kingedmundsroyalmurder

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

#I got this phone summer 2019 #It was an outdated model at the time #The screen is cracked all over the place and it's perpetually teetering on the edge of collapse #Because it doesn't have any memory available #I am perpetually furious that it needs replacement

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

“I met him once, you know,” Numair says, and Thom freezes. “Duke Roger, I mean.” “When?” Thom demands. Roger had left Carthak nearly twenty years ago, after Alanna saved King Jonathan from the Sweating Sickness. Numair had gone to Carthak young, yes, but surely not so young as that. “Right after I arrived,” Numair says. “I suppose he heard about the youngest student ever admitted to the University and wanted to see for himself what I was made of.” He shrugs, far too casual for a man admitting to having met the most dangerous sorcerer in the world as a child. “It was only the one meeting, so apparently he wasn’t impressed.” For a moment, Thom is caught between two competing emotions: relief, that Roger left Numair alone and a deeply nonsensical anger, that Roger dismissed Numair so quickly.

And bam, I am broadsided by an entirely new AU idea. For the love of God, brain, slow down with the AUs.

But imagine Roger showing up with bby!Arram in tow and Arram growing up and slowly realizing that his teacher/adopted dad might not be on the up and up. And then everything goes to hell when Alanna kills Roger and then everything somehow gets even worse when Thom brings him back.

#thoughts from the fire escape #tortall #don't at me about tempest and slaughter #i'm a fake fan and didn't read it

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

As with the horse poll, please regard these options as sliders. The extent to which each one deviates from 1/6th of the total will determine the amount that canine aspect deviates from the "average."

I will draw the dog we make. :)

#That's a beaft is what that is #A proper illuminated manuscript beaft

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

#gnu terry pratchett

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

#Honestly blood doesn't taste good enough to drink a whole vial's worth #It's mostly just kinda salty and i think the texture would be gross in large quantities #Cannibalism cw #I guess??

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

#Keyboard because typing on a phone is the actual worst #I am in awe of folks who write novels on their phones #I can't even write a tumblr post without wanting to throw my phone out the window

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

submitted by @fuzzyhedgepig 🖤🖤

#Those tiered sleeves on the left! #Historical fashion parade

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

#The real answer is lyra silvertongue #Of these it was so hard to pick between cimorene and alanna #I didn't technically want to *be* either #But they were both deeply formative #(Also wouldn't have guessed claudia was the aspirational bsc girl #But it makes sense #She's the cool one #I always preferred jessie though)

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

no "other/see results" we die like men

note that I'm not talking about the best SERIES just your favorite CHARACTER

#This is so hard #Because middle school me imprinted on Alanna #And high school me imprinted on Aly #(Meanwhile my two favorite actual books #Barring a:tfa because it's a unique case #Are Squire and Lady Knight #But i never actually imprinted on Kel herself #I like her #But she didn't take up residence in my soul) #I think i have to be true to my roots and go alanna though #Little baby a:tfa alanna carved herself a home inside me and never left #(The overall TP protagonist answer is Tris Chandler #But this is a Tortall specific poll) #Tortall

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

just came across this beautiful rendition of siúil a rúin by irish-palestinian artist roisin el cherif. this song has always been close to my heart, especially after it's use in the nightingale, a film that explores the (ongoing) colonial violence on the island that i call home.

i really love the way that she weaves the arabic language into this song, as well as the influences from both irish and palestinian styles of music.

all the proceeds of the release are being donated to the doctors without borders gaza emergency regional fund so if you love her rendition as much as i do i would really recommend purchasing it on band-camp (i've linked it above).

#Life's not a song

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

clocking in for another day at the i dont wanna factory

#Ain't that the mood lately

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

No see results option, I'm forcing you to perceive yourself. rb for more results plus

#Irl for sure #I have a Cool Job and a Cool Haircut and Niche Hobbies #Over here in tumblrland i'm mediocre at best at posting and everyone also has all my same hobbies #Like that's not a complaint! #I don't need to be cool! #It's just funny

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

I think a lot of folks in indie RPG spaces misunderstand what's going on when people who've only ever played Dungeons & Dragons claim that indie RPGs are categorically "too complicated". Yes, it's sometimes the case that they're making the unjustified assumption that all games are as complicated as Dungeons & Dragons and shying away from the possibility of having to brave a steep learning cure a second time, but that's not the whole picture.

A big part of it is that there's a substantial chunk of the D&D fandom – not a majority by any means, but certainly a very significant minority – who are into D&D because they like its vibes or they enjoy its default setting or whatever, but they have no interest in actually playing the kind of game that D&D is... so they don't.

Oh, they'll show up at your table, and if you're very lucky they might even provide their own character sheet (though whether it adheres to the character creation guidelines is anyone's guess!), but their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice, then reporting what number they rolled and letting the GM figure out what that means.

Basically, they're putting the GM in the position of acting as their personal assistant, onto whom they can offload any parts of the process of play that they're not interested in – and for some players, that's essentially everything except the physical act of rolling the dice, made possible by the fact most of D&D's mechanics are either GM-facing or amenable to being treated as such.*

Now, let's take this player and present them with a game whose design is informed by a culture of play where mechanics are strongly player facing, often to the extent that the GM doesn't need to familiarise themselves with the players' character sheets and never rolls any dice, and... well, you can see where the wires get crossed, right?

And the worst part is that it's not these players' fault – not really. Heck, it's not even a problem with D&D as a system. The problem is D&D's marketing-decreed position as a universal entry-level game means that neither the text nor the culture of play are ever allowed to admit that it might be a bad fit for any player, so total disengagement from the processes of play has to be framed as a personal preference and not a sign of basic incompatibility between the kind of game a player wants to be playing and the kind of game they're actually playing.

(Of course, from the GM's perspective, having even one player who expects you to do all the work represents a huge increase to the GM's workload, let alone a whole group full of them – but we can't admit that, either, so we're left with a culture of play whose received wisdom holds that it's just normal for GMs to be constantly riding the ragged edge of creative burnout. Fun!)

* Which, to be clear, is not a flaw in itself; a rules-heavy game ideally needs a mechanism for introducing its processes of play gradually.

#One weird side effect of d&d becoming popular and mainstream #Is that it has become almost weird to actively not enjoy playing it #Not in a hostile peer pressure way but in a weird underlying fact of life way #“Let's play d&d” is up there with “let's watch a movie” as an everyone-will-like-this activity suggestion #And it's fine to say no because you don't have time #But it's weird to refuse because you don't enjoy the activity #Which means you get a lot of people who aren't really having a great time and aren't into it and don't know why #And conclude that it must be the system/GM/other players in their group #Instead of that they do not enjoy this activity #Because who doesn't like tabletops? #(Me that's who #And i probably would never have figured that out except i also don't like movies #So i know how to identify when i don't like this thing that it hasn't occurred to people that anyone would be less than neutral about)

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

It's been interesting writing a character with 0 emotional awareness. He's not even in denial, he just flat out *doesn't realize* he's having feelings. And finding ways to convey that to the reader without letting him in on it has been a fun creative exercise.

#thoughts from the fire escape #Show-don't-tell taken to its extreme #I can't just tell the reader anything because the character whose head i'm in doesn't know there's anything to say

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

I had the opposite experience with the naming LM characters poll as I did with the LOTR one. With LOTR I know a lot of names through osmosis but couldn't for the life of me say who they are or what they did. With LM i know exactly which characters I mean and what they did in the story and I cannot for the life of me remember their *names*.

#thoughts from the fire escape

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

with bonus internet points to anyone who actually writes a list:

the definition of A Character is overall yours to determine, within the following parameters:

if a Person is Symbolically Nameless, they must have a known moniker to be considered A Character.

for the purposes of this list, A Concept is not A Character unless this is specifically indicated in the text.

misspellings are accepted and perhaps inevitable.

#Completely off the top of my head and having blanked on some obvious ones #I can do about 55 #I fall off hard in the later volumes #With more time to think i could do better but there's still a bunch i'd have to check on #This fcking book though

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Thom finds not just his niece and nephews down in the cellar with Maude but also the two Conté children. The prince and princess greet him politely, but they are entirely overshadowed by Small Thom who slams into Thom’s arms and nearly knocks the wind out of him. “You’re here!” the boy exclaims, and bursts into tears. “Aly said you weren’t going to come.” “Of course I’m here,” Thom says. He awkwardly pats Small Thom’s back, looking pleadingly over at Maude to see if she won’t  come rescue him. Maude is playing a string game of some kind with Alan and doesn’t so much as twitch. “Where else would I be? Blow your nose please, Thom, you’re going to get my robes dirty.”

Thom: please get these children off me. Aren't they your job?

Maude: oh no. This is payback for ten years of raising you, and I am going to enjoy it

Thom of Trebond, genius mage and utterly infuriating walking disaster:

"There’s a note from Alanna telling him about some function that King Jonathan hosted – Alanna insists on keeping him abreast of the doings of her friends, as if Thom was even the slightest bit interested in any of them – and nagging him to return the books she’d brought him from the Royal Library months ago. (Thom has a series of letters from the Royal Librarian reiterating this sentiment, somewhere in the stack next to Coram’s reports. It’s not that Thom doesn’t want to return the books, but he hasn’t finished with them yet and there’s no point sending them back just to borrow them again a month later. He has explained this to the Royal Librarian.)"

I love my wretched disaster son so much.

#thoughts from the fire escape #my dreadful son has had other people's children inflicted upon him #he does not know what to do with them #he would like his sister to come take her children back please #his sister thinks it's cute #everyone else thinks it's hilarious #no one is coming to rescue him from the children