#the text replacer is per-page

[mrghostrat]

Can I ask why you don't read fics where they have different names? Do you think it's indicative of OOC in general?

And does that mean you haven't read Slow Show??

Also, name replacer extension?!?

i just don’t like it personally.

i can understand human AUs that want to make his name Mr Azira Fell/Phale for the A.Z. Fell & Co joke, but i still don’t like reading it because i’m here to read Aziraphale fic. the guy from good omens. whose name is Aziraphale. same reason i don’t really vibe with fics where narration uses anything other than he/him, because that’s what i’m used to, bc that’s what it is in canon.

i Do Not Understand changing his name entirely. it’s annoying and ooc at best, and at worst it just makes me think about all the non-english people who have their names butchered because it’s “too complicated” or have to pick entirely different ones to assimilate.

i have read Slow Show and fucking adored it 🤙 it was one of the first fics i read when i got into the fandom after S2, so it’s always gonna have a special place in my heart. i’m a bit pickier with my fics now bc im no longer exploring everything to figure out what i like~

edit: SORRY forgot to grab the extension link, here

[officialclangen]

March Update!

March update is available on itch.io! Check out the changelog below:

New white patches: MAO, CHESTSPECK, PAINTED, WINGS, and BLACKSTAR.

Skin color now affects the inside of cats' ears.

New nylon collars - plus indigo and white variants of all color types.

You can now delete saved clans on the Switch Clan Screen.

New camp background: Grotto

New fading effect. Previously, cats became more transparent as they got closer to fading. This has been replaced with a three-stage "unraveling" effect.

Added many new kittypet and loner names.

Grief system has been expanded to give more unique death reactions based on the trait and mate status of the living cat.

New backstories!

"Bee sting", "headache", and "severe headache" are now potential injuries. "Persistent headaches" have been added as a permanent condition.

Lost cats can now return to the clan via moon events!

Lost cats can now die randomly, rather than just from old age.

New background for the Unknown Residence Screen.

Kittypets, loners, and rogues have a chance to appear in the "Cats outside the Clan" tab. These cats have a chance to join the clan during patrols.

Returning to the main menu or closing the game will now cause a pop-up window to appear, which will ask if you want to save your clan before proceeding.

Lots of new patrol art!

Added a setting to control the display of gore in patrol art. Gore is turned off by default.

New patrols!

Added a handful of new mediator moon events.

If there are no warriors that have trained apprentices in the clan, a random warrior will be selected to be deputy. A special event text will be displayed for this situation.

New scar system for patrols on Classic Mode.

Previously, a bug was preventing patrol outcomes that rely on traits or skills. This bug has been fixed. This doubles the amount of accessible patrol outcomes!

Allow more variety in tortie base colors, including ginger-on-ginger torties.

Many new ceremonies, including special ceremonies for dead mentors and parents.

The code for moon events has been rewritten to allow for more flexibility and utility.

The limit on mediating has been reworked. Each mediator may mediate once per moon, rather than a global "one mediate per moon" limit. However, a single pair of cats can only be mediated between once per moon.

Murder events are now affected by relationship values.

Moon events regarding other clans now trigger based on your relation with the other clan.

A variety of game-chances have been moved game_config.json, in the resources folder. This will allow players to more easily edit chances, if they desire.

Star is no longer a possible prefix for clanborn cats.

When a kittypet that has a multi-word name joins the clan, there is a chance for them to pick only one word from their previous name to use as their prefix.

Cats who cannot work are no longer eligible mentors for new apprentices.

Male tortie chance has been significantly lowered - they now occur at a similar rate to shinies in pokemon games.

Affairs now work!

Mediate will now correctly affect trust, romantic like, and platonic like.

Mediators and mediator apprentices will no longer retire due to permanent conditions.

Clicking on a cat on the family page will now take you to that cat's family page, allowing for easier scanning through family lines. You can still access their profile by shift-clicking.

Reduced age at which cats fade to 202 moons.

Chance to develop "Lasting Grief" has been reduced.

And many other bugfixes!

[thehomelybrewster]

1d8 "Free" Fantasy RPGs To Replace 5e At Your Table

D&D 5e sure is a roleplaying game, and it's one that I have enjoyed a lot. However, that doesn't mean that I'd recommend it automatically for other people. This has many reasons, which I won't elaborate here. It has also shaped the perception of TTRPGs significantly thanks to its market dominance, and not in a good way.

5e has a reputation for being an expensive, complex game, and 5e players fear that other RPGs might just be the same. That it's too much of a hassle and too much of a financial burden to switch systems.

So, to help 5e players pick out a different system, I've made this handy 1d8 rolling table to help them pick a fantasy TTRPG with a combat component that they can try instead!

Let's now go through these eight nine RPGs and see what's up with them, right below the "Keep reading" section!

I'll be listing some metrics like the page count for the rulebook(s), the core resolution mechanic, how complex the game is in terms of character creation & combat, and how well-supported the game is by their publisher and the community-at-large.

1. Cairn

Author: Yochai Gal

Release Year: 2020

Cost: Free PDF, printed copies cost between $3 to $10 depending on the print quality.

Page Count: 24

Website: https://cairnrpg.com/

Resolution Mechanic: 1d20 Roll Under system for ability checks/saving throws, attacks hit automatically, "fiction-first".

Action Economy: Movement + one action per round.

Characters: Random character creation, class-less and level-less, advancement based on "Scars" (suffering damage that reduces your HP exactly to 0)

Setting: Implied. Low-magic European-style fantasy; mysterious woodlands.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: Hit Protection and Ability damage instead of HP, Slot-Based Inventory.

Degree of Support: Very high. Available in fifteen languages (e.g. Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and German); full rules text is under CC-BY-SA 4.0; multiple published third-party adventures & supplements available; some official bonus material (e.g. bestiary, magic items/relics, and spells) is available for free on the website.

Addendum: An expanded 2nd Edition is currently on Kickstarter (ends April 26th 2024); Cairn is legitimately easy to learn, however the Hit Protection system and the connected Scars system is a very different abstraction to health and advancement compared to 5e.

2. Cloud Empress

Author: worlds by watt

Release Year: 2023

Cost: Free PDF of the rulebook and the creator-written sample adventure "Last Voyage of the Bean Barge", $20 for the print edition of the rulebook, $12 for PDF supplements, $25 for print + PDF supplements; free solo rules also available as PDF only.

Page Count: 60

Website: https://cloudempress.com/

Resolution Mechanic: d100 Roll Under system for stat checks/saving throws, critical successes or failures on doubles (11, 22, 33, etc.), 5e-style advantage/disadvantage, attacks generally hit automatically.

Action Economy: Two actions per round with no free movement.

Characters: Semi-random character creation, four classes ("jobs"), no rules for character advancement in the ruleset.

Setting: Specific. "Ecological science fantasy" heavily inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind"; costly magic, giant insects, dangerous mushrooms; only human player characters.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: Damage points culminate in Wounds; Wounds and Stress as ways to track your character's physical and mental state; slot-based inventory system.

Degree of Support: Low-ish. Several official supplements exist, however third-party material is very sparse. May improve due to the recent establishment of a Cloud Empress Creators Fund, has a simple 3rd party license system.

Addendum: A supplement, "Cloud Empress: Life & Death" is currently on Kickstarter (ends April 26th 2024, yes, the same day as Cairn 2e) and as a disclaimer I even backed that current Kickstarter; Cloud Empress is built on the engine of the sci-fi horror RPG "Mothership"; clearly built for one-shots and short campaigns; has a wonderful resting system that encourages roleplay between players.

3. Iron Halberd

Author: level2janitor

Release Year: 2023

Cost: Free PDF of the rules; no print option available.

Page Count: 60

Website: https://level2janitor.itch.io/iron-halberd

Resolution Mechanic: 1d20 + Bonus Roll Over system against difficulty or armor rating, however most non-combat-related actions follow a fiction first approach without dice rolls.

Action Economy: Movement + one action per round.

Characters: Semi-random character creation, class-less but there are four different "gear kits" that nudge your character towards certain archetypes, levelling up with XP.

Setting: Essentially non-existant. General European fantasy with magic, gods may or may not exist/shape the world, various fantastic ancestries included.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: Includes rules for building strongholds and maintaining warbands; slot-based inventory with a durability mechanic.

Degree of Support: None. The game is intended to be relatively compatible with other OSR content and the creator suggests using adventures made for the D&D retroclone Old-School Essentials if you wanna use pre-published ones. An official introductory adventure, "Sea-Spray Bay", is apparently in the works. No 3rd party license available, as far as I know.

Addendum: One thing about Iron Halberd I like especially is how it uses random tables for generating equipment. Most of the equipment is listed in a numerical order by category, and the various gear kits include references on different rolling formulas for those equipment categories. For example someone taking the "soldier's kit" rolls twice on the d20 Weapons table and takes their preferred pick, while someone taking the "sage's kit" only rolls a d4 on that table.

4. Mausritter

Author: Isaac Williams

Release Year: 2020

Cost: Free PDF of the ruleset available; box set with the rules and several goodies including an adventure costs $55; additional box set + PDFs containing eleven official adventures costs $55 (or $20 digital-only).

Page Count: 48

Website: https://mausritter.com/

Resolution Mechanic: 1d20 Roll Under system, 5e-style advantage/disadvantage, attacks always hit.

Action Economy: Movement + one action per round.

Characters: Random character creation, class-less, levelling up with XP.

Setting: Vaguely specific. You play as mice and everything is related to mouse-size; cats are the equivalents of devils or dragons; humans exist as a setting background but may or may not be present in a campaign.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: Includes rules for recruiting warbands; slot-based inventory with a durability mechanic.

Degree of Support: Very high. Several official supplements exist, as well as loads of content, be it adventures or supplements, made by other creators. Available in seven languages (all of them however are European). Has a simple 3rd party license system.

Addendum: Mausritter uses the phrase "adventure site" instead of dungeons. On the website a free adventure site generator is available, as is a digital tool that can be used to generate your own item cards for the slot-based inventory system.

5. Maze Rats

Author: Ben Milton

Release Year: 2017

Cost: $4.99 for the PDF, no print option regularly available.

Page Count: 32

Website: https://questingbeast.substack.com/

Resolution Mechanic: 2d6 + Bonus Roll Over system; advantage system that uses 3d6 drop the lowest + Bonus.

Action Economy: Movement + one action per round.

Characters: Semi-random character creation, class-less but instead there are character features (e.g. spell slots or attack bonuses), levelling up with XP.

Setting: Essentially non-existant. Magic is very irregular (s. the section below), but otherwise it implies a vaguely European fantasy setting.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: Spells are randomly generated each adventuring day and spell effects are negotiated between the GM and the spellcasting player; includes several fantastic d66 tables that can be used to randomly generate worlds.

Degree of Support: Decent. The rule text is licensed under CC BY 4.0 and unofficial translations are available. Some third-party content has been made specifically for the game.

Addendum: The only purchase-only game on this list. However "unofficial" distribution of the PDF is very common. Also this is the oldest game on the list. Ben "Questing Beast" Milton is a prolific OSR blogger and runs a YouTube channel on the OSR. Great dude.

6. Sherwood - A Game of Outlaws & Arcana

Author: Richard Ruane

Release Year: 2022

Cost: Free quickstart PDF titled "Sherwood - A Quickstart of Outlaws" available; digital rulebook costs $7.50 and the print edition (including PDF) costs $15.

Page Count: 25 (Quickstart), 32 (Rulebook)

Website: https://www.r-rook.studio/

Resolution Mechanic: 2d6 + Bonus Roll Over system for skill checks (including attacks), 2d6 Roll Under system for saving throws; advantage & disadvantage system that involves rolling 3d6 and using the higher/lower of the two results; almost all rolls are player-facing

Action Economy: "Conversational", assumption of movement + action.

Characters: Largely choice-based character creation. Combine two (of six) background abilities with the benefits of seven different careers. Big focus on interpersonal relationships during character creation. Limited character advancement takes place during downtime.

Setting: Specific. Takes place in a fantastical version of 13th century England, with fey and magic coexisting with outlaws and crusaders.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: The group of outlaws possesses two shared resources (Resources and Legend) that can be spent to gain certain benefits; spellcasting is divided into two categories: arcane talents and sorcerous rites, with the former being immediate and the later taking significant time; slot-based inventory.

Degree of Support: None. No further publications exist for the game and while it is published under the CC-BY 4.0 license, no third-party content exists as far as I know. It does include a guide on how to convert D&D and Troika (N)PCs into Sherwood characters, as well as three adventure seeds (one in the Quickstart, two in the rules), which is at least something.

Addendum: Might just be the game on this list that encourages the most roleplaying; the character sheet is sadly very provisional-feeling and the Quickstart feels outdated compared to the finalized rulebook.

7. The Electrum Archive

Author: Emiel Boven

Release Year: 2022

Cost: Free Rules PDF available, zines cost $12 as digital PDFs or $24 as print + PDF combos; the first zine contains the entire contents of the Free Rules PDF

Page Count: 26 (Free Rules), 72 (Issue 01)

Website: https://www.electrumarchive.com/

Resolution Mechanic: 1d10 Roll Under system, attacks always hit.

Action Economy: Movement + one action per round.

Characters: Largely choice-based; three archetypes roughly corresponding to fighters/rangers (Vagabonds), rogues (Fixers), and spellcasters (Warlocks); player characters are presumed to be human; levelling up with XP.

Setting: Specific. Mechanics heavily tie into the lore; humanity has abundant access to minerals but requires a rare substance known as Ink to operate certain pieces of tech (like guns) and cast spells but cannot produce Ink themselves; spirits of various sorts can be foes, targets of worship, or sources of power.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: Uses a spellcasting system for the Warlock archetype that's heavily based on the one used in Maze Rats, as in it uses randomly-generated spells whose effects are negotiated between the player and the GM; slot-based inventory with a durability mechanic.

Degree of Support: Minimal. The game consists out of the free rules and (soon) two zines; a third party license exists but content produced under it is very rare.

Addendum: I need to disclaim that I recently backed the Kickstarter campaign for the second zine for this game; the free rules feature wrong page numbers in its table of contents which is unfortunate; The Electrum Archive uses incredibly simple stats for NPCs which makes creating new ones based on other games rather simple.

8. Shadowdark RPG

Author: Kelsey Dionne

Release Year: 2023

Cost: Free player and game master quickstarts exist as PDFs and are available in print for $19, the core rules cost $28 in PDF form and $57 in a print + PDF bundle

Page Count: 68 (Player Quickstart Guide), 68 (Game Master Quickstart Guide), 332 (Core Rules)

Website: https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/

Resolution Mechanic: 1d20 + Bonus Roll Over system, 5e-style advantage/disadvantage, natural 1s are critical failures and natural 20s are critical successes.

Action Economy: Movement + one action per round.

Characters: Largely choice-based; players have a fantasy ancestry and a class; levelling up with XP; class progression largely random.

Setting: Vague. General (dark) western fantasy conventions apply; alignment is a force in this universe and a sample pantheon is provided; the most potent enemies in the rules are named individuals that fit classic TTRPG monster types; illustrations and lore snippets have recurring motifs.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: The key mechanic of Shadowdark is how the game handles light, namely that light sources are tracked in real time (i.e. a normal torch lasts 1 hour), which increases tension; slot-based inventory; has a 0th-level character creation option using an eliminationist "Gauntlet".

Degree of Support: Fantastic. Several official supplements and offically sanctioned digital tools exist; lots of third-party content available under a generous third-party license.

Addendum: Definitely the most similar game to 5e on this list besides the next entry; very robust mechanically and the Core Rules features extensive lists of magic items, monsters, and spells; also for early play giving your players only access to the quickstart is a totally valid choice; and finally, before Dionne made Shadowdark, she made 5e adventures for years and it shows (affectionate).

9. Pathfinder

Authors: Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Mark Seifter

Release Year: 2019 (initial release), 2023 (remaster)

Cost: Free and comprehensive SRD available via the platform Archives of Nethys, free "Pathfinder Primer" abridged rulebook available via the Pathfinder Nexus (powered by Demiplane), Core books are priced $20 for PDFs and $30/$60 for print as a softcover/hardcover; a Beginner Box set with shortened soft-cover rules costs $45

Page Count: 464 (Player Core), 336 (GM Core), 376 (Monster Core), 160 (Combined Beginner Box Softcovers)

Website: https://paizo.com/pathfinder

Resolution Mechanic: 1d20 + Bonus Roll Over system, 5e-style advantage/disadvantage, four degrees of success based on result compared to target number.

Action Economy: Three action points per round; various actions may require more than one point; every character can use one reaction per round of combat.

Characters: Choice-based; players first pick an ancestry and a background and a class (the ABCs) and then tend to have meaningful choices after each level-up; levelling up with XP.

Setting: Important. Golarion, the game's setting, is a world that has been long in development and it shows; powerful magic and influential gods; very clear notions of what the societies of the various peoples of the world are like and how they should behave.

Other Noteworthy Mechanics: Balance between character classes and reliable combat challenge calculations are an important design goal; weight-based inventory system; archetype system for "multiclassing".

Degree of Support: Fantastic. Loads of content gets regularly produced by the game's publisher Paizo; the Pathfinder Infinite program (similar to D&D's Dungeon Master's Guild) provides lots of lore-compliant third-party content; uses the ORC third-party license for content produced outside of the Pathfinder Infinite program. Translations into other languages available but Paizo does not provide a comprehensive list of available languages (only German and French confirmed after brief personal research).

Addendum: The most popular and commercially successful of the listed games; but also by far the most complicated, though it is easier to GM for specificallty than 5e; also I dislike how certain feats create situations where fairly mundane actions get mechanics through these feats instead of being things you can generally do; anyway the reason why it's a 9 on a 1d8 table is because if you wanted to try out Pathfinder 2e you already would have and because while Paizo is better than WotC it's still a flawed big company.

...

So this was an exhausting little project. I hope you found this helpful and I hope you give at least one of these games a shot! A follow-up to this post is not out of the cards, but I don't plan on one.

Before we go, have this poll about which of these systems you're most looking forward to try! Shame it can only be open for one week...

[lemondaydream]

012 . PONDEROSA —  [ 𝚕𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖 ] ...... DOWNLOAD NOW

Gothic, dark, Wednesday, The Sandman, vampires, demons, I don't know what I was on making PONDEROSA. For those who love red and moody, this is like EUREKA's evil cousin. Along with this template, you receive a free docs tutorial on how to edit it with detailed instructions. It's not complicated but it might teach you some new tricks. Edit it in any way, shape, or form just please don’t remove my credit and link to lemondaydream.

These are meant to be only used by one person per purchase. Allowing others to make copies off of your copy is stealing. Please read the instructions on how to prevent this.

how to use

After accessing the full Google doc through the link on the PDF, select “file” and then “make a copy” 

Do not remove the credit from the top and bottom of the template  

how to edit

This template comes with its own tutorial, read those instructions first if you have questions. They are on the PDF that is emailed to you.

The easiest way to edit and change any of the images is to right-click on the image and then click “replace image” in order to change it. Do not copy and paste images into the doc, it will ruin the formatting.

Some images might need you to first right-click on the image and click "select image" if it does not automatically create a bounding box. After this step, you can change it to be "in front of text" and then proceed with the instructions above. Just make sure to change it back to behind text after. 

This document has "Drawing" elements! To edit the "drawing" simply right-click, "select image," and the box that pops up underneath has a button that says "edit." Edit will bring you to a pop-up window that will allow you to change the images by clicking replace image at the top right of the toolbar when clicking the picture.

Do not resize or paste any images into the doc, only use the method above.

The pictures on this doc are of Sora Choi colored with the PSD Circles by divinefem (darkened with a 40% opacity layer of black) The PSD is not included, please go support this fantastic creator to grab your own if you want (in notes). The background texture and red images are made from elements found on Pinterest, most of them recolored by me.

Changing the fonts may cause tables to shift and resize, be careful in doing this, and remember, ctrl+z is your friend, if something messes up, immediately undo. Do not recommend doing this.

The tables are structured in a way that will move pages and elements if their limit is exceeded, if you need more space, I highly recommend linking to a continuation at the end of that space. 

Thank you so, so much for your support!

Likes and reblogs always appreciated!!

[sysboxes]

Sysboxes FAQ

Responses to some questions we frequently get! This post is long, so full responses are under the cut, but here are the questions this post addresses, in order:

What are userboxes and how do I use them?

How do you make your userboxes?

What styles/customization can I request?

Do you have a box for X?

When can I send in a request/When will the askbox reopen?

How many requests can I send in per ask or per user?

Is there any particular media you absolutely won’t make boxes for?

Why hasn’t a box been made for my request yet?

What does X term mean?

What is your syscourse stance/Why can’t pro/endos interact?

What are userboxes and how do I use them?

Userboxes are rectangular images, often with an image on the left and information about a person on the right. They were originally meant to appear on a Wikipedian’s user page to convey something about a person. To use our boxes, you can reblog them to your tumblr page and/or right click to save the image for later use.

We have seen people put userboxes in their intro posts, in a certain tag on their tumblr, in Discord and PluralKit profiles, on their SimplyPlural (this post explains how), or in exchanges with friends. We generally request that you credit sysboxes when using our userboxes.

How do you make your userboxes?

Different mods use different methods, like Canva and MS Paint, but our main method of making boxes is using yerich.net/userbox. In the box that says “Left Box (ID) Text”, enter the code “src=“yourpicturelinkhere” height=“45px” width=“45px”>”, replacing yourpicturelinkhere with your image URL. Customize your userbox using the rest of the options on the site. You can screenshot your box here, or you can go to htmleditor.com and paste the “Raw HTML” code from yerich. Then you can use HTML coding mess around with size, font, and color before screenshotting your finished box.

What styles/customization can I request?

This post details a lot of the customization options you can request, like boxes vs. banners, different fonts, colors, and images, including hand-drawn art by mods. You can also request a specific mod do your box. Most mods are adults, but if you feel uncomfortable with a minor making your request, you are free to add that in your ask. Note that if you are requesting an image that contains someone else’s art, we must get permission from the artist to use the image for a userbox.

This being said, we are not infallible to making mistakes on the origins of an image. We do try to reverse image search when provided with an image in an ask, but if you notice your art in a userbox without having been asked permission for its use, please let us know so we can remedy the situation.

Do you have a box for X?

Please search our blog using a keyword for the box you’re looking for and possible variants on it. For example, if you’re looking for a box about food, try food, foods, eat, eats, and eating as keywords. If you’re looking for a box whose keyword is a common tag on our blog, try checking #hard to find tag on our blog for boxes. If you cannot find a box with these steps, we likely have not made one yet or whatever we do have is unlikely to fit your request idea.

When can I send in a request/When will the askbox reopen?

We let people know whether requests are open or closed in three ways: the box in our intro post, the title of the askbox itself, and a post when requests first open or close with the tag #sysboxes status update. When our requests are closed, please do not send any in for “when requests are open”; it will be deleted.

At any given time, we have hundreds of requests in our askbox. We try to keep requests open as long as we can, but even with a large number of mods, there is only so much we can do. We run this blog in our free time, while dealing with work, school, and mental and physical health issues. We do accept questions/appreciation while our requests are closed, but sometimes we save them to respond to when we clear the askbox, to look forward to later.

How many requests can I send in per ask or per user?

We don’t limit how many asks a single user can send in, but if possible, we prefer you send in multiple asks if you have multiple requests. We’ll still do multiple requests in one ask, but one request per ask allows us to more easily sort and number requests. It also lets us respond to when requests will be posted individually instead of waiting until every one is queued or posted to respond to a non-anonymous ask.

Is there any particular media you absolutely won’t make boxes for?

We are okay with requests pertaining to fictives from most media, as we understand they cannot control what source they introjected from. We will not make requests that express support for harmful media. As for media we won’t do requests for introjects from, we have decided not to make boxes pertaining to true crime or nazi introjects, for our and others comfortability. This is not a complete list, as different mods have different boundaries, but we try to honor requests whenever possible.

Why hasn’t a box been made for my request yet?

If you want to know exactly when your userbox will come out, send in your request off anon, and when we queue it, we will privately respond to your ask letting you know when to expect your box. Note our queue is very long.

We do not always do requests in the order we receive them. Some requests we must discuss or reword (for length, misinfo, etc.) before making. We do not make requests that incite hate/harassment, include misinformation (and can’t be reworded), include (specific) details that may endanger the user, or put us in the middle of heavy discourse we do not want to be roped into.

What does X term mean?

This is a userbox blog, and as such, we prefer you do not direct your questions about DID here. We are not professionals (and cannot diagnose anyone), and we recommend looking for credible resources. If you cannot find anything for your question or would like resources, some of the mods are ok with asks about things relating to DID on their system blogs. Mod blogs ok with these questions include @fromthewondersystem and @circular-bircular.

What is your syscourse stance/Why can’t pro/endos interact?

Individual mods fall across the syscourse spectrum (why circ is a mod), but this blog is overall anti-endo. In truth, we do not know nor much care whether it is possible to have a non-traumagenic system. We feel our system experiences are deeply informed by our trauma, and this is very different from endos’ experiences.

Additionally, mods of this blog have faced much harassment and harm from the pro-endo community, including being set back in recovery, misinformation, cultural appropriation, abuse, death threats, and doxxing. We are aware these issues extend beyond just the pro-endo community, but this is where we have most commonly found them. For these reasons, we do not want endos or pro-endos interacting with our blog or using our userboxes.

There are plenty of pro-endo userbox blogs already. We do allow syscourse-neutral/unaligned people to use our boxes - we are not here to force you to pick a side. People who are not pro-endo but allow pro-endos to interact with them may use our boxes, but we recommend noting that we are an anti-endo blog.

[beekeeperspicnic]

What I've been getting up to without my computer

Since I don't have any game updates at the moment I thought I'd give you a look at my very analogue Sherlock Holmes related project!

As you probably know, the Sherlock Holmes stories were mostly originally published in the Strand Magazine which came out as floppy monthly magazines with hardback collections every six months.

A while ago I spotted a really beaten up copy of the July to December 1893 book on eBay for £8. This book can sometimes go for £200 in good condition because it's the one with...

I immediately decided to make repairing it a Project!

You can see here that the text block has totally come away from the boards.

Along the spine I was really excited to see something a little familiar being used to give some structural support! My initial thought was that this had to be a slice of a cover of one of the floppy Strand magazines.

But when I got it loose and studied it, although the paper and ink colour is the same, it doesn't actually follow the layout format of the Strand covers. It's lots of little ads, and they run off the bottom like this is part of a larger document.

Scrap of paper on left, a Strand Magazine on the right:

So yeah, that's still a bit of a mystery, but it's cool to see this scrap of paper the printers had lying around. I had to remove it, but I'm going to keep it safe.

I did some gentle cleaning of the cover using a putty eraser, just gently pressing and rolling, never rubbing. It picked up a little of the grime.

The cover had got some paint splotches on at some point in the past, and I tried to gently remove these. Part of me wishes I'd left them as I think I was starting to effect the blue colour in the area.

(Original on the right, my attempt at cleaning on the left!)

I also reinforced some of the parts of the bookcloth around the spine that were very worn with Japanese tissue, which is very thin but very, very difficult to tear.

Now here's a fun part, with some help from my cat Miss Malkin!

The spine of the book had a few problems.

The fabric which wraps around it and helps attach it to the cover/boards which is called scrim (or mull, I've seen it called both!) had totally decayed and turned into gross dust, I knew I'd need to replace it.

Although the sewn binding was sound, I could tell that the glue wasn't doing its job anymore. It was old 'animal glue' that had turned hard and brittle. I knew I'd need to replace it with something else, like PVA.

I needed to get that glue off, so I tried out a trick I saw online. I made a paste/gel out of methycellulose, which is a substance that gets used as a thickener in lots of food products. Of course I keep mine in a fancy little jar:

The gel softens the old glue without getting it dangerously damp, allowing you to gently scrape it away. I have a really satisfying video of me doing it, but Tumblr only lets you upload one video per post, boo.

Look at all this gnarly gunk!

But look at how good the text block looks with its new scrim and glue!

I got the black paper from Shepherd's in London which is a specialist Art & Conservation Paper shop (they have a book bindery too but it's closed at the weekends.) Buying it was so fun, I got to look through lots of samples and pick something which matched the original paper.

I then had to get it home half way across the country on public transport. Yaaaaay.

I was trying to think what I was going to use to replace the Strand Magazine page on the spine. In the end I decided to leave a little note, for some future person who might take the binding apart someday!

So, here it is!

I have to admit that this whole project has been a real challenge, emotionally more than anything! It's required me to be brave about messing with an old book, and to acknowledge that even where I've made mistakes, at least it's better off then it was when It arrived at my house.

[derce]

Wikipedia 2

Coming this year in the summer, we are proud to announce Wikipedia 2

Features

20% more Polish

We will do this by effectively replacing 3% of text in all languages with Polish.

2.4x Larger

That's right. We're aiming for 3x by December next year in addition to this metric.

Communist, Libertarian, and French language propoganda addendums

This one should be pretty self explanitory.

Fake/fictional places

We'll give you directions to fake and fictional places.

Errors may occur for ones that violate SOL on scales >2lightyears or <32 planck units. We are working tirelessly to get the scale from at most 4 planck units to at least 23 lightdecades.

North Korea

We figured out the logistics. A 3% reduced version will be released in North Korea

No Russian

We turned the Russian into Polish

Polish day

Self explanitory. Members in select cities (both free and premium members) will be allowed into arenas to fight for 72 straight hours every week. No food will be allowed into the arenas or provided. Water will be provided in form of rain. May contain radium. No waiver necessary for adults and children 6 and up.

Experience historical figures better than ever

Ever wanted to meet great historical figures such as JFK or MLK? Now you can. Everyone with a last name H-L now has their own hologram compatible with most VR headsets. Not WMR compatible.

New user interface

It's new so it's good.

Find friends!

Everyone's cursor is shown on the page! Labeled or unlabled, transparency options, it's incredible!

Combat mode

Plagiarism? Bias? Fight it out. We don't care. There's many weapon options to choose from such as -

• Shotgun - obliterates enemy cursor in 30 degree radius, but bulky and includes gravity.

• Smg/Rifle - Auto. No gravity. Kills in 3/2 hits respectively at a rate of fire of 8/5 per second respectively

• Pistol/Revolver - Limited ammo, semi, but fast time to kill. 2/1 shots respectively and 13/6 bullets respectively

• Sniper - Must use bipod. Risky, bulky, gravity enabled. Deletes user's account.

Exclusive Laura Les commentary

Dylan Brady was unfortunately not able to read our email as he smoked too much weed out of Billie's windpipe. Sorry.

[dodgesgirl]

how do you get your text that soft pink shade? tutorial?

BABY PINK TEXT TUTORIAL !

hi babe!! here's a short and hopefully easy to understand tutorial for the text i use in my posts ᥫ᭡

also, just a little disclaimer: the images on this post might not be visible because they exceed the limit of 10 images per post on mobile app. should be fine on a laptop or pc though!!

okay firstly, make sure you're using a laptop and open your post in one tab and in a seperate tab open jsfiddle.

you should be able to see this coding somewhere on your screen:

you're gonna replace the two hex-codes (highlighted text) with whichever colours you'd like. to do a gradient, like this, the two codes will be different, but i like to do a solid colour like this so my codes will be the same.

the hex code i use for the baby pink is D2A3BE, or you can use your own. if you don't have a hex code you like yet, you can use the colour picker on this site to find one!

just copy and paste the hex codes into the code so it looks like this:

make sure it looks exactly like this. you still need all the spaces, quotations and other code. only change the hex codes.

in the top left of your screen, there should be a "run" button, and when you press it, the colours in the bottom right should change from the default ones to the ones you chose.

next, you're going to open your tumblr post in your first tab.

your post will start like this. you'll go to the settings button in the top right (circled) and change the post from rich text to HTML

this will enable coding on the post. you'll still have 'preview' where it will look normal and you can still type and edit the post as you usually would.

once you've typed something it will show it in the HTML option just in a different way:

you want to go to the preview page and make sure you've got the text looking exactly as you want it (bold, italic, small, etc.). also note that colours look especially good and show up well when the text is bold. i set mine to bold as an example.

when you switch to HTML it will look something like it does above.

next, you'll copy the text between all the coding prompts (e.g. <p><b> and <b><p>). only copy the text you want to be pink or another colour!! don't highlight any of the coding. then paste it this top box on jsfiddle so it looks like this:

press "run" on the right, and it will spit out a line of code in the second box that will look something like this:

you're gonna copy that line of code and switch over to your tumblr tab. on your HTML version of your post, find the text you're changing and highlight it. then paste the code into that spot. make sure not to highlight any of the surrounding code - only the text you've written and want to change.

it will look super weird and long because it's colouring each symbol and letter, if you look closely, each letter of "example text" is separated and surrounded by code. when you switch to preview it will look like this:

for gradient, the process is the exact same, but on jsfiddle, when you're replacing the default hex codes with yours, the second hex code you plug in will be different to the one you start with. for example:

this second colour is C45494 btw!!

to do specific text in a paragraph as if bolding it (which i do in a lot of my posts), you just want to find that text in your HTML post, and copy and paste the specific word/s into your top box on jsfiddle, and then proceed as normal. example:

hopefully this helped!! let me know if you have any questions or need me to go over anything ( ˘³˘)

[saltminerising]

re: https://www.tumblr.com/saltminerising/724319958184624128/i-wish-there-was-a-way-to-just-fuckin-share-my?source=share

Im gunna share my secret with you. Now it’s not posting in the AH and not taking screenshots of your hoard. But I will sometimes list everything this way in items for sale, so you can still sell that way. This will take a little bit depending on how much you have. But still MUCH quicker trying to code this out normally.

Step 1: Find a website that will convert HTML code to item bbc code, personally I use this one https://smileytechie.github.io/ (mods I swear its not phishing).

Step 2: Make sure your hoard is on virtual stacks and extended to 56 items per page

Step 3: Highlight your hoard and right click. Click on Inspect

Step 4: This is probably the most tricky part. You’ll need to find a line that says something like <div id=“user hoard page”“> or <div class="content”> either will work.

Step 5: right click and copy outer html, paste into the first box in the website and hit process. In the second box should be all your code.

Step 6: but now theres xNaN there. Getting rid of that is simple. Open your favorite text document editor (I use google docs). Paste the item code in there, and find and replace xNaN with a space.

and rinse and repeat into your forum posts until your whole hoard is in items for sale easy for everyone to see, and not as annoying to look through like screenshots.

I will also go through and use find and replace to edit out [item= ], then making the text very small so people can crtl F search for specific things they’re looking for.

[thegrayascendancy-if]

Hello, wanted to say I read and loved the demo. Very well done. I just had a few questions, would love to know what Twine Template you use, especially at the beginning. Where you have the character creator, I love that the box around your selection changes to say/match what you chose. Such as depending on what skin color I choose it changes to signify that. Would love to know if you would share how you did that. I look forward to future updates! Best of luck.

Thank you! 🤍

I'm using the default template for SugarCube, if I remember correctly. Glad that you liked the box effect, it was my solution to reducing the number of passages whilst still allowing the validation of user input in character creation.

I did it through a combination of HTML tags and SugarCube native macros. Technical stuff under the cut:

Here is an example for eye color:

<fieldset class="charbox"><legend id="chareyes" class="chartxt">$p.appearance.eyes</legend> <div class="charoptions">Your eyes are: <<link "hazel">><<set $p.appearance.eyes to "hazel">><<replace "#chareyes">>$p.appearance.eyes<</replace>><</link>> <<link "brown">><<set $p.appearance.eyes to "brown">><<replace "#chareyes">>$p.appearance.eyes<</replace>><</link>> [rest of the options removed for brevity]</div> </fieldset>

The fieldset and the legend HTML tags together form a single box, a so-called legend, which I declare per attribute such as name, skin color, etc. You need a fieldset to make legend work iirc, but legend is where that text is displayed and it is positioned on the box frame by default. Important here is to give a unique ID to the legend tag ("chareyes" in this case), as we are interested in manipulating the text shown in it depending on our box.

In the sample above, the options I present for the eye color are listed within the Twine <<link>> tags. For these links there is no target passage to go to. Instead, you can see it is coded to do two things upon clicking the respective option. One, setting a game variable to the selected color.

<<set $p.appearance.eyes to "brown">>

Two, triggering a replace command to change the value shown in the legend to the description of the selected eye color according to the variable we have set in the same line. This is the bit you are asking about:

<<replace "#chareyes">>$p.appearance.eyes<</replace>>

Replace triggers without changing passages, so this way you can adjust multiple variables on a single "page". You'd obviously need to adjust the corresponding CSS classes to make it look the desired way, but the mechanics are serviced with just this idea above.

Hope this helps!

[hotchfiles]

Okay here we go (This is a kinda long snippet but oh well lol. No one steal it please lmao)

Suddenly a bit nervous but no matter! My insanity for these guys propels me forward lol

I'd love to hear your thoughts :) This is still a first draft and I haven't completely fleshed everything out, there are some placeholders, but I'm hoping they're still in character.

Slightly nsfw themes but not really, it's more suggestive I think.

----

Will is preparing to go workout.

“Are ya joinin’ me?” he asked.

Reid looked up from his spot in the corner of the sofa, a book in hand and three more on the coffee table in front of him. Will was in a rather tight, grey shirt and loose, black shorts that Reid quickly looked away from.

“Uh,” a sheepish huff passed his lips, “No, I – I don’t really work out.”

Will’s brows drew together.

“What?” he asked, “You should.”

There was no malice present in his tone, no intent to insult. He merely stated it plainly, as if it were a given. Then again, Reid considered maybe it was. He was an FBI agent, after all.

[workout scene]

Whether or not he decides to join, Reid will be staring at him quite a bit.

The door to the garage opened and the sound of Will’s heavy breaths cut through the silence. Panting, he stumbled to the fridge to retrieve a cold water. Reid blinked at the loud crack of the seal as Will opened it to begin gulping down the liquid like he had been lost at sea for days.

In his hasty consumption, some of it leaked out of the corner of his mouth and trailed down his jaw, a tiny rivulet making its way down his neck.

When Will stopped drinking with a great sigh, Reid realized he had been transfixed on following the droplet’s trail. He quickly found his place in the text once more, wondering if Will was really peering at him or if he was imagining it.

“Alright,” Will nodded at him as he passed through the living room, “I’m gonna go shower.”

“Mhmm,” Reid hummed as he glanced up, not trusting his voice at the moment.

He could have sworn he caught a fleeting smirk on Will’s face out of the corner of his eye before he dashed away. Reid’s gaze absentmindedly fell onto the flexing muscles of his back, clearly outlined against his tight workout shirt.

Blinking rapidly, Reid found he had to reread his current page three times before he retained any of its information.

[Later]

An aroma of clean, linen scented soap wafted through the living room. Reid shifted to look as Will walked back in, his workout clothes replaced by looser sweatpants and a white t-shirt.

Will flopped heavily onto the sofa with a satisfied groan, raking his fingers through his damp hair.

Reid glanced over the top of his book, tracking the motion with his eyes, only to snap his gaze back down to the pages once again when Will peered over at him.

Silence stretched on for a several long seconds where Reid focus all his attention on the printed words he held. And nowhere else. Reid had yet to flip a single page since Will made his return, something that wouldn’t be suspicious of anyone else but was extremely telling considering he could read twenty thousand words per minute.

The corners of Will’s lips twitched, like he was containing a smirk, as let himself slide lower and his head fell back to rest on the sofa cushion. He stretched his arms and legs out, a strained groan coming from deep in his chest. One of his knees bumped against Reid’s briefly.

Reid remained as still as a statue, only his eyes flicking up again to rake over Will’s stretched torso for a split second before returning to his task.

Will scrutinized him silently, a glint flashing in his eye for a moment.

“So…” Will broke the silence carefully, “You, uh – You decide yet?”

“What?” Reid tipped his book forward to peer at him.

Will ducked his chin momentarily, a slow smirk tugging at his lips.

“Well, I was just wondering,” he lifted his head to peer at Reid through his lashes, “if you were gonna keep undressin’ me with your eyes or if you’re gonna actually make a move.”

“What?!”

The book slipped from Reid’s grasp and he lurched to catch it. It skipped through the air once, twice, three times, before he was finally able to securely wrap his fingers around it.

Deep chuckles emanated from Will’s chest as he watched the spectacle.

Swallowing thickly, Reid’s shoulders heaved from the action as he let the book fall with a heavy thump onto the table.

“What do you –?!” he sputtered, his widened eyes finally meeting Will’s amused gaze once again, “No, no I – I wasn’t, I don’t even –”

“Reid,” Will cut him off with a true smile, bright and dazzling, “I’m teasin’.”

MATT SENT ME THIS MASTERPIECE and I forgot to reply but.

Let's all enjoy Will being a lil tease and getting Reid completely flustered PLEASE

[fontainescape]

The Curse of Focalors: A Theory

I believe that despite being a god, Focalors currently doesn't have full access to her archonhood or the power of the gnosis. This might be because she had rejected herself as a god. Her self-praises skyrocket whenever she talked about the power of the gods or being the God of Justice herself, maybe because of her insecurity towards the issue. She is Fontaine's god, but perhaps she feels she doesn't deserve to be their god.

Because . . .

Furina turned Egeria's oceanids into humans. Not only can we correlate this Archon Quest to Mary-Ann's World Quest, the current people of Fontaine are penned as "sinners", though they don't know themselves what sins they carry. So I'm guessing they were Egeria's oceanid spies, or at least the descendants of those oceanids.

Due to the flood that occured 500 years ago, Focalors must have decided to turn oceanids into the humans who had died since the activities the oceanids carried were considered a sin by Celestia anyway. These creatures knew too much. I actually think Celestia supported Focalors on this, if they haven't suggested it themselves. There's no reason to turn a blind eye on such manipulative act if it wasn't to Celestia's liking.

To the Focalors then, that was justice. Focalors had done this to exact justice onto Egeria, perhaps in fear of Celestia's wrath.

But now her people are doomed into dissolution after having lived, created memories, and struggled as humans. And yet to later find the truth that they never were humans in the first place? Truly, this deception is cruel. How can she be composed after all these years? She's not. She deems herself unworthy of the authority of the hydro element for the grave offense she committed.

And thus . . .

Living on with pangs of conscience led Focalors to decide to exact justice onto herself as well, hence she cursed herself to live as a mortal, while locking the gnosis inside the Oratrice she created. But this wouldn't be enough. She would want someone else to replace her role as the Hydro Sovereign in order to keep Fontaine safe and to maintain it.

Furina may not have split herself per se

The Lady of Justice is blindfolded and carries a scale and a sword. So let's say that Furina is the sword , the Oratrice is obviously a scale, and Neuvillette could be the blindfold.

The scale represents evidence, facts, and balance. The sword represents punishment, truth, power of the state and rule of the law. The blindfold represents impartiality, an absence of favor.

Neuvillette's in-game character attributes and profile page text reads as follows:

The Chief Justice of Fontaine, known as the Iudex, is renowned for his unassailable impartiality.

There is no question that Neuvillette is the blindfold in this sense.

With this, we're left with Furina and the Oratrice. You might've noticed that the sword executes the punishment and declares the truth, and that is very fitting for the trailer we just saw in the 4.2 Special Program. IM SO GLAD I DIDNT PUBLISH THIS POST BEFORE I WATCHED THAT PROGRAM. The punishment for Focalors was revealed to be a death sentence, and this is the part of the story where the truth is revealed to everyone. Although the Oratrice technically declares the final verdict, in the end it is powered by Focalors' gnosis.

Now on a minor detail, observe Focalors' statue. I know that the previous things I said about the Lady of Justice must have already been analyzed by redittors but I don't know if they picked up on this:

Focalors' statue holds a sword that also resembles the oratrice with the tear motifs. But there's no blindfold and scale!

Neuvillette only became the Iudex 100 years after the cataclysm. Focalors should have been instated as the new hydro archon first, and then she would've appointed Neuvillette as the Chief Justice later in the timeline. This is very similar to the real world addition of the blindfold associated to the Lady of Justice, which was only added during the 16th century. So I just think it's neat if the statue having no blindfold is done on purpose. And whether that holds a significant meaning, I really don't know. Probably not, right? Also, could that mean Focalors herself is not completely impartial? Hence why she created the Oratrice?

She created the Oratrice to perfectly discern the appropriate verdict for the trials, even for a trial of a god. And Furina never split herself into anything. She's just really sneaky and good at fooling others, maybe. However I do think she really intended to die. But of course I think somebody would stop her.

Instead of splitting herself, she's just putting up an act. The two masks of the performing arts or theatre symbol are Comedy and Tragedy. The Furina everyone sees in public is masquerading as a comedic mascot, but the unseen Furina lives in the face of tragedy.

The Fontaine story theme's title is Masquerade of the Guilty. This entire ordeal is not just to place justice onto herself but also to avoid the prophecy from completely coming true.

Furina' secret

Here comes in Neuvillette who showed up in Fontaine around a hundred years after the cataclysm. Focalors decided that he would be a fitting Chief Justice, but in truth she also plans to return his sovereign authority. Somebody has to keep an eye of Fontaine after all.

This whole time, Focalors could have been preparing Neuvillette to take over. And the reason/s she must have waited this long, is because he has yet to be accustomed of the ways of humans and/or she has to safely turn over the gnosis without alerting Celestia. So until that time comes, Furina mustn't disappear from the stage because she has to keep the show going.

This is the only reason why I think Furina cried so bad and asked a "random" attacker not to kill her. Cause she doesn't have the gnosis with her and so she can't defend herself in that situation, but also has a reason to continue living for now.

All to deceive fate itself.

I had another theory about what the indemnitium is for if you want to read that.

[oneknightstand-if]

Okay, my late-night REEing that I lost my easily searchable online Arthurian encyclopedia(s) got a whole bunch more replies than I was expecting. (I was expecting none) So, I'll just clarify a bit further.

Nightbringer Current

Huge-ass banner on top of all pages that may or may not look more possessed depending on what browser you're using

All elements, pictures, search results, banners bounce up & down upon loading (I found the effect rather queasy myself when navigating multiple pages)

No margins at the edge of pages means a huge wall of text across the entire page on larger monitors

The search bar has been removed from 99% of the pages

The search results are no longer shown as a list, but as six giant placards at a time with 864 pages to click through for the "Arthur" search. Not hyperbole... literally 864 pages with 6 results per page.

It's faster to use a Bing/Google advanced search on the site to try and find stuff now

Nightbringer Very Old (2019)

Not the version of Nightbringer that was just replaced, but an even older version that's unfortunately missing about 5 years of entry updates

Smaller banner, but its sticky and will be continuously taking up vertical space in the browser and just generally shows less info per page than the next version of the site

Going to this version has the warning that it'll only remain up for an indeterminate time now, so not suitable for linking to long-term.

Has a search bar on all pages and search results show up in a single list on the search results page (200 for "Arthur")

Definitely suitable enough for quick searches, but it's missing data and is on a countdown timer

Nightbringer Old (Last Month)

The midpoint between the two versions of the site that I've been using for years

Medium sized non-sticky banner that doesn't bounce around

Search bar available on every page and search results were in a list that gave more info than the oldest version split across a couple pages. (Probably 10 pages or so for "Arthur", but I can't check anymore since the search isn't working in the cache of the old site)

Medium amount of info showed per screen (the most easily parsable for me)

The quickest version to search for the most up-to-date info

R.I.P.

TL;DR: This is going to make background checking a lot slower, but in the end, nothing to do but suck it up.

[pilesofnonsense]

RQBB 2023 Writer Sign-Ups Open!

[ID: Picture of a black banner with the Rusty Quill show logos and a text in white and red that reads Rusty Quill Big Bang 2023]

Writer Sign-Ups are now open for the Rusty Quill Big Bang 2023!

Please read through the information carefully to understand what will be expected of you as a participant.

The sign-up link is at the end of the post under the spoiler cut!

You do not need to have decided what you will be writing at this stage, but please consider whether the fic requirements are compatible with what you have in mind, and be sure that you can commit to contacting us on the below deadlines to share your progress (or withdraw your participation if necessary).

Schedule for 2023 (all deadlines at 23:00 BST / 5pm CDT):

Writer Sign-ups: May 8th - 14th

Check-in 1: June 11th

Full First Draft & Summary Due: July 9th

Artist Sign-ups: July 17th - 23rd

Check-in 2 & Art Draft Deadline: August 20th

Final Fic & Art Due: August 27th

Posting: August 31st - September 15th

Confirmation e-mails for sign-ups will be sent out after sign-ups close; if you have not received a confirmation by May 21, please contact us at pilesofnonsense@gmail.com. We ask that you check your email (including the spam folder!) and reply so we can confirm that your registered email address is correct and you still intend to participate.

Participation Requirements:

You must choose whether to join the Big Bang as an artist or writer. You may not do both.

Writers will require an AO3 account; if you do not have an AO3 account, please request one via AO3’s login page.

If you wish to write M or E rated fics you must be aged over 18.

All participants must read and adhere to the Expected Conduct guidelines (see below).

Minimum Final Word Count: 20,000

Maximum Number of Fics per Writer/s: 1

Maximum Number of Writers per Fic (collaboration): 2

Fic Draft Requirements: At the draft deadline (July 9th), we will require a complete draft of at least 18,000 words. “Complete” means that the fic is written from start to finish with no indispensable scenes missing or left as outlines—think, “If I posted this right now, would I be happy with the story it tells?”

Ideally, you will refine and polish your draft in the remaining time, but it can also be your final draft if you prefer.

Drafts will be handed in via a form that will be sent out to you before the deadline. Drafts should be available in Google docs, or if need be in PDF format.

Summary Requirements: A form for the summary will be sent out to you before the deadline. Summaries should briefly outline the general premise, and include rating, ships, triggers and other warnings, and any other relevant details.

Eligible Fics:

Fics of any rating and with any warnings are permitted, as long as they meet the minimum word count (20,000), are centered around at least one Rusty Quill original podcast (The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quill Gaming, Stellar Firma, Inexplicables, Chapter & Multiverse, Trice Forgotten), and are tagged appropriately.

We encourage authors to take this opportunity to challenge themselves to take on a project that they might not otherwise—though please consider what is realistic in terms of the deadlines as well!

Fics must be stand-alone (requires no knowledge of previous fics to enjoy), complete (resolves all main plotlines within the story, as opposed to being part I of a trilogy, etc.), and previously unposted.

Crossovers are allowed, but the focus should be on the RQ podcast involved. For example: a fusion crossover with the Leverage Team replacing the LOLOMG in the RQG!verse would not be permitted, though the RQG characters in the Leverage!verse would be.

Please be aware that fics with obscure crossovers, common squicks, higher ratings, etc., may be more difficult to match, and thus take a little longer to get snapped up. We will do our best to find you a suitable match, though!

If you have any questions about the suitability of your fic, please contact the mods.

Matching Process:

The artist sign-up will include a list of the anonymised fic summaries. Each artist will select 3 fics which they would be interested in creating for, with additional preferences (favourite show/shows they do not follow, OTPs and NoTPs, Do Not Wants, etc.) indicated in the comment field. Mods will then match writers to artists, taking preferences into account as much as possible.

If fics are oversubscribed or if it is otherwise necessary for matching, they may be removed from the list of eligible fics before the end of artist sign-ups.

If you have an issue with your match, please let the mods know as soon as possible.

Do Not Wants:

In this event, you will have an opportunity to Do Not Want (DNW) the types of content that you do not wish to work on. Similarly, if you’ve had conflicts with certain people in the past and do not want to risk matching to them, you can include this in your sign-up or draft submission, and we will avoid matching you with them (details of these will not be shared beyond the mod team).

The mods will always account for DNWs within reason; however, attempts to manipulate matches via DNWs or otherwise acting in bad faith will result in the rejection of your sign-up or draft. We are also not private detectives, and will thus not be fielding any requests such as “do not match me with anyone who has ever drawn/written XYZ.” Please keep that in mind when considering whether this event is right for you.

Expected Conduct:

By signing up for this event, you agree to do your best to meet the deadlines. If you might need a little more time, please email the mods to explain your situation before the deadline passes. Those who miss deadlines without contacting the mods beforehand may be dropped from the event without further contact.

In order to participate in this event, you must be willing to contact the mods directly in the event that you have a question, concern, or issue with your participation (as in the deadline example above). We are happy to help participants with anything that arises, but cannot accept “telephone”-style communiques on behalf of others.

Be in regular contact with your match—if you’re going to be offline for a significant length of time, let them know. Radio silence from your match in events of this kind can be very concerning. (If you are having trouble getting in touch with your match, please contact us!)

Please take care to credit your artist/writer in your own final post.

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[ebookporn]

The Loss of Things I Took for Granted

Ten years into my college teaching career, students stopped being able to read effectively.

by Adam Kotsko

Recent years have seen successive waves of book bans in Republican-controlled states, aimed at pulling any text with “woke” themes from classrooms and library shelves. Though the results sometimes seem farcical, as with the banning of Art Spiegelman’s Maus due to its inclusion of “cuss words” and explicit rodent nudity, the book-banning agenda is no laughing matter. Motivated by bigotry, it has already done demonstrable harm and promises to do more. But at the same time, the appropriate response is, in principle, simple. Named individuals have advanced explicit policies with clear goals and outcomes, and we can replace those individuals with people who want to reverse those policies. That is already beginning to happen in many places, and I hope those successes will continue until every banned book is restored.

If and when that happens, however, we will not be able to declare victory quite yet. Defeating the open conspiracy to deprive students of physical access to books will do little to counteract the more diffuse confluence of forces that are depriving students of the skills needed to meaningfully engage with those books in the first place. As a college educator, I am confronted daily with the results of that conspiracy-without-conspirators. I have been teaching in small liberal arts colleges for over 15 years now, and in the past five years, it’s as though someone flipped a switch. For most of my career, I assigned around 30 pages of reading per class meeting as a baseline expectation—sometimes scaling up for purely expository readings or pulling back for more difficult texts. (No human being can read 30 pages of Hegel in one sitting, for example.) Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways. Considerable class time is taken up simply establishing what happened in a story or the basic steps of an argument—skills I used to be able to take for granted

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[numetaljackdog]

sos

my number one skill is never shutting the fuck up ever and indeed in many circumstances it's more of a curse than a blessing because i genuinely can't control it for the most part but it does come in handy including throughout the entirety of my academic experience as well as just about every desk job i've ever had because it means i can fill a lot of space with a vast quantity of words that scan with a great deal of clarity and cohesion despite ultimately saying very little over the course of that volume. the result of this is that those who are reviewing my writing, which are usually people with varying degrees of power over my continued success, scan the content i've generated and deem it to be of high quality because everything seems well-thought out and competently composed and so they give it an instant pass, at least as long as they aren't paying too much attention, which - spoiler alert! - pretty much nobody ever is. they've all got their own shit to worry about, things that matter far more to them than whether or not you ended a sentence with a preposition in your 10-page report for a course that they're already sick of. now, what i did just there was a little trick where i actually violated my own natural cadence and patterns of writing in order to include a little gag! in the sentence where i mention the concept of ending a sentence with a preposition, i did just that; the sentence ended with "of." but for me, i normally would have phrased that sentence as follows: "they've all got their own shit to worry about, things that matter far more to them than whether or not you ended a sentence with a preposition in your 10-page report for a course that they're already sick of teaching." if this were actually a report with a word count minimum, obviously i would include that final word at the end of the sentence, because getting all cute and meta with the way i phrase things isn't worth losing that extra word of length. but in projects where the minimum requirements are more lax, i find it's helpful for my motivation to allow myself to have a little bit of genuine fun with it and liven the place up some. of course, that only applies if you're like me and you're a massive nerd who has fun doing that sort of thing, but i would say that there's a pretty decent chance that is true about you, seeing as how you're on tumblr dot com, a website that has an observably quite high population of huge nerds, and also you're presumably following me, which means you've identified with my nerd self enough to choose to see more of my blog. for what it's worth to you, my external keyboard seemingly ran out of battery several sentences ago, which is really kind of funny when you think about it. what an ironic time for that to happen, as i'm discussing and demonstrating my ability to type forever and ever! this is the first time i've had the battery in this keyboard die, so it must have had fresh ones in at the time i got it. i wouldn't know for sure, because i got it secondhand from someone i know who was clearing out some old inventory from their workplace's office building. that's where i got my big external monitor, as well. i really like tech appliances but honestly i really don't know much about them, that was never my area of expertise. as is likely obvious from this post alone, my passions have always remained more with the humanities. good god i have to stop now before i give you my whole fucking autobiography but i think by now i've sufficiently proven my point - i could easily do this until the end of time.

i have to create a new block now because of tumblr's character-per-block limitation. the one last thing i'll tell you is that, since i'm now typing on my laptop's keyboard which is at a somewhat awkward angle from me, my wrists are in danger of mucking with the trackpad, and just a few moments ago i accidentally selected the entire wall of text i've typed here and replaced it with what i was continuing to type. so thank goodness for the tumblr post editor's ability to undo, or else nobody ever would have seen this very intellectual and not at all frivolous and annoying post that i've generated here. if you actually read all of this, you're a huge freak and i'm proposing to you right now.