#but i'm bamboozling myself by posting them instead

[broomsticks]

also, random follow up, but you're so right: people use ships to virtue signal these days, and that's why we keep on ending up with bland wafer ships (but they're gay) or fake ships (like marylily) instead of tasteful explorations of potential relationship dynamics that are three dimensional! because people just tick off diversity boxes without thinking through their implications, leading to shallow representation like aroace peter! which is fine if those ships are your thing - but their fandom domination can be annoying at times, because I'm in fandom for the characters.

yeah lots has been said about who the heck are these crowdsourced OCs, with which i agree, BUT funny story -- i did actually write a dorlene fic (zero obligation to read, it's 2.5K of pure PWP christmas bondage; december was some sort of earn that E rating self challenge month, lmao), based on some wonderful fanart for which the author gave blanket permission

AND got a hilarious comment + rec by eldritcher:

After carnal sinning, I got myself bound and suspended, with [archiveofourown.org profile]leftsidedown's Tension in Tinsel. This is one of those stories that shamed me into wondering if I ought to finally read the books. I am not sure who the characters are. Dorcas and Marlene. A lovely and erotic piece that I enjoyed to the hilt despite my ignorance.

i did (gleefully) clarify that i invented them OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH lmfao. anyway that led to a number of separate did you see eldritcher recced your fic? holy shit they have not read the books??? conversations -- that was fun. 11/10 would bamboozle again 😂

i've written ace!peter too, with a side of wolfstar, and am actually pretty happy with how that turned out! (and gay peter, and het peter, and transmasc peter, and genderbent lesbian peter, ... :p he's So fun. seriously. y'all are missing out.)

also absolutely yeah, in addition to thistlecat's meta, i've recently read a few good posts about how this intersection of purity culture, activism, and representation of marginalized groups is stifling fandom and femslash especially - much to think about!

[thefox1982]

Suddenly Orks

It's been a while since the last post. The party had moved on to Tyranny of Dragons, and in truth I found myself hamstrung, since I'd laid so much backstory to seque into Hoard of the Dragon Queen, only to find that the story was poor, it was level inappropriate (for these character). On top of this I discovered that not on did Storm King's Thunder allow characters to come in at level 5, it's more fun.

Now c-19 is happening, one of my players can't play because he's being supportive to his partner and child and another doesn't want to play because he doesn't like fantasy grounds and it's working for fg unity to get a full release. So not wishing to advance Tyranny of Dragons in their absence we started on Storm King's Thunder. Two of my existing players, assisted by two sidekicks to round out a party.

I started by bamboozling the characters. The book has some story threads that could be created for other things the giants are doing, including the idea that a hill giant had transformed a village into pigs and his clan were eating them. In a prologue to the events Arthur Quinn brings a carter over to the party's table in tavern and badgers him into retelling his story. The carter and his boy had been to Ornbridge, a small market town on a toll bridge, to make a delivery. On arrival they'd found the town abandoned and the streets filled with pigs. While investigating the carter and his sun took refuge in the inn when a pair of hill giants walked into the town, picking up pigs and putting them in a cage carried by one of them. While hiding the carter claims a grey pig gave him the exact expression of the old potman that worked at that very inn. At this Quinn roars with laughter, and the carter leaves the table cursing the thief as he leaves.

Boon Douglas thoughtfully points out that bandits would have looted the town, and orcs would have burnt it to the ground. He wonders aloud if there might be riches awaiting them in that abandoned town. And so the party sets off. Along the way the uh stop at Nightstone and enter the adventure.

The players think Ornbridge is an actual destination, which it could be, but I'm not intending it to be. Instead they've cleared the town of goblins, negotiated the release of the town with the Zhentarim and brought the guards out of the manor house. At the end of the session they re-entered the town to find the Zhents taking up defensive positions at the gate as an orc warband attempts to enter the town.

LMoP was quite easy on the party, and having to restart at first level in SKT has been a shock to them, people have had to make death saves already. So leaving the session on a cliff hanger with the risk of orcs is quite fun, they've gone from having to infiltrate the town to having to defend it.