#those moments had more stakes than this campaign

[formosusiniquis]

when you're fifteen

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise.

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson; Steve Harrington & Mike Wheeler WC: 4044 | Rated T | Tags/Themes: Good Babysitter Steve, Period Atypical Depictions of DnD, HoH!Steve, Disabled!Eddie Ao3

Eddie prided himself on his ability to manage a table. A forever DM, four years into a lifetime sentence, he can keep a story on track and, more importantly, keep tempers in check for hours at a time. 

He kept track of a thousand little details across notebooks, binders, and just trapped in his own brain. He knew everything about his NPCs, the world, his player’s characters, and the things that drove his players nuts. He had plans, backup plans, and vague ideas of shit he could do if things went completely and totally off the rails despite all of those plans. That was one of the things he held fast on his tongue the first time he failed senior year. Of course he didn’t pass. He’d taken on the mantle of Dungeon Master. He had to put together a story that took into account: Jeff’s high stakes backstory with the missing mother and bounty on his head, Gareth’s need to flirt with anything age appropriate that had a pulse, and Joey’s tactical mind when it comes to battle. Wasn’t it enough that he was going to class, he had to do shit at home about it too?

He didn’t like saying it. He liked to bitch about it a lot, actually. Eddie wasn’t really sure what he’d do with himself if he wasn’t The DM. It was like a core part of his identity.

It made the current situation he was in more world rocking than he really wanted to deal with.

He liked to think, if he couldn’t feel the remaining muscles in his side screaming in agony because he was sitting wrong -- or for too long or both -- and if his lower back wasn’t seizing and spasming for the same or maybe a brand new reason it had decided to come up with today, that he’d be able to manage this table just as well as he always had. Eight really wasn’t that different from three.

Except that combat is impossible to manage, each round took forever and that’s when everyone was paying attention. Except that there hasn’t been a satisfying story moment for Jeffrey the Jovial or Dustin’s Sir Rathington in the last four sessions. Except that Erica has been scribbling something in her notebook that probably wasn’t campaign notes since she hadn’t called him on the plot hole he caught session planning a month ago and hasn’t been able to fix -- and is more likely to have something to do with the way he noticed her looking at Uhura and Chapel when she was watching Star Trek reruns with Steve.

Except that Mike has been screaming at Dustin and Lucas for the better part of five minutes and Eddie really isn’t sure how to fix it.

“The plan is stupid. Did you even spend more than ten seconds thinking about it or did you decide that Will could just roll another character and we could save the resources.”

“Will could roll another character. It's not the first time he's rolled another character.” Lucas points out for what might be the third time, Eddie’s lost count.

“This whole thing is about resources, Mike.” Dustin snaps, “We’ll all be rolling new characters if we go into this stupid fucking fight while Gareth has no spell slots, Lucas is down to three arrows, Joey’s already used his second wind, and half the party is below half health.”

“It doesn’t matter, if we don’t go into the fight now Will is going to turn into some bloodsucking vampire spawn.”

Eddie knows this is the point that he should grab the reins again. He should prompt one of them to make a decision, or better yet, take the decision away from them entirely. But there’s a numbness in his thigh that has somehow spread to his mouth; it’s different from the pain the rest of his body is in, not really better or worse, and just as distracting. 

The rest of the table is quiet, boredom and annoyance plain on their faces. But they’ve also stopped looking to him to fix the problem. That’s the worst thing the Upside Down took from him, he thinks, even as his body is radiating pain from places he used to be able to forget he had.

“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Lucas points out. And it should be, but Lucas is a far better tactician than Eddie who already knows he won’t want to deal with the work it would take to do that well. “Y’know since you made all your weak spots pretty clear to Lord Ellias.”

“Or,” Dustin drawls out with a Harrington’s level of bitch and ire, “we could trust Eddie to turn this into a fucking story moment.”

“You guys are both so full of shit, just-” Mike has his nose curled and lip snarled, Eddie can feel the breeze of the blade swinging down to deliver the death blow to this campaign and adventuring party.

“Alright time to take a break.” Steve claps his hands, an angel come from on high to save Eddie. “Get up, get a snack, move your feet. Give my dining room some time to air out before it smells like nerd forever.”

Mike turns the full weight of his aggression on to Steve, who hopefully has a damage immunity or advantage on saves at the very least otherwise this is looking like a short talk, “We can't just take a break. Do you not get what the stakes are here? We've got to save-”

“Save someone who will still be in danger in twenty minutes.” Steve steamrolls over Mike’s argument with an unaffected ease. Eddie can feel the mood of the table lift just a bit, now that they’re about to be rescued.

“You just don't get it.”

“I get that it's pretend.” In a pre-Vencapocalypse world that would have been enough to get Eddie fighting on Little Wheeler’s side, but much as DnD is still his life. Fuck, it is all just pretend. “Go take a lap.”

“Ugh why do we even come over here. We could do this at my house without washed up jocks interrupting us.” Mike says but he gets up. Storming off to god knows where in the monstrosity of Steve’s house. Will, quiet as he always seems to get when he’s the center of one of these drag outs, trails off after Mike with an eye roll at the other two sophomores and an apologetic shrug for Steve.

And Eddie has his table again. Quiet and still, waiting for him to say something. Like there’s even anything to say when his very own Deus Ex Machina is leaving the room without so much as a backward glance at the poor schmucks he’s saved. “Well,” he says with a clap of his hands, “My blood sugar is dropping, so I’m going to shove as many of those cookies I smelled earlier into my mouth as I can in twenty minutes.” Because as much as they weren’t looking to him before, they need the DM to break the spell of the table. That’s how the whole thing goes.

And they scatter once it breaks. Eddie’s original Hellfire boys stay at the table, their ease at the Harrington house has been hardwon and the argument has rekindled something nerdy and skittish in them. Erica has headed off to the corner of the house Steve has let her claim as her own, nose still buried in her notebook. He doesn’t know where Lucas and Dustin are, but wherever they’ve gone they aren’t around to watch him struggle to pull himself out of his throne with his cane. He should just give in and let Steve raise the seat, half the problem is that it sits too low -- but knowing that and being willing to admit it at any point other than when he’s in PT levels of misery from pulling himself up are very different things.

Steve has his back to the door again, by the time Eddie makes his way to the kitchen. He has a bizarre semi-awareness of his surroundings that can be hard to predict. Sometimes it’s freaky how Steve can call out Dustin or Erica from a different room with an almost parental ‘eyes in the back of his head’ sixth sense. Other times his own soulmate can get the drop on him, managing to get her arms wrapped around his middle before he even realizes they’re in the same room.

It’s better to slam his cane against the floor a couple times. To let Steve feel the vibrations through the floorboards with his sock feet, that way nobody has to get hurt or feel guilty for doing the hurting.

Getting to see Steve’s grin bloom across his face as he flips that famous hair and catches sight of Eddie isn’t so bad either.

Next to Steve, it’s safe to prop his cane against the counter. He can rest his hips against the sure, solid surface and relax in the presence of his boyfriend while the blood returns to his limbs and a new kind of discomfort settles in. A hand, warm and sudsy finds the back of his neck. A strong thumb digging into a knot that had been there since at least last week with an erotic precision.

“You’ve got to stop letting them keep you in that chair for so long.”

"If we take breaks we'll just be here longer."

He shrugs, pulling his other hand from the dish water to pull Eddie into a gentle hold. "So be here longer."

"You'd get sick of the fighting. I'd get sick of the fighting." Actually it was probably better not to remind Steve of that. "You know I really did want one of those famous Stevie Henderson cookies."

Even as he hands over the platter of chocolate chip miracles he makes, Steve sighs. It's a full bodied affair that makes Eddie nervous on instinct. "We need to talk about Mike."

It is and isn't a surprise. "I know the yelling is a lot, Sweetheart, I'm sorry. You don't have a migraine, do you? I can talk to him and make him chill out a bit." That last part is absolutely a lie; he doesn't think he could get Mike under control right now if he had a stun gun and half a pound of Argyle’s primo Cali weed.

Not that it matters Steve has on his scrunchy faced 'you're wrong about something,' look, Eddie just needs to give him the minute it'll take to get his thoughts together. "You know I love you right?"

“In this dimension and any others,” Eddie supplies.

Steve smiles, feather soft, and runs a soothing hand through Eddie's hair the way he always does right before he says something atrociously bitchy. "I turn my hearing aids off the second you all start playing. If I had to listen to your game three different times, three different ways I'd drive my car into a portal."

He keeps going the way he does when he's afraid he's been too mean and wants to try to soften his edges for general consumption, like Eddie hadn't fallen in love with him the first time he called Dusin a butthead. "This way you and Dust can still use me as a sounding board for your plots and theories and I don't have to listen to my favorite nerds try to remember if 5+7 is 11 or 12."

“So what’s?”

“I’m worried about him!” Steve insists. Eddie might pride himself on his ability to handle a table, but he knows Steve is proud of his way with the kids. His relationship with each of them is rich and distinct, the way he handles each of them unique.

But it’s Mike.

Something must cross his face. He can only call it something, because he’s honestly not sure what emotion he’s feeling other than headache and how many cookies can I eat before they start tasting like nausea. But something else must have been there that causes Steve to cross his arms and glare.

“Yeah, of course, you’re worried about him. We are worried about him. Why are we worried about him, other than worried about what an asshole he’s been lately?”

That was not the right thing to say either, Eddie’s really rolling straight ones today. Steve’s glare shutters even further closed, and seriously it’s Mike. The same kid who called Steve a washed up jock not ten minutes ago. Who takes every single offered opportunity, and even some that he makes himself, to bitch and glare at Hawkins own #1 babysitter and monster hunter. 

“He’s a teenager with more trauma than a ‘Nam vet. But even if he weren’t he’s not an asshole for being barely fifteen and not knowing when to shut the hell up. Do you remember the kind of shit you were saying back then?”

Big brother Steve has successfully landed a critical hit. Eddie does remember the kind of shit he used to say. Just like he knows Steve remembers the kind of shit he used to say. And they both remember the shit that they used to say to one another. How Eddie called Steve a braindead future Reganite who wouldn’t know good taste if it spit in his mouth. How Steve had called Eddie a tryhard that was so desperate to be different because that was the only way he could hide having nothing to offer.

“So we’re worried?”

“I just don’t want him to say something he can’t walk back because he forgot the thing he’s getting upset over is pretend.” He runs a finger down Eddie’s splayed hands. A tickling sensation he can feel down the path it traces from the back of his palm and down his middle finger and, in a phantom mirror, down his spine. “I know you get into your characters, or whatever, I’m sure this is bringing up a lot of memories but he’s going to regret lashing out if it means he pushes away Dustin or Lucas or one of the other guys.”

“I notice you left out Will.”

“Yeah well, Will is more likely to get hurt by something he says when lashing out while they aren’t playing exposure therapy the game. I mean seriously, you had to kidnap him? That’s where your, ‘Stevie, baby, what should I do with them this week? They decided to do something stupid,’ bitching and moaning landed you?”

Eddie doesn’t even really have time to let himself feel the fluttery, squishy feeling he wants to feel -- cause Steve does actually listen when they’ve got their feet tangled on the sofa together, each working on their own things -- before it’s getting smacked by down by the paladin of his heart. “No, no, that isn’t where I landed. I had a perfectly acceptable diplomacy mission prepared, with a back up fight that they were supposed to run away from. What do you want me to do, Sunshine? I gotta give the game some stakes. It’s not exactly fun for Will if he knows he’s indestructible.”

Maybe, he thinks, he should just stop talking today. Just cancel the rest of the session entirely. Will gets carried off by the vampire spawn, half dead and unsaveable, the party on its last legs, unable to agree on a course of action; and actually that’s where we’re gonna end things come back next week and hope Steve even lets us in the house after the screaming we’ve all done. Why? Because he can feel every joint in his body and every one of them is in pain. Because there’s been the dull throb of a low grade headache beating an even pulse in his temples since he woke up this morning. But mostly because every time he opens his stupid fucking mouth to talk Steve stops touching him, and that sucks absolute balls.

“I maybe had an idea,” Steve says. His voice dips and slides while he keeps his hands small, quiet, and close to his chest. Something Robin told him, and he’s now noticing, means Steve has thought about this idea a lot, long enough that he’s convinced himself it’s bad. Eddie’s noticed that even when these ideas aren’t phrased well, they’re never bad.

“I know it’s like rule number one: don’t split the party,” Steve can’t help but roll his eyes when he says it, an instinctive bit of brotherly mockery of Dustin, he would guess. “But what if you split the group a bit. Mike can go after Will, I’m sure Erica would be down to kill some vampires. She loves a chance to test drive her new feats and shit. Then Jeff and Dustin and whoever else can finish up that thing? With the missing girlfriend or whatever? And once that’s done they reunite to do whatever’s next on the list, save the kingdom.”

Eddie sits with that for a bit.

Impulsive is still his middle name, but sometime between being eaten alive by other dimensional hell creatures and getting a thousand and six tiny, itchy stitches removed he’s started giving things second and even third thoughts. Though in this case the second thoughts are less ‘is this a good idea’ and more ‘will Steve bend me over that solid oak dining table and critique my DM notes while he rails me.’

As his stomach swoops, his lower body twinges in a much less enjoyable way. Letting him know that now he’d been standing too long, or leaning against the counter the wrong way, or maybe something else entirely that made his legs tired of doing one of the few things they were made to do. 

Figures he finally lands a hot boyfriend and he's got chronic pain keeping him from getting his dick wet.

“If you’ve already got another idea-”

“No,” he rushes to assure Steve, who needs to stay confident in his own ideas for all kinds of reasons but right now mostly so he’ll be willing to play into this new fantasy of Eddie’s once his body is willing to cooperate with the standing and the bending it’s going to require. “No, it’s a fantastic idea. I’m plotting as we speak.” 

And that isn’t a total lie. Forever DM, he can think about all the fun ways the love of his life and reason he’s still living could degrade his current campaign -- An oath of vengeance paladin questing to save a lost love, isn’t that a little played out. Oh wow, rat swarms in a dungeon, they’re never gonna see that coming -- and figure out how to trick the group into thinking splitting the party was their own idea.

“How long,” he asks his resident child expert, “do you think it would take Will to roll up a new character?”

The smile that tips the corners of Steve’s face is the best part of his day. “Will always has an extra character rolled up with the rest of his stuff in his folder."

Things are slotting together in his head now, and as Steve's hands come around to do something magical in a spot on his back that probably has a name but mostly makes his legs feel like they should really belong to a baby deer.

“So Will…”

“Can convince Mike, and get a chance to try out the new thingy he built. He’s been waiting to talk to you about it.”

Eddie’s getting excited now, hands shaking in the good way. He doesn’t even care that his knee locks as he tries to bounce on his toes, just lets his hands get out the excited energy. “And the band can go do the story side plot shit I’ve been putting off…” 

“With Dustin,” Steve reminds, “cause he’ll want to go wherever there’s the best chance to stir up shit. You already know Erica is going to go where there’s a chance to prove she’s the best at fighting, Lucas too. Not the fighting thing. He’ll go to round out the group, and so his mom doesn’t have to worry about keeping track of one more thing on the family calendar.”

“You’re a genius, Sweetheart.” He snags Steve by the collar, ignoring his bitching that the two fingered pinch he’s got it in is going to stretch it out, and pulls him close. Pressing a kiss on the corner of his perfect boyfriend’s pleased little smile. “I gotta go talk to Will about this character.”

“Send Mike down when you do?”

He’s surprised when he gets no argument, barely gets acknowledgement, when he finds Will and Mike in the guest bathroom and separates them. Mike slips from the room with nothing but a backward glance at Will, who smiles supportively. Once he clears the room, it takes next to zero prompting to get Will to talk about his backup character. The ‘thingy’ he'd been working on a tricked out ranger build that's going to annihilate. 

There's something fresh, brightening, about Will's enthusiasm for the character that infects Eddie too. It gets him excited, for the first time since everyone arrived, to sit down around their over crowded table and play the hour of set up it's going to take to get the party ready to be split. 

And Will doesn't duck his head anymore when Eddie pushes at him and his DnD expertise, he just pushes back. Together they work out a couple tweaks that will make the build fit better in the party, flesh out a backstory that they can integrate even if it doesn't end up going anywhere, and it doesn't really feel like time passes at all. Until Sinclair is sticking his head through the door, surprise artfully hidden at who he finds, as he asks if they're ready to go.

Mike is conspicuously absent from the table when Eddie makes his way to it, and that won't do at all. He's not an asshole, he's just 15. Something like shame crawls up the back of his throat as Steve's reminder sounds in his head. He remembers 15 and the things he said but more than that, as he looks around the table, he remembers being the last to arrive at a hangout of people you're already worried hate you only to find them having a good time without you. 

Eddie has always prided himself on his ability to run a good session. "Stevie, gimme back our paladin, do I need to bring in a hostage negotiator."

A cookie held in one hand while the other smooths down the ruffled fringe of his bangs, Mike re-enters the dining room. The back of his Hellfire shirt is bunched and, if that weren't sign enough he'd been on the receiving end of a perfect Harrington hug, he looks settled. A smile tugging at his face that Eddie hadn't realized how much he missed, he looks boyish and happy and if Eddie didn't before he understands Steve's mission to keep these kids kids by whatever means necessary.

"Alright, now where were we?” He says once Mike is back in his seat beside Will, “Ah yes, you all watch in horror as the vampire spawn, hastened, dash away from you all with the unconscious, but still alive, body of Sir William the Wizened." Before anyone can restart the shouting, and he knows there will be shouting now that they’ve all had a chance to look over their notes and their character sheets, he barrels on. “From the hill behind you comes a shot. An arrow flies, thwip thwip. It slices between you all, before sinking into the back of one of the spawn at the back of the pack. He stumbles to the ground and the rest of the pack leave him to die.”

“We can interrogate him!” 

“Worry about who’s behind us, dude.”

He doesn’t let Mike or Dustin derail him, Eddie continues, “As you turn the hill behind you is nothing but mist. You all know the range of an elven bow, but whoever fired it is nowhere to be seen. You wait, breath held, as a figure all in black slowly approaches. You get the feeling you see him now only because he wants to be seen.

“Will, describe your new character for us!”

#steddie #steve and mike #mike wheeler #good babysitter steve harrington #hard of hearing steve harrington #disabled eddie munson #its the mikes not an asshole he's just a traumatized teenager fic #yknow the one no one was waiting for #for my tag readers will homebrewed a prototype gloomstalker #and the author borrowed the hardwon vampire arc from naddpod #my fic

[that-ari-blogger]

Psychology of... Willow?

When I set out to do this series, I had a few episodes noted down where I would use the analysis of that post to look into one specific character and their psychology, writing, and the cinematography surrounding that character. For example, I still plan on my analysis of Labyrinth Runners delving into Gus.

But one such episode that I had noted down was Understanding Willow. I planned on examining its eponym's struggle with bullying and how that impacted her mental health.

But this episode is more complicated than that, and I'm not entirely sure that it's about Willow.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

One criticism of The Owl House is that it starts slow, and while my contrarian streak leads me to disagree with that, it is difficult to argue that the series doesn't abruptly gain speed with Understanding Willow. The animation, visual metaphors and storytelling, and the direction all skyrocket.

This is the episode where the series brings its complex storytelling to the forefront, and a key example of this is that this is about Amity as much as it is about Willow.

The premise of this episode is memory. What if memories are tangible? Maybe they are tampered with, or damaged? What if memories could be seen by others? What power does a picture have? Put a pin in this.

In February 2022, Steam Forge games released the Dark Souls Role Playing Game, and bear with me, I promise this is relevant. It is based off the Dark Souls series and the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition system. But I would argue that it pales in comparison to Emanuele Galletto's Dark Souls Unofficial Role-Playing Game.

Galletto's system is a fascinating take on the series it is based on, and is surprisingly balanced, but I'm not here to give a review. Instead, I would like to focus on the rules for humanity and their implications.

Essentially, because death and rebirth are common in the game, in order for stakes to mean anything, Galletto implemented an idea called Sparks of Memory. When a character dies, they lose their memories. These can be sacrificed in exchange for abilities upon level ups, or they can be established through the game and through the adventure itself.

"When you die, you lose a Spark of Memory: a piece of your being will be forever lost, and you will be a step closer to losing yourself... With time, you might become an entirely different person, driven by a strong will but completely changed by the trauma of death and reshaped by your journey throughout this accursed land."

This system is called Humanity, the passage above is taken from a page literally entitled "Loss of Humanity", which means something, right? But weirdly enough, this is a system that forces optimism. Pessimism and fear that the world will only get worse are not particularly good motivators. Anger and grief at specific moments are all well and good, but at the end of the day, when they leave your character, why are you still moving forwards? Hope.

When I was playing this, I genuinely watched the power of friendship develop into a major force in the campaign, as the characters reassured each other and formed these memories together. If memories are who you are, then people who remember you are equally important in keeping you in check. These were people who developed into relentlessly determined heroes, with a grim focus on making the world a better place, together.

I have never really cared about the science fiction debate of what constitutes humanity, but this is a genuinely interesting take on the question that I highly recommend experiencing yourself.

But why have I just spent almost 400 words talking about Dark Souls? Because Understanding Willow displays some of the same ideas. Memories are what makes Willow who she is, and when those get damaged, she runs into problems. What is fascinating, is how much of Willow's memories were formed in relation to others. Her fathers (hey, gay male representation in cartoons, don't see that often) feature often, but so does Amity.

Bullying is one of those almost universal experiences in life. If you haven't been a subject of it, you have probably witnessed it.

Studies have been trying to ascertain the impact of bullying on mental health since at least the 1970s, with the oldest source I could find being Dan Olweus' 1973 Victims and Bullies: Research on School Bullying, although that was written in Swedish, and I haven't been able to find a copy of that original book. It was allegedly published in English in 1978, retitled Aggression in the Schools: Bullies and Whipping Boys, of which the internet archive has a copy that is available.

Research into the subject has continued into the modern day and has been updated to modern scientific and psychological practices. For example, this study was published in 2021, and concluded that: "Reports of mental health problems were four times higher among boys who had been bullied compared to those not bullied. The corresponding figure for girls was 2.4 times higher."

What this means is that it is important to understand Willow in the context of Amity, and it is important for Amity to witness that effect directly in order to change herself.

Sorry, wrong image. How did that get in here? That's from a game called Melatonin, by the way.

There we go.

So, memories in the Owl House are tangible. They can be changed, or erased artificially, and "artificially" is the key word here, because memories can change naturally. A rare few people are infallible in that regard. But Willow is making an attempt to forget her life with Amity, she turns it away and avoids talking about it, rather than confront her past.

"That's my motto after all. Out of sight, out of mind."

It's notable that the illusion teacher governs the memory system, meaning that memories in this series use the same rules as the rest of illusion magic. I have another post going into detail about that, but TLDR: Illusions have an impact on real life in the same way that anything else can. They aren't representations of lies, but consequences. You can change yourself to match your true self, for example, but you need to understand what that means for everyone and everything around you.

So, memories associated with consequences? What a strange correlation, I wonder if that means anything.

You would think that the tragic memory would be of the bullying, right? A single moment crystalised into something awful, but what Willow wants to escape from, and what scares Amity the most, is the simple fact that these two used to be friends. It becomes a betrayal.

I think that the Inner Willow was a master stroke of the writing, because it gives agency to Willow's subconscious. It says the quiet things out loud in a way that Amity cannot get away from, and it is a creature that she will have to confront. It acts as a personification of consequence.

"Love, sadness, fear. I used to be a being made of all emotions. But ever since you set Willow's mind on fire, all I've been able to feel is anger."

There is a neat little double meaning here. Amity literally started burning Willow's memories of happiness accidentally, but she also did it figuratively a long time ago. The betrayal poisoned every other memory that Willow had of her and turned it sour, their relationship was shattered, perhaps permanently, and Willow suffered.

This actually links back to Galletto's Dark Souls. In the same passage where the mechanics are explained, Galletto gives this explanation:

"A Spark of Memory is something that keeps you human: funny thing is, they are rarely happy memories. Turns out pain, anger and regret take deep roots into our hearts, and the strength of these emotions can keep us going even when our body is broken"

Galletto isn't entirely false here, pain and suffering are powerful motivating forces, they can keep propelling you forwards. The Inner Willow would certainly agree with that sentiment. But I don't, and I don't think The Owl House as a whole, or even this episode, do either.

I mentioned above that gameplay displayed a contradicting view on powerful emotions, but Understanding Willow also argues this point. Anger is strong, don't get me wrong, but love can win out, and it does so through empathy. The thing that saves Willow in the end is Amity's declaration of understanding and desire to do better.

The strongest emotion that you will ever feel, is hope. Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better today, or hope that a relationship that you had thought doomed might be reconcilable. Hope will win out. Light, do not falter.

But, I said that this was an episode about Amity as well, and if you have seen this episode, you know exactly which scene I am going to talk about.

This scene pulls zero punches. From the fading away memories of young Amity and Willow to reveal their cynical, older selves; to the dialogue and the acting; to the construction of Amity's conversation with her parents. This is phenomenal.

This is the memory that started it all, this is the betrayal. Whoever did the expressions on the memories needs a prize because that is half of why this works so well. The other half of why this works is the lines, both what is said, and how it is delivered.

"I just... I just can't get the spells right" "Well, yes. That... that is why. Because you're a weakling."

I keep saying this is a betrayal because it is. Friendships are built on trust and if that gets broken, good luck getting it back.

"Then you let your new friends pick on her, all because you thought she was weak."

It's important to understand what the Inner Willow is saying here. She's not complaining about the belittling or ambition, she's holding Amity accountable for her inaction. When Amity stood by and did nothing while Bosha bullied Willow, she was complicit in that bullying. Just because she didn't say anything doesn't make it any less her fault, for encouraging it by laughing, or by not standing up for Willow when she needed it.

Actions have consequences, but so does the choice to do nothing.

The camera pans back into the door and gives just a smidge of context, and there are some bold visual choices going on here.

First up, the limiting of the space makes amity feel boxed in and trapped, and it evokes a feeling of looking through a keyhole. You only see a fraction of what is going on, but it is enough to know what is happening.

Second, Amity is the only thing in colour here, meaning that she is still the centre point of the frame, despite being tiny.

Third, the Blights aren't shown in detail, only their shadows. It is their legacy that they leave behind on display, the shadows that they cast. But its also not the point. Showing the visual designs of the Blights would take away impact from what they are saying. This is a simple shot so that you understand exactly what is happening.

"Good children don't squabble, dear. Sever your ties with Willow, and if you don't..." "Then we will."

Once again there is some reframing of Willow's life. Where Amity's betrayal tainted the memories of their times together, the Blights' words reframe everything after that point as out of her control.

"We'll make sure she never gets admitted into Hexide."

Amity is trying to protect Willow, and the actions that cause this episode's conflict become reframed as well. Amity wants Willow to forget her but doesn't comprehend how much of Willow's life was centred around her. She doesn't yet understand the consequences of her actions.

Final Thoughts

Willow and Amity are fascinating characters, and the depth that this episode brings to their actions and interactions sheds light on the series up to this point, and the series going forwards.

Willow has such a low level of self esteem that she is willing to hurt herself to support others, and this episode goes into why. But to that, I offer some advice. When I was researching this, I came across a motivational image by yogaspace.com. I had to search for the message's original source, which ended up being Penny Reid's Beard In Mind, but it reads as follows:

"Don’t set yourself on fire trying to keep others warm.”

Take from that what you will.

Next week, I will be looking at Enchanting Grom Fright, so stick around if you want my thoughts on that.

Previous - Next

#rants #literary analysis #literature analysis #character analysis #what's so special about...? #the owl house #toh #dark souls ttrpg #dark souls role playing game #bullying #amity blight #willow park #toh amity #toh willow #the owl house amity #the owl house willow #understanding willow #long post

[passerkirbius]

Rusty Quill Saga - 24 Hour Follow Up

Hi everyone! I appreciate all the new follows! Might actually get me posting more about stuff!

So, it's been about a day since I posted my response to the Rusty Quill article, and reading some of the tag comments I wanted to respond to a couple, again in the interests of helping those who aren't within the audio fiction community get a little context that you might not otherwise have had.

But I also wanted to put my cards on the table - why should you listen to me? Hi! My name is Lee Davis-Thalbourne, I'm Australian, and I'm one half of the Fiction Podcast Production team Passer Vulpes Productions. We're the creators of a number of fiction podcasts, including Love and Luck and Supernatural Sexuality with Dr. Seabrooke. I also have a reasonable resume of small VA roles with a lot of different podcast production teams, I have a history of theorycrafting around podcast production, and I'm currently engaged in some part-time independent research around fiction podcast production that, if people are interested, I might actually get around to finishing one day. Myself and my partner Erin were the founders of AusFicPodMakers, which was/is an informal group supporting audio fiction producers in Australia, and as part of that support, I currently curate a list of Australian Fiction Podcasts (which I encourage you to take a look at!). In terms of affiliations, PVP is not associated with any podcasting network (though a few have knocked on our door), and I'm not currently producing audio fiction right now - I have no projects on the boil, so to speak.

So, I think I can say, with some evidence, that I'm a part of the audio fiction production scene, that I care about audio fiction in general, that I might have some thoughts worth listening to about it, and that I'm a mostly disinterested party regarding this - I have no particular stake in Rusty Quill's fortunes one way or the other.

Tag Responses

Okay, so I wanted to quickly respond to a few of the tag comments that have popped up in response to yesterday's post, mainly because I feel like it's worth expanding on some of them:

#i also feel bad because i was always kinda wary on tma2#now it feels even more like a cash grab

Look - as a podcast producer, I can respect a cash grab. If you can grab that cash, I'm a strong believer in doing so, because making audio fiction without cash is kinda sucky. It's like any other big endeavour - when you get nothing out of it, it eats away at you. That's part of the reason why PVP isn't producing at the moment - We tried to scale up to multiple productions and it damn near killed us. We weren't really getting the income we needed to do more than just barely break even - we, as producers, weren't making a dime off of our podcasts, even with Patreon and crowdfunding. Rusty Quill is actually an extreme outlier regarding their ability to get cash from their audiences. How extreme? Well, before the TMA2 kickstarter, the most successful Audio Fiction crowdfunding campaign was Unseen, from the producers of Wolf 359, one of the seminal audio fiction shows of the modern audio fiction renaissance, and it hit a little over US$40,000. Which, just to note, was significantly higher than any other audio fiction crowdfund project before it - very few audio fiction crowdfund campaigns get more than around US$5,000-10,000.

So, sure, it's a cash grab. It might still be good anyway though! Don't disregard it just because they're making financially-dominated decisions.

#Adding onto this while the evidence isn't conclusive (because as many people have said it is conjecture and opinions and stuff)#and also the author's credibility is...in question

So, first things first, Newt Schottelkotte is an extremely credible journalist in the Audio Fiction space - they've broken a number of big stories, and written a lot in support of the audio fiction production scene. Wil Williams, who helped edit the piece, is also a highly respected critic and journalist within the space, while Tal Minear is a very prolific audio fiction producer of good repute. Personally, I have absolutely no concerns about their integrity or credibility - they've all done incredible work.

But it is worth noting that Audio fiction is kinda odd, in that journalists, critics and producers all pretty much come from the same group of people. The honest fact is that Audio Fiction, as a beat, has pretty much no prestige, there are (currently) no publications that are dedicated to audio fiction coverage, and the whole sector is mostly considered an afterthought to the real podcast industry. So, the few people who do create audio fiction meta-content, even if they begin as separated from the industry, don't stay separated for long - they will start making contacts with producers, they may start finding people offering cameo roles in shows, and eventually, they'll consider moving into podcast production. If your requirement for a "credible" voice within audio fiction journalism is one that has absolutely no connections with any actual production, I'm sorry but that ain't happening - the scene is too small, and people move between production and commentary so often, that "true independence" isn't a thing.

With that said, these journalists do a lot to make their affiliations visible up front, which is the other way to manage conflicts of interest within the scene - by declaring them. I'd be a lot more suspicious of a journalist that doesn't put their affiliations up front, honestly.

The Rusty Quill Response

So, I wrote yesterday that I wasn't expecting a response from Rusty Quill for a good three days - they are a group, it takes time to coordinate a response, I figured I could relax for a bit. However, Rusty Quill has already produced a response, and that alone says something - it says that a single person has dictated this response. Considering the record speed, I also doubt that it has been looked over by anyone else. Knowing these things, I find it very likely that this is Alex Newall's response specifically, speaking for Rusty Quill, rather than one that that the leadership at Rusty Quill has worked on together.

I'm not going to go through the whole thing point by point - I don't have the time, and this post is already too long for most Tumblrites to consider going through it. But on a more general level, I find it interesting that the response contains not a single link, not a single pointer towards contrary evidence. Almost certainly this is due to the timeframe - were I in RQ's position, I would be going through our paperwork to find some boilerplate contracts to provide some counter-evidence to the article, or providing some financial details to show where the money is going, but finding, redacting, and publishing these things takes time. RQ has done none of this, and this isn't necessarily a point against them, but it does mean that Rusty Quill hasn't done much more than shout "Am not!" into the audience.

To talk about one specific point, I also find it interesting that, having been attacked on the subject of crew pay rates, they talk about how their cast have very good pay rates. This might be true, I don't have the resources to fact check that, and I hope it is - actors do deserve pay. But it is worth noting that actors are on a production for very little of the time - it's the editors, sound designers, musicians, transcribers, etc who put the most time on to a production. In general, you'd expect that the crew would be getting more money than the cast, because the crew is going to be putting in more time (although, fair's fair, the vast majority of audio fiction out there doesn't do this, because the only "crew" is the producer, who is usually financing the production out of their own pocket).

Questions?

So, I figure that if I'm putting myself out there, I might as well offer the opportunity for people to pick my brain. Have a question about Audio fiction production? Want to hear my explicit comments about something someone has said? My asks are open, I'll do my best to come back and answer any asks that come my way.

#tma #the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #rusty quill #rq #industry explainer #audio fiction

[feith-rikya]

All these characters are from an RPG campaign called; Gehenna's Gates, set in the world of Vampire The Masquerade.

Danya Vetranov:

A charming Ravnos with a difficult past. Her sire took her to the circus for her extraordinary divination skills, and for many years that place was her home. The events she experienced in London had a radical impact on her life, pushing her to become the human soul of her coterie. She has a natural talent for bringing people together and considers those close to her as her family. She's willing to do anything to protect them, without any hesitation.

Anselm Godwyn: A True-Brujah who earned his position as Archon due to his ability to control time. He was given the task of keeping tabs on London when the signs of Gehenna were already evident, hampered by a rather peculiar group of vampires and the reappearance of a beloved face lost centuries ago.

Danya Vetranov/Anselm Godwyn/Danselm:

In a London shrouded in shadows and mysteries, where unexplained murders upset the hierarchy of vampires, Danya Vetranov meets the new prince of the city, Anselm Godwyn, introducing herself to him according to Camarillian traditions. Anselm, a charismatic and courteous man, demonstrates an unusual interest in the Ravnos, earning her honor for unexpected attentions. So the fortune teller begins to aspire to something more than just a role in the circus.

Their fiery passion grows, bringing them closer and lead Danya to blindly trust him, ignoring the events in London.

However, the story takes a dramatic turn when Danya discovers the staked body of an identical woman in the dungeon. This reveals Anselm's dark past and his true identity as Archon and True Brujah, an ancient vampire capable of manipulating time. At a time when it seems that Anselm wants to hurt Danya for having discovered the truth, he instead destroys the coffin with the body of his former lover and confesses everything about his tragic love story, the curse that haunts him and about her actions and the Camarilla's heinous orders against her friends.

Following this revelation, Anselm pushes Danya away, withdrawing into himself. Danya returns to her friends, who already know of the Camarilla's wrongdoings against them. From that moment on, Danya pledges not to betray her family and her love, but the gap between her and Anselm grows ever wider. The Archon seems to grow increasingly irrational, violent and jealous, bringing Danya closer to the vile Rudolf. Eventually, it all boils down to a final confrontation against Anselm, leading the group to fight for their survival until they finally defeat him.

Yet, it seems that these two lovers tragically separated for the second time, do not want to stop meeting and there are still many mysteries and misunderstandings to unravel.

#vtm #vampire #vampire the masquerade #brujah #true brujah #ravnos #camarilla

[pianostarinwonderland]

Never got the chance to say this from how busy I suddenly got, but I really want to say this about Glorious Masquerade.

I've played Twisted Wonderland since JP launch, and in that time, I can count only two times that I was sad to see an event or a campaign end. It was the Octavinelle chapter campaign and the first Beans Day event. I was sad for several reasons, one of them being that they were the very first events, and I found joy in them. But I also grew attached to Octavinelle and to Azul especially because of those events. After those events, I never cared about the other events enough to feel sadness over seeing them end. Many of them were fun, and I got to learn so much about the characters, but I never felt emotionally attached otherwise.

Halloween events had always irritated me for being too long. The first Halloween burnt out many fans, and I witnessed this firsthand in my servers and in Tumblr. So when I heard that Masquerade was going to last till December 1, I had an "ah shit here we go again" moment but in a tired way.

But Glorious Masquerade was different. For the first time after two years, I would be looking forward to a new part. For once, I did not mind that the event lasted for more than a month. It was painful to wait a week for a new update, and yet there was a thrill in waiting for a week. Because if it was a 2 day wait, I think it wouldn't be as enjoyable since those two days are used to process what just happened. I loved every single moment of the event. Of course, Azul being the SSR for the event made me enjoy it 100x more than usual, but I was able to enjoy everything. I loved that moment when Jamil and co teased Trein about his wife. I loved learning that Riddle used to cut his hair himself until Cater stopped him. I loved seeing Epel use his UM to protect Riddle. I loved seeing Ruggie and Jamil use their UMs to use other students as bait. I loved Malleus telling Rollo that he views his magic as a gift that he can choose to share with the people he cares about. I loved Rollo and his complex relationship with magic and mages. I loved the high stakes that this event had. I loved the way Neige and Chenya protected Rook & Epel and Riddle & Deuce. I loved the concept of the extinct flower sucking up magic until a mage has no more. I loved even the diary scene that would have been cringe normally but was somehow endearing to see. I loved Azul finally revealing his UM incantation. I loved the rhythmic where Malleus, Azul, and Idia sang. I loved all the HoND references. I loved... everything. I was excited over every little thing, which I thought was not possible anymore after being exposed to TWST for so long.

When I reached the end of the Glorious Masquerade event, I felt so sad. I would not be looking forward to a new update for this story. I felt a sadness that I hadn't felt in more than two years, and I almost wish that this was the endless Halloween event because I wished the moments that Glorious Masquerade gave me lasted forever.

So as we finally move to new events, I just want to say thank you TWST for giving us such a wonderful story. The writing was amazing and spectacular, to the point that it beats out some of the main story episodes. I had some of the most fun I ever had this year thanks to this event. I genuinely enjoyed this event. As Diasomnia chapter arrives, I just want to say that I am really looking forward to what TWST has in store for us, and I can't wait for a very thrilling episode.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst jp #GIRL I'M EMOTIONAL OK #i love glorious masquerade it's like . genuinely my favorite event now #if a new event comes that will beat out this event fucking congrats to the writers who will make that because #i really don't know what will beat out masquerade #i'm gonna miss it honestly and that's saying so much

[burr-ell]

while I've been a cr fan for a while now, i've only recently started to interact more with the fanbase after completing campaign 2 and starting to go through campaign 3(i will hopefully catch up before it concludes but who knows lol) and man is the fandom strange. never have i seen a fandom have both a toxic positivity problem as well as a toxic criticism problem at the same time. people both viciously defend the show and attack it depending on the time of day it feels like lol. that being said I do want to know about what you enjoy about the show? I feel like most of the posts i've seen of yours are meta/takes about the fandom, which i do enjoy don't get me wrong, but i'd love to see things you like, especially if they're niche things! sorry if its a question you've been asked before! much love from another, what i would say, sane critical role fan ahhah

ah you want to see me be annoying. bless you anon <3

-mr lord percival de rolo and ms lady vex'ahlia de rolo and their sister/in-law ms lady cassandra de rolo and their bear son trinket de rolo and their baby quarter elf de rolos and their bear grandson charles de rolo and

-listen, i don't know what made me such a lunatic about perc'ahlia and their family but i am, that will never change, they've both suffered so much loss and they could have gone dark so many times but they didn't! they both chose the light and each other and chose the light because of each other and they have a FAMILY, whitestone is a city of rebirth and i want to gnaw on something every time i think about it

-i also just! love vox machina as a whole! it's classic, archetypal fantasy adventure stuff and that's why i love it. i love the chroma conclave arc especially, i really enjoy the stakes and the traveling across the world and the absolutely ridiculous moments that grew out of it. vox machina is, in the metanarrative, the living legend—the group that started it all and began breathing life into the world of exandria, and i've always enjoyed those kinds of stories.

-EXU CALAMITY. if you haven't seen it you absolutely should, i highly recommend it. it's an amazing story, the characters and setting feel so realized and alive in the four episodes they were around, and the actual players are incredible. i love the lore it introduced, i love the specter of vespin chloras over the narrative, i love how much presence asmodeus has and how well brennan plays such a master manipulator. and the INTRO??? why isn't the intro released as a single it's so good

-i've only had fy'ra rai and morrighan for a day and a half. if anything happened to them i'd kill everyone in the crown keepers

-i love the kinds of concepts and narratives that taliesin considers for his characters and how deeply he thinks through their presence in the world. he's thought so much about whitestone and both what it used to be like and how it's changed since C1, and while i've only watched the m9 twoshot, lucien/molly/kingsley is such an interesting idea (and i just really like kingsley). ashton is also an absolute joy to watch, and i'm so curious about their backstory and lore. taliesin has a knack for portraying characters who have very strong moral and personal beliefs but would rather coexist in a world with others' than enforce their own, which is probably why i like percy and ashton so much in particular. i also really enjoy his sense of humor; it's very dry and snarky with just the right amount of gothic whimsy.

-simply put. Travis Good. even back when he was playing grog, who is on paper a pretty simple character concept, he just couldn't help but give him a compelling and interesting backstory—and when he had to show off his acting chops, he DELIVERED. the depth that he gives his characters and the enthusiasm he has for the lore of the world are so burr-coded. cerrit in particular was an absolute tour de force and just watching travis go for whatever decisions he's going to make is incredible. he's also absolutely hilarious and his comedic timing is underrated. i mean, southerner to southerner, game recognize game.

-laura bailey!! i'm so fascinated by her consistent narratives about masks and coping mechanisms, and i love the fact that she's willing to make her PCs unlikable. she embraces their flaws and their virtues and just plays them so naturally. you have to read between the lines sometimes with her characters or you risk falling for the fronts they put up, and i love that kind of subtlety! she also doesn't feel the need to walk anyone through those choices, which i also appreciate; she simply plays them as they are, and however you react to that is up to you. i admit i'm interested in the alternate universe where laura played a character in calamity—marisha absolutely nailed it as patia, but i'm also interested in what laura would have done at that table.

-welcome to tal'dorei? oh my GODS that album is spectacular, especially the title track

-lastly, i genuinely enjoy the fandom experience! i've met some really cool people and made some really good friends here, and i love the creativity, especially of fanartists. i've learned so much about narrative and storytelling from reading different people's analyses, i've learned more about art from the fanart community, and overall i feel like the people i've met and the experiences i've had have helped me grow as a person.

anyway thank you for encouraging some positivity! i enjoy writing meta and critical analysis is really fun for me, but it's nice to take a step back and remember all the things i love. <3

#asks #critical role

[adventuresinclientservice]

Instead of being good in the moment, failing at it.

After happily arriving at a title for the International Advertising Association’s Annual Conference – “Why Client Service is an Art” – I soon realized I needed a story to open my remarks, something that would illustrate, demonstrate, and validate the title.

I was stymied for a bit, but then recalled a post I wrote, “Great client service people are ‘good in the moment;’ what the hell does that mean?” and had my answer. 

The piece recounts how my Foote, Cone & Belding Account Management colleague, Jane Gardner, was able to convince a client CEO, on the verge of thwarting a major brand campaign we presented, to instead do the exact opposite and greenlight it.

It was an amazing turn of events, now largely forgotten by nearly everyone in the room that day with Jane, by everyone at the rest of the agency, and by everyone in the rest of the business.  Pretty much everyone except me.

I thought of this again as I revisited post-October 7 events occurring on university campuses around the country, as Jewish students felt the sting of threatening backlash emanating in the aftermath of the terrorist group Hamas’ ruthless slaughter – there are no other words to describe it – of 1,200 Israeli citizens.

With temperatures rising in college campuses around the country, the Presidents of three of the country’s most prestigious and prominent universities, Penn, Harvard, and MIT, were called to testify before Congress.  In the midst of the hearing, there came a moment when Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked President Elizabth Magill of Penn,

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?”

Stefanik then turned to Harvard’s President Claudine Gay, to ask if

“calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard's Code of Conduct?”  

Stefanik also put much the same question to Sally Kornbluth of MIT.

The answer was obvious, but the responses were uniformly tentative, waffling, indecisive, unclear, and compromised:

From Magill:  “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes,” From Gay:   “It depends on the context,” From Kornbluth:  “It would have to be targeted at individuals and pervasive, as well as require an investigation.”

It’s a simple question:  is the answer yes, or no?  There are times when nuance is called for; this clearly was not that time. 

No need to take even a second to respond.  No need to consult with attorneys.  No need to check with anyone on campus, not professors, not administrators, and not students.  The answer is simple, unequivocal, unimpeachable.

I’m reading these answers, thinking, “What is wrong with you people??  Have you lost your minds??”

Here was a moment when clarity, concision, and conviction were at stake, and all three Presidents, instead of being equal to that moment, failed at it.

Magill and Gay are no longer Presidents of the Universities they led.  Kornbluth, who is, if you can believe it, Jewish, might survive, but should not.

My politics are the polar-opposite of Elise Stefanik’s – she stands for everything I’m opposed to -- but when a moment like this presents itself, it defies politics or party; more than anything else, it serves as a fundamental test of character:  do you have the courage to stand up and proclaim what’s right, or not?

Th other day, in an entirely different venue, I heard Presidential candidate Nikki Haley respond to a question, “What was the cause of the Civil War?” in an equally baffling, outrageously infuriating way.

What is wrong with all these people??? 

When I witnessed Jane Gardner’s response to our CEO client, there was absolutely no one she could turn to for advice or guidance.  A bunch of us were in that room, but Jane didn’t need rescuing.  She needed to be good in the moment; she was, and then some.

The stakes were admittedly exponentially higher for those tone-deaf University Presidents and that laughably ridiculous Presidential candidate, but their answers were no less clear.  They had their moment to be good.

To a person, they weren’t.

#antisemitism #advertising #marketing

[snowingmelodypoetry]

This is an introductory post.

Hi everyone! I'm Melody.

I'm an anonymous writer (unless you know me already), usually posting all, if not, most of my works on Tumblr and also then on Tik-Tok; I like the simple format of the dark theme and the account header of my posts on Tumblr and use the platform to swiftly screenshot and upload them with accompanying music on Tik-Tok.

I'm sure there's an easier way to do it all solely on Tik-Tok- but I like this way, and it seems easy enough for me, and unique enough that I can call it my own.

The content I produce is mostly Free Verse poetry. It all started with a simple writing exercise I made up called "A Month of Emotions." Essentially, I write a poem every day, usually about my feelings or some form of event that happened that day. I give that poem title, and then at the end of the month, I mash all the titles together and post that altogether as another poem, entitled "A Month of Emotions"

That poem will be coming very soon.

Now, you may look back at my archive and be like, "Melody, you didn't post every day for a month," or "there are poems in you Tumblr archive that aren't on tiktok."

Those are both true. As to the first point, the original exercise began as a way for me to accomplish 2 things:

1. To start writing more

And 2. To practice feeling, expressing, and confidently affirming my emotions. To enhance my emotional range. Even the "bad ones" i.e sadness, loneliness, grief, anger, hatred, etc.

With both these 2 goals in mind- I think while yes, not posting *every day* for a whole month is a failure of the arbitrary "challenge" I believe I got what I needed from it, and the original exercise evolved into something a bit bigger than itself.

I also believe that in the spirit of "A Month of Emotions" the "skipped" days also speaks to the emotions and feelings of that day. Whether it was burn-out, or an overwhelming experience that took me more than a day to process into words, I believe it true to exercise still, and in the entitled poem, "A Month of Emotion" I think they'll be implemented as a doubled space between lines.

As to the second point:

I didn't intend to begin posting on Tik-Tok, but then I just did and that started me off on the platform beyond just being a lurker, liking posts, saving to my faves, etc.

I won't delve too much into my personal life, but I will share some fun tidbits.

I've enjoyed writing in some form for a long while. I distinctly remember a moment in freshman year where I told myself that I wanted to become a writer. Back then, I used the word "author" as the intention was to write stories in book form. Maybe some day I will, but I'm transmuted my definition of storytelling across multiple mediums.

Nowadays, I write poems, as you can tell. I also work every now and then on writing a long-running D&D campaign. It's just the skeletal structure of a campaign, as to avoid strictly railroading players into an inevitable rigid story.

To me, D&D is an improvisational collaborative storytelling exercise, with sprinkled in game mechanics and rules to help broadly give things stakes and to introduce a little luck...

To me, it's less of a "game" strictly speaking, and more like when a group of musicians get together and jam out randomly and create a song.

In this case, I just haven't gotten a group of people together to play it with me as a DM. I do have a group, but I'm in as a player for their stories and we've been at a capacity between campaigns. As mine is much more long form, I'm patiently waiting until it's my turn to start spinning the webs of story.

Earlier, I mentioned music and very much purposefully too! I played in band since 4th grade, picking up the saxophone. I still have my ol' instrument. She sits in her case in my closet. There's a part of her that's broken, making it nearly impossible to play correctly, and I just haven't had the funds to fix her since after senior year.

After senior year, though, I still practiced and even studied music. Using keyboards and piano, I went to college learning about the music industry.

Things got crazy, money got tight, a job I had became too demanding of my time, and for other troubled reasons, I also wasn't doing too well in school and lost passion and interest and finally stopped going.

Then after I switched jobs and things were looking a bit better and I was just barely able to start school again- the pandemic happened, I lost the job I had going for me, and it seemed pointless to start school when the whole world looked like it was burning down.

But now, finally, after years and years, I might be able to start going again soon.

So much has changed since then. I originally had aspirations to develop music for video games.

I still enjoy music very much, it means so much to me and is very important as well.

Who knows? Maybe I could finally run the DnD campaign that I've written as a passion project, jotting down the adventures of me and my players in a more final form, creating that story.

Maybe I can share that, get with an animator and voice actors, and create a series? Maybe I could make the music for that! Or maybe the story could be spun into an action rpg like video game, work with indie developers, and do that!

A younger version of myself would think all of that above is dreaming too big- but as I mature and grow older, the more I begin realizing none of that is impossible. In fact, even if it is just a hobby now, with practice, passion, and effort, it all seems very achievable!

I think that's enough for now. I encourage everyone to take a deep breath, drink water, and continue dreaming. I'll be back with my poems soon! Thank you. 🤗

[savevsfacemelt]

Post-game Musings - Scum & Villainy

Hi, yes, I know it's been like a year since our last entry. Life is... complex these days. Nobody trusts anybody now, and we're all very tired.

But a lack of blog entries doesn't mean I haven't been running games; it just means I've stopped writing and reporting on session writeups that no-one bothered to read. It's a new paradigm, people - evolve or die.

And speaking of dying, let's look at the Scum & Villainy game I've been running all year! No-one died, that was a lie to support a segue, I have no regrets.

What's Scum & Villainy? It's a science-fiction game based on Blades in the Dark, in which the characters are freelance criminals (or at least crime-adjacent-independent-contractors) flying their spaceship around a setting that's a bit Star Wars, a bit Firefly, a bit many other media properties and doing heists & odd jobs.

What do I have to say about Scum & Villainy after 9 months of play? A few things, actually.

--

Scum & Villainy is a pretty good RPG. Not perfect, but pretty good! It takes the Blades in the Dark formula and mechanics and does a solid job of translating them to the sci-fi genre. The best bit of new design is adding a floating pool of extra dice ('gambits') for improving rolls, along with unique ways for different playbooks to use them. The weakest parts are that the spaceship-improvement minigame isn't as engaging or useful as the turf-claiming minigame in Blades, and that the Heat mechanic becomes a bit toothless when the party can just fly to another star system where they aren't wanted. But those qualms aside, the setting is fun and full of things to do, the rules work well and everyone had a good time.

It can take some getting used to, though. Some of my players weren't that conversant with non-D&D/trad-style games, and it took a little time to adjust to how S&V allocates narrative control vs mechanics. Downtime tends to be loose and narrative in trad games, but it's codified and mechanised in S&V; meanwhile, S&V uses equipment mostly as fictional positioning rather than giving it mechanical heft like in D&D. The biggest adjustment might be just the approach to dice-rolling & action, though. Modern D&D play tends to involve lots of low-stakes, low-impact dice rolls, little moments for players to grab attention when success and failure are both fun and largely meaningless. In S&V, almost every roll has the potential to break bad in some way, so you only want to roll when necessary, and to find those spotlight moments some other way. It's also an adjustment as a GM - learning when to call for a roll, rather than just say yes/no to things, is a key skill and one I'm still honing.

Pacing is as pacing does. Both Blades and S&V try to minimise player planning and push fast-paced play. My group would have none of it. They absolutely wanted to spend time (even complete sessions) talking about plans and contingencies, and to take their time before, after and during jobs. At first I felt the urge to push back against this, and ask them to keep things moving, but it was quickly obvious that they enjoyed the planning process, even if it wasn't really necessary, and preferred a slower pace overall. And that's fine! That's fun! That's a sign that the game needed to adapt to the players, not the other way around! So I leaned into it by fleshing out interactions with NPCs, and setting downtime scenes that moved slowly but had plenty of texture/flavour, and everyone seemed happy with that.

Telling smaller stories still takes work. I'm trying to move away from big campaign arcs (like in 13th Age) and towards more episodic, player-directed games and plots. S&V's play style promotes self-contained missions, and has tables for generating them, and those let me create multiple missions and let players choose between them. But these small stories sometimes needed more work to flesh out and bring to life than bigger stories, not despite but because of their self-contained nature. The prepared elements for a large arc (situations, NPCs, images etc.) can often be used multiple times as that arc returns to those points, while small stories each have their own bespoke set. A small story may only need half the elements of an arc - but if you run 5 of them, that's 2.5 the amount of overall prep needed for the big story! I could have made this easier by not doing things like finding images for all the factions, locations, spaceships I might potentially use, but of course I didn't do that. Maybe in the next game. (But probably not.)

I miss rolling dice. Like Monster of the Week before it, Scum & Villainy is a game where GMs use their own judgement within a structured framework to decide on outcomes and consequences. And that's good! That's fun! But after a couple of years of such play, I miss the unpredictability and mechanical engagement that comes from playing my own half of the game, you know? The messy uncertainty of mechanics can keep GMs invested in play outcomes in a way that clean-but-predictable diceless decision-making doesn't. Well, for me at least anyway. Time to try something different.

--

We wrapped up Scum & Villainy with what felt like a satisfying end to a season; we may come back to it later, we may not. Time will tell.

What's on the cards for 2023? Right now I'm trying to assemble a group to play Lancer, which has all the GM-facing-mechanical goodness I've been craving, and I'm also running a (slightly intermittent) game of Heart, which lets me put mechanical weight on GMing decisions even if I'm not the one engaging with them. Plus it's weird and ridiculous and I love it.

I've also been thinking of running some of the many quickstarts and game demos I've collected over the years. They'll certainly help with refocusing onto episodic play and smaller stories, if only due to changing story and game every couple of weeks.

Let's find out in 2023. Here's hoping we make it there.

#forged in the dark #scum & villainy

[sorchaivy]

Okay, I have been sitting on some thoughts after Critical Role Campaign 3 episode 33.

I’m trying not to stress too much about the episode and what might be coming next week (easier said than done for someone with clinical anxiety, and I may be resorting to dissociation a tad about it in response, but that’s an entirely separate Me Problem), because as they all said at the top of this campaign, All Bets Are Off. I don’t know what’s coming, or what shape the campaign and table will take after this.

But what I do know is that I trust this cast and table, and I especially trust Matt’s DMing. I know and trust that Matt isn’t the type of DM who delights in defeating his players. He is instead the type of DM who delights in collaborating with and for his players, who works together with the whole table to tell and share amazing stories.

I wasn’t there live for c2ep27, nor for c1ep102 - but I remember that Matt was definitely not ebullient or happy at the end of those episodes. Quite the opposite, especially for c2ep27. He also wasn’t ebullient for episodes like c1ep88, which had a similarly gruelling second half and clearly hadn’t gone the way he’d planned; he didn’t seem happy in that episode, because his players clearly weren’t happy or enjoying themselves.

What Matt was ebullient for was things like the end of c1ep39, or c2ep12 - moments where he delivered high-stakes, high-tension, externally-driven plot. Moments that made the world and story both feel MUCH more real, and also raised the stakes and set the challenge for the players to rise to meet. Moments that made his players scream and yell - but out of excitement and enjoyment, as much as tension, fear or outrage.

And Matt was ebullient at the end of c3ep33. Moreover, the players seemed (mostly) ebullient at the end of c3ep33. Stressed perhaps, on tenterhooks sure, but clearly having enjoyed a gruelling, scary and brutal battle. 

Matt's bubbly mood at the end tells me that Matt has plans for how to tell a great story with and for the cast, so I am holding onto my trust in that. I have no idea what those plans might be and I'm refusing to speculate. Instead I'm just letting myself be along for the ride.

And I’m also holding on to the knowledge and reality that first, foremost and finally - Matt is DMing this game for his players. We as the audience are lucky enough to get to watch, but this game is for the table and they are the only ones who get a say in how it goes.

But also OOOOF that was some strong “Brennan GMing the EXU:C finale” energy Matt brought to the table! And there are SO. MANY. FEELS. The fanart is both gorgeous and excruciating, and it's only been a few days, and we don't even know what the full outcomes will be yet.

[As a side note, I think the only player who may not have been enjoying c3ep33 very much was Taliesin - but even he is usually open and vocal about not being okay in an episode, and while he seemed dissatisified with being unable to do much more than he did, he didn’t seem as unhappy with the session as he has been in others in the past.]

#critical role spoilers #campaign 3 spoilers #c3 spoilers #cr spoilers #c3ep33 #i have THOUGHTS and these are the main ones

[rahadaddy]

Hi yes can I have uhhhh... Ireena and Ez for the character bingo, if you're still doing those? Absolutely love the insights AND the rants honestly, never stop.

Ireena is done SO DIRTY by canon and fans alike. I used to spend an inordinate amount of time on Re.d.d.it and because canon can't be assed to give her a statblock/about page/personality, so many DMs whine that their players don't like Ireena, want to leave her behind, want to give her to Strahd, etc. It's your job as the DM to make her likable enough for the party to want or need. I can't stress that enough. Nine times out of ten, if your party doesn't like Ireena or doesn't have a stake in her plot, that's your fault as the DM. At worst she's a McGuffin with a personality and at best, she's a dynamic part of your team. Either way, it's your JOB as the DM to bring something to her and if you can't, there are a bunch of really cool templates the likes of MandyMod, DragnaCarta, LBH, and others have put forward.

Another way the fans have done her dirty: whitewashing her. The book art uses a woman of color for Ireena and I've seen a lot of fanart of her that's really beautiful but that isn't IReena because it's a white woman and it leaves me conflicted. I don't know when I should speak up and when I shouldn't on this issue as a White Latina. I actually feel that as someone who walks in both the White world and the Mexican/Chicana/Latina one, I'm in a perfect position to call people out for this because I like to think I have the sensitivity to say what needs to be said without being cruel as well as the social positionality to be "an authority" on erasure. Representation matters and whether you play Ireena as the demure, Disney princess or the sword-slinging badass, it might be a woman of color's turn to get to inhabit roles that we so often give to white heroines. The only real problematic thing with that is, you know, being preyed on by a vampire because marginalized women are already preyed on by men in power so it's not exactly escapist fantasy.

(Bear with me, I just woke up to take my dog to the vet and I haven't had my morning round of caffeine).

I think a lot of this is canon's fault at the end of the day for, as I said, not giving DMs as much to work with for Ireena as they do for other characters. I think we know more about Piddlewick II than we do Ireena. How fucked is that? By inferencing based on her circumstances, the demands of the plot, the characterization of Ismark, and the characterization of Strahd, a determined DM should be able to piece together an idea of who and what Ireena is.

I've heard interesting theories about Ireena/Tatyana from different DMs over the years and have seen her importance to campaigns wax and wane over the years. However, I saw a good rule of thumb for RAW campaigns and campaigns that follow more traditional modules: If you don't know how Ireena feels about a situation, you don't know how your PCs feel about it either. In many ways, Ireena is the heart of CoS, the closest thing to a protagonist we are given besides the PCs, and a good barometer of how the plot is going. In my Saturday/Remix game, she shed Tatyana's soul for a chance at a life with her (now) husband, Dorinn, our fighter, so it's been less central that I know how she's feeling at all times, but you can bet your ass I try to pulse check her every story beat and it really does give a read on the PCs. Like... right now they've teamed up with Strahd (temporarily?) to fight Patrina Velikovna. She's only willing because Patrina is Dorinn's crazy aunt, but she very much does NOT want to go to Ravenloft and pretend everything is okay. This is the place she was going to be imprisoned for life, this is the place she watched her brother die once (he got better!). They are working with the man who tormented her family so much her father died! She's apprehensive and putting the party's needs ahead of her own, but I guarantee that when she has a moment alone with her husband, she'll tell him how stricken she feels about going to Ravenloft and seeing Strahd again. I think she's overdue in my game for a blow up or break down that they're getting along with Strahd.

But that's the thing, right? She has emotions! She should! She should serve in some ways as the DM's moral center for the game and the reminder to the PCs about why they're doing what they're doing, even after the threat of Tatyana's soul has passed. And it's on me if I forget to do that. And I think like, you have to be comfortable as the DM to claim that success or failure and the make sure your Ireena is successful by giving her what canon doesn't. As much as I've seen DMs fail her, I've seen some amazing DMs flesh her out and make her the heart and soul of their campaigns. I've seen others make her badass support to their amazing parties. I've seen DMs take 20+ sessions to know what they're doing with Ireena before deciding she needs to matter to the players. It's a wild spectrum and I think it depends on how comfortable the DM is with adding to RAW and playing a female character.

That's why I said nothing I like about her is technically canon. Ireena Kolyana is a tabula rasa. The successful ones that I've played with, played as, and have witnessed in other games succeed on different merits. My Monday Ireena is a Disney Princess. She is the heart of the party, giving most of them the love and support none of them got in the Material Plane. My Saturday Ireena is a total Herbo who is terrifying in battle because she has nothing to fear but Strahd himself. The best DMs I've gotten to play with give her stakes in her own story, a personality, a drive. And somehow, when a DM does that for her, it's inevitable that a PC (and your players) will fall in love with Ireena!

I have a lot of feelings about Ez, even though I didn't fill out a lot on the card. Weird, I know, but bear with me. We'll start with how the fans have done her dirty: the whitewashing. I went on my spiel about it for Ireena, but even if you can dig your heels in and say that since Ireena is a redhead "it makes more sense" weh weh weh (which isn't an excuse to whitewash her. There are natural redheads who are black and brown and even if there weren't, what a weird line to draw in the sand in a world with dragons and vampires), the Vistani (and thus Ez) are explicitly written to be people of color. Please respect!! I've also seen some DMs be shitty about Ez's disability which is so gross! My mom is disabled and she's still a badass who got her PhD at 60 and hasn't let anything stop or slow her down over the years. Why would Ez be any different? C'mon.

That aside, I feel like Ez is (rightly) a fan favorite and I love her so much. What was... hard? for me was the slow-burn falling in love with Ez. She had been my party's ally in a previous game where I was a player and my Paladin had been the only person to talk to her and fold her into the group. The DM had been a good guy but never gave Ez the wow factor Ez demands as per her stat block, preferring to give us, the PCs, the limelight, which is very kind! But as a result, no one really LOVED Ez in that adventuring party the way she deserved. I thought about making her my Saturday party's ally, but stuff happened and they ended up with Ireena and Rahadin as allies and I felt like Ez would be Overkill. I also was so intimidated by Ze Frech Accent I had given her that I was scared to make her a permanent member of the party in any way, even as I fell in love with the character and gave her all of my miserable wanderlust, even as our cleric fell in love with her and Lucian both, even as it occurred to me that Ez would consider staying for her found family, friends, and lovers... Even as I realized I'd done something potentially FASCINATING with her and Lucian as two sides of the same coin for their lover, Urlstra to the point that I think I gave them the same soul, split in twain, which is why one can't stay still and the other can't stop moving and why they both have interesting callbacks to St. Andral in my game. I knew that when she left the party, her return to them would have to be a Big Moment and even though @morpheoussilvercreature technically knows where her girlfriend is (lol) she agreed to hold off the Sending spell until later for my sake as her DM. I am eager for the party to reunite with Ez and for Ez to blurt out how much she loves Urlstra and how sorry she is she has spent most of the game being coy with her when she should have said it from the word "go" and how stupid her DM is for not realizing that Ceremony can be for like, up to eight creatures, because otherwise, Urlstra would have a husband and a wife.

Anyway.

Ez is also such a badass. She can hold her own in a fight and help out greatly when it comes to magic and damage dealing - is probably one of THE BEST allies in RAW. I didn't realize how lacking in buff/healing spells she is until Urlstra almost died when they were alone and Strahd attacked them. I think that's weird since Van Richten is ALL cleric spells. You'd think she would have picked up a thing or two spellwork-wise from him. Actually, I would really like to see more done about Van Richten and Ez. I know part of that is my fault as a DM for not giving that moment the gravity it deserved. I'd say it's never too late, but I kinda have thoughts about where Van Richten and Ez are so maybe that's closure my Saturday Remix won't get. It's such a nice change from sibling relationships and romances that are seeded throughout the book.

Another thing that I love is that VRGtR confirmed she/they NB Ez, who I was already playing as bisexual. I usually use "she" as the pronoun for Ez when I'm talking about her alone, "they" when talking about them and their girlfriend, and alternate between the two in larger group settings, depending on the grammatical structure of my sentence to avoid "Who's on First?" situations. I don't think this addition to the module atones WotC's racism towards Vistani, but I think it signifies good things for the future of the company and later modules.

I mentioned that I do project a little onto Ez. I project a little onto to all the NPCs, I think, but with Ez I can very clearly see a couple issues that I'm like "Haha, that's mine" including, but not limited to: loving my father as much as I wanna kick him in the shins, making gallows humor jokes about my disabilities, an inability to stay in one place for more than five years, being scared of how deeply I love, picking fights with strangers to feel alive, being stubborn and bossy af, believing a badass coat makes up from the rest of my outfit, not being able to shut up when I have a sarcastic comment, tarot reading as a coping strategy, and low-key overpreparing for everything. Also the whole being a queer icon thing or whatever. XD

So, yeah. I love Ez and I've always known I would, I just never really realized that I'd love her as much as I do and I certainly didn't realize that I would feel this crummy about my long-term plans for her, not because they aren't galaxy-brain, narratively appropriate takes, but because I put my beloved in mortal peril, oops. And I may owe her GF (and mine) an apology for that. Ooops?

EDIT: @interstellardragon pointed out that Ez uses “she/her” pronouns RAW in VRGtR and I had to see if I had a virtual copy to check. They are correct! I run with a gang of DMs in the lawless land of mild homebrew where, like, five of us saw the more androgynous preferred name of “Ez” as tacit permission from WotC to make Ez nonbinary. I’m sorry it’s not RAW, sorry for the confusion, but not at all sorry for playing her as a bisexual she/they at my table. Ez is a delight. Despite this, that does not qualify her for a “everything I like about them is not canon” or w/e the bingo square is because RAW did a lot right with Ez that I wish they’d done for some of the other potential party allies. Cheers!

#ch: ez d'avenir #ch: ireena kolyana #x. asks #g: saturday

[eristic-kaleidoscope]

Everything Everywhere All at Once | Akito | Trial 5.7 | Attn: Adrik, Erik A, Kenshin, Kori, END

Listening to Byrne and Jae-min honestly just made him question why he even bothered in the first place, but it's Kori's words he comes back to. "I know, but I lied in that very specific instance because if I died here, I needed someone to still be there for Kristi if she could've returned. Him being compromised was something I've been trying to avoid, and it was a less a case of trying to lie to you about it than it was preventing the truth from being leaked out to them." Gesturing behind him, without really looking. "I am sorry for keeping it from you. There wasn't a good opportunity to tell you anything about what I came here to do until now, when it's rather late for the sisters to do anything about it. It was a risk even telling my partners in the first place, but at least we had plausible deniability in the methods we took to avoid them finding out the specifics. I don't know if I could've engineered the same with any of you without being suspicious."

He sighs. "I do find it hypocritical that they would do anything to save themselves and all of their siblings from the Foundation, and yet here we are trying to do the same, me with my best friend and the rest of us on behalf of all of these lives you've already messed with for the sake of your own goals, and we're the selfish and foolish ones? Our desperation to survive equals or surpasses yours, but the difference is that you have always had the power over us, until this morning when it suddenly became possible that you didn't. I imagine you must have panicked, and set this entire case up to convince yourselves you still had the means to keep everything on track and your siblings alive. But even that might not be wholly true, because you're not aggrieved over Erisu's death, and you're actively campaigning for mine. I have to concur with what Kori has to say, unless of course, Erisu is alive and you wanted me conveniently gone."

Akito's expression grows cold. Empty. Like a silver mask above the one that he already wears.

"When Kaguya was unceremoniously executed, I was faced with the real certainty that if they knew how involved I was with searching for Kristi, there was a chance I might meet the same fate. And the thing is... I wasn't afraid at the time. I was more concerned about what they would find if they had access to all of my memories than if I'd actually died, because I didn't want to let the people who had put their trust in me outside of this experiment down. I was prepared to do anything just to bring Kristi home... And then I wasn't. I met people I cared deeply about, partners and friends, both here and gone before us. I've realised there's more to the ends than justifying the means of how I got there, and even if I still have to do everything it takes to see my journey to the end... I want to live too." The mask cracks a little, and he has to take a moment. "Honestly, I wish it were so easy to promise I'm better than this when my life isn't at stake, but the truth is and always has been that I'm a complicated fucking mess. I didn't sign up for a life-or-death game, I never wanted to entertain the thought that I might leave my mother or Kristi or my partners alone, and I fell back on bad habits to stack the deck in my favour as best as I could, to make it to the end of this experiment and out of here. All the lies I've told were either to protect myself or the safety of people I cared deeply about, even if I knew they could and would hurt others who I cared for, or worse, reciprocated. It was a balancing act where no one really ever won, not even me. And so to those of you who will accept it, please accept my sincerest apologies. I'm sorry for who I was, and what I am."

He exhales. "But I'm not quite ready to die yet, and leave the people I care for alone. I promised to keep being a better person than I was yesterday. I have to make it to tomorrow still, so... Well, I'm voting for Erisu. I don't regard her as responsible for her own death, whether as the actual culprit or because she's still alive, but I'm not prepared to bet my life on making a point about the unfairness of this trial. Honour is a fool's prize, and glory is of no use to the dead." His gaze sweeps across the five other people. "I know that I've done a lot to upset you all, and I understand if you've lost a lot of trust in me because of it. The lies I've told cannot be taken back once said, and have hurt even in the service of what I considered to be a greater good. If that means you'll forever regard me as a consummate liar, so be it. I want to spend the rest of my life making up for it, so all I ask in the moment is your help: please vote with me one last time. Because I don't want to die. Adrik, Erik A, Kenshin, Kori, Miss Danger if you've regained your voting privileges. I'll leave it to you."

And then he falls silent. Nothing left for Akito to do, but to put his trust in the some of the same people who put their trust in him.

It would have to be enough.

#Azr #chapter5 #trial5 #submission

[alaminshorkar76]

#IFTTT #Blogger

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."A copy of the warrant won’t resolve the dispute, but it can help the public understand what’s at stake. The DOJ doesn’t release warrant applications (and the present application is reportedly under seal), but it does release the warrant itself—to the owner of the property its agents search. And that warrant will typically detail both the items sought and the federal criminal statutes relevant to the search.

Trump isn’t just the former president; he’s the current front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination. He’s the once and potentially future president of the United States. And he holds in his hands a document that’s extraordinarily relevant to his fitness for office. A responsible politician would release that information to the public. Yet a “source close to Trump” told NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard, “No, we’re not releasing a copy of the warrant.”

The reason is obvious. Holding on to the warrant might be bad for the country—leaving us largely in the dark, fighting furiously over hypotheticals—but for now it’s very good for Trump.

To understand why, it’s important to understand how Trumpism thrives. Trumpism as a cultural and political movement depends a great deal on both the extraordinary loyalty of his supporters and the overreaction of his opponents. Each phenomenon feeds on the other.

The loyalty was apparent from the moment Trump confirmed the search. Without knowing anything about the reason for the search, the right exploded with rage. Trump didn’t have to rebut any allegations, excuse any embarrassing revelations, or even do anything more than express outrage at his alleged mistreatment; the right still rallied to his side.

Why release a document that might complicate the matter? As that same source told Hillyard, there is a “complete circling of the wagons” around Trump. He doesn’t need to be transparent to preserve his base.

At the same time, the refusal to release the warrant feeds frenzied speculation on the left. What is he hiding? How bad is it? That speculation, perversely enough, is good for Trump. Right-wing media outlets pick the most improbable allegations and use them to reaffirm the Republican contention that the left is unhinged. And the wilder they perceive the left to be, the more Trump’s supporters on the right see him as the only leader truly prepared to fight the enemies of the republic.

Make no mistake, recent examples of irresponsible speculation abound. The infamous Steele dossier, for example, led countless Americans to believe that Trump was a fully compromised Russian asset. The truth—that Trump campaign officials and allies had improper contacts with Russian officials and assets, and lied about those contacts—was bad, but it was never as lurid as the dossier claimed."

[lossbomber4]

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