#maybe one day I’ll be ready to doxx myself

[pebblezone]

succumbing to the illness. becoming a hater. anyway look at this building they’re fucking destroying

#talkingcore #they’ve been hosing her down everyday but it’s so windy she just blows onto people. not ideal #she used to be the rec building but she felt like tunnels she was stuffy and evil and the weights were separated in a mean way #not a fan but she’s dead now!!!!!! #every day can be destroy. build. destroy when you’re living the dream life #thinking about how like December 2021 I was doing my first run through of the bb discography and making my ratings #(had a lovely grid and rating system) but one of my biggest flaws was how low I rated love you #yeah the vocals are kinda trash but that’s what happens when you go from singing to critical acclaim to doing coke daily there are effects #like sure Mona is obnoxiously repetitive but dammit it’s a Little fun. we can ignore what the actual meaning of I wanna pick you up is #ignoring the actual meaning it’s a really nice and sweet song. once agai. 1970s Brian should not have been allowed to touch a pen #anyway this is a roundabout way of saying I caved in and put Johnny Carson on the 2023 playlist and I think it’s yelling in a not good way #I’d share it but I got Apple Music and I kinda like not doxxing myself 💔 sorry lads #maybe one day I’ll be ready to doxx myself #that way my employer can see all my really great takes and creations!!! #Twas sounding like i had been able to achieve the sweet sweet affects of t this morning but now I am Less ill and sound more normal #sad but good I kinda need to sound normal as long as I have to speak in class #yknow what’s a good album? make it big by wham that shit is sooooo good #you CAN have my credit card baby 🥰🦅🦅🦅🫡🦅🦅🦅

[gallickingun]

ding, dong, the witch is dead!

honestly, who didn’t see this coming? lol. but, anyway. i guess this is goodbye! i’ll ramble more below the cut, but just know that over the next couple of days, i’ll be exporting my blog so i can keep what i want, and then this will be the only post left here.

thank you to everyone who i’ve had the privilege of meeting, and those of you who have been so kind as to leave lovely notes on my works, and interact with me over our silly anime crushes. i really appreciate all the kindness i’ve been shown in the anime fandom. some of my best friends i’ve met through this stupid app, but overall, it’s just not a healthy space for me. i’m not blaming anyone else for what this has become, at the end of the day, i created a hell for myself. i’m just tired of trying to rebuild, rebrand, whatever. i’m just tired.

that being said, obviously not everything can always be so lovely. i don’t care about the discourse or the drama or the whatever, but i’m just hoping this post will bring me some closure, and maybe some for those i’ve hurt, whether accidentally or intentionally. if you click read more and you’re upset with what you see, well, idk what to tell you, friend.

i hate that tumblr can be so insignificant, and yet so all encompassing all at once. yes, it’s “just tumblr” and “it’s not that deep” because at the end of the day, it’s just an app. but, unfortunately, behind this app and these blogs are human beings. which means you create real bonds and real friendships, and real feelings get hurt.

i came back to tumblr during a really sad, dark time in my life. and that was honestly my first mistake. i latched on to whoever would pay attention to me, craving some sort of friendship that i never needed before because i always had someone in real life. but i had just moved away from my family, and was starting the process of what would end up being a notsogreat divorce. i felt alone, and was struggling a lot with my self worth, so instead of choosing to be kind, i chose to lash out. regardless of whether or not that was in private dm’s of those whom, at the time, i’d considered friends, it was still inconsiderate and childish of me. i thought i had to be some hateful version of myself in order to prove to other people that i wasn’t as sad about myself as i truly was. the words i said in private were rude, nasty, and just... not who i want to be? and, without going into immense detail, some of those things i wanted to move on from and no longer felt, were then used as weapons and spread around to others who i never intended to see what i’d said.

please, please, PLEASE — be careful what you say. you really never know who is watching, who is going to manipulate you, etc. what you say holds weight, and even if you don’t intend for it to hurt anyone, even if it’s just venting.. i dunno. just, be careful, okay? check yourself from time to time, friend. make sure that you’re not allowing the overall negativity of the world, of your own mind, of others, to affect you to the point that you don’t recognize yourself.

if you don’t know about my lovely little exposed blog, well, you’d probably be the last to know. at least, it feels that way. although in the beginning maybe it was justified? in some right? i’m not sure anymore, really, but regardless—it turned into some sort of stalking experience. at one point in time, i received 35+ messages telling me how horrible i was, telling me to off myself, telling me that my ex did the right thing by leaving me “on the curb”, etc. my full legal name was being released, with the intent to doxx me i’m assuming? i was being told i was “being watched”, which i fully believe was happening, with the consistency of the updates. people who claim to hate me, still followed me with the intent of watching my every move to “see if i’d changed”. i only have received updates through friends, because to be perfectly honest with you, seeing your worst mistakes splayed on the internet and turning you into some shounen villain is NOT the best thing for your mental health. that, and some of the “truths” were half-honesties twisted because i’d be a hypocrite to post private dm’s debunking these things when i was upset with the very same people for posting such things. i’ve addressed some things, such as the racism, so i won’t go into that again, but some of these other instances are stretches, to say the least.

the irony of the whole thing is not lost on me. the very same people who say i only do things for notes/recognition, are doing those very things. those who say i only care about tumblr, are proving that by running a blog dedicated to exposing some twenty three year old idiot on the internet. those who say i use my friends are the same ones who literally lied to my face so they could collect receipts behind my back and then leave me when it got convenient. those who say i talk to “insignificant” blogs to appear invested are the ones calling those blogs insignificant, i never once believed anyone i’ve interacted with was insignificant, contrary to popular belief. everything they focus on ends up being nothing but hypocrisy in the end.

that being said, obviously i truly hurt whoever all is behind this blog. intentionally, or otherwise. and i know that sometimes what you do/say isn’t meant to hurt anyone, however, you don’t get to control how what you’ve done effects others. all you can do is apologize. but, i know a few of them, because based on the “receipts” they’ve pulled together, the stories are too specific to be anything but those people i’m thinking of. i don’t enjoy blanket apologies, but i’m leaving this hellsite, so it’s all i’ve got left.

i’m sorry for giving you the fuel to your fire for this petty agenda, i’m sorry for creating the monster of myself that allowed you to string along this storyline for what seems to be the better part of a year. i’m sorry that i gave you material to fixate upon, rather than providing you with friendship and something better to focus on. i truly hope you can move on now that i’m gone from tumblr, and honestly i don’t plan on coming back, lol. i genuinely, truly, deeply feel sorry for you, and pray that you can turn this obsessive focus from me to something more productive, something healthier.

the angry part of me wants everyone to realize that the start of this, the matchups/refunds situation, was born from this stalkerish behavior. it has taken me months to put the pieces together, because i truly didn’t think someone who i’d called my friend once would ever string together such a lie, or rather an exaggerated, adulterated truth, but i guess it’s what happened, in the end.

there are a lot of, uh, conveniently timed “releases” of receipts even though they were months after the initial occurrence of the offense. i can’t go into each one, because, frankly, there are too many. i just hope that in the wake of all of these horrible exposes of things i’ve done, others are able to reflect on their actions. telling me one thing while currently speaking to another individual and telling them another, blatantly LYING, etc. are all things that i’ve been accused of, and yet they’ve also been done to me. doesn’t justify what i’ve done, nor am i seeking some sort of absolution, however i just hope that these individuals can see their hypocrisy and move forward.

which leads me to my final point — regardless of how shitty someone is, disallowing them the room to grow, stunting their moral/mental growth, is truly the issue. i am not going to sit here and play holier than thou. i know i fucked up. i was a nasty bitch because i was angry at the world, and then that anger was fueled further by consistent situations where i made the wrong friends at the wrong times in my life. but the fact that this exposed nonsense has been dragging on since... july? august? i’m not really sure, but whatever. since it’s been going on, i have been battling with myself and my ability to do the things i love, talk to those i care about, etc. all because i’m afraid of saying the wrong thing, hurting the wrong person, etc. and in trying to avoid it, i’ve been doing the very same thing i hoped to keep from doing.

i never felt like i could apologize to those i wanted to apologize to because it might be received as disingenuous due to the nature of the exposed blog’s very existence “forcing” me to apologize. don’t get me wrong, some of those who the blog tried to coerce me into apologizing to can suck a dick, because there are people that i truly do not feel deserve my apologies, and therefore, will never get them. but, i do feel bad for those i didn’t get the chance to apologize to that i really wanted to. the last thing i’d want is for my apology to be turned into something it’s not, but hopefully everyone who has been affected by my actions can move on with my absence.

and to those of you who feel the need to make public denounces of my name, i hope it provides you the closure you’ve been seeking. truly, i do. but know that i never did anything i’ve ever done with the intent to get ahead or buy someone’s friendship or take advantage of anyone else. if i truly only cared about the things people say i cared about, i would have never made this blog in the first place. i would have leeched off the popularity of my main blog if popularity was all i cared about. i was searching for a home, which, in the end, i burned down myself. me, joking around about follower count and notes, was literally nothing but sarcastic banter that’s been taken out of context. but, i digress.

i am very thankful for those who i can still call my friends, who are willing and ready to have honest discussions with me about the things i’ve said/done and analyze them and help me move forward. therapy, medication, life choices, etc. all have been rolled into me deciding that i’m done letting a silly little app stunt my growth. if the internet was unplugged tomorrow, i know who i’d have and what would matter. i have REAL LIFE to focus on. i am in love and i have beautiful friendships that i want to foster with honesty and kindness. i can only hope that you all have the opportunity to have those very same things.

will i stop writing? nah, dude. no way. i’m just getting started. in my absence, in choosing to stay away from a place that makes me sick to my stomach with anxiety, i’ve delved into my original characters and i’ve written thousands of words that i haven’t felt the pressure to post about. i’ve learned that just because i’m doing something i love, i don’t have to do it for anyone else.

the internet is a funky place, folks. just be careful who your friends are, okay?

anyway. peace out, girl scouts. i wish you all the best 💖

#morgan.txt #tw mental health #tw suicide mention #tw discourse #tw drama #THAT’S ALL FOLKS! signing off xx

[potentially-lemongrass]

hey! um i wanted to ask a bi queerstake member whose dated about this, um I want to marry in the temple and I know that means I'll have to marry a AMAB person, is it bad that I want a nb/nb aligned masc person or at least a bisexual or asexual partner? i feel like i wont find someone like that, I just want someone who understands and is also queer but also fits kind of with the church narrative. is that weird? you dont have to answer this I just wanted to ask since no one talks about it i guess

honestly my perspective on dating has changed a lot since meeting B so I might say something completely different to what I was saying in previous months. (and of course, as always, this is just Ryn’s Opinion TM so take what you will). Also, looong post incoming as this is also a bit of a life update/journal entry since it’s been a while. I’m using B to respect his privacy and as always, I know that i’m super personal on here but please don’t try to doxx me or find out more than I’m willing to share <3 I’m slightly paranoid so I feel like I always need to say that. 

ANYWAY, I am still decidedly bisexual ✌ and so I’ll fight against bi erasure all day long since I’m a cis woman dating a cishet man. I will never be a straight woman and B totally understands and respects that. However, it also doesn’t exactly matter?? since I’ve chosen him so I’m not dating any men OR women.

Before meeting him, I was thinking about dating in the abstract especially since I really never had a serious relationship with anyone. I was fantasizing about dating girls and feeling deeply cheated that the Church was robbing me of that opportunity. I was angry, deeply depressed, and just generally not in a good mental place.

Coming to college was when I decided I wasn’t mentally going to “do” Church anymore. I skipped a few Sundays, and still signed up for Institute but I was angry and very determined to distance myself from the Church. I had to know if I even wanted to do this with my life and part of my master plan was getting a girlfriend. (although with the caveat that dating a girl, *just* to date a girl and not a guy, isn’t the best plan and I should have been more focused on romance)

I didn’t expect to meet B and when I did, I was deeply worried about getting a man who was “Peter Priesthood” and I would never be able to share my queer identity with him. B isn’t at all like that. He spent enough time around the queer kids in high school to really get a feel for the struggle and he’s never ever made me feel weird about it. He’s even encouraged and asked me to talk about it so I didn’t feel like I had to hide anything.

I came to two conclusions (well, maybe two and a half). 1) I’m definitely bisexual. Over the summer, I had briefly wondered if I was a lesbian and comp het was just taking its toll. Nope. Men are hot and my bf is absolutely a snack. So if anyone is looking for advice about figuring out sexuality, just try dating someone. I totally believe that you can know your sexuality without experience but it most definitely helps if you know what you’re talking about.

2) I missed church. I hadn’t realized it until I walked away but I truly do have a testimony and I longed for the presence of the Spirit in my life. So I chose to turn back. I read my scriptures and prayed sincerely and listened at church. No, I’m not entirely happy with the Church. There are things that make me cry and cringe and grit my teeth, but I have decided that I want to be here.

Part of that realization was B. My friend asked me if I could see myself getting married in the temple and I realized suddenly that I could. Suddenly it wasn’t a faceless man dragging me into a suburban life of mommy minivans and LDS conformity. It was the thought of B and I, holding hands and promising each other forever in the most eternal sense and it was me, making covenants with Heavenly Father. He and I both know that I’ve always had real joy in my life when I was doing my best to keep His commandments.

What I really needed was to accept my queer identity and feel like I could date girls if I wanted to. Finding B and finding my testimony were linked, as wild it is to say.

Not to say that that road would be easy. I’m not even close to being ready for marriage. B and I are figuring things out, both between us and with the Church. If faith was neat and simple, it wouldn’t be such an enduring theme throughout all of history.

 But maybe sometime in the next 5 years? Maybe in 2-3 years? I might be Mrs. Lemongrass. (pffft yes we’ll assume we’re taking my tumblr url as a last name lmao)

SO now you’re wondering about how that applies to your actual question. There will definitely be people in the Church who match what you’re looking for. My philosophy is that there really is someone out there for everyone. You’re trying to forecast for the future which is great and necessary but love doesn’t happen in the abstract. A Relationship TM isn’t some nebulous concept or a copy and paste letter. It’s what happens when you and a specific other person like each other a whole lot and it goes from there. Your relationship won’t look like mine or your parents or anyone else’s because you and your future partner are unique people.

So you totally may find someone in the Church who is queer and down for a temple marriage. Keep in mind as well that you may also find someone in the Church who is cishet and that works too. Just because someone isn’t queer doesn’t mean they can’t understand--assuming no one will ever understand you has always felt arrogant and dismissive of the power of empathy imho--so a cishet guy could be just as amazing.

So there’s no need to feel bad about wanting a specific type of person but don’t close yourself off! Enjoy the journey and put yourself out there with confidence. No one is good at relationships; they’re inherently awkward. You’ll say dumb stuff or fart in front of them or they’ll overshare and you’ll panic. Just trust the process, laugh at yourself, and realize the only thing you can really do is live in *this* moment. I hope this doesn’t sound condescending at all! This is just all my big sister advice that I can think of. Remember that you are loved, always, always, always by our Heavenly Parents and They’ll help you figure stuff out.

#b tag #ryn rambles #ryn.text

[flipchild]

2, 10, 13, 24, 28, 30, 33, 36, 39, 40, 46 for the asks. oh thats a lot

what is your problem <3 you're lucky I am avoiding work

2: Do you drink tea or coffee? How do you take it?

both; black coffee; black tea, usually chai or Bigelow lemon lift; my favorite tea is lapsang souchong

and I like a cappy chino wrt espresso

10: How tall are you?

5' 10" (177.8 cm)

13: Fears?

Snakes! I am fine looking at them but my adrenaline response goes OFF whenever I see one out hiking.

I used to be afraid of heights but I climbed rocks and bridges to get over that and now I like to climb and shut off my fear of heights.

Getting stuck in a rut and not knowing how to get out, or not caring to get out. I can see myself as a bitter alcoholic in some futures (not that that is such an awful thing to be-- I just do not want that for me because it would be an awful thing for me that I would have trouble placing myself outside of it bc eventually i would desire to do so (however distant and vague.) Relapsing in general, I have an inability to self-regulate THC use if obtaining weed is an available choice. If I don't view it as an inability, I WILL justify using (with or without my noticing of doing so.)

24: When was the last time you cried? Why?

I've been on SSRIs since high school, which I think is actually the last time? I would really like to cry sometime soon, I could use it.

I was in theatre and cried over doing last shows with my friends. I only rly cried when ppl were leaving my life (breakups, last times, etc). I have a trait inherited from my mother (and just from like, society) that I rly hate being seen crying so it's always behind closed doors.

28: How are you, really?

uhhh. I'm alright. Today hasn't been particularly eventful, but I think I've established a baseline where I can't lay-about. I have a lot of trouble relaxing, which is why I smoked in the first place (if you want to pathologize, and yeah it is resultant from "ADHD" and deleterious in the environment I live in, you could call it vigilance.)

Ready to move out: I am nervous for the upcoming semester since I'm more set up for success than I've ever been. I've had trouble academically due to executive dysfunction and lacking time-management skills, and so a lot of my summer has been working on growth and healing etc. oh and making up late work. I got a YEAR extension on two final essays which is incredibly dangerous for someone with the conditions I have. but I'm almost done with the first class (at least 60% of the work!)

Growing, being myself, becoming myself... doing so in my home environment is exhausting. Realizing I have a codependent relationship with both my parents, and trying 2 set the boundary where even tho I know how to fix their communication issues, it is not and should not be my job to be my mother's sole confidant and communication-teacher.

30: What are you looking forward to in the near future?

I have an apartment I'm living in with two of my friends and I think it will b rly good for me. We are all fairly recovery-minded and two ppl with executive dysfunction living together helps both out immensely. Excited 2b back in city, not excited 2 lift unwieldy furniture.

Going back 2 school, going back 2 my job at the climbing wall (i have hardly climbed all summer!!!), I have a friend who I think I have a crush on, I just need 2 ask her out for realsies. we went on a date before summer and I don't want to lead her on / leave her in limbo. but she's sweet and smart and works harder than I ever could and I do genuinely think we enjoy and lift up each other.

33: Do you sleep with your door open or closed?

closed

I could never ever ever sleep with my door open. at home my door is allllllways closed if i'm not in my room. Partially an addict thing but I've always done so. I scrap for every scrap of privacy I get here.

36: Do you like your middle name?

Yeah! Not to doxx myself, but it's Sinclair-- I initially thought to change my name to Claire as a shortening, but that would simply make my name Claire Sinclair and while that is funny it's not as funny as my initials being ASS (which they are.)

39: Do you stay up late?

usually and since forever. In highschool it was BC that was the time I could be lazy/do what I wanted/pace around to music. In college it is because I didn't make enough of my day so I had to bail out my shipwreck fueled by french press and crisis.

40: Do you like the beach? Do you prefer it sunny or cloudy?

Yes!!! I love to swim in saltwater. I am not a strong swimmer so I am afraid to go far out. I like it sunny BC its usually the most light exposure I get all summer so my freckles come in ^_^

46: What do you need when you’re sad?

a hug, a cup of hot drink, some time alone with the promise that I'll have someone to talk to when I'm ready,

IDK. I have not had anyone close 2 me who I feel comfortable sharing that I'm sad with in far too long... Like ostensibly my parents COULD provide that but they're too busy hounding me over productivity. maybe remy or elle or laney could do that for me. or Dusty or Jos. actually those last 2 strike me as the best equipped 2 help me thru great sadness... not that I particularly experience anything more than regret or malaise too often...

thanks for sending me 200000 questions, anon. I love you. I hate you

#asks #oh i just shared a lot. nothing I havent before I guess. who care #long post

[ardentlythieving]

Heyyyy everybody welcome back to the rambling with Ardent show coz yet again I’ve been having thoughts and typing them out helps me process them so here they are. As always if u rebagel i kill you but like,,,, not today or tomorrow just one day...... ummm putting this one under a cut and like tw: abuse coz im gonna be talking quite heavily about that hhhhh.

Hi, I’m Ardent and I’m an introvert. “But Ardent you act like the LEAST introverted person I know”. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa buckle up peeps coz all will be explained... eventually. This one is gonna be a long one.

Ok so I’m not 100% on where to take this one so it might be kinda messy, but y’all can just deal yea coz that’s what my brain is like All The Time. Anyways. I guess it started when I was REALLY young. Not the abuse itself, that’ll tie in later but. Fun Ardent Fax number 67: I was homeschooled until I was about 9. And here’s a free secret from me: homeschooling + adhd = a 9y/o who doesn’t reallly know how to relate to other ppl. Hella shy, hella nervous, bad at making friends. Got bullied quite a bit, it was whatever. Safe to say I was a pretty Lonely Kid. This isn’t part of the abuse, but it did set me up for it I guess. Like, it made me vulnerable in a specific way that someone could, and did, exploit.

When I was 12 was when I met her. She has quite a unique name and despite what she did to me I don’t wanna doxx her so imma call her NJB for nutjob bitch because I can be nasty if I want to and right now I want to. Shut up, this is my post not urs. Anyways, we were in the same class, we were both cut off from any other friends we had at that point due to them being in different classes and we kinda.. fell in together. Around this point was also when my mom got diagnosed with cancer, which will become relevant later. Back to the story. So for about a year, maybe a little longer everything was great. We got really close really quickly. She was probably my first Real Best Friend since I started school. Now the year before I HAD made some friends, but like I said, they all got put in other classes. And I was so friggin scared of going back to being that lonely that I got real close to her real fast. 

Then we started high school/college/whatever you wanna call it. And that was the point where things got.... weird. NJB started lying. About a ton of shit. And it was stuff that I KNEW was bullshit, but if I didn’t take her seriously enough she got pissy at me. And then like a week later wow, lie no longer relevant, wonder why that is??? Lmao. Now at this point there were other people in our group of friends. Who had all joined the group through NJB. This should’ve been a MASSIVE red flag, but I was like 13 or 14, so I didn’t pick up on it. Basically anyone else I wanted to hang out with, she wasn’t interested in getting to know. And if I hung out with other ppl and tried to become friends with them she started getting very pissy about that. And like... she was my Best Friend and these were people with Friend Potential and I didn’t wanna be lonely again so it was really no contest. 

And at this point she got bored of general lies and started lying about ME. Everything would be fine for a while and then she’d be like “why did you do/say this?” And it was something that NEVER happened. And sometimes she wouldn’t even explicitly say what I supposedly did, she’d just tell me that “I know what I did” (no i dont coz it never happened) and then she’d call me an ugly bitch or whatever. I could apologise or I could try and remind her that it never happened or I could just say nothing and take it and it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t talk to me, she’d stop our other friends from talking to me, and I would just be isolated for a while. A couple of times she threatened to beat me up, although she never actually did. 

And then she’d be all “I forgive you” or she wouldn’t even do that she’d just act like it never happened and was all ready to be friends again and I didn’t HAVE anyone else and I hated hated hated being so LONELY and would’ve done anything to stop. And I think there was also a bit of me that was scared of what she would do if I said no. So I’d go back to being her friend and everything would be great and fun and wonderful for a while and then it would happen again. And again. And again. For about a year.

Then my mom died. And I took a month off school. And two weeks after I got back, she did it again. Yeah. My mom had been dead 6 weeks and she decided this was the perfect time to make up lies about the depressed girl. I lost it. I literally threw myself at her. I got pulled off her and just kept trying to kick her, but I couldn’t and I was sent out of class. Didn’t get in trouble for it, but I got to spend that class sitting in the library reading and it was the only class I had with her so... probably for the best lmao. And on the very last day of school for the year she came up to me and acted like nothing had happened and I was so relieved to not have to be alone anymore and that she’d forgiven me for attacking her that I just.... went along with it. For another year or two. And then I finally had other friends and one day she started one of those lies that weren’t about me, but I was supposed to be ultra sympathetic to and I just. Walked away. 

And then the abuse itself was over, but the trauma was still there. And I repressed it so fuckin deep I only really remembered this shit all happened about a month ago. I got scared right, like deep down all the way inside me, of being that dependent on one person ever again that I would let them treat me like that because being alone was worse. And that was the point when I became an extrovert. I forced myself into that role of talking to as many disconnected people as possible and having as many different groups as possible because it was the only way I felt safe. Because she didn’t start that shit until at least a year into our friendship, so how tf was I supposed to believe that the new people in my life would 100% never hurt me like that? I still don’t know how. So I coped the only way I could: by making sure that even if someone DID pull that shit and cut me off from a group of friends I had other options. 

It also meant I have... issues dealing with loss. Because I DID have one other friend for the first year that was going on. And then she moved to Australia and I was totally alone. So I guess I started associating losing friends with becoming dependent on one person again, which ironically enough made me more and more dependent on anyone I thought I was losing. That’s one I’m working through. Now that I’ve realized it’s what’s going on I can actually start addressing it and tbh I feel so much better now I am. Still don’t know how to deal with the whole “im forcing myself to act like an extrovert even when it exhausts me coz it’s the only way i feel safe”, but it’s whatever. I’m on meds now and I have a good support network and I’ve started therapy. One day I’ll figure it out. I’ve been living like this for this long, I can keep it up until I reach somewhere better.

And I guess that’s my sign off reminder. Whatever you’re going through, you’ve survived it this long. You can keep surviving until you reach somewhere better. One day we’ll all get to be a person we’re happy with, we just gotta hold on and work to it together. Ardently, signing out.

#ardently original #tw: abuse #cw: abuse #donut rebagel #the introspection with ardent show

[diceysitchcast-blog]

Dicey Situations Episode 1: TRANSCRIPT

In this world building/character creation/game building episode, Jess takes us to the city of Pinnacle, a techno-magical dystopia mirrored by the VR world of The Dreaming. She also introduces us to a hybrid home-brew game with elements of of DnD 2.5 and 5e, Normality, and various other systems. There is no actual play in this episode, but we hope you’ll enjoy hearing us talk organize a game and create characters!

Drew exercises his right to bear arms, Ellie achieves robotic sapience, Avery decides to become an intolerant tank, and Ronnie invents a new pronoun.

[NOTE: It's our goal for Dicey Sitch to be as accessible as possible, which is why we want to provide transcripts for every episode we release. We are disappointed to say that transcripts will likely update at a slower pace than audio episodes, which is our own fault. However, we're still dedicated to make sure that transcriptions are released as close to audio episodes as possible. For now, please enjoy Episode 1 of Dicey Situations!]

Dicey Situations!

Season 1: Pinnacle

Episode 1: Have You Seen My Robot?

Jess: The city is made of spun green glass. It fades into the distance and then focuses in. The city’s name is Pinnacle. It’s been around for a few hundred years, and it blossomed from the end of the world.

In this city, there are, well, they’re not really factions, but three different groups of believers. Those that believe magic came back into the world to rise humanity above, those who believe magic is a penance from the Gods, and those that believe magic mostly doesn’t exist, and when it does, it’s more technology than anything.

[Music starts]

In this city, there is the Dreaming: a massive, cyberkinetic, shared VR reality that people use to escape from their own. And in the Dreaming, you do escape. There are sometimes mistakes, sometimes firewalls get breached and people’s properties and lives get destroyed, but no one dies in the Dreaming. Your body can be killed outside, but if you die in the Dreaming, you wake up in real life.

[Music continues, then fades.]

Jess: So! Welcome to Dicey Situations, the.... podcast! It’s... this is the people! Go! Drew!

[laughter]

Drew: I’m Drew. I use he/him/his pronouns. I am an on-again off-again Internet user. I shamelessly use Facebook way too much, and I get paid to do that sometimes.

Ev: My name’s Avery, I use they/them pronouns, I’m agender, and I am on the Internet on Twitter @crapiocaa with two a’s.

Ellie: My name is Ellie, I use she/her pronouns. I’m not giving out my personal tumblr, but my fun tumblr is badlifeadvice.tumblr.com! It’s awesome, it’s full of things you  shouldn’t do, like stalling the intro for a podcast!

[laughter]

Ronnie: I’m Ronnie, I use they/them pronouns! I draw queer comics on the Internet! You can find them at gqutiecomics.com. It’s spelled GQ............ U...TIE comics dot com!

Drew: [sarcastic] “I know what I’m doing!”

Ronnie: I totally know what I’m doing!

Jess: My favorite thing about that was the pause as you had to, like, remember [laughs]

Ev: As Ronnie remembered how to spell their webcomic!

[laughter]

Jess: And I’m Jess! I’m your... I don’t have a fancy name for this session, like, I can be a Dungeon Master or a Keeper, but this is house rules, so I haven’t got a name, so I’m Jess. I use she/her pronouns, and I use this as a coping mechanism, and my comic’s at closertohomecomic.com... if you want it!

Ronnie: It’s great!

Ellie: Why don’t you call yourself the Master Controller?

Drew: You should be a Dungeon Guru!

Ellie: Ooh!

Jess: Maybe I’ll just introduce myself as something different every time.

[laughter]

Drew: I like it!

Ellie: Do it!

Drew: Do it!

Jess: I think Dungeon Guru will work for this week, cause this gonna be all about me, like guiding you down this like, fucking, homunculus, this is... this is a homunculus game you guys.

Ev: I don’t know if that’s the right way to use that word by the way!

[laughter]

Jess: Uh... a chimera?

Ronnie: That makes more sense!

Ellie: Yeah, I was gonna say chimera, but, you know.

Jess: You guys are insurance agents! Clerics and wizards and fighters and rogues hired by an insurance agency to go out and investigate insurance claims. Be they someone suing a corporation, a house being burned down, you guys know what to do.

And... that’s pretty much it so far. That’s my pitch to you guys about your characters. So, it’s future cyberpunk with elves and magic and clerics and stuff and...

Drew: I always wanted to be an insuranceman, so...

Jess: That’s good.

Ev: That’s exactly what I said when I heard about this campaign! [laughs]

Ronnie: Hey Jess!

Jess: Yeah?

Ronnie: In the Dreaming, do people have... avatars?

Jess: Shit of course they...! [laughs] Actually, last night Ev and I, uh, created, oh shit, come on computer, don’t do this to me right now... I know you’re hot... You’re gonna be fine...

Drew: Sexy!

Jess: Yeah I’m sweet talking my computer into working. Ev and I have made a ton of...

Ev: Puns!

Jess: Puns! Pun objects, because we went through, like, the DnD objects list and... like, just kind of updated it to be futuristic. Clerics in this world, and druids, and technomancers, and paladins believe in different kinds of gods, and part of that is they have to maintain a Holy Site, which is like a fansite for their religion!

Drew: Oh!

Ronnie: I love it.

Jess: And then, as one of your perks is that you can get a Church Verified Avatar, which makes you less likely to be hacked!

Ronnie: Eyyyy!

Ev: Yeah, everyone should definitely have the game items list open by the way.

Ellie: Yeah, I just opened it.

Jess: Ev and Ellie kind of have ideas for their characters so if, you guys actually wanna, like, summarize your characters real quick, so Ronnie and Drew know some places that you can go with this...

Ev: Or have you guys looked into it, too?

Jess: Have you guys got any dreams?

Drew: Um, I don’t. Ronnie might. I’ve like, worked the past two evenings, so I’m ready to go now but I haven’t done any homework. I’m a bad student!

[laughter]

Jess: Keeping you after class, young man!

Ronnie: For me, I’m imagining, like, this sort of shitty teenager character, who is like, a teen radical who puts up tech graffiti places...

Jess: [laughs] I love it.

Ronnie: And wants to encourage the rising of the proletariat and stuff.

[laughter]

Drew: You know what would be fun? A like, a middle-aged, kind of balding, really angry person, that actually turns out to just be all those things.

[laughter]

Ev: What kind of class would that be? Would that be like a rogue or something?

[Inaudible because we’re talking over each other like dorks.]

Ronnie: I was thinking Bard, but I don’t think Bard is available, is it?

Jess: It is actually!

Ev: Oh no it is!

Jess: It is totally available!

Ev: That’s an awesome way to be a Bard, actually!

Jess: Yeah, we were trying to figure out how to do Bards, because one of the custom classes for this campaign is LARPer which is similar to Bard but different. LARPers can create different alternate identities and stuff.

Ev: This is my favorite part of the campaign right now.

Drew: Where are the funky different classes?

Jess: I shared the items list, and that has all of the different classes that we have, but mostly the classes are just DnD classes, but with like a little bit of a cyberpunky upgrade. So like, your wizard’s going to be a technomancer, your thief can be a hacker and your rouge can also be a hacker...

Ev: And then of course there’s, you know, LARPers are like, masters of disguise crossed with rogues or thieves basically, right?

Jess: Yeah, they’re masters of disguise, they’re also the ones who can kind of impersonate people, they can doxx people, and like, take on their personality and act like them, and they’re less likely to get caught doing it.

So, so far we have two religious dudes, [laughs] and I feel like, honestly Drew, if you wanted to play a cranky old dude, you can definitely play a cranky old wizard dude...

Drew: Yes.

Jess: ... who’s like, just been showing up for his paycheck at this insurance agency.

[laughter]

Ev: One day away from retirement!

Drew: Oh, that’s when the shit goes down, though!

[laughter]

Ev: Yes!

Drew: “It’s my last day before I retire, guys!”

[laughter]

Drew: “Nothing’s gonna happen to me!”

Jess: Man I sure hope nothing happens to that guy!

Ev: “I sure hope I don’t end up in a Sin City comic!”

Drew: “Ha ha!”

[more laughter]

Jess: So, Ronnie, can I make some suggestions for your Anarchist, like, shitty teen?

Ronnie: Yes.

Jess: Ok, I like the idea of them being a thief or a rogue or a hacker or a LARPer or a combination of that. And I also like either they’re interning at this insurance agency to make money for like, paying rent or something...

Ev: Interns don’t make money!

Jess: Well, my other thought is maybe it’s a community giveback program that the agency is doing to show great they are, like, “look at this teenager we’re rehabilitating really badly”...

Ronnie: [laughs]

Jess: But also it could be like, some sort of future community service, like I’m kind of imagining a Shitty Corporate Future, where like, if you get arrested you have to work it off at a corporate 9 to 5 job.

Drew: I mean, that’s not really that far from what it is now, so that’s sounds like a pretty good movement.

Jess: Are any of these appealing to you, or do you have your own ideas?

Ronnie: I enjoy the intern. [NOTE: Ronnie said this but then went with a sort of combination of both, which may be confusing, woops!]

[laughter]

Jess: Yeah, the miserable intern! [laughs] Alright, I like this. Okay! So let’s start some characters, then. You got your character sheets. Your traits are gonna be just how you would roll your DnD traits, so your Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. You roll four d6 for each, and then you take away the smallest one, and then you can plug them in wherever they’re needed, okay?

Ellie: Jess I already did mine, like I did them before... but I can roll again if you want.

Jess: You don’t have to because it’s probably good that other people can talk while people are figuring out the math bits, right?

Ellie: I suppose, yeah. I mean, I haven’t put them anywhere, I just have them.

Jess: Oh, well, you can plug them in if you want, ‘cause, Ellie your character is basically a robot druid, which is the coolest thing!

Ellie: Yeah!

Ronnie: Oh my god, that sounds awesome!

Ellie: Oh man! I wanna, I wanna tell you my robot’s name.

Ev: Yeah, tell us all about your robot.

Ellie: Alright, my robot’s name is H u M 4 N, and it’s pronounced–

Ev: Oh Christ!

Ellie: –it’s pronounced Human!

[laughter]

Ev: Your character, your character and mine are going to get in so many fights!

Ellie: My, mine doesn’t fight! It’s a lovely robot!

Ev: Just wait.

Jess: What’s your lovely robot’s pronouns?

Ellie: I’m trying to figure that out, y’know?

Jess: Okay, yeah.

Ellie: Um, maybe put N/A because I’m not sure.

Jess: Yeah, I’ll put pronouns N/A. And HuM4N, the robot! [laughs]

Ellie: I might give a 15 Charisma for my druid robot!

Jess: So he’s like a religious, they’re like a religious leader a little bit?

Ellie: No, I mean...

Ev: Or just like, really charming!

Ellie: Yeah, like a charming robot!

Jess: All robots are charming robots.

Ellie: Yeah, but this one’s especially charming because HuM4N’s surrounded by... other... little robots?

Jess: Okay. Ev, give me, hit me, let me know. [laughs]

Ev: Okay. [laughs] Uh, my character is named Adrianna Arkadie Usko, and she goes by Adie for short, or Ah-die, I’m not sure. But anyway, she, I, fuck, I gotta stop calling her “she”, they’re a they!

Jess: Okay!

Ev: They’re a human cleric, and they belong to a church that believes that machines should be tools of flesh-and-blood people, instead of sentient beings.

Jess: I...

Ev: And they’re gonna be in a party with a robot named HuM4N!

[laughter]

Drew: I’m sure a great friendship will totally grow, and not hatred!

Ev: Oh yeah totally! They’re also, like, you know, their church is considered somewhat moderate in that they’re not anti-technology in general, but they definitely have the basis of their church’s beliefs is that, uh, machines are fallible, and that if you want something with a real, actual sense of responsibility and life, that it should be a flesh-and-blood being. That robots can’t understand the true meaning of life, basically.

Drew: I want the two of your characters to become Platonic Life Partners by the end of this campaign.

Jess: I ship it!

[laughter]

Ev: That’s a, that’s a possibility!

Jess: It’s the future!

Ev: I also do, you know, in true Avery fashion have, uh, a two page backstory and personality document for this character and... yeah.

Ronnie: Also, also Jess...

Jess: Yeah?

Ronnie: Can my character be a ratfolk? Can they?

Jess: Yeah they can definitely be a... I feel like gene modding is kind of a thing that kind of was, like, used early on.... Okay, wait, do you have ideas about the rat creatures? I should not just stumble over your ideas before you get to put them out there. What do you, where do the ratfolk come from, Ronnie?

Ronnie: Um, they either came from underground, or they came from the desert, whichever.

Ev: And they’re part of like, the magic coming back into the world, basically, like they’re magical creatures?

Drew: I want them to be like, nuclear devastation, and they’re like pet rats that have evolved through toxic sludge.

[laughter]

Jess: See, can I put forward a third proposal? Of they are, like the results of “Hmm, well we figured out how to cure cancer in rats. We haven’t cured it in humans yet. What if we can we make kind of humany-rat things, and then try and cure cancer that way?”

Ronnie: [laughs] Excellent!

Jess: Like, you got some choices out there!

Ev: It could be, it could be both, you know! They could be like, lab rats that became human when the magic came back and they just were like “What the fuck?!”

[laughter]

Ev: “When did this happen? Okay, I guess we’re people now! Sure!”

Drew: I like it!

Jess: They’re also underground, and like I imagine... Although we’ve kind of built up this robot-human conflict, and elves and dwarves... I feel like they’re not super happy, like that’s probably why your guy’s so proletariat risey-upey.

Ronnie: Uh-huh. They dream of a utopia in which the sun’s warm, and there are fields of grain, and everything is happy farmland, I dunno!

Drew: And there are no cats!

[laughter]

Jess: Alright, do you have any names or anything? Or...

Ronnie: Ooh, how about Sybil?

Jess: Ooh, I like it!

Ellie: Aw!

Drew: I’m only gonna think of the author now that you say that.

Ev: How do you spell... What way is Sibyl spelled?

Ronnie: S-I-B-Y-L. No! It should be a Z! It should be Z... Zibyl!

[laughter]

Jess: Yes! I love the future. And Drew, do you have any ideas about your guy? Is it just like a human guy, or is it like a...

Drew: I’m like “Oh, I wanna be something fantastic” and then I’m like “No, I kinda just want to be an old, crotchety human with, like, age spots on his face and I want his name to be, like, Earl.”

[laughter]

Ev: Good.

Ellie: Earl the Human.

Jess: Oh my god.

Ev: What class is Earl? [laughs]

Drew: I haven’t thought that far ahead, but Jess did say Wizard, and I thought that was kinda good.

Jess: Um, wizards are the ones who get guns in this universe, by the way. Cause, we figured that magic missile is basically, like–

Ev: It’s a gun.

Jess: –a projectile. It’s a gun! It’s like a laser rifle but in a fantasy setting. So, Wizards get guns.

Drew: [drawling old man voice] “It’s my right to bear arms, that’s why I got bear arms attached to my body when I was seventeen!”

Jess: ...Wait, please tell me this is true.

[laughter]

Drew: Maybe! We’ll find out.

Jess: Old wizard with bear arms. I like that.

Drew: And he’s got a tattoo of a human head on his shoulder.

Jess: [laughs] On his bear arm he has a tattoo of a human head drawing?

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: I love... okay. Yeah.

Ev: These are the best one-line character descriptions that I’ve ever written in my entire life.

Ellie: Woo!

Ronnie: Also, also, my character’s, like, underground username was going to be The Oracle, but somebody had already taken that, so it’s like, TheOraclexx27.

[laughter]

Ev: So good.

Jess: Is it also, does it also have x’s in front of it, so it’s like xx_The_Oracle_xx27?

Ronnie: Yes!

Jess: Oh my god, this is such a good party. I’m just imagining this old shrively guy with massive bear arms that like come out of his shoulders and drag along the ground, but...

Ev: What kind of bear arms? Are they like Sun Bear arms, or Grizzly Bear or Panda Bear...

Drew: Brown. Brown Bear. He couldn’t afford to get the Polar Bear ones that he wanted when he was younger, so they’re just Brown Bear’s.

Jess: Does he dye them white, though?

Drew: Yeah, he cleans them.

Ev: I gotta bleach my bear arms today!

Drew: They’re kind of blondish, but don’t... don’t talk about it.

[laughter]

Jess: I’m just imagining frosted tip bear arms.

Ronnie: Oh my god!

Ev: He’s a 90’s kid!

Drew: What’s the retirement age?

Jess: Um...

Ev: Old.

Jess: Yeah I think it’s dystopian, like, future-hell, so... Basically, like, the concept is Paprika meets Brazil, meets Ghost in the Shell, with a little bit of Wizards, the 80’s cartoon about nuclear magic.

Drew: I just wanna know how old my guy is. I’m okay with him being super old. I’m fine with that. I just wanna know.

Jess: It’s all about how old you want him to be.

Drew: I feel like... I dunno, 63?

Jess: 63 is a good age. He’s... he’s a pretty old guy.

Ev: 63’s not like, unreasonably old. It’s not like he’s, you know, 95 or whatever.

Drew: Nah, nah, he’s not 95! But he’d be pretty... he’d be a different class of wizard if he was 95 though, let’s be real.

Jess: Yeah, he’d have maybe gone up the ladder a little bit. ...Oh shit, Drew, you get a hat!

Drew: It gets to hide his head so he doesn’t get a sunburn on his balding scalp!

Jess: Well, we decided that, like, it’s like the class ring of wizards. So, wizards who go to school get a class hat, and you get to choose a spell that goes with that hat.

Drew: He didn’t go to school, he’s old school!

Jess: He went to the school of hard knocks?

Drew: He was in the Trades. He learned from the people… I dunno. He failed High School, I dunno.

[laughter]

Jess: Maybe his apprenticeship ended with him getting a hat from his gruff boss man? It’s his hat?

Drew: Sure.

Ev: Okay, so I have to go and eat dinner. I will be back in fifteen, twenty minutes.

Jess: Ev, you have your Spirit and Objectives done, so I can probably just do that for everyone else while you’re gone, is that cool?

Ev: Yeah, I’m gonna leave my recording running, and then I’ll just let you guys know when I get back, but I’ll try and be quick.

Jess: Cool! Have fun!

Ev: Alright. Laaater!

Jess: Lates!

Ronnie: Bye!

Drew: What do the hats look like?

Jess: Whatever you want. It can be whatever hat you want. It’s just a magic hat. It can be a magic fedora, it can be a magic, like, helmet, one of those mining helmets, it can be a magic…

Drew: What about… it’s a fez. It’s a fez hat.

Jess: It’s a magic fez?

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: Okay. Why don’t you figure out a spell that goes on your magic fez? So, for Spirit, you guys, Spirit is pull three random books, then go to a random page and pull a sentence that you think describes your character.

Ellie: That involves moving!

Ronnie: I happen to have three books on my desk!

Drew: They have to be random books! Those aren’t random!

Jess: As long as they’re on your map it’s fine.

Ellie: There’s books around Finn’s [Jess and Ellie’s little brother] bed. I’m just gonna pull those books.

Drew: So you said to grab three random books?

Jess: Yeah. If you have three near you that’s fine.

Drew: There’s a bookshelf…

Ellie: So wait, it’s a random line as well?

Jess: Well, you can choose a line on that page if you want. I don’t mind!

Ellie: Alright, uh, Jess, say a number.

Jess: 27

Drew: [counting to himself]

Ellie: Page 27… [flipping pages]

Drew: [laughs] Alright… oh man my three books…

Jess: Okay!

Drew: Where the Boys Are: Urban Gay Erotica…

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets…

Jess: [laughs more]

Drew: … Jaws.

Jess: These are all… definitely titles!

Ronnie: My books are Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder… Queer and Trans Artists of Color… and Fruits Basket! [laughs]

Jess: Nice!

Drew: And we just have to pick a random sentence? From each of them?

Jess: Or you can just pick a sentence. It doesn’t have to be random. I pulled this from Normality, which is a really fun game.

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: You pick from your favourite book a random page, and then pick a sentence from that page.

Drew: Oh man, I picked a page and there’s a lot of…

Ellie: Jess, say another number.

Jess: Sixty… nine.

Drew: [reading] “Gripping his jaw, I kiss him, I kiss him for…”

Ellie: 69?

Jess: Yeah.

Drew: “...our noses rub, our tongues exploring, our teeth crushing together.”

Ronnie: [laughs]

Jess: So like, your guy is gay, right? That’s what that means?

Drew: I feel like... Well, he can, or like bi.

Jess: That’s true.

Drew: I mean, let’s be real, though. He’s got bear arms. He’s clearly a gay Bear.

Jess: Oh my god!

Ronnie: This is really funny, because the book I have actually landed on a quote by Nietzsche.

Jess: [laughs]

Ronnie: And so, the sentence is, “From this point of view even the blunders of life have their own meaning and value– the occasional side and wrong roads, the delays, “modesties,” seriousness wasted on tasks that are remote from the task.”

Jess: Oh that’s kind of horrifying, and also kind of nice, and also kind of in character.

Ronnie: Yes.

Drew: So, the sentence I wanna do is “I lift my hand off his face just long enough to reach for the ball gag on the bedside table.”

Jess: [laughs] Alright!

Drew: There’s… there’s not a lot on that page I can get through. Most of it is about nipple clamps and sex. So… well, I’ll write down what I got from it.

Jess: Okay.

Drew: Where the Boys Are… he’s gay, and he likes ball gags!

Jess: [laughs] His spirit is strong.

Drew: Oh man, but he… so he should get some sort of special rope ability, ‘cause he’s clearly into bondage.

Jess: Rope is very expensive, I’m warning you now! I literally only made it super expensive because Ellie wanted it to be included.

Ellie: What?!

Drew: Is there any way that he could just have like his bondage rope, and then it just could be half as useful as actual rope but no one really knows why he has this kinky rope?

Jess: Except him?

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: I think so. [laughs] I like the idea of, someone’s like “Does anyone have some rope?” and he sheepishly pulls it out, and they’re like “Yeah! Thanks guy– where did you get this?”, and he’s like “...Adventure reasons.”

Drew: He’s like, “I can’t really hold a lot of weight, but I can tie a whole bunch of knots if you want.”

Jess: “I can suspend this bad guy from the ceiling a whole bunch of ways.”

Drew: Yeah. [laughs]

Ronnie: Oh noooo! Mine just got so angsty!

Jess: Oh no!

Ronnie: Fruits Basket pulled up for me, “They didn’t really want me.”

Jess: Awww no!

Drew: Mine’s just like, Dursley yelling at Harry. “I warned you, I will not tolerate mention of your abnormality under this roof!”

Ronnie: Oh no!

Jess: So sad!

Drew: So he comes from a family that, like, doesn’t believe in magic, and he’s magic, and they’re like “Fuck you! Get lost!”

Jess: Aww!

Drew: I dunno! That’s what I get from that.

Jess: Yeah.

Drew: They don’t care he’s gay, they just don’t like that he’s magic.

Jess: I’m just, it’s so sad. Some tragic backstory shit happening all of a sudden.

Ronnie: [in the background] Oh no!!

Drew: Are we using “magic” with a “c” or “magik” with a “k”?

Jess: Um, I think it’s with a… well, you’re the magic guy, you choose.

Ronnie: The quote that I got is “I’m not going to exploit my grandma just because somebody gave me money.”

Drew: That’s nice.

Ronnie: This rat… loves his grandma.

Jess: Aww! His ratma!

Ronnie: I say “his”… I’m going to say “they.”

Jess: Okay.

Drew: I don’t know what to say from this. Um, there’s a lot of, like, weird stuff on this page, but a lot of it has swearing, so he likes to swear.

Jess: Ah. He’s such a gruff, old, like BDSM guy.

Ronnie: [laughs] It’s great!

Jess: I think I’ve met this guy at Pride before.

Drew: Probably.

Ellie: I think I’ve got my quotes maybe. From The Supernaturalists… [correcting self] Supernaturalist, single.

Jess: Aw, I love that book.

Ellie: “Even if sometimes, she couldn’t remember her mother and father anymore,” from that.

Jess: Sad.

Ellie: From Martin the Warrior, “I’ll try to get back to you this time tomorrow night,” and then from Itch, “‘Reading’ said Itch.”

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: Those are my quotes.

Drew: Did we have to write down the actual quote because I just wrote down what I got from them.

Jess: You can do either, it’s about how you’d interpret it best.

Drew: Okay. My brain keeps being like “But Jess, what’s your character?!” and I’m like “Uhh never mind, shut up.”

Jess: [laughs] Don’t worry! Ev and I have been discussing some of the side characters and stuff. You’ll meet some fun types.

Um, so, I think next we’re gonna go on to adjectives ‘cause you guys are kind of getting what your character is.

Ellie: What about Ev?

Jess: Oh, yeah, Ev! Sorry!

Ev: [sarcastic] Alright, cool. [laughs] That’s how it is!

Jess: Shut up! Shut up and speak!

[laughter]

Ev: Okay, um, sorry, I’m just moving things around a little bit.

Okay, so, I have “A little voice in her head said ‘Are you doing the right thing?” which is that, uh, Adie’s always questioning their faith and their motivations.

Um, “String me up ‘cause I’m in it now,’ he said to no one,” which is that they go whole-heartedly into things, and they commit to things.

And, “If you’ve had a freakish education, at least use it,” which is that they were brought up in a weird, like, super technophobic, like... I called the organization that their parents were in “Radical Organicists,” which is like, in my head it’s like a combination of, like those weird culty communes, and anti-vaxxers, and anti-GMO vegans, and basically everyone who, like wants to go back to the Earth, but in kind of like really harmful, bad ways. [laughs] So…

Ronnie: Did I tell you that my grandma totally lived in a couple communes in the 60s?

[laughter]

Ronnie: She’s a cool grandma.

Ev: This is like, they grew up in a bad commune. It was definitely much more cult than anything else.

Jess: Okay, so adjectives. And your adjectives are describing words. This is something I pulled from MechNoir, because I’ve been listening to a lot of Friends at the Table, and this is something they do. But you get to choose three adjectives to describe your character, and they can give you bonuses on rolls if you can convince me that it’s relevant.

Ev: My, my adjectives for Adie are committed, clever, and blunt.

Jess: Committed, clever, and blunt.

Ev: Yep.

Jess: I like it. Has anyone else got any thoughts on theirs? I guess it’s very soon.

Ronnie: What’s the word for when someone is really good at, sort of, MacGyvering things? I-Innovative? No…

Ev: Resourceful?

Ronnie: ...Resourceful, there we go.

Jess: Yeah, that’s good, yeah.

Drew: I wanna use Persnickety.

[laughter]

Ev: Solid.

Jess: So far very good. Ellie, you got anything?

Drew: Crotchety…

Ronnie: Oh my god.

Ev: That’s the same thing as persnickety!

Drew: No, it’s not! Persnickety is being particular, and crotchety is being “ill-tempered, irritable, or grumpy.”

Jess: [laughs] I love this old man!

Ev: He’s so hard to work with, it sounds like!

Drew: Persnickety is "fussy or putting too much emphasis on trivial or minor details."

Jess: I love, I love, oh my god the worst co-worker of all time.

Ev: Right? This is gonna be so... man, this party is just a nightmare. We've got like a shitty teen, we've got a grouchy old dude, we got a religious zealot, and we got a robot, who's just like "Yep."

Ellie: Oh, Ev! And you're like "And a robot!"

Ev: [laughs] I'm becoming Adie!

Jess: My favourite thing so far is that you guys have all, like, fallen into being like of each other? Already? It's very exciting. Does anyone else have extra adjectives, or do you wanna like, you can also sleep on it and we come back to this next week.

Ronnie: We need to do it NOW!

Jess: Okay!

Ellie: I've got something note worthy.

Jess: Okay.

Ronnie: I thought of "resourceful," oh wait, I already thought of "resourceful," but "rebellious"!

Jess: Okay.

Drew: Um…

Ellie: "Volatile"

Drew: Oh I know what I wanna… Oh, sorry!

Ellie: How's "volatile", Jess?

Jess: Volatile's good!

Ev: It's really good.

Jess: Surprising but good, yeah. I wanna see how that runs out.

Ev: Like, temper-wise or in the fact that your HP is so low and you just explode when someone touches you?

[laughter]

Jess: Oh no!

Ellie: I said the wrong words and wrote the wrong word down, so that means I'm keeping it!

Jess: I like it though!

Ellie: Yeah.

Ev: What word were you thinking?

Ellie: "Versatile!"

Ev: Oh!

[laughter]

Ellie: Um, I'm keeping it either way.

Jess: I like volatile and versatile.

Ellie: I'll put both! So, my character is trustworthy, volatile, and versatile.

Jess: Aw!

Ev: That's a good robot.

Jess: That's a good... yeah!

Drew: I'm, uh, so "charitable" is the other one I wanna put down.

Jess: Ah shit, that's really interesting! Like, as a third, compared to "crotchety" and "persnickety"... and charitable.

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: I like it. How're you doin', Ron?

Ronnie: ...Good. I'm trying to think of a... specific word.

Drew: Oh I know!

Ronnie: Um…

Drew: [typing something for Ronnie]

Ronnie: Uh... no.

Drew: Ronnie's third word is "stinky"!

Ronnie: No it's not!

[laughter]

Ronnie: They can't 'cause [rats] clean themselves so much!

Drew: They do.

Jess: Especially 'cause this rat has high Charisma! This is a fancy rat.

Ev: Yeah!

Ronnie: I-It's more than just cleanliness, like... like... he grooms a lot, they groom a lot.

Drew: Obsesses.

[Ronnie mumbles]

Jess: Uh, "neat," "clean"...

Ev: Hygienic?

Jess: Uh…

Ronnie: Fussy! There we go.

Ev: Fussy!

Jess: Fussy's good! Yeah!

Drew: That's the same thing as "persnickety!" Except my word's better.

Jess: So what were your three words in the end, Ronnie?

Ronnie: Resourceful, rebellious, and fussy.

[Multiple "aww"s]

Jess: I wanna bully that rat!

Ev: Everyone's so cute!

[laughter]

Ev: Ronnie and Ellie, did you guys decide on like, genders or pronouns for your characters?

Ronnie: My character's pronouns are they/them, yeah. Or maybe zey/zem to keep with…

Ev: Zibyl, zey/zem, oh good!

Jess: Okay! I love it. Uh, Ellie, do you know what your robot is yet?

Ellie: Might be she/her?

Jess: Aw! Yeah, I like it.

Ev: Yay, we got a girl robot! [laughs] It's perfect!

Ellie: Ev, have I show you my robot?

Ev: No, show me your robot!

Ellie: My robo…

[paper shuffling]

Jess: She's so cute. I love her.

Drew: She's the cutest!

Ev: Oh my god, that is really charming! [laughs] What kind of hat is that, or is that an antenna?

Ellie: It's a little, it's a bird!

Ev: Oh!

Jess: A ro-bird?

Ev: Too cute!

Ellie: Ro-bird! [laughs]

Ev: It's a little bird on her head!

Ellie: And then, that's the feet! Because, poor Dexterity.

Ev: [laughs] Oh my god! All of our guys are so good!

Jess: This is so good!

Ev: Uh, my character looks like Michelle Forbes in, uh, Battlestar Gallactica. I'll find a link. Hang on.

Jess: Nice.

Drew: I'm so bad with names!

Jess: Are you, are you going back on Earl?

Drew: What? No. No no no, I... Ev just said some person's name, and I was like "I know Battlestar Gallactica, but I have NO idea who that is."

Jess: Oh!

Drew: No, Earl is Earl, like... Earl cannot be any more Earl than Earl already is.

Jess: It's true!

Ev: Let's see…

Ellie: Unless he wakes up in the morning... Because then he gets up EARL-ly.

Ev: Heh.

Jess: [grunt and long sigh]

Ev: I linked to Michelle Forbes in the chat.

Ronnie: Okay.

Ellie: Ohh!

Drew: Yeah, okay.

Jess: Nice.

Ellie: Good

.

Drew: I want them to get in a relationship!

Jess: Well…

Drew: Ship it! Ship it!

Ev: [laughs] They're in a relationship and they have a, have a son. I'm telling you, I go so deep into character building!

Jess: Wait, they have a son?!

Ev: Yeah. You want me to read this, part of this real fast?

Jess: Yes.

Ev: Okay. "Adie grew up within a commune that was also slightly a cult. They retained some of the ideas they were raised with, but actually consider themself very moderate compared to what they grew up with, even if that's sort of reactionary in most society. They became an insurance investigator because they wanted to reduce the dependence of flesh-and-blood people on machines and change the system of the Dreaming from the inside, in a way they're not completely sure how that's going to happen, yet." [laughs] Um, "They love travel and reading, and they're very curious, not very funny, and maybe not quite as clear on what their ideals are as they should be. Adie is estranged from their parents and extended family due to aforementioned cult/commune thing. They have a life partner named Robbie McCabe and a seven year old son named Colin."

Drew: Are they Poly [polyamorous]?

Ev: Hm?

Drew: Are they Poly?

Ev: I want them to be! I'm not sure if I should do that, because then, like, I think most of that's going to stay deep in the background, but I kind of wanted them to actually be married to two people.

Jess: It is Space Future.

Ev: Yeah.

Drew: I just wanna ship them with, um, with Ellie's character.

Ev: With HuM4n?

Jess: It would be so symbolic!

Ev: It would. It would be so solid. Their, their wife wants them to stop being such a zealot.

[laughter]

Jess: That's a fun table talk. "Adie..."

Ellie: I think HuM4n would have a nice tea session with Wife.

Ev: Yeah! I can, I can see Robbie meeting HuM4n and being like "Oh, you guys should date because then Adie would just, fuckin' chill for a minute."

[laughter]

Ev: What a bunch of trash babies.

Jess: Um, okay. So, we've got our adjectives... we're gonna do... Luck next. So I want you all to roll 3 d6 [dice]. And don't cheat, goddamn it!

Drew: Roll 3 d6?

Jess: Yes.

Ev: Whoa! I did Ellie rolls on that one.

Ellie: Wow!

Jess: What did you get?

Ev: Five, four, five.

Jess: Okay!

Ellie: I didn't, I did the opposite of Ellie rolls!

Jess: What did you get?

Drew: Oh, Ronnie got shit! Ronnie got anus hairs!

Ronnie: Oh nooo!

[laughter]

Jess: What did you…

Drew: I got 12. But Ronnie got 3!

Ellie: Well, my robot's…

Jess: Oh no!

Ronnie: I got 4!

Ev: Shit!

Jess: What did you get, El?

Ellie: One, two…

Jess: Oh my god!

Ellie: ...and one.

Drew: Hey, you got the same thing as Ronnie!

[hysterical laughter]

Ev: Wow, you are SO unlucky.

Drew: What is this roll for?

Ev: For Luck.

Jess: For Luck!

Drew: For Luck…

Jess: Yup!

Drew: I got twelve.

Jess: Well, okay. So, here's the thing about Luck.

Drew: Good luck and bad luck.

Jess: There's good Luck and there's bad Luck, and um, you can actually trade out skills for better Luck, but you have to take three points away from your skills to get an additional point of Luck, and you can do the reverse. You can trade your Luck to get more skills.

Drew: I dunno, I kind of like having high Luck, even if it could be bad for me, 'cause it feels fun.

Ronnie: You say that because you also have high skills, Drew.

Drew: [evil laughter]

Jess: It's true.

Ellie: Here's the thing. I think it would be hilarious if my robot, who's got all these high skills has really, really low Luck.

Jess: Aww! What a squishy baby!

Ev: That's really charming.

Ronnie: As my quote spirit says: "Even the blunders of life have their own meaning and value."

Jess: Aw! [laughs]

Ellie: Ronnie! Your character and my character should get tea!

Ronnie: [laughs] Yes!

Ellie: Well I mean…

Drew: My character will buy the tea and grumble about it.

Ellie: Everyone's invited!

Ronnie: He doesn't have to!

Drew: Yeah, but that doesn't matter, I'm your elder!

Jess: So, I'm just figuring stuff out on this end, but um…

Drew: There's no spot for age.

Jess: You can put age down... somewhere.

Drew: So, are we following, um, the rule with, uh, I think D&D has a thing where you actually get lower skills if you're older…

Jess: No, we're not. We're ignoring all that. [laughs]

Drew: Okay. Did I say I was 68 or 63?

Ellie: I think 63?

Ev: Yeah.

Drew: 63, okay.

Jess: Okay, so here's how Luck is gonna work. You can use it to re-roll rolls. For example, if you have a 20 on Luck, you can reroll 3 rolls a session, and they don't have to just be yours, they just have to affect you in some way or another. So, if you have 20 Luck you can reroll 3 times. If you have 19, 3 times, Eighteen, three times. Seventeen, two times. Sixteen, two times. Fifteen, one time. Fourteen, one time. Thirteen, one time. Twelve, eleven, ten, and nine have no Luck values one way or the other. And then, if you have…

Drew: Twelve has nothing or twelve is still one?

Jess: Twelve is nothing.

Drew: Twelve is nothing.

Jess: Twelve is average. Yep. You can't reroll, um, unless you have greater than twelve. If you have eight or less, I get to reroll a roll against you!

Ronnie: Oh…

Jess: If you have a 4 or a 3, I get to reroll two rolls against you! And if you have a 2 or a 1, I get to reroll three rolls against you. There are some other things that Luck will have, and you can combine Luck for things, and Luck does have other applications, like there will be times where I won't know if something's going to go one way or another, where you'll roll a Luck thing. So, at the moment I get to roll against Ellie and Ronnie twice a session.

Ronnie: [laughs sadly]

Ellie: It's okay.

Drew: Sucks to be them!

Ellie: HuM4n's fine about it.

Jess: And the only people who get rerolls, are Drew and Ev, which... wait, no! Drew doesn't get any!

Drew: No.

Jess: So only Ev gets to reroll.

Ev: Heyo!

Drew: I don't get any rerolls but you don't get to roll against me!

Jess: Yup.

Ellie: You said three d6 right?

Jess: Yeah.

Ellie: Wow, I rolled so terribly!

Jess: I kinda like it! I kinda like the low…

Drew: I think it's hilarious that you and Ronnie both rolled the same thing.

Ev: The same really bad thing!

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: It's so impressive... Christ. Okay, um, now let's do materials. Um. Which are Status, Education, Money, and Equipment. Your Status and Education will have some effect. Money's probably going to have the most effect to start, because that's going to depend on what, it's gonna change your budget around, and then Equipment is also a thing. So, roll one d6.

Drew: Pardon?

Jess: Roll one d6.

Drew: Okay.

Ellie: Okay, I rolled a six.

Jess: Okay, that's your... that's your Status, so you have been with this company the longest, Ellie.

Drew: Oh man, I rolled a four.

Ev: Hey, that doesn't make any goddamn sense! [laughs]

Drew: Hey it's your bad luck.

Jess: I mean, it's kinda like, if you're middle management, and this robot's kinda come along and is kind of, muscling you out.

Ev: Climbing the corporate ladder!

Jess: Yeah! [laughs]

Drew: That means I'm gonna hate you!

Ev: [sarcastic] Goddamn robots takin' our jobs!

Jess: You could get along!

Ronnie: I got a five.

Ev: I also have a five.

Drew: That doesn't make any sense!

Ev: Aw man, I'm at the same Status as the, the intern?

Drew: I have LESS Status than the intern!

Jess: I don't, I think it also is like, societal level Status, so if you have Status in certain groups, that might also count towards this. So maybe the fact that Ellie's kind of the leader of a church is gonna bump her Status up a little bit.

Ellie: I mean, it's kind of a church. Kind of, but not really.

Ronnie: I'm internet famous! [laughs]

Jess: [laughs]

Ev: You have a lot of followers on Tumblr!

Drew: People are just jealous of my bear arms.

[laughter]

Drew: My friends have all died. I have no Status because they're all dead.

Jess: Aw!

Ev: Oh my god, Drew!

Jess: It's because our society doesn't respect the elderly.

Ev: Yeah.

Drew: I'm sure they just ship us off to get burned or something.

Jess: Aww! It's not THAT dystopian! I'll just work you until you're dead!

Drew: Oh, okay.

Jess: Okay so roll me another d6, guys.

Ellie: And this is for Education?

Jess: Uh, actually I'm gonna let you roll first, and then we'll figure it out, so it makes more sense next time!

Ellie: I rolled a three.

Jess: 'Kay.

Ronnie: I got a one!

Drew: I rolled a two.

Ev: I have a five again.

Jess: Okay, it does make sense for this to be Education, right?

Drew: Yeah!

Ev: I think so.

Drew: I already said that my character did go to, like didn't go to school, he just learned his stuff from Trades.

Jess: Yeah.

Drew: He failed high school, so.

Jess: I'm guessing that Ev, your guy went to, like, your person went to like, a Clerical college? Like a religious…

Ev: Yeah. Um, yeah, probably.

Jess: And then, Ronnie is like, a homeless teenager, so... Roll again, guys!

Ronnie: Gah! [dropped their dice probably]

Ev: Frick, I got a three for Money.

Jess: 'Kay.

Ellie: I got a four.

Ronnie: Oh dang! I got a four for Money.

Jess: Okay!

Drew: I rolled it off of the edge of my book. [laughs]

Jess: Don't do that!

Drew: I rolled a six! Retirement money!

Ev: Retirement mon! [laughs]

Jess: Okay, nice, so, this is your weekly income in Creds, which are the currency. Actually…

Drew: Six dollars a week!

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: Well, if you'll look, I think you actually get twice that.

Ev: Yeah, you said it was two weeks back pay when you start.

Jess: Yeah, it's two weeks back pay, is what you've got sort of behind you, so you've got twelve creds to start. You get six a week but you have two weeks of back pay. But, you do have, like, weekly things you might have to pay, like rent and rations, uh…

Ellie: Question!

Jess: Yeah?

Ellie: Do I pay rations if I don't eat?

Jess: Um, oil, maintenance, that kind of thing.

Ellie: Ahh.

Jess: Also, you as a druid/technomancer/paladin have to pay for a Holy Site with 1 Cred monthly, so you can subtract that from your income.

Drew: That's complicated.

Jess: Yeah, I wanted to make this, uh, a game about budgeting.

Drew: In the loan section, are we doing compound loaning?

Jess: No, because I don't want to have to do that much math.

Ronnie: Hey! Hey! Stop! [laughs] Noooooo! [yelps]

Jess: I don't know what's happening over there, but I bet it's disgusting.

Ev: I think Drew and Ronnie are being married right now. [laughs]

Jess: God... damnit.

Ev: They're doing married shit.

Jess: This is what happens when you invite married people to anything, right?

Drew: I'm tickling them!

[laughter]

Jess: [sarcastic] Gross.

Ronnie: Okay, okay.

Jess: They don't deserve that. Anyway! Um, you guys all need rent to rent out a place and rations. You can combine those however you want. If you want to eat fois gras in a gutter, that's fine. If you wanna eat spam in a mansion, that's also fine. Uh, you can get yourself some prosthesis…

Drew: There's very little money to start with!

Jess: You guys don't have, like glamorous jobs, you know that right? Like…

Drew: Yeah I know, but we've been living for a while! You'd think we'd have SOME money to start with!

Ev: I have a partner who brings in her own income, presumably!

Drew: Yeah, right?

Jess: It's Capitalist Space Future! Do you wanna... [laughs] You have to pay Air loans probably!

Drew: Can I just get a tattoo of a corporation on my ass and call it a day?

Jess: I mean, you can if you want! That's probably why you get six, six pay a week!

Ev: Earl is so into body modding. [laughs]

Drew: Earl IS into body modding.

Jess: There is totally like, underground body modding places, and people get addicted to modding their bodies until they're like, weird. Ah... Space Future.

Ellie: Can I use my creds that aren't, that are part of my Money to get a tiny automaton familiar?

Jess: Yes, of course you can!

Ellie: [happy sound]

Jess: Um…

Drew: Where are the familiars?

Jess: The familiars are for wizards and druids. You can get one. It's gonna be alive by magic whereas Ellie's is gonna be alive by religious…

Ellie: It's a tiny robot!

Drew: But, but isn't that like a baby then?

Jess: I was thinking more like the daemons from The Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass, but robots.

Drew: I was just thinking 'cause it's robot, I'm like isn't there some sort of like, weird existential thing that you have to consider because you're also a robot?

Jess: Yeah, Ellie! Do you?

Ellie: Sorry?

Jess: Do you have to consider that, that they're babies, or is it different for robots?

Drew: Or that they're equal?

Ellie: They're different for robots!

Drew: But doesn't that have like a weird supremacy thing for robots though?

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: No! It's my buddy!

Ev: It's like, you know, being a human and owning a dog. Like, they're still flesh and blood guys, they're just like, dumb and you know, you have to take care of them.

Drew: A dog, a dog isn't a tiny human, though!

Ellie: I have a connection with my tiny robot friend! It's like we're both friends on equal terms.

Jess: Also, I think in this society, there are like, dogs that are as intelligent as people, and dogs that aren't. I think that it's gotten to the point where people occasionally will just make a creature or a species super smart 'cause they can.

Drew: That that mean that there are like, super not-smart people?

Jess: Hmmm…

Ev: I dunno if I like that, 'cause that gets into weird like, weird territory.

Jess: That gets kind of into, um, what's-it-called, that one dystopian, not nineteen-eighty... Brave New World! It gets a bit Brave New World. I'm not sure we're gonna go that far into the like, intelligence hierarchy, some-people-are-better-than-others…

Drew: Yeah, I'm fine with not doing that! I was just asking about robots.

Ev: [sad laugh]

Jess: It's interesting from a robot perspective. I wonder if it's like, based on how, like, close they are to the Singularity.

Ev: Well, plus we also have in this world, robots that are dead people's souls put into machines.

Jess: Oh yeah! That's a thing!

Ellie: Maybe I built my own familiar.

Jess: Aww!

Drew: Oh I know what, I know what I want now!

Jess: Yeah?

Drew: I want Earl's, like, Life Partner to have passed on [Ev gasps], and they had decided he was going to go into like, one of those, um, machines and then like he was super fit-looking and awesome and he's like "See ya later, Earl!" and then just like leaves.

Ev: Ohh!!

[lots of sob laughing]

Drew: So that was Earl's like, retirement funds.

Jess: Aw!!

Ev: Oh my god!!

Ellie: He's... he's so sad and awwuh!

Jess: So, does Earl not have any money anymore? Did you get it, like, the large…

Drew: He gets six Creds! Of course he doesn't have any money! I'm trying to explain away the fact that he's saved for like sixty years and he's got like, 12 Creds!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Um, do I need to pay for my prosthesis or should I just like imagine that I paid for them when I was young like I said?

Jess: I think I might have to make you pay for your prosthesis.

Ev: Noo!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: I still have one dollar left!

Jess: You have your Equipment money! I gave you Equipment money!

Drew: Yeah, then I'll just be naked! [laughs]

Ronnie: [laughs]

Ev: Christ.

Jess: I'm assuming you have…

Drew: Do I have to pay for each arm or can it just be 11 dollars, 11 Cred?

Jess: I think you just paid for it all. You can can also have been in debt for the last like…

Ev: Rope is really expensive.

Jess: That's... [laughs]

Drew: Oh, what's the deal with the bondage rope that I had suggested?

Jess: You get to keep your bondage rope, but if Ellie wants rope, she has to pay full price.

Drew: Okay.

Ellie: Jess, how much are weapons and what what weapons are available for a druid?

Jess: Um, so... mostly, you just have to look at the druid weapons in AD&D and then we're gonna adapt them.

Ellie: Can I have a quarter staff?

Jess: Yeah.

Ellie: Alright.

Ev: And that goes for spells, too, right?

Jess: Yeah.

Ev: We're just doing AD&D ones?

Jess: Yeah. If you want.

Drew: Is there, like, a certain amount of spells?

Jess: Uh, same as AD&D, it's just whether we're gonna start you as level one or level three. What would you guys prefer?

Drew: Uh…

Ev: What's a man catcher?

Jess: What?

Ev: I'm looking at Cleric weapons and there's something called a man catcher.

Jess: Like a net? [laughs]

Drew: Jess?

Jess: Yeah?

Drew: I'd like to advocate because I have bear arms, that I get to use one of the D&D things where I have claws, which actually is an attack weapon.

Jess: Okay, but you don't get any other weapons except for a magic gun if you wanna shell out the money for that.

Drew: Well, I mean, I'm already shelling out the money for my arms, they're 11 Cred, right?

Jess: Yeah, it's true! [laughs]

Drew: So I just wanna be able to use my claws if I need to!

Jess: Yeah, those are probably gonna be a 1d4 damage. And I think the thing is, the reason they would be kind of lower as well is because I think there are a lot of robots and people who have body mods and you're gonna need energy weapons.

Drew: Well, and also I'm just old. So my physical body is probably pretty old, even if my bear arms are rad.

Jess: Man, you could probably get your claws, like, upgraded into laser claws at some point.

Drew: That'd be cool. I wonder if my bear arms need to be replaced at points because bears, like, live way less and so every like, ten years my bear arms have to be replaced when they, like shrivel up and fall off.

Ronnie: Gah!

Jess: [laughs] So they're like actual bear arms not just like, look like bear arms?

Drew: Yeah, they're actual bear arms!

Jess: I love it, okay, yeah.

Ellie: So Jess, are we first level or third level, 'cause that changes how many spells I can get.

Jess: I know! [sighs] ...I guess you guys are third level.

Ronnie: I have picked out my stuff!

Jess: Oh yeah? What do you have?

Ronnie: I have a Hacker's kit, one alternate ID which is The Oracle... xx27…

Jess: [laughs]

Ronnie: Uh, two costumes, a glow worm, and... a set of Dream Interference. And... no weapon because this shitty teen doesn't understand.

Jess: I am gonna get that shitty teen a hoverboard if it's the last thing I do.

Ev: Oh good.

Jess: [laughs] Like, I just want the shittiest, eighty-est, 80s-est…

Drew: So the hat actually says that it doesn't have to be a spell! I get a special effect, which can be frost resistance, advantage on charisma rolls, or an extra spell slot!

Jess: Shit! [laughs]

Ev: Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking when we were talking about it, Jean. You can change it if you want, but I was thinking like, it's like having an item equipped in a video game where it like, gives you a buff or something.

Jess: Yeah, I think that's it. I think I just said "spell" because I'm a sleepy baby all the time, and I don't know what's going on in the game I'm creating! So.. yeah!

Drew: I think I'm gonna end up getting a loan, I think.

Jess: I'll just have to keep track of that, and then there'll be creditor organizations who are keeping an eye on you, and I'll just have to remember that.

Ev: Can I have a, a sword?

Jess: Yes.

Ev: A non-haunted sword?

Jess: Yyyyyeesssss... I feel like you're kind of edging more towards the Paladin territory in some ways…

Ev: That's true.

Jess: I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it kind of, almost fits with the character more than the Cleric?

Ev: I can do a Paladin.

Jess: Yeah.

Ev: Alright, yeah, I'll just be a Paladin. Fuck it!

Jess: I feel like there's probably a cool name we could give to the Paladins, for the Future Times, but we'll figure that out.

Drew: Pala-don'ts.

Jess: [laughs] Pala-do?

Ev: [laughs]

Drew: Pala-outs!

Jess: Uh, Pala-drives?

Ev: Pals!

Jess: Like, drive? Like... a computer drive?

Ev: Hm....

Jess: No?

Ev: Mods? [laughs]

Jess: Oh no wait, I love that! [laughs]

Ev: Well, that doesn't really make sense, 'cause they're not really in charge of any, like, they're not like, well... I dunno! A mod?

Jess: Um, admins?

Drew: How come technomancers get to be in the druid/cleric/paladin AND in the wizard section?

Jess: Uh, 'cause technomancers can use, uh, pretty much they can use wizard or druid magic to affect the Dreaming.

Drew: Okay. ...What's a spring belt?

Jess: Oh, the spring belt is, uh, if you have your weapon in it, it means you always have it at the ready, so even in surprise attacks, you're not gonna get surprised and you can attack and roll initiative.

Drew: Okay. Um, and what's a travelling duster?

Jess: Like, a cool duster, like the jacket in [shyly] ...Fallout New Vegas.

Ev: [laughs]

Ellie: You're a nerd, Jess.

Jess: Hey.

Ronnie: I might need it.

Jess: [laughs] Oh my god, you do need it!

Ev: That's what that hoodie is! [laughs]

Jess: Oh my god, no. I need…

Ronnie: My hoodie is actually a travel duster?

Drew: Ooh what's a festival lantern do?

Jess: I think it's just a cool lantern! [laughs]

Drew: Dentures?! C'mon! I've been working here for how many years and I don't get coverage for dentures?

Jess: Yeah, there is definitely only private health insurance in the future.

Drew: I'll gum you to death!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Uh, so right now I need, I would need a 14 Credit loan.

Jess: I think you can get a 14 Credit loan. I'll just write it down. Does anyone else need a loan?

Ev: Yeah, I need a loan of... 4 dollars.

Drew: I'll, I'll probably need to get one or two Credits more just so I can clothes. Um, but, that's what I'll ask for right now, and then I'll email you about it later.

Jess: Cool.

Ronnie: My clothes come from the garbage!

[laughter]

Ronnie: Except for the cool duster thing.

Ev: You saved up for a good jacket.

Jess: Aw, that's so, like, like, I'm just imagining zem like, saving all of their money for weeks on end and spending it all on a jacket.

Is there anything else you guys want to go over before we leave? Any worldbuilding stuff that you think is really appropriate to this world that you need me to inject right now?

Ellie: Well, I don't know if it's really anything important, but I thought, so we all have usernames in the Dream, right?

Jess: Yeah.

Ellie: My robot's username is Sore_491, and it's that because the robot had to have a human friend help to log in because of the prove-you're-not-a-robot, and that was what, that was the code that needed to be typed in, and the human thought it would be funny to name the robot's…

Jess: Username.

Ellie: Yeah.

Drew: Hey, can my guy's name be deepthroat_69?

[laughter]

Jess: Yeah! Absolutely! And I bet, yeah, he had to be really fast on the draw to get that, that username.

Drew: What I, well I, well he's old, right? But he…

Ev: Yeah he's had it since the Internet was new!

Drew: I want it be that, basically they, um, you can't change your username once you have it, so like, so like he just went into the Dreaming when he was horny one time or something, and then he got this job later on and he was like "Fuck, whatever." [laughs]

Ev: There's probably SO many people with that, that that has happened to!

Jess: Yeah, like... Oh, I want the mayor's username to be, like... 420justblaze$$$, and like, part of their campaign was being like, now I'm a serious candidate!

Ellie: One of the heads of the churches is called MiLady450.

Jess: [laughs] Cleric…

Ronnie: There is so much Vaporwave in this, in this RP right now.

Ev: It's so good. I'm trying to think of something that Adie would have... It's probably something that they thought was really clever when they were a teenager... shit.

Ellie: Can there just be a, epidemic of memes? In the church? Like…

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: [laughs] like another head of the church has one that's "Can I Haz Churchburger?"

Drew: Noooooooooo!

Ellie: [laughs]

Ev: I bet this is a future where there's definitely, like, a church of Our Lord Dril, or something like that. [laughs]

Jess: Oh god! Oh god....

Drew: I want people to be back to worshiping cats again.

Jess: I think, I think we can do that. Think they probably put on performances of Cats every Sunday. IN the Dreaming, though. Like, they got kicked out of other... they can't do it Live anymore. They, have a Live, once a year, Cats performance.

Ev: Oh, oh! Can we have it, can he have "Hugh Jackman's Huge Act-in" be canon in this universe?

Jess: Yeah, definitely.

Drew: Hugh Jackman's what?

Jess: It's a CoolGames Inc. ... it's a podcast where they make up game ideas, but one of them was "Hugh Jackman's Huge Act-in." You get to be the actors in Broadway show of your dreams, and it's virtual. You're virtually kind of, filled into a lobby.

Ev: It's VR theatre, and, and it's such a good concept, and I'm so mad that it doesn't exist. [laughs]

Jess: I feel like there's, like, bazillions of entertainment channels, and some of them are just like virtual, and some of them are real actors, and some of them are just Amateur Hour. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a, like, station called "Amateur Hour."

Ev: [laughs] Good.

Ronnie: [laughs]

Drew: I, I drew Ronnie's and my character. [shuffling paper] [The drawing shows Earl with an arm around Zibyl.]

[chorus of giggles and "aww"s]

Jess: "You're gonna go far, kid."

Drew: [laughs]

Ev: He's so little!

Drew: He's super short! He's like 5'2" or something!

Ellie: Like, he's reaching up with his arm!

Drew: Yeah.

[laughing and yelling, probably because Drew's showing a drawing of Earl with a leather harness and black g-string.]

Jess: That's happening. I guess.

[laughter]

Ev: Is that...

Ellie: Earl's the best.

Ev: Is that his avatar?

Drew: That's his, so he's got two avatars. He's got his like, cruising avatar, and then this is his regular avatar. [Drew shows the drawing of Earl's avatar, which has him in his normal dress and slacks with suspenders and bowtie, but taller and more svelte.]

Ev: Oh, yeah!

Jess: So cute!

Ellie: Earl is the best.

Ev: Earl's the cutest character I've seen in my life. Oh my god.

Drew: Back to his cruising avatar! [laughs] [Earl is in a harness and g-string again in this drawing, but with his more "ideal" build as an avatar.]

Ev: Jesus Christ. [laughs]

Ellie: Wow.

Ev: Oh boy.

Drew: [showing another drawing] This is his partner that left him when he got downloaded into a robot!

Ev: Aw!!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Um, what's in the, uh Adventurer's kit?

Ev: Whatever we want, I think, right?

Jess: Yup! And, like, you can...

Drew: Whatever we want?

Ev: Well.

Jess: And if you can try to convince me it's like, something you would carry, I will just say yes to you carrying it, but you can't go ridiculous with it. You can't be like "I have the item we're looking for!" or "I have the Heart of the Dreaming!" Neither of those things are gonna happen, so, like.

Ronnie: [laughs] So, like, in Pathfinder there's actually a Perk called "Packrat," for Ratfolk, which is, if there is a mundane item that we need, I can just say "Oh, I happen to have it!"

Drew: That is one thing I like about Pathfinder, is that they give you, like you get to pick a couple qualities and they affect your characters, like what is that?

Ev: Oh, that's like what we have!

Drew: The [traits] are really cool, and they can be things that like affect your character, so one of the [traits] can be like you're rich, and you start out with like, three times the amount of money, but that wastes one of your [traits] so it only affects you at the beginning of the game, basically. Whereas, um, you can have a [traits] where, what is it? One of them is that I was an orphan, so everyone who didn't have parents trusted me more automatically.

Jess: Heh! It does kind of also sound like, uh, the proficiencies, almost. Which, are just things you're kinda good at. You'll get proficiencies, you can be good at stuff that isn't, like, directly based... like dancing and cooking an' things like that.

Drew: Earl's really good at tying things.

Ronnie: [laughs]

Jess: Okay.

Ev: That's not surprising.

Drew: We had that discussion.

Ellie: Can I have animal handling?

Jess: Yes, but you can apply it to robots.

Drew: Do you have a list of possible ones or are we just making them up and asking?

Ellie: I'm gonna apply it to robots.

Ev: Uhh... can we, I think we can make 'em up, right? As long as they're not weapon proficiencies?

Drew: Um, and how many do we get?

Jess: Uh, magic-user has three non-weapon, but a Druid begins with three non-weapon slots and gains another at level six, book rules suggest a character should receive two additional slots every six levels. [distant meowing] So you get up to five at level six. A paladin gets two non-weapon slots, one more is gained at level three. A thief acrobat, which is...

Ronnie: [distant] Sheppard, come here!

Sheppard: [continues meowing]

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: Um. [laughs]

Ev: Everyone be quiet, there's a cat talking!

[laughter]

Jess: I don't want to interrupt, but here's something else that's also useful. [sends link]

Sheppard: [meows louder]

[laughter]

Ellie: Jess, I want ancient history!

Jess: Okay. Oh, here's a great list, shit!

Ev: God, the background on this site is balls...

Drew: It's balls and ass!

Ev: [laughs]

Drew: It's a, like, hairy anus.

[laughter]

Jess: But it's useful! Look, I, I didn't make this site!

Drew: Just paste it to a google doc and save our eyes!

Jess: I will paste it into a google doc later!

Ev: [laughs] How difficult are we making your job right now, Jess?

Jess: Not, I mean, you just changed the rules of the game like six times, but...

Ev: Well...

Jess: But it's fine! [laughs]

Ev: It's like, okay so...

Sheppard: [meows loudly into the mic]

Jess: Oh my god that's the loudest cat in the world.

[laughter]

Ev: Who even is this cat?

Drew: You know what's even louder? I'm reading about a spell called Ghost Sounds that sounds completely useless.

Jess: What, what is the spell called Ghost Sounds?

Drew: Um, you just make a sound that people think could be a ghost. You send a whisper fifty feet away.

Ev: Ohhhh, I wish my character believed in ghosts! [laughs]

[laughter]

Jess: This is a decision, okay? Uh, so I decided that technomancy comes in three forms, and... There are Clerics who can like, religious people use their belief to manipulate the world and technology. Magic users use magic over technology to manipulate technology and, um, LARPers, Bards, that lot use technology to manipulate magic, and mechanically, that means that if you are a religious person, you roll under your Wisdom to Hack. If you are a Wizard, you roll under your Intelligence to Hack, and if you are a Bard, you use your Charisma to Hack. Because basically Bards sweet talk the machine into doing what they want.

Drew: "Hey baby... take your cables and tie them up real nice..."

Ronnie: Actually it's... [laughs]

Drew: "Heheheheheh..."

Jess: Earl is a terrible Wizard. Um, here is the other thing, Drew, I'm just making sure you know this... You can use spells that aren't in your spellbook, but you will forget them forever.

Drew: Okay...! I didn't know that, but now I'm like... I'll have to look into spells that I wanna have as like my eventually-I'll-forget-this-spell but it's a pull-it-out-of-my-ass kind of thing.

Ev: Your burn spells.

Drew: Yeah. I don't have my Ass Spells yet though, so.

Jess: Yeah, I just figured you should probably know that.

Drew: I appreciate that.

Ev: All of Earl's spells are Ass Spells.

Drew: Heheheheh!

Jess: [laughs] 'Specially those rope spells. Anyway! Moving swiftly... on!

Ellie: Alright, I was just saying I'm having swimming as one of HuM4n the robot's... proficiencies... even though HuM4n is a robot.

Ev: They could be waterproof. I mean, she could be waterproof.

Ellie: Yeah, but she feels uncomfortable!

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: It's so cute!

Ev: That doesn't sound like a proficiency!

Ronnie: [laughs]

Ellie: No, it's like she's, she's good at swimming, it's just she hates it!

Drew: That's fair.

Ellie: You know how you have parents and they're like "Err, you're gonna do this," and you're like "Why," and then you get good at it, and you're like "I still don't like it!"

Ronnie: [laughs]

Drew: Yeah.

Ellie: That's HuM4n's experience swimming.

Ronnie: Obviously Zibyl is good at sewing.

Ev: Aw!

Drew: Why is it obvious?

Ronnie: Because, Zibyl made zeir clothes from garbage!

[chorus of "aww"s]

Ronnie: And also, uh, and also...

Drew: Why does, uh, Zibyl have red eyes? [Referring to a drawing Ronnie is making]

Ronnie: 'Cause that's what that breed of rat looks like!

Ev: [laughs]

Ronnie: Anyway! Zibyl makes zeir clothes from all of the hand-me-downs from zeir gazillion sibilings, and so...

Ev: Their zibilings?!

[laughter]

Jess: No!

Ronnie: Zeir gazillion ziblings! [laughs]

Jess: No!

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: No! Please... Okay, I'm going to get more water, you guys have to make some decisions! We have to move on this!

Drew: This, this list of spells is, like, terrible! It's so hard!

Jess: Yeah, you shitty spells 'cause you're a shit wizard!

Ronnie: [laughs loudly]

Jess: Get a promotion! Maybe get some better spells!

Drew: I more mean that it's difficult to find what it is, but that's fair! That's fair.

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Um, you didn't get back to me about, you were going to think about my hat, because what you had told me and what the sheet said about what my hat can do is different, and you said you were going to think about it.

Jess: Yes. It can... buff you. Choose a buff. But choose a buff that isn't, like, "I want this for my character for gameplay reasons." Think about it in the world. Like, what did... wait, I can't remember Earl's... oh, Earl. Not deepthroat69, which is why I have it written here.

[laughter]

Jess: Um, what did Earl's, like, mentor... what would he, or she, or they have wanted to pass down to Earl? And what kind of person would they, like what kind of buff would they have put on that hat? So you think about that, I'm gonna get some water...

Ev: My character wants to mentor Ronnie's character, that's, like immediately what they, like... I was talking to Jess about this, they're... actually no, I was talking to Ellie about this I think!

Ellie: Mm-hmm!

Ev: Which is that, they want to take Zibyl under their wing and have Earl take zem under his wing! And then they'd want HuM4n to just not be there. [laughs]

Drew and Ronnie: [laughs]

Ellie: [in a robot voice] HuM4n understands, but will not comply. Beep boop!

[laughter]

Drew: I love it. ...There's not a lot of spells, because they're not sorted in any way, on this Wiki, so it's like going through all these shitty random spells that all like, does this weird obscure thing from this one side quest thing.

Ev: Hmm.

Jess: I'm back!

Ev: Well, I mean maybe you could think about what kind of effects you wanna have, and then just pick something that's similar to that and you can mod it, y'know?

Drew: Yeah, I'm just, a lot of them do things that I don't even know what they mean. So I'm just trying to find ones that make sense, 'cause there's a lot of like weird, stuff being like "alter normal winds" and "avert evil eye, means that Evil Eye doesn't affect you," and then I have to read about what Evil Eye is...

Jess: Evil Eye is someone watching ya. Creepin on ya.

Drew: Oh, okay. That's actually not bad.

Jess: Yeah, I mean I would say you could mod that and be like, it means that cameras around you will go out!

Drew: I like that!

Ev: I really wanna fast ask about, are we, are we doing alignments, because a lot of my stuff has to do with alignments. [laughs] And if it's, I mean, I can totally pick and choose and sort of ignore the whole Detect Evil stuff, but...

Jess: I think... [sighs] Ah, shit, are we doing alignments...

Ev: I don't want to have to be Lawful Good. I, like, that's the most boring thing about being a Paladin ever.

Jess: Oh, I'm definitely not, like, constraining anyone to anything, like...

Ev: Okay, okay...

Jess: Like, those systems exist, but you do not have to abide by, like, race restrictions, character class restrictions... all that shit. Nah. Nah son.

Ronnie: I think, Ev, is that, it's not necessarily that your character is Good because everyone's vision of good is different, just as long as your character falls within their scripture, the honoring the five things...

Ev: Yeah.

Ronnie: I can't remember which... the body things. The bones and the blood stuff.

Ev: Yeah, I think... Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with, like, they... maybe "evil" in this case is stuff that doesn't... well, that's a really really broad base... I dunno. I think maybe, maybe it would be best to just ignore the "what here is evil" skill, because it's so weird and broad, and it doesn't make much sense in terms of actual morality.

Jess: What about "What here is malevolent," or what if you have a virus scanner?

Ev: Ooh! That's exactly what I'm gonna do!

Jess: Like, you can just check if things have bad spells and bad viruses and shit.

Ev: Yeah! Okay, I love that. That's awesome. Oh, and I also have uh, a thing called "Aura of Protection," which is that if Evil tries to attack me within, like, a certain range, it take a -1 penalty, and I'm just gonna say I have really good antivirus software.

Jess: [laughs]

Ev: Okay.

Jess: Okay!

Ellie: So, Jess?

Jess: Hmm?

Ellie: I was thinking about "Speak with Machines." Does that mean there's more than one language with machines?

Jess: I think there might be multiple languages. Because there are like, Ev and I were talking and there are like, different platforms that can get you onto the Dreaming with, and we're making some analogies to like, Wizards and Clerics and Bards being, like, your Mac users, your PC users, and you Linux users. So that's that, and then like to get to the Dreaming you have different "browsers" quote unquote...

Ev: There's also like different programming languages in general that you can use.

Jess: Yeah. That's what I was thinking like, the different classes maybe create... they can all create robots, right? So maybe a robot created by a Cleric has a different language to one created by a Wizard, to one created just by mechanics, to one created by a Bard.

Ellie: But maybe robots speak just like, maybe the spell, 'cause I've got a spell "Speak with Machines," maybe they speak to each other on a spiritual level.

Ev: How would you communicate with a microphone that doesn't have any kind of... maybe that's what allows you to communicate with machines that don't have any kind of like, sentience or whatever, or...

Drew: Maybe you would give them sentience briefly?

Ellie: [dramatically] But Ev! We're ALL from the Earth!

Ev: Yeah but, I can't talk to cows!

Jess: [guffaws]

Jess: [quietly] Sorry.

Ev: Or I can but I can't communicate with them!

Drew: Oh dear.

Jess: Can I also just say, uh one thing we did talk about was that Hymn is the language of the Church of the Born, their like programming language is called Hymn. Like H-Y-M-N.

Ev: I, I thought it was more like, the language of religious things, because the Church of the Born, their whole thing is like, "we don't really do that," so... [laughs]

Jess: Okay, yeah, so maybe it's just that. Religious things.

Ev: Like Clerics use Hymn to do their shit.

Jess: Uhhh, oh, and I found the browser names for where you jack in. Uh, it's Reverie, which is like, Opera, and then Lotus and Morpheus are the ones we have already.

Drew: Uh, so this, uh, thing doesn't actually have anything about the duration of the spell or anything like that, in the Wiki.

Jess: Well, uh, we can just make up durations.

Drew: Kay.

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: We'll figure it out when I actually use it.

Jess: I figure that probably, yeah, it's probably just going to be as long as narratively relevant, so I might just cut it out at a slightly inconveniently time. Cause that's more interesting.

Ellie: Maybe it could be Luck dependent.

Jess: Oh shit yeah! That's a good idea.

Ev: [to Drew] You do have nice Luck.

Ellie: And I have terrible luck!

Ev: That's a great way to use that.

Jess: Yeah.

Ronnie: Also it's funny how the things that I'm interested in have snuck into this roleplay. I mean, rats is obviously one of them!

Jess: [laughs] It's not surprising.

Ronnie: Oh, but, since I'm actually reading through the AD&D book I have a second time, like highlighting shit, I'm just, the things that I've read are just coming into the...

Drew: The what book?

Ronnie: The ADD... the ADD book, sorry.

Drew: [laughs] The AD&D book!

Ronnie: Oh no! [laughs]

Drew: That's why I was asking what you said!

Jess: We're all... yeah.

Ronnie: The ADD book... uh, so I guess Zibyl has ADD traits now. [laughs] Because that's sort of what...

Jess: That's fair.

Drew: Can we go over talking about what my familiar does?

Jess: Oh yeah.

Drew: And like where...

Jess: Where is your familiar right now by the way?

Drew: I don't know! Um, I don't know what my familiar would look like right or anything. We could retroactively have my familiar on my shoulder. A small one?

Jess: Yeah. Or you could have it on your desk?

Drew: I, I could be so creepy, I'm like, "I have a rat familiar!"

Ronnie: Ahh!

Drew: Like a little rat!

Jess: Aw! [laughs]

Ronnie: See, I was thinking about, about Zibyl being like super fond of cats.

Jess: Ha!

Drew: But I feel like the cat wouldn't be the small one.

Ronnie: No, probably not a tiny one, unless it was a tiny cat.

Drew: I could have a squirrel!

Ronnie: Can I run a couple proficiencies past Jess?

Drew: I don't have my proficiencies...

Jess: Yes. You can.

Ronnie: Uh, proficiency in telling whether or not food is good?

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: Like poison detection?

Ronnie: It's like, yeah, it's like poison detection, but it's like, people are like "That looks bad," and then it's like, "No, you'll only just get mild diarrhea, it's fine."

Jess: Ha!

Drew: Yeah, but that would require you to know other peoples' makeup if you can tell what's going to affect them. I can see how it would affect you, but then you'd have to know like everyone else's biological makeup to know how it affects them.

Ronnie: Hmmm...

Ellie: It could be through observation.

Drew: Yeah, it could be through observation, I just meant like you can be that specific in that sense.

Ev: It is though a pretty like, I mean you could be that specific just because it might not be, like, THAT useful

[laughter]

Ev: Like in general, like it's a very specific thing, you know? It's not like it's an overpowered trait or something, y'know?

Ronnie: [laughs] It's true.

Jess: I mean, it might not even be poison detection, technically. Like you can't tell if it's poisoned, but man, those eggs in the back of your fridge? You should really throw them out.

[laughter]

Jess: Oh! No! You know what this is? Like, I think it's a magic thing. Like, I think some of the ratfolk have this weird, like, inborn useless magic and yours is like, it's not even like because you can smell good, it's 'cause... you have like, a sixth sense of whether food has gone bad or not.

Ronnie: [laughs]

Drew: I feel like that's probably gonna bite Earl in the butt because he's gonna look through something and he's gonna want to eat it, and you're gonna be like "That'll make you sick!" and Earl's gonna be like "Fuck you!" and then eat it, and then he's gonna get sick, and he's gonna be like [dramatic gravelly sick voice] "Euurgh, I'm not sick, I dunno what you're talking about! I'm gonna go away now..."

[laughter]

Jess: I also like the idea of like just being able to sense that food is rotten is just kind of really annoying. Like, there's like a constant anxious "Oh shit, in the back of that fridge, it's got someone else's name on it, someone else has labeled it, but there is mould growing up the inside of it, oh god."

[laughter]

Ronnie: Yes.

Ev: And yet, like a totally useful skill if you're a little rat child!

Ronnie: Yes! And so I'm thinking that, and sewing, and... the other thing is... is just like able to sprint for a long time.

Jess: Real hard.

Ronnie: Like compared to other people. Just because, having to run from shit constantly. [laughs]

Ev: And four legs!

Ronnie: And so, and so, if something goes bad, he's just like gone. Bye.

Drew: So we get three, um, three proficiencies right?

Jess: I think you do, yeah, I think everyone at this level has three proficiencies.

Ellie: I get four!

Jess: ...Fuck you, Ellie. [laughs]

Ellie: Aw, whatever. [laughs]

Ev: Do you really or is that...

Jess: Druids get four, and Paladins start, like if we'd started at level one you'd have only gotten two.

Ev: Yeah I'm annoyed. Goddamn it, I chose the wrong class. It's okay, I'm gonna fight the heck out of everybody! Just gimme a minute! [laughs]

Jess: Let us pray.

Drew: Um, okay so I've got knots, like, as one of my proficiencies.

Ev: Catch.

Drew: Well, slash rope. Um, I want leatherworking to be one of my other ones, and then cooking.

Jess: Good. Yeah. Done.

Ev: [laughs] Oh my goodness.

Jess: Okay. Outro! This has been Dicey Situations! I'm Jess.

Drew: I'm Drew!

Ev: I'm Avery.

Ellie: I'm Ellie!

Ronnie: And I'm Ronnie!

Drew: [sarcastic] No you're not!

Ellie: Breaking it down now!

Jess: No!

[laughter]

Jess: This has been a podcast about a game that's kind of being made as we play. We'll find out. It should be fun. See ya next week! [Makes clicking noises, probably while doing finger guns]

[Music fades in]

Drew: [laughs]

Jess: [shyly] Stop laughing.

Ellie: [singing] Ba ba ba, ba ba bada!

[Music continues, then fades out.]

Drew: But before we continue, is this, are these mechanics popular, or are they unpopular mechanics?

Jess: They are really, really unpopular. They've been bullied in the past.

Ronnie: Awwww!

Jess: You NERD. I'm gonna bully Drew!

Drew: [laughs] Bring it on!

Ev: [laughs]

#podcast transcript #official transcript #queer podcast #lgbtq podcast #actual play podcast #actual play tabletop podcast #tabletop games #tabletop rpgs #tabletop podcast #cyberpunk rpg #dungeons and dragons