pearl. Any foundation she had was immediately uprooted, any alliance she formed immediately fell apart. This stressed her out to the point she wasn’t sleeping and frequently acted out against the people in her surroundings. Pearl was not maintaining herself in the slightest, her mental state affecting those around her. The main examples I can think of is her stealing horses and sitting in powdered snow to punish Scott, both of which do have explanations

Again, Pearl is basing her actions off of LL, even if she doesn’t realize it. Her alliance was robbed over and over again, usually for things like sugar cane and nether goods. These are things that are high value because they help a team survive. When it comes to pets and livestock, they really weren’t considered unless they were being held ransom. In LL, being stolen from was a threat to someone’s survival

Except this isn’t LL and Pearl is just starting to realize that, with every alliance being stable from an outside perspective. She’s using these thefts to test the waters. If something happens, she’s right to be paranoid and right to lash out. If nothing happens, she can relax, which she does! After stealing Scar’s horse she does briefly stop tormenting the server, instead going back to watching the others.

(^^ I might have the timeline wrong here btw it’s been a second)

As for Scott, her sitting in powdered snow has different connotations than it does for other alliances. She isn’t the only person to hurt her soulmate in this way, Scar actually being the one to suggest this. For Scar it was a harmless but irritating way to get back at Grian for kicking out the Jellie Pandas. It hurt, but it wasn’t meant to actually endanger the other (still abuse btw, just a different kind). For Pearl, her sitting in powdered snow was a tactic intended to make Scott feel unsafe. If he valued his precious security so much that he kicked her to the wolves, then she won’t let him have a moment’s peace.

But going back to the horses- stealing Ren and BigB’s horse was the moment things changed for her. This theft resulted in both of them dying, confirming the idea that thefts threaten someone’s survival. Except Pearl never meant to endanger them, as shown with her defending their items when none other than Scott and Cleo come to scavenge them.

When Ren and BigB return, it’s Pearl who gets blamed for the death, not the circumstances. The blame shifts from the world being cruel, to Pearl herself being cruel. Pearl is unable to cope with this, isolating in response. She sees every other pair finding peace and joy in one another, but she destroys everything she touches. In her mind, she IS the cruelty that exists in the world and nobody is coming to save her.

I think Pearl actually blames herself for Ren and BigB falling apart, which she finds out about when Ren and Martyn “summon” her. This actually affirms the lesson she Just learned, with her accepting the role of Scarlet Pearl. Previously, it was just an act but now it felt more real

She goes on to purposefully endanger others, seeing this as her true role on the server. Pearl had been wearing her red skin before this, but that was only to show her state of mind. Now, she was fully playing into this role, as seen with the fishing rod incident and, again, stealing armor from Boat Boys as a means of threatening their survival

I don’t think Pearl expected to be threatened in return, and her subsequent death did give her a moment of clarity. She was made to understand that her existence in this state was inherently risky, and she needed to be more careful. I think that was the driving force for her seeking out Scott and Cleo to form a tentative alliance. Pearl hasn’t forgiven them at this point, but knew she needed them if she was to last. This forces her to have some level of impulse control, instead of only relying on those around hee

Them being her failsafe put her in a difficult situation when it comes to her Scarlet Pearl role. She was a “Red,” that’s her job, but her team still needed her. But they’re not her team, but she needs them, but she can’t trust them, not after what they did.

But she has to, and that’s what ultimately brings her to side with them; necessity. She doesn’t like them, she doesn’t trust them, a sentiment they return, but she needs them.

The world is cruel, Pearl is cruel, and she needs to defend herself and her own peace- a lesson that, funnily enough, she picked up from Scott

Ultimately Pearl doesn’t learn to care about either of them until the moment she dies. ESPECIALLY Cleo, who ended up siding with Martyn in the end. But it’s Scott’s sacrifice that cuts through the callous she’d developed over the course of the season. He gave his life for her. Scott sacrificed himself FOR HER. The action doubles as changing her perception of him as a person and changing her perception of the world. Scott wasn’t the selfish man she made him out to be, and the world wasn’t filled with senseless cruelty.

Pearl hasn’t learned to trust again, but she’s able to begin the process in LimL

Enter: BigB

BigB’s someone who has had shaky alliances over the ENTIRE series. This started in 3L when the other two Blue Sword Boys ended up on opposing sides of a war, him trapped between them. He learned that season that ultimately he was the only person he could trust. In LL, his initial decision to stay with Cleo then the fairy fort was one made out of necessity, NOT trust. BigB was a sitting duck on his own, and he wasn’t about to have a repeat of last season he got targeted over and over again for being isolated.

And I do think that he cared about the Fairy Fort, they gave him a sense of genuine security that he hasn’t had before. So him being the cause of the Fairy Fort’s collapse gave him a Crisis

The last person he was able to trust that season was Ren, and Ren ended up being his soulmate in DL. Except due to the cheater’s arc BigB blames himself their demise in DL as well (Again, there was shared blame across all parties I made an entire long post about this already).

So BigB is going into LimL with the same lesson Pearl has just begun unpacking; They are the cruelty/danger that exists in the world and can never truly rely on anyone

(Also second sidebar, this is something I love about LimL. Everyone coincidentally got an alliance with matching wounds, but moving on)

The first thing Pearl actually does this season is try to retrieve Tilly, her dog she thinks is still alive. (And here’s that asterisk*) what actually happens is Martyn jokes that he cremated her dog, and Pearl’s unintentionally forced to understand that her dog is dead, she’s Been dead since the start of DL. Breaking apart that delusion was actually Very important to her breaking apart her worldview. If that information was false, what else was she wrong about?

And this is explored through her alliance with BigB. See, the Nosey Neighbors were a fresh start for both of them. They both were re-learning how to trust themselves and others, relearning how to care for others and be cared for in turn. Them watching the server was a lighthearted way to vent their paranoia- again, both unpacking how they view the world and how they view themselves

LimL as a season did a lot to defang the games, for lack of a better term. The deaths were very much gamified, they weren’t nearly as serious as they previously were. Pearl and BigB used this environment to reflect on themselves. The world was chaotic, yes, but it wasn’t as cruel as they thought it was. THEY aren’t as cruel as they thought they were

Pearl makes the decision to be his protector, treating this as a test to show she doesn’t destroy everything she touches. Except, she hasn’t unpacked how she sees herself as cruel, only points that “cruelty” away from those she cares about, and that’s why acting as Protector comes so naturally to her

This is reinforced over the course of the season, but it’s only ever confronted towards the end after Grian’s plan resulted in the three of them being shot. BigB was left with under a minute left, causing Pearl to panic. Pearl immediately insisted he kill her for more time, with BigB panicking in turn because he “didn’t know how.” He was scared of breaking the bond they’d developed over the season and Pearl cut through that fear without hesitation

And here’s where her role as protector is solidified. The world is cruel and unjust, and everyone deserves to have someone to rely on. Pearl would be the foundation for others since nobody else was going to be.

Pearl had already made a promise to herself and to BigB to get him to the end. He would win that season if she had anything to say about it. Except Pearl isn’t able to keep her promise to BigB. He dies just out of eyeshot, and she is helpless to save him

Pearl doesn’t give up on being a protector, this decision influencing a lot of her actions in SL. She wants to be a solid foundation for the Mounders because she knows the importance of having that foundation- she knows the pain a lack of foundation can cause.

Also, the Mounders being a larger group acts as proof that she’s able to trust others again, even if that doesn’t register to her. Remember, LL created the precedent that larger groups are more dangerous, with smaller alliances being much safer. Pearl being able to function comfortably in a group of 4 just goes to show how much she’s grown as a character

SL goes on to challenge her new worldview in several ways. First it was Mumbo turning Red, him becoming excessively violent like he’d been in LL. This actually acts as a mirror to Pearl’s former self, since Mumbo’s pulling from the same logic she was pulling from in DL. Remember, Mumbo hasn’t been in other seasons, his only experience with the games was the confusion and paranoia of LL (I think the lighthearted confusion of the tasks actually triggered his and Lizzie’s paranoia, but that’s another essay). He hasn’t had a chance to unpack that like Pearl has, and she sees this as a failure on her part, doubling down on her Protector role for Joel and Bdubs

Second, Joel and Bdubs, losing their lives. Pearl was forced to reckon with the fact that she cannot keep them safe in the same way she couldn’t keep BigB safe last season. It brings back her fears of destroying everything she touches, even though she worked so hard to unpack that last season. She sees them dying as her failing to be their protector, and her clinging to Scar is a response to that. Pearl needed to prove to herself that she can save Someone, that she doesn’t destroy everything she’s a part of.

Pearl also sees Scar as an echo of who she was in DL, same as Mumbo. She refuses to let him spiral in his isolation. Except, circumstances make it clear to her that she cannot save him by being his protector, she cannot save him at all.

And so she attempts to sacrifice herself for him, just like Scott had done for her. Pearl thinks she will ultimately cause his demise and the only thing she can do is give her life for him

But Scar immediately shoots that idea down.

This is because Scar was unpacking the exact same idea- the idea that he is inherently cruel and destroys everything he touches. Scar recognized that Pearl was self destructing and Did Not Let Her. Pearl wasn’t allowed to be his protector, she’s allowed to be his ally, his equal

Pearl in turn is allowed to see herself not as a force to be controlled, but a person. I don’t think she even realized how she’d been dehumanizing herself until this moment

And I think she has conflicting feelings on Scar’s victory. On the one hand, she achieved her goal in having an ally make it to the end. On the other, Scar’s victory challenged what it even meant to win the games. Pearl doesn’t know if the victory was worth the path it took to get there, and she’s left in that headspace until the next season

[kweenhera]

Mon and Perrin reunion

[Excerpt from fanfic Rebellions Eat Their Own]

Coruscant. New Republic Interim Capital. 5 ABY

Mon stepped into the elevator, flanked by her senatorial guards. Their polished sapphire armor reflected the dim lighting, casting fractured glimmers across the walls. 

When they arrived at the floor, she raised a hand. "Wait here," she ordered them.

The doors slid open.

Perrin sat alone on the couch, a half-empty glass of amber liquor in hand. Of course. The years had not been kind to him. His once-thick hair, now thinning. He looked older, but then, so did she. The war had aged her, just as leisure had aged him. 

"What an honor," Perrin said, standing up with deliberate slowness. The mechanical restraint around his ankle hummed softly, its red light pulsing like a slow-beating heart. "The Supreme Chancellor in my own home. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Just Chancellor ," Mon corrected. She didn’t move further into the apartment. "I wanted to see how you were."

"They’ve locked my balcony," he said, as if that answered everything. "Afraid I’ll jump." He chuckled, swirling his drink. "As if I’d give them the satisfaction."

Mon studied him—really studied him—trying to find the boy he’d been at the Chandrilan Academy. The blue-eyed idealist who’d quoted historic reformers between kisses behind the lecture halls. The one everyone had predicted would rise to the Senate. Where had that boy gone?

"But enough about me." Perrin’s voice snapped her back. "Look at you. You’ve got everything you wanted."

She forced a smile. "Freedom for the galaxy?"

"How convenient that galactic freedom requires you at its helm." He took a sip, watching her over the rim. 

"Do you truly believe that’s why I did this?" Her fingers tightened around the datapad she carried. "That’s the reason I left?"

"So now you care what I think?" He barked a laugh, walking to the sidebar to refill his glass. "You know what it was like for us after you vanished? The interrogations? The way our friends looked at Leida and me? Thinking that they might send us to Narkina at any minute…" Ice clinked violently into his glass. "We had to prove our loyalty—all because of what you did”

"Oh, it must’ve been agonizing ," Mon said, her voice sharpening. She thought about the months spent in the bunker beneath the Great Temple of Yavin. Being whisked away by Commander Dodonna before the battle. Her cramped room onboards Ackbar’s ship, just a bulkhead between her and the cold, crushing depths of space. All the friends and comrades she had seen perish. "Between Cloud City and Canto Bight, trading favors with Davo Sculdun and Sly Moore. So unbearable, in fact, that you needed comfort from a Twi’lek girl young enough to be your daughter." She hadn’t sought out the gossip, but it had reached even Yavin—the holos of Perrin draped over petite turquoise shoulders. His grin wide, his eyes empty.

During the war, the Imperial propaganda machine had paraded him around on every galactic morning talk show. "Mon Mothma’s abandoned family speaks out!" . Perrin spun tales of her coldness and her alleged embezzlement. They say that was why she actually left Coruscant. The Imperial Tax Agency had issued an order for her arrest. And that hadn’t been the end of the absurd rumours. 

"They said you killed your driver," Perrin mused. "What was his name—Clovis? A lovers’ quarrel, apparently."

"No one with a brain believed that." Kloris , she thought. His name was Kloris .

"It didn’t matter what people believed," Perrin said. "It was the only story they let be told."  They even got Leida to appear on Good Morning, Coruscant with Moffi and Toffi, coached to trembling tears, calling her a traitor and worse - a poor mother.

"You used our own daughter against me", Mon said, tears of anger welling up in her eyes.Perrin shook his head. "No, she decided that on her own." The mention of Leida changed his demeanour. All of a sudden he appeared meek. His eyes peered downward.

“I’m not guilty of what they say I am”, Perrin said. “There are people a lot worse than me”. He did have a point. There were collaborators who still roamed free whose complicity in the imperial machine far outstripped Perrins. “But there are also people who are a lot better. I’ve had my chances… but our daughter. She doesn’t deserve this”, he appealed. 

The deep silence filled the room. Mon exhaled. She met his gaze. "That’s why I’m here. She’s receiving a full pardon."

She didn’t need to elaborate. What wasn’t said could speak for itself. The flicker in his eyes told her he understood: this was her severing the last thread between them. His life was now in the hands of The Force. His fate—trial, prison, or exile—would unfold without her interference. He went back to his couch and sat down.

The last time she’d stood in this apartment, she’d risen before dawn to rehearse her speech for the Senate. Perrin had slept soundly, oblivious. She’d almost woken him—not to confess, but to say goodbye to the memory of the boy who’d once written her name inside his textbook.

In the end, she’d left without a word.

"You know you could have trusted me. I know you didn't spend all that money on antiques", he said. "They questioned me multiple times - even before your escape - I never said anything". Her heart sank. She looked in his eyes and could for a split second recognise the boy she had once known. The Academy firebrand. "I never knew exactly what you and Tay Kolma were up to together, but I want you to know... I never took him seriously, as a rival..." He trailed off. For my affections?. They both knew it had been too late for that.

Mon didn't know what to say. What do you say to a man you'd shared so much of your life with? A man who knew you better than anyne, and yet didn't seem to understand you at all?

"Tay Kolma died for the cause," she said at last. It wasn't a lie, not exactly. Mon's holopad started beeping. "I think it's time I left," she said.

"Have a good evening, Chancellor ," Perrin said. She couldn’t tell if the title was a jab or surrender. Mon turned, the elevator doors sealing behind her like a tomb.

[chocolatepot]

Twitter is rapidly sinking as people are only allowed to look at it for about ten minutes a day, so I thought I would put together a post explaining the best way to get started on Mastodon! It can be an intimidating prospect as it's not as immediately user-friendly as Twitter or other corporate social media sites.

Selecting a server

The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that you don't just "sign up for Mastodon". Mastodon is effectively made up of hundreds of small sites (called "instances") that are all interconnected ("federated") and use the same interface. The instance you choose has only a minor effect on your experience. The main one to be aware of is that if an instance is known to be poorly moderated and have users who cause a lot of trouble, other instances may unlink from it ("defederate") and make it more difficult for people on it to interact with you. This is rare. The very big, unthemed instances like mastodon.social are more likely to have this problem than any fannish one, in my experience. (You can also make a personal choice to block an entire instance if you have an issue with it.)

The other effect is that each instance has its own universal feed of all users on it.

The sidebar looks almost exactly like Twitter's, except for "local" and "federated". Your home feed is just the people you follow. "Local" is everyone on your instance, and "federated" is everyone on any instance yours is federated with. The local feed is why it's worthwhile to choose an instance that has some sort of theme you're interested in, like fandom, tech, queer issues, history, etc.

The two main fannish instances I'm aware of are fandom.ink and federatedfandom.net. There's also wandering.shop but that seems to be more for writers, in my experience. If you want a different sort of instance, just google "[topic] mastodon instance" and you should find it.

Applying to your instance

Because instances are more tightly moderated than the rest of social media, you can't always immediately get into the one you want. (Though I suspect that many have opened up slightly as Twitter flails.) You may need to submit some kind of application and wait a few days.

If you know someone on the instance you want to join, they may be able to get you an invite code so you can skip the queue. I have unlimited invites for fandom.ink, hit me up if you want to join.

You can also join an instance that's currently taking new accounts and then transfer into the one you want later. For the impatient souls.

Posting

The mechanics of posting are just like Twitter's.

You type in the box, you hit "toot" (I know), and out it goes. You may notice that you get a 500 character limit! This is nice.

If you add an image, make sure to add alt text. Not including alt text may get you flamed or shamed. You can also make a poll, set privacy levels, and add a content/spoiler/trigger warning that will require people to click through to see the text.

Use of hashtags is strongly encouraged on Mastodon. I've seen some talk praising Tumblr's style of having a separate field for tags and suggesting Mastodon add that, but I don't know if it'll happen. But unlike Twitter, there's an earnest culture of incorporating tags into your text (eg "I just bought a new #fountainpen") and following tags to get posts about different topics. This is the main way to find people with similar interests to follow, outside of your local feed.

It's also Mastodon culture to write an introductory post with your interests, including hashtags, so that people can find you.

Something else to be aware of is that you can edit your posts! If anyone has already rt'd ("boosted") them - they will just get a notification of your edit.

You cannot qrt on Mastodon at this time. It's a hotly debated topic. You will have to settle for boosting and then replying, or making your own post with context and linking to the post you want to qrt.

Following other people

If the person you want to follow is on your instance, that's all well and good. Click on their name, go to their profile, click the "follow" button.

If they are not on your instance, you need to make sure that you're accessing them through your instance. Clicking on their name from your federated feed, or if someone has boosted them onto your home feed, will automatically take you to the version of their profile on your instance. Also all well and good.

If you get to their profile from somewhere else, such as a direct link from another social media platform, that's a problem. If you try to follow, their instance will bleat at you that you don't have an account. There are two ways to get around this.

One is to paste their entire username (eg "@chocolatepot@fandom.ink") into the search bar on your instance, from your home feed. The other is to navigate to "http://[your server address]/[their whole username]" in your address bar. Both will take you to the same place.

[pansexualkiba]

"Naruto-kun, would you like help in proving you're a vampire?" Hinata blurted out, the first words she'd spoken since she appeared in the conversation.

Naruto blinked, not expecting Hinata to say anything, but nodded anyways, grin threatening to split his face in half. "That'd be great, Hinata! Thanks!"

"Hinata? Sidebar?" Kiba requested, pulling Hinata to the side at her absent hum. "Why are you just. Agreeing to this?"

"The chances of Naruto being a vampire are next to nil." Shino agreed. "Why? Because vampires do not exist."

"Well, if N-Naruto-kun is a vampire," Hinata explained, tapping her fingers together, "Th-then perhaps he may induct me into his dark coven, and-and then, he'll..."

"Okay, I'll stop you right there and move on to my second question." Kiba interrupted Hinata, "What if he isn't a vampire?"

"Which he is not. Because they do not exist." Shino stressed.

"Oh, then I get to watch Naruto-kun be stupid for several hours." Hinata explained as if she were talking about the price of rice. "Either way, I can't lose."

Kiba massaged the bridge of his nose. "Why," he began, "Do you want to watch him be-"

"It's a major charm point." Hinata blurted out.

Kiba sighed. "Ask dumb questions, I guess."

"Do not feel bad, Kiba." Shino consoled Kiba. "Why? Because I think your stupidity is a charm point."

"Thanks, man." Kiba smiled, then he tilted his head like a dog. "Wait, what?"

[toyhou-se-drama]

had some th user who cannot read offer on my sonas despite every folder, sidebar blurbs, profile, and profile warning saying NOT TO offer on my characters? why can't you people fucking read????

🦫

[honourablejester]

Rewarding XP for Exploration

Following from that Megadungeon discussion I watched yesterday, I’m just thinking about how you would go about awarding XP primarily for exploration within D&D 5e.

Combat XP is easy because you’ve a nice simple number from the monster stat block to divide among the party, but the game doesn’t provide quick reference numbers for non-combat XP. Instead, what you get is the following advice:

“NONCOMBAT CHALLENGES. You decide whether to award experience to characters for overcoming challenges outside combat. If the adventurers complete a tense negotiation with a baron, forge a trade agreement with a clan of surly dwarves, or successfully navigate the Chasm of Doom, you might decide that they deserve an XP reward. As a starting point, use the rules for building combat encounters in chapter 3 to gauge the difficulty of the challenge. Then award the characters XP as if it had been a combat encounter of the same difficulty, but only if the encounter involved a meaningful risk of failure.” (DMG 2014)

“NONCOMBAT CHALLENGES. You decide whether to award XP to characters for overcoming challenges outside combat. If the adventurers complete a tense negotiation with a baron, forge a trade agreement with a guild of surly smiths, or safely navigate the Chasm of Doom, you might decide the characters deserve XP. As a starting point, use the rules for building combat encounters in chapter 4 to gauge the difficulty of the challenge. Then award the characters XP as if it had been a combat encounter of the same difficulty.” (DMG 2024)

So going over to the encounter building advice, essentially you take the party’s (or possible hazard’s) level, you decide whether the challenge was low/moderate/high difficulty (OR easy/medium/hard/deadly in 2014), and you get a number of XP for the challenge based on that. In some senses for non-combat challenges this is easier, as for combat you’ve got to multiply that number by the number of players to get a budget for monster XP, as it’ll have to be divided among them at the end, while for non-combat you can just take that number as the amount of XP awarded to each player after successfully completing the challenge. And hey, at least we have that table to give ballpark amounts.

[Sidebar: Or you can go milestone, but some of his points from that discussion do make sense to me in that regard: you want to have fixed areas of deadliness within the dungeon so that the party can choose when/if they want to try more dangerous levels, not level the various areas of the dungeon to the level of the party when they arrive. The general rule being: the deeper, the deadlier (and weirder). So if a party finds a secret shaft down to level 5 from level 2 and wants to try their hand, they can, and get pasted off a wall (or not!) for it if they want. More challenge = more reward, so you scale the magic items and other rewards to the area of the dungeon as well. I do like this idea. So you probably do want to be running some form of XP system as opposed to the more generalised milestone system, so that you’re directly rewarding them for the challenges they’ve chosen to take on, rather than selecting challenges for them based on your decision of what they can survive]

If we wanted to incentivise exploration above everything else, we do want a good firm structure for exploration XP, and we want to reduce the focus on combat XP. So a party has to get at least as much XP from exploring as they would from combat.

Now, combat XP isn’t necessarily awarded for purely killing a monster either. “When adventurers overcome one or more monsters—typically by killing, routing, capturing, or cleverly avoiding them—they divide the total XP value of the monsters evenly among themselves.” (DMG 2024, emphasis mine). Vs DMG 2014: “When adventurers defeat one or more monsters-typically by killing, routing, or capturing them-they divide the total XP value of the monsters evenly among themselves.” Which leaves out the avoiding them option. So if we use the 2024 rules, we already have a precedent for a party getting just as much XP for managing to sneak past a monster as for killing it. So you fully can have monsters as obstacles to exploration, and give the party full XP for either killing OR going around said monsters. I would add an option to negotiate as well, for equal XP.

The main problem, if you want to make exploration (and/or social) gameplay the focus of your adventure/campaign/megadungeon, is that they don’t give real examples of what to award said XP for. Well. We have the glanced examples of completing a tense negotiation, forging a trade agreement, and navigating a chasm. Which, to be fair, I could interpret all of those as exploration elements, if you choose to negotiate your way past local inhabitants instead of killing your way past them, and if you want to make trade agreements along the way for logistical reasons to enable further exploration. So basically, if you want to have an exploration-focused campaign, what you need to do is nail down a list of actions on the part of the party that you consider exploration actions, and that will earn them XP based on that table in the Building Encounters section of the DMG. (Based on the party’s level or the level of the area of the dungeon, mind you, is a further consideration, but let’s leave that until later).

Basically, if you were running a megadungeon campaign, what activities would you consider appropriate to earn XP, and how much, and are there enough of them that it would at least equal the amount of XP earned from monsters? (Although, if we’re using the ‘also avoid or negotiate’ rules for monsters, that should handle itself, you’ve already de-emphasised combat as the only option, you just have to make that clear to the players).

So. A couple of thoughts for actions that could earn XP in an exploration campaign:

Preparation Stage

Learning/seeking out information on an area to explore (the dungeon, access to new levels, etc).

Choosing to seek out and enter unexplored territory (a new area/level/region), because I do think it might be worth rewarding the decision to go exploring.

Making adequate preparations for exploration (supplies, guides, contacts).

Scouting to locate an entrance to said area.

Discovering/creating items (keys, magic items, boats) or spells (and yes, I fully do mean granting XP to the whole party if someone chooses to take water breathing or spider climb or fly, they went out of their way to gain a tool, they can be rewarded for it) that enable access to previously inaccessible areas.

Main Exploration Stage

Entering a new room/area/region/level. This one is going to be the bread-and-butter in a lot of ways, so judge how often you give it, it probably doesn’t have to be room-by-room (though it could be), but definitely give good XP for entering a new level or themed area of a level. And there is then a question of if simply going down there (descending the stairs to the level, opening the door to the room) is enough, or if they do have at least fully enter and contend with an initial element of the area before retreating to earn the XP. But I think taking the chance on going there and at least evaluating their chances of survival should be enough, if they nope out early it’s fine, so long as they only get the XP for going into any area once and once only.

Negotiating obstacles (traps, hazards, monsters).

Discovering information about the area (solving puzzles, investigating, uncovering lore, talking with locals).

Discovering alternate routes and secret areas.

Negotiating passage through an area (though this arguably falls under ‘negotiating obstacles’).

Making safe areas within the dungeon to enable resting (choosing good locations, barricading rooms, use of spells like Alarm or Tiny Hut or Rope Trick).

Gaining supplies from within the area (finding and taking equipment from previous adventurers, acquiring supplies from creatures within the area, finding and using water sources and checking if they’re safe, etc).

Discovering treasure within the area.

Having An Effect on the Area/Dungeon

Permanently destroying/disabling/otherwise making safe traps and other hazards.

Making alliances with a native faction or creature in the area.

Playing multiple factions against each other to gain access to new areas.

Aiding a faction in the area to victory and/or destroying a faction in the area.

Negotiating things like passage and alliance not just for yourselves but for others who come after you (making a deal with a dwarven clan to allow traders/adventurers from your city to pass through their section of the dungeon, for example).

Mapping the area as you go (if someone has or chose to acquire proficiency with cartographers tools, that could be rewarded), as well as leaving copies of said maps in strategic locations so that others could benefit from them. Alternatively, compiling disparate maps you might have discovered en route into a more complete picture of the area.

Setting up permanent safe zones and base camps by whatever means (agreements, traps, spells like Hallow, Forbiddance etc).

Setting up, or arranging to have set up, permanent accessibility points (arranging guides along river routes, setting up teleportation circles, etc).

Causing a permanent change to the layout of the dungeon (flooding a level, permanently filling a chasm, digging a new passage through an area, etc).

This is off the top of my head here, there are obviously other things, and some of these might not suit depending on the play styles of your party. But generally, you want to give XP for things the party does that involve them exploring new areas, making preparations to explore areas, gaining access to hidden or blocked areas, interacting with the challenges and inhabitants of the area, and setting up systems or access points for either themselves or others to continue to access the area later.

The next step is to decide how much XP they get for each action. You don’t want to give too much and catapult their character up in levels, so if we’re going to consistently be giving XP for exploration challenges as well as XP for combat, we probably want to … maybe halve the numbers for everything? Including the monsters. If they have multiple consistent sources of XP, we’ve got to tone down how much they get for any single action. I have no idea if those numbers will work, but it’d probably be worth the try, and could be tweaked from there.

So if we take that table, halve everything on it (as well as halve the XP granted on every creature stat block), and then start judging the difficulty of our tasks.

And I do think this should be based on the level of the obstacle more than the level of the party. This works automatically with monsters, a CR 7 monster is still CR 7 regardless of the level of the party going against it. The encounter building table is just for you to gauge what CR to send against what level, but if we’re setting up areas of various difficulty in our dungeon/campaign, we’d have been ignoring that part of it anyway. (This does make the numbers funny, as a CR 7 monster, for our purposes, would be a moderate level 5 challenge or a low level 7 challenge, once we’ve divided it by the number of party members (I used 4). Sidenote, the 2024 DMG gutted the ‘making a monster’ section? The handy table with the expected XP per CR of creature is gone. But you can still get it in the 2014 DMG).

So, as per the original advice, when it comes to concrete things like overcoming obstacles like traps or hazards, you give the hazard a level and a difficulty, like you would a monster. The difference is that you’re not doing that based on the current level of the party, but on the level you would expect a party to have to be to solve it (or possibly the level and HP the party would have to be to survive it, in the case of some more lethal hazards?). So, maybe a flooded area of a dungeon might be level 5, as it would take a level 5 party of have access to the water breathing spell. Or if an area is controlled by a certain CR level boss monster, you’d give the area in general the monster’s level. And once you have a level for the area around the obstacle, you give the obstacle itself a difficulty of low, moderate or high, and give XP accordingly.

That works for concrete obstacles, but not as much for things like exploration bonuses for reaching new areas, or more ephemeral things like mapping an area, or setting up waystations, or negotiating treaties. Particularly the ‘entering somewhere new’ action. For the first … I think entering a new area should give you the low difficulty reward for an obstacle of that level? So just entering and evaluating a level 5 area will give you 250 XP (keeping in mind that we’re halving all the values). If the area is a lot higher level than you were previously on, say you managed to find a path from a level 2 area straight to a level 5 area and decided to risk it for a biscuit and go down there, then you might get the moderate difficulty or even high difficulty XP reward (550 XP (high) might be a bit much just for going down there, but 375 XP (moderate) for chancing your arm might be reasonable). And other actions … you probably want to stay at the low difficulty for most more minor actions, like setting up camps or gaining supplies or mapping the area, and go for higher difficulty on more far-reaching actions like interacting with factions or changing layouts.

This is all just spitballing, though. And it definitely does make me realise how difficult D&D 5e makes supporting anything that isn’t combat, just in terms of … there’s no numbers. There’s no easy reference. You have to make it all up yourself from basically scratch just to try to let players advance their characters from anything other than bloodshed. Which. 5e has so many tools for characters to use to explore, they just don’t get any reward for it. The amount of work a DM would have to do to get even a skeleton structure for alternate sources of XP is. Well. *gestures back up the page* This is definitely where the lack of support for non-combat options shows in this game. You know how much XP you get for killing any particular monster, but there’s no handy list for what you get if you go where few have ever successfully gone. Negotiating a treaty that stops a war should have equal XP to killing a dragon, and reaching a sanctum that none save a high mage have ever reached should have equal XP to fighting said high mage, and maybe you’d think that’d just be common sense, but there’s no numbers, no quick reference so someone can make that instantly possible as a reward. You have to laboriously go through and assign numbers yourself by trial and error.

But. If anyone did want to make the effort to reward the other pillars of play, exploration and social interaction … It might be doable? Even nailing down a list of actions and some ballpark figures for XP to go with them might do a lot.

Other things to consider in that regard: don’t make treasure only available in monster lairs, where killing the monster is the only way to get it. Put treasures in hidden areas, or across difficult hazards, or as rewards to be won for negotiating with or performing tasks for factions in the area. If your party wants to use other tools, make sure they can get equal rewards for it. A party who took water breathing to explore a flooded section of the dungeon should get as much XP and cool treasure as a party that decided to kill the young dragon lairing on level 5.

But. This has been an interesting exercise? And definitely an illuminating one.

[sunlightgalaxy]

lovely anons have been requesting a gif tutorial, and while there's plenty photoshop ones out there I think there's only a couple photopea ones (if you dont know photo pea is like an internet photoshop basically) so I thought I'd make a little tutorial on how I do my gifs!

first you're gonna want to use any gif making platform to actually turn your video clip into a gif. I personally use giphy but I know there's a bunch of other platforms for this. then you're just going to open the gif in photo pea either by clicking "open from computer" on the home page or dragging it in from finder (Mac) or files.

IF YOU'RE MAKING A GIFSET: the first thing I do is make sure all of my gifs are the same number of frames. its important to do this if you want all of your gifs to restart at the same time! to do this I just go to the side where all the frames are listed - this one has 29 frames (note: it says 28 on the top frame, but the very first frame is listed as 0, so always add 1 to the top number to know now many frames there are). what I do is find the gif with the least amount of frames and then make all the gifs the same number - depending on what part of the gif I want to keep/delete I'll delete frames from the beginning, end, or both which usually requires some basic math

next, I click on the top frame, press shift, and then press on the bottom frame to select all (unfortunately there's no keyboard shortcut for this I don't think). then I'll click filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen that way I can freely customize the sharpness of each gif depending on it's original quality. usually I do 200% at 0.5 pixels but I'll adjust if necessary.

now comes the actual coloring of the gif! all of these will be adjustment layers (layer -> new adjustment layer).

first I'll select the brightness/contrast layer and play around with those settings until it looks good to me.

next, I'll play around with the levels and curves layers until it looks how I want it.

sometimes I'll stop here if it looks good, sometimes I'll play around with the saturation adjustment layer, or in this case I'll edit the color balance to deepen some of the shades that aren't popping out how I want.

IF YOU'RE MAKING A GIFSET: the easiest thing I've figured out for coloring multiple gifs to save time is duplicating these adjustment layers to each gif in the set (layer -> duplicate layer into; it'll prompt you to select the psd you want to add the layers to). when I do this I turn off the visibility for each one and one by one turn them back on (starting with brightness/contrast) and adjust them if necessary.

if I'm not adding text this is where I'll end, but sometimes I like to add texts to more of my creative gifts. usually I'll follow a tutorial (@usergif resource directory has a bunch of good tutorials that can be adapted to photo pea, or I'll just look them up on Tumblr itself). sometimes I like to do things a little simpler, which is what I'll show here.

you're going to click on the T towards the bottom on the left sidebar, type put your text, change your font (photopea has a ton and I'm not too picky but you can download fonts from the internet and upload them), as well as color and size (don't forget to select all of the text when you do this!!) then click on the cursor icon to move the text to your desired placement.

then click on the layer in the right sidebar and select blending options.

I'm going to add a stroke of 1px in black to my text and position it to the center. I do this on every text I add to gifs (even if the text is black, which I ended up changing this one to) to add some extra size/detail.

you're more than happy to stop here, but I like to play around with some of the other blending options until I'm satisfied. sometimes I'll lower the fill to 0-30%, or in this case, I changed the blending option to overlay to get the desired effect. (both under blending options)

I followed the same steps with my second row of text, except I changed the font and then warped the text a bit after placing it where I wanted by T -> warp -> arch and changing the settings.

and you're done! file -> export as -> gif to save it! I also like to do this periodically throughout the process to make sure the gif is giffing if you know what I mean

[ritunn]

Fabula Ultima: High Fantasy Atlas Review

Emmy award winning TTJRPG, Fabula Ultima, just released its first sourcebook in English! The High Fantasy Atlas is already a best Electrum seller on DriveThruRPG and at the time of writing, the best selling book on the platform this week... all within one day! But, if that hasn't convinced you, let me offer you my review.

What do you get in the High Fantasy Atlas? Well you'll find the following:

Chapter 1 - Introduction: This section covers how the pillars of JRPGs work in High Fantasy games and offers more details and examples on how to implement them. Very useful for session 0 world design.

Chapter 2 - The World: This introduces 10 sample high fantasy locations you're likely to explore in a high fantasy world of Fabula Ultima game along with advice for creating new Arcanum for the Arcanist class, details concerning the creation of gods and demons, how the Stream of Souls functions, and info on tech and magic. The latter part of the chapter has new rare item rewards and artifacts you can give players!

Chapter 3 - Protagonists: This chapter includes sample PC ideas with info on them along with the new custom weapon, quirk, and zero power optional rules. The latter part of the chapter includes 4 new classes, the chanter, commander, dancer, and symbolist, along with heroic skills for classes new and old.

Chapter 4 - Antagonists: The first part of this chapter explores how to use antagonists in High Fantasy games while the latter half offers 5 villains from levels 10 - 60 you can use in your game or as a jumping off point to make your own!

Overall, 200 pages of content useful for not just High Fantasy games, but any really! Let's go over some of my favorite bits in each chapter.

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter, though the shortest, is incredibly helpful. Having examples and additional explanation for how to implement the pillars is useful for groups, especially those coming from systems like D&D and Pathfinder who might not be used to having such power to shape the world. Otherwise, it offers a solid introduction to the genre as well.

Chapter 2: The World

By far the longest chapter, there's a few notable things that aid immensely, but let us begin with how the sample locations work.

Each of the 10 locations starts off like this with an intro and an "at a glance" sidebar. This really helps you conceptualize what the area is supposed to invoke feelings wise and offers you nice reference for travel rolls and what kind of enemies and discoveries you may find here. I highly recommend doing this for locations in general your group makes, it helps a ton.

After this, each location has some example quests and questions to ask your players to flesh out this area and areas like it. Perfect for giving others the ability to add their own flair to the area and to get them started with playing when they enter the area. These story hooks also often have a villain described with tactics they use and any relevant clocks, but they have no stat blocks, so you can make them to fit with your group's playstyle for combats.

Afterward is a section on how to run conflicts and make them memorable, helpful if that is something you've been struggling with. It also has some nice ideas regarding how to run fights against armies, which is certain to come up here and there in games.

Lastly, we explore the magic and tech of High Fantasy. The advice for making new Arcanum, whether for world building themes or for the Revelation heroic skill, is greatly appreciated as it's one of the hardest things to balance and get right without a good understanding of the game. Advice on how the afterlife and Stream of Souls works thematically in your game is also useful and it offers some nice plot hooks you can use with the ideas presented I've put into practice even before the release of the Atlas to great effect. Lastly, the section on technology is short but appreciated, exploring how it differs from a Techno Fantasy game.

The new rare items are mostly geared towards enhancing specific skills for classes rather than general use, but it's handy for figuring out how to price similar items focused on certain skills when making your own. The new artifacts are also grandiose and powerful additions to any game, magnificent rewards if your party can acquire them. My favorite is a book that contains all knowledge up to the present moment in time, but was sealed away in the far reaches of space... supposedly.

Chapter 3: Protagonists

The main course! This has the 4 new classes and a bunch of optional rules we saw in the playtest. But, first I want to take a look at the sample PCs.

Each of the 10 sample PCs has a profile like such. It covers the usual Identity, Theme, and Origin, along with a Quirk and signature weapon. Quirks are a new rule that work as backgrounds, but suped up with powerful game changing and character altering effects ranging from gaining some spells to being able to choose to make costs for a spell or Ritual free at the cost of eventually summoning a supreme villain... that will come eventually whether you like it or not. Ones like those typically give you a free heroic skill when the big event comes and you lose the quirk. Preparing you to face a new horizon or final foe.

Back to Raisa however. As we can see here, it has info on her backstory, classes, what she gets to decide about world building wise, and how they'll grow in their own character arc. Useful for someone who wants to jump right in with a somewhat premade character, but even more useful for showing your players what you need to know about their characters if you're a GM. This should also help direct and inspire players during world creation. Which I greatly appreciate. Now, for the new optional rules (besides quirks).

Custom weapons are pretty simple. They're essentially weapons you design mechanically as a player. They're always two-handed, cost 300 - 400 zenit, can be any weapon type you want along with being melee or ranged, and deals [HR + 5] physical damage with a [DEX] + [INS/MIG] accuracy check depending on what you choose. You can then pick a few traits, like Powerful for extra damage, Defense Boost for extra armor and to make it count as a shield, or Transforming to let it switch between two different modes. Depending on what traits you pick, it may also become martial. This rule can be used by anyone who wants to use it without fuss unlike quirks and zero powers, as it adds no extra power and is fairly balanced. Some people could play with custom weapons, some without. But, it allows for you to add a lot of style to your character if you choose to do so.

Lastly, zero powers are a mechanic I've been using for half a year from the playtest and it's loads of fun! Want a limit break or perhaps combo attack in vein of Tales of Arise? Zero powers have you covered. When using this rule, you gain a 6 point clock that fills whenever taking damage, spending a Fabula Point to invoke a trait or bond, or via special Zero Trigger you pick when making your power. Then you pick an effect to go with the trigger you can unleash with an action when the clock is full, like Zero Limits which boosts all your stats by 1 die size or Zero Triangle to allow you and 2 allies to make a free attack with a +5 bonus to accuracy. Zero Powers are loads of fun and you can even allow for players to charge them up together for combo attacks with a variant rule for 4 or less player parties.

Welcome to the show! The Chanter is your premier bard. Chanter's main skill is Magichant, which allows them to sing or play songs you compose yourself by picking a volume (to determine number of targets), key (to determine damage types, attribute, status effect, HP/MP), and tone (to determine the effect with info filled in by your key). It's an amazing support class with high MP usage, but they can easily target enemy Vulnerabilities or act as a debuffer too to tear their foes apart. Their other skills allow them to perform hearing-based illusion Rituals, increase damage or regain MP when enemies are hit, give damage reduction to themselves, or get a free attack with low and medium volume magichants.

Being a chess master is the name of the game with Commander. Gaining access to martial weapons of all types, the Commander has skills focused on creating conflict scene wide buffs and debuffs to everyone. Use Bishop's Edict to double MP costs or increase all damage or King's Castle to increase HP/MP recovery or null it entirely. Their other skills allow them to command allies to make free attacks with handy bonuses and chain together their skills when doing so, leading to a flurry of activations. But be careful, one wrong move can lead to your downfall. Commander works best as a sort of Warlord class, they're a support martial pure and simple, but if the player using it isn't very smart about how they use their skills they can put everyone in a heap of trouble.

Swift of step, Dancer's main skill is well... Dance! Dance allows you to spend 10 MP before or after an action to perform a dance (5 MP if you used Dance last turn). Dances provide a variety of effects but most give you resistance to a damage type or allow you to alter all your damage to that type until the end of the turn or give the enemy a status condition, or another different one if they already have it. There's also healing and haste dances if you want those too! Their other skills allow them to apply dances to others they have affection towards, dance and use the equipment action for free, get bonuses towards rolls involving acrobatics for Objectives, or increase the damage of their weapons or spells after dancing. Dancer is primarily another support class, but their ability to change damage types and increase damage makes them amazing at targeting Vulnerabilities and denying enemies damage by gaining Resistance.

Symbolism has always been the heart of magic and the Symbolist knows this best. An IP focused class like Tinkerer, Symbolist's main skill is Symbolism. By spending 2 IP, you can create a symbol and attach it to an ally or make a free attack and apply it to every enemy you hit (amazing with multi). Symbols range in effect from halving recovery, providing one free IP expenditure, or even changing the creature type. Their other skills allow allies with a symbol cast your spells, make sight-based illusions with Rituals, track enemies with symbols, and increase damage or recovery on those with your symbols. The Symbolist, like the Tinkerer, is focused on IP usage and as such will need a class like Rogue, Merchant, or Wayfarer to help keep that up. However, symbols allow for a lot of strategy and creativity in character building that you can use to your benefit. Picking your symbols will be paramount to your build, so be smart about what you pick and smarter about who you apply them too. Sharpshooter and Weaponmaster are also great picks if you intend to apply symbols to enemies.

Lastly, the new heroic skills are all solid. Most focus on using specific types of weapons, now rewarding you for sticking to them as your signature weapon. There's even a few only available to level 30 and higher, notably, Bimagus, which let's you dualcast spells and Grand Summon, which allows you summon Arcanum as separate entities to help you rather than merging.

Chapter 4: Antagonists

Compared to the last two chapters, there's less to say here but there is some great content. This chapter includes 5 villains of levels 10, 20, 30, 40, and 60 that make for fun inclusions in any High Fantasy game. The villains range from a pirate queen to the incarnation of narrative tragedy itself and each comes with a statblock, minions (if they have any), and advice on how to run their encounters. Some even have multiple phases, which is a great example of how to build your own multi-phase boss fights, after all... this isn't even their final form!

One thing to remember when using these enemies (and the book points this out thankfully) is that Fabula Ultima is designed in a way where you, the GM, have to make monsters your party can reflect upon and has the tools to fight effectively. So, when using these, change up the affinities, give them a makeover to connect to the heroes if needed, and use them as you see fit!

Final Thoughts

If you have been loving Fabula Ultima, pick up this book. There's so much great advice for running games and new content for players and GMs alike. You won't be disappointed! There's also some more beautiful JRPG style art within just like the Core Rulebook. If you enjoyed Bravely Default, FFIV, FFIX, FFX, or Tales of Arise, this book will let you live out the same fantasies and journeys featured in those games and gives you even more tools to be your very own heroes of High Fantasy and challenge tragedy itself on the Final Days.

You can purchase it on DriveThruRPG for $14 USD ($20 CDN).

[tylwer34567]

Bamhain Incorrect Quotes

Samhain: Someone will die. Boogie: Of fun! 

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Samhain: Walking in to a room Sorry I’m late… I was�� doing things. Sounds of running footsteps progressively getting louder Boogie: Out of breath HE PUSHED ME DOWN THE FUCKIN’ STAIRS.

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Boogie: Gets down on one knee Samhain: Oh my god, it’s finally happening. Boogie: Falls over Samhain: The poison is kicking in.

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Samhain: You often use humor to deflect trauma Boogie: Thank you Samhain: I didn't say that was a good thing Boogie: What I'm hearing is, you think I'm funny

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Samhain, struggling to keep upright in their 1 inch heels: Yeah, I-I don’t really think heels are for me Boogie, pointing at him and walking flawlessly in sparkly golden 6 inch heels: WEAK. 

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EXGB!Samhain: What’s up guys? I’m back. EXGB!Boogie: What the- you can’t be here. You’re dead. I literally saw you die. EXGB!Samhain: Death is a social construct.  

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Boogie: Stubs their toe FUCK! Samhain: Mind your language! Boogie: What else am I supposed to say, “Woe is I”??? Samhain: Boogie: You have to accept that swear words are necessary sometimes.

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Boogie: Let’s watch Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Samhain: Okay. Boogie: And make out during the scary parts. Samhain: Th- Samhain: The scary parts. Samhain: Of Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

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Boogie, in a beach shirt: So sue me, it's October and I'd like to be on Island Time for a day! Samhain: I have Spotify open right now on my computer, do you want me to blast you? Do you want me to put you on blast? Cuz I've got your history right here on the sidebar, Samhain: Take it Back by Jimmy Buffet, Nautical Wheelers by Jimmy Buffet, Jolly Mon Sing by Jimmy Buffet, Steamer by Jimmy Buffet, trEAT HER LIKE A LADY BY JIMMY BUFFET, MAÑANA BY JIMMY BUFFET, WHEN SALOME PLAYS THE DRUMS BY JAMES BUFFET, HAVANA DAYDREAMIN BY JIMMY BUFFET- What the FUCK happened to you?! Boogie, laughing: I HAD A CASE OF THE MONDAYS Samhain: ARE YOU HAUNTED?! ARE YOU FUCKING POSSESSED?! Samhain: YOU USED TO BE MY FRIEND Boogie, cry-laughing: ᴵ ᴴᴬᴰ ᴬ ᶜᴬˢᴱ ᴼᶠ ᵀᴴᴱ ᴹᴼᴺᴰᴬʸˢ 

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Boogie, pointing: May I sit there? Samhain: That's my lap Boogie: That doesn't answer my question, Samhain. 

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Samhain: I’m going to take you out Boogie: great, it’s a date! Samhain: I meant that as a threat. Boogie: See you at five! 

[until-another-one-comes]

https://www.gofundme.com/f/7d3a3-give-your-hands-to-help-ahmed-rebuild-his-life?utm_campaign=p_cp+fundraiser-sidebar&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

[sheikitoff]

breath of the wild as evermore

if you’re up on your taylor swift lore, you know folklore and evermore are considered “sister albums” - both written and recorded during the pandemic, released five months apart, with a shared “cinematic universe” of sorts, and both characterized by taylor as getting lost in the woods (artistically) and staying there for a while. all of that is true, but if folklore is a lush forest in summer or high fall, evermore is a forest in late winter - the trees are bare, the world is quieter, and all around are signs of death and decay; yet even still, peeking out from the snow are hints of life returning, of nature in all its persistence gearing up to bloom again.

like MM, BOTW is a game about dealing with the apocalypse, but while in MM that apocalypse is imminent, in BOTW it’s a few generations past, still in living memory for some (like the zora) but for the most part the formative shadow under which the people of the world were raised and which society is just starting to emerge from. (this is a real sidebar, but i’ve always thought MM and BOTW were the zelda games most visibly influenced by ff7; in MM, with the moon hanging over the world, akin to meteor in disc 3; in BOTW, i see the final shot of midgar’s ruins overtaken by nature in every corner of hyrule.) but botw isn’t evermore just because it’s a sister to mm/folklore. evermore is an album of aching grief, not just for things lost but for potentials never realized, for “could-have-beens” that never were, for longing after that which was once in your reach but no longer is; “we could just ride around / and the road not taken looks real good now.” i think the champions’ fates are among the most haunting of any zelda characters; they were all brilliant and talented, in their primes, leaders in their communities, brave and true with full lives ahead of them, and they all died horribly, trapped and alone. whether or not mipha’s feelings for link were requited or not, she’ll never know, and link will never have the chance to respond one way or another; “i guess i’ll never know / and you’ll go on with the show”.

evermore is also an album about figuring out who you are (or are going to be) after a loss: “and in the disbelief / i can’t face reinvention/ i haven’t met the new me yet.” in botw, this theme is prevalent on both an individual and a societal level; link spends the game both learning who he was before and who he is now, through finding old memories and through making new ones, and likewise hyrule is rebuilding itself, trying to figure out what it’s going to become, but that future kingdom hasn’t quite taken shape yet (nor have it’s tears- sorry for the pun, i’ll stop now). “there is happiness / past the blood and bruise / past the curses and cries / beyond the terror in the nightfall.” yet people are relentless in their persistence, their determination to keep going, to create life out of a wasteland of death; and through the tarreytown quests the game makes you a party to this, makes you and link engage with the way humanity refuses to be stamped out. “oh, i can’t / stop you putting roots in my dreamland / my house of stone, your ivy grows / and now i’m covered in you.”

here’s the part where i say, full disclosure: i played BOTW in the weeks before and months after my grandmother’s death, and for me that game is inextricably tied to my grief. on evermore, taylor has a song grieving her grandmother (see “marjorie”, pack tissues). i don’t believe that’s why i think evermore is BOTW, and i think i’ve proven that here, but it’s be naive of me to think there’s no connection going on in my subconscious because of that.

another difference between MM/folklore and BOTW/evermore is in the pacing; even though both albums are roughly the same length, folklore feels very tightly paced, extremely sonically coherent, with one clear central vision. evermore is a bit more meandering, more experimental, more willing to sit in silence and sadness and watch the frozen landscape for a while. it still plays with different characters and fictional storylines (and like in MM, link/the player spends a lot of BOTW in the role of observer), but they’re not as interwoven as those on folklore; likewise, in BOTW the characters are spread far and wide across hyrule instead of largely gathered in clocktown, their lives are far less intertwined, and while the NPCs do all have scheduled trajectories of sorts they’re far less strict or significant than those of MM. (also of note; while in folklore, the “teenage love triangle” of songs - cardigan, august, and betty, each from the point of view of a different character from the same love triangle - has resolution, a degree of closure, and some real catharsis on “betty”, the evermore equivalent, ‘tis the damn season and dorothea, have no resolution or closure or catharsis of any kind. unfulfilled, just like the champions’ lives and potential.)

all of these themes and ideas are also summed up within one BOTW character: zelda. unfulfilled potential is the name of the game with her, as she’s constantly told she’s a failure for her inability to unlock her powers, while also being shut off from all her research, her potential as a scholar and any potential discoveries her passion could have led her to, and any lives that knowledge might have saved. (in age of calamity, we learn that zelda’s research into technology could and would have been able to save at least some lives, but the canon of that game is questionable, and regardless BOTW zelda doesn’t know any of that because it never happened; she’s just left with the possibility that maybe she could have uncovered something, but no certainty.) zelda’s grief goes without saying, as we see her breaking down in flashbacks, and her longing - for her powers, to be a scholar, to not be a princess, to be free of the burden of prophecy - is everywhere. (not to mention, the game opens with link hearing zelda’s voice but unable to reach her; whether you interpret their relationship as romantic or not, the whole game is framed with a longing for something you can’t reach). and the persistence of hyrule in surviving and rebuilding despite the calamity is reflected in zelda’s persistence in holding ganon at bay for a whole century; and, in the “true ending” scene you get for unlocking all the memories, we see her already making plans for hyrule, for where to go next and how to move forward.

there’s a lot more i could say, but i’ll end with the final track of evermore, fittingly named “evermore”, which i think sums up the themes of this game so well: “and i couldn’t be sure / but i had a feeling so peculiar / this pain wouldn’t be for / evermore.”

addendum: ah, crap, i meant to write something about the champion’s abilities as representation for still feeling the presence of loved ones after they’ve passed, and “if i didn’t know better / i’d think you were still around / i know better / but i still feel you all around”… ah well, it’s long enough as it is

[lilniina]

when I accidentally tap the tumblr banner thing at the top of my sidebar it vecoems th gay flag wtf kind of world is this

[hiheat]

Hi! I was wondering if you ever cook anything with a pressure cooker! I used one for the first time and honestly I got scared when it started hissing 😂

Hi! I do and thanks for asking!

The most important bit of the pressure cooker is the connection between the top and bottom. If that's not solid, things can go awry easily. Make sure you practice with an empty, dry pot a few times on how to connect the top to the bottom. You should be able to pull as hard as you can on the edges of the lid and it shouldn't budge if you've done it right. Caution: Do not pull on the valve or the temperature gauge (if you have one). Faiure to completely and properly close the lid is what causes the "lid embedded in the ceiling" kind of kitchen disasters you see in fail videos.

Also, there's sometimes a flexible seal that goes between the lid and the pot. If you have one, inspect it before every use. If it's cracked or dry, replace it before using the pressure cooker. It will not cause catastrophic failure like incorrect closure, but it will hiss and you might never make the desired pressure in your pot.

Next is the valve. The valve is what keeps your pot somewhere between a simple kettle and a horrid explosion. Although I'm exaggerating a little, it's not too far off. Normally we cook at 1ATM (atmosphere) which is the pressure of all the air around us. That's what you're using when you boil in s regular pot. However, since we learned that hot water will penetrate food faster at higher pressures, we designed the pressure cooker to do that.

The valve is usually a mechanical combination of a screw and a spring to define how much additional pressure you want to be in your pot. At the lowest setting, it will just hiss immediately and your outfit gauge will never register anything higher than zero pounds of pressure, since it's designed to show you differential pressure - the difference between the inside and pressure.

Another way to say it: the hiss is good. It means you're cooking at the pressure on the gauge.

As you tighten up the valve and apply heat, however, the pressure will begin to rise in the pot, pushing on that spring in the valve. When the pressure inside the pot is equal to the compression of the spring, the valve will open a little and let enough steam out to keep the pressure at that point.

If it's too high, open the valve a little. If it's too low, tighten it a little. Small adjustments. Make sure not to burn yourself on the escaping steam! It will be hotter than boiling water!

Also note, the stove temperature will drastically affect the pressure as well. General rule of thumb, use the lowest possible stove temperature to maintain the pressure and temp combination your recipe calls for.

So now you're pressure cooking! Just leave it. Don't tweak. Don't fiddle. Just leave it for the recipe time

Only a few things you need to watch:

1. Keep an eye on the pressure gauge. If it gets dangerously high, just turn off the stove and walk away. As it cools, the pressure will come down and then you can open the valve slowly to try to reduce more pressure. DO NOT try to open the pot.

2. Sometimes the valve gets clogged. If you hear it stop hissing, that may have been your problem. Turn off the heat, see if turning the valve a little helps. Nothing dramatic. Again, wait until it cools to open.

3. Sometimes you run out of liquid and things start to burn. Also an issue, no good way to solve. Heat off, just wait.

NB: There are "rapid cool" protocols for getting your pressure cooker open fast. They're not for beginners. Do not try them if you haven't done a successful cook the normal way.

If you make it to the end of your cook with no issues, great! It should have been hissing a little bit that whole time.

Turn off the heat. And wait.

Wait

Wait a little more

Then open the valve a smidge. :: Hissing intensifies ::

Treat this like a warm soda bottle that someone has just dropped but you really really want to drink.

Science sidebar: As the vessel cools, it loses pressure. As it loses pressure, the vessel cools. (PV=nrT -> the universal gas law, for the nerds in the room). Since the volume is constant (pot isn't getting bigger or smaller) you are basically left with pressure and temperature are proportional to.each other

Anyway, you have to just very patiently keep opening the valve a little at a time until the pressure reads zero. Zero. EXACTLY ZERO. AND THERE'S NO HISSING.

Only then can you start opening the lid.

If you try to open it while there's still pressure in the vessel, the best that will happen is you won't be able to (Some pressure cookers have safety interlocks that prevent them from being opened if there's any pressure). The worst that can happen is the lid and much of the contents will fly off and burn you and make a huge mess. So don't do that, please.

Once the lid is off, carefully stir. Make sure to scrape up the bits that might be stuck to the bottom. Do any thickening you want - you can treat it like s regular stewpot now. Just set the lid aside for careful cleaning. The valve and gauge especially need to be cleaned or they will retain little bits of food in them and not work well on your next batch.

All in all, it's not hard to use. You can practice with an inch of water if you want to try, without ruining dinner.

Just remember:

Hissing is good.

Never open when pressure is greater then zero.

As long as you keep those in mind, you'll be good!

(If you send s pic of something you've made in your pressure cooker, I'll post it!)

Happy Eating!