The tomb of a pastor's wife and stillborn child in a church in Hindelbank, Switzerland, 1751, depicting their resurrection.
@banana-with-a-bow-tie I agree with Citrus I’m sobbing thanks
@quietsnooze / quietsnooze.tumblr.com
The tomb of a pastor's wife and stillborn child in a church in Hindelbank, Switzerland, 1751, depicting their resurrection.
@banana-with-a-bow-tie I agree with Citrus I’m sobbing thanks
➡️ Content warnings on fiction are a courtesy.
➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.
➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.
➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.
➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.
➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.
➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. 'May contain peanuts!'
➡️ Writers are allowed to use 'Creator chose not to warn' for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.
➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is not the same thing as 'no archive warnings apply'.
➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you're reading that upsets you.
➡️ You are responsible for protecting yourself from fiction that causes you discomfort.
I do, however, want to point out that I am 10x more likely to skip a fic that has Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings. You get burned enough times, everyone pays. And I promise, if you don't use a warning (and I mean the big ones--major character death, rape, etc.) when you should have, I will never read another fic you write. Never.
So remember that when you click that button. Just like me reading your fic is a choice I am responsible for, whether or not you properly warn is your choice, but that choice doesn't happen in a vacuum and it has consequences.
100% you always, ALWAYS have the right to skip a fic that is tagged "chose not to warn."
The tag is there to warn you that the author only wants readers in their audience who are consenting to be surprised.
Writers who tag "chose not to warn" are generally not looking to maximize the audience size of their story but rather to present their story in the most authentic way that feels right to them.
Most writers who tag "chose not to warn" will be glad that you skipped their story if you are not someone who wants to be surprised, and happy for you that you chose to take care of yourself.
I know OP was being very amicable about that response, and I definitely appreciate it, but I do want to address something about that commenter's tone:
Not every story is for you, and writers are ok with that.
Implicitly framing your disengagement with an author's work as some kind of retribution for their decision to "not tag properly" (even though they are) isn't the right mindset. Sometimes you will engage with a work and decide you never want to chance that again and blacklist the writer--just recognize that is not a shortcoming of the author, but simply an incompatibility of your preferences.
This.
losing my mind at this amazing story from r/dndmemes some people’s dnd adventures are just. So Fucking Cool
If the internet wasn’t anonymous anymore i would stop writing/posting fic and a part of my soul would die. I don’t want to post fic under my real name i don’t wish to be perceived i wish to be known on an incredibly deep level without something superficial like my name attached. Writing fic is like stripping naked but leaving your face out of the shot
Cory Doctorow, as usual, has some excellent thoughts about the soul-killing nature of surveillance, and I thought this bit fitted, about watching his child:
"There are times when she is working right at the limits of her abilities – drawing or dancing or writing or singing or building – and she catches me watching her and gets this look of mingled embarrassment and exasperation, and then she changes back to some task where she has more mastery. No one – not even a small child – likes to look foolish in front of other people."
It's like that for a lot of things, not just how well you do something but what you do in the first place. Anonymity and pseudonymity give you space to explore aspects of yourself that might draw judgment or condemnation or simply a level of misunderstanding that it's difficult to deal with, from people that one might depend on or love, but who simply haven't mastered the art of accepting something that happens to be an aspect of who you are.
The intimacy gradient of what you share and don't share with particular people has an essential structural purpose in human interaction. I remember the first social media revolution and how the sudden ubiquity of Facebook churned the social fabric into turmoil as the compartmentalization of our lives broke down and we were all forced to grapple with the awareness that employees drank alcohol in the evenings and teachers wore swimsuits on vacation and teenagers used swearwords when talking to each other, and it genuinely sucked. People's lives and relationships were legitimately damaged before we adapted and figured out an agreement that people weren't to be held to on-duty professional behavior full-time now that your boss could see this far into your life.
It looks like we're on the cusp of another massive breakdown of social compartmentalization, in this case targeting the stuff we still, in 2024, keep off of our identity-facing internet presence: our fanfiction, our sexuality, our politics, that authenticity of self that we are still figuring out, still perfecting, and/or fear social rejection for, even as some of these things are actively coming under attack in meatspace.
Which particular disasters it's going to lead to and how many of them manage to land before we realize what a mistake it is and say "fuck this" hard enough to undo it, I have no idea.
he flatten
“Scully, you’re not gonna believe this”
this is probably worth sharing here, too
thank you sincerely for making the capitalist hellscape a bit less hellish
I am actually out at work and haven't checked the version that's since come out, but I did participate in the character build beta, and the NDA is officially lifted, so here's my thoughts from that! It's definitely limited since I just made a L1 character and didn't go through gameplay, though I surmise about some aspects of gameplay.
Overall, it clearly seems to be made by people who love a lot of things about D&D 5e but wanted both more flexibility and more simplicity, which is difficult. I think they succeed.
And now, the classes/subclasses. I am going to sort of use D&D language to describe them because that's a point of reference most people reading this will understand, but they are not one-to-one. A couple notes: everyone can use weapons and armor. HP is not totally clear to me but it seems to be threshold based - everyone has the same HP to start but people have different thresholds and armor, so the tank classes have the same amount of HP but are much harder to actually do damage to.
All classes are built on a combination of a subclass and two domains. There are 9 classes and 9 domains. This technically means that if you wanted to fuck around and homebrew you could make up to 36 classes (27 additional) by just grabbing two domains that weren't otherwise combined, which is fun to consider for the potential. Anyway I cover the classes and briefly describe domains within them. You can take any domain card within your domain, regardless of subclass.
There are six stats. Presence, Instinct, Knowledge, and Strength map roughly to Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength. Dex is split into Agility and Finesse; Agility covers gross motor skills (jumping, most ranged weapons, "maneuvering") and Finesse finer ones (lockpicking and tinkering, though also it does cover hiding). The really big wins are first, no CON score, so you don't need to sink stat points into something that grants no skills but keeps you alive. The second one is that the "hybrid" classes spellcast from their physical stat. This is fucking fantastic. The thing about ranger or paladin or the spellcasting subclasses of rogue and fighter in D&D is that if you don't roll pretty well you're locked into the core stats and CON and nothing else. (This also doesn't have rolling for stats: you assign +2 to one stat, presumably your main, and then distribute two +1s, two 0s, and one -1.)
Your HP, Evasion, and Thresholds are set by class, and there's a core ability; the rest is all from the cards you take for subclass and domain.
Leveling up is very much based on taking more domain cards (abilities) but has a certain degree of flexibility. It's by chunks: in leveling up anywhere levels 2-4, you can, for example, increase your proficiency by +1 once, so if you wanted to do that at level 2 but your fellow player wanted to wait until level 4 and take something else at level 2 instead, they could. It allows for more min-maxing, but also everyone has the same level up rules and differs only in the abilities on the cards, which is very cool.
Bard: Grace (enchantment spells) and Codex (learned spellcaster stuff; the spells available are definitely arcane in vibes) based, Presence is your main stat. The two subclasses map roughly to lore-style stuff and eloquence. Core class ability is sort of like inspiration but not entirely. It's a bard; I like bards a lot, and this is very similar vibes-wise to your D&D bards. If you like D&D bards you will like this.
Druid: Sage (nature spells) and Arcana (raw magical power spellcaster stuff), Instinct is your spellcasting/main stat. The two subclasses are elemental but frankly cooler than circle of the moon, and a more healing/tranquility of nature focused one. I really think Marisha probably gave feedback on this one, because the elemental version is really strong. You do get beastform; it is quite similar to a D&D druid under a different system, as the bard, but the beastform options are, frankly, better and easier to understand.
Guardian: Valor (melee tank/damager) and Blade (damage). Strength based for the most part (Valor mechanics assume strength) though you could go for like, +2 Agility +1 Strength to start. This is barbarian but like. 20 times better. It is, fundamentally, a tank class, and it is very good at it, with one even more tank-focused subclass and one that is more about retaliatory damage. You do have a damage-halving ability once per day, but really guardian's questions are incredible. I think Travis and Ashley likely gave feedback. Also rage doesn't render you incapable of concentration as that doesn't seem to be a thing, so multiclassing seems way more possible (you are, I think, only allowed to do one multiclass, and not until you reach level 5 minimum, which I am in favor of). Yes, you can be a Bardian.
Ranger: This is what I built! It is based on Sage and Bone (movement around the field/dodging stuff) and it is Agility-based, including for spellcasting, which is a MASSIVE help (as is, again, the fact that CON isn't a thing.) The subclasses are basically being really good at navigation, or animal companion. Most importantly to me you can be a ranger with a longsword and you are not penalized; Bone works with either ranged weapons or melee.
Rogue: Midnight (stealth/disguise/assassination spells and skills) and Grace-based. Yes, rogue is by default a spellcaster, which does help a LOT with the vibes for me. One subclass is basically about having lots of connections (as a spy or criminal might) and the other is about magical slinking about. Hiding/sneak attack are also streamlined. I will admit I'm still more interested in…almost everything else, but I think it evened out a lot of rogue weaknesses.
Seraph: Splendor (healing/divine magic) and Valor. This is your Paladin equivalent. It is strength-based for casting, again making hybrid classes way less stressful. Questions for this area also incredible; you do have something not unlike a lay on hands pool as well. Your subclasses are being able to fly and do extra damage; or being able to make your melee weapon do ranged attacks and also some extra healing stuff, the latter of which is my favorite. Yasha vibes from this, honestly. Single downside is this is the only class where they recommend you dump Knowledge. I will not, and I never will. Now that I don't have to make sure CON is high? I am for REAL never giving myself less than a +1 Knowledge in this game.
Sorcerer: Arcana (raw nature of magic/elemental vibes) and Midnight based. Yes, sorcerers and rogues now share a vibe, for your convenient….less enthused feelings. Instinct-based, which intrigues me, and the core features are in fact really good. The two subclasses are either one that focuses on metamagic abilities, or one that is elemental based. I would play this for a long-running game, though it's not my favorite, and I can't say that for D&D sorcerer (except divine soul).
Warrior: Blade and Bone, and the recommended build is Agility but you could do a strength build. Fighter! One subclass is about doing damage and one is about the hope/fear mechanics core to the game that I have NOT talked much about. I will admit, the hybrid martials and Guardian are more interesting to me but you do have good battle knowledge.
Wizard: Codex and Splendor. Wizards can heal in this system; farewell, I will be doing nothing else (jk). Knowledge-based, and you can either go hardcore expertise in knowledge, or be a battle wizard.
Other scattered thoughts: healing is not as big a deal here; there is no pure cleric class! There is also no monk, warlock, or artificer. There is not a way to do monk as a weaponless class really though you might be able to flavor the glowing rings as a monk weapon and play a warrior. Wizard, meanwhile, with the right experiences and high finesse, would allow for some artificer flavor. Cleric and Warlock are the two tough ones and I will admit those are tricky; I feel like you'd have to multiclass (which you cannot do until level 5) between perhaps seraph and a caster class and you're still going to come off very paladin.
The necessary corollary to "people who think Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is 'rules light' have relatively narrow literacy of tabletop roleplaying games" is "people who think Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is the high end of 'rules heavy' also have relatively narrow literacy of tabletop roleplaying games".
Like, 5E isn't even the heaviest iteration of Dungeons & Dragons, and I have a dozen popular games just within arm's reach which are crunchier than any version of D&D that's ever been published. Figure out how skill defaulting works in Shadowrun 3rd Edition and tell me again that D&D5E is some freak mutant that's more complicated than any human being would ever willingly play if they had a choice. Yeah, it's above the median as complexity goes, but not terribly far above it!
The thing is, I feel like 5e is just crunchy enough to satisfy the people that like crunch. You can go further if you're obsessed, and the system more or less supports it with homebrew. But if you aren't super into crunch, the nature of group play makes it so that at least one other person at the table knows literally everything (because they love crunch) and so they can make up the crunch deficit--or, everyone at the table isn't isn't crunch at all and the GM can run the game as "rules lite" 5e.
I'm not saying the rules themselves are great. But the level of rules volume is actually kind of nice.
The phenomenon you're describing has absolutely nothing to do with the weight of the rules, and everything to do with their structure.
Basically, Dungeons & Dragons is in something of a bind in terms of onboarding new players. Even being merely somewhat above the median in terms of the complexity of tabletop RPG rules makes it very, very complicated by tabletop game standards, but it also has a corporate mandate to position itself as a universal entry-level game.
D&D navigates this conundrum by structuring itself such that it's completely feasible to "play" by just dicking around and letting the GM do all the actual work of making the game happen, rolling the dice when you're told. In principle, there's nothing wrong with this; providing an on-ramp whereby some level of participation is possible without having any idea of what's going on is a perfectly cromulent way to create an entry level for a very complicated game.
Unfortunately, this approach also results in a lot of players just plain never moving beyond the "dicking around and letting the GM do all the actual work" stage, which is a very big part of why being a GM is regarded as such a demanding and thankless role in D&D spaces, and why it's so hard to find people who are willing to do it!
I think they should have brought back the concept of "Basic" and "Advanced" D&D.
Easier to do the "onboarding newbies" and the "being complicated as hell" things at the same time if you can do them in separate but connected products.
That would certainly be a good way to handle it, but it's never going to happen as long as Dungeons & Dragons is owned by the same global megacorp that owns Monopoly and My Little Pony. Simultaneously publishing two meaningfully distinct versions of the game product means you risk dividing your target audience and competing with yourself; Hasbro wants every D&D group to be potential buyers of every D&D product, which is incompatible with a truly multi-pronged publishing approach.
(It's important to bear that in mind even outside the context of this discussion; a lot of otherwise-puzzling D&D publishing decisions make a lot more sense when examined under the lens of this "every group must be potential buyers of every product" ethos.)
BTW, they tried this as recently as the end of 4E, releasing "Essentials," in which some of the classes were even lower-choice than base 3.5 and could be made even lower-choice in-play by picking one of the few options.
It was universally poorly received.
(I think the solution is to include a healthy pile of pregens and have in-play options be immediately legible as action-words on the sheet - a combination of how White Wolf used to do it, PbtA playbooks, and 4E power cards.)
Steam’s little corner notifications when a friend launches a game are so fucking useless and i hope they never get rid of them. yes, please let me know that the kid i met on a maplestory forum in middle school and haven’t spoken to in a decade is playing Train Simulator
me watching my friends start up fallout new vegas 30 times in a row before it starts working
i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.
I'm sure I told this story before but at a certain point of fandom, I'd only read a fanfic if it had a certain number of comments. This was back when people used the number of comments to indicate if a fic was good (even though all it does and still does is tell you if a fic is *popular*)
Then I read one of thee most hauntingly brilliant pieces of fanfic i had ever stumbled across. The kind that sticks in your head. The kind you print out.
Went to go add my comment only to realize the very large amount of comments shown was all from one person having an in depth discussion with the author.
Not a bunch of people, just. The one.
I then had the realization that if that conversation hadn't happened, I'd have never read that fanfic.
And now my ass just ignores stats and focuses on fics more as community items.
Oh there's not a lot of comments or kudos here on this interesting sounding fic? Fucking rad I'm early to it. I get to be the person walking around with a cake slice who then directs everyone interested to the person selling cakes.
Don't get me wrong I think all fis should have kudos and comments and we as authors mainline that shit the same way the cske baker wants to hear those compliments on how much you enjoy their food, but I don't use fics stats as an indicator if it's good or not. That's not what they're there for.
Read the fanfic that's brand new, newly posted. Take a look at the one that was posted five years ago and has 6 kudos. But above all know that your work isn't reflective of the attention it gets. There are so many amazing fics I return to again and again who have maybe 10 comments total (and I've left three of them.)
There are works passed around in dead fandoms that have 2 kudos but got a whole ass discord server going.
All art is worth it, man. All of it.
This was a whole thread, here are some of my favourites:
I hope every single person who puts nice comments in tags under reblogged art knows that you you guys are the backbone of society. Being an artist online sucks these days, but here on tumblr I still get compliments under artworks that I made years ago. I hope you know every WOW and heart emoji and heartfelt compliment and funny comment you left in the tags is part of the reason I kept drawing all these years, in spite of everything that was going on.
I've been screenshotting the nice tags I get for years, and at this point it would be literal thousands of lines if I still had my old files. I love u tumblr users <333333333
haunted house uquiz by streetlighthalo
This is modern art. The tragedy and hopelessness is perfectly encapsulated in your lack of a choice. Were you in his place, you would do no different. Because the gods have deemed it so, because fate is stronger than you. I’m usually not a big art person but holy shit
I'm usually pretty indifferent to dance and I'm not sure why this showed up in my YouTube feed, but it's remarkably compelling and the level of talent on show here is wild. Well worth a watch.